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Oral Answers to Questions
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
1. What estimate he has made of the number of people in full-time employment in the last 12 months.
The Minister for Employment (Esther McVey)
Full-time employment has risen by nearly 600,000 in the past 12 months, making up 85% of the total rise in employment.
Nigel Adams
I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Unemployment in my constituency has gone down by almost 60% since the general election. I am very pleased with the co-operation of my local Jobcentre Plus offices in the jobs fairs I operate. Most right hon. and hon. Members on the Government side of the House tend to organise and fund jobs fairs themselves or with sponsorship. What sort of support is available to the Jobcentre Plus scheme and to hon. Members, as we might be able to tempt one or two Opposition Members to get involved?
Esther McVey
I congratulate my hon. Friend, because that is his fourth jobs fair, with over 400 jobs and 50 apprenticeships available. I understand why it is so important to him, because he left school at 17, got a job and was made redundant, so he set up his own business, on £20 a week with a Government enterprise scheme, and built the company up so much that he then sold it to a plc. That is why he wants to help more and more people into jobs and to set up businesses. Jobcentre Plus can offer practical support to publicise jobs fairs, help with getting in touch with claimants and, where possible, and on a case-by-case basis, there might also be financial support.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
Is the Minister not concerned about the number of people working full-time on zero-hours contracts, and does she know how many such people there are?
Esther McVey
Those people on zero-hours contracts comprise 2% of all workers, and I remind the hon. Gentleman that the UK Statistics Authority called the Opposition to account for inflating the number of people on zero-hours contracts. What I can tell him is that the vast majority of jobs are full-time and permanent. That is what we should be celebrating now, with nearly 2 million more people in work since the general election.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Will the Minister look at the case of my constituent Albert Dowie, whose small service pension is preventing him from doing part-time work, because to do so would deny him income support and reduce his housing benefit?
Esther McVey
I will indeed meet the hon. Gentleman to talk about that case. However, that is why the Secretary of State is leading the way in bringing in universal credit so that we do not have all those discrepancies in the system, with points and differentials and things that are preventing people who want to return to work from doing so. The Government should be supporting them, and that is what we are doing.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
2. If he will make it his policy to pay employment and support allowance during the period of mandatory reconsideration.
The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)
I am afraid that I am going to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. We are not going to change our policy in that way. When someone is found fit for work, they should claim jobseeker’s allowance and work with Jobcentre Plus to get back into the work force.
Mr Cunningham
I think that the Work and Pensions Committee has also termed the policy illogical, but does the Minister not realise that, by virtue of the fact that he is not prepared to change it, he is driving more and more people into hardship and that they, in turn, are having to use food banks? The Government must hold some sort of record on food banks, because under this Government their use is the only thing that is increasing.
Mr Harper
That was not the sort of question I normally expect from the hon. Gentleman. If someone is found fit for work, they should immediately apply for jobseeker’s allowance, which is paid at the same rate as the assessment rate of employment and support allowance, so there is no change in their income. They should then engage with their Jobcentre Plus contact so that they can be moved into work. That is the right way for someone to behave when they have been found fit for work, and there is no reason at all why their income should fall.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
During my first couple of years in Parliament—2010-11 and 2011-12 —every week my constituency surgery seemed full of people concerned about appealing against ESA decisions. Recently, the number of appeals seems to have declined. Is that also the case nationally?
Mr Harper
We have seen a significant reduction in the number of appeals. The mandatory reconsideration process is helpful, because it means that we can make sure that the right decision is made more quickly rather than having to force someone to go through a very lengthy appeals process within the tribunals service.
Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)
I am surprised by the Minister’s answer, because my Select Committee made exactly this recommendation and the Government have turned it down. The situation has got worse for people who are reapplying for employment and support allowance, because they think that their ill health has got worse. In future, they are to be denied getting ESA at the assessment rate. Why does the Minister think that is the right approach rather than allowing people to claim an out-of-work benefit because they are too ill to work?
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady, notwithstanding her position as Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, has not outlined the change correctly. If someone’s condition has significantly worsened or if they are claiming for a new condition, of course they can claim employment and support allowance. What they cannot do is to keep reclaiming employment and support allowance for the same condition when they have already been found to be fit for work.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that for no other benefit is payment usually made pending the claimant’s appeal for the benefit to be returned?
Mr Harper
I can confirm that that is right. In all other benefits, when someone is found not to be entitled to it and then chooses to appeal, they are not paid anything while the appeal is ongoing. My hon. Friend is right that employment and support allowance is rather odd in that regard.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Nevertheless, the position is that when people do appeal, their ESA will be reinstated. There is no financial saving to the Government unless they expect people not to claim JSA during this period. It is therefore not just hard for the claimant but administratively expensive for the Department to put people through that process.
Mr Harper
This is about making sure that when someone goes for a work capability assessment and is found to be fit for work, the most important thing is that they then engage with the jobs market and get back into the workplace. It is not just about the benefits; it is about making sure that people are getting the benefit of getting into work. For most people with a mental health problem, it is very clear that working will not just be the right thing but will be better for their condition.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
3. What his policy is on the freezing of pensions of British nationals living abroad; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)
The policy of the Government on the uprating of UK state pensions paid to people living overseas is the same as that of successive post-war Governments—namely, to uprate such pensions where we are legally required to do so under the terms of EU law or a bilateral social security agreement.
Steve Webb
I agree with my hon. Friend in the sense that if one were designing a system from scratch, one would not necessarily design the one that we have arrived at over the course of 50 years. He will be aware, however, that paying for this indexation would cost some half a billion pounds a year, and I do not believe that any party in this House has committed to such an increase in public spending.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
The state pension and associated benefits are very important to UK pensioners. Will the Minister therefore explain why, following last week’s uprating statement, 1.6 million pensioners will see their state pension income rise by just 87p?
Steve Webb
I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not raise this point last Thursday when I made an oral statement on this issue; perhaps he heard about it on “Money Box” on Saturday. As he knows, not all pensioners receive the full rate of the state pension. Many people—many women, particularly older women—receive a reduced rate, and, as has always been the case, the increase is proportionate to the rate of pension they receive. They get the same percentage increase; it is lower if they get a lower pension.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
4. What steps he has taken to increase support for heads of households in the workplace.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
In October we introduced the family test, putting the family at the heart of policy making across Whitehall. From April 2015, for the first time ever, shared parental leave will enable both parents to retain a strong link with the labour market, allowing fathers to play a greater role in raising their children and helping mothers to return to work at a time that is right for them.
Simon Kirby
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. How many troubled families have been helped in Brighton, Kemptown?
Mr Duncan Smith
The troubled families programme has turned around the lives of over 69,000 families in England, and 120,000 had been helped by August 2014. In Brighton and Hove, the programme has worked with 675 families, changing their lives, and 417 families were turned around by August 2014, giving them a new start in life.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Did the Secretary of State hear the wonderful Professor Elizabeth Dowler on the “Today” programme this morning, when she very articulately said that what poorer people—those on low wages, working hard—want is a decent job paying enough to put food on the table and to pay the bills that have been going up inexorably?
Mr Duncan Smith
I heard that interesting debate between Professor Dowler and the head of the Oxford food bank, who talked about the wider ramifications of issues concerning access to food and food distribution, which is a matter for supermarkets. Of course, we want people to earn more. The key thing after the recession was to get people into work. We have got 2 million people back into work as a starting point, and we know that for every year in work a person’s salary rises on average by about 4%. Is there more to do? Yes, of course there is. We are looking carefully at that report and we will respond appropriately. I promise the hon. Gentleman that I take the report very seriously.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
5. What the average time taken is for a decision on an award of personal independence payment.
The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)
The delays that some people applying for PIP have experienced are unacceptable, as I have said a number of times in the House. Getting those delays down is my No. 1 priority. The hon. Lady will be aware of the Secretary of State’s very clear commitment, which the Department is working very hard to achieve.
Diana Johnson
My constituent Simon Brown waited seven months for his PIP application to be processed. That delay meant that he was unable to apply for other help—such as additional housing benefit—that a PIP award allows. Given that eventual backdated payments do not compensate for the hardship and misery that people experience while waiting for months, and given that benefit delays are one of the main reasons that people are accessing food banks and going to loan sharks, can the Minister say what specifically he is doing to make sure that other people do not suffer in the same way as my constituent?
Mr Harper
Yes, I can. Overall, I accept there has been a problem with PIP and I have set that out in the House on a number of occasions. As far as benefits across the Department are concerned, the Department now pays benefits more quickly than when we came to office, so that has improved. Since the start of the year the assessment providers have trebled the number of health professionals they employ. Since April we have doubled the number of monthly assessments and tripled the number of decisions made, and by the beginning of next year we will have almost quadrupled the number of health professionals. That is making a real difference to making decisions on a timely basis for the hon. Lady’s constituents and mine.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Rearranging assessment appointments because of unrealistic expectations for the travel of disabled people has not helped with the timeliness of some decisions. Community transport providers in Wiltshire have a trusted reputation for assisting people with travel to medical appointments. Will the Minister consider opening discussions with volunteer community transport providers about the resources they would need to help people with travel to PIP assessments?
Mr Harper
I am familiar with community travel providers; I have a number of excellent ones in my own constituency, including a couple of very good dial-a-ride services, namely Lydney Dial-a-Ride and Newent Dial-a-Ride. My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We currently aim for a one-and-a-half hour maximum travel distance by public transport, and I will ask my officials to look at whether we could work more closely with those community providers. My hon. Friend makes a very good point that is worth further study.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
It is no good the Minister coming here saying that he is very concerned about PIP and wants to do something about it. This has been going on for too long. Patients that suffer a downturn in their condition are suffering an extra 28-day delay and the Multiple Sclerosis Society says that that could lead to their missing out on up to £3,500. It is about time the Minister sorted this out, so what is he going to do about it?
Mr Harper
I do not think the hon. Gentleman was listening very carefully to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). I set out that the assessment providers have hired more staff, that we have significantly increased the number of decisions we are making, and that backlogs are being reduced. I also set out very clearly the commitment made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which I am working very hard to achieve.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
One of my constituents—a British citizen—returned to the UK, having lived in New Zealand for five years, to look after her ill mother. She now has cancer, but she cannot claim PIP due to the habitual residence test. Does the Minister agree that she is falling foul of regulations that are really meant to stop benefit tourism by EU migrants? Will he meet me to discuss this particular constituent’s plight?
Mr Harper
I do not know all the facts of that specific case, but I would be delighted to discuss it with my hon. Friend. The general position is that tests about habitual residence and past presence are meant to make sure that only people with a close connection to Britain are able to claim our benefits. I will, of course, meet my hon. Friend to discuss the specific case.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Last week’s economic and fiscal outlook from the Office for Budget Responsibility shows that, following the PIP delays under discussion, spending on the benefit will be £1.2 billion higher than the Government planned last December. At the same time, disabled people are having to wait months for a decision, with more than 300,000 stuck in the queue, according to the most recent figures. In a Westminster Hall debate on 25 November, the Minister said that the DWP was receiving between 30,000 and 40,000 claims per month, and the most recent figures show 35,000 decisions per month being taken. The Minister is therefore running to stand still, so will he say exactly how he is going to bring down the backlog?
Mr Harper
Yes; obviously, I was talking about the figures that have been published so far. The hon. Lady will know, as she attended the debate in Westminster Hall, that I set out the timetable for publishing clearance statistics. Her general point is well made. I am very well aware of the delays—I have to reply to Members from across the House—and that is why we have put in a considerable amount of effort. Both the Department and providers are making considerable progress towards the Secretary of State’s commitment, and we will be able to say more about that in the new year.
Kate Green
Disabled people are being left, sometimes for months, without support. Some are very seriously ill, some have degenerative conditions, some are being hounded for a planned intervention—effectively, resubmitting their claim part way through their award—and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) pointed out, some are losing their passported benefits. All that, alongside delays in processing employment and support allowance assessments and today’s decision on the closure of the independent living fund, mean that disabled people are facing huge anxiety and uncertainty. Does the Minister really think it is right that they should take the pain for the Government’s welfare failures?
Mr Harper
I do not agree at all with the way the hon. Lady has set that out. Right at the beginning of my answer I said that I was seized of the delays to PIP, and we have made a lot of progress in dealing with them. She refers to today’s judgment on the independent living fund. She will know, of course, that that has nothing to do with saving money; it is about making sure that people are using the care and support system, which will be further improved by the Care Act 2014 in the new year. The judge was very clear and gave a very clear decision today about the proper, robust decision making in the Department. The ILF is working closely with local authorities to make sure that the transition from ILF to local authority support is as seamless as possible.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
6. What comparative assessment he has made of unemployment rates in the UK and other European countries.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
The UK’s unemployment rate of 6% is now the fifth lowest in the European Union. In France, Italy, Spain and across the euro area all unemployment rates remain in double figures. In the past year alone, the UK has seen a larger fall in its overall unemployment rate and its youth unemployment rate than Germany, France, Italy and all the major G7 countries.
Stephen Metcalfe
Youth unemployment in my constituency of South Basildon and East Thurrock is down by 42%. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this jobs revolution would not have happened if we had pursued the policies across the channel, which were supported by the Leader of the Opposition?
Mr Duncan Smith
It is well worth reminding ourselves that when the present French President was elected, the Leader of the Opposition extolled his virtues and his plan for France. Right now, France’s unemployment rate is more than 75% higher than the UK’s and it has been rising faster, and its youth unemployment rate is 50% higher than the UK’s. If that is the prospect for the UK, I am sure I know what the result will be at the next election.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
The fall in youth unemployment is very welcome, but it remains the case that our youth unemployment levels are much higher than many European countries, such as Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Why will the Government not sign the European Union’s youth jobs guarantee?
Mr Duncan Smith
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was listening to what I said earlier. The reality for us is that our youth unemployment is falling faster than anywhere else. Only a few countries in Europe actually have lower youth unemployment. I am determined to drive it down to the levels that other countries have. Our rate of youth unemployment is a success, and I honestly do not think that bogus schemes—they cost a lot of money, but do not get anybody into work—will do anything but instil a certain amount of apathy among young people.
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend believe that the Government’s success on youth unemployment shows that our long-term economic plan is working?
Mr Duncan Smith
It is true. Here is the long-term economic plan—a record employment level of 30.8 million, up 1.75 million since 2010; over three quarters of the rise in employment since 2010 in full-time work, and two thirds of the rise in employment in managerial, professional jobs; and the number of British people in work up by over 1 million in the past four years, two thirds of the total rise in employment.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State aware that in Bolsover and the village of Shirebrook, Mike Ashley has a different rule? Most of his employees at SportsDirect are on zero-hours contracts. It is time those contracts were abolished. That is what we will do if we get into power in May. Is he aware that the way in which employment agencies bring people over to work at SportsDirect resulted in one employee having a baby in the SportsDirect toilet on new year’s day? That proves that all the talk about the wonderful employment figures is totally wrong, because she should have been on maternity benefits and probably should not have been working on new year’s day. That is what is inflating the bogus employment figures. It is time he sorted it out.
Mr Duncan Smith
The reality is different from what the hon. Gentleman describes. The personal circumstances of individuals may be appalling and that needs to be dealt with, but people on zero-hours contracts represent 2% of the work force. We are moving to get rid of the one excess that makes them a problem, which is when people are blocked from taking any other work. That will not be allowed, but it was allowed under his party’s Government. The last point I would make about zero-hours contracts is that nearly 70% of those who have them prefer them, because they give them flexibility. That comes from independent polling. Zero-hours contracts were never attacked by his party’s Government and I do not think that it is his party’s policy to get rid of them. We think that they add something to the economy.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
7. What steps his Department is taking to help unemployed people find work and start their own business.
The Minister for Employment (Esther McVey)
The new enterprise allowance scheme offers mentoring support to help people on benefits develop a business plan and a weekly allowance that is payable over six months. That successful scheme has already supported 50,000 new start-up businesses.
David Rutley
Given the progress that is being made with the new enterprise allowance, what steps are being proposed to extend its benefits so that more people can establish more businesses?
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend is correct that we need to extend the scheme, and we will do so. People can be referred to places through to March 2016. Not only are we extending the time limit for people to apply; we are extending eligibility to the partners of people who are on jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance, and to those on income support. It is a successful scheme. We want to keep it that way and to expand it as much as we can.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
Single parents in Darlington who are on the Work programme have been to see me because they are being told to leave their nine and 10-year-old children at home unsupervised during the school holidays so that they can attend the Work programme. Will the Minister look into that urgently and ensure that such foolish, dangerous, reckless advice is never given to parents?
Esther McVey
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that point. We work closely with charity groups such as Gingerbread to ensure that the hours that lone parents have to work and the commitments they have to live up to fit around their lives and the children they look after. That is key to offering the right support for lone parents.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
Many unemployed people have been helped back to work by the Government’s excellent apprenticeships scheme. Will the Minister consider extending the scheme to include people who are over 50 so that we can help older people as well?
Esther McVey
We will be offering more support to the over-50s. I know how much work my hon. Friend does in this area, not only on jobs fairs, but especially to help people who are over 50. We are supporting people through our fuller working lives initiative and are looking at things such as sector-based work academies and work experience to give returners the extra skills they need to go into a second or third career.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is one thing to get a job; it is quite another to get a job that pays enough to put food on the table. That is why the majority of people who use the food bank in the Rhondda are in work, which is surely a Dickensian-style disgrace. Is it not a particularly bitter irony that the Conservative club in Tylorstown in the Rhondda closed and is now a food bank?
Esther McVey
What we know is that we provide £94 billion in working age benefits. We also know that, for the extra people we have got into work, in-work poverty has actually fallen by 300,000 since the election. The Government are getting more people into work so that they can have a job, a career and a progression—they can move forward. The hon. Gentleman does not want to hear independent statistics, but that is the case. We have more people in jobs than ever before.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
8. What recent assessment he has made of levels of youth unemployment.
The Minister for Employment (Esther McVey)
Youth unemployment is continuing to fall. In this year alone, it has fallen by the biggest ever number: more than a quarter of a million. There are just more than 700,000 unemployed young people, but if we take out those in full-time education, the number is below half a million.
Andrew Bridgen
Since the Government came to office, youth unemployment in my constituency has fallen by 60%, helped in part by a near trebling in the number of apprenticeships. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the agencies and businesses that have delivered those figures? What plans does her Department have to ensure that we build on that success?
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend is right: this has been an incredible success. The Government came forward with the Youth Contract. What could we do? Was it wage incentives, work experience or sector-based work academies? We have helped more than a quarter of a million young people through work experience and sector-based work academies. That is working: extra work experience seems to be what young people need and that is what we are going to do. My hon. Friend knows a lot about this. He was young executive of the year when he ran his own business and young director of the year. He helped his family business to grow, extending it and turning it into a plc. He wants real jobs for real people. He is all about social mobility.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that, under the Welsh Labour Government, Jobs Growth Wales has been a big success?
Esther McVey
It is interesting to see what the Welsh Government have been doing. We have made sure that what is happening in England is a huge success, but better value for money: work experience for young people costs £325, with 42% getting into work. The Welsh Government have chosen to spend £6,250 for children within six months, when we know that 80% of young people get a job within six months anyway.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
In South Derbyshire, youth unemployment has dropped by 67% since May 2010. Does the Minister agree that that is because we have superb businesses—Nestlé, Rolls-Royce and Toyota—that are very keen on STEM subjects and encourage young women, in particular, to get into technical work?
Esther McVey
I congratulate my hon. Friend on working closely with those magnificent businesses. She is right: government itself cannot give young people jobs. It can help with schemes and it can work with businesses, such as the ones she talks about. The Government are working with Movement To Work, 14 big organisations, and Feeding Britain’s Future—business working with government to support young people. That is what we are doing.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
The unemployment figures for young people actually increased last month, with many still in long-term unemployment. They are not apathetic: they are frustrated and angry. Is it not time we gave them a decent youth guarantee of paid work, so they can enter the work force and not be left behind?
Esther McVey
Youth unemployment is falling right across the country. There might well be a tiny difference in a single constituency, but from 2010 it has come down across every region and area. What we are doing is right. We are giving the right support to the right people, because we have had the biggest fall in youth unemployment since records began.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
9. What legal costs his Department has incurred in legal proceedings involving disabled people relating to the under-occupancy penalty and the closure of the independent living fund.
The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)
The Government have robustly defended their policies in relation to the closure of the independent living fund and the removal of the spare room subsidy. The total known legal costs to date, in respect of both policies where disability formed part of the grounds of the claim, are £415,000: £236,000 for the ILF and £178,000 for the removal of the spare room subsidy.
John Healey
That is a part answer to a very direct question about the cost to the taxpayers of Government lawyers defending the indefensible—axing the ILF and introducing the hated bedroom tax. Will the Minister not recognise that many severely disabled people flourish with the fund but are now frightened of losing their independence when he shuts it down next year? He might have won the legal case this year, but he has lost the moral and policy arguments, so even at this eleventh hour will he rethink the protection available to ILF users?
