House of Commons

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

Thursday 30 October 2014

The House met at half-past Nine o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

1. What steps she is taking to ensure that the Marine Management Organisation receives additional quotas of ray.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

The Marine Management Organisation is urgently pursuing the possibility of quota swaps with other member states. If sufficient additional quota can be acquired through this means, a limited reopening of the fishery may be possible. If not, the fishery will reopen again on 1 January.

[Mr Cox]

Last week the important fish processor in my constituency closed its doors, with the loss of many jobs. Many marine experts regard the monitoring and data processing of landing declarations by the MMO as a joke. Will the Minister hold an inquiry into the management of quota by the MMO? What is he to say to northern Devon fishermen and allied trades who have lost their jobs when, as a result of their pioneering conservation measures, fish stocks in the Bristol channel are abundant?

[George Eustice]

I am very sympathetic to the arguments my hon. and learned Friend makes. Indeed, when he raised it with me last week I asked the MMO to redouble its efforts to find additional quota. It has been a very good summer of fishing. We do not normally have this problem with skates and rays. It is something that took everyone by surprise, including producer organisations. However, I am keen that lessons are learned. That is why I will be having discussions with the MMO about how it manages the quota on this particular stock. We will also be looking to ensure that next year his constituents continue to have a quota to fish from 1 January.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend guarantee to the House today that he will do everything he can to seek additional quota in the negotiations next year to ensure that British fisherman can continue to fish for the whole year without this disastrous effect?

[George Eustice]

Yesterday, I was in Belfast for the meeting of a stakeholder group of fishing industry leaders. We discussed the approach to the December Council. The UK always takes a science-based approach. We have to recognise that it is in the long-term interests of the fishing industry that we fish our fisheries sustainably. That said, we will be looking at mixed fisheries analysis to ensure that we achieve maximum sustainable yield where possible next year and everywhere else by 2020.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

2. What plans she has to reduce water bills.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

Ofwat will announce its current price review in December. The draft determinations indicate that average water bills in England and Wales will fall by up to 5% in real terms from 2015 to 2020. This will mean lower bills for hard-working taxpayers as part of our long-term economic plan.

[Mr Watts]

I thank the Secretary of State for her reply, but is it not the case that the Government have allowed water companies to boost their profits by 12% while average households have lost 5% of income? When will the Government stand up to the fat cat water bosses?

[Elizabeth Truss]

If we look at how much water bills rose under Labour, we see that from 1999 to 2009 bills went up by 20%. Under the new tough regulation of Ofwat, we are seeing a potential reduction of up to 5%, meaning lower bills for consumers, more investment in the water industry, and cleaner rivers and beaches.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

One way to reduce water bills is to reduce unnecessary water consumption, which occurs as more meters are rolled out. Another way to reduce costs is to cut leakage. What steps are being taken to encourage the water companies to increase the number of meters and to cut their leaks?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It is important that we make water usage more efficient. What we have seen since the industry was privatised 25 years ago is £116 billion of investment to upgrade infrastructure, reduce leakage, put in meters and make the industry more efficient.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

What the Secretary of State has studiously avoided telling us is the record of this Government since 2010. Will she tell us what the percentage increase in water bills has been since 2010?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the early price determinations under this Government were the result of the previous Government’s policy. The recent price determination that has happened on our watch is seeing a potential reduction in the draft determination of up to 5%. We have already seen water companies keep their bills low and stabilised in recent years.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

3. What recent representations she has received on the marine charter and marine protected areas.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

We regularly receive correspondence about marine protected areas, including on the marine charter put forward by Link. I will be attending the marine charter parliamentary reception on 19 November.

[Annette Brooke]

As we approach the fifth anniversary of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, let me say how pleased I am that Dorset was included in the original 27 marine conservation zones. However, does the Minister agree that there is a long way to go before we can achieve a full network of marine protected areas by 2016, as set out in the Act, and can he say what level of commitment the Government are giving to achieve those important objectives?

[George Eustice]

Earlier this year we announced 37 candidate sites for the second tranche of marine conservation zones and we intend to publish a consultation on the second tranche in the new year. It is our intention to have a third tranche in 2016, so the work to take forward additional marine conservation zones is well under way.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

But a lot of the work has already been done. For example, a huge amount of research was done on whether the 127 marine conservation zones were economically viable. When will the Minister actually start designating the zones that are needed if we are to have an ecologically coherent marine conservation network?

[George Eustice]

We have started designating them. The first 27 were designated a year ago and, as I said, we are consulting on the second tranche. The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science is doing a huge amount of work—it did a lot of work this summer. We spent around £10 million on research to get the best evidence we can so that these decisions are informed by the scientific evidence. That work is going on, and we plan to do this in three tranches, as we have made clear all along.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I am sure the Minister will agree that marine protected areas are only part of the conservation measures we need in our seas. Does he agree that more conservation work needs to be done, for example on bass, stocks of which, so the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea informs us, are absolutely plummeting?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As Minister for the marine environment, he did a huge amount to take forward marine conservation zones. When it comes to bass, I can tell him that we expect to have an important breakthrough in December. We have always said that there should be technical measures. The stock has been fished unsustainably and there is a tentative proposal, which we expect to be raised at the December Council, that will look at both bag limits and catch limits, so that we can preserve this vital stock.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I wonder whether the Minister has ever been to the Isle of Wight, which is of course an island that people can get to only by using a ferry. There is concern on the island that marine protection areas could get in the way of ferries, which are the only regular way to get to the island. What is he going to do about that?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend has extended an invitation to me to visit the Isle of Wight. I look forward to a journey on the hovercraft—I think it is the last one we have operating in the UK—to meet his constituents. He has raised concerns about some of the proposed marine conservation zones around the Isle of Wight. I can assure him that socio-economic factors are taken into account when we assess MCZs, as set out in the 2009 Act. I hope to have the opportunity to visit the Isle of Wight in the months ahead.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking to ensure that communities affected by flooding recover.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

The Government have committed around £560 million to support those affected by flooding last winter. That includes an extra £270 million to repair and maintain critical flood defences. We are helping households and businesses through the repair and renew grant and through council tax and rates relief. Farmers and fishermen are receiving funding for repairs through existing schemes and we are supporting businesses through a £10 million hardship fund.

[Diana Johnson]

After Eton flooded in February, the Prime Minister promised that money would be no object. However, for many Hull homes and businesses hit by the December tidal surge, that soon changed to “Out of sight, out of mind,” and they are still awaiting help. Can the Minister tell me what percentage of the promised assistance to flood-hit communities has actually gone to those affected?

[Dan Rogerson]

As I set out to the hon. Lady, there are a number of schemes in place. Some are still paying out and will do so until the end of the financial year. If she has particular concerns about issues in her part of the world, I would be happy to meet her, as ever, to discuss them, but those schemes are available to all those affected by flooding during the period of extreme weather from early December last year through to the end of April.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

More homes were flooded in 2012-13 across the Yorkshire region, so I hope the Minister might meet a delegation of Yorkshire MPs to consider how our roads and bridges might best be recovered. What progress has been made with the Treasury on having one fund—one budget—between capital expenditure and revenue expenditure for total expenditure on flood spending? That would help communities to recover more quickly and end the senseless rows about the size of the pump and which budget it should come from.

[Dan Rogerson]

I thank the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee for her question, raising issues to do with transport recovery, which have been well supported by the Department for Transport. I encourage my hon. Friend and other colleagues from Yorkshire to continue to discuss that with Ministers from that Department. On the distribution of the maintenance, revenue and capital money that we have invested in flood defences and coastal risk management—a record amount of money—we continue to discuss with the Treasury whether flexibilities might be helpful in this regard. The Select Committee’s work has been of great help.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

My constituents in Morpeth and Hepscott remain extremely concerned about the future of flood risk insurance. Will the Minister update us on where the Government are in discussions with the insurance companies?

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Gentleman’s part of the world has seen investment in flood schemes to help protect communities and keep them safe, and I understand that that work is coming to a conclusion. On flood insurance, we continue to make progress, along with the Association of British Insurers, to set up Flood Re, a new organisation that will provide affordable flood insurance to those not provided for in the market. We are on track to implement that next year.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

Like the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), I have constituents living in flood-risk areas who are struggling to get reasonably priced flood or household insurance. Is there a date by which the insurance companies will offer the new support for which we are looking, and, in the meantime, should they not be a little bit more flexible with constituents living in these areas?

[Dan Rogerson]

I am happy to discuss with my hon. Friend any specific issues he has on behalf of his constituency. The statement of principles, which exists with the insurance industry, is still in operation up until the implementation of Flood Re. We of course have regular discussions with the industry to ensure that people are being offered the flood insurance they need.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), which the Minister failed to give, is £403,000 out of the £10 million that the Government promised—less than 5%. That applied at the beginning of the summer recess. Tomorrow is 31 October, the day on which the Government promised that all the 890 flood defences damaged last year and in need of urgent repair would have that work completed. Will the Minister assure us that the 49% of those repairs that had not been completed by last month will be finished by tomorrow, as promised? The people at risk from those 437 unfinished schemes would really like to know.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Gentleman will no doubt be aware that work has continued since that reference point in September. The vast majority of those schemes will be completed by the end of the month, and temporary defences are in place to protect any communities where the work is still ongoing into November. The vast majority will be completed by the end of this month.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

5. What part her Department has played in negotiating the transatlantic trade and investment partnership.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

TTIP could be worth up to £10 billion a year for the UK. It has the potential to deliver significant opportunities for UK agriculture, food and drink. We are working very closely with BIS to ensure that TTIP maximises the benefits for UK businesses and consumers.

[Roger Williams]

The poultry industry, by which I mean the producers of poultry meat and eggs, have driven up animal welfare standards and hygiene in their businesses. Will the Minister assure that industry that that progress will not be compromised by unfair competition from US producers following lower standards?

[George Eustice]

I have met members of the poultry industry and the British Poultry Council to discuss their concerns. We managed to get a very successful free trade agreement with Canada. Sometimes it is possible to work through the sanitary and phytosanitary issues that the hon. Gentleman raises, as well as animal welfare issues, and to establish equivalent rather than identical measures. That is the spirit in which we should approach the negotiations.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I welcome the openness of a free trade agreement, but can the Minister tell us what steps he is taking to ensure that there are no mechanisms included in it—such as an investor-state dispute settlement—that would enable powerful vested interests to bully future Governments into dropping legislation that would improve food standards? We have already seen that happen with the disgraceful action of the Philip Morris tobacco company against the Australian Government.

[George Eustice]

I know that some people have expressed concern about the use of ISDS. Both the European Union and the United Kingdom are very conscious of that, and we do not intend to allow such agreements to undermine our ability to set our own welfare and regulatory standards when it comes to animal health.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Given that this country has been a member of the European Union in its various guises for more than 40 years, does my hon. Friend not think that we could have made faster progress in negotiating the trade deal with the United States of America if we had been doing it on our own rather than relying on the European Union to do it for us?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend may be right. It might have been possible to reach some of these free trade agreements more quickly. Indeed, we do make certain changes bilaterally, when it is a question of breaking down some of the non-tariff barriers to trade. However, being part of a customs union in the EU is of significant importance to our food industry, which is the largest manufacturing industry in the country.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

6. How many badgers were killed in the recent pilot culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

Bovine tuberculosis is a terrible disease which threatens the future of our beef and dairy industries. We are pursuing a comprehensive strategy which includes improved cattle movement controls, vaccination in the edge areas, and culling badgers in areas where the disease is rife. We will publish all the data and the results of this year's culls once the quality assurance processes and the independent audit have been completed.

[Paul Flynn]

No answer, of course. Why are the Government so determined to carry on with this failed project, which is unpopular, ineffective, cruel, and bad science on the part of the nasty party?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Let us remember the situation that we inherited in 2010, The last Government failed to take any action on this issue, and we ended up with the highest rates of bovine TB in Europe. Are Opposition Members proud of that record? Are they proud of the fact that the disease increased ninefold on their watch? As I have said, we are pursuing a comprehensive strategy which includes improved cattle movement controls, vaccination in the edge areas, and culling where the disease is rife.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

If we are concerned about all God’s creation, we ought to be just as concerned about cattle as we are about badgers. Is it not the case that the Republic of Ireland, whose beef cattle and dairy herds are similar to ours and which has had similar problems with TB, has followed exactly the same policies as this Government, and as a consequence has seen a 25% reduction in cattle TB infection?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My right hon. Friend has made an excellent point about Ireland. A similar policy has been pursued in New Zealand, where numbers have also been reduced; and Australia, whose comprehensive strategy involved culling in the wildlife population as well as improved movement controls, has eradicated bovine TB. It is vital to the future of our dairy and beef industries that we eradicate this terrible disease. We are the Government who are prepared to make difficult decisions, rather than repeating the outrageous failures of the last Government. They left us with the highest rates of bovine TB in Europe: that is the disgrace.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Notwithstanding the Secretary of State’s bluster, it is a fact that, following the catastrophic failures in year one—last year’s failures were catastrophic—in year two the Secretary of State abolished the independent expert panel, which was too independent for the Government. The Government watered down the estimates of the badger populations, and threw out the Secretary of State’s own original guidance, which involved culling 70% of badgers within six weeks in year one. Why did the methodology used to calculate the number of badgers change from year one to year two, why does the methodology applying to Somerset differ from that applying to Gloucestershire, and why were the methodologies not subject to independent scientific review? Let us go on the evidence.

[Elizabeth Truss]

An independent audit of the culls is currently taking place. A review is also being undertaken by our chief veterinary officer, which is important. The British Veterinary Association fully supports our comprehensive strategy to deal with bovine TB, and it is about time the Opposition thought about how they would deal with this terrible disease rather than criticise our policy, which has been shown, using international evidence, to deliver.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Bearing down on this terrible disease in cattle must clearly involve evidence-based policy making rather than policy-based evidence selection. Further to the question on the scrapping of the independent expert panel, what will the Government do to ensure that the evidence collected from this year’s cull is presented to the whole of the scientific community that has expertise in this subject?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend; it is important that we base our policies on science and evidence, and I am determined to do that. That is why we are independently auditing the results of this year’s culls, and why we had our chief veterinary officer and our chief scientist sign off the numbers for those culls. It is important to understand that this is part of a comprehensive strategy to deal with this issue. The strategy involves vaccination in the edge zones and cattle movement controls, as well as culls where the disease is rife. It has worked in Australia, and it is working in Ireland and New Zealand. Why will the Opposition not look at the evidence?

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have a lot of questions to get through and we must make more timely progress.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

7. What steps she is taking to promote adaptation to climate change.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

We are building the nation’s resilience to a changing climate primarily through the implementation of the first “National Adaptation Programme” report, which DEFRA published last July. This sets out more than 370 actions across key sectors involving Government, business, councils, civil society and academia. The Environment Agency’s Climate Ready Support Service also helps a wide range of organisations to adapt.

[Wayne David]

It is clear that the Minister’s Department has a real problem with credibility. Will he unequivocally condemn the crazy ideas on climate change expressed by the previous Secretary of State?

[Dan Rogerson]

The position of the coalition Government on mitigation and adaptation has been consistent throughout. The hon. Gentleman asks for my view on opinions that might have been expressed by the former Secretary of State. It would seem that he took a different view on the anthropogenic nature of climate change. However, the Government’s position is clear and has remained clear throughout.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

12. Our climate has changed and the risks to the UK have increased considerably, yet the Government have abandoned Labour’s climate change strategy. Will the Minister reverse his Government’s disastrous decision to tear up the consensus on the Climate Change Act 2008 and recommit to the recommendations of the Pitt review?

[Dan Rogerson]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has played a leading role in European and international negotiations on carbon emissions, as have other ministerial colleagues. I pay tribute to him for doing that. In relation to adaptation and the implementation of the Pitt review, we are moving on that and we are now consulting on the implementation of the sustainable urban drainage systems—SUDS—regime, which forms part of the final few recommendations in the Pitt report. We are therefore making progress, and I thank the hon. Lady for her interest in what we are doing.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

8. How many flood protection schemes are beginning construction in 2014.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

Between April 2014 and March 2015, 54 major new flood and coastal defence schemes will be starting construction. Over the period of this Parliament, we are spending more than £3.2 billion, compared with £2.7 billion in the previous five years, to protect this country from floods. This is one of my key priorities as Secretary of State.

[Peter Aldous]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for her answer, which I am sure the communities that will benefit from the schemes will welcome. Will she ensure that work starts next year on the Lowestoft flood alleviation scheme, which will not only protect the properties that were badly damaged in last December’s storm surge but attract new investment and jobs to the town?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I enjoyed walking along Lowestoft seafront with my hon. Friend. It was rather a blustery day, but it is a fine town. I look forward to hearing further representations from him on the subject. He is a champion of the people of Lowestoft and I will listen very carefully to his representations.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May we ask this quite new Secretary of State to start doing some joined-up thinking? Is it not about time she joined up the fact that the climate change and the flooding, which we are getting globally but which is making life very hard for people in the floodplains of this country, is linked to global warming? When will she be a big beast, as I hoped she was going to be, or even a little beast, and bang the table in the Cabinet to get us back on track on fighting global warming?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree that the erratic weather patterns are linked to climate change, which is why my Department is spending a huge amount on flood defences—we are also getting value for money. We are the first Government to put in place a six-year forward-looking programme on capital expenditure for flood defences, meaning that an additional 300,000 homes will be protected.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

9. What steps she is taking to support local authorities tackling air pollution in urban areas.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

Local authorities are key to achieving improvements in air quality. We are taking steps to support them, including enabling them to focus more on practical actions to reduce air pollution through plans to streamline reporting requirements. We have DEFRA’s £1 million air quality grant programme, and we are also funding local transport projects. For example, £560 million has been allocated from the Government’s local sustainable transport fund between 2011 and 2015.

[Mr McCann]

I thank the Minister for his answer, but he will know that on 26 September DEFRA published a report on air pollution showing that there has been no improvement in the UK’s air quality over the past year and that 38 of the 43 zones exceed the legal limit for nitrogen dioxide. What is going wrong?

[Dan Rogerson]

We are taking action locally, nationally and at the European level on the regulation of vehicle emissions, which is crucial to tackling this pollution. The Government are making progress on the issue, and we welcome what local authorities across the country are doing to engage with us on improving air quality locally and meeting our obligations.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State welcome the Mayor of London’s game-changing proposals for an ultra-low emissions zone by 2020, which would go a long way towards enabling London to meet existing agreed emissions standards? Will she ensure that London gets the support it needs from central Government to bridge the remaining compliance gap by 2020?

[Dan Rogerson]

I welcome the fact that the Mayor of London has begun consultation on further proposals to improve air quality in London. I look forward to hearing more on the details of what he is proposing and of course remain very willing to discuss with him how we can support that action.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Further to the question from the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), given that many, if not most, of the roads breaching agreed European standards are in London, when was the last time the Minister met the Mayor of London and how confident is he that we will avoid the fines threatening the UK because of those breaches?

[Dan Rogerson]

I have not met the Mayor of London recently, but of course our officials discuss things locally. I recently held a workshop with local authorities across the country, including those in cities in the north, which are working hard to tackle local aspects of air pollution. As I say, I welcome what the Mayor is doing—his consultation on further measures he might take—and when the Government see the details of those proposals we will be happy to discuss how we might support them.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

10. What recent progress she has made on improving the cleanliness of rivers and beaches.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

We have made good progress in cleaning up our bathing waters and rivers. Our bathing waters are cleaner now than ever before, with 98% of them passing EU standards. Our rivers are in far better health. Pollution from sewage has gone down significantly. For example, phosphate pollution will fall by a fifth and ammonia by a sixth by 2015.

[Mark Garnier]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. I believe she is already familiar with the majesty of the River Severn running through my constituency and with the extraordinary work done by the Environment Agency in keeping that river clear. But does she agree that smaller and less impressive rivers such as the River Stour, which also runs through Kidderminster, are just as important and need just as much attention?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I enjoyed walking down the Severn as a child when we briefly lived in Kidderminster—it is a lovely river. Those rivers are highly valued for their landscape, recreation, angling and drinking water supply, and we are involved in many projects to improve the fish stocks on the River Severn. Overall, this Government have cleaned up 10,000 miles of river during this Parliament, which is equivalent to the length of the Amazon and the Nile.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

11. What progress she is making in reducing the burden of regulation on farmers.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

Food and farming are vital to the success of our economy. They generate £100 billion and employ one in eight people. We want to enable farmers to spend their time producing high quality British produce, which is why, by the end of this Parliament, we will have reduced the volume of DEFRA guidance by 80%.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I know that the Government have done more than the previous Labour Administration on tackling regulations on farmers, but there are still many outstanding issues to be addressed. Today, when I spoke to Mr Stuart Jones from Asterley in my constituency, he highlighted additional complications. Will the Secretary of State redouble her efforts to tackle the number of regulations faced by our farmers?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We are making our inspection regime much more risk based, so that farmers who do the right thing and who are part of schemes such as Red Tractor or Pig and Poultry get fewer inspections, whereas those who mistreat animals or harm the environment get more of the Government’s attention.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The common agricultural policy payment scheme is being used to trial the Government’s new identity assurance scheme, Verify, but actual authentication is carried out by the private sector company, Experian. Farmers without a credit history are not being authenticated and are not getting their payments. Is getting into debt now a new regulation to be followed before farmers can be paid?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and we are introducing a new scheme. It is important that we do this in an efficient way. We are using and working on a cross-government process to assure identity.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

The priorities of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are: leading the world in food and farming; protecting our country from floods and animal and plant diseases; improving the environment and championing the countryside; and improving rural services. Food and farming are core parts of our long-term economic plan, contributing nearly £100 billion to the economy and employing one in eight people. I am sure that the House will want to join me in celebrating the latest figures that show we are now exporting our world-class food and drink to a record number of markets. That includes more than 1 billion pints of great British beer being sold to 113 countries.

[Mr Brown]

Will the Secretary of State help Britain’s hard-pressed dairy farmers by supporting fixed-price contracts and looking again at the product labelling regime and take some form of supply chain initiative with retailers and processers to dissuade them from, among other things, using liquid milk as a loss-leader?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I met the board of Dairy UK last week. I am keen to work to help our industry become competitive and deal with the increasing exposure to international markets. There are things that can be done on price volatility, and I have spoken to the supermarkets and the intermediaries on the matter.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

T2. I share the concerns of the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) about the UK dairy industry, which is deeply depressed in many parts of the country, and is suffering very large losses. We have an opportunity to debate this matter next week, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) has secured a debate on it in Westminster Hall. Will the Secretary of State reassure us that she is meeting those concerns and is fully engaged with this problem, which threatens much of the dairy industry?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am very much engaged with this matter, as is the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice). On a positive note, dairy exports have risen by 50% since 2010. I was in Paris last week at the SIAL trade fair—the world’s largest trade fair—and I met representatives from White Farm Cheddar who are now selling their cheese in the Carrefour supermarket chain across France. We have good international prospects for our dairy industry, and we are working hard to open the markets for British producers.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State purports to run a science-based Department, so what evidence did she use to underpin her decision to withdraw CAP payments from farmers with solar panels on their land?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I have just said, food and farming is one of our largest industries. It contributes £100 billion to the economy. There are 250,000 hectares of commercial roofs where solar panels can be located, but I do not think it is right that we locate solar panels on productive agricultural land that could be contributing to our economy, and I am sure the hon. Lady would not want that to happen.

[Maria Eagle]

There we have it—the Secretary of State had no underpinning evidence, just an ideological prejudice. Does she not realise, as the National Farmers Union has said, that land can be multifunctional, yielding an agricultural benefit as well as producing energy? At a time when National Grid is having to prepare contingency plans to ration energy use this winter because spare generating capacity is at a seven-year low, does she really think her priority should be cutting Britain’s ability to generate clean electricity? Is not this just another example of the self-styled greenest Government ever now resorting, in the Prime Minister’s words, to getting rid of the “green crap”, regardless of the consequences for our energy security?

[Elizabeth Truss]

This Government have a very good record on the environment. We have seen carbon emissions and air pollution go down and our rivers and water are cleaner. The problem with the hon. Lady’s point is that she does not seem to understand how important food and farming is to the rural economy. Under her Government, she failed to deal with animal diseases and the problems in that industry. The reality is that under this Government, we are seeing production expanding and overseas markets opening, and food and farming is now a much bigger success.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

T3. Handline mackerel is a superb, sustainably caught fish, and many fishermen from my constituency have been struggling to secure a realistic price during the summer. How are the Government helping Cornish mackerel fishermen, and mackerel and herring fishermen throughout the UK, to combat the Russian trade embargo?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

As a Cornishman, I am well aware of the importance of the handlining mackerel industry in Cornwall. We have managed to secure agreement from the Commission to allow us to bank up to 25% of this year’s quota to next year, to remove some mackerel from the market if necessary. We have also been very successful at reopening the market in Nigeria, which has been a particularly important market for many of our mackerel producers.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

T4. Last night, young people from Peru told MPs about the dire effects that climate change is having on their agricultural communities, and asked that Governments listen to what people in those communities need. Will the Minister give support to international and national initiatives to tackle climate change once and for all?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady that we do face a threat, and that is why this Government are taking action. The Prime Minister recently did a new deal on targets for carbon emissions. This Government take the issue very seriously.

[Mr Speaker]

Guy Opperman. Not here. Mr Andrew Percy.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am rather pleased he is not here—nothing personal.

May I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the Humber flood risk strategy, which is a joint strategy supported by all Members of Parliament to get £880 million of investment into the Humber for our defences? The current system does not work for us. We need a specific solution for the Humber.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)]

My hon. Friend and his colleagues across the House who represent areas in the Humber estuary rightly consistently raise the need to review flood defences there and make sure that we have adequate investment. We will be bringing forward a capital programme alongside the autumn statement, and I know that he and his colleagues are very much pushing the case for investment in his area.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

T5. Investing in research is vital if we are to meet the challenges of climate adaptation. Will the Secretary of State be a champion for an increase in our science budget, so that we can encourage innovation in both the public and private sectors?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am very keen on science. It is vital that we use it better across Government. I have had a number of discussions with our chief scientist about our science strategy, which we will be launching in due course. We need science not just for the environment, which is very important, but also for our food and farming industry, and that is why we are sponsoring agri-tech strategies on how to obtain better yields from our crops and use water more effectively. Through better use of science and technology we can see a real improvement to our environment.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

T8. Although west bank residents of the River Severn in Bewdley have benefited from brilliant flood defences, those on the east bank live with the uncertainty of the Environment Agency’s final solution to local flooding. May I urge my right hon. Friend to seriously consider demountable flood barriers to protect the east bank residents of Beales Corner in Bewdley?

[Dan Rogerson]

I am aware that there is a long-standing flooding issue at Beales Corner and that, as my hon. Friend says, the Environment Agency is trialling temporary flood defence barriers there. I understand that the trial is set to continue until 2017 while longer-term solutions are being considered and the agency, quite properly, consults the community, but if my hon. Friend has further concerns and would like to write to me, I would be happy to discuss those with him.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Michael McCann. He has toddled out of the Chamber. Goodness knows what is going on. Mr Grahame Morris.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to the vital role of the Food and Environment Research Agency in detecting and responding to threats to our natural environment and the food chain, particularly in the light of the UK signing up to the transatlantic trade and investment partnership agreement. Will the right hon. Lady think again about privatising this agency, given its vital role?

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is not what we are doing. We are creating a joint venture. I went to visit FERA in York last week. It is a world-class institution, researching all kinds of things from plant diseases to the security of our food chain, which is very important, so I fully support its efforts. I want to see it much better linked into all the work we do across Government so that we can have a truly science-based strategy.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) raced late into the Chamber like a perspiring postman. It is good of him to drop in on us and now that he has had a chance to recover his breath, let us hear from him.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

T7. After that introduction, Mr Speaker, I hope I do not disappoint, but thank you for calling me, in any event. What steps are being taken to increase the planting of commercial forestry in this country so that we do not face again the problems of yesteryear, and businesses have the timber supply they need?

[Elizabeth Truss]

There is a huge opportunity to expand the market for high-quality British timber, and I am pleased to say that since Grown in Britain started last year, we have seen an 8% increase in the amount of domestic timber and British wood products that we are selling. I congratulate my hon. Friend, who has the very large Kielder forest in his constituency, and I look forward to its future success.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

If the Secretary of State is so keen on science, why does she not start applying it to the issue of where the birdsongs have gone? Will she look at Caitlin Moran’s recent article on this? The birds are disappearing from our gardens and our countryside, and they have disappeared even faster in the past four years. What is she doing about that with science?

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Some weeks ago I visited the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ farm, Hope farm, up in Cambridgeshire. When we announce our new agri-environment schemes, measures that will support the recovery of farmland birds will certainly be among them.

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not least, I call Tessa Munt.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can the Secretary of State find out what has happened to the scheduling of payments for higher-level stewardship schemes for farmers in my environmentally sensitive part of Somerset? These have been contracted for a 10-year period but they seem to have been cut, delayed or changed without consultation or notice, and many farmers depend on them for their business.

[George Eustice]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. An important part of the agri-environment scheme in the next few years will be to fund higher-level stewardship schemes to conclusion. If she has particular concerns, I am happy to discuss those with her. There has been some alignment on the start dates of some of the schemes, but I am not aware of any problems with schemes discontinuing.

The Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission was asked—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

1. What process the commission would expect to be followed to address the recent issues highlighted by the National Audit Office’s recent report, “Managing and removing foreign national offenders”.

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

As the Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission is overseas, I have been asked to reply. The Public Accounts Committee is taking evidence on the report next week on 5 November. The normal process would be for that to be followed by a report from the Committee, which the Government would respond to in due course in the form of a Treasury minute.

[Mr Hollobone]

The Leader of the House will be aware that there are far too many foreign national offenders serving their sentences in our prisons who should be serving their sentences in prisons back in their own country. Will he ensure that the Committee has all the resources it needs to expedite its follow-up of this very important report, and that the Government’s response is as speedy as possible?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend knows how seriously the Government take this. Indeed, the NAO report states that the number of removals has increased by 12% over the past two years, the time taken to deport foreign national offenders is reducing and the number of failed removals is decreasing. The Home Secretary has indicated her determination on that. The pursuit of this is a matter for the Public Accounts Committee, rather than the Public Accounts Commission, on whose behalf I am answering today. The Government will continue to take this very seriously.

The hon. Member for Banbury, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

2. What assessment the Church of England has made of the potential effects of clause 2 of the Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure 2014 on women.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

The Church’s memorandum to the Ecclesiastical Committee gave a detailed assessment of that provision. I also refer the hon. Lady to the Lords Hansard report for 14 October, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury ably explained clause 2. I tried to explain it when I took the measure through the House but, given that she has tabled this question, clearly I lamentably failed.

[Diana Johnson]

I welcome the fact that we have recently had this long overdue Measure through Parliament, and the right hon. Gentleman will know that I have put in an early bid for the Bishop of Hull to be a woman. However, I am concerned about clause 2. Does he share my concern that this country’s established Church will not be governed by the laws of this land? I think that it is a very odd situation for the established Church to be in.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

We are very much governed by the laws of this land, which is why the Measure had to go to the Ecclesiastical Committee, a statutory Committee of both Houses of Parliament, and then had to be approved by both the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and last week you, Mr Speaker, announced that it had been granted Royal Assent. Had the hon. Lady had serious concerns about clause 2, she could have raised them in the debate—[Interruption.] Yes, she did raise them, but if I had not managed to assuage those concerns for her and the House sufficiently, she could have divided the House on the matter. Parliament has now agreed to the Measure and—this is the substantive point—the only reason it is here is to help ensure that the arrangements work; it is not putting the Church of England outside gender and equality legislation. Were it to do so, I have absolutely no doubt that the Government would have opposed it.

The hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission was asked—

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

3. What estimate the commission has made of the number of postal votes that arrived late and were not included in the official count at recent elections.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)]

I am about to give a surprising response, Mr Speaker. The number of postal votes received by returning officers after close of poll at the May 2014 European Parliament elections was 51,790, compared with just under 5 million postal votes returned before close of poll—around 1% of the total. Similar electoral data from all major elections since 2004 can be accessed on the commission’s website, and I will ask the commission to write to my hon. Friend and place a copy in the Library.

[Mr Nuttall]

Bearing in mind the larger turnout we can expect at next year’s general election, that means that around 100,000 people are likely to return their votes, thinking that they have voted, but in fact they will never be counted. Is there anything the Electoral Commission can do to try to improve that state of affairs?

[Mr Streeter]

There is an onus on all of us to get the message to our constituents that anyone voting by post should ensure that they get their postal vote away in good time, especially if they are voting from overseas. All electoral registration officers can make an arrangement with the Royal Mail so that all postal votes in the sorting office on polling day are collected and taken to the returning officer. I think that it is important that all EROs enter into such arrangements.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

In 2012 the law was changed to allow returning officers to write to people whose postal votes were rejected because of signature or date of birth errors. Surely it would make sense to allow them to write to those whose postal votes were returned late to notify them and help ensure that they do not do it again.

[Mr Streeter]

That is an excellent suggestion. It is not currently done, but I will certainly take it back to the commission so that it can pass it on to returning officers.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

How many people living overseas are eligible to register, and of those how many are listed to vote but are too late to get a vote through the post?

[Mr Streeter]

About 3.5 million Brits live overseas and are entitled to register to vote. I do not have the figure relating to my hon. Friend’s second question—that is shameful and disgraceful on my part, and I will certainly write to him about it. The good news is that overseas voters can now register to vote online. That has never happened before. We can get the message out to people in that category that they can register online, which will make the process a great deal easier and much more rapid.

The hon. Member for Banbury, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

4. What steps the Church of England is taking to help tackle extremism in the UK and overseas.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

9. What steps the Church of England is taking to help tackle extremism in the UK and overseas.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

The Church of England is taking a significant role in tackling extremism by supporting the work of the Government and by working through its own networks of local communities and the wider international Anglican communion.

[Fiona Bruce]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning the sentence of death by hanging announced last week on Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five young children who has already spent four years in jail in Pakistan under that country’s unacceptable blasphemy laws? Will my right hon. Friend join me and others in the House in sending out a clear message to the Government of Pakistan that they must review this case?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend. This is a terrible, grim and desperate case. I fear that it is a stain on the reputation of Pakistan that this young woman should have been in prison for such a long time.

Far too often around the world, cases of apostasy and the way in which blasphemy laws are used in some cases, as in Pakistan, are a complete offence against the principles of the United Nations charter on freedom of religion. We all need to take every opportunity to express to the Pakistani high commissioner in London and the Government of Pakistan how desperate and sad the world is to see that Pakistan has not managed to resolve that case more swiftly.

[Andrew Stephenson]

One of the biggest concerns of the Christian Churches in Pendle at the moment is the persecution of Christian communities by ISIS. Has the Church of England made any assessment of the threat of ISIS to religious minorities in the region?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Only the other day, the Archbishop of Canterbury commented that Christianity is at risk of being completely eliminated from the whole of the Levant. I know that he is in discussions with faith leaders from across the middle east to see how we can work together to try to ensure that some religious tolerance returns as swiftly as possible.

The situation is desperate: the world appears to be going backwards, away from the high principles of the United Nations charter of 1945 and towards a situation in which intolerance, rather than tolerance, is increasingly becoming the norm.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. How many episcopal vacancies he expects there to be in the next 12 months.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

Between December and July, the Crown Nominations Commission is due to consider appointments to four vacant diocesan sees: Southwell and Nottingham, Gloucester, Oxford, and Newcastle. In addition, nine of the Church’s 68 suffragan sees are either vacant or due to become vacant over the coming months.

[Mr Sheerman]

I do not suppose that the Church Commissioners can do anything to recognise the wonderful work by Huddersfield doctor Geraldine O’Hara. Many of us will have heard her diary from Sierra Leone. However, the House could recognise what she is doing. The Church Commissioners can recognise another woman, Catherine Ogle, the dean of Birmingham, who I believe should be an early candidate for bishop.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

There are a number of very impressive senior women in the Church of England, including cathedral deans such as the one to whom the hon. Gentleman referred. There are also women archdeacons and others who I am sure will be in contention for early appointment as women bishops in the Church of England.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

6. What guidance the commissioners follow when making investments; and if he will make a statement.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

The investments of the Church Commissioners are the responsibility of the assets committee. They are guided by a professional investment team supported by external advisers and the advice of the Church of England ethical investment advisory group.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, but I still seek what guidance and criteria the Church Commissioners follow. What is the level of investment income from Church of England investments as regards the overall revenue?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The Church Commissioners have investments of just over £6 billion. From that is generated an annual income of about £100 million, most of which is devoted to clergy pensions, and the rest to helping poorer dioceses across the country, such as Durham and Liverpool, and supporting their mission work. The Church Commissioners are advised by the Ethical Investment Advisory Group. I assure my hon. Friend, and the House, that we take considerable care to monitor any investment that might have an effect in these areas: tobacco, defence, non-military firearms, gambling, pornography, high interest rate lending, stem cell research, alcohol, and genetically modified organisms. For each and every one of those, the assets committee and the Ethical Investment Advisory Group spend hours and hours working to produce detailed policy to try and ensure not only that we do not invest inappropriately but that we use our investments to encourage companies to act responsibly.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I think that the Church of England believes in having partnerships of constructive engagement with the companies in which it invests. Therefore, will the Church Commissioners, first, call for SOCO International, an oil and gas exploration firm in which it has shares, to launch an independent investigation into the allegations of corruption and violence that it has attracted in its dealings with the Virunga national park in Democratic Republic of the Congo; and secondly, explain how this investment aligns with the Christian values of the Church?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady did not give me notice of that question, because had she done so I could then have given her a substantive response. I know nothing of the facts of the investment, but I will make inquiries and write to her.

[Mr Speaker]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman should take it as a compliment that the hon. Lady assumed that on this matter, as on most others that are raised with him, his knowledge is compendious.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

Sadly, as I keep on telling my constituents, Mr Speaker, I am neither omniscient nor omnipotent.

[Mr Speaker]

That may be a divisible proposition.

The hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission was asked—

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

7. What recent progress has been made in the transition to individual voter registration in Scotland.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

Owing to the recent referendum, the transition to individual voter registration in Scotland started only on 19 September. The commission will report on initial progress of the transition in November, with similar information to be published on its recent analysis of progress made in England and Wales, where 87% of electors were matched and can be automatically transferred to the new register.

[Ann McKechin]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his answer. Unfortunately, I have wards in my constituency where fewer than 50% of people were successfully matched. Given that record numbers registered for and participated in last month’s referendum, including, particularly, 16 and 17-year-olds, what steps will be taken to ensure that young people are encouraged to do individual voter registration if they are not properly matched under the existing arrangements?

[Mr Streeter]

I can give an assurance to the hon. Lady. First, as I said earlier, it is now possible to register online, and for younger people, in particular, that is now very easy to do. Secondly, a public awareness campaign has been launched in Scotland, as I hope that many of her constituents are aware. Finally, and crucially, no one will come off the register between now and May 2015. If they are on the register today—or were on it a month or two months ago—they will be able to vote in May 2015. That is an important message.

Refugees and Migrants (Search and Rescue Operation)

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

10:32

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on why the Government have decided not to support search and rescue operations for refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean.

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

The United Kingdom has a long and proud tradition of providing sanctuary to those who genuinely need it. We work closely with our European neighbours to provide assistance to those fleeing fear or persecution and to deter those whose criminal actions stand in the way of providing effective help.

The scenes we have witnessed in the Mediterranean in recent months, with people risking their lives to reach Europe, are hugely distressing. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that over 3,000 people have already died attempting to cross the Mediterranean this year, compared with some 700 deaths in the whole of last year. When people are risking life and limb—not just their own, but those of their loved ones too—it is clear that they are caught in a desperate situation. Nobody underestimates the sincerity of their plight. It demands an equally sincere approach from the governments of European nations, and that is what it has been getting.

Since Italy launched its Mare Nostrum operation in October 2013, there has been an unprecedented increase in illegal immigration across the Mediterranean and a fourfold increase in the deaths of those making that perilous journey. The operation has been drawn closer and closer to the Libyan shore, as traffickers have taken advantage of the situation by placing more vulnerable people in unseaworthy boats on the basis that they will be rescued and taken to Italy. However, many are not rescued, which is why we believe that the operation is having the unintended consequence of placing more lives at risk, and why EU member states have unanimously agreed that the operation should be promptly phased out.

It is, of course, vital that this phasing out is well managed and well publicised, to mitigate the risk of further deaths. It is vital that we continue to take action to provide real help to those who genuinely need it.

We have made clear our view that the only sustainable answer to the current situation in the Mediterranean is to enhance operational co-operation within the EU; work with the countries of origin and transit to tackle the causes of illegal immigration and the organised gangs that facilitate it; and enhance support for protection in north and east Africa for those in need.

We have agreed to a request from Frontex—the EU’s border management agency—to deploy a debriefing expert in support of the new Frontex Operation Triton off the southern Italian coast. This operation is not designed to replace Mare Nostrum, but will instead patrol closer to EU borders. We stand ready to consider any further request for UK support for the new Frontex operation.

The UK is also among those member states offering substantial numbers of resettlement places for refugees from outside the EU—more than 4,000 between 2008 and 2013—working closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In close partnership with other member states, we are developing a strong programme of work to tackle the causes of migration from the horn of Africa, including through investment in regional protection programmes.

It is not in the interests of anyone—most especially those who are genuinely fleeing persecution—if European countries have an uncontrolled and ineffective approach to immigration and asylum. It is not in the interests of anyone if the criminal gangs that exploit the fear and suffering of vulnerable people—endangering human lives for cold, hard cash—are allowed to continue their despicable work unimpeded. It is not in the interests of anyone if we fail to adapt to a situation which encourages more and more people to make that dangerous journey across the seas. That is why member states across the EU have unanimously agreed to act—to defend our borders, crack down on crime and protect those who so desperately need our protection.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

The Minister knows that many of those seeking to make the journey are fleeing war, poverty and starvation in places such as Syria and Libya. They know already that the risks of dying en route are high. They are exploited by people traffickers, as the Minister has accepted, and if they are picked up by European navies or border control, they know they will not be given free entry to Europe, but are likely to end up in a detention centre in Italy or to be sent back to their country of origin. Surely it is obvious that these refugees and migrants are desperate given that they are still prepared to make these terrible journeys. The idea that search and rescue operations should be discontinued and that people should be left to die in their thousands—presumably in order to discourage others from making the journey—is not just cruel and inhumane, but totally without logic

Is not the right response for Europe as a whole to support a comprehensive search and rescue operation for refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean? Will the Government now reconsider their position and try to persuade other European nations to bring that about? Why do the Government not listen to the refugee agencies when they say that the real answer to the problem is to provide more safe and legal channels for people to access protection?

This policy is shameful. Surely, when we know that hundreds of our fellow human beings face a terrible death and it is in our power to do something about it, it is our moral duty to act. And if we fail to do so, are we not complicit in their deaths?

[James Brokenshire]

I am very proud of this Government’s humanitarian work. The investment we have provided for places such as Syria—we have committed about £700 million to the aid effort that is providing direct assistance to those in need—reflects our response. The hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of search and rescue operations, but I want to highlight the fact that such matters are for individual member states in respect of their territorial waters. It is ultimately for Italy to decide how it conducts its search and rescue operations.

The Frontex operation, which I have outlined, provides surveillance capability and other support at the border. I find it inconceivable—the head of Frontex has said the same—that support would not be provided if a boat were in peril. Obviously, a rescue would be undertaken in those circumstances.

The Government’s view is that, because of the situation in various parts of the region, a regional solution is required. I have already made the point that assistance is required to prevent people from making such perilous journeys. The judgment of the UK Government and other Governments across the EU is that the emergency measures should be stopped at the earliest opportunity. Ultimately, we want to do something that helps, but sadly, in our judgment, the emergency measures are not achieving that end.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I commend the Minister for his statement, which, to be perfectly honest, was full of common sense. Is it not the case that since the search and rescue operation began, more and more people have tried their luck, with the result that there has been more and more illegal immigration and more and more deaths? The solution must therefore be to stop the search and rescue operation. Does he agree that the message that should go out from this House is not about restoring the operation, but about telling people to stop trying their luck in the first place?

[James Brokenshire]

Our genuine concern has been to provide solutions to prevent people from making those perilous journeys. As I said in my statement, the sad reality is that the number of those who have died in the Mediterranean sea has increased since the introduction of the Mare Nostrum operation. It is therefore right to look at what assistance can be provided on north African borders through direct aid, and at what further assistance the European External Action Service can give for such solutions. The approach of the Government and of other EU member states is about saving lives, not putting them in peril.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) for securing the urgent question, and the Minister for his response.

After days of silence, it is absolutely right that the Government should come to the House and answer for their decision to abandon search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean. No one is suggesting that the problem of migrants entering Europe from north Africa and the middle east does not need to be addressed, but leaving people to die in their thousands is not the answer.

This year alone 150,000 people have been rescued in the Mediterranean and, as the Minister said, 3,000 people—3,000 men, women and children—have died on their way over. Most of them were fleeing desperate poverty or war zones, and many of them were under the control of human traffickers. Instead of trying to reduce this appalling loss of life, the Government have decided to allow it to increase. The 150,000 people rescued this year will in future be left at the mercy of the sea: if their overcrowded, decrepit boat sinks, they will be left to drown. This is a barbaric abandonment of British values.

Moreover, this decision was taken to distract from a failed immigration policy. With a net migration target in tatters, border security downgraded, a crisis at Calais to which the Government have no answer and in desperation at the prospect of a by-election loss to UKIP, the Government needed to be seen doing something—anything—to appear tough on immigration, but it will not be effective. The Government have provided no evidence that abandoning rescue missions will reduce the number of people getting on the boats. When will the Government publish the evidence and the impact assessment?

Many of the individuals concerned have no choice in the matter because they are under the control of human traffickers, as has been said. What is being done, therefore, to tackle trafficking gangs in north Africa and southern Europe?

The Government need to start working with our European partners to address the so-called pull factors. Once people are on a boat and are drowning off the coast of Italy, it is too late. We need to intervene far earlier, so when does the Minister next plan to meet his EU counterparts to discuss the matter?

We must remember that Operation Triton is not only about attempting to stop those who make the dangerous journey to Europe in boats coming to harm, but about protecting our borders. Will the Minister confirm the reports that the Government are providing just one immigration officer to gather intelligence about those who arrive in Italy by sea? That seems to be totally inadequate. We need to know what more the Government intend to do to play their part in making Operation Triton a viable alternative to search and rescue.

Rescuing people who are in danger of drowning is a legal obligation under international maritime law, as is set out in the international convention for the safety of life at sea. The Government may be abandoning their efforts in that regard, but what will happen to commercial boats that intervene, as they are obliged to do?

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Lady has sought to politicise this issue in a way that does not reflect the intent or focus of the Government.

I say to the hon. Lady clearly that the people who are responsible for the deaths of those at sea are the organised traffickers who seek to exploit the vulnerable by putting them in increasing numbers on boats that are entirely unseaworthy. Our judgment is that extending the emergency measures has encouraged that and put more lives at risk. That is our primary focus. Indeed, it is the focus not simply of the UK Government, but the unanimous conclusion of all 28 member states of the EU.

The hon. Lady made an appropriate point about intervening earlier and looking overseas at the flows of people across borders far from the Mediterranean sea. That is why I made the point about the aid, assistance and political leadership that the UK provides in that work. She asked when we would meet other European Ministers. The Italian Government will host a conference in the coming weeks to look at these very issues around the horn of Africa. We look forward to attending and supporting that conference.

The hon. Lady asked about the support that the British Government are providing to Frontex. I want to make it clear that the UK is not a fully participating member of Frontex because it is not in the Schengen area, and Frontex is an EU body that is designed to safeguard that area. However, we have always sought to respond as favourably as we can to any requests that Frontex makes of the UK. Indeed, the expert to whom she referred is being provided as a consequence of the requests that we have received from Frontex to date. We stand ready to look favourably on any further requests that Frontex may wish to make of the UK Government in support of Operation Triton.

I say again that the focus of the Government is not on short-term political issues, but on examining what will make a difference in the region and providing the necessary humanitarian support. Our judgment is that the steps that are being taken are about saving lives, not putting lives at risk.

[Sarah Teather (Brent Central) (LD)]

Claiming that rescuing people from drowning in the sea is somehow a pull factor for people who are fleeing war is an absurd and deeply unethical thing for the Government to do. Can the Government not see that more people are travelling because half of the middle east is burning? Has the Minister not seen the advice of his own Foreign Office? We cannot wash our hands of these people, Pontius Pilate-style. If we are to prevent people from boarding rickety boats and drowning at sea, we will have to work with our European colleagues and find safe routes of travel. Can the Minister not see that he has lost any sense of ethical reasoning here?

[James Brokenshire]

I entirely reject the analysis that my hon. Friend seeks to proffer in this regard. No one is turning a blind eye to humanitarian issues or needs. The purpose of the actions being taken is to put fewer lives at risk, and I am sorry that she is unable to accept the clear purpose of what we are undertaking. On the idea that boats in need of assistance would simply be ignored, I point her to the head of Frontex who said that if a boat in distress is spotted, rescue is the top priority. I am sure that that is precisely what will happen.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The mayor of Calais told the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday that the destination of choice for many who arrive in Italy is Calais and after that London, and £12 million has been allocated in Calais. The unintended consequences of not allocating support will be that more people will die in the Mediterranean. I understand why the Minister does not want to give succour to people traffickers, but that is what will happen. The real problem is the failure of Frontex to act appropriately to ensure that the borders are secure. He will see that at the Greek-Turkish border, and at Melilla in Morocco where people are climbing over the fence that the Spanish have put up, this issue will remain a problem. When he goes to Rome will he please also visit Lampedusa and ensure that the real long-term solution is with the countries of north Africa? We must support them in preventing people from leaving in the first place, and that is where our focus should be.

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I commend him and members of his Committee for the focus they have attached to this issue. I know they have undertaken a number of visits to the region to see the situation for themselves. He is right to say that the solutions lie in north Africa, which is why I made a point about the need for focus and attention there. The mayor of Calais characterised the UK as the primary destination, but let us analyse where asylum applications are being made. The UK anticipates around 25,000 applications this year, but France anticipates around 65,000, Sweden around 80,000, and Germany more than 200,000. This is an issue for the whole EU, and it is important, as I have said, to continue to work together to find solutions.

[Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

The flow of migrants across the Mediterranean is now more than just a trickle, and the Minister is right, as is the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), to say that the solution is to work on the causes of migration. I commend to the Minister the report by the Foreign Affairs Committee on instability in north and west Africa, and I put to him a question posed in that report that did not get a very clear answer: if a British warship finds a boatload of refugees in the middle of the Mediterranean, is the policy to escort it back to north Africa, or to usher it into a European port?

[James Brokenshire]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee in looking at the pressures in north Africa and across the region. We have a keen focus on and interest in the Committee’s reports and recommendations. On identifying and rescuing boats at sea, clearly if vessels are in the territorial waters of a particular country I would expect the normal rules of the sea to apply. That is why Frontex, with its mission to protect the security of the external European border, will focus on the 30-mile limit off the Italian coast.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that, for many British people, including those who share his concern about protecting our borders, the decision on search and rescue represents a new low? Of course the solution to those problems lies in north Africa, and of course there must be a regional solution, but consciously pursuing a policy that will allow people to drown should play no part in protecting Europe’s borders. Some of us are reminded of nothing more than the Exodus, the boat that, at the end of the second world war, tried to take Jewish refugees to Palestine and was turned away by the British Government on precisely the kind of realpolitik grounds the Minister has advanced this morning. Just as people look back in shame at what we did in relation to the Exodus and the fleeing Jewish refugees, we will look back in shame on the decision he is trying to defend today.

[James Brokenshire]

I respect the hon. Lady’s passion and that of other hon. Members, but the harsh reality is that more people are dying in the Mediterranean following the introduction of Mare Nostrum and the emergency measures. If we want solutions that save lives, we need to examine different options and alternatives. Not just the UK Government but 28 other EU member states have come to that same conclusion. The measure cannot therefore be characterised as a specific action of the UK Government. There has been an EU-wide recognition that things are simply not working and not saving lives. The very thing that the hon. Lady wants achieved is what we want: we want fewer lives lost and to ensure that fewer people head out to sea in dangerous boats. That is why I make the points about going after organised traffickers, and about finding a regional solution in north Africa and elsewhere.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I congratulate the Government on reducing the push factors that drive a lot of immigrants to Europe, by our expenditure through the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to improve governance in Africa, but may I also challenge the Minister? Does he believe that the evil people traffickers are likely to issue a press release saying, “If you make this journey in future, you are unlikely to be rescued”? Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) from the Opposition Front Bench, does the Minister share my concern that there might be an international lawsuit against this country and possibly Europe through the UN convention on the law of the sea and the International Maritime Organisation sea regulations? The IMO is the only UN body, and it is based just 1 mile from Parliament.

[James Brokenshire]

I do not underestimate the sheer evil of the traffickers. They exploit the vulnerable and put them to sea in boats that are not seaworthy and are not necessarily able to reach the shores of the European Union. That is why I was clear in my statement about ensuring that the changes are well communicated and well understood. That must be part of the approach. Rescuing people at sea is a member state competence, not an EU competence, so it will always be for individual member states to ensure that search and rescue operations are undertaken appropriately, in accordance with the normal laws of the sea.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I do not think I have heard a more shameful statement from this Government. This is where we are: this poisonous debate about immigration—this monstrous race to the bottom between the Government and the UKIP as to who can be hardest on immigration—is leaving people to die in the Mediterranean. Is the Minister not absolutely ashamed of himself?

[James Brokenshire]

The only shameful thing I have heard is the hon. Gentleman’s comments. The debate has been impassioned, but there has been an understanding of the challenges that individual Governments face in seeking to address a problem that has got worse. We argue that the steps that have been taken have not assisted in the way that was intended. We cannot turn our eyes away from a situation that is getting worse and not better. That is why we focus on steps to ensure that regional solutions are established and supported, and that we have an external border that is surveilled through Frontex. If boats are identified as in need of assistance, that is what will happen.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Am I right in thinking that this was a unanimous decision by all Home Affairs and Justice Ministers throughout the European Union at a Justice and Home Affairs Council? Labour, Liberal and Scottish National another party colleagues who oppose this are actually out of step with every Government—left, right or centre—in the EU. It was never the intention of the United Nations convention on refugees, which was brought in just after the second world war, automatically to give indefinite leave to remain to anyone trafficked from a third country into Europe.

[James Brokenshire]

My right hon. Friend makes a clear point. This did arise from the most recent Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting, and it was the unanimous conclusion of 28 member states across the EU. Frankly, to characterise this as a short-term political issue completely misses the point and does not have proper regard for those who are in peril and fleeing persecution.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Everyone condemns the criminal gangs and everyone would like to see people discouraged from coming to Europe for obvious reasons, but is the Minister aware that this policy will be summed up in three words, namely: let them drown?

[James Brokenshire]

No, I do not accept that. We will see Frontex, through Operation Triton, conducting surveillance operations around the coast of Italy. Matters of search and rescue remain with Italy and other member states in respect of their territorial waters. They will remain a matter for the Italian Government, who I am sure will take their responsibilities extremely seriously.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

In 2005, the European Union unanimously pledged to give 0.7% of gross national income to overseas development assistance. The EU, with the honourable exception of the UK and a number of other countries, will singularly fail to meet that pledge. Is today’s announcement not putting the cart before the horse? Should the EU not be investing in measures such as those outlined by the Minister before withdrawing support? I ask him to think again. The EU needs to fulfil the pledges it solemnly made in 2005 and ensure that work is done in north Africa before this kind of support is withdrawn.

[James Brokenshire]

To be clear, the EU is not withdrawing anything. Mare Nostrum is an Italian initiative. It is supported by the Italian navy, and ultimately decisions will be taken by the Italian Government. However, my hon. Friend makes a profound and important point about the responsibility of all Governments in the EU to look at international development in the way that we have: state-building and providing long-term solutions, as well as ensuring that clear messages are sent and clear policies are undertaken bilaterally, or through the external action service of the EU, to do the very things he has outlined.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Why can the Minister not see that it is not a case of either addressing the causes in north Africa or dealing with the consequences now, but a question of both? The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) mentioned the International Maritime Organisation. Why can the Minister not also see that this is not simply an issue for nation states? It is an issue that needs to be addressed across the EU, and the Government should be playing their part. On the so-called pull factor, that is an argument that could have been used to discourage people from setting up the Kindertransport before the second world war.

[James Brokenshire]

We play our part within the EU. We continue to lead discussions with individual member states and across the EU membership on long-term and short-term solutions to why people are getting on those boats and to the transit of people across nations to the north African coast. We take that responsibility very seriously, backed up not just by rhetoric but by investment through our international development focus and the money provided to support it. We stand proud of the UK Government’s record in providing that assistance.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It would help to reduce the attractiveness of this country as a destination for illegal immigrants if being an illegal immigrant was made a specific criminal offence, as provided for in the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), the Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill. Will the Minister confirm the Government’s support for that measure?

[James Brokenshire]

Our focus is on ensuring that we have strong and effective borders, which is precisely what our Border Force is doing, with more checks undertaken under this Government than under the previous Government. We are also focused on ensuring that where people are not here legally—when they come to this country and are not found to be in need of humanitarian protection—we put in place measures to see that they are returned. Indeed, I am sure my hon. Friend will recognise the work done under the Immigration Act 2014 to achieve precisely that: to ensure that, through measures on rented accommodation, bank accounts, driving licences and other issues, the very steps he is advocating are actively assisted.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The coincidence of events does not necessarily prove a causal link. The Minister has told us that he believes the search and rescue operation has increased the number of people trying to cross the Mediterranean, but this is during a period when unrest and wars have continued to grow. Can he prove there is a causal link? Should he not get the evidence first before acting?

[James Brokenshire]

We expressed our concerns and reservations in respect of those very issues in advance of the introduction of Mare Nostrum, but we are not talking about the assessment simply of the UK Government; we are talking about the assessment of 28 member states across the EU that have come to that conclusion.

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

I speak on this issue having experienced both sides of the coin as an east African Sikh. With all the emotionally charged comments we have heard in the Chamber today, it would be helpful to remind Opposition Members that many of us of Indian descent who came out of Africa were not particularly proud of the fact that we were promised British passports and were then faced with a Labour Home Secretary who, when push came to shove, pulled up the drawbridge.

As for today’s issue, as a constituency MP in Wolverhampton, I am struck by the size of the backlog of cases that immigration staff have to deal with. Will the Minister update the House on the legacy bequeathed to us by the last Government, not just in the economy but in terms of immigration and asylum cases?

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting his direct personal experience and the need for care to be taken in the tone we use. I am sorry that some have sought to characterise this issue in the way they have. He is also right to underline the shambles that this Government inherited and the steps we have taken to deal with the problems. The situation is improving and we are dealing with the backlogs—something that was simply ignored by the last Government, who were incapable of dealing with them.

[Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)]

This is indeed a shameful decision. How many lives does the Minister estimate will be saved as a result of abandoning search and rescue missions?

[James Brokenshire]

The reality, as I have already indicated, is that more lives have been lost to date this year than were lost in 2013. Our focus is on ensuring that this is about reducing the tragic human cost we see in the Mediterranean sea. If we can telegraph that clear message to the traffickers in north Africa who are exploiting very vulnerable people, I absolutely believe that is the right thing to do to save lives.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

The wars in the middle east and consequent humanitarian situation are so dire there that Europe is unlikely to have an impact on the push factors in the near term. The pressures on countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey and the refugee crisis there surely mean that Europe needs to face up to its responsibilities better than it has done to date. I welcomed what the Minister said about co-operation with UNHCR and getting more placements here in the UK. Will he add some detail to that announcement?

[James Brokenshire]

On the latter point, we work closely with UNHCR, in connection with the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme, for example. We work with it in identifying those most acutely in need of help and assistance. It is a good partnership and I think it is effective. On the broader issue of various middle east countries, my hon. Friend is right to underline the contributions that need to be made by all European Governments. I certainly stand proud when it comes to the work of the Department for International Development, which is contributing £145 million to the Arab Partnership programme, with the aim of supporting a more stable and prosperous middle east and north Africa.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am not going to beat the Minister over the head about this, because Members on all sides of the House share a great responsibility for the turmoil in the middle east and other places, which has caused much of the migration in the first place. I would say, however, that morally I cannot stand by without saying that I think it is repugnant that we leave children and families to perish in this way. What I dislike is that we do not have an alternative positive policy. We know the point of embarkation for many people—often Libya—so why can we not have a European partnership to tackle the problem proactively?

[James Brokenshire]

That is precisely what is happening through the work of member states and, indeed, our Foreign Office and DFID. The harsh reality is that we are seeing those deaths at sea. Our judgment is that extending the search and rescue approach that has been taken close to the Libyan coast will mean more people putting out to sea in less seaworthy boats in greater numbers. That is making the situation worse.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

Since Mare Nostrum was established some 12 months ago, 3,000 or more people have lost their lives, notwithstanding the presence of more than 30 Italian vessels patrolling the Mediterranean sea. Does my hon. Friend agree that the root cause of the problem is the activities of the people traffickers and that one of the best services that both this country and the EU could perform would be to conduct an information campaign in north Africa to try to inform and persuade people that if they put their lives in the hands of these people, they will very likely end up losing them?

[James Brokenshire]

I agree with my right hon. Friend on the messaging and communication around the strategy. However, I say to him most acutely that the organised traffickers are absolutely responsible for the exploitation of the vulnerable, leading to the deaths of scores of people. That is why we are working very closely with a number of European nations to step up our intelligence sharing and actively to go after those organised crime groups that are trading in human misery.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

In all my years in academic philosophy, I never heard such sophistry as I have heard from the Minister today. The solution is of course on the north African coast, but if that is the case, that solution must be implemented so that people do not leave in droves before the safety net is taken up. Why is the Minister taking the safety net away while people are still falling out of a burning building?

[James Brokenshire]

It is for the Italian Government to determine, as they are the lead in the search and rescue operations off their coast, when Mare Nostrum is or is not terminated. It is ultimately a matter for them. As I have underlined on a number of occasions, this Government are not turning a blind eye to any of the humanitarian suffering. That is why we stand ready to support Frontex on Operation Triton and to take the lead on communications around the approach. I say again that the reality—the harsh reality—is that the current arrangements are, in our judgment, making matters worse, and that is what drives our approach.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Over the summer, the UNHCR drew attention to an increase in the number of deaths following the introduction of Mare Nostrum in October last year. Has the UNHCR made any comments since the announcement of the changes?

[James Brokenshire]

I am aware of a number of points that have been made in this House and by other agencies. We are keen to ensure that the approach is well communicated and well addressed. Our focus, and the focus of the aid agencies and the UNHCR, is on saving lives. That is the Government’s motivation, and the motivation of many other agencies.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

In response to the question from the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), the Minister referred to the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme. It has been reported that, under that scheme, just 50 of the people who have had to flee their homes and their country have been given safe haven in the United Kingdom—just 50 of the 3 million refugees who have had to flee Syria as a result of this crisis. The Minister is a decent man. Why does he not want the United Kingdom to do more to give those who are fleeing brutality a safe and legal route to this country?

[James Brokenshire]

I respect the manner in which the hon. Lady has asked her question, but the United Kingdom is playing its full role. For instance, we have invested £700 million in the region, because given the numbers that are involved, a regional solution is required. That money is providing direct support for hundreds of thousands of people in the region who are in desperate need of assistance. Our Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme is intended to assist those who are most acutely in need of help; we have said that it will provide assistance for several hundred people over the next three years, and that is precisely what it is doing.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

It is clear that the EU’s external frontier is as leaky as a sieve—whether we are talking about the land border with the ex-Soviet Union, the islands between Greece and Turkey, or the Mediterranean coast off north Africa—and that Frontex is a highly dysfunctional organisation. Surely part of the solution would be an effective policing operation off the north African coast, using close-to-shore patrol vessels. Frontex should be encouraged to work with the north African Governments to register such vessels under north African flags, so that people can be caught close to the shore and returned to their countries of origin.

[James Brokenshire]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern, but Frontex adds an important element in respect of the Schengen external border—the EU border—and the establishment of Operation Triton. As I have said, the United Kingdom stands ready to support any requests that may be received, and we will consider such requests very carefully. We are not a full member of Frontex, but it is important that there is that continued focus on ensuring that the EU’s external borders are properly maintained.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Lest we forget, this Government, supported by Her Majesty’s Opposition, backed military intervention in Libya. The people who are drowning in the Mediterranean are fleeing the chaos in that country. Is there not a simple moral imperative? Do we not have a moral obligation to those people until there is a stable Government in Libya?

[James Brokenshire]

As has been made clear by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is the Minister with responsibility for north Africa, we are focusing very directly on north Africa, and on Libya in particular. We have a nominated representative to lead that activity after 40 years of misrule in the country. As I have said, Frontex is providing support at the external border through Operation Triton, and it is the Italian Government, not the EU, who are actively providing search and rescue assistance. That applies in the case of all member states. Ultimately, it is the Italian Government who will decide on matters relating to their own territorial waters.

Business of the House

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

11:19

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 3 November—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Recall of MPs Bill, followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill.

Tuesday 4 November—Remaining stages of the Modern Slavery Bill.

Wednesday 5 November—Opposition day (9th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 6 November—General debate on UK foreign policy towards Iran followed by general debate on promotion of the living wage. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 7 November—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 10 November will include:

Monday 10 November—Remaining stages of the Childcare Payments Bill.

Tuesday 11 November—Remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions Bill, followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Colleagues will also wish to know that the House will meet at 12 o’clock on this day.

I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 6 November will be:

Thursday 6 November—General debate on the US-UK mutual defence agreement.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I also thank him for the challenge he sets me each week to find much Government legislation to talk about.

On Monday, the Justice Secretary’s plan to block any dissent through the courts was halted in the other place as the Government lost three key votes. A brace of Tory ex-Cabinet Ministers backed our amendments to maintain some legal discretion by judicial review, and a former Lord Chief Justice described the Government’s preferred alternative as an “elective dictatorship”.

We all know that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has been openly conniving with the United Kingdom Independence party to subject the European arrest warrant to judicial review when it is reintroduced. Only this Prime Minister could try to solve the latest challenge to his authority from the Eurosceptics by seeking to abolish judicial review rather than by containing the antics of the hon. Member for North East Somerset. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether the Government will now acknowledge that they have gone too far on judicial review and accept our amendments?

Tuesday is equal pay day—the day when women effectively stop being paid for the rest of the year because of the gender pay gap. The picture is bleak. The pay gap is at 20% and widening, women are earning less than they were a year ago, and the UK has crashed down the world gender equality rankings to 26th place. It is no wonder that the Prime Minister has refused to wear a Fawcett feminist T-shirt. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate in Government time on this Government’s dire record on women, and will he wear the T-shirt?

With 21 days to go to the by-election in Rochester and Strood, the panic has clearly set in and the work of Government seems to have been wholly subordinated to Tory attempts to outflank UKIP on Europe. We have had the tantalising, and as yet unfulfilled, promise of yet another “game-changing” European announcement from the Prime Minister. We have had his unconvincing Mr Angry performance in Brussels on the €2 billion bill that the Chancellor forgot to tell him about. And we all know that half his parliamentary party seem content to put our security at risk by plotting to sink the European arrest warrant in a move that his former immigration Minister says would make us the “Costa del Crime”. Yesterday, the Prime Minister promised a vote on the European arrest warrant before the by-election. The Leader of the House has just announced business up to 17 November, which is just three days before the by-election, so will he tell us when the vote will actually take place? Given that the Prime Minister has totally lost control of his party, Labour Members need plenty of notice to ensure that UK security is not sacrificed on the altar of the Tory civil war.

I note the mysterious absence in the future business of any reference to the European Union (Referendum) Bill. However, I have managed to get my hands on a couple of letters that shed some light on this mystery. On Tuesday afternoon, the Tory Chief Whip wrote to his ever loyal flock announcing:

“Today the Liberal Democrats have killed the EU Referendum Bill”.

In retaliation, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats wrote to all Tory MPs stating:

“This claim is utterly false”.

What a sad state of affairs: in four and a half years they have gone from fluttering eyelashes in the rose garden to an exchange of “Dear John” letters. But the problem with all this is that no one seems to have bothered to tell the House what on earth is going on. Genuinely important Bills are being held up by this farce, so can the Leader of the House confirm that these two Bills are now dead, in order that there can be progress on the others? If the European Union (Referendum) Bill was so important, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us why, in the words of his coalition colleagues, the Prime Minister

“folded like a cheap deckchair”

at the first opportunity in the negotiation that could have ensured its passage?

Last week, I was harsh on the Chief Whip for his absence from the Chamber—I note his absence again today. I have since discovered that he was learning some skills to help him with the job—at the Westminster dog of the year competition. May I congratulate him on coming second with his dog Snowy, which he described as “naughty, stubborn and greedy”. That sounds a lot like his Tory Back Benchers. Members are fleeing the kennel to UKIP, the Eurosceptics are straining at the leash and Lynton Crosby has sent the dog whistle into overdrive. Anyone who would vote for this lot must be barking.

[Mr Hague]

Let me turn to the serious parts of the questions first. The hon. Lady asked about what she called the “absence” of legislation. If we look at the business I have just announced, we see that it includes the Recall of MPs Bill, the Modern Slavery Bill, which is of global importance, the Childcare Payments Bill, which will be of enormous help to many people in this country, and the National Insurance Contributions Bill, which, as with any matter of taxation, is extremely important. That is the business of the House in just the next 10 days, so to say that business is thin is a refrain for some week past; it is not relevant to this week.

The hon. Lady asked when there would be a vote on opting in to certain measures in justice and home affairs. We have, of course, already decided to opt out of 100 measures, which is the largest return of power from Brussels to Britain ever seen in the history of this country. She said that I had announced the business up to 17 November, but she was not listening carefully enough, because I have announced the business up to 11 November. There is more time before we reach 20 November, as simple arithmetic makes it possible to deduce.

The hon. Lady asked about the coalition and when there will be an opportunity for the House to discuss money resolutions and private Members’ Bills. Those are discussed on private Members’ Bills days, and this issue was raised in Prime Minister’s questions yesterday. It can hardly be said that the House does not have an opportunity to address these things, but, as she will have gathered, money resolutions have not been agreed in the Government on the European Union (Referendum) Bill or the Affordable Homes Bill. She asks whether that allows other private Members’ Bills to proceed, and the answer to that is yes. That is why I have announced in the business the money resolution relating to the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill, which will be moved on Monday. I am also placing on the Order Paper a motion that will allow that Bill to go into Committee. Other private Members’ Bills are, in the light of this situation, able to proceed.

The hon. Lady asked about votes that took place this week in the House of Lords, and of course the Bill she mentions will come to the Commons, we will be able to consider those amendments and the Government will have the opportunity to ask the House to reverse them if it wishes to do so. I note that yet again she did not ask—the Opposition never seem to—for any debates on, or time to discuss, the economy of this country. We look forward to a few such requests, because since the last business questions the GDP figures have shown our economy to be 3% bigger than it was a year ago and the statistics released yesterday showed the number of workless households in this country now to be at its lowest for at least 18 years—the figure is lower than at any point during the last Labour Government. Although we have our differences in the coalition from time to time, we have brought about that transformation of the economic prospects of this country. I will of course convey to the Chief Whip the hon. Lady’s congratulations on his dog doing so well in the Westminster dog of the year show.

As the hon. Lady asked about the Government record on policies towards women, I have to remind her that, under Labour, female unemployment rose 24%, and under this Government there are more women in work than ever before. When the Government whom she supported left office, 25% of the FTSE 100 boards had no female members. Now there are no FTSE 100 boards that have no female members. A higher proportion of public appointments have gone to women this year than in any year in the previous decade. Half of all honours this year have gone to women, which never happened under the previous Government. There are more women-led businesses than ever before, and there are, after the work that we have done in the Foreign Office over the past four years, more women ambassadors than ever before. Since I am on record all over the world as saying that the great strategic prize of this century is the full economic, social and political empowerment of women everywhere, it is clear that sometimes this is what a feminist looks like, with or without the T-shirt, and I have no hesitation in saying that.

Finally, as I always congratulate the hon. Lady on something—I have found something to congratulate her on every week so far—I congratulate her on being omitted by Maureen Lipman from the roll-call of reasons not to vote Labour any more. Maureen Lipman announced that, for the first time in five decades, she will not be voting Labour. She said:

“The Chuka Harman Burnham Hunt Balls brigade? I can’t, in all seriousness, go into a booth and put my mark on any one of them.”

I will draw Maureen Lipman’s attention to the hon. Lady, as she might be worth a vote.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

On Monday, we had a report on HS2 by Sir David Higgins. As with many such reports, his raised more questions than it gave answers. The blight of this project affects many thousands of people along the proposed route, including many of my constituents. Uncertainty now about the location of the east midlands hub will only serve to spread this blight even wider. May we please have a statement from the Government about when we will know the location of the east midlands hub and the route for phase 2, so that people can get the compensation they need to get on with their lives?

[Mr Hague]

I will draw my hon. Friend’s concerns to the attention of Transport Ministers. Clearly, the location of the east midlands hub needs to work for both Derby and Nottingham, and provide the best possible wider connectivity to the region. However, that work is in its early stages, so it is premature to say that there will be a Government statement on it, and unfair to identify any particular sites until the Government are more certain about where that site might go because of the risk of blight to people’s properties. None the less, I understand the concerns of my hon. Friend and I will draw them to the attention of the Ministers.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Earlier this week, I asked the Minister for Skills and Equalities, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), what the Government were doing to help young people with special needs get into employment. His answer was unsatisfactory. Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate on the matter in Government time, so that we can explore the options available to Government to ensure that young people with special needs can get employment?

[Mr Hague]

Those are important issues, and the Government will have a great deal to say in such a debate about what has been achieved. Given the forthcoming business schedule, I cannot offer a debate in Government time, but the hon. Gentleman can of course pursue a debate in many different ways, including through the Backbench Business Committee, and I encourage him to do so.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

My constituent David Harrison was employed through a so-called umbrella company in the building trade. His payslip shows deductions for holiday pay, company margin and both employer’s and employee’s national insurance. Some umbrella firms are paying part of the wages as expenses to avoid tax. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to make a statement on the legality of such arrangements and what enforcement action his Department is taking?

[Mr Hague]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern about that. I cannot offer a statement, but he may be aware that there are oral questions to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on Monday, so there will be an early opportunity to ask about that and other issues.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Is it not time, in the interests of the House and of informing public opinion, that we had a debate in Government time on the implications of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership? The Leader of the House was in the Chamber for part of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions when a number of Government Members asked about food safety. There are also implications for environmental regulations, wages, terms and conditions, and concerns about the NHS. Would it not be opportune, while the negotiations are proceeding in secret, to have an open and public debate about them?

[Mr Hague]

It is certainly important for these matters to be discussed. The Government will not allow TTIP negotiations to harm the NHS. TTIP will not change the fact that it is up to British Governments alone to decide how British public services, including the NHS, are run, whoever is in government, and that must remain the case. But I understand that the hon. Gentleman has concerns and different arguments about it. Again, I cannot offer a debate in Government time. A great deal of the time of the House is now allocated and well used by the Backbench Business Committee, so I encourage him to use those opportunities, as well as to continue to question the Ministers responsible.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

A hundred years ago, the Chatham-based military cruisers HMS Cressey, HMS Hogue and HMS Aboukir were sunk off the Dutch coast, resulting in the loss of 1,459 men, including many from the Medway area, which covers my constituency. As part of this year’s commemoration of the start of the first world war, it would be a fitting tribute for the Government to designate those wrecks under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. May we have an urgent statement from the Defence Secretary on the commemorations of the first world war as we approach Remembrance Sunday?

[Mr Hague]

This specific point is under consideration by Defence Ministers. My hon. Friend may know that a large number of wrecks have been designated under the Protection of Military Remains Act. Since 2002, there have been five statutory instruments relating to that. The Ministry of Defence is now considering which ships, from a list of more than 5,000, should be included in the next statutory instrument, but I can confirm that the three he has just referred to are part of that consideration, and I know that the Defence Secretary will note his strong support for their inclusion.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

We should have that debate about the role of the Chief Whip, because he is not here again. I wonder whether he has something personal against the Leader of the House, whom I have found to be a very affable fellow in the 35 years that I have known him, despite our political differences. The Chief Whip’s job is just to sit quietly in the corner of the classroom. Does it not come to something when he cannot do that and is playing truant all the time?

[Mr Hague]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that, despite all the nice things that he has just said about me, I robustly defend the Chief Whip. He is always busy and he is always present, wherever we think he may be.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

The Government are putting in place a series of initiatives to boost the northern economy, centred around major cities. However, areas such as my own in northern Lincolnshire do not benefit from a trickle-down from a neighbouring major city. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate when we can look at refining those policies so that areas such as mine benefit?

[Mr Hague]

This is a very important issue as we continue to decentralise as much as possible in England. It is important to draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the fact that city deals—the growth of freedom for local authorities to spend more of their own resources—are not just for well-known cities. They are also for other parts of the country. In fact, the black country has a city deal. There is a Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire city deal that goes far beyond any city. So it is possible for local authorities outside the main conurbations to benefit from this as well.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

As I have just returned from a visit to Iraq and Kurdistan with the Foreign Affairs Committee, and as we are working closely with the Kurds at the moment, may we also ask for equal treatment of men and women in Kurdistan? I was shocked to find that women are still put in prison for adultery in Kurdistan, but men are not. That cannot be right.

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Lady is quite right to raise this issue. In line with my answer earlier to the shadow Leader of the House, these are the sorts of issues I have raised all over the world as Foreign Secretary until a few months ago. In that whole region, particularly given what ISIL is doing to so many women, including rape and enslavement, this is a very important issue. Of course, we must always make clear our views on these important issues to Governments across the middle east, and not hesitate to do so. I certainly endorse what she has said.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

The Leader of the House will be only too aware of the enormous sacrifices that the people of the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies have made for Queen and country for so long, including their contribution in the first world war, yet they are still denied the right to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in their own right. Will he please, in the final months of this Parliament, ask the Prime Minister to make a statement to change this position so that on Remembrance Sunday this year, on the anniversary of world war one, for the first time this Government will allow our territories and dependencies the right to lay their own wreathes and take their place alongside the representatives of the Commonwealth of nations?

[Mr Hague]

As my hon. Friend knows, and as I know very well as a former Foreign Secretary, a wreath is laid on behalf of the overseas territories. I know that he is asking for them to lay it themselves, but the Foreign Secretary at the Cenotaph on Remembrance day lays, on behalf of all the overseas territories, a wreath that is decorated and composed of the vegetation and the flowers of all the overseas territories. It is a very special wreath laid on their behalf, and a very heavy one, I can tell him. I am not going to commit my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to giving up his own role in laying that wreath, but I will, of course, convey to my right hon. Friend what my hon. Friend has said.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House will know that the Smith Commission has been meeting and making steady progress on more powers for Scotland. One of the things that Smith made abundantly clear was that more powers for Scotland should be considered without condition and without reference to any other external issue. Will the right hon. Gentleman respect that in any subsequent debate that we have in this House? Will we have it about Scotland, not about English votes for English laws, to ensure that the wishes of the Smith Commission are respected?

[Mr Hague]

The commitments made by all the pro-Union parties on Scotland are unconditional. We have all made that clear in the House before. Indeed, Lord Smith is getting on with that work and constructive discussions are taking place. The Government are contributing, when asked, information and analysis to help that work. There is a legitimate debate about fairness to all in the United Kingdom and that is why we have said that issues regarding all the other parts of the United Kingdom must be considered in tandem, but they are not conditional upon progress in Scotland, nor will they become conditional at any stage. But the hon. Gentleman cannot ask the rest of us to have no discussion about the affairs of the rest of the United Kingdom.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

This is a question of principle and reflects remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman in respect of the tabling of money resolutions. One has to study the annals of history to find occasions when a Government have refused to table a money resolution, thereby frustrating the clear will of the House. Although it may not be entirely unprecedented, it is extremely rare and exceptional for a Government to decline to respect the clearly expressed will of the House by refusing to table a money resolution, so will the Government be prepared to make a statement on the occasions when this situation occurs so that the House can then express its will again? This is an important issue.

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is understandably promoting his Bill and would like to have seen a money resolution for it. He is right that it is unusual but not unprecedented for the Government not to move a money resolution. There have been previous instances of that under Governments of different parties. He also understands that his Bill is a very unusual one, because it is unusual for the expenditure entailed by a private Member’s Bill—the precise figure may be disputed—to run into hundreds of millions of pounds. On such issues, the Government must, of course, ask whether they can responsibly provide a money resolution. This is an unusual situation. There is no particular provision in our rules for statements about that, but I think I have made the Government’s position clear.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

During Health questions last week, the Secretary of State referred to the importance of peer review, yet the national peer review programme, which monitors the quality and safety of cancer services across England, is under serious threat of being cut. May we have an urgent debate on the future of that vital programme?

[Mr Hague]

As is often discussed in the House, the Government have a strong record on cancer. We have introduced the cancer drugs fund and put a great deal of emphasis on early diagnosis, and we will continue with that work. I will draw the point the hon. Lady makes to the attention of Health Ministers, but I encourage her also to pursue it with them at Question Time and through Adjournment or Back-Bench business debates.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Last Friday I had a very enjoyable lunch with two constituents at the William Withering, a Wetherspoon’s pub in Wellington in my constituency. The menu listed the calories and grams of fat for each food item, which is very helpful for someone who, like me, is trying to lose weight. Given the obesity challenge that the whole country faces, may we have a debate on how the Government can work more closely with the food and drink industry to see more of that good practice in other restaurants and leisure facilities up and down the land?

[Mr Hague]

I am glad that my hon. Friend is touring the pubs of his constituency while simultaneously fighting obesity—always a challenge, but he appears to be succeeding in both objectives. It is something I have often done, and I strongly recommend it to all Members, particularly as elections draw close. We have just had questions on food matters to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but it is wholly legitimate for my hon. Friend to seek to raise the matter in other ways on the Floor of the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I was hoping that we were going to hear about the Leader of the House’s judo and other exercise regimes, but there might be more of that anon—who knows?

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on wildlife crime? The Leader of the House will know that two days ago Natural England published a report showing that of the 47 hen harriers that it has tagged with transmitters over the past seven years, only four are thought still to be alive. That shows that there are serious problems and I think that the House should debate them.

[Mr Hague]

That is a very important concern. Indeed, as chair of the Government’s committee on animal health issues, including wildlife, I feel very strongly about it. We fund the wildlife crime unit, which of course is intended to tackle these problems, so Ministers are very conscious of the issue, and they will have been further reminded by the hon. Gentleman raising it.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

On 22 January, the European Scrutiny Committee referred EU Document No. 16930/13, entitled “Free movement of EU citizens”, for debate on the Floor of the House. After nine months, can the Leader of the House indicate how close we are to having that debate?

[Mr Hague]

Well, we are closer than we were nine months ago, but not so close that I can announce it in the business for the week ahead. I know that it was an important report by the Committee, and that this is an issue on which hon. Members have strong feelings and opinions, so I will undertake to examine the point my hon. Friend has made.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

On the economy, which I raised during Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, and which I am happy to discuss with the Leader of the House anytime, may we have an urgent debate on living standards? In particular, why is it that, despite decreasing levels of unemployment, the deficit has increased by 10% over the past year?

[Mr Hague]

I wish the hon. Gentleman well in raising the economy from the Opposition Benches because he is a bit of a lone voice. I welcome his doing so at Prime Minister’s questions and business questions, and indeed the fact that he asks about the deficit, which his leader regularly forgets. The deficit is down by more than a third from what the coalition Government inherited in 2010. His party has so far opposed some £83 billion of savings in welfare budgets, so we can only imagine what the deficit would be if it was still in office.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

May we have a debate on the guidance issued in February 2012 by the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government? It stated that local authorities should take steps to stop the use of contracts that allow consultants to avoid paying income tax and national insurance contributions at the rate paid by those on PAYE.

Last week, Somerset county council changed its pay policy, but, in spite of several amendments that would have regulated matters, the leader refused an invitation to align the policy with Government guidance, saying that Parliament should legislate if it really wants Somerset county council to follow what it says is “only guidance”. May we have a debate to sort the matter out once and for all?

[Mr Hague]

It is guidance, and it has been adopted across Government Departments and many parts of local government. It is good practice to adopt it. We are not at a stage of the Parliament in which it is easy to call for new legislation on any matter; my hon. Friend is free to call for that in the coming months, but we do not have the opportunity to introduce it. I am sure that she can pursue the point with my colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government, who will be interested to hear of her concerns.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

When can we debate early-day motions 409 to 435, which record and honour, and express our sorrow at the deaths of, the 453 of our brave soldiers killed in Afghanistan?

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Captain Thomas Clarke, aged 30, from Cardiff, Flight Lieutenant Rakesh Chauhan, aged 29, from Birmingham, Warrant Officer Class 2 Spencer Faulkner, aged 38, Corporal James Walters, aged 36, from Cornwall, Lance Corporal Oliver Thomas, aged 26, from Brecon, Sapper Adam Moralee, aged 23, from Newcastle, Captain Richard Holloway, aged 29, from Durham, Warrant Officer Class 2 Ian Fisher, aged 42, from Essex, Lance Corporal James Brynin, The Intelligence Corps, aged 22, from Shoreham-by-Sea, Flight Lieutenant Steven Johnson, aged 38, from Collingham, Nottinghamshire, Flight Lieutenant Leigh Anthony Mitchelmore, aged 28, from Bournemouth, Flight Lieutenant Gareth Rodney Nicholas, aged 40, from Newquay, Cornwall, Flight Lieutenant Allan James Squires, aged 39, from Clatterbridge, Flight Lieutenant Steven Swarbrick, aged 28, from Liverpool, Flight Sergeant Gary Wayne Andrews, aged 48, from Tankerton, Kent, Flight Sergeant Stephen Beattie, aged 42, from Dundee, Flight Sergeant Gerard Martin Bell, aged 48, from Ely, Cambridgeshire, Flight Sergeant Adrian Davies, aged 49, from Amersham, Buckinghamshire, Sergeant Benjamin James Knight, aged 25, from Bridgwater, Sergeant John Joseph Langton, aged 29, from Liverpool, Sergeant Gary Paul Quilliam, aged 42, from Manchester, Corporal Oliver Simon Dicketts, The Parachute Regiment, aged 27, Marine Joseph David Windall, Royal Marines, aged 22, Corporal William Thomas Savage, aged 30, from Irvine, Fusilier Samuel Flint, aged 21, from Blackpool and Private Robert Murray Hetherington, from the United States of America.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Lance Corporal Jamie Webb, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 24, from Wythenshawe, Kingsman David Robert Shaw, 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, aged 23, from Barrow-in-Furness, Sapper Richard Reginald Walker, 28 Engineer Regiment, aged 23, from Leeds and Captain Walter Barrie, 1 Scots, aged 41, from Glasgow, Lieutenant Edward Drummond-Baxter, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 29, from County Durham, Lance Corporal Siddhanta Kunwar, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 28, from Pokhara, Nepal, Corporal David O'Connor, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 27, from Havant, Hampshire, Corporal Channing Day, 3 Medical Regiment, aged 25, from Newtownards, County Down, Captain Carl Manley, Royal Marines, aged 41, Captain James Anthony Townley, Corps of Royal Engineers, aged 29, from Tunbridge Wells, Sergeant Jonathan Eric Kups, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, aged 38, from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, Sergeant Gareth Thursby, 3 Yorks, aged 29, from Skipton, Private Thomas Wroe, 3 Yorks, aged 18, from Huddersfield, Lance Corporal Duane Groom, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 32, from Suva City, Fiji, Sergeant Lee Paul Davidson, The Light Dragoons, aged 32, from Doncaster, and Guardsman Karl Whittle, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 22, from Bristol.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Corporal Jack Leslie Stanley, The Queen's Royal Hussars, aged 26, from Bolton, Sergeant Luke Taylor, The Royal Marines, aged 33, from Bournemouth, Lance Corporal Michael Foley, Adjutant General's Corps (Staff and Personnel Support), aged 25, from Burnley, Lancashire, Captain Rupert William Michael Bowers, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 24, from Wolverhampton, Sergeant Nigel Coupe, 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, aged 33, from Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire, Corporal Jake Hartley, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 20, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, Private Anthony Frampton, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 20, from Huddersfield, Private Christopher Kershaw, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 19, from Bradford, Private Daniel Wade, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 20, from Warrington, Private Daniel Wilford, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 21, from Huddersfield, Senior Aircraftman Ryan Tomlin, 2 Squadron RAF Regiment, aged 21, from Hemel Hempstead, Lance Corporal Gajbahadur Gurung, Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 26, from Majthana, Nepal, Signaller Ian Gerard Sartorius-Jones, 20th Armoured Brigade Headquarters and Signal Squadran (200), aged 21, from Runcorn, Cheshire, Rifleman Sachin Limbu, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 23, from Rajghat, Morang, Nepal, Private John King, 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 19, from Darlington, Squadron Leader Anthony Downing, Royal Air Force, aged 34, from Kent and Captain Tom Jennings, Royal Marines, aged 29.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Guardsman Jamie Shadrake, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 20, from Wrexham, Wales, Lance Corporal Matthew David Smith, Corps of Royal Engineers, aged 26, from Aldershot, Lieutenant Andrew Robert Chesterman, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 26, from Guildford, Warrant Officer Class 2 Leonard Perran Thomas, Royal Corps of Signals, aged 44, from Ross-on-Wye, Guardsman Craig Andrew Roderick, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, aged 22, from Cardiff, Guardsman Apete Saunikalou Ratumaiyale Tuisovurua, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, aged 28, from Fiji, Corporal Alex Guy, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 37, from St Neots, Cambridgeshire, Lance Corporal James Ashworth, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 23, from Kettering, Private Gregg Thomas Stone, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 20, from Yorkshire, Corporal Michael John Thacker, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, aged 27, from Swindon, Wiltshire, Captain Stephen James Healey, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, aged 29, from Cardiff, Corporal Brent John McCarthy, Royal Air Force, aged 25, from Priorslee, Telford, Lance Corporal Lee Thomas Davies, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, aged 27, from Carmarthen, Corporal Andrew Steven Roberts, 23 Pioneer Regiment, The Royal Logistic Corps, aged 32, from Middlesbrough, Private Ratu Manasa Silibaravi, 23 Pioneer Regiment, The Royal Logistic Corps, aged 32, from Fiji, Guardsman Michael Roland, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 22, from Worthing and Sapper Connor Ray, 33 Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), aged 21, from Newport.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Sapper Elijah Bond, 35 Engineer Regiment Royal Engineers, aged 24, from St Austell, Rifleman Sheldon Lee Jordan Steel, 5th Battalion The Rifles, aged 20, from Leeds, Private Thomas Christopher Lake, 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, aged 29, from Watford, Lieutenant David Boyce, 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards, aged 25, from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, Lance Corporal Richard Scanlon, 1st The Queen's Dragoons Guards, aged 31, from Rhymney, Gwent, Lance Corporal Peter Eustace, 2nd Battalion The Riffle, aged 25, from Liverpool, Private Matthew Thornton, 4th Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 28, from Barnsley, Private Matthew James Sean Haseldin, 2nd Battalion The Mercia Regiment, aged 21, from Settle, Yorkshire, Rifleman Vijay Rai, 2nd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 21, from the Bhojpur District, Deaurali East of Nepal, Marine David Fairbrother, Kilo Company, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 24, from Blackburn, Lance Corporal Jonathan James McKinley, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 33, from Darlington, County Durham, Sergeant Barry John Weston, Kilo Company, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 40, from Reading, Lieutenant Daniel John Clack, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 24, from North London, Marine James Robert Wright, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 22, from Weymouth and Corporal Mark Anthony Palin, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 32, from Plymouth.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Lance Corporal Paul Watkins, 9th/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales's), aged 24, from Port Elizabeth, Republic of South Africa, Highlander Scott McLaren, The Highlanders 4th Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 20, from Edinburgh, Private Gareth Leslie William Bellingham, 3rd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Stafford), aged 22, from Stoke-on-Trent, Corporal Lloyd Newell, The Parachute Regiment, Craftsman Andrew Found, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, aged 27, from Whitby, Rifleman Martin Jon Lamb, 1st Battalion the Rifles, aged 27, from Gloucester, Lance Corporal Martin Joseph Gill, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 22, from Nottingham, Corporal Michael John Pike, The Highlanders 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 26, from Huntly, Scotland, Lieutenant Oliver Richard Augustin, Juliet Company, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 23, from Kent, Marine Samuel Giles William Alexander MC, Juliet Company, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 28, from London, Colour Sergeant Kevin Charles Fortuna, A Company, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 36, from Cheltenham, Marine Nigel Dean Mead, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 19, from Carmarthen, Captain Lisa Jade Head, 11 EOD Regiment RLC, aged 29, from Huddersfield, Colour Sergeant Alan Cameron, 1st Battalion Scots Guards, aged 42, from Livingston, Scotland, Major Matthew James Collins, 1st Battalion Irish Guards, aged 38, from Backwell, Somerset and Lance Sergeant Mark Terence Burgan, 1st Battalion Irish Guards, aged 28, from Liverpool.]