Mr Harper
No, I will not. I have talked to disability organisations about this matter, and they agree with the Government. More than 1 million people get social care through the mainstream social care system. The Government are not making any savings by moving the ILF to local authorities and devolved Administrations, and we are working closely with each local authority to ensure that the amount of money being transferred at the point of closure next year will be exactly what is needed and what is being spent by the ILF, meaning that disabled people will be protected.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Some £4.3 billion has been taken out of adult social care budgets over the past four years because of the Government’s cuts. If that funding transfers across, as is planned, it will plug only a very small part of the gap. If they will not rethink this policy, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) just suggested, will Ministers require that the funding be ring-fenced to ensure that 70 people in Salford and 18,000 people across the country with disabilities can look forward to keeping their independence and to this continuing support?
Mr Harper
Of course local government has had to play its part in the savings, but local authorities can make choices. My local authority in Gloucestershire has protected the value of social care because it thinks that protecting older people—[Interruption.] No, my local authority has faced cuts, like all local authorities, but it has chosen to—[Interruption.] If Opposition Members want me to answer their hon. Friend’s question, they should stop yelling. My local authority has prioritised funding for older people and people of working age. Clearly, the hon. Lady’s local authority has made different decisions. If those on her local authority want to ring-fence the money transferred from the ILF, they are absolutely free to do so, so I suggest she take that up with them.
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
10. What estimate he made of the potential savings to the public purse that would arise from implementation of the under-occupancy penalty; and what estimate he has made of the amount saved to date by that implementation.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
Before our reforms, the taxpayer had been paying for 820,000 spare rooms. To date, the policy has saved about £830 million from the housing benefit bill, and the estimated savings remain the same: approximately £500 million a year in 2013-14 and 2014-15. Those figures have been ratified by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Mr Duncan Smith
Each local authority is dealing with this matter differently. We have given a huge amount of support, through the discretionary housing payments, so some will move, some will not, and some have had their rents dealt with and have stayed in place. We have trebled the support to £345 million, and more than 392,000 DHP awards were made last year. As I said, each authority is doing it differently. For example, Sheffield city council is using DHPs to pay removal costs and provide decorating, while Southwark and Islington councils are paying additional incentives through mutual exchanging with overcrowded households. They are all doing different things, but they are basically getting it right. We were warned that arrears would rise, but actually housing association arrears are lower than they were last year.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
Research published last month by the Trussell Trust, Church Action on Poverty, the Church of England and another organisation—Oxfam—showed that more than half the rocketing demand at food banks was caused by problems in the benefits system, not least by the hated bedroom tax, but also by escalating payment delays, contrary to what the Minister for Disabled People, said a moment ago. Will the Tory welfare waste party now follow the U-turn its coalition partners took and realise that the bedroom tax has to go?
Mr Duncan Smith
The right hon. Gentleman went a long way round to get to his usual comment, but most of his facts are incorrect. Let us get the facts right on benefit processing. Each year, we provide £94 billion in working age benefits, and benefits have been paid in arrears for the last 25 years, so there is not an unusual delay. People are often confused about whether or not there is a delay. On benefit processing times, 93% are processed absolutely on time, which is up seven percentage points since Labour left office. The vast majority of the delays are pre-decisions awaiting additional evidence. Of course there is more we can do. I am looking at a report today, and I am going to be positive about ensuring that we can do other things. I can thus announce today that we are looking to new measures committing the Department to raising much more awareness, as was asked for, of the short-term benefit advances. We are doing that through websites, on posters and by providing information in jobcentres. We are testing that and hoping to roll it out at the beginning of the new year. We are also issuing fresh guidance to advisers to make sure that they constantly advise those at risk of the availability, should they need them, of interim payments.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
11. What steps he has taken to accelerate the processing of personal independence payment applications.
The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)
The hon. Gentleman will know from my earlier answer some of the things we have done, including increasing the number of health professionals employed by the providers and opening more assessment centres. He will know that the latest set of statistics published in September showed that from March to July we more than doubled the number of cases cleared, and our performance continues to improve.
Steve Rotheram
Actually, the latest DWP figures show that of nearly 530,000 applications for the personal independence payment, only 206,000 decisions on eligibility have been made. That means 323,000 disabled people, with 1,000 in Liverpool, Walton alone, have been left in limbo, facing additional costs to cope with ill health or disability. Given his earlier answers, why is the Minister prepared to leave disabled people bottom of his list of priorities?
Mr Harper
I do not think the hon. Gentleman is listening. I very clearly said—and I have said it a number of times here—that fixing delays to the PIP process is not at the bottom of my list; I have been very clear that it is at the top of my list of priorities. I have said that from the time I started doing this job and we have made considerable progress. We will be able to set out the up-to-date position when I give evidence to the Work and Pensions Select Committee chaired by the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Friend Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg). I have been invited to give an update at the end of January and I will be delighted to do so.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
12. What estimate he has made of his Department’s expenditure on in-work housing benefit for migrant workers from the European economic area who have arrived in the UK within the last (a) six, (b) 12 and (c) 24 months.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
The Government inherited a system that did not record the nationality of benefit recipients—we are changing that—and as a result local authorities currently hold limited data on housing benefit. However, based on the latest figures we have been able to glean, we estimate that some 420,000 EU families have been claiming child benefit at a cost of £650 million; and 317,000 EU citizens are claiming tax credits at a cost of £2.2 billion.
Mr Betts
Many of my constituents express a real sense of grievance when people come to this country and claim benefits to which they have not contributed. It is now the policy of the Government—and, indeed, of the Opposition—that before people can claim unemployment-related benefits, they should have to work in this country for a longer period. Should a similar principle apply to the claiming of housing benefit?
Mr Duncan Smith
In a sense, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We have already introduced restrictions, right now, on access to benefits, tightening up the time scales so that people cannot get them for the first three months until they prove they are, in fact, resident here, and then only for three months after that. We have also stopped such people claiming housing benefit, but the hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has announced that we will want to go much further and ensure that people cannot claim benefits for four years until they can prove to have been resident here.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
13. What steps he is taking to help unemployed adults with disabilities to secure and sustain employment or self-employment.
The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)
The Government have published today a paper called “Disability Confident Britain” about some of our programmes. I know that brandishing documents here is generally deprecated, but because this is a copy of the House magazine of 28 November, I draw the attention of hon. Members to page 42, which featured an article about “Disability Confident Britain” and about the excellent event I attended in Gloucester hosted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). I urge all hon. Members who have not already done so to hold such events in their own parliamentary constituencies.
Jesse Norman
The Minister will be aware of the excellent work done by the Royal National College for the Blind, which is based in Hereford, with blind and partially sighted people from all over the country. It has struggled in recent years with a series of annual contracts for residential training. Will the Minister provide a clear date by which a long-term solution will be in place?
Mr Harper
I am familiar with this issue. We set out in the paper published today the fact that we have extended the contracts until next September. I am making every effort to make sure that we can announce a long-term solution before the general election next year, so that those colleges can have some confidence in the future. My hon. Friend can give my assurance to the college principal that I will strain every sinew to do so and will keep him fully informed.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Figures show that the Work programme is performing very badly when it comes to helping disabled people into work. Why are its contracts being extended for another year even though it is clearly not doing the job it was intended to do?
Mr Harper
As the hon. Lady will see if she looks at the latest figures, the programme’s performance has improved considerably—indeed, it has been more successful than previous programmes—and Work Choice is also performing very well. I think that she should have a little more confidence. The document that I published today refers to a range of programmes initiated by Departments whose spending we have protected, at a time when difficult decisions are having to be made across Government to deal with the deficit.
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
15. What estimate he has made of the annual change in unemployment in the North West Norfolk constituency over the last three years.
The Minister for Employment (Esther McVey)
Over the past three years, the claimant count in my hon. Friend’s constituency has halved, from nearly 1,900 to just over 900.
Mr Bellingham
As my right hon. Friend will know, unemployment has fallen by nearly 1,000 in my constituency since May 2010, and by 770 in the last year. Does she agree that we should look behind the headline statistics, and observe that a great many families now have a breadwinner and are hopeful and confident about the future?
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend has made a very good point. Frequently, when I am out and about I find that we talk only about statistics and numbers and facts and figures, without making it clear that there are individuals who have found jobs, who are on the career ladder and who are making progress, sometimes while looking after a family or loved one. That is the real story behind the statistics: it is about individuals, their families and their local communities.
Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)
17. What steps he plans to take to support older people experiencing long-term unemployment.
The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)
We have taken a range of steps. Most recently, in last week’s autumn statement, we announced a new pilot that will test how we support older claimants to help them return to work. It will benefit 3,000 older claimants whose age is a barrier to their finding work.
Sandra Osborne
Why does the Work programme fail the over-50s so badly, and why has it taken the Government more than three years even to begin to do anything about that?
Steve Webb
On the contrary, the labour market performance of older workers has been among the best during the last four years. During a period of slow economic growth, older workers actually did the best. Nevertheless, we are not complacent, hence the new pilots that I announced last week.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
18. What steps he is taking to ensure that child maintenance is paid to parents with care in separated families.
The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)
When possible, our child maintenance options service and the £14 million investment in better support services help families to reach their own family-based arrangements in the best interests of their children. When that is not possible, the 2012 statutory scheme provides a more efficient service, including swifter action against the minority of parents who do not pay in full and on time.
Stella Creasy
The Government’s system is predicated on the idea that, on the whole, parents can negotiate, but we know that that is simply not possible for some families. What is the Department doing to ensure that women who have experienced domestic violence are aware of the application fee exemption, and what evidence has he that women who are unaware of it are not being deterred from applying for child maintenance?
Steve Webb
I discussed this issue with my officials recently. We will publish the figures shortly, but we know that a significant proportion of women are applying successfully for the domestic violence exemption from the £20 fee. We have made the rules relating to access to the exemption as relaxed as possible, and the domestic violence charities with which we have worked believe that we have drawn the right definition for the purpose.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
20. What steps he has taken to help small businesses prepare for automatic enrolment.
The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)
We have deferred the date by which small businesses must be automatically enrolled, and have made a number of other changes to ensure that the system works best for them.
Steve Baker
When the time does come, how are the very smallest firms to choose a suitable pension scheme?
Steve Webb
When the Pensions Regulator notifies employers of their automatic enrolment duties, that letter flags the National Employment Savings Trust, which was designed with small businesses in particular in mind, but the regulator is considering putting more information on its website about other potential providers. I shall be hosting an event in the House for all Members to help them to support small businesses in their constituencies.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
T2. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
Even with the employment record at a high this week, I welcome the autumn statement announcement of more help to enter work across the generations, for young or old. We are introducing intensive support for those not in education, employment or training claiming universal credit to prevent a wage scar developing any further, and we are piloting work placements for older workers, helping with the transition to a new job in later life.
Rehman Chishti
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. I welcome the announcement that the compensation scheme for diffuse mesothelioma has paid out over £15 million in its first seven months. What plans do the Government have to ensure that all victims, such as those in the Medway towns linked to the Chatham dockyards, are made aware of their rights to this compensation?
Mr Duncan Smith
I thank my hon. Friend who, with some of his colleagues, has put in a huge amount of effort to bring this to the Government’s attention. The new scheme is already making payments, with compensation averaging £125,000 for this desperate and terrible disease. We know that there are many more victims and families to be encouraged to come forward, and the Government are promoting that through the regional press and work in administrations to publish it further. Should the need arise—and should it be possible—we will keep this under review with a view to possibly raising that as well.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments that he takes today’s report on food banks seriously, especially after previously refusing to meet the Trussell Trust. However, does he recognise the reality depicted by the Archbishop of Canterbury who said that
“hunger stalks large parts of our country”,
often because of problems with the benefits system? Even being in work and earning money no longer appears to offer complete protection against extreme food poverty.
Mr Duncan Smith
I do take this report seriously. We have met the Trussell Trust—I have never refused to meet it—and I have met many others from a number of food banks. The reality is that of course there are things that need doing. It is a wide-ranging report that deals with food distribution as well, as I said to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), and with supermarkets and the amount of food that is disposed of and how we can distribute that. There was a very good debate on Radio 4 about that, but of course, as I said to her colleague the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), one of the areas that they and our own internal report highlighted was what we do to raise awareness. Today I have announced that we shall be doing much more to raise awareness of interim payments for people who need them, particularly those who are in difficulty.
Rachel Reeves
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but frankly it is not enough. The findings of this morning’s all-party report are clear: the rise in food poverty is the consequence of the failing safety net and the worsening cost of living crisis. Just a few weeks before Christmas, it is shocking that more and more families are worrying about where their next meal is going to come from. Food banks have become the shameful symbol of this Tory-led Government, and yet another example of Tory welfare waste. Is it not about time that the Government started to put this right by raising the minimum wage, ending the abuse of zero-hours contracts, getting a grip on benefit delays, scrapping targets for sanctions and cancelling the cruel and unfair bedroom tax? If they do not do these things, is it not about time we had a Labour Government who will?
Mr Duncan Smith
The same old rubbish from the Opposition! May I just remind the hon. Lady that this Government have done a huge amount for the poorest? The tax allowance is up to £10,000 by April, saving £825 per year. Under this Government, the national minimum wage has gone up by 3%, more than earnings and more than inflation. There are free school meals for primary school pupils—1.5 million children will be getting them. The cost of living is coming down, too. Food prices are falling, and motor fuel prices are down. The hon. Lady wanted to make this a political issue, but I remind her of what the Archbishop of Canterbury said today: it would be wrong to play political games with such an important issue. Perhaps she should listen more and speak less.
Sir George Young (North West Hampshire) (Con)
T4. Does my right hon. Friend agree that as unemployment continues to fall, we have a golden opportunity to offer work to those with a learning or physical disability? Will he confirm that programmes such as Work Choice and Access to Work and the work of his Department’s disability employment advisers will continue to have top priority, so that we can make yet further progress?
The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. In fact, the latest labour market statistics show that disabled people are sharing in the jobs that are being created, with more than 258,000 more disabled people in work over the last year, including 75,000 in the south-east, which will cover his constituency, and there are particularly sharp rises in the number of those with learning disabilities getting jobs, which he specifically asked about.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
T3. The former Minister for Disabled People, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), repeatedly assured the House during the passage of the Mesothelioma Act 2014 that the planned 3% levy on insurers to fund pay-outs to victims was not “going anywhere”—in other words, it was not going to change. In a written ministerial statement on 28 November, however, the current Minister announced that the levy would amount to just 2.2%. A 3% levy could have funded more generous pay-outs, helped to fund research or covered more asbestos-related diseases. Is it not disgraceful that the Minister has put the interests of the insurance industry ahead of the interests of victims?
Mr Harper
We have introduced a scheme, and introduced a levy to pay for it. This continues the work that we agreed on when the previous Government introduced a similar scheme under the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008. I am proud of the scheme we have introduced. It will go a long way towards helping people who have been affected by this dreadful industrial disease.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
T7. Last month, there was a debate in this Chamber on promoting the living wage. May I congratulate the Department for Work and Pensions on being the first Department in Whitehall to pay its staff and contractors the London living wage? Does the Secretary of State agree that we should encourage all Government Departments to follow suit?
Mr Duncan Smith
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We had discussions about this quite early on with the cleaners and with those who are keen on the living wage, and I took the decision with the contractor to ensure that the London living wage was paid here in London. I speak to my colleagues every day and discuss this with them.
Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)
T5. The South Ayrshire food bank is threatened with closure if it cannot find funding for premises for food storage and distribution by Christmas. Given today’s report on food banks, and given that the people involved are having to do this incredibly important work for the poorest in our society thanks to this Government’s nasty welfare policies, what practical support can the Government provide to those charities to support their important work?
Mr Duncan Smith
The Government give huge support to charities up and down the country. I do not know the specific case that the hon. Lady has mentioned, but if she wants to drop me a note about it, I would be happy to look into it and see whether there is anything more we can do to help. I have to say, though, that the Opposition go on and on about what we are doing with welfare and how it has somehow driven everybody into this situation, but in Germany 1.5 million people a week go to food banks. It has nothing to do with our welfare reforms, and Germany is a wealthier country. Food banks have grown around the world, but the latest figures from the OECD show that, in the category of the “difficulty to afford food”, the UK is almost alone in having gone down from the position that we inherited from the last Government. This Government are doing more to help poor people to get by and to get jobs, rather than leaving them parked on unemployment benefit like the last Government did.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
T8. Belper in my constituency won the Great British high street of year award recently. Like many of my colleagues, I spent Saturday visiting small businesses in my constituency to celebrate small business Saturday. Will my right hon. Friend outline the help that the Government are giving to small businesses to encourage them to employ more staff?
The Minister for Employment (Esther McVey)
Many of us were on the high street celebrating small business Saturday and helping our local businesses, but of course this Government are doing even more to help them to take on more people. Whether through implementing a £2,000 cut in their national insurance bills, extending the business rate relief or putting £10 billion of financing into the British business bank, we have done a great deal to help our small businesses, which are the backbone of this country.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
T6. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is sending letters to taxpayers detailing how their tax revenues are being allocated. This is being done in the name of transparency, but will the Minister tell his colleagues in the Treasury that teachers’ pensions are not welfare?
The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)
As the hon. Gentleman appreciates, the letters are sent by HMRC on behalf of the Treasury, and he is welcome to address his concern to our colleagues there. However, we clearly appreciate that there is a distinction between social security benefits and pensions paid to public servants in retirement.
Jenny Willott (Cardiff Central) (LD)
T9. We have heard today about the use of food banks, and the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) mentioned a recent report from the Church of England, the Child Poverty Action Group, Oxfam and the Trussell Trust that highlighted the problems that arise when those who have been sanctioned lose all their benefits, including housing benefit. I understand that the Department for Work and Pensions is working on a fix to prevent housing benefit from being stopped when a claimant is sanctioned, but while that is being worked on, will the Minister consider sanctioning all but, say, 10p of jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance now so that other benefits are not automatically cancelled and claimants do not need to use a food bank and end up in rent arrears while they are being sanctioned?
Mr Duncan Smith
I take all these reports seriously, and this one particularly. It is of huge interest. We want to do everything we can to make sure that people do not stumble into a process of sanctions. I am certainly willing to consider what the hon. Lady says, but the big thing that the Oakley review told us is that communications were critical, so advising claimants all the way along that they are about to be caught in this trap is vital to making sure that they do not get caught.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Absolutely. The Secretary of State has at last begun to recognise the problem, but I would like him to go a lot further on the issue of food banks and the fact that it is benefit sanctions, changes and delays that cause the majority of food bank users to have to go there. Will he do more and have a thorough review of all his Department’s responsibilities to make sure that nobody has to go to a food bank for those reasons?
Mr Duncan Smith
Of course I take the matter seriously, but it is rather ridiculous to assume that every single person who goes to a food bank does so because of what the Department for Work and Pensions does. The report today and other reports are clear. They show that these are often people with dysfunctional lives—people who have been caught in drug addiction and family breakdown, people who have a serious illness and are not claiming benefits and get into difficulty. All these ultimately have to be dealt with by the Department, but we have had a number of reviews, which have told us that there are some things we need to improve and we are working on that. The one thing that we have improved dramatically is late payments. There are fewer late payments than there were under the previous Government.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
I think this was referred to earlier. What has happened to the number of people in in-work poverty since my right hon. Friend has been Secretary of State?
Esther McVey
I will indeed confirm what has happened to in-work poverty so that it is clear. It has gone down by 300,000, according to the latest figures that we have.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
Ministers promised to cut the waiting period for assessments for PIP to 16 weeks by the end of the year, but will they apologise to 900 people in my constituency and the hundreds of thousands more across the country who have been left to wait for months on end in severe financial hardship?
Mr Harper
I am happy to do so. I have said before that that is not acceptable; I made it clear during my first time at the Dispatch Box. I am happy to say that the Government should have made sure that we did not make that mistake. People should not have had to wait that long. I am making sure that we are doing something about it, as has the Secretary of State, so that people will not have to wait for such a long time in the future.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
My daughter is on a zero-hours contract as a care assistant, which suits both her and her employer as it allows her to choose when to work and when to study. Does my right hon. Friend agree that as long as there is no exclusivity clause, such flexibility in employment is helpful?
Mr Duncan Smith
Yes. My hon. Friend is right. Some 2% of people in work are on zero-hours contracts and the vast majority of them choose to do it because it suits them. Many of them have caring responsibilities and cannot commit to a full period of work, and some of those are in very professional jobs. It has been a success.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State really telling us that the Government have no responsibility at all for the acute financial hardship affecting so many people in our country? If so, no one believes him except Tory MPs. No wonder the Archbishop of Canterbury is so shocked by what he sees in Britain today.
Mr Duncan Smith
The Archbishop of Canterbury also said today that they should not play political games with a serious report. I agree. Of course, a Government take responsibility where that responsibility falls, but we do more than that. I am determined to do whatever it takes to make sure that far fewer people are in any kind of need and have to go to food banks. That is the vital issue. It is all very well, after four years in opposition, to lecture us sanctimoniously, as the hon. Gentleman does, when it was the Government whom he supported who crashed the economy and did not even take any responsibility for the disaster they brought to all the families who lost their jobs.