[That this House That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Private Daniel Steven Prior, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 27, from Peacehaven, East Sussex, Lance Corporal McKee, 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment, aged 27, from Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland, Lance Corporal Liam Richard Tasker, Royal Army Veterinary Corps, aged 26, from Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, Private Robert Wood, 17 Port and Maritime Regiment Royal Logistic Corps, aged 28, from Hampshire, Private Dean Hutchinson, 9 Regiment The Royal Logistic Corps, aged 23, from Wiltshire, Lance Corporal Kyle Cleet Marshall, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 23, from Newcastle, Private Lewis Hendry, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 20, from Norwich, Private Conrad Lewis, 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 22, from Bournemouth, Warrant Officer Class 2 (Company Sergeant Major) Colin Beckett, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 36, from Peterborough, Ranger David Dalzell, 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment, aged 20, from Bangor County Down, Private Martin Simon George Bell, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 24, from Bradford, Private Joseva Saqanagonedau Vatubua, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 24, from Suva, Fiji, Warrant Officer Class 2 Charles Henry Wood, 23 Pioneer Regiment Royal Logistic Corps, serving with the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Taks Force, aged 34, from Middlesbrough, and Corporal Steven Thomas Dunn, 216 (Parachute) Signal Squadron, attached to 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment Battlegroup, aged 27, from Gateshead.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Private John Howard, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 23, from Wellington, New Zealand, Guardsman Christopher Davies, 1st Battalion Irish Guards, aged 22, from St Helens, Merseyside, Ranger Aaron McCormick, 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment, aged 22, from Coleraine in County Londonderry, Senior Aircraftsman Scott ‘Scotty' Hughes, 1 Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment, aged 20, from North Wales, Sapper William Bernard Blanchard, 101 (City of London) Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), aged 39, from Gosport, Hampshire, Corporal David Barnsdale, 33 Engineer Regiment, aged 24, from Tring, Sergeant Peter Anthony Rayner, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, aged 34, from Bradford, Rifleman Suraj Gurung, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 22, from Gorkha in Nepal, Corporal Matthew Thomas, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Sergeant Andrew James Jones, Royal Engineers, aged 35, from Newport, South Wales, Trooper Andrew Martin Howarth, The Queen's Royal Lancers, aged 20, from Bournemouth, Kingsman Darren Deady, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, aged 22, from Bolton, Captain Andrew Griffiths, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, aged 25, from Richmond, North Yorkshire, Lance Corporal Joseph McFarlane Pool, The Royal Scots Borderers 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 26, from Greenock, and Lance Corporal Jordan Dean Bancroft, 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, aged 25, from Burnley.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Sapper Ishwor Gurung, 69 Gurkha Field Squadron, 21 Engineer Regiment, aged 21, from Pokhara, Nepal, Sapper Darren Foster, 21 Engineer Regiment, aged 20, from Carlisle, Rifleman Remand Kulung, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire), aged 27, from Nepal, Lietuenant John Charles Sanderson, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire), aged 29, from Oklahoma, USA, Marine Adam Brown, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 26, from Burtle, near Glastonbury, Lance Sergeant Dale Alanzo McCallum, 1st Battalion Scots Guards, aged 31, from Hanover, Jamaica, Sapper Mark Antony Smith, 36 Engineer Regiment, aged 26, from Swanley, Kent, Corporal Matthew James Stenton, The Royal Dragoon Guards, aged 23, from Wakefield, Lance Corporal Stephen Daniel Monkhouse, 1st Battalion Scots Guards, aged 28, from Greenock, Staff Sergeant Brett George Linley, The Royal Logistic Corps, aged 29, from Birmingham, Sergeant David Thomas Monkhouse, The Royal Dragoon Guards, aged 35, from Aspatria, Cumbria, Senior Aircraftman Kinikki ‘Griff' Griffiths, aged 20, Marine Jonathan David Thomas Crookes, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 26, from Birmingham, Marine Matthew Harrison, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 23, from Hemel Hempstead, Major James Joshua Bowman, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 34, from Salisbury, Lieutenant Neal Turkington, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 26, from Craigavon, and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 33, from Khibang village Magdi District, Nepal.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Marine David Charles Hart, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 23, from Upper Poppleton, North Yorkshire, Bombardier Samuel Joseph Robinson, 5th Regiment Royal Artillery, aged 31, from Carmarthen, Private Thomas Sephton, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 20, from Warrington, Trooper James Anthony Leverett, Royal Dragoon Guards, aged 20, from Sheffield, Corporal Seth Stephens, Royal Marines, Corporal Jamie Kirkpatrick, 101 Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), aged 32, from Llanelli, Bombardier Stephen Raymond Gilbert, 4th Regiment Royal Artillery, aged 36, from Topcliffe, North Yorkshire, Colour Sergeant Martyn Horton, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 34, from Runcorn, Lance Corporal David Ramsden, 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 26, from Leeds, Private Douglas Halliday, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 20, from Wallasey, Merseyside, Private Alex Isaac, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 20, from the Wirral, Sergeant Steven William Darbyshire, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 35, from Wigan, Lance Corporal Michael Taylor, Charlie Company, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 30, from Rhyl, Marine Paul Warren, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 23, from Leyland, Lancashire, Marine Richard Hollington, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 23, from Petersfield, Trooper Ashley Smith, Royal Dragoon Guards, aged 21, from York, Corporal Taniela Tolevu Rogoiruwai, aged 32, from Nausori, Fiji, Kingsman Pomipate Tagitaginimoce, aged 29, from Nausori, Fiji, and Marine Steven James Birdsall, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 20, from Warrington.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Lance Corporal Andrew Breeze, B (Malta) Company, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire), aged 31, from Manchester, Private Jonathan Monk, 2nd Battalion The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, aged 25, from London, Lance Bombardier Mark Chandler, 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, aged 32, from Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, Corporal Terry Webster, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire), aged 24, from Chester, Lance Corporal Alan Cochran, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire), aged 23, from St Asaph, North Wales, Marine Anthony Dean Hotine, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 21, from Warminster, Marine Scott Gregory Taylor, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 20, from Buxton, Corporal Stephen Curley, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 26, from Exeter, Gunner Zak Cusack, 4th Regiment Royal Artillery, aged 20, from Stoke-on-Trent, Corporal Stephen Walker, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 42, from Lisburn, Northern Ireland, Corporal Christopher Lewis Harrison, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 26, from Watford, Sapper Daryn Roy, 21 Engineer Regiment, aged 28, from Consett, County Durham, Lance Corporal Barry Buxton, 21 Engineer Regiment, aged 27, from Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, Corporal Harvey Holmes, 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 22, from Hyde, Greater Manchester, Fusilier Jonathan Burgess, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, aged 20, from Townhill, Swansea, Rifleman Mark Turner, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 21, from Gateshead and Guardsman Michael Sweeney, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, aged 19, from Blyth in Northumberland.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Rifleman Daniel Holkham, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 19, from Chatham, Kent, Lance Corporal of Horse Jonathan Woodgate, Household Cavalry Regiment, aged 26, from Lavenham, Suffolk, Sergeant Steven Campbell, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 30, from Durham, Lance Corporal Scott Hardy, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 26, from Chelmsford, Private James Grigg, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 20, from Hartismere, Suffolk, Captain Martin Driver, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 31, from Barnsley, Corporal Stephen Thompson, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 31, from Bovey Tracey, Devon, Lance Corporal Tom Keogh, 4th Battalion The Rifles, aged 24, from Paddington, London, Rifleman Liam Maughan, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 18, from Doncaster, Rifleman Jonathan Allott, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 19, from North Shields, Corporal Richard Green, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 23, from Reading, Rifleman Carlo Apolis, 4th Battalion The Rifles, aged 28, from South Africa, Sergeant Paul Fox, 28 Engineer Regiment, aged 34, from St Ives, Rifleman Martin Kinggett, 4th Battalion The Rifles, aged 19, from Dagenham, Senior Aircraftman, Luke Southgate, II Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment, aged 20, from Bury St Edmunds, Lance Sergeant David ‘Davey' Walker, 1st Battalion Scots Guards, aged 36, from Glasgow, Lieutenant Douglas Dalzell, 1st Battalion Goldstream Guards from Berkshire and Sapper Guy Mellors, 36 Engineer Regiment, aged 20, from Coventry.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Kingsman Sean Dawson, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, aged 19, from Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester, Rifleman Mark Marshall, 6th Battalion The Rifles, aged 29, from Exeter, Lance Sergeant Dave Greenhalgh, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 25, from Ilkeston, Derbyshire, Lance Corporal Darren Hicks, from Mousehole, Cornwall, Warrant Officer Class 2 David Markland, 36 Engineer Regiment, aged 36, from Euxton, Lancashire, Corporal John Moore, The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 22, from Lanarkshire, Private Sean McDonald, The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 26, from Edinburgh, Corporal Liam Riley, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 21, from Sheffield, Lance Corporal Graham Shaw, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 27, from Huddersfield, Lance Corporal Daniel Cooper, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 22, from Hereford, Rifleman Peter Aldridge, 4th Battalion The Rifles, aged 19, Corporal Lee Brownson, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 30, from Bishop Auckland, Rifleman Luke Farmer, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 19, from Pontefract, Captain Daniel Reed, 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps, aged 32, from Rainham, Kent, Private Robert Hayes, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 19, from Cambridge, Sapper David Watson, 33 Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), aged 23, and Rifleman Aidan Howell, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 19, from Sidcup, Kent.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Lance Corporal Tommy Brown, The Parachute Regiment, Lance Corporal Christopher Roney, A Company, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 23, from Sunderland, Lance Corporal Michael David Pritchard, 4th Regiment, Royal Military Police, aged 22, from Maidstone, Corporal Simon Hornby, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, aged 29, from Liverpool, Lance Corporal David Leslie Kirkness, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 24, from West Yorkshire, Rifleman James Stephen Brown, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 18, from Kent, Lance Corporal Adame Drane, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 23, from Bury St Edmunds, Acting Sergeant John Paxton Amer, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, from Sunderland, Sergeant Robert David Loughran-Dickson, 4th Regiment Royal Military Police, aged 33, from Deal, Kent, Corporal Loren Owen Christopher Marlton-Thomas, 33 Engineer Regiment (EOD), aged 28, Rifleman Andrew Ian Fentiman, 7th Battalion The Rifles, aged 23, from Cambridge, Rifleman Samuel John Bassett, 4th Battalion The Rifles, aged 20, from Plymouth, Rifleman Philip Allen, 2 Rifles, aged 20, from Dorset, Sergeant Phillip Scott, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, aged 30, from Malton, Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards, aged 40, from Walthamstow, Sergeant Matthew Telford, 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards, aged 37, from Grimsby, Guardsman James Major, 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards, aged 18, from Grimsby, and Corporal Steven Boote, Royal Military Police, aged 22, from Birkenhead, Liverpool.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, Royal Military Police, aged 24, from Glangwili, Staff Sergeant Olaf Sean George Schmid, Royal Logistic Corps, aged 30, from Truro, Corporal Thomas ‘Tam' Mason, the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 27, from Rosyth, Corporal James Oakland, Royal Military Police, aged 26, from Manchester, Lance Corporal James Hill, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, aged 23, from Redhill, Surrey, Guardsman James Janes, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 20, from Brighton, Acting Corporal Marcin Wojtak, 34 Squadron RAF regiment, aged 24, from Leicester, Private James Prosser, 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh, aged 21, from Cwmbran, Acting Sergeant Michael Lockett MC, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, from Monifieth in Angus, Acting Sergeant Stuart McGrath, 2nd Battalion, The Rifles, aged 28, from Buckinghamshire, Trooper Brett Hall, 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, aged 21, from Dartmouth, Kingsman Jason Dunn-Bridgeman, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, aged 20, from Liverpool, Corporal John Harrison, The Parachute Regiment, Private Gavin Elliott, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 19, from Woodsetts, Worksop, Nottinghamshire, Lance Corporal Richard Brandon, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, aged 24, from Kidderminster, Sergeant Stuart ‘Gus' Millar, The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 40, from Inverness, Private Kevin Elliott, The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 24, from Dundee, and Sergeant Lee Andrew Houltram, Royal Marines.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Fusilier Shaun Bush, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, aged 24, from Warwickshire, Sergeant Paul McAleese, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 29, from Hereford, Private Jonathon Young, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment (Duke of Wellington's), aged 18, from Hull, Lance Corporal James Fullarton, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, aged 24, from Coventry, Fusilier Simon Annis, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, from Salford, Fusilier Louis Carter, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, from Nuneaton, Sergeant Simon Valentine, aged 29, from Bedworth, Private Richard Hunt, 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh, aged 21, from Abergavenny, Captain Mark Hale, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 42, from Bournemouth, Lance Bombardier Matthew Hatton, 40th Regiment Royal Artillery (The Lowland Gunners), aged 23, from Easingwold, North Yorkshire, Rifleman Daniel Wild, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 19, from Hartlepool, Private Jason George Williams, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 23, from Worcester, Corporal Kevin Mulligan, The Parachute Regiment, aged 26, Lance Corporal Dale Thomas Hopkins, The Parachute Regiment, aged 23, Private Kyle Adams, The Parachute Regiment, aged 21, Craftsman Anthony Lombardi, aged 21, from Scunthorpe, Trooper Phillip Lawrence, Light Dragoons, aged 22, from Birkenhead, Warrant Officer Class 2 Sean Upton, 5th Regiment Royal Artillery, aged 35, from Nottinghamshire and Bombardier Craig Hopson, 40th Regiment Royal Artillery (The Lowland Gunners), aged 24, from Castleford.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Guardsman Christopher King, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, aged 20, from Birkenhead, Liverpool, Captain Daniel Shepherd, 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, The Royal Logistic Corps, aged 28, from Lincoln, Corporal Joseph Etchells, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, aged 22, from Mossley, Rifleman Aminiasi Toge, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 26, from Suva, Fiji, Corporal Jonathan Horne, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 28, from Walsall, Rifleman William Aldridge, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 18, from Bromyard, Herefordshire, Rifleman James Backhouse, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 18, from Castleford, Yorkshire, Rifleman Joe Murphy, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 18, from Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, Rifleman Daniel Simpson, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 20, from Croydon, Corporal Lee Scott, 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, aged 26, from King's Lynn, Private John Brackpool, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, aged 27, from Crawley, West Sussex, Rifleman Daniel Hume, 4th Battalion The Rifles, Trooper Christopher Whiteside, The Light Dragoons, aged 20, from Blackpool, Captain Ben Babington-Browne, 22 Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers, aged 27, from Maidstone, Lance Corporal Dane Elson, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, aged 22, from Bridgend, Lance Corporal David Dennis, The Light Dragoons, aged 29, from Llanelli, Wales, Private Robert Laws, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 18, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe MBE, Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards and Trooper Joshua Hammond, 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, aged 18.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Major Sean Birchall, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, aged 33, Lieutenant Paul Mervis, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 27 from London, Private Robert McLaren, The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 20 from the Isle of Mull, Rifleman Cyrus Thatcher, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, aged 19 from Reading, Lance Corporal Nigel Moffett, The Light Dragoons, aged 28 from Belfast, Corporal Stephen Bolger, The Parachute Regiment, Lance Corporal Kieron Hill, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Worcesters and Foresters), aged 20, from Nottingham, Lance Corporal Robert Martin Richards, Armoured Support Group Royal Marines, aged 24, from Betws-y-Coed, North Wales, Sapper Jordan Rossi, 25 Field Squadron, 38 Engineer Regiment, aged 22 from West Yorkshire, Fusilier Petero ‘Pat' Suesue, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, aged 28 from Fiji, Marine Jason Mackie, Armoured Support Group Royal Marines, aged 21 from Bampton, Oxfordshire, Lieutenant Mark Evison, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, Aged 26, Sergeant Ben Ross, 173 Provost Company, 3rd Regiment Royal Military Police, Corporal Kumar Pun, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, Rifleman Adrian Sheldon, 2 Rifles, from Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Corporal Sean Binnie, 3 Scots, aged 22, Lance Sergeant Tobie Fasfous, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, aged 29, Corporal Dean Thomas John, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, aged 25 from Neath, and Corporal Graeme Stiff, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, aged 24 from Munster, Germany.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Lance Corporal Christopher Harkett, 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh, aged 22, from Swansea, Marine Michael ‘Mick' Laski, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 21, from Liverpool, Corporal Tom Gaden, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 24, from Taunton, Lance Corporal Paul Upton, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 31, Rifleman Jamie Gunn, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 21, from Leamington Spa, Lance Corporal Stephen ‘Schnoz' Kingscott, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 22, from Plymouth, Marine Darren ‘Daz' Smith, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 27, from Fleetwood, Lancashire, Corporal Daniel ‘Danny' Nield, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 31, from Cheltenham, Acting Corporal Richard ‘Robbo' Robinson, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 21, from Cornwall, Captain Tom Sawyer, 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, aged 26, from Hertfordshire, Corporal Danny Winter, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 28, from Stockport, Marine Travis Mackin, Communications Squadron United Kingdom Landing Force Command Support Group, aged 22, from Plymouth, Sergeant Chris Reed, 6th Battalion The Rifles, aged 25, from Plymouth, Corporal Liam Elms, RM, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 26, from Wigan, Lance Corporal Benjamin Whatley, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 20, from King's Lynn, Corporal Robert Deering, Commando Logistic Regiment Royal Marines, aged 33, from Solihull, Rifleman Stuart Nash, 1st Battalion The Rifles, aged 21, from Sydney, Australia, and Lieutenant Aaron Lewis, 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, aged 26, from Essex.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Lance Corporal Steven ‘Jamie' Fellows, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 28, from Sheffield, Marine Damian Davies, aged 27, Sergeant John Manuel, aged 38, from North East England, Corporal Mark Birch, aged 26, from Northampton, Marine Tony Evans, aged 20, from Sunderland, Marine Georgie Sparks, aged 19, from Epping, Marine Alexander Lucas, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 24, from Edinburgh, Colour Sergeant Krishnabahadur Dura, 2nd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 36, from the Lamjung District of Western Nepal, Marine Neil David Dunstan, aged 32, from Bournemouth, Marine Robert Jospeh McKibben, aged 32, from County Mayo, Rifleman Yubraj Rai, 2nd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 28, from Khotang District, Eastern Nepal, Trooper James Munday, aged 21, from the Birmingham area, Lance Corporal Nicky Matson, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 26, from Aveley in Essex, Private Jason Lee Rawstron, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 23, from Lancashire, Warrant officer Class 2 Gary ‘Gaz' O' Donnell GM, 1 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment Royal Logistic Corps, aged 40, from Edinburgh, Ranger Justin James Cupples, 1st Battalion The Royal Irish Regiment, aged 29, from County Cavan, Ireland, Corporal Barry Dempsey, The Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 29, from Ayrshire, Signaller Wayne Bland, 16 Signal Regiment, aged 21, from Leeds and Private Peter Joe Cowton, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 25, from Basingstoke.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Sergeant Jonathan Mathews, The Highlanders, 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 35, from Edinburgh, Lance Corporal Kenneth Michael Rowe, Royal Army Veterinary Corps, aged 24, from Newcastle, Corporal Jason Stuart Barnes, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, aged 25, from Exeter, Lance Corporal James Johnson, B Company, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 31, from Scotland, Warrant Officer 2nd Class Dan Shirley, Air Assault Support Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps, aged 32, from Leicester, Warrant Officer 2nd Class Michael Norman Williams, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 40, from Cardiff, Private Joe John Whittaker, 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 20 from Stratford-upon-Avon, Corporal Sarah Bryant, Intelligence Corps, aged 26, from Liverpool, Corporal Sean Robert Reeve, Royal Signals, aged 28, Lance Corporal Richard Larkin, aged 39, Paul Stout, aged 31, Lance Corporal James Bateman, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 29, from Staines, Middlesex, Private Jeff Doherty, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 20, from Southam, Warwickshire, Private Nathan Cuthbertson, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 19, from Sunderland, Private Daniel Gamble, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 22, from Uckfield, East Sussex, Private Charles David Murray, 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 19, from Carlisle, and Marine Dale Gostick, 3 Troop Armoured Support Company, Royal Marines, aged 22, from Oxford.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Drummer Thomas Wright, 1st Battalion The Worcestershire and Sherwood Forresters, aged 21, from Ripley, Derbyshire, Guardsman Neil ‘Tony' Downes, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 20, from Manchester, Lance Corporal Paul 'Sandy' Sandford, 1st Battalion The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, aged 23, from Nottingham, Corporal Mike Gilyeat, Royal Military Police, aged 28, Corporal Darren Bonner, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 31, from Norfolk, Guardsman Daniel Probyn, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 22, from Tipton, Lance Corporal George Russell Davey, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 23, from Suffolk, Guardsman Simon Davison, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 22, from Newcastle upon Tyne, Private Chris Gray, A Company 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 19, from Leicestershire, Warrant Officer Class 2 Michael ‘Mick' Smith, 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, aged 39, from Liverpool, Marine Benjamin Reddy, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 22, from Ascot, Berkshire, Lance Bombardier Ross Clark, aged 25, from South Africa, Lance Bombardier Liam McLaughlin, aged 21, from Lancashire, Marine Scott Summers, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 23, from Crawley, East Sussex, Marine Jonathan Holland, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 23, from Chorley, Lancashire, Lance Corporal Mathew Ford, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 30, from Immingham, Lincolnshire, Marine Thomas Curry 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 21, from East London and Lance Bombardier James Dwyer, 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, aged 22.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of James Thompson, Trooper Ratu Sakeasi Babakobau, Household Cavalry Regiment, aged 29, from Fiji, Trooper Robert Pearson, The Queen's Royal Lancers Regiment, aged 22, from Grimsby, Senior Aircraftman Graham Livingstone, Royal Air Force Regiment, aged 23, from Glasgow, Senior Aircraftman Gary Thompson, Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment, aged 51, from Nottingham, Lieutenant John Thornton, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 22, from Ferndown, Marine David Marsh, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 23, from Sheffield, Corporal Damian Mulvihill, 40 Commando Royal Marines, aged 32, from Plymouth, Corporal Damian Stephen Lawrence, 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards), aged 25, from Whitby, Corporal Darryl Gardiner, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, aged 25, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, Sergeant Lee Johnson, 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, aged 33, from Stockton-on-Tees, Trooper Jack Sadler, The Honourable Artillery Company, aged 21, from Exeter, Captain John McDermid, The Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 43, from Glasgow, Lance Corporal Jake Alderton, 36 Engineer Regiment, aged 22, from Bexley, Major Alexis Roberts, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 32, from Kent, Colour Sergeant Phillip Newman, 4th Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 36, Private Brian Tunnicliffe, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Worcesters and Foresters), aged 33, from Ilkeston, Corporal Ivano Violino, 36 Engineer Regiment, aged 29, from Salford and Sergeant Craig Brelsford, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 25, from Nottingham.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Private Johan Botha, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, from South Africa, Private Damian Wright, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 23, from Mansfield, Private Ben Ford, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 18, from Chesterfield, Senior Aircraftman Christopher Bridge, C flight, 51 Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment, aged 20, from Sheffield, Private Aaron James McClure, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 19, from Ipswich, Private Robert Graham Foster, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 19, from Harlow, Private John Thrumble, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 21, from Chelmsford, Captain David Hicks, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 26, from Surrey, Private Tony Rawson, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 27, from Dagenham, Essex, Lance Corporal Michael Jones, Royal Marines, aged 26, from Newbald, Yorkshire, Sergeant Barry Keen, 14 Signal Regiment, aged 34, from Gateshead, Guardsman David Atherton, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 25, from Manchester, Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 22, from East Dereham, Norfolk, Guardsman Daryl Hickey, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 27, from Birmingham, Sergeant Dave Wilkinson, 19 Regiment Royal Artillery, aged 33, from Ashford, Kent and Captain Sean Dolan, 1st Battalion The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, aged 40, from the West Midlands.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Marine Richard J Watson, 42 Commando Royal Marines, aged 23, from Caterham, Surrey, Marine Jonathan Wigley, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 21, from Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, Marine Gary Wright, 45 Commando Royal Marines, aged 22, from Glasgow, Lance Corporal Paul Muirhead, 1 Royal Irish Regiment, aged 29, from Bearley, Warwickshire, Lance Corporal Luke McCulloch, 1 Royal Irish Regiment, aged 21, Corporal Mark William Wright, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 27, from Edinburgh, Private Craig O'Donnell, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, aged 24, from Clydebank, Flight Lieutenant Steven Johnson, aged 38, from Collingham, Nottinghamshire, Flight Lieutenant Leigh Anthony Mitchelmore, aged 28, from Bournemouth, Flight Lieutenant Gareth Rodney Nicholas, aged 40, from Newquay, Cornwall, Flight Lieutenant Allan James Squires, aged 39, from Clatterbridge, Flight Lieutenant Steven Swarbrick, aged 28, from Liverpool, Flight Sergeant Gary Wayne Andrews, aged 48, from Tankerton, Kent, Flight Sergeant Stephen Beattie, aged 42, from Dundee, Flight Sergeant Gerard Martin Bell, aged 48, from Ely, Cambridgeshire, Flight Sergeant Adrian Davies, aged 49, from Amersham, Buckinghamshire, Sergeant Benjamin James Knight, aged 25, from Bridgwater, Sergeant John Joseph Langton, aged 29, from Liverpool, Sergeant Gary Paul Quilliam, aged 42, from Manchester, Corporal Oliver Simon Dicketts, The Parachute Regiment, aged 27, Marine Joseph David Windall, Royal Marines, aged 22, and Ranger Anare Draiva, 1 Royal Irish Regiment, aged 27, from Fiji.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Lance Corporal Jonathan Peter Hetherington, 14 Signal Regiment (Electronic Warfare), aged 22, from South Wales, Corporal Bryan James Budd, 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, aged 29, from Ripon, Lance Corporal Sean Tansey, The Life Guards, aged 26, from Washington, Tyne and Wear, Private Leigh Reeves, Royal Logistics Corps, aged 25, from Leicester, Private Andrew Barrie Cutts, Air Assault Support Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps, aged 19, from Mansfield, Captain Alex Eida, Royal Horse Artillery, aged 29, from Surrey, Second Lieutenant Ralph Johnson, Household Cavalry Regiment, aged 24, from Windsor, Lance Corporal Ross Nicholls, Blues and Royals, aged 27, from Edinburgh, Private Damien Jackson, 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, aged 19, from South Shields, Tyne and Wear, Corporal Peter Thorpe, Royal Signals, aged 27, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi, Intelligence Corps, aged 24, from Birmingham, and Captain David Patton, The Parachute Regiment, aged 38.]

[That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces who served in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Sergeant Paul Bartlett, Royal Marines, aged 35, Captain Jim Phillipson, 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, aged 29, from St Albans, Hertfordshire, Lance Corporal Peter Edward Craddock, 1st Battalion The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, aged 31, Corporal Mark Cridge, 7 Signal Regiment, aged 25, Lance Corporal Steven Sherwood, 1st Battalion The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry, aged 23, from Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, Private Jonathan Kitulagoda, The Rifle Volunteers, aged 23, from Clifton, Bedfordshire, Sergeant Robert Busuttil, the Royal Logistic Corps, Corporal John Gregory, the Royal Logistic Corps, and Private Darren John George, the Royal Anglian Regiment.]

Is it not time to initiate an inquiry into the Helmand incursion? In 2006, we were told that we were going in for three years in the hope that not a shot would be fired; at that time, only two British soldiers had been killed in combat. Should we not inquire into the matter, which was possibly the worst military blunder in our history since the charge of the Light Brigade?

[Mr Hague]

If we were to make a list of military blunders throughout history, it would be long and substantial before we came to anything in the last few years.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s first point. The next step is for the House to have a debate or a statement from the Defence Secretary in the coming weeks, given our withdrawal from Afghanistan, about the sacrifices made and what has been achieved. Sometimes more has been achieved on some issues in Afghanistan than we get the credit for. There will be either a debate or a statement, and I will be following the matter up.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

When it comes to the vote on the European arrest warrant, among other matters, may we have the fullest possible debate so that we can understand the safeguards that have been negotiated and whether they are indeed adequate?

[Mr Hague]

We will be able to have a debate about those things—[Hon. Members: “When?] Understandably, the Opposition ask when, but understandably I will announce it when I am ready to. It will take place within the parameters that the Prime Minister set out.

As my hon. Friend says, it will be important to be able to look at these things in detail. Good work in Government in recent years has changed how the European arrest warrant works. Our domestic changes mean that we can refuse arrest warrants in minor cases and ensure that a British judge considers whether extradition is proportionate. We can block an arrest warrant where the incident does not amount to a crime under UK law. We can prevent lengthy pre-trial detention. Many of the concerns that were correctly expressed when the European arrest warrant was brought in have successfully been addressed over recent years.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I will try to help the Leader of the House out with talking about the economy. May we have a debate recognising the contributions that universities in this country have made to the British economy and international economy? I am thinking particularly of the university of Warwick, which celebrates its 50th birthday in the coming months.

[Mr Hague]

I join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating the university of Warwick on its anniversary and many other universities on their work. I cannot offer a debate, although I hope we would not disagree about the importance of this. We are fortunate in this country to have many of the leading universities of the world. That is part of the major contribution that Britain makes to science, to health, and to so many issues right across the globe, and it is very important that we always continue to do so.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

There is no better example of welfare reform in action than giving children the economic security of growing up in a household in which people earn a regular pay packet. The Leader of the House is right to draw the House’s attention to the fact that the proportion of workless households is now the lowest since records began. Coming on the back of the largest ever annual fall in unemployment, does not that strengthen the case for a full day’s economic debate, with a vote, on the day of the autumn statement?

[Mr Hague]

There is a very good case for economic debates. The Chancellor will present the autumn statement in the usual way, but I hope there will be a great deal of scope to discuss economic matters after that. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of the issue of workless households. The number of workless households has gone down by 670,000 since the last general election, and the number of households where no one has ever worked has gone down by 50,000. That is an enormous change in this country that would never have happened under the policies of the Labour party.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend arrange for the Foreign Secretary to find out whether the UK could benefit from an emergency cap on all migrants from within—and, indeed, without—the European Community, so that in future no more than 100,000 bodies are allowed?

[Mr Hague]

As my hon. Friend knows, the Prime Minister has been speaking about this subject, and he will speak about it further in the coming weeks, because it will be important in what the party to which he and I belong believes should be a renegotiation of our relationship with the European Union after the next general election. It is an important issue in that context. We have already taken many measures, such as reducing entitlement to benefits, including jobseeker’s allowance, on arrival in this country. However, I am not aware of any workable proposal for a cap under existing laws and treaties.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement by the Secretary of State for Justice on fixed-term recalls? I think that most people around the country will believe, and would expect, that when a criminal is released from prison early, if they commit another offence before the end of their original sentence they will be sent back to prison for the full duration of that sentence. However, 42% of recalls are now 28-day fixed-term recalls. In the first nine months of last year, 1,260 burglars were given 28-day fixed-term recalls instead of serving the full length of their original sentence. May we have a statement about this, because it causes a lot of alarm to many of our constituents and puts people at unnecessary risk of being a victim of crime?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue, and he will not be the only one with questions about it. As he may be aware, the next session of Justice questions is on 11 November—a week on Tuesday—so I encourage him to raise these subjects directly with the Justice Secretary then.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the importance of ancient woodland in the west midlands? In my constituency, proposals for HS2, despite some recent mitigations, will do significant damage to ancient woodland near Hints, and now Lafarge Tarmac has announced that it wants to demolish vast tracts of ancient woodland in Hopwas wood in order to quarry for gravel, outraging my constituents. A debate would allow us to discuss the importance of ancient woodland and how we can protect it.

[Mr Hague]

I have no doubt that my hon. Friend speaks for the concerns of many of his constituents on this. As he knows, the hybrid Bill on the first phase of HS2 is in Committee, where petitions are being heard. Ancient woodlands are a very important part of our national heritage. Where it has not been possible to avoid such sites in relation to HS2, we have been seeking refinements to the proposed line. I am sure he knows that we are committed to ensuring that appropriate mitigation measures are in place, including the transplantation of ancient woodland soils, where practicable, and the planting of 2 million trees during phase 1 of HS2.

Backbench Business

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

UK Drugs Policy

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In calling Caroline Lucas to move the motion, I congratulate her on the award she received last night at the Pink News awards in Speaker’s House, which I hope will enjoy the acclamation of her colleagues across the Chamber.

11:59

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that drug-related harms and the costs to society remain high; further notes that the independent UK Drugs Policy Commission highlighted the fact that Government is spending around £3 billion a year on policies that are often counter-productive; believes that an evidence-based approach is required in order for Parliament and the Government to pursue the most effective drugs policy in the future; welcomes the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee in its Ninth Report of 2012-13, HC 184, that the Government consider all the alternatives to the UK’s failing drug laws and learn from countries that have adopted a more evidence-based approach; notes that the Government has responded positively to this recommendation and is in the process of conducting an international comparators study to consider the effectiveness of national drug policies adopted by a range of countries; and calls on the Government to conduct an authoritative and independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to publish the results of those studies within the next 12 months.

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. I am delighted to open this debate and would like to start by thanking both the Backbench Business Committee for its support and the nearly 135,000 people who signed the petition I set up on the No. 10 website, which has enabled us to have this debate.

The motion notes that drug-related harms and the costs to society remain high. It makes the case that there is a wealth of evidence to that effect and calls on the Government to conduct an authoritative and independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to publish the results of those studies within the next 12 months.

The motion has been very carefully written so as not to promote one policy model over and above another. It simply advances the principle that our drugs policy should be based on evidence of what works to reduce harm to individuals, communities and families affected by drugs misuse. In order to get that evidence, we need a thorough analysis and assessment of the current legislation, including comparing it with alternative models. For that reason, I hope that hon. Members who are in favour of a prohibition-based drugs policy, as well as those who advocate alternative approaches, will support this motion, because, in essence, what it seeks to do is get the evidence.

Since the 1971 Act was passed, there has been no process of reviewing whether it is achieving its dual objectives of reducing drugs misuse and the associated social harms.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Lady. It is about 30-odd years since the Act was introduced and there should be a reassessment to see how we can bring it up to date with a proper policy.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and absolutely agree with him. Reviews take place in many other policy areas to check whether objectives are being met, and it is high time we had such a review of the 1971 Act.

The Government’s drugs strategy is itself subject to review, but that is a self-limiting process. In other words, it intends to look only at value for money and in terms only of whether the amount spent is more or less than the value of the positive outcomes. That review will be carried out in 2015 and it will not consider whether other approaches would be better value for money. Neither will it include the negative outcomes—the presumably unintended consequences—of the policy in its calculations.

I warmly welcome today’s publication of the Government’s international comparators study. I pay tribute to the Minister for Crime Prevention, who is in his place, for the leadership he has shown in the process. The study has been long awaited. It was commissioned on the recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee and is a considered review of the different approaches to drug policy pursued around the world.

The review indicates that introducing an alternative to prohibition would not, contrary to some claims, boost drug use, and it could save millions of pounds if users were treated for addiction rather than jailed. It seems that the evidence for the issue of drug use to be moved to the Department of Health, in order for the focus to be on treating rather than punishing addiction, is overwhelming as well. This is just the first step towards a drugs policy that puts harm reduction first, and I welcome it warmly, but we urgently need to follow up on this comparison of international approaches and learn the lessons from it for our own UK-based legislation. That is why this debate is so important.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I also congratulate the hon. Lady, not only on her award, which is well deserved, but on her work on this issue? In respect of following up, I also welcome the report led by the Minister. The Home Affairs Committee, prompted by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), will hold a separate session specifically on our last set of recommendations. It will be held in Cambridge, in honour of the hon. Gentleman, and I hope we can persuade the hon. Lady to come along and speak.

[Caroline Lucas]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for all his leadership on this issue as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). I am very happy to take up that kind invitation. To be serious, I am very glad that the Home Affairs Committee is doing that extra piece of very important work.

Such work is important because drug misuse destroys individuals, families and communities, and an ineffective drugs policy only compounds that damage. All too often, success in the war on drugs is measured in numbers of arrests or seizures of drugs, but many of us believe that we should assess whether the harms associated with drug misuse are rising or declining.

The Home Secretary acknowledged in the foreword to her Government’s drug strategy:

“Individuals do not take drugs in isolation from what is happening in the rest of their lives.”

I agree. Poverty, social exclusion and inequality all have an impact on drug use and drug markets. Research by the Equality Trust has shown a clear and demonstrable correlation between drug misuse and inequality. There is a strong tendency for drug abuse to be more common in countries, such as the UK, that are more unequal. Ending social exclusion must therefore be at the heart of any effective strategy to reduce drug-related harms. To do that, we need to marshal the evidence.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Contrary to press reports, many of us on the Conservative Benches believe that evidence-based policy would be more effective in dealing with the scourge of drugs.

[Caroline Lucas]

What the hon. Gentleman says is absolutely true. In a sense, this is not a party political matter: people from across this House and the other place believe that we should have an evidence-based approach, rather than an approach that for too long has been dictated by fear, particularly fear of the tabloids. It is important to have this debate.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her award, even though, as I was nominated for it, I feel some frustration. It has been a great pleasure to work with her on this issue. Her voice is, and I hope will continue to be, very valuable in this place. Will she confirm that many newspapers are now coming out in favour of change, and that the public want change? Today, The Sun shows that roughly two thirds of people want a reform of drugs policy.

[Caroline Lucas]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being nominated, and I am sure he will win next time. His point is incredibly important. Until now, politicians often thought that they were reflecting public opinion, but they are now massively behind it, as the poll in The Sun absolutely demonstrates.

It strikes me that a time of austerity, with the Government seemingly looking under every last stone to find money to save, is an odd time not to consider drugs policy, given that so much money is invested in the current drugs regime. Yet drugs policy seems to be completely divorced from the usual considerations about public spending and the good use of taxpayers’ money, and we simply have no proper public mechanism for knowing whether the money spent on the so-called war on drugs has been put to good effect.

No one now buys alcohol in unmarked bottles from the back of a pub—that would be dangerous and unnecessary—but for 40 years we have left our children to do exactly that with drugs. There is no denying that drug misuse has the potential to wreck lives, but surely it is time to be honest about the damage caused by the drug laws, which can cause a proliferation of criminality and public harm. The entire drugs trade has been handed over to the worlds’ racketeers and gangsters. The drugs market has soared, and that has brought untold misery. Essentially, the current market is almost wholly uncontrolled.

From speaking to young people in my constituency, it is clear that many of them can get hold of drugs far more easily than alcohol, which is surely wrong. When someone tries to get hold of alcohol, they at least have to show an ID card if they are thought to be under age. Drug dealers do not care about someone’s ID or anything else; they care only about their profits. I believe that the current policy is based on a deliberate ignorance about the effect of drugs.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate, and on her extraordinary petition, which has 130,000 signatures. I understand that 20% of people who have taken heroin said that they got it for the first time in jail. If we cannot control drugs in jail, how on earth are we supposed to control them on our streets?

[Caroline Lucas]

That is an extremely good point. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very helpful intervention, which speaks for itself.

If we are to design a better drugs policy that is based on evidence, we need to agree on the objectives of drugs policy. For me, it is about protecting people, particularly the young and vulnerable, as well as reducing crime, improving health, promoting security and development, providing good value for money and protecting human rights. In setting out why that is important, I will say a little more about the impact of the current drugs policy and why I believe it adds to the case for a review; I will talk a little about the growing consensus on rethinking the current approach to drugs policy; and I will say a little about Brighton and Hove, where my constituency is situated, where the approach of following the evidence as far as possible has delivered benefits.

Before doing any of that, I would like to talk about Martha. Martha’s mother, Anne-Marie Cockburn, is in Parliament with us today. Like so many parents, she had always wanted to protect her child. However, on 20 July 2013, she learned that that was not always possible. On that day, Martha swallowed half a gram of MDMA powder—ecstasy—and died. She was 15 years old. Today, 30 October, would have been Martha’s 17th birthday. She is not celebrating that birthday because the Misuse of Drugs Act did not protect her. Making MDMA illegal did not protect Martha. We owe it to her and to Anne-Marie, and to the many other people who have died drug-related deaths and their families and loved ones, to ensure that in future each and every one of us is offered the best possible protection by our drugs laws.

In her incredibly moving blog, “What Martha Did Next”, Anne-Marie writes:

“Had Martha known that what she was about to take was 91% pure, she would probably have taken a lot less, in fact I’d go as far as to say that she might still be alive.”

Anne-Marie argues that, under prohibition, it is impossible fully to educate people such as Martha, because there is no way to tell what drugs contain. Prohibition has not stopped risk-taking, but it has made those risks much more dangerous. Anne-Marie suggests that we are failing to protect children such as Martha—that we are letting them down—and that, alongside deterring young people from taking drugs, we need a regulatory model that reduces the risk if drugs do get into the hands of young people such as Martha.

I agree with Anne-Marie. Perhaps many people in the Chamber will not. However, the fact that Martha is not celebrating her 17th birthday today is surely the first of many good reasons to carry out an impact assessment of our drugs laws. We urgently need to know whether prohibition is an obstacle to education about drugs, and whether our children would be better protected by alternatives, such as strict regulation. Despite all the accusations that are thrown at those who are in favour of drug policy reform, the bottom line is that it is not about being pro-drugs, but about saving lives. The only credible way to do that is to know whether our policies are up to the job.

That is especially important because there is powerful evidence that the so-called war on drugs is making things worse. Far from being neutral, in many instances the current model pushes users towards more harmful products, behaviours and environments. Let me give two examples of what I mean. In doing so, it is crucial to distinguish between the suffering that is caused by drugs and that which is caused by drugs policy.

First, the vast majority of drug-related offending happens not because people take drugs, but because of drugs policy. Users are driven to burglary and theft to buy drugs at vastly inflated prices in an unregulated market. There is enormous potential significantly to reduce such crime and its impact on our communities under a different system.

Secondly, on legal highs, according to research into synthetic drugs by Demos and the UK Drug Policy Commission, 40 new substances emerged on to the market in 2010, compared with 24 in the previous year. By 2014, the figure had grown to 80 different synthetic drugs. Professor Les Iversen, the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, recently admitted that drug control legislation is being forced to play “cat and mouse”. Such substances are routinely banned under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but that simply spawns more substances that, in turn, are banned. The legal process cannot keep up.

The Government have published a report today that recommends that all novel synthetic psychoactive substances, or legal highs as they are more widely known, be banned. I appreciate what they are trying to do with that policy, but I think that it is misguided. It fails to appreciate that many legal highs are the products of prohibition. Synthetic cannabis, for example, would not exist if there were a legally regulated supply of real cannabis. Nor does the policy recognise our knowledge that prohibition—in other words, banning things—does not stop people taking drugs, but simply increases the risks.

[Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the only people the current policy really benefits are the drug lords and crime lords who sell this disgusting stuff to our children? If her policies were realised, it would put those people out of business for good.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the current—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Lady has been speaking for 15 minutes, so I am sure that we are nearing the end of the opening speech. [Interruption.] I assure her that we are nearing the end of the speech.

[Caroline Lucas]

Of course I am getting near the end, Mr Deputy Speaker. With that in mind, I shall simply agree with the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton).

The current policy is essentially putting users at greater risk by driving the creation of yet more ways to stay one step ahead of the law and by making research into the harms associated with new substances much more difficult.

[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (Ind)]

Many of the new synthetic drugs are sold in shops up and down the country. If we do nothing to control the way in which the shops operate, such drugs will continue to be available. Most of them are sold over the counter and very few are sold illicitly in clubs. Where will the hon. Lady’s reforms lead us in terms of banning such shops from operating?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. There are two ways to respond. The motion simply says that we should look at the evidence. I am not saying where that will lead us. On the shops that sell so-called legal highs, we are not talking about an absence of control. On the contrary, we are talking about regulation and control. My argument with the Government’s statement on legal highs is that it assumes that if we ban them and drive them underground, they will go away. They will not. It is likely that they will be even more dangerous and that people will not know what they are taking.

One proposal in Transform’s blueprint for a drugs policy, which I warmly recommend, is a step-by-step process by which we look at how we regulate and control drugs. For example, it might be possible to get hold of them in a licensed pharmacy if people show a certain level of ID. There are all sorts of ways in which we could regulate and control the drugs market. I repeat that this is not about legalising drugs or having a free-for-all, but about bringing regulation and control back into a market that is in the hands of gangs and other people who do not care what is in the substances. They do not care about the purity of a substance; they care only about their profit. I stress again that this is about regulation and control.

Although, sadly, we do not systematically collect and assess data for the purposes of ensuring that the Misuse of Drugs Act is the best way to meet our drugs policy objects, there is a wealth of informative data out there. The evidence that I have seen is enough to persuade me of the need for drugs policy reform. However, I repeat that the motion simply asks for an independent review of the evidence. I therefore hope that those who do not agree with my interpretation of the evidence will still support the motion.

I thank the Minister for Crime Prevention again for his work on the Government’s comparators report. It shows that there is a wealth of evidence from many other countries that we could have a very different drugs policy in this country. In order to protect people in this country in the most effective way possible, it is incumbent on us as a Parliament to look at the comparators report, learn from it and see how we can make our drugs policy more effective.

12:17

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the thoughtful contribution of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). I welcome her bringing this debate to the House.

I will speak about a harm-reduction approach to drugs policy. I do not hold a moralistic view on the taking of drugs, other than my objection to people supporting one of the most evil worldwide businesses or cartels. It always surprises me that people who object to buying coffee in Starbucks and who refuse to support Amazon are quite happy to support cartels that cause untold misery to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Until such time as we have a change in drugs policy, I hope that people who support the drugs industry will reflect on the wider harms that they, personally, are causing.

Talking of harm reduction, I welcome an approach that says, “Let’s look at the evidence and be driven by the evidence in what we do.” However, there is one piece of evidence on which we should reflect, which is that drug use is falling in this country. According to surveys from the Office for National Statistics, the level of class A drug use among young people—16 to 24-year-olds—has fallen from 9.2% in 1996 to 4.8% in 2012-13. That is a significant drop.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the approach that she is taking. However, we need to be really clear about the evidence that drug use is going down. The only real model that we can see over time is that there was a 32% increase in respect of some of the most serious drugs, heroin and morphine, last year. Cannabis use has been coming down, but that has happened irrespective of the policy context and of whether it has been class B, class C or anything else.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point. Cannabis use among 16 to 24-year-olds is now at its lowest level since records began, at around 13.5%. I think the view we sometimes hear that we are losing the war on drugs is factually incorrect, and there are many markers.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

I have great respect for the hon. Lady’s experience in this matter. Does she see a connection between the falling use of illegal drugs that she is highlighting, and the rising use of legal highs?

[Dr Wollaston]

Legal highs are a rather separate issue. I agree we must consider that they may have unintended consequences, but I would not follow that as a direct cause or link. I do not agree with that.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Wollaston]

May I make a little progress and then I will come back to the hon. Gentleman?

I would like to focus on cannabis for a moment—that is the issue I have most correspondence about—and on its harms. Cannabis is often presented as somehow a harmless product, and if we compare it with alcohol and consider the numbers of deaths and injuries, alcohol undoubtedly currently causes far greater harm in our society. However, before we assume that it must therefore be acceptable to legalise cannabis, I want to focus a little on its harms. In the short term, there is double the risk of a car crash for people driving under the influence of cannabis, and in the longer term, one in six young users will become dependent. It simply not true to say that cannabis is not a drug of dependence—it is.

For me, this is about the impact of cannabis on young users and teenagers, because they will double their risk of a psychotic illness. In my career I have met many families and young people whose lives have been completely devastated as a result of psychosis—I come to this debate from that viewpoint and my real concern about what psychosis does to people, because many of them did not recover. That is particularly important for those who have a family history of psychotic illness. For example, if someone has a first degree relative with a history of schizophrenia and they start using cannabis as a teenager, they will double their risk of a psychotic illness from 10% to 20%—a significant increase.

[Dr Huppert]

It is always interesting to listen to the hon. Lady, and I do not think anybody is trying to make the case that drugs, legal or illegal, are harmless. Does she accept, however, that because we make it an illegal system, we cannot do what has been done in California, for example, where medicinal marijuana has allowed the breeding of strains of marijuana that are less psycho-harmful?

[Dr Wollaston]

That is why I want to see the longer term results from Colorado and Washington state, and whether as a result of that system the harm to young people from cannabis is reduced. Personally, I think it is too early to say what the effects will be, but I will be following the results closely. If I see clear evidence of harm reduction, I will completely change my approach to this issue.

People often write to me and say, “Well look at Portugal where there has been a reduction in drug use”, but the Czech Republic, which has the same approach in not prosecuting people for personal use, has one of the highest levels of cannabis use across Europe. We must be careful about how selectively we quote from the evidence.

[Mike Thornton]

I have great respect for the hon. Lady’s skill and knowledge, which is probably greater than mine. In Portugal they take a great deal of care to look after the people brought to their attention who have problems with drugs, and they treat them properly, which works. Perhaps in the Czech Republic they do not use the same approach. It could be that that is the case.

[Dr Wollaston]

There is certainly a strong case for a much better medical approach to drug use—certainly for hard drug use. My point is about relative uses. People often write to me and say that we would cut cannabis use if we took a different approach to decriminalisation. As I say, I am not dogmatic about the issue, and I would like to see the longer term outcomes from legalisation in Washington state and Colorado.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Wollaston]

May I finish a few points about the medical aspects of this issue? There is also the issue of educational achievement for long-term, regular cannabis users in adolescence, because we know there is a reduction in their school performance, and it is more likely that they will end up with cognitive impairment later on. Whatever we do, we must be mindful of the effect of our policies on young people. The harms are greatest for young people who start using cannabis heavily at an early age. I hope the Minister will assure the House that when we review drugs policy he will particularly focus on its effects on young people, so that we do not head down a route that could lead to greater harm to young people as a result of policy changes.

12:25

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I was not planning to speak in this debate, because I felt that most of what I have to say would be covered by the hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), and my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn). However, I want to emphasise a couple of important points, which I hope will help the House to understand the issue.

The Home Affairs Committee has looked carefully at this issue and took a year producing a report, including a visit to Portugal. I was not able to go, but other colleagues, including the hon. Members for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) and for Cambridge, as well as the then hon. Member for Rochester and Strood, went to Portugal and provided a good outline of what is happening there. The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), Chair of the Health Committee, is right: we need to make comparisons and see what works elsewhere. That was reflected in the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, who has campaigned long and hard on this issue.

The main conclusion of the Committee’s report in 2012 was to urge the Government to initiate a royal commission, which we said could be done in a short period of time. We were not in favour of a royal commission that would last an age, and we felt that it could be completed to a timetable. Had that been accepted in 2012, we would have had the results by now; sadly, the idea was not taken up by the Government. I do not think a royal commission will be set up in the next six months, but I hope that future Governments will see it as a way of ensuring that all voices on drugs policy are heard. There are many voices out there, as we see from the number of right hon. and hon. Members who wish to take part in the debate, many of whom have great expertise in this matter. Let us hear all those voices, take the evidence, and come to a conclusion. A Select Committee can only do so much—all Select Committees try their best to cover a full agenda—and a royal commission would enable us to do much more.

[Mr Mike Hancock]

Will the right hon. Gentleman draw the attention of his Committee very rapidly to the issue raised by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith)—I also raised it in the Chamber 30 years ago—about people going into prison and coming out as heroin addicts? There needs to be a review of the way that prisons combat drugs, and I hope the Home Affairs Committee will take up the issue rapidly.

[Keith Vaz]

The first point I was going to make about drugs policy after calling for a royal commission was about prisons. The issue was raised by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), and brilliantly and eloquently exposed in the book by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), who is sitting behind the Minister. He has great knowledge and expertise from his years at the criminal Bar, and he mentioned many different aspects of the criminal justice system. There is a whole chapter on drugs in prison, and I commend the book to Members of the House. He may even have copies of it to sell to Members after the debate.

The Committee called for mandatory testing of prisoners on entry and exit, and we wanted to ensure that on exit, ex-prisoners are met at the gates and given the treatment they deserve, so that they do not reoffend and go back to prison. We found, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park said, that a quarter of prisoners first discover a taste for drugs while in prison. That is a shocking statistic and the number may even have gone up. Drugs are being used in prison and it is not acceptable. The prison authorities need to do much more, but we need to rehabilitate people, so that they do not reoffend as soon as they come out. A former Minister with responsibility for prisons is in the Chamber. He will have more knowledge of that, but I hope we get commitments from the Government and the Minister that more will be done.

[Ian Swales]

Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that, in any work his Committee does on drugs in prison, we do not narrowly define drugs? Legal and illegal drugs have been mentioned in the debate. I know from a visit to my local prison that the main drug misuse is of prescription drugs.

[Keith Vaz]

That was going to be my second point. I have a feeling that Liberal Democrat Members have a copy of my speech.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is impossible. You were not going to speak.

[Keith Vaz]

Exactly. The Liberal Democrats have an incredible mind. They are able to predict exactly what hon. Members are going to say.

Correctly, the hon. Gentleman referred to prescription drugs, which had not been mentioned. The Committee was extremely concerned by the increase in the use of prescription drugs. Indeed, when the Committee was in Miami, as hon. Members would expect it to be, en route for Colombia to look at where 70% of the cocaine in our country comes from—we have done our homework—we heard of the first case of an American doctor being prosecuted for prescribing drugs. As we know, drugs become currency in prisons and outside. That is why there is a responsibility on the medical profession to ensure that doctors prescribe effectively and understand what is happening to prescription drugs if certain patients keep coming in and asking for them. It is important to ensure that we consider the availability of those drugs, which are perfectly legal.

I have not seen the Government statement on psychoactive substances so I cannot comment on it—I believe it was a written statement, and they never send the Committee advance copies. I just remind the House that the Committee was clear that the onus ought to be on the retailers who sell psychoactive substances. I did not realise that the Government were calling for a complete ban, but where psychoactive substances are sold, we should prosecute retailers for selling them. There is no point waiting for someone to die. It is essential we do something at the beginning by getting those who sell the drugs in the first place.

My final point is on money laundering and the weakness of successive Governments’ regimes to deal with criminality. As we have heard, the drugs trade is the second most profitable illegal activity in the world. It is worth some $380 billion a year, most of which enters the financial system, some through offshore areas such as Gibraltar and other areas of that kind. We need to ensure that authorities co-operate. I am not singling Gibraltar out because you are in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Just for correctness, I am not the chair of the Gibraltar group, but I was in the past. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman needs to take this up with the new chair.

[Keith Vaz]

There is no criticism of you, Mr Deputy Speaker, of the new chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar or of anyone in Gibraltar, but we have discovered that some areas of the world are being used to launder money from drugs. Our financial authorities are not strong enough to deal with the way in which money goes through the system. That is why the Committee believes that bankers at the very senior level should be held criminally responsible if they know or are aware of laundering, or if they did not take action to prevent it.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to consider asset recovery to deal with money laundering and criminal actions. He will be aware that we have an opportunity to consider that under the Serious Crime Bill. Does he share my concern about the drafting of the asset recovery clauses? Will his Committee consider that before we debate the Bill? Does he agree that the Bill needs to take on board lessons from places such as Italy?

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am not sure that the Committee has time to consider that before Christmas, but I will do so with him. Let us sit down and see whether we can get an amendment together. I am happy to support him to make the Bill tougher, because it needs to be.

I commend the proposers of the motion.. This is a very important debate, and we do not debate UK drugs policy often enough. We need to ensure that we have more time to debate this serious and important subject.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Can I suggest everybody works on keeping their speeches to around the 10-minute mark?

12:35

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to take part in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). I am not sure whether it will cause her or me more embarrassment among our supporters that we find ourselves sharing company and the same side of the argument.

Some years ago, when the debate about drugs erupted, as it does from time to time, the media went round more or less every Front Bencher and asked whether they had ever smoked pot. I was one of the very few who never had, and I have no intention ever of doing so. That gave me a clear enough head to look at this issue on the basis of evidence, which is what the hon. Lady’s motion urges us to do.

I focused on the important distinction between soft and hard drugs, and on whether cannabis should be treated differently from hard drugs. I concluded that it should be, and that we should move to the legalisation of cannabis. We could have a small number of legal outlets while banning the active marketing and promotion of cannabis, its sale to minors and its consumption in public places.

I concluded that a move to legalisation would have a number of advantages. First, about 80% of the effort in the so-called war on drugs goes on trying to prohibit cannabis. Much less effort and resources go into the prohibition of hard drugs, which cause the greatest harm and the greatest danger. Therefore, if we could provide some legal outlets for cannabis, we would be able to focus more of the effort on the drugs that do the greatest harm.

Secondly, I concluded that the effort of trying to prohibit cannabis was ineffective. Until recently, we had a higher prevalence and usage of cannabis in this country than in Holland, where there are legal outlets. Prohibition was therefore ineffective.

Thirdly, I concluded that we were undermining respect for the law by having a law that was widely disregarded, and one that was harder to justify in a country which, after all, legalises the sale of alcohol, which can do at least as much damage as cannabis, and legalises the sale of nicotine and cigarettes, which can have more lethal consequences in the long term.

One key argument often used by those who advocate keeping cannabis on a par with hard drugs, and criminalising and prohibiting its sale in this country, is that it is supposedly a gateway drug, meaning that it leads people ineluctably to sample cocaine, and then tempts them to go on to heroin. They say that, therefore, its sale should be prohibited. I believe that the reverse is true: because the sale of cannabis is illegal, we drive soft drugs users into the arms of hard drugs pushers. They can obtain cannabis only from criminal gangs, who will want them to upgrade to drugs that are more addictive and more profitable.

[Dr Wollaston]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the real gateway is tobacco use? Most people smoke cannabis with tobacco, and that poses the greatest risk of long-term harm.

[Mr Lilley]

I will, for the sake of argument, agree with my hon. Friend, but I think that is a rather different argument from the one I am addressing.

The most important single reason for legalising the sale of cannabis is to break the link between the sale of hard drugs and the sale of soft drugs. There are only two coherent and rational policies as far as soft drugs are concerned. The Swedish approach is one of toughly enforced prohibition. I looked briefly at the report and thought it was a bit weak on analysis of the Swedish situation, but I will look at it more deeply. The other is a version of the Dutch approach, which is now the approach of a number of countries, where legal outlets are available. The worst option is falling between two stools and decriminalising use while leaving the supply in the hands of drug gangs. That leaves us open to driving soft drugs users into the arms of hard drugs pushers.

I say these things not as someone who is soft on drugs believes there is nothing is wrong with taking drugs. I believe that even if there were no health disadvantages from using drugs, there is a moral case against using them. However, just as I want to decriminalise and legalise, I do not want to de-moralise drugs. Ultimately, wherever possible moral choices should be left to individuals. In so far as we are going to be no worse off—the Dutch experience shows not a higher number of users, but fewer people pushed into harder and worse drugs—let us look at the evidence closely, and be willing to accept that although drug use may be wrong it does not automatically have to be criminal.

Lots of things are wrong. Adultery is wrong, but we do not make it a criminal offence. Lots of other things are against the moral law in which I believe, but we do not make them a criminal offence. Let us look at drugs without going to the opposite extreme of saying that any use of drugs is desirable and entirely value-free. Let us look at the evidence and see whether the policies we have been pursuing in this country have been ineffectual, have focused the effort where it is least needed and not where it is most needed, have undermined respect for the law, and have driven soft drugs users into the arms of hard drugs pushers. I hope the House will support the motion.

12:42

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley). We are both old lags in this debate and were both mentioned in the drugs report of 2002.

I am more optimistic than I have been during the past 27 years in which I have made 28 speeches on this matter in this House. At one time we had an annual debate, which was an amazing ritual. The Government, whoever they were, said how wonderfully and successfully things were going, and the Opposition would say, “Yes, we agree.” One moment I prize was when, about half way through, both Front-Bench speakers had to leave the Chamber for a fix—they were both chain smokers. They saw nothing wrong in denouncing young people and then going off to any of the 16 bars in this place and having a whisky and a cigarette. They would have a couple of paracetamol in their pockets for the headaches they were going to have the next morning. They could not see any contradiction between that and laying down laws for young people.

The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) talked about the myth that the use of drugs has gone down because of Government action. There is absolutely no correlation. Let us look at the past 43 years. When the Drugs Misuse Act 1971 was passed with the support of all parties—always a worrying thing—there were fewer than 1,000 heroin and cocaine addicts in the whole country. The last figure I saw was 320,000. There has been a steady increase over the years. The reason there has now been a decline in cannabis use and other activities by young people is that they have a new addiction. They have an almost universal addiction to their Tablets and iPhones—that is where their attention is going. It is all to do with fashion. Drug taking might be cool one year and naff the following year. It all depends on that.

The hon. Lady made a point about Portugal, which is a great success story. It changed its policy in 2001. Within a very short time the number of deaths went down by 50%,and it does not have the cost of prosecutions and so on. It has been a continuing success. The change in the Czech Republic is relatively recent and we have yet to see the results, but there are encouraging signs.

I have to apologise to the Minister. I was so ungracious as to believe that he was going to follow the path of all the other Ministers with responsibility for drugs, including some very distinguished ones. I remember when the beloved Mo Mowlam was in charge of drugs. Her letters would comprise the civil service reply and a little note on the top, written by her, saying, “See you in the Strangers Bar to tell you what I really think.” [Laughter.] When the current Minister came before the Home Affairs Committee, I asked him whether he had had the compulsory lobotomy to become a Minister with responsibility for drugs in exchange for his red box. It was not true! The Minister stuck to his views, and here we have the first ever intelligent document on drugs from Government in 43 years—the only one that is evidence-based. We have had evidence-free, prejudice-rich policies for years from politicians who were cowardly. They would not take on the tabloids. Some years ago, the Liberal Democrats decided that they were going to pursue the policy that we are encouraging today and they were denounced by The Sun for going to pot.

There is cowardice because of prejudice, but we know that public opinion is way ahead of us. The public know the stupidity and impotence of our drugs policy. I regularly ask how many prisons in Britain are drug free. I always get the answer that there are none. If we cannot keep hard drugs out of prisons, how on earth can we keep them out of schools, clubs or anywhere else? It is a pretence.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Women go into prisons like Holloway drug-free and come out with a drug habit, such are the difficulties of keeping drugs out of prison.

[Paul Flynn]

There is a splendid book called “Invisible Women” about Holloway prison, which I commend to everyone. It tells the terrible story of what is going on there.

Another point about prison is that one medicine that was given to young women who had been badly treated and were mutilating themselves was largactil. There was a name for them in prison: they were called muppets. This was a drug for those who had serious mental health problems. The whole sorry story of drugs in prison is one of abuse by many medicinal drugs. A blind eye was turned to cannabis use because it kept a lid on things. If prisoners were on alcohol they were aggressive, but if they were on cannabis they would give everyone a hug. That is how the prisons liked it. The prison policies pursued by all parties are completely hypocritical and they illustrate the futility of prohibition.

I received a call before I came to the House from someone talking about the use of medicinal cannabis, which I have supported for a very long time. It is not that I want to use it. I have never used any illegal drug and I have no plans to use cannabis. The point is the irrationality of the Government’s stand. Cannabis in its natural form is one of the oldest drugs in the world. It has been used on all continents for 5,000 years. Now, because we are nervous and it is an illegal drug, we allow people to have only little bits of cannabis. Dronabinol, nabilone or TAC are available, but they contain only a small number of ingredients from the hundreds in any natural substance.

[Mike Thornton]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is very strange that a doctor can prescribe heroin in the form of diamorphine, a controlled and very dangerous drug, but not cannabis?

[Paul Flynn]

Indeed, and I would like to get on to that. We have just been involved in a war, which I mentioned at business questions. We went into Helmand province five years after we went into Afghanistan. We had lost only two soldiers by that time, but our main purpose in going in—hon. Members should read the speeches from 2006; I have just put them on the website—was all about stopping heroin being grown and ending the drug crop. In 2006, 90% of our heroin came from Afghanistan; yet here we are, years later, and 90% of our heroin still comes from Afghanistan. There is a difference, however: now it is cheaper because there is more of it. The efforts to control it were utterly futile, yet there is a shortage of morphine throughout the world—another issue that we have not addressed.

I come back to the point that we should look at the chemistry. Nobody knows what the effect of the various ingredients of natural cannabis is. It might well be that ingredient No. 36 neutralises ingredient No. 428. We do not know, and by stopping people having a natural drug that has proved to be beneficial, we are imposing torment on many who have serious problems, such as multiple sclerosis and other diseases that we know can be cured. It is prejudice that has driven our policies for all these years. I am heartened today by the Minister, by his courage and by the report, which is the only report—I repeat: we have waited 43 years for this—that is based on the truth and the evidence. Marvellous things are happening in other countries throughout the world, and there is a recognition that prohibition has been a curse.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

In the litany of good signs that the hon. Gentleman is seeing, I am quite certain that he will have read the article by Sir William Patey, who was our ambassador in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2012. He says:

“For the sake of both Afghans and British citizens, senior politicians must take responsibility for the failings of global prohibition, and take control of the drug trade through legal regulation.”

When someone like him says that, it is another reason to sit up and take notice.

[Paul Flynn]

That is absolutely right. We are following what happened with the prohibition of alcohol in America, where the deaths came from the use of distilled spirit. The content could not be controlled, and it was poisonous. We now have people taking drugs—often in the most concentrated form and in the most dangerous way—that are produced by people who are irresponsible. I believe that if we did not have prohibition, people would be using heroin beer and other things by now. In Amsterdam, they take their cannabis without smoking, because the danger—as with tobacco, where it is not the nicotine—is in smoking the substance. The best way would be if we relaxed about this and if people could have their drugs of choice—all dangerous and to be avoided if at all possible, but we cannot stop people seeking relaxation and comfort from drugs; that will go on. The way to do it is to end prohibition and for a courageous Government to reform our laws.

12:53

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), who was an advocate of this cause well before it was fashionable. It is good to see him in his place still arguing for it. I also echo his praise for the fantastic work that my right hon. Friend the Minister has done, which means that we have now heard praise for his work from all parties present in the Chamber, even though some representative parties that are not here have been rather more critical of the stance he has taken. It is also good to hear a degree of unanimity in the comments expressed today. There are some differences, but they are in the nuances. There is not a principled difference; all the speeches have broadly called for change to our policies.

My belief is that the so-called war on drugs has simply not worked. What it has done is cause more harms than it has alleviated. That has been clear for quite a long time, and I and my party have long called for reform. It is not about being hard on drugs or soft on drugs; it is about being smart on drugs and doing the right thing. Of course drugs are harmful. Whether they are legal or illegal, and whether they are prescribed or not prescribed, tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, cocaine and heroin are all harmful things. They all cause harms—to people who take them, to other people and to society. The model for so long in this country and in many parts of the world has been based on the idea that when it comes to some substances—not tobacco and alcohol, but the other ones, for historical reasons—our aim should be to stop people taking them. The idea is to reduce the number of users, rather than looking at the harms the substances cause. That is the wrong goal and it has not worked.

Drug use is still high, with millions of people regularly breaking the law, which is not an effective disincentive. Hon. Members can talk to many police officers about this, but frankly it makes the law look silly when 4 million people a year are committing a criminal offence, of whom 100,000—randomly selected, but with somewhat more from poorer communities and black and minority ethnic groups—get arrested, with a few unlucky people, again disproportionately poorer people and those from black and minority ethnic groups, being thrown in jail. It does not work.

[Stephen Phillips]

I may come to this if I am lucky enough to catch your eye in due course, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I do not think anyone else has made this point, but does it not also cause a lack of respect for the criminal law when every year 4 million people regularly break what is regarded as the criminal law for something that they do not think is a criminal offence?

[Dr Huppert]

Absolutely. If we asked people what sort of sentence it should be possible to get for having a spliff, they would not think that many years in jail was proportionate. I know that that does not always happen, but the maximum sentence in this instance brings the law into disrepute.

[Ms Abbott]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that politicians might just be behind public opinion on this question? A major tabloid paper reports today that it has polled its readers, who believe there should be a review of the legislation.

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, as I said in an intervention. Politicians are behind, at least in what they are prepared to say. Another survey two years ago—I cannot remember which paper ran it—showed that 77% of MPs thought we should have reform, as long as they knew they would not be named in the survey and asked to introduce it. Politicians should have the courage of their convictions, and the public’s convictions, and take action.

I shall pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who chairs the Health Committee. We have indeed seen a reduction in the raw numbers—she is absolutely right—but I think that is largely because people are taking new psychoactive substances. We are seeing a huge increase in people taking legal alternatives, rather than illegal substances. The perversity of that is that we have pushed people to take substances whose safety we know less about. We know less about the harms and we are probably increasing the risk to those people very substantially. We should also look at the system. Smoking tobacco is more harmful than chewing khat, but why would we make the dangerous one legal and the not-so-dangerous one illegal? It seems like a very strange thing to do.

As a member of the Home Affairs Committee, I was delighted that the Chair, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is sadly not in his place, agreed when I kept insisting that we should have a look at this issue. We undertook a detailed study and we heard from experts around the world. We concluded, on a cross-party basis, a key objective:

“The principal aim of Government drugs policy should be first and foremost to minimise the damage caused to the victims of drug-related crime, drug users and others.”

That is a call to completely rethink how we do drugs policy: to focus on reducing the harm, not on how many people do things that we badge as illegal.

The Home Secretary of course rejected the report’s findings and just carried on with business as usual, but we had one key victory. We secured agreement for an international comparators study, which has been worked on by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) and, now, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Prevention. That is what has come out today, and although there is a serious gap where some of the conclusions ought to be—one feels that one is being led towards something, only to find a missing paragraph saying what one should do—it is very clear. The fundamental point is that sounding tough does not matter. The rhetoric does not make any difference; it is about outcomes. The study says:

“Looking across different countries, there is no apparent correlation between the ‘toughness’ of a country's approach and the prevalence of…drug use.”

That is key. If being tough actually reduced drug use around the world, we would have to look again, but it simply does not work. It creates extra harms, so the argument falls down.

What does work? There have been lots of academic studies. The thing that most reduces drug use is having a more equal society. Solving that may be beyond the scope of this debate, and certainly beyond my scope in the time I have left, but that is what will work—not tough laws, but a more equal society. Yet we continue with the tough approach. Every year we spend millions of pounds jailing something like 1,000 people for no offence other than possession. We are not talking about people who have burgled; we are talking about simple possession offences. They are not dealers; they are not doing worse things. Jailing them does not help them to deal with their addiction; if anything, it makes things worse for them and takes money that we could spend helping them instead of punishing them.

It is therefore really good progress that we now see acceptance from the Government that a tough drugs policy does not reduce usage. Contrary to what the Home Secretary said to the Home Affairs Committee, the Government have finally accepted that in Portugal decriminalisation and a focus on treatment have not led to more drug use.

We have the Minister on board, but we need to get the Home Secretary to agree to go ahead. We spend vast amounts of money on a drugs policy. Estimates vary between £3 billion and £10 billion a year, depending on which costs are included. Times are tight, so we should spend that money effectively. We should use police resources effectively, too. If police are kept busy dealing with simple possession offences, that is time and effort that they cannot use to settle violent or acquisitive crime, or indeed the gang crime that our war on drugs is fuelling. That is why so many police officers have spoken out.

The chief constable of Durham, Mike Barton, has argued for the decriminalisation of class A drugs, highlighting the fact that prohibition has put billions of pounds into the hands of the criminals he is supposed to be fighting. Many others say the same, including Chief Constable Tom Lloyd, my own former chief constable:

“Drug dealers all over the world are laughing at law enforcement…I want the end of prohibition and the start of control and regulation so we don’t have dealers on the street.”

He has also highlighted the harm done to young people, because for a huge proportion of them, their first contact with the law comes from being stopped and searched for drugs offences. When someone is convicted, according to Tom Lloyd:

“It seems hypocritical to saddle a young person with a criminal conviction that could blight their lives”.

Such people often have problems getting jobs and travelling in the future. This causes huge problems. Because of our criminalised system, we have no control over what drugs are cut with—and these cutting agents are often worse than the drugs themselves.

We also have huge problems with discrimination. For black and minority ethnic groups, the use of harder drugs is lower, but arrests are higher and they are twice as likely to proceed to court than white people. That is not right; we should not be doing that. With more than half of stop and searches being for possession, even the Home Secretary has acknowledged the problems that can result from that.

We need a new system, focusing on treatment, education and rehabilitation and dealing with the harms caused by drugs. How we pay for that is a challenge. The answer is to take money from the criminal justice system. We need to divert the money from spending on policing and prison towards spending on helping people to break their addiction. My party has called for exactly that, continuing to spearhead those calls. At our party conference in October this year, we had a new crime policy paper, which picked up on this issue. It called for a transfer of powers from the Home Office to the Department of Health, saying that drug addiction is a health problem and should be seen as such. We should make sure that people are not sent to prison for personal possession; we should move towards decriminalisation. We propose having a royal commission to take an overall view of what we do and to keep an eye on what is happening with cannabis in the US and Uruguay. I agree with the hon. Member for Totnes that it is too early to be certain about the outcomes; we need to keep an eye open.

[Stephen Phillips]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the US, and earlier in his very powerful speech he mentioned the difficulty some young people have with being criminalised over the possession of drugs. Does he regard it as an oddity, as I do, that a person could be denied a visa to go to the United States, in some parts of which marijuana can be bought and smoked quite legally, just because they have a criminal conviction in this country for having used cannabis?

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right; I agree completely with his point. We are blighting people’s lives for no good reason, and many do not think it is proportionate.

It is not just my party that has pushed for this change for a long time. Many other Members have called for reform, like the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). We have heard the clear view of The Sun in a very strong editorial just this morning, stressing that we cannot continue with the status quo. The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said when he was Secretary of State:

“We have been engaged in a war against drugs for 30 years. We’re plainly losing it. We have not achieved very much progress.”

The former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller called for us to acknowledge the truth that

“much…of the vast expenditure on the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ has been fruitless.”

The noble Lord Lawson, with whom I disagree on many things, said:

“I have no doubt that the present policy is a disaster.”

Then there is the Prime Minister. When he was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2002, along with the hon. Member for Newport West, he voted to recommend

“that the Government initiates a discussion within the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways—including the possibility of legalisation and regulation—to tackle the global drugs dilemma”.

The Prime Minister used to be a reformer. When he ran for the Tory leadership, he said:

“Politicians attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator by posturing with tough policies and calling for crackdown after crackdown. Drugs policy has been failing for decades.”

All those voices are on side; we need to bring the Prime Minister back. Portugal has been a huge success. When we visited, we found that the new drugs policy was supported across the parties, and by the police as it helped them to deal with crime.

Let me make two last points before concluding. In 2016, the UN General Assembly will hold a special session on drugs in 2016, providing a key chance to change the global system in respect of drugs policy. This is key, and there are calls from around the world. Britain is leading the way in the calls for reform, but unfortunately not in an official capacity—it is the all-party parliamentary group on drugs policy reform that is seeking to co-ordinate Ministers around the world. The Government should support this change.

I echo the calls of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Prevention to look again at marijuana as a medicine. The evidence is that it can be a very effective medical remedy, dealing with many diseases, including MS and glaucoma, and easing the side-effects of chemotherapy and HIV/AIDS treatment. This can help improve people’s lives, so clearly we should look at it as a medical intervention. This country has followed the wrong approach for 40 years. It has not worked, and it is time to change.

13:05

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I shall take a somewhat different tack from other Members, but first I congratulate the hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and others on their contributions to the debate. I want to pick up on what was said by the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee about legalised prescription drugs and how they relate to drug-related harms and their costs to society. I would argue that the cost of prescription drugs is massive, as are the related harms.

I would like to pay tribute to the late Jim Dobbin, with whom I worked closely on the all-party group on involuntary tranquilliser addiction. Jim set it up and worked on it year in, year out, because of his concerns, perhaps arising from his background, and because of the people he came into contact with. I pay particular tribute to Mick Behan, who worked out of his office. He had gone through involuntary tranquilliser addiction and worked hard with Jim to bring this to the notice of Government after Government.

Ironically, I was the Conservative candidate in Heywood and Middleton in 1990 when the Conservative Government were in power. Like all good candidates, I could not attack the Government, but I could attack the local Rochdale council, and who was a senior member of Rochdale council in 1990? Jim Dobbin. I then came to this place. My constituent John Perrott, who is the secretary of the all-party group, contacted Jim and got involved in work with him over the last four years, trying to bring to the notice not just of this House but of the system, the situation with tranquillisers and prescriptions.

The motion talks about costs. It is estimated that 1.5 million people have a long-term addiction to tranquillisers in this country. In 2012, 67.3 million prescriptions for tranquillisers were issued; in 2013, it went up to 70.2 million. Those are legal drugs that are being issued. There is a lot of evidence, particularly relating to the benzodiazepines—benzos—and the Z drugs, to demonstrate people’s addiction. As early as 1988, apparently, GPs were instructed that people should not be on these drugs for longer than four weeks. Yet 1.5 million people are addicted to them.

As a member of the all-party group, I used to visit various parts of the NHS with Jim to talk to doctors. We also spoke to the British Medical Association. There was a worry about their professionalism, as I remember one doctor saying, “If I refuse to give another prescription, I know full well that patient will go to another doctor and get the same prescription.” There is a great hole in the system. What the real cost is, I do not know. It must run to millions, if not billions, just for prescribing those drugs. Clearly, the profits for various companies are quite high.

The human cost is different again, when we think about the problems people face through no fault of their own. Who better to quote than the Prime Minister himself on this? Jim put a question to him in October last year, in response to which the Prime Minister said that

“these people are not drug addicts but they have become hooked on repeat prescriptions of tranquillisers.”—[Official Report, 23 October 2013; Vol. 569, c. 296.]

They went to their doctors in all good faith. They did not read the small print about possible side-effects and nobody spelled them out. Now we are left with of 1.5 million people who cannot get off these drugs, and there seems to be no place in the system for them to go. The only place they are sent is to a drug rehabilitation centre, but the majority of the people sent there have usually been on illegal drugs. I am not talking about a class difference, but there is a psychological difference between one and the other. What generally happens is that people who have suddenly realised that they are addicted to a substance that they took as a medicine stop going to such centres. One clinic that Jim and the all-party group supported, and which we hope will continue, is a voluntary clinic in Oldham, which followed the recommendations in a manual produced by Professor Heather Ashton about ways of getting people off benzo drugs and curing the addiction that they cause, but that is just one clinic. There was another in Liverpool, but its grant has gone.

My constituent John Perrott has—I hope—got himself off prescription drugs by means of that system. He sent a number of freedom of information requests around the country asking how many people had been taken off such drugs. As I said earlier, it has been estimated that 1.5 million people are addicted to them. A total of 180 people all over the country responded by saying that they had undergone some kind of rehabilitation to get them off prescription drugs.

As I have said, I do not know the total financial cost involved, but the mental and physical costs are clear to anyone who meets people who have ended up taking prescription drugs. Members can imagine the mental stress that they experience. They took those drugs because a doctor had told them that they would be fine. Therein may lie one of the problems that have been identified by Jim and others. The Earl of Sandwich has tried to take up the issue with the British Medical Association. Some doctors have said that, anecdotally, there is indeed an issue. However, they tend to feel that their professional judgment is being challenged, even if what is involved is a historical judgment. They worry about, for instance, possible litigation—and we are, of course, familiar with the American scene. But all that these people are crying out for is some recognition within the national health service.

We have had meetings with Health Minister after Health Minister, and they have all said, “It is fine—it is in the system.” However, drug companies are making millions from prescription drugs. Doctors say, “What can I do? If I tell people that there is a different system which does not involve my giving them tablets, they will not believe me”—and, as I said earlier, those people can easily go to another doctor and get the drugs from him. I understand that some of them can be obtained through the internet in any case. That is a very different scenario from the one that has featured in the debate so far, although it is clearly relevant to the overall issue of drug misuse.

Members have mentioned drugs in prisons. I have tried to obtain factual information from prisons, but have been given only anecdotal evidence. Prison doctors have told me that many prisoners know that the way to get hold of drugs is to say, “I am depressed”—and why would someone who has been sentenced to imprisonment not be depressed? The prisoner need only act out the symptoms, and the drugs will then be prescribed, entirely legally. The anecdotal evidence that I have received from the prisons themselves is “It keeps them quiet.” Other Members have mentioned that already.

[Stephen Phillips]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend has spoken to prison governors, as I have. They have told me, as I am sure they have told him, that if prescription drugs, particularly tranquillisers, are taken out of prisons and no longer prescribed for prisoners—although they are not needed for the majority of prisoners—every custodial facility in the country will be on fire the following day.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

My hon. and learned Friend has made the point far better than I could. We are told that when we talk to people in the system, but there is no recognition of it. I find it amazing that even Members of Parliament cannot acquire information about the scale of prescriptions inside prisons, but, for some reason, that is not possible.

There is a whole series of questions to be asked. I congratulate the Members who initiated the debate, and I appreciate the points they have raised about illegal drugs. As an ex-teacher, I have seen the damage that drugs cause, on the streets and elsewhere. However, the issue of illegal drugs is part of a much wider issue relating to drugs in 21st-century society.

Let me end by paying another tribute to Jim Dobbin. He stood firm on this issue, and he worked hard on it. I last met Jim on, I think, the Thursday before the weekend he died. He had had a meeting with the Chairmen of the Health and Home Affairs Committees, during which he had been trying once again to find out more about an issue that affects all our constituents.

13:14

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw. He made a compelling speech, in which he rightly identified an immense problem that goes to the heart of the issue with which our drugs policy must deal.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate. I recall having a conversation with one of her co-signatories, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), when I was the criminal justice Minister responsible for the prison and probation services. The right hon. Gentleman, having at one time been the Minister responsible for drugs policy in the Home Office, is yet another convert to the more enlightened and intelligent policy that is proposed in the motion and implicitly recommended in the study report that the Government have just published.

On that occasion, the right hon. Gentleman and I, as Minister, cooked up a plan for him to ask me a question so that we could begin to arrive at some estimate of the actual cost of our drugs policy to the criminal justice system. However, even as the Minister answering the question, I found it impossible to beat out of the Department information that would have enabled me to give a proper answer to the right hon. Gentleman, and eventually, having tried to do so several times, I gave up.

This is the central point that I want to make. Given the number of global leaders who have had responsibility for policy in this area—Kofi Annan, the former Presidents of Brazil, Switzerland, Colombia, Portugal, Mexico and Chile, George Papandreou; the list goes on and on, and includes, of course, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East—we ought to start drawing some conclusions. Members who know that they will not get the political kicking that our current Administration plainly feel they will get if they begin to open up an intelligent policy discussion of this issue should now collectively begin to push harder and harder. I share the optimism of the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), who for many decades has occasionally been a lone and vilified voice. His courage is an object lesson to us all.

[Ms Abbott]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the international context. Does he agree that it is significant that at least one American state—Colorado—has decriminalised marijuana? Is that not a sign that the tide is turning in regard to the efficacy of the war on drugs?

[Crispin Blunt]

I agree with the hon. Lady. There are examples all over the world of much more enlightened policies on drugs. Portugal and the Czech Republic have already been cited, and a number of American states have changed their policies on cannabis.

This is what I find modestly depressing. A bright young new Member of Parliament is elected in 2001, and is appointed to the Home Affairs Committee. He is then party to a report which invites another really good report from the Home Affairs Committee, whose members, as Members of Parliament, sit down and consider the issues properly. He is then party to a recommendation in 2002. He is holding to that position even in 2005, when he is competing for the Conservative party leadership. And here we are now. I found myself becoming one of his Ministers in 2010.

I shall now do what I should not do, and reveal a collective internal political discussion between Ministers who had some responsibility for justice and those from the Home Office. Of course, we did not dare to raise this issue. I pushed as hard as I could for us at least to get to where we are today, and I congratulate the Minister and his predecessor on having pushed so hard to secure the report that has just been published. It is a big step forward for us to persuade the Government even to specify the international comparators. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) was right to point out that the conclusions appear to be missing from the report. Joking apart, however, we all need to understand the political difficulty of carrying this debate with us. We have been frightened of the tabloid press, and we have seen what they did to the Liberal Democrat party as a result of some of its policies in this area.

The Home Affairs Select Committee’s recommendation in 2012 for a royal commission was absolutely right. That will get the matter out of the political space, so that the work on international comparators that has been put into the report can be considered. The royal commission will then be able to put forward the kind of difficult and far-reaching conclusions that I believe would be appropriate to take us in the direction of regulation and away from the utterly disastrous policy of prohibition.

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend talks about political courage. In the debate earlier this week on the Recall of MPs Bill, he made a brave speech on restoring the reputation of Parliament. One way of doing that would be for us to take the lead on this matter and tell the truth about the fact that the existing drugs policy has not worked. Should we not simply take on the tabloids—and damn the consequences—by putting in place a policy that works and that is best for the people of this country?

[Crispin Blunt]

I wholly agree with my hon. and learned Friend. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), he has seen at first hand the horrifying consequences of the failure of our policy in the prison system. I visited 70-odd prisons during my time as prisons Minister, and the most depressing part of those visits was seeing the methadone queue. The prisoners queuing up to be prescribed their methadone were sallow, emaciated and plainly ill, and they had almost no prospect of getting better, given the treatment that they were getting.

We worked hard to start to join up the different parts of the criminal justice system in relation to addiction. We wanted to divert addicts from the criminal justice system and into the health system right at the beginning of the process, so that they could get proper treatment. One of the aims of the probation service reforms is to incentivise the service in regard to the successful rehabilitation of offenders. About 46% of acquisitive crime is drug related, as a result of people trying to feed their habit. If we are to rehabilitate such people successfully, we need to address their addiction. We ran eight pilots in the health service to try to identify the best ways of incentivising the health system to address addiction. All those measures are just baby steps, however, given the way in which the drugs industry has been criminalised. According to a Library note, Home Office figures show that the cost of the problem to the criminal justice system is about £13.9 billion.

Legalisation would create a risk of adverse health consequences. We might see an explosion in drug use, just as we have in the use of another drug, called alcohol, which is omnipresent in our society. Linked to that could be the kind of consequences that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood described, relating to tranquillisers. There could be a significant increase in health problems if we legalised and regulated the supply of drugs that are currently illegal. However, the lessons from Portugal suggest that that would not happen.

Getting the supply of drugs out of the hands of criminals would create the benefits that other hon. Members have mentioned. We would know what was in the drugs, that they were clean and that they had been obtained on the basis of sensible advice about their use. We would then have a society in which people took responsibility for their actions. If someone drove under the influence of drugs, for example, they would have to take the consequences, just as they would today if they drove under the influence of alcohol.

Given the scale of this issue, it is a pity that this debate has had to take place on a Back-Bench motion. The tide of opinion expressed by those who have taken part has so far gone entirely in one direction. I know from my experience as a Minister that, when we first looked at this matter, the Government spent about £900 million on trying to address addiction. The general assessment from Ministers at the time was that that was achieving absolutely nothing. It was felt that the rate at which people were getting better would probably have been exactly the same if that money had not been spent. We were making serious efforts, and the Government are to be commended for their efforts, particularly in the criminal justice system, to join up the management of addicted offenders, but this could all happen much faster and be much more effective if we grasped the root of the problem—namely, the consequences of prohibition.

In the end, drugs are drugs. Alcohol is a drug. We have heard about the example of prohibition in the United States, and of its war on drugs. Both those policies have been utter calamities, and they should present a lesson to the world. I sincerely hope that we in this House will be able to force Her Majesty’s Government to have the courage to address this serious issue in a way that could be of immense benefit to many of our citizens.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I should like to suggest that speeches should last for no more than eight minutes. We are struggling with time, and quite a few people wish to speak in the next debate. There is more than one debate today, and we must think of the others who want to speak.

13:27

[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on moving the motion today. As the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) said, everyone who has spoken so far has supported her views in one way or another. Like the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), I have been dealing with this issue for a long time. When I spoke in a debate in the House nearly 30 years ago, I told the story of how my closest friend had gone to prison for possession of pot—cannabis—in the late ’60s. He was in prison for six months and he came out a heroin addict. Within six months of his coming out of prison, I went to his flat to call for him one day, only to find him dead on the floor. He had died of a heroin overdose. From that day on, I have done everything I can to fight the scourge of drugs and to bring to people’s attention not only how evil and destructive drugs are but how senseless the policies to combat them are.

The report on so-called legal highs is an interesting document, and the Government’s response to it is equally interesting, but they do not mention how we are going to solve the problem. It is proposed that we talk and think more about it, but we need to look at the overall picture of how we are going to help people by dealing with drugs in prisons and in the community generally.

The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) spoke eloquently about the late Jim Dobbin. Jim dealt with this issue not only in this country but abroad. I sat on committees with him in the Council of Europe, where he persistently got the issue on to the agenda, against the odds, and got it discussed. We owe Jim a great debt of gratitude for his courage in tackling this issue and for having the strength of character to keep fighting for it. We are doing him justice by keeping the debate going. I was delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman’s comments about Jim; we are sad that he is not here today.

What we do know about drugs is that we have spent billions of pounds and we have a policy that, by common agreement, has failed; it has taken us not a step forward. That is why I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Prevention on having the courage to persevere and the commitment to see this report through on the comparisons that need to be examined seriously. The hon. Member for Reigate said that it contained few conclusions. There are no conclusions in it, but there are ideas of where we could go. The Members who have talked about a royal commission are going in the right direction; the sooner that can be done, the better.

We have to examine the situation in Portugal, which has been mentioned a lot. The report says clearly that not only has cannabis use there been reduced, but heroin use and cocaine use have been reduced dramatically. The way in which the initial possession has been treated as a health-related matter and not a criminal one is a major step in the right direction. If we can do no more in the life of this Parliament, before it ends next year, than get the royal commission set up and get the idea that we treat the possession of very small amounts of drugs, in some cases, as a health-related matter rather than a criminal one—

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I want to support the excellent speeches I have been hearing. As a commanding officer in the Army, I had far too often to rid myself and the Army of outstanding young men and young woman because they had just touched a drug. Things have got better, but think what will happen once we deal with this as a medical and not a criminal situation. Of course if someone is high on drugs and leading a patrol, they have to be brought before the commanding officer. But if we are talking about just possession and just usage, our current approach is just too wrong.

[Mr Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman is for ever bringing us his experience and the House should welcome that. Once again, he has touched on a very important point: careers are being thrown away because of the attitude of the Army, in his case, and of other organisations, which have taken draconian measures against people for the very minor crime of carrying or smoking cannabis. We have to look seriously at this issue. We owe it to the people outside this place because, as other Members have said, they are now ahead of Parliament on this matter. We should not be playing catch-up; we should want to find a way of leading on the issue. The report on comparisons is a step in the right direction, but I hope that the strength of the support in the Chamber today will carry forth that message to our colleagues, including the Prime Minister, who should be continuously reminded of his stance in 2002. He should be reminded of it daily, because when he talks about this issue he seems to forget what he might have said before.

[Zac Goldsmith]

The hon. Gentleman might like to know that today’s Guido Fawkes quote of the day is the one on drug laws that we have heard cited by a number of hon. Members.

[Mr Hancock]

I am delighted to hear that Guido Fawkes is talking about something other than me. We have an opportunity now and we squander it at our peril. We should look forward to this Minister getting the backing of his boss, the Home Secretary, and of the Prime Minister to make sure that we have the opportunity to do something positive, for once, on the issue of drugs. Let us not just continue to know that we have failed.

13:34

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Finding myself simultaneously in agreement with the hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) is a first since I entered this place in 2010. When I came down to the Chamber this morning and I was thinking about the speech I was going to make and the notes I had made, I thought I was going to be committing political suicide. However, it is apparent from the contributions made by Members from across the House today that there is unanimity of view within the House: the current position, enshrined in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, can no longer prevail. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Newport West, who, as he rightly reminded the House, has been speaking, with one voice, on this issue for the past four decades. I have to tell him that the end is in sight and he is going to win in due course.

I wish to start my observations by setting out three startlingly simple propositions, with which this Minister would agree. The first is that the so-called “war on drugs” has been lost. My right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt)—

[Crispin Blunt]

Honourable.

[Stephen Phillips]

Just honourable—that is a great shame.

My hon. Friend made reference to all the political leaders from across the world who have, in effect, made that point since they have left public office. He is no longer on the Front Bench and feels able, as I do, from the Back Benches to make the point that the war on drugs has been lost. That is a strong indication that we are getting policies completely wrong.

The second proposition is that existing drugs policy, focusing principally on criminalisation, is detrimental to health outcomes for individuals and damages society as a whole. The third proposition can now be made with confidence, given the report published by the Government this morning—I will come back to the issue of whether or not it contains any conclusions—but the report on comparative experience in other jurisdictions makes it clear, especially in relation to Portugal although the evidence from a number of other jurisdictions is the same, that decriminalisation not only leads to better outcomes for individuals but lessens the bill for the criminal justice system and provides greater benefits for society as a whole. One of those benefits, which I mentioned when I intervened on the hon. Member for Cambridge, is that it leads to respect for the criminal law.

One problem we have at the moment is that a large number of young people who are using psychoactive substances do not regard that as a crime. For them to be criminalised by the laws of this country leads to a general disrespect on their part for the criminal law and for this place. The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) made an important point in her earlier intervention: we are, or we are perceived by many of our constituents, to be behind the curve on this issue. We are perceived not to be in touch and not to be living in 2014. That is because successive Governments, of all colours, have been held back from doing the right thing, and I want to congratulate this Minister on having, for the first time, what my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate describes as an “intelligent debate”. This is the first time I have heard the House discuss this issue in an intelligent debate.

I intend to return to my three propositions, but it may be of assistance if I say that I come at this matter not only as an MP but as someone with experience of the criminal justice system, not really from practice but from having been a Crown court recorder. Any criminal justice professional in this country we speak to, be they a judge, a police officer or someone working in the probation service, will tell us the same thing: not only is our current approach to the use of illegal drugs in this country not the right one, but it is not based on evidence. Furthermore, it is detrimental to individuals and to society as a whole.

Nobody has been speaking for young people on this issue. They regard us in this House as dinosaurs when we consider the use of recreational drugs. They consider us to be living in a different age, one in which they are no longer living. They have no respect either for the criminal law or for this House, as a result. We have to move on. We have to recognise that times have changed. We must recognise the broad array of recreational psychoactive substances that are now available to young people and have an intelligent policy that does not just say, “You are a criminal if you use those substances.” Instead, we should say, “There are very significant risks to your health and very significant costs potentially to society. Although it is a matter for you whether you use those drugs, there will be consequences, but they will be consequences that we will principally deal with through the health system rather than through the criminal justice system.”

[Bob Stewart]

You are of course a criminal—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

I am not a criminal.

[Bob Stewart]

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, you are certainly not a criminal, but others may well be criminals if they take drugs or alcohol and put members of the public in danger as a consequence. They are criminals, but just taking a drug or drinking something does not make them criminals.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. If we look at the difference between recreational drug usage and smoking, we will see that the harm is so much greater with smoking. For every 1,000 smokers who are admitted to hospital, 123 of them are suffering from health problems directly caused by smoking. If we look at 1,000 drug users who are admitted to hospital, only two of them are there because of the use of illegal drugs. We have at least one drug in this country—we could add alcohol to the list —that is far more dangerous than anything that anybody uses by way of recreational drugs or other illegal drugs. We must focus our attention on dealing with that as a health problem rather than as a criminal problem.

Let me come back to one of my opening propositions, which is that the war on drugs has been lost. A survey of the public earlier this year proves that that is not just my view. It is the view not just of the world leaders who used to hold office to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate referred, but of 84% of people in this country. It is true that only 39%—up from 27% in 2008—of those in the same survey believed in the widespread decriminalisation of illegal substances. The likely reason for that is the hangover from the debate that we have not been having in this country for the past four decades. We have not had a national debate on this issue, which is why people have not turned their minds to the question of whether some form of liberalisation, some different approach, taking into account the detrimental health effects, is the right way forward.

As the hon. Member for Newport West said, what is the point of this war on drugs? If it is to prevent people from taking substances that may harm them, plainly it is not working. According to the most recent crime survey for England and Wales, 2.7% of adults had taken class A drugs in 1996 compared with 2.6% now—statistically not significant.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who is no longer in her place, referred to the fact that there has been a seeming reduction in cannabis usage among young people. There are many reasons for that, one of which might be the tougher line that has been taken on cannabis by the Government, which has driven people into using so-called legal highs, on which the Minister has today published his report.

If we talked to criminal justice professionals—judges, the police and probation officers—we would learn that they do not support the war on drugs. It is a war that has been lost. If we acknowledged that fact and looked at the experience of Portugal and the other jurisdictions that have liberalised their drug regimes and taken away criminal penalties for small amounts of possession, we would free up enormous resources for the police. More importantly, we would free up enormous financial resources for the treatment of those who are addicted to these substances. Therefore, I venture to suggest that I am correct in my first proposition—I think the Minister will agree with me—that the war on drugs has been lost and that we must look very carefully at a new policy.

My second proposition was that the health outcomes of existing policy are at best poor. In fact, what also happens is that society is harmed by existing policy. We know that funding a drug habit is not a cheap business. It increases crime, particularly acquisitive crime. Drug dependency is therefore one of the drivers of crime in this country. Home Office figures for 2003-04 show that the annual cost of drug-related offending is £13.9 billion, £9.9 billion of which goes to the victims of crime. The other £4 billion of public money is being poured into the criminal justice system every year to deal with the issue. If that £4 billion were taken away from the criminal justice system and put into the health system to try to encourage better outcomes, we would not only get something better for those who use illegal substances and for society, but achieve a reduction in the total amount that has to be spent.

If existing policy is not deterring drug use and drug dependency, it is leading to crime, and that cannot be in anybody’s interests. A great deal of money is evidently being wasted, and it is money that, in these times of austerity, should not be wasted.

Let us turn now to the health of those who take illegal substances. By criminalising them, are we dealing adequately with them? Many young people who take drugs have no idea not only what they are taking, but what the effects might be. Those who are standing in a nightclub at 1o’clock in the morning having consumed, no doubt, a large amount of vodka are much more interested in getting the pill than they are in what is in the pill. What is in the pill is not always what people have been told. They might be told that it is MDMA when it is some other entactogen that has not been tested on humans. It may be rat poison, or it may even be harmless. Even if someone does know that the pill they are about to pop is ecstasy, there is no guarantee that they are aware of its potential effects. Although there are admirable websites such as Talk to Frank, not many young people necessarily go on them. Not everyone knows about the risks of these drugs or how to mitigate those risks. We know that from some of the tragic cases that we have seen in the past of users taking excessive amounts of drugs in clubs and elsewhere.

Let us consider those who inject their drugs, and look at the comparative treatment in other places, and the experience of the criminal justice system in Georgia. Georgia reduced its prison population from 24,000 to 10,000 by taking out of prison those who had been put there for possession of small amounts of drugs. The first result of that was a massive saving to the taxpayers who fund the Republic of Georgia. Much more importantly, there was an incredible improvement in the health of the prison population. Deaths in prison fell, and there was a significant reduction in the hepatitis C and HIV infection rates among the prison population. I am not sure whether that experience is included in the Minister’s report, but it is another strong indication that we are not doing this right and that if we focused on this as a health issue rather than as a criminal justice issue, we would serve our constituents and our society a great deal better.

Untrammelled use of drugs, especially recreational drugs, fuels disinhibition in those who take them, and that in itself leads to criminal behaviour. We know that that is a significant part of organised crime. The Association of Chief Police Officers has estimated that 50% of all organised crime in the UK involves illegal drugs, mostly class A drugs. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has said that drugs are the most profitable sector of organised international crime, with a total turnover of $2 trillion in 2009.

My third proposition is that other countries are doing this much better, and that is why the Minister’s views and the report that he and his predecessors, including my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate, have pushed for so hard, are so important. In the limited time available, I will deal only—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am glad that the hon. and learned Member referred to the limited time. Mr Deputy Speaker asked Members to confine their remarks to about eight minutes, so that everyone who wished to speak would be able to do so. The hon. and learned Gentleman has now been speaking for fifteen and a half minutes. I would be grateful if he came to a conclusion.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am extremely grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will be quick.

The experience in Portugal is absolutely clear: liberalisation of the regime for small amounts of possession is the way forward. I know that the Minister believes that, and while other hon. Members have pointed to the fact that there are no conclusions in the report, I venture to suggest that that is because they have looked only at the section on Portugal. If they go to page 51 of the report, they will see a section entitled “Observations”. I dread to think of the negotiation that went on in the Home Office to replace the word “Conclusions” with “Observations”. There are four bullet points there. All hon. Members who have spoken in the debate and anyone who is interested in the issue need to look at the experience of Portugal and those four bullet points, because they are essentially the conclusions of the Portuguese experience. The most important is the second one, which states:

“There is evidence from Portugal of improved health prospects for users, though these cannot be attributed to decriminalisation alone.”

Whether or not they cannot be attributed to decriminalisation alone, what is clear, from all the contributions in the debate, is that the existing regime, contained in the 1971 Act, is not working, and that we need a different approach. That approach, which the Minister is championing today and which is the subject matter of the debate, is a great thing, which I urge the House to think about deeply. I urge hon. Members to support the motion.

13:51

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on bringing forward the debate, and thank the Backbench Business Committee for making it possible. I was a Member of the House before that Committee came into existence and I cannot stress enough to Members who arrived in 2010 how much it has done in making this sort of debate possible—debates that perhaps neither Front-Bench team wanted to happen, but on issues that the public want debated.

I agree about the importance of having a thoroughgoing review on UK drugs policy. First, we must put this in its international context. Most of the leaders of some of the countries that have been at the heart of the international war on drugs would say now that it is not working. More people are taking drugs than before. The harms caused by drugs in some countries—in South America, the Caribbean, Afghanistan—have got worse, so there is an international context, in which people are recognising that an essentially punitive and criminalising approach to drugs is not working. As I said in an intervention, individual American states are moving towards decriminalisation, notably Colorado. Given that the decriminalisation in Colorado has boosted its tourism trade, I put it to the House that it will not be the only US state that goes down that road.

On the question of decriminalisation, I am by nature a libertarian, but I have always taken seriously the arguments of good friends and people with whom I work in Hackney. Their argument has always been that the skunk that young people smoke nowadays is a much more serious matter than the marijuana that some of us may have come across when we were young, and that it is one thing for a fully grown adult, such as a student, to smoke a spliff at a party at a weekend, but when pre-pubescent children smoke skunk, hour after hour when they are out of school, it must, of necessity, have an effect on their growth, educational development and so forth. There was also some concerning research about the links between marijuana and schizophrenia. Therefore, although I have had libertarian instincts since I was a student, as in inner-city MP I take seriously some of the arguments about the possible harm, even of smoking marijuana, and the signal that is sent by decriminalising it.

The fact remains, however, that if we are about anything in the House, we should be about evidence-based policy. This latest report, which the Government have belatedly released, shows that there does not appear to be evidence internationally that a more punitive, criminalised response brings down levels of consumption. On this issue, Members of Parliament have been unduly timid in the past. I can remember my own Home Secretary, a wonderful man, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who sacked his adviser because they told him something that he did not want to hear: that alcohol was a much more harmful drug than cannabis, not only physically but in terms of the social disorder, domestic violence and so on that it promotes. I am sorry to say that my right hon. Friend’s response was not to say, “Gosh, isn’t that interesting. I must look into these facts,” but to sack the man concerned. Members of Parliament have been timid and have not taken an evidence-based approach. It may well be that Members are behind the opinion of our constituents—

[Crispin Blunt]

The hon. Lady should distinguish between Members of Parliament and Ministers, who have responsibility for the positions of their party. I think she will find that when Members of Parliament have looked at this properly, as the Home Affairs Committee has done repeatedly, they have been properly courageous.

[Ms Abbott]

I stand corrected on that. Certainly Ministers in the two major parties have been increasingly behind the opinion of their constituents, who, after all, could be eminently respectable figures but might just possibly in their youth have been in a room with someone who was smoking cannabis. They will know that young people growing up in London today cannot lead a life where they never come across, never see or never hear of people smoking cannabis. Our constituents may be more realistic about these issues than some Ministers have been able to be in the past and even now.

This has been a difficult issue for MPs and Ministers, but speaking as someone who represents a constituency that sees the very worst of drug harms, and on the basis of the evidence, past reports and today’s Home Office report, there is an unanswerable case for a review of UK drugs policy.

13:57

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Most of the things that I wanted to say have been said, so I will be brief. I just want to put on record my admiration for the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for having secured this debate, and for having raised the profile of the issue considerably in recent weeks and months. I also want to pay tribute to the Minister. It is true that the report out today has no clear, firm conclusions, but I have no doubt that it is pushing the discussion in a very healthy direction.

At the risk of being repetitive, I want to quote one aspect of the report, which is essential. It states:

“We did not in our fact-finding observe any obvious relationship between the toughness of a country’s enforcement against drug possession, and levels of drug use in that country.”

It goes on to cite recent evidence in the Czech Republic where tough laws coincide with relatively high use of cannabis, but then, dealing with Portugal, it states:

“Although levels of drug use rose between 2001 and 2007, use of most drugs has since fallen to below-2001 levels. It is clear that there has not been a lasting and significant increase in drug use in Portugal since 2001.”

If that is the case, and it certainly syncs with many other reports on the same issues and the same case studies, there is a serious question to answer. If the law is not acting as a disincentive to drugs use, and therefore, logically, drugs use will continue at more or less the same levels, with other factors knocking it up and down in various places, the question is whether we want that trade to belong to the criminals or to be under the umbrella and regulatory regime of some sort of government. For me, the answer is obvious.

There is also a practical issue. This is not an ideological or philosophical issue. According to the figures I have seen, in 2012 14% of people in jail were there for drug-related offences, and last year there were 87,871 convictions on the back of drug offences in this country. Obviously, not all of them ended up in jail, so the question is whether the present policy offers value for money. It comes with a multibillion pound price tag, and the cost goes well beyond the money. We have to ask ourselves who wins from this policy. My hunch, and the hunch of many Members who have spoken today, is that the laws in place have little effect other than to create a black market and therefore opportunities for the very worst people in society. We have laws in place that enrich the bad people while doing very little, if anything, to protect those whom we all have a common interest in protecting.

The present policy does not seem to me to offer great value for money. I know that there is a growing consensus outside this place on this matter, and this debate shows that there is a great consensus in this place, too, which I was not expecting to hear. The motion seems to be unarguable. We need an evidence-based policy system, and the first step is the review for which the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion is calling. I very much support it, and I am thrilled that everyone else in the Chamber today has supported it.

14:00

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Like every other Member here today, I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate. It has been a high-quality and wide-ranging debate. We have heard from two Select Committee Chairs. We have talked about prescription drugs, prisons and the international issues that we need to address.

I welcome the international comparators report which was published today. It received a lot of media hype overnight. I found it quite difficult to get a copy of the report until the Home Office provided a link to the Table Office at about 11 am, so I have not had a chance to digest the contents of the report fully. It has been a long time coming and it is a shame that we could not have had it a few days earlier so that we could have reflected on it in full.

I was rather bemused this morning to hear the Minister on Radio 4. I was not quite sure whether he was speaking as the Minister or as a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, as the Home Office later put out a contradictory statement. Perhaps he can clarify whether he is speaking on behalf of the Government today. I know that he has had difficulty in the past in speaking on behalf of the Government, and that he had to absent himself from the khat debate because he did not agree with the Government’s policy on khat.

The report on legal highs has also been published today alongside the international comparators report. Again, we welcome this, but it has been a long time coming. We on the Labour Benches called for the issue to be tackled much earlier; the growing market in legal highs has been allowed to flourish over the past few years. We are pleased to see the report. I pay tribute to Maryon Stewart and the Angelus Foundation, who have pushed the issue of legal highs and the need for legislation to deal with the problems that have developed.

Three key issues on legal highs emerge from the report, on which I hope the Minister will be able to reassure me. First, I hope there will be a comprehensive prevention and awareness campaign on legal highs. Secondly, we need a clear legislative framework to try to disrupt the supply of new psychoactive substances and stop headshops proliferating on our high streets. Thirdly—perhaps this should have been the starting point—we need a proper framework for assessing the scale and the danger of legal highs. We need to know when legal highs enter the UK and what dangers they pose. I hope the Minister may be able to assist with that today.

Of course, we all want to look at the evidence. In the Home Affairs Committee report, one of the first bullet points in the key facts section states:

“England and Wales has almost the lowest recorded level of drug use in the adult population since measurement began in 1996. Individuals reporting use of any drug in the last year fell significantly from 11.1% in 1996 to 8.9% in 2011-12. There was also a substantial fall in the use of cannabis from 9.5% in 1996 to 6.9% in 2011-12.”

Let us consider all the evidence and see what is happening.

I want to focus on treatment and all the comments that have been made today about the situation in Portugal, which is a key part of the international comparators report. Little has been made of the fact that the trends in Britain are very similar to what has happened in Portugal. It is important to remember that the changes in drug laws in Portugal were accompanied by significant investment in drug treatment, as we have had in the United Kingdom. When we examine drug harms and what has had an impact, it is not clear that a change in legislation is the driving force.

[Caroline Lucas]

I want to make sure that there is no risk of complacency creeping into the hon. Lady’s remarks. It is important to know that there were 2,000 drug-related deaths in England and Wales in 2013 and a 32% increase in heroin and morphine-related deaths. The number of deaths involving both legal and illegal drugs last year was at its highest level since 2001. There are different ways in which we can look at the figures, but the bottom line is that we need a review of the evidence. Will she support that?

[Diana Johnson]

I do not want to be considered complacent, but we need to get all the evidence on the table so that we can assess it. There is some merit in looking at what has happened regarding treatment in this country over the past 10 to 12 years. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction says that this country is well ahead of comparators. In 2010 60% of opioid users were in treatment. That compares with 12% in the Netherlands and 25% in Sweden, so I am not sure that I agree with the motion that the status quo is failing. Drug-related deaths among the under-30s have halved in a decade, and it has been calculated that getting people into drug treatment has prevented 4.9 million crimes being committed, saving the economy £960 million. This is evidence that we should all consider.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend has always been very thoughtful and careful in the way in which she has dealt with this issue. I agree that we need to get all the evidence out and examine it. Will members of the Opposition Front-Bench team commit to establishing a royal commission to look at the issue in detail so that we can base our policy on the evidence?

[Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee. What worries me about the idea that a royal commission will solve the problem for us is that there are issues that we need to tackle now—for example, legal highs. I am pleased, as I said at the outset, that we now have a plan from the Government for legislation in relation to legal highs. I am not discounting a royal commission, but we need to keep abreast of the issues that are developing now. We need to put in place ways of tackling legal highs and other issues.

It is important to remember that access to treatment is a key issue. In 2001 it took nine weeks to access treatment; in 2011 it took five days. We should be mindful that that was because of the investment in health services. Once people are in treatment, it is important to make sure that they complete it. In 2005-06, 35,000 people dropped out and only 11,000 completed treatment, whereas in 2011-12, 17,000 dropped out but 29,000 completed treatment. We should be aware of such evidence when we debate the drugs situation.

[Crispin Blunt]

I acknowledge that, as the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Lady is in a difficult position. She is calling for evidence. Whatever her comments on the early part of the motion, it concludes by calling

“on the Government to conduct an authoritative and independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to publish the results of those studies within the next 12 months.”

It would be of immense help if the Opposition proposed such a motion on an Opposition day so that it could be voted on in the House. It would then carry greater authority and they would achieve exactly what she wants—to get the evidence out there.

[Diana Johnson]

I recognise that it is important for the House to have these debates, and it is good that the Backbench Business Committee granted this one, but I think that the hon. Gentleman is right and that the Government perhaps need to ensure that such issues are debated in Government time, with clear options for what they feel should be taken forward.

[Ms Abbott]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Diana Johnson]

I will give way one last time.

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, for whom I have the utmost respect, but when she says that the status quo is not failing, I do not understand what world she is living in. It is failing young people in London. I think that her faith in the statistics on access to treatment is misplaced, because young people in the east end of London have great difficulty accessing treatment. The status quo is failing. Young people of all classes—not just the underclass—are continuing to suffer from drug harm because Members of this House are too frightened to look at the recent evidence.

[Diana Johnson]

I am not frightened to look at the evidence, but we need to look at what is happening today in the round; we must not cherry-pick. I have the same concerns as my hon. Friend about treatment now, because of the Government’s misguided reforms of the NHS. There is fragmentation in the treatment services across the country, which is something that many people are genuinely concerned about. [Interruption.]

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Diana Johnson]

I am going to carry on, because it is important that these issues are brought to the House’s attention. They might not be what everybody wants to hear, but I think they need to be recognised.

One of the key issues raised in tackling drugs policy in this country is the link between criminal justice and health. That resulted in the establishment of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, which brought together the Home Office and the Department of Health, recognising the social harms that come from drug abuse and from people breaking the law by engaging in acquisitive crime as a result. There was a recognition that in order to tackle that we needed to get them into treatment. Huge investment was made, but it was a combined effort from both Departments. It is important to remember that that has been successful, because crime has been dropping. One of the reasons for that was the commitment to getting people into treatment so that they were not committing offences.

I want to mention France, because there drugs are seen as a health issue, not a criminal justice one. We know that France tends to invest less in treatment as a percentage of GDP—about one fifth of the investment that this country makes. Saying that it is just a health issue and thinking that that will solve the problem is not reflected in the facts.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Diana Johnson]

I am going to carry on, because I am conscious that time is short and the Minister has still to speak. [Interruption.] Well, I think it is important not just to have a one-sided debate in which we all say that the war on drugs has failed. The UKDPC has said that this country is a world leader in treatment, and I think we should recognise that as something very positive.

I am concerned, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), about what is happening to the spend on treatment. Health and wellbeing boards do not need to have criminal justice representation. I think that is a problem, because it means separating health and criminal justice. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that concern.

Local authority budgets are under enormous pressure. Their public health budgets—the majority of the funding comes from the pooled drug and alcohol treatment moneys made available—are being raided. John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, has referred to this asset stripping of public health by local authorities. Perhaps the Minister will respond to that point.

I am also concerned about the role of police and crime commissioners, because they had responsibility for £120 million that went into treatment through drug and alcohol partnerships. They now have no incentive to spend the money in that way, and I am concerned that because of their lack of representation on health and wellbeing boards, a real problem is developing.

I want to make a few final points. On recovery, the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt)—I know and respect him as a former Prisons Minister—talked about the complex needs of drug addicts, particularly those in prison. I think we need to have a much wider debate on what recovery means and how we support people recovering from drug addiction. That means how we support them into housing, how we shore up family relationships, which are very important, and how we secure employment opportunities. Those are all key issues that have to be part of a bigger debate on drugs.

I think that it is absolutely right that the police’s focus must be on disrupting the supply of drugs, disrupting organised crime and ensuring that addicts get treatment. It is very disappointing today to see that there has been a 60% drop in the amount of heroin seized by police over the past year, because that is another important part of tackling this problem.

On prosecuting for possession, the previous Labour Government introduced the penalty notices that were used for the possession of cannabis, and the Government have adopted them for khat, so it is not the case that someone in possession of drugs will get a custodial sentence. However, I think that the Liberal Democrats have now said that there should be no prison sentences at all for possession, so I want to check with the Minister whether that is the new Government policy. As I understand it, that is for repeat offenders, not one-off offenders.

I think that we have a lot of work to do on how we deal with criminal records. The hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) mentioned the fact that someone with a drugs conviction can be prevented from entering the Unites States. We need to look at what simple possession means for criminal records, especially for young people who might be found with a pill or an assortment of pills on one occasion. That will result in a caution, which will then result in later problems for employment and travel. That is another issue that we need to include in a wider debate.

I feel that it is important that we do not just have a one-sided debate. We need to look at what has worked in this country and around the world and base the debate on evidence. Some of the evidence that I have tried to present has in effect been queried and shouted down, and that is absolutely fine, but we need to have the debate. We cannot just say that it has all failed without recognising some of this country’s huge successes in drug treatment.

14:17

[The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)]

I had felt that I was in a somewhat surreal debate, hearing all Members on both sides of the House agree about the need for reform and a different approach, all making coherent arguments about why the present arrangements need to change. But I woke from my dream when I heard from the shadow Minister, who appears to be the only Member of the House who wishes to defend the status quo absolutely.

The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) said that he has waited 43 years for this report. I think that it is a very good report and that people can take from it what they want; they can look at the evidence and draw their conclusions from it. I think that the Home Office deserves credit for having the courage to issue it, and I hope that it will be the start of a debate.

My view, which is drawn not only from the report but from the public opinion polls that have been referred to, is that the genie is out of the bottle and it is not going back in. I think that the days of robotic, mindless rhetoric are over, because the facts and the evidence will no longer allow that. We now have to base what we do as a country on the facts and the evidence that we can accrue, and the issuing of this report is part of the attempt to do that.

I welcome the efforts of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who is my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and many other Members—many of them are here today—who over the years have made brave comments that have not always been welcomed by the Government of the day. I sense that there is a public mood now for a proper debate on these matters, and what could be wrong about a proper debate on a matter of such importance? It is much better than trying to shut down debate and pretend that everything is all right.

The coalition Government has made lots of progress over the past few years, which I am very pleased with, and there was progress in some regards under the previous Labour Government. However, it would be arrogant to say that we have everything right and that we can learn nothing from other countries. Of course we can learn from other countries, and it is right that we should seek to do so. The report seeks to highlight some of those lessons that can be learned.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge and the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) referred to the Portuguese experience. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) drew attention to the fact—he quoted the report in full—that we have learned from Portugal for more than a decade that there is no correlation, at least in that country, between the level of penalty available and the extent of drug use. That is an important finding that we ought to bear in mind as we go forward.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), who is not in his seat, made an interesting case for legalising cannabis. That is not Government policy, I have to tell him, but his case was coherent and others may or may not want to take it forward. The report’s stated position—its “observations” as the civil servants put it—is that we ought to keep a watching eye. Of course we should keep a watching eye on what is happening in the world. Does anyone argue that we should not?

These are experiments and it is far too early to say what the outcomes will be. They may be negative or positive, as my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) said. We do not yet know the consequences, but we should certainly watch with interest to see what they will be for public health and crime—and public finances, indeed, if we are to see a regulated market such as that in Colorado or Uruguay.

[Bob Stewart]

We have not touched much on the subject of crime. If we legalised drugs, the business would be less lucrative to the criminal world and that would stop some of the criminal gangs killing one another. We would have the bonus of fewer young people being killed on the streets of London.

[Norman Baker]

I shall take that as a comment in support of our right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden. As I said, it is not Government policy to legalise drugs—nor, I think, is it the policy of any party in the House. However, my hon. Friend has made his point. Those sorts of discussions ought to be taking place and people ought to be able to argue the whys and wherefores in each case.

I turn to the question of new psychoactive substances, sometimes unhelpfully called “legal highs”. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion wanted more detail about what we were doing and was not entirely sure whether our policy was correct. I should say to her that in some ways it mirrors the approach taken in the international comparative study: it recommends that we get very tough on the suppliers of these dangerous substances, which cause immense harm to our constituents and, unfortunately, the deaths of young people. We are trying to rid our high streets of headshops, which are not an asset, but we do not seek to criminalise the users of the substances. That approach seems entirely appropriate—hammering down on those causing misery and helping those who use the substances.

[Stephen Phillips]

Does the Minister share my concern that a blanket ban on new psychoactive substances may result, first, in driving young people to take illegal drugs and, secondly, to continue to take so-called legal highs but without anyone being able to analyse what they are taking? Those products would no longer be marketed lawfully on the high street, petrol stations or anywhere else. Has the Department looked at that issue?

[Norman Baker]

On the latter point, I do not believe that what is sold now is accurately described anyway on the packet; the information is not available to young people now, although the substances are legal at present.

There is no simple answer that will solve all problems. Every potential solution has drawbacks as well as advantages. That is why I set up a review panel with the best brains in the country to look at the matters in great detail. They came to the unanimous conclusion about what should happen, and that is what we intend to take forward.

In fact, to pick up a point made by the Opposition spokesperson, we are already taking forward some of the panel’s recommendations. For example, Public Health England is launching a toolkit to support local treatment and prevention work in November 2014. It is piloting a new adverse event reporting system, akin to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency yellow card system for medicines, and this month it is launching its “Rise Above” campaign to build young people’s resilience to risky behaviours.

Action is already being taken as a result of the review. That will give comfort to many Members on both sides, including my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who has always campaigned heavily on this issue on behalf of his constituents and others. The measures are right and should be welcomed across the country.

There is a distinction between how we are treating those who are peddling the substances and those who are using them, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) accurately said. I agree with the Opposition spokesperson that we should congratulate and thank Maryon Stewart and her organisation for the superb work they have done over the years to push the agenda and highlight the importance of prevention and education.

Key to the new psychoactive substances report is the fact that there will be prevention and awareness campaigning and a proper legal framework. No doubt we will take that forward as and when we have a full response from the public to what we have produced so far. We intend to take action; I give the hon. Lady an absolute assurance that we are not just publishing a paper.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, my hon. Friends the Members for Totnes and for Cambridge, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion and the Opposition spokesman all referred to the need to ensure that we take account of health, and that is absolutely right. In my view, the issue is predominantly one of users’ health; it is a criminal issue for those who peddle the substances, but a health issue for those who end up taking them. We should frame our actions accordingly. The Government has done a great deal to help—through its recent heroin-assisted treatment programmes, for example.

The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee rightly referred to prescription medicines, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw). I commissioned the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to look into the whole issue and the evidence gathering is under way. We recognise that the issue is serious. Others taking action include the Department of Health and Public Health England. The Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have published a consensus statement of good practice to prevent and treat addiction to medicines. We are taking action on that front as well.

The Opposition spokesman asked whether I was speaking on behalf of the Government. The fact that I am at this Dispatch Box perhaps gives a clue to the answer, as well as the fact that the document issued this morning bore the Home Office logo.

The issue of prescription drugs in prisons was also raised. The Justice Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), is aware of the issue and considering it seriously, as, I am sure, is the prisons Minister. There is a serious issue in prisons; there is no point in denying that, and the Ministers are seeing what they can do to reduce dependence on prescription drugs in particular in prison.

I tell the House today that the Home Office is taking steps to make available Naloxone, which can prevent heroin overdoses. It is already available on prescription, but we are amending regulations to make it more widely available from next year. That will help people who come out of prison from over-using heroin and suddenly dying. That is a good public health measure, and it is going forward.

I hope I have covered most of the large number of points that have been raised. I genuinely think that this has been a really good debate; I know that Ministers generally say that, but it has been. It has been thoughtful, and Members have spoken from the heart and the head. I am grateful. The debate has now been opened; we can no longer rely on the stonewalling about drugs policy in this country that we have so often heard. There is a genuine debate to be had about the proper way forward and it has started today. The genie is out of the bottle, and it is not going back in.

14:28

[Caroline Lucas]

I simply want to thank all hon. Members who have spoken in this incredibly powerful debate. My only regret is that colleagues who perhaps not yet been persuaded of the arguments were not here to hear them; those arguments were made in such a compelling way that we could probably have brought many of those colleagues with us.

Several Members spoke about a feeling of optimism and a sense that the tide is turning. Notwithstanding the slightly less optimistic speech from Labour’s Front Bench spokesperson, I think that is absolutely right. I feel excited about the announcement today that Naloxone will be more widely available. That is incredibly positive and I thank the Minister for that, as well as for his response to the debate as a whole.

We recognise that public opinion on the issue is changing: a poll today showed that 71% of the public think that the war on drugs has failed. Our responsibility now is to make sure that politicians catch up with the public and recognise that we do not need to be afraid of the debate. If we look the evidence in the face, there is an awful lot that we can work with. We can put in place a much more effective drugs policy regime.

I started this debate by referring to Martha, whose 17th birthday it would have been today. Our laws let her down. By failing to review our drugs laws, we would be letting down future Marthas as well. I want to end by paying tribute to her extraordinarily brave, eloquent and tireless mother, Anne-Marie, and to all the other campaigners who are urging all of us here to review and reform our drugs laws. I hope very much that we will show we have listened to them by passing this motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that drug-related harms and the costs to society remain high; further notes that the independent UK Drugs Policy Commission highlighted the fact that Government is spending around £3 billion a year on policies that are often counterproductive; believes that an evidence-based approach is required in order for Parliament and the Government to pursue the most effective drugs policy in the future; welcomes the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee in its Ninth Report of 2012-13, HC 184, that the Government consider all the alternatives to the UK’s failing drug laws and learn from countries that have adopted a more evidence-based approach; notes that the Government has responded positively to this recommendation and is in the process of conducting an international comparators study to consider the effectiveness of national drug policies adopted by a range of countries; and calls on the Government to conduct an authoritative and independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to publish the results of those studies within the next 12 months.

Sale of Park Homes

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

14:30

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the Government to set up a review of the current fee of up to 10 per cent of the sale price of a park home payable to the park home site owner.

I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for selecting this debate. I am reminded of a previous Back-Bench debate on park homes that I led in 2010. That debate was attended by a very large number of Members, and it was an important step in achieving the passage of the Mobile Homes Act 2013, ably piloted through the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). Although our numbers are smaller today, I have received messages of support from several MPs who are unable to attend and speak for various very good reasons.

On many occasions over the years, the House has heard about how mobile park home owners have been exploited and badly treated by some site owners. It is a matter for some celebration that appalling practices can now be prevented through the implementation of the 2013 Act, and there is also the ability to make use of the residential property tribunals. However, there is still work to do to protect and ensure fairness for a fairly vulnerable population.

Today we are focusing on the 10% commission charge that is payable to the site owner on the sale of a park home site. Well over 30,000 park home residents from 975 parks have signed a petition against the up-to-10% commission on the sale price of their homes that is payable to the site owner.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady know of any other circumstances in which residents would have to pay this iniquitous charge of 10%, particularly when it often applies to an older and vulnerable group of people?

[Annette Brooke]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is difficult to think of anybody in a leasehold property who would have to pay such an additional charge. We need to look at what the money is used for, and I shall expand on that later.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

I have had representations from residents of Garston Park caravan park about their concern that 10% is indeed a very high figure. The Mobile Homes Act says that the charge on the sale of a home can be up to 10%. Does the right hon. Lady have any statistics—or perhaps the Minister can give them when he responds—on how many park home owners are charging 10% as opposed to a lower figure?

[Annette Brooke]

I think we will have to rely on the Minister being informed of that number. It has not been drawn to my attention that anybody charges less than the maximum, as is usually the case when a maximum is set.

In July, over 200 park home owners travelled to London to lobby their MPs. That is an amazing number given the distance and the age of many park home owners. It is important to note that their campaign has no funding whatsoever.

There are at least three elements to a site owner’s income, including the initial siting of the mobile home, the pitch fees, and the commission payment. On the siting of a new home, a site owner may purchase a new unit at a wholesale price and will incur further costs such as transportation and connection to services. However, it is reasonable to assume that the final selling price will exceed all costs incurred, and perhaps produce a significant return. As soon as the home is re-sold, the commission clicks in. In another scenario, a park home owner could replace their home, meaning that they will be charged for connections to services and landscaping, leading to more potential profit through re-charging—and again, when the unit is sold, the commission will click in.

On pitch fees, research by the National Association of Park Home Residents in November 2013 revealed that monthly pitch fees in 1,075 parks varied from £40 to £382, with an average of about £150 per month—quite a lot for people on fixed incomes. The 2013 Act will introduce some accountability, with an annual review of pitch fees, an opportunity for park home owners to challenge pitch fees on the basis of lack of maintenance or deterioration of the site, and a requirement for site owners to justify increases above the retail prices index. I hope that there will also be fully published audited accounts for these transactions.

On the commission itself, it is sometimes argued that this payment provides an important income stream to the site owner, and it is equally argued that the payment is essential for site improvements. A case is also put forward that it is not in the interests of park home owners, who are often on low incomes, to pay higher pitch fees out of current income, as would be required without this sales commission. In that sense, it might be seen as a deferred payment. I do not want to create unintended consequences, and hence I am not following the wording of the petition in asking that the commission be scrapped or reduced, but calling for a review. I think we need some facts.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I was at the rally in the summer and saw the strength of feeling about this issue, which we are right to bring to the Floor of the House. I completely concur with the right hon. Lady’s view that we must not legislate in haste and repent at leisure. She will be aware of the report from the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office back in 2002, which sounded a note of caution about abolishing the 10% charge, saying that pitch fees could rise to between 20% and 32% if we did that. Having a review is absolutely the right way to go, and I back her on that as a fellow officer of the all-party group on mobile homes. I also congratulate her on securing this debate.

[Annette Brooke]

I will refer to the 2002 report later.

[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (Ind)]

Another issue is whether site owners that are local authorities use the same policies. Any review should encompass local authorities that own parks and also have the 10% rule, because they certainly do not justify the fee they take for the pitch in terms of work carried out on sites.

[Annette Brooke]

I was not aware of that. We could demand transparency in that regard and find out how much of the commission fee was ploughed back into improvements on the site.

[Alok Sharma]

Will the right hon. Lady give way on that point?

[Annette Brooke]

I will, and then I must make some progress.

[Alok Sharma]

The right hon. Lady makes an interesting point about transparency. A lot of these park homes are owned by individuals and private companies, so there is not the level of transparency in the accounts that one would expect. Does she agree that as part of a review, we should ask park owners to be a little more open to demonstrate whether a reduction in the 10% charge would really hit their bottom line as much as they say?

[Annette Brooke]

I absolutely agree. Transparency is the key to finding the right answer for everybody in this scenario.

Obviously, a site owner must get a reasonable return on capital, and we want to encourage good site owners to remain in the industry. Park homes are an important part of the housing supply and should be encouraged. The Government acknowledge that the park homes sector plays an important role in the provision of low-cost housing for the elderly, and that it frees up under-occupied homes that are much needed as we face a housing crisis. However, with pitch fees, other overheads and the 10% commission, many residents worry that the costs of owning a park home are becoming unviable. The 10% commission charge is undoubtedly a matter of concern. Although it is now paid by the purchaser, it does reduce the sum of money paid to the seller.

Park operators have argued that they cannot remain in business without the 10% commission charge, yet our petitioners have pointed out that it would be foolish for a business to rely on an income that is unpredictable. It is difficult to predict how many new homes will be purchased, or used homes re-sold, in a year. Many residents reported feeling trapped in their homes and unable to sell. Owing to park rules, many sites are only for people of retirement age, and so the need to move into a nursing home or some other form of residential care is a real possibility. Having to give the park operator such a high percentage from the sale of their home reduces the amount the seller has to put towards their care.

Park home owners feel discriminated against and ask, “In what other leasehold property arrangement would a payment be made to the leaseholder on the sale of the property?” They cite examples of poorly maintained sites and no real improvements over time, and a perception of a luxury lifestyle for some site owners. Clearly, there are counter-examples of exemplary site owners, which I welcome, and I would like them to showcase their best practice. Transparency and published accounts would be helpful, to encourage all site owners to follow best practice.

Park home owners also point out that the value of the property is influenced by their contribution to the home’s value via its upkeep and maintenance, and argue, “Why should the site owner benefit from this contribution?” That is a good point.

[Steve Brine]

The Department put together an excellent document, “Park homes: know your rights”, following the legislation promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). In the past, site owners were part of the sale, because they had to approve it, but the 2013 Act has taken them out of that equation. Did the right hon. Lady take that into consideration when preparing her speech?

[Annette Brooke]

The park home owners say that that gives even less justification for the 10% commission, because the site owners are not involved any more.

I received an interesting representation from a park home owner, who wrote:

“I am not personally in favour of abolition of the sales commission. This would remove an opportunity to improve the sector. Linking a reduced sales commission to site owner performance will improve site maintenance, sustain home values and assist mobility.”

That is an interesting idea and perhaps we could work it through.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The residents of Brickhill Farm and Downlands park homes in my constituency would welcome the right hon. Lady’s general approach to the debate. Clearly, the 10% commission is having a behavioural effect on whether people are able to move and how they do so. Surely that should be the major point to consider when it comes to reviewing the effectiveness of any legislation or legislative change.

[Annette Brooke]

The 10% commission has wide-ranging impacts and they need to be considered. It is only now we are hearing about some of those impacts, as the voices of park home owners grow louder. If we had a review, their input would be vital.

Given that the commission is an unpredictable income stream depending on how many units are resold over a period of time, the question remains of whether it is a windfall gain or an essential source of money for site improvements. It is very difficult to answer that question without a review.

The Mobile Homes Act 1975 limited the commission to 15% and the Mobile Homes Act 1983 limited it to 10%. Is it not time to have a proper independent review to establish whether the current situation is justified or whether there is a case for a change? I am absolutely sure there is a case for more transparency.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

I was delighted to support my right hon. Friend’s application for this debate. She knows that there are a number of park homes in the north of my constituency. I thoroughly endorse all the points she is making. Put simply, she is sensibly and correctly asking for a review—a very modest request—and I have noticed the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), nodding in agreement with some of her remarks. She is approaching the issue in a sensible way and I hope the Minister, when he responds, will grant that review, which would be welcomed by all.

[Annette Brooke]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that intervention. Obviously, we are mutually aware of the issues that occur on the park home sites in Poole, Bournemouth and Dorset.

In 2012, the Communities and Local Government Committee concluded in favour of retaining the 10%, but did we have the review I am asking for? I do not think we did, because the sequence of events shows that the Committee relied heavily on the conclusions of a 2006 Government consultation published in 2007, which in turn relied on a report published in 2002. National associations for park home owners feel that the 2007 conclusions were heavily biased towards site owners and their trade bodies. I believe that, in total, there were only 1,250 responses to the consultation. I would be interested if the Minister could confirm that. If we had a consultation today, I think the response would be very different. I believe the responses came from only 230 parks, which is a limited number.

The park home associations did not accept the conclusion that the majority of park home owners wanted the commission to remain. Questions have also been raised with me about the independence of the 2002 report. It is only in recent years that individual park home owners have made their voices heard in very large numbers and accessed democratic processes via petitions and lobbying, led by my amazing constituent Sonia McColl and others, complementing the work of their excellent national associations, including the National Association of Park Home Residents and the Independent Park Home Advisory Service. The situation is different from 2006. Our park home constituents are aware of their rights and know how to make their voices heard, but we as MPs need to respond.

We need a review that looks at the viability of the industry and that listens both to site owners and to park home owners. I do not prejudge the outcome of any review. It might conclude that the situation is best left as it is, but with openness, fairness and transparency to ensure no bias either way, all parties will understand the conclusions.

Interestingly, I have looked at what has happened in the Welsh Assembly. Following a short debate in July 2014, it agreed to review the data and evidence contained in the 2002 publication “Economics of the Park Homes Industry” and the 2006-07 consultation. A review has been undertaken and the Assembly awaits the report. This month, the Minister for Communities and Tackling Poverty wrote in a letter:

“I feel a further review of the economics of the mobile homes business is necessary before a decision on amending the 10% commission rate can be considered. I do though feel the Mobile Homes (Wales) Act 2013 needs time to be embedded before a further review is conducted. It is, therefore, my intention to commission further research into the economics of the park home industry and the implication of amending the commission rate, in late spring 2015.”

I do not think we should be embarrassed about following the lead of one of the devolved nations.

I would like to see the review process started shortly in England, with the setting of the terms of reference, the processes for looking at the economics of the industry and the commissioning of a study. Detailed consideration of the retention or alteration of the 10% could be dovetailed a few months later into a review of relevant aspects of the Mobile Homes Act 2013.

I emphasise that I do not want unintended consequences that would increase burdens on vulnerable people on low incomes with increased pitch fees. I want a viable park home industry, but I also want to be sure the system is fair to park home owners. The review process should start sooner rather than later.

14:49

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on bringing this issue to the House’s attention once again. She has been a sterling campaigner on it for many years, and we should congratulate her on some of the successes and advances that have been made for our constituents in mobile homes, for whom the legislation has changed for the better. I want to place on the record my thanks to her.

This issue affects many Members, and I know that quite a few of them cannot be in the Chamber today. They include my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), who would have liked to speak but is in a Public Bill Committee upstairs.

Today, I am here to represent the residents of Carter Hall park in Haslingden and Harwood Bar park in Great Harwood in my constituency. Like residents in park homes across the country, those in my constituency are up in arms about the 10% point-of-sale fee that is still levied on static and mobile park homes sales. Much action has been taken in Parliament in the past few years that park home residents can be pleased about—the right hon. Lady highlighted the gains that have been made—but the 10% levy, which is a source of much anger and frustration, still has not been addressed.

The reason park home residents are frustrated, if not angered, is that no other form of property ownership is subject to this form of exit charge—set at an arbitrary level—at the point of sale. If a similar charge affected bungalow owners or those in terraced properties, I am sure that the House would seek measures to redress such a matter. That point was raised by the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who is not now in her place.

Legally, park homes are mobile homes, but in reality they are permanent and stationary. Moreover, such park homes are my constituents’ primary residencies, and regulations need to take account of the fact that they cannot choose simply to up sticks and move to a park home with a better contractual offer. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) made that point when he mentioned behavioural effects.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

My constituents’ feelings on this matter are very similar to those of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. What makes it worse is when a park home owner has not helped their investment in the park home to grow, because they then feel that they are being hit twice as hard.

[Graham Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I will move on to transparency, which is crucial, as is the contractual relationship between the park home owner and the residents, tenants or owners. It is important to have transparency so that people can see how their money has been allocated and how it has been spent, because part of what they pay, via the park home owner, is for maintenance. That is one of the missing elements in this debate.

Many of my constituents who live in park homes are elderly, and to lose 10% of the capital in their property is a huge financial blow at a point in their life where they may be looking to fund their retirement or even their care. Frankly, even if they do not intend to use the money for any particular purpose, it is their property, and in my view an exceptional 10% charge requires an exceptional justification.

Mobile home owners are clearly not people of significant means. Is there not a disconnect here? Is it not obvious, as the hon. Gentleman has said, that there is a gap between the interests of the owner of a site and those of the residents on it? The key point in the argument about the 10% levy is to ask why and for what purpose the money is raised, and how it is allocated. There is such a lack of transparency.

Everyone accepts that park home owners need a revenue stream to manage and service the park, which is the source of their livelihood. I accept the point made earlier that that may lead to a rise in site fees, but it is done as part of a transparent process. Such transparency otherwise seems to be lacking at the moment, which is one of the key issues.

There are key concerns about the transparency of the legally defined and arbitrarily set 10% fee. The residents in my constituency can see no evidence of how the money that is taken is used to improve the park in which they live. I suggest that the Government look again at the fee, and explore ways in which to inject transparency and confidence into the system.

If the Government regard the fee simply as an income stream that is guaranteed to the park owner regardless of any service provided, that will come as a great disappointment and even a source of anger to my constituents. In their view and mine, the revenue for park owners can be taken only in exchange for services provided. Residents need to be able to audit the fees, and have confidence that they are properly used.

I reiterate that I completely understand that park home owners need to have an income. However, sales are not constant and cannot be predicted year on year, so the argument that fees are vital is shaky at best. I know that my constituents simply regard the fees as greed. Indeed, they provide an incentive for park home owners to encourage a churn of residents, because they gain the 10% fee each and every time there is a transfer, and therefore become better off. The incentives in the process are a cause of deep concern. It is worrying that the single 10% fee is payable on each transfer of property, because an accumulation of transfers leads to greater wealth for the park home owner. It may also provide a disincentive for them to maintain the site, to look after owners on the site and to have longer tenancies or permanent residents.

As I mentioned in relation to the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, we have had huge success during this Parliament—I must say that that has been on a cross-party basis—in undoing some of the historical unfairness for park home residents, and it is vital that we continue in such a vein. Park home residents are well organised and have legitimate grievances. The issue of this 10% fee will not go away with well-meaning words and expressions of understanding from the Dispatch Box. They need to have confidence in the fact that steps are being taken to address the lack of transparency with regard to the fees.

My constituents simply want some confirmation that the issue will not be allowed to go away, but that the Government will continue to address and consider it, and that there will at some point be some redress or a change in legislation so that there is more transparency on the 10% anomaly and so that there are far clearer transactions between owners and residents, with people understanding what they are getting into and able to move from one site to another should they so choose, rather than being stuck in a particular site because they are bound by the 10% fee.

14:57

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for securing this debate. I am very much aware of the significant amount of work that she does for park home owners, for whom she is very much a champion. It is right for the House regularly to consider issues that the park home sector faces, and this debate provides us with such an opportunity.

The background to this debate is that my right hon. Friend’s constituent Sonia McColl—she runs the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign and is likewise a stalwart champion for park home owners—has delivered a petition of more than 31,000 signatures that calls for a debate on reviewing the 10% commission. I have considered the motion carefully. Although I welcome this debate and understand the reasons and sentiments behind the motion, I am not able to support it. I shall explain why briefly.

As has been said, I had the good fortune to pilot the Mobile Homes Act 2013 through the House. It was a privilege to do so and I pay tribute to the other Members who had campaigned for many years beforehand, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), as well as Lord Graham of Edmonton and Lord Best.

The 2013 Act addresses the appalling practices that have emerged in the sector in recent years, such as park home owners being bullied, intimidated and driven out of their homes by a minority of owners who are, in effect, gangsters. It also puts in place a framework under which park home sites can be better managed in a more transparent way.

In presenting the Bill, I was fortunate that a great deal of research had been done on the way the sector worked, identifying the problems that needed to be addressed and coming up with solutions. In many respects, the cornerstone on which the 2013 Act was built was the report on park homes by the Communities and Local Government Committee that was published in June 2012. The Committee considered the 10% commission on sales and heard evidence on the matter. It concluded that the right of site owners to receive up to 10% commission from the sale of park homes should remain. The same conclusion had been reached by the previous Government as a result of their 2006 consultation on park home commission rates.

I am mindful of the findings of the research carried out by Consumer Focus, which was published in its report, “Living the dream? An investigation into life on park home sites in England”, in October 2012. It concluded that the issues that needed to be addressed as a priority were improving local authority licensing, addressing the poor maintenance arrangements that prevail on some parks, introducing greater transparency in the process of paying utility bills and, above all else, tackling the problems of sale blocking and intimidation. Its research did not identify the 10% commission rate as a major problem that needed to be addressed as a matter of priority.

[Annette Brooke]

I congratulate my hon. Friend again on the Mobile Homes Act 2013, which addresses the very worst problems, but there is still a lot to be done. Does he not agree that we should look at the issues that concern park home owners in a balanced and unbiased way?

[Peter Aldous]

I agree with my right hon. Friend that there is an awful lot of work to be done in the sector. As I complete my remarks, she will see that I do not think that now is the right time to look at this one issue in isolation. The 2013 Act was one of the biggest changes in the sector in 30 years. I think that it needs to bed down and that we should then carry out a full review.

I have learned a great deal about the sector in the past two and a half years. One message that I have very much taken on board is the importance of achieving an equilibrium—a balance whereby park home owners can enjoy a high standard of living, a peaceful environment and quiet enjoyment, while responsible site owners can manage their parks efficiently and properly, and make a reasonable living and a return on their investment. In the feedback that I have received from responsible and good park home owners in my constituency, the concern has been expressed that if the 10% commission were removed, that equilibrium would be lost.

Given that there are fewer opportunities for new developments on sites and that the lifespan of homes is increasing, site owners are very reliant on pitch fees and sale commissions for their income. The majority of their income is derived from pitch fees—the figure of 70% has been mentioned to me—with sales commission providing much of the remainder. In many cases, the income from sales is the difference between profit and loss. I have seen figures to confirm that. Changing the 10% commission rate might therefore lead to some businesses becoming financially non-viable. That could result in cuts being made in the management of parks, with less money being spent on investment in infrastructure such as roadways, footpaths and communal areas. The result could be that parks take on a more run-down, down-at-heel appearance, which would have a negative knock-on effect on the value of the homes.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend speaks with authority, given his long-term commitment to this matter. However, I take issue with his point on the deterioration of standards. Is not the issue the bundling of costs? As a fellow Conservative, I would have thought that he would be concerned at the bundling of costs into an overall price, which means that the sale price and the 10% commission do not reflect the services that are being offered. The review will deliver greater transparency on what services are being offered, what the price of those services is and what competition might be introduced in respect of those services, so that there is not just an overall 10% figure that may or may not have a bearing on what the park owner is delivering.

[Peter Aldous]

In the fullness of time we need to consider the whole way the industry operates, but if we rush to take away this income stream, there is a danger that we may affect viability and cause problems on good parks.

Research undertaken under the previous Government in 2002 by Berkeley Hanover Consulting was considered by the Communities and Local Government Committee in 2012, and viewed as still being valid. It suggested that if the 10% commission was abolished, pitch fees would rise by 20% to 32%, which could impact on the attractiveness of the sector. In summary, there is a legitimate worry that changing the rate of commission could have unintended consequences. It could lead to higher pitch fees, which would in effect be robbing Peter to pay Paul. At worst, it could lead to a significant decline in the standard of parks, and their maintenance, state of repair and appearance.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Would an increase in fees be fairer than a 10% cut when someone is trying to sell? It seems to me a fairer proposition.

[Peter Aldous]

I certainly take that on board.

The Mobile Homes Act was the biggest shake-up in the park homes sector for 30 years, and it will take a few years to settle down and be implemented fully, properly and effectively. The feedback I have received is that the legislation is providing local authorities with the means of working with park home owners to bring rogue site owners to account, ensure that parks are properly managed and run, and ultimately to drive those bad apples out of the sector.

There remains much work to be done to make the new sale process work better. On good, well-run sites, in the past home owners have relied on responsible site owners—the good apples—to do much of the work for them when it came to selling their homes. Now that site owners have been removed from the sale process there is a vacuum to fill, and I am afraid that the legal, conveyancing and estate agency professions are not coming forward quickly enough to fill that void. That problem needs to be addressed now.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions estate agents. A 10% charge is taken by the site owner, but residents also pay estate agent fees, so that is one injustice. This measure is not being done in haste; as he said, this has been 30 years in the making. His Bill was important because it dealt with the most serious injustices, but it left out the 10% commission because it was so complicated and contentious. Why is the hon. Gentleman fighting against a review? We are asking to look at all aspects of the 10% commission, specifically in a review. Why is he so hesitant to have such a review and consider those aspects?

[Peter Aldous]

I am not opposed to a review, as I will say when summing up my remarks, but it is about the timing of that review and the way it takes place. I understand —I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed this when he sums up the debate—that the Department intends to carry out a comprehensive review of the sector in 2016, three years after the Mobile Homes Act received Royal Assent. One of the main tasks in that review will be to assess whether the fit and proper persons test should be applied to those seeking to manage parks, and I suggest that at the same time the whole sector should be reviewed, including the commission rate. I believe that is the right way to consider this matter, not on its own ahead of that comprehensive review.

Those are my findings on this situation, and as I said, we must seek to maintain an equilibrium and ensure that responsible site owners get a fair return. When introducing the Bill it was important to maintain understanding and consensus on all sides, but I fear that we are perhaps in danger of losing that consensus. That is the basis on which I hope we can proceed.

15:09

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I add my thanks to those of other hon. Members to the many campaigners who have gone before us in the previous three decades—at least—who have sought justice for people who live on park home sites. I thank Lord Graham of Edmonton, who has done so much work on park homes over many years. The right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has led the charge for many years and I thank her for her work. We have got to know her heroic constituent Sonia McColl extremely well. She has become the park home owners’ agony aunt, answering e-mails and phone calls into the night, dealing with some very distressed individuals. She also set up the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign. She has done magnificent work.

I thank my predecessor, Harry Barnes, who led the campaign in the 18 years he was in the House before me. Many of the people who live in North East Derbyshire’s park home sites would like to thank him. Most of all, I thank all the tireless campaigners in the eight park home sites in North East Derbyshire. Hundreds of people live in the park home sites in Riverdale, Millfield, Brookfield, Ponderosa, Sunningdale, Poplar Drive, Grasscroft and Bramley.

The 2011 census showed that something like 160,000 people lived in 84,000 park homes in about 2,000 UK sites. Those figures might be out of date, but more people and not fewer live in park homes. Most park home sites have a rule that people must be 50 or over to live there. Therefore, by their nature, they are places where people go when they have sold up in order to live off the money they have released from their homes. They are on low incomes, and they tend to be elderly and vulnerable. They live in isolated areas, because the sites are on the edges of communities. As the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole said, many of them are very frightened.

[Stephen Barclay]

I concur with that. Is not a further problem that those people cannot possibly have an idea what the charge will be, because, by its very nature, it will be decided in future? They will not know what the sale price is, and therefore even an informed consumer cannot consent to it.

[Natascha Engel]

That is a key element, and the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign group has made exactly that point. How can the charge be such a fundamental part of the necessary profits of site owners—it is necessary according to the site owners—if they cannot say when the profits will come? I will go into more detail on that.

Hon. Members are enormously grateful to the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for promoting as a private Member’s Bill what became the Mobile Homes Act 2013. It has and will make a huge difference. The Act is bedding down. He is very lucky to have so many good apples as site owners in his constituency. All the bad ones have come to mine. As a result of the Act and other legislation, the intimidation has stepped up a level. As campaigning MPs, we need to ensure the involvement of the local authorities.

I do not recognise the picture the hon. Gentleman paints. I understand the importance of consensus, and as hon. Members have said, we do not want to deny park home site owners a good living. They have a very good living at the moment. All we are fighting for is justice. The 10% commission is a fundamental injustice in the sector and I will go into detail to explain why.

The 10% commission is a flat fee. It was initially intended as a maximum commission, but it is a flat fee of 10% no matter the value of the home, how long somebody has lived there, and what improvements people have made to their homes. The homes in my constituency are absolutely beautiful. There is a reason why the report mentioned by the hon. Member for Waveney is called “Living the Dream”. It is absolutely idyllic living on a park home site with like-minded people. It is quiet and beautiful and on the edge of beautiful countryside. It should be absolute heaven in retirement, but improvements are paid for and done at great cost to the people who live there, not to the site owners themselves.

The biggest reason the site owners give, as the hon. Member for Waveney said, is profit margin. With the profit margin, 70% comes from pitch fees and 30%, as the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole mentioned, is from income that is not secured—residents do not know when it is coming. They are told that it is an essential revenue stream for the maintenance of park home sites. I can hear almost every single one of the 600 residents in North East Derbyshire sighing and saying, “If only”. On the sites we go around, there are loose cables and tree roots growing into water pipes that are not being repaired. Massive costs are incurred where there are leakages. As we all know, utility bills are collected on the whole of the site—there is one bundled-up price. Therefore, if the site owner does nothing about the burst pipes, it is the residents who pay.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that there are numerous examples—certainly on pitches in my constituency and probably on those in the constituencies of other hon. Members—of site landlords simply refusing to act? They are challenged; something is pointed out to them but they simply do nothing.

[Natascha Engel]

Yes, and I go back to the point about the type of residents. There are some brilliant campaigners, but all of them are very elderly. What can they do if a site owner is never to be seen, especially when there is work to be done and something has to happen? They are either left to do it themselves—a lot of people are just not able to do it themselves—or they have to live with the fact that there are lots of dangerous things lying around and things are just not sorted out.

We hope that enforcement on the part of the local authority can now happen, but it is very difficult to do in practice if a park home site owner is reluctant to do anything because it costs them money and bites into their profits.

[Peter Aldous]

The image that the hon. Lady is portraying is the view I have of the one bad park home site in my constituency. Does she not agree that the Mobile Homes Act 2013 provides the means to address the problem?

[Natascha Engel]

We hope it will address the problem. One of the really big issues previously was that there was nobody to enforce the licence unless it was a matter for the police, in which case it was a criminal matter and out of everybody’s hands anyway. We hope it will be a very important change, but certainly in North East Derbyshire the legislation needs to settle down. The 10% flat rate seems enormously unfair when site owners are saying it is absolutely essential for the maintenance of the park and no work is ever done. On the contrary, residents are doing all the work and having to pay out for everything.

[Bob Stewart]

This is the first I have learned of the problem. I have listened to the debate and I am absolutely appalled. The 10% fee sounds like daylight robbery. It is fair to charge a rent for a pitch; it is grossly unfair to charge 10% for nothing. It is robbery.

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely; in fact Rick and Bill, from one of the park home sites in North East Derbyshire, made a T-shirt with “Daylight Robbery” on it, which is selling like hot cakes. It is a funny point, but about something serious. This is daylight robbery from people who cannot afford it. That is the really awful aspect. It is exactly as the hon. Gentleman describes: it feels such a terrible injustice that people pay out and get absolutely nothing in return.

I have mentioned this before in a debate, but it is also interesting to remember that when park home sites first started, the type of people who owned them had a social conscience. Part of the reason why utilities are bought in bulk now is that the site owners used to do that and then pass on the savings to the residents. Now the absolute reverse is true, certainly in many of the sites in my constituency, where although utilities are bought in bulk, everything is completely un-transparent. No one can see what they have used or how much money is being charged, and the site owners tend to add a little administration fee, on top of the pitch fees, on which a lot of them are making a disgusting amount of profit. That really should not be allowed, and it is also something that should be taken into the calculations.

As we have said before, what we are asking for is very reasonable: a review of just one thing that was not included in the private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Waveney. That would also be an opportunity for those who disagree with us to make their case. The most interesting thing in the speech by the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole was the fact that the evidence relied on, certainly in the consultation for the private Member’s Bill and under the Labour Government, is from previous research that has never really been updated. As the sector is now much more organised, the people taking part in consultations are ever increasing in number and, thanks to Sonia McColl, have a proper focal point. I therefore urge the Minister and the shadow Minister—the Minister in what I hope will be an incoming Labour Government—to commit to having a review, simply in recognition of the fact that there is a problem. It is not a problem for the site owners, but it is for those who live on the sites.

Transparency and clarity are enormously important. Under the last Labour Government, a regulation was proposed to make any changes clearer and to require site owners to make it clear to those buying park homes that they would face not only pitch fees and utilities bills but the 10% charge at the end their time. That should have been a requirement, but unfortunately it was never implemented. It is all there in the Department; perhaps that regulation needs to be brushed down, so that we can have a look at it before the general election.

As I have said, we do not want to deny site owners a living; it is just that, certainly from anecdotal evidence and the kinds of cars they drive, we can make quite a safe assumption that the profits they are making, on the backs of vulnerable people, are extremely high. Therefore, it is reasonable for us to have another look at this extortionate commission of 10%. The right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole mentioned this, but it would also be a good idea for the review to look at minimum maintenance standards on site, so that if people are paying 10%, the site owner has to commit in return to maintenance up to a certain standard and within a certain timeframe. That would go some way to addressing the injustice that people feel. We could look at that in the review, and there would then at least be a proper justification for the site owners to take that 10%. At the moment, it is daylight robbery; people are getting nothing in return for it.

It was interesting to hear about park home sites that were council-owned. Bramley Park site in my constituency used to be council-owned and is now in private ownership. It does not charge the minimum 10%. The same owner charges the 10% at another park site in the constituency, but he seems to manage perfectly well without charging it on the former council-owned site. Perhaps we could look further into that in the review and assess the profit consequences to a park home site owner if the 10% commission were to be abolished.

Some people think of these mobile homes as caravans, but they are not mobile; they are entirely static. As mentioned earlier, there is one set of rules for people who live in bricks-and-mortar homes, and a different set of rules for these static caravans. Yet these are people’s homes; it is where they live. It is where many of them will live for the rest of their lives. Some have quite a high value. Some of these homes go for between £150,000 and £200,000—often reflecting how beautiful they are. We are not talking about peanuts.

[Annette Brooke]

When the commission first began to be charged, we were talking about home prices of between £10,000 and £20,000, yet now we are up into the realms of £250,000 for a new park home, and even trading prices can be at least £150,000. These are very large sums of money, yet we do not know exactly what the commission is used for.

[Natascha Engel]

That is an important intervention. One of my constituents has written:

“Under the new rules a Site owner has no dealings with the sale of properties, not even to notify the provider of essential services…Water, electricity etc. We do that. All he has to do is get his secretary to delete one name and enter another. A huge commission for a two minute job.”

I think that rather makes the hon. Lady’s point.

The review should look at another problem about which residents have written to me. On one park, an elderly resident had gone into a care home before she sold her home. We need to note that none of my constituents were happy for me to use their names. They wanted to remain anonymous because they are absolutely terrified of the consequences that might follow from their site owners. I would like the Minister to listen to this letter, as it reveals a really serious problem. It states:

“In respect of the new Mobile Homes Act 2013 particularly on the sale of homes, it appears that problems are occurring on properties that are for sale and empty due to either the home owners moving to another property or into a nursing home. Although the ground rent is continuing to be paid, our site owner is claiming that if the property is empty then the home owner is breaking the law within the implied term which states that the home must be kept in a sound state of repair and must be the sole residence of the occupier. It appears that our site owner then sends a solicitors letter to that effect to the seller and also sends out surveyors to check the exterior of the property who obviously find many major defaults and state the property is not worth anything! This then means that any prospective purchaser cannot purchase the property because it is in the hands of the site owners solicitors pending court action!”

That was not the first time I had heard about that problem, which relates to the wider context of the 10% commission issue. We really must have a proper and careful look at this. One positive consequence of setting up an independent review is that many such examples, which I have become aware of only recently, would be brought to our attention. Many of these real injustices, which simply would not be tolerated for homes of bricks and mortar, could be highlighted. That would be most useful.

I hope that when the Minister and the shadow Minister wind up the debate, they will commit to setting up a review and will ensure that the review is independent. We would very much like to help out with the review, but what is most important is for it to be independent of not just site owners, but any other pressure groups. We must ensure that its findings are regarded by everyone as fair and justified. It is high time that we updated what is, by now, quite ancient research.

Notwithstanding what was said by the hon. Member for Waveney, I think that time is of the essence. One of the tragic aspects of this issue is that many people have died since I started the campaign: they have died waiting. Many of those who are alive are elderly, and time is clearly of the essence for them. This is an injustice that needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

It is unfortunate that many of the changes for which we have been lobbying have got lost between general elections. I should dearly love to see a review set up now, with a definite timeline and involving cross-Bench consensus, so that we can ensure that something happens, and happens very quickly. I should be very grateful if the Front Benchers would be specific about whether there will be a review, how independent such a review will be, and, above all, what the timeline will be.

15:31

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), and, indeed, all who have spoken so far. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on instigating the debate, and on making such a powerful case. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on all the tremendous work that he has done in piloting his Bill through the House.

I will not repeat the arguments that have been advanced so powerfully this afternoon. I will, however, quote briefly from an e-mail that I received from a constituent who lives in Lodgefield park in my constituency. He writes:

“Home owners are having great difficulty in selling partly because of the 10% which in effect makes their homes over-priced on the market. This means that owners are trapped in their homes and unable to move unless they drop the price to a level where they are unable to purchase anywhere else.”

He also makes the interesting point that if home owners are selling to fund care, the state, if they come to rely on it, will lose quite a large sum through the 10% commission. That point may be tangential, but I think that the Government should bear it in mind none the less, given that in such cases there will ultimately be a cost to the Treasury.

The only other point that I want to make concerns transparency, to which many Members have referred. There are three elements of the income that comes to park home site owners. First, there is the income to cover their current costs, the year-by-year costs of maintaining the park. Secondly, there is the income to cover capital improvements to the site. That is very important, not least to those who live in park homes, because they want to see improvements to their properties which will increase their value. Finally, quite rightly, there is a surplus or profit element.

Every Member who has spoken has acknowledged that site owners have a right to see a return on their investment, but I, like others, would like to see more transparency. We are told that the commission is needed because, without it, pitch fees would rise substantially—by 20% to 30%, or even more. I am not sure that I entirely understand that. The corollary is that, in a year in which a number of homes have been sold in a park, the site owner would be expected to say “We can reduce pitch fees this year”, or “We will not apply for an increase, because we have received so much income from the 10% commission.” I have yet to hear of such instances. There may have been some, but they have not been brought to my attention.

I agree with what was said earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay). We need to see an unbundling—a transparency —in regard to both revenue and capital costs. Those who live in park homes would then be able to see clearly what had been spent on maintenance and on capital improvements, and what remained as a surplus. I am sure they would welcome that information being made clearly visible, because these matters have an impact on their quality of life and on the capital value of their home.

Such transparency would take a lot of the heat out of the debate. For example, people would be able to see that there might be cases in which a fee of 10% was reasonable in a particular year, just as a fee of 0% might be appropriate at other times. There could also be a strong case for transferring most of the cost to annual fees, or for introducing a mixture of a capital fee and a revenue fee. This is the opportune time for the review that my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole has proposed, and I hope that those on the Government and Opposition Front Benches will concur with that view, as the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) requested, because many people living in those homes are coming to the end of their lives and a solution needs to be found. Transparency is what we need.

15:36

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I apologise for coming late to the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I had to deal with an urgent constituency matter, and I want to put on record my apologies to you and to the previous Deputy Speaker.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has been a doughty campaigner on this issue for many years and I congratulate her on securing this debate. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for introducing his private Member’s Bill. It took 30 years to enact legislation on this matter, and I should like to express my tremendous appreciation to him for enabling that to happen during his first term in the House. It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) as I agree with all he said about transparency. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) passionately evoked the issues.

I have mobile home owners in my constituency. I supported them as best I could as a candidate before I was elected, and it was then that I came across their astonishing lack of power over their own homes. It was absolutely incredible. As the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire said, these homes are not caravans; some of them are absolutely amazing. They are meticulously kept, with beautiful carpets, for example. They are beautiful homes.

Significantly, the vast majority of the mobile home owners are elderly. Having discovered the lack of power that they had, I then discovered the astonishing influence and sheer maliciousness of some park home landlords. I simply could not believe it. As a naive young—or perhaps middle-aged—candidate, I went to the council, but I was told, “Stephen, what can we do? We don’t have the power to do much about this.” That is how I first learned about the process. I have been a close colleague of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for many years, and under her guidance I have since learned a lot more about the iniquities of the system.

On behalf of my constituents, I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney for his private Member’s Bill. I hear his suggestion that we allow it to bed down for a few years, and that we should perhaps step back and take a little heat out of the process so that we can see how it is working—I have tremendous respect for my hon. Friend, with whom I have worked in a number of cross-party contexts—but I disagree with him on that point. I will tell him why.

If I were to sell my house tomorrow, I would be charged between 1% and 2%. Estate agents’ rates are very competitive at the moment. The last time I sold a house, it was valued at about £230,000, so a fee of 2% would have been a couple of thousand pounds. If I had been selling a mobile home, however, it would have cost me £25,000—£2,300 in estate agent fees, plus an extra £23,000. I would have been paying that to the landlord or leasholder, and that is mind-blowing. That would not be so bad if I had tarmac that was always swept and looked after, lights that were kept on and repaired whenever they were broken, bushes and shrubbery that were cut and a landlord who treated me and all the other park home owners with respect. I would still resent it, but I would probably manage my resentment. However, if I was treated with the absolute contempt with which, as I have discovered over the years, some, but not all, park home leaseholder owners treat their tenants or mobile home owners, it would go beyond what my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) described as “daylight robbery”; it is theft. If the wider world knew that this was common practice and estate agents, who are not popular at the best of times for charging 2%, were getting 10% on top of that, it would just be unacceptable. Why has it gone on for 30 years? It is because this is a small sector; it is a niche. Sadly, before the involvement of the doughty Sonia from the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole and the other amazing people who brought this practice to our attention and to that of the public, it went on for many years. Not only were people treated very badly, but they were losing a fortune. It is disgraceful.

So where are we at? The Welsh recognise that the review needs to happen sooner rather than later, so they are going through the process right now. What I say to both Front Benchers is that this is a cross-party issue; there is no problem here. I pay tribute to some of my colleagues who have been pushing this issue for years. We all now understand that the current situation is wrong and it is time that we did something about it. The review should be independent, involving actuarial specialists and estate agents and so on. People who really understand this sector should, independently, have an input to the review and come up with a number of recommendations. They may well say, “Actually, we should keep a commission because of the uniqueness of park homes. Let’s make it 5%, but for that you get X,Y and Z. You get the lawns cut and you are looked after. It is a service rate, like the one that people pay in an apartment block. If you don’t meet that service rate, there are penalties.” This is not difficult, it can be done and there is a cross-party consensus. The first step is to have the review, with robust independent lay people on it, plus specialists and representatives from each of the areas. It will then come up with recommendations, and I am as certain as I can ever be that once the recommendations are made, be it under the coalition Government or whoever the Government are after the general election, there will be a consensus in the House and they will be passed quickly. I hope to receive that commitment from both Front Benchers at the end of this debate.

15:43

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

May I begin, Madam Deputy Speaker, by apologising to you, to the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and to the House for not being present for most of the debate? I have been in Committee considering the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill and have just hot-footed it from Committee Room 10. I want to pay tribute to the Minister there, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who has allowed me to come here, and to the Labour Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who is holding the fort at the moment. However, my constituents come first when I am dealing with matters in this place, which is why I wanted to contribute in this debate.

I am pleased that the Backbench Business Committee considered this matter to be worthy of debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) for her work and her strong interest in this matter and to the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole for pursuing her case so professionally and with such tenacity.

I wish to make representations on behalf of my constituents who live in Elmtree Park, which is close to the coast at Seaton Carew in my constituency. Comprising 100 park homes, the site caters for people without children who are over the age of 50, and it has a vibrant community life. Indeed, it is a great community, and the people who live on that park are its greatest assets. It is always a pleasure for me to visit the residents, eat their scones, drink their coffee and discuss matters relating to the ownership of their homes.

It is clear, from speaking to the residents of Elmtree Park over many years and from my time as a Department for Communities and Local Government Minister with responsibility for park homes, that the current business model is broken, as it provides far too much power to site owners at the expense of park home owners. Although there are many good site owners who invest for the long term and who want a good and mutually beneficial relationship with residents, far too often the sector sees malpractice, a lack of investment, poor if any maintenance and unscrupulous and often criminal site owners who are content to make a fast buck and fleece residents. Time and again I hear of unfair fees that are opaque and subject to no challenge, poor maintenance of the land, and site owners either making it difficult for home owners to sell their homes or hounding people out so that they can consolidate pitches. Either way, the owners often take a whopping profit when park homes are sold.

During my time as Minister, I was particularly keen to reform the licensing regime to ensure that we incentivised the good park home site owners and punished the bad, to the point of driving them from the industry. I wanted to push the concept of fit and proper persons for site owners so that the sector encouraged responsible owners, good behaviour and good conduct, and to ensure that this responsibility was reinforced through effective regulation. I also wanted to make the fee regime transparent, so that park home owners knew precisely what they were paying for. I also wanted them to have the opportunity to negotiate and discuss the fee with the site owner before it was finalised.

It is the fee regime that most concerns my constituents on Elmtree Park. A balance needs to be struck between allowing site owners to raise enough revenue to maintain the site, provide amenities and produce a reasonable return while, at the same time, protecting residents from unfair costs. As a Minister and a constituency MP, I have always been struck by the lack of consensus on whether the 10% commission on sales should be reduced. Some people see their park homes as homes for life and so would rather see a reduced annual pitch fee than a reduction in the commission on sales; conversely, others would like to ensure that the commission was reduced or even eliminated, maximising their income on any sale.

Despite the lack of consensus, it is clear that too much power lies in the hands of the site owner, at the expense of the park home resident. The current regime allows for site owners to benefit twice from any sale, which is very wrong. It allows them to coerce a park home owner, through fear and intimidation, to sell their home to them for a reduced price—the so-called site blocking. The site owner collects 10% on that sale. He or she can then bundle up sites or sell the home, often at a huge profit. All the upside and none of the risk is with the site owner and that cannot be fair.

[Peter Aldous]

The hon. Gentleman is making a passionate speech with which I wholeheartedly agree. However, does the Mobile Home Act 2013 not provide local authorities and park home owners with the ability to stop those problems?

[Mr Wright]

I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, but my main point is to do with that 10% commission on sales as part of the overall fee regime. With his permission, I will elaborate on that, as it is an incredibly important matter. Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, for not being here at the start of the debate when this issue must have been touched on time and again. I am keen to push the idea that the fee regime should be as transparent as possible.

I want to preserve the unique character of park homes that attracts older owners to want to live there. In many respects, therefore, there is possibly an argument that the site owner should be able to vet potential buyers. However, it cannot be right that the home owner is unable to sell his or her asset, in most cases the biggest asset they have, without first seeking approval from the site owner and then paying 10% for the privilege of doing so. I cannot see how that is fair at all.

[Stephen Lloyd]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is almost feudal to expect park home owners to go through that process?

[Mr Wright]

I came into the debate during the hon. Gentleman’s excellent contribution, and I agree with him. I was going to touch on that. He used the word “feudal”; I have the word “archaic”. It is so old-fashioned in the 21st century, and not appropriate these days. We need to ensure that the balance of risk and reward is pushed more firmly towards home owners than site owners. That is why the Government should look again at the 10% commission on sales, as part of the wider review of all costs and fees relating to park homes. I really liked what the hon. Gentleman was saying as I came into the Chamber, which was about ensuring that any commission was linked to proper clarity on maintenance and improvement of homes. At the moment, we do not have that relationship, so the costs of maintaining and improving sites and how that will be paid for are not clearly stated and understood. The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right, and I would like to see that.

There are long-standing problems within the sector, and, as I have said, far too often the balance of power tilts away from the home owner. When I was in office, I was keen, on behalf of the residents of Elmtree and others throughout the country, to ensure that they received fairness as part of a well-functioning park homes sector. That 10% commission now needs to be driven down as much as possible, if not eliminated. Greater transparency on fees needs to be considered as part of that wider regime. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that and wish to advance those aims on behalf of park home owners everywhere.

15:52

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and other Members who have secured today’s debate. The right hon. Lady deserves particular recognition for her long-standing and determined campaign on behalf of 165,000 park home owners and residents to secure better protection for them. It is a cause that has attracted a number of contributions from Members who have park homes in their constituencies.

The basic principle is that park home owners deserve just as much protection as other home owners. That is why the progress that has been made during the past decade or so, including, I freely acknowledge, under this Government, to provide greater protection for park home owners has been so important. The last Labour Government established a park homes working group in 1998, and its recommendations led to not all but many of the shortcomings being tackled in the Housing Act 2004. Further proposals to amend the law were set out in 2005 and implemented later that year, and in May 2009 further consultation was published on options for improving the management of park home sites.

Significant progress has been made in this Parliament, and I pay tribute, as have many other hon. Members, to the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for his Mobile Homes Act, which was put on the statute book in 2013. As he would acknowledge, it drew on the work of the Communities and Local Government Committee and it had cross-party support. It is worth reminding ourselves that the reason for that was the injustices that were so clearly rife in the sector, as we have heard today, and that still continue in some places to this day. It reformed the licensing regime that applied to park home sites, it removed the ability of unscrupulous operators to try to block lawful sales by residents of their homes, and it ensured that pitch fee increases were transparent. It also included provision for the Government, should they so wish, to introduce a fit and proper person test through legislation. As I think we have heard, the reputable park home site owners, apart from anybody else, deserve not to have their reputation undermined or damaged by the rogues—the word “gangsters” was used—who sometimes act shamefully towards their residents. We have made real progress.

Today we have focused on the question of the 10% commission payable to the site owner on sale of a park home. I want to explore the arguments that have been made today, and in the previous studies, on that question. On the one hand, it is forcefully argued by mobile home owners that the site owner does nothing, in effect, to earn the commission, so they do not see why they should be paid it. As we have heard—this point was made most forcefully by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel)—when residents have spent their own money on improving their home, and therefore its value, it is particularly galling to see 10% of the increased value paid to someone else for work that they have not funded.

On the other hand, the argument has been made—we have to acknowledge it—that the income from commission is part of the income that site owners depend on, along with pitch fees and the sale of new mobile homes to new owners coming to the site, and that it is therefore important for making their business viable. Were the rate of commission to drop or disappear—the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole was perfectly frank in acknowledging this argument—would there need to be an increase in pitch fees to compensate?

There have been other changes that I strongly welcome. For example, commission can no longer be applied to the gift of a mobile home to someone else. The previous Labour Government looked at this matter, as we have heard. Reference has been made to the research carried out by Berkeley Hanover Consulting, which concluded at the time—I acknowledge that it was 12 year ago, as the right hon. Lady argued clearly and forcefully—that pitch fees would rise significantly if the commission paid to site owners was reduced. It argued that pitch fees could increase by about a third as a result.

Indeed, when the Communities and Local Government Committee looked at that recently, it pointed to the case of a residents association that was offered a reduction in commission in return for an increase in pitch fees. It was reported to the Committee that one in 100 of the residents so approached agreed to such a move. The Committee’s report also pointed to the previous Government’s consultation in 2006. We have to acknowledge that it would be in the interests of some residents to move in the direction of the commission disappearing, but others would prefer the status quo.

The difference is this: those who favoured a reduction in, or abolition of, the commission rate accepted that it might well result in a higher pitch fee. The residents who intended to sell their home at some point in the future thought, “Well, that’s okay.” However, the residents for whom that will be their home for the rest of their lives were, understandably, much more anxious about an increase in their pitch fee, because they could be paying it for a long time.

With people’s budgets already stretched, and as many of the people who live in park homes are on low incomes, as we have heard, I think that that is a reasonable consideration to take into account. In that sense, would we want to take a step that might result in people facing fees that they would find difficult to pay? There is genuinely a balance to be struck, and we have to consider that.

One of the ways we could help to answer that question—there has been strong consensus on this point—is by having greater transparency. It is self-evident. The right hon. Lady made that point at the start of the debate, and it has also been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) and the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy).

Let us look at the example of leaseholders. Where service charges are levied for works that the freeholder of the building undertakes, whether cutting the grass, cleaning or external painting, they have a right under legislation—the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, I think—to see a cost summary and then the underlying documents. However, park homes were not included in that legislation, which was introduced some years ago, and I simply do not think that can be right. Why should park home owners not be able to see where the money they have paid goes and what it is being spent on? That is a matter of principle if a fee is being paid to someone else, who may or may not be providing the services in return. It would also help us answer the question raised in the argument made by site owners—that if they do not have commission income, they will not be able to continue operating sites as viable entities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) made a point about the business model, and that is important. If someone is not entirely sure how many homes are going to be sold, how can they hope to run their business, which is dependent on something they do not control? With pitch fees, of course, there is control. We recognise that there is a balance to be struck. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) described one possible option: that of lowering fees. Others have argued for their removal.

There seems to be a consensus across the House in favour of a review. As the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole made clear, a review would not say, “We’ve reached a decision about the sensible thing to do.” There is a very strong feeling on the part of home owners that the 10% commission is unfair. We could ask them whether they would be able to cope with higher pitch fees if the commission disappeared; people will have to express a view. I think it would be sensible to have a review. As I understand it, the only issue across the House is its timing. I hope that the Minister will be able to enlighten us on that.

I conclude by congratulating the right hon. Lady on bringing this debate to the House. I hope that the Government will respond sympathetically to her points and those of other Members.

16:01

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on securing this debate on an important issue. As others have said, she has worked hard for many years for residents in park homes across the country. I represent Great Yarmouth, where there are a large number of park home owners, so I appreciate the importance of the issue. I was delighted that one of my first appearances at the Dispatch Box as a Minister back in October 2012 was to respond to my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), during the debate on his Mobile Homes Bill. Both Members have campaigned tirelessly for better protection for park home owners. My right hon. Friend was instrumental in securing the passage of my hon. Friend’s Bill, which is now the Mobile Homes Act 2013.

Members feel strongly about this issue. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) has whizzed his way here from his Bill Committee, where other Committee members will be missing him as we speak. I do not intend to keep him for too long. He joins a number of Members who have campaigned hard for years—not just me and the others here today, but my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), who has also been in a Bill Committee; I have spoken to him about the issue a number of times. My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) has lobbied me regularly, although he is unable to speak today from his position just behind me in the Chamber. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, have campaigned on behalf of residents in Epping Forest. This has also been a strong issue for other Members across the House who want to make sure that residents are protected and can feel confident about their rights and ability to look after their homes, for themselves and their families.

The hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) also contributed to the debate, as did my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney, for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) and the hon. Members for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and for Hartlepool. They have shown the strength of feeling in favour of making sure that our residents are well protected and can have confidence about their rights in respect of their homes.

The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire raised a particular resident’s issue about a site owner’s claim that having a property empty is breaking the rules and that the property could be put in the hands of the site owner’s solicitor and sold. If that is what the resident is being told, it is simply not correct—the law does allow for a property to be empty. If the hon. Lady wants to write to me or contact me outside, I will happily take the matter forward and give her a formal response.

The 2013 Act was the biggest shake-up in park home legislation in 30 years. The Government were pleased to support it during its passage through both Houses. It marks our commitment to ensuring that park home owners are protected and that their rights are fully respected. One of those is the right to sell a park home without undue interference from the site operator. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said, there was significant evidence that the role of the site operator in approving the purchaser was being abused by the unscrupulous to block the sale. This is as much about protecting the integrity and reputation of good site owners as about weeding out the scourge of the bad, rogue landlords whom none of us want to be viable. Park owners in my constituency, such as Blue Sky, work hard to provide a good environment for people to live in. The Act has removed the opportunity for abuse by abolishing the right of a site operator to approve the person to whom a home could be sold.

The new system for buying and selling has been in place since last May. As Members have outlined, it is much fairer than the old system in which the site operator could demand to interview, or otherwise vet, a prospective purchaser—often with a view to putting off a purchase so that the site operator could acquire the home from the seller at a fraction of its true market value. That was simply not acceptable. While the practice of sale blocking was not endemic, it was acknowledged to be widespread. The new procedure reduces the opportunity for abuse. As we have heard, there are still, sadly, some unscrupulous operators who continue to do what they can to interfere with people’s homes and their rights over them.

It is fair to say that, as has been reported to me, some site operators have experience of sellers not complying with the new system and not following the correct procedures when selling their homes. This may not be in any way deliberate—I would imagine that in most cases it is not—but if a sale goes through that does not comply with the law, there could be grave consequences for the seller and the purchaser. This is why we have constantly urged, and continue to urge, that parties to the sale of a park home obtain professional advice, as almost everyone buying or selling any home would do, and as we would encourage them to do.

On the payment of commission, although the 2013 Act did not, for reasons I shall explain, change the maximum amount payable, it did make significant changes to how it is paid to the site operator. Members will be aware of that from the debates that took place at the time. The maximum amount of commission did not change, and it remains at 10%. I can understand why owners object to commission on the sale of a home. They feel aggrieved that they have to give up 10% of the sale price, which is paid to the site owner, who they feel does nothing in exchange. Sometimes they see this charge as a kind of estate agency fee at a point when the site owner is no longer involved in the sales process. However unfair home owners feel the payment of commission is, the fact that it is payable should not come as a surprise. It is an implied term of the pitch agreement, and they should have been aware that it was payable on a sale when they purchased the home.

The maximum rate of commission is 10%, as it has been since the Conservative Government reduced it from 15% in 1983. As we have heard, site operators do not have to charge the maximum rate. The right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole made the fair point that it would be interesting to find out more about whether anybody is charging less than the maximum amount. If Members will bear with me, I will return to that in relation to their comments about a review.

Commission is a legitimate income stream for park home businesses, and there is no evidence that its payment leads to profiteering. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central and others said, that was the finding of the independent report on the economics of the industry commissioned by the previous Government in 2002. The other income strands come from selling homes and pitch fees. Income from selling homes is obviously limited because it requires the availability of pitches—land in anyone’s ownership will always be restricted to a certain amount—or site redevelopment.

Changes in pitch fees are regulated and linked to inflation, as are certain other costs that the operator incurs in running the site. Therefore, if the maximum rate of commission were to be reduced from 10%, or abolished altogether, there would need to be compensatory relief through pitch fees. The independent report noted that if the commission were decreased or abolished outright, operators would look to increase prices elsewhere. In particular, it found that abolition would result in pitch fee rises of between 20% and 32%.

As the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central, has said, property owners have mixed feelings about what the impact would be. It has been argued today that the report is flawed and that the views of home owners were not fully considered. It has even been suggested elsewhere—I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole referred to this—that the report was not independent.

[Annette Brooke]

It has indeed been suggested to me that site owners and those involved in the business had quite an input into the report, albeit not in the writing-up stage. I do not know how true that is, but it contributes all the more to the case for having a review sooner rather than later. A lot of things have changed since 2002.

[Brandon Lewis]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is nice when we all agree from time to time.

The right hon. Member for Leeds Central also said that things have moved on in 12 years. The report is 12 years old and I agree that it had a small sample base, but it was based on a range of park home sites—from the very small to the very large. Although it was published in 2002, there is no great evidence at present to suggest that the economic structures of the industry have changed significantly in the intervening years. There was some involvement from homeowners—there had to be, given the nature of the study in preparing the report. However, the report was on the economics of the sector; it was not, to be fair to the previous Government, a consultation.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

Does the Minister not agree that one of the things that has changed is the value of those homes? Given that the commission is a percentage of the value, which has probably outstripped inflation considerably in many parts of the country, that is a substantial change, even since 2002.

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, although I would point out that the proportion changes for both parties and the percentage remains the same.

Home owners also complained that the report’s findings were not borne out by the facts and, as hon. Members have said, that the 10% commission is not necessarily invested in the management and maintenance of the site, but is simply treated as profit. I have no doubt that there will be examples where that is the case. We are aware that some sites are poorly managed and poorly maintained and that operators do not invest in them. However, that does not mean that that is universally the case. The majority of site operators need that commission to maintain their sites.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I concur completely that it is not always the case, but does the Minister agree that, whether or not the operators maintain their sites, they still receive the 10%?

[Brandon Lewis]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The fact that some do not bother to maintain their sites should be dealt with. It is for the local authority to tackle the issue through the new licensing enforcement tools introduced by the Mobile Homes Act 2013, which was promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney and came into force just a few months ago, in April 2014.

The answer to poorly maintained and managed sites that suffer from a lack of investment in their infrastructure is to use that new law and report poor conditions to the local authority, which under the licensing powers can require the site owner to spend money on improving conditions.

[Natascha Engel]

The Minister says that a majority of sites are well managed. What evidence does he have that it is not a minority that are well managed and a majority that are mismanaged?

[Brandon Lewis]

Actually, what I said was that the majority of site operators need the commission to maintain their sites. On the question of whether they are poorly managed and maintained, I said that some operators are not investing in them. That is exactly what the 2013 Act—the rules and laws that came into force on 1 April 2014—deals with.

The independent report carefully evaluated the economic structure of the industry and concluded that commission was an important income strand that could not be abolished or reduced without relief. Nevertheless, the previous Government consulted on what the appropriate maximum rate should be. Although home owners favoured a reduction in or abolition of the commission rate, very few thought it should be linked, as the right hon. Member for Leeds Central has outlined, to a reduction or an increase in their pitch fees. Understandably, and as the right hon. Gentleman also said, those who generally saw their park home as their home for life wanted to retain the existing system, while other site owners wanted no change at all. The then Government’s preferred option at that time was to have a 7.5% commission on existing agreements and to abolish it on new ones, but to have unregulated pitch fee increases, for which consultees showed little support. The consultation was therefore inconclusive. It looked at options in relation to the payment but, as we all now know, it was not about reducing or abolishing commission. The then Government therefore decided that no case had been made to change the status quo.

In the spring of 2012, the issue of commission was looked at again by the Communities and Local Government Committee. It held an inquiry into the sector, and published its finding in June 2012. Its report, which identified widespread malpractice in the sector, led the Government to support the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney. We agreed with the Select Committee’s finding that there should be no change to commission. That was our view in 2012, and it remains our view today, but I will return to the issue of the review in a moment.

[Annette Brooke]

I am afraid that I may be anticipating the Minister, but does he think that the Select Committee conducted a thorough review? I praise it for its whole report on park homes, but I was not aware that a large part of its work related to the 10% commission.

[Brandon Lewis]

It is not for me to question the decisions of the Select Committee or its Chair about how they go forward, but I will turn in a few moments to how what they looked at can be taken forward. I now want to make a bit of progress with my speech.

As other Members have rightly said, the justice campaign and its founder, Sonia McColl, are to be congratulated on their fantastic, sterling work in raising issues about problems with the park home sector and on the need for reform. As I have explained, we believe that commission is a legitimate income strand. It does not result in profiteering—at the moment, the evidence does not back up such a claim—and site owners who run a legitimate business within the law are entitled, like any such business, to make a reasonable profit. If the commission were changed, compensatory relief would be needed. There are good site owners who run professional businesses within the law. I am sure that all Members want them, for the benefit of their residents and of the economy, to thrive and grow. We therefore do not want to put in place measures that could affect their continuing viability.

I appreciate that that may be unwelcome to some home owners who have campaigned for a reduction in the commission or its abolition. We should not, however, lose sight of the substantial reforms that were introduced by the 2013 Act. It targets unscrupulous and criminal operators who think that the law does not apply to them: it does, it should and it must. Apart from introducing new provisions to prevent the blocking of sales and a new scheme for selling homes, the Act requires site operators to use a statutory form, and to set out what is included in any proposed new pitch fee and how that fee has been calculated. We are therefore starting to see the transparency that we want to exist more widely. The Act has banned certain types of rules that can be used to block sales on sites. It also introduced important provisions to reform local authority site licensing, which came into force on 1 April this year. These hugely important changes for the first time give local authorities powers to take enforcement action against rogues who refuse to maintain their sites.

I want to reassure the House that the Government recognise that more work needs to be done to change the culture of the sector and to crack down on the rogues operating within it who give everybody in the sector a bad name and affect the lives of residents unfortunate to live in such areas. To achieve that, we will continue to work with partners to raise standards generally, and to remove criminality from this sector.

In particular, I am determined to stamp out the continuing bad practices in the industry, such as unlawful sale blocking, or local authorities and other agencies not using their powers effectively to protect home owners. That is why I have asked a ministerial colleague to bring together representatives from across the sector to identify evidence of poor practice where it exists, and investigate how best to raise standards further and tackle abuse. That group will significantly help to shape the review of the Mobile Homes Act.

I agree with hon. Members, not least my right hon. Friend, that the review should have an independent chair. The review will be undertaken in 2017, which will give us a couple of years to see the impact of the new laws before we review how they are working. However, I would be very happy for that group, under its own auspices, to consider a wider review of the issues that have been raised today. I hope that my right hon. Friend will take up the opportunity to be part of the group. I know that the Under-Secretary will welcome Members who want to contribute to and be part of it.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I might be giving the right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) responsibilities that she does not want, but should she not chair the group?

[Brandon Lewis]

I hope that the right hon. Lady will take an active part in the group, but I do not want to put too many dates in her diary, unlike the hon. Member for Hartlepool. I have asked for an Under-Secretary of State to chair the group so that it is taken forward as a Government working group. I hope that other colleagues across the House who have concerns about this matter will participate in that work to improve the sector. We will also involve national resident groups and industry trade bodies, as well as representatives of local authorities and other agencies that are involved in the park homes sector.

I reiterate that we are committed to improving the sector so that those who run professional, honest businesses can prosper without unfair competition from the rogues, and so that home owners, some of whom are vulnerable, can be assured that their rights are respected, that their health and safety is protected and that they will not suffer bullying and harassment.

16:21

[Annette Brooke]

It is a pleasure to have you presiding over our debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, knowing that you have an interest in this subject.

I thank all Members for their excellent contributions. I thank the park home owners who have contacted us in various ways. I also take on board the representations that I have received from good site owners, who have contacted me either directly or indirectly, about how well their sites are managed. I would like them to come to the new group to showcase their good practice.

I thank the Minister for his response. I am sure that park home owners will feel very reassured that their interests are being looked at. We have to continue looking for the right balance, but I think that everybody here has acknowledged that site owners need a return on their capital and that, equally, park home owners need justice.

I liked the words from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) when he said that bundling everything together was preventing the free market from working. I am not always a great free marketeer, but he made a strong argument. We have vulnerable constituents who are not being given perfect information on which they can make rational choices. It is therefore important to think about the model.

In conclusion, I hope that we have taken another little step forward, but we need to deal with this issue sooner rather than later. We must bear it in mind that there is a general election coming up. I am afraid that each time we have had a general election, we have taken a couple of steps backwards in our attempts to achieve more for park home owners. I hope that we really have made progress today and I look forward to participating in future work.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House calls on the Government to set up a review of the current fee of up to 10 per cent of the sale price of a park home payable to the park home site owner.

General Practices (Coventry)

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Jenny Willott.)

16:23

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

This debate might not be as lively as the debate on post offices in May, when we also had the pleasure and privilege to have you presiding over us, Madam Deputy Speaker. Nevertheless, we have an important topic to debate and I am pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) is ready to respond, because we have one or two questions for him. I thank Mr Speaker for granting the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) would like to take part and he has my willing acquiescence. I do not intend to detain the Minister or the House for long this evening, but I wish to put to him a point that was made to me in a precise and graphic way by the local medical committee for Coventry—it is also for Rugby, but in this debate I am principally speaking as the Member of Parliament for Coventry North West.

The situation has been described as a “crisis”. A letter, almost a cri de coeur, went out from the local medical committee on behalf of GPs, issued in the name of the chairman of Coventry local medical committee, Dr Peter Whidborne. He said that,

“due to increasing workload, and decreasing resources, general practice has now reached crisis point.”

That is what triggered my interest in this matter and my concern as the local MP, and it was reinforced by many anecdotal and personal encounters with residents in my constituency—I am sure my hon. Friend will confirm the same thing for Coventry South—who said that they cannot get appointments with GPs. Patients are finding the situation increasingly frustrating, and an assiduous campaign has been waged by certain elements of the popular press against the 2004 GPs contract and all the weaknesses that we know it contained, yet there is also the reality of the pressures under which GPs operate.

The public’s general impression is that the previous Government granted GPs all too easy a deal but that GPs have not responded in kind, and that despite the general improvement in their terms and conditions, rather than improving services they have in fact responded with a decrease in the level of service provided. Many would agree that there has been such a decrease, but they would disagree that that is due entirely, or even mainly, to the 2004 contract changes. In fact, it is a reflection of the general unease throughout the whole health care service. Such unease is reflected in, among other things, reliable figures produced by the Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions, which I will refer to in a moment. On access to GPs, as with other areas of the health service such as A and E departments in the acute hospitals or services for elderly people who suffer from a chronic condition, people are finding it increasingly difficult to get the level of care required, and the resources needed to provide it, because of the stretching of health service provision at a time when resources are relatively stagnant.

Let me cite some figures that I think graphically illustrate the situation we are facing. In Coventry, the number of people emigrating from other countries is increasing and the number of GPs is decreasing—the figure from the Deloitte study is something like a 2.5% decrease in the total number of GPs over the last five years, at a time of increasing demands on them in terms of visits and patients to be seen. Let us remember that 90% of all patients are first seen in a primary practice by GPs before they access any other services offered by the NHS, including the general hospital, and that figure is increasing every year. For the first time in the NHS’s history, however, the number of GPs is shrinking. We must deal with that basic fact at a time when numbers should be increasing.

I am pleased that the Labour party has pledged—this is not a party political point—to increase the number of GPs by 8,000, and to raise the money for that and for wider £2.5 billion spending on the health service through a mansion tax and a tax on tobacco companies. I am sure that in so far as such measures have success—I have some experience of that with the windfall tax that some Members may remember—the latter idea will find widespread support throughout the House. If at the end of the day the mansion tax does not prove successful for whatever reason, the Government will have to look elsewhere, but the need for additional resources can no longer be denied.

Shortly before coming to the Chamber for the debate, I heard on the news that the Secretary of State has said that the reconfiguration involves not only integration of care for the elderly and social care with the mainstream health care services. That is important, but it also involves dealing with the divisions between the acute hospitals, which take the bulk of the spend, and GPs. The reconfiguration must mean that more is done by GPs when services can be sensibly provided by them, and that less is done in hospitals. I believe I am correct that that idea was first mooted by Lord Darzi in around 2008-09. The word used at the time was “polyclinics”, which require a lot of investment. In the interview on television news, the Secretary of State said words to the effect that we need more GPs and 15,000 more community workers in GP practice to make it a success, both of which clearly require more money.

Somehow or other, the Government must face up to the fact that, when it comes to claims for money, services to patients in Coventry and cities throughout the country must be increased. Otherwise, we will have more closures of local management committees and GP practices. Some 518 UK practices have closed in the past five years. Others have expanded, but in Coventry alone, eight major practices have closed. We have shrinkage of capacity and an increase in demand. By the definition of those two statements, we have a crisis, which is the subject of our debate.

Will the Minister tell us how far the Government have got with the pilot scheme under the clinical commissioning group in north Lancashire? The pilot intends to find out how the additional resources—£1 million has been put up—can be fed in without taking away from other parts of the health service, which it is important to emphasise. How is that working out?

That point came to my attention with the letter and prompted me to apply for the debate. The situation was highlighted in an early-day motion back in June. I did not sign it at the time but have rectified that. It was tabled by a Member who speaks for the Liberal party and seconded by two distinguished Labour Members, a former Chairman of the Select Committee on Health and my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), a previous Labour Secretary of State for Health—he was Secretary of State in one of the earlier Labour Administrations. An amendment that I would be interested in supporting was tabled by a Government Member. He said that money was available for that pilot study. I would like to hear how it is making services more effective and providing more resources effectively for the delivery of GP services.

There is a conundrum. Why are GP practices not as attractive as they ought to be to new entrants? Fewer of those qualifying in the medical profession want to go into general practice, hence we have a net decline in the total numbers at the very time when, for all the reasons I have given, we should be increasing those numbers. Why is it so difficult? When one gets into a practice, and before becoming a partner, one gets more than £50,000 a year. Beyond that, when people become partners, they get approaching £100,000 and sometimes more, even in the initial stages. The average pay for GPs in Coventry is more than £100,000 a year.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Some months ago, I visited one or two different general practices in Coventry. The disparity in medical technology was startling. I have raised that in the House before, but I hope the Minister will touch on the reasons why we get such disparities.

[Mr Robinson]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention.

Some 10,000 GPs—I am sure these figures are well researched by Deloitte—have expressed an intention to retire in the next five years. That is 2,000 a year, and Labour is promising to increase the number of GPs by 8,000. We will therefore need considerably more than that just to remain where we are now. What are the projections for doctor qualifications and the division between secondary and primary care? Are we catering for enough or will we have a continuing crisis with people blaming the previous contract, as they do in the press all the time, when in fact there are simply not enough doctors or resources to go around?

I do not want to say that all doctors are perfect. They are no more perfect than the rest of the human race. The simple fact is that they are under strain. I could cite many instances, but I would like to mention one in particular. Dr Jamie Mcpherson, the secretary of the local medical committee in Coventry, is a very fine and dedicated GP whom I have known for years—he was one of the first people to come and see me when I was first elected—through the troubled years when Lady Thatcher’s Governments were first introducing tremendous cost pressures. When there was the idea that GPs would be budget holders of practices, he came to see me and said, “We don’t want that. We are aware we have to improve, but we want to be doctors serving the community.” That was his view. There is always a tension between the pressure to make GPs into budget holders who look at costs and the need for them to be committed to what they are really there for: serving the community as doctors.

I said I would give plenty of time for my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South to speak and I intend to do so. Before I sit down, however, I would like to raise a few more points. What are the Government’s plans to ensure that there are more GPs, not five years out but in the next year or two? Can we expect any net increase in resources and in the number of GPs? Do we have any plans to have 15,000 extra community care health workers? It seems to me that we have an undue concentration on the reorganisation of the secondary sector. We have always had, in this House and outside, a top-down preoccupation with the secondary sector, the acute hospital, as if we solve everything by a concentration on it.

When I received the letter from the Coventry GPs, I realised that an increasing problem relates to the place that GPs occupy within the health community. What progress is being made in north Lancashire? What are the Government’s plans in the next year or two—they must have them, because they budget over three years—for the number of GPs, increasing resources and the establishment of new buildings?

I would like to mention another point that has been brought to my attention. There has been some investment in new buildings for GP practices. Has that investment been made with a view to them becoming polyclinics and taking on more of the “routine” jobs, if we can call them that? They are still very specialist and require trained nurses, which is why Labour has plans for 20,000 more nurses—not all, perhaps, for GP surgeries—and 8,000 more doctors. They are very skilled jobs, even though they are more routine. How much of the investment in new buildings for GPs has been devoted to the provision of a wider range of care? I ask that because it is clear that the capital cost of investing in providing new premises for practices is one of the stumbling blocks to getting new entrants into GP practices.

The other point I want to draw attention to when it comes to the Government’s plans, in addition to whether there is a problem with the practices and the capital costs of buildings, relates to women GPs. Nearly half of all GPs are now women—I think it is roughly 50%—and they need to be able to work part time. We therefore need a flexible contract. Is it flexible and is flexibility encouraged? They have a tremendous and increasing role to play.

Those are the questions I wanted to put to the Minister. We are very pleased to see him in his place and I am very pleased that we are having this debate.

16:39

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) for the invitation to contribute to this evening’s Adjournment debate. I am told—I hope I have got this right—that it is the Minister’s birthday today, so may I get off on the right footing by wishing him a happy birthday? [Interruption.] He is looking rather puzzled about how I might have found out, but I think we should wish him a happy birthday anyway, even if he disagrees with what we say in this debate.

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West, because family doctors in Coventry have warned that local GP surgeries are at breaking point. The Coventry local medical committee has written to the Government to highlight just how much GPs are struggling. The letter was sent on behalf of 198 GPs, nurses, managers and other staff. I am concerned that the life of a GP is becoming increasingly unattractive. We are seeing earlier retirement and emigration to other countries. We do not want a shortage of experienced GPs because we are driving them away. We are all aware of the demographic changes that are putting increased pressure on GPs, but we can try not to exacerbate them. I have written to the Health Secretary on this matter and I look forward to the reply.

I want to raise a few areas of concern about the ways in which GPs are put under pressure. I have heard from GPs on the ground that the level of paperwork required is ever increasing. Targets for GPs can be useful, but GPs feel that they are continually trying to satisfy changing requirements in order to receive the required funding. When that is combined with the climbing numbers of appointments, GPs are hard pushed to tick all the boxes needed to ensure that they are not financially penalised. I am concerned that GPs are being forced to spend far too much time doing administrative and managerial work, which is simply not practical when patient numbers are soaring and GP numbers are dropping. That has been made far worse as a result of the Government’s top-down reorganisation of the national health service, with the introduction of GP-led commissioning. We ought to be asking our GPs to do what they should be doing: treating patients, rather than being swamped in paperwork.

I am concerned that, as a result, GPs are unable to meet the expectations of patients. GPs routinely work between 10 and 12 hours a day and offer appointments at 10-minute intervals. That is extremely demanding, but it also means that they are unable to give patients the care they would wish to. For example, 10-minute slots do not allow time to discuss more than a few medical issues, and certainly not in any depth. Doctors want to help their patients, but the vast numbers of patients, combined with the paperwork and administrative work demanded of them, make that difficult. Patients deserve doctors who have the resources and the time to provide the best care they can.

Last year, a survey of GPs by the British Medical Association showed those points clearly. Almost all the doctors responding to the survey said that bureaucracy and quality and outcomes framework box-ticking had increased in the past year, 94% said that their workload had increased, 82% felt that some of the new targets were reducing the number of appointments available to the majority of patients, 90% said that their practice’s resources were likely to fall in the next year, and 45% said they were less engaged with the new clinical commissioning groups because of the increased workload. Perhaps most significantly, 86% of GPs said that morale had fallen in the past year.

I know that GP surgeries are working hard to keep things going, but we cannot replace resources. Will the Minister make a commitment to Labour’s £2.5 billion Time to Care fund? The Time to Care fund will support 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs, 5,000 more care workers and 3,000 more midwives. Nothing speaks like adequate funding. The extra funding will help to reduce the pressure. I want to know what the Government are doing to alleviate the pressure on GPs, to ensure they have the adequate resources to do the job and to improve morale. Finally, will the Minister make a commitment to Labour’s plans to spend more on the NHS?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Minister, and the House wishes him a happy birthday.