Free school transport (Fishburn)
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
This petition is on behalf of 426 people of Fishburn in my constituency who are opposed to children from the village paying for school transport to their feeder school, Sedgefield community college. I thank the Fishburn mums, Councillor Rachel Lumsdon, Michelle Barker, Sharon Graham, Cheryl Richardson, Claire Gibson, Tracey Cullen and Kim Wright for organising the petition.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Fishburn,
Declares that there are plans for the free school transport from Fishburn to Sedgefield Community College to be withdrawn; further that Sedgefield Community College is the only catchment school for Fishburn; further that the withdrawal of free school transport will cost working families £285 per year, per child; and further that the Petitioners are opposed to the implementation of a charge for the school bus from Fishburn to Sedgefield Community College.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Sedgefield Community College to reconsider the school’s plans to withdraw free school transport from Fishburn.
And your Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001403]
Penkridge Library (Staffordshire)
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I have great pleasure in presenting this petition from the Friends of Penkridge Library, calling on Staffordshire county council to reconsider its proposed changes to Penkridge library and keep it as a full service library, staffed by trained librarians and offering a range of services for all users. The petition, along with another local petition on similar terms, has been signed by more than 3,200 members of the community in Penkridge and the surrounding area. I pay tribute to the Friends of Penkridge Library, in particular Claire Geoghegan, Sue Roberts, Robert Mottram Jones, Bevan Craddock, Mike Smith and Anne Simms, for all their efforts in setting up and obtaining signatures for this petition.
The petition states:
The Petition of members of the community in Penkridge and the surrounding area,
Declares that the Petitioners fully support Penkridge Library; further that the Petitioners recognise the important role that the library plays for all members of the local community; and further that a local Petition urging for the proposed changes to the library to be reconsidered was signed by over 3,000 individuals. The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Staffordshire County Council to reconsider proposed changes to the library, and to keep Penkridge as a full-service library, staffed by trained librarians, offering a range of services, workshops and groups for all users.
And your Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001404]
Yemen (British Nationals)
(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
(Urgent Question):To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the death of Luke Somers and the safety of British citizens in Yemen.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
As the Foreign Secretary said on Saturday, the death of Luke Somers and Pierre Korkie at the hands of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was a terrible crime. Both men had been held for considerable periods of time against their will. Hostage taking is a uniquely traumatic and deplorable crime, and we utterly condemn those responsible. Although Mr Somers was a US citizen, he had strong and important links to the UK. As the Foreign Secretary has said, his family and friends have spoken of Luke’s life and his work documenting the lives of ordinary people and the political upheaval in Yemen. Our most sincere condolences are with the families of both Luke Somers and Pierre Korkie.
We know from our own experience the difficulty of resolving hostage cases. In this case, the hostage takers had made a direct threat to Mr Somers’ life, with a three-day deadline. The threat to his life was very real. President Obama and Secretary Kerry have spoken about the extent of the efforts to bring Luke home safely and the decision to launch a rescue attempt. I have today spoken to the US deputy ambassador to relay my personal condolences on the murder of Luke Somers and to renew our commitment to work with our international and Yemeni partners to counter the threat from al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Hostage taking and other forms of terrorism are a significant threat to British and other western nationals in Yemen, and to peace and security for the whole population of that country. As a result, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has since March 2011 advised against all travel to Yemen and that British nationals who are in the country should leave. Our advice on that could not be clearer.
Keith Vaz
I am grateful to the Minister for his answer and to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I wish to join him in expressing deep sympathy to the families of Luke Somers and Pierre Korkie, the other hostage who was killed. This must be a devastating time for Mr Somers’ family, who only days ago made a desperate plea to his kidnappers for mercy.
Yemen is a country on the brink of a civil war. During the last year, thousands of people have died in sectarian violence, including the father of Abdullah al-Radhi, the Yemeni ambassador to London, who died after his home was bombed. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula bears responsibility for the death of Mr Somers. This group has been described by the CIA as one of the most dangerous terrorist organisations on the globe and it has now established control of part of this fractured country. When I last visited Yemen, the situation was extremely dangerous—so dangerous that the delegation was required to remain under guard in a fortified pod in the embassy grounds. The situation has deteriorated since then. Will the Minister confirm that the US embassy is considering withdrawing from Yemen? Is he satisfied that our embassy staff are being sufficiently protected? Will he also confirm how many of our staff, including locally engaged staff, still operate from there? We need to take all possible measures to stop more British citizens being killed. How many British citizens are still in Yemen? If he is able to tell the House, will he say how many of those are hostages?
On the raid itself, we can all understand why the US Government believed it was the right thing to do—there was a clear and imminent danger to Mr Somers. Were British security services involved in any aspect of this raid? Was the British Government consulted before the raid took place? Did we supply the Americans with any information? Could we have done any more to assist the US and Yemeni forces?
Finally, may I pay tribute both to the former Foreign Secretary and to the former International Development Minister, the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), for the part they played in Yemen’s transition during the Arab spring? Luke Somers loved Yemen; his family speak of his love for the people and their culture, and his desire to do good. This was echoed in the life of Pierre Korkie. Yemen is one of the poorest, but one of the most beautiful countries on earth. As the House knows, I was born in Aden and for the past 20 years have chaired the all-party group on Yemen. Yemen is an easy country to fall in love with. It is special. It is also on the front line in our fight against terrorism. Yemen is worth fighting for.
Mr Ellwood
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the tone of his urgent question and subsequent questions. He speaks about the threat to security in Yemen and the wider region, and I could not agree more. The situation in Yemen is complex, not least because of the number of terrorist groups that now operate in the country. We are working extremely hard with our allies to bring the parties to the table to agree the UN resolution that was signed in September.
The right hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions, but, as he will appreciate, I am unable to answer many of them in this House owing to the operational complexity of the matter. As I understand it, the US embassy has no intention of withdrawing from the country. We have a good relationship with Ambassador Tueller, who works extremely closely with our own ambassador, Jane Marriott, to whom I spoke this morning.
The British embassy continues to work in extremely difficult circumstances. We are following the situation carefully, as the security of embassy staff is of paramount importance to us. The right hon. Gentleman asked about British hostages. Again, he will be aware that it is the long-standing policy of successive Governments not to discuss such matters.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the importance of the region—our historical links with it and the need for us and other countries to invest in it. The Department for International Development has committed £4.4 million towards an orderly transition to peace and another £7 million to facilitate elections when they take place.
Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I echo the remarks of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). It is important that we offer our support to those members of the British embassy in Sana’a who work in extremely difficult circumstances. Questions have been raised in the press about the nature of the operation, and I know that the Minister will not be able to answer all of them, but will he stress from the Dispatch Box that there is no equivocation about the death of a hostage? On every occasion, the responsibility lies with the terrorist and those who have executed the hostage. It does not matter how difficult the circumstances are, how complex the decisions are that need to be taken to free a hostage or what the difficulties involved in an operation are, it should be absolutely clear that the responsibility lies with the terrorist and it is for the terrorist that justice will eventually come.
Mr Ellwood
I thank my right hon. Friend for the work that he has done in this particular area and for his ongoing commitment to that, working with British influence and support in the region. He is absolutely right to place the blame for this situation on the terrorists. In this particular case, President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry issued statements on 6 December to illustrate why it was felt necessary to set in place a rescue attempt. Such operations are complex and dangerous, and we are sad about the outcome.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) in condemning the murder of the British-born American citizen, Luke Somers, and his fellow captive, Pierre Korkie, in the early hours of last Saturday morning by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
I offer our deepest condolences to the families of both men who, as victims of terrorists, lost their lives in the most terrible of circumstances—moments away from rescue. Mr Korkie’s family believed that Pierre was due to be released very soon. I pay tribute to the courage of US special forces soldiers who got so close to rescuing both men.
As has been suggested, concerns were raised by some of Mr Somers’ family about whether a rescue mission should have gone in at this particular point. Will the Minister set out in further detail his view of the intelligence that suggested that there was an imminent threat to the lives of the hostages, and what discussions there were with the family following the earlier unsuccessful rescue attempt?
Given that Mr Somers was originally kidnapped in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, what security advice is the Foreign Office now issuing to British citizens about travelling to, and working in, Yemen at the moment? Yemen has a turbulent recent past. What is the Minister’s view of the political and security situation, and does he think that there is a possibility of a more democratic future for the people of Yemen, to whom Mr Somers was clearly committed? How significant is the capacity of al-Qaeda in Yemen and what further action is being taken to limit such capacity? What concerns, if any, are there of possible links with ISIS? Lastly, Yemen remains a tragically poor country. How does its insecurity affect the ability of excellent organisations such as Islamic Relief, Save the Children and the Red Cross to tackle the hunger and poverty faced by too many Yemenis?
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful that the House is united in condemning those acts of barbarism, and in its support on hostage matters.
The hon. Gentleman pays tribute to the US forces involved. The House should pay tribute to all special forces who put their lives in danger to attempt releases. They are successful in many cases. They do a huge amount of work behind the scenes of which the House is unaware. He is right to pay tribute to them. I should add that Yemeni special forces were also involved in the rescue attempt.
The hon. Gentleman asks for the greater intelligence picture. I am unable to provide the House with that information—he might have heard comments from a Government Member sitting behind me—and I hope he understands why. However, I would add that the video that was released made it clear that Mr Somers’ life was in danger, and it was apparent that he had three days to live. That gave the indication to the Americans that a decision had to made on launching a rescue attempt.
The hon. Gentleman asked about travel advice. I am not sure whether he heard me make it clear in my opening response that we have said since 2011 that no British citizen is advised to travel to Yemen. Indeed, any British citizens there now should leave.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the important question of the political landscape. Steps were taken at the UN General Assembly for the signing of the peace and national partnership agreement. It has been signed by all parties, including the Houthis, but has not been implemented. It is important that we get all stakeholders around the table to move the process forward. I should add that the Yemeni Government have issued a 100-day agreement, which will be put to Parliament in the next few days. I hope that will be the vehicle through which the stakeholders can come together. We look for a more federated model for governing Yemen.
The hon. Gentleman’s final point was on the connection between ISIS and al-Qaeda. There is a lot of friction between the two groups and they challenge and rival each other for superiority, but he is right to say that, combined, they provide a difficult landscape in the middle east. It requires the UK to work with our international partners in the region to tackle the problem.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
This is obviously a complicated and upsetting case, most of all for the families of Mr Somers and Mr Korkie. Our thoughts must be with them, and we should blame only the terrorists for their deaths. However, is the Minister satisfied that communications within the international community and between Governments are adequate, and could they be improved, especially given the apparent revelation that the South African Government were in the process of negotiating Mr Korkie’s imminent release when he was killed—there is no suggestion that people knew that he and Mr Somers were being held together?
Mr Ellwood
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words of condolence, which will be heard by the families. Information has come forward to suggest that, in Mr Korkie’s case, there was a consideration of a potential release. There are continual suggestions of potential releases and they had happened in the past. Again, it was for the Americans to make an operational judgment. It was decided that the threat to life was imminent, and therefore that action needed to be taken.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Will the Minister take the opportunity to place on the record the British Government’s position on negotiating and paying ransoms for hostages, so that the House can hear it again? Will he answer the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) asked on the number of British citizens still resident in Yemen, whom the Minister says should leave immediately?
Mr Ellwood
The hon. Gentleman gives me licence to reiterate a point that all Members of the House need to reiterate: Britain does not negotiate on hostages. We very much encourage other countries to adopt the same policy—it makes it difficult for us if other countries pay ransoms. That came up at the NATO summit, when the Prime Minister made it very clear—he was very passionate on this to other countries—that we must be united, because paying ransoms makes things very difficult. It simply encourages the taking of more hostages.
I do not know the number of Britons in Yemen. I hope that it is extremely low, but if I may, I will get back to the hon. Gentleman on that.
Sir Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
These murders illustrate how increasingly dangerous more and more parts of the middle east are becoming. If Yemen is not to become wholly ungovernable, the House must give its full support to our efforts and those of other countries to underpin the legitimate Government of President Hadi and Prime Minister Bahah. As someone who has visited Yemen 10 times over the past few years, I urge the House to appreciate how important it is to hold that country together. Will the Minister reinforce the commitment of Her Majesty’s Government to the future of Yemen through the Friends of Yemen, which we co-chair, and other means? Will he commend, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) did a moment ago, the dutiful courage of officials in the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development who continue to work in Sana’a at considerable personal risk?
Mr Ellwood
I thank my right hon. Friend for his work as special envoy to Yemen. I understand that he has visited the country three times since he undertook that important role, and I am grateful for the work and support that he gives to me and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Friends of Yemen was set up in London in 2010 and is an important organisation involving almost 40 countries, both internationally and regionally. It is designed to ensure that we provide what assistance we can, along with the Gulf Co-operation Council and other nations, to support Yemen through these difficult times.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Despite the sad outcome of this case, will the Minister say once again that we must support the Americans in refusing to pay ransoms, and that no blame whatsoever should be attached to those soldiers who bravely risked their lives to try to free that hostage?
Mr Ellwood
I am happy to do so. As I said, those brave soldiers work extremely hard to perform such rescue attempts, and I underline again how important it is that this country does not pay ransoms.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Like the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, I too lived in Yemen as a young man. It is a beautiful country but it is extremely dangerous—it was dangerous when I was there, and it remains so. I stress to the House that any decision to go for a hostage release is taken because those who make that decision have no choice. Going for a hostage release is not something that people want to do—one always wants to negotiate. In this case, however, I am sure that those who made that brave decision did so and went for it because they had no choice, as I assume the Minister will agree.
Mr Ellwood
The House is aware of my hon. Friend’s military experience. He was perhaps closer to some of these matters when he served, so he is aware of the detail that goes into such operations when they are planned. It is very difficult for any leader, whether in Britain or the United States, to decide to send in troops. The decision was made and it was believed that the evidence showed that a life was in danger. That is why the decision was taken.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Some reports have suggested that President Hadi’s Government have lost effective control of the country to the Houthi rebels. Is the international community doing everything it can to bring about national dialogue between all the tribes in the country, backed by real incentives to engage in that dialogue?
Mr Ellwood
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Sanctions against former President Saleh and other former leaders are acting as spoilers in preventing President Hadi from doing his work. He has now appointed a new Prime Minister who, as I mentioned, has a 100-day agreement that we are working towards. My hon. Friend is right to say that unfortunately other countries such as Iran, which is linked to the Houthi, have a responsibility and role to play. They can either be part of the solution, or they can continue to be part of the problem.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his answers and congratulate the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) on successfully raising the matter, via you, Mr Speaker; he is a passionate advocate for Yemen and brings great knowledge of this issue to the House. Does the Minister agree that the United States special forces tried their valiant best in this incident and that, although on this occasion they did not succeed, they ought to be congratulated from every quarter on their courage and bravery? We wish them all the very best should they be needed in any future circumstances.
Mr Ellwood
I, too, am grateful for the urgent question. I was not sure whether it would be granted, simply because it leans towards the operational, but it gives the House an opportunity to express our condolences, to underline the important message that we do not pay ransoms and to pay tribute to those brave soldiers, sailors and airmen who participate in special forces operations, on many occasions with their British counterparts.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
May I condemn this foul murder by terrorists and record my condolences to my constituent Penny Bearman, Luke’s stepmother, and to all his family? It is perhaps inevitable that the family are left wondering whether Luke might still be with us today had this operation not taken place. What comfort can the Minister give the family that it would have been undertaken only in the most extreme circumstances in which there was no alternative?
Mr Ellwood
I reiterate our condolences to the family. I know that police liaison officers have been in touch with those members of the family living in Britain. If there is anything more we can do, the Government stand ready to provide that support in this difficult time. In difficult and dangerous circumstances a call had to be made, but I know that it was made in the knowledge that Luke’s life was in danger.
Infrastructure Bill [Lords]
(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
21:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 199 / Noes: 293 - Question accordingly negatived.
22:12 - The House divided: - Ayes: 276 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
I must inform the House that I have selected amendment (b)—[Interruption.] Quite why that prompts an “Ooh!” from the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) is yet to be explained. The fact is that I have selected amendment (b) in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
What a joy to perform once again in this theatre of dreams. What an honour to speak for the Government introducing this important Bill. What a responsibility this House has to create the future our nation needs, to build a Britain fit for generations to come and to plant trees for those born later.
Governments of all persuasions tend to neglect the long term. Perhaps that is the legacy of the post-war preoccupation with Keynes, who after all wrote:
“In the long run we are all dead.”
Perhaps the necessity of popular payback within five years discourages public policy that looks sufficiently forward. To speak candidly, it is more likely that we—those of us with power—are frightened to anticipate what might be, fearful of misjudging what is to come. Sometimes, in respect of some things, that does not matter too much, because some of the business of government is necessarily reactive. But when it comes to infrastructure, failure to face the future is catastrophic and devastating.
Thinking for the long term widens an appreciation of consequence and deepens an understanding of effect. The absence of strategic vision not only leaves us with exclusively reactive responses to need, but reduces policy to piecemeal, tiny steps when giant leaps forward are needed. That reflects a small view of government. That is not your view, Mr Speaker, I hasten to add, and nor is it mine, but it is a pessimist’s view of politics—a politics reduced to dull, technocratic managerialism.
By contrast, the Bill that I introduce to the House today is urgent and ambitious about long-term plans and a bolder view of what Government can do: urgent because Britain sits uncomfortably low, at 27th, in the global infrastructure rankings; ambitious because, as this Bill demonstrates, the Government are focused on the future. This Government understand that the future of our country depends on investment for the long term that must and will be ambitious.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does the Minister recall that we both fought on a Conservative manifesto that said that we should get rid of quangos and not create new ones, and that Ministers should be responsible and accountable—something that I entirely agree with? Why is he proposing two new quangos on highways instead of the excellent arrangements for accountability through him?
Mr Hayes
My right hon. Friend has made that point to me previously. Let me tell him, with a candour equal to that of my earlier expressions, that I am absolutely determined that the lines of accountability for the strategy we have in place should be clear and that Ministers’ lines of reporting in this House should be palpable and known. Indeed, I have missioned my Department to make sure that that happens.
I will make available in the Library of the House, not only for my right hon. Friend’s benefit but for that of the whole House, a description of precisely what those lines of accountability will look like. When he sees that clear description of how the House and Ministers are going to exercise their proper authority in the name of the people, I think he will be more than impressed and will feel that this Government and this Minister have gone further than even he expected us to.
Caroline Lucas
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; it is good to see that he is on his usual courteous form. He talks about the importance of facing up to the future, but the question is what kind of future it is. Why does this Bill lock us into such a high-carbon future at exactly the time when we need to be shifting towards being able to meet our climate change objectives?
Mr Hayes
As the hon. Lady suggests, the kind of future that I anticipate is very different from the one that she sees, for my kind of future is ambitious for Britain and virtuous in its intent; I am not sure that that is true of hers. I do not mean to be unkind in any way. However, as I said, I will come to invasive species by those that are apparently ornamental when they first arrive but turn out to be nothing but a nuisance.
Hon. Members will see a virtuous pattern that demonstrates my and the Government’s unrelenting commitment to delivering better infrastructure. At the heart of the autumn statement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor last week was the biggest and most far-reaching roads programme in decades, with over 100 improvements to our major roads. As the House knows, that extra capacity will be underpinned by £15 billion of investment. Better infrastructure means more jobs, more opportunities and more growth. Those things will ultimately help to build a better future, drive down the deficit and inspire our people.
On taking office, we produced the first ever national infrastructure plan. We have made big calls on HS2, on Crossrail—the biggest construction project in Europe—and on shale gas exploration. We have got Britain building, with over 500,000 new homes built since April 2010.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
The broad sunlit uplands that the Minister is describing mean absolutely nothing to people in my constituency threatened with the untried technology of fracking without sufficient safeguards, which would wreck many of our villages and suburbs. Does he think that that is all right because it is going to happen in what his noble Friend Lord Howell calls the “desolate” north?
Mr Hayes
The hon. Lady is, of course, right to defend the interests of her constituents and to say that, when such innovations occur, it is vital that the communities affected understand what is going to happen and are involved in the decision-making process. When as Energy Minister I set up the office for unconventional gas and oil, part of my intention was for it to ensure that good information was provided, that some of the misinformation that prevails be put aside, and that local communities could be as engaged as much as possible in the process. I understand the hon. Lady’s championing of her community and she can be assured that this Government take exactly that kind of open-minded, generous, communitarian approach.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman knows that I am on the same side as him when it comes to the potential development of unconventional oil and gas. With that in mind, and given his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), will he explain why the Government rejected Labour amendments in the other place that the industry are quite relaxed about?
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman will have the chance to make that case as the Bill makes its passage through the House. I am not in the other place and it is not really for me to anticipate the amendments that he or other Members might table. Of course, we will listen—this is a Government who listen and learn, as I shall describe in a moment. Given the hon. Gentleman’s record in this House, I know that he would be the last person to turn his back on innovation and stand in the way of progress. Indeed, he has been one of this House’s greatest advocates of innovation and scientific progress.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
My constituency includes the community of Barton Moss, where a six-month exploration for shale gas took place from November to May. That was dumped on frightened communities and people as a result of a 2012 planning application for coalbed methane gas. There was no reassurance.
Even worse, the Government have changed the planning process, shortened time scales, and taken some vital aspects of planning consideration away from local planning authorities and given them to the Environment Agency; that made it so much more difficult for communities such as mine to comment and be involved. They were not involved and they did not comment. The things the Minister has said about reassurance just did not happen.
Mr Hayes
I do not want to be unnecessarily partisan, because that is not my way, but I can say only that the hon. Lady has either misread the Bill or misunderstood the Government’s intention. After my explanation of that aspect of the Bill, I hope the hon. Lady will leave the Chamber if not convinced, at least with many of her worst fears assuaged. If I am imperfect in making the argument, so be it, but I will give it my best shot. I will say no more than that.
The hon. Lady and others know that, because of our commitment to long-term delivery, unemployment has dropped below 2 million for the first time since 2008 and we have produced the first ever road investment strategy, which has been warmly welcomed not only by Members of this House, but by the RAC Foundation director, Professor Stephen Glaister, by Richard Threlfall, the head of infrastructure at consultants KPMG, and by many others. I will not tire the House by listing the many supporters of the Government’s approach. That would not be entirely fair to the Opposition, either. I do not want them to start with such a profound disadvantage; I want to give them a fair shot on what is, after all, an extremely sticky wicket for them.
I genuinely believe that our impressive commitment to the long term, which stands in sharp contrast to the record of the previous Government, is one of the hallmarks of this Administration. According to the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness survey, under the Labour party—as I have said, I do not want to dwell on this for too long—our roads and railways plummeted from seventh in the world to 33rd.
We know that if Labour had been re-elected in 2010, things would have only got worse. Mr Miliband admitted to the BBC after the election that Labour had planned to cut investment in rail and road by 50%, telling Radio 5 Live that
“we’re going to halve the share of national income going to capital spending.”
That was, of course, Mr David Miliband, Mr Speaker, as you probably remember.
The sharp contrast between anyone called Miliband and Benjamin Disraeli is of course clear to all in the House. That great Prime Minister once said:
“In a progressive country, change is constant;…change…is inevitable.”
The role of Government is to prepare for change, and to plan for the long term. The various measures in the Bill will help to bring about such changes and make a real difference to people’s lives and livelihoods. Let us look at the changes in turn.
First, on roads reform, the Government have announced hundreds of extra lane miles on motorways and trunk roads, and action to improve some of the most important arteries in our country, such as the A303 to the south-west and the A1 Newcastle-Gateshead western bypass. It is fair to say that our work at Stonehenge—the bold engineering work to be done—is probably the most ambitious scheme there since the stone age. It is totemic, as it were, or emblematic of this Government’s willingness to tackle matters that have been neglected for a long time by successive Governments.
Major roads run by the new strategic highways company will create better connectivity and minimise environmental impact. The new name for our strategic highways company will be Highways England. I intend to set it up as soon as possible. The Government have already committed more than £24 billion to upgrade England’s strategic road network through to 2021.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
The people of Elkesley are going to be a little perplexed. The previous Government got rid of the six roundabouts on the A1 within three years of my taking the then Minister there to show him the problem; yet the Elkesley bridge on the A1—I agreed it with the Government in 2009, with the work to begin in 2010—has only just begun to be built during the past year. Why has there been a delay by this Government on a key part of the A1? Is it not because they have not been prepared to spend the money on our roads?
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman knows that Nottinghamshire is dear to my heart, as it is to his. He says that the work has only just begun; well, I have only just become the Minister, haven’t I? I do not say that that coincidence is entirely a correlation between his desire and my effectiveness, but it is certainly true that our improvements to the A1—along its length, actually—will make an immense difference not only to motorists, but to hauliers from my constituency and many others who need to get their goods to market.
The hon. Gentleman will know that we have added more than 1,300 new lane miles, and that we will fix some of the most notorious and long-standing problem areas on the network, such as the entire A303 and the A358 to the south-west, including the tunnel at Stonehenge. The 84 new road projects will improve connectivity across the UK. In addition, we are investing to improve the lives of local communities affected by road upgrades.
Mr Redwood
On the important link to the south-west, did the Government look at the alternative to a tunnel of deviating the road a little further away from Stonehenge —giving generous compensation to landowners—and building a much cheaper road above ground?
Mr Hayes
We considered all the options. My right hon. Friend will know that we undertook considerable research, discussion and consultation on that matter. The scheme we have ended up with has been welcomed by several environmental bodies, such as English Heritage. Of course, each option has pros and cons—I would not be straightforward with the House if I did not acknowledge that—but I think that we have got the right solution.
As with all such schemes, what characterises the Government, above and beyond the desire to think strategically and put funds behind the strategy, is a willingness to look empirically at a range of options. It is very important to be ambitious, but also to be precise, and the way in which we measure the effect of the money we spend has allowed us to allocate funds not only to areas of the road network that have the greatest need, but where we can make the most difference.
The fact that there is £100 million to improve cycling provision at 200 key locations across the network reflects our understanding that it is not just motorists and hauliers who count. There is a £300-million environmental fund to mitigate carbon emissions and reduce the number of people affected by serious noise by up to 250,000. There is £100 million to unlock growth and housing developments.
I have missioned my Department to look closely at the look and feel of what we build. It is absolutely right that the aesthetics are taken into account. If that was good enough for earlier generations, it should be good enough for ours. What we build does not have to be ugly. It can serve a purpose and have an edifying impact on the localities affected.
John Mann
Having condemned the Transport Ministers of the last four years for failing to do the Elkesley bridge and taken all the credit for retrieving the situation, the Minister will know that it is the one bridge that will create a strategic cycle route across the A1 in Nottinghamshire—and, indeed, the east midlands. Will he, therefore, consider how funds can be allocated to ensure that that strategic cycle way is properly incorporated into the cycle path infrastructure of the future?
Mr Hayes
On the general point, the hon. Gentleman will know that the Government have instructed the Highways Agency to look at the impact that all new road schemes will have on the interests of cyclists. That had not been done previously. On the particular point, because I never want to neglect the opportunity or waste the chance of an interface with the hon. Gentleman, I would be delighted to invite him to my Department for a cup of tea and a biscuit—[Hon. Members: “What sort?”] A digestive biscuit. I invite him to the Department to discuss the precise matter that he raises.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
May I return to the fundamentals of the Bill? Does the Minister agree that a key issue in the Bill is the implementation of the Wood review? That will have a huge impact on the recoverability of oil and gas—not only in Scotland, but in the north-east of England, which has an oil and gas sector that is growing tremendously.
Mr Speaker
Order. I simply note, in passing, that the Minister of State has not offered his hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) a cup of tea or a biscuit, which he proffered generously in the direction of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). Whether the House will read anything into that, I do not know. Perhaps he has it in mind to present the hon. Member for Hexham with a copy of “Coningsby”, “Sybil”, “Tancred” or some other Disraelian creation. We do not know, but we will learn in due course.
Mr Hayes
I may have revealed a prejudice in favour of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, which, as you know, Mr Speaker, are deeply ingrained on my heart. I will seek to counter that when my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) next visits me.
Alongside the transformational investment, we propose to turn the Highways Agency into a Government-owned company, with the Secretary of State as its sole shareholder. The company will have stable, long-term funding that is set through a road investment strategy. Our ambitious programme of investment can be delivered only through a road operator that is fast and efficient and that provides a better service to road users. As a result, it will be able to plan ahead more effectively and deliver best value for money to the taxpayer. The changes are expected to save the taxpayer at least £2.6 billion over the next 10 years. Hon. Members will be familiar with the impact assessment that makes that clear.
The impact on the supply chain of creating a Government-owned company with greater certainty over funding and a clear relationship with Government will be positive. In the past, the construction industry has reacted to new spending on a case-by-case basis, and has not invested in the equipment and skills that would create long-term jobs in road construction.
If I may depart from my script at this point—although the Secretary of State will not worry about that, I can see that civil servants might, but I am going to do it anyway—I should say that I think there is a challenge in delivering this strategy. The Government can devise a strategy on the basis of the empiricism that I mentioned earlier. Bold Governments put money behind that, which is precisely what this brave and bold Government have done, but delivery will be a challenge and we will need to work with a whole range of organisations. The Highways Agency, of course, works with a number of private sector organisations. There are big issues relating to the supply chain and the skills necessary to make this happen. Those challenges would face any Government and they need to be considered carefully. They will require a new energy in respect of the acquisition and development of necessary skills. However, the Bill gives us the opportunity to do just that: the chance to give the construction industry the certainty it needs to invest in people and skills for the long term.
We have also listened and learned on a range of other issues. The British Transport police told us that the drafting of the Road Traffic Act 1988 did not allow it to require vehicle owners to disclose the identity of drivers who committed road traffic offences on the railway. We will change that. We have listened to calls to extend the BTP’s jurisdiction beyond the railway environment to help to protect people.
The provisions on invasive non-native species will allow our environmental officers to address the few cases each year where owners do not allow access to their land to eradicate new species that threaten to spread across the country. Invasive non-native species are estimated to cost the UK economy £1.8 billion a year. They are indiscriminate: they damage gardens, private land, public land, farmland and infrastructure sites.
We have introduced a number of measures designed to help to get Britain building. The small changes we are proposing speed up the approval of nationally significant infrastructure projects, such as the Thames tideway tunnel, road schemes and other major schemes, and will send a clear message to investors and developers that the steps to deliver transformational projects are as simple, sensible and straightforward as possible.
Those who believed that the coalition Government, with all the inevitable pressures and tensions, could not be bold, have been proved, wrong have they not? Among the many examples of boldness, some stand proud. Hinkley Point C, a scheme approved under the improved nationally significant infrastructure projects process, took 17 months to receive planning consent. That compares with more than six years for Sizewell B, including a public inquiry that lasted three years. We think we can do more and that we can improve on that. It is vital that we do so, because these schemes are hugely important. Hinkley Point C will deliver more than 900 skilled jobs for 60 years.
On deemed discharge, we have all seen a piece of land that has been bought, fenced off and ready to be developed, and felt a pang of frustration due to a seemingly inexplicable delay. The measures to discharge planning conditions will ensure that planning applications can get on and be delivered. The Government have already taken action. We have delivered a clear policy in the national planning policy framework and provided fresh guidance, but we need to go further. Recently, a major house builder identified that more than one third of its entire land bank was tied up in the planning system, awaiting reserved matters approval or the discharge of conditions. As a nation, we simply cannot afford to accept unnecessary delays to much-needed development that has already been subject to local scrutiny and granted planning permission.
Mr Raynsford
The Minister talks about deemed discharges and refers to the national planning policy framework. Where a local authority has set a condition that is in conformity with the national planning policy framework, does he believe that it should be subject to deemed discharge?
Mr Hayes
That is a fair question, and one which has already been put to me by those in local government. I will look closely at that, but I am anxious—the right hon. Gentleman is a great expert, given his experience as a Minister and, beyond that, his understanding of house building—and keen to ensure that this does not create unnecessarily bureaucratic or over-regulatory delay. The point he makes is a good one and I will certainly go away and consider it during the passage of the Bill. I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham—who has intervened twice and might have another go in a minute, who knows?—that this is a very good example of the Government taking action to make the system more straightforward and less bureaucratic, so that decisions can be made in a timely way and be acted on with appropriate promptness. Wise as they are on these things, I am sure the Opposition will not disagree. Likewise, when they reflect on much of the Bill, I suspect they will appreciate it is the right thing to do in the national interest—but we will hear from them in a few moments.
Public sector land is an important source of land for development, and we have already released land with the capacity for 90,000 new homes, but to make that happen we propose to allow a Government arm’s length body to transfer disused surplus land directly to the Homes and Communities Agency or the Greater London authority, rather than having first to transfer it back to the parent Department. This measure will once again reduce bureaucracy in the transfer of land, meaning that disused Government-owned land can be brought to the market more quickly to build homes and improve communities.
As you know, Mr Speaker, the Government are committed to England’s public forest estate remaining in public ownership—[Hon. Members: “They are now.”] I know Labour is in the woods, but we are committed to the past, present and future of our forests. Hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), have raised their constituents’ interests several times in the House and have influenced the decision to amend the Bill to ensure the measure will not apply to them.
The move to digitise and centralise local land charges and free up the Land Registry to take a wider role will ultimately help people buying and selling their homes. The Government aim to make dealing with property quicker, cheaper and easier. The Land Registry is well placed to help achieve that aim because it is already at the centre of the conveyancing process and is the largest single source of property information. The changes in the Bill will stop the wider disparities in charging, currently ranging from approximately £3 to £76, and will lead to a more efficient service for searches as people access a single provider rather than one of 348 separate providers. We need modern systems to underpin the property market.
On zero-carbon homes, we have already tightened building regulations to make new homes more energy efficient. Today’s new homes save people about £200 on average—
Dr Whitehead
Given the Minister’s concern for linguistic exactitude, will he reflect that he is talking about “zero-carbon homes”, yet he must be clear that the provisions in the Bill mean that no zero-carbon homes will be built now or in the future? Would he care to rephrase his contribution to something such as “slightly less energy leaky homes”, or some such locution, to make his language exact?
Mr Hayes
Even if I believed that, such an ugly turn of phrase would fit ill on my lips, and I could not possibly bring myself to issue it. To that end, I will stick with my own choice of words.
The hon. Gentleman knows, because he is a great expert on these matters—far more expert than I am, I have to acknowledge—today’s new homes save £200 on average on their energy bills compared with homes built before the coalition came to power. He knows that new homes are more energy efficient. I want that energy efficiency to grow, however, so new homes will have net zero-carbon emissions from energy used to heat and light them, and there will be a higher efficiency requirement that may be augmented by on-site renewable energy measures such as solar panels.
Where that is not possible, however, to abate all carbon emissions on-site, the Government will allow developers to offset remaining emissions through off- site carbon abatement measures known as “allowable solutions”—precisely what the hon. Gentleman was referring to—which is a cost effective and practical way of dealing with carbon. I know it does not appeal to the purists, but it is deliverable. Either we want to hit these targets and get to our destination, or we do not.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I know very well about the Minister’s literary expertise, but why is he giving small-scale developments exemptions from the highest standards?
Mr Hayes
We are doing it on the grounds of practicality. The hon. Lady and I, during a recent session of the Committee she chairs, exchanged thoughts on the issue of emissions. She will know that there is always a balance to be struck. She refers in her intervention to the preferred threshold of 10 units, but as I say there is always a balance between inhibiting or even preventing development at all and achieving our desired outcomes on carbon. I am happy to hear representations on all these matters, as I want this Bill to be as good as it can be. We are trying to strike that balance, which is the frank answer to the hon. Lady—and I am known in this place for giving straightforward and frank answers.
Duncan Hames
The Minister speaks of striking a balance, but I wonder whether he will help us by saying what assessment has been made of the overall impact of the Bill in its entirety on the Government’s ability to meet their legal obligations under the fourth carbon budget?
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the impact assessment. I have a copy here and I would be happy to let him read it. It is available and if he looks at that impact assessment he will be able to gauge how far we have performed the analysis he describes. If he feels that we have done so insufficiently, I shall be more than happy to correspond with him directly on the matter. I know that he always brings fresh thinking to the consideration of this House.
The Bill will enable communities to be offered the chance to buy a stake in new, commercial renewable electricity schemes in their local area, so that they can gain a greater share in the associated financial benefit. We would consider using this power only if the voluntary approach to community shared ownership in renewable energy did not bear fruit. A right to buy would give communities the opportunity to have a real stake and sense of ownership in projects happening in their area. The Shared Ownership Taskforce recently launched its voluntary framework, and we brought forward an amendment to the Bill in the other place in order to provide greater certainty on the minimum time scales for this voluntary approach to take effect. We are proposing, too, to allow changes to the renewable heat incentive to provide more flexibility in financing arrangements for renewable heating systems.
Let me come on now to what I described as the exciting part of my speech, which deals with the Wood review. We recognise that increasing renewable energy sources is important, but we realise that a dynamic and flourishing oil and gas industry remains important, too. It can contribute to our energy security and to the economy, supporting around 450,000 jobs and showing record capital expenditure in 2013 of around £14 billion.
The Government agreed with the findings of Sir Ian Wood’s independent report, which concluded that changes to the recovery and stewardship regime in the North sea could deliver around £200 billion of additional value to the UK economy. We intend to deliver all of Sir Ian’s recommendations, but further work is required with stakeholders on a number of detailed aspects and parliamentary time is scarce. We are therefore starting by introducing two measures: one will put into statute the principle of maximising economic recovery of petroleum from UK waters; and the second will introduce a power so that the costs of funding a larger, better resourced regulator can be paid for by the industry rather than through general taxation, as is currently the case.
We need to explore all our energy options. This is the age of increasing costs, uncertainty and insecurity in overseas energy suppliers. The shale gas industry in the UK is at an embryonic stage, and the changes in the Bill would simplify the procedure by which onshore gas and oil and deep geothermal developers can obtain underground drilling access, and are accompanied by the industry’s commitment to pay communities in return for the right to use deep-level land. We do not yet know what is commercially viable, but we are encouraging exploration. These provisions will help us to address this question to ensure that the regulation is compatible with these new methods of underground drilling.
There has been a great deal of unfounded scaremongering on the environmental impacts of shale gas, much of it based on examples from other jurisdictions. The Bill does not alter the involvement of local authority planners; nor does it erode in any way the strength of our regulatory regime, the effectiveness of which has been demonstrated over 50 years of development, which is one of the strictest and safest in the world.
Barbara Keeley
I am sure that a number of Members are concerned about it; I am not the only one, although I may be one who has been disturbed most recently by this sort of development in my constituency. The Government should be determined to do the right and the safe thing by communities, but they are not doing so. They are determined to have this rushed through. Indeed, the Prime Minister is determined to win the debate on shale gas. My constituents suffered for the best part of six months from exploration for shale gas. Businesses lost money and people could not sell their homes, yet the whole issue of compensation was never dealt with, and it was the same with the policing of protests. The community in Greater Manchester suffered by having to pay for the policing of the protests, and local people were really damaged by what went on at Barton Moss.
The key point is that none of the arrangements up to now has helped to compensate people in that position by one jot. Random schemes that provide some funding here and there are not the answer; the compensation should go to the people who were hurt.
Mr Hayes
The House has had no greater advocate of the interests of communities in respect of shale gas exploration than my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), who has brought their concerns to the notice of the House on at least two occasions. When I was Energy Minister, I debated those issues with him twice from the Dispatch Box. I made it clear then, and I repeat now, that I am absolutely determined that these things should be done safely and properly, and in tune with the interests of the communities that are affected. That commitment lies at the heart of the Government’s approach, as the hon. Lady should know. I do not want to fall out with her, but she can, I hope, see that my determination—to do the right thing and the safe thing—at least matches hers
Mark Menzies
The Minister is right to point out that I have been campaigning on shale gas regulation for the last four and a half years. I urge him to take this opportunity to reflect on the need for an independent panel of experts. We need to ensure, above all, that all the regulations are viewed impartially and independently, and that, if this goes ahead, we have the safest shale gas regime in the world.
Mr Hayes
I think that my hon. Friend and I should share a secret with the House. Not only did I debate this matter with him in the House, but I visited his constituency, looked at the sites involved, met some of the people who—like the constituents of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley)—were concerned, listened to and learned from them, and determined to do this thing right, on the basis of the empiricism that my hon. Friend has once again recommended.
With—I hope—your permission, Mr Speaker, I shall now proceed with my speech rather more rapidly, because I know that a number of other Members want to contribute to the debate. I do not want to eat up too much of their time, nor do I want to shorten the exciting conclusion of my speech.
Martin Horwood
Is the Minister aware of a new report by Anna Grear of Cardiff law school, which was commissioned by the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, which deals with the rights to, in particular, a fair hearing and public participation, and which casts some doubt on the Secretary of State’s bold statement on the front of the Bill that all human rights legislation is complied with in the case of fracking?
Mr Hayes
I have no doubts about the Secretary of State for Transport. I am proud and privileged to serve under him in the Department. However, I should be more than happy to debate the issue of natural rights with the hon. Gentleman on any public platform. Perhaps he will invite me to do so at our mutual convenience.
The Bill does not alter the involvement of local authority planners, nor does it erode in any way the strength of our regulatory regime, the effectiveness of which has been demonstrated for a considerable time. In Scotland, “oil and gas” is a reserved matter, and the consent of the Scottish Parliament for the Bill is not required under the Sewel convention. Deep geothermal and petroleum exploration are not included in the 20 subjects on which the Welsh Assembly is currently entitled to legislate. As such, the proposals for oil and gas will apply across the whole of our island nation.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Will the Minister give way?