16:44

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) for his kind regards in that respect.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) on securing this debate. Like his hon. Friend, he raised a number of important broader points about the future of general practice and the work force—I hope to provide some reassurance in that regard—and some important local issues, which I also intend to address.

I commend both hon. Members for their interest in local health care matters as they affect their constituents, and I pay tribute to the dedication and professionalism of all the GPs and other staff working in primary care in Coventry and surrounding areas. The House will agree, I am sure, that good quality patient care is expected, regardless of which part of the country we live in. GPs are the bedrock of our NHS, with an estimated 340 million consultations taking place in general practice every year. We want to ensure that we always give GPs the right support so that they can deliver the best possible care for patients.

I am aware that the Coventry and Rugby local medical committee of the British Medical Association issued an open letter on 26 September, giving its views on national and local issues in general practice.

Let me turn first to one of the important points raised in the debate, which was that there has quite rightly often been a focus on the NHS as viewed through the prism of secondary care, yet the majority of engagements with patients is in primary care and in the community. We need to recognise the role of pharmacy, too, as many people’s first point of contact will be with the pharmacist and, in the NHS, with their GP or another element of primary and community health care. It is therefore important to challenge that traditional prism through which the NHS tends to be regarded. We know that it is not just about hospitals; it is about primary care, too, and about ensuring that we invest to support GPs and deliver other high-quality community health care services.

[Mr Robinson]

We are greatly reassured by the Minister and agree with what he said. Will he confirm the figure—I was quite surprised to discover it—that at least 90% of all initial contacts with the NHS are through primary services? As he rightly says, it is mainly GPs, but chemists and others, too. Is the 90% figure correct?

[Dr Poulter]

I believe that that estimate is correct, although it is impossible to give a totally accurate figure, because some of the consultations, particularly with a pharmacist, might be informal rather than registered as an official consultation. For many people, it is important to get advice from their local pharmacist about how better to manage their medication regime or just to seek simple advice about what to take for an upset stomach. Those informal consultations are not usually registered in the same way as GP consultations, even though they happen every single minute of every day in our health service. Those points of contact are in the community, not in secondary care. This is how most people will come into contact with the health service, although in this place we sometimes talk about the NHS through the prism of secondary care. It is a legitimate challenge for all us of to recognise the importance of primary and community care and to continue to invest in and support those people who deliver that when we design health care services in the years ahead.

As a doctor myself, I particularly recognise the work of GPs and the vital role that they play. Shortly after the local medical committee issued its letter, as highlighted in the remarks of the hon. Member for Coventry North West, the Government were pleased to see that NHS employers, on behalf of NHS England and the BMA, reached agreement on changes to the GP contract. The BMA made the point that these changes will provide much needed breathing space for general practice and greater stability for patients. However, we accept there is much more that we need to do in the longer term to support general practice, such as recruiting more GPs to help tackle GP burn-out. I shall say more about that later.

We are of course pleased to have reached agreement with the BMA, and I think it is useful to set out a few points about what we have done nationally and what we want to do in the coming years, as this will help to address some of the concerns raised by the hon. Gentleman.

First, it is worth highlighting some of the investment in general practice that has taken place. We recognise the need for a reversal of the shift that the hon. Gentleman described so articulately—the shift that has taken place, over decades of investment, away from community care and towards hospital care. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be reassured by the latest figures, which show that the total investment in general practice increased in cash terms by 2.92% between 2012-13 and 2013-14, from £7,863.8 million to £8,093.4 million. I shall write to him to confirm those figures, but I think we should all welcome the reversal of the traditional shift in favour of secondary care, towards general practice and other primary care. The hon. Gentleman may be aware that NHS England published its “Five Year Forward View” last week. In that report, it committed itself to more investment in primary care over the next five years, including investment in infrastructure.

I know that the hon. Gentleman is rightly concerned about GP numbers. Although the headcount figure in this year’s annual work force census shows a very small decrease of 29, the full-time equivalent figure has increased by 423, or 1.2%, which represents a real increase in capacity in the system. There are now 36,294 full-time equivalent GPs working in the NHS, including registrars and retainers. That is an increase of 423 since 2012, and an increase of more than 1,000 since 2010. There are 329 full-time equivalent GPs working in the Coventry and Rugby clinical commissioning group area, compared with 305 in 2010, so numbers are beginning to increase locally. I hope that that, too, is reassuring.

I understand that the NHS England Arden, Herefordshire and Worcestershire area team is working with the deanery, examining work force development issues and, specifically, ways of improving the process for GPs who want to return to general practice after a career break. The hon. Gentleman made the important point that the work force now includes many women GPs. That is one of the great strengths of the profession, but we must bear in mind the need to enable women who take career breaks in order to start a family to return to general practice. I know that a great deal of work is being done in that regard, not just locally but nationally, involving the Royal College of General Practitioners and the General Medical Practice.

We accept that the work force must grow to meet rising demand from an ageing population. That is why our mandate to Health Education England requires 50% of trainee doctors, after graduation—3,250, on the basis of current forecasts—to enter GP training programmes by 2016; the current figure is about 40%. That will enable further increases to be made in the GP work force: we expect an increase of about 5,000 by 2020. Although numbers are rising, we know that GPs need more resources.

[Mr Robinson]

My hon. Friend and I are very reassured by what the Minister has said. As for the numbers—which, of course, we always have to plan for—does the increase of 5,000 by 2020 mean an increase in the total number of doctors, or an increase in the number of GPs? Will that be enough, given that 10,000 doctors will retire from general practice alone in the next five years? Does the 5,000 figure relate to the position after those GPs have retired? How does the calculation work?

[Dr Poulter]

The figures that I gave are based on what we assume will be the attrition rate over the next five years. The total number of doctors has increased by, I believe, about 7,000 over the last four years, but the 2020 figure relates specifically to GPs.

The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. The same consideration has historically applied to health visitors. When a large proportion of that work force has been close to retirement over a five or 10-year period, it has meant the loss of a great deal of experience, but that is not the only issue: there is also the need to plan for those retirements in advance. The figures that we worked out with Health Education England take account of attrition rates.

Part of that is about ensuring that half those medical students become GPs on graduation; currently, only 40% do so. That is where the extra increase in capacity will come from. That will also address the fundamental issue that we have been discussing today—namely, that we need more people working in the community and in primary care. We need to move the prism of the discussion about what good health care looks like away from it being just about delivering good health care in hospitals.

The work being undertaken by Health Education England will improve the applications and fill-rate for GP training. The work includes: a review of the GP recruitment process; development of a returner and refresher scheme; development of a pre-GP year to give prospective GP applicants exposure to the specialty; and careers advice for foundation doctors and medical students. That careers advice is important. When I was at medical school, everyone in my year wanted to be a hospital doctor. I entered a hospital specialty. It is therefore important that, from day one at medical school, students are encouraged and supported to recognise the tremendous opportunities that a career in general practice could offer.

Part of the challenge is to set the aspirations of medical students appropriately and to recognise that the work of a general practitioner is as important as—if not sometimes more important than—the work of a hospital specialist. We need to encourage greater recognition of that fact in medical schools, given that we want to deliver more care in the community. I believe that it is Lancaster medical school that has done a very good job of placing a greater emphasis on prospective GPs doing more community-based and primary care placements during medical school training. That has encouraged more students to enter general practice afterwards. I think I am right in saying that it is Lancaster medical school, but I will write to the hon. Member for Coventry North West after the debate to outline exactly where that kind of initiative has been effective. When looking at how we should train our future work force, it is vital to ensure that more medical students focus on a career in general practice from an early stage of their development if we are to encourage more of them to choose that route. We know that that has worked in the past.

I shall not detain the House by describing the work that Health Education England is doing nationally. Instead, I want to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s questions by talking about what we are doing now to support GPs through technology to enable them to provide a better service to patients. This applies not only to the service available during the current opening hours but to how we might facilitate community and primary care services on a more seven-days-a-week basis.

Last autumn, the Prime Minister announced a challenge fund of £50 million to support innovative GP practices in improving services and access for their patients. As well as offering seven-days-a-week access and evening opening hours, pioneer GP groups will test a variety of forward-thinking services to suit modern lifestyles, including Skype, e-mail and phone consultations. We need to recognise that this is about engaging with people on their own terms. Someone who is working might want to engage with their GP in a different way from someone who is retired, for example. The challenge fund will help to address those questions.

The challenge fund is now supporting more than 1,000 practices covering every region. The pilots will draw best and innovative practice from GPs on the ground to determine what is needed and works locally. We recently announced a second wave of access pilots, with further funding of £100 million for 2015-16. Yesterday, NHS England published details of how to apply to become a wave 2 pilot site, including the application criteria, process and time scales. I hope that practices in Coventry will take advantage of that fund and make applications to support local patients.

The £3.8 billion Better Care Fund combines existing funding in a single health and care pot, promoting integrated care and joint working between health and care services. It aims to ease pressure on services by encouraging greater prevention and by supporting people to stay independent for as long as possible. I have been informed that, in 2015-16, the Coventry clinical commissioning group will receive £9 million to improve services in the local area. Demand continues to grow nationally, and Coventry is no exception to that trend. However, I am told that significant work has been done over the past few years to increase access and to support local initiatives. Significant investment has been made in premises to improve better access to services and an improved patient experience. Four practices co-located to the City of Coventry health centre in 2012 and three practices moved to the new centre at Clay lane in 2013. The hon. Gentlemen raised some issues about practice closures—

17:00

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. It being Five o’clock and there being a total lack of Whips in the Chamber—

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his attempt to be helpful, but I will invite the Minister to move that the House do now adjourn, after which he may recommence his speech.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Dr Poulter.)

[Dr Poulter]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise for the lack of the usual accompanying member of the Treasury Bench team to conclude proceedings, but I am pleased to continue the informative debate we have been having.

I was addressing the point about practice closures. The way the information is collected sometimes leads to a headline of “practice closures”, but it may well be that practices have merged, and it is important to recognise that when we have a debate, even an informed one such as this. When a number of practices have co-located locally to improve premises and there has been improved investment, that is an enhancement of services; it in no way diminishes the services available to patients. I do not know the details of each and every surgery in Coventry, but clearly collaboration has taken place, along the lines of the Darzi model outlined by the hon. Member for Coventry North West, whereby surgeries can pool their resources and work together. That can bring benefits to all their patients and mean an additional freeing up of money to invest in other community-based health services, for example, physiotherapy or speech and language therapy. That approach has worked well in many parts of the country, including in the examples I gave in Coventry.

I understand that NHS England has also given approval for new premises for the Prior Deram Walk practice in Canley, Coventry, with the new facility expected to be completed next summer. Ongoing investment is taking place locally. Practices in Coventry have a good provision of extended hours, through the enhanced service for extended hours, and have adopted online booking for appointments and repeat prescriptions. NHS England’s area team monitors complaints from patients and is currently receiving no complaints about access or difficulty in registering with a practice in the Coventry area, although if there are concerns, I would be happy to take an intervention.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I thank the Minister for his announcement about a new practice in Prior Deram Walk, which is badly needed and which we would welcome.

[Dr Poulter]

I am pleased to have brought some good news about future planning to the debate. As I will be writing to the hon. Member for Coventry North West in detail about some of the initiatives with medical students, I am happy to outline further the future plans for that practice in the letter.

GP patient survey results from 2014 indicate that 85% of people who responded in the Coventry and Rugby clinical commissioning group area rated their GP surgery as “very good” or “fairly good”. Although this is a high proportion, it could of course be improved further. The figure is, however, testament to the work of local GPs and the quality of care they provide, alongside everybody who works in those practices. I am also aware that Coventry local medical committee had concerns that Coventry and Rugby CCG was not following NHS England planning guidance and investing more in general practice to support it in transforming the care of patients aged 75 and older. I understand the LMC has now reached agreement with the CCG on that, which is good progress. Our plans for personalised care for the most vulnerable patients included NHS England asking CCGs to set aside £250 million from existing funds. However, as has always been the case, CCGs are not restricted to using this funding on general practice only. For example, in some areas, CCGs have used the funding to employ extra district nurses for local practices.

On the important point about the wider community work force, it is increasingly the case that although a nurse may be counted as a member of hospital staff, their role goes across not just the hospital, but the community. That is particularly the case for nurses who support patients with long-term conditions such as multiple sclerosis and diabetes. Although that nurse is officially counted as a hospital employee, they play an increasingly important role in supporting the patient in the community. Having visited the local hospital in Coventry, I know that there is a great emphasis on the hospital working much more collaboratively with the community. The role of the hospital is about not just picking up the pieces when things go wrong but proactively supporting patients, especially those with long-term conditions, when they are at home.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I apologise to the Minister for intervening on him while he is replying to a debate on Coventry. He just mentioned collaborative service. The Barkantine practice in my constituency combines a 10-handed GP practice with a walk-in centre. It is able to offer appointments from 8 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock at night seven days a week, which is what the Prime Minister made a big point about in his conference speech. However, because of restructuring, the practice is having to hand over its walk-in centre finances to the local CCG, which means that the critical mass for providing the 8 am to 8 pm service seven days a week is no longer appropriate. Will the Minister look at that with regard to collaborative working, as we are talking about breaking down a system that the Prime Minister wants to see replicated across the country?

[Dr Poulter]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I do not detain the House in addressing that specific point today, but I will look into it and write to him separately about it. We have discussed local issues in his constituency before. I will take away what he says and get back to him, hopefully with some reassurance on the points that he has raised.

The CCG is developing a pre-hospital model to help manage urgent care and reduce attendance and admission to hospital. The development includes operational and clinical staff from a number of organisations including patient champions, primary care, local trusts and authorities, and unscheduled care providers.

The model being considered at the moment describes a community urgent care system designed around the patient, ensuring easy and timely access at a convenient location without blocks or diversions. The CCG and its partners at the Coventry urgent care board have developed and agreed a winter capacity and resilience plan. NHS England has made £2.8 million available to support the plan, and a number of specific winter schemes are already being put in place. They include: additional home care capacity for both planned and unplanned support; additional social worker capacity to support A and E and ward board rounds; GP responders; and hospital at home.

The plan sets out a clear mechanism for engaging and developing leaders and staff to enable the cultural changes required to support clinical commissioning activities, performance improvements and services changes necessary in the changing NHS environment at a local level. As we have said, this is about ensuring that the emphasis is moved away from a reactive care model in the hospital—having met the staff in Coventry I know that it is a very good reactive care model—and giving people better support and care at home. That is what investment in local GP practices and increasing GP numbers is about. It is also about ensuring that the right relationships are engaged at a local level to support the right type of care being delivered to patients in Coventry. Its focus is on developing internal capacity and capability to ensure that the emphasis is on upstream interventions, preventing people from becoming so unwell that they need to go into hospital, and making sure that people with long-term conditions and disabilities get the proper community-based support that they need.

I hope that I have brought some reassurance to the hon. Members for Coventry North West and for Coventry South, and I have a couple of points on which I will write to both of them. Once again, I convey my gratitude to the front-line staff working in Coventry. I have seen the local hospital for myself and know how hard local staff work. It is clear that investment is going into GP premises locally and that there is a commitment to continuing to support general practice in Coventry and the development of improved community services to ensure that the big challenge that faces the NHS, which is to support people with long-term conditions, is met, not just nationally, but in particular for those patients who need services from the NHS in Coventry.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 16 October, during the Backbench Business Committee debate on cycling, I said that

“the proportion of cars on that stretch of road is already less than 9%”.—[Official Report, 16 October 2014; Vol. 586, c. 502.]

Further research has clarified that the 9% figure refers to an assessment of the percentage of private cars using the A3211 route at certain times of the day. This is based on counts carried out by transport consultants Steer Davies Gleave for Canary Wharf Group. It would have been more accurate for me to have said, “the proportion of private cars on that stretch of road is already less than 9% at some times of the day.”

I am grateful to be able to set the record straight. I apologise for not accurately reflecting the position. I am not sure whether this qualifies technically as misleading the House as it was an incomplete picture, but I apologise unreservedly for doing so, as that was clearly not my intention.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I recall the lively debate and the lively bit of road to which he refers. The House is grateful to him for coming forward with his usual courtesy and sense of duty in order to set the record straight.

Question put and agreed to.

17:11

House adjourned.

Restoration of the mainline platforms at Carnforth railway station

Thursday 30th October 2014 Petitions

The Petition of residents of the UK,

Declares that the Petitioners support David Morris MP’s campaign to support the reinstatement of the platforms at Carnforth Station on the West Coast Mainline.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to put pressure on Lancashire County Council to approve funding for a feasibility study to allow the platforms to be re-instated.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by David Morris, Official Report, 21 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1214.]

[P001375]

Observations from the Secretary of State for Transport:

In line with our localism agenda, it is for the Local Authority to determine whether such a scheme is a priority for them and to carry out a feasibility study. Therefore, Lancashire County Council are free to make their own decisions on whether to progress with this scheme. At present the Government have no plans to reinstate the platforms at Carnforth station as stopping main line trains would reduce the capacity of the line and increase the journey times of long distance express services.

Westminster Hall

Thursday 30th October 2014 Westminster Hall

Thursday 30 October 2014

[Hugh Bayley in the Chair]

Arms Exports and Controls

Thursday 30th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Relevant documents: First Joint Report from the Committees on Arms Export Controls, HC 186, and the Government response, Cm 8935.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Dr Thérèse Coffey.)

13:30

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

As this will be our last opportunity during this Parliament to debate a report by the Committees on Arms Export Controls, I start by thanking most warmly my colleagues from the four Select Committees who have served on our Committees during this Parliament for the time that they have given, and most particularly for the tenacity that they have brought to our scrutiny of the Government. I also thank our staff who, because they are so few in number, are exceptionally cost-effective. Most particularly I thank the Clerk, Mr Keith Neary, who has given the Committees exemplary service for the greater part of the Parliament during which he has been Clerk.

I am conscious that the increasing width and depth of our Committees’ scrutiny of this key area has imposed a significant additional work load on the four Departments concerned, especially the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, both of which we have visited as Committees to see arms export control procedures in operation. I thank the officials for how they have responded to that increased work load, and I make it clear that in so far as there are shortcomings in those responses, that is entirely a matter for Ministers. That brings me to the two areas of major shortcomings that I must address in opening this debate, both of which relate to what the Committees and I regard as the single most important area of Government policy: the export of weapons and dual-purpose goods that can be used for internal repression.

The previous Government’s arms export control policy was set out in a ministerial written answer on 26 October 2000 by the then Minister of State at the Foreign Office, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain). It included a key statement of policy, which remained unchanged throughout the life of that Government:

“An export licence will not be issued if the arguments for doing so are outweighed…by concern that the goods might be used for internal repression”.—[Official Report, 26 October 2000; Vol. 355, c. 200W.]

We spent two years during this Parliament going hither and thither with Ministers on whether they adhered to that policy, had changed it, or were seeking to change it. That was brought to a conclusion this year when the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills announced the present Government’s arms export control policy in a written ministerial statement on 25 March. When that statement appeared, the previous Government’s policy wording, which I have just quoted, was dropped. Notwithstanding that fact, the Business Secretary said in his statement:

“None of these amendments should be taken to mean that there has been any substantive change in policy.”—[Official Report, 25 March 2014; Vol. 578, c. 10WS.]

Since March, when the Business Secretary gave his written ministerial answer, the Government have made various attempts to downgrade or outright dismiss the key policy wording on arms exports and internal repression in the original ministerial written answer of October 2000. First, in their latest annual report on United Kingdom strategic export controls, which was published in July, the Government chose to describe the wording in question as “the preamble”, even though the word “preamble” does not appear anywhere in the answer given by the right hon. Member for Neath.

Then, in a letter to me on 6 October, the Foreign Secretary tried to maintain that that key wording did not represent a statement of policy at all, saying:

“The text in question did not contain any substantive statement of policy.”

I leave it to hon. Members to judge whether that is the case:

“An export licence will not be issued if the arguments for doing so are outweighed…by concern that the goods might be used for internal repression”.

That was the statement in the written ministerial answer recorded in Hansard.

I stress to the House that it was the unanimous view of all four Select Committees comprising the Committees on Arms Export Controls that that wording did represent a substantive statement of policy. It was also the view of the right hon. Member for Neath, who came before the Committees to give oral evidence on that very point. When we asked him specifically whether he thought that policy on arms exports and internal repression had changed, he said:

“So I do think the policy has changed. It is a more relaxed approach to arms exports.”

In the light of those facts, as far as the Committees are concerned—we made this clear in our report—only one, regrettable conclusion can be drawn from those important exchanges on arms exports and internal repression: the Government have made a significant change in policy, but have not been prepared to acknowledge that such a change has taken place. I put it formally to the Government that they should consider most carefully whether they should now offer an apology to the Committees and the House for making a change in policy without being prepared to acknowledge that to the Committees.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point. Hon. Members may be aware that, in terms of development, the UK scores extremely well except on one significant issue: arms exports. That is the issue that drives our ratings down the development index. The Minister might not think that that matters, but will he acknowledge that there is a perception, which the Chair of the Committees is bearing out, that the UK is more inclined than other countries to sell arms to countries and regimes where their use may be questionable? That slightly undermines our reputation for being a pro-development leader.

[Sir John Stanley]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point as a member of the Committees on Arms Export Controls and the Chair of the International Development Committee, and I am sure that the Minister will want to respond to it.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

In their excellent report, the right hon. Gentleman’s Committees draw attention to the sale of anti-personnel equipment to Bahrain and raise quite reasonable concerns about its use to control demonstrations and so on. For a while, it seemed that the Government were listening to such concerns, but in April last year, they changed their policy and did indeed sell armoured personnel carriers and other equipment to Bahrain. Does he have any continuing concerns about the supply of such equipment to Bahrain and its use there?

[Sir John Stanley]

The Committees most certainly do. As the hon. Gentleman will have seen, we included in our report specific questions to the Government about how particular items that have been approved for export to Bahrain can be regarded as compatible with the export criteria that they supposedly follow. We therefore have responded specifically to that.

I come now to our second area of disagreement with the Government on arms export policy and internal repression, which is with particular reference to exports to authoritarian regimes. In successive reports the Committees have made—again unanimously—the following recommendation:

“the Government should apply significantly more cautious judgements when considering arms export licence applications for goods to authoritarian regimes which might be used for internal repression.”

Regrettably, in successive responses, the Government have declined to accept our recommendation.

I shall set out one of the most striking differences between what has happened under the present Government and what took place under the previous one. Under the previous Government, going right back to their election in 1997—shortly after which came the foundation of the Committees, thanks to the initiative of the late Robin Cook, who was the first Foreign Secretary to produce an annual report on arms exports—the number of revocations or suspensions of existing licences stood at a mere handful. However, during the lifetime of the present Government, there has been a massive use of some 400 revocations and suspensions. I do not think that can be attributed only to the fact that there has been a considerable amount of international turbulence and conflict during this Parliament, as there were wars and turbulence during the previous Government’s lifetime.

I make it clear to the Government and the Minister that I am in no way critical of the huge number of revocations—indeed, I believe they are entirely justified. The key question, and the issue that has been exercising the Committees, is whether export approval should have been given to all the licences in the first place. To reflect what was said by the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce), in broad-brush terms, the Government’s policy on the export of goods that could be used for internal repression to authoritarian regimes has been that if the situation in a particular country looks to be reasonably quiescent, there is a fairly considerable presumption that the export should be approved, with the Government no doubt saying to themselves, “Well, if things turn really nasty in that country we can always revoke the export licence.”

I suggest to hon. Members that nothing illustrates the weakness and limitations—and indeed the perils—of that policy more clearly than what has happened in Libya. Prior to the Arab spring, there was a significant arms export trade, approved by the Government, to Libya under the Gaddafi regime. Not surprisingly, when the Arab spring came and the Government announced their total list of revocations of arms export licences to Arab spring countries, the greatest single number—a total of 72 licences—was for licences for Libya.

We all know what happened when Gaddafi fell from power. Back in the UK, the Government had imposed their revocations, but they were of very limited effect, for the simple reason that they are of no use whatever for exports that have already been shipped. As I have said before, it was an exercise in shutting the stable door after the arms had bolted. What happened in Libya itself? The security arrangements around Gaddafi’s arms dumps vanished and people ransacked them, principally for financial gain, as they saw an opportunity to make quick and substantial money. As UN experts have reported, those stockpiles were then sold on and dispersed all over the middle east and north and west Africa.

I suggest that nothing better illustrates the cogency of the Committees’ recommendation for a significantly more cautious policy when dealing with arms export licence applications for arms that can be used for internal repression than what has happened in Libya. It is regrettable that, in their response to successive reports, the Government have failed to accept our recommendation for caution. I certainly hope that a future Government will take a different view.

I turn now to the Government’s export policy towards a few individual countries, starting with Russia. The publication of the Committees’ latest report happened to coincide almost exactly with the appalling shooting down of the Malaysian airliner MH17 over eastern Ukraine. That created something of a dilemma for the Government, because although, on the one hand, Ministers, led by the Prime Minister, were rightly condemning the Russian Government for being complicit in the shooting down of the airliner and the terrible loss of life, on the other, as was shown by our Committees’ report, there were no fewer than 285 extant British Government-approved arms export licences to Russia, with a value of some £131 million for the standard individual licences alone.

That led at one point to an unknown spokesman in No. 10 announcing to the media that many of the British Government’s arms exports to Russia were for the Brazilian navy, which I have to say came as news to me, as I suspect it did to a considerable number of other people. However, I thought that I should follow that one up, so I wrote to the Business Secretary to ask him for the stated end user of each of the 285 extant arms export licences to Russia. Disappointingly, he refused to give the Committees that information unless we agreed not to make it public. I see no justification for imposing that condition on the Committees. It is hardly in accordance with the Government’s supposed commitment to transparency on arms exports, and it raises a significant issue of policy for the Committees and, therefore, the House. The Government already make public the countries to which approved UK arms exports are going, but in many cases we need to know not just the names of the countries, but the end users in those countries. For example, will the end user be a Government body, a Government security authority or a civilian user? That is key information, but at the moment, the Government simply pick and choose when they will disclose the end users. They gave the Committees the end users when we wanted to know who they were in relation to the export of dual-use chemicals to Syria. They told us the end users when we wanted to know who they were for sniper rifles exported to Ukraine. However, they have refused to give us that information for Russia on the basis that it may be made public, and the Committee will want to address that policy issue further.

What is the Government’s present policy on arms exports to Russia? The Prime Minister said in the House:

“On the issue of defence equipment, we already unilaterally said—as did the US—that we would not sell further arms to Russia”.—[Official Report, 21 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1157.]

I would be grateful if the Minister clarified two points. First, when the Prime Minister said that we would not sell further arms to Russia, was he saying that all or only some will not be sold to Russia? If he was saying just some, which will continue to be sold? Secondly, on new licence applications, will the Minister clarify whether the Prime Minister’s statement means that all new licence applications to Russia are being refused, or only some, and if only some, which? The Minister’s clarification will be helpful.

I am sure that there was great concern among hon. Members on both sides of the House about some of the measures taken by the Hong Kong security authorities against those who were exercising their right to demonstrate peacefully, and especially the fact that tear gas was used against demonstrators. I am in no doubt that if the Metropolitan police had used tear gas against those who recently demonstrated peacefully in Parliament square, there would have been considerable concern and perhaps outrage on both sides of the House.

I thought that the Committees should do their own analysis of precisely what items of lethal and non-lethal equipment that could be used for internal repression the Government had recently approved for Hong Kong. We took the information from the website of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for the last two years from January 2012. Our analysis showed that the Government had approved tear gas exports to Hong Kong in four of the past eight quarters since January 2012. If those licence approvals were given on the grounds that the security authorities in Hong Kong would never use tear gas against those demonstrating peacefully, that was a questionable assumption, given mainland China’s track record of dealing with peaceful demonstrators. Our analysis of lethal equipment approved for export to Hong Kong since January 2012 showed that it included pistols, sniper rifles and gun silencers, which were all stated to be for use by a law-enforcement agency.

I have written to the Business Secretary to ask a series of questions about the Government’s policy on arms exports to Hong Kong, including:

“Have any extant Government approved export licences to Hong Kong been revoked or suspended?”

I also asked:

“What is the Government’s present policy on approving new licences for the export of arms and equipment to Hong Kong that could be used for internal repression?”

We have just received the Business Secretary’s reply, a key paragraph of which is:

“No licences for Hong Kong have been revoked, suspended or had Hong Kong removed from a multiple destination open licence. The Foreign Secretary has advised me that the use of tear gas by the Hong Kong police was an uncharacteristic response at an early stage of the protests, the scale of which caught the police by surprise, and was not indicative of a wider pattern of behaviour that would cross the threshold of criterion 2. In his view that, since that incident, the Hong Kong police have generally approached the protests carefully and proportionately. I have accepted this advice.”

I am sure that the Committees will want to reflect on the Business Secretary’s response and then report to the House. My own view, having received that letter only a short time ago, is that the reply seems to reflect the more relaxed approach to arms exports that could be used for internal repression to which I have referred. It certainly makes me wonder whether, if the original wording in the October 2000 statement by the right hon. Member for Neath had been retained instead of dropped, those arms exports of both lethal and non-lethal equipment would have been approved in the first place.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, given the political situation in Hong Kong and the concerns that have been expressed internationally, there must be a real risk of a recurrence of exactly the sort of event during which tear gas was used against civilian protestors? There has not yet been a resolution of that protest; it continues in Hong Kong today.

[Sir John Stanley]

There is certainly a risk of a recurrence of exactly what the hon. Lady describes. I hope that a lesson has been learned by the Hong Kong police that it is not acceptable to use tear gas against those who are demonstrating peacefully. It remains a matter of concern to me, and I am sure that the members of the Committees will want to look closely at the analysis that accompanied my letter to the Business Secretary. The Committees will want to scrutinise closely whether it was wise in the first instance to approve exports of the sort of equipment—lethal and non-lethal—to which I have referred.

In turning to Israel, I want to make it crystal clear at the outset that I condemn unreservedly Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel. However, Israel has serious questions to answer about its use of lethal weapons that has resulted in the recent death of well over 2,000 Palestinians—men, women and children—in Gaza, the great majority of whom were certainly not Hamas fighters.

The Foreign Office, in its annual human rights report, includes Israel—entirely rightly in my view—in its list of the 28 countries of top human rights concern to the British Government. In our latest report, we have listed for each of those countries the extant UK Government-approved arms export licences. Our report shows that Israel has the third largest number of extant arms export licences of those 28 countries, with a total of 470—a figure exceeded only by China and Saudi Arabia. In addition, our report shows that of those 28 countries’ extant arms export licences, the largest by value is Israel’s, totalling £8 billion in value. However, I want to stress this very important point: that £8 billion is largely made up of a gigantic cryptographic equipment export order, valued at £7.7 billion, which the Defence Secretary, when he was Minister of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, assured the Committees was

“for purely commercial end use.”—[Official Report, 21 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 426WH.]

Early in August, following what happened in Gaza, I wrote to the Foreign Secretary, asking him to list the controlled goods that the British Government had approved for export to Israel and that the Government had reason to believe may have been used by Israel in the recent military operations in Gaza. The Foreign Secretary gave me his reply on 19 August, saying

“officials have judged it unlikely that many of the components that were the subject of extant licences were for incorporation into systems that would be likely to be used offensively in Gaza”.

However, he went on to say, significantly in my view, that

“12 licences have been identified…where, in the event of a resumption of significant hostilities, and on the basis of information currently available to us, there could be a risk that the items might be used in the commission of a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

I think that is a very significant statement by the Foreign Secretary, and it once again reinforces the Committees’ recommendation for a significantly more cautious policy when dealing with the export of arms that can be used for internal repression.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have two points to make: first, was the right hon. Gentleman concerned about the supply of drone aircraft parts to Israel during the recent operation and, I believe, since then? Secondly, was it ever identified exactly what the commercial purpose of the massive £7.7 billion order was, and what the boundaries were between commercial use, civilian control and military use?

[Sir John Stanley]

The hon. Gentleman, again, is on to a very important area, and that again highlights the need to get much more transparency about end users. He makes an extremely valid point, which applies even more strikingly in relation to non-democratic countries—one-party state countries such as Russia and China, in effect, where there is no clear boundary between the Government sector and the private sector at all. That is why we need to get the Government to accept that these Committees, and therefore the House, are entitled to end-use information.

On components for unmanned aerial vehicles, I can only refer the hon. Gentleman to what I just read out from the Foreign Secretary’s letter; he specifically refers to components that were for “incorporation into systems”. His view was that it was unlikely that they were used in Gaza, and I cannot take it any further than that, I am afraid.

If I may, I will just complete my points on individual countries. There are obviously a very large number of individual countries and others want to speak, and I want them to have their full time, but I make this point: in our report, we identified 12 countries in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s list of 28 countries of top human rights concern where it seemed to us that specific exports appeared to be in breach of one or more of the Governments’ arms export criteria. In our recommendations, we asked the Government to state why those exports were approved. Those 12 countries were: Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Uzbekistan and Yemen. We also asked the same question in relation to five other countries that are of concern to the Committees but are not on the FCO’s list of 28. Those five countries were Argentina, Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia and Ukraine.

For most of those countries, as the House will see in the Government’s response to our report—the Command Paper—the Government came back with a fairly formulaic response, certainly as far as the opening of their reply was concerned. They used this formula:

“The Government is satisfied that the currently extant licences for”—

and then they put in the name of the country—

“are compliant with the Consolidated Criteria”.

I want to assure the House that we shall not let the matter rest there. In our view, there is a substantial mismatch between what has been disclosed about extant licences and the Government’s arms export criteria. We want to examine that further, and we shall take oral evidence shortly from the industry and non-governmental organisations, and from the Business Secretary and the Foreign Secretary.

I turn to the other area of our report, which is international arms control agreements. Virtually all international arms control agreements are designed to control or halt proliferation of both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. The Committees have therefore extended their scrutiny of the Government’s policy to the entirety of international arms control agreements. The Government give an explanation of their policy in relation to some of those agreements in their “United Kingdom Strategic Export Controls Annual Report”, but a number of key agreements are omitted. For example, there is no reference to the fissile material cut-off treaty, or the chemical weapons convention, or the biological and toxin weapons convention, or significantly, to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

In the Committees’ last report, they recommended that the Government, in their annual report, make their coverage of international arms control agreements comprehensive, instead of only partial. It is disappointing that the Government, in their response to our questions on their annual report, have not accepted that recommendation, but I assure the House that the Committees will continue to scrutinise the Government’s policy across the totality of international arms control agreements.

I come to a few of the specific agreements, starting with the arms trade treaty. We warmly welcome the British Government’s ratification of the arms trade treaty on the first day it opened for ratification—2 April 2014. It is also very encouraging that the 50th country ratification, triggering the treaty’s legal entry into force, has now been achieved. According to the Government response to our report, entry into force will take place on Christmas eve 2014—an excellent Christmas present to all those concerned with international arms control.

However, it is particularly disappointing that of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council only the UK and France have ratified the treaty thus far. The US has signed but not ratified, and China and Russia have neither signed nor ratified. The House will agree that it would be a dismally poor example to the rest of the world if the remaining three members of the P5 failed to ratify the arms trade treaty. I hope that the British Government will continue to do their utmost to get those key countries to do so.

One of the most important arms control events in 2015, if not the most important, will be the nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference. In our report, we recommended that

“the Government states as fully as possible in its Response what are now its objectives for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2015”.

We did not get a particularly full response from the Government, but they did come back with three objectives:

“We want to agree further progress towards a world free from nuclear weapons and to highlight our actions in support of this; encourage action that will help to contain any threat of proliferation or non-compliance with the NPT; and support the responsible global expansion of civil nuclear industries.”

I hope that the Government will be rather more forthcoming, both to the Committees and to Parliament, about their detailed and specific objectives, and how they propose to try to achieve them in the run-up to the NPT review conference.

One of the great and largely unsung achievements of the Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher era was the intermediate-range nuclear forces agreement of 1987. The INF treaty is far and away the most important nuclear disarmament agreement that has been achieved since nuclear weapons were created. It was also the first and only time that the US and Russia reached a nuclear disarmament agreement based on zero-zero on each side. Against that background, it is of great concern that reports have appeared that Russia may be in breach of its INF treaty obligations. I took that up with the Foreign Secretary, who in his reply said:

“The US State Department’s recent annual ‘compliance’ report (Adherence to and compliance with arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament agreements and commitments) states that ‘the United States has determined that the Russian Federation is in violation of its obligations under the INF treaty not to possess, produce or flight-test a ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) with a range capability of 500 km to 5,500 km, or to possess or produce launchers of such missiles.”

That is a very serious statement from the Foreign Secretary and the US State Department. In my view, if the INF treaty breaks down, it will be the most serious reverse for multilateral nuclear disarmament that has so far occurred in the nuclear weapons era. I therefore urge the Government to do their utmost to mobilise the maximum possible international pressure on Russia to restore its adherence to its INF treaty obligations.

To conclude, Ministers are never happier than when they can deal with difficult issues with comforting generalisations. The devil is always in the detail, and in no area is that more true than arms export controls. I therefore make no apology for the length of the Committees’ latest report, which, taken with the all-important volumes of evidence, runs to some 1,000 pages. I hope that it will prove a valuable resource to those in the House and outside who want to inform themselves about the actuality of the UK Government’s arms control and arms export control policies, rather than just resting on ministerial generalisations.

The Committees are not remotely self-satisfied about our scrutiny and are sure that we can improve it further, but I believe that now in the UK Parliament we have the most detailed and most open parliamentary scrutiny of the Government’s arms export policies of any of the major arms exporting countries, including the United States, where, under the relevant legislation, there are financial cut-off thresholds below which exports do not have to be reported to Congress. We of course have no such financial thresholds in our Parliament and in the relevant legislation.

In the course of this Parliament, the Committees on Arms Export Controls have substantially widened and deepened our scrutiny of the Government’s policies. First, we have for the first time put alongside the list of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s countries of top human rights concern—the 28 countries to which I referred—the extant arms export licences approved by the British Government for each of those countries. That has been an extremely worthwhile and very illuminating exercise. It has certainly left me, on certain points, with considerable concerns, but others will draw their own conclusions.

Secondly, we have very substantially extended our scrutiny of the Government’s policies on international arms control agreements. That, too, is a crucial area, even though the subject tends to receive not much public attention, in Parliament or outside. Thirdly, we have in this Parliament extended our scrutiny to a whole series of additional export items, including drones, Tasers, cryptographic equipment, the UK Government’s gifted exports and Government-supported arms export exhibitions.

I hope that we have discharged our scrutiny responsibilities to the House of Commons effectively in this Parliament, and that we have created a strong and powerful springboard for our successor Committees to carry forward scrutiny of the Government’s policies in the key area of arms control and arms export controls in the next Parliament.

14:19

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this afternoon, Mr Bayley. First, I want to look back to the debate last November about the work of the Committees on Arms Export Controls, in which we spent quite a bit of time discussing concerns about past and possible future exports to Syria. That was not surprising, given the recall vote that had taken place in September last year on arming opposition groups in Syria, and given the media controversy that had emerged about chemical weapons components coming from the United Kingdom.

At that debate, none of us talked or even knew about ISIL. Very few anticipated the descent into statelessness that we are now witnessing in Libya, to which the Chair of the Committees, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), has referred. Nobody could have foreseen the devastation and loss of innocent life caused by the conflict in Gaza this summer. That is why I urge all Members of the House to consider whether we are truly comfortable with our current arms export strategy. If we cannot foresee what events will occur in the next 12 months, let alone the next five or 10 years, and as most arms exports have a considerably longer shelf-life, there has never been such a need for a principled, precautionary and risk-based approach in a world of increasing volatility.

The Committees’ work has become more important with each passing year of this Parliament. I take the opportunity to convey my thanks, and that of the other members of the Committees, to our esteemed Chair, to our excellent Clerk, Keith Neary, and to the other staff who service our Committees for their unstinting dedication, thoroughness and unparalleled expertise in the preparation of the substantial and important report that we are discussing.

As the Chair has indicated, our report contains conclusions that are both positive and negative from the Minister’s point of view. The work on the arms trade treaty is a genuinely good sign. I am looking forward to participating next week in the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference here in London with delegates from across the world on how we can use the treaty to make real differences to people who live in conflict-afflicted areas. I hope that the United Kingdom, as it has done throughout the arms trade treaty process, will continue to take a leading role in the development of the treaty. The increased direct involvement of Ministers in the examination of sensitive export applications is also welcome. As the Chair has mentioned, I think that there is a direct correlation between that involvement and the number of licences that have been suspended and revoked in the past few years. Good work has been done on ensuring that applications are dealt with in a timely way and reducing the time-lapse in appeals.

As the Committees have made clear, it is more than disappointing that the Government’s record on transparency has been worryingly regressive this year. Although there is some merit in the aim of easing unnecessary bureaucracy by transferring more of our export licences from individual to open, we must not do that at the expense of transparency on sensitive issues where there are many legitimate concerns and where the geopolitics are changing at great speed.

The scaling back of the transparency initiative, which has included the reversal of previous public commitments by the Government to publish more information on the type, value and quantity of equipment transferred under open licences, sends a worrying message to the wider world that our stated principles may be only superficially adhered to. The fact that that occurred at the same time as the UK signed the arms trade treaty has exasperated many of the NGOs that supported the campaign for the treaty. The Government’s response to our recommendation to reverse that decision was grudging. They said that

“we concluded that the administrative burden would be too high.”

However, no substantive evidence from the industry was offered to justify that conclusion, and there was no such evidence in the Government’s consultation exercise. I believe that the Committees will want to probe that issue more closely in our next set of evidence sessions next month.

As well as transparency, we need consistency. The Committees’ Chair has already stated his concerns about the definition of the common criteria, and I support his views. The Government’s defence was to designate the relevant paragraph

“as a general statement that formed part of the introductory text”.

As such, apparently, it was of no importance. That is, frankly, nonsense. The text is designed to be read as a whole, and the reader is entitled to presume that it is consistent throughout. If it was not, a caveat would be added to that effect. There is no caveat in the definition of the common criteria, and it is simply unconvincing to try to present one retrospectively after our Committees have been trying to probe the matter for almost two years. That is not a mere grammatical point or a fixation on detail. In a volatile world, where many accepted wisdoms and assumptions have been torn apart and where western nations are increasingly castigated for being driven purely by self-interest, the need for the highest standards and the greatest caution about those to whom we export arms is more pronounced than ever. Much of the turmoil that we are witnessing in the middle east has developed from the impact of internal repression over prolonged periods of time, where, too often, we in the west have not given sufficient weight to the consequent risks.

Another use of language in the Government’s lexicon to ease them out of difficult dilemmas is the term “significant hostilities”. Our annual report predated the dreadful events during July and August in Gaza and Israel, which resulted in the death of more than 2,000 Palestinians, 67 Israelis and one foreign national, as well as the indiscriminate destruction of schools, hospitals and homes and the displacement of more than 470,000 people. As the Chair has done, I condemn the operation of Hamas and the indiscriminate bombing of Israel, but I also condemn the Israeli Government for the disproportionate nature of the attacks on Gaza, the consequences of which the civilian population had to take.

The UK working group on arms has stated its concern that the Government’s failure to suspend or revoke any of the existing licences is contrary to their obligations under articles 6 and 7 of the arms trade treaty, within which the Government have indicated that they are operating. The Government did not even follow their own domestic licensing criteria. As soon as hostilities commenced in July, there was a clear risk that the United Kingdom might be supplying military equipment that could be used, as the former Foreign Secretary indicated in a letter to the Committees, in the commission of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. The only proper response should have been the immediate suspension, if not the revocation, of the 12 licences identified by the Government in their internal review. In the Government’s response of 19 August, however, a new criterion appears to have been added. Suspension or revocation would not occur unless there was

“a resumption of significant hostilities”.

As the UK working group pointed out, that phrase has set a new, arbitrary and subjective threshold and a dangerous precedent.

I am looking forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope that he will tell us on what basis that new test was agreed. Was there a discussion between No. 10, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Foreign Office or the Department for International Development about setting that qualification? I am sure that the document went past every single relevant ministerial desk before it was issued to our Committees. Has there been any discussion with our EU partners about a common approach on exports to Israel following the summer hostilities? Are the Government now prepared to remove that additional test and revert to their original criteria? If so, will they reconsider the licences and act to suspend them if those criteria have not been met?

As always, the Committees’ report contains a paragraph on the annual international arms fair in London. Frankly, it is time to put that embarrassing saga to an end. I fail to understand why the review has had to take 18 months so that the results are conveniently announced as the Government wind up business in time for the general election in the hope that attention is diverted elsewhere so that we do not see the report’s conclusion. Given that the organisation of such a large and substantial trade fair probably starts the day after the conclusion of the previous fair, surely the organisers, participants and Government staff tasked with enforcement need to know what may be required by the end of this year. Rather than waiting the full 18 months, is there any possibility that the Government can respond much more speedily to conclude the review and provide our Committees with the review’s conclusions so that we may comment on the conclusions in our final report before Parliament is dissolved?

Finally, I am concerned about the increasing use of surveillance equipment, including intrusion software, which I raised in last year’s debate. It is welcome that changes to controls have been reached this year via the Wassenaar agreement process, but we still await implementation. In their response to our report, the Government stated that they anticipate an amendment of the EU dual-use regulation by the end of this year. Will the Minister confirm whether the timetable will definitely be adhered to? There has been a suggestion that we may be falling behind the timetable for technical reasons. If so, will he confirm that the United Kingdom would consider unilateral measures, along the lines proposed earlier this year by our German partners? Have the Government conducted any recent review of the human rights concerns raised by a number of organisations, including Privacy International, that the current criteria may not be effectively catching exports of surveillance equipment? Privacy International mentions the UK Government’s export of such software to the Indonesian Government with an export credit guarantee this year. Any information that the Minister is able to provide today would be very helpful. If not, I suspect that we will want to probe further when we have our oral evidence session.

As I stated at the start of my speech, we live in a world of increasing volatility. Traumatic events with long-lasting impacts that require complex responses are occurring simultaneously in different regions of the world. The resources of even the most technically sophisticated Governments have been stretched as never before. Last week I heard a member of the US Administration with responsibility for defence matters state that they do not have time for routine meetings, such has been the demand on their time due to the crises across the world in recent months. We need to stop relying on old assumptions and appreciate that the risks are changing rapidly. Our response has to change, and arms exports are a key part of that policy. It can be all too easy for any Government to resort to shortcuts and sticking-plaster responses to avoid difficult choices, but that must be resisted. Clear principles, consistently adhered to with maximum transparency must be the way forward. I urge the Government to continue working with our Committees to achieve that aim.

14:29

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am pleased that we are having the debate and look forward to the Minister’s response. This is the fourth day running that I have had meetings with him but, if this helps him, there are no plans for tomorrow.

I thank the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) for his work as Chair of the Committees, for the analysis and the depth of their report, and for his preparedness to present it so well and in such detail today. I hope that we will see elected in the next Parliament someone as diligent and determined to ensure proper scrutiny of arms exports as he has been throughout this Parliament. We all owe him a debt of thanks, and it is sad to think that he will not be here after the next election, unless he changes his mind.

I want to make a number of points, but I will be brief. We should commend the late Robin Cook for our having this debate and these reports, and for the increasing tradition of openness in the Foreign Office on arms exports, human rights matters and recruitment policy in the diplomatic service of the future. The commendable changes that he introduced during his time as Foreign Secretary have stood the test of time. He will be remembered as a great Foreign Secretary for them, as well as for many other reasons.

While I want to raise detailed points about arms exports, we should think about the generality for a second. If we, as a country, export arms of any capacity or capability to another jurisdiction or regime, and those arms are used to abuse the human rights of people within those communities or within that society, that removes our ability to complain about those abuses because, in a sense, we are complicit due to our supplying weapons that have been used to oppress people. In that regard, the criteria adopted by the Committees and the Government’s response make interesting reading. I commend the Foreign Office for how its responses have been set out, because their helpful presentation means that one can quickly read the objection raised by the Committees and the Government’s response to it.

My first point is about Israel and Palestine. To reiterate what is said in the report’s introduction, we all witnessed what happened in Gaza recently. It was not the first operation—I hope it is the last operation, but it certainly was not the first—because there has also been Operation Cast Lead, among others. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) pointed out, we have witnessed the destruction of Gaza several times over. There have been several worldwide appeals to rebuild Gaza only for it to be bombed and then rebuilt again some years later. We are exporting surveillance and other equipment to Israel, and indeed we are importing arms from Israel, but while the war crimes investigation organised by the United Nations Human Rights Council is ongoing, we need to think very carefully about our arms export policy for Israel.

I hope that the Minister is able to explain in detail the massive communications equipment order placed by Israel. I think the expenditure that has been cited is £7.7 billion, which is absolutely massive. I do not know what the equipment is for, but I cannot believe that a country of only 5 million people would want to spend so much on something that, while it could be used for commercial mobile phone services or something else, did not have a military component. I would be grateful to know what inquiries were made, what end-user surveillance there has been for Israel, and whether there will be restrictions on such exports in the future.

Paragraph 159 of the report describes the ongoing issues in Bahrain. For reasons that I do not fully understand, the Government decided at some point that it was safe to sell anti-personnel, riot control-type equipment and armoured personnel carriers to Bahrain. I was at the United Nations Human Rights Council a couple of months ago as a guest speaker in a seminar on human rights in Bahrain and the sale of equipment there. I talked to people who had been brutally assaulted on the streets of the capital city for taking part in a democratic protest. I hesitate to say this, but it seems that some of the equipment with which they were beaten may have been supplied by Britain. I also talked to the families of the medics who were threatened with permanent imprisonment, if not worse, for treating anyone who was injured during the disturbances. The human rights situation in Bahrain is very serious indeed, and I question why we are selling any equipment at all to Bahrain in the current circumstances.

Likewise, paragraph 141 makes the point about the repression of individuals and the unaccountable power of the police on Saudi Arabia. What it does not say—I am not making a criticism, but the report does not say it—is that it is very difficult to find out a lot about what is going on in Saudi Arabia because of the nature of its public media and the difficulties facing foreign journalists who try to report what happens there.

I realise that Saudi Arabia is a massive arms market—not only for Britain, but for other countries—and that seems to have an enormous impact on foreign policy relations with Saudi Arabia. However, the arms that have now appeared among ISIL forces in Iraq and Syria have all come from somewhere. They were not bought at the Defence Security and Equipment International exhibition, or anywhere else; they were bought from people who imported them from the USA, Britain and Russia—all kinds of places all over the world—because they had the financial resources to do so. Those arms were exported under licence at some point, and they have arrived with ISIL and are being used to kill large numbers of people in the most abominable ways. We therefore need to be a lot more assiduous and much tougher about what happens to the arms that we export.

I have deep concerns about Sri Lanka, which is also covered in the report. I would be grateful if the Minister could give us an indication of the Government’s current thinking about the supply of arms to Sri Lanka. I know that the Prime Minister took the correct and quite brave decision to go to Jaffna during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and he obviously expressed concern about the treatment of Tamil people at that stage. Are the Government now planning to resume the sale of equipment to Sri Lanka, or not?

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North made a point about the Defence Security and Equipment International exhibition, which has become more than a bit of an embarrassment. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has pointed out that there were people at the exhibition advertising the sale of things such as electric shock equipment. Although that equipment is totally illegal in this country, it is on sale in London at an exhibition sponsored by the British Government. That is a cause of the deepest embarrassment, and I question whether we should be having the exhibition at all.

Paragraphs 120 to 122 of the report helpfully refer to nuclear weapons and their effects. This area is covered by several treaties, including the non-proliferation treaty. I asked the Minister a question about this on Monday, and I will continue to do so. The Austrian Government are hosting a conference on the humanitarian effects of nuclear weapons in Vienna at the beginning of December. That is a continuation of a conference hosted by the Mexican Government and, before that, by the Norwegian Government. Already, 135 nations have agreed to attend the conference, and 155 nations have supported New Zealand’s statement on the invitation to the next conference. This is a serious discussion about the effects of nuclear weapons on humankind as a whole, including not only those people who have already been affected by the explosions nearly 70 years ago in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but those affected by nuclear testing elsewhere. I hope that the Minister will tell me that the Government are at least seriously considering their invitation to the conference and that they will encourage the other permanent members of the Security Council to attend, too. If we want to live in a nuclear-free world, as everyone claims to wish to, surely attending that conference has to be a good step forward.

The report also cites the middle east weapons of mass destruction-free zone conference, which is now apparently supported by everybody. I have sat through a number of non-proliferation treaty review conferences during which a number of countries—principally countries within the region, and usually countries in the Arab League—have raised a proposal from the 2000 review conference that to stop the proliferation and spread of nuclear weapons across the middle east, as only Israel has nuclear weapons in the region at the moment, that middle east conference should try to create a region free of nuclear weapons and WMD. That has never happened, however. The Finnish Government were unable to organise it, but it has been reiterated that the conference will be held. At the last review conference, every permanent member of the Security Council—Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States—got up and said they supported that. Iran supports it. and Israel has not said no to it, so I wonder what is the impediment to that conference taking place, if all the players want to attend?

At the previous review conference, Egypt walked out. It did not leave the NPT, but its representatives said that they were angry at the lack of progress. If there is not progress on non-proliferation in the middle east, proliferation will happen, because somebody else will be able to develop nuclear weapons—the financial resources are certainly available—and we will then be in a very dangerous situation.

I welcome the section in the Committees’ report about chemical weapons. If anything good has come out of the crisis in Syria during the past two years—this is probably the only thing—it is that Syria at least acceded to the chemical weapons convention. The removal and destruction of chemical weapons from Syria is to be applauded. That step forward shows what can be achieved when the EU, the USA, Russia and Iran co-operate to try to achieve something.

The Committees report that Angola, Burma, Israel, North Korea and South Sudan have not signed the chemical weapons convention, however, and it is time that they did. It is time that the whole world signed up to it, because if we can have a worldwide convention on small arms and landmines, we should be able to insist that there is a genuine worldwide agreement on the abolition of chemical weapons, and then move on to other weapons.

We have to think carefully. It is too easy to say, “Sell arms to somebody—out of sight, out of mind.” That comes back to bite us, with civil wars and conflict, and with human rights abuses, some of which are carried out with weapons that have been made in this country. We should think carefully about that, before we so glibly say, “We support the arms industry.”

14:46

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Bayley, for calling me to speak. It is always a great pleasure to serve on Committees or attend debates with you in the Chair.

As I have done for the last few years when we have debated this issue, I thank and congratulate the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) on the extensive work by his Committees, and on the way in which he has driven the Committees forward during the past few years. He has given more than 40 years of public service both to this House and to his constituents, and he will be a sad loss to discussion of this particular subject when he moves on after the next general election. Nevertheless, he has left a lasting legacy in this place as the Chair of the Committees on Arms Export Controls, and we wish him well in the next chapter of his political life outside this House, whichever chapter that may be and wherever it may take him.

We must scrutinise the Government’s policies in this sector, because arms control is critical. The Committees’ report is hugely valuable and must be highly commended. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) said, 12 months ago we could not have projected forward to where we are today in the international scene and landscape, and I hope that in 12 months’ time—when we come back to look at any further reports from the CAEC—things are better and not worse than they were last year, because I am sure that 12 months on from last year we would all agree that things are now worse, not better.

I will start by touching briefly on the contribution that the UK defence sector makes, not only to our country’s security but to our economy, because it shows how important it is for the Government to get arms export controls absolutely right. The arms industry generates annual revenues of more than £22 billion, including exports worth £6.5 billion per annum on average during the past decade. Consequently, it makes a significant contribution to the economy of the UK. It also plays a vital role in training, up-skilling and developing UK skills; it directly employs 162,400 staff in the UK, sustaining more than 100,000 other jobs through the supply chain; and, crucially, given the highly skilled nature of the workers in this industry, it employs nearly 5,000 apprentices across the sector.

It is within that context that it is important that the UK plays a key role in the international defence market, not only for the economic benefits but for the responsibilities that the market places on the UK Government in that international context. As I said when I outlined where we were last year compared with where we are today, globalisation of course brings countries into closer contact—mostly harmoniously, but as we have seen throughout the report, there are often areas of tension and friction when that contact happens.

It is right that we recognise the defence industry’s part in providing security, both here in the UK and in other countries as we help them to fulfil their right to self-defence. But that role, of course, comes with a heavy responsibility. The industry itself has a responsibility, but the Government are responsible for overseeing arms exports properly, ethically and robustly.

I look forward to hearing the Minister respond to some of the questions raised by the report. The right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), who replied to the debate last year, skipped all the big questions asked in the report, so I hope that the new Minister, whom I congratulate on his recent elevation to the Foreign Office, will be able to respond in a more robust fashion.

I want to look at Labour’s record in government to give us some context for where we are now. It is worth reflecting on how we have come to this current position of oversight and why we are able to talk about these issues today. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) rightly mentioned the role that the former Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, played in putting pressure on the then Government in relation to the arms to Iraq inquiry. The inquiry culminated in the Scott report and the bringing together of national export licensing criteria. He was proud to be able to bring that about. It was one of the first issues addressed by the Labour Government in 1997. It was not only the right thing to do; it brings transparency to this House on one of the most important issues that we deal with, not only in terms of defence but in terms of responsibilities and who we sell the items to around the world. On entering government, Labour introduced some of the toughest arms export regulations in the world at that time.

It is also important to reflect on where we have come from. In 1999, when the tough arms export regulations were put together, it was the first time that the matter had been looked at in a UK context since 1939. If we think the world has moved on significantly in the 12 months since we last discussed these issues, the world had certainly moved on significantly between 1939 and 1999. So we have had the consolidated criteria in 2000 and the Export Control Act 2002, and since 2004 the quarterly report has brought much greater scrutiny and transparency to our arms exports across the world. I am sure Members of Parliament of all parties recognise the importance of such changes. Although it is a difficult issue for a Government to deal with, it is right that the Minister should be here to answer the key questions in the report.

It remains the strategic approach of the Opposition that arms must not be sold to nations that will use them for external aggression or internal repression, and that they should be used for defence. That reflects the written ministerial statement that the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling read out at the start. It was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) in 2000. It is still the approach that we champion in opposition. We would not deviate from that. We recognise that nations have the right to defend their sovereign lands, but they do not have the right to oppress their people and use weaponry sold to them by this country to stamp on legitimate demonstrations, as we have seen on our television screens in the past few months.

The Committees on Arms Export Controls report is a voluminous report: more than 1,000 pages. The Chair of the esteemed Committee, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling, asked whether I had received a copy of the report and whether I had read it. I am glad that it was published in an executive summary format, which was a little more digestible. It is important that the Government take on those 1,000 pages. It is not a political report with which to kick the Government but a very helpful document that runs through all the areas of concern about arms export controls. I want to concentrate on four aspects. Hon. Friends who have already spoken have concentrated on other aspects, but I want to concentrate on the four that I think are the most important in the report.

First, the change in the consolidation criteria. Significantly, the report criticises the Government’s removal of a key line from the consolidated criteria in March this year. We have mentioned this already. The line is:

“An export licence will not be issued if the arguments for doing so are outweighed...by concern that the goods might be used for internal repression”.

Despite taking such positive steps with the arms trade treaty last year, we have now gone backwards in terms of the clarity that was required from the Government in that sentence. There has been justification from the Government for the removal of those criteria— the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling has already mentioned that—but it significantly weakens the test for arms exports. We are concerned about its removal and urge the Government and the Minister to reflect on that. Will the Minister explain—the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks did not do so last year—why there is dubiety about the removal of those particular criteria, and what is to become of “a more relaxed approach” to arms exports? Have the Government made a substantial change to policy without acknowledging it? I think the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling asked that before. The questions posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North on this issue must be answered directly by the Minister today. If that is the only answer we get, we will have moved on substantially from the report that is in front of us.

The second issue that I wish to raise was mentioned in the report this year and last year—it might have been mentioned in previous reports. It is the issue of the brass plating of companies. We discussed this at length during last year’s debate, and as the report says, the Government are still to take action. So what action has been taken over the past 12 months and what action is in the pipeline?

Although brass plating in a UK context works well—we would not deny that that is the case—this is about brass plating across international communities, where companies that have brass plating in this country operate against the brass plating rules that would apply here when operating overseas. That must be looked at clearly, but it again highlights the globalisation of the issue and why the export controls market must be monitored closely. There are big issues around the international co-operation that is required to deal with the exploitation of brass plating in this country. That is why the Minister should look into ways of developing a strategy, closing loopholes and collecting evidence—possibly in conjunction with other countries—to get the necessary detail and put the measures that are needed in place to enable us to discontinue the UK registration of such companies that exploit brass plating.

Brass plating in the UK should not mean irresponsibility elsewhere. The report specifically touches on that. There is much concern about the operation of front companies registered in the UK which operate overseas with impunity. What does the Minister have to say about that particular issue?

The third issue that I want to raise is arms brokers. The Government issued a call for evidence in April this year on a proposed pre-register of arms brokers. They committed to provide a formal response by September. It will be November this weekend, and I am not aware that the Government have kept to that timetable and produced a response. Will the Minister confirm when the Government will publish the result of their call for evidence on the need for a pre-licence register of arms brokers? The Government have not been consistent in their record of delivery in response to previous reports from the Committees.

The fourth area that I want to address relates to some current case studies. There are a significant number. The report highlighted 12 countries that cause concern, and another five are mentioned. I want to concentrate on three to highlight some of the issues in the report that the Government need to address.

[Mr David Amess in the Chair]

Of course, there is the issue of Russia, which has entered into the Balkans, causing reverberations across Europe and the region. There is the conflict between Israel and Palestine, which we saw in the summer, and in recent weeks—mentioned already this afternoon—the mass pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong that prompted a very strong and aggressive response from Government authorities, which was not in line with what we would expect from anything that has been exported from this country. In all those events, questions have been raised about the use of British exports. Indeed, some serious allegations and concerns must be addressed. Will the Minister concentrate on the big issues in his response?

In the case of Russia, the Government have given conflicting messages on exports to Russia. Both the Prime Minster and the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), gave categoric assurances, with the latter stating in March this year:

“The UK will now, with immediate effect, suspend all extant licences and application processing for licences for direct export to Russia for military and dual-use items destined for units of the Russian armed forces or other state agencies which could be or are being deployed against Ukraine.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2014; Vol. 577, c. 658.]

That is a fairly categoric assurance from the former Foreign Secretary. However, it was reported that, in July this year, 250 licences were still in force.

Can the Minister update the House and the Committees on whether the licences are still in operation? How many have been revoked, suspended or reissued? What assessment does he have for the Committees of the licence system and its effectiveness in these instances?

The second area of concern is the issue of Israel and Palestine. We can all recall the spiral of violence over the summer that engulfed Gaza, southern Israel and the west bank. We condemn, as we always have in this Chamber and across the House, the firing of rockets into Israel by Gaza-based militants. No Government on earth would tolerate such attacks on their citizens, but the disproportionate response, yet again—my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North mentioned Operation Cast Lead—by the Israeli Government to Gaza fuels even more conflict and even more distrust of the system. That is why the Government have to look seriously at whether the UK’s arms export controls and licences are helping the situation or making it worse.

The Government’s internal review identified 12 specific licences covering a range of military equipment—including components for military radar systems, combat aircraft and tanks—which, as the review states,

“could be part of equipment used by the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza.”

The review shows that there have been particular issues with Israel and Palestine. I was shocked to hear of the letter that was sent to the Chair of the Committees by the Foreign Secretary. To quote it directly, the Foreign Secretary was concerned that there was

“a serious violation of international humanitarian law”

in Israel’s response. We demand an immediate publication of the Government’s review. Our view was that no arms should be exported under existing licences while doubts remain as to whether any equipment could be used for internal repression, the abuse of human rights or to provoke prolonged arm conflict or violate international humanitarian law.

It is particularly important that we have transparency on the system in this case. The British public need assurances that the UK’s arms export sales have not been in contradiction of the consolidated criteria and have not contributed to that particular conflict. Directly on Israel and Palestine, does the Minister agree that the Government should suspend or revoke any licences for export to Israel of controlled items where there is a clear risk, or even a hint of a risk, that they will be used in combat operations in the occupied territories of Palestine? I am not an avid follower of the Minister on Twitter, but he tweeted a press release this morning condemning Israel for the continued building of illegal settlements in East Jerusalem. The Israel-Palestine peace process is fragile, and we should do all we can to ensure that arms exports are not contributing to the problem.

Finally, to travel a little further east, there are the issues in Hong Kong that are receiving international attention. At the start of the month, the Deputy Prime Minister summoned the Chinese ambassador to make clear his dismay and alarm at China’s handling of pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong. As The Times reported on 29 September, in handling those demonstrations—Members have mentioned this—the Hong Kong authorities used CS gas grenades made in Britain to disperse protesters. While the Deputy Prime Minister met with the Chinese, the Defence Secretary dismissed the concerns raised about the use of CS gas on protesters and said that it was “a rather immaterial point” whether the grenades were made in the UK. I am not sure whether anyone in this Chamber or anyone on the Committees on Arms Export Controls would see the use of UK-made CS gas in dispersing pro-democracy protesters as “a rather immaterial point”. In fact, it is fundamental to the report we are discussing, and to the question of whether licences should be issued or revoked in these situations. Does the Minister agree with that statement? What can we do on these issues?

The Chair of the Committees said, in his useful speech on the report, that he wrote to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on these gas canisters. When I looked into that, the Chair had not received a response, but he indicated to the Chamber that he has now. Will the Minister clarify the points raised by the Business Secretary’s response to that letter? Have the licences been revoked?

In conclusion, I would welcome clarity from the Government on some of these issues, and in particular on their commitment to not diluting this country’s approach to export licences. Does the Minister still stand by the commitment that he will not approve an export licence if he believes that there is a clear risk that an export might be used for internal repression? We support him in that approach, which dates back to 2000, and would welcome clarity on whether he has changed it.

In the debate on the Committees’ report last year, several Members urged the Government to adopt a more cautious approach to arms exports approval. The ability to revoke or suspend export licenses is a significant and important function, but as the Chair said, once the bullets have bolted, they have bolted irreversibly. That is one of the issues that we have seen in the 12 countries of concern. We believe that the Government should not only take a more cautious approach but strengthen the prior scrutiny of licenses, and not limit scrutiny to the review of ministerial decisions only when they have already been taken.

As my right hon. Friends the Members for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) and for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) would have said in their respective roles as shadow Foreign Secretary and shadow Secretary of State for International Development, lessons could be learned from others in the international community. In Sweden, for example, there is an expert advisory body, headed by an independent official responsible for the oversight of export licensing, which advises on delicate pre-licence decisions before a Minister gives the final approval. In the US, Congress is given prior notification of all foreign military sales that are over specific cost thresholds and are planned for the following year and can object ahead of the Government making a final decision. Those mechanisms ensure that a more cautious approach is taken and that there is no rush to licence approval.

Alongside those domestic guidelines, there must be global ones, too. A global industry requires global guidelines. The Government are to be congratulated on their efforts on the arms trade treaty. We all welcome that being signed as early as possible. It will significantly boost efforts to stem the flow of arms to some of the world’s most volatile places and help end the transfer of weapons used to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. I urge the Minister and the Government to use that opportunity to show international leadership and push for ratification in all countries, and by the largest players in the globalised economy, particularly given the size of the UK defence industry.

Finally, I would be grateful if the Minister commented on the steps the Government have taken to encourage countries to ratify the treaty. It was signed with such fanfare last year and is such an important contribution to the arms trade in this country and in the international environment. I close by once again paying tribute to the Chair of the Committees on Arms Export Controls, and all the members of those Committees, who are each chosen from Select Committees. The Chair’s post is a distinguished one; he deserves great credit for the legacy that he has left the House in these reports. I hope that the Minister will fulfil that superb legacy and answer all the questions the Chair posed, not only in his speech on the report, but in the report itself.

15:08

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Amess, to work under your chairmanship today. It is also a pleasure to respond to this important debate on the Committees’ report. I begin by giving an apology on behalf of the Minister for Business and Enterprise, who should be responding to the report. That is his place, but unfortunately, as with other members of the Committees on Arms Export Controls, he is involved in a Bill Committee elsewhere and sends his apologies. It is appropriate, however, for the Foreign Office to be involved. We scrutinise the process of approving or not approving arms exports, although the final decision is with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, not the Foreign Office. I am delighted to be here anyway.

I join others in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) for his tireless and dedicated work in chairing the Committees, which are unique in bringing together the skill sets of other Committees. I was not aware that this was his final report. I do not know what he will find himself doing next year, but he will probably want to write about this issue in another context, because he has lived and breathed it for so long. The House is indebted to him for his dedication and commitment to this important subject. We are grateful for the knowledge and expertise he has brought to the House over many years, and we thank him for his hard work.

I also thank other members of the Committees for their contributions, and I will do my best to answer their points. A challenge was thrown down—not once or twice, but a number of times—in comments about how appallingly the last Minister failed to answer all the questions posed to him. I should make it clear that I am substituting for the Minister who should have replied to the debate, so I am not sure whether I will fare any better, although I can give a commitment that if I am unable to answer any questions, I will endeavour to write to right hon. and hon. Members individually. In that way, it will not be me who gets the grief next year, when Members return to this subject after the next general election.

I thank the shadow Minister for his words, his tone and the constructive manner in which he expressed his thoughts and concerns. He spelled out the situation Britain finds itself in. The defence industry is indeed sizeable, and it is important for jobs and UK security, as well as in terms of the UK playing a responsible role on the international stage. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a number of issues, and I will do my best to answer him. I should say how touched I am that he follows me on Twitter, although I am afraid I have not reciprocated. When I leave here, however, I will certainly endeavour to make up for that misdemeanour.

[Ian Murray]

I will block you.

[Mr Ellwood]

I hope that is as aggressive as the debate gets. Let me reiterate that the Government take their arms export responsibilities very seriously and aim to operate one of the most rigorous and transparent arms export control systems in the world. Our core objective in export licensing is to promote global security, while facilitating responsible exports. That means preventing controlled goods from falling into the wrong hands. It also means that we must not impede legitimate trade in defence and security goods.

All export licence applications are carefully assessed on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria, taking into account all relevant factors at the time of the application, including the prevailing circumstances in the recipient country, the nature of the goods, the identity of the end user and the stated end use. A licence will not be issued if doing so would be inconsistent with any provision of the criteria, including if there is a clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression or external aggression.

The Government support the responsible trade in defence equipment. All nations have the right to protect themselves, as enshrined in article 51 of the UN charter, and they have the right to acquire the means to do so. Moreover, defence and security exports help to strengthen the UK economy and to support growth. As the shadow Minister said, the industry employs tens of thousands of people across the UK. In 2013, the value of UK defence and security exports rose to £13 billion—a 13% increase on the £11.5 billion recorded in 2012. Those exports also helped the UK to forge close relationships with allies and partners in support of international security objectives.

We must therefore seek to operate an efficient export licensing system that not only ensures rigorous export controls, but facilitates responsible exports. The case-by-case assessment of export licence applications remains the most effective way to balance those concerns. We follow a clear and well-understood procedure for each application, which involves circulating expert evidence to other Departments as a matter of routine, to make the best assessment possible, based on the evidence available at the time.

I want directly to address the perception that, in the relatively rare instances where licences are subsequently revoked or suspended, the export licensing system is in some way broken. That is certainly not the case. In 2012, the then Foreign Secretary conducted a review of arms exports, which found that there were no fundamental flaws with the export licensing system. However, the review did identify some areas where the system could be strengthened. As a result of that review, a suspension mechanism was introduced to ensure greater responsiveness to changing circumstances overseas.

The suspension mechanism allows for the suspension of pending licence applications to countries experiencing a sharp deterioration in security or stability such that it is not possible to make a clear assessment of whether the consolidated criteria have been met. Following EU Council decisions, it has now been applied to extant licences as well as pending applications. The suspension of licences should, therefore, be viewed not as an admission that there has been a mistake, but as an indication that, on the contrary, the system is appropriately in tune with the reality that circumstances change and that the export licensing system must be able to react appropriately.

Moreover, we have the power to revoke any licence if we judge that changed circumstances mean that it is no longer consistent with the consolidated criteria. Again, revocations should be viewed as indicative of the fact that the system can respond to change, not as a sign that our case-by-case assessment of export licence applications is flawed. We make the best decision possible at the time of each application, and if circumstances change, we can react appropriately. Action to revoke or suspend licences is, then, not a sign that the system is broken; in fact, the flexibility to respond effectively to change is a sign of health and demonstrates how seriously the Government take the guiding principle of responsible exports.

Having set out that overview, I would like to touch on a number of specific issues my right hon. Friend and others have raised. First, however, it would be useful briefly to reiterate the Government’s policy on assessing the risk of goods being used for internal repression.

Criterion 2 of the consolidated criteria, which has been mentioned a number of times, states that an export licence application should be refused if there is a “clear risk” that the goods in question might be used for internal repression or in the commission of a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

Some confusion arose following the former Foreign Secretary’s evidence to the Committees in 2012, which was interpreted as suggesting that the “clear risk” test in criterion 2 had been dropped. Let me emphasise: the threshold of clear risk in criterion 2 has been the policy of successive Governments since the criteria were established in 2000, and it remains our policy. As confirmed in recent correspondence with the Committees, we have no plans to change that policy.

[Sir John Stanley]

May I correct the Minister on the point he has just made? There was no misunderstanding and no suggestion in the Committees on Arms Export Control that the criterion 2 “clear risk” test had been dropped by the Government at any point.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful for that clarification. I hope that what I have said, and what my right hon. Friend has now said, has set the record straight. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills reaffirmed the “clear risk” test in criterion 2 while amending the consolidated criteria in March.

Let me turn now to Russia, which a number of right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned. As I have outlined, the flexibility to respond to changing circumstances in any export destination is an essential aspect of our export licensing system. Our reaction to the events this year in Ukraine provides a good example of our responsiveness and our determination to ensure that UK exports do not contribute to internal repression or external aggression.

Restrictive measures have been put in place against Russia, with a view to increasing the costs of Russian action to undermine Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, and promoting a peaceful settlement of the crisis. It is worth making a distinction between a collective desire to bring in sanctions, which are themselves an attempt to affect behaviour, and taking action when weapons systems or other equipment that has been sold are used in an oppressive manner. There is a distinction between the two, but they can lead to the same thing, which is the removal of some form of arms exports.

In the absence of agreement among EU partners on taking concerted action against Russia, the UK took the initiative in reacting to the deterioration in events in Ukraine by announcing the national suspension of a number of export licences in March, and that is an example of what I was just talking about. The aim was to restrict exports of equipment to the Russian military that could be used in Ukraine. As we did before announcing the action, we encouraged other EU member states to follow suit. The national suspension was superseded by sanctions against Russia, introduced by the EU in July. The package included an arms embargo and prohibitions on the export of certain technologies suited to the oil industry, on the export of dual-use equipment to Russia for military end use, and on the provision of related services.

Further restrictive measures were announced in September in response to Russia’s actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine. In addition, during that period we reviewed existing export licences for Russia and took the decision to revoke 39 standard individual export licences and seven open individual export licences, and to remove Russia as a permitted destination for 50 multi- destination open individual export licences. The Government will continue to monitor conditions in Ukraine and will keep export licensing restrictions under review. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling asked whether what the Prime Minister said on the matter referred to all or only some licences, and if I may, I shall write to him about that detail.

I am limited in what I can say about the recent conflict in Israel and Gaza, because it is the subject of ongoing legal proceedings. As hon. Members may know, the Government conducted a careful analysis of existing export licences for Israel. That review, the outcome of which was announced on 12 August, found that the vast majority of exports currently licensed are not for items that could be used by Israeli forces in operations in Gaza. During the review period, no new licences were issued to supply equipment to the Israel defence forces. However, as was mentioned in the review, 12 licences for components were identified as potentially able to contribute to equipment that could be used by the Israel defence forces in Gaza.

Following the review, the Government announced that if there was a resumption of significant hostilities, the 12 licences would be suspended. In addition, the Government continue to monitor the situation in Israel and Gaza closely, and existing licences that are found to be no longer consistent with the consolidated criteria will be revoked. It remains our overarching priority to ensure that there is a lasting settlement that enables Israelis and Palestinians to live alongside one another securely and peacefully. The UK Government will continue to work closely with colleagues in the EU and elsewhere to help achieve that. I visited Gaza, Jerusalem and Israel last month and saw what was happening on the ground. I am conscious of the mood of the House, after the Palestine debate last week. We will continue to monitor the situation.

There has been extensive interest in the recent protests in Hong Kong and the use of tear gas by the Hong Kong police. There is one extant open individual export licence to Hong Kong that includes tear gas. After careful consideration, the Government have decided that no action should be taken to revoke or suspend it. In our assessment, the use of tear gas by the Hong Kong police, with whom we have a close relationship, was judged to be an uncharacteristic response at an early stage of the protest and not indicative of a wider pattern of behaviour that would cross the threshold of criterion 2 of the consolidated criteria.

[Ian Murray]

I am grateful to the Minister for answering the questions that have been asked. He has said that that use of tear gas was uncharacteristic, so will he give a commitment that if it were to transpire that the Hong Kong authorities used it again, the licence would be revoked?

[Mr Ellwood]

I do not want to move into hypothetical situations. We will continue to review matters, but I have explained the situation as it stands. If events move forward and circumstances change, we will review that and react responsibly according to criterion 2.

The Export Control Organisation has continued to perform efficiently over the past year in spite of various pressures. The ECO has maintained its performance targets despite an increasing volume of licence applications, with standard individual export licences up 3% on last year, and ECO’s high priority advice service to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on the licensability of goods stopped at ports and airports up 30% in the same period. Together with extra work caused by the Russia sanctions, that has meant increased pressures on the ECO, which has worked hard to maintain both service levels for its customers and the robustness of our export controls, as the objective of giving applicants a decision as quickly as possible cannot outweigh the need to give every application very careful consideration.

The ECO has two main targets for processing export licence applications: a primary target to process 70% of applications within 20 working days, and a secondary target of completing 99% of applications within 60 working days. Year-to-date performance to the end of September on the primary target stands at 76%. We have now had a full year of working towards meeting the new ambitious secondary target of 99%; the target previously stood at 95%. The new target was introduced to improve the efficiency of the licensing system further. As of the end of September, I am pleased to announce that we are now meeting the new target for the year to date.

My right hon. Friend the Business Secretary decided last year that it was appropriate to look at the proposal for a pre-licensing register of arms brokers; that has been mentioned in the debate. The Export Control Organisation made a public call for evidence this year to help to gather the necessary evidence to allow the Government to decide whether to introduce such a register. Our emphasis when looking at the proposal has been on the relative costs and benefits, and the likely effectiveness. The feedback from the call for evidence is being analysed and discussed. We intend to publish the results as soon as possible, most likely towards the end of the year.

The Government remain committed to greater transparency in export licensing, as demonstrated by the transparency initiative announced last year, which expanded reporting activity under certain open export licences. As has been explained to the Committees previously, in making the final preparations for the initiative, it became apparent that we may not have had the right balance between the twin objectives of increasing transparency and avoiding unnecessary bureaucratic burdens. In particular, my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary became concerned that the proposed reporting would put UK exporters at a disadvantage in relation to exporters from other countries. That is why he decided that users of certain open licences would be required to make reports on their usage of those licences on an annual basis, rather than quarterly as originally envisaged.

It is important to reiterate that we have not reduced the overall level of reporting; we will publish considerably more information about the usage of open licences than we do now. All such initiatives are subject to review, but the new reporting requirements came into place at the start of this year, and the data for this year are due to be published in 2015. It is important to allow sufficient time for the new measures to be established before we can consider whether further changes are necessary. We therefore intend to commence a review of the initiative towards the end of the year.

I want to touch on the arms trade treaty. I had the privilege of participating in a number of decisions at the UN General Assembly in September. I am delighted to say that 54 countries have now ratified the treaty, which will enter into force on 24 December—Christmas eve. The successful conclusion of the arms trade treaty was a significant achievement for the UN, but also for the UK, which has worked tirelessly with the co-authors group, and bilaterally. We are, as has been requested, encouraging other nations, in the course of regular contact with them and via the EU ATT outreach project, to sign and ratify it. The UK places a great deal of importance on as many nations signing up as possible; and I believe that we are heading in that direction.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) spoke about the spread of conflict in Libya and Syria, and that is a massive concern for the Government—and for others. We are concerned about the flow of weapons systems, and the loss of control over what is happening spilling down to Mali, and so forth. The situation reflects the changing circumstances that we must deal with. The hon. Lady also spoke about intrusion software. The pace of the technology that we are aware of can sometimes run ahead of legislation, so the work of the Committees and the Government to keep pace with changing technology is always important.

It is worth mentioning that the controls on monitoring equipment were agreed in the 2011 Wassenaar arrangement, and implementation through the EU dual-use regulation amendment is expected by the end of 2014. There will be a publication, and a journal put forward, in due course.

[Ann McKechin]

Will the Minister confirm—or, if he cannot do so today, write to confirm—whether his Department or fellow Ministers are assured that implementation will occur by the end of this year? If not, are alternatives being considered?

[Mr Ellwood]

That was going to be my next point. I cannot give the hon. Lady an answer today, but I had written down “timetable”. I will certainly get in touch with her to provide more information.

The hon. Lady and others mentioned the Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition. I have visited it many times and find it a little bizarre that one can buy things that are illegal in this country. The Government are reviewing their response to DSEI 2013 to consider any improvements to the processes that can be made before next year’s event. Officials from across Government will continue to work closely with Clarion Events to ensure that exhibitors comply with export and trade controls and understand their obligations.

The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—I almost called him my hon. Friend—and I have met four times in debates or meetings over the past few days. I will be astonished if we meet tomorrow at the Conservative party away day, but he is always welcome. I join him in paying tribute to the late Robin Cook, who pioneered much of the work that we are now taking forward. That is his legacy. Members on both sides of the House remember him for that, pay tribute to the work that he did in ensuring that Britain plays a more responsible role in arms exports, and encourage other countries to do the same.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned Gaza and the cycle of destruction. The matter came up at the UN General Assembly; Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General, was almost in tears when discussing whether destruction, reconstruction, destruction, and then reconstruction is what now happens. I digress slightly, but Britain must play its part with the EU and the international community to try to break that cycle.

The hon. Gentleman also raised concerns about Bahrain. There is no evidence of UK equipment sold to Bahrain being used in breach of the EU or national consolidated criteria on export licensing, but we have refused licences to Bahrain for internal security forces, where we are not satisfied about the risks around internal repression. If he has anymore thoughts on that, he can write to me and I will be delighted to respond.

I do not have the details to respond to the hon. Gentleman on Sri Lanka, but he mentioned the Prime Minister’s visit. It was bold to go out and make a case about the Tamil people’s concerns. I will write to him regarding our position on arms exports and Sri Lanka.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the Vienna conference, which we discussed at Foreign and Commonwealth questions. The trouble is that it is unclear what the conference wants to achieve other than the removal of all nuclear weapons. It is Britain’s long-term intention to reach that position, but if we drop our guard before other hostile countries with nuclear weapons do, we will leave ourselves vulnerable. We share the long-term ambition, but differ on how we will get there.

The shadow Minister mentioned brass-plate companies and enforcement action. Existing legislation would, in certain circumstances, allow such action to be taken against brass-plate companies and their officers. However, any action must be justified by sufficient evidence. With other relevant agencies, the Government continue to pursue the possibility of using other legislation to discontinue the UK registration of such companies on public interest grounds. As he will appreciate, the issue is complex and raises difficult questions about the nature of the evidence that might be disclosed in any proceedings. We will update the Committees and the shadow Minister when any firm conclusions have been reached.

In conclusion, I again thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling and other hon. Members for their attendance today. I reiterate my thanks to the Committees on Arms Export Controls for their report and work. The Committees’ scrutiny remains an important aid to the licensing process, and I continue to look forward to their contributions and continuing dialogue over the coming year.

15:35

[Sir John Stanley]

I thank all hon. Members for their generous comments on my endeavours as Chair of the Committees on Arms Export Controls. It is a unique conjunction of Committees to chair. I have no equestrian background at all, but I have likened it to trying to get a 16-horse stagecoach moving reasonably well in the same direction, which is particularly difficult when there is no ability to vote. We have achieved a lot even in just getting out the reports that we have. I thank hon. Members for their kind personal comments. I hope that the dedicated contributions of the hon. Members for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) and for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) will be big plusses in their getting elected to one of the four Select Committees in the next Parliament. Perhaps one of them may end up as my successor. I wish them well.

I will briefly make one comment about the excellent speech made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North. She rightly and acutely picked up that the Government appear to have erected an additional hurdle before revocations or suspensions can take place to extant arms exports licences to Israel. I want to highlight to her an extraordinary contradiction that I am sure we will want to pursue. The Government have on the one hand dropped the broad test in the October 2000 statement of the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) from the consolidated criteria, but they have brought it back when dealing with suspensions. We made that point in paragraph 126 of our report:

“The Committees conclude that the Government’s decision to apply the broad test of ‘equipment which might be used for internal repression’ rather than the narrow test of ‘clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression’ for deciding whether arms export licences should be suspended is welcome.”

I cannot begin to explain the Government’s contradictory position on that key point, but I am sure that we will be considering it further in Committee.

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Member for Islington North, who has been a dedicated attender of our debates. As for the four countries to which he referred specifically, he will be glad to know that they will all continue to be the subject of detailed scrutiny by the Committees. Three of the countries, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, are of course among the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s 28 countries of top human rights concern. He must have been glad to see that the Committees on their own initiative have added Bahrain to the five other countries of concern that we highlighted and gave details of in our report.

As I heard it, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) made what I consider to be an extremely welcome policy commitment on behalf of the Opposition Front Bench. I understood him to be saying that it is now the policy of the Opposition to restore the dropped wording that came from the October 2000 statement by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain).

If the hon. Gentleman is looking for any reinforcement of the Opposition Front-Bench position from the Back Benches, I draw his attention to paragraph 123 of our report:

“As the broad test that: ‘An export licence will not be issued if the arguments for doing so are outweighed by […] concern that the goods might be used for internal repression’, which has been Government policy since October 2000, provides an important safeguard against military and dual-use goods, components, software and technology being exported from the UK from being used for internal repression, the Committees recommend that this now omitted wording is re-introduced into the Government’s arms exports controls policy.”

The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that that was a unanimous recommendation of all parties on all four of the Select Committees concerned, which should give him some back-up to the welcome policy position that he enunciated.

I am grateful to the Minister for responding to the debate and for saying that he will send us answers in writing to those questions that he has not been able to deal with. I would be grateful if he could send me a copy as well, if that is in order, because I will obviously want to know what he says in response to the points made by other colleagues.

I must make it clear to the Minister that he did not address the fundamental policy issue as far as arms exports and internal repression are concerned. He made a number of references to criterion 2, what we call the narrow test or the “clear risk” test, which is a very limited test for a very simple reason. When can a risk be said to be clear? We can pretty well sell almost anything to anyone by saying, “There is a risk, but it isn’t clear, so we can approve the export licence.” That is the acute limitation of that test. If someone looks at our report and looks at the list of what has been approved by the Government, and for sale to which particular regimes, it can be seen just what a very limited test that is. That is why the Committees attached such importance to the restoration of the broad test—we have quoted this successively in the debate and I quote it for a final time—if we are to deal seriously and genuinely with not allowing to go out of the UK with Government approval British weapons that

“might be used for internal repression”.

Question put and agreed to.

15:42

Sitting adjourned.

Written Statements

Thursday 30th October 2014 Written Statements

Thursday 30 October 2014

Financial Policy Committee (Housing Market Tools)

Thursday 30th October 2014 Written Statements

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrea Leadsom)]

The Government have today published a consultation on granting the independent Financial Policy Committee new powers over the UK’s housing market.

In his Mansion House speech on 12 June 2014 the Chancellor committed to ensuring that the FPC has,

“all the weapons it needs to guard against risks in the housing market.”

He announced his intention to give the FPC,

“new powers over mortgages, including over the size of mortgage loans as a share of family incomes or the value of the house.”

He said that the Treasury would consult on the tools, and that they would be in place before the end of this Parliament.

In response to the Chancellor’s announcement, on 2 October 2014, the FPC recommended that it be granted the power to direct the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to require regulated lenders to place limits on owner-occupied and buy-to-let mortgage lending by reference to:

Loan-to-value (LTV) ratios; and

Debt-to-income (DTI) ratios, including interest coverage ratios (ICR) in respect of buy-to-let lending.

In response to this recommendation by the FPC, the Government are consulting on legislating to give the FPC powers of direction over LTV limits and DTI limits in respect of owner-occupied mortgages. Currently, the FPC can only make recommendations in relation to these tools. The Government intend to consult separately in 2015 on the FPC’s recommendations that it be granted powers of direction in respect of the buy-to-let mortgage market, with a view to building an in-depth evidence base on how the operation of the UK buy-to-let housing market may carry risks to financial stability.

The consultation that has been published today contains draft secondary legislation that will provide the Financial Policy Committee with the new powers of direction. The Treasury seeks responses to the consultation by 28 November 2014, in advance of laying the secondary legislation before Parliament in early 2015.

Copies of the consultation document The Financial Policy Committee’s housing market tools have been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and published on the HM Treasury website.

Better Care Fund

Thursday 30th October 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and I are today approving plans to join up health and care services across the country for the first time. This will improve care and provide more dignity for older and vulnerable people, as well as reducing accident and emergency admissions and lengths of stay in hospital.

People are happier and healthier when they have family and friends nearby. So investing in care services that are tailored to individual needs make sense. It means people can stay at home for longer, which is better for everyone involved.

They can also be helped back to health in high-quality community care centres or leave hospital more quickly when they do have to be admitted. This will not only improve services and reduce waste, it will give elderly people the dignity and independence they deserve in later life.

This has been made possible by the Government’s £5.3 billion better care fund, initially set at £3.8 billion but which has increased significantly following additional local investment. This will bring GPs, community nurses, and care workers together so they can provide the better care closer to home that keeps people independent and healthy for longer, preventing unnecessary stays in hospital and giving families more confidence over how their loved ones are looked after.

People will be able to get the right care when and where they need it, including at the weekend, thanks to a new national standard of seven-day health and social care. The local plans being approved today aim to prevent around 160,000 accident and emergency admissions, 2,000 care home admissions and result in over 100,000 fewer delayed discharges, meaning people get home from hospital more quickly when they do have to be admitted.

NHS England also estimates that, based on local plans, the fund will be supporting at least 18,000 individuals in roles delivering care out in the community. This will be a range of social workers, occupational therapists, care navigators, doctors and nurses, deployed based on local needs and delivering outside of the hospital.

Developed together by councils and local NHS organisations, these plans are the centrepiece of the Government’s commitment to joining up the health and care system. They will help to put the service user first and make this vision for joined-up care a reality across the country for the first time.

I would urge hon. Members to read their own local plan and support their health and wellbeing board in developing its plans to give the elderly more dignity in later life.

I am also grateful for support from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander), the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has responsibility for care and support, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who has responsibility for local government, NHS England and the Local Government Association.

Afghanistan (Progress Report)

Thursday 30th October 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Philip Hammond)]

I wish to inform the House that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, together with the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development, is today publishing the 41st progress report on developments in Afghanistan since November 2010.



After a protracted period of negotiation, Dr Ashraf Ghani and Dr Abdullah Abduallah signed the agreement forming a National Unity Government at the presidential palace on 21 September. The agreement committed Dr Ghani and Dr Abdullah to creating a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) position by presidential decree straight after the inauguration and to holding a Loya Jirga within two years to consider amending the constitution to formalise the CEO role into that of an executive Prime Minister.

President Ghani’s inauguration took place on 29 September. The first democratic transfer of power from one elected President to another, marked a truly historic moment in the history of Afghanistan. The Ghani Government signed the bilateral security agreement and the NATO status of forces agreement on 30 September.

The NATO Wales summit discussed Afghanistan on 4 September. The meeting paid tribute to ISAF and Afghan sacrifices, recognised their achievements, and underlined continuing international commitment to supporting Afghanistan. A subsequent ISAF declaration outlined in particular the NATO-led support envisaged for Afghanistan after 2014.

Following the NATO summit, the Prime Minister told Parliament on 8 September, Official Report, column 655:

“We reaffirmed our long term commitment to supporting a peaceful, prosperous and stable Afghanistan, including through our development conference in London in November.”

This is now planned for 3 to 4 December.

The Secretary of State for Defence travelled to Kabul on 23 to 24 September for a visit timed to enable him to deliver the keynote speech at the ceremony marking the graduation of the first Kandak (battalion) from the UK-sponsored Afghan National Army Officer Academy (ANAOA). He was the first international Minister to meet with President Ghani and CEO Abdullah.

I am placing the report in the Library of the House. It will also be published on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghanistan-progress-reports.

Non-Departmental Public Bodies (Triennial Reviews)

Thursday 30th October 2014 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (George Freeman)]

I am today announcing the start of the triennial reviews of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the British Pharmacopoeia Commission (BPC), the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM), the Administration of Radioactive Substances Advisory Committee (ARSAC) and the Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP).

All Government Departments are required to review their non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) at least once every three years. Due to the wide ranging reforms made by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the Department was exempt from the first round of reviews in 2011-14. In order to ensure that the Department is an effective system steward and can be assured of all the bodies it is responsible for, we have extended the programme of reviews over the next three years to all of its arm’s length bodies and Executive agencies.

The reviews of the aforementioned bodies have been selected to commence during the first year of the programme (2014-15). The reviews will be conducted in two stages. The first stage will examine the continuing need for the function and whether the organisation’s form, including operating at arm’s length from government, remains appropriate. If the outcome of this stage is that delivery should continue, the second stage of the review will assess whether the bodies are operating efficiently and in line with the recognised principles of good corporate governance.

Drugs Policy

Thursday 30th October 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)]

In December 2013, I commissioned an expert panel to look at the challenge of new psychoactive substances (NPS). In my written ministerial statement at that time, I made it clear that we are prepared to enhance our UK–wide legislative framework to ensure that our law enforcement agencies have the best available powers, sending out the clearest possible message that the trade in these substances is reckless and that these substances can be dangerous, even fatal. I also asked the expert panel to consider the education, prevention and treatment response to NPS and make recommendations.

Today I am pleased to publish the expert panel’s report and recommendations on this challenging issue alongside the Government’s response to those recommendations.

The expert panel is clear that new psychoactive substances—these so called “legal” highs—present a challenge that cannot be ignored. The UK has been quicker to respond to this challenge than most other countries, putting in place a forensic early warning system, banning more than 350 substances and leading the global response through the United Nations and G7. We have ensured that local authorities are aware of and use existing powers under drugs, medicines and consumer protection legislation to disrupt NPS supply. We have provided consistent and evidence-based messaging on the risks of NPS through guidance to schools, FRANK (the Government’s online drug awareness service) and targeted communications activity. We are also rapidly developing clinical responses to these substances via front-line services. However we recognise that there is more to do to tackle the issue of new psychoactive substances, which have claimed the lives of far too many young people.

The expert panel recognised that our current approach has real strengths that should be built on and not dismissed. In addition, they have made wide ranging recommendations across a number of areas including treatment and intervention, prevention, education and information sharing.

In response to these recommendations I am announcing today a range of actions. We will develop proposals for a blanket ban similar to that introduced in Ireland in 2010. This would give law enforcement greater powers to tackle the market in so called “legal” highs in general, instead of on a substance by substance basis. I have also commissioned the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to provide advice on a cutting edge way of basing legal controls for future synthetic drugs that mimic cannabis and on the effects these substances have on the brain rather than their chemical structure. The expert panel highlighted a number of factors that will need to be considered in taking these recommendations forward in the UK context. We therefore think it is important to take the time necessary to ensure that any legislation developed in response to the expert panel’s recommendations is carefully considered and will work in the UK.

In response to the expert panel’s wider recommendations, we will also implement a comprehensive action plan that includes strengthening training given to front-line NHS staff to deal with the effects of NPS use and the publication of new guidance by Public Health England for local authorities, including advice on integrating new psychoactive substances into local drugs education, prevention and treatment work.

In addition to the expert panel’s report and Government’s response we are publishing a wider Home Office evidence paper—“New Psychoactive Substances in England—A Review of the Evidence.” This paper builds on the evidence considered and set out in the expert panel’s report.

Alongside these publications, today we are also publishing the findings of the Government’s international study of drugs policies. The report, Drugs: International Comparators, describes a selection of policy and operational responses to drugs misuse in other countries. The approaches explored in the report were seen by Ministers and officials from the Home Office during international fact-finding activities that took place between May 2013 and March 2014. These included visits to, and discussions with: Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Uruguay. The report includes an assessment of the drugs situation in the UK and a description of the current and future challenges for policymakers.

The study has provided a sound base of evidence on approaches to drugs misuse and drug addiction in other countries. In many cases, the differences between the approach other countries have taken illustrate the complexity of the challenge, and demonstrate why we cannot simply adopt another country’s approach wholesale. The UK’s approach on drugs remains clear: we must prevent drug use in our communities, help dependent individuals through treatment and wider recovery support, while ensuring law enforcement protects society by stopping the supply and tackling the organised crime that is associated with the drugs trade. Based on what we have learned, the UK will continue to advocate a balanced, evidence-based approach to the misuse of drugs internationally.

All four of these publications can be found on the gov.uk website and copies will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

British-Irish Visa Scheme (Indian and Chinese Citizens)

Thursday 30th October 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

I am today making a ministerial authorisation under schedule 3, part 4, paragraph 17 (4)(a) of the Equality Act 2010. This authorisation may be cited as the Equality (British-Irish Visa Scheme––Indian and Chinese Citizens) authorisation.