Jonathan Edwards
The Smith commission, which is engaged in a cross-party process in Scotland, has made the case that powers over onshore oil and gas licensing should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Over the weekend, the Welsh Labour Government made the case that they should have similar powers. Will the United Kingdom Government use this Bill to enact the promises made to the people of Scotland and the wishes of the Welsh Government?
Mr Hayes
It is a fair question, and the amendment—which was not selected—in the name of various nationalists is understandable, but the fact is that the Government have to legislate for what is now, not what might be or could be, and we are indeed legislating for what is now.
Mr Hayes
I am going to make progress. I have been incredibly, and typically, generous, and I want to draw my remarks to a conclusion. [Hon. Members: “One more!”] Members are testing my generosity, but I do not want to lose my reputation for being the nicest man in the House, so I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Ian Lucas
I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way; I think I am the only Member he has refused to give way to thus far in this debate.
The concern we in Wrexham have is not whether fracking is dealt with by the Welsh Government or the UK Government but whether it is safe. This is a novel process, and the right hon. Gentleman keeps referring to the planning process not having been changed. Does he understand that this new process is causing genuine concern to many people, and that we need to work much harder to persuade honest people that there is no cause for concern, if, indeed, that is the case?
Mr Hayes
With a certain elegance, the hon. Gentleman has conflated three matters and I shall try to deal with each of them. He talked about the planning process and he is right that it is not directly affected by this Bill, but it is also right that we need to make sure that information is made available in digestible form. He then mentioned safety. The Environment Agency continues to have responsibility for safety in this regard, as it always has, and some of the particular issues, such as waste water, have been dealt with by the EA—as they are in all water-intensive industries, by the way—and will continue to be so. Thirdly, the hon. Gentleman talked about broadcasting the right kind of information in the right way to the right people, and that is precisely why as Energy Minister I established the Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil, but he is right that we can do more, we must do more and we will do more to assuage doubts, to scotch those false assumptions that people have, and to make it clear that this can be done properly and safely in all our interests.
The Bill will allow Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to participate in the extractive industries transparency initiative and meet the UK’s commitment on higher international transparency standards.
Some of the changes in the Bill, like driving forward development of our shale gas reserves or reforming the Highways Agency, are potentially hugely transformative, while others may right smaller wrongs, but taken together they will undoubtedly deliver benefits that can be felt by people and communities right across the UK. In this Bill we have measures from seven Government Departments—which is why I have taken rather longer than I might have done ordinarily to make the case for this important measure. That is evidence that the Government see infrastructure not through a single lens, but as a kaleidoscope of interconnected elements. Whether it is building and maintaining our strategic roads, major schemes such as HS2 or nuclear power stations, housing developments such as new garden cities, or new industries such as shale and geothermal, or existing ones such as North sea oil, we must never lose our focus on the big prize—invest, improve, build, develop, and ultimately prosper.
Let us no longer look back in anger on the bad days of under-investment and mismanagement. I am not going to focus on the previous Government’s many failures; let us instead focus with the anticipation of a long-distance runner on the exciting road ahead.
Too often the stance of the Labour party on these matters brings to mind the conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat as envisioned by Lewis Carroll. Alice asked to know
“‘Which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don't much care where—’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn't matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.”
Sadly, the Labour party remains in Wonderland: stuck down the rabbit hole, and presenting the economy with a bottle labelled “drink me.” In contrast to Labour’s shrinking potion, the measures in this Bill promise an effect similar to the cake labelled “eat me”: measures that enable the economy to grow at the same burgeoning pace.
I simply say this to the Opposition: they must be careful. As Disraeli once said:
“It is easier to be critical than correct.”
There are times for clever criticisms and there are times for meaningful scrutiny; times for short-term hard-edged politics, and a time for the long view. The Opposition should recognise that the time for this Bill has surely come.
This is a Bill fashioned by a Government determined to do the people’s will, and a Minster who, as the Opposition know, is the people’s voice. This Government with this Bill confirm our courage and our willingness to put long-term thinking at the heart of our programme. This Government with this Bill concrete our confidence—confidence in a vision that is bold and ambitious for Britain. This Government with this Bill cement our reputation as a regime. There is hope for our nation’s future, a future for our people as glorious as our past. I commend the Bill to the House.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for those few brief words of introduction to the Bill, and I look forward to debating its contents with him. If he will forgive me, I will not quote Disraeli quite so extensively as he did. I might not even quote “Alice in Wonderland” quite so extensively, although he might like to think about his own party’s performance as I remind him of another quote from the book, in which a character says that when he uses a word,
“it means just what I choose it to mean”.
That seems to typify the Government’s flip-flopping on infrastructure up to now.
The Minister has had criticism for Opposition Members today. Interestingly, he has also had some veiled criticism for his predecessors from those on the Government Benches, which surprised many of us. Perhaps that shows that infrastructure policy was not really in shape until he came along. Also, I could not help but notice that he kept referring to “my Department”. The Secretary of State for Transport, who is sitting alongside him, might need to be a bit careful about who is after his job.
This is a complex and wide-ranging Bill. It contains extensive provisions covering a whole range of Departments, which is why I am pleased to be joined on the Opposition Front Bench today by the shadow Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher), as well as by my hon. Friends the Members for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) and for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods). The Library briefing on the Bill describes it as a “portmanteau” Bill, and we are pleased to welcome the Minister and his portmanteau to the House today.
The Bill comes nowhere near to meeting the challenges faced by transport, energy and housing, despite all that the Minister has said today. There is cross-party consensus on the importance of infrastructure to our economy. Economic and population growth and the need to decarbonise our economy will all add further strain to an infrastructure that is already creaking. There seem to be different views about that. I imagine that, while we might disagree on a number of aspects of the Bill, hon. Members on both sides of the House will have raised an eyebrow on hearing the leader of UKIP explaining that the problems with infrastructure were all down to immigration, but I guess that that is a matter for him.
The Minister said that the Bill proved the Government’s commitment to investing in infrastructure. We have heard a lot of talk from the Government on infrastructure over the past week or so. We have heard the re-announcement of a £15 billion road programme—two thirds of which, surprisingly, has been earmarked for coalition Members’ constituencies—yet this is happening after the Government scrapped £4 billion-worth of strategic roads investment on entering office. We have also heard another garden city announcement, yet Ministers have presided over the lowest peacetime level of house building since the 1920s. And we have had yet another infrastructure plan update, promising yet more schemes, when the reality is that less that a fifth of the projects are in construction and infrastructure output is down more than 10% since 2010.
Let me give the House an example of one of the supposed achievements of the plan that the Government have published. The Dartford crossing is a major bottleneck, with serious congestion. One of the achievements of the Government’s infrastructure plan is—wait for it!—to narrow down three options for improving one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the country to two.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
Since the hon. Gentleman is critical of this Government for narrowing down the options to two, will he advise the House which option he would choose?
Richard Burden
I have a feeling that in this debate Conservative hon. Member after Conservative hon. Member will stand up and ask me about this scheme or that scheme, and will say, “Come on. Will Labour go ahead with this or not?” We are not in the business of cutting long-term investment in our roads infrastructure in the way that the present Government cut long-term investment in infrastructure. But if we are looking through individual scheme after individual scheme, we are going to scrutinise them. We are going to see if they are all they are cracked up to be.
Let me give other examples. In many cases the Government’s figures do not add up. In some announcements there is £3.5 billion-worth of investment for 20 new schemes; in other announcements, that becomes £3.4 billion. In 2013 we read that £8.5 billion had been set aside for 26 schemes; that now appears to be £6 billion. In some announcements there has been £15.1 billion for 2015 to 2021, but in answer to a parliamentary question that I asked the Minister last week, the figure was £15.2 billion, and it is still unclear whether this is entirely Government money or whether the Department for Transport is still waiting for third-party contributions to make up the total. I shall not be able to give answers on individual schemes because as far as I can tell, those individual schemes do not add up, but we will scrutinise them. We will ask the difficult questions, because those are the questions that the public expect us to ask.
Mr Redwood
Now that the shadow Minister has seen the projected overall levels of capital expenditure laid out by the coalition Government in the autumn statement for the period up to 2020, does his party think they are the right levels, or are they too low or too high?
Richard Burden
As I said in answer to the previous question, we are not in the business of saying that we wish to cut back on capital investment. For goodness’ sake, we have been saying for four years that the Government have not been investing enough in infrastructure. It seemed from the Minister’s opening remarks that he was criticising the previous Government for not having spent enough. That is a bit of a change from what we have heard before—usually we are accused of having spent too much. Labour spent a total of £93.7 billion on our road network between 1997 and 2010. That is because we are interested and we are committed to repairing our creaking infrastructure. That will not change.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
It is nice to hear how much Labour spent on roads, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that it took 60 years to get a bypass in my constituency, and for 13 of those years under Labour rule the scheme was knocked back and confused? It took me to get £123 million from this Government to build the road. It has been built.
Richard Burden
I am sure the hon. Gentleman has been a great advocate for his constituency, as are hon. Members across the House. That does not alter the fact that, as I said, I want to check that these Government announcements are all they are cracked up to be. Even a few examples indicate to me that there are a lot more questions to ask.
Investment in infrastructure needs to be long term. That is key, and that is why Labour is backing the proposal by Sir John Armitt, the man who delivered the Olympics—in practice, not just in theory—for a national infrastructure commission. That looks not just five years ahead, but 20 or 30 years ahead to produce an evidence-based assessment of national infrastructure needs. That should establish a cross-party consensus on priorities, breaking electoral cycles and ending the stop-start announcements we have seen up until now. It can also hold the Government to account for delivery. That would help the Government and it would help Parliament’s decision making. That is why it is backed by more than 89% of businesses surveyed by the CBI. For all that the Minister said about wanting to build a consensus on these things, words have, again, not been matched by actions. The Government had the chance in the other place to accept the idea of a national infrastructure commission, a cross-party body to plan infrastructure for the long term, and what did they do? They voted down such an amendment, and that commission is nowhere in the Bill today.
Let me now deal with some specific parts of the Bill. On highways and transportation, Labour supports long-term roads funding and we want to end stop-start funding. We want to give the supply chain the confidence to invest in skills and equipment, and enable the Highways Agency to negotiate better contracts and make efficiency savings. We want to see those contracts create new apprenticeships to train young engineers, as Britain will need 780,000 to meet demand by 2020. I am very pleased that the Minister has mentioned these matters in his opening remarks, and I am sure that if the Bill gets to Committee we will press him further on them.
There are three problems to discuss. First, Ministers have failed to prove why a top-down institutional reorganisation of the Highways Agency is needed to deliver long-term roads funding. After extensive debate on the rationale for this in the other place, the fact is—this came across clearly there—that the Highways Agency can deliver a five-year roads programme without being turned into a wholly owned Government company. The Alan Cook review showed that it can make £1.2 billion-worth of efficiency savings. That can be delivered through funding certainty, not because it should be a wholly owned Government company or because of institutional change. The cross-party Transport Select Committee has concluded that it is “not convinced” by the need for a new company. It is the roads investment strategy that will enable an efficient and faster delivery of roads, not necessarily an arm’s length body, and we will be looking for clear evidence from the Government of why this move is needed. I do not mean anecdotal evidence or what Benjamin Disraeli might have predicted; we need facts on why this is going to be needed to deliver long-term investment, as all we have seen to date is conjecture and confusion.
The Bill previously included clauses to set up more than one highways company. Fortunately, Ministers have rowed back from that, but the model is still confused. The body is to have a licence but officials recognise that it cannot have a “licence to operate” as it has no income stream or revenue-raising powers. With such a shaky rationale, is it any wonder that the Government proposal to set up a wholly owned Government company has met widespread concern from organisations ranging right the way from the Alliance of British Drivers to unions like the Public and Commercial Services Union and Prospect, who see this as a precursor to privatising an asset worth £111 billion?
Caroline Lucas
I am confused by Labour’s great love of yet more road building. We had a welcome article from Ed Miliband yesterday in which he talked about the importance of climate change. Some 25% of—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Lady must refer to the Leader of the Opposition as the Leader of the Opposition or by his constituency. This is not a tabloid newspaper; it is the Chamber of the House of Commons.
Caroline Lucas
I do apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. The right nomenclature momentarily went from my mind, but I am very happy to refer to the Leader of the Opposition—the honourable Leader of the Opposition. [Hon. Members: “Right honourable.”] The right hon. Leader of the Opposition. The point is that what he wrote about climate change is not in harmony with what we are hearing now, which is the Labour party saying that we need more roads. Roads are responsible for more and more CO2 emissions, which cause climate change.
Richard Burden
The hon. Lady is absolutely right on this point: protecting our planet and our environment has to be centre stage for any serious Government at the moment. It is also absolutely right that in a whole range of areas we need to look for the most effective and environmentally sensitive forms of transport. Does one conclude therefore that all road building is wrong and that congestion does not need to be tackled? No, because all those things must be done as well, but they must be done sensitively and in harmony with our environment. That was said by the Opposition in the other place, and we will be exploring all those areas if this Bill gets as far as Committee stage.
Ian Lucas
Does my hon. Friend think it would be helpful for the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) to attend a meeting of the all-party motor group and to arrange a visit to Nissan in Sunderland to see the Nissan Leaf, an electric, non-petroleum-driven motor car, to see the innovation being taken forward by the motor industry on a real green agenda?
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend is right on that point. As well as being a shadow Minister with responsibility for roads, I have the honour of chairing the all-party motor group. Fortunately, the days of seeing the motor vehicle as an inevitable enemy of environmental protection are long gone. There is a great deal of innovation going on in the automotive industry. Although the hon. Lady has some very serious points to make, she should understand who brought in the Climate Change Act 2008, and who was Energy Secretary when some of the best initiatives on preserving the environment were taken in Britain. That should give her a little more confidence that the Opposition take our environmental responsibilities seriously.
Another area that the Bill does not tackle is that of local roads. The Minister talks about a roads revolution, but in reality this Bill addresses just 2% of the road network, as 98% of the roads in this country are local roads. Two-thirds of traffic is on local roads. Motorists, pedestrians, cyclists, HGV drivers and motorcyclists all rely on roads to get around. Nearly all our journeys start and finish on local roads, but it is those roads that are the most creaking part of our road infrastructure. A third of local roads are in urgent need of attention. There is a £12 billion pothole backlog that will take 12 years to fix, and congestion on local roads is set to rise by 61% by 2040. A record 91% of the public are dissatisfied with the condition of local roads. Nearly 90% of businesses surveyed by the CBI expect local roads to get worse, not better. That is not surprising, because spending on local road maintenance is down 11% since 2010. Under this Government, it will decline further in real terms by 2020. There is a risk that the Bill will make the situation worse.
Local government and transport campaigners have warned that giving strategic roads management to an arm’s length company could create a two-tier road system, pushing traffic on to local roads and into our towns and cities. We need proper joined-up planning between strategic and local road networks, with devolved bodies and local authorities having greater powers over local transport and traffic management to tackle congestion. That is why we on the Opposition Benches are committed to English devolution. City regions face huge congestion pressure between now and 2040. They are planning their 20-year growth strategies, and need confidence that the Highways Agency, or whatever it is called, is working to similar horizons. We need an independent commission to take that long-term view.
Ring-fencing money for environmental protection, innovation, cycling and safety is important, which is why I am pleased that there is a £100 million budget for cycling on strategic roads. The problem is that it is yet another one-off announcement. It is not the long-term commitment to funding to get Britain cycling. As far as I can tell, the Department for Transport still has no clear budget for cycling, and funding is set to end by 2016 when the local sustainable transport fund finishes. It seems ludicrous that we will have five years of that.
After two years of calling for safety targets to be reinstated, I am pleased that the Government have finally recognised that axing them was a mistake. It is good to see in the road investment strategy a target to cut deaths and serious injuries by 40% on strategic roads by 2020. However, if it is right to have road safety targets for the strategic road network, why cannot we have safety commitments and targets for all UK roads?
It seems ludicrous that we will have five years of road and rail plans that will not be joined up. One of the most pressing transport problems is that, too often, decisions on road, rail and airports are taken in individual silos. Investments are not joined up and maximised. The Government’s proposals to study the options for HS3 include a tunnel under the Peak district and other trans-Pennine road improvements, but they are being considered separately when they should be looked at together. Where is the requirement for the new company and Network Rail to share forecasts, and to map and plan investment in a co-ordinated way?
Richard Burden
I am grateful to the Minister. I am sure we can pursue and discuss the matter in Committee if the Bill gets that far.
My final point—perhaps the Minister has reassuring words on this—is whether the new agency will have adequate accountability, which the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) mentioned. Passenger Focus will be renamed Transport Focus because it will have a responsibility for roads as well as for rail and bus. Why is there still a silo mentality on the Office of the Rail Regulator, even though it will have a monitoring role? After pressure from the Opposition in the other place to give the new body more powers, it cannot be a regulator of roads. In the Bill, Transport Focus can represent only people who use strategic roads—it will not represent pedestrians or cyclists who use local roads, or motorists who are frustrated with conditions on local roads. I hope we can look at that if the Bill gets as far as Committee. With the recent ruling on the UK’s air quality infraction, should not a watchdog consider the environmental impact of any new company?
What about the Minister’s accountability to Parliament? Will hon. Members be able to table parliamentary questions and have proper debates on roads, whether in the Chamber or in Westminster Hall, or will we get letters from the chief executive of the new body instead? The chief executive of the Highways Agency has said that the reform will enable it to “set its own destiny”. The public depend on roads for daily life, so is that what we want? We will want to look at that closely in Committee if the Bill gets that far, and I hope the Minister reflects on it.
The Opposition support the extension of powers for the British Transport police to obtain driver information and take enforcement action outside the railways. That proposal was tabled by Lord Faulkner in the other place, with the Opposition’s support. It is an absurd situation when trained and effective British Transport police officers have to ask permission to take enforcement action on land outside railway jurisdiction. That makes no sense to the public. I hope the Minister will comment, today or later, on how that relates to the Smith commission recommendation that the British Transport police should be devolved.
The Opposition support a proper control regime for invasive non-native species, but we do not believe the Bill is fit for purpose. After the badger cull chaos, the Government listened to pressure from animal rights campaigners, wildlife groups, the National Farmers Union and Labour, and it is good that they included animal welfare protections in the regime. However, although there are three distinct categories of species in the Bill—native, former native and non-native—the definitions still seem problematic. We expect the Government to look at the EU habitats directive for those definitions, and will seek assurances that specific species such as the beaver will be given legal protection.
The Bill also includes a number of changes to the planning regime, none of which seem to go anywhere near addressing the housing crisis facing Britain today. Effective and efficient planning is vital, and we will support sensible changes to deliver a timely planning system, especially for nationally significant infrastructure projects. We want the Bill to define what the public can expect from garden cities in terms of high-quality design and sustainability for strong and inclusive communities for the future. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham will expand on that point later, say why the Bill fails to ensure that building standards reduce CO2 sufficiently, and explain our position on deemed discharge, land transfers to the Homes and Communities Agency, and the Land Registry. Suffice it to say that a trend seems to be emerging with the Government’s Land Registry reforms, which still seem rather confused, and they appear to have made a U-turn on putting those at arm’s length. Perhaps the most glaring omission on housing and land use is the fact that the Bill contains no acknowledgment of the housing crisis our country faces, of what the Lyons review said, or that Labour is right to call for ambitious reforms and 200,000 extra homes to be built a year. This Bill is a far cry from that.
Part 5 sets out a number of provisions on energy. Getting energy policy right is critical to our economy and vital to enable all infrastructure sectors to function. It is therefore a shame that the Bill contains no ambitious commitment or strategy to ensure that the UK will meet growing demand in a sustainable way. The Bill sets out a new community right for a stake in renewable energy schemes—that is fine, although we do not think it goes far enough—and it is good that it implements Wood review proposals for increasing oil and gas extraction, which have cross-party support. However, the issue that I am sure generates the most interest, both inside and outside the House, is in clauses 38 to 43 on underground access to shale and geothermal energy—there have already been questions on that.
Helen Jones
Is my hon. Friend aware that in constituencies such as mine people are concerned not only that there are no adequate safeguards in the Bill, but that even the Government’s minor concessions, such as the requirement on companies to notify people of their right to land use and of the payments that can be made, will be reviewed after five years? Does that indicate that the Government are not serious about putting sufficient statutory protections in place?
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend makes an important point that was repeated in the other place and if the Bill gets to Committee, and we will be seeking a much more robust regulatory environment. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) said that securing public confidence is not just important to us as parliamentarians when representing our constituents, but it is also important to the industry, which needs public concern about this issue like a hole in the head. If questions are to be answered they should be answered, and we should have transparency and a proper regulatory regime.
Barbara Keeley
The planning process for shale gas was changed on the first day of the recess last year—a day after we had debated it here—and there was no chance to comment. As my hon. Friend says, it is important that the public have confidence, which they cannot have at the moment. Planning authorities such as that in Salford should not have been denied the chance to comment on and take into account certain measures that were removed by the Government last year, and the time scale should not have been shortened. People need time to get their heads around this complex process, and planning authorities have fewer staff than they once had. I mentioned the payment scheme, which is totally unsatisfactory. People whose businesses lost money or who could not sell their homes will not be compensated by giving small amounts of money to the scout group down the road. This must be dealt with—
Richard Burden
I am grateful Madam Deputy Speaker. Let us give it another five months.
It is difficult on Second Reading to go through the specifics of what is needed, but my hon. Friend has mentioned some important issues. There is a whole range of areas where we can tighten regulation. To give the Government some credit, they have so far accepted a number of our proposals—we put forward six—which is good, but there are still areas where they need to sharpen up. She mentioned timing. Our view is that, where there is monitoring, there is no reason why it should not take place over a proper 12-month period.
Andrew Miller
The Minister ignored what happened in the other place, although I understood it to be part of the constitutional process. My hon. Friend will know that one of the amendments was about baseline monitoring. It seems to me that we cannot have a proper, scientific assessment of any process without proper baseline monitoring. Will he give a firm commitment that Labour will press that point to the nth degree in Committee if we get that far?
Jonathan Edwards
As I said earlier, over the weekend the Labour Government in Wales said that they wanted powers over licensing to be devolved to Wales. Will the official Opposition table amendments in Committee to support the position of the Labour party in Wales?
Richard Burden
The important thing in relation to these provisions is that regulation is robust and effective and that it happens at the most effective and correct level. We know that the Smith commission has made some specific suggestions, which we will be considering, and there are other issues that we can talk about. The important thing is that it works. My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) was absolutely right to say that what the public want to know is whether it will work.
Ian Lucas
I think that a pragmatic approach is the correct one. My personal opinion, on the point the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) raised, is that it makes sense for this to be devolved, since so much of the planning regime in Wales is devolved.
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend is right that the most effective place for planning needs to be the place where these regulations operate.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. I understand what he says about tighter regulation, which is welcome. However, the Smith commission has recommended devolution of these powers to Scotland. Planning already rests with the Scottish Government, whose attitude has perhaps been different from that of planners south of the border. Would it not make sense, before fracking is fully established, for all the powers to rest in the same place so that this can be looked at properly?
Richard Burden
I must say that I am a little confused by the hon. Gentleman’s point. As I understand it, the current situation, even without this Bill, is that shale gas extraction can happen in Scotland only with the approval of the Government in Holyrood. I also understand—perhaps he will correct me if I am wrong—that the Scottish Government, despite having an effective veto over any development in Scotland, actually voted against a shale gas moratorium earlier this year. He is right that the Smith commission has recommended the devolution of mineral access rights and the licensing process to Scotland. If this goes as far as Committee, I am sure that the issue will be explored there.
Labour is committed to the decarbonisation of the power sector by 2030 and to reducing our carbon emissions in line with the Climate Change Act 2008.
Mr Hayes
Before the hon. Gentleman moves on from shale gas, and leaving aside the issue of where power is exercised and how close that is to its effects, let me repeat that we recognise that this is an embryonic industry. We are very happy, during the course of the Bill’s consideration, to listen to reasonable overtures about safety and other matters such as those that have been raised in this House.
Richard Burden
I am grateful for the Minister’s comments.
As the Committee on Climate Change has said, within our legally binding carbon targets, gas can have a role to play as part of a balanced energy mix, along with renewables, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage. With 80% of our homes reliant on gas for heating, and in the context of declining North sea oil production, indigenous shale gas production may have a beneficial impact on our energy security. However, only by fully addressing legitimate environmental and safety concerns about fracking, with the kind of robust regulation that I have been talking about, with comprehensive monitoring and strict enforcement, will we give people confidence that the exploration and possible extraction of shale gas is safe and a reliable source that can contribute to the UK’s energy mix. That is why we are seeking to amend the Bill in Committee to ensure that any fracking could happen only under robust safety and environmental standards.
The issue of underground access rights is separate from the environmental and safety framework. It does not affect the requirement for consent to be sought for exploration and extraction through planning and relevant environmental permitting processes. Any application sanctioned by local authorities will require a strict environmental assessment. Other industries requiring underground access—such as coal mining, water, sewerage, and gas transportation pipelines—already have underground access rights without requiring the landowner’s permission. In principle, we do not oppose the reforms to underground access. However, we will continue to push for the environmental framework to be strengthened, and for assurances that the responsibility for clean-up costs and the liability for any untoward consequences rest fairly and squarely with the industry, not with taxpayers or homeowners.
Important regulatory questions must be answered before large-scale extraction can begin, but Conservative Ministers have so far chosen to ignore those legitimate environmental concerns rather than address them and provide safeguards for communities. That is why we will table amendments to close a number of loopholes in the existing regulatory framework. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West will set those out in detail in Committee. We are taking a responsible approach. People will have confidence that shale gas is a safe and reliable source only if this Government provide robust regulations, set out a comprehensive monitoring process, and ensure strict enforcement of exploration and extraction. Sadly, we heard no such assurances from the Minister.
The Bill has some important provisions to help to facilitate and improve national infrastructure planning, but too many parts are weak or confused. Above all, it is no match for the infrastructure challenges that face the UK in transport, in housing, and in energy. That is why Labour wants an independent commission to set out the priorities and strategy that we need to deliver—not just announce, re-announce, and re-announce again—the infrastructure that the UK so urgently needs.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Am I to take it that the hon. Gentleman is moving amendment (b)?
Richard Burden
My mistake, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can let you into a secret: I received a note from my colleagues saying, “Don’t forget to move the amendment”, and I did precisely that.
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House declines to give a second reading to the Infrastructure Bill because, whilst welcoming efforts to further enable necessary infrastructure projects and acknowledging that long-term strategic planning and investment for transport infrastructure is urgently needed, the Bill fails to establish an independent National Infrastructure Commission to set out an evidence-based analysis of future infrastructure priorities in sectors including transport, waste and energy, and to hold governments accountable for delivery, because the Bill creates a new Strategic Highways Company, which could result in an increasingly two-tiered road system when there is no evidence that a new company is needed to deliver a road investment strategy, because the Bill fails to address the deteriorating condition of the local road network due to the cuts in spending since 2010 on local road maintenance, because the Bill does not ensure that unconventional gas extraction could only happen in the context of robust safety and environmental standards, comprehensive monitoring and strict enforcement, because the Bill fails to give communities new powers so that they can build the homes they need locally in the places they want, and because the Bill fails to include Garden City principles to underpin the next generation of New Towns, fails to strike the right balance between communities and developers in the discharge of planning conditions, and fails to properly plan ahead to ensure that building standards address CO2 emissions and climate change.”
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his belated but sincere moving of the amendment. I call Professor Charles Hendry.
Charles Hendry (Wealden) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. In case the House thinks that you have mis-titled me as you did the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), I should point out—I thank you for drawing attention to it—my professorship at Edinburgh university, which you and I were very pleased to attend; I should make it clear to the House that you were there some decades after I was. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to some of these subjects.
This is a very important Bill. As my right hon. Friend the Minister has said, it has a kaleidoscope of measures. It is positive and encouraging to see so many different measures brought together in one Bill; that shows the Government’s determination to make progress on many different fronts. Bringing the measures together in this way is eminently sensible.
I wish to focus primarily on the energy issues in part 5. I welcome the changes being made to improve the extraction rates in the North sea. We should pay tribute to Sir Ian Wood for his report and the work he did in identifying the real challenges in optimising the returns from the North sea basin. I also welcome the proposals on the extension of community ownership. It has always been my view that renewable energy projects will stand a greater prospect of being approved and endorsed by their communities if there is a significant proportion of local community ownership. We all hope that that will be done in a voluntary way, but the back-stop approach proposed by the Government is very sensible indeed.
The meat of much of this Bill relates to shale gas issues, which I want to focus on. Recognition of the continuing role for gas in our energy mix will be of long-term importance in electricity generation. We need to have a flexible source of generation to make up for the peaks and troughs of renewable sources of generation. That is also vital to heating our homes.
It is clear to me, as president of the National Energy Action fuel poverty charity, that the biggest distinction in fuel poverty is between those whose homes are on the gas grid and those whose are off it. If we do not see greater use of gas in heating our homes, there will be more avoidable winter deaths. The Bill’s proposals recognise the contribution that gas can make in terms of both electricity and heat. There is a focus on security of supply and issues of affordability, and, because new gas will replace dirty old coal, it will also help us reduce our carbon emissions.
Security of supply issues will also be determined by the extent to which the gas will come from our own indigenous resources and the extent to which we will need to import it from elsewhere. If there is a significant source of gas under our ground, we need to quantify and measure it and consider the extent to which it is extractable—the two do not necessarily go together—and whether that can be done in an economical way. The extraction must then take place only if it meets the highest standards of environmental protection and safety.
The Labour party, whose amendment was reported in this morning’s Financial Times, is mistaken in its understanding of the core strength of our regulatory approach. The regulation of our oil and gas reserves—which, along with that of Norway’s, is considered to be the best in the world—is successful not because it is frozen in legislation, which can be changed only by another piece of legislation, but because it evolves and changes as new technology is introduced and new challenges emerge. It evolves because the onus is constantly on the producers—the companies involved—to use the best practices available to them to ensure environmental protection and safety.
That is why the European Commission wanted to replicate the British model elsewhere and why, after what happened in the gulf of Mexico, the Americans considered which elements of the British model they could import into the American system. That process of “best in class” has driven this forward and given us the toughest standards of regulation in the world.
Andrew Miller
When the hon. Gentleman was Energy Minister, he and I had some interesting conversations about the oil and gas industry. How can we have a regulatory structure that gives confidence to the public about potential methane leaks if there is no baseline monitoring?
Charles Hendry
We can certainly get into some of the specifics, and the hon. Gentleman may well have a good point on baseline monitoring. We need to be able to reassure people on such issues, where public confidence will be essential. The shale revolution in America has been possible because there are huge open spaces—for someone with 2,000 acres of North Dakota, it makes sense to explore the reserves of shale—but in a much more tightly compact country such as the United Kingdom, an entirely different debate is needed to reassure the public.
Ian Lucas
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the fact that such extraction will take place on land in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland differentiates it from extraction in the North sea? We must satisfy the public by being much more open about the regulation. Is that not why we need a different approach?
Charles Hendry
We need to satisfy the public, but the principle remains the same: the best way to deliver the toughest standards is by putting an unlimited obligation on companies to meet them, and by using the best technology and skills available to do so. That has put us in a position where our system is trusted, and people from across the world look at it to understand how well such a system can work. I hope that in this debate and in the wider debate on shale, we can start to differentiate the legitimate concerns about the transportation of liquids, what is injected and water management from the wholly bogus claims that are often made.
Barbara Keeley
I want to make a point about open spaces. We have been through that issue in my constituency; there is a school secure unit a quarter of a mile from the site and residential streets just over half a mile from it. That is not an open space situation. Companies such as the one at Barton Moss can go around and select sites that are grossly unsuitable—right on top of schools and where people live. That should not be allowed.
Charles Hendry
I hope that those issues are entirely legitimate to raise within the planning process. Those matters should be looked at in that way to decide whether an activity is or is not appropriate, and I believe that the right processes are in place to ensure that that happens.
As the shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield, said, the proposed underground access is not exceptional; it already happens for cables, gas pipelines, tunnels and coal mining. As the debate is taken forward, I hope that we can reassure people that we are not doing something draconian or very different, but simply allowing a change that brings the activity into line with others.
I hope that the Bill can still be amended in one area, however, so that it addresses an issue of gas security at the same time. The focus on the North sea and shale gas highlights our vulnerability on energy security. As a country, we are already dependent on imported gas. Historically, the North sea was our gas-storage capability—when we needed more, we pumped out a bit more—which is why we have never stored the same volumes of gas as the French and the Germans. As we move into a period of dependency on gas imports, we need to look again at gas storage.
That is particularly true in the current climate, with the oil price where it is. The risk from the oil price’s being lower than it was just a few months ago is that the North sea will be harder to sustain in the longer term. It is one of the most expensive basins in the world, and there is therefore a risk that some fields will be closed down earlier. They will be abandoned, and it will not be possible to reopen them. At the same time, a low oil price—the gas linkage comes into that—means that UK shale may, because of its cost, be harder or simply not economic to extract. We therefore need to consider how to preserve our security of supply, which means looking again at gas storage.
We should pay tribute to, and recognise, the tremendous difference made by the liquefied natural gas terminals in the Thames and in south Wales, and the important contribution made by pipeline infrastructure from Norway—Langeled, for example—and what it has brought to this debate. However, looking back at gas issues over the past eight years or so, I think that we came too close for comfort during four winters, overwhelmingly because of factors over which we had no control.
The first time was in 2006, when there was a fire in our main gas storage facility at Rough. In 2009, there was the Russia-Ukraine dispute. Even though we were as far away in Europe as we could have been from those issues, gas was coming in through one interconnector and the same volume was going out through the interconnector next door to meet the demand in continental Europe. Eighteen months ago, the winter before last, we came within a few hours of running out of gas because the winter was so long and cold. We cannot leave the situation to chance. We need to take action now to guarantee our energy security for the future.
I believe fundamentally in market principles and approaches, but the market approach has not delivered the level of new investment that we would wish to see in this area. My right hon. Friend the Minister, who introduced the debate, well knows my views on this matter. We had a discussion a day or so after he took over from me as the Minister of State; I said that the one thing on which I wished we had done more was gas storage. I still hold that view today—perhaps even more strongly.
Charles Hendry
My right hon. Friend took the agenda forward on this matter and I hope that he will have a sympathetic ear.
Andrew Miller
The hon. Gentleman is being extremely generous in giving way and is making an exceptional speech. Does he agree that the storage issue becomes more vital when one looks at the needs of our heavy energy using industries, some of which use gas as a feedstock? If we are not careful, they will be forced to close down in a bad winter. We have to attack this problem soon.
Charles Hendry
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. The head of the British Ceramic Confederation, Laura Cohen, and a group of its members, who employ thousands of people in this country in important industries, wrote to the Prime Minister last year to highlight just that point. They said that there was much greater volatility in prices for industry in the United Kingdom than elsewhere and that that volatility was unacceptably high. They said that the solution was more gas storage and that a public service obligation on gas storage was required.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
My hon. Friend and I have battled on the same side on this issue for a number of years. In fact, I have been battling on this issue for most of the time I have been in this place. Does he, like me, hope that we will hear something more positive from the Government this evening than we have heard to date? The Labour Government and this Government have prevaricated consistently on the issue of storage. We want to hear something definite about it—tonight, hopefully.
Charles Hendry
I seek, on most issues, to be on the same side as my hon. Friend; we do not always manage that, but we often do. The Government introduced a new market mechanism, which we hoped would introduce more gas storage, but it has delivered only a small amount more. There are projects that have essentially been abandoned for the time being because, if they are to be funded on market principles, there has to be a bigger difference between the summer price and the winter price. That does not exist at the moment in a way that would enable those facilities to go ahead.
The Government have rightly looked at market mechanisms, but my conclusion is that we need to look more fundamentally at what is necessary to move this matter on, especially given the time it takes to build such facilities. It will be five years before a big facility can be brought on stream. Some have planning permission and could start very quickly. Billions of pounds of investment are ready to go into them, but a public service obligation on gas storage is needed to make that happen. I hope that the Government are prepared to look at an amendment along those lines in Committee or on Report. I will happily work with them on that.
In conclusion, we are right to explore market options. Normally, in most winters, that will be enough. However, too much of our energy policy in this area in recent years has depended on luck. We have always been on the right side so far, but one day our luck will run out. Taking steps now, with the support of the energy industry and the major companies that use gas, would be a fitting amendment to a Bill on infrastructure. It would help us to go forward with an even more robust infrastructure in the years ahead.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
I draw the attention of the House to my interests as declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and to my non-pecuniary interests as a trustee of the Town and Country Planning Association. I was pleased to listen to the speech by the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry). He made a number of very important points. I hope he will forgive me for not following on directly from what he has said, but I will refer to him later in my speech.
This is a very diverse Bill that covers a very wide range of issues, but I want to focus on specific issues in part 4. It is not just a disparate Bill with a huge range of clauses; it will also have different impacts in different parts of the United Kingdom. We have been debating devolution quite a lot recently and a number of Members have advocated the case for MPs not being able to vote on measures that are devolved for local decision in the areas they represent. That is an issue we need to think about in relation to the provisions in the Bill. The explanatory notes give a pretty good feel on this matter:
“The provisions in Part 1 extend to England and Wales only, save that clauses 14 and 16 to 18 extend to the United Kingdom…In Part 2, clause 19(1) extends to England and Wales only and clause 19(2) extends to England, Wales and Scotland…The provisions in Part 3 extend to England and Wales only. The provisions in Part 4 relating to nationally significant infrastructure projects under the Planning Act 2008 extend to England and Wales and (in relation to certain oil and gas cross-border pipelines) Scotland.”
And so on. However, if we look at the Bill in detail, we can see that in clause 27 the provisions relating to the Homes and Communities Agency apply to England outside London, and that there are separate provisions relating to the Greater London authority in the London area. I therefore have to put it to Members who advocate voting rights being restricted to Members who do not represent an area with a separate devolved authority taking decisions, that I would like to hear how they propose the House should consider the provisions in the Bill and which particular sections would be open to voting by Members from different parts of the country, whether they come from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, London or the rest of England, because parts of the Bill relate only to each of the areas I describe.
I intend to restrict my comments to part 4, which itself contains diverse provisions, not because the other parts are not important but because there is simply not time to do justice to them all. Clauses 23 to 25 relate to the planning regime for nationally significant infrastructure projects. There are some modest amendments to improve procedures. I personally have no objection to them, as I believe they are helpful. I merely reflect that when the Planning Act 2008, which introduced the nationally significant infrastructure planning regime, was debated in the House, the present Government were extremely critical of it. I am glad that they have now decided that this initiative, introduced by the previous Government, is worth while, and that they are supporting it and taking it forward.
Clause 26, however, raises an altogether more problematic issue to which I have already alluded. It allows the Secretary of State to pass regulations by statutory instrument that would allow specific planning conditions to be deemed to be discharged if a period of time elapsed without the planning authority having reached a decision. I accept entirely that delays in discharging conditions can prove highly problematic and burdensome for developers, and I am not arguing against sensible measures to accelerate the discharge of planning conditions. However, the clause is a blunt instrument and could well result in measures being arbitrarily prevented from mitigating the serious adverse impacts of developments on local communities. In its briefing, the Town and Country Planning Association says that the Department for Communities and Local Government technical consultation on planning
“reflects this dilemma by recognising classes of condition whose function is too important to be subject of any deemed discharged. The question must be whether any NPPF compliant condition can be regarded as so trivial as to have no impact on the wider community.”
I put that question to the Minister earlier, and I was pleased he agreed to reflect on it.
The TCPA continues:
“Paragraph 206 of the NPPF states that ‘planning conditions should only be imposed where they are necessary, relevant to planning and to the development to be permitted, enforceable, precise and reasonable in all other respects’. The tests of necessary, relevant and reasonable provide a strong framework and logically imply that there should not be a body of conditions which are in some way frivolous or unimportant.”
That is a telling point on which I look forward to hearing the Minister’s view when he has had a chance to reflect on it, because it concerns a very significant issue. Ministers used to be vocal in their support for the principle of localism—of allowing local communities the power to promote their interests and reject proposals that damage the amenity or well-being of the area or its residents. I hope, therefore, that when they have had a chance to reflect, they will assure us that no planning condition relating to the material amenity of residents or the wider community will be subject to the deemed discharge provision.
One planning issue that surprisingly is absent from the Bill is an updating and clarification of the remit and role of the new town development corporations, which were established in the 1940s and played a key role in developing the substantial number of new settlements subsequently created in our country. Now that the Government have given their approval to the creation of a new generation of garden cities and have agreed that a development corporation is the appropriate vehicle to promote the projected new settlement at Ebbsfleet, it is time for a new statement of the purposes of new town development corporations.
Simply seeking to apply the urban development corporation model, which was devised for different circumstances and with no clear statement of its social and environmental objectives, is not adequate. In the other place, the concept of a new definition of the role and purposes of a new town development corporation was considered, and I hope that if the Bill is examined in detail in Committee, an appropriate new clause can be introduced to achieve this. The TCPA has undertaken substantial work in drafting an appropriate statement of the purposes and objectives of the new town development corporations, and I hope this can provide the basis for an improvement to the Bill.
The third weakness in part 4 that I would like to highlight relates to the low and zero-carbon agenda—another area in which the last Government made important advances. The ratcheting up of the energy requirements in part L of the building regulations, the creation of the route map to zero-carbon housing through the code for sustainable homes, the establishment of the zero-carbon hub and the setting of a target for reaching zero carbon in new homes by 2016 were all significant initiatives that have had a very positive impact. Our new homes now achieve much higher standards of energy performances than they did a decade or two ago.
I have first-hand experience of that. I live in a new home built in Greenwich millennium village, which was designed to be an exemplary development. It was pioneered by the last Government and set high energy efficiency standards. My flat is now eight years old, so it is not at the cutting edge of new energy performance, but last winter I did not need to have the heating on at all, so good is its energy performance. The hon. Member for Wealden referred to the previous winter, focusing rightly on the issue of energy supply, and said it was a very cold winter. In that very cold winter, I needed just 42 hours of heating.