The authorisation will allow Chinese and Indian citizens to transit through the UK en route to the Republic of Ireland under the transit without visa concession (TWOV). To qualify, individuals must meet the criteria for the TWOV and hold an Irish short-stay visa or subsequent stamp conferring leave in Ireland endorsed with the BIVS. No additional requirements are being imposed on these individuals, other than those already required of them as visa nationals for the purposes of entry clearance to travel to the UK.

The UK and Irish Governments are working in close co-operation to protect the security of the external border of the common travel area. Joint work is under way to ensure our checks are effective at preventing individuals who intend either country harm from entering, while preserving the right of free movement for those who are lawfully present.

The UK will recognize certain Irish visas under the British-Irish visa scheme. It is therefore no longer necessary to impose a transit visa requirement on Chinese and Indian citizens who have been issued a visa under this scheme.

The British-Irish visa scheme is part of this joint UK-Ireland work, allowing eligible visitors to travel to the UK and the Republic of Ireland on a single visa. Subsequent roll-out of the scheme to other nationalities is envisaged but is subject to the outcome of an evaluation process of the first phase.

The authorisation will facilitate tourism to the Republic of Ireland and the UK by removing the requirement for Indian and Chinese citizens, eligible for the British-Irish visa scheme and subject to the enhanced Irish visa regime, to obtain transit visas to travel to the Republic of Ireland through the UK.

I therefore consider the ministerial authorisation to be reasonable, rational, proportionate and necessary for maintaining the integrity of the immigration system.

The authorisation shall come into operation on 13 October 2014 and remain in force until 1 December 2014.

I am placing a copy of the authorisation in the Library of the House.

Deaths of Service Personnel on Overseas Operations

Thursday 30th October 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Simon Hughes)]

My hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans and I present our latest joint statement reporting progress with coroner investigations into the deaths of UK service personnel on active service overseas. We wish as always to pay tribute to our armed forces for the constant courage and skill with which they serve our country. We particularly remember those service personnel who have given their lives. Our thoughts remain with their families.

This statement indicates the position at 23 October 2014 on open investigations and inquests which the senior coroners for Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Swindon and other coroner areas in England and Wales are conducting.

As supplementary information to this statement we have placed tables in the Libraries of both Houses. The tables include the status of all cases and show whether there has been or will be a service inquiry. In the earlier years covered, a service inquiry was known as a board of inquiry.

The Ministry of Defence’s defence inquests unit continues to work with coroners, including a cadre of coroners who have received special training in handling service personnel inquests. Together they make sure that everything possible is done to progress and complete investigations quickly and thoroughly. Should it be appropriate in future for an investigation to be held in Scotland instead of England and Wales, Section 12 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 provides for this.

Our thanks are due to coroners and their staff for their thoroughness and compassion in these vitally important investigations. We are grateful to the Chief Coroner for his essential contribution to improving processes, and once more we thank everyone who helps and informs bereaved families at every stage of the investigation.

Repatriations of service personnel who have died overseas have mainly taken place at RAF Lyneham in the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner area, and, currently, RAF Brize Norton in the Oxfordshire coroner area. To help the senior coroners for those two areas to take service personnel inquests forward without affecting the local caseload, since 2007 the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Justice have made joint additional funding available.

Current status of inquests

Since our last statement on 17 July there have been a further four inquests into the deaths of service personnel on operations. The total of inquests into the deaths of service personnel who have died on active service or who have died in the UK of injuries sustained on active service is 614. Three deaths led to no formal inquest. In one of these cases it was decided not to hold a fatal accident inquiry in Scotland after a serviceman who had made a partial recovery died there from his injuries. The other two deaths were taken into consideration at inquests into deaths which occurred in the same incidents.

Coroners' investigations which have been opened

Deaths in Afghanistan

As at 23 October, 17 coroner investigations are open into the deaths of service personnel on operations.

The senior coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon has retained six of the open investigations. The senior coroner for Oxfordshire has retained eight, and senior coroners for areas closer to the next-of-kin are conducting the other three open coroner investigations. Nine hearing dates have been listed.

Deaths of service personnel who returned home injured

No coroner investigations are open in relation to service personnel who returned home injured and have then died from their injuries.

We will continue to inform the House of progress.

Work Capability Assessments

Thursday 30th October 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The previous Government appointed Atos the sole provider for carrying out work capability assessments in 2008.

On 27 March, Official Report, column 56-58WS, the former Minister with responsibility for disabled people announced that following negotiations with Atos, the Government had reached a mutual agreement for Atos to exit the contract to deliver health-related assessments including work capability assessments before it is due to end in August 2015.

Following a rigorous procurement exercise, I am pleased to announce today that MAXIMUS Health and Human Services Ltd has been awarded the contract to deliver health-related assessments including the work capability assessments for DWP. The contract is to provide a national service for three years, with the option to extend twice by a further year. Operational service will commence on 1 March 2015.

The transfer of undertakings protection of employment regulations will apply and most of the Atos employees currently employed on this contract will transfer to MAXIMUS Health and Human Services Ltd, who will also use the existing Atos infrastructure and IT. The new provider will therefore be able to step into the contract without disrupting the service.

My absolute priority for MAXIMUS Health and Human Services Ltd will be to transition the service smoothly from the current provider and stabilise the operation to deliver the best service possible for claimants, increase the volume of assessments carried out and reduce waiting times without compromising quality.

MAXIMUS Health and Human Services Ltd runs health care programmes in Australia, Canada and the United States and is one of the largest occupational health providers in the UK. It employs large numbers of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals and brings years of experience conducting independent health assessments. MAXIMUS Health and Human Services Ltd is already a key Work programme provider and was recently awarded a contract to run the Department’s new Fit for Work service.

MAXIMUS Health and Human Services Ltd will bring both clinical expertise and a fresh approach that, over time, will significantly reduce waiting times and provide a better experience for claimants. A key focus of its plan is on recruiting and retaining the high-quality health care professionals the service needs. MAXIMUS Health and Human Services Ltd staff will spend more time engaging with and helping claimants earlier in the process, so that claimants know what to expect and can better prepare for the assessments. This should help reduce the number of people who currently do not attend assessments.

I am confident MAXIMUS Health and Human Services Ltd will bring about the changes required to improve claimants’ experience of the assessment process.

We already have in place an agreement with Atos covering the remaining term of its contract. This agreement is more robust, with an agreed performance regime that gives us confidence delivery goals will be achieved. My Department, Atos and MAXIMUS Health and Human Services Ltd will work together during the transition period to ensure a smooth handover.

Atos will continue to deliver health-related assessments including work capability assessments in Northern Ireland under a separate contract.

Grand Committee

Thursday 30th October 2014 Grand Committee

Thursday, 30 October 2014.

Deregulation Bill

Thursday 30th October 2014 Grand Committee

Committee (3rd Day)

14:00

Relevant documents: 4th Report from the Constitution Committee, 14th Report (Session 2013-14) from the Joint Committee on Human Rights and 5th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee

Clause 29: Reduction of qualifying period for right to buy

Amendment 24A

Moved by

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

24A: Clause 29, page 24, line 11, at end insert—
“(5) Within one year of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State shall lay before each House of Parliament a report setting out the effect of the Government’s policy of reducing the qualification period for right to buy on the number of affordable and council houses which have been replaced on a like-for-like basis.”

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a modest amendment that requires a report to each House of Parliament to set out the effects of the policy of reducing the qualifying period for eligibility for the right to buy from five to three years. In particular, it seeks information on the impact of this reduction on the numbers of affordable council houses that have replaced those sold. While this amendment focuses on replacement on a like-for-like basis, I acknowledge that the Government’s commitment relates to a one-for-one replacement.

As I made clear at Second Reading, we believe that people should have the right to own a home, and have come to support the right-to-buy programme as one mechanism to facilitate this. We are considering these issues when home ownership has declined to its lowest level in 30 years, and when we have a housing crisis in the UK because for decades we have failed to build sufficient homes to meet demand. The consequences of this are now being widely felt by millions of working people who are unable to afford the house that they want, and their children and grandchildren face the prospect of never being able to do so.

As Michael Lyons stressed in his latest report, building more homes is not just about home ownership. There is a need to provide homes for social and affordable rent so that those on the lowest incomes can have a decent home, too. His report specifically identified that local authorities should have a key role in commissioning and building social housing, and acknowledged the continuing commitment of housing associations to this end. Of course, the sale of a council house does not of itself add to or diminish the stock of housing in the UK, but how the proceeds of sale are applied and the extent to which that adds to the housing stock are of crucial importance. These things need to be considered in the near and longer term. Evidence provided to the Lyons commission suggested that about one-third of the properties sold under the right to buy are now privately rented, many at rent levels above applicable housing benefit levels.

In seeking this report, we are looking to hold the Government to account for the commitment made when their reinvigorated right-to-buy programme was introduced. The Solicitor-General in the other place,

“guaranteed, for the first time ever, that receipts from additional local authority sales—that is, sales above the level forecast prior to the change—would be used to help to fund new homes for affordable rent, on a one-for-one basis”.—[Official Report, Commons, Deregulation Bill Committee, 6/3/14; col. 276.]

This commitment applies to the reinvigorated programme generally, not just to changes in this clause, and requires some decoding. It is accepted that it is one-for-one, not like-for-like, and it would appear—perhaps the Minister can confirm this—that it is based on the Government’s analysis at national level that, should it have the relevant proceeds, and with the application of those receipts limited always to 30% of the cost of new provision, a one-for-one test could nationally be satisfied. Can the Minister throw any light on the distributional aspects of this approach and the extent to which the allowance works only because of a mismatch between locations where proceeds arise and where they can be reinvested? What assumptions have the Government made about the type of properties sold and those replaced? Because the right-to-buy proceeds could be applied to only 30% of the cost of replacement provision, local authorities will be expected to borrow the balance and fund from affordable rents. They have to sign agreements with the Government to this effect, so how many councils have entered into such agreements with the Government or the HCA? How many have not? Are the Government aware of any councils that would be precluded from undertaking such an agreement because of their borrowing cap? What is the Government’s definition of affordable rents for this purpose? Has any estimate been made of the additional housing benefit or universal credit cost that will arise from the requirement to charge such rents to benefit from the replacement arrangements?

One of the difficulties in all this is how to be clear about the baseline—the forecast level of sales prior to the reinvigorated programme. Is it correct that the baseline is set in terms of revenues garnered, not units sold, so that the Treasury always gets its money first? Will the Minister provide an analysis, year by year, of the baseline so that there can be some clarity as to the additionality that should provide the Government’s one-for-one commitment? It is understood that the Government’s guarantee does not extend to tenants accessing the preserved right to buy for those council homes that transferred into housing association ownership. The National Housing Federation briefing asserts that because housing associations entered into agreements about the split of proceeds of sale before the reinvigorated programme, they receive only a small proportion of the sale proceeds, with the lion’s share going to local authorities and not always used for housing. It says that 92% of housing associations that it surveyed declared that they would not be able to replace homes sold via the preserved right to buy. What plan do the Government have to facilitate replacement of homes sold by housing associations in that manner?

The National Housing Federation has given us figures for 2012-13, stating that 5,944 local authority homes were sold but that only 3,634 new homes had been started to replace them. For that and the subsequent year, how many homes have been sold and what are the related proceeds? How many of those have been treated as attributable to the reinvigorated process, and therefore how much is available for replacement homes?

Three other amendments focused on resources for social housing are grouped with this one, and I shall outline our position on them when they have been spoken to.

This is an important issue. Given the Government’s change in policy we need at least in these circumstances to review what is happening, hence the requirement for a report. I beg to move.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I propose a cluster of three new clauses in the group, all concerned with the desperate problem of this country’s acute shortage of homes that are affordable to those on average incomes and below. Amendment 40 relates to right-to-buy discounts and seeks not to undermine these arrangements but to make them more productive. Amendment 41 seeks to apply more of the receipts from right-to-buy sales to the provision of new homes. Amendment 42 attempts to enable councils to borrow prudentially more funds to increase housing supply.

These proposed new clauses do not represent earth-shattering proposals that will solve the nation’s acute housing problems. Other more dramatic changes are needed to achieve really significant results, but this trio of amendments would enable councils to play a bigger role once again in meeting this country’s crying need for more and more affordable new homes.

I declare my interest as president of the Local Government Association. I am grateful to the LGA for preparing these amendments and, as always, for valuable briefings.

Clause 29 endeavours to make the right to buy more attractive by reducing the time from five to three years that a tenant has to live in a council property before being able to buy at a big discount. Discounts can be as much as 70% of value, so tenants can buy a home for 30% of what it is worth, subject to maximum discounts of an index-linked £100,000, now £102,700, in London and £75,000, now £77,000, elsewhere. These nationally set figures are very much back-of-the-envelope stuff. They do not recognise that the housing market outside London is not uniform. Levels of demand and house prices in Bradford and Burnley are not as the same as in Bedford or Brighton. Indeed, house prices are not even the same across London.

Amendment 40 would mean councils setting their own discount levels, based on local markets. It would place a maximum 60% on discounts. It would avoid giving away publicly owned assets on extravagant terms. It localises decision-making, in keeping with the Government’s general disposition towards the devolution of responsibility to local government.

Critics of the amendment could worry that some local authorities, which believe that the right to buy has already removed too many properties from their stock of affordable homes, will reduce discounts to the point where no one wants to buy. Some councils will certainly point out that a large proportion of RTB sales lead to the first buyer selling on to buy-to-let landlords. Sadly, this can mean the same previously rented home being re-let at twice the earlier rent, often increasing the housing benefit. Worse, the private tenants may be people requiring intensive housing management and support, which is not available from the private landlord. In extreme cases, I hear of families evicted by the council for anti-social behaviour returning to the estate, into former right-to-buy properties, costing the taxpayer twice as much, but without the restraints on behaviour that could be exerted for council tenants.

There are also the problems for the purchasers themselves. Those buying flats can discover a few years down the line that they must pay large sums towards major repairs and replacements of lifts, external cladding, roofs and so on, turning their asset into a liability.

Amendment 40 puts these arguments to one side and avoids the accusation that it could be used to undermine right-to-buy sales. It would require discounts to continue at levels that will still attract buyers. It would stop local authorities being forced to spend more than is necessary to encourage sales, and would prevent unwise tenants being tempted by the sheer scale of the discount from making an unwise purchase. It would substitute localised decision-making on an issue that requires local knowledge, for the distant regulation of RTB discounts by Whitehall.

Amendment 41 follows from that. It would seek to capture 100% of the sale proceeds—admittedly after they have been greatly depleted by the discount—to be recycled for local housing purposes. The importance of this measure is not hard to see. At present, the Treasury takes a 25% slice of proceeds from right-to-buy sales. Last year, from a total £877 million, the Treasury took £237 million. If that extra money had been recycled into the housing revenue account and used for new homes, it would have made a very helpful difference at the local level. Councils which have done the sums have estimated that they could have improved their housebuilding performance by some 30%.

14:15

As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, set out, the Government’s stated intention is that local authorities will be enabled to replace each home lost through right to buy with a new one. At first sight, this sounds improbable. If you sold an older property for, say, half its value—for example, at just £20,000—after discount for a council house in many places away from the south of England and you wanted to pay for a brand new one worth, say, £120,000, you would expect to make a big loss. However, borrowing to fill the gap and charging higher rents to cover the borrowing costs, plus obtaining special consent from the Homes and Communities Agency to fund 30% of the building costs from the retention of more of the receipts from sales, the figures can just about be made to add up in some, but by no means all, cases. Regrettably, there remain plenty of instances where the discount and the loss of receipts to the Treasury mean that replacing homes sold creates an unbridgeable gap to producing a replacement.

I know that the Government have responded to the LGA that it is only fair for local authorities to return some of the receipts from sales because, in establishing the basis for councils’ housing revenue accounts to be returned to local control, there has been an expectation in settling on the figures that RTB sales could generate some cash for the Treasury. However, everything would be simpler and extra resources could be put to very good use if, quite simply, councils could keep their sales proceeds and recycle them for housing purposes.

Finally, Amendment 42 sets out the LGA’s proposition for removal or, in the context of this Bill, deregulation of the current housing borrowing cap—the ceiling on the amount that each authority is allowed to raise for housing purposes. The Government have built into the calculations for every council’s housing revenue account some headroom for additional borrowing, and, helpfully, a year ago the Chancellor announced £300 million extra to top this up. However, a number of local authorities are straining at the bit to do a great deal more than their individual cap allows.

In no cases does anyone suggest that local government should borrow what it cannot afford to repay. This is the principle enshrined in the prudential code. However, there are local authorities with a strong balance sheet for their housing, which would enable borrowing that could be prudentially repaid from rental and sometimes other income. We cannot afford to hold back those local authorities that have the land, the competence and the eagerness to do more. The LGA’s estimate is that these keen local authorities would gear up to borrowing some £7 billion over the next five years, producing an important fillip to housebuilding production. I have visited a number of councils which have made a start on programmes of new council house building. No one should fear that the ghastly mistakes of 40 or 50 years ago are even remotely likely to be repeated. No council would ever contemplate the mono-tenure, concrete, soulless estates of yesteryear. Today, the housebuilding contribution of councils is one in partnership with housing associations and housebuilders.

I know very well that the Government have, as a very high national priority, the reduction of the national debt, and borrowing by councils, even prudentially, currently counts against our deficit. This means that getting tomorrow’s new homes built by housing associations and, of course, private sector housebuilders is much preferred to seeing local authorities borrowing and building. However, throughout the EU different borrowing rules apply, which means that all “trading” activities by municipalities fall outside their national debt. I recognise that the Government are not keen to change the definition they use in defining public expenditure, but it seems unlikely that other countries would object to a definitional change that liberates the UK Government from this constraint.

Even without changing our definition, I urge support for the amendment. Work by the consultancy firm Capital Economics, which surveyed economists, fund managers and credit ratings analysts, concluded that there would not be any significant reaction from the markets to an increase in borrowing of £7 billion over five years resulting from lifting the borrowing cap. It is a matter of all hands on deck and we desperately need councils to be part of the picture. For those that are ready to go and those that would gear up if given the helpful nudge this amendment provides, I ask both the Government and the opposition parties to be a little braver in allowing local authorities to do what we know they can do extremely well.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support the thinking behind the amendments proposed by the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Best. In fact, I agree 100% particularly with what the noble Lord, Lord Best, was saying in the detail of what is now required in the social housing sector. It has been one of the frustrations of this Government to get the number of houses up. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, every Government have been frustrated with their idealistic objectives in this area. It is perhaps not surprising that after the huge damage of the recession in the housing and building sector it has been slow to respond, although many of us from an early stage have been saying that this was an even stronger argument for a more positive stimulus to social housing construction.

We are encouraged under this Government that it looks as though we will end up with a larger stock of social housing than we had before, but it is still not enough. The figures disappoint when set against the need and the potential to meet that need. We have to hold the Government to account on this, particularly as this is the fourth change in the right-to-buy policy in the last two years. It can be supported only if it ensures that we get a one-for-one replacement so, as one social house is sold, one replaces it. There are particular difficulties—as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said—for housing associations dealing with preserved stock in terms of the money they then have to build new homes once somebody has exercised the right to buy. We will want some assurances from the Government on that. There is a danger in reducing the eligibility to three years to buy houses that people will increasingly see the need to get into social housing, not to meet necessarily their social need but to ensure they then end up buying a house at a discount. That is not the purpose of our social housing.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked the Government to reveal if they can—or at least say when the latest set of figures will be available to show—how many homes have been sold and how many new social homes have started. We have the figures for 2012 and 2013 and we are six months now from the end of the financial year. I hope the Minister will be able to provide some figures which will be encouraging to us and if not, will tell us when those figures will be available. I remind the Committee—and indeed remind the Government—that it has always been one of the objectives of the right-to-buy policy initiative under this Government that we build more houses to meet social need, and that is what we have to hold them to account for.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I think we all agree we need to build more houses and it is part of the puzzle over the last 20 years and more that successive Governments have been committed to doing this and have not been succeeding. Certainly, my own observation in Bradford is that one of the problems is a shortage of skilled labour for building. I am quite happy that the housing association that has its headquarters a good 10 minutes’ walk from my house in Saltaire now has a very good apprentice scheme to train plumbers, builders, electricians and others in sourcing its own maintenance and building. That is a model I hope others are planning to take forward. We are all conscious that we need to build more houses and aware—and this answers one or two of the questions raised by the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Best—that we do not necessarily need to build the houses in the same areas where houses are being sold off as the population is shifting. We have different sorts of housing needs and requirements in different areas. Population has shifted towards the south-east and areas of heavy immigration require more housing than areas without much immigration, which now often have surplus housing stock. I have just been in Hull, for example, which does not suffer from a shortage of housing at present.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked a number of questions. I do not have all the figures to answer him but I will make sure he gets the answers to all his questions as soon as possible, and of course well before Report. I am told by officials that many of the figures which he asks for are publicly available, so there should be no problem in that respect, but I do not have them immediately to hand. I noted his comments about houses that have been sold under right to buy and which are now privately rented. In some parts of England, there are some problems of that sort.

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Best, suggested that the discounts were enormous and immediate but the discount scheme, as he knows, is progressive and one gets the higher rates of discount only after renting a house for considerably longer than three, five or 10 years. The longer that someone has been a tenant the more discount they get, starting at 35% discount on a house and increasing by 1% each year to a maximum of 70% of the market value. It is not a short-term renters’ paradise, as I thought he was almost beginning to suggest.

The baseline for right to buy was set in April 2012, when the policy was reinvigorated, and it does not change year by year. I assure noble Lords that the Government are committed to keeping this reinvigorated right-to-buy scheme under review, including the impact of the change in the qualifying period from five to three years. The Committee may be interested to read the impact assessments for this clause that were published in January 2014, which is available on the parliamentary website, and in March 2012, at the time of reinvigorating the policy, which provide important context. When this Government reinvigorated the right to buy, they included an important measure guaranteeing for the first time ever that receipts from additional local authority sales—that is, sales above the level forecast prior to the change—would be used to help fund new homes for affordable rent on a one-for-one basis, not a like-for-like basis.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

While it is on my mind, is the test—the baseline—the originally anticipated numbers of sales of units, or is it anticipated sales proceeds?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I think that it is the units rather than the baseline being the proceeds of sales, but I will check with the officials and come back on that.

We publish quarterly and annually on right-to-buy one-for-one starts on-site and acquisitions, so the figures are available. I will make sure that they are circulated and put in the Library. Since the reinvigoration, there have been more than 12,600 additional local authority right-to-buy sales and, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, councils have already reported almost 3,700 starts on-site and acquisitions of replacement homes for affordable rent. Councils have three years from the date of receiving the additional receipts in which to use them. This gives councils adequate time to leverage in additional funds and build up enough receipts to produce robust economies of scale.

The Government also publish annual statistics on preserved right-to-buy sales in England, which strike a balance between the needs to monitor the effectiveness of the policy and not to place unnecessary burdens on housing associations. As housing associations are independent organisations and stock transfer agreements are private commercial contracts, we do not mandate what those associations do with receipts that they receive from preserved right-to-buy sales. In practice, any surplus receipts retained, after costs and compensation for lost rental income, are likely to be used to support new build and other public benefits. Where receipts are shared with councils, it is our expectation that associations will work with them to develop replacement homes.

14:30

I turn to Amendments 40 to 42, which the Government cannot accept for very good reasons, which I will try to explain briefly. In terms of the proposed changes to the right-to-buy discount, while the noble Lord may welcome the local flexibility envisaged in this amendment, flexibility which is in line with the Government’s commitment to decentralisation and devolution wherever possible, I believe that the system of regional discounts set under the last Government proved confusing for social tenants. Indeed, it punished those living in the wrong area, so to speak, where discounts were low and sales fell to a record low. To reverse this decline we introduced a national discount level for the cash cap of £75,000 across England when the coalition Government reinvigorated the right-to-buy scheme back in April 2012. Of course, we are committed to ensuring that the right-to-buy discount remains effective. That is why we increased the discount to £100,000 in London in March 2013.

In July 2013 we went even further to help social tenants realise their home ownership aspirations by increasing the maximum discount for a house to 70% of its value, and the cash cap—£75,000 in England, £100,000 in London—has increased to £77,000 and £102,700 respectively. The cash cap will now increase annually in line with the consumer prices index rate of inflation. These national discount increases will ensure that social tenants across the country are not disadvantaged by where they live. Not only will the discounts ensure that take-up of the scheme continues to increase, they will ensure that sales receipts are sufficient to help fund new homes for affordable rent on a one-for-one basis nationally.

While I note the intention to reduce the maximum percentage discount to 60%, the noble Lord may be interested to know that the average percentage discount level across England for houses sold between 2012 and 2013 was 45%. That reflects, of course, the length of time that people had rented their houses before they exercised their right to buy. This coalition Government are committed to ensuring that social tenants are able to exercise their home-ownership aspirations. This part of the amendment would cause increased confusion and unfairness for social tenants.

Moving on to the part of the amendment affecting the use of capital receipts by local authorities, as part of the self-financing settlement the Government reduced the overall level of local authority housing debt by £862 million. In exchange for this significant financial benefit, local authorities must return a proportion of their right-to-buy receipts to the Exchequer under a process known as pooling. Since the introduction of the self-financing settlement in April 2012 until the middle of 2014, some £317 million of right-to-buy receipts was paid back to the Exchequer, while local authorities retained about £1 billion.

Section 11 of the Local Government Act 2003 enables the Secretary of State to make regulations about the use of capital receipts by a local authority and what amounts shall be pooled. However, the Government have decided that they want local authorities to retain as many of their capital receipts as possible so that they can invest those receipts in, for example, new social housing or other regeneration projects. The Government do not, therefore, generally pool receipts other than right to buy. We believe that we have struck a fair deal with local authorities. The Government have paid off a significant amount of housing debt and, in return, ask for an element to be returned to the Exchequer. We do not pool other housing capital receipts and this gives local authorities the flexibility to invest locally.

Finally, on the issue of the housing revenue account borrowing limits, local authorities welcomed the financial freedoms arising from the replacement in 2012 of housing subsidy with the self-financing settlement. However, the Government, and the Treasury in particular, have a duty to reduce the national deficit and cannot allow unrestricted increase of each local authority’s housing debt. That is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government issued the limits on indebtedness determination in 2012, which set a limit on each of the 167 stock-holding authorities’ housing debt. The amendment would render us unable to issue such a determination.

In case Members of the Committee are under the impression that local authorities have no ability to borrow for housing purposes, perhaps I can clarify. The self-financing settlement gave the local authorities with landlord responsibilities the ability to borrow about £2.8 billion. That is a significant sum, but we have listened to those who have said that some councils may need additional borrowing, perhaps because they have already borrowed up to their cap. That is why we announced in the Autumn Budget Statement some £300 million additional borrowing up to 2016-17, to support new affordable homes. We very much hope that local authorities will make use of this. We are conscious that we all need to build more homes, and £122 million is already allocated to support 1,700 affordable homes.

I hope that that answers the various questions and I urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment. I reiterate my promise to answer the detailed questions raised.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

Before the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, responds, may I apologise to the Committee? I meant to declare my interest as chair of Housing & Care 21 but failed to do so. I would like to put that on the record.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Stoneham, for their contributions to this debate. I look forward to receiving the figures in due course from the Minister. I was not quite sure whether in his response he was saying that the Government are currently meeting their one-for-one guarantee. It would be helpful to know if that is the Government’s position.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There is not yet a one-for-one guarantee.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

In which case, when is it expected that the Government will meet that guarantee?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have not chosen between soon or shortly, but we very much want to move on that. It takes time. As I said, local authorities have three years to replace, and we are already two years into this new scheme. We are, of course, frustrated by the length of time it takes to build new homes. That is part of a long-standing story under successive Governments which we continue to push forward with.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I thank the Minister for that. I was also not sure whether he had accepted the thrust of my amendment, which was that the Government would produce a report. Could he respond to that?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My answer was that the Government already produces a large number of statistics which, in effect, form the basis of the report for which the noble Lord is asking.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I take that as a yes. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham. I think we are on the same page in recognising the scale of the housing crisis which faces this country and the need for more social housing in particular, and for a one-for-one replacement policy.

We have debated the issues in the three amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Best, extensively from time to time in recent years. We share with him a strong desire to do more to produce more and better social housing, particularly housing for rent, though we are not able to follow him specifically on every aspect of his three amendments.

Where Amendment 40 is concerned with setting discounts locally, it discusses setting them at a level which will encourage right-to-buy take-up. That raises an interesting question of where the policy should be focused between facilitating and encouraging. Presumably, it would depend on the need for investment into the social housing sector, and there has to be a balance in these matters. I do not resile from my party’s position on managing the country’s overall level of debt. Our priority is not a wholesale lift of the cap.

Notwithstanding that, we should recognise the important role that local councils can and should be enabled to play in tackling the housing crisis—as the Lyons report put it, to return to their historic responsibility to build affordable housing. We note that there is some scope for a rise in output even on the current basis, but that would be modest compared to historic output. In the 1960s, I think that about 200,000 units a year were produced.

We recognise that councils have a long record of sound economic management and borrowing prudently—a point that the noble Lord made—but early removal of the overall cap will be difficult for any Government. The Lyons report recognised that. The report suggested that there is an opportunity to provide additional capacity without exceeding total borrowing if there is more active management from the Treasury of the overall borrowing headroom. Lyons suggests, for example, that councils should be able to apply for more borrowing headroom by demonstrating: a viable business plan and asset management strategy in the context of new contracts for housing delivery and a single pot of funding for housing investment; costed plans for investment in new housing that relate to their housing strategy and make full use of partnership opportunities; that new homes will be additional to those which would be delivered by others; and compliance with prudential rules with expectations about rent levels and reinvestment in their existing stock. The Treasury would be able to make a decision on a case-by-case basis against an understanding of the overall level of borrowing planned, to ensure that total borrowing did not exceed the current provision.

The report also points to the alternative models by which councils can invest in homes—by using land, by entering into joint ventures, by some of the imaginative work which the LGA has done on the municipal bonds agencies. There are other opportunities there, but we cannot go the whole way with the noble Lord in reducing the cap as he wants to.

I hope that debates such as this will continue to help us focus on the absolute need to address the housing crisis across the private sector, the local authority sector and housing associations. I look forward to receiving the Minister’s data in due course; I take it that they will come in the form of the requested report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 24A withdrawn.

Clause 29 agreed.

Clause 30 agreed.

Clause 31: Tenancy deposits

Amendment 24B

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

24B: Clause 31, page 25, line 2, at end insert “—
(a) after subsection (10) of section 213 of the Housing Act 2004 (requirements relating to tenancy deposits) insert—“(11) Where an order made by the appropriate national authority under subsection (5) requires, in connection with the tenancy in respect of which a deposit has been paid, the provision of the name, address, telephone number, and any email address or fax number of the landlord; the name, address, telephone number, and any email address or fax number of any agent who is holding the deposit on behalf of the landlord may be provided instead.”;
(b) ”

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, a bit like government Amendments 25 to 35, which are in this group, Amendment 24B will close an unforeseen loophole in existing legislation. The loophole arises because, where letting agents are managing a tenant’s deposit on behalf of the landlord, they usually put their details on the documentation given to tenants. Obviously, that is particularly useful where landlords live abroad and where their only address for service in the UK is therefore that of the letting agent.

Under the terms of the tenancy deposit legislation, certain information, known as prescribed information, has rightly to be given to the tenants. Unfortunately, the wording of the order is highly prescriptive. It requires the landlord’s contact details, even if it is the agent who manages the deposit. There have been claims by tenants, including in court, that deposits have not been protected in accordance with the law. In fact, the agent has done everything correctly, other than to put down its address for service rather than the landlord’s home address. Nevertheless, a claim on behalf of a tenant has been upheld by a county court, meaning that what has been normal practice ever since tenancy deposit protection was introduced in 2007 is now potentially unlawful. There has not as yet been a High Court case on it, but clearly, given the county court’s case, there is now uncertainty and it seems much more sensible to fix this problem now before it is tested in the High Court. In the mean time, solicitors are taking this to court and challenging the proper protection of a deposit on behalf of a tenant.

14:45

My slightly technical, but perfectly formed, amendment to the Housing Act 2004 would clarify the “prescribed information” which landlords or their agents must supply to tenants in relation to the deposit, alongside protecting deposits with an approved government scheme. The prescribed information for tenants is set out in a statutory instrument and includes,

“the name, address, telephone number, and”—

because they are a very modern Government—

“any e-mail address or fax number of the landlord”,

“landlord” being the critical word. Fairly obviously, the purpose of giving that information to the tenant is to help them at the end of the tenancy to be able to contact the person who is holding their deposit so that they can get it back quickly.

In practice, it is very often the letting agent rather than the landlord who holds the deposit or puts it in the appropriate insurance or tenant deposit scheme, so it is their details which are important to the tenant because it is about getting back the deposit. Therefore, lettings agents put their contact details in the prescribed information rather than those of the landlord. This practice was confirmed in advice from the tenancy deposit scheme and indeed from the Government. However, yesterday the Government’s website was still stating that the information that needs to be given is,

“their (or the letting agency’s) name and contact details”,

the word “their” referring to the landlord. Therefore, the Government are saying that it is the landlord’s or the letting agent’s name and contact details that need to be given, although that is not what, so far, one court has found.

I am advised that the Government may say, when the noble Lord comes to reply, “Don’t worry about it because the primary legislation says that where the word ‘landlord’ is used, it also refers to letting agents”, but that is not what the statutory instrument says and that is what we are seeking to clarify. The statutory instrument is clear: despite all the advice that has been given, the wording states that the details must be those of the landlord.

The problem is that if this is found—as we think it will be—to be open to challenge, the penalty is very serious. If there is non-compliance with the detail of the prescribed information order, the defective information can invalidate a Section 21 possession and there can be a penalty on the landlord as high as three times the amount of the deposit. Therefore, this very small but perfectly formed amendment would allow the details of the agent who is holding, or organising the holding of, the deposit to provide their details rather than those of the landlord in those circumstances.

We might note in passing that there is an added advantage to this. Since the beginning of October, every letting agent has had to belong to an ombudsman scheme, but that is obviously not the case for landlords. Therefore, there is an added protection for tenants should they have any complaints about the address not being readable or being changed. They can go to an ombudsman, whereas that is not the case should the landlord have moved in that time.

Therefore, the amendment is necessary to deal with confusion among agents about whose details are included. We are talking about 1 million tenancies here, so this is serious stuff and we need to get it right. It will assist tenants by ensuring that they have the details of the agent who is managing the deposit on behalf of the landlord, and it is clearly to the advantage of landlords, who otherwise risk being found in contradiction of the requirements. The amendment is supported by the tenancy deposit scheme and by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the National Association of Estate Agents, the Association of Residential Letting Agents and the Residential Landlords Association. It must be fairly clear to the Minister that everyone who is handling this says that it needs fixing.

For similar reasons, we concur with the amendments that the Minister will move shortly to correct something that, because of a court case, needs challenging. However, our amendment is equally urgent, so I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this clause and the government amendments are here because of the uncertainty and concern caused to landlords and tenants across the private rented sector by the Court of Appeal decision in the case of Superstrike Ltd v Marino Rodrigues. The noble Baroness’s amendment also touches on some of the implications of that case. The decision effectively interpreted the legislation differently from its original intention and contrary to the advice given by successive Governments. It left a large number of landlords at risk of court action and open to a financial penalty, because the tenancy deposit protection requirements must be complied with within a set period. That leaves landlords in an impossible position with no means of complying. The situation is made more complicated by the increase in the number of landlords resident outside the United Kingdom, which means that they are dependent on letting agents to deal with their tenants. Similarly, it has left tenants unclear about the status of their deposits.

The aim of Clause 31 is not to completely reverse the decision made by the Court of Appeal, as it is important that the protection offered to these tenants as a result of the ruling is retained. It gives landlords a grace period to protect those deposits and give the necessary information to the tenant. That applies to landlords who still hold deposits which were taken before the introduction of the tenancy deposit protection legislation for tenancies which rolled over into statutory periodic tenancies after the introduction of the legislation.

The clause will make it clear that where a deposit has been protected, the prescribed information is given to the tenant and the tenancy is subsequently renewed, there is no need for the landlord to keep providing the same information every time the tenancy is renewed. It will also be clear that this has always been the position and will continue to be from now on.

Where legal proceedings are under way at the time the provisions come into force, tenants will be protected from paying their landlords’ relevant legal costs where the court subsequently decides against the tenant in the light of these provisions. We see the provisions as striking the right balance between ensuring that tenants do not suffer financially as a result of the retrospective legislation and ensuring that landlords are not penalised where they have followed government advice. I hope that these changes are accepted as uncontroversial.

Finally, government Amendments 25 to 35 are technical drafting amendments.

The Government agree with the intention behind the noble Baroness’s amendment but are not sure that it is necessary. We understand that the law as it stands provides that, where the agent holds the deposit, it is sufficient for just the agent’s details to be included in the prescribed information. Article 2(1)(g)(iii) of the Housing (Tenancy Deposits) (Prescribed Information) Order 2007—I am sure that she knows it by heart—indeed states that,

“the name, address, telephone number, and any e-mail address or fax number of the landlord”,

should be provided. However, Section 212(9)(a) of the Housing Act 2004 explains that any reference in Chapter 4 of Part 6 of the Act—and hence in the 2007 order—to “landlord” in relation to any shorthold tenancy includes a reference to a person acting on his behalf in relation to the tenancy. Clearly, an agent managing the deposit on behalf of the landlord falls within that definition. Paragraph 40 of the regulatory impact assessment that supported the 2007 order covered this point, stating that:

“The person who receives the deposit will need to be the person who is registered with the authorised tenancy deposit scheme. Thus, in instances where the deposit is taken by a letting agent, the landlord’s details will not need to be included in this information”.

This is an issue with the deposit schemes that letting agent bodies have previously raised with the department, and I understand that they still consider the language of the Act and the supporting statutory instrument to be ambiguous. As I have set out above, we do not share that view. Of course, if they are able to provide evidence to the contrary we will consider whether a change to the order could be made to clarify the point, but we do not believe that any change to the primary legislation is required. I have asked officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government to contact the tenancy deposit schemes and letting agent bodies to discuss this further.

I hope with that assurance that the noble Baroness will be willing to withdraw her amendment. I thank her for the discussions we had before Committee and, if necessary, I am very happy to have further discussions. I commend Amendments 25 to 35 to the Committee.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that. Clearly this would not have been brought up and supported by the groups I mentioned if there were not real concerns. They have counsel opinion that differs from that of the Government. Of course, if the Government would like to assure them that should it go to the High Court they will then cover all their costs and those of all landlords, maybe we could accept that. Would he like to make the offer now? Offer came there none.

The groups are doing this day to day—their lawyers have worries and counsel opinion continues to say there is a difficulty that the words “or their agent” do not apply to the instrument. That seems the problem. I also cannot see why this change cannot be made. It would be very easy and would make sure we did not have to go to the High Court to get a ruling. I urge that that meeting takes place before we come to Report, so that I can then consult these good organisations and, if necessary, table an amendment for Report if they are not reassured by the meeting. If it is possible to set that up before Report then I would be happy to withdraw this amendment at this stage. I think the nod means that the meeting will take place before Report. On that basis I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 24B withdrawn.

Amendments 25 to 35

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

25: Clause 31, page 25, line 7, leave out “and”

26: Clause 31, page 25, line 10, at end insert—
“(c) on the coming to an end of the fixed term tenancy, all or part of the deposit paid in connection with the fixed term tenancy is held in connection with the periodic tenancy, and(d) the requirements of section 213(3), (5) and (6) have not been complied with by the landlord in relation to the deposit held in connection with the periodic tenancy.”

27: Clause 31, page 25, line 39, leave out “respect of” and insert “relation to”

28: Clause 31, page 25, line 41, leave out from “section” to end of line 43 and insert ““the commencement date” means the date on which the Deregulation Act 2014 is passed.”

29: Clause 31, page 25, line 44, leave out from beginning to end of line 2 on page 27 and insert—
“215BA Shorthold tenancies: deposit received on or after 6 April 2007
(1) This section applies where—
(a) on or after 6 April 2007, a tenancy deposit has been received by a landlord in connection with a shorthold tenancy (“the original tenancy”),(b) the initial requirements of an authorised scheme have been complied with by the landlord in relation to the deposit (ignoring any requirement to take particular steps within any specified period),(c) the requirements of section 213(5) and (6)(a) have been complied with by the landlord in relation to the deposit when it is held in connection with the original tenancy (ignoring any deemed compliance under section 215A(4)),(d) a new shorthold tenancy comes into being on the coming to an end of the original tenancy or a tenancy that replaces the original tenancy (directly or indirectly),(e) the new tenancy replaces the original tenancy (directly or indirectly), and(f) when the new tenancy comes into being, the deposit continues to be held in connection with the new tenancy, in accordance with the same authorised scheme as when the requirements of section 213(5) and (6)(a) were last complied with by the landlord in relation to the deposit.(2) In their application to the new tenancy, the requirements of section 213(3), (5) and (6) are treated as if they had been complied with by the landlord in relation to the deposit.
(3) The condition in subsection (1)(a) may be met in respect of a tenancy even if the tenancy deposit was first received in connection with an earlier tenancy (including where it was first received before 6 April 2007).
(4) For the purposes of this section, a tenancy replaces an earlier tenancy if—
(a) the landlord and tenant immediately before the coming to an end of the earlier tenancy are the same as the landlord and tenant at the start of the new tenancy, and(b) the premises let under both tenancies are the same or substantially the same.”

30: Clause 31, page 27, line 3, leave out “to 215C” and insert “and 215BA”

31: Clause 31, page 27, line 4, leave out “to 215C” and insert “and 215BA”

32: Clause 31, page 27, line 6, leave out “to 215C” and insert “and 215BA”

33: Clause 31, page 27, line 18, leave out “, 215B(2) or section 215C(2)” and insert “or 215BA(2)”

34: Clause 31, page 27, line 28, leave out “, 215B(2) or 215C(2)” and insert “or 215BA(2)”

35: Clause 31, page 28, line 1, at end insert—
“(8) In this section “the commencement date” means the date on which the Deregulation Act 2014 is passed.”

Amendments 25 to 35 agreed.

Clause 31, as amended, agreed.

Clause 32: Optional building requirements

Amendment 36

Moved by

[Lord Best]

36: Clause 32, page 28, leave out lines 15 to 17

[Lord Best]

My Lords, the amendment amends Clause 32, relating to building requirements imposed through building regulations and planning conditions. This is all about quality for the new homes that we build and included in this are standards required from housebuilders for homes to be accessible and easy to enter and move around inside, not least for a parent with a baby in a buggy or the teenager temporarily on crutches after a football accident, but particularly for those who have a disability or, as we do as we all get older, a mobility problem.

I congratulate the Department for Communities and Local Government on its extensive housing standards review, which has been going for more than two years and will finally be concluded early next year. This has already reached a point at which we can see some excellent progress in raising and rationalising housing standards. I pay tribute to Simon Brown at the DCLG and the key architect on the review team, Julia Park, from Levitt Bernstein architects. I welcome the work being done and am sure that it will push up standards in some key respects and save a lot of money. The outcome will be better standards because more of the requirements will move from being planning conditions, which are hard to enforce, to being within building regulations, whereby building inspectors will see that they are actually achieved. There will be substantial savings for those housing associations and housebuilders creating the homes that we so desperately need because the plethora of current requirements from different public bodies will be compressed into a simpler and clearer set of standards covering all tenures equally. Bearing in mind that we have been building the smallest homes in Europe—we are simply miles behind Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and France—getting to grip on space standards, for example, is a real step forward.

15:00

So far, so good. The hazard here is that, of the standards that cover accessibility, security, water and energy—and, in a newly defined set of standards, space—some key ingredients will be optional. That is of particular significance in relation to that important issue of accessibility. Although local authorities will not be able to devise and require variations on standards, they will have the option of requiring a higher-tier standard when they believe it is justified. Thus, in terms of accessibility, covering steps up to the front door, the width of that door, provision for a downstairs WC, a walk-in shower, and so on, all homes will have to accord with a basic level of standards, but the option will be there for local authorities to require housebuilders to move to a higher level, incorporating features of the lifetime homes standards devised by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the 1990s and adopted by the Greater London Authority, the Welsh Assembly and a number of local authorities. It will be possible for the local authority to stipulate a third and higher level of accessibility for a proportion of all homes, which would make them suitable for people using wheelchairs.

Of course, those of us convinced of the value for all families and individuals of the lifetime homes standards and the savings for the occupiers, the NHS and social care, all want to see local authorities opting for the level 2 accessibility standard as a matter of course. It is the one that is more or less the same as lifetime homes. That will be an option for the local authority. The extra expense of achieving this level 2 standard will eventually come out of the price paid for the land although, in a transitional period, for those who have already acquired sites, there could be an additional expense. It is most unlikely that this would be more than £500 per home, but I can understand that there is nervousness, even if the costs are modest, about requiring the higher standard in all cases immediately.

The problem, which Amendment 36 would remove from the Bill, lies in the housing standards review’s consultation suggestion that planning authorities would be allowed to require that important level 2 only if a rigorous test is passed. That stipulation is embedded in the Bill through Clause 32(4), which the amendment would remove. It is a considerable anxiety among organisations such as Leonard Cheshire Disability. The hazard here for future housebuilding is that local authorities will find this test, which at present is rather vague, hard to meet and will have to dumb down to the lower level because they have failed it.

We are not sure yet what this test will involve. I am hopeful that the Minister will be able to provide some reassurance that the intention is indeed to move standards upwards, not to allow housebuilders or developers always to argue that a scheme is not viable or that there is no local need for the standards that so many authorities now accept as the norm. Can we assume that those authorities leading the way will be allowed to continue with their current approach for any developments already in the pipeline? Can those currently requiring lifetime home standards maintain this requirement for those projects where people have started on the planning process? How will planning inspectors judge whether the higher standards are strictly necessary and justifiable?

It is certainly important for local authorities to undertake proper assessments of the needs of their population. Any such assessment will quickly demonstrate the demographic change which means that so many of us will live to an age at which our homes need to be more accessible than in times past. Will the Government provide guidance on what evidence is compelling enough for councils to require the level 2 accessibility standards across the piece? It would of course be reassuring to have confirmation that the Government want an increased supply of accessible and inclusive homes, which are not only disabled-friendly but would better suit us all during our lifetimes.

I hope that the Minister will be able to give reassurances, because good progress has been made in achieving higher standards and setting them out clearly, by getting rid of a plethora of currently very varied standards. However, if this is a dumbing-down and it will be possible to wriggle out of the requirement which I know many local authorities want to put in place—that in all cases one can move to the middle tier of level 2 for accessibility—then it will have all been for nothing. This important exercise will not have been worth while.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I support with enthusiasm the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best, to which I have added my name. He has moved his amendment with his customary thoroughness, leaving little more to be said, but I look forward very much to hearing the reassurances that I am sure the Minister will give us in a few moments.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, rightly stressed the importance of standards: in this case, the importance of maintaining the good work that has been done in many areas, not least in London, in building to lifetime homes standards. I am sure that the Minister will tell us that it is not the intention—it would be remarkable if he told us that it was—to reduce these standards. What I want is reassurance on how confident he is that there will not be unintended consequences. That is the fear not just from Leonard Cheshire Disability, which the noble Lord, Lord Best, mentioned and from which we have had some briefing, but from other organisations for which this is important.

It has been a long and quite a hard battle at times for local authorities and others to improve standards from the periods in the 1960s and 1970s when they virtually disappeared altogether. There is much greater recognition now of the importance of designing for accessibility for the future as well as the present. We are nowhere near meeting the demand that already exists, never mind the future demand that the noble Lord, Lord Best, apparently envisages for himself and for the rest of us. If the unintended consequence of subsection (4) of Clause 32 is such as to weaken or even remove that drive, I hope that the Government will consider further and perhaps feel that that subsection is not necessary to that clause. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that there will not be any unintended consequences and, not least, that there are no intended consequences.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to this amendment, as I am also concerned about the effect that it might have upon the provision of lifetime home standards within new buildings. The noble Lord, Lord Best, made all the key points with his customary eloquence and I do not intend to repeat them. There is a supposed requirement to meet the test of need. The need is surely very clear. The English housing survey found that only around 5% of properties can be visited by disabled people and, as a result, one in six disabled people and more than half of disabled children live in accommodation that is not suitable for their needs.

I am very sympathetic to the cause of deregulation and I therefore support the intent behind the Bill, but, as ever, when the water disappears through the window we must ensure that the baby remains in the bath. There seems to me a slight danger that in attempting to reduce red tape we may, in this instance, be achieving the reverse. We seem to be increasing the requirement on those who want to provide homes that are suitable for those with a variety of disabilities, making it more difficult for them, increasing the evidentiary burden and, instead of reducing red tape, doing the reverse—and, in this instance, increasing it. I am sure that that is not the intent and, equally, I am sure that it is not the intent of the Government to reduce the stock of housing that is built to the lifetime home standards.

I close by remarking that, in addition to the tremendous need that already existed throughout the country, we have, of course, very sadly, over the past 10 years or so, added to the number of disabled people in this country through veterans with severe muscular-skeletal damage as a result of operations. These people already face a challenge with their lives and the challenge will grow greater as they age. We saw, a couple of days ago, a very worrying report about the extent to which the military covenant is already under stress with regard to provision within the National Health Service for this group. I am sure we do not wish to see any further regression in the undertaking that the Government gave, within the military covenant, to care for that group of people, among the much larger group of disabled people within our community. I therefore ask the Minister to pay particular attention to this baby and make sure, either through this amendment or through some other means, that it is properly safeguarded in the future.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, rise to support the amendment, brilliantly moved, as usual, by the noble Lord, Lord Best, who asked fundamental, awkward questions about the impact that this will have on standards in the future. I want to make some general points about what the Bill signals about the Government’s strategic approach to housing for an ageing population.

The noble Lord, Lord Tope, has already pointed out that establishing lifetime home standards in the first place was an extremely long and very challenging process, but it is accepted and the best developers take it as a matter of course. In fact, we have tried to learn from the mistakes of the past, when we assumed that people would not want to age in place. Part of the crisis that we have at the moment in finding homes of sufficient quality and appropriateness for an elderly and frail population is because in the past we simply did not understand that this would be necessary.

What troubles me about the standards review, for which the noble Lord, Lord Best, made a very good case, is that there is a real paradox in the language that the review uses in one respect. It is concerned with local authorities not pursuing standards which are simply nice to know, but standards which are strictly necessary. The point is that in building for an ageing population with disabilities, we should be building every home across the piece to lifetime standards which are strictly necessary. It is a misreading of the situation we are in and the challenge of the future.

I also see a real paradox in the situation that the Government has posed in this clause. It is a paradox in logic. To make lifetime homes standards and other accessible standards statutory, and yet to make higher standards optional, simply does not make logical sense. If we are assuming that we all want the highest standards and to maintain the highest standards, why is there an optional extra? Good developers and local authorities are already pursuing the best and highest standards and are doing so with conviction. Is it a question, for example, of the Government trying to obtain the moral credit while making it more difficult in practice for local authorities to enforce? We have to ask about the unintended consequences. We know that local authorities are strained and strapped for cash, resources and expertise. When developers approach these second-level standards, who will advise the developers and implement the standards?

15:15

The case for the clause turns on the evidence that local planning authorities will have to demonstrate if they wish to apply for that standard. I am seriously concerned that local authorities simply will not have the capacity to do that. We have far too much evidence to the contrary.

As the noble Lord, Lord Best, has already asked, where are the standards laid down? Where will the universal authority be? How will we protect against more postcode lottery? Where are the criteria stated? Sadly, although local authorities are under some obligation to plan for demographic change and lead, they do not do so with great intelligence or conviction, if you look at some of the local authority area needs plans and so on. There is an absence of vision, there is an absence of incentive and there is a real issue about not rising to the occasion and understanding the genuine challenge in the housing market for planning for the future.

I am disappointed in this clause. Finally, as we have pointed out in discussion on other parts of the Bill—a Bill that is ostensibly deregulatory—this is not deregulatory. This requires local authorities to do more, to use more resources and achieve different sorts of standards, possibly at the expense of those which have already done their best and shown the way to other local authorities that are more laggard.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to comment briefly on this amendment. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for not being here at the start of his remarks.

There may be grounds to believe that this is an issue more of access than of supply. According to Leonard Cheshire, 10% of the British population have mobility issues and 2% use a wheelchair, but no British region has fewer than 19% of homes with disabled-friendly front doors, and London has 36%. There appear to be reasons to believe that the homes exist but that disabled people are not living in them.

I would like to touch briefly on research by the highly regarded organisation, Create Streets, which has shown that, in an urban environment, the results of lifetime homes standards requirements tend to be fewer houses and more flats, which is the opposite of what most people in this country want. If the issue is one of access rather than supply, might it not be better to require local councils to ensure an adequate supply of new homes and of new disabled-friendly homes and to take responsibility formally for ensuring that disabled people are housed in the right homes?

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment but there is not much else left to say, so I shall be brief. Like the noble Lord, Lord Best, we welcome the work on standards and the inclusion of these matters in building regulations. We are grateful to Leonard Cheshire for its very helpful briefing. We welcome the fact that the lifetime homes standards and the wheelchair accessible standards have been recognised in building regulations, but like Leonard Cheshire and noble Lords who have spoken, there is a concern that those standards are optional, and that, moreover, a hurdle has to be gone through for a local planning authority to be able to require those as a planning condition. My noble friend made a telling point about the capacity of local planning authorities to address those issues.

I conclude on one point: this is not only a quality-of-life issue, although it is very important at that level; it has economic ramifications. Unsuitable accommodation means the likelihood of more trips and falls, more visits to the A&E and hospital, and more cost. I hope that the Minister can assure us that there is a way through this process to address the real concerns that have been raised today.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. As I came in, I was thinking that I have mixed views on housing standards. I first became aware of housing standards because of Parker Morris, when a number of houses in the Yorkshire dales were being condemned as back-to-earths which were not suitable or up to Parker Morris standards. Nowadays, those houses that remain would be regarded as extremely environmentally friendly and valuable; they were indeed beautiful homes. I once sat in on a violent argument between someone who lived in one of them and a particularly modernist Liberal councillor who believed that the Parker Morris standards were the absolute minimum and that any house that did not meet them should be immediately demolished.

On the other hand, having with my wife delivered to a large number of houses on the other side of the Aire from Saltaire just before the local elections this spring, with road names such as Cliff Rise and Steep Avenue—one house had 41 steps up to the front door—I recognise that accessibility is an issue with new housing. As I was listening to the debate, I reflected that if I wish to get out of bed in the middle of the night, in our house in Saltaire there are 15 steps down to the bathroom, whereas in my house in London there are five steps down to the bathroom, which, for someone approaching middle age, as I am, is much easier. The question of suitable and unsuitable accommodation is one which we all need to be concerned about.

First, this is not a dumbing down. As there is in much of the Bill and much government legislation at present, there is an inherent tension between local autonomy and central direction. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, that no Government can ever say that they understand in full the consequences of what they propose. We do our best to conduct impact assessments, but we are never entirely sure where we will be—especially after the High Court has had a go at our provisions in a few years’ time.

The optional requirements are intended to allow local authorities to set higher requirements for development than the building regulations minimum. They are a new concept in building regulations, and we are enabling local authorities, as a condition of granting planning permission, to require a developer to meet a higher building regulation requirement than the national minimum.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Is it not the case, however, that if the local authority wants to do that, it must change its plan and go through the planning process for its local plan? So it is not just a question of a committee of councillors meeting to say, “We will let this go. We want higher standards”. It has to go through the process of changing its public local plan. Does the Minister accept that?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is my understanding, but I am a great deal less expert on this than the noble Lord, so I shall have to consult and write to him if I am mistaken.

The intention is of course to raise standards for new builds. We understand the reasons why there is this strong push for lifetime building standards; we also recognise that that imposes costs and that there are parts of the country—certainly the part of the country in which I live when I am in Yorkshire—where finding a sufficiently large level site on which to build, which is part of the requirements, is not easy. A great deal of housing is therefore not entirely suitable for the high standards which are suggested.

The Government intend to issue planning guidance on matters to be taken into account by local authorities in applying optional requirements, and we are consulting on the matters to be covered in that guidance.

This will mirror the approach taken with planning guidance, which supports the National Planning Policy Framework. I promise that I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on the point he has raised just to make sure I am correct.

[Lord Rooker]

I can give advance warning—it would be nice if we could have the answer before we start the debate on the next amendment, because it is a fundamental issue. The time it takes for a local authority to change its local plan is enormous, and it is a huge cost as well. All I am asking is whether it is a requirement based on what he has just said in relation to this particular amendment. It ought to be straightforward to get an answer to that—yes or no—from his officials.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My noble friend is absolutely right. I think the consultation document makes it very clear that it has to be part of the planning process for planning authorities to be able to impose it as an optional requirement.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I reform that. If the local authority already has a standard, it can passport this on, keeping the standard without a need for a new policy. If it wants a new policy, it will have to have a plan policy. Does that begin to answer the question the noble Lord has raised?

[Baroness Andrews]

It answers the question in part, but it raises and reinforces the problem of the complexity of getting these higher standards in place. Changing a local plan, as we know—and some local authorities still have not prepared and finalised their plans—takes four to five years. In the meantime, there are going to be hundreds, if not thousands, of people reaching their eighties and living in deeply inappropriate accommodation. If the Minister will bear with the Committee, I hope that we can return to this in more detail on Report.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I understand that our consultation suggests that where lifetime home standards exist these can be passported and will be carried on but I will consult and make sure we come back. I recognise the importance of this issue—particularly as we, Members of the House of Lords, might be approaching our 80s at some time in the next 25 years or so and therefore perhaps have a greater interest than our children do in this respect. Clause 32 is available in case there is a major problem in the delivery of the new system—for example, if the powers we have given to authorities are not applied properly, or without sufficient rigour, or the system is misused in some way. If the Government decide to put conditions in regulations under Clause 32(4)—and we have no plans to do so at present—then these will be subject to full consultation with interested parties, as with all changes to building regulations. I stress that this is intended not to lower standards but to raise them. Our proposals currently out to consultation are, for the first time, proposing that standards for accessible housing and for wheelchair-adaptable and accessible housing will be given the force of building regulations. This is a major new step and I hope it will be welcomed by all noble Lords. Indeed, I heard what was being asked for. The consultation under way at the moment sets out the Government’s thinking on the issues that local authorities should consider if they wish to apply optional building regulations’ requirements for access.

The key points are that local authorities should plan for the current and future housing needs of a wide range of households, including older and disabled people, and should clearly state in their local plan the proportion of new development that needs to comply with the requirements for accessible and adaptable dwellings, or wheelchair-adaptable or accessible dwellings. Local authorities should base their decision on the outcome of their housing needs assessments, taking into account: the likely future need for housing for older and disabled people, including wheelchair-user dwellings; whether particular sizes and types of housing are needed to meet specific needs—for example retirement homes, sheltered homes or care homes; the accessibility and adaptability of existing housing stock; and the overall impact on viability. I hope noble Lords will agree that these are reasonable matters to be addressed by local authorities and answer some of the questions raised, for example, by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. Currently the Government expect to set out the detailed consideration, which I have described, in guidance rather than put it into regulations.

Multiple compliance regimes have created a maze for designers and developers to navigate. There are 50 different local space standards and many different conflicting ways in which to apply local energy standards, some of which may conflict with the building regulations. Concerns about these issues prompted the Government to launch a fundamental review of technical housing standards during 2012-13, which aimed to rationalise the proliferation down to a sensible core of what worked and what is really needed. There was widespread support for this; 92% of last year’s consultation responses supported the review.

15:30

The review involved extensive work with over 140 key stakeholder groups, from local authorities through to standard owners. The working groups concluded that necessary technical housing standards should be incorporated into a new form of optional building regulations. Currently, building regulations apply nationally across England and provide a clear and consistent set of requirements for homebuilders to meet and for building control orders to apply. However, local needs can vary across the country, so it is right that we provide a mechanism for local discretion and control to ensure that specific local issues can be addressed through the regulations. Issues such as providing for access and disability, water efficiency, space standards, and sustainability can vary to some extent within local authorities. Therefore, unlike existing building regulations, the optional requirements will not be mandatory. They will be applicable only when a local planning authority has a policy in place triggering them, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, suggested. This puts authorities in control. I hope that that provides sufficient justification for the proposals that we are making and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Best, will be able to withdraw the amendment on the assurances that I have given him. Again, I am open to further consultation between now and Report if he is not entirely satisfied.

[Lord Best]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all who participated in that excellent exchange. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, for his support. He reminded me in passing that I did not mention the good work of Habinteg Housing Association, which has been working on these things very successfully over the years.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, raised the fundamental point, and underlined it, which is that to allow local authorities to insist on this higher level but absolutely universal higher standard of lifetime homes across the piece requires this rigorous test to be fulfilled, which brings with it potentially more red tape. This is the essence of the problem—passing a test of viability and need, while of course acknowledging that around the country circumstances are different. But we all get older, all around the country. There are families everywhere with a mother in a buggy going up those steps. The essence of the lifetime homes philosophy is that we need to build all our new homes to a standard that is good for everyone for their lifetime, and it is very hard to see what the rigorous test is going to be that one area might merit being able to insist on those standards and another area might not. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, gets to the essence of that problem. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who emphasised concerns about older people and points out that this is going to be a bit of a postcode lottery as to whether the optional higher level is plumped for by the local authority concerned and whether it is able to sustain that if people go to appeal.

The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, raised the question about there being quite a lot of homes specifically adapted for wheelchair use. It is just that sometimes the people who need them are not living there but somewhere else. Of course, that creates the problem of how you get people to swap homes so that everybody is in the right place, but that point relates specifically to wheelchair-user homes rather than the broader standards that would apply, it is hoped eventually, to everybody—the universal move to level 2.

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, raised the question of the local plan. There is a potential hiccup there that we have not got to the bottom of. If there is one thing that we are going to have to talk more about in the consultation period, it will be how we fit this within local plans without that leading to endless delay. It was important that the Minister made clear that we will be able to be passported, if we are a local authority that currently requires higher standards; that will carry on uninterrupted into the future.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for his support. I hope that he will be part of further consultation as we move towards the guidance, not regulations, that will put these standards into effect. The Minister’s remarks were reassuring but still have some rather vague edges to them. There are opportunities and wriggle room for developers to say that it is not possible to go to these higher standards in this area because, perhaps, we have paid too much for the land and the cost of £500 or so involved would mean that we will not make the profits we would have made. If such excuses are tolerated, we will lose the battle. We need to be firm on these matters and I hope that the guidance will be firm when it comes out. There is some reassurance—for which, thanks—but there is more work to be done. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 36 withdrawn.

Clause 32 agreed.

Clause 33: Amendment of Planning and Energy Act 2008

Debate on whether Clause 33 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I have a few reasons for seeking to have a short debate on Clause 33. First, let us be clear: this clause was not in the draft Bill that the Joint Committee scrutinised. That is a statement of fact. I am not complaining about that, because there are other things in the Bill that were not in the draft Bill and which I totally support. Indeed, I have signed one of the later government amendments. However, the fact is that it was not in the draft Bill. It was not even discussed or scrutinised in the House of Commons. I often wonder what happens down there. I spent 27 years there. We used to go through the minutiae in great detail. Half the Bills that come up here now have not even been debated. I question that. This clause was not in the draft Bill and was not discussed or scrutinised in the House of Commons; therefore we in this House ought to ask a few questions about it.

This is about lowering building standards. I do not want to be unfair to the Minister, because it is not his Bill—it is Oliver Letwin’s Bill. We were told that in the Joint Committee; Ken Clarke said to Oliver, when they came in as witnesses, “It is your Bill”. Is the Minister aware that he will be the first Minister in the coalition to speak in support of lowering housing standards? When the Environmental Audit Committee in the other place looked at this, a civil servant was sent to give evidence, not a Minister. He is out on a limb today. Is this what he went into politics and into the coalition for, to advocate the lowering of housing standards, from a Liberal Democrat perspective? That is what this is about.

I do not know all the background to this, obviously. There is a limit to my time. I looked at the clauses which were not in the Bill that we scrutinised in the Joint Committee that I had the honour of chairing. This one popped up one day on the system and my attention was drawn to it. I can see the Home Builders Federation’s fingerprints all over the clause; there is no question about that. I cannot see the fingerprints of the Construction Products Association, though—the people who actually make the products that make our houses energy efficient and more sustainable. Of course, they are small firms; there is probably not much by way of political donations from that part of the economy. So the message to the building products companies from this clause is, “Do not bother to invest in sustainable products”. What a message to send to a vital part of our manufacturing industry.

In the previous debate I raised the question of the local plan, and I fully accept that the Minister has to come back on that. However, in respect of this clause, my understanding is that the required local plan changes will effectively mean that nothing will happen. There will be a real problem here if local authorities have to change the plans at massive cost due to Clause 33. I say to the Minister that it will put a blight on housebuilding—the very opposite to what we need. We need 4,000 new homes every week. Local authorities which want to build sustainable housing or have a sustainable housing requirement will have to change their local plan when this clause becomes a reality and the code is no longer in use, and I will come to the details of the code in a minute. They will be forced to go to public inquiries at massive cost and that will take time. As my noble friend said, it will take two or three years. In other words, they will be advised not to bother, and we will end up getting housing of a lower standard.

My questions to the Minister are more specifically about this clause than the previous one, to which I was not paying full attention, although I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said. It struck me that the question about the local plans was quite legitimate. To say that you are giving local authorities choice is fine if the choice is theirs to make and they can get on with it, but if the consequence of the change is that they have to change the local plan and they may be opposed in doing that, it could take years and money, so they will not do it. Therefore, their choice is actually removed. The clause is giving them a freedom but constraining the way they use it in such a way that they cannot use it. It is a bit like saying that this is a Deregulation Bill but it is shot through with more regulation. There is a real difficulty here. I should like the Minister to be more specific about the effect of local plans because that will be important when we come to Report.

What is going to be lost in this? What will be lost are rules relating to materials and life cycle, pollution, site waste, internal recycling, energy efficiency, water efficiency, surface water flood risk, drying space in homes, white goods facilities in homes, daylight and sound. These are all issues relating to the environment and energy, and they will be lost because the code will not apply. That is what it is all about. There is no doubt that there will be a drop in housing standards exactly at the time when we do not need that.

The Environmental Audit Committee of the other place looked at this. It said that unlike building regulations, the code for sustainable housing,

“incentivises developers and designers to think about sustainability from the outset and throughout the development process”.

The coalition agreement stated that the Government would,

“require continuous improvements to the energy efficiency of new housing”.

Since 2007, the code for sustainable housing has delivered continuous improvements in the energy efficiency of new housing and other aspects of sustainable construction. On the Government’s decision to wind down the code, the Environmental Audit Committee of the other place stated, as part of its consultation, that the:

“DCLG may have overstated the case in dismissing”,

the code,

“as ‘unnecessary bureaucracy’. Retaining and evolving the CSH may offer a better way of driving incremental increases in sustainable home building than the proposed options set out in the … consultation”.

The LGA has said that it is going back almost to square 1 in terms of decent standards.

Manufacturers of building products have highlighted that long-term investment in sustainable building products might be affected by the new regime. The Construction Products Association pointed out that,

“sustainability represents an important business opportunity for UK manufacturers and represents market growth and export potential. Regulation and Standards are required to drive this forward”.

The BRE, which I will come to in more detail in a minute, said that the consultation proposals would restrict the ability of local planning authorities to adopt proactive strategies and would run counter to the Government’s stated aim to allow greater local choice.

15:45

From my point of view, we have a real problem here with the clause. It looks so innocuous, does it not? Page 28 looks like a technical adjustment, as Ministers sometimes say—as I have said myself several times—but there is far more to it than that. You have to look at the section of the Planning and Energy Act that the clause amends. It states:

“A local planning authority in England may in their development plan documents”—

note that, in their development plan documents—

“and a local planning authority in Wales may in their local development plan, include policies imposing reasonable requirements for … (c) development in their area to comply with energy efficiency standards that exceed the energy requirements of building regulations”.

It is paragraph (c) that the clause removes. That is what it is about. You have to read the section that it amends to see how damaging this part of the Bill is.

The removal of the code, which gives local authorities flexibility, and the introduction of a national standard as part of building regulations goes against the coalition agreement, which I have already quoted from, which said that the Government would return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils. The quality of housing stock may decline when the standards are removed. Home owners will be faced with high energy bills and poorer quality environments. Twenty seven per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions come from domestic property. That was something we drove home when the then Climate Change Bill went through this House before it went to the other place. We did far more work on it than the House of Commons. Domestic properties are creating a massive amount of the carbon emissions of the UK. We need to do more to tackle that, not less. The UK low-carbon environmental goods and services market is now worth an estimated £122 billion to UK plc.

Why on earth is this in the Bill? Why is the Minister today proposing to scrap the code? He must tell us about the impact of that. How will environmentally sustainable housebuilding be promoted? If the code goes and local authorities say that they want to maintain those standards, they will have to change their local plans. That will take years and it will be opposed by developers—I know that developers build the houses; I am not slagging them off. They like flat greenfield sites—I think that they should have more of them in the green belt, by the way; I have no problem about that. If the Minister wants to talk about delivering up steps, try delivering in Stroud in Gloucestershire. That is the place to go delivering to find out about access and steps up.

Building to lower standards will store up problems for future generations. That is the reality. To conclude, I ask the Minister to make a commitment before we get to Report that he personally—because he is operating as the postbox for the other Ministers, for Mr Letwin and Co., the gang who want to burn all the regulations and hang the consequences because it looks good—will visit the BRE. It is only 10 miles up the M1, near Watford. He should see the reality of what it does to give advice. It is now privately funded; it was government-funded at one time. The late Ian Gow permitted me to go there when I was shadow Housing Minister in about 1984. The fact is that it is a leader in this. People, both in this country and abroad, listen to the BRE on sustainability in housing.

We have housing stock of 23 million or so. We are not doing much to upgrade that. The only chance we have to improve is in the small numbers of new stock that come along—although we all want those numbers to be vastly increased. Will the Minister go and look on site and listen to the BRE’s views about the damaging effects of this clause on our future housing standards? I do not want him to be in the position of the lap-dog for the Tories and of being told, “Go and do this. It is lowering housing standards, but you are the patsy Lib Dem”. He does not want that reputation. One way to deal with it is to get a few facts, listen to people who know about this and who have certainly advised the Government in the past, though I do not know whether they did on this clause. The BRE has certainly drawn the attention of others to the clause. I saw it on e-mail and that made me look at why this clause was not in the Bill to start with. It was part of another consultation around the same time. It is a tragedy that this was never raised in the House of Commons, because there has been no warning about building to lower housing standards. That cannot be a good thing. That is why we should have a brief debate on Clause 33.

[Baroness Andrews]

My Lords, far be it for me to improve or elaborate on anything that my noble friend has said. I just want to pick up a couple of points in the context of the code for sustainable homes.

That code has been in place since 2007. People are quite clear about the benefits. It has led to improved standards and to efficiencies. That is acknowledged by bodies such as the Environmental Audit Committee and the Local Government Association and many good public authorities. It is familiar, it is quite elaborate—that is true—but on the other hand, people know how to respond to that and how it benefits them. It has led to great energy efficiencies. Will the Minister tell me what the problem is that will be solved by removing the code?

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has quoted extensively from the BRE. It has probably provided us with similar briefings. The briefing points out that the new arrangements will mean that, in the future, energy performance set through the building regulations will be lower than many local authorities currently require, with the need for a special application to use optional regulations. This takes us back to the previous debate, and the shift in process and relationships, and in how things are decided, who gets to decide them and on what basis. He is right: of course there is a tension between national standards and localism. We are five years into this Government and it is about time some of those tensions were resolved. It is causing real issues at local level.

The BRE, which is expert in sustainability, has stated that:

“Over 75% of the sustainability requirements currently covered by the Code will no longer be covered by any UK standards or regulations”.

Is that factually correct? I would like to know if that is the case. What might that 75% include? How will that be compensated for in the new arrangements? In short, I would need to be convinced that whatever is coming forward will have the universal nature of the code for sustainable homes, that it will be as accessible and as easily applied, and that it will have the impact that the code can have in terms of efficiencies. What is going to happen to energy bills and to energy efficiencies within the home? I do not think that the House would want to proceed with this clause unless we could be certain that we knew the answers to those questions, and that we could say to people outside this House that the energy situation and their energy bills would get better as a result of these changes.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we have heard two very powerful presentations from my noble friends. It is not my nature to be helpful to the Minister, but I want to put one matter to him. The bit of briefing I received suggested that the particular provision in the Planning and Energy Act 2008 would stay in being until the zero-carbon homes policy was in place and that that would effectively replace it. That itself raises a couple of questions. The first is whether the zero-carbon homes policy would cover all the protections that my noble friends have said would be lost once we delete this provision. Secondly, how can we be assured that there will be an alignment—if that is the right way to go—and that the zero-carbon homes policy will come in at the same time as the ability to require higher standards disappears? There is a fundamental issue about whether the zero-carbon homes policy equates to what could be achieved under this provision. If it does not, the sort of losses that my noble friends Lord Rooker and Lady Andrews have identified become very real and pertinent.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, often raises difficult issues for Governments, and I give all credit to him for the attention he pays to this. It is an entirely proper role for a Member of the House of Lords to look with deep suspicion at government proposals and to make sure that the Government can provide the rationale for them. Perhaps I can assure him that Oliver Letwin spoke on this on the Floor of the House and it was discussed in Committee, so it has not been entirely ignored by the House of Commons.

[Lord Rooker]

Then I apologise. My advice was that it had not been looked at in the Commons. Obviously I was wrong there.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord is entirely right to be suspicious and to make sure that this is properly scrutinised, particularly an umbrella Bill such as this. I in no sense criticise him for raising a number of important points.

This is in no sense intended to lower standards; it is intended to continue the process of raising energy efficiency standards and to achieve zero-carbon aims. I was already briefed to make the point that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, just helpfully made. This is not intended to commence until it replaces the other standards. The code on which representation has been made is a fairly complex piece of legislation. Those parts will not be abandoned; they will be incorporated into the building regulations. I stress that we are raising standards, not lowering them. I will make sure that I can say that with confidence again on Report, because I recognise the concerns of noble Lords.

By 2016, the Government plan to have tightened building regulations to deliver zero-carbon housing. I repeat that the Section 1(1)(c) amendment will not be commenced until then; meanwhile there will be no dip in standards. We intend to consolidate necessary standards to ensure that sustainable housing can be built. The current situation means that insufficient housing is being built because authorities are applying too many different standards, making sites unviable. This is a rationalisation, not a deregulation of the sort that lowers standards and enables people to move further away from the zero-carbon housing that we all very much want.

Clause 33 amends the Planning and Energy Act 2008 to ensure that local authorities in England will no longer be able to set energy efficiency standards via local planning policies for new homes in excess of the building regulations. It does so by disapplying Section 1(1)(c) for dwellings in England where government policy is that such a requirement should be found only in national building regulations. However, local authorities will still play an important strategic role in delivering carbon reductions and the Act will continue to enable them to do so.

16:00

Authorities are best placed to decide the wider energy needs of an area and will be able to require that developers connect, for example, to off-site low-carbon or renewable energy infrastructure, or district heating schemes. This role is an important element of planning authorities’ responsibilities and will not be affected by the proposals to amend the Planning and Energy Act. In this way, authorities will still be able to seek local goals to promote sustainable energy development and reduce emissions. We are not removing those powers; we are consolidating and raising the level of the building regulations.

Local authorities will also play an important role in shaping the allowable solutions scheme. Although the proposal is to develop a nationally-led scheme, local authorities are encouraged to come forward with their specific ideas and work with developers on delivering them. These provisions, if the House agrees with them, will be commenced by order. I know that there is a widely shared view that the Government should not commence the amendments until such time as the zero-carbon policy is in place, and the Government accept that.

The Government issued a consultation on 12 September, which covered the implementation of the housing standards review and set out the transitional and implementation requirements that will apply. The consultation says that,

“local planning authorities will continue to be able to set and apply policies”,

imposing reasonable requirements for,

“development in their area to comply with energy efficiency standards that exceed the energy requirements of building regulations until the zero carbon home policy has been put in place … alongside the commencement of the amendment to the Planning and Energy Act 2008, which … we anticipate would be in late 2016”.

The Minister for Government Policy underlined this commitment by stating in the Commons that the amendment to Section 1(1)(c) of the Planning and Energy Act would be made so that it,

“knits properly with the start of the operation of”,—[Official Report, Commons, 23/6/14; col. 153.]

zero-carbon homes regulations.

In the interim, we would expect local planning authorities to take a sensible approach to setting energy-efficiency requirements for new homes and not set conditions above a level equivalent to the Code for Sustainable Homes energy level 4. This will ensure that the industry continues to be pushed to deliver more energy-efficient homes to the code level 4 standard nationally, while the national zero-carbon policy on allowable solutions and the strengthened building regulations are prepared and come into effect from 2016. I hope that that provides the reassurance that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and others were looking for. I am happy to talk further off the Floor with the noble Lord if he needs further assurance.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

Given that we are not expecting the zero-carbon home policy to be included until late 2016, there is a lot of water to flow under the bridge between now and then. Would he accept an amendment which put in the commitment not to repeal the provision in the 2008 Act until the zero-carbon home policy was in place?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for that interesting suggestion. May I consider it and consult? Perhaps we can also discuss that off the Floor, between Committee and Report.

[Lord Rooker]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am not sure what I am supposed to do now on the clause stand part because there is no amendment.

[Noble Lords]

Sit down.

[Lord Rooker]

So that is it—I shall sit down, but I thank the Minister.

Clause 33 agreed.

Clause 34: Short-term use of London accommodation: power to relax restrictions

Amendment 36A

Moved by

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

36A: Clause 34, page 29, line 7, leave out “may also” and insert “must”

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 36B, 36C and 36D. This amendment would effectively give to individual London boroughs the right to override any relaxation of planning requirements for short-term lets which the Secretary of State might introduce. It would further make it clear that local authorities could deny any relaxation in respect of residential premises which were not the sole or main residence of the lessor.

The Government’s proposals to deregulate the position are proving to be, understandably, very contentious, as noble Lords will have seen from their postbag. We are supportive of those people who want to rent out their homes when, for instance, they go on holiday and want to make a bit of extra money. Although it may not be a mainstream activity where I live, we should not stand in the way of someone doing a house swap as part of their holiday plans. It is difficult to see why someone should be required to obtain planning permission in such circumstances. However, there is a distinction in our minds between infrequent letting in these circumstances and those who want to operate a short-let business. For those who do, and thereby materially change the use of a property, it is reasonable that they submit a planning application.

The arguments against a wholesale deregulation of the position for London have been well made. The specific problems caused by short-term letting have been fully set out in a range of briefings. London Councils says that deregulation of short-term lets will diminish the supply of permanent accommodation for those living and working in London, because if owners can charge significantly more for short-term lets, there will be general upward pressure on rents. The Camden case studies exemplify this. The survey of London boroughs has identified widespread concerns about the problems caused by extensive use of residential accommodation, which include increases in noise and anti-social behaviour, increasing fear of crime, the loss of community identity and reduced focus on fire risks.

The British Hospitality Association and others remind us why Section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 is there in the first place: to ensure that housing is available and affordable for London residents. This, sadly, is an ambition which is increasingly difficult to fulfil. They claim that some other major cities—Paris, New York and Singapore—are looking to tighten their legislation in this regard at a time when the UK is moving in the opposite direction. Will the Minister tell us whether that is the case? The Bed & Breakfast Association expresses concerns that short-let businesses are largely unregulated, are enabled by technology to operate partly offshore and are careless of their responsibility regarding public safety.

Those who support some deregulation include Onefinestay, which says that it has pioneered a business which enables visitors to cities to stay in private homes while the owners are out of town. It argues that householders can top up their income, while tourist spending gets spread to local economies outside the usual hotel zones. It makes the point that such activity is not about scarce residential property being converted wholesale to other uses, it is about occasionally renting a home when you are not around, or even renting a room in your house while you remain in residence. In some ways, it might be argued that this is, de facto, the current position, because enforcement of the current planning requirements is limited. The London Councils’ briefing suggests that overall, it is less than 50%. Has anyone has been prosecuted for letting out their home for a couple of weeks while they have been away without getting planning permission?

The fact that London boroughs might effectively police the current position by where they draw the line on prosecutions does not make it altogether comfortable. What do we conclude from all this? It would be appropriate to deregulate in circumstances where the short-term let was in respect of a residential premises which was, and continued to be, the sole or main residence of the person letting the property. There would need to be careful definitions of sole or main residence—to preclude, for example, circumstances in which the owner was working abroad but expected to return to the property, but that should be well within the competence of parliamentary counsel. That would remove the nonsense of somebody having to get planning permission each year to let their home when they go on holiday, or, indeed, rent out a room for a few weeks and remain in residence.

It should also provide a degree of comfort from concerns that such arrangements will be uncaring of the neighbourhood and the local environment, because those letting the property will be returning to live in it. Further, it would remove the strain of boroughs having to look aside from such perfectly acceptable arrangements and determine not to prosecute. If the Secretary of State’s powers to deregulate are narrowed in this way, it might be said that no further safeguards are needed.

However, as the Bill provides an opportunity for the Secretary of State or the local planning authority to disapply the deregulatory change to particular types of residential premises or particular areas, we need to consider whether that is fair. Given that the Secretary of State in the first instance can set the circumstances in which the short-term let is facilitated, it would be reasonable and a localist approach to empower individual boroughs to disapply the deregulation. They know their areas better than the Secretary of State, and that is what our amendment provides. I beg to move.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who tabled his amendments yesterday, thereby giving him the onerous task of explaining what this debate is all about.

During this Grand Committee, I have heard from London Councils that, while it regards the noble Lord’s amendments as moving in the right direction, it still prefers to go for the deletion of the clause as a whole. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones—who unfortunately is in China on business today, leaving the task to me—and I have therefore given notice of our intention to oppose the clause standing part so as to enable a full and proper debate on this issue. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, rightly said, the issue is contentious—I think that he used that word. It is certainly controversial in London, where it is a growing issue.

We have received objections from London Councils. The Local Government Association, of which, I should perhaps mention, I am a vice-president, rightly sees this as a London issue, as it is relevant to the Greater London powers Act, and is therefore leaving it with London Councils. We have received representations from Westminster City Council, which understandably is probably the local authority in London most affected by these issues—although it is by no means the only one—from the Covent Garden Community Association, the British Hospitality Association, the Bed and Breakfast Association, Whitbread, which runs Premier Inn and Costa coffee, and a number of individuals who are personally affected.

That leads me to ask the Minister the following. Specifically, whom did the Government consult before deciding to insert this clause? When did they do that consultation? What was the response and has it been published? It may well be that I have missed it. Given the body of opinion that is outright opposed to this clause, one wonders what led the Government to go along with it. I should say, and will say again later, that since tabling what is effectively our intention to delete the clause we have received a number of representations which are not wholly in support of the clause but perhaps rather more positive towards it. I will try to deal with those as well, because we want to have a full debate on the issue.

It is easy to think that this is a provision that was put into a 1973 Act—coincidentally, that happened to be my one year as a London MP, so I remember these things reasonably well—and that since then, times have changed. Yes, of course they have. The internet has been invented and businesses are now doing a very good job with something that could not have existed then. However, something else has changed since 1973: the housing crisis in London is now even worse than it was at that time. I looked at the Explanatory Notes to understand more fully the Government’s thinking on this. Paragraph 193 states:

“The purpose behind the provision”—

that is, the original 1973 provision—

“was to protect London’s existing housing supply, for the benefit of permanent residents, by giving London boroughs greater and easier means of planning control to prevent the conversion of family homes into short term lets”.

The only thing that has changed since is that that is even more necessary now than it was then. Therefore, I contend that the purpose is still there, although the means of achieving it is open to debate.

London Councils, which represents all 32 London boroughs and the City of London, tells us that Westminster City Council has estimated that 3,000 properties in its borough are being used for short-term accommodation. In Camden, 923 flats are being offered by just one short-term let business, a rise of 37% in just over three months. On that scale, it is not simply people who want to offer their home for someone to live in while they go away, perhaps for a long holiday, in order to help finance that holiday. This is a business.

16:15

London Councils has surveyed all its members and 92% of responding boroughs said that short-term letting caused problems with noise and anti-social behaviour; 92% that it resulted in a loss of permanent accommodation; 75% that it caused loss of community identity; 58% that it caused increased fear of crime, and 25% that it caused increased crime and fire safety risks. I suspect that might be an underestimate of fire safety risk, which is of course the particular concern of both the British Hospitality Association and the Bed and Breakfast Association.

I mentioned the Covent Garden Community Association because it has written to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who has now sadly left us, and to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who is still with us. It is a long-established community association—I stress community association—which I can remember working with back in 1973. It says:

“We appeal to you to delete this proposal from the Bill, and indeed to work with communities like ours to bring in far stricter regulation of short term letting. It is no exaggeration to say that short term letting is already harmfully affecting our community more than any other issue in our generation … we believe that communities now need protection from people who go away a lot, and whose homes become informal hostels on a regular basis using websites”—

and they name some, which I will not. It goes on:

“This activity is very difficult for local authorities to take action against, even under the current legislation. Yet it is ruining the quality of life of long term residents who then, of course, are driven to move out themselves”.

My final quotation comes from an individual, who I will not name for the record, but who puts it much more succinctly in a letter to Mr Eric Pickles. He says:

“I am fed up with the constant stream of people staying for short periods”—

he gives an example of his own house—

“immediately below my flat and letting people into our otherwise secure courtyard and staircase. This flat (below mine) should be a home for someone who would be a part of the community. Instead it deprives hotels of business (and the accommodation charges go to an owner who lives abroad)”.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is right to say that it is a contentious issue and there is some example of the contention.

I said that we had received contrary representations from people operating in business since tabling our opposition to the clause. I want to refer to one in particular from a company called onefinestay, with which my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and I had a useful, productive and constructive meeting, subsequent to which, at our request, it wrote to us more fully. It says that:

“we are absolutely not in favour of wholesale deregulation”.

As a relatively new business made possible by the coming of the internet, which offers a clearly needed service—they are doing good business and benefiting people—what it quite reasonably wants is not deregulation, but better and more appropriate regulation. It wants regulation which meets the circumstances and strengthens its legitimate and very proper business, which protects them against the cowboys who operate in this area, and which would also strengthen the hands of local authorities.

One of its key recommendations, which is very much in line with that of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, is that the regulation should apply simply to properties that are the sole or main residence. There is a test of what is a residence: it is where somebody is living. I understand that that is defined in law. Nobody wishes to stop somebody letting a property while they go away on holiday for a few weeks or even a month or two. We are talking not about that but about the businesses that are into short-term lets—often, though not always, of poor quality, with low fire-safety requirements and so on. That is the area we need to attend to.

We come now to the clause before us. As so often, we are being asked to do away with the only safeguard that exists, albeit one from 1973, without any evidence that it is not working. As far as I know, there is no evidence that local planning authorities are applying this provision disproportionately. Perhaps the Minister will tell me whether the Government have any evidence. Given the state of most local planning authorities and their staffing I suspect that they are not applying it at all, which may be a worse situation. There can be no serious suggestion that in the vast majority of London boroughs, if any, it is applied disproportionately. We are being asked to do away with the only protection there is with no certain knowledge of what is to replace it. We are allowing the Secretary of State to make regulations but are given no indication of what those regulations will or will not cover. I hope that the Minister will tell us in a minute and that we will be able to see those draft regulations, preferably before the next stage of the Bill. Whether that is possible, who knows?

If the Government are determined to do away with the provision in the 1973 Act, we need to know what is coming in its place. We need to be reassured that it really will be fit for purpose and will safeguard the interests of the organisations, commercial businesses and, particularly, the individuals in communities to which I have referred. In conclusion, I hope that the Minister will also reassure us that this section of the 1973 Act will not be repealed—if that is the right word—before we have the new regulations debated, discussed, agreed and in place, at least so that the protection remains in place throughout.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I spoke on this issue at Second Reading and little did I know that I would be entering this twilight world of virtual hotels and absence of health and safety. It is a very new world and perhaps not one that I would welcome. I make no apology for speaking about a London issue. I am a Londoner by adoption. I have done my fair share of one-room bedsits and one-bedroom flats, so I think I have some knowledge of the standard of private sector renting. The big issue why it is special for London is the high proportion of flat-dwellers. We must emphasise that because it means that there is a whole new relationship with fellow homeowners, which does not necessarily exist in a street of houses.

I support what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said. This is not a cosy, house-swapping issue. This is big business. We are talking about Airbnb valued at £10 billion and IHG valued at £8 billion and also about a crisis in housing supply in London. Can the Minister say how the Government reconcile that shortage and the fact that this is going to make accommodation even more short? How does that reconcile with the model tenancy agreement that the coalition Government are preparing? How can we be sure that there is going to be enough accommodation left for those who want to rent on a longer basis?

Noble Lords have already spoken about undermining the tourist industry. I will not go on about that, but I support everything that has been said about it. All the organisations that have approached other noble Lords have also approached me. I believe that the health and safety issue is important, because the Chief Fire Officers Association wrote in March to Airbnb saying the fire safety information given to people using its properties was wrong.

Finally, let me deal briefly, because others have covered the issues that I wanted to, with the libertarian issue. It is quite right that the homeowner ought to have the right to deploy their property in whatever way they choose. That has to be balanced by the right of the property owner not to have a major change in ambience of the place that they purchase. That is particularly true in blocks of flats. There is an expectation when someone buys a property within a block of flats that the ambience will not change, that it will be secure and settled and that it will not turn into the A&E department of the local private hospital, into a hotel, or into more unfortunate areas such as brothels and housing benefit fraudsters at the other extreme. The right of homeowners has to be balanced by the need for people to have some security in the property that they buy in London. If the noble Lord, Lord Tope, were to pursue this on Report, I would support the clause being deleted entirely, but as a reasonable compromise, I will support my noble friend Lord McKenzie.

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, I am not an expert in this area, but following a discussion with an entrepreneur who is active in this field and behaving responsibly and who has developed a successful business in response to a real market, I thought it important that an alternative case be put. Over the years, I have often heard a strong case from the public sector as to why it would be unhelpful for a particular change to happen. I have heard attempts to hold the sea back before, but it has often proved impossible in the end. Change happens. As a social entrepreneur and innovator I have certainly been told by the public sector on numerous occasion that, “the sky will fall in” if such and such a change should happen. Having usually stayed the course, I noticed that, in reality, it never did and a new, often positive reality emerged.

The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, gave some excellent illustrations of this phenomenon, and attempts in the past to hold back business development, in his Second Reading speech. I shall articulate an alternative scenario to that painted by colleagues. I have heard considerable opposition to this change and concern over the unintended consequences that may arise as a result. However, I have yet to hear enough focus on the benefits of this reform, which in many people’s eyes is a sensible and forward-thinking piece of policymaking. It is these benefits that I shall focus on.

First, this reform will deliver a more optimal use of space and existing assets. With such well-documented pressure on our housing capacity, surely it makes sense to make better use of the residential property that we already have and to allow our properties not to lie empty for short periods when owners are away. I declare an interest as someone who lets out rooms in my London home. Secondly, a system which no longer makes people feel fearful of criminal sanction simply for renting out their residence when they are away will mean that families, many of whom are in need of additional income, will be free to tap into an additional revenue stream. Much of this revenue will be taxed and will ultimately boost revenue for the Exchequer to spend as it chooses.

Thirdly, it is evident that increasing the variety and stock of locations for tourists to stay will not only boost tourism in the capital, but will give a boost to local businesses that will benefit from this new mode of travel. This extra tourist footfall has the potential to reach parts of our economy that tourist dollars have previously never reached. Furthermore, when tourists decide to stay in people’s homes rather than in hotels, they tend to spend their money in local businesses, local restaurants and local museums. Finally, it should be pointed out that the costs for a family wanting to stay in a hotel in London are incredibly high and many people are simply priced out of a trip to our capital city. Short-term holiday lets provide travellers, especially families, with more choice and often more suitable properties in which to reside while on holiday.

We must be clear that the internet has fundamentally changed the way in which people live, work and travel. Either we decide to embrace this shift in our policy-making and our regulation or we will be left behind, as other cities embrace what is increasingly a preferred way to travel. The emergence of platforms such as Onefinestay, which has been mentioned and which enables people to rent out their residence safely and securely on a short-term basis when they are not at home, is something that we should embrace and not hinder.

16:30

Regulation in this area has evidently not kept pace with technological and social advance. We now have an opportunity to put in place a sensible framework which puts London at the centre of a new and exciting phenomenon: what many people refer to as the sharing economy. This is not about wholesale deregulation or allowing speculators to buy up property for their individual profit. We must be clear that this is not what the Government are proposing, as I understand it. Appropriate safeguards should be put in place in any secondary legislation to ensure that buy-to-let investors cannot choose to turn homes into businesses. However, individuals should have the basic right to let their residences for short periods if circumstances warrant it.

London is currently the only place in the country, I understand, which puts such restrictions on this activity. While London is clearly a special case, the time has come for proportionate reform which would mean that those seeking to rent out their residence on a short-term basis would not have to apply for planning permission as if they were commercial premises, such as a shop or bar. This activity is clearly already taking place in London and elsewhere, so either we put in place a sensible system to regulate it properly and proportionately or we risk an unregulated and underground market—with all the associated risks.

[Baroness Hanham (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee that I have not had the opportunity so far to take part on the Bill. I do so now as a very new co-president of London Councils and as a freeman of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, of which I am a former leader.

I want to intervene on this issue because I am long enough in the tooth, as my noble friend is, to remember the 1973 Act being introduced. It was introduced then because there was an experience of a transient population developing within London along with scarce housing. They were coming in for a short time, going away again and not contributing at all to the settled population. I wish that that situation had changed but in fact it has not. Central London is still the magnet for people coming here for a short time. Why do we worry about that? I think that it is because it destabilises the population and the use of accommodation. It makes it almost impossible for a local authority to know what its property, or the property within the borough, is being used for.

The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, spoke about having proper regulation, but there is proper regulation. What is happening in the Bill takes that proper regulation away. It seems absolutely essential that the local authority should have the oversight of what is going on. An application has to be made to it for practically everything else to do with property, so it should be able to see what is going on and to approve, or not, the short-term use. Perhaps I may go back to the suggestion that this is stopping people letting out their homes for a short time. Nobody is looking at that. What they are looking at is somebody who owns a property and then deliberately turns it into not a buy-for-let but a buy-for-rent for six weeks or so.

In my own area, you often see people coming into quite expensive accommodation. They put their suitcases behind them and go in, and you have no idea who they are. They vanish again a week later and somebody else turns up. That is not at all helpful for stability and it certainly does not help us with the transient nature of the situation. Central London boroughs may suffer from that more than others: Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and probably Camden.

Secondly, there has been an enormous amount of new development in London which is not necessarily of any use to local residents. It will be made of less use to local residents if some of those really big glass buildings, even at the rents that are charged, are let out on a short-term basis. The coming and going there will be absolutely uncontrollable.

I do not know what mischief has brought this clause about. I very much hope that my noble friend Lord Ahmad will be able to tell us, because the legislation seems to have been running along quite happily, doing what it is meant to do, for more than 30 years. Why suddenly, at this moment when London is in turmoil, a perpetual fever, of people, including tourists, coming and going—apart from the fact that this is an opportune Bill to put it in—is it important?

My borough, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, is very alarmed about this. It has made its position clear. One of the reasons why I support the opposition to the clause, as well as the amendments, is that it will be badly affected. Other boroughs may not be as badly affected, but if this is a matter where each borough will make up its mind about deregulation, that is its choice, its power and its local decision if its local residents support it. I do not think that there is a role here for the Secretary of State in making a decision that affects a local authority area that much.

It is London that is affected by the Bill. London was deliberately affected by the London Government Act because of the situation then. I doubt that any other city has the pressure that London has now—although that may develop. I very much hope that the clause will be reconsidered, because I think it is unnecessary. London has spoken before about this. People who want to let their houses when they go away must be exempted. As it stands, I am very much against the clause.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. Many noble Lords have spoken from their personal experience in London and as representatives of various London councils.

Perhaps at the outset I may say that I am not an adopted Londoner; I am a born and bred Londoner and someone who has represented a London council and sat on the London Councils body itself, so I am aware of some of the key concerns that have been raised about the provisions. However, I cannot claim to have made a coherent contribution to the 1973 Act. I hope that my contributions today will be somewhat more coherent, but that is for others to judge.

The amendments, which would allow local authorities to make their own exemptions for particular properties and areas, would, in the Government’s view, risk removing the certainty and consistency that are behind our proposals for all London residents. Indeed, they would create a patchwork of different regulatory approaches across the capital, potentially resulting in unjustifiable differences between local authority areas. Residents may find that their near neighbours have either greater or lesser freedoms to let their property short term, which in many cases would be difficult for them to understand.

Let me be absolutely clear: we intend to retain the important safeguards of Section 25, which protect London’s housing supply for Londoners who live and work permanently in the capital city. However, through Clause 34, we want to provide certainty for all residents in all London local authority areas that they are able to let their homes on a short-term, temporary basis, such as when they are on holiday, without having to deal with the unnecessary bureaucracy of applying for planning permission.

These amendments also seek to exempt from deregulation properties that are not the main residence of the landlord. I reiterate that, through Clause 34, the Government only want to allow residents to be able to temporarily let their homes. This measure will do nothing to make it easier for those seeking to short-term let property on a permanent or commercial basis. Rather than specifying how the deregulation will work on the face of the Bill, the clause seeks the power to make regulations which will provide the legal framework. These will follow the affirmative procedure and will be subject to debate and the approval of Parliament on important issues, including in precisely what circumstances short-term letting will not require planning permission.

I turn to the detail of Clause 34. The clause updates an outdated 40 year-old law restricting Londoners from being able to temporarily let out their homes or spare rooms. Section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 prohibits the use of a,

“building, or any part of a building”,

for “temporary sleeping accommodation” for fewer than 90 consecutive nights without planning permission for temporary change of use. In London, residents failing to secure planning permission face a fine of up to £20,000 for each offence. The regulations that the Government are bringing forward will clarify for London residents what is permissible.

[Baroness Donaghy]

What is the record of the number of fines imposed?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Baroness makes a very valid contribution. Both the noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Tope, have mentioned that, and I shall come to it in a moment.

We are seeking to provide clarity for Londoners across all boroughs. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, mentioned London as a capital city and its economy. Last summer nearly 5 million overseas visitors came to the capital. Some of those visitors, as well as UK residents, want to experience London as a local by staying with Londoners who live in London permanently or indeed in their homes while the resident is away on holiday. We know that there are currently thousands of London properties and rooms advertised on websites, but each is potentially in breach of Section 25 as it stands. That is the important point here, and I shall come to that in a moment. There is uncertainty for householders as to whether their local authority will take action against them for unauthorised short-term letting. Today’s technology enables internet sites, which we have heard about in the debate, to offer services to manage and quality-control short-term lettings. Planning legislation for the capital needs to catch up with the 21st century way of living. Noble Lords talked about their personal experience. Every year, thousands of visitors enjoy their holidays in Londoners’ homes, and such short-term letting is prevalent in areas such as Wimbledon during the tennis fortnight.

Through regulations, we want to provide certainty and consistency for all residents in all London local authority areas about when it will be permitted for householders to temporarily short-term let their property without the need for planning permission. The Government’s amendment to Section 25 crucially retains the main provision for protecting London’s housing for those who live and work permanently in London, while seeking to bring the current legislation up to date. Importantly, we want to make it clear that we do not seek to allow the short-term letting of London’s housing stock on a permanent or commercial basis. The Government do not seek to repeal Section 25 of the 1973 Act or amend its primary purpose of protecting London’s housing supply for Londoners who live and work permanently in the capital. Moreover, the Government fully recognise that London’s homes should not be lost to investors to let out exclusively for short-term lets, and our reforms will not enable this. It is the Government’s intention simply to allow Londoners to let their homes on a short-term, temporary basis, such as when they are on holiday, without having to deal with the unnecessary bureaucracy of applying for planning permission.

Clause 34 enables the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to bring forward regulations to prescribe the circumstances in which the use of a home as temporary sleeping accommodation is not deemed a material change of use, requiring planning permission. The clause also allows for regulations to exclude individual residential premises, and premises in particular areas, from any relaxation of Section 25.

I come to some of the questions that were raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and my noble friend Lord Tope asked about prosecutions. London boroughs have taken enforcement action against short-term letting. For example, in Westminster action has been taken against statutory nuisances and anti-social behaviour. This clause is designed to redress the sporadic enforcement of Section 25. It certainly creates greater certainty for residents who want to let their properties short term. The Government’s intention is to allow more people to enjoy and visit London. We are proposing allowing temporary, short-term letting for only householders and not commercial or permanent short-term letting.

16:45

Various other questions were raised. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, talked about how other cities are tightening regulation and asked why we are deregulating. I think that I addressed that in part by saying that the clause applies only to short-term letting for householders and not to commercial or permanent short-term letting.

Another question raised concerned the timing of the legislation, and my noble friend Lord Tope asked about the regulations. As I have already said, regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure whenever they are introduced. It is certainly the Government’s intention to introduce regulations as soon as possible on Royal Assent. When that happens will of course be subject to the timings.

My noble friend Lord Tope also raised the question of web platforms and the consultation. There was quite a detailed consultation in this respect. The Review of Property Conditions in the Private Rented Sector consultation paper was published in February 2014 as part of a wider consultation. That paper sought views on whether Section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 should be reviewed or updated. In total, there were 97 responses to that specific question. The concerns—some of which we have heard this afternoon—were focused on the removal of Section 25. However, some individuals and providers of online accommodation supported the relaxation that is being proposed in the regulations.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and my noble friend Lord Tope also raised questions concerning the acute housing shortage. Basically they asked, perfectly pertinently, whether the legislation will add to the problem. Of course, I recognise the importance of keeping London homes for Londoners, and this change will not remove the protection of Section 25. It will amend Section 25 to permit regulations which, as I have already said, will allow genuine householders to supplement their income by renting out their spare room or their property while they are on holiday without having the bureaucracy or the concern and cost of applying for planning permission. The Government also recognise London’s unique circumstances. I assure noble Lords that we will be working with the London boroughs to design the provision to ensure that we achieve the right balance between increasing freedoms for London’s residents and protecting London’s housing supply. The provisions are also intended to ensure that speculators will not be able to buy homes meant for Londoners and rent them out permanently as short-term lets. I have already made it clear that these regulations will follow the affirmative procedure.

The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, referred to the model tenancy agreement. Perhaps I may write to her between now and Report on her specific questions.

[Baroness Hanham]

I clearly heard the Minister say that this provision is intended specifically to allow people to let out their homes. Under those circumstances, I wonder whether the current wording of the legislation, which refers to,

“accommodation of any residential premises”,

describes that particular position.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As a previous Whip to the noble Baroness, I know that when she asks questions one needs to be quite detailed in one’s response. Let me again assure the noble Baroness that I will write to her specifically on that element. I am sure officials have also made note of her quite specific question. My noble friend Lady Hanham also raised the issue of curtailing the role, or asking why the Secretary of State would retain this role. As I have already said, we will work with local authorities in London on how regulations covering the role of the Secretary of State would work.

I am just looking through the number of specific fines from local authorities. Again, I have touched on some of them. I do not have the detailed breakdown of how many people have been pursued by which authority, but I have requested that from officials and will write to all noble Lords in that respect. I trust that I have covered most if not all of the questions. For anything pending I shall, of course, review the contributions made by all noble Lords, which I welcome, not least because of the experience across the board. I reiterate that the Government recognise that this is an area where there will be considerable interest and we wish to ensure that we get the change right. Therefore, I welcome the contributions that have been made in Committee today.

I reassure noble Lords that the Government will be working closely with all interested parties in London, including the local authorities and the hospitality industry. The Government want to ensure that the measures brought forward meet householders’ aspirations of temporarily letting out their homes or spare rooms, while retaining the key purpose of Section 25 which is keeping London homes for those who live permanently in London. We believe that these reforms benefit those Londoners who wish to supplement their income by making their homes or spare rooms available. It offers an alternative to hotels and guesthouses—as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, mentioned—and further supports the wider tourist industry. It also helps those temporarily working in the capital or searching for a place to live by expanding the pool of competitively priced accommodation on offer. I beg to move that Clause 34 stands part of the Bill and I urge the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very full reply and thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on this amendment. I was slightly comforted by the Minister’s direction of travel. My understanding is it is likely that what is proposed is a narrower deregulation than might originally have been assumed from looking at the Bill. Whether it is narrow enough is something we need to look at with reference to genuine householders. I do not think that necessarily required a short-term let to be in respect of the householder’s property—that is it was their sole or main residence. That could impact on our position a little. I am not sure if we heard when at least the draft regulations are going to be available. The Minister prays in aid affirmative procedures. We have all done that and we know that is really only a marginal opportunity to influence the outcome of the regulations.

The Minister set his face against there being a right for London boroughs to take a different view and not follow the Secretary of State on the deregulation. That does not necessarily sit easy with those of us who are paid-up localists—normally including the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I think all noble Lords who spoke, including the noble Lord, Lord Tope, the noble Baronesses, Lady Donaghy and Lady Hanham, and, perhaps with respect to a lesser extent the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, share the analysis. It is just a question of where that takes us in terms of a solution.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, made the point that central London in particular is a magnet for these operations and it does not necessarily apply to London as a whole. I do not think the survey that London Councils did—or maybe it was Camden—covered all the boroughs of London. I do not think there was 100% return, so it will be interesting to know what a wider spread might mean.

Clearly there is great concern about this provision. The Minister has helped to allay some of that concern this afternoon, but we need to have more detail before Report so we can determine which way we are going to proceed on this. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 36A withdrawn.

Amendments 36B to 36D not moved.

Clause 34 agreed.

Amendment 37

Moved by

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

37: After Clause 34, insert the following new Clause—
“Provision of advice etc about residential licences
In the Housing Act 1996, after section 220 insert—“220A Provision of general advice etc about residential licences: England
(1) The Secretary of State may give financial assistance to any person in relation to the provision by that person of—
(a) information, training or general advice about any matter relating to residential licences in England, or(b) a dispute resolution service in connection with any matter relating to residential licences in England.(2) Financial assistance under this section may be given in such form and on such terms as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(3) The terms on which financial assistance under this section may be given may, in particular, include provision as to the circumstances in which the assistance must be repaid or otherwise made good to the Secretary of State and the manner in which that is to be done.””

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, this amendment would enable the Secretary of State to provide financial assistance to an organisation providing advice, information and training concerning residential licences. Importantly, this would allow such assistance to be made available where advice is provided in connection with the law concerning park homes.

The Mobile Homes Act 2013 introduced significant changes to the law on park homes and marks this Government’s commitment to provide proper protection to park home owners, while ensuring that those site operators who run a decent and honest business can prosper without the heavy burdens of red tape and bureaucracy.

As noble Lords are aware, the sector is small—about 85,000 homes on 2,000 sites in England. The law applying to it is unique and complicated. Many homeowners are older people and some are vulnerable. They are often hard to reach. It is also fair to say that many of them have suffered exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous operators. Homeowners often lack basic understanding of the law and their related rights. Not surprisingly, therefore, a source of concern in the past has been the lack of available, accurate and independent advice on the rights and responsibilities of the parties to a residential park home contract. This is why the Government commissioned the Leasehold Advisory Service, known as LEASE, in 2013, following the introduction of the Mobile Homes Act, to provide free initial advice on park home law.

LEASE has for many years provided advice to the residential leaseholder sector and it has been funded to do so by the Secretary of State by way of grant aid under powers in Section 94 of the Housing Act 1996. Those powers were not available to fund LEASE in respect of its park home functions because Section 94 is only available to fund advice in respect of residential tenancies. The tenure arrangement for park homes means they are residential licences. The amendment would enable the Secretary of State in future to pay grant aid to LEASE, or any other organisation, in connection with park home advice, in the same way as he can in respect of leasehold advice. Therefore I beg to move the amendment.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I am happy to support this amendment.

Amendment 37 agreed.

Amendment 38

Moved by

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

38: After Clause 34, insert the following new Clause—
“Designation of urban development areas: procedure
(1) Section 134 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 (urban development areas) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) Before making an order designating any area of land in England as an urban development area, the Secretary of State must consult the following persons—
(a) persons who appear to the Secretary of State to represent those living within, or in the vicinity of, the proposed urban development area;(b) persons who appear to the Secretary of State to represent businesses with any premises within, or in the vicinity of, the proposed urban development area;(c) each local authority for an area which falls wholly or partly within the proposed urban development area; and(d) any other person whom the Secretary of State considers it appropriate to consult.”(3) After subsection (3B) insert—
“(3C) A statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (1) above designating any area of land in England as an urban development area is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”
(4) In subsection (4), after “No” insert “other”.
(5) The duty to consult under section 134(1A) of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 (inserted by subsection (2) above) may be satisfied by consultation before this section comes into force.”

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for his succinct and focused response to the previous amendment. I hope this is hinting at a trend, but I fear not.

The Government’s aim is to promote and support the regeneration of brownfield land and the creation of new locally led garden cities. Increasing the supply of new homes is a key priority for our Government. We want to support people’s ambitions to deliver the homes they need in innovative ways. We believe that urban development corporations can play a key role in driving forward delivery of large-scale development, especially in areas where previous ambitious plans have failed to progress. Urban development corporations, as noble Lords will know, are statutory bodies which are established under the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980. Their objective is to regenerate designated urban development areas.

The legislation on urban development corporations is now over 30 years old. While the substance of the legislation remains fit for purpose, the Government believe that the procedure for establishing them should now be reformed. They are established through affirmatively approved instruments, which, if held to affect private interests, can be declared to be hybrid by the House, and therefore become subject to the hybrid instruments procedure. Once declared hybrid, the order is open to allow private interests to petition. This has happened in all previous cases. The hybrid procedure is time-consuming and can be costly for all parties, involving processes of representations and hearings over what can be a substantial period of time.

I say from the outset that I have received and read the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee Report, which says, on page 5, that we need,

“better to manage local expectations and to ensure that the prior requirement for Parliamentary scrutiny and approval is properly understood”.

Balanced with that, I have already stated the Government’s intention, which I am sure is an intention shared by everyone, that more homes need to be built. Therefore, if there are no petitions, the delay can be short under current procedures. However, where there are petitions, the process can be very time-consuming, as they need to be considered in turn by both the Hybrid Instruments Committee and then, if necessary, a specially convened Select Committee before returning for debate in both Houses.

17:00

The Government do not consider that the hybrid procedure is necessary in the case of a statutory instrument establishing an urban development corporation, provided, of course, that there is proper consultation with individuals, businesses and local authorities in the area concerned before the statutory instrument is presented to Parliament. This is looking at the process in advance, while the current process, the process of the UDC, is already under way. What are the Government proposing? The Government propose that the parliamentary approval process to establish an urban development corporation should be a negative procedure. We also propose creating a new statutory consultation duty which must be fulfilled before an order is made.

Of course, I note the concerns that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has raised in relation to this proposal. I assure noble Lords again that the Government are carefully considering the issues that have been raised. We will be responding formally before the next stage of the Bill and all noble Lords will be made aware of that response. However, I hope that I will be able to persuade noble Lords that the Government’s proposal provides the appropriate level and type of scrutiny before an urban development corporation can be established.

The Government recognise that amending the process to establish urban development corporations would remove the right to petition. However, the loss of the right to petition through the hybrid procedure will not mean that people do not have an opportunity to express their views and provide input into proposals. Our amendment includes a statutory consultation procedure which requires the Secretary of State to consult persons who represent residents, businesses, local authorities and anyone else considered appropriate as part of that duty to consult. Surely, it increases the level of public scrutiny that proposals of this nature must undergo, and puts it in the hands of the people it will affect the most at an early stage, which allows them a real opportunity to shape the outcome before the proposal goes live. It would ensure that anyone will be able to respond to a consultation on proposals and have a forum in which they can express their views. Such consultation is now standard practice. By putting consultation on a statutory footing, as we propose, the rights of affected parties to make their views known are fully protected and we would be required as a matter of public law to take those views into account.

The recent non-statutory consultation exercise that we have carried out on the proposal to establish an urban development corporation at Ebbsfleet in Kent is a case in point. That proposal was promoted by an extensive engagement campaign, which included public events with local residents, businesses, town and parish councils and members of each of the three impacted local authorities. The consultation, and how to access it, was widely publicised throughout the local area. Almost 9,000 leaflets were delivered and posters were distributed and displayed. Advertisements in the local press and promotion via the websites of each of the three local authorities played a key part. This has provided a full opportunity for local concerns to be raised. We are giving serious consideration to all the comments and suggestions raised during the consultation and, although decisions are yet to be finalised, it is possible that these representations will result in changes to the proposed urban development corporation. We will publish our formal response to the consultation shortly.

Provided that a robust consultation has been carried out, as I have illustrated in the case of Ebbsfleet, we do not consider that the hybrid process is a proportionate form of scrutiny, as there will have already been a statutory process, as proposed in the Bill, in which local objections can be formally registered.

The inclusion of a formal duty to consult will mean that the establishment of urban development corporations in England will be open to scrutiny by the courts should the consultation be flawed in any way. Application for judicial review will be available if people consider that the statutory procedure for consultation has not been properly followed.

I welcome the debates that we have in the House. As we have already seen this afternoon, we have great expertise across the board in this area. However, as noble Lords will know, Parliament could of course annul a statutory instrument under the negative procedure if it was not satisfied with how the Government had responded to any local objections that had been raised through the consultation. Indeed, this is already the case for mayoral development corporations, a similar type of body established for London by the Localism Act 2011, to which the negative procedure applies.

As well as ensuring an appropriate level of scrutiny, a statutory consultation procedure would be far more effective and efficient than petitioning under the hybrid procedure. Under the legislation as it stands, the point at which the order is declared hybrid by the House can be the first opportunity that people have formally to voice any concerns. It is far easier for people to participate actively in consultations and voice concerns at earlier stages of the policy-making process, rather than waiting for a chance to petition once a statutory instrument is before Parliament.

Replacing the hybrid procedure with a statutory consultation duty would also reflect the fact that the ability for people to engage with government has improved greatly in recent years. It is surely far quicker, cheaper and easier for members of the public to raise their concerns through a consultation process than to bring a statutory petition in front of the House of Lords.

The hybrid procedure can be a time-consuming process. The establishment of the West Northamptonshire Development Corporation found itself subject to the hybrid procedure, adding five months to the establishment timetable. In the case of the London Docklands corporation, established in the 1980s, it took seven months from the point at which the order was originally laid to the final conclusion and report by the Select Committee. The Select Committee itself sat for a total of 50 days, prompting it to recommend that the procedure on hybrid orders, which we are discussing today, should be reconsidered.

Delays of this nature are not merely an inconvenience; they are also detrimental to the development and regeneration of the areas that UDCs are established to deliver. Local businesses and communities can be faced with a considerable period of uncertainty. They may be unclear about what is happening, about the future plans for an area and, in the case of people progressing development proposals, unsure as to which body will be dealing with their planning applications.

There is a further reason why the hybrid procedure is not necessary in this case. The Government do not consider that the formation of an urban development corporation changes the rights of individuals and businesses in the area. The powers available to urban development corporations are already available to local authorities—those such as compulsory purchase, development management and the provision of certain services. Therefore, the Government do not accept that the creation of an urban development corporation gives rise to a loss of rights.

In conclusion, I wish to mention Ebbsfleet, which I have already flagged. Our proposal to change the approval procedure and to create a new statutory consultation duty reflects the level and type of scrutiny that the Government consider appropriate for statutory instruments of this nature. While it is true that the process of preparing to establish the Ebbsfleet UDC has highlighted the issue, we think it is right in principle that these arrangements should apply to orders establishing urban development corporations, whether for Ebbsfleet or elsewhere. I beg to move.

[Baroness Andrews]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The Minister will not be surprised if I quote from that committee because it is important to have some of the points that were raised on the record.

I am very grateful that our chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, is with us today. She very ably managed what has been, frankly, a chaotic process over the past few days. Normally we would expect an Explanatory Memorandum to arrive well ahead of the committee’s deliberations. In fact, we had to hold an emergency meeting of the committee to discuss the amendment, because it was tabled so late. We had no Explanatory Memorandum until very late in the afternoon of the day before we met. Our legal advice was therefore very limited, and we did not have the narrative that we would normally have expected. We had a series of very conclusive points but the committee was not well placed to make the usual judgment. Nevertheless, thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and the clerks, we managed to prepare a very thorough, forensic and serious report on the process of the amendments and how they were tabled, as well as their content.

The process is important, of course, and for reasons that I have explained it was not at all satisfactory, but the content was even less satisfactory. The conclusion of the committee on these amendments, which essentially move the procedure from affirmative to negative in relation to the clause, is that they are inappropriate. It is a very serious judgment; we do not make it lightly and we do not make it very often. Any amendment that reduces the level of parliamentary scrutiny in this way deserves serious consideration by the House. In this situation, it means that the Minister has agreed and made it clear that these instruments can no longer be regarded as hybrid instruments—that is to say, in relation to the creation and powers of UDAs and UDCs.

Why are the UDAs and UDCs important? What do they do? They go back a long way. They have been created, and not lightly, for the major planning decisions that involve massive change and development. Ebbsfleet is a good example but, coming along, we may have garden cities and massive urban extensions—all developments that will have a profound impact on local communities and infrastructure, as well as local jobs and everything else that goes with it.

The argument against hybridity in the context of what is proposed is that it introduces delay and uncertainty. It takes too long and can be disruptive. Indeed, the Minister has just used the words, “quicker”, “easier” and “cheaper”. We are all in favour of, and see the necessity for, urgent and strategic housebuilding in this country; there is no difference between us on that. What we do not want is to see a process deliberately compromised because the Government do not agree with that process, which has been in place and has served the country and the planning system well for the past 30 years.

The committee was very clear on this, saying:

“We do not find the arguments advanced in the memorandum in support of the proposal to downgrade the level of Parliamentary control … to be at all persuasive”.

It went on to say:

“We note that, when those sections were enacted to confer these significant order-making powers on the Secretary of State, it was recognised in the course of the proceedings in each House that orders designating UDAs and establishing UDCs were likely to be found hybrid … with the result that the petitioning process would be available to ensure that those whose interests were directly affected by the orders could have their objections properly examined and determined by a select committee of this House. In the light of what is said in the Government’s memorandum, and in particular in paragraph 20 regarding the current proposals for a UDA and UDC at Ebbsfleet in Kent, we consider that the retention of the hybrid instrument procedure in this context is no less necessary today for the purpose of properly safeguarding such interests than it was when sections 134 and 135 were first enacted … The present proposals do not appear to flow from any general review of infrastructure or other statutory planning procedures in connection with the designation of UDAs and the establishment of UDCs. Had that been the case, we might have expected to have seen provisions of this kind in the draft Deregulation Bill published last Session”.

17:15

That is pretty clear. In fact, this argument about the purpose of hybridisation in relation to the use of the petition, and the representation and consideration of local views, is worth exploring as well. A hybrid instrument is there to protect people whose situation is going to be dramatically changed by whatever it is that the UDC plans to do: people who are directly affected by the massive changes implied in these developments. The Minister suggests that instead of having petitions and having their concerns properly discussed by a Select Committee, they should be content with a consultation process.

I also sit on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which considers the nature of consultation and consultation processes on a weekly basis. Not a week goes by when we do not have something to complain about in relation to the length of consultation the timing of consultation, the quality of consultation or the regard given to consultation by government. That is not a sufficient argument at all. The petitioning process is there so that people can have the impact on their lives, their future and their families properly considered and their objections properly examined. That is the principle behind the process which has ensured that those exceptional vehicles for exceptional decisions have remained for so many years.

This change has not in any way been prompted by a failure of process. I think that the reference to Ebbsfleet is more than coincidence. Ebbsfleet has imposed certain requirements and urgencies on this Government, and we are faced with a situation, frankly, which is about expediency. I do not think that that is the way to change legislation and processes which affect people’s lives.

The committee has made it perfectly clear that this degree of deregulation is inappropriate. We look forward to the Government’s response, but I think we have already had it. By everything the Minister has said, I think that the Government have rejected the arguments of the committee. If the Government had wanted to review the process of regeneration, it should have been done in the context of a proper review of planning changes. I had the privilege to be the Minister for Regeneration for a while. I know how serious regeneration challenges are. It has been one of the failures of this Government that they have not articulated a strategy for regeneration in this country. It has been a series of improvised responses. I do not believe that this is the way to make policy or deliver good policy, particularly when what is at stake is the quality of engagement with a local community whose lives are going to be turned upside down by a massive development.

On that basis, I beg the Minister to think again about the likely response from the Select Committee. He will know that it is unusual for a Government to reject the response and the judgment of the Delegated Powers Committee.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Andrews has put a compelling case, setting out our concerns with these proposals and building on the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee. It is a great pity that something of this nature and substance has been sprung on us at such short notice.

The Minister has gone through a whole range of potential responses and has touched on some quite tricky legal issues about the relationship of the consultation proposed and what that means for the hybridity process, and why, in a sense, we can ignore the matter.

When I saw the memorandum for the first time yesterday—it may have been this morning—what struck me was all the stuff explaining that the affirmative process was cumbersome, too difficult to organise and unpredictable in terms of time. That cannot be right. The affirmative process—these arrangements—is government management of business. I have never known that to be argued before as a reason for delay. As my noble friend said, we do not want to be part of anything which consciously disrupts the progress of the planning process on important regeneration, but we are entitled to insist on due process, a due process which has been in place for a very long time. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee identifies real concerns that this is about a specific issue concerning Ebbsfleet and that this is driving what would be a very substantial change in our processes.

I have already given notice that we will oppose this government amendment, so it is not worth my saying much more.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for their clear contributions. I take this opportunity to put on record the Government’s thanks to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its response and to formally apologise for the process that was undertaken and for the late submission of our memorandum. I fully adhere to, and the Government fully understand, the importance of submitting memoranda to committees in a timely manner and I am sorry that that was not achieved in this case. I thank the committee again, though we fell a bit short in our responsibility, for its ability to turn the paper around and respond so quickly. It would be entirely appropriate at this juncture to say that I have received confirmation that we will issue our formal response within the next two weeks, in advance of the next stage of the Bill. That was confirmed to me a few moments ago.

Several points have been made about procedure. It would be entirely appropriate at this juncture, bearing in mind the conventions of the House and that we are in Grand Committee, in line with section 8.102 of the Companion and the sensitivities and concerns that have been expressed, that I withdraw the amendment, but the Government’s intention is that we return to this issue on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 38 withdrawn.

Amendments 39 to 42 not moved.

Committee adjourned at 5.23 pm.

House of Lords

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Thursday, 30 October 2014.

11:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Lichfield.

Introduction: Lord Rose of Monewden

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

11:08

Sir Stuart Alan Ransom Rose, Knight, having been created Baron Rose of Monewden, of Monewden in the County of Suffolk, was introduced and took the oath, supported by Lord Myners and Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct.

Nigeria: Boko Haram

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Question

11:13

Asked by

[Baroness Cox]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of recent developments in Nigeria, with particular reference to the terrorist activities of Boko Haram.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, Nigeria faces a serious threat from Boko Haram. We believe that more than 3,000 people have been killed by Boko Haram this year and more than 1.5 million people have been displaced. We are aware of reports that Nigerian authorities have agreed a ceasefire with Boko Haram and are in ongoing negotiations. We are also aware of reports of Boko Haram attacks since the ceasefire announcement. We monitor events closely.

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that sympathetic reply. Is she aware that I have visited areas afflicted by Boko Haram and found that the scale of suffering to which she refers massively exceeds that reported by the media? For example, this year alone 2,000 women and girls have been abducted. In addition to the widely publicised kidnapping of the schoolgirls at Chibok, 173 teachers and hundreds of students, including Muslim students, have been slaughtered, and savage attacks on Christian communities continue to the present day. Despite reports of a peace agreement with Boko Haram, to which the Minister refers, local people do not believe that the federal and state authorities are sufficiently willing or able to stop Boko Haram’s reign of terror. Therefore, will Her Majesty’s Government make the strongest possible representation to the Government of Nigeria to do much more to implement effective policies to protect all its citizens from this escalating terrorism?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, to whom I pay tribute for her courageous work, not only in Nigeria but around the world. She is right: Boko Haram deliberately targets the weak and vulnerable, causing suffering in communities of differing faiths and ethnicities. It has no regard for human life. We are in continual discussion with the Nigerian authorities to press exactly as the noble Baroness says, and we give as much support as we can in intelligence matters.

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, the Nigerian chief of defence staff, Alex Badeh, announced on 17 October a ceasefire agreement with Boko Haram. A little later, the presidential aide, Hassan Tukur, claimed that there was also an agreement to release the girls taken from Chibok. However, as my noble friend knows, since then all we have seen are many more girls being abducted. What action can the Government take to help galvanise the Nigerian authorities into some action to protect these schoolgirls from organised rape, forced conversion to Islam and mass murder? What specific action to protect the family members of the Nigerian security forces from reprisal acts can the Government help the Nigerians with? So far, some 7,000 have been killed in this manner.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, there were several important questions in there. At the core of what we do is the care we have for what might happen, not only to the Chibok girls but to others who have been seized. We are therefore most cautious in what we say in these matters. What I will say is that it is for the Nigerian authorities to resolve the matter. We will give the strongest support we can. Since the Prime Minister announced on 14 May that the UK would provide surveillance assets and intelligence expertise to help in the search for the Chibok girls, we have deployed Sentinel and Tornado GR4 aircraft with surveillance capabilities, and provided satellite imagery. We will do what we can.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister have any further knowledge of the discussions between Abubakar Shekau, the head of Boko Haram, and ISIL, and any further information on the fact that Boko Haram is beginning to occupy and hold territory in the same way as ISIL and call it an Islamic caliphate? Are our intelligence assets able to give us this sort of evidence, bearing in mind that a lot of politicians at federal and local level in Nigeria are helping Boko Haram, as are some in the police force?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

The noble Lord refers to some of the instabilities within the Nigerian system. Boko Haram’s affiliation to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb justified the organisation’s inclusion on the UN’s al-Qaeda sanctions list on 22 May. Boko Haram has been proscribed under terrorism legislation in the UK since July 2013. With regard to the negotiations to which he refers, there is, clearly, no resolution yet and we know that there have been some confusing and confused reports in the press.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the atrocities outlined to your Lordships’ House obviously require vehicles, ammunition, explosives and sophisticated weapons, which all require significant funding. Can my noble friend outline where Her Majesty’s Government believe Boko Haram is getting such funding and what efforts we are making, via the UN or with the Nigerian Government, to cut off its funds?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, as I mentioned earlier, we are in continuous discussion with the Nigerian Government to offer what assistance we can to prevent any further supply of materiel to Boko Haram. It is a very complex matter in an area that is certainly under the kind of attacks that happen without any warning, where whole areas are seized by Boko Haram and the Nigerian forces clearly have come under great stress.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, reference has been made to the contents of the excellent Human Rights Watch report, which has described the violence and terror endured by girls and women held in Boko Haram camps. It described the shocking, appalling failure of the Nigerian Government to prevent these brutal abductions. What is the UK doing to press the Nigerian Government at last to: first, secure the release of the girls; secondly, make schools safe for girls; and, thirdly, ensure that there are medical and mental health services for the victims of abductions?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I think I may have addressed the first two questions—rather briefly, it is true. However, the noble Baroness raises a new point at the end with regard to what happens next. Let us focus first on the release, not only of the Chibok girls but of others. One would then need to see what their needs may be, what support needs to be given to them and their families, and which choices the girls may wish to make. I assure the noble Baroness that, through our DfID programme, we provide aid to the area to try to assist the society to grow and survive.

[The Lord Bishop of Lichfield]

My Lords, what does the Minister make of the claims recently made by journalists that the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram are being held as trophies for various tribal leaders, as is apparently common in these regions, and that they will be released as soon as some way is found to flatter these leaders?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I have read those reports. Anyone who is kidnapped in any situation is a bargaining chip. The difficulty is knowing with whom one strikes the bargain and at what price for all.

[Lord St John of Bletso (CB)]

Does the Minister consider that the forthcoming elections on 14 February next year are a major contributing factor in the approach taken by the Nigerian Government to tackling this problem with Boko Haram?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to refer to the forthcoming elections. We continue to engage regularly with our counterparts in Nigeria to convey our expectation that the February presidential elections must be free, fair and peaceful. Security in elections can help to have security in a country.

Bank of England

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Question

11:21

Asked by

[Lord Harrison]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will rename the central bank of the United Kingdom, “The Bank of England and of the United Kingdom”.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, having begun life in 1694 as a commercial bank, the Bank of England predates the formation of the United Kingdom itself. Of course, the Bank’s role is not limited to England and it acts as the central bank for the whole of the UK. However, to change its name would represent a break from over 300 years’ worth of history and the prestige which it carries as a global brand.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, given the particular saliency of the currency issue in the recent Scottish referendum, would it not be a wise, inexpensive and inclusive act to extend the title of Britain’s central bank to the “Bank of England and of the United Kingdom”, thereby properly recognising the reach and relevance to all four nations of the United Kingdom of our own central bank?

[Lord Newby]

A notable feature of the referendum campaign was that Alex Salmond was desperately keen to keep the comfort blanket of the Bank of England. As far as I am aware, he never suggested that its name should change.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, given that the Bank of England has responsibility for ensuring that other banks and financial institutions have proper systems and back-up systems in place, what action has been taken following the failure of the CHAPS system—for which the Bank of England is responsible—that resulted in many people being unable to buy their houses on the day concerned; quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[Lord Newby]

Quite, my Lords. The Financial Services Act gave the Bank of England new powers in this area. It is conducting an investigation to see what happened in that unfortunate case and what lessons can be learned for the future.

[Lord Peston (Lab)]

I congratulate my noble friend for raising this Question, but I am sorry to say that I disagree with him. Changing the name of the Bank of England would be economically very damaging to our country. Is the Minister aware that there is a lesson to be drawn from this? It is mainly that making constitutional changes on the hoof is not the right way to do this sort of thing. The next time he sees his right honourable friend the Prime Minister, will he tell him that the way to go on in this area is to think before you speak and not the other way round?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, whatever one can say about the history of constitutional change in the UK, it has not been characterised by great speed. While there is now considerable urgency in dealing with consequential constitutional change in both Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, it will require a commitment by many people across all parties to bring that about—which in the past has been conspicuously lacking.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, if there is to be any change, would not the name “Bank of Britain” be more solid, simple and straightforward?

[Lord Newby]

It might be, my Lords, but as I said in my initial Answer, I suspect that there will not be any change.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Opposition are in favour of the retention of the name “Bank of England”. However, the Minister said that there is some urgency about future action, so will he say whether the Treasury has made any progress, and will he give us an update on that progress, in looking at the financial consequences of further devolution of income tax?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware, the various proposals on the table for the devolution of income tax were set out in the Command Paper that was published earlier in the month. The exact nature of further devolution of income tax is under consideration in the Lord Smith process. As part of that, the financial and political consequences of various possibilities in respect of income tax are being actively considered.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, is there not much to be said for the old adage that if it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, that is an extremely sweeping statement and I would need prior notice before I felt that I could absolutely agree with it in every case.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)]

My Lords, in 1999, Alex Salmond described the Bank of England as a “millstone round Scotland’s neck”. Fifteen years later, he was pledging his love and fidelity to it. Does that not prompt the question that, if it was good enough for Alex Salmond as the Bank of England, it is good enough for the rest of us?

[Lord Newby]

I am not sure that that is a general principle that one would wish to apply more widely.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the Government’s view about retaining the well tested name, but would the Government also consider retaining in full, or restoring, the Bank of England’s lender of last resort powers, which have served this country’s banking system well for 150 years?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the key thing is the Bank of England’s role to protect and enhance stability of the financial system. I think that the legislation that we have passed in recent years gives the Bank wide powers in almost every respect to enable it to do that.

Iran: Nuclear Programme

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Question

11:28

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of progress in preventing the development of nuclear weapons by Iran.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK, like other E3+3 members, is committed to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Under the E3+3’s interim deal with Iran, the most concerning elements of Iran’s nuclear programme were frozen. The E3+3 is currently negotiating a comprehensive agreement to address fully its concerns about Iran’s programme. Good progress has been made, but reaching a final agreement with Iran remains challenging.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, but does she know that the centrifuges and the nuclear structure of Iran remain intact? Does she agree that sanctions were lifted too early? The threat remains. Will she ensure that the deal ends all the means of delivery and production and ensures appropriate inspection by IAEA? Will she make representations to the French Government over their co-operation with Iran in uranium enrichment through the joint stock company Sofidif?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

The noble Baroness goes to the core of the issue. If there is an agreement, on what basis will it be? We are working towards an agreement by 24 November. There will not be a relaxation of the sanctions unless that agreement is in place. We are not proposing to make a blanket withdrawal of all sanctions on 24 November if there is an agreement then. We want a staged process, to see that the enrichment process is reduced and that Iran cannot move forward to being able to have a nuclear weapon. We are in continual discussions on that matter.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that we have no interest in turning Iran into yet another failed state in the Middle East? Can she tell us whether the outstanding issues, made in a proposal by some experts in the United States, could be bundled together into what could be described as a cluster of issues, and that an extension for the next period should be invited while those issues are hammered out to the satisfaction of both sides?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My noble friend is right to draw attention to the importance of stability in the region and why these negotiations are so crucial. The position of the United Kingdom is that we aim to have an agreement in place by 24 November. If we were to talk about what we might do after that, we would be saying that we have no hope of delivery. We have hope.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not true that if Israel gave up its nuclear weapons, the Iranians would probably not wish to proceed to develop their own?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I find it difficult to get into the mind of one member of any other Government, let alone the minds of all members, and sometimes my own—I mean my own mind, of course. It is a serious question. Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaties; Israel is not.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

Can the Minister tell the House whether the Government are satisfied that all parties to the interim agreement have implemented it correctly and in a verifiable manner? If her answer is positive—I believe that most observers think that they have—a situation where a final comprehensive agreement eluded the negotiators in November but a continuation of the interim agreement proved possible would be some way short of disastrous.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Lord has a deep understanding of the issue. Certainly, we know that that the progress that has been made so far has been positive and, it is true to say, delicate. We do not wish to predict that a failure to achieve a resolution on 24 November would lead to a complete breakdown. We do not think that that would be the case. We are still hopeful of an agreement by then. After all, the negotiations are being led by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, and we know that we have confidence in her.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

Meanwhile, what steps will my noble friend take to persuade her government colleagues and other leaders in the Middle East to restore the balance by insisting that Israel should now consider seriously reducing its nuclear arsenal and also subscribing to the non-proliferation treaty?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, although security in the region is a part of this question, any negotiations with Israel would at the moment not be on an effective basis, because clearly we have not yet resolved the matter of Iran’s position.

[Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, in spite of the difficulties of any nuclear negotiations with Iran, does the Minister agree that we and the United States should nevertheless be ready to discuss with Iran the threat of ISIS that we both face?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, we have a common interest with Iran and other actors in the region with regard to ISOL. It was important that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister met President Rouhani in New York. We must consider carefully how we may adopt common attitudes on ISOL and other issues in the region.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

We welcome from this side the meeting that the Prime Minister had with the president. Can the Minister tell us whether we have an ambassador in place in Tehran yet, or whether the British Council is back there yet? The sooner that that happens the better.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord that the sooner it happens, the better. We would like to re-establish the embassy and the visa system there. Clearly, noble Lords will know that the circumstances in which we had to leave the embassy mean that we have to renegotiate literally being able to refurbish the embassy and move back in. We are in active negotiations on that—as he says, the sooner the better for the return.

Afghanistan

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Question

11:34

Asked by

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what arrangements they have made to review their continuing support for the promotion of security and development in Afghanistan.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the National Security Council regularly reviews plans for support to Afghanistan, most recently on 21 October. Our plans focus on countering the terrorist threat, as well as promoting security, stability and prosperity. Our embassy in Kabul and a few hundred military mentors will support the new Afghan Government in furthering these priorities. We also plan to provide £70 million in security funding and £178 million in development funding per annum until at least 2017.

[Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)]

My Lords, the military campaign in Afghanistan cost this country £37 billion, or £2,000 for every household. Sadly, we have lost 453 military personnel. Afghanistan faces a very uncertain and difficult future. Is it not vital that we and our allies give the appropriate level of financial support to Afghanistan? The figures that my noble friend quoted are, frankly, derisory. We give Ethiopia more than that—we give Ethiopia £400 million a year—and, if we do not finance Afghanistan properly, its future is going to be very uncertain, and would that not be a gross betrayal of all those who have given their lives in the cause?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, at the Tokyo conference in 2012, a number of states and international organisations made pledges amounting to £16 billion for reconstruction in Afghanistan. On 3 and 4 December we will jointly host a conference in London with the Afghan Government, at which a number of other Governments will be invited to recommit themselves to the development of Afghanistan as a collective effort over the next few years.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, a considerable number of the available Tornado GR4s are still deployed in Afghanistan. Now that combat operations have ceased, what future plans do the Government have for that force in Afghanistan?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will have to write to the noble and gallant Lord about that. I am not entirely up to date on where all the Tornados are.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, when we give educational aid to Afghanistan, is it the Government’s policy to insist that a fair portion of it—half of it—is spent on the education of girls? Will the noble Lord tell us about the progress of extending education to girls in Afghanistan?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are now 2 million girls in education in Afghanistan, and 4 million boys. That is remarkable progress from where we were 10 years ago. We are very much committed to improving the status of women and girls throughout Afghanistan, and that is part of what our priorities represent.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, in announcing next month’s London conference on Afghanistan, the Prime Minister said:

“We will bring together all our partners to assist this National Unity Government as they embark on vital reforms to revitalise Afghanistan’s economy”.

What steps have been taken to ensure that the voices of civic society, in particular those of women, are heard at this event?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there will be an associated event for representatives of civil society at the London conference, and another associated event for private sector investors. We are very much aware of how much effort we need to make to strengthen relatively weak civil society organisations in Afghanistan.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, 450 British soldiers dead; thousands of Afghans lying alongside them; probably £100 billion overall spent on this campaign; a “short war” that lasted 13 years, during which we have written the textbook on how not to conduct these kinds of operations—surely my noble friend will agree that the case is made for a proper inquiry into the conduct of the Afghan war and the lessons we should learn from it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it may well be the case that we need a proper inquiry, although I am not sure that we need one of the length of the Chilcot inquiry.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I draw the Minister’s attention to the report from the Children’s Commissioner for England, “What’s Going to Happen Tomorrow?”—Unaccompanied Children Refused Asylum, and its recommendation that we should see the boys and girls who arrive unaccompanied in this country from Afghanistan as a potential asset, who will speak English and can be helped to speak their home language, who can receive a good education from us, for instance in engineering, and who can return to Afghanistan to lead in the rebuilding of that country.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is a very complicated question. We are conscious of the extent to which people smuggling and human trafficking are associated with asylum seeking. It is not at all an easy subject.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, in answering a question, the Minister mentioned the possibility of a private sector donors conference, as well as a conference involving civil society. Can he give the House any further information about that? Is it likely to happen in association with the main conference or at a different time? There are many people who are extremely interested in that possibility, so it would be very useful to know about it in good time, in order to gather proper support for it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I understand that it is already being publicised and it will indeed be in parallel with the London conference at the beginning of December. I think we all understand that it is mainly natural resources and mining that will attract private sector investors to Afghanistan at the present moment, but that at least is a start.

[Lord Ahmed (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the Pakistan Government and the generals said yesterday that Tehrik-i-Taliban, based in Afghanistan, is launching attacks inside Pakistan and against the Pakistani military. Have Her Majesty’s Government made any representation to the Afghanistan Government to stop Tehrik-i-Taliban from doing that?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord knows better than I do the very complicated links between Pakistan and Afghanistan and between the Pakistani military and what happens in Afghanistan. I will not go into that at the present moment; I would welcome a discussion with him about how Pakistan developments and Afghan developments interconnect.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister reassure me that the voices of Afghan women are actually going to be heard at the conference, not just at an associate conference? In all the previous conferences, they have not been allowed to participate fully, so I would like the Minister’s reassurance that this will not happen at this London conference.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I cannot entirely give that assurance. Afghanistan is not the only country in which the voices of women are not easy to get through, particularly when Governments are involved. I can think of a number of other Middle Eastern countries. I would simply remark that, at President Ghani’s inauguration, as noble Lords might know, his wife appeared for the first time as part of the inauguration. These are small but useful steps forward.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, further to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, what action will my noble friend and the Government take to encourage joint action by the Governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan against the terrorists, who are a threat to both their countries?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are in regular and constant touch with the Pakistani Government precisely to encourage a constructive relationship with developments in Afghanistan. I am sure that my noble friend, like me, will be well aware of the very complicated relationships between India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is part of the problem that we face.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, following the end of military operations in Afghanistan, can the Minister give an assurance that we will factor in very carefully that, over the last 20 years or so, the West has let Afghanistan down in a considerably damaging way? Can he confirm that the reassurances that have been given about the amount of inward investment will be taken seriously and that we will not in any way at all run the risk of abandoning Afghanistan for a third time, after all the effort and investment in blood and treasure that has been made over the last 13 years?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think one has to say that the entire international community has an interest in the future development of Afghanistan. I have not mentioned the complicated Iranian set of interests in western Afghanistan and elsewhere; I have not mentioned the possibility of Chinese private sector investment in north-eastern Afghanistan. Afghanistan, as noble Lords know, has a great many attractive mineral resources. We and others, including the World Bank and a number of other international institutions, will be working to ensure that the Afghan economy develops steadily over the next few years.

Refugees and Migrants: Search and Rescue

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Statement

11:43

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat a Statement given earlier this morning by my right honourable friend James Brokenshire in another place.

“The United Kingdom has a long and proud tradition of providing sanctuary to those who genuinely need it. We work closely with our European neighbours to provide assistance to those fleeing from fear or persecution and deter those whose criminal actions stand in the way of providing effective help.

The scenes we have witnessed in the Mediterranean in recent months, with people risking their lives to reach Europe, are deeply distressing. The UNHCR estimates that more than 3,000 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean already this year, compared to some 700 deaths in the whole of last year. When people are risking life and limb—not just their own but those of their loved ones, too—it is clear that they are caught in a desperate situation. No one underestimates the sincerity of their plight. It demands an equally sincere approach from the Governments of the European nations—and that is what it has been getting.

Since Italy launched its Mare Nostrum operation in October 2013, there has been an unprecedented increase in illegal immigration across the Mediterranean and a fourfold increase in the deaths of those making that perilous journey. The operation has been drawn closer and closer to the Libyan shore as traffickers have taken advantage of the situation by placing more vulnerable people in unseaworthy boats on the basis that they will be rescued and taken to Italy. But many are not rescued, which is why we believe that the operation is having the unintended consequence of placing more lives at risk and why EU member states have unanimously agreed that the operation should be promptly phased out.

It is of course vital that this phasing out is well managed and well publicised to mitigate the risk of further deaths. It is vital that we continue to take action to provide real help to those who genuinely need it. We have made clear our view that the sustainable answer to the current situation in the Mediterranean is to enhance operational co-operation within the EU, work with countries of origin and transit to tackle the causes of illegal immigration and the organised gangs that facilitate it, and enhance support for protection in north and east Africa for those in need.

We have agreed to a request from FRONTEX—the EU’s border management agency—to deploy a debriefing expert in support of the FRONTEX Operation Triton, off the southern Italian coast. This operation is not designed to replace Mare Nostrum but will instead patrol closer to EU borders. We stand ready to consider any further request for UK support for the new FRONTEX operation. The UK is among those member states offering substantial numbers of resettlement places for refugees from outside the EU, working closely with UNHCR. There were more than 4,000 places between 2008 and 2013. In close partnership with other member states, we are developing a strong programme of work to tackle the causes of migration from the Horn of Africa, including through investment in regional protection programmes.

It is not in the interests of anyone—most especially those genuinely fleeing persecution—if European countries have an uncontrolled and ineffective approach to immigration and asylum. It is not in the interests of anyone if the criminal gangs who exploit the fear and suffering of vulnerable people, endangering human lives for cold, hard cash, are allowed to continue their despicable work unimpeded. It is not in the interests of anyone if we fail to adapt to a situation which encourages more and more people to make that dangerous journey across the seas. That is why member states across the EU have unanimously agreed to act: to defend our borders, crack down on crime, and protect those who so desperately need our protection”.

11:48

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating that Answer. He is right to identify that 3,000 people have died this year but he did not identify that 150,000 men, women and children have been rescued and their lives saved. Many of them were misled by unscrupulous criminals. Many others are being trafficked into Europe for slavery and prostitution. It is a serious and terrible humanitarian problem. We understand that it is difficult, but concerted international action is essential to bear down on these criminal gangs and try to stop families undertaking such dangerous journeys.

While the criminals may be aware—as the Minister said—of the phasing in of these changes, there is no evidence that desperate families or trafficked victims will be. Leaving them to drown instead is shocking and inhumane. It is not the British way of doing things. Does the Minister really believe that this needless loss of life will ever act as a deterrent to criminals and desperate people? How many will drown before the Government reconsider this policy?

11:49

[Lord Bates]

I very much understand the passions and sentiments that these horrific reports will arouse in all people who have any sense of humanitarian care or concern. Of course, the reality is that this is for the Italian Government. They are the ones who set up the operation, which started last October, and they are the ones who say that they will now phase it out. It is not something in which the UK Government are involved on a day-to-day basis. The Italian Government introduced this as a deeply humanitarian gesture, and made the point that they would rescue anyone, wherever they were in territorial waters. The number of those making the perilous journey then went up from 60,000 last year to 150,000 this year, and that situation is being exploited by the gangs which we all seek to stop. The Italian Government have therefore taken the decision to phase it out. The decision was not taken by the UK Government.

11:50

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, it pains me to say to my noble friends that this is a discreditable policy, whatever words are used to describe it. We do not find it difficult to disagree with the European Union on all sorts of other matters, but do we have to lay our hand to a European policy whose central proposition is that the best way to discourage people from seeking a better life is to leave them to drown in the Mediterranean? This is inhuman, it is discreditable and it may well be contrary to our duties under international law to do everything we can to save those in peril on the sea.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord comes to this with huge experience and understanding. However, those obligations which are there under the laws of the sea, maritime law and humanitarian law will remain as obligations on any vessels that actually come across people who are making this journey. The question is how we tackle this increasing trend effectively. This is not for the UK alone; this view was pored over on the basis of evidence, intelligence and information which came to the Justice and Home Affairs Council. All 28 member states agreed—which, as my noble friend suggested, is a pretty rare achievement—that, regrettably, this was having a counterproductive effect.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister kindly answer a specific question, which I am sure all Members of the House would wish to have answered? If the commander of a British warship is cognisant of the fact that there is a refugee ship within reasonable distance of his vessel which is in peril, does he deviate from his course and pass by on the other side, or does he act in accordance with the law of the sea and the highest tradition of the Royal Navy?

[Lord Bates]

The answer is that he gives assistance to that vessel. That is the law; that is the rule; and that will continue to happen. The vessel should be escorted to the nearest safe port and the passengers’ needs addressed. There is an overlying responsibility, particularly where those individuals may have genuine asylum claims which need to be investigated, to then take them to a place where they can be assessed.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, of course everything must be done to help the countries of origin tackle the criminal gangs which are shipping people across the Mediterranean in dangerous circumstances. However, are we saying that we are happy to be party to a policy which will result in people drowning? Is that not a shameful position for the Government to adopt?

[Lord Bates]

We are certainly not happy with the situation; we are deeply unhappy with it, as is everybody. But how do the Italians begin to address this particular issue when the numbers are increasing? The number of deaths has gone up from 700 to some 3,000—a fourfold increase. If they go up fourfold again next year, does that justify the present policy? These are hugely difficult issues—I do not dismiss that—but the countries of the European Union and the Italian Government are making the best they can of a terrible humanitarian situation.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, it is clear that we are all deeply worried about this terrible situation. Just last weekend, a family drowned off our own coasts and the horror was felt right across our country. There were serious discussions about whether we needed more people on duty to look after them. There is a deep sense of worry where people put themselves in such danger. I do not think that any of us believe that people are putting their families at risk—sometimes, they are huge, extended families; one was reported earlier this week on television—thinking, “Oh, well, it does not matter if we are likely to drown because we might be saved”. That would seem to me incredible. Surely we need a much more coherent, pan-European strategy underlying the whole question of immigrants and asylum seekers, and we should try to get some agreement on how we can address it. However, I would lament us withdrawing from anything that would help people in such dire circumstances.

[Lord Bates]

I understand the right reverend Prelate’s point. I should make the point again for the benefit of the House that we are not withdrawing from anything; this was something for which the Italian Government had responsibility, and they have decided to phase it out. The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right that more needs to be done to establish a co-ordinated approach, which was indeed the purpose of the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on this specific issue held on 9 and 10 October. One of the outcomes of that meeting was Operation Triton, which we have pledged resources to, in addition to all the other things that we are trying to do to help in the countries from which these people are fleeing for their lives.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, a lot of these problems arise in certain north African towns, of which Alexandria is one—

[Noble Lords]

Order.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Perhaps I might pick up the point that my noble friend the Minister has just made. I understand that in Alexandria, Egypt, which is one of the major ports for trafficking, only one trafficker has been prosecuted in the last five years. Will we give specific assistance to the Government of Egypt, and what Government there is in Libya, to train them on arrest, prosecution and internment of the trafficking gangs?

[Lord Bates]

Indeed. Just this morning, I was with the National Crime Agency, which has teams in particular areas around the world, including in Egypt. They are trying to identify just those types of people, ensuring that they are tackled and that their evil crime is stopped.

[Lord Soley]

Many of these people are coming from towns such as Alexandria; that is where the organisation is. I say to the Minister that, through the European Union, we can offer aid not only in policing those areas but in policing much closer to their shores. It is possible to work out with some of those north African countries ways of stopping this problem closer to shore.

[Lord Bates]

We will be willing to look at all those opportunities. On the subject of aid, this Government are in the lead in providing aid to some of those conflict zones, such as Syria, where we have pledged £700 million already. We recognise that there are two parts to this, and we need to work at both.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the amount of help which the Government are giving to FRONTEX, which he announced in his first reply, is miniscule? Would it not be preferable if the Government gave more support to FRONTEX, which one hopes would then ameliorate a bit the results of this decision? Perhaps the Minister could also say what the Government’s position is on the negotiation of mobility partnerships with countries in the southern Mediterranean. There is already one with Tunisia and one with Morocco. What are we doing to press ahead with those? They are part of the solution, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord will of course know very well that FRONTEX is part of the Schengen arrangements for border control. We have our own border control. We are talking about additional aid that we are giving to the Schengen area and to FRONTEX at its request. On the other matter that the noble Lord raised, the reciprocal agreements which might exist in the southern Mediterranean area, I will write to him.

Business of the House

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Timing of Debates

11:58

Moved by

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

That the debate on the motion in the name of Lord Risby set down for today shall be limited to five hours.

Motion agreed.

Procedure Committee

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Motion to Agree

11:59

Moved by

[The Chairman of Committees]

That the 3rd Report from the Select Committee (House of Lords Reform Act 2014: further consequential changes; questions for short debate; Queen’s and Prince of Wales’ consents) (HL Paper 50) be agreed to.

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to the Motion to amend Standing Orders.

The report makes five recommendations. The first three are consequential on the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. The first recommendation is that Members who have given written notice that they will retire from the House under Section 1 of the Act should have the opportunity of making a valedictory speech before the date of their retirement. Such speeches would be afforded the same courtesies as maiden speeches and would be marked in Hansard, as maiden speeches are.

The second recommendation is that the Lord Speaker should inform the House before Oral Questions when a peer ceases to be a member of the House under the Act.

The third proposal relates to the House’s system of leave of absence. Currently, in certain circumstances, Members who do not reply to the Clerk of the Parliament’s letter regarding leave of absence are given it automatically. This would reverse the position and bring us within the spirit of the Act.

The committee’s fourth recommendation is that Questions for Short Debate on Select Committee reports and topical Questions for Short Debate should not count towards the limit of each Member having one QSD in the House of Lords business at one time. This is because when a Member puts down for a Question for Short Debate as the chair of the Select Committee, he clearly does so as chair of that committee and not in a personal capacity. He should not therefore be penalised.

The committee’s final recommendation is about signifying the consent of the Queen and the Prince of Wales to Bills. At present, consent may be signified at Second Reading in some instances and at Third Reading in others. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the House of Commons recently reported on consents and recommended that consent be signified at Third Reading in all cases. The Commons Procedure Committee indicated to us that it was minded to agree with this recommendation and suggested that the two Houses should move in step. We agree that this is sensible and so recommend that, if the Commons agrees likewise, consent in all cases should be signified at Third Reading. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Chairman of Committees for his comments. I have a question for him on the consent to Bills of the Queen and the Prince of Wales, which is referred to in items 12 and 13 in the Procedure Committee’s report.

He will be aware, I think, that the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee made six recommendations about this. I am slightly surprised that the Procedure Committee has not chosen to comment on the other five. The evidence in the Commons report and the recommendations do not always seem to connect. I have talked to the chair of the Commons committee about this; I did not get much of an answer but I had a useful discussion. In particular, nobody has commented on the need for the Prince of Wales to give consent to Bills when they affect his private interests. I take a couple of quotations from the House of Commons committee’s report. Dr Tucker said:

“Any involvement of the Prince of Wales in the legislative process is constitutionally unacceptable”.

That is quite strong. Our own Clerk of the Parliaments, David Beamish, commented:

“So in one sense it is not necessary”,

to have consent at all,

“in that this Committee could recommend its abolition”.

Therefore, I ask the Chairman of Committees whether the Procedure Committee could look at this whole issue again and comment on all the recommendations, possibly after reading the whole of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report, if it has not already done so, and come back with six recommendations?

[Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)]

I have a couple of questions for the Chairman of Committees about the sections of the report dealing with retirement. The proposals he has brought to the House are, I am sure, acceptable. However, they are a bit of a mouse, because the Act, for which I had some responsibility, gave the House the statutory authority to introduce a retirement scheme. The Chairman of Committees’ report is not on a retirement scheme but simply on retirement niceties. Is any other committee of the House at present looking at other options, with a view to getting the numbers in this House down to a reasonable size? In particular, has the report from the director of finance been looked at with regard to how money could be saved if there were a retirement grant of some kind? Has any committee looked at the Labour Party’s proposals, which are quite interesting, for compulsory retirement at the end of each Parliament for those who have reached the age of 80 during that Parliament? All those and others are sensible suggestions which should be examined but I am not sure whether that has yet happened.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, as regards the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, as the Chairman of Committees will know, the current Government have enunciated a new rule, if you like, that the proportion and number of Members of your Lordships’ House should bear direct comparison with the votes cast at the last general election. I should like to ask the Chairman of Committees, if a political party had a catastrophic reduction in the votes cast at the next election, am I right in thinking that we would expect a considerable number of resignations from that party? I am not at liberty to say which party I am thinking about but I assume that we would have to have extra Friday sittings to hear the valedictory speeches.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

I should like to make two points. First, I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Steel about financial inducement to retirement. That would be a very bad precedent and I hope that it will not happen. Secondly, what are the detailed arrangements for giving Royal Assent to Bills? Who is supposed to give that assent? Is it the Minister in charge of the Bill or someone else?

[The Chairman of Committees]

Let me try to deal with the issues in some sort of order. I am involved in so many committees that sometimes even I get a bit confused about which committee is considering what. First, on retirement, I am not aware of any committee actively considering any retirement scheme as such. However, it is always open to any Member, as well as members of the committees concerned, to write and ask a committee to consider a particular scheme or to bring forward proposals. The matter would then be considered by the appropriate committee.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his intervention on consent, which means that I have won the private office bet that he would do so. We have to realise that this proposal originates from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the House of Commons. That report was considered, quite rightly, by the Commons Procedure Committee, which decided to recommend that consent should be signified at Third Reading in both Houses. That was the nature of the correspondence between the chairman of the House of Commons Procedure Committee and me. There is agreement on that. I recognise that it is a modest reform. If there was a desire for any more far-reaching and radical reform, again, if Members write, the Procedure Committee would give it appropriate consideration.

The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, raised assent, not consent. We are not dealing with the business of assent; we are dealing with the consent of Her Majesty and the Prince of Wales to the House acting in their quasi-private function.

Motion agreed.

Standing Orders (Public Business)

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

12:09

Moved by

[The Chairman of Committees]

That the standing orders relating to public business be amended as follows:

In Standing Order 22 (leave of absence), leave out paragraph (5).

Motion agreed.

Middle East and North Africa

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note

12:10

Moved by

[Lord Risby]

To move that that this House takes note of the current situation in the Middle East and North Africa.

[Lord Risby (Con)]

My Lords, some years ago while still in opposition, my right honourable friend William Hague said to a group of us, “Get to know the Middle East because it’s going to be the epicentre of the world’s attention”. Nobody could ever have forecast the sheer tragedy and drama that has overtaken the region in the intervening years. Of course, in our western societies we have had a backwash, with increased radicalisation, increased alienation and also the repellent rise of anti-Semitism.

In the Arab world we are viewed with considerable ambiguity. There are those who believe that we should have no involvement in Muslim countries because of religious belief and that this is unacceptable or simply counterproductive. This is why President Obama made it clear that the US cannot take the place of Arab partners in securing the region. Others believe, on the other hand, that western firepower is absolutely essential to contain and destroy extreme radicalism. But now, at least ultimately, most people believe that there has to be a political track in the end to resolve these extremely difficult problems.

In Iraq there is a more consensual Government, which has been welcomed both by Iran and Saudi Arabia, both of whom have good, but very separate, reasons to fear ISIS. In the last few years, the Kurdish region has been very stable, but it has had an influx of almost biblical proportions of Syrian Kurds, Christians and Yazidis and others to deal with. It must continue to be supported generously with humanitarian aid and, indeed, armaments. Turkey’s reluctance to be involved in containing ISIL has been disconcerting, as we saw in its reluctance specifically to get involved with Syrian Kurds in the battle in Kobane; however, it did not want to get involved because it believed that they were fighting under a banner of a terrorist organisation. But the Turks have spent $4.5 billion in feeding and housing the enormous influx of people who have come into Turkey. What they greatly fear, of course, is terrorist activity in Turkey itself, which would undermine not only its security but also its immense and hugely important tourist industry. It has called for a security zone and a no-fly zone as well, not only to protect themselves from the security point of view but to stop the potential huge flow of additional people coming into the country. We should note that fragile Lebanon has now said that it cannot and will not take any more refugees; and getting into Jordan is also very difficult too.

Ten million people have been displaced in the region, 3.2 million Syrians have fled their country and 200,000 have been killed. It is a truly, truly terrible modern-day tragedy. Both the Turks and the Saudis explicitly want to see the removal of President Assad. More moderate anti-Assad elements are now being attacked by him even more remorselessly, leaving ISIS, which controls 35% of the country, to be dealt with by the Americans and others, as he seeks to project himself as the enemy of radical terrorism. However, it is absolutely plain that even if they have frustrations with him, the Iranians and Russians will continue to support and sustain him. Yet as Ban Ki-moon warned last week, using only military means to fight the threat of Islamic State in Syria could radicalise even more Sunni armed groups and create greater violence. The long-term strategic objective in Syria remains a political solution, he said. As somebody who has met President Assad on many occasions and attempted to help the opposition, particularly at the early stages, it pains me to agree. There appears to be no other viable alternative on offer, but once again to try to pursue a political track.

We are all products of our own experiences in life. As a young child I went into a shop one day with my mother. It was a hot summer’s day and the man behind the counter had rolled up his sleeves. I was transfixed by some numbers on the inside of his arm. Of course, I extracted an explanation from my mother. It was my first insight into the horror of the Holocaust and what it meant for the Jewish people, and it has never left me.

However, recently, my noble friends Lord Lamont, Lord King, Lady Morris and I wrote an open letter calling for the formal recognition of Palestine by the United Kingdom. Now, of course, this should ideally be part of a comprehensive peace settlement but, frankly, there is none in sight. There is now a unity Government under Mahmoud Abbas. However imperfect that is, the Israelis are most unlikely to find a more moderate Palestinian leader—whose position and credibility is constantly being undermined by the continuing construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

However, there is now a new potential opportunity for Israel to be encouraged and to view a more formal two-state solution more concretely. The new Egyptian Government are working with the Israelis to banish terrorism from the Sinai. They are closing down the tunnels and have made it absolutely plain that the wholly dangerous, provocative and counterproductive firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel has to stop.

The Arab peace initiative of 2002 involved a clear pathway to the recognition of Israel by its neighbours. It should be revisited. As President Sisi said at the United Nations last month:

“The continued deprivation of the Palestinian people of their rights is undoubtedly exploited by some to inflame other crises, achieve hidden goals, fragment Arab unity, and impose control on Palestinians under the guise of realising their aspirations”.

If Israel looks ahead, demographic changes in Israel and Palestine point to the necessity of moving this process on to a final acceptance of the Palestinian reality. It is, quite simply, in Israel’s interests to pursue this. As Henry Kissinger wrote in his latest book,

“the Palestinian issue will have to be faced sooner or later as an essential element of regional and, ultimately, world order”.

No country can escape the reality of its own geography.

The whole House will be looking forward to my noble friend the Minister’s response to the two areas of enormous concern to which I have alluded. However, let us cast our eyes towards the Maghreb, specifically Algeria. In the early 1990s, there was an Islamist takeover there and 150,000 people were killed. It was a foretaste of the horror of ISIS. Since then, however, Algeria has been remarkably stable and the memories of that terrible time have become embedded in the collective consciousness of the Algerian people. In 2006, President Bouteflika came on an official visit here and in January 2012 our Prime Minister went to Algeria. In less than three years our commercial exchanges have soared. Algeria is a reliable energy supplier. The country is rapidly expanding its physical infrastructure and upgrading its education and health services, in which we are fully participating.

With its unstable neighbours and a vast and porous border, we now have a strategic security partnership with Algeria. A double taxation agreement will soon be signed, and we look forward to the visit of its Prime Minister to London for a major conference in December, “Algeria: Open for Business”. The demand for the English language is infinite, and we are actively responding through the British Council and our own educational establishments. It has indeed become a remarkable and problem-free partnership, which is welcome to both sides. In conclusion, it is quite simply and unambiguously a good news story for us both.

12:18

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, bid a sad farewell to the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, who was a very good Minister, and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Risby, who is an expert in this area. He spoke wise words about the need for diplomacy. These will be welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, who has been saying this, Cassandra-like, for a long time. The noble Lord, Lord Risby, has also given us the opportunity of looking generally at the region, rather than debating particular areas, as we have done in the past.

I reflect first on the speed of change in the region. The so-called Arab spring began less than five years ago with the self-immolation, in December 2010, of Mohamed Bouazizi. Five years ago, all the Arab dictators seemed securely in place. In January 2011, President Ben Ali stepped down after 24 years. Also in 2011, President Mubarak ceased to lead Egypt after 30 years. In the same year, Gaddafi was killed after 42 years in power. In February 2012, President Saleh ceded power in the Yemen after 22 years. The Lebanon remains divided confessionally. Only the monarchies in Morocco and Jordan are relatively safe and unscathed, as are the Gulf states. Five years ago, ISIL did not exist, at least in that name. Dictators have been replaced by a pharaoh and by anarchy. The region now faces further potential destabilisation because of the fall in oil prices. This is good news for western consumers but it is bad news for regimes which rely on high prices to buy off popular discontent.

As for the Arab spring, perhaps “Bliss was it in that dawn” five years ago, but no longer. Why has it failed? It is significant, perhaps, that three of the most stable countries in the region—Turkey, Israel and Iran—are not even Arab. It is no longer credible for regimes to divert discontent by claiming that their troubles are part of a US-Zionist conspiracy. Fundamental to an understanding of the reasons for that failure is a reading and a re-reading of the UNDP’s human development reports of 10 years ago. These showed basic failures in the human infrastructure and in the role of women and inadequate and irrelevant education in the Maghreb and in the Arab world. These have been underpinned by a booming population, youth unrest and Islamic distractions. Who wants to invest given such difficulties?

Pervasive instability begs the question whether it is now time to look again—albeit in the hurricane season—at some of the continuing difficulties and re-examine some of our assumptions. Time permits only to look speedily at three examples. On Turkey, the UK has been one of the strongest supporters of Turkey’s membership of the European Union. Progress has been slow and there has sometimes been the unspoken fear that Turkey is too big, too poor and too Islamic—and not really European. For the United Kingdom, the balance has been the other way: Turkey has been a relative model of democracy in the region, has a booming economy and is a valuable and trusted ally in NATO. Now, perhaps because of the lack of progress, we need to re-examine that traditional policy and look at alternatives.

Domestically in Turkey, there has been a lurch towards more illiberal policies in areas such as the media and the judiciary. Majoritarianism appears to have triumphed over pluralism, which was formerly the policy. Abroad, Turkey has been less than helpful in combating ISIL and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Does the European Union wish to move its borders to that volatile region? Given the current sensitivities on immigration, can we seriously look at the free movement of labour from that vast country? Should we not stop and look at some of the alternatives—including the one that Chancellor Merkel put forward years ago of a privileged relationship which might ultimately mature into something more solid? At the moment there is glacial movement in the European Union.

A second re-examination should surely be on Israel and Palestine. Yes, of course Israel is right in saying that it is difficult to find a negotiating partner which can deliver. It is also true that Israel has always ultimately had to rely on itself for its own protection. However, the blunt reality is this: in spite of the Bar-Ilan speech of Premier Netanyahu, there have been no serious moves by the Israeli Government to a two-state solution. Indeed, through the settlement policy, all the moves have been to prevent such a realisation. Perhaps the reality is, alas, that no conceivable Israeli Government would divide Jerusalem and no conceivable Palestinian Government would abandon the right of return. Israel, alas, is increasingly isolated at the UN General Assembly, and shortly Palestine may be a new member of the International Criminal Court. So do we still continue to repeat the mantra of a two-state solution? Is it true that the European Union has threatened Israel with sanctions unless the latest moves on settlements are withdrawn? Where does the UK stand on the latest threat?

Finally—and in one minute—I give at least some good news on the region. The good news, of course, is Tunisia. It is all comparative, but Tunisia had a remarkable election last weekend with a change of leadership from the Islamist party, which had made several compromises on Sharia law and women. The constitution was agreed in January, relying in part on advice from the Venice Commission. The secular party won the election. However, in spite of this political change, which is a model for the rest of the Maghreb and the Arab world, there are vast economic problems. How do we respond? I end with this question: how do we build on this remarkable political achievement by ensuring that it is underpinned by economic success? I look forward to hearing what the Minister says about how we might respond to the good news which is Tunisia.

12:26

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, when we met here just over a month ago to debate our engagement in another air war in Iraq, much was said about the evil of ISIS but not very much about what the alternatives might be for a solution to the Syrian civil war, which is now in its fourth year, with more than 200,000 people dead, more than 3 million refugees and more than 6 million displaced internally. Several noble Lords who spoke that day voiced reservations, which I share, that degrading or destroying ISIL in Iraq alone would not be the end of the matter.

We also know that this war will be a very long haul. We will have to expend a great deal of time and resources in getting the Iraqi army up to scratch. Some Pentagon estimates put it well into 2016 before the Iraqis can successfully engage a ground war against ISIL, even within Iraq. We also know that the US, and with it the UK, does not have a credible strategy about what happens next, much less how to exit this mess. Since 9/11, no credible strategy seems to have emerged either in the West or in the Muslim world about what we might do to stem the rise of an ideology of totalitarian political Islam that creates the pull for jihadis around the world.

It seems simplistic to dismiss the call of this ideology as either barbaric and medieval, which we do in the West, or to protest that it is not true Islam, which is where Muslims derive their comfort. As a Muslim who has grown up and lived in these parts of the world, I caution against both narratives. The pull of the caliphate is shared by those who would not necessarily be on the extreme end of the jihadi spectrum either. After all, there was a caliph, and a sense of a unified community under him, until well into the 1920s. In the period since 1979, when the Shia world was transformed by the Iranian revolution, the sense of Sunni victimhood, unjustified though it may be, has been growing and clearly feeds the jihadi political narrative.

Without for one moment justifying ISIL or its supporters, I want to touch upon why young Muslims are attracted to this narrative. They share a sense of collective humiliation and frustration with their corrupt and authoritarian rulers, who are so compromised in their courtship of what is seen as the “unjust” West—unjust because it was instrumental in creating the Israeli and Palestinian situation nearly 100 years ago; unjust because it does not seem to have the will to resolve it; and unjust when its own rulers assist the invasions of Muslim lands without any clear sense of purpose about how anything beneficial will come to the people from those wars and killings.

These same regimes suppress their people and deny rights on the basis of a religious culture that does not allow for the ruler to be challenged, yet flaunt the rules when their own elite interests are at stake. In the name of national security, they spend fortunes on armaments but seem to be able to turn those arms on their own populations more frequently than not. Above all—and this is important in Islam—they seem to do little to fulfil the strong religious requirement to support other Muslims in need.

In the period since 1979, when the first jihadi attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca took place—an attack that was motivated to secure a purer form of Islam in Saudi Arabia—we have seen the growth of this Salafi-inspired jihadi ideology. It is not new; the only new thing is that our own citizens are now motivated by its call. As we face the years of airstrikes and bombing, with ever greater civilian casualties, the question we have to ask ourselves is whether we will be able to destroy this ideology with force of arms, or whether the struggle for our values will prevail through a more peaceful engagement.

My own preference is for the latter, so let me set out some parameters for what I think is needed. We know that we cannot deal with Iraq without dealing with Syria. We also know that ISIL has proved adept at picking and choosing its opponents. In Kobane it is the Kurds; in other parts it is the Assad regime; and, elsewhere, some version of the Syrian opposition. Its tactics are to form alliances with different groups on the ground as it gives up or consolidates its gains. With so many different actors with the ability to shift alliances and with myriad opponents, our opportunity to destroy those we oppose in a sequential manner is degraded, as the militants can regroup and rebound. Moreover, ISIL is starting to go on the offensive in neighbouring countries, too. It is becoming a serious threat in Lebanon, and if it is successful in extending into Syria’s southern border it will sit on Jordan’s northern border, knowing that it has support already from within that country. It has the potential incrementally to expand its territorial rule beyond just Iraq and Syria.

Our tactical considerations must therefore be focused on reducing the threat that is most dangerous, even if it means that our previous enemy now has to become a partner in the endeavour. What would that involve? As the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out, we are in a rare situation where it may be possible to engineer a truce in Syria sufficient to buy us time to degrade ISIL, while pulling back from more killing in Syria between those who are not ISIL. Reports indicate that both the regime forces and the Syrian opposition are wearing down and stretched to breaking point. It appears that in July Assad’s losses were about 1,100 killed in operations against ISIL, while another 700 soldiers were lost in the battle for Raqqa. Syrian opposition forces are considered to be unable to hang on to Aleppo, under pressure from the regime, while the northern corridor they hold will fall to Islamic State. Jabhat al-Nusra, the other extremist group armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, continues to clash with the Syrian opposition, Assad forces and others.

All those who are fighting this proxy war would have to be brought in. For Russia and Iran, now ISIL is a greater threat to Assad than the opposition forces. For us and the Saudi and US side of the equation, Assad may be venal, but he has recently indicated that he would support coalition aims to degrade ISIL. We already know that the US is co-operating through intelligence with his regime on airstrikes. We also know that localised truces between the parties on the ground have taken place and sometimes hold as part of the dynamics of the war.

If, simultaneously with all bar ISIL, truces could be negotiated, with intelligence-sharing, humanitarian support and assistance for all communities on all sides, it would allow for civilian life to resume in some form. Protocols would have to be agreed for delivering food, medicine and fuel, for restoring water supplies and electricity and opening up the besieged area so that displaced internal civilians can return to their homes. The thornier issue would involve stopping torture and human rights abuses on all sides, with the release of political prisoners, who run into the tens of thousands. It is those people who would have to be part of the longer-term solution. The international community would have to provide assurances to the Assad regime and the opposition that any future solution would protect their necessary and vital interests, which may well result in Assad’s successor being part of his circle, but compromise is now necessary.

In concluding, there would be risks in bringing Iran and Saudi Arabia onside, but unambiguous Iranian support could clearly break the stalemate as the Assad regime seeks more and more financial support from that country. The US would have to ensure that supporters in opposition cannot block through preconditions, which have stymied efforts in the past, and the Saudis and Qatar would have to deliver Jabhat al-Nusra and lesser jihadis. Every attempt at a solution has floundered on undeliverable preconditions. Perhaps if we can merely secure a truce, without a political solution on the table for the moment, we would at least reduce the suffering. That is the least we owe the people of that region.

12:35

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, ISIL can be termed the blackest cloud to have appeared in the Middle East for years. If it can first be contained, it can be defeated, not so much by bombs as by better ideas. Repression is not enough, whether in Egypt or the Emirates. The better ideas are needed to attract the minds of a young generation full of grievances, despair and false ideology. Better ideas must be shown to work. This means pilot projects in Muslim states and in Europe. These will involve training and employment. They should be geared to social justice by giving dignity and helping people to escape from poverty. Volunteers will be needed. Can we imagine a peace corps funded by the oil producers? In parallel, jihadis who return to their countries and accept certain conditions should be welcomed with clemency.

I turn now specifically to Israel and Palestine, and to Gaza, which has been described as the Soweto of the Middle East. It is bad news that the post-ceasefire talks in Cairo have been postponed indefinitely. Will our Government use their diplomatic skills to get those talks restarted, if possible under more neutral auspices? The indefinite closure of the Rafah crossing by Egypt is another bad sign, especially for medical cases, students, exports, et cetera. The August ceasefire agreement provided for Israel to open border crossings to allow in humanitarian aid and construction materials, also for widening the coastal fishing zone to six miles. Has either of these points yet been implemented? If not, will the Government make the strongest possible representations?

Meanwhile, some things could be done in advance of longer-term negotiations, which would enormously improve life for 1.6 million people. Turkey has offered a ship equipped with enough generators to supply the whole Gaza Strip with electricity for six months. This would enable the old power station to be repaired, besides helping hospitals to function, food storage and water purification. The benefit to public health makes it urgent to accept and implement this offer. The technology involved is tried and tested. The UNWRA has funds in hand to restore water and sewage plants, repair schools and build new houses. Supplies for these projects must move through Israel. If Israel requires verification of end use, this should be organised. If new crossings are needed, they should be opened. Cement and aggregates should be allowed in, so that ordinary families can rehouse themselves. This is win-win stuff, providing work and employment, and removing temptations to new violence.

The people of Gaza desperately need freedom to move by land. Israel should be pressed to allow a secure route to the West Bank and on to Jordan. This could start for priorities, such as medical cases, businessmen, hajj pilgrims and students. If this worked, it could be extended to everybody New transport modes should be examined; for example, a hovercraft service to Egypt and Lebanon, which could use existing beaches. Gaza has much offshore gas. This has lain idle for years, because of the political risks. Surely guarantees could be given and insurance cover arranged so that drilling and pipeline work could start. This asset should contribute to employment and help to achieve regional peace.

Will the Government take up these ideas, refine them and present them to our allies and to all those co-operating against ISIL? Remembering what has been done already in the Emirates, Gaza could be the pilot project, bringing stability and hope to a war-ravaged place. It could do so without bringing in migrant workers, using the existing well-educated labour force. Social justice would be served. Many volunteers might be needed. Those in despair might see that life is worth living. It is not beyond all imagination that rehabilitation and development of Gaza, as a new hub, could contribute to the mental and moral defeat of ISIL.

12:41

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord King, could not stay for the whole debate and kindly sent me a note donating his seven minutes to me.

Last month, I spoke about the regional approach to the Arab-Israel divide and how Egypt was playing a helpful role. In this debate, I will concentrate on Egypt’s own development and on our UK opportunity and responsibility. Trust and inclusion build stability while mistrust and exclusion lead to spiralling instability. We are blessed in this country with a stable democracy and a safe society. We must be generous in supporting both the governance and peoples of partner countries as they seek to grow trust and stability.

We admire the courage of the Egyptian people and their leaders over recent years through some difficult times. First, I would like to offer condolences to the people of Egypt, the army and the President, for those people who died in last Friday’s horrific attack on the army camp by terrorists. We should know that there are many dreadfully injured Egyptian army and police officers being treated here in the UK, and many more in Germany, France and Switzerland.

The UK-Egypt partnership needs to get closer. Some 25% of all the people in the MENA region actually live in Egypt. Together, we can build benefits for the region and each other. It will require bold leadership to take the relationship to a new level and fulfil humanitarian, economic and stabilisation needs. Our Prime Minister should invite President al-Sisi to the UK as soon as possible. A group of experienced parliamentarians on our recent visits to Egypt were convinced that we in the United Kingdom have much to offer Egypt and that we can learn from Egypt’s experiences and expertise.

It is always easier to judge but wiser to understand more deeply. Rather than wringing our hands from the sidelines, we must take the opportunity to serve and help shape Egypt’s democratic cause and history. Our APPG on Egypt had a meeting yesterday with the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Tobias Ellwood. Our chairman and members of both Houses called for him urgently to extend an invitation to President al-Sisi to visit the UK in the light of the speed of the changes happening in the area and the rise of terrorism.

In a meeting last Tuesday, the Egyptian Secretary of State gave us assurances that the parliamentary elections are now imminent. He also said that the Government are planning to allow the Nubians, who have been dispossessed of their land for decades, to return to their tribal homes. We could discuss with President al-Sisi how we might continue to assist the Egyptians in following their four-stage road map to develop a first-class secular democracy with improved civil liberties and human rights. We could offer Britain’s experience and support in that endeavour.

The Egyptians have now completed the first two stages of the four-stage road map: first, a new constitution; secondly, an elected president; and now, thirdly, the election of a brand new Parliament with a judicial framework to monitor the election that will start in December and complete next March.

Finally, they plan to create better economic conditions for all of their people. For this they are arranging an investor conference to take place next February so that inward investment will create better lives for all the people of Egypt. We must help them to build the conditions for international business to invest and prepare UK businesses to be first investors. I am pleased that, to this end, the Minister Tobias Ellwood is to lead a trade delegation to Egypt next January. The UK can also continue to build security in the region by acting as a trusted intermediary between Egypt and Israel and facilitating the sharing of technical know-how, which is mutually beneficial to them and good for the UK.

Taking a wider view of the growing conflicts across MENA, the issues being fought over and the characteristics of the combatants are varied, but it seems that the root cause of all of them is similar. Whether it is the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank or the 90 million people in Egypt, whether it is the Syrians and the Kurds, those suffering in Iran and Iraq or those calling themselves Islamic State, it is all about not being allowed to have a say in their own affairs. Individuals and factions in dictatorships are finding no better course of action than to fight and Governments are finding no better credible solution than to clamp down with force on their people. This is where we should be encouraging, engaging, helping and serving. We should have a proactive foreign policy that builds trust and resilience before things get worse, helping to find a pathway from conflict and fragility to stability, investment, development and prosperity, along with helping Governments to listen, build trust and respond, and citizens to reap the benefits of incremental change.

We are paying the price for not proactively building resilience in the past. Foreign policy leadership should create the conditions for good governance, democratic voice and peaceful transition. This is what I suspect UK development and support aims do through the Building Stability Overseas strategy, which brings together the Foreign Office, the MoD and the DfID Growth and Resilience Department. They recognise that a day of conflict can cost more than a year of prevention, but it is not clear what the mechanism is. What is the “theory of change” by which our foreign policy will bring peace and stability to the region? We have learnt from engaging with Egypt that there is an opportunity that is not “empire” and is not “aid”; it is to help provide a platform and mechanisms for building democratic fabric and enabling development and trade with partner countries to support processes that rebuild trust in government and interventions that build the trustworthiness of that Government.

In my days as a retailer—I am pleased to note that we have introduced into our House today a great retailer, the noble Lord, Lord Rose of Monewden—we would put our values to work with Egypt and Israel to build understanding and trust through trading with both of them on the same products, benefiting our customers, benefiting the UK and benefiting both Egypt and Israel. Sometimes the best strategy in business is to transform a difficult economic challenge with an entirely new way of thinking. To this end, I have spoken previously about the Middle East Centre for Civic Involvement. Benefiting from the wisdom and experience of noble Lords from all sides of the House and politicians from the other place, it aims to provide a mechanism for democratic fabric, trust building, stabilisation, and for investment and prosperity.

Let us partner with the MENA region for stability, investment, development and democracy. Let us be part of the solution. Let us consider the cost of our military interventions in the region and the cost of further instability and realise that it would be far better, as a distinct feature of UK foreign policy, to put British values to work in a way that meets national, economic, geopolitical and other interests. I ask the Minister to put it to Her Majesty’s Government that we should invest in a bold initiative for peace, stability and prosperity in the region by partnering more closely—and first with Egypt.

12:48

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for giving us the opportunity to hold this important debate on one of the most troubled regions of the globe. I will focus on Iraq in my remarks. First, perhaps I may give noble Lords the good news, which is the business news. I have the honour to serve as the trade envoy to Iraq on behalf of the Prime Minister, and a secondary honorary position as the executive chairman of the Iraq Britain Business Council. This is an NGO in Iraq which has been working for some five and a half years to enhance inward investment and outward investment between international businesses and the Republic of Iraq. The trade links in Iraq are focused particularly on companies registered in the United Kingdom, and on building up contracts between those companies and companies inside the country.

I am delighted to report that the IBBC today has 63 members, four of which are United Kingdom universities. We have a new stream of universities to enhance student exchanges. Five members are Iraqi chambers of commerce. All 18 Iraqi chambers of commerce are scheduled to join and have decided to do so. This opens up the entirety of Iraqi businesses to UK-registered ones. At the same time last year, in comparison, we had 46 members, as opposed to 63. Growth is strong and does not seem to be affected by the recent events in Iraq.

Two more major Iraqi companies, one from the KRG and one from Baghdad, have this week applied for IBBC membership. Last month, one of the best known and largest global engineering companies joined IBBC, and is establishing an office in Basra. At the IBBC autumn conference next week, I am expecting approximately 400 guests over two days, 60 of whom will be joining us from all over Iraq. These will include guests from cities that are under ISIS control: Mosul and Salahadin. Some of these delegates have had to cross the front lines between ISIS and the Peshmerga to obtain documents to support their visa applications for Iraq. One delegate from Mosul, who has temporarily resettled in Erbil, went to Mosul to get bank statements to support his visa application.

Most Iraqis know that the ISIS reign will not last. ISIS is not even in full control of the territories that it claims and the delegates are determined to pursue their business links with Britain. At the conference we will have the chairmen of the Iraqi and Kurdish chambers of commerce address the delegates. We will have major oil and gas producers from the south and north of Iraq giving presentations. We will see Iraqi government and KRG official representatives mingling comfortably with each other. The new Iraqi Government is well set for more inclusion and is making good progress in achieving greater unity in the country. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, one of our vice-presidents, will be addressing the conference. Other vice-presidents, the noble Lords, Lord Robertson and Lord Green, will be available.

UK visa procedures are a constant burden for business ties between the two countries. I congratulate UKTI on the huge amount of work done in an impeccable way on this, but the burden put upon our Iraqi friends seeking to visit the UK for business or on holiday is still very high. I will write to the Minister on this and would welcome her attention to such an important matter, as we are losing high-powered friends because of stringent and completely inflexible policies being in place. We plan to have IBBC conferences in Basra, Baghdad and Erbil next year. I have no doubt that these will happen, as did the recent successful IBBC trade missions in Erbil, Baghdad and Najaf in August and September. My next mission will be in mid-November, when I will be revisiting these cities and Basra.

I turn now to the challenge that Iraq is facing with one third of her territory having been taken over by violent jihadists. I had the honour of participating in a diplomacy and violent jihad debate last Saturday at the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Robert H Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, when we discussed this matter. It was followed by an AMAR foundation meeting. The AMAR foundation is a charity of 23 years’ standing, which I chair, and the biggest British charity in Iraq. The meeting was on the fight of ISIL against girls and women. We will be publishing the full report.

I hold the view at the moment that there is a case for charges of genocide, especially against the Yazidis. We might reasonably suggest that an inquiry into the possibility of having IS individuals held accountable in The Hague for genocide, for their acts against the Yazidis. Of course, I am aware of IS’s genocidal-type acts against other minorities, but the Yazidis are a discrete group and I believe that they fall within the context of the convention.

As a past honorary member of the American Bar Association, I believe that this is something that Britain, with our slender hard power but very strong soft power, can rightly pursue at this point. Whether a prosecutor, a court or another tribunal would take on the case, and whether the facts as found by such a court or tribunal would warrant a conviction, are of course open to speculation, but that should not limit our initial conversations about motivating the competent authorities to consider the possibility of investigating charges of genocide.

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide leads me to believe that Articles 2 to 4 cover the scenario that I have in mind, whereby prospective defendants would be members of IS. Under Article 6, such defendants could be prosecuted; for example, in an international penal tribunal created by the UN Security Council. As far as the ICC is concerned, while Iraq is not a party to the Rome Statute governing the court, if individual IS members are nationals of any state party to the Rome Statute—for example, nationals of the UK or a state that otherwise accepts the jurisdiction of the ICC—such individuals could be subject to the jurisdiction of the court, which has jurisdiction to hear charges of crimes against humanity as well as genocide.

I had the opportunity to speak on genocide while giving evidence to the Supreme Court in Baghdad for the victims of the 1991 uprising in Basra and subsequently in the Marsh Arab genocide case. The judgment of that court of crimes against humanity was insufficient in the eyes of most but understandable when the judges’ safety was taken into account. But I believe that IS participants who belong to our nations who have been engaged in these horrific acts against the Yazidis and others could be prosecuted for genocide, specifically against the Yazidis, at the ICC. I would welcome a comment from the Minister on whether Her Majesty’s Government would look warmly on such a route to bringing IS to justice through due process rather than the point of death.

12:56

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Risby for calling this debate at what is a timely moment to assess the situation in the Middle East and north Africa. These debates are an opportunity to highlight the actions of countries and regimes around the world but, more importantly, they present an opportunity to explain, test and challenge our country’s response to those actions. It is that that I will seek to do today.

Our policy in relation to the Middle East peace process, which I am sure my noble friend will repeat today, is simply this: a two-state solution; a negotiated settlement; a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state, based on 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps and Jerusalem as the shared capital; and a just and fair settlement for refugees. But I would say that our policy is simply not working; that it is flawed; that different strands of our policy are simply not viable and no longer hold true; that in fact we know our policy is not working yet we continue to stick to it; that our policy is not responding to the reality on the ground yet we fail to change it; and that this approach damages our reputation both at home and abroad, and sadly makes us no longer an honest broker.

In 2012 we asked the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to move towards a resolution at the UN General Assembly. We made it clear that this was for the time being and that it would be better to give the US Administration the opportunity to set out a new initiative and move towards a successful Middle East peace process. The Kerry talks were on the horizon, and I commend Secretary Kerry for his efforts and the failure of those talks certainly cannot be laid at his feet. At that time we said that 2013 was going to be a crucial year, and I said so many times at that very Dispatch Box. The then Foreign Secretary said:

“If progress on negotiations is not made next year”—

that is, 2013—

“the two-state solution could become impossible to achieve”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/11/12; col. 227.]

He was right. We said at that time that we may have considered supporting the Palestinian resolution at the UN if it supported a negotiated peace process. Israel made it very clear that if the Palestinians went to the UN, it would no longer negotiate. Therefore, if that was the case and we knew that that was the case, by putting that condition in place, we were effectively giving Israel a veto. My question to the Minister, therefore, is: what is our policy now?

I turn now to the issue of illegal settlements. We condemn them. We say that they threaten the very viability of a two-state solution. But what consequences ever follow from that condemnation? The 1967 borders of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem are not lawfully part of the State of Israel. That is agreed. It is the settled policy of successive Governments. A line was drawn in international law which, ever year, is violated by Israel. The settlement building continues apace. Even during the Kerry discussions, new housing start-ups in the West Bank rose by 120%.

In 1993, at the time of the Oslo peace accords and the peace process, the number of settlers in the West Bank, not including Jerusalem, was 110,000; today, the number is 382,000. Israel’s Housing Minister, himself a settler, said earlier this year that he wanted that number to grow by 50% over the next five years. As my right honourable friend Sir Alan Duncan has said, settlements are simply “an act of theft”, initiated and supported by the State of Israel. The strategic planning, including the announcements on the E1 plan and other building programmes, display an even more dangerous intent. They create enclaves of Palestinians cut off from each other; cut off from their future capital and cut off from a viable existence. It is an organised and planned strangulation of what we call the two-state solution.

Another part of our policy is a just and fair settlement for the refugees. Across all parties in our country, there is a strong consensus and support for international justice and for the ICC. However, we continue to take the position that ICC membership makes negotiations impossible. Why do we say that negotiations would be impossible if the Palestinians went to the ICC? Is it because Israel does not wish to be held accountable for any war crimes that may have been committed; or is it because we, who oppose immunity for such crimes elsewhere, are prepared to make an exception in this particular case?

If we are not prepared to pursue justice for those who are suffering now, how can we be trusted to fulfil our commitment to pursue justice for those who suffered and lost many decades ago? The policy simply no longer holds true. The situation on the ground has so changed—and continues to do so—that what we say we seek is unlikely to be achieved. We say we have a position. We condemn, but the actions in respect of that condemnation are not there to be seen and no consequences follow. We take certain positions—for example, on language during the Gaza crisis and at the Human Rights Council of July 2014, when a commission of inquiry was proposed for human rights violations during the Gaza crisis. We take those positions as a way of preserving and promoting our relationship with Israel because we sincerely believe that we want to influence change. We prefer private to public diplomacy—I agree with that—but I fail to see those tough private conversations.

Therefore I ask the Minister the following questions. In July 2010 my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said that,

“Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp”.

What has changed in Gaza since then? What influence have we been able to exert as a result of not supporting the Palestinians at the United Nations? In the light of the parliamentary vote in the Commons and the lack of any negotiations, will the Government move to a position of recognition? In doing so—with reference to that debate in the House of Commons—will the Government distance themselves from the comments of the Chancellor’s PPS, Robert Halfon, who said that,

“there is already a Palestinian state called Jordan”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/10/14; col. 106.]

If we are not prepared to move to a recognition of Palestine, can we lay out the specific conditions that will need to be met? Will the Government set out a pathway in the interests of transparency? What consequences have flowed from the strong condemnation by the Foreign Secretary in September and October of this year of the recent settlement announcements? How have we, since the Gaza conflict, used the so-called influence and capital we built up during that conflict with the Israeli Government to change their position since then?

It was because of the concerns that I have raised today—and not, as some have disturbingly tried to suggest, because I am a Muslim—that, as the then Minister with responsibility for the UN, the ICC and human rights, I concluded that I could no longer defend our policy at that Dispatch Box. Our current position on this issue is morally indefensible. It is not in Britain’s national interests and it will have a long-term detrimental impact on our reputation, internationally and domestically. It is time for us to start to be on the right side of history.

13:04

[Lord Sacks (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for initiating this important debate. At the outset I declare an interest: I am a Jew. Israel is therefore for me the place where my people were born almost 4,000 years ago; the place to which Abraham and Sarah travelled; where Amos voiced his vision of social justice and Isaiah dreamt of a world at peace; where David composed the Psalms and Solomon built the Temple. This had consequences not only for Jews but also for Christians and Muslims, who claim Abraham as their ancestor in faith, and whose God they take as their own.

This had tragic repercussions throughout the Middle Ages, because Christians and Muslims claimed, each in their own way, to have replaced Jews as the people of God and thus as heirs to the Holy Land. The otherwise saintly Augustine declared that Jews were cursed with the fate of Cain, destined to be restless wanderers on earth without a home. Islam held that any land that ever came under Muslim rule was henceforth and forever Dar Al Islam: that is, land that rightly belongs to the Umma, the Muslim people, with any other rule being illegitimate. On both of these theologies, Jews had no right to their ancestral home.

A half-century ago, these theologies would have been considered irrelevant. The West had moved on. After a century of religious wars following the Reformation, it recognised the need for the secularisation of power. This allowed the United Nations, in the partition vote of 1947, to grant Jews the right to a nation state of their own after 2,000 years of exile and persecution. Eventually, there were peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan and an intensive process with the Palestinians. When power is secularised, peace is possible.

Today, though, throughout the Middle East and parts of Asia and Africa, a seismic shift is taking place in the opposite direction. People are desecularising. They feel betrayed by secular nationalist Governments who failed to deliver prosperity and national pride. They consider the national boundaries imposed by colonial powers to be artificial and obsolete. They are uninspired by the secular culture of the West, with its maximum of choice and minimum of meaning. They have come to believe that salvation lies in a return to the Islam that bestrode the narrow world like a colossus for the better part of 1,000 years.

Although their faith is hostile to modernity, they sometimes understand modernity better than its own creators in the West. They know that because of the internet, YouTube and the social media, communication —indeed politics—has gone global; they also know that the great monotheisms are the most powerful global communities in the world, far broader and deeper in their reach than any nation state. The religious radicals are offering young people the chance to fight and die for their faith, winning glory on earth and immortality in heaven. They have started recruiting in the West and they have only just begun.

When ancient theologies are used for modern political ends, they speak a very dangerous language indeed. So, for example, Hamas and Hezbollah, both self-defined as religious movements, refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel within any boundaries whatever and seek only its complete destruction.

The Islamists also know that the only way they can win the sympathy of the West is by demonising Israel. They know that you cannot win support for ISIS, Boko Haram or Islamic Jihad, but if you can blame Israel you will gain the support of academics, unions and parts of the media, and you will distract attention from the massacres in Syria and Iraq, the slow descent of other countries into chaos and the ethnic cleansing of Christians throughout the region. They are thus repeating the very failure of the regimes they have risen against, which for 50 years suppressed dissent by demonising Israel as the cause of everything wrong in the Arab or Islamic world. When you blame others for your failures you harm not only those others but yourself and your people. To be free, you have to let go of hate. If you let hate speech infect the West, as has already happened in some of our campuses, prisons and schools, then our freedom, too, will be at risk.

I and the vast majority of the Jewish community care deeply about the future of the Palestinians. We want Palestinian children, no less than Israeli children, to have a future of peace, prosperity, freedom and hope. That is why we oppose those who teach Palestinian children to hate those with whom they will one day have to live. We oppose those who take money given for humanitarian aid and use it to buy weapons and dig tunnels to take the region back to a dark age of barbarism.

More generally, we say in the name of the God of Abraham—the almighty, merciful and compassionate God—that the religion in whose name atrocities are being carried out, innocent people butchered and beheaded, children treated as slaves, civilians turned into human shields and young people into weapons of self-destruction, is not the Islam that once earned the admiration of the world: nor is its God the God of Abraham. It was Nietzsche, not the prophets, who worshipped the will to power. It was Machiavelli, not sacred scripture, who taught that it is better to be feared than to be loved.

Every religion must wrestle with its dark angels, and so today must we: Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. For we are all children of Abraham, and only when we make space for one another as brothers and sisters will we redeem the world from darkness and walk together in the light of God.