My argument is this: just as important as energy supply —I entirely accept the emphasis of the hon. Member for Wealden on it—is energy efficiency to ensure that we are not wasting energy unnecessarily and that people have the benefits of warm sustainable homes in which they can afford to keep warm through winter. That is the great benefit of the whole low and zero-carbon programme. It is not just about helping to achieve our carbon reduction targets, but about improving people’s quality of life so that they live in better, warmer and more economically maintained homes.
That is why I find it very disappointing to see yet further evidence in the Bill of the Government backtracking from their previous position and indeed their predecessor’s ambitions—first by resiling from the previous ambition to meet code level 6 by 2016; then by watering down the standards to be met on site, even before offsite allowable solutions are invoked; and now by exempting small sites entirely from the obligations.
The UK Green Building Council had some fairly pithy comments to make:
“We see no reason why a development of 10 units should be treated differently from one of 11. Creating a disparity between the treatment of different sites opens up the possibility of unforeseen and undesirable outcomes, and possibly exploitation, where larger sites are broken down to qualify for the exemption.”
I wholeheartedly agree. It is very much the case that we should put the emphasis on helping small builders to meet the more demanding standards of high-energy performance homes rather than on providing exemptions not to meet those standards.
Mr Raynsford
I give way to the right hon. Gentleman, who was a Minister in the responsible Department.
Sir Andrew Stunell
The right hon. Gentleman and I have had opportunities to disagree about things, but on this matter I wholeheartedly agree with him. Does he agree that there is no benefit—either to builders or the users of the buildings, let alone to the Government—in backtracking in any way whatever on the recommendations of the zero-carbon hub?
Mr Raynsford
I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman, and I hope he can exercise some influence on his coalition partners.
Amid the many mixed metaphors and rhetorical flourishes that characterised the speech of the Minister who introduced the Bill, perhaps the most telling was his characterisation of the Government’s vision of infrastructure as “looking through a kaleidoscope”. I think he meant to imply a colourful view of the world. That would certainly be in keeping with his character, and I am sorry that he is not in his place to hear these remarks. If the Minister and his colleagues thought about it for a moment, however, they would appreciate that the view through a kaleidoscope is one of fragmentation, in which clarity and order are shattered into thousands of disjointed pieces.
There could be no better metaphor for this Bill—a veritable tessellated pavement of ill-assorted measures, some of which may have beneficial consequences, many of which will not. The sum total will not add up to the comprehensive framework for infrastructure development, as advocated in the Armitt report, which is so clearly needed in Britain. This is a wasted opportunity to provide a coherent, long-term commitment to infrastructure in the UK. I wholly endorse the critique presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) from the Front Bench: this Bill fails to meet our country’s infrastructure requirements.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Unlike the last speaker and the official Opposition, I welcome the Bill and its focus on the importance of speeding up infrastructure delivery. I would like to speak to three aspects of the Bill: part 1 on highways, part 4 on planning and part 5 on the proposals for fracking. I shall also identify one other aspect of infrastructure provision that I think is missing from the proposals and needs to be addressed.
On highways, it has been a huge step forward that the Government announced a roads investment programme for our strategic roads network. The time period for the programme is defined and the Government are providing the resources for it. I disagree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) who implied that the local roads network was somehow more important than this and was being neglected. In fact, in my constituency in West Sussex, it is the strategic road network that has been in need of significant investment, and the failure to provide it over past decades has put great pressure on our local roads network as traffic is forced up through the rural network, including through beautiful parts of my constituency in the South Downs national park. That causes environmental damage.
Up until now, proposals to deal with this problem, particularly relating to the A27, which is a major coastal route, have either not been developed, have been developed piecemeal or have been cancelled when they were initially taken forward. That is what happened in respect of the Arundel bypass, which was cancelled by the last Labour Government. I thus strongly welcome the Government’s major investment in roads, including a £350 million investment in the A27 and an Arundel bypass. It is precisely this kind of long-term vision for national infrastructure that will help to generate the necessary prosperity. If the creation of Highways England will assist in delivering that long-term vision and some accountability to ensure that these roads are built to time, it is welcome.
I agree with what the roads Minister said about the importance of aesthetics. I have already mentioned the fact that my constituency of Arundel and South Downs is a very beautiful one. The proposed Arundel bypass would run at the bottom of the national park across the Arun valley and through a very small piece of the national park if it is to take the preferred route, which achieved a great deal of local consensus when last proposed. I believe there is a powerful environmental argument for this bypass, but the design of this road and of a bridge across the River Arun would do a great deal to mitigate any concerns about the impact of the road on the aesthetics and beauty of the local area.
The French have done this very well in the past in the provision of some of its national infrastructure. We could think of notoriously stunning bridges that have been built in France such as the Millau viaduct over the River Tarn. That is a stunning piece of work by a British architect, and many would argue that it adds to the beauty of the area and does not detract from it. We should seek to achieve the same thing in the design of our roads infrastructure in the same way as the Victorians impressed us with their design of rail infrastructure—Brunel’s bridges, for example. In doing so, we would win much more public support for our roads proposals.
My second topic relates to planning. I agree about the importance of speeding up the provision of nationally needed infrastructure, but as a Government we also promised that we would deliver localism to communities. In fact, local communities are very concerned when planning permissions are given that local infrastructure should be sufficient to meet the needs of the new development. Too often in my constituency, the development of houses has not been matched with sufficient provision for schools, local roads or even basic things such as sewerage provision. This has resulted in placing great pressure on local infrastructure, and it undermines support for local developments.
The Government announced new guidance last year—I was grateful for it—that emphasised the importance of planning authorities ensuring suitable infrastructure provision before housing is delivered. It is important to enforce that guidance if we are to continue to build houses on a sustainable basis. In that respect, the provision of localism through the Localism Act 2011 was important in giving communities control through local plans and neighbourhood planning. Where that has worked well, with the early adoption of neighbourhood plans in my constituency, for example, it has commanded strong local support and even built support for development that would otherwise have been absent.
That process, however, can be undermined when speculative planning applications are granted by local authorities or overturned on appeal by the national planning inspectorate. The consequence is that development that would not have been permitted in the emerging neighbourhood plans or the local plans can be insisted on by that inspectorate, which I think can gravely undermine the localism we promised.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
My constituents are very excited about the idea of localism—local decisions made by democratically elected councils—but does my right hon. Friend agree that there is not much localism in action when a distant planning inspector is allowed to ride roughshod over local decision making?
Nick Herbert
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend, and I share his concern. While all four of the district councils in my constituency are preparing responsible plans for the delivery of substantial numbers of houses, speculative applications are being made by developers who are circling villages like hawks. They want to get in quickly and secure planning permission that would otherwise not be given under the local plans but is being allowed in this instance because the planning inspector is taking a view of the provisions for five-year land supply that is excessive and unrealisable.
The inspectorate has just examined Horsham district council’s plan. It makes substantial provision for housing in the area to meet local need, but the five-year land supply provision presumes that building could take place at a rate that has never been achieved by the local authority and never could be, because it does not take account of the fact that developers did not build using the existing permissions that were given by the local authority in the years of the economic downturn. The five-year land supply provision is resulting in the allowing of developments in villages in my constituency that will damage the villages and erode green space between them that should be maintained, and runs against what local people seek in their neighbourhood and local plans.
If we are to deliver the localism that we promised, it is important for top-down intervention by the planning inspector to be prevented. After all, in our Conservative party manifesto we made this pledge:
“To give communities greater control over planning, we will…abolish the power of planning inspectors to rewrite local plans”.
If we believe in localism—if we want to put power and responsibility in the hands of localities through neighbourhood and local plans, which is already proving very successful, and which does not produce fewer houses but produces them by consent in the places where people want them—we should not allow a body that is based in Bristol to come in and effectively rewrite those plans, because that undermines the localism that we promised.
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend suspect that the planning inspectors are overriding local plans because they want to chase councils to make them hurry up and complete their plans? Could that be a deliberate policy?
Nick Herbert
I suspect that there is something in what my hon. Friend says, and that the purpose of pursuing a tough approach is to ensure that local authorities produce their plans as swiftly as possible. The four district councils in my constituency are proceeding as fast as they can, making very difficult and sometimes controversial decisions about where development should take place. Villages in the constituency are beginning to write neighbourhood plans which require a great deal of local effort from volunteers, which are complex, and which take time. It is unfair to penalise bodies that are making responsible decisions by allowing speculative applications that harm the process of building consent.
John Mann
Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the Secretary of State and the Government changed the system when they issued national planning guidelines last year? As a result, 95% of local plans have not been adopted by the planning inspector, who works on behalf of the Secretary of State. What the right hon. Gentleman is moaning about is Government policy which is intended to force through more housing more quickly.
Nick Herbert
Opposition Members are calling for much more local housing as well. What we are discussing is the right way to deliver that. I am arguing that localism, if properly delivered, will empower local communities to make responsible decisions, and will produce the housing that is necessary. I do not believe that the planning inspector’s intervention will help to bring about consensus, or will produce the houses that are needed. I urge the Government to keep faith with the localism that they promised, to continue to back the development of local plans, and not to allow the inspectorate to make heavy-handed decisions that can undermine it.
Ian Lucas
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his generosity in giving way. Will he be opposing localism this evening by voting in favour of a Bill that limits the rights of local people in respect of shale gas exploration, and takes away their rights to the expression and acceptance of their views?
Nick Herbert
I shall deal with precisely that issue in a second. Let me say first, however, that if the Bill is given a Second Reading, I shall table amendments to restrict the power of the planning inspectorate to rewrite local plans, as we pledged to do, and, indeed, to abolish the inspectorate so that we can have a proper discussion about how localism should be delivered.
Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)
I, too, thank the right hon. Gentleman for his generosity. Are councillors in his constituency starting to feel that developers see no need to obtain local permission for any new development because they know that the planning inspector will overrule any decision made by the councillors?
Nick Herbert
Local authorities are clearly nervous. They fear that if they do not give planning permission in response to a speculative application—although their plans are in the process of being developed—if that is overturned by the planning inspector, costs will be awarded against them. They feel that there is no equality in the process.
I do not resile from the importance of providing a great deal more housing, because it is clearly needed. The issue is how that can best be provided. I think that the early adoption of neighbourhood plans by consent shows that, given power and responsibility, communities provide the necessary housing, while top-down intervention of the kind that Government Members have always criticised can undermine that provision.
The third issue that I want to raise relates to the proposals in part 5 of the Bill to provide access to subterranean land for the purpose of fracking. This is a live issue in my constituency. An application to drill in an area of beautiful countryside that is very close to a national park was turned down by West Sussex county council, but is the subject of an appeal by the company involved.
Two sets of issues related to fracking concern local communities, and I think that we should try to separate them. First, there are the environmental concerns about the impact of the activity that takes place below ground. As many Members on both sides of the House have said, those concerns need to be addressed by means of proper regulation and controls, and we should discuss the importance of ensuring that they are adequate.
Secondly, there are the issues that relate to what happens on the surface, and the choice of sites for drilling. In my constituency, the choice of sites has been crucial. Opposition to the drilling does not just come from communities who are concerned about the environmental impact below the ground. Rural communities fear that they will experience significant lorry movements through their villages—which they would not otherwise have experienced —over an extended period. Wise site location which minimises disruption to communities on the surface is a second way in which the industry could address much of the concern about these proposals.
We now have a specific proposal in this legislation on trespass, which seeks to deal with the land ownership issues. That comes against the background of great concern about the activity. It is true that members of the public have largely misheard the proposals so far. In my constituency, I fear that many people believe that the proposals will license invasion on the surface of their land by those who wish to drill, without them giving permission and without any of the regulatory controls which exist. The Government must continue to reassure local people that in fact these proposals relate to deep subterranean activity and do not change any of the requirements for permission to be given by a landowner as to whether they want drilling on their land, nor any of the regulatory requirements.
Nick Herbert
I will give way in a moment
On the specific proposal for subterranean drilling, there is a question mark over the way in which compensation is to be given to landowners via some kind of community fund, and one of the issues that needs to be explored is whether the compensation should go directly to the landowners who are affected. I think that might be a better way to ensure there is confidence in this procedure. It has been proposed not only by the Country Land and Business Association but by one oil company, INEOS. I hope the Government will consider that proposal carefully as a means to ensure that communities and individuals are properly compensated for these activities.
In conclusion—
Nick Herbert
I have been generous in giving way to a number of hon. Members.
There is one aspect of infrastructure provision that I do not believe is covered in this Bill but which I believe merits serious consideration, and that is broadband infrastructure. This is essential if we are to ensure continuing economic growth and is equally essential in rural areas. There will need to be further discussion of how we can close the digital divide that is in danger of opening up in rural areas that do not have access to superfast broadband. There are encouraging plans by the Government in co-operation with local authorities to deliver superfast broadband by 2017, but they still leave a gap. It sounds small, as it is intended that only about 5% of the population will have broadband access but not superfast, but in rural areas it becomes quite a big gap. This is a question for another day, but there must be a plan to close that gap and ensure that all parts of the country have access to superfast broadband in future.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The right hon. Gentleman was indeed generous in giving way—I make no criticism of him whatsoever; he was perfectly in order in his speech—but Members will be aware that many colleagues are seeking to catch my eye and a limited, although generous, amount of time is available. I am not going to put a strict time limit on speeches at this stage, but if everyone who wishes to speak takes approximately 10 minutes out of courtesy for everyone else who wishes to speak, then everybody will have the same opportunity. We will see how it works.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
The longer this debate goes on, the more interesting it gets. The contributions so far demonstrate to me that the Infrastructure Bill should be the means whereby we balance economic development with environmental and social responsibilities. We should be working out how to align the required long-term planning for the infrastructure needs of this country with what is coming out of the sustainable development goals, which this country, as well as others elsewhere, will have to adopt. The more contributions we have had, the more we realise that there are live issues, and that this has not been thought through. However much of a “kaleidoscope” this Bill might be, it does not provide the means of reconciling and balancing these different issues. It will be interesting to see to what extent the Secretary of State for Transport, who is not in his place, takes on board the genuine concerns that have been raised, and I would like to mention some of them briefly.
I did not agree with what the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) said about regulation, and I will come to that later, but I did agree with his comments on gas storage. This is an issue that I and other Members of Parliament representing north Staffordshire and the potteries have raised, including with the previous Minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon). We have repeatedly raised issues about gas storage, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I am sure there would be support for seeing how we can get this addressed. It certainly has long been on the agenda of the British Ceramic Confederation, of which Laura Cohen is chief executive, and it could easily be addressed, if there is a political will to do so, through this Bill. The extractive industries are also an issue.
Other matters relate to the work of the Environmental Audit Committee. Only today we launched a report on air quality and, in terms of investment in new roads, we clearly need to be looking at design and engineering, and we must take sustainable transport into account. We heard about the importance of cycling and walking and making sure, through the planning regime and the national planning policy framework, that new developments go where they need to be. This Bill does not allow the planning considerations to sit side by side with the long-term economic investment decisions that need to be taken. For that reason, I am pleased to be voting for the Labour reasoned amendment.
On road investment, I genuinely hope that throughout the Committee stage the Secretary of State for Transport will be looking at what will happen with the new successor body to the Highways Agency. It is critical that it takes on board regulation and environmental considerations, especially in the light of representations from the Woodland Trust, which is very concerned about ancient woodlands. I am sure that is a concern in constituencies all around the country, and we have not got assurances that these areas can be properly protected. We would be a little more confident if the Government could tell us when they are going to bring forward legislation for the public forest estate. In the absence of that, it is difficult to see how we are going to apply these higher standards to such areas of exceptional beauty.
I made an intervention on the Minister about zero-carbon homes, and I am sure many of my hon. Friends will refer to that later. Why have the Government decided that the right balance is to have higher standards for a development of over 11 properties and lower standards for developments of 10 or under? That is completely wrong and there is no logic to it. I say to the Minister that the Government have got this wrong and there is an opportunity to see whether amendments could be brought forward to deal with that.
I want to focus on clauses 38 to 43, which will, if passed, change trespass law to allow companies to frack under homes without notifying the landowner. This move comes at a time when there are a number of very significant unanswered questions about the impact of fracking which have not been addressed by the Government. Broadly, these relate to climate change and the current—inadequate—regulatory framework.
We know that we do not need new fossil fuels; far from it, because in order to avoid a rise of more than 2° C from climate change, only one fifth of existing global fossil fuel reserves, not including UK shale gas, can be burned. Talks are going on in Lima but Government Whips are apparently preventing our energy Minister from going out there to take part in those important discussions.
Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, recently told a World Bank seminar that the “vast majority” of fossil fuel reserves should be considered “unburnable”. Those remarks were made in the context of the benefits of integrated reporting and highlighting the costs and benefits of tomorrow to inform the investments and credit decisions of today. That information has been shared with the Environmental Audit Committee by the Governor of the Bank of England.
BP has stated:
“We agree that burning all known reserves would probably cause global temperatures to rise by more than 2°C—and that addressing this issue will require the efforts of governments, industry and individuals.”
Shell, Barack Obama and the International Energy Agency have made similar statements. It is therefore unclear why the Government are giving huge incentives to, and deregulating, a new fossil fuel industry that will either add to the stock of unburnable carbon or threaten climate change targets. The former chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Professor David Mackay, wrote last year that without a global climate deal,
“new fossil fuel exploitation is likely to lead to an increase in cumulative GHG”—
greenhouse gas—
“emissions and the risk of climate change.”
So why are the Government doing this?
We often hear claims that shale gas is low carbon because it will replace coal. Indeed, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that the only way in which shale gas could reduce emissions is by replacing coal. However, the best industry estimates state that shale gas will not be online until the 2020s. Meanwhile, the Committee on Climate Change has told us that coal must be offline by the 2020s. So by the time a shale gas industry is up and running in constituencies all around the country, there should be no coal to replace it. However, the International Energy Agency has warned that instead, shale gas
“could muscle out low-carbon fuels such as renewables”.
The time scale just does not add up.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that shale gas needs to replace coal, but that condition will not be met. It also states that methane leakage from shale gas wells must be “low”. However, there is a growing body of evidence to show that those emissions are not low. In fact, new reports have shown that methane leakage occurs during parts of the process that were not previously thought to be problematic. The IPCC recently revised upwards the global warming potential of methane, which, over a 20-year time frame, is 108 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. We therefore risk significantly increasing emissions at exactly the time when they should be rapidly reduced. So, given that fracking will add to unburnable carbon and that it will not meet the two key recommendations from the IPCC on coal and methane, the claims that shale gas can reduce emissions do not stand up to scrutiny.
Clauses 38 to 43 represent a lurch towards the further deregulation of fracking. We heard a lot about regulation from the hon. Member for Wealden. If passed, the clauses would give unprecedented rights of use to fracking companies. This would include activities that had not been assessed for their environmental safety, such as the keeping of substances or infrastructure within the land, with no limits on what could be kept or for how long. It is also worth noting, especially as we come up to the general election, that this change in the law is highly unpopular, with 99% of consultation respondents—and 74% of people more generally—opposing the change. Why have the Government decided to proceed when the outcome of the consultation was so stark? I do not believe that they should be doing so, given the response to the consultation.
It is also extremely worrying that the Government are pressing ahead with further deregulation when the evidence points to the need for a stronger, not weaker, regulatory framework. In last week’s autumn statement, the Government announced a new fund to reassure the public on fracking regulations. I believe that the public would be more reassured if the Government took steps to fill the gaps in the regulatory framework. Let us be clear: the evidence exists to show that fracking regulation is not fit for purpose. The often-quoted Public Health England report states that fracking could be safe if the regulatory framework were stringent. However, in the last two years, little progress has been made towards meeting the Royal Society’s recommendations on regulation.
It is not yet known whether fracking can be done safely. As highlighted by the United Nations environment programme, fracking could result in unavoidable environmental and health impacts if extracted properly, and more so if done inadequately. Other countries, such as Bulgaria and France, have introduced moratoriums. We should also take a precautionary approach in the UK. I am proud to be a lifelong member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, which advocated in a recent report that we should adopt such a precautionary approach, and that a
“comprehensive research programme should be commissioned for the UK”.
The report goes on to state that the Government’s plans should go ahead only
“if/when there is a satisfactory evidence base that suggests operations could safely commence without causing unacceptable adverse environmental, economic, public health or wider social impacts”
and that a
“full, independent environmental impact assessment should be a prerequisite to any initial exploratory operations commencing.”
It also advocates, as I did in our debate on the Water Bill before it became law, that
“Full land remediation must be a non-negotiable condition of any such approvals.”