13:12

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, may I first refer to the Register of Lords’ Interests? I have been a director of a number of companies in the Middle East on both sides of the Gulf and I have also been for many years the chairman of the British Iranian Chamber of Commerce—a post that I took over from the noble Lord, Lord Temple-Morris, whom I see in his place today.

It is a humbling experience to follow the very moving speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sacks. This has been a remarkable debate and there was a remarkable speech from my noble friend Lady Warsi. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Risby on initiating such a remarkable debate and on introducing it with a brilliant tour d’horizon of all the different problems of the region. I very much agree with him that it is extremely difficult to be optimistic about the region.

We seem to have been fighting a never-ending war in the Middle East. The West has indeed been fighting the consequences of our own disastrous policies. In some respects, we have been addressing risks that we ourselves created. After flirting with the Arab spring, we are now back into our old traditional comfort zone of uncritical support of Sunni autocracies. Only now are we waking up belatedly to the fact that many of the citizens—I do not say “Governments”—of our allies have been funding those they are helping us to fight. I pay tribute to the campaign by the Sunday Telegraph highlighting the movement of funds to terrorist groups in the Middle East.

In that paper last Sunday, David Cohen, the US official in charge of financial intelligence, described Qatar and Kuwait as,

“permissive jurisdictions for terrorist financing”.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary, Douglas Alexander, also wrote recently that Riyadh, Doha and Kuwait City have all enabled religious foundations to channel funds to radical Sunni elements. He referred to lax anti-money-laundering regulations and regimes. Could the Minister comment on this point? What exactly are the Government doing to raise concerns with the relevant Governments?

Some of the citizens of our allies share with ISIS Wahhabi doctrines that the Shias are idolatrous apostates. A recent opinion poll in the pan-Arab newspaper, Al-Hayat, which I believe is Saudi owned, indicated that 92% of Saudis replied in the affirmative to the question of whether ISIS conformed to their values of Islam and Islamic law. I was rather surprised by that and put it to a Saudi friend of mine. He said that he believed it but thought it referred not to the violence and beheadings but actually to the governance and type of polity that ISIS were introducing. Even so, that was a very revealing and alarming poll result.

Many people have bought into the fantasy that Sunni Muslims—1.3 billion out of 1.6 billion—are somehow a victimised minority. I want to talk about the Shia enfant terrible, Iran, and the nuclear talks. I know that some noble Lords and Baronesses are worried that there will be a successful outcome to those talks. I acknowledge fully the shortcomings and past misdeeds of Iran, its bad human rights record, the unacceptable threats against Israel and the support for rocket attacks through Hamas and Hezbollah. None the less, a nuclear deal is firmly in the interests of both Israel and the wider Middle East.

I did not hear the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, earlier, but for those noble Lords and Baronesses worried about a deal, I have some good news: I do not think there will be a deal at all. Mr Netanyahu and AIPAC have certainly done their best to make this very difficult. The real mistake has been for the negotiations to concentrate so single-mindedly on just the number of centrifuges, rather than on a regime of transparency and openness. It was always going to be extremely difficult to get agreement on the physical destruction of facilities that already exist.

If I am right and the deal fails, what happens then? Are we going to bomb Iran? That would spread a huge conflagration throughout the Middle East. Are we going to have more sanctions? That is what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office seems to be indicating. What will Iran do? Will it go back to the previous level of producing more highly enriched uranium and will it stop converting enriched uranium into fuel rods?

If the talks fail, the important point is that on both sides we do not go back to the position we were in before. Even if the talks fail, something will have been gained in terms of understanding each other’s viewpoints and talking about different issues within the region. President Rouhani made some very wise remarks on this issue when he said, referring to the possibility of failure in the talks, “I want to repeat: we will not return to the past and our situation will definitely change. This is what the world wants”.

I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister met President Rouhani—the first meeting with an Iranian president for well over 35 years. I gather that it was a good meeting, but I rather regretted the very aggressive comments that the Prime Minister made after President Rouhani’s studiously moderate speech condemning terrorism at the UNGA. The Prime Minister made quite an aggressive speech, the result of which was to undermine President Rouhani’s position in Iran and to lead to renewed calls in the Majles that the British embassy should definitely not be reopened. I know that the date of the reopening has been put off yet again—indeed, there is no date.

The interests of the West and those of Iran overlap in many areas but, of course, this has happened before. It happened at the time of President Khatami, when he helped with the invasion of Afghanistan by America and offered full diplomatic relations and the reining in of Hamas and Hezbollah. For his trouble, he was labelled part of the “axis of evil”. We must be careful that we do not do the same thing to President Rouhani today. Too often, the West seems to think that Iran is part of the problem and that it does not need to be part of the solution. This is wrong. Iran has been part of the problem, but it definitely also needs to be part of the solution.

13:20

[Lord Mitchell (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a Zionist. I am a Zionist because I believe that, after 2,000 years of exile and 2,000 years of persecution, the Jewish people deserve a homeland of their own and that homeland should be within the biblical land of Israel. I am a Zionist because I believe that in Israel the Jewish people have found fulfilment as a nation. They have turned the desert into orchards, they lead the world in science for the benefit of mankind and they have become one of the world’s centres of 21st-century technology. Most of all, I am a Zionist because Israel today vibrantly maintains its founders’ dream of becoming a fully functioning democracy for all its people, in a region where the rule of law and equality is at a premium. Life for many Israeli Arabs is not all that it should be, but it is undeniable that they have an equal opportunity to vote, to go wherever they choose, to study at any university and to work in any capacity. They are fully fledged Israeli citizens. This is not an apartheid state.

I support the state of Israel because history has cruelly demonstrated that, at any time or in any place, Jews live in peril. France today is one example, but so too are countries in eastern Europe and South America. Israel is the final refuge for Jews being persecuted in the outside world. Indeed, if there had been an Israel in the 1930s the story would have been different and infinitely happier. So, come what may, I and most Jews remain proud supporters of Israel.

However, in saying all this, I am not saying “Israel, right or wrong”. The Naqba was a catastrophe for the Palestinian people, and we Jews should admit it. The occupation of the West Bank is a stain. In my view, the building of settlements is wrong. The road blocks, the pass controls and the goading are all intolerable. For me as a supporter of Israel, they are hard to stomach. If history has taught us anything, you humiliate a people at your peril. Many Israelis yearn for a two-state solution but, in truth, some do not. I am sad to say that this includes many members of Israel’s current Government. I certainly support a Palestinian state, but not quite yet. It must be negotiated with both the Palestinians and with Israel.

Pain me though it does to say this, I agree with Maureen Lipman in today’s Times, who says that Labour and Ed Miliband have got it wrong. When Israel was formed its main enemies were its neighbours: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the other Arab states. Those countries were sworn to its destruction. Today this has changed. There has been an enduring peace with Egypt and with Jordan. Syria is a basket case, and Saudi Arabia in its calmer moments realises that it has more in common with Israel than against it.

Today’s warfare in Israel’s proximity is asymmetric. The rules are different. It is sometimes forgotten that in 2005, Israel unilaterally and surprisingly withdrew from Gaza, but within two years Hamas had routed the PA and begun its reign of terror. Hamas could have built a thriving Gaza. It could have used cement and steel to build a new state within a state, but instead it chose to dig tunnels and build rockets. Hamas has fired rockets at Israel ever since it took control, and never more so than in this most recent terrible summer. Think of it: how would we have reacted if, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the IRA—based in the Republic of Ireland—had fired tens of thousands of rockets at Belfast, Liverpool, or maybe even at London? Would we have stood back? Of course we would not. We would have retaliated with force of arms and we would not have hesitated to put boots on the ground.

Hamas is a vicious terrorist organisation, and is proscribed not only by ourselves but also by the United States, the EU, Canada, Australia and many Middle Eastern countries. It thrives on terror and hatred. Its charter is quite clear: it seeks to destroy Israel. It is joined at the hip with ISIS. They have the same objectives, the same manic obsession with destroying anything that stands in their way, and the same desire to see an Islamic caliphate throughout the Middle East. In the recent conflict it was interesting to see who in the Middle East supported Hamas: Turkey did, as did Qatar and Iran. It is even more interesting to see who did not. Egypt hates Hamas, and there was not a word of criticism of Israel from the UAE, with the exception of Qatar, or from Jordan or Saudi Arabia.

So when we see demonstrations in the streets of London which are pro-Hamas with a nasty element of anti-Semitism thrown in, it beggars belief. When I see my good friend the Member of Parliament Luciana Berger receive death threats from anti-Semitic Twitter trolls for her position on Israel, it shows where all this can lead. I ask this question: if the demonstrators are so concerned about countries that commit crimes against humanity, why do they not demonstrate against countries which make no secret of their barbarism?

More than 200,000 people have been killed in Syria. Have there been marches in London against the Assad regime, or any protests outside the Syrian embassy? None. This summer the Russians have behaved appallingly. They have grabbed Crimea for their own. We have seen Putin’s goons down a civilian airliner for no other reason than it happened to be in the sky. Has there been an apology? None. Are there protests outside the Russian embassy? None. Around the world atrocities are being committed and we all wring our hands and do precious little, but when Israel alone defends herself, everybody goes ballistic. At best it can be called hypocrisy, and at worst it is called something else.

13:12

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, the last four months have witnessed some of the most distressing and tragic events in a region which for too long has been scarred by violence and turmoil. From the plight of the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar to the horrors in Gaza, people have been profoundly moved by what has unfolded. I join with other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Risby for securing such an important debate, and for opening it with such knowledge and clarity. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lamont about the force of the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, and my noble friend Lady Warsi.

I will concentrate my remarks today on the situation in Gaza and on recognition of Palestine. I declare my interests as chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council, the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to the Palestinian Territories, and president of Medical Aid for Palestinians. In late May this year, in my role as trade envoy, I visited the West Bank and Jerusalem, and I also attempted to visit Gaza. I sat for three and a half hours at the Yad Mordechai café outside Erez—and very nice it was—drinking a lot of coffee while my papers were finalised: but sadly I was not allowed in.

I had a full programme arranged with many people waiting for me, and so I telephoned everyone I was supposed to meet to apologise. They were wonderfully good humoured, and welcomed me to their uncertain world. Everyone I spoke to was hopeful that the unity Government who had just been announced and who had been welcomed by the international community would lead quickly to free, full and fair elections, and to the lifting of the siege of Gaza. They said quite rightly that people who are economically active want to live in peace.

How cruelly their dreams were smashed. The kidnap and brutal murder of three Israeli teenagers in June and the horrific death of a 16 year-old Palestinian, burned alive in July, led to the escalation of a situation which was already on a knife edge. Accounts of who did what, when—who fired the first shots or launched the first rockets—will differ from side to side. The only certainty is that too many innocent men, women and children have died, and it has to stop.

In the 51 days of attacks on Gaza, 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians, including a baby, were killed. In Gaza, 91 entire families were wiped out, 2,131 people were killed—500 of them children—and 1,500 children were orphaned. Every day, more and more children were rushed to Gaza’s hospitals, with tissue blasted apart, bones shattered and limbs missing. One thousand people, many of them children, will be permanently disabled as a result of their injuries.

During the crisis, around 500,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes, and it is estimated that 100,000 of them remain homeless with winter fast approaching. Last year, it snowed in Gaza; this year, there has already been heavy rain, with streets flooding. The promises from the reconstruction conference in Cairo, welcome as they are, need to be translated quickly into practical solutions that will make a real difference to people’s lives. Here, I would like to place on record my thanks to the Prime Minister and the Government for the lead they took in providing much-needed medical assistance to Gaza and for the commitment to further, generous funding, of which MAP is a significant beneficiary, for the necessary long-term medical work that will be required.

A seven year-old child in Gaza will now have lived through three military incursions. The businesspeople and doctors I spoke to who were so hopeful in May will, for the third time in seven years, have to rebuild their homes, their businesses and their shattered families. In the intervening periods between the violence, the decent ordinary people of Gaza are not free to travel, to trade or to enjoy the freedoms that we take for granted. If we are to break this cycle of death and destruction, the future for Gaza has to lead to an end to the blockade and to economic freedom.

The future must also hold out the hope of freedom for the whole of Palestine. The occupation of the West Bank, now the longest occupation in history, brings with it the daily disruption and humiliation of the Palestinian people and the continued building of settlements—I was very pleased to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, said on that. My right honourable friend Sir Alan Duncan, in a recent searching and brave speech at RUSI, said that the illegal settlements are an offence to democratic principles and the rule of law. In the debate on the recognition of Palestine in another place on 14 July, my right honourable friend Sir Richard Ottaway said very movingly that he had stood by Israel through thick and thin, but that the recent annexation of 950 acres of the West Bank had outraged him more than anything else in his political life. I recommend both speeches to your Lordships.

The Conservative Middle East Council was set up under Margaret Thatcher in 1980 after the then nine members of the European Economic Community signed the Venice Declaration, which, among other things, stated that the continued building of settlements was a barrier to peace. As my noble friend Lady Warsi said, William Hague warned last year that the prospects for a two-state solution were rapidly running out. With yet another failed peace process, something has to change if we do not want that warning to become a reality. That change should be recognition of Palestine.

We cannot uphold the right of others around the world to stand up for their freedom and self-determination and deny that same right to the Palestinians. Through our shared history, Great Britain has a special responsibility to Palestine, which we should discharge by recognising Palestine as a sovereign state alongside the sovereign state of Israel as an important step to peace.

The Palestinians are for the most part just like anyone else around the world—decent and moderate. But moderate people need hope. The Palestinians and the Israelis have no alternative but to live freely, prosperously, peacefully and securely side by side: but unless there is freedom and prosperity and recognition for all, there will be no lasting peace and security.

13:34

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Risby, on securing time for this debate, and I declare an interest as a vice-president of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel. I intend, as did my noble friend Lady Morris in her very moving speech, to use this opportunity to focus on Israel and the Palestinians. Sometimes in politics, there are points that seem so obvious that nobody ought to make them any more, but some basic points about Israel seem often to be forgotten in the British political arena, so I need to restate some of them today.

First, in the recent war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Israel was not aiming to kill innocent civilians, any more than Turkey was aiming to kill innocent civilians in its recent bombings of the PKK, or the Americans to kill innocent civilians in their attacks on Islamic State, nor any more than NATO ever aimed to kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan. In all four of those examples, and many others, many civilians have been tragically killed in bombings undertaken by a country’s forces against a non-state force, be that Hamas, the PKK, Islamic State or the Taliban. Yet I do not hear anyone accusing Turkey, the Americans or NATO of deliberately killing civilians; it is only Israel that is so accused. Surely this is the worst kind of hypocrisy on the part of world opinion.

However much one might criticise the Government of Israel and their sometimes confrontational policies—I would not vote for Likud, just as I am guessing that Mr Netanyahu would not vote for the Liberal Democrats—what other armed forces in the world would send warnings to civilians living close to military targets that they are about to bomb? Israel does, even at the cost of exposing its own troops to greater danger in the process. The world community’s failure to give Israel credit for that shows just how hard it is for Israel to gain a fair hearing on the stage of international opinion. We criticise Israel, but where is the criticism of Hamas for how it puts the lives and property of the people of Gaza at risk by sending more than 4,000 rockets into Israel and using the people of Gaza as the equivalent of human shields? I take all the points made by my noble friend Lady Morris, which were very moving.

Another fact that is completely overlooked is the amount of aid and goods of different types that Israel pumps into Gaza, as well as the amount of aid and goods that Israel allows others to pump in. Need I remind your Lordships that Egypt also has valid security reasons? What makes me despair is the absence of reporting in the media on the support that Israel has consistently given to the people of Gaza. Some formidable forces are lobbying against Israel in the British public arena. It is perhaps the unrelenting campaigns of such formidable forces that drown out the truth about what Israel is doing to help Gaza, even during hostilities.

I would like to give some examples. On 25 August this year, in the middle of a war in which a bombardment of Hamas missiles was forcing many thousands of Israeli men, women and children to run for cover whenever an air raid siren sounded—even in the middle of such a bombardment—111 trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel carrying 2,190 tonnes of food. On that same day, three trucks entered Gaza through the same crossing from Israel, carrying 8 tonnes of humanitarian supplies.

On 24 August, one day earlier, three Israeli taxi drivers were waiting to pick up some residents of Gaza to bring them into hospital in Israel from Gaza through the Erez crossing. And what happened? Mortar shells fired by Palestinian groups wounded the taxi drivers, with two of them being seriously hurt. Israeli soldiers had to evacuate the wounded under Palestinian fire, as Palestinian mortars continued to fall on the Israeli crossing specifically designated for the passage of Palestinians in need of medical and humanitarian assistance. These three Israeli taxi drivers, who were doing their job taking sick people to hospital, were not Jewish, but Arab citizens of Israel—Israeli Arabs being bombed by Palestinian terrorists while attempting to take Palestinians to hospital in Israel.

To paraphrase Tom Lehrer’s reaction to the news that Henry Kissinger had won the Nobel Peace Prize, the world is now so satirical that it is impossible to satirise it any more. Medical aid for the people of Gaza is rarely mentioned. It was revealed this month that the daughter of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was recently treated at a Tel Aviv hospital. In June, Haniyeh’s mother-in-law was treated in Israel for cancer and his daughter was also transferred to an Israeli hospital last year. However, these are only examples. Ichilov hospital said she is one of more than 1,000 patients from Gaza and the West Bank who are treated every year. This is a nation that cares.

Her Majesty’s coalition Government have made it clear that they will recognise a Palestinian state when one has been created through a process of negotiations between the Palestinians and the state of Israel. I see no ambiguity on that score and I see that as the way forward rather than the one proposed by my noble friend Lady Warsi.

To conclude, if the problems of the Israeli people are ever to be solved, there is no alternative to the difficult, painful and direct negotiations that will bring peace, justice and security to Israelis and Palestinians alike. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that peace will include two states living side by side in peace and, hopefully, co-operation? It will only be achieved by Israel and the Palestinians sitting down to negotiate without preconditions. It will include the removal of many, if not most, of the settlements on the West Bank. It will mean a cessation of rockets fired at Israel. It will mean abandonment of Hamas’s claim to obliterate the state of Israel. It will mean that refugees in the West Bank and Gaza will be given citizenship of the Palestinian state—just as, for example, Israel gave citizenship to 600,000 of the 800,000 Jews who fled Arab lands.

13:42

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, where is the Muslim peace movement campaigning for an end to violence in Muslim countries? Where is their Gandhi? Where is their Mandela? We are talking today about the failure of the nation state in Islam, and the failure in the region to overcome the demonisation of others.

We have failed to perceive the core of the current conflicts. What is taking place in Iraq and Syria is a single cross-border sectarian war: Shia with its allies, Sunni with theirs. Iraq and Syria were carved out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire by Britain and France, who were also responsible for many artificial new states in the area. They all contain incompatible populations inside artificial borders. Most are marked by instability and poverty, despite the oil revenue flowing into the region. They were held together as states by brutal and powerful dictators. Once those dictators were removed, conflict broke out again along the old fault lines of sectarian identity, which is far stronger than nationality. There are echoes of the former Yugoslavia.

The Islamic State wants to establish a new caliphate, spelling the end of the nation state. What can the West do, except point out the truth, mobilise its few allies and keep the extremism and the demonisation at bay and out of our country? We have to spread the ideas that will end hate. One day, I am sure, the scales will fall from the eyes of the Israel haters, as they did in relation to our views about communism when that came to an end after decades of death. Sixty years ago, who would have imagined that there would be a black president of the United States, that South Africa would be free and that communism would come to an end? We should not give up hope.

But there is a lack of human rights and deficient legal systems in the area. Any criticism of human rights law in this country is barely tolerated, yet in the Middle East we see daily, and have done for years, massacres and hangings, such as in Iran where nearly 1,000 have been hanged since Rouhani came to power. We see stonings for adultery, beheadings, amputation and the persecution of Christians—except in Israel. It is the demonisation and intolerance of minorities and refugees that are the source of much of the conflict. The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are barred from working in certain professions and cannot register property. Their situation is equally bad in Egypt, and they are banned from acquiring citizenship in Arab League states. Thousands have died and been starved in Syria. Even in Turkey there is interference with the judiciary and there are bans on social media. Yet, as others have said, we do not see the same level of protest here—only against Israel. Will there be protests against the Egyptian removal of 10,000 people in order to create a trench barrier against Gaza?

In Israel, we know that the Christian population is flourishing. It is a land of human rights, the only place where this is the case in the Middle East. There is equality and universal suffrage. Gay rights are tolerated—again, uniquely in the area. One-third of the students at Haifa University are Arabs. There is collaboration between Palestinians and Israelis over water research at Ben-Gurion University. I think that we can see that this is not exclusively a territorial dispute. Is it not because they are Jewish? The Israel conflict is rooted in demonisation, in dismay at the Arab failure to take advantage of, or contribute to, modern developments—hence, the fear and jealousy.

We should also be very wary of the many millions of dollars being poured into some of our universities by Gulf states. They are the largest source of donors to higher education. Beware Qataris bearing gifts. The funds are almost invariably in support of Islamic studies and Arabic, rather than for general purposes, which raises the suspicion that it is being done in order to change perceptions and gain influence. We have not got peace in exchange, simply a breeding ground for extremism in our student bodies.

It strains credulity that speakers in this debate should perceive the Israel-Palestine conflict as a major issue in comparison with what else is going on. A great deal of time has been spent on the recognition of Palestine as a state. The Palestinians could have had a state in 1947 and on many occasions since. I now wonder whether the demands for statehood, as an end to occupation and refugees, are genuine. Is it, as its leaders have stated, designed to be merely one more step in the ultimate goal, in keeping with caliphate ideology, of overrunning Israel—where, conveniently, 6 million Jews are gathered?

I say this because of the quite extraordinary statement by Palestinian leaders that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of a Palestinian state, whether they reside there or outside, and that they would continue to be supported by UNRWA. So we are not talking about a two-state solution, or even a one-state solution, but a three-state aim: the occupation of Jordan, the originally intended home, now with a half–Palestinian population; Gaza and the West Bank— a second state; and Israel itself.

Palestine, if recognised now, would be just one more failed state in the area, an area not currently wedded to national states. Its leaders have declared that it would be forbidden for any Jews to live there, and one can well imagine how any religious minority would be treated there. It would be a state with no minorities, no income, no support services and, unbelievably, no citizens or returned expatriates. So what would it be for, other than as a launching pad for attacks on territory and in the ICC?

I am sorry that in her resignation letter the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, blamed our policies for radicalisation here. No government can shape its policy for fear that its own citizens will bomb and behead others within its own territories as a result. Given our indecision over Syria, our vacillations over human rights and our failure to acknowledge the territorial and sectarian dimensions, the noble Baroness’s resignation and the lack of UK strategy have not helped to promote peace. Indeed, the UK has less influence than ever before in recent history in the region. It would be wilful to pretend that we could be a major player or a deliverer of peace. All we can do is emphasise human rights and tolerance in the area, and side with our true allies. As a footnote, if our dependence on oil were reduced, self-interest would be less important than moral principles and the achievement of peace.

13:50

[Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con)]

My Lords, my interest in the Middle East also centres on Palestine-Israel. Like others, I have come to the opinion that Britain should now recognise Palestine. My interest stems from the fact that my wife was born there and, indeed, was the third generation to be born in Jerusalem of western Christian families who went to the Holy Land in the 19th century. Her family, with others, still owns a hotel there and is involved in a children’s charity. I am a trustee of the UK friends of the Palestine music conservatory.

I have therefore been visiting occupied Palestine, primarily east Jerusalem, for more than 45 years. I was last there in August during the latest blitz on Gaza. My visits are for family and charity reasons. I meet friends, businessmen, clergy and so on but rarely politicians. For that reason, I have rarely spoken about the subject in your Lordships’ House. But when you are there you cannot help seeing the politics.

I have seen the settlements grow and grow over the 45 years. My noble friend Lady Warsi gave some figures. I was interested and pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, withheld their support from the settlements policy of the Israeli Government. I have seen the razor wire, the wall and the checkpoints. You only have to go by bus from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to know how appallingly the Palestinians are routinely treated at the checkpoints.

The two-state solution, which I believe is the only hope of lasting peace for Israel and Palestine, is evaporating before our eyes. Huge new illegal building projects have been announced recently. Another 1,000 homes in Har Homa have been announced this week. This is more modern subsidised housing for Jewish immigrants but no building permits, even for a home extension, are allowed to native Palestinians. On Tuesday, I read in the newspaper that Palestinians are to be barred from using public buses in the West Bank. They are already forbidden from using many of the main roads in their own country.

The noble Lord, Lord Sacks, who has just left, made a moving speech but I say to him that it is these actions of the Israelis which make them hated, stoke up violence and act as recruiting sergeants for Hamas. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, objected to the use of the word “apartheid” in respect of Israel, but “apartheid” is not too strong a word to describe Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories. Archbishop Tutu used the word after he had been to see it for himself.

On Tuesday, in another place, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said:

“The settlements are illegal and building them is intended to undermine the prospects of the peace process. We must not allow that to happen”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/10/14; col. 171.]

I agree with that but have we any influence left? It still is happening.

The late General Matti Peled was one of the toughest Israeli soldiers in the 1948 and 1967 wars. After retiring, he became a professor of Arabic literature. Just after the 1967 war, when the Israeli army captured the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan, he told his fellow generals that Israel should offer the Palestinians a state of their own. He forecast that if it kept those lands it would turn Israel into an increasingly brutal occupying power. He was right in his forecast.

Some time ago, Her Majesty’s Government concluded that the Palestinian Authority fulfils the criteria for statehood and UN membership. We were told that recognition was a tactical matter and should wait until there is progress on negotiations. In other words, as has already been said, Israel should have a veto. We know that they will use the time for their extremists to build far more homes over the occupied land, to oppress the people and to drive them out.

If we are to influence it, we need a dramatic gesture from this country to shake the peace process out of the mothballs. I believe, with Sir Vincent Fean, until recently our consul-general, that recognition would advance the peace process by giving hope to Palestinians and by helping the moderates on both sides: that is, the Palestinians who believe in peace and work for peace in co-operation with Israel; and the Israelis who hate what is done in their name—the separation wall, the house demolitions and the imprisonment of thousands without trial—who think about the long-term future and who do not think it inevitable that they should for ever live behind walls in a permanent state of war with their neighbours.

I also believe that recognition could start the sort of process, about which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, spoke, as regards development in Gaza and elsewhere. If we believe, as I do, that the two-state solution can bring lasting peace to the Holy Land, we should act on that basis and recognise Palestine as the second state, just as we recognised Israel all those years ago. Sometimes it seems as if we British are bystanders who can have no influence on what happens. But we helped to create the situation and we have a special responsibility in all this. My father was a soldier in Palestine under General Allenby in 1918. In 1920, we—the British—undertook the mandate to guide Palestine to independence. Recognition is our last duty under the mandate.

13:57

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley. Of all 35 speakers, I am the only one who is not a child of Abraham, which at least relieves me of a lot of responsibility for the situation in the Middle East. I see the Middle Eastern situation as an unsolved problem caused by the First World War. Lots of problems were posed by the First World War and solving them has occupied much of the 20th century. For example, I do not think that the problem of Germany was solved until 1991, when it became a united democratic country and part of the liberal democratic order. The repercussions of the Bolshevik revolution took until 1991 to sort out; eastern Europe was finally freed at that time. The noble Lord, Lord Cope, referred to the Middle East and the problem of the Ottoman Empire.

As a principal ally in the First World War, we knew that the Ottoman Empire would lose the war and decline, and that we would demolish it. As part of that, there was the Sykes-Picot treaty, which I have mentioned before in this House, and the Balfour Declaration. The Sykes-Picot treaty drew arbitrary boundaries and all that ISIS has shown is how arbitrary those boundaries are as to where nations can be formed.

My own view is a very pessimistic one. I do not think there will ever be a two-state solution. I do not think the two-state solution was ever the best thing to do. I remember in Labour Party discussions back in the 1970s, we thought a single multi-faith state was the only solution to the Palestine-Israel problem and that is not going to happen. The single multi-faith state is not going to happen; the two-state solution is not going to happen; there is going to be occupation; there will be things built on occupied territory; and there will be a continual war. It is somewhat like Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films, in which two sides fight and fight until they have both destroyed each other— and that is when peace prevails. Maybe I am being too pessimistic but, realistically, after all these years, I do not see why it should be solved.

I am much more concerned, however, about what is happening in the rest of the Middle East. I have spoken on this before. I believe that this is one of the most tragic situations for the Muslim world that we have witnessed in recent years. I think it was the noble Baronesses, Lady Falkner and Lady Nicholson, who mentioned the genocide of the Yazidis. That is indeed a very serious problem. But Muslims are killing Muslims in the highest numbers possible. Sunnis are killing Sunnis, Sunnis are killing Shias and the other way around. It has not just been going on for four years. This Middle East war has been going on for 40 years, more or less since 1973, after the last Arab-Israeli war, which was lost by the Arabs. As the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, said in his brilliant speech, at that stage the Muslims lost their faith in a secular democratic alternative. They decided that they had to abandon secularism, abandon all those stories of socialism and so on, and go back to religion.

The religion they have gone back to has been heavily subsidised by Saudi Arabia, and is a particularly extreme form of Islam: Wahhabism. Then you have Islamism, which has done more to destroy Muslim majority states than it has done harm to us. We are all worried about terrorism coming to our shores, but what Islamists have done to Algeria and other countries, in both the Maghreb and the Middle East, is very serious. From Pakistan to Algeria, Islamism is the enemy of Muslim-majority states.

There is nothing much we can do but we have to be aware that, because we have gone in—we have been in and out—this war will not be over any time soon. There is no quick solution to the ISIL or ISIS problem. We will have to, if not destroy it, at least de-fang it. We cannot kill an ideology but it will become less harmful than before.

I will say two more things, which I have said before but are worth repeating. The first is we have never had a large international conference on all the problems of the Middle East. Versailles was not a great success but at least everybody got into it. I have said this before. Again and again from the government Benches, I have been told to forget it, but I will say it once more. The problems of Kurdistan, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and even Israel and Palestine are interconnected. They have a common history. We cannot solve one without solving the others. It is at least worth trying, even while the war is going on. We owe ourselves and the Muslim population of the world, something better than what is going on right now.

Lastly, a lot of people have remarked that many of our young people have gone to Syria or Iraq to fight for ISIL. I think we should not call them extremists and we should not threaten them with immediate arrest and prosecution if they come back. These are our children. Some of our other children take to alcohol, take to drugs and join gangs, and we see the effects of that. When we see that, we feel we ought to do something positive to get them out of their addiction and out of their problems. Now some young people—men and women—have taken to believing in extremism. It happens. It is very attractive to believe that you have a higher cause than your daily living in a rich consumer-oriented society. So they have gone there. However, it is up to us to understand why they have gone there and tell them that when they come back we will try to rehabilitate them and help them re-establish their lives, and not immediately threaten them with prosecution. If they are fed up with ISIL, they will want to come back. We ought to welcome them.

14:00

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for securing this debate. It has been important that so many other noble Lords have talked about Palestine: not just for the sake of the Palestinians, but for the sake of Israel, too, because that country’s future is being put in jeopardy by its present Government.

As we saw yesterday, the propaganda coming out of the Israeli embassy now is to concentrate on Hamas, the so-called terrorists who of course many people in the Middle East see as freedom fighters—we must remember that. Hamas was helped in its creation by Israel, which did not like Fatah, and Hamas won the European Union-monitored election in 2006. Hamas was then refused permission to lead the Government in Palestine. Hamas had its MPs arrested and put in Israeli prisons. Most of them are still there. Yet since 2009, Hamas has been saying—and this is from Khaled Meshaal—that it will recognise the state of Israel in the 1967 borders. No one likes to publicise that. Hamas deserves the right to defend the people of Gaza against the relentless blockade and helicopter gunships over that area, targeting and killing so-called terrorists and, more often, many innocent civilians. The people of Gaza have a right to be defended, too.

I want to discuss what I see as the wider ramifications of failing to deal with the need for the Palestinians to have their own state. Since entering the House of Commons in 1997, I have worked and travelled mainly in the field of international development, working on women's health issues and refugees. I have stayed in the meanest of camps and tents and among the people we are trying to help. One of the things I have heard from the 1990s onwards from refugees and others, especially those who are Muslim, is that Palestine is what the West, through its unquestioning support for Israel, “does” to Muslims. Stories are passed around and film footage is watched avidly over and over. You may say it is propaganda—much of it may be—but it is very effective. I will not take time on personal anecdotes; I have too many.

It is no surprise to me, therefore, that with our continuing support for Israel, more and more extreme Islamic groups have emerged determined to get their own back on the West, through terrorism. It is no surprise either that a recent incident in Canada, and an exposed terrorist plot in Australia, have followed attacks in our country and the USA. Both of these countries have unhesitatingly supported Israel with the USA and the United Kingdom.

Why can our leaders not see what damage we are doing by supporting the unspeakable policies of Israel, which breaks international law and Geneva conventions and totally ignores the human rights of Palestinians? It is time to be honest and ask what the real reason is. Why do we give this rogue Government our support? There are several reasons people will mention: Holocaust guilt—quite right—oil and security. But in my opinion and the opinion of many people who are afraid to say it publicly—but I will—there is none so important as the thing that dare not speak its name. I am talking about the activities of the lobby, in this country and in America, AIPAC in America and BICOM here, plus the groups called Friends of Israel in supporting and cajoling and fundraising and launching websites and letter-writing campaigns and e-mail storms, and not supporting MPs or parties if they refuse to give Israel support. Those of us who challenge the lobby are threatened and disposed of by our leaders as best they can. David Ward, my colleague in the other place, is currently fighting yet another battle against the lobby as I speak.

All lobbies are dangerous and undemocratic; the pro-Israel lobby is not the only one, but it is particularly dangerous in this context. Money and influence win over truth and justice, and the West sinks lower and lower in the world’s esteem because of it. The so-called Islamic State—and it really angers me that we persist in calling it that when it is neither Islamic nor a state—is the latest disgusting manifestation of angst in the Middle East. It marches on, followed by limp bombing campaigns from western alliances and silence over Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank. The Middle East descends into hell, and we will follow if we do not do something to stop the slide.

Stopping Israel’s land and water grab and its brutal treatment of Palestinians would not solve everything—of course I am aware of that; it is too late for miracles—but it is at the root of the problems. Supporting a secure state of Palestine would be a huge and important gesture to show that we really care about western values, and will apply them equally all over the world where there is injustice—especially in Israel.

14:11

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Risby for instigating this debate. Although it refers to the current situation in the Middle East, I am not surprised that Israel has attracted a disproportionate amount of interest. I can think of no other country that attracts so much attention in this House. I can also think of no other country that it is so completely misunderstood. I declare my interest now as a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel, and I suppose I ought to declare my interest as being Jewish. I do not regard myself as part of a lobby. I regard being open, saying what you have on your mind and being principled as something that we are in this House to do, and to suggest otherwise—that we are part of a lobby—is a slur.

Israel is unique in the Middle East. It embodies those values which we in the United Kingdom hold so dear: freedom, democracy, equality and human rights. It stands alone in the region as a true functioning democracy. Israel has a proud history of ensuring that all its citizens enjoy protected freedoms and human rights. Israel’s universal suffrage and democratic political environment has, as a result, produced a strong civil society. Israel is ranked as the only “free” country in the Middle East and north Africa by the independent organisation, Freedom House, which measures these things.

Israel is comprised of people who practise a variety of faiths and no faith, and all enjoy full rights to do so without fear of persecution or unequal treatment under the law, unlike nearly every other country in the Middle East. Notably, Israel is one of the very few places in the Middle East where Christians are not endangered but are flourishing. Since Israel’s foundation in 1948, its Christian communities have expanded by more than 1,000%. Father Gabriel Nadaf, a Nazareth priest, told the United Nations Human Rights Council only a few days ago:

“Christians comprised 20% of the population of the Middle East … Today they comprise only 4% … Christians in the Middle East are marginalised; their rights denied, their property stolen, their honour violated, their men killed, and their children displaced”.

He went on to say that,

“there’s only one safe place where Christians are not persecuted. One place where they are protected, enjoying freedom of worship and expression, living in peace and not subjected to killing and genocide. It is Israel, the country I live in. The Jewish state is the only safe place where the Christians of the Holy Land live in safety”.

This comes at a time when Christians and other religious minorities in neighbouring countries are contending with state-sponsored repression and the brutality of terrorist organisations such as the reprehensible ISIS. Moreover, as my noble friend Lord Palmer said, Jewish people have, over the years, been forcibly expelled from all the Arab countries where they lived peaceably and happily for many centuries. In a region so tragically blighted by totalitarianism and religious fundamentalism, Israel’s remarkable democratic success story deserves far greater credit. The story is the same for women, homosexuals and the press. Uniquely, Israel protects the freedoms of them all.

All this is not to say that Israel is perfect. No country is. My noble friend Lady Warsi will be pleased to learn I, too, have deep reservations about the Israeli Government’s current plan for settlements. Recent announcements by the Israeli Government on settlements are concerning. The announcement in August to appropriate 1,000 acres of land in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank just south of Jerusalem rightly elicited a strong response from the international community. Likewise, this week’s news that plans are advancing to construct 1,000 housing units in east Jerusalem is unfortunate. While settlements are unhelpful to the ongoing peace process, it is wrong to suggest that they are an insurmountable obstacle. They are one of the main final status issues to be resolved in direct peace talks.

Additionally, much of the construction takes place in existing settlement blocs along the so-called green line. It is a long-established principle that those settlements along the green line will be retained by Israel as part of a final peace agreement, with the Palestinians compensated by equivalent land swaps. Israel, driven by the policy of “land for peace”, has a track record of removing settlements to help give momentum to peace. Its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was a major gesture. It now stands as a genuine opportunity missed by the Palestinians to develop Gaza into what could have been a prosperous territory.

Her Majesty’s Government can be proud of their record in supporting Israel and standing by the basic principle that a country has the right to protect itself against rocket attacks on its civilians which have led, and may still lead, to many civilian casualties. Peace talks earlier this year were thrown into disarray when President Abbas violated an agreement to abstain from unilateral action, even after Israel agreed to follow the next steps outlined by Kerry.

A lasting two-state solution requires a negotiated final peace agreement. Unlike Gaza, Israel’s historic peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan are testament to what can be achieved by direct negotiations. Unilateral actions and grandstanding by the Palestinian Authority simply drive a wedge between the two parties and make a peace agreement less likely. Even worse, perhaps, grandstanding in the UK and Europe by otherwise respectable politicians for short-term domestic political objectives is really regrettable.

Fatah’s unity Government with Hamas should sound alarm bells. Hamas, it must not be forgotten, is an internationally recognised terror organisation that displays some of the ghastly characteristics of ISIS. I am amazed that so many fail to see the similarities between ISIS, Hamas and Hezbollah in terms of their tactics, operations and, even more so, their funding. No peace agreement will be able to guarantee peace in the medium to long term if a generation of Palestinians is growing up indoctrinated to hate Israel and Jews. Sadly, evidence of EU-funded schoolbooks encouraging such hatred has been discovered, which is very depressing and worrying.

In summary, Israel can be described only as a force for good in a region experiencing great transformative turmoil. The UK benefits from its relationship with Israel. UK trade with Israel continues to grow inexorably to more than £2.5 billion. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will join me in hoping that one day in the near future, Israel can be at peace with a viable and successful state of Palestine, and able to share its borders with newly invigorated and genuinely democratic Arab states.

14:19

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I refer noble Lords to my interests in the register. In the course of my work for a Foreign and Commonwealth Office-sponsored project, I regularly visit Iraq and have been doing so for some time. I am not in any sense an international expert, but I have learnt a lot from this debate and I think it is right that the noble Lord, Lord Risby, has taken the opportunity to give the House a serious, five-hour slot.

I am looking at the Minister when I say that I hope we do not have to rely on party groupings. I pay tribute to the Conservative group for thinking that this is an important enough subject to table it for a five-hour debate but we should not forget that it is the Government’s responsibility to make sure that the House has opportunities to discuss the region as a whole. I hope the Minister will not think that this has now been dealt with for the rest of the Session. There is still important time to be spent on this subject.

I want to make it as easy as I can for the Minister so that she can tick my box very quickly. In the middle of all the high politics and strategy—only a fraction of which I understand—I want to spend a few moments looking at the internal difficulties faced by the new Administration in Iraq. Will the Minister assure the House that she will do everything in her power to assist the new Government? They are at a very critical point and some of the new, major players—Dr Haider al-Abadi and others—are all very well disposed towards the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord Cope, and other noble Lords said that soft power is an important player. We may not have the fire power or the economic power that we would like, or have had in the past, but we are listened to with great respect. That is due partly to the excellence of our diplomatic mission and the professionals, particularly the Arabists, who devote their lives to understanding not just the language, but also the internal workings of some of these quite complex cultures and nations. The noble Lord, Lord Wright, knows all about this because he is one of them.

The background to the incoming new Government is seen very differently from Baghdad. On top of everything else, the professional classes are absent. Even if they take the right political decisions and have the money, the implementation of some of these policies is nearly impossible for a unique and understandable set of security reasons; namely, if you can get your family to safety in a European or other country, why would you not take the opportunity to do so? The Iraqi Government have a serious problem in getting done things that they know need to be done even if they have the money. There are all sorts of shortages which can be readily seen on the inside, such as lack of utilities. There are also some big issues of desertification and water resources. Having seen it for myself, I am absolutely persuaded that this new Government are on the cusp of being able to get started and exercise their authority. The early signs are good. I am optimistic about what can be done. They are looking at security; they are looking at public utilities; and they are looking at achieving a stable political settlement. They are dealing with the ideology of insurgency as well as difficult military and security issues. It is also worth remembering that, although it was with the assistance of General Petraeus at the time, al-Qaeda and its ideology have been defeated in the past. Therefore, it is not impossible. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Nicholson whose work in this field is indefatigable.

In the time I have left I should like to make some suggestions. The new ambassador needs support. I have not met Mr Baker yet, but he needs support in handling some of the situations that he is facing. I was very pleased that the Foreign Secretary took the trouble to go to Baghdad himself. That visit was extremely successful. I was also pleased that the Foreign Affairs Committee of the other place took the time and trouble to visit. That has made a difference too. I know that the Minister does not have direct responsibility for that part of the world, although she is in charge of everything she surveys—once a Chief Whip, always a Chief Whip—but I am relying on her to rattle a few cages. It is not just Foreign Office Ministers; sometimes it is Education Ministers who need to go to pick up some of the problems and give assistance where it is required. The Minister said previously that there was a real drive for decentralisation in Baghdad. If Dr al-Abadi’s Government can sort some of their other problems and have the trust that they need for devolving power, that would make a huge difference to building the trust which is absent at the moment.

There are other things which we can do more directly ourselves. Why do we not have an Iraqi business group? My noble friend Lady Nicholson is executive chairman of the Iraq-Britain Business Council which does extremely valuable work. Other countries, such as India and China, have dedicated business groups which focus government activity in Whitehall on the problems of the respective countries. Will the Minister consider whether the time is right to do that in Iraq? Will she also reflect with her ministerial team whether it is possible to give our new ambassador more discretion in giving visas to key people? Business people and politicians who are visiting this country still have to go through a very arduous process. Until recently, they had to have a job to get a visa. That is ridiculous. There are other countries, such as China and India, where ambassadors, who know and can speak personally for potential visitors, have more discretion over visas.

Finally, there are three areas where Iraq is seeking help from the United Kingdom because of the connections that already exist. These are in health care, in education—particularly through some of the excellent work done by Universities UK—and in financial services. In all of these areas there are contracts to be won and business to be done. Of course the security is difficult, but it is manageable if proper precautions are taken. People watching the television might think that Iraq is a wrecked country. It is nothing of the kind. With a fair wind and with support from friends, it has a future, but it will not be able to do it by itself. It needs help from people like ourselves.

14:27

[Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby for opening this debate and I agree with everything that both he and the noble Lord, Lord Cope, said about recognising the state of Palestine. It is 15 years since the European Union agreed the Palestinian right to self-determination. When the Minister comes to wind up this debate, I hope that she will be able to give us some encouragement to believe that Her Majesty’s Government might now be prepared to follow up that important vote in the other place with formal recognition.

In my brief remarks, I propose nevertheless to concentrate on our attempt to confront the threat of the so-called Islamic State—ISIS, ISIL, or Da’ish as it is now called in an Arabic acronym—in both Iraq and Syria. Let us remember that this is something which not only threatens us in the West but also, ironically, presents a serious threat to those states in the Arabian peninsula from which much of its funding appears to have originated.

Many others, better qualified than I, tell me that air attacks on ISIS-controlled areas are having, or are likely to have, very little significant effect. One wonders whether any western military action can expect to defeat a movement which is now reported to have 60% support among young Jordanians and 90% support among Saudis, as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said. I hope the Minister can tell the House whether the Syrian national coalition, described recently in a letter to me from one of her ministerial colleagues as,

“the sole legitimate representatives of the Syrian people”,

are playing any effective part in confronting this threat.

I believe that there are strong arguments, both security and consular, why we should now be talking to the Government in Damascus, even though, or rather because, they have been involved in appalling breaches of human rights. Yesterday’s report in the press of a 17 year-old Briton, who died as a jihadist in Syria, carried a Foreign Office comment that it was difficult to get confirmation,

“since Britain has no diplomats in Syria”.

Surely, we should be talking to not only the Government in Damascus but also their principal supporters in Moscow and Tehran, who are reported to be trying to co-ordinate their operations in Syria and Iraq. Surely, our diplomats should be talking to all three Governments about how to confront a threat which has not only occupied a significant portion of Syria’s sovereign territory but which also poses a threat, perhaps even more imminent, to Russia’s southern borders and to Iran than it does to us.

I understand the reasons why Russia’s behaviour in Ukraine makes us reluctant to be seen to enter into a dialogue with Russian diplomats on other subjects of interest to both of us. I also understand why our American allies have been reluctant to be seen to be talking to the Iranian Government about subjects other than their nuclear development. As I suggested to the Minister at Question Time today in the context of Iran, surely the threat of ISIS to all of us is serious enough to require a reassessment of our diplomacy and of where our interests lie. I hope that the Minister, when she comes to reply, will be able to give the House some reassurance on these points.

14:31

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, previous speeches have illustrated that this is a region of mixed news. There is good news about the second peaceful elections in Tunisia, where the Islamist party has accepted that it has lost the election. There is also good news about Egypt. Although it has a state of emergency in the Sinai and daily terrorist attacks, it is moving towards democracy again—not perfectly, as the imprisonment of journalists illustrates, but, as the Anglican Bishop Mouneer stated,

“For the first time Egyptians feel that they own their country. Every shortcoming is brought into the light by the people. Indeed the wall of fear of the government has been demolished”.

Of course, there is bad news again in Iraq. Winter is descending and the humanitarian needs are acute. While militarily arming the Kurds is the only option at the moment, it is not without risk, as Turkey with its PKK issue fears. The Iraqi army needs air strikes and the Kurds need modern weaponry, but a ground offensive to remove IS will take many months.

Is not now the time, ironically, to obtain reassurances from the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish regional government to secure a political settlement for the Iraqi minority communities in the east of the Nineveh plain? The Assyrian Christians, Turkmen and Shabak Muslims and the Yezidis are not Arab and are not Kurdish and have been a particular target for IS. There was an initial call by some in the West for a mass exodus, but this would just give IS what it wants. In fact, the leaders I have met want a safe haven so they can remain in the region. This would not be yet more unwelcome international interference, as Article 125 in Iraq’s constitution states:

“This Constitution shall guarantee the administrative, political, cultural, and educational rights of the various nationalities, such as Turkomen, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and all other constituents”.

In fact, earlier this year, the Assyrian International News Agency reported that the Iraq Council of Ministers had approved a proposal for a new province in the Nineveh plain bordering the Kurdish areas, which has—or had—the largest population of Assyrians in Iraq. This represented a state attempt to curb the exodus of Christians from Iraq and would have given them some political and economic autonomy. I would be grateful to know what representations have been made on this by Her Majesty’s Government to the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish regional government. Otherwise, there is a risk that, once IS is removed from the region, UK weapons could get into the hands of the Kurds and might be used to prevent these people returning to the Nineveh plain—an area rich in natural resources which the Kurds allegedly wish to annex.

IS is in extreme denial of Article 18 rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and states, “You cannot choose your religion, you must choose ours or you die”. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party group looking at Article 18. Recent developments in the region are acute reminders of how deeply religious it is and how deeply religious beliefs interact with issues of governance, conflict and security.

I echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sacks. We should heed the world renowned sociologist, Peter Berger, who was one of the leading sociologists at the forefront of advocating the secularisation thesis in the 1960s. In 1999, he recanted his earlier claims and said:

“The world today, with some exceptions … is as furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than ever. This means that a whole body of literature by historians and social scientists loosely labeled ‘secularization theory’ is essentially mistaken”.

Only yesterday, the Egyptian Foreign Minister told MPs and Peers that what they need to defeat is a religious narrative given to young people—young people who at a pivotal point in their lives are forming their ideas via Twitter and Facebook. And this region is young. Nearly 37% of Iraqis are under the age of 14 and 50% of Egyptians are under the age of 24. Therefore, I very much applaud the welcome focus by Her Majesty’s Government on understanding the place of religion and religious actors in countering violent extremism. The Foreign Office has increased its responses to human rights abuses emerging from denial of freedom of religion or belief by state and non-state actors.

However, there is still a substantial gap in UK responses to issues of ethno-religious conflict not only in the Middle East but across Africa and south Asia. I sense that western Europe has woken up abruptly to religion as an intrinsic aspect of developments in the world. Have the UK Government evaluated whether their structures have the relevant expertise in analysing the dynamic relationship between religion, conflict, democracy, peace and stability so that we are equipped to offer timely policy proposals and guidance to policymakers? The Foreign Office has taken the challenge on board to engage with religion and human rights issues and offers religious literacy training to its staff. Has this model spread across our Government?

The UK’s primary agency in addressing conflicts, peace and state building, DfID, seems to be lagging behind. DfID has substantial resources and a pool of highly educated staff, and there is synergy between the Ministry of Defence, DfID and the FCO in the conflict stabilisation unit. Does this unit have the expertise, training and programming focus on how the UK should understand and respond to increasingly religious-related challenges in today’s world? Developing such a response will not add any substantial burden to either staffing or budget but would be a good step in the right direction by providing relevant training to staff and inviting external experts as advisers.

This is not an optional extra for UK engagement with the world but a grounded response to a world that is deeply religious—more than 80% of the world’s population has a religious affiliation and identity—and where religious actors, organisations, languages and ideas play a major role in preventing conflicts but also creating new ones. This speech may remind your Lordships of debates at university student unions entitled, “Does religion cause war?”, but at our peril we do not ask, or equip ourselves to answer, the converse question, “How do wars affect religions and religious people?”.

14:38

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, very much appreciate the balanced and impressive way in which the noble Lord, Lord Risby, introduced this debate. Just as he said, the Arab spring came as a complete surprise, and the terrible winter that has followed seems to have caught most people unawares, too.

It is not impossible to imagine that we will see the establishment of an extreme fundamentalist Islamic state across a large swathe of the Middle East within a few years; and if you think that this will be dangerous for the West and a severe threat to many countries in the Middle East, then just imagine what it must mean for that 15 or 20 mile-wide narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean coast known as Israel.

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a burning issue that desperately needs resolving but it is hard to credit the idea of some that this is the cause of all the rest of the problems in the Middle East. But it is undoubtedly the case that the rise of ISIS, the unstable situation in Egypt, and a nuclear Iran all have a marked influence on Israel and the Palestinians as they search for peace. There should be no doubt that Israel wants to live in peace with its neighbours; its future is entirely dependent on it. However, it is negotiation between the two parties that is the key there.

Even though the overall shape of what a two-state solution might look like has been clear for some time, nothing is so simple and there are many sticking points. Israeli Government settlement policies are clearly problematic and win them few friends around the world. However, it is clear that the settlement issue is not the only problem or even the main one, as we saw a couple of years ago when there was a freeze on settlements for 10 months in the vain hope that this would bring Mr Abbas back to the table and when, instead, he raised new pre-conditions. The right of return and the status of Jerusalem remain open for discussion and the inability of Mr. Abbas to recognise Israel as a Jewish state is problematic.

From Israel’s point of view it is always the three problems: security, security and security, which now is even more significant as the fundamentalist threat of ISIS looms large just a few miles away. Israelis are all too aware that withdrawal from Gaza and southern Lebanon was immediately followed by the rise of Hamas and Hezbollah, each posing considerable threats with their rockets and missiles, backed up by repeated threats to remove Israel from the face of the earth. Imagine, then, what would happen after a peace deal if Hamas gains power in the West Bank, as is entirely possible. What, too, if the long, currently peaceful, border with Jordan is changed into a severely dangerous one in which an ISIS-driven fundamentalism sweeps across Jordan? Either case would leave extremely antagonistic forces within a mile of Israel’s Parliament and its international airport.

Furthermore, Israel does not view with any equanimity the unstable position in Egypt, with the Muslim Brotherhood overflowing into the Sinai desert along another long, exposed border with Israel. When some say, therefore, that Israel should not be so concerned with security, they clearly cannot have heard the voices of Hamas and others spewing out a rhetoric of death and destruction to Jews in general and Israel in particular. If some suggest that Israel should rely on an international peacekeeping force to act as a buffer, they have not noticed what happened when the UN forces in the Golan were captured recently and had to flee, or the ineffectiveness of the UN in southern Lebanon in preventing the build-up of huge numbers of long-range missiles in the villages there. Nor do international bodies now seem to be capable of preventing the avowed aims of Hamas to rearm and rebuild its tunnels into Israel.

Of course, Israel has its own problems, with many within Israel voicing strong opposition to government policies. But the point here is that it is a democratic, multicultural society, where almost a quarter of its population is Arab and, somewhat surprisingly, there is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood among its Arab-elected Members of Parliament. Opposing views are frequently and vehemently expressed without fear of being shot, as happened recently in Gaza when a dozen citizens were dragged out of a mosque and shot in the head for daring to voice opposition to Hamas. The terrible, tragic loss of civilian life in the recent conflict in Gaza was greeted with distress by many in Israel, but when accusations of “proportionality” are levelled, they wonder why similar accusations are not being levelled against the West when, in our efforts to bomb ISIS, we are killing large numbers of women and children in Syria and Iraq. Where is the proportionality there—or, indeed, in Kosovo a few years ago?

Israeli society is far from uniform and has very mixed views about its conflict with the Palestinians. However, the vast majority believe that the Palestinians should have a state of their own, and that can happen only through negotiation with Israel. After all, each party is most concerned with what their neighbour will look like; where their borders will be; whether they will choose conflict or peace; or what position they will adopt about Jerusalem. Only negotiation with Israel will do it. It is negotiation that we should be pressing on both Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas, not encouraging a vain search for a status from a world that is in no position to grant it.

We in the UK should be seeking allies in the Middle East that Britain sorely needs. What conversations are our Government having with the Jordanians, the Egyptians and the Saudi Arabians about their reactions to the jihadi threats? Qatar seems to be playing a particularly cynical and dangerous role in all this mix and mayhem. What reassurances did the Prime Minister receive in his recent conversations with the Emir of Qatar about the funding of terrorist groups in ISIS, Hamas and Hezbollah?

I hope that the Minister will expand on these questions and on the Government’s position on the Palestine and Israel negotiations.

14:44

[Lord Sheikh (Con)]

My Lords, today I would like to focus particularly on the role of Islam in the conflicts we are seeing in the Middle East. I believe that it is important for the honest, peace-seeking, law-abiding majority of Muslims in this country and overseas to speak out against those who commit evil in the name of our religion. The so-called jihadists in Iraq and Syria do not understand the principles of Islam. They are harming women and children, forcibly converting people of other religions to Islam and committing barbaric acts. There are clear rules of engagement in Islam relating to warfare, which were laid down by Prophet Muhammad—peace be upon him—and Caliph Abu Bakr.

Those rules include the following: give diplomacy a chance before battle starts; respect treaties; do not harm women, children, the elderly and religious persons; do not destroy crops and trees; protect all places of worship; treat well all prisoners of war; and allow the bodies of soldiers slain in battle to be buried in dignity. These rules of engagement were laid down well before the Geneva conventions. The acts of the so-called jihadists are totally unIslamic and we utterly condemn what they have done and are doing.

In the 7th century when Muslims conquered Jerusalem, Caliph Omar signed the first Jerusalem declaration, which preserved the rights of existence and ensured the well-being of everyone in Jerusalem. Subsequently, when Saladin conquered Jerusalem in 1187, he allowed people of all faiths to live in peace. Before him, when Christians conquered Jerusalem in 1099, they mercilessly massacred all Muslims and Jews. In time of warfare Muslims should follow the examples set by Caliph Omar and Saladin.

The so-called jihadists are forcibly converting people to Islam. That is not allowed in Islam. It is written in the Holy Koran that there is no compulsion in religion. In regard to treatment of non-Muslims by the so-called jihadists and our relationship with other communities, I emphasise that it is written in the Holy Koran that Allah says:

“O mankind! We created you male and female and made you nations and tribes, that you may know one another”.

We live in the United Kingdom, which is very much a multicultural society, and it is important that we maintain and strengthen relationships with everyone in the country. Unfortunately there is a tiny minority of Muslims who have committed acts of terrorism in the United Kingdom and also countries overseas. Islam forbids act of terrorism and suicide bombings. It is written in the Holy Koran:

“If anyone killed a person … it would be as if he killed the whole of mankind; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole of mankind”.

In regard to our military involvement in Iraq and Syria we must have a clear plan about what we should do when the conflict is over. Defeating an enemy is not enough; we must have a strategy to win the hearts and minds of people and create peace after the conflict. We invaded Iraq without an effective plan to be put in practice when Saddam Hussein was defeated. What was the result? The result was that a million people have died and we have created fragmentation and division between different communities and religious groups. It has led also to infighting between the Iraqis and the involvement of outsiders. I am pleased that we now have an inclusive Government in Iraq.

In regard to the present military conflict, we need to be careful who we supply the arms to. The situation is complex and the scenario is changing. The arms may fall into the hands of people who may create further problems in Syria, Iraq and friendly countries such as Turkey. In regard to Libya, there was no clear strategy after Gaddafi was toppled, and infighting and chaotic conditions prevail at the present time.

A tiny minority of young Muslims in the United Kingdom have chosen to join terrorist groups overseas. These young people have been radicalised. Parents, community and religious leaders have a role to play in ensuring that individuals do not fall prey to extremists’ teachings. We must listen and communicate with the younger generation and gently put them right in order that they can follow the right path. We need to ensure that the imams are appropriately trained and can effectively communicate with the young. In this regard, I commend the courses being started by the University of East London.

A pattern has emerged whereby a growing number of individuals are being radicalised via the internet. Scotland Yard deserves praise for creating an internet referral unit that liaises directly with online companies such as Google in removing extremist material from the web. There also needs to be constructive parental involvement in the education of Muslim children. The students must receive a well rounded education in order to succeed in their future careers in the country.

We must maintain and strengthen the harmonious relationship between the Armed Forces and the Muslim community. I am actively involved in promoting this, both on the ground and at the various meetings that I have addressed. I am committed to this cause; in fact, I am wearing a Royal Navy tie given to me by Commander Richard Moss after a recent talk I gave at HMS “President”. I am also hosting a meeting on this subject in this House in three weeks’ time.

Finally, on a different subject, I should like the British Government to now recognise the statehood of Palestine as a prelude to achieving peace in the region. I ask my noble friend the Minister to comment on this point.

14:52

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, the misnamed “Arab spring” has not yielded the arrival of democratic government, the rule of law and human rights anywhere in the region. In Palestine, as we know, creeping occupation of the West Bank makes a two-state solution increasingly implausible. In Iraq, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, one sees the legacy of the misguided 2003 invasion by Anglo-US forces. Now the state has lost one-third of its territory to the Daesh. In Egypt, the brief period of Muslim Brotherhood rule was marked by political ineptitude and repression, leading back to domination by a military strongman. The removal of Gaddafi produced anarchy, and now disputed sovereignty between the east and west of the country. Syria was already suffering a devastating civil war when the Daesh erupted onto the scene.

The actual revolutions in the region have led to far worse conditions for ordinary people; peaceful transitions, which may take far longer, are the right way forward. In Tunisia, mentioned earlier, the moderate Islamist Ennahda party of Rached Ghannouchi, who lived here in exile for 20 years, lost the election this week to secularists in a peaceful transition. The same could still happen in Algeria and Morocco, where the leaderships talk about reform, although the pace is leaden.

The Gulf states have followed a completely different path. All are ruled by hereditary autocracies, and only in Bahrain has there been an opposition with mass popular support. The response of the ruling family has been to impose long prison sentences on the most effective political and human rights activists, to violently suppress peaceful demonstrations, to deprive people of their citizenship without due process, to recruit a large number of foreign Sunni security personnel and grant them nationality in a medium-term plan to outnumber the native Shia population, and to invite in troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE in an unsuccessful attempt to cow the people into submission.

Our Government say that they raise human rights violations with the Bahrain authorities, but they do it sotto voce, going along with the fake reforms initiated by the rulers. This is a country where the Prime Minister, who is the King’s uncle, has been in office for more than 40 years, and the King appoints all the Ministers. The judges, too, are appointed by the Government; so the rule of law is absent. There is a rigged Parliament.

Saudi Arabia played a key role in the creation of the Daesh, as Patrick Cockburn demonstrates in his book The Jihadis Return. It tried to stop its citizens from travelling to Syria only in February when it realised that the supreme target of the jihadists was Saudi Arabia itself. If the Daesh could usurp the title, “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”, its claim to be the successor of the caliphate would be enormously enhanced.

We need to point out that in funding mosques abroad, particularly in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia is promoting an ideology that carries within it the seeds of terrorism. As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, pointed out, Qatar and Kuwait are joining in the funding of terrorist operations. The Daesh can probably be eradicated so that it no longer has a territorial base, but the organisation and its ideology can and does metastasise; it already has footholds elsewhere in the region and well beyond, particularly in south Asia. It even has tentacles in the UK, as we see from the 500 young people who are said to have abandoned their families here to join the brutal and inhuman heretics in Syria.

The US has woken up to the importance of saving Kobane, recognising. as the New York Times wrote, that the fall of the city would show the fragility of the American plan, and put the Daesh in a position to cross the border and directly threaten a NATO ally. It would also facilitate the flow of terrorists into Europe and, of course, the UK in particular. As a result of the US policy reversal, arms and humanitarian supplies have been airdropped, as I suggested in our debate on October 14.

The first contingent of Peshmergas from Iraq arrived yesterday with artillery and mortars to reinforce Kobane. Ankara is said to have demanded that for any extension of this programme the coalition should also attack Assad. However, because the Syrian armed forces are the only large-scale provider of boots on the ground against the Daesh we need a reappraisal of the attempts to change the regime in Damascus, as the noble Lord, Lord Wright, advised. This is not my party’s policy but simply acceptance of the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

I hope that at the end of this debate we shall hear not only of plans to join the US in supplying humanitarian goods and arms to the heroic defenders of Kobane, but that we have in train a strategy to combat the much wider threat from a false doctrine of murder and religious cleansing that the Daesh espouses. At the same time, we must demonstrate to the Arab people that we are sympathetic to their needs.

I congratulate Sir Alan Duncan MP on his appointment as special envoy to Yemen, an FCO “country of concern” and the poorest state in the Middle East. Yemen is probably not going to meet any of the millennium development goals; it has a weak economy, poor social services, high population growth and internal conflicts that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. In spite of these challenging conditions, in 2012, with the help of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation—to which the UK is also a major contributor—Yemen introduced vaccination for rotavirus, which causes extreme diarrhoea and accounts for 11% of under-fives’ deaths there. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Child Health and Vaccine Preventable Diseases, of which I am co-chair, suggests that DfID should now assess how the vaccination system in Yemen should be integrated with the WASH agenda—programmes on clean water, sanitation and hygiene—and with the eradication of infant malnutrition as part of its post-2015 development master plan.

15:00

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Risby for bringing the attention of the House to this critically important region. The current turmoil sweeping across the Middle East to North Africa is blighting communities across the region, with the resulting insecurity causing terror and chaos to men, women and children everywhere it touches. While clearly the suffering is felt by all, when we watch the news on television, we see and hear almost exclusively from the men in these countries. I would like to draw your Lordships’ attention to the significant and disproportionate impact these events are having on the women in these countries and therefore on the children, too.

Warfare is by its nature a male-dominated activity. But today war is not fought by armies on a battlefield; it is fought in communities where women are more physically vulnerable and thus less able to defend themselves and their children. It is a chilling fact that today nearly 90% of war casualties are civilians, the majority of whom are women and children. When conflict sweeps through a country, it is the women who are left struggling to care for their children amid the danger and the chaos. Of course, the men are victims, too, and many millions of widows and wives of the disappeared have been created in countries like Syria and Iraq, where it is so difficult to survive as a woman on your own. All too often in these places rape is used as a weapon of war. I sit on the steering board of William Hague’s ending sexual violence in conflict initiative and I would like to pay great tribute to him for his ground-breaking work on shining a light on this terrible war crime that shatters lives and communities.

Many countries across the region have an embedded patriarchal culture, but over the past decades progress has been made in many places, with more women receiving education and holding down professional jobs. However, the turbulent events of the past few years have caused this progress to stall. Initially, the Arab spring offered so much hope for this momentum of progress for women to be built on, with the central role that women played in these uprisings being viewed as something of a watershed. However, the sad reality is that, since 2011, there have been substantial increases in the security and safety concerns experienced by women across the region.

A report by Saferworld in October 2013 concluded that across Egypt, Libya and Yemen, women are facing targeted violence and encountering harassment, sexual assault and slander, all on a regular basis. Not least, they faced the mass harassment and public rapes that occurred during demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo that were widely reported across the world. These incidents took place while others looked on, and the women were often blamed simply for being there or for what they were wearing. Across the region the presence of women in public spaces has been decreased and their rights are rolling backwards. I was shocked when I met a Tunisian former parliamentarian here in Westminster two weeks ago. Her head was covered—something that would have very rarely been seen in Tunisia before the revolution.

In Syria, many of the women were too frightened to remain alone once their husbands had gone to fight. According to the UNHCR, over the past three years 2.8 million people have had to flee the terrible civil war there. Nearly four in five of them are women and children, many penniless and without support. Visiting Lebanon last year, I met some of these refugees—it was indeed a harrowing experience. In the Shatila Palestinian camp in Beirut one woman wept as she told me that she had had to marry off her very young daughter because she could not afford to feed her. Another told me that her 16 year-old son had head injuries from shrapnel and the hospital would not treat him because she could not pay. I do not think I will ever forget the sight of a woman in the Bekaa Valley struggling to look after her seven children in a makeshift tent, or the mother who approached us, hopeful that one of us was a doctor, as she had a very sick baby and there was no medical care.

Nowhere are these challenges more evident than in the current conflict with ISIS across Iraq and Syria. The United Nations has stated that women are being explicitly targeted in what are obvious war crimes and crimes against humanity. In particular, as has been mentioned before, women from the Yazidi and other minority groups have been subject to barbaric acts of sexual violence, used against them and their families. Iraq’s only Yazidi Member of Parliament has recently reported how IS militants are kidnapping, raping and selling Yazidi women. They are taken away, in some cases across the border to Syria, provided to militants as “brides”, and often raped and sold on to fund the terrorist cause. There are even reports of women committing suicide to avoid such sexual enslavement.

The UN has also previously reported that women and girls in Mosul were being ordered to undergo female genital mutilation. There seems to be very little acknowledgement of all this from the international community. When we are deliberating about our strategy for engaging in military action, is consideration being given to the potential impact on women and children?

With specific regard to Iraq, it is crucial that we are proactively talking to the women and civil society on the ground where the air strikes are taking place, to ensure that we are not making life even more difficult for them. I would be grateful for the Minister’s clarification in this respect. Of course the current situation there is extremely complex and difficult, but surely it is important to involve women in negotiations to help find solutions, because security needs to be found for all.

Women can be powerful agents of change in their communities, and this needs to be properly acknowledged and capitalised on. I hope that our Government will lead the way in ensuring that women’s voices will be heard and in setting new, higher standards in accountability with regard to women across the Middle East and North Africa and ultimately embrace them as a pivotal part of resolving the ongoing conflicts, ensuring that they are at the heart of any new political settlements.

15:00

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, my interests are declared in the register, most notably a recent visit to Bahrain, funded by the Bahraini Government, from which we produced the report in my hand, which I will happily make available to any Member of this House. It was written by myself and the other four members of the visiting group, from both Houses, and published by the noble Lord, Lord Noon. It is an important item, to which I want to return. Before I do, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Risby, on this debate. I know of his great interest in Syria and the tragedy there. He will, I think, know that Assad was a constituent of mine and I always feel that this is something of a reflection on me, but I am not sure how real that is.

We are debating the Middle East generally. When I have taken part in debates before, we have often talked about the region in terms of gloom and doom. There is a lot of gloom and doom and some of the speeches today have been very powerful, most notably, that of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, who made an excellent speech and is a great loss to the Front Bench—it probably will not do her any good for me to say so–not least because she always mastered her brief. That is a big plus for any Minister from any political party. None of that reflects on the current holder of the post, I hasten to add.

All is not gloom and doom and I want to focus my remaining comments on two countries: Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, part of the Emirates. I was interested in Bahrain because it had an enormous flair up of trouble in 2011. Bahrain is in what many people would describe as an impossible geopolitical situation. It is joined as an island by a causeway to Saudi Arabia. Just across the gulf is Iran. A very large section of the population of Bahrain—some would argue up to 80%—are Shia. The Government, or the royal family, are largely seen as Sunni, although to the king’s great credit, he said to me when I discussed this with him that he saw himself as a Muslim and not as a Sunni or a Shia. I respect that and I know that he is trying to hold a difficult balance. I also know that since the ayatollah took over in Iran in 1979, the gulf between Sunni and Shia, which was always there, has been greatly aggravated and I fear that younger generations identify themselves much more as Sunni and Shia.

Following the riots in 2011, the Bahraini Government set up the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, with some very significant international figures running it. An independent report was produced and the recommendations made in it were all accepted by the Government, although the problem is that of translating them into reality. I think that the Government are doing a good job. If anyone doubts that, I would ask them to read my report and challenge or question it where necessary. What I felt was so positive about it was something that I have been arguing for over the past 10 to 15 years. I began to realise that the rule of law is infinitely more important to many of these countries than democracy. In the past it has been a mistake on the part of the West to think that somehow or other we can hand democracy out on a plate; we cannot. What people in these countries are often looking for, apart from jobs and a decent economy, is justice and fairness. The rule of law is what brings that about. It is important.

The Bahraini Government are focusing on that and we were all very impressed by the efforts being made both within the prisons and outside with the police and the judiciary to modernise their approach. I do not have the time to do so, but I could give the House the details of a number of things they are doing that make me feel confident that they are moving in the right direction. However, we must recognise that this has to be a slow movement. It is not easy for them because the proposals that the king and other members of the Government have made are not universally accepted throughout Bahrain. There is opposition to them and I was very sorry to see that members of al-Wefaq, the main opposition society but what we would call a political party, have actually resigned and refused to take their seats. Yet this is a country which has introduced universal suffrage for elections to the Council of Representatives for everyone over the age of 20. Obviously there are shortcomings in the structure, but I will say, as I said to members of al-Wefaq who I hope to see again shortly, that if they do not take part, they simply aggravate the position. They do not make it better. That is an important message and we in this House should be doing all we can to help the Bahraini Government with these matters. I hope that at some stage we might be able to offer a bit of help to some of these elected representatives on how to work with Select Committees and so on.

I also want to mention the role of Bahraini women, which brings me neatly on to Abu Dhabi because in both cases the role of women is rapidly improving. I met a number of women judges in Abu Dhabi and often the greater number of people attending classes at the university are women. They are becoming increasingly important to the economy and in society. The reason I got involved with Abu Dhabi was because I had a battle with the authorities over what I thought was probably an injustice which should have been resolved by the rule of law, but it was not. As a result, and to their credit, they asked what I would suggest. I said that a postgraduate course should be established in the university and that because the injustice had involved a Palestinian, there should be some outreach to Palestine. I am pleased to say that there is now a course at the University of Zayed being taken by some 26 Palestinians who are being funded in all ways by the Government of Abu Dhabi. I did that with the help of the head of mission for Palestine here and the British Foreign Office, which has been immensely helpful both here and in Palestine.

I hope that the course is continuing, although I have to say that I need to check on it again. However, I am pretty confident that it will do so. I tried to persuade the university to host an annual lecture on the rule of law, but I probably failed on that. There was one lecture but we have not had another. That is because one of the things I want to say—I will end on this note—is that if we can get people over there talking about the importance of the rule of law in order to bring about stability and allow the freedom to expand progressively, we will do a very great deal for the region without sounding too judgmental in how we speak about it.

15:14

[Lord Weidenfeld (CB)]

My Lords, there are serious fissures in the worldwide alliance against ISIS and new hurdles in the sluggish race for peace in Palestine. History repeats itself with terrifying precision. Seventy years ago, the Warsaw rising of Poland’s military elite was brutally suppressed by the SS and the Wehrmacht. It lasted for 63 days and claimed nearly 250,000 victims. Yet in all that time, the Red Army stood idly by just across the Vistula. Anglo-American requests for aerial landing places were gruffly rejected.

Now, 70 years later, the Prime Minister of Turkey, Erdogan, an authoritarian Islamist who all but dismantled the western and secular republic of Kemal Ataturk, at first denied his NATO allies air landing rights and land access, and refused to help the gallant Kurds defend Kobane against the ISIS hordes. Temporary and partial relief at America’s persistent urging was ultimately conceded, and it must be hoped that it is not too late. The Turkish leader apparently disapproves of the Kurdish defenders more than he does the barbarous ISIS, whose ambitious plans for an Islamic caliphate extending over most of the Middle East is of course a thorn in his flesh. But he distrusts the Kurds as he fears that they are on their way to achieving sovereignty. All this bodes rather ill for NATO, where Turkey fields the second largest army, and indeed it bodes ill for Europe.

Nor is the attitude of other Muslim allies towards ISIS quite clear. It can be assumed that the reigning families of oil, gas and cash-rich countries such as Qatar support the American-led alliance, yet hugely rich individuals and groups in those countries are known to finance ISIS quite substantially. We have the absurd and surreal situation in which money flows from Qatar at the same time to pay for cultural programmes on American television networks and vivisection on the Mesopotamian battlefields. Reliable sources such as refugee priests relate that some of the female slaves of ISIS from their Christian communities end up in harems or worse in member countries—I repeat: member countries—of the anti-ISIS alliance.

It may be worth mentioning that there is now a Jewish initiative to provide help on a significant scale for persecuted Christian children in the embattled territories of the Middle East. They are to be given shelter in Christian homes in the free world, in the spirit of Pope John Paul Wojtyla’s famous verdict: the Jew is the older brother of the church. I feel that there are indeed links between the war against ISIS and the peace of Palestine. The campaign to recognise a Palestinian state prior to conventional negotiations between the parties, with a definite view to establishing peace and reaching a viable two-state solution, is an extremely dangerous and negative development because, in spite of what the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, said earlier, it puts Hamas, a terrorist organisation, into the limelight, rendering it a decisive factor, when it is indisputably and recently on record as saying that it wishes to destroy the Jewish state of Israel. Its joining of the Cabinet of the more moderate Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has already caused a stiffening of attitude and coarsening of language on his part. Far from bringing the parties closer together, this widens the gulf and encourages intransigence on both sides.

The Gaza campaign was not a routine punitive expedition. To Israelis, it was an existential necessity to prevent the ever-increasing and increasingly effective rocket campaign from burgeoning into a decisive war, endangering major cities and the country’s one main airport. Those of us who lived through the Second World War know what aerial warfare can mean and what it meant to people living in Coventry, Berlin and Dresden; they will understand what has happened in Gaza. That Hamas did not hesitate to practise a policy of human shields cannot be denied. I have been shown the layout of a typical residential house in Gaza where the roof had special facilities for snipers, the ground floor ample space for arms and the cellar extended into tunnels, ready for a breakout of jihadists. In between those were two, or sometimes even three, residential floors housing families with several children. To exculpate Hamas from risking human lives is an absurdity when you consider its constant reliance on suicide bombing, where so often parents send their own children up into the air. There must be other ways of bringing the parties to the conference table than presenting one side with a fait accompli.

Many unsung examples of serious economic and social initiatives between Israelis and Palestinians exist, and could be greatly expanded. There is still much good will, and a majority for a negotiated peace and a two-state solution, among the people of Israel. While today war is raging in large parts of the Middle East, Israel’s military situation is safe. There are also, as we have heard before, signs of serious rethinking in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco about the future of the Middle East. We in Europe, and particularly here in Britain, should support and guide all forms and forces of conciliation.

15:21

[Lord Selsdon (Con)]

My Lords, I am very privileged to follow the noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld, and to welcome him back to the House. I have always been in some ways one of his pupils. All that I have known about Israel has come out of his mouth in one form or another.

I suffer from a difficulty here. For many years I was chairman of the Committee for Middle East Trade. I thought that in this great debate we would be talking more about trade. It seems that nobody has mentioned this at all. The Middle East as such is one of our greatest potential markets. As is written in the Koran, it is the duty of every good Muslim to trade. When I was that committee’s chairman, it was long before the Government decided to get rid of the Board of Trade and change the name of everything to a word that I cannot remember—it is called BIS, which is totally inexplicable to many people abroad. We have to look at our balance of payments and our trade with the Middle East, which has been considerable.

We have not really mentioned today oil revenues from the Middle East countries, and their application and use. Turning to Iraq, I have one suggestion that was made to me when I was last there on my own: what could we do to re-establish NIOC, or the equivalent of the National Iranian Oil Company, which could be one of the biggest oil companies and for a brief period was partially owned, I believe, by the United States, BP and others. With the potential production of oil in Iraq, vast funds could be released and applied in an appropriate direction.

The same is true to some extent of the countries of north Africa—even moving right across to Mauritania, which is one of the biggest iron ore-producing countries in the world. We have made no mention today of their oil revenues or purchasing powers. We look too at the co-operation that could exist between Libya, Algeria and, through them, with France.

How can we help develop and finance trade with the Middle East that can produce the revenues that it may need to rebuild various disabled societies? It is not too difficult. With the ability of the ECGD and some of the government grants, there are great opportunities. The difficulty is that when there is fear about personal security, people are reluctant to travel.

The Koran, as I said, says that it is the duty of every good Muslim to trade. Trade therefore is important, but it seems not to be mentioned any more. It is as though trade in this country has gone below the salt. We have organisations that one cannot necessarily understand, such as the one spelt BIS, but for the international world trade becomes more important. It is the lifeblood of the United Kingdom. Our ability to fund things is quite significant. Within the United Kingdom we have resources of finance that are second to none in the world. Our difficulty is how to identify the projects that we need to pursue.

I have one simple example. I got into trouble one day when we had what was called the Salman Rushdie affair. I was asked if I would be willing to go to Iraq. I was chairman of the Committee for Middle East Trade and I assume the Government could not think of anyone who would be allowed to go. I went to see the Iraqi ambassador, who did not want to see me. Still, I pressed the buzzer outside and asked, “Ambassador, if you are listening, I have been asked if I could go to Baghdad—do you think that this is a good time?” I waited a moment and got an answer, which was “Your Excellency, the answer is yes”.

I got on a British Airways plane and went off to Baghdad. Half way through the flight the pilot, who was a New Zealander, came down and sat beside me, and said, “Well, sir, we have a bit of a problem. We have just had a message from headquarters that the Prime Minister in his office in the House of Commons is seeing Salman Rushdie. Is this going to cause you any problems? You are the only British subject on board. If you like we could turn the plane round and go back”.

One can be a coward without having to admit it. The plane got in touch with the Foreign Office, and the Foreign Office said that all was quiet there and we found that the ambassador was at the residence, which is outside Iraq. I supposed that I had better go. The plane said that I would be surrounded with British Airways staff when we get there. I asked, “Are they all British?” The answer was that none of them was.

I went out of the plane, rushed through, and was waved through straightaway. They all seemed to know that I was coming. I then met a hooded lady—I would call her a singing nun—who looked me up and down, and she said: “Hello, Malcolm. How nice to see you. How is your sister Gail?” I never knew who she was, but apparently they had been in the same lacrosse team some time before. The next thing that I knew is that I was sent off up to Isfahan in a private plane to sit with the mayor who wanted to know if we could help with the beautification of the city. It did not have any roses, and roses were important. He then introduced a fining system. This was with British technology from London. People were fined a duck if they exceeded the speed limit, or stood upon a tree or a rose bed.

I found that I had a new vision of Iraq. In looking down at the things that they had done, I believed that it could be one of our great partners; there was a certain pro-British feeling about it. The same is true, even these days, in Sudan and in north Africa. The relationship that we have with so many of these countries is something upon which we can play.

I am grateful that this debate has taken place and I hope that action can be taken by the Government.

15:27

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

My Lords, they often say that in history if one avoids taking anecdotal experience and making it a generalisation, one is wise because it is dangerous to do so. There are many occasions when that it is true. But there are some occasions when the reverse is true.

I had the great honour and privilege of being one of the European Community official observers in the South African elections in 1994. I visited township polling stations—this was the first time that they had been set up. I went to posh polling stations in the white suburbs in Cape Town and Johannesburg. The clerk in charge of an important polling station in Weinberg, a wealthy Cape Town suburb that some colleagues in the House will know, was hard pressed because the other staff had not got there due to transport difficulties. The phone rang. He was dealing with people who were coming in to get their ballot papers. He asked me if I would answer the phone, and told me that there should be no politics; I should just give them the time of polling and the time that the station closed, and any other technical details.

A very grand, English-sounding voice in Weinberg said in rather a fierce way, “Young man, I do not know who you are, but I am coming down to vote in a general election today, as usual”. This woman had been told what she called a “very funny thing”: someone had told her that her maid could come down and vote as well. I replied, “Yes, madam—bring her down”. The woman asked: “What, in the same car?” I told her to bring her down in the same car if she was coming by car. She then asked: “Do you mean, through the same entrance?” I told her to come through the same entrance with the maid. She asked: “Are you sure?” I replied yes. I had been observing the scene, with voters coming in—black voters as well, registered to vote for the first time—and an hour and a quarter later this lady came in and thanked me for the advice. But she came in through the one entrance, arm-in-arm with her maid. The scales had fallen from her eyes. The anxiety, the fear of apartheid, had left her at that very moment. They went out good friends and they remained good friends afterwards, people who considered themselves equal for the first time—she was quite an elderly lady; it was a remarkable transformation—under the new law of a society that had been transformed by the intelligence, energy and long-range view of de Klerk, who was amazingly brave in that situation, coming together with the wonderful, heroic Nelson Mandela.

How do you achieve breakthroughism in the terrible continuing turmoil of Israel-Palestine, which is one of the main themes of today’s debate, because it is poisoning the atmosphere in both Israel and Palestine? I speak as a long-standing friend of Israel, ever since I first went there in 1970, with many years’ experience; with impeccable credentials, if I may add, as a person getting Soviet Jews out of the Soviet Union to make the Aliyah to Israel—some went to the United States instead; very unwisely, of course, but there it is—and helping them in other things as well. I dealt with the anniversary of the Kindertransport in Harrow, where we had a big commemoration with the Home Office Minister of State in those days, now the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, who is not here today. Such things are wonderful occasions of reminiscence and memorialising all the suffering of the Jewish people and the reason for the existence of the state of Israel.

However, at the same time, there are two states there, two countries—and I call Palestine a country already; its recognition is long overdue. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, for her comments on this matter, and embarrass her by praising her immense courage in leaving the Government because of the dreadful events in Gaza and the killing of large numbers of civilians, including many, many children. Break- throughism is possible if the people in those two great countries—Palestine smaller than Israel, of course, physically and in population—have the courage to seize the moment and come together in a dynamic future.

The main move has to come from the established state—the state of Israel—because that is more powerful than the weak, ailing semi-state of Palestine, struggling to become a state as soon as possible, with still a lower population if you take out Gaza for the moment. That can be done. I believe sincerely that it will be done. Israel is a wonderful country with a wonderful people but it has a lousy Government. This is the tragedy of the moment. They are not so much a lousy Government on internal matters—although there are some people in Israel on low incomes who complain about the economic situation there as well; so that shows it is a normal country—but the leaders and the foreign policy, in the need to seek reconciliation and friendship with the Palestinians, do not make the necessary moves.

Israel’s leaders must remove the poison of the settlements. I am very glad that the pro-Israeli speakers in this debate—the noble Lords, Lord Mitchell, Lord Turnberg and Lord Leigh, who is not here now—have referred to that as well. That must be dealt with; otherwise, there will be no movement. Israel is quite rightly an unbeatable state militarily. It has to be to protect its own citizens. But once you are the unbeatable military state, you have the strength to negotiate with the weaker partner and offer concessions. That is the solemn truth facing the Israeli leaders. Are they capable of facing up to it? Will they reach for the challenge as de Klerk and Mandela did in South Africa?

There should not be another comparison between South Africa and Israel-Palestine but there is, and this is my final comment. The Israeli settlement policy started by Sharon as Housing Minister, was a fatal, big mistake and lots of Israelis are upset about it and say so in Haaretz and B’Tselem and all those other very virtuous groups and newspapers in Israel that speak the truth about that country and its future survival and existence. Together they must now reach for the first step to accommodate the Palestinians by saying that the settlements will be removed, or, if some stay, they will be negotiated in free negotiations between the two. The Palestinians cannot respond as the weaker partner unless Israeli leaders do that. I do not think Mr Lieberman is capable of it; I am not sure about Netanyahu. I have my severe doubts. I do not think he is really, but there are others in that coalition grouping in Israel who are capable of these things. It is increasingly what the Israeli people know in their heart of hearts.

In an article I wrote six months ago for the English language quarterly newspaper in Berlin, the Jewish Voice From Germany, I paid tribute to the unique, magisterial contribution of the Jewish community to the welfare and the social, economic and financial development of this country. It is a very small community—only 300,000-plus people now, much smaller than our Muslim population coming from all different countries—but because it did that, it is revered and respected and so will the Israeli Government leaders be revered and respected if they come together with the Palestinians. It can be done, and once they do shake hands and become friends, the two dynamic territories working together to create a near east common market, that transformation will be much quicker than anybody here can imagine.

15:35

[Lord Kalms (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, for almost two decades, one piece of received wisdom in particular has hovered over the subject we are discussing today. It has been received as wisdom in many departments of state and successive Governments of all political persuasions, as well as the Governments of many of our closest allies and friends. That piece of perceived wisdom is that all the problems of the region, all the troubles and challenges of north Africa and the Middle East, would be solved by a final border arrangement between the Government of Israel and that of the Palestinians.

That idea—that Israel is the key to unlocking all the problems of the region—was always absurd, not least because it ignored all the other terrible problems of the region. Would Yemen’s economy really boom if only Israel and the Palestinians came to a final status agreement? Would Saudi Arabia or Iran immediately become governed by nice, secular democrats? To ask the question is to answer it. The claim was absurd. Desirable though a final status agreement would be, it has nothing to do with the real and deep-seated problems of the region.

If we ever doubted that—and for years very significant figures in authority did—the beginnings of the Arab spring should have answered us. For when that happened, when the people of the region began to rise up against the tyrants of the region, they had many demands. The most potent were that they wanted a say in their own future; they wanted to share in the wealth, including the natural resources of their countries; and they wanted to have opportunities, a future and a say in how they were governed.

Of course, we know how badly much of that went. We know that in many cases those protesters were simply gunned down, imprisoned, tortured, executed or otherwise disappeared. We know that in some cases the revolutions were stolen from the liberals, who were too weak, by the extremists, who were too strong. In other cases, fragile, careful states have emerged. We will see how they do. But of all the crowds that came out, from Tunisia to Yemen and beyond, not one protested about Israel. Not one came out demanding a resolution in East Jerusalem. They came out asking for the rights that we in the West tend to take for granted but which they often seem light years away from achieving.

So what is the problem for the region? What are the solutions? They are not easy. In particular, there is no one key or one lock that will somehow magically address all the problems of a deeply troubled region. But if solutions are thin on the ground, they will at least become easier to comprehend if we accept one of the major factors of the region, which no discussion such as this can truthfully be held without—radical Islam. This year alone has presented an unusual amount of evidence to suggest that one of the overwhelming problems—if not the overwhelming problem—of the region is that presented by Islamic fundamentalism.

Earlier this year, we saw Boko Haram abducting hundreds of Christian girls in northern Nigeria for the crime of going to school and not obeying a fundamentalist Islamist interpretation which demands that girls must not undergo anything but an Islamist semi-education. Shortly afterwards, Hamas started the latest phase in its interminable and genocidal war against the world’s only Jewish state. Later in the summer, we watched as ISIS rampaged across Syria and Iraq, massacring, beheading and crucifying people as they went—not just anybody but all Muslims who do not share their fundamentalist worldview, Yazidis who refuse to convert to Islam, and all Christians who refuse to give up their faith and submit to Allah.

Sometimes it is Christians, sometimes Jews, sometimes Yazidis and very often it is other Muslims, but what we are seeing across north Africa, the Middle East and further afield is the same pattern. I do not say that these fundamentalist movements have everything in common: they often have disagreements. For instance, ISIS and Hezbollah are fighting each other in Syria, but they have far more in common than in difference. We cannot even begin to address the problems in the region unless we recognise that what we are dealing with is not simple. It is not about the old paradigms; it is about a region covered in many problems that can be helped on to the right track only if we—and they— admit to what they are up against. If we tackle the dominance of radical Islam, the region about which we are talking at least stands a chance of making a meaningful contribution to the 21st century, rather than retreating to a position more akin to Europe’s situation in the 17th century.

In the mean time, a certain amount of humble pie must be eaten in foreign policy establishments both here and in much of the rest of the world, for recent events have surely shown once and for all that Israel is not the cause of the Middle East's problems. Israel is pluralistic and technically advanced. It is a world leader in medical research and information technology. It is 100% committed to human rights for all its citizens—Christian, Muslim, Arab and Jewish. It extends those rights and advances to its neighbours whenever it has an opportunity to do so. It is a society in which prosperity is shared as much as anywhere else in the world. It is a society with all the complexities of a democratic Government and all the rigours of an independent and powerful supreme court. There is no country in the world that could claim better governance. Yet this is the country in the Middle East that many people have spent recent years trying to defame. So let it be said clearly here, and for all time, that Israel is not the problem for the Middle East. Rather, it is an exemplar and a proof of solutions to those problems.

15:42

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for initiating this most welcome debate. I also declare a long interest in Turkey, stretching back politically over 30 years, so I will start my speech with a word about that country.

There are many misconceptions. First, there seems to be a misconception that the problems between the Kurds and the Turks are of recent origin; they go back at least to Ataturk. Indeed, the present Government in Turkey have initiated discussions with the Kurdish population that have gone some way to solving at least some of the outstanding problems. We must remember that the PKK is still listed as a terrorist organisation by the US, the European Union and NATO as well as by Turkey itself. That therefore adds considerable problems to how Turkey deals with a number of the problems on its border, particularly the problem of Kobane.

Let us be clear: the Turkish Government have spent some $4 billion on aid for refugees in this conflict. They have allowed 200,000 citizens of the Kobane region to come into Turkey to live. Carol Batchelor, the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Turkey, was recently quoted as saying that, when it came to saving lives,

“the UN could not catch up with Turkey”.

They have, in other words, done extremely well with the cards that they have got.

Saving Kobane is part of a much bigger and widespread problem. The present Prime Minister, who was Foreign Minister, and the present President, who was Prime Minister, have both addressed this in great detail. One of the problems that Turkey has is that it seems to have made an enemy of absolutely everybody. It has crucially made an enemy of President Assad. I think that we have to start being realistic about Syria. President Assad presided over a regime that was—shall we say—suboptimal, to be kindest about it. None the less, the country was a damn sight more stable then than it is today. People were not being killed in the streets. It is going to survive because it has the support of Russia and Iran; in the present mix-up in that area of the world, President Assad, I predict, is going to come through in the end. It is in our interests to look at that area and see what we can do to try to help Turkey to get back on good terms with the regime in Syria.

I now turn to another subject in the region, and that is human rights. I know that the Minister has recently received a letter from the TUC—I know because it sent me a copy of it—about the human rights situation in Iran, particularly the rights of trade unionists and workers in Iran. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how the Government propose to respond to that letter, because it seems to me that we have a different view of human rights: it really depends on who is violating them, does it not?

If you look at the British papers, you will see quite rightly the absolute outrage over recent beheadings. We all share that outrage, but somehow the newspapers avoided mentioning—maybe they mentioned it on days I did not read them—that more than 100 people have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia within the past 12 months. I am told by the Foreign Office that it makes quiet representations to Saudi Arabia about this, but those are not doing much good, are they? The Saudis are not taking much notice of these representations. We need to look a little more clearly at having a consistent view on human rights and the way we put our human rights case forward.

In short, we cannot rest back on applying a Treaty of Westphalia system to the rest of the world—that is, the system where you say, “Well, countries can do what they like within their borders. If we recognise them as a legitimate Government, they can go round beheading people and do what they like. We won’t intervene”. We cannot do that any more. We do not do it in the European Union. Given the amount of attention that we pay, quite rightly, to human rights in Turkey, it is ironic how little attention we pay to the same subject in many states not that far to the south.

In closing, I suggest that the situation may change in a way we did not really anticipate. The energy scenario, which has of course driven our relations with that part of the world for the past 100 years, is rapidly changing. Many people have not noticed that the United States is no longer a net importer of energy. Many people have not noticed—or, if they have noticed, they have not tied it together—that new technology and the rising price of energy makes it easier to recover energy. The discovery of new energy fields such as the one off Cyprus, the advent of fracking and the developments in physics—I declare an interest as a governor of the pension fund of CERN, which is the major physics laboratory in the world—will probably put the energy crisis behind us in the next 20 to 30 years. That might sound rather astonishing at a time when we are concentrating on it. Of course, this is not a debate on energy, but from all I have heard and seen the energy scenario is changing faster than we realise. As it changes, the need and dependency on the near and Middle East will change significantly to a point where, maybe, we can have some consistency in our approach on human and civil rights, so that we can look forward to a time when we might be able to stand a little taller because we adopt the same principles in dealing with all countries in that region.

15:49

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, like others, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for initiating what has been a very interesting debate. I also must say how impressed I was by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi. Her courage, integrity and commitment to truth are a challenge to us all.

I serve as chairman of the Committee on Middle East Questions of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Its purpose is to try to persuade and encourage Israelis and Palestinians to talk to each other. We recently decided in that committee that we cannot do our work meaningfully without looking at the region as a whole and we are extending our work in that way. Recently in Geneva, we had a very interesting round table. The noble Lord, Lord Risby, spent quite a lot of his rather important speech talking about Syria, as have other noble Lords. The Speaker of the Syrian Parliament was with us at our round table and made a contribution. I will quote from the official report of that—it is better as chairman that I stick to the official report. It said:

“The Speaker of the Syrian Parliament stressed that the Syrian People’s Assembly was the only legitimate body entitled to make statements about the situation in Syria and the Syrian people, who were paying a high price for the terrorist acts committed by ISIL, Al Nusrah Front and the Army of Islam. He added that if the world was serious about effectively combating terrorism, the international community would have to cooperate with Syria and Iraq. The Syrian Government was fighting terrorism but was stymied in its efforts by the support, funds and weapons supplied to terrorist groups by some western and Middle Eastern countries.

He referred to UN Security Council resolution 2170, which called for respecting the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria. He emphasized that the Syrian Government rejected any regional intervention in Syria, especially the imposition of a buffer zone along its northern border, highlighting that the coalition had been formed outside the framework of the UN Security Council by countries that had contributed to the emergence of ISIL and the proliferation of terrorism.

The Speaker requested IPU support for a political solution to the conflict in Syria and for its national reconciliation efforts. He highlighted that Syria rejected any attempt to violate its sovereignty by forming new armed groups under the banner of a moderate opposition”.

I totally align myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Wright, said. I was one of those who was highly critical of Syria and its appalling human rights action—and, actually, this was reported absolutely outrageously across the world—but I think that we have to listen to what the Syrians themselves say. We must face up to that.

As that same round table—it was a very interesting occasion—the Deputy Speaker of the Jordanian Parliament also contributed. Here is another brief quote from the report:

“The Deputy Speaker … described the increasingly acute consequences of the regional conflict for Jordan. The basic population of 4 million had become 11 million with refugees from Palestine, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. The social and political impact of this was potentially highly destabilizing”.

We have talked a lot about the present situation and what in the past has led up to it, but if we are intelligent then we should be talking about the future. I put it to noble Lords that the refugee problem in this region will make many of the things with which we are grappling at the moment seem like child’s play. The political consequences are incalculably great.

It is fair to ask what I have learnt from my work on the committee. In the past 18 months I have made several visits to the region. I have been able to meet with the speaker of the Knesset, with President Abbas and others, and to have very important conversations which have deeply helped my own understanding. I have learnt that peacebuilding first of all requires—and this is difficult with all the pressures involved—the qualities of patience and persistence.

We must forgo the temptation to think that we can just manage peace, and have deadlines and get people to meet deadlines and enforce a peace. That does not work. A peace has to be grounded, and a peace that is grounded involves talk, negotiation and patience, as I have just said. It has to be inclusive; it is important to be talking to the people with whom it is difficult to talk, because they are key to the solutions. It is no good just picking the friendly, easy people to talk to. Anyone can do that and make agreements. That is why it has been so important to get around eventually to the view that Hamas is part of the solution and not just part of the problem.

It is also important to recognise that in these matters negotiations can too easily become the preserve of the negotiators. There is a sort of institutionalised game of negotiation. Fine work and great commitment go on in those negotiations, but we need wider understanding and wider concern among the wider public about the need for a settlement and for reaching accommodations. That means that we really should be promoting discussions between, for example, Israelis and Palestinians on issues of mutual concern, such as water or the problems and issues faced by women. We on our committee are determined to try to do something in that respect.

My convictions about the danger of counter- productivity have also been reconfirmed. Of course, so much of Israel’s behaviour is totally counterproductive and cannot possibly contribute to its long-term security. Equally, the firing of rockets into Israel was wrong, irresponsible and totally counterproductive.

I conclude simply with this. We must look at ourselves. It is no good reacting emotionally to young people—however misguided—who go off and fight with the cruel and horrible ISIS. Many of them become disillusioned; they want to come home. We should not stigmatise them and their friends and communities as somehow a threat to our future. The challenge is to win them back into our society, with rehabilitation and understanding. Young people make mistakes; they have always made mistakes. Our job is to win them back and integrate them, not to stigmatise them and thereby aggravate the problems in our own society.

15:57

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of the Opposition in this House, I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for initiating and securing this debate. I also thank all noble Lords who have spoken in what has been a remarkable debate. I do not intend to cover even in broad terms the vast areas—both geographically and in terms of the issues—that this debate covers. No one who has heard the debate could be under any illusions about the many dangers and the many issues of great importance, the various and varied examples of man’s inhumanity to man and—yes—some examples, too, of hope. These issues and where they lead affect us in the UK just as much as they affect the world outside.

On many of these items I say straightaway that we are broadly in agreement with the Government. In this field above all others there can be no point in artificial or pretend disagreements for their own sake. Both for the good of the UK itself and for the way that we appear to the world outside, it is a positive when we do not disagree. However, when we do—and we will do on one important topic at the end of what I have to say—it is essential that we should say so and ask questions and test Ministers. If an Opposition fail to do that in a democracy, we are acting against the spirit of democracy and democratic government that distinguishes us from so many of the countries we have been discussing today.

There are a number of discrete subjects that I intend to address and a number of brief questions that I wish to put to the Minister. The issue of Palestine and Israel has taken up a huge amount of the debate today. It is a sore that has lasted such a long time and it could be argued that it is at the root of so many of the problems, disputes and unresolved issues that we have discussed.

I was very taken by the practical suggestion for helping Gaza made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. We should ask the Government to consider that very seriously. I pay tribute to the many brilliant, powerful and often passionate and committed speeches that we have heard from one side or the other on this issue. Who could not be moved by hearing the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi—who was an excellent Minister in this House with large responsibilities for, for example, faith and human rights in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and whom this House much respected as a Minister and much respects today—making her powerful case against government policy and arguing, among other things, for United Nations recognition of Palestine? My party, as she and the House know, voted for recognition in the House of Commons a few weeks ago. That is not an easy decision for a political party to make, but it was the right decision, and we very much hope the Government will follow suit—in a short period of time rather than a longer one.

And who could not be moved by the extremely powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, in defence of the idea of Israel, and by his plea for peace? It was a privilege to listen to him. Perhaps I may also mention what a privilege it is for all of us to hear the noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld—sitting in his place today—and his words of wisdom.

It is vital for any Government in the UK, of whatever party, to take a balanced view on the Palestine-Israel question, however unpopular it makes them. We on our side feel that Her Majesty’s Government did not criticise Israel early enough or strongly enough during the recent Gaza war—if I can call it that. Hamas was an intolerable provocation to Israel and remains so, of course, but a legitimate question can be asked: did Israel’s reaction result in the unnecessary death of too many innocent citizens?

I turn briefly—not because it is unimportant; it is vital—to the coalition against ISIL, which we debated in this House a month ago. Here, we do support the line that Her Majesty’s Government are taking and I pay tribute today, as others have, to those who have fought to protect Kobane, a medium-sized city, from the ravages of ISIL. We of course wish them success.

I want to concentrate for a moment on Turkey, as have the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and other noble Lords, and make a couple of points. First, it is obvious that Turkey is in a crucial position in the struggle against ISIL and much more besides. No one underrates the difficulties that Turkey faces in making these decisions, for historical and modern political reasons— I commend an article in the Guardian a few days ago by the new Foreign Secretary of Turkey which set out some of these difficulties. Ankara’s decision to allow the Kurdish Peshmerga to cross through Turkey to support the Kurds fighting ISIL in Kobane is important, demonstrating perhaps that Turkish policy on this issue is in flux and in part reacting to Kurdish protests and unrest. Secondly, as has already been pointed out, Turkey is facing a major refugee crisis, and its impact should not be underestimated. More than 1 million Syrians have crossed the border into Turkey. That is very significant as far as Turkey is concerned.

Turkey is also facing fundamental questions about its role in the region, as its soft power approach appears not to have succeeded. The new Prime Minister was the architect of recent foreign policy as Foreign Minister. It is incumbent on Her Majesty’s Government and on other Governments allied to Turkey, which is of course a long-standing member of NATO, to try to persuade Turkey to play the role that many of us feel it should in facing down ISIL.

I turn to the Lebanon, which has hardly been mentioned today. I visited it this month. Four million people have over the past 30 years known ghastly civil war, foreign military occupation and now a Government who, because they have to include representatives of different religions and factions, find it difficult to reach the required unanimous decisions. There is pressure, too, from extremist cells that manoeuvre and try to best one another in that small country.

The Lebanon now also has 1.3 million refugees from Syria—a population increase of one-fifth, just like that. These refugees do not live in refugee camps but settle where they can, often side by side with Lebanese citizens who are poor and unemployed. Syrian children have to be brought into the Lebanese education system. The numbers are such that the analogy could be made to all the schools in Birmingham and Manchester closing and all the children in those schools transferring into London schools. How would we cope? That is the position facing the Lebanese Government. I am very pleased that the British Council, with the help of the British embassy, has been absolutely in the forefront of a new programme with the Lebanese authorities to make it easier for teachers to be trained so that Syrian children can be taught. It is something we are doing practically, on the ground, in that country.

I turn briefly to Tunisia, which has already been discussed. The noble Lord, Lord Risby, mentioned it himself. It is one of the gleams of light in the rather dark picture that has been drawn today. We are all delighted that last Sunday’s elections have resulted in what seems to be a peaceful, democratic result with a proper transfer of power from one side to the other. That is not to be underrated. As has also already been stated, the country still faces enormous difficulties, with very high unemployment and the unfortunate fact that of all the countries that send, as it were, young jihadists to Syria, Tunisia sends the largest number.

I conclude, slightly more controversially, with the refugee situation in the Mediterranean. This does affect the debate because those refugees come from the Middle East and north Africa. To their credit, the Italian Government have successfully run the Mare Nostrum search and rescue scheme, saving 150,000 lives in the last year and a bit. The European Union is, as we understand it, to stop search and rescue from the day after tomorrow. This is an agreement that the British Government have signed up to. FRONTEX will operate only within 30 miles of the Italian coast and will not conduct search and rescue missions. This will of course mean that many more men, women and children die in their desperate journey to Europe.

The justification for this change of policy is that it will somehow deter would-be refugees from undertaking the journey in the first place. It seems to me that this justification is spurious and morally repugnant. It is wrong in practical terms because desperate people fleeing their homeland will not be put off taking the risk themselves. I am sorry to have to put it so strongly but, in moral terms, it represents a view that human life is so cheap that it is satisfactory to turn a blind eye to those in danger. Jonathan Swift would have known how to satirise this change of policy.

In our view, the Government should stand back and ask themselves this question: is this a path that Britain, with its proud record of protecting people in trouble, wants to go down? Of course there is a massive problem for us and the EU to tackle—often with the countries from which these people come. This solution should not be acceptable to this House or the country. I know that the noble Baroness has a lot to answer in her 25 minutes. She is a Minister widely respected in this House. Will Her Majesty’s Government please reconsider this policy as a matter of urgency? It is not worthy of our country.

16:11

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, I of course add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Risby on securing the debate today and on attracting such a significant audience, not only those who have taken part but those who have listened to the debate. It has been wide-ranging and I certainly am grateful for the important contributions from around the House.

North Africa and the Middle East face immense challenges. We have heard that in detail. As has been hinted at by colleagues around the House, a number of those issues merit their own debate: Syria’s horrific war; ISIL’s appalling atrocities and the refugee crisis that it has created; and the need for reconstruction in Gaza and a comprehensive solution to that. My noble friend Lady Hodgson of Abinger was right to remind us of the impact of violence and conflict on women and children. I agree with her that it is vital that we always take them into account in any and all negotiations we enter into to resolve conflict.

The region matters to the UK’s security and prosperity. It is crucial that we counter the threat from terrorist extremism, we build our energy security, as my noble friend Lord Balfe said, and we sustain and grow our bilateral trade, as my noble friend Lord Selsdon stressed. That already is worth about £35 billion annually. As my noble friend Lord Kirkwood said, it is important for us to do business even in difficult areas such as Iraq.

In the long term, our security and the security of the whole region of north Africa and the Middle East depends not only on managing the immediate crises and threats but also on tackling the grievances which the extremists exploit. These grievances—the deficits in political and economic governance—are embedded and well documented. We need to support those in the region who are pursuing political stability based on open, inclusive political systems and economies. This is not only about addressing threats: in the longer term we will need to support a more stable and economically successful region.

On a daily basis, we hear accounts of human rights abuses, including those against religious minorities of all backgrounds. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, reminded us of that in graphic detail. Let me be clear: the UK condemns in the strongest terms possible any instances where individuals are persecuted or made to leave their homes due to their religion or belief. We believe in the importance of fundamental freedoms and the need to tackle human rights abuses, not only to help end the cycle of violence but because they are important building blocks for a prosperous and stable society. My noble friend Lord Balfe asked about Iran and a particular letter from the TUC. I will shortly provide a full response to him, but I can say immediately that the UK strongly believes in the right of freedom of association, including the right to form and join trade unions.

We are proud in this country of remaining at the forefront of our humanitarian response in the region. Let me immediately tackle one point raised at the end of the debate—as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, controversially—about the Mare Nostrum policy which had been adopted a year ago by Italy with regard to the way in which it sent out a search-and-find operation using its navy across the Mediterranean. We made it clear today—my honourable friend Mr Brokenshire has said—that it is inconceivable to suggest that if a boat were in peril support would not be provided. It is a despicable mark of traffickers that any of this happens.

The people who are evil here are the traffickers who take people’s dignity, their money and their background. They give them false promises, they get them into debt, they hire a rusty bucket that they know cannot make the journey, and they load people at sea. Reports say that they give them a mobile phone so that they can phone the Italian navy. Whether that is true or not, this is a despicable trade and we need to unite in the fight against that and deal with the humanitarian aid, to which I know my Government are absolutely committed.

We remain at the forefront of the humanitarian response in the region. Our total humanitarian funding for Syria and the region is now £700 million, more than three times the size of our response to any other humanitarian crisis. This is making a real difference, providing shelter, blankets, and clothing for more than 300,000 people; water for up 1.5 million; and more than 5 million monthly food rations last year.

My noble friend Lady Berridge asked about refugees—the Yazidis, for example—being able to go back to their homes. She asks a broader question: what is it for all refugees to go home, some of whom are away from what they consider home for decades, and when they go back they have a difficulty recognising it? It is a decision they should be able to make, but a decision against the background of a peace and stability that we try to help to provide.

Efforts to address the region’s challenges have to be led principally by the regions of north Africa and the Middle East. But we do have an important role to play. I was deeply impressed today by the way in which so many Peers, including my noble friend Lady Falkner, the noble Lords, Lord Hylton, Lord Sacks and Lord Desai, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, addressed the philosophical background. How do we overcome extremism? Where has it come from? What challenges does it give us as individuals as well as societies? There has been the growth of Salafism—not the peaceful Salafism we see in Saudi Arabia, but the extreme, violent Salafism that has suddenly broken out elsewhere. I shall certainly take away with me the words of the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, that we need to let go of hate.

We need to support our partners to tackle conflict and better manage the threat that violent extremism poses to their people—and indeed to ours. We need to help them put in place what the Prime Minister has called the building blocks of open and inclusive societies: the rule of law, a free media, parliamentary reform, and the structural economic reforms to create growth and jobs. That is why we are continuing to reform and work on the conflict work with the Arab partnership and the Government’s conflict pool. That is why we are working closely with international partners, including key partners in the region. My noble friend Lady Berridge asked whether we have the skills for that and asked what training we are doing. With regard to staff, the FCO holds a one-day freedom of religion or belief training course every three months. It is open to all government staff. Since January 2013, of the 107 attendees, one-third have come from other government departments, including DfID and MoD.

My noble friend Lord Sheikh was right to describe the historical context in which all this has developed, as indeed was the noble Lord, Lord Weidenfeld. It is important to hear, from those who have lived it, what that history is. It gives it extra vibrancy. The noble Lords, Lord Bach and Lord Anderson, reminded us that the Arab spring started in Tunisia four years ago. Since then the country has indeed made striking process with the development of the political systems needed to bring longer-term stability. I echo the Foreign Secretary’s congratulations to the Tunisian Government and people on the legislative elections held there last Sunday. However, success is fragile and needs continued support. We will continue to provide that support in a number of ways.

It is important that, throughout this, when we see successes we continue to support those who are still facing severe challenges and finding it difficult to move forward. My noble friend Lord Risby referred to Algeria. He rightly mentioned the work that we are doing in partnership with Algeria on several issues. I pay tribute to his successful work as the Prime Minister’s envoy for economic partnership with Algeria. We want to keep improving our co-operation with Algeria across a range of interests: security, defence, trade, prosperity, English language and higher education.

Libya, of course, continues to have difficulties. We want to continue working with our international partners to support the Libyan people. As an important first step, we need an inclusive political settlement. At the moment it is in great difficulty, but the Prime Minister’s envoy to the Libyan political transition, Jonathan Powell, is working with the UN special representative on this.

Several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Stone of Blackheath, referred to Egypt. I am grateful to him for bringing out the aspects that he did. It remains an important and influential country in the region and we clearly want it to succeed. We continue to provide practical and serious support to help it achieve a more prosperous and democratic future. We are working in partnership with reformers and others to reduce the economic difficulties and to tackle the immediate security threats. We are Egypt’s largest foreign investor. To foster Egypt’s development, we want to continue our support beyond technical reform assistance, to education, research and scholarships.

However, at the same time, we are urging Egypt’s leaders to implement the rights contained in Egypt’s constitution, including protecting the right to freedom of expression and association, and to lead the country towards more open and democratic governance, underpinned by strong and accountable institutions, as the noble Lord explained in his speech. We will speak up on cases that threaten these principles, whether it is mass death penalties in Minya, the prosecution of journalists, the detention of people engaging in peaceful political expression, or restrictions on NGO freedoms.

I turn to the Gulf, where the UK enjoys deep relationships based on our shared background in the area over the years. More than 160,000 British people currently call the Gulf home. It is one of our largest global export markets, and Gulf states continue to invest heavily in the UK. We work with our allies on a wide range of vital issues, from energy security to defence, with UK assets stationed in the region and providing military training expertise. We value enormously our close work with Gulf partners on many of the challenges that I have mentioned. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred to the difficulties in this area. My noble friend Lord Lamont talked about individuals and funding in Qatar. I will come to that shortly. My noble friend Lord Avebury and the noble Lord, Lord Soley, spoke about Bahrain.

My noble friend Lord Lamont asked about the funding of extremist groups in the Gulf states and what the Governments are doing. I can say that we welcome the steps that the Gulf Governments are taking to address the threat, but we are encouraging much greater progress on that to prevent terrorist financing from the individuals. I know that my noble friend is not saying that the Governments are doing the funding; the difficulty is preventing the individuals. It is important that legislative vehicles are put in place to prevent those transfers of funds. We have what is called an “honest and robust” conversation; I have taken part in one, and I can say that it is both honest and, certainly, robust.

On international affairs, yesterday my right honourable friend the Prime Minister met the Emir of Qatar. They discussed the role that both countries are playing in the coalition to tackle ISIL. In particular, the Prime Minister welcomed the recent legislation passed in Qatar to prevent terrorist funding and looked forward to the swift implementation of these new measures. They also agreed that both countries should do more to share information on matters of concern. The noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, also raised that.

My noble friend Lord Avebury and the noble Lord, Lord Soley, raised the issue of Bahrain where human rights defenders have played a brave role. I welcome the announcement by His Majesty of the legislative elections on 22 November. It is unfortunate that the opposition al-Wefaq has decided not to participate. We are certainly supportive of the reforms under way in Bahrain. We commend the steps taken by the Government there to implement the recommendations set out in the independent commission of inquiry. As outlined in our recent human rights case study report on Bahrain, progress has been made in a number of areas, but there is more to be done. We shall keep up the pressure.

Two areas attracted the most attention of noble Lords—for natural reasons of security and interest of this House. First, I turn to the situation we face across Iraq and Syria. We know from the past few months how desperate the situation has been for those living there as they face an enemy which knows no shame, no morality and no religion in the way in which it indiscriminately murders, beheads and crucifies people in its way. My noble friend Lady Falkner tried to give a background as to why it is not Islam we should blame for this. I appreciate the thoughtful way in which she presents her views; they are always a pleasure to hear.

ISIL fighters have carried out appalling atrocities. They have displaced hundreds of thousands of people and they operate freely in much of Syria and Iraq, posing a threat to the UK and to the stability of the wider region. My noble friend Lady Nicholson said that they should not be able to have impunity—they should not get away with it. Yesterday, I gave a speech at a meeting at which we were talking about international humanitarian law. I agree with her that impunity is not something we should have as a resource so that, if there is a difficulty, we can let people get away with it. Where there is potential genocide of the Yazidis, we have a long-standing commitment to the importance of accountability. We welcome the commitment of Prime Minister al-Abadi to holding to account those responsible for any atrocities. We look forward to supporting any work which sees those commitments translated into action. We are a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court but any decision to involve the ICC must be made on the basis of whether the court would prove to be an effective means of bringing the perpetrators of those atrocities to justice.

Throughout the difficulties in Syria and Iraq, we have made it clear that air strikes alone will not defeat ISIL but they—and other actions that we have been taking—show our resolve to degrade and ultimately to defeat ISIL. We will proceed carefully, working in lockstep with our partners to deliver a comprehensive plan. We are taking military action in Iraq and, along with other noble Lords, I pay tribute to our superb Armed Forces who put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe. We support air strikes in Syria conducted by the United States and our Gulf allies. We heard from several noble Lords, including my noble friends Lady Nicholson and Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Lords, Lord Kalms and Lord Judd, about these matters. I was intrigued that my noble friend Lord Kirkwood made it clear that we need to concentrate on commercial engagement as part of the solution to the problem of stability. He asked why we do not have an Iraqi business group to lead commercial engagement with Iraq. British business is engaging in Iraq and there is some notable success despite the difficult environment. As my noble friend knows, earlier this year the Prime Minister appointed my noble friend Lady Nicholson as trade envoy to Iraq. I have never doubted either her courage or her determination to achieve success.

My noble friend Lord Kirkwood also asked about visas, which were referred to obliquely by one or two other noble Lords. We opened a visa application centre in Baghdad in 2013 and have opened mobile centres in Erbil and Basra, which means that applicants no longer have to travel to Oman to obtain those visas. However, I appreciate that some individuals still face considerable security problems and difficulties in getting the relevant documents.

My noble friend Lord Kirkwood asked whether we agreed with his analysis of the new Iraqi Government of al-Abadi being more inclusive, and said that we should support that. I absolutely agree with him. Al-Abadi has shown his willingness to include significant appointments from the country’s main Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities. That is most welcome. He has committed to reforms, including decentralising power, reforming and restructuring the security forces and improving relations with Iraq’s neighbours. However, I have no illusions. This is an encouraging start but we have a great struggle ahead in which we need to maintain the good will of the British public. When we had a Statement on this matter a couple of weeks ago, I spoke of a time when the red-top newspapers no longer have this issue at the top of their reports and when the news bulletins about it on the radio and on Twitter start to decline. We do not need to give publicity to ISIL but we do need to strengthen the resolve of our colleagues around our country that we are doing the right thing in undermining ISIL and, ultimately, defeating it for the security of that area and for that of our own country.

I wish to refer briefly to Turkey as the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Bach, and my noble friend Lord Balfe mentioned very properly the role that Turkey has played and can play. We are very grateful to Turkey for its humanitarian effort. Over the past 48 hours it has been working out in a helpful way how to adjust that. Clearly, it is a crucial partner for all of us in our counterterrorism work. I know that Turkey has difficulties with the Kurdish region because of the PPK issue but it is working as hard as it can to be a very effective partner in the degrading and defeat of ISIL. The noble Lord has been to Lebanon and he was right to remind us of that country, which has borne so much of the brunt of the humanitarian aid. What a brave country. It has absorbed people who now form a great proportion of its population. We stand firmly by Lebanon’s side and offer full support, assistance and training to the Lebanese armed forces in their struggle.

My noble friend Lord Avebury mentioned Yemen. I pay tribute to our embassy staff and FCO staff who travel there on a regular basis to give assistance in that country. They face great personal danger and we are grateful for all that they do. My noble friend is right to point out the danger to human rights.

Noble Lords have referred to Iran. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, reminded us that we should not forget about Iran when we are concentrating on ISIL. My noble friend Lord Lamont asked what would happen if a deal with Iran fails? We will not let it fail. I suggest that he looks in detail at the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

Obviously, we have discussed the Middle East peace process in detail before. We had contributions today from my noble friends Lord Risby, Lady Warsi, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, Lord Cope of Berkeley, Lady Tonge, Lord Leigh of Hurley and Lord Dykes, and from the noble Lords, Lord Sacks, Lord Mitchell, Lord Turnberg, Lord Weidenfeld, Lord Kalms and Lord Bach. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, provided us with a list of practical suggestions about how to rebuild Gaza. I would like to reflect on that further.

Noble Lords asked whether our policy on Gaza and Palestine has changed. Our policy is clear: we support a negotiated settlement leading to a safe and secure Israel, living alongside a viable sovereign Palestinian state. We are urging both parties to show leadership and a commitment to return to dialogue. I realise of course that the dialogue has broken down; the terrorist attacks in Sinai on 24 October have prevented that dialogue. However, we are making every effort to ensure that that is recommenced as soon as possible. The process has not failed; it will continue.

We are also urging both parties to avoid all actions that undermine the prospect of peace. That is why we were particularly disturbed when Israel brought forward advanced plans for 1,060 new housing units in east Jerusalem. We consider that to be an ill judged and ill timed decision, which makes it harder to achieve a two-state solution with Jerusalem as a shared capital. Such announcements make it more difficult for Israel’s friends to defend it against accusations that it is not serious about peace.

The EU sanctions remain in place. I was asked about those by my noble friend Lady Warsi. We have consistently made it clear through the EU that there will be consequences to further announcements on settlement. Discussions are under way in Brussels at this moment on what further measures the EU could take to discourage any further settlement expansion, including in Givat Hamatos, E1 and Har Homa. The EU is working closely with other member states to that end.

A one-off recognition of the state of Palestine is not something that we wish to pursue at this stage. We are saying clearly—as I did last week and the week before—that negotiation is the way forward. We want to recognise Palestine, but we want to do so when there has been an agreement with both sides that we end up with two states that can live alongside each other. In the mean time, it is important that the agreements reached so far in Egypt are being put in place. I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Hilton, that the fishing limit is indeed in place.

I know that we will return to this subject in depth again and again. I will be debating it with many colleagues off the Floor of the House in another venue next Tuesday morning and I am looking forward to that.

16:37

[Lord Risby]

My Lords, I say in all humility that it was the greatest privilege for me to be able to introduce this debate because of the quality of the contributions we have heard today, which have reflected such astonishing knowledge, interest and passion about the region, to which we are all committed. As I listened to the speeches, I wondered how many parliamentary Chambers in the world could have held a debate in this way and so effectively. It was remarkable.

In terms of expertise, we heard contributions about Iran, Egypt, Iraq and other countries which reflect this so admirably. I pay tribute also to our diplomats, who have to work in very difficult circumstances sometimes, and to those engaged in humanitarian relief in different countries in the region. Our history dictates, whether it was the Balfour Declaration, Sykes-Picot or our colonial experience, that we will continue to have involvement, because this is such an important part of the world.

On the Israel and Palestine situation, wherever we come from, all we want is for the security of the Jewish people in Israel to be assured and the dignity of Palestinians to be recognised. Once again, I thank noble Lords for their magnificent contributions, not least the Minister, who summed up so brilliantly and comprehensively and is destined richly to contribute to all our debates on foreign affairs in the months to come.

Motion agreed.

Sport: Football Clubs

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

16:38

Asked by

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to giving football fans a greater say in the running of clubs.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to have the chance to open this debate on giving football fans a greater say in the running of their clubs. In doing so, I declare my interests because I have for a long time been a season ticket holder at Bolton Wanderers Football Club; I should also mention that I receive hospitality from that club or, as the chairman said in the summer, “You can suffer with the rest of us”, which sometimes is the case for all football fans. I want also to mention that I am president of the parliamentary football club, a group that has done much to raise funds for charities and awareness for groups such as Prostate Cancer UK. The club also has a great interest in these issues.

Football is important to me and my family. We are all somewhat addicted, we are all regular match-goers and, like many others in this House and on these Benches, the results at the weekend will determine our mood for the rest of the week. We tend to look forward to the very end of the football season and the relief from the tension that that brings, and then immediately get withdrawal symptoms and realise that summer Saturdays are just not the same. This is because football is more than just a business or a sport. Anyone who does not realise this just does not understand the importance of our national game.

It is true that football is tribal. My husband actually believes that when you register a child’s birth, you should also register the team that they support and that this should not be a matter of choice. Football being tribal can and has brought some difficulties and problems, although I am glad to say that that is less the case today. By and large, this is a positive factor, giving fans a sense of community and belonging. Good clubs and their players recognise this by giving back to their communities, as indeed does Bolton Wanderers.

However, that is not always the case. There are owners of football clubs who are genuine fans and who suffer defeats with the rest of us. But there are owners—and this seems to be an increasing problem—who regard their clubs as just another business and who forget or ignore the essence of the club, the fans and their community. Some owners have no links and little loyalty to their club. They think that you can change club colours on a whim. Some even want to change the name of the team. As we have seen recently from the BBC’s Price of Football survey, average ticket prices have increased almost twice as much as the cost of living since 2011—all without any reference to the core supporters, local communities and fans. These owners are treating the club as a commodity and nothing more.

This is why my colleague in another place, Clive Efford, the shadow Sports Minister, has put forward on behalf of the Labour Party plans to give football fans a greater stake in their clubs. Put simply, the idea, which has been drawn up after considerable consultation, is that supporters should come together and form an accredited trust along the lines of industrial and provident societies, with their own governance standards. Then those trusts should get the right in the first place to appoint and remove up to a quarter, and not less than two, directors of the club’s board. Supporters would also get the right to purchase, if they wished, up to 10% of shares when a club changes hands. This would allow fans a say at the top level and help to hold owners to account for issues such as ticket pricing, shirt sponsorship, strip colours and even the name. My honourable friend in another place is now undertaking further consultations, and I hope that all those in authority in football will look at these details carefully.

I understand that the Government have been promising action on this issue for quite some time. Indeed, there was reference to this in the coalition agreement, which stated that it would encourage,

“co-operative ownership of football clubs by supporters”.

I know that recent pressure is eventually leading to the establishment of what has been called an expert group of supporters who are going to consider all these issues. That sounds like the long grass to me. It does not give great prospect of action and that is not good enough at this stage.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has a Private Member’s Bill on the governance of sport. It is quite a substantial Bill—very substantial for a Private Member’s Bill—but I would like to see it go further in this direction. The noble Lord has asked me to apologise for his absence in this debate; he is inevitably abroad today. However, he has said:

“The principle of representation by supporters on the boards of the professional clubs seems to me essential.”

I welcome that, but we have to find the mechanisms to deliver that representation.

I also welcome the Premier League’s statement that it,

“welcomes the invitation to discuss with Labour their ideas on football governance”.

The Premier League has pointed out its work to get clubs to engage with supporters, which we welcome, and its funding for the Football Supporters’ Federation and for Supporters Direct, an organisation that we can all be proud of because of the work that it has done in recent years. I hope that the Premier League will look carefully to see the benefits of these proposals, because they are really positive for football in the future.

We have examples of supporters’ trusts up and down the country making a positive contribution to football. At present, eight of the 92 trusts own more than 10% of the shares of their clubs and some—Exeter City, Portsmouth, Wimbledon and Wycombe Wanderers —are wholly owned by supporters. A premiership club, Swansea, has the Swansea City Supporters’ Trust holding 20% of the shares. They may be at the centre of what happens to their club in the future. Two days ago it was reported that there was a new potential bid for the club. To have supporters there at that time is extremely good for football.

We can also remember the remarkable developments at Heart of Midlothian, when the club’s foreign owner refused to sell to the fans. The club then went into administration. However, it was rescued by the fans with the establishment of the Foundation of Hearts, with help from Ian Murray MP and my noble friend Lord Foulkes. This group managed to get 8,000 supporters —they only get 14,000 for a match against Hibs—to sign up to a regular direct debit to purchase the club out of administration. They have had support from a local fan and businesswoman, Ann Budge, and the club is now literally on the way up: it is top of the Scottish championship. That was a remarkable achievement.

Of course, not everyone welcomed Labour’s initiative, but most did and I had to look hard to find any criticism. I found an article in the Daily Telegraph that described this as “effectively nationalisation”. Either the journalist did not understand our proposals or he did not understand nationalisation, which was strange, as the same journalist praised Swansea as one of the most successful clubs of the last few years.

I venture to suggest that harnessing the support and wisdom of fans will strengthen football clubs all ways round, in business terms as well as in community terms. I believe that there is widespread support for these proposals and that it is time for action. I look forward to real progress for football fans.

16:49

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, some people think that football is a matter of life and death, but I can assure them that it is far more serious than that. The late great Bill Shankly knew of what he spoke. Like it or like it not, there is only one majority sport in Great Britain, and it is Association Football. I love swimming; the Olympic and Paralympic Games were awesome; golf, cricket, rugby and Formula One are all excellent; but only one sport dominates in Britain and that is the sport of soccer.

To go to any of the grounds, many of them now long gone, to walk through the small side streets that lead to Upton Park, to Filbert Street or to my home club at Molineux, the golden palace that is the home of Wolverhampton Wanderers, is to get a true sense of why football currently has this place. It grew up out of the communities that surround the grounds. You can feel it in the streets and in the hearts of the local people who have committed to their clubs since their initiation in Victorian times. There is now an undoubted divide—some may say it is a seismic chasm—between fan and club. It is a divide which has to be narrowed if not eradicated. Anything that we can do to draw the fan, the player, the manager and the club closer together has to be a positive thing and worth striving for.

I want to focus on two areas: safety and inclusion. The Sports Grounds Safety Authority has done excellent work for the last 20 years. It was born out of the tragic events at Hillsborough in 1989. One of the authority’s key recommendations has been to have fans involved in the local authority safety advisory group. There are two important points to make. First, this demonstrates that fans should be involved in every element of football, not just with the governance of the club but in every element of the spectator experience. Secondly, and crucially, sport is nothing without safety.

On inclusion, it is great if we can have champions for inclusion on the board of directors of Premiership and Football League clubs. Spectators should be involved and connected in key positions so that they can give their own personal perspective on how to make football a truly inclusive sport: a sport for everybody. When I was part of the leadership team at LOCOG, we could quite easily have ignored, avoided or minimised inclusion, but we believed that it was the way to make London 2012 the most inclusive and, through that, the most successful Olympic and Paralympic Games ever. Disabled people were involved in key leadership positions, along with people from black and minority ethnic groups, and women, through all the strata of the company. We set up a built environment access panel to focus on the accessible and inclusive build of all the stadia. We had an access, diversity and inclusion board to ensure that everything we did at LOCOG would be truly inclusive. Football is no different.

Now, as a non-executive at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I have the privilege of leading our sports inclusion programme. Working with the professional sports of cricket, rugby union and football, over the next 18 months we aim to make these sports more inclusive by some considerable measure for decades to come. Yes, we want to get more girls playing sport, yes, we want to get more BME people involved across the three sports, and yes, we want to get disabled people involved to ensure that stadia are physically and culturally accessible to everybody.

Football is at the heart of the community. One key way to reconnect and ensure that it holds that place by right and respect is by making the game, the club and the experience truly inclusive. We are working to have access reviews of all grounds, with spectators involved in the process. If we can make rugby, cricket and football accessible and inclusive, it will not just make for better sport, it will make for better Britain.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, for initiating this most significant and important debate. There is also in the Labour Party paper that sits behind it a very interesting contribution that is surely worthy of keeping this discussion going for much longer than this evening.

I have one final caveat. When the left gets involved in sport, caution is required. I refer to an article in the Guardian in 2003 involving my club, Wolverhampton Wanderers. In the corrections column—it is unusual, I know, for there to be a typo in the Guardian—it said:

“In our interview with Sir Jack Hayward, the chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers, page 20, Sport, yesterday, we mistakenly attributed to him the following comment: ‘Our team was the worst in the First Division and I’m sure it’ll be the worst in the Premier League.’ Sir Jack had just declined the offer of a hot drink. What he actually said was ‘Our tea was the worst in the First Division and I’m sure it’ll be the worst in the Premier League.’ Profuse apologies”.

16:55

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, even though he plays in blue.

I declare an interest as a lifelong supporter and current season ticket holder at Arsenal Football Club. I know only too well the unique bond that exists between a supporter and a club. Often it brings frustration and despair, but also the greatest moments, such as winning the Cup at Wembley. This bond is a commitment for life and the power of football in people’s lives can bring many positive things, including a focal point for community pride. But we must remember that without fans football is nothing. Most cynically put, fans are vital wallpaper and ambient sound for lucrative TV coverage.

Until recently I was a director of the Arsenal fan-share scheme. This is a pioneering scheme that enabled Arsenal fans to buy a part share in Arsenal. As the price of one share is now £15,000, the scheme allowed fans to come together to own an affordable part of a share—called a fan-share. The FSA-regulated scheme was successful at its launch and hailed by many, including the FA, the Premier League, Michel Platini of UEFA, and Jeremy Hunt and Hugh Robertson, who were Secretary of State and Minister for Sport respectively at the time, spoke positively of the scheme as a model for football clubs to follow in terms of supporter ownership-engagement.

The scheme quickly secured almost 2,000 members and collectively they held 120 shares in Arsenal. That meant that 2,000 more fans had a small share in the club’s ownership and there were 120 places to attend the AGM and hold the club’s directors to account. Holders of fan-shares received the club’s report and accounts, and all the information that chief executive Ivan Gazidis sent to Arsenal’s supporters.

Arsenal has benefited greatly over many decades from maintaining stability in its ownership structure, and from having supporters who own shares and are actively involved in this structure. Plurality of ownership has served Arsenal well, and is the best way to ensure that the necessary checks and balances are in place to protect the club’s long-term future.

Sadly for the fan-share scheme there was a takeover of Arsenal Football Club by Stan Kroenke during the scheme’s early days. This changed everything. Despite many attempts to engage him, Mr Kroenke has refused to meet anyone from the scheme and to support its development. With him buying up all the shares during the takeover, the scheme has struggled to find new shares to buy and was unable to market itself to new members. It is now facing closure. A final plea for Mr Kroenke to issue new shares to the scheme has been refused.

In this regard it is a great pity that the DCMS has taken so long to establish its expert group on football ownership, as recommended to it by the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust. If it had done so, it might have found ways to provide more support to schemes such as fan-share. While Ministers spoke highly of it, they regrettably offered no tangible support when it mattered. As the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust advised the DCMS Select Committee, there are legislative barriers, such as those contained in the Financial Markets and Services Act, that make it more difficult to promote the scheme. I welcome that there is now finally a group to look at these barriers.

We need to go further. We need to discuss how supporters are given a greater say in the way that clubs are run. That is why I welcome the proposals put forward by my honourable friend Clive Efford in the other place and by my party to have fans elected to the boards of football clubs. In my opinion, and that of many other fans I meet, clubs such as Arsenal are too important to be controlled by just one person, and these measures would address that.

It could be achieved by legislation. It could also be achieved by the Premier League and the Football League making changes to their rulebook. The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust has argued that the rules should require supporters at all clubs to be treated in the way they would be if they held equity in the club, even in cases where they do not, and to be offered things such as financial reporting in a format similar to that required under the Companies Act and twice-yearly meetings between representatives of supporters and directors and executives of the club.

In conclusion, I hope that the Government can make progress on these issues with the recently announced expert working group. I also hope that they will correct their omission of not including any representatives from Premier League clubs that face these engagement barriers. But their track record to date is not encouraging. For real change, we have the proposals from Labour and that is why my advice would always be to support the team in red.

17:00

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, although it is interesting that he has just revealed to us that he is so rich he can afford a season ticket at Arsenal. I am not in that league, I am afraid. I support the football club I used to watch when I was a kid, in the Third Division North, the Fourth Division and the Third Division; unfortunately, it was unceremoniously dumped out of the Football League in 1970 and is now slowly and erratically making its way up the non-league pyramid. The club is Bradford Football Club, which people will know as Bradford Park Avenue. It is currently in the second non-league tier, the Conference North—or Vanarama, as we have to call it this year.

I make a serious point here that professional football extends below the bottom of the Football League—what is now known as League Two—certainly into the Conference Premier, where I think about half the clubs are full-time professional clubs and the others are part-time. Certainly, 12 of the 24 clubs have been in the Football League, most of them quite recently, so there is a continuous spectrum from the very top down to the very low levels of the non-league pyramid. These are important clubs. To all intents and purposes, the Conference Premier is now a Fifth Division, and is recognised as that.

The rest of the pyramid is largely composed of part-time professionals; towards the bottom, some of the players are not even paid. It is all part of the richness of the British football system. Although most people who watch football watch the Premier League, for obvious reasons, most people who play football do not play in any of those leagues. They play in Sunday leagues or in boys’ or girls’ leagues. One of the most important aspects of any review of the governance and finance of football must be that more of the enormous amount of money being paid at the top has to filter down through the system. It has to filter down through the leagues and the non-league tiers to the grass roots. Any reform of governance that does not achieve that will not be fundamental in its results.

My party, the Liberal Democrats, being one of the few democratic parties left in British politics—I do not know why the Labour Party people are laughing; if I was in the Labour Party, I would be ashamed of the way that party is now run, but that is not the subject of this debate—had a debate on football and we passed a resolution and some amendments to it. Certain key parts of that resolution do not differ a great deal from what the Labour Party is now saying. There is a developing consensus, certainly outside the Conservatives, that a great deal needs to be done to reform football.

First of all, we called for an independent review of governance. This might sound like the long grass, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said. It is really quite disgraceful that the Conservatives have blocked a policy that was in the coalition agreement four years ago. Anybody who thinks that running a struggling football club is difficult should try going into coalition with the Conservatives. Nevertheless, something is now coming out of it and progress is being made.

Secondly, the fundamental proposal that we put forward was that all professional clubs should have a supporters’ trust by law. That trust should have certain basic rights to block or influence essential things about the football club, such as the location of the club—we all saw what happened with Wimbledon, which was ridiculous—and the colours, name and essential nature of the football club in relation to its local community and supporters.

I am running out of time. I could read out the whole of this resolution, but it is three pages long so I will not do so—it is bound to be three pages long if it is a Liberal Democrat resolution. I urge Members on the Labour benches to have a look at it, because there is a huge amount of common ground and we can go forward together to develop a consensus on how to change the very unsatisfactory structure of British football at the moment.

17:06

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton for putting this Question down for debate today. Football is a great part of our national life and of our local communities, and we need to have further debates in your Lordships’ House on these issues. At the outset, I should say that I have supported Millwall all my life, I am proud to be a season ticket holder and I declare an interest as such.

I very much agree with the other noble Lords who have spoken about improving the governance of football and giving the fans—the people who turn out loyally to support their teams every week during the season—a greater say in running their football clubs. Without the fans and without their loyalty, there would be no football clubs.

Like Supporters Direct, as my noble friends Lady Taylor of Bolton and Lord Knight of Weymouth said, I very much welcome the announcement by my friend and fellow Millwall supporter Clive Efford MP, detailing Labour’s plans for a shake-up of football governance. These plans will deliver on the objective of ensuring that fans have a real role in the ownership and running of their clubs. They will give supporters’ trusts the power to appoint or remove up to a quarter of the football club’s board of directors and create a formal relationship between the supporters’ trusts and their clubs. The importance of having a seat for fans at the boardroom table where decisions are made cannot be overstated. I am proud that Millwall is one of the clubs that has delivered on this. Mr Peter Garston was elected by all season ticket holders and Millwall Supporters Club members to the board of the club. I also welcome the proposal for a right to buy 10% of the shares on offer during a change of ownership.

As I said earlier, I have been a supporter of Millwall all my life; it is the local team in the part of south London where I grew up and where I live. It is situated inside the London Borough of Lewisham, just yards from the London Borough of Southwark. It is a great community-focused club with a proud history. Our songs from the terraces with lines like “No one likes us, we don’t care” and “Let ’em all come down to the Den” are known by many; some of the other things that the club does may not be.

Local residents will always be grateful for the support the club gave to the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign. The players supported the campaign on the pitch; they wore it on their shirts; they came on the marches; they brought the bus to the rallies and they brought the team mascot along so that the children and a few adults could have their photographs taken with him. They helped raise money that was used in the judicial review that proved so successful. The club understood how important the hospital’s survival was to the local community.

Various charities are supported by the club, including Prostate Cancer UK, Help for Heroes, the Jimmy Mizen Foundation and many others, including the London Taxi Benevolent Association for War Disabled, which raises money to send World War II veterans back to mainland Europe for commemorative events. In addition, local charities can write in to ask permission to hold bucket collections at the ground on match days. Collections are also held for the Peckham food bank on match days.

The club has refused to have anything to do with payday lenders; you will not find a single advert for them anywhere in the ground, in a match programme or on the club website. I congratulate the club for that and hope very much that, one day, no clubs will have anything to do with payday lenders.

In conclusion, I thank my noble friend for putting down this Question for Short Debate today. I wish we had more time to discuss it.

17:10

[Baroness McDonagh (Lab)]

I am sorry not to be following the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney. He did a really good job chairing the Football League and I would have been interested in what he had to say. I declare my interest as a trustee of the AFC Wimbledon Foundation and a proud fan-owner of one of the most successful fan-owned clubs in the UK today: AFC Wimbledon.

Our history is one of two halves. It was born not out of a dream but out of adversity and the terrible governance by our own club and the FA. I know that that is something that my noble friend Lady Taylor seeks to improve. Let me tell our story. Our owner thought he could make more money from property than football so he sold the ground from under us. We blinked, and we were sharing a ground with Crystal Palace. We blinked again, and the FA had agreed a franchise and for our club to move to Milton Keynes. However, unlike the Bruce Springsteen song, our glory days were not behind us. Unsung heroes took two jumpers to Wimbledon Common and, nine years later, we appeared in the professional league again. That was despite being knocked for 18 points—later reduced to three—and kicked out of two FA competitions by the FA when one of our volunteers failed to complete an international transfer form for a player who used to play in Wales. The FA would not have done that to one of our rich clubs—but, as we know, in football money talks.

This rags-to-riches story of AFC Wimbledon is not a panacea for all clubs. Indeed, being fan-owned is a real struggle and the business model makes it very difficult to compete. However, just because other clubs cannot be fan-owned, it does not mean that we cannot have reform. In recent months, we have talked a lot about what divides our nations, but let us talk now about the thing that unites us: the love of the national game, football. From John O’Groats to Land’s End, from the Humber to Fishguard, we are united in our love of football. But, together, we have terrible governance. It makes no difference whether you look at the SFA, the FA or the Premiership. We deserve better and the governance arrangements at the moment are strangling talent development in our game. We could see that in the World Cup.

I ask the Minister today to adopt the reforms in the Efford report. I also ask the Government to do more. We now need a commission to have a root and branch look at the governance arrangements in our national sport. Suggestions such as this often fall flat because nobody can find the right person to chair the commission, so I put forward the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Loughborough, who was one of the architects in turning around our Olympic fortunes and was behind the medal-winning strategy in Beijing and London. There is a novel and radical thought to leave with your Lordships: a woman getting involved in the national game.

17:15

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend Lady Taylor on securing this debate. She outlined so eloquently why football is not just the national sport throughout the UK, but why it means so much to so many people and how it affects them. I particularly liked the noble Baroness’s evocation of a weekend made or destroyed by what happens on a Saturday afternoon. I know that all too well.

I declare an interest on two counts, as I am a member of two football supporters’ trusts. One is the Dons Trust, as my noble friend Lady McDonagh has just outlined. The other is as a founder member of ArabTRUST, the trust of Dundee United. Both of those situations grew out of a position whereby football supporters—who, as other noble Lords have said, are the lifeblood of the game—were being treated with utter contempt by the people who own the clubs. My noble friend Lady McDonagh outlined the situation very well as far as Wimbledon was concerned.

Dundee United was in a situation where the board of directors had not even issued all the shares in the club: it had in fact issued less than half. Of those that had been issued, the directors owned 90%. When a shareholder who was not a director died, that person’s family were not allowed to inherit the shares. The club’s directors had first option to buy the shares. Only if they decided not to do so, usually because the supporter had owned only five or 10 shares, could another member of that family be entitled to inherit them, as the person had stated in their will. That was a situation which not only denied the club money, because there were people who were willing to invest in the club, but also meant that the fans were shut out, as happens in so many other clubs.

That is a reoccurring theme in what we have heard today. Fans are asked to shell out more and more money for match tickets, programmes, food and drink and replica kit and so on. They are encouraged to do that but, when they have the nerve to ask for a say in the running of the club, in all too many cases they are patted on the head and told to go away, because that is too important for them to be involved with.

That is why I welcomed the establishment of the Supporters Direct movement some 10 or 12 years ago. When I was Minister for Sport in Scotland, I was very pleased to be able to give seed-corn funding for the Supporters Direct movement in Scotland. That has grown, as has the movement in England and Wales, which is very much to be welcomed. The situation at Dundee United was that a group of fans came together to try to force the club board to open up, and allow fans to buy shares in the club and have a say in the running of it. I was part of that campaign. We found a wealthy businessman, a committed supporter of the club, who had money available and was willing to put it in. It took a four-year campaign to finally convince the board that Mr Eddie Thompson should be allowed in, and eventually he took over the club. Sadly, he died in 2008, but his family now run the club and it is much more open and inclusive.

The ArabTRUST supporters’ trust, which I mentioned, is now the largest owner, with the Thompson family, of shares in Dundee United. That is testament to the big changes that have taken place. It is very important that what happened there and at AFC Wimbledon—one of only four clubs in the Football League that are owned by the fans, as my noble friend Lady Taylor said—is seen to be possible. We are told that it is not possible at the top level. Swansea City is clearly an example of a club where a significant amount of shares can be owned by fans.

The Clive Efford initiative announced two weeks ago is also very important. This says that if clubs want to open up to their fans that is fine, but there are some which are determined to keep the door closed and it is just not acceptable for them to be run in that way. It seems to me that some clubs are appallingly badly run. I give the examples of Leeds United, Blackburn Rovers, Cardiff City and even Hull City. There was a proposal to change Hull City’s name to Hull Tigers, which would make it sound like a basketball team or an ice hockey team. I do not understand how a person who owned the club could have such a lack of feel for the game and what it means to the supporters to put forward such a preposterous suggestion. That is the sort of situation that would not happen if there was fan input at board level.

I welcome the fact that the expert group has been taken up. I am sorry that it has taken so long, but we are where we are. I hope that that will now begin, and can perhaps be taken forward after the general election by a Labour Government. I also hope that some of the proposals announced by Clive Efford will be brought into being, and that the very healthy development of more supporter involvement in football clubs will be taken forward.

17:18

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for initiating this really important debate. As she said, football can unite communities and, regretfully, in some cases can even divide families. I am Arsenal red and my brother and sister are Chelsea blue, but there you go. That is life. English and Welsh football has undergone a transformation in terms of commercial success, the quality of football and even the experience of the spectator, but that sometimes comes at an extraordinarily high cost.

However, there is another side to this positive story, as my noble friend has highlighted. Since the creation of the Premier League, top footballers’ salaries have increased by 1,508%, compared to the 186% increase in average earnings. The percentage of turnover spent on players has increased from 48% in 1997 to 71.2% this year. With these huge rewards for owners, managers and players, who is representing the interests of the club as an inheritance to be passed on, thriving and intact, to the next generation, rather than just an asset to be sweated?

Since 1992, over half of England’s professional football clubs have been formally insolvent. Most only survived because the wider community received less than what it was owed in order to ensure that players continued to get all of what they were promised. There are no effective means for fans to have a say in how their clubs are run or to safeguard their long-term interests. That is why, as my noble friends have said, Labour is committed to having football fans on the boards of clubs.

Fans are now paying up to 1,000% more to watch their team play compared to 1992, all in order to support their club’s huge wage bills. As my noble friend said, the BBC’s Price of Football survey has shown that average prices have risen at almost twice the rate of the cost of living since 2011.

The Government’s recent announcement establishing the expert working group—promised, as we have heard, three years ago—on a way forward for supporter ownership has taken a long time to come. Perhaps the Minister would inform the House on why it has taken three years to establish that working group. The Minister of State in the other place, Helen Grant, responding to a question from my honourable friend Clive Efford, said that the group would look at very important issues such as pricing, club ownership and debt, and seating. I would be grateful if the Minister could inform the House on the mechanism for determining the terms of reference. Who, for example, did the Government consult and what prompted the inclusion of some items and not others?

While we are on the subject of inclusiveness, I will pick up the point made by my noble friend and ask the Minister why supporters’ groups from Premier League clubs have been excluded from the expert working group. After all, as my noble friend said, the suggestion of an expert working group was first made by Arsenal Supporters’ Trust in response to the Select Committee. Surely its voice should be heard.

In contrast, the Labour Party has listened over several months to the views of fans about changing the way that football is run in England and Wales. We want to ensure that those fans are heard by the owners of the clubs, too.

17:23

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, on initiating this debate. She has considerable knowledge in this area, and interest and passion as a supporter of Bolton Wanderers and in her involvement in the parliamentary football club. It is refreshing to listen to a politician with hinterland; indeed, I had the privilege earlier in the year to attend a play, “This House” by James Graham, at the South Bank which seemed very much dedicated to the noble Baroness.

The thrust of this debate has been about English football or the English league, which of course encompasses Welsh clubs, too. My noble friend Lord Greaves rightly reminded us—I should perhaps refer to Members’ allegiances as I go along: his is Bradford Park Avenue, which must have been good preparation for becoming a Liberal Democrat—that the Football League goes beyond the league, and it is vital that we remember that.

Scotland and the Scottish League, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in the context of Dundee United, have similar concerns. Of course, these are rightly dealt with from Holyrood, although I am sure that there is an exchange of good practice with Scotland and Northern Ireland, too—and, indeed, with the Republic of Ireland, as the League of Ireland faces similar challenges to our own.

A generation ago, football in Britain was in decline. Most games were played before a few thousand diehards in dilapidated, down-at-heel grounds. There was often toxic racism on the terraces and in the grounds, and massive ground trouble, something the noble Baroness referred to. Overseas hosts of our matches feared the arrival of the Brits, and not because of the football. Now, five of the top 10 football clubs in the world by revenue generated, according to Deloitte’s, are in the Premier League: Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal—supported by the noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Collins of Highbury. Both noble Lords are clearly very rich if they can afford season tickets there. I will return to the Fanshare scheme later, but this demonstrates the global phenomenon that the Premier League is, and it is important that we do not lose sight of the progress made while acknowledging that there are problems still to be addressed, namely—as highlighted today—fan involvement and engagement and fan ownership: that is absolutely right.

The Government are committed to helping supporters have better engagement with the clubs that they back, and more of a say on how those clubs are run. Some clubs have already made progress on that. English football has a long and colourful history, spanning everything from globally supported Premier League clubs, as I mentioned, to community clubs that are coaching the stars of the future and opening up sport to enthusiastic young fans and participants.

Since 2010 the Government have worked closely with football authorities on a wide range of issues, such as governance and financial sustainability. The close partnership has seen toughened-up rules on ownership tests—seen at play in, for example, Hereford recently—as well as improved financial transparency. In parenthesis, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that Premier League clubs are all public companies, so they are obliged to file accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Acts. That is true of the Premier League clubs, though not of the whole League.

There are ongoing issues that need to be addressed in relation to debt and to ownership. The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee football governance inquiry—how that trips off the tongue—of 2011 produced a final report in 2013 which made a range of recommendations for football as a whole. These included the setting up of an expert group. That final report came out in January 2013, not quite two years ago. Such an expert group, it said, should look at barriers to supporter ownership. That is important. One recommendation which was taken up, from an interim report, was for supporter liaison officers, who have been notably successful at, for example, Doncaster Rovers. All Football League clubs have brought them in. They have been a great success in some clubs and no doubt in time they will become entrenched and refined elsewhere.

Other countries have, culturally and historically, come at this from a different angle. Some clubs on the continent have much higher fan ownership, such as Bayern Munich and Barcelona, which are culturally and historically different from our own. In the English League we have some good examples of supporter ownership: ASC Wimbledon—backed by the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson—is an example. Portsmouth Football Club is an outstanding example, as too are Wrexham and Swansea. I know a bit about Swansea because I follow and support the Swans—or at least I did until they defeated Leicester City last weekend, as Leicester City is the team I have supported since childhood. They have not yet been forgiven for that.

Other successful schemes have been mentioned. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, referred to Millwall’s scheme and its community involvement. That is something else we should not lose sight of: all clubs have great community involvement and do fantastic work in their local communities and for charities. We should acknowledge that and thank the clubs for it.

Many other clubs have worked hard to establish supporters’ trusts, which have pursued ownership or part-ownership of their clubs. This is a welcome development and why the Government have established an expert group to look at this matter following the Select Committee’s recommendation. The Minister for Sport, Helen Grant, launched the expert group on supporter ownership and engagement on Tuesday 21 October at Portsmouth Football Club, a club which, in many ways, has pioneered supporter ownership. The group was developed in partnership with Supporters Direct, an excellent grass roots organisation. Supporters Direct was established in October 2000 in recognition that clubs need to be closer to their fans and communities to promote sustainable spectator sports clubs. Its mission is to increase the influence of supporters through ownership and involvement. I pay tribute to what they do.

My noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, who supports Wolverhampton Wanderers, referred to the importance of safety and inclusion. I could not agree more with that. I pay tribute to his work in that regard with London 2012, which were the most inclusive Games we have ever seen. The expert group is to be chaired by Joanna Manning-Cooper, so I say to the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, we have a woman in a prominent role who will no doubt deliver. I have no doubt that she will give a warm welcome to Karren Brady when she takes up her role here in the weeks to come.

The first meeting of the group will be in November when precise terms of reference will be agreed by the FA, along with Supporters Direct and the chair. Those people are the driving force behind this. I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, that this will not be kicked into the long grass. There is a commitment that this group will report before the general election. There is a feeling around the House, which I think is shared in another place, that it is important to get this right and that fans are rightly involved with their clubs. They are the lifeblood of clubs but sometimes we lose sight of that.

Consumer issues, including the pricing of tickets, will be looked at. We cannot all afford a season ticket for Arsenal. We have to help kids to get in by looking at how prices can be brought down. Some clubs which have not necessarily pursued community ownerships of their clubs have done that. For example, West Ham United has a “kids for a quid” scheme where kids often can go to a game for a pound. There are consumer issues about the pricing of tickets, the pricing of the strip and so on, as well as about the naming of a club. I offer reassurance to the noble Lord in relation to the issue with Hull Tigers. That was blocked by the football authorities; they sometimes get these things right.

Members have referred to the existing legislative framework. In the Companies Act 2006, there is an obligation on directors to take account not just of the providers of capital, the shareholders, but of stakeholders generally, which would include the community and fans—the consumers. Perhaps it is relatively early in the lifetime of the Companies Act, but these issues have not been tested in the courts yet. However, directors should be paying attention to the interests of the community and fans.

These all are important issues. It has been a very good debate. I thank all noble Lords for their participation but, once again, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing this important issue to the House. I encourage people to engage with the expert group. Its terms of reference and priorities will be set out within the next month. Then it is open to people, including the Labour Party, to contribute, so that we can get things moving in the direction that we all want, do not lose the great value that our football league is to the economy and the communities, and ensure that fans are much more widely engaged throughout the football league.

Slavery

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

17:34

Asked by

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to combat slavery in supply chains nationally and internationally.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)]

Slavery is hidden here in our communities and exists in every country in the world. It is a growing part of our national and international economy. Walk Free’s global slavery index estimates that there were 29.8 million people enslaved worldwide with 4,500 people in modern slavery in the UK. Thanks to campaigners, NGOs, businesses, trade unions and journalists, the issue of slavery and supply chains is once again under the spotlight—and rightly so. Together they have uncovered some of the worst examples of slavery in supply chains.

Over the years, cheaper transport and communication costs have dramatically changed the way consumer goods are produced. Multinational corporations now have production plants around the world, allowing them to take advantage of cheaper labour and local markets. They outsource more and more stages of their production to different suppliers in different countries, which in turn employ subcontractors to manage demand and beat the competition. In this way, supply chains get very long and very complex. One multinational business can be interconnected to thousands of workplaces and millions of workers. The sad fact is that these complex supply chains can allow slavery to thrive.

Research commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply showed that more than one in 10 business leaders admitted that it is likely that modern slavery is playing a role in their supply chains. Research by Verité found that forced labour affected one in three workers in the production of electronic goods in Malaysia. Malaysia is a major global manufacturing hub for the electronics industry, supplying the world’s most recognisable brands. This means that nearly every device that we buy has a root in Malaysia and therefore a root in slavery—roots that the ILO estimates lead to worldwide profits of $150 billion every year.

Allowing a person’s human rights to be abused in the pursuit of profit should never happen. As multinational businesses enjoy the profits afforded to them from increased global production, so too must they accept responsibility for the working conditions of their global workforce. This has to be the deal. Consumers expect it to be the deal. Through this deal, multinational corporations have the power to make a real difference to the working lives of millions. They have the power to reform their business models so that they are less reliant on outsourcing and suppliers who subcontract. Many businesses now shorten their supply chains and build partnerships with suppliers they trust.

We know, thanks to the exposé by the Guardian into the Thai fishing industry, how dark things can be for workers at the bottom of a supply chain—involving kidnap, torture, and execution—and all to provide fish feed for the prawns on our supermarket shelves. Multinational corporations have the power stop this and improve the working conditions of those enslaved by exploitative suppliers. They have the power to insist on inspection regimes and can support local efforts to empower workers through collective bargaining and trade unions.

The horror stories that we hear are truly shocking: workers getting little or no wages; passports seized so that there is no escape; locked in flea-infested shelters, seven to a room; scared into compliance by beatings and vicious dogs; and then squashed into vans to spend days travelling from farm to farm. This is not a horror story from a far-flung country on the other side of the world, but the story of slavery from Kent. Thirty migrant workers held in debt bondage here in the UK—working on a farm supplying eggs to our supermarkets and fast-food restaurants.

Sadly, examples like this are not isolated incidents. Recent figures from the Salvation Army reported that, over the past year, victims of labour exploitation have overtaken the victims of sexual exploitation for the first time. Multinational corporations have the power to insist on decent wages and formal contracts for all workers here in the UK and across the world.

Of course, the exploitation of workers producing goods for major brands is not new. Since the 1990s, charities, the media and trade unions have been shouting loudly about the abuse suffered by workers. In response, many businesses have adopted voluntary codes and developed programmes to help deliver decent working conditions in their supply chains. Many have been members of the Ethical Trading Initiative since it began in 1998. When giving evidence to the pre-legislative scrutiny committee, of which I was a member, the British Retail Consortium said:

“Companies don’t want this in their supply chains. .... and retailers have been working really hard to try and root it out”.

Good businesses want to do the right thing. They understand that an enhanced reputation for fair working practices can attract investment and consumers. These voluntary initiatives are welcome and have had success. But they are not enough. Good businesses want the Government to legislate on supply chain transparency to level the playing field. Legislation would make sure that the good companies are not undercut by the bad.

Since I tabled this debate, the Government have made a welcome announcement. They have changed their mind and decided to table an amendment on transparency in supply chains to the Modern Slavery Bill. Publishing the Bill without such a clause was a glaring omission, so this is a major step forward. As I said earlier, we need businesses to help in the fight against slavery.

Looking at the detail of the amendment published yesterday, I think that there are five areas that need further consideration. First, it is essential that minimum measures of disclosure are specified in the Bill. This is vital, because we need this clause to act as a catalyst for change, creating public pressure and competition between businesses so more are encouraged to act. Minimum measures that should be included are: the need to conduct risk assessments by product, industry and geography; the need to set out who has been involved in identifying the risks; the need to set out what actions have been taken to mitigate the risks; and the need to set out what has been the impact of those actions.

Without minimum measures in the Bill, comparisons between companies will be impossible for consumers to make. The level playing field desired by good businesses will be difficult to achieve, and the Government will not get the transparency or the world-leading legislation that they say they want. The statutory guidance would then underpin these minimum requirements. Can the Government say why they have chosen to take a minimalist approach to the detail in the amendment?

Secondly, many agree that the eradication of slavery in supply chains needs to be a corporate, and therefore a CEO, responsibility. The scrutiny committee also heard from Andrew Forrest, founder of the Walk Free Foundation and chairman of the Fortescue Metals Group. Throughout his company he has established a zero-tolerance attitude towards slavery in his supply chain of 3,000 suppliers. He said:

“The only reason that we found slavery in our supply chains was that it was mandated to be searched for by the chairman. … without that leadership from the top, it just would not have happened”.

Can the Government say why this critical level of accountability has not been included in the amendment?

Thirdly, the size of the business that will have to comply with the amendment is subject to a consultation. Can the Government say more about that? When will it start, how long will it last and who will it involve? Will it be completed in time to fully debate the threshold as the Bill passes through this House? Will national and local government be expected to take responsibility for auditing their own procurement practices and supply chains?

Fourthly, can the Government say how they expect this legislation to be monitored and enforced? Once the duty to disclose is agreed, businesses will expect scrutiny of their reports. Again, to level the playing field among businesses, should the Secretary of State or the new Anti-Slavery Commissioner not produce their own objective annual analysis?

Finally, on support for businesses, we all recognise that it will take a few years for businesses to successfully map, audit and evaluate every tier of their supply chain. Can the Government say how they intend to help businesses comply with this new clause? For example, the demand for quality training for those working in procurement and auditing will increase. Businesses should, and will want to, work together to collect and share information about the suppliers they use. As suggested by Anti-Slavery International, corporations and suppliers should form genuine partnerships so that slavery is not pushed deeper underground.

When considering how the Government can help businesses to fight slavery, you have to look at the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the GLA. Many welcome the great job done by the GLA. In the sectors for which it is responsible, it has been effective at raising standards and driving out poor performance. Given the context in which the GLA was established 10 years ago, limiting the sectors made sense, but 10 years later the limit on the GLA’s remit makes little sense. High-risk sectors—construction, cleaning, care, clothing, catering and hospitality—all fall outside the remit of the GLA.

There is a huge level of support for a full GLA review to extend its role and remit, and also to look at the fines and civil sanctions available to it. Do the Government agree that the GLA needs such a review? Will the Government look at ways to help the GLA develop alternative sources of funding? With new supply chain legislation, there must be scope for the possibility of a partnership between business and the GLA in terms of additional training, advice, and briefing.

In closing, I thank all noble Lords who have put their name down to speak in this debate today, in particular my noble friend Lord Rosser for speaking on behalf of the Opposition and, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for responding on behalf of the Government. We need businesses to help us eradicate slavery. By working together, business by business, supplier by supplier, country by country, we can drive slavery out of our future.

17:44

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for giving us the opportunity to debate this issue which she has described very vividly. I also thank the Library for its useful briefing.

Human rights are not optional, so compliance with them should not be optional or voluntary either. In some—perhaps many—parts of the world, this may not seem to be the case. The more I think about this, the more obvious it is that economic factors and a lack of education—and obviously the two often go hand in hand—play a huge part in exploitation, forced labour and slavery.

Frederick Douglass, the African-American social reformer, who himself escaped slavery and became the leader of the abolitionist movement, achieved literacy despite the law prohibiting the teaching of slaves to read. He said:

“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave”.

DfID may have a claim to be the lead department in this area, save that we cannot avoid the unpalatable facts of what happens in our own country. As the noble Baroness mentioned, there is a national and international list—and it is a much longer list than I will give. It includes cannabis farms, block paving, domestic servitude, agriculture and fishing, the sex trade and the manufacture of clothing, electronics and surgical instruments. I was startled to see that in a briefing from the BMA. Surely medical products must often be so specialised that there is considerable scope for assurance as to the conditions in which they are made as part of quality control. According to the BMA, elsewhere in the NHS and in care homes there is too much dependence on local—and I would also say immigrant—labour. We should not exploit it. Others will add more to the list.

When the Minister introduces the Bill we shall have the provisions to which the noble Baroness referred regarding transparency in supply chains, with the interesting possibility of a mandatory injunction on the application of the Secretary of State. I am sure that my noble friend will not claim that a duty on companies of a certain size to make a statement is more than a step, albeit a welcome one. He will be asked what the Government have in mind about size and turnover. Is the Minister able—perhaps then if not now—to tell the House what ideas flowed from the ministerial round table held in June and from the follow-up workshops?

It is essential to work with those to whom the new requirements will apply. I know that the British Retail Consortium is involved and I have seen evidence from it. TiSC requirements should not let us off the hook, rather as turning off the tap when brushing your teeth does not make it OK to have a two-foot deep bath during a water shortage. There is quite a read across from behaviour in respect of environmental issues. I wonder whether the “nudge unit”, or whatever that part of the Cabinet Office is called, is involved. If it is not, with regard to public awareness, behaviour and response, I think it should be.

We consumers have our consciences but we do not just need ammunition to challenge manufacturers and others; we need spoon-feeding. Fair trade brands are so helpful, as are easy-to-understand labels on domestic appliances. We may respond to ethical investment and be keen on ethical auditing, but we need information that is easy to follow. The media have a big role in disseminating information and in exposing bad practice and celebrating good practice.

Not everyone, however, can vote with their wallet or credit card and the undercutting of companies in whose business model reputation is important is an obvious problem. It seems not only that reputation is important over the counter, or over the virtual counter of the internet; every employer should want to be one for whom staff want to work for ethical reasons. That is also part of a business case.

In the context of sex trafficking, there used to be a lot of reference to reducing demand but that seems to be less the case recently, which I think is right. However, both demand and supply are relevant to a range of labour exploitation. The ILO’s forced labour definition covers all exploitative purposes of trafficking except organ removal. The ILO says that the annual profits per victim are highest in the developed economies, which I think gives us pause for thought, because for the perpetrators this is about money and getting at the money is very important. The Minister has been much involved recently with the Serious Crime Bill, as have many other noble Lords, which seeks to address this issue.

Transparency International says that the Bribery Act is also relevant. Many companies have supply chains, or are part of supply chains, in countries where there is a high risk of bribery. Therefore, we need “adequate procedures”—a technical term—to prevent bribery, including due diligence on suppliers and requiring suppliers themselves to have adequate procedures. I cannot help thinking how much advice and training will be required in this field. I also cannot help wondering—I am certainly not asking the Minister to respond to this tonight—whether this House is happy with its own procurement arrangements.

In material I was reading in preparation for today’s debate, the ILO used the apt phrase,

“profits generated on the backs of … victims”.

As well as seeking to tackle slavery and exploitation, we have a responsibility towards victims. That is a matter we need to address every day but, in terms of debate, perhaps it is a matter for another day.

I quoted Frederick Douglass’ words:

“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave”.

He also said:

“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck”.

17:52

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, on initiating this very timely debate at this critical juncture when the Government are introducing path-breaking legislation to take forward William Wilberforce’s endeavours to eradicate the barbaric phenomenon of slavery which still affects millions of men, women and children in our world today.

Forced labour and slavery are flourishing in our global supply chains of raw materials and manufactured goods. Fuelled by an insatiable desire for cheap goods and produce, it is all too probable that the clothes we wear, the phones in our pockets and the food on our plates may well have been tainted by slave labour at some point on their way to us. Every day, millions of victims of modern-day slavery are forced to work in appalling conditions for derisory or no pay. Their suffering is too often hidden at the bottom of long, complex international supply chains. These supply chains allow some big companies to abdicate responsibility and ignore the suffering that lies behind the manufacture of many products which we buy at such low prices. The majority are in the private sector, particularly in manufacture, construction and agriculture.

Excellent research by a number of NGOs, encouraged by newspapers, has recently shed light upon this utterly unacceptable phenomenon, demonstrating the routine use of forced labour in the supply chains of some of the biggest British high street stores and supermarkets. The real impact of the failure to tackle slavery in these supply chains can be understood only when we listen to the voices of the victims of that forced labour. Testimonies collected by Anti-Slavery International in southern India, published in its excellent report, Slavery on the High Street, give a few examples.

Anti-Slavery International uncovered the routine use of prison-like forced labour in the south Indian garment industry, which is a major exporter to retailers and brands on the British high street. Those interviewed worked at factories and cotton mills. Most workers are unmarried girls and women from poor, lower-caste families. Many are from rural villages with few job prospects. Around 60% have a Dalit background. Most are between 14 and 18 years old. Girls were forced to work 12 to 16-hour shifts, seven days a week, unable to take a break. Forced overtime is a regular abuse and overtime wages are rarely paid.

Pavani, aged 18, said:

“I would get shouted at if I refused to work an extra four hours. I was only allowed to go outside once every six months because security wouldn’t let us out”.

Workers are often cheated out of their wages, fired on trumped-up charges, or become ill and are unable to complete their contract.

Selvi explained:

“I became very ill and struggled to breathe. Doctors found cotton in my lung and told me that I had developed TB. The management did not give me any money for treatment and refused to pay me for a year and a half’s work”.

My final example—although there are many more—is that of Mukkammal, who tried to take her daughter back from the mill. She explained:

“My daughter told me that she was suffering with fever and vomiting. I met with the manager and asked him to let my daughter leave because she was so unwell. The management refused, saying that there was a shortage of workers so she couldn’t go”.

A week later her daughter was dead, at 20 years old.

Legislation that will ensure scrutiny of the exploitation and working conditions of those at the very bottom of the supply chain is crucial and is to be much welcomed. Therefore, I join with other noble Lords in welcoming the announcement by the Home Office that a measure to address slavery in the supply chain will be included in the Modern Slavery Bill.

The transparency in supply chains element of the Modern Slavery Bill differs from most legislation in that it can invite business to engage safely with the issue. It should be the norm that business is able to look for the problem without fear of reprisal. If we are to eradicate slavery successfully, it will take the collaborative efforts of NGOs, the general population, statutory authorities, business and government. Now there is an opportunity to achieve this, but it must be the Government who take the lead in creating that level playing field, and they must legislate smartly.

For maximum impact, the Bill needs a broad scope. Transparency in supply chains should apply to any business doing business in the UK, regardless of where that business is registered. This gives it global reach. It should also apply to businesses supplying both goods and services. Unquoted and quoted companies, public and private, should be exposed equally to risks of slavery in their supply chains.

Furthermore, if we want the actions taken by companies as a result of the new requirement to make a genuine difference to working conditions, it is essential that minimum measures of disclosure are specified in the Bill. This will not only meet the Government’s aspirations for greater transparency but also provide a level playing field for businesses. Therefore, requiring big businesses to state publicly each year what action they have taken to eliminate slavery from their supply chains is a significant step forward. Indeed, it may well be the most crucial aspect of the Modern Slavery Bill. It is the aspect that begins to deal with some of the systemic issues, and that has global reach. As such, it is truly world-leading.

I warmly welcome and applaud Her Majesty’s Government’s acceptance of the principle of this; but the devil is in the detail. For example, it is essential that minimum measures of disclosure are specified in the Bill, particularly the requirement that such information be published in each company’s directors’ report, ensuring direct accountability of directors. Such reporting must be annual and progressive.

I ask the Minister if provisions for such requirements are to be included in the Bill. Such legislation will both ensure that businesses are operating ethically and that those that eliminate slavery from their supply chains are not disadvantaged, thus ensuring a level playing field between businesses. This is welcomed by many businesses. A business leader in UK manufacturing has said:

“We warmly welcome this legislation as it will level the playing field for us. We are free of slavery in our practices here in the UK and we want our global competitors to be, too”.

Another business leader in favour of the legislation and involved in the supply chain for 20 years recently said:

“It never occurred to me that this was an issue until I came across it in our supply chain and I realised it wasn’t going to be an isolated incident”.

With a threshold of £60 million, this legislation allows bigger companies to take the lead and design best practices, which smaller companies can replicate to scale. Jane Blacklock at SABMiller argued:

“Anything that is auditable will shoot up a board’s agenda, where before it might have been an afterthought”.

Production, supply chains, jobs and investments are spread across continents, but the challenge is how to control processes and impose minimum standards and regulations. Concern is not about the jobs that are done but the conditions. The Bill must have global reach; exploitation is found everywhere, including the United Kingdom.

Fraser Nelson in the Spectator wrote:

“One of the most shocking examples of forced labour occurred at a gang master supplier working for Noble Foods, a UK company with contracts for supplying eggs to companies such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, McDonald’s and Marks and Spencer, and where the mistreatment of a large number of Lithuanians internally trafficked around the country was roundly condemned”.

The NGO Unseen worked with a man from Slovakia called Robert. He came legitimately to the United Kingdom to work on a farm. On arrival in the UK, the price of his coach ticket was raised from £40 to £4,000—a figure he could never repay, a figure he now owed to an illegal gangmaster. Robert was correctly paid the minimum wage by the farmer, but with no additional money and being in debt bondage he had no choice but to live in the horrific conditions provided by the gangmaster. He was forced to hand over his wages each week and accrued still more debt. His bank account was taken over and used for money laundering, and he was severely beaten when he attempted to complain.

This is happening in the UK now. The slave masters holding Robert were only two or three steps down the supply chain to UK supermarkets. How different it would have been for Robert and countless other victims of forced labour and slavery if the business could have announced that it had discovered forced labour in its supply and product chains, and, instead of denial, appropriate steps were taken for redress. This is what we should be working towards, and what I hope the Bill will help to achieve—an environment where businesses proactively join the fight against slavery without fear of becoming entangled in a high-publicity scandal of bad business.

In conclusion, instead of demonising a few and allowing the many to hide the reality, we need to move to a situation where businesses are encouraged to look proactively for modern slavery. Meaningful, effective transparency in supply chains legislation can deliver this.

18:02

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for securing this debate and for her excellent introduction that laid out the ground clearly. I want to make some remarks from my experience of working with victims, the police and other agencies within our national context. We have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, about the sheer horror of the way in which human beings are being treated in our own country.

I begin by welcoming Karen Bradley’s recent announcement that there will be amendments to secure proper reporting and disclosure. The key will be the level of reporting and the size of the company. I also welcome the strong support from many leaders in our industries. On the Select Committee, the people who represented Primark and Tesco, for instance, were supportive of a framework to require proper reporting and accountability, which would help their business case and standing in the community.

I want to make a number of points and then ask some questions of the Minister. Quite rightly, we see modern slavery as a moral issue and the horrific treatment of human beings by other human beings. However, it is, in terms of the proposed legislation, an economic issue. In our economy, businesses are under enormous pressure and there is a proper mantra to reduce the pressure of red tape. What that means in practice, of course, is that this country has one of the lowest levels of inspection in the labour market of any western country. Although I do not want to advocate upping red tape, having such an informal labour market that is desperate, for understandable reasons, to have maximum flexibility and efficiency means that, in all that flexibility and informality, slavery can easily be hidden because one does not have such regular and public ways of employing people. The continuing flourishing of gangmasters is an illustration of how people gathered, were taken on or not on the day, not cared for by the system of work, and just used as hands.

There is an economic issue about how we do our business in this country and how we balance the proper economic and efficient performance of companies with the treatment of human beings who provide the labour and create the wealth. That urgent debate is the background to what we are talking about.

As we have heard, modern slavery is built on the exploitation of vulnerable people. It is interesting how the people who are recruited in our country into the slavery industry are targeted because they are homeless, have mental health issues and are struggling in life. In Derby, we have recently had a case where two Slovakian traffickers have been imprisoned. They were bringing in Slovakian men, cramming them in a terraced house, confiscating their passports, sending them out to work—all the usual things. All these people being trafficked were extremely vulnerable; easily abused and oppressed by that kind of brutal regime. We have had recent cases with Latvian women and Indian women in Derby; in every case they were vulnerable people.

As well as the economic context, the broader point is the fact of vulnerable people. We live in a culture that is rightly concerned about safeguarding. We are concerned rightly about the safeguarding of children at the moment. We have to get up to speed with the safeguarding of vulnerable adults, many of whom are in exploited forced labour.

There has been some discussion—it came to the Select Committee—about the Companies Act, which requires companies to report in terms of human rights issues and their compliance with safeguarding the human rights of those whom they employ. However, there is some debate about how modern slavery is covered by this. Although the Government’s amendments might place in the Bill a good way of trying to get transparency, it may be worth their considering a clarification of the Companies Act, simply because many countries have companies legislation. Although they may be well behind us in terms of having a Modern Slavery Bill, it could be a model of how company law can be tweaked to make slavery a key part of what has to be reported on and accounted for in the operation of companies. If we want to be a world leader, we should not lose the potential of using the Companies Act ourselves as a model.

On the issue of scale, I entirely take the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, that big companies can set an example that smaller companies can follow. In the national context, a high proportion of those enslaved are operating in an informal, murky economy. They are employed through agencies and other mediators. We have to try very hard when we propose legislation, besides requiring big companies to use their resources to set an example and show models for others, to tackle the difficult area of an informal economy that is hard to pin down. That may generate some protest from small and medium-sized enterprises. We have to debate with them robustly and graciously; not wanting to load red tape, but to balance economic efficiency and profitability with honouring God’s image in human beings who are being treated as mere hands in this terrible way.

Finally, perhaps I may raise a number of questions for the Minister. There is an opportunity for the public sector to take a lead. We have supply chains for things such as hospitals and prisons, and I think that the Government could set a high bar in terms of how we expect our own supply chains for hospitals and prisons to perform and be accountable. First, will the Minister comment on the possibility of due diligence in our supply chains in the public sector? Secondly, due diligence is well established in VAT procedures, showing how to gather information on figures for the performance of companies. Could those procedures be developed to pick up more information about business practices in terms of employment, wage bills, and the people who are subject to them? Thirdly, business crime forums use police resources to combat fraud in supply chains. Could we learn from them how to expand the notion of fraud in supply chains from the merely financial to the exploitation of human beings? All of these are models for trying to help businesses perform well by monitoring them and encouraging transparency, so could we build on some of them to help with regard to the human element in supply chains?

I want to say how important it is to encourage businesses to develop better practices and a generous attitude. It may interest noble Lords to know that in Derbyshire a partnership has developed recently between the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and Derbyshire Constabulary to look at companies which might be susceptible to harbouring slavery in their supply chains because they use a lot of agency workers or whatever it may be, and to approach those companies proactively. They can explain how these practices operate and talk about how to combat them. Businesses have welcomed this initiative. If, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, has said, the GLA had its resourcing and remit expanded, I think it could have an important role to play not just in prevention by controlling criminals, but in proactively educating businesses so that they are able to read the signs within their operations and learn how best to respond positively.

I shall finish by reminding your Lordships that our country is rightly very concerned about safeguarding at the moment. This is part of the debate about safeguarding vulnerable adults and we need to step up to it urgently to ensure the highest standards.

18:11

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley on creating a precursor debate before we come to deal with the Modern Slavery Bill. The debate has been interesting and my noble friend’s opening contribution was very powerful. It covered the waterfront and the land masses as well. As I listened to her, I thought, “You could have left us something to cover”, but I say that in tribute to how comprehensive her coverage was. It just went to show the extent of the problem.

I declare a prior and continuing interest as, until recently, vice-chair of the Ethical Trading Initiative, an organisation that I have been involved with for many years. If I have learnt anything, it is about the sheer complexity of supply chains. They are not easy beasts to deal with. At the end of supply chains there are first-tier contractors, second-tier contractors and third-tier contractors. Companies will supply you with a set of books to suit whatever requirement you have, so businesses may have one, two or three sets of books. They know when you are coming and if there is any child labour, it will disappear. We should not underestimate the challenge that companies face in trying to root out some of these evil practices from their supply chains.

I congratulate the Government on their commitment to this issue and on making space in the legislative programme for the Modern Slavery Bill. I pay tribute to the work of Frank Field in the other place and to the commitment and involvement of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy.

I want to focus on the business of transparency and disclosure requirements in supply chains. I do not much like the acronym TiSC. It might trip off the tongue but it is not very graceful. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, talked about the sheer scale of slavery, as reflected in the ILO report. The number of people involved in it is absolutely staggering. About 21 million men, women and children are in forced labour. We know that we have not abolished slavery by any means. It is worldwide and unfortunately alive and flourishing in the UK as well. I do not want to reiterate what others have said, but global profits are estimated at $44 billion and $32 billion is generated by human trafficking. These are colossal figures. In 2014 humanity ought to be ashamed that these practices continue.

The forthcoming Bill is a welcome step in the right direction. As a number of noble Lords have said, we want a disclosure requirement for companies in the Bill. I do not apologise for repeating what my noble friend Lady Kennedy said in identifying this. There should be a clear commitment from the chief executive and chairman of a company. I know from experience that if you do not have that commitment at the top it is not going to work. What you tell buyers and suppliers is no good. They need to see that there is real commitment right at the top of companies.

Disclosure should include, as a minimum, how risks have been identified throughout the supply chain, who has been involved in the identification of such risks, what action has been taken once risks have been identified and the steps taken to address modern slavery, if it is identified. The minimum requirements should be specified in primary legislation.

My noble friend Lady Kennedy talked about a threshold of £60 million. The figure is taken from Californian legislation. Whether it is the right figure is probably open to debate. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby made the interesting point that a lot of smaller companies could be involved. A lot of them would be involved in the supply chains of bigger companies so a debate on who is going to be covered by this threshold is merited.

The disclosure should be published in a company’s annual report, on its website and provided in writing on request. Foreign companies operating in the UK are not required to produce an annual report, but they should provide a stand-alone modern slavery disclosure to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Otherwise, we will find a whole group of people who are actively trading in the UK and who could be using forced or slave labour, but who are not included here. I do not think that would be right.

One question that I do not think has been raised is that of domestic worker visas. Changes to the Immigration Rules were introduced in April 2012 and under the system now in place new domestic workers in private households are able to stay in the UK only for a minimum of six months. They are no longer able to change their employer in the UK. The same thing applies to staff in diplomatic households. They are able to stay for up to five years but they can no longer settle permanently and, as before, they cannot change an employer in the UK. If you cannot change your employer in the UK, that is creating fertile grounds for you to be in a form of modern slavery. There have been enough cases in the press for us to know that this is not just people thinking about a worst case scenario. It actually happens and is an indictment on us. I would welcome the Minister’s response on that issue.

[Baroness Hamwee]

I just used the words “domestic servitude”, having all this in mind. That is not why I have risen. Does the noble Lord agree that there must be some sort of supply chain in the countries where some of these migrant domestic workers come from, where they are initially employed and then brought to this country by their employers? The term “supply chain” should cover that kind of relationship and arrangement as well.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I thank the noble Baroness. She is absolutely right. There certainly are organisations that specialise in supplying people. Whether we can somehow embrace that in terms of the supply chain, I am not so sure.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, made a number of really interesting points. She gave us the example of the Noble Foods egg company—an absolute classic—and used the phrase “demonising a few”, which is what can happen in the current environment, where there are a number of companies that are upfront; in many cases they are members of the Ethical Trading Initiative. Of course, if their activities are found to be less than perfect, they are often pilloried, whereas a whole host of other companies are not required to do much at all.

I see the surveys and hear people talk about British consumers caring very much about the sources of goods but I am a little sceptical. When members of my own family come home and say that they have bought an item of clothing at a very low price and I ask them if they know where it came from, there is often a deafening silence. With the flourishing of various stores that are offering the opportunity to buy things for £1 or less, how many people are checking the source of what they are buying? Including these organisations would be good.

The last point I want to make is about the remit of the GLA. I was really interested to hear the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby refer to proactive activities in engaging with other companies. If noble Lords cast their minds back, they will remember that when the previous Government set up the Gangmasters Licensing Authority in the terrible context of the Morecambe Bay disaster, it had a fairly limited remit. I join others in saying that it is time we extended the remit of the GLA. There is a whole host of other industries—I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who referred to them so I do not need to repeat that. I have reached the end of my time and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

18:19

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I join the procession and extend my congratulations to my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley on securing this debate on an issue of real concern affecting the lives of many millions of vulnerable people and involving the approach to corporate responsibility and corporate accountability, both nationally and internationally.

As has been said, the Government announced earlier this month that a measure to address modern slavery in the supply chain would be included in the Modern Slavery Bill. Surprisingly, it had been omitted when the Bill was first published, even though the legislation cannot be complete or fully effective without addressing the supply chain question. The Bill is due to receive its Second Reading in this House on 17 November. According to the Government, the new measure will require big businesses to state publicly each year what action they have taken to ensure that their supply chains are slavery-free, and will apply regardless of the nature of the company or what it supplies, whether goods or services. Perhaps the Minister could say in what form and where this disclosure will be required to be given each year, and confirm who in a company would be deemed to be responsible and accountable for its content—that point has been raised already.

The Government have also said that a consultation will be held to set the exact threshold for the size of the business to be covered, and that statutory guidance will be produced setting out the kind of information that might be disclosed to help companies comply. Perhaps the Minister could say whether the Government will be making available a list of companies that would be required to report each year under the terms of the new measure they have announced, and how easy or otherwise the Government intend to make it for interested parties and individuals to obtain details of the information disclosed, in the light of their commitment to deliver greater transparency to enable customers, campaigners and shareholders to hold all big business to account.

A recent report that has clearly had an impact with its findings is one from the Salvation Army containing data gathered during the third year of its contract with the Government for managing the delivery of specialist support services to adult victims of human trafficking identified in England and Wales. The report indicates that more than 1,800 people were supported by the Salvation Army and its partners between July 2011 and June 2014. In the third year, there was a 62% increase on the number of people supported in the second year of the contract, and a 135% increase on the number of those supported in the first year. Most people referred to the Salvation Army had been subjected to labour exploitation; the number of people recovering from labour exploitation has overtaken those being supported after sexual exploitation, with the growth being at a faster rate for the first time.

Forced labour and slavery are big business. As my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley said—and others have also mentioned it—the International Labour Organization estimates the illicit profit at $150 billion a year. Perhaps not surprisingly, where big money and big profits can be made, voluntary measures have proved inadequate for tackling the scale of modern slavery in our supply chains, and avoiding a race to the bottom in labour standards and respect for human rights.

More specifically, we have heard about cheap clothing being produced in Bangladesh through forced labour or servitude, and read the reports in the Guardian newspaper recently about the issue of the prawn fishermen. We have also been reminded in our debate today by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, that exploitation of vulnerable people occurs in our own country as well.

The NHS spends in excess of £40 billion a year on the procurement of goods and services, with the supply chains providing these commodities being global and employing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. The British Medical Association has drawn attention to a growing body of evidence that, in some areas, the basic employment rights of people in these supply chains are being disregarded through low pay, long and illegal working hours, little job security, risk of serious injury from machinery, and the use of child labour. The BMA has commented that there was an uncomfortable paradox in providing healthcare in the NHS at the expense of workers’ health in its supply chains.

Responsible large companies have called for legislation to address the issue of modern slavery in the supply chains in order to eliminate unfair competition and create a level playing field. The British Retail Consortium and the Ethical Trading Initiative—which I think has some 80 corporate members—have expressed their support alongside the Trades Union Congress. Clearly, the effectiveness of what the Government are now proposing will be influenced by where the threshold for the size of businesses to be covered is set. One proposition put forward by a conglomerate of organisations that has been campaigning on this issue, is that the provisions should cover all companies operating in the UK with worldwide gross receipts of more than £60 million. My noble friend Lord Young of Norwood Green queried whether this was in fact the appropriate level.

The effectiveness of the Government’s proposals will also depend on what the statutory guidelines say about the information that should be disclosed. The Government have said that their proposals will have similarities to the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, but we do not yet know how specific the Government will be in respect of the disclosure requirements.

It has been suggested by organisations campaigning on this issue that company disclosure should include at a minimum how risks have been identified through the supply chain; who has been involved in the identification of such risks; what action has been taken once risks have been identified, and the steps taken to address modern slavery if it is identified. Perhaps the Minister could say in his response whether that sort of proposition would be in line with government thinking.

While it is certainly true that legislation and disclosure alone will not eliminate modern slavery in supply chains, and that there is a need to persuade, encourage and help businesses take action in this area, there is also the issue—not least in the interests of those companies which deliver on their responsibilities—of what happens if a company does not provide appropriate information within a laid down timescale, or does so in a form that is vague and largely meaningless or provides information which is subsequently shown to be incorrect or misleading. However, as well as requiring companies to act there is also an issue over how easy or straightforward it is for UK companies to inspect their suppliers. Help and active encouragement may be needed in this direction. Some companies have said that it is sometimes cheaper to have Fairtrade-certified products, because that reduces their costs and the level of resources needed, than try to investigate suppliers miles away in other parts of the world.

Any proposals must cover both public and private companies, which I understand the Government’s amendment to the Bill does. Of course, there is still the issue of the size of the companies covered. Secondly, the legislation, in requiring companies to report on their efforts to eradicate slavery, needs to be specific about what information must be provided to ensure that it is possible to compare properly the performance in this area of one company against another and, through that kind of transparency, assist the position of the consumer in knowing to which company to go to purchase a particular product or service. Surely that must be part of the transparency. If this is not the case then it will make pretty meaningless the Government’s statement that,

“greater transparency will give customers, campaigners and shareholders the information they need to hold all big business to account while also supporting companies to do the right thing”.

Finally we will also want to see that there is a clear way of enforcing the regulations that will give effect to the legislation. Non-existent or weak enforcement is an invitation for some companies to get round the requirement that will be laid upon them and will defeat the objective of providing a level playing field and not leaving those companies that either have addressed slavery in their supply chains or are taking steps to do so at a disadvantage. The measure proposed will presumably apply to a significant number of firms. so even establishing that firms produced the required report will be a major exercise, let alone checking the quality of the report, including whether it meets the guidelines and is objective—for example, reporting not only successes but also on the areas where further action was required. Will the Minister at least outline what the Government’s intentions are in this regard?

We welcome the fact that the Government have decided to address the omission in their Modern Slavery Bill in respect of supply chains. We wait to see the detail of the proposals and the extent to which they are likely to make a genuine difference to working conditions in supply chains in the light of the Government’s statement, with which we agree, that modern slavery is a terrible crime.

18:32

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I begin on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. We entirely agree that modern slavery is a terrible crime. Indeed, that is underscored in the title of the Minister for Modern Slavery and Organised Crime. We see the connection between the two.

This morning, I began my day at the National Crime Agency, where I was told how organised crime in human trafficking is now in many ways overtaking trafficking in illicit drugs because criminals see that we are getting more effective in tackling drug culture and therefore they are turning to people. It seems incredible in the modern age that that is so, but it underscores the fact that criminals treat these people like commodities or chattels. That is why the term “slavery” is absolutely appropriate.

I join all noble Lords in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for securing this debate and also for the way in which she introduced it and covered all the broad range of points. In fact, the contributions have been of an incredibly high standard. There were a lot of questions and I have about 10 minutes in which to do my best to try and address some of them.

I should perhaps start by trying to place this in some sort of context. There is the amendment, and I accept that that is what the legislative process is about. We have pre-legislative scrutiny, which helps to shape the Bill, but we also have engagement with NGOs. We have round-table discussions, in which the Home Secretary is taking part, and we listen to business and to the NGOs, and we feed in various ideas. We then came forward with the proposed amendment on supply chains, which was tabled yesterday. It is to be debated and formally moved on Report on Tuesday in the other place. I know that I was invited to discuss a lot of the detail about what the amendment will do and the effect it will have, and of course your Lordships will have the opportunity to consider this. However, in order to observe correct practices within the department, my colleague Karen Bradley should be allowed to set out these issues in detail in the other place on Tuesday. We can then debate this when the Bill comes here on Second Reading.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, referred to the importance of leadership. That is absolutely vital in this regard. During her speech, I reflected on undertaking my MBA dissertation in China many years ago, looking at supply chains for—I had better be careful—what I will only say was a major international footwear manufacturer, and seeing the conditions that people were put under. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young, to whom I pay tribute for his work with the Ethical Trading Initiative, also brought home to me how, because of the increased demands from consumers for more intricate designs in their footwear and a lack of investment in appropriate equipment to do this, these young girls—and it was mostly young girls in those factories—were suffering horrendous injuries in trying to fulfil the demands of western consumers. Consumers therefore need to see themselves as very much in the frame here. This is something which we all need to address, and on which we all need to exercise judgment and leadership.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee referred to the scale of the problem, and her description of profits as being generated on the backs of these people was a very apt depiction of what we are looking at here.

The determination is there to take action. The amendment is of course one part of the Modern Slavery Bill, which is one part of the whole picture. The Minister for Modern Slavery and Organised Crime is another part. The National Crime Agency, which looks at organised crime and gang-related issues, is another part. The Serious Crime Bill, which we are considering and to which the noble Baroness referred, is looking at disrupting this evil trade with gang prevention orders and a range of other sanctions. That is another part, and there will be yet other parts required. There will be a modern slavery strategy, which will be brought before your Lordships during the passage of the Modern Slavery Bill through this House. We expect that to arrive with us before Committee stage, so that noble Lords will have an opportunity to look at it. That is another part of it.

I pay tribute to the previous Government for introducing the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and the work which it has done. We are moving it from Defra into the Home Office as part of this overall initiative, and I think that was touched upon by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby. We want to see that happen. However, I think it was absolutely right for the scale to be focused on.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cox—I want to call her my noble friend—has done so much in this area internationally in speaking up for those people. She summed it up perfectly when she talked about the clothes your wear, the phone in your pocket and the food on your plate. This touches every part of our daily lives. We need to think about the hands that prepare and make these things.

There needs to be activity on this issue not just in the Home Office but across government. Indeed, there are inter-departmental committees. However, we are talking about activity not just within this country—although the noble Baroness was right to point out that it is sometimes our fashion to take a great interest and almost a certain pleasure in telling people in other jurisdictions and other countries how they should behave without recognising that we have a very serious problem right under our noses in this country which we need to address. Figures presented to me this morning show that it is believed that nearly 3,000 people in this country fall into the category of slavery at the present time. We need to work on that.

The noble Baroness may be interested to know that, as part of a joint FCO-Home Office project in December last year, the NSPCC trained—many noble Lords referred to the need for training—UK and Nigerian officials better to identify trafficked children in Abuja, Nigeria, and repeated that training in Hanoi and Beijing. The Department for International Development also works in a number of ways which directly and indirectly help combat modern slavery. More specifically, DfID runs a Work in Freedom programme in partnership with the International Labour Organization to help girls and women in south Asia avoid being trafficked to work in the Middle East in domestic worker and garment manufacturing sectors. More than 100,000 girls will directly benefit from this project over five years. So it is part of a wider initiative.

A number of noble Lords referred to the public sector and were telling the private sector what it should be doing. Under the Companies Act, a requirement was introduced to include a statement on human rights in the annual report, which would of course need to be signed off by the directors, who carry the ultimate responsibility for standing by that report. The accuracy of that statement is every bit as important as the accuracy of the financial data which are in subsequent pages. Under an amendment which has been proposed and which will be debated, we will look at what form that statement should be in to make sure that it is clear that firms have given due cognizance and shown due diligence in sourcing materials as part of their trading.

Other noble Lords said that the Government themselves need to do more. Some specific, quite disturbing issues relating to the Department of Health were mentioned, including by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Young. The Department of Health and the NHS Supply Chain have developed a labour standards assurance system that encompasses issues of forced labour. This is used as a basis for auditing suppliers in categories of supply where the risk of labour standards abuses is assessed as being high. To date, this approach has been successfully applied to supply agreements covering surgical instruments and medical textiles, and it will be extended to cover other categories in the future as agreements are retendered. The Department of Health is working with the Ethical Trading Initiative and the British Medical Association to develop guidance. I understand that there are concerns in that area, but some steps are being taken.

I shall try to deal with one or two other points. On minimum requirements, which were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, the Modern Slavery Bill allows the Secretary of State to publish detailed guidance, on which we will consult widely. Disclosure must be published prominently on an organisation’s website and home page.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked where the California-style disclosure list sat in the Government’s thinking. We will be publishing guidance on the kinds of formation in the disclosure and will consult on these matters. We will consider the Californian requirement very carefully in this exercise, along with any other helpful examples. In conclusion, we will return to this issue many, many times in your Lordships’ House, and rightly so.

[Lord Rosser]

I ask the Minister—and I accept that in the time he has had it was not possible to respond to the numerous questions raised, and he has referred to the amendment coming up in the other place shortly—whether he is prepared to look at Hansard and the various questions that have been raised and, if he feels that he has not responded to some of them, whether he will write to noble Lords who have raised those questions, so that we have those replies ready for Second Reading in November?

[Lord Bates]

That is a very good suggestion. I was certainly intending to do that, and I will make sure we do it. It would also be helpful if noble Lords who take an interest in this area could meet me and the officials who will be working on the Bill to talk through the detail of it, ahead of Second Reading on, I think, 17 November. I would like to do that. We share a lot of common ground in trying to make this work, and once again I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for bringing it before us today.

House adjourned at 6.46 pm.