To conclude, the risks from fracking are high and there are a number of significant questions that the Government need to answer before storming ahead with fracking in the UK. The risks are too high for them to proceed without addressing the big ifs. One thing is certain: if we had this level of political support behind energy efficiency, it would do much more to bring down fuel bills, create jobs right across the UK and reduce dependence on imported gas. However, the Government have overseen a collapse in energy efficiency installations. Instead of smoothing the path for an untested and risky new fossil fuel industry, they should be making energy efficiency an infrastructure priority in the Bill. I would like the Bill not to receive a Second Reading until those concerns had been addressed, but I hope that there will be an opportunity for a real debate on the issues in Committee.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I hope that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) will forgive me if I do not pursue the points that she has raised, because I want to concentrate on part 4 of the Bill. It is an important Bill and, overall, one that I welcome; I shall be supporting it tonight. I shall concentrate on planning and related matters.
My first point relates to the arrangements for national infrastructure policy. I welcome the changes, which represent a logical development from what is currently in place and fit logically with the work that has already been done on the national planning policy framework. I should like to make a few observations. I have taken an interest in this area, both when I was a Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government and subsequently. Professionals to whom I have spoken, including representatives of the National Infrastructure Planning Association and of the Compulsory Purchase Association, welcome the steps that the Government are taking in the Bill.
It is worth noting that development consent orders are a key element of the process, and it is valuable to tighten up the way in which they operate. There is a feeling, however, that we should be prepared to go still further in due course. I am not suggesting that that should be done in this Bill, but I hope that Ministers will bear in mind that, helpful though these changes are, there is a strong feeling among many professionals in the sector that they will not be a substitute for a comprehensive review of the operation of our compulsory purchase and land compensation legislation and its associated case law, and that such a review should be undertaken before too long.
Some of the legislation is fairly elderly by now and I hope that in the next Parliament we will take a comprehensive look at the way in which land compensation works. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) pointed out that other jurisdictions, such as France, deal with major infrastructure projects partly through quality of design and partly through much swifter and sometimes more generous land compensation arrangements when compulsory acquisitions are required. We may need to consider that in this country.
Clause 26 deals with planning conditions and deemed consents, which we discussed when I was a Minister. On balance, I support the proposed changes, which are necessary. It is worth taking a step back and remembering that planning conditions are an important part of the system. They are imposed essentially to make what might otherwise be unacceptable development acceptable, so they have a legitimate and proper role. The issue that arises here is not the legitimacy of the role, but the efficiency thereafter. There is a genuine issue that needs to be addressed.
Concern was flagged up as long ago as the Killian Pretty review of 2008 that one of the worst causes of delay is the post-consent process. There will come a time when conditions either have been complied with or are no longer necessary for various reasons and ought to be discharged. There is no reason, therefore, why speeding up the discharge of conditions should be a problem in terms of the principle of planning law. We need to make the process more efficient. Killian Pretty was clear about the problems that remained, and my right hon. Friend the Minister, in introducing the Bill, highlighted the fact that that remains a difficulty.
As well as looking at deemed consents imposed by the planning authority, we should pay particular attention to the situation where the planning authority has imposed a condition at the behest of a statutory consultee. It is sometimes difficult for planning authorities themselves, who may be caught between the devil and the deep blue sea—the legitimate desire of a developer to get on with important development. There are all too often delays by the statutory consultees in responding to the inquiries made of them. Part 1 happens to deal, in a different context, with one statutory consultee, but frequently the Highways Agency and the Environment Agency have been among the worst offenders in this regard, and local authorities are in a difficult position.
As well as doing what the Government are doing, which I support, I hope we might consider going further and deal with a situation where, in relation to applications, discharge of conditions and potentially also appeals, a statutory consultee fails to respond by the time limit. In such a case, why should there not be a provision deeming that the statutory consultee has no objection to the proposal involved? Such deemed assent by the statutory consultee would speed up the process and remove a pressure from the local planning authority that it cannot otherwise effectively control. Another mechanism that might be considered is some cost penalty against statutory consultees that delay the process.
During my time as Minister for the Thames gateway, I was repeatedly frustrated by the delay in getting decisions out of the Highways Authority about important aspects such as removing the tolling booths at the Dartford tunnel, when we were using technology that any Londoner had known about for many years, or the necessary improvements on the A13 between the DP World site, a nationally significant infrastructure site, and the Dartford crossing. I hope that whatever new arrangements we have for the highways company, as it is now to be, there will be a greater sense of the commercial imperative to speed up decisions.
I remember one important housing site, which everybody agreed was the right site for housing; an otherwise properly prepared and robust local plan by the planning authority for the area was suddenly thrown into disarray at the very last minute by the Environment Agency’s raising an issue about habitats, which ought to have been foreseen much earlier in the process. We need to put more pressure on statutory consultees not only to do their duty, but to do it properly and efficiently. I hope we might be able to strengthen the provisions of that part of the Bill.
I turn to two more technical areas, which are important. The first relates to easements, which I racked my brains about when doing planning law, but I eventually got to the bottom of it. These are particularly important in the context of London, so I speak now as a London Member of Parliament. Clause 28 makes changes to easements affecting land. The changes are good as far as they go. A particular problem arises in London, and I draw it to Ministers’ attention in the hope that we can address it in Committee. We all know that it is important that easements run with the land; that is a fundamental concept. I refer to the overriding powers of the Greater London authority, the Homes and Communities Agency and now mayoral development corporations, which I hope we may see replicated with joint authorities outside London. Allowing these bodies to benefit their successors in title will be hugely important for unblocking development, as is already the case in the capital.
Developers and specialist lawyers in the field have significant concerns that the law threatens development sites. That was an omission from the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, which clause 28 is designed to tackle—and it does so, up to a point. However, it is not retrospective. Usually I am not a fan of retrospective legislation, but in London we have a specific issue. Some key development land, in particular land in the docklands area, was transferred from the London Development Agency in 2012. A lot of land around the Olympic park, the lower Lea valley, was part of the land for debt swap that some right hon. and hon. Members will remember.
As the Bill is drafted, that will not be covered so there will not be the legal certainty that successors in title will benefit when the land is sold on down the development chain. I hope the Minister will look specifically at the Mayor of London’s request that the Government delete subsections (11) and (12) of clause 28. That will enable it to operate retrospectively in relation to those areas of development land in London that had already been transferred, before the Bill becomes operative. It is a technical matter but a very important one, because it affects some of the most significant housing and commercial development land in our growing capital.
The final technical area to which I shall refer relates to clause 32 and the allowable solutions arrangements for offsite carbon abatement measures. Clause 32 is a sensible clause and very useful, as far as it goes. The principle of allowable solutions is a fair one because not every site will permit a mitigation measure onsite, so a degree of flexibility is sensible. However, there is an issue in relation to the geography. Again, it applies particularly to a large strategic planning authority, such as London. Unless there are some additional protections from London’s point of view, the Mayor of London and the Greater London authority are concerned that the scheme could see investment draining out of London, because it would be cheaper for developers to provide their offsite alternative solutions in areas of lower land value—in other words, outside the capital, rather than within it.
Robert Neill
I shall give way in a moment, when I have developed the point.
It is important that there is some means of making sure that the investment is captured within the capital. There is some evidence to support that. Unintended consequences have occurred under the energy companies obligation scheme, so that the capital has received proportionately less in funding than it should receive. For example, about 13% of the national share of housing is in the capital but in the first year of the ECO scheme London received only 6.4% of the spending. That system, once in place, could generate about £90 million per annum, so it is important that London gets a fair share of it.
Sir Andrew Stunell
Does my hon. Friend not agree that the argument he is putting forward strengthens the case for saving the maximum amount of energy on site, so that the leakage and spillage to which he has referred does not arise in the first place?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman resumes his comments, may I say that it was pointed out by the Chair some time ago that 18 Members are still to speak and 10 minutes each would get us comfortably to the wind-ups? It seems that Members are ignoring the request for 10 minutes, which means that other colleagues will have their speeches curtailed. May I ask again that Members behave in a collegiate way, at least for today, and allow all their colleagues to speak in the debate? Mr Neill, you might like to look at the clock and see that you have been speaking for 12 minutes.
Robert Neill
I had almost finished, Madam Deputy Speaker. I simply observe, out of courtesy, that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) makes a fair point. Most of us would always prefer that the mitigation should take place on site, but where I slightly differ is in my view that there will be sites where that is not possible, and so the Government are right to introduce the flexibility.
In large planning areas—we have them in Greater London and we may be seeing them develop with the growth of joint authorities, which may take on more strategic planning powers elsewhere—it may be sensible for us to reflect on a means through which more of the investment can be captured within the local authority planning area, so as to give those communities an incentive to take on board the low-energy development that we want.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
This Infrastructure Bill is perhaps best described as infrastructure bits and pieces; it contains little on the infrastructure of the country and what we need for the next 50 or 100 years. It contains nothing on broadband and airports—nothing even on gas access, despite the fact that the very villages that do not have access to gas are the ones nearest the potential shale gas sites. The Bill contains nothing on cycleways. I am not a cyclist, but it is palpable that over the next couple of decades we are going to need bespoke cycleways separate from roads such as the A60, which goes through Bassetlaw, to allow people to cycle. The planning process needs to be skewed to incentivise that and make it happen sooner rather than later.
The Bill contains nothing on green energy, for which there are not only environmental arguments but a fundamental economic argument: we will lose a competitive advantage if other countries have large amounts of green energy and we have little, both in terms of our national accounts and our industry.
John Mann
No, I will not give way just now.
The Bill contains nothing on energy efficiency. Again, the current capital level and its efficiency into the future is fundamental to how we define infrastructure. The Bill does contain things on housing, but not all the right things. The local development frameworks, the localism and the neighbourhood development planning ought to be causing such mutiny on the Government Benches. Middle England is revolting over the issue and Bassetlaw is having an uprising, because 95% of local plans have either been aborted or rejected in the past year.
Virtually no local development frameworks are in place, because the Government changed the guidelines last year so all the housing targets, forced on councils previously, have had to be scrapped, with each council now having to consult its neighbouring authorities. Virtually no council has done that, so every council—having prepared for two or three years, with huge amounts of consultation, including a vast amount in Bassetlaw, to determine where the housing the Government are forcing on us needs to go—has to start the entire process again because it has not consulted the neighbouring authorities. That is the case across almost all the country and it is an absolute farce.
Let me deal with the concept that we all need more housing regardless. The Government inspector has been cited, but the Government inspector is the Secretary of State, instructed on the basis of Government policy. It is this coalition Government who are forcing housing on areas that do not want it. When we have developed our neighbourhood development plans in my area, people say, “Well, we will accept a bit of housing here. This bit of land is wasted and we could do with a bit of housing there.” When local people are in control they will rationally allow their areas to develop in ways that they want and which are popular.
Instead, what we get is, as in Retford recently, everybody, including the council, saying that we do not need housing outside the area of the town, but the Government saying, “You’ve got to have it.” If the council does not vote it through, the developer will win on appeal, citing Government policy, and the council has to pay £300,000 a pop in costs. Councils across the country, particularly Tory ones, are dealing with this problem day in, day out. That is total nonsense. Whether by backing amendments from the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) or by framing better ones myself, I will ensure that there are amendments allowing an approach that gives local people control over the planning system on housing.
The approach should allow us to define the kinds of housing. In my area, we could have 500 or 1,000 bungalows —some for rent, perhaps council bungalows, and some for sale, rather than five-bedroom, six-bedroom or seven-bedroom houses that nobody wants locally. That approach might be popular, but it is not popular with the developers. I hope this coalition understand that it is going to lose a lot of votes if it does not listen to me on this.
The second issue I wish to cover in the short time available is fracking and shale gas. I am not an extremist. I have a simple view, which I have put out there to the public: there should be nothing within 2 km of a settlement. There is enough land; those who are speculating for shale gas are saying that pretty much the whole of England can be covered, so it does not need to happen near any of the villages, hamlets or conurbations in my area, thank you very much. The public agree with that, and it would be a nice little amendment to slip in, although it does not satisfy those who say shale gas is bad.
We have another problem with fracking in my area: our water comes from the aquifer. People think, “This is a problem”—even the industry says it is a problem, pointing to the regulations, safety and its competence in dealing with the problem. We do not want the aquifer damaged in any way. So, again, we must let local people decide. By all means throw bribes at people in my area, because the bribes ought to go to the local community, not to landowners. As I have said, if there is a bribe it should be in the form of the green retrofitting of schools, churches and community buildings. If there is a bribe to be thrown in and the community wants to vote for it, that is fine; I do not have a problem with that. But if my communities say that they do not want any fracking—they do not want any shale gas or coalbed methane to be taken from a certain area and that it should be done somewhere else, we should have the right to make that decision.
The Government said they were in favour of localism, but on housing developments the opposite has been the case, as they have stabbed their own MPs and councillors in the back—all of them know it. It is the same with shale gas. We should allow local people to decide, but ensure that they cannot decide something that is going to damage aquifers or any other part of the infrastructure that affects everything else, which is why amendments relating to water will be important in the Bill.
Let us give local people the say rather than have the man from the Ministry—the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—giving the instruction and saying, “Here’s what will happen.” Then we can deliver infrastructure in a way that is popular. That might save the Government the election, but they will be too stupid to do it. Labour should vote for such a move, because the people would like it.
Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)
I will be brief, because I am meant to be in the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Committee—I am sure that everyone here wishes that they were in there with me.
I welcome many of the provisions of the Infrastructure Bill, but I will focus mainly on those issues pertaining to transport, as that is the brief my party colleagues, in their wisdom, have given me.
The road network is vital to the economic sustainability of the UK, yet many Governments over many years have under-invested in it. We need a road network that is fit for the 21st century and consistent with broader economic, environmental and safety goals. It needs to be fit for the environment as much as for the economy. By reducing congestion, any major road projects must seek to reduce carbon output as much as drivers’ frustration. This year is set to be the warmest on record. It is no longer credible to pretend that global warming is not, at a minimum, enhanced by human activity.
Almost 90% of businesses say that the quality of transport networks impacts on their investment decisions. More than 70% of the members of the Federation of Small Businesses said that the use of a car is crucial to their business operations. It is sad that we live in a world in which that is the case, but that is the reality. Seven in 10 businesses obviously identify investment in road infrastructure as an important future Government priority.
In my constituency, we have a road that is incredibly loud, but improvement work is under way on some of the junctions on the M27, which is great because that should reduce congestion. We must consider any type of road building in conjunction with an ability to get people off the roads and on to public transport.
Investment in infrastructure is central to a Liberal Democrat ambition of creating a stronger economy and a fairer society. We need to ensure that economic recovery is based on that solid long-term investment. Liberal Democrat influence on Government policy has ensured that we have already invested more in railways than at any time since the Victorian era, but our major trunk roads and motorways are under increasing pressure, which does not help small businesses.
A well-functioning transport system must incorporate all modes of transport rather than look at each mode individually. Problems have come when we have treated rail as one thing, buses another, trams another and so on. Some of our Conservative colleagues insist that we should focus on only upgrading roads. The Liberal Democrats have pushed for greener, faster public transport throughout the country, but we need to do more, especially in rural areas where people are suffering from a failure in our public transport systems. There are some areas in rural counties where people cannot survive without a car, which makes it difficult for poor people and for those who believe in the environment to get about.
The Opposition have already mentioned electric cars, but we need to establish a full network of charging points for electric cars. We need to incentivise greener travel choices; update planning law to ensure new developments are designed around walking, cycling and public transport —we have seen a big investment in cycling—invest in major transport improvements to create a northern economic corridor to go along with the northern powerhouse; set out 10-year rolling capital investment plans so people know what is going on; develop a comprehensive plan to electrify all suburban and all major rail routes; reopen many smaller stations; restore twin track lines to major routes; and proceed with HS2, HS3 and perhaps even HS4. We also need to consider light rail and ultra-light rail schemes; continue funding for local economic and sustainable transport infrastructure; support the expansion of smart card ticketing systems; and make progress on the “Get Britain cycling” campaign.
As my time is limited, let me say briefly that I support much of what is in the Infrastructure Bill, but I do have some reservations, especially on the fracking proposals. None the less, this Bill will provide more jobs and an improved transport system for all of us. I urge the Government to give further consideration to public transport, especially in rural areas.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
This Bill covers a wide range of topics, some of which do not affect Scotland, but those that relate to energy most certainly do, and it is those areas on which I shall concentrate my remarks.
Part 4 of the Bill opens with provisions relating to community energy. By and large, we support the efforts to allow communities or community groups to buy a stake in renewable energy facilities in or close offshore to their communities.
I hope that those provisions will lead to more communities taking a stake in such important facilities—indeed, some community organisations are already making efforts to raise funds to invest in local renewable energy—and to greater involvement and acceptance of renewable generation. Should the Bill succeed, I hope it will lead to alternative visions of how we deal with off-gas grid properties, which are so often left out of the thinking on energy costs and energy efficiency.
I also hope that more community involvement will encourage energy companies to consider the wider interests of the community when proposing new developments, such as encouraging economic regeneration by supporting other businesses or by looking at ways in which they can help to deliver better broadband services to allow businesses to prosper.
I also note that amendments are proposed to the Petroleum Act 1998 that are designed to implement the recommendations of the Wood review to maximise offshore oil and gas extraction. I would disagree strongly with the Minister on what should be done with oil and gas revenue, but we are inclined to support the relevant parts of the Bill because both the Scottish Government and the UK Government strongly endorsed the Wood review.
Unfortunately, there are other aspects of the Bill with which we do not agree. New clauses were introduced in the other place relating to the process of hydraulic fracking. I have raised my concerns and asked specific questions on this matter at least twice in this House but have yet to have a clear answer, so I will try again—third time lucky, but I am not holding my breath.
In his introduction to the debate the Minister said that oil and gas was a reserved matter. That is true, but, unfortunately, the clauses on fracking cut across Scottish land law as well, which is very much a devolved matter. Given that the Smith commission proposed the devolution of those proposals to Scotland, it strikes me that now is the right time to do that. We should get all these provisions in one place while fracking is still at a very early stage. If we do not do that, it will be much more difficult to deal with it at a later stage. I should make it clear at the outset that I do not support fracking. Although we have heard much about its potential, I note that even in Denton, Texas, the very home of fracking, a recent referendum voted to end it. Other states in the US are turning against it because of environmental concerns. We should take note of such concerns, because if there are concerns about the impact of fracking in the wide open spaces of the American west, how many more would there be in densely populated islands such as these?
I wish to concentrate today on some specific questions relating to the process of fracking. Although development is at an early stage in Scotland, it is already causing a great deal of public concern. A large area of central Scotland, stretching through to my own constituency in Angus, has been identified as having potential for shale gas extraction. Much of the power over such developments lies with the Westminster Government rather than the Scottish Parliament. Westminster has the power to grant licences under the Petroleum Act to search for and develop shale gas, while local authorities and the Scottish Parliament have powers in respect of planning, which clearly give them some powers to restrict fracking. In his opening statement, the shadow Minister made the point that the Scottish Government have not introduced a moratorium. My understanding is that it is very difficult to do that, because planning is initially carried out at local authority level, and any such moratorium or attempt to put in standard conditions would lead to judicial review and endless litigation. It would be much simpler if all the powers relating to fracking were in one place. In that instance, the Scottish Government could take action by refusing the licences.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
I am pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman say that he agrees with the Smith commission’s proposals, as I do. Does he accept that the Scottish Government could, if they wished, issue planning guidance that would prevent fracking, as they have in relation to nuclear power?
Mr Weir
My simple answer is no. If the hon. Lady had listened, she would have heard me say that nuclear is completely different. Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 gave the powers directly to Scottish Ministers, so the situation is not the same.
The UK Government seem determined to have fracking. The changes proposed by the Bill remove the right of landowners to object to fracking under their properties. It has been reported that the UK Government are funding the British Geological Survey to carry out investigative boreholes to demonstrate the viability of fracking. Will the Minister confirm whether that is true?
Interestingly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed in his autumn statement last week to give, in effect, a sovereign wealth fund for fracking to north-east England. I note that, for many years, he refused even to consider such a thing for Scotland’s oil and gas. That has not gone unnoticed in Scotland.
As well as giving the right to grant licences to persons seeking to explore for shale oil, the Petroleum Act provides, in section 7:
“Subject to the provisions of this section, the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act 1966 shall apply (in England and Wales and Scotland) for the purpose of enabling a person holding a licence under this Part of this Act to acquire such ancillary rights as may be required for the exercise of the rights granted by the licence.”
The 1966 Act includes the right to
“enter upon land and to sink boreholes in the land for the purpose of searching for and getting petroleum”
and to use the land for such specific purposes as erecting buildings and laying pipes, and ancillary rights. The right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) made the point that there is no right to enter on to land—there is no such right in the Bill, but there is in the 1966 Act. The definition of petroleum in the Petroleum Act includes natural gas. There is a right in other regulations under which people can enter on to land. The ancillary rights laid down cover such rights as lowering the surface, the conveyance of gas or oil, and the right to occupy the surface of the property, among other things.
That illustrates the confusion and difficulty resulting from planning law, the Bill and the 1998 Act. Those are extensive rights for the licence holder. Rightly, under the 1966 Act, those ancillary rights need to be set out by a court if agreement cannot be reached with the landowner. That right is being taken away by the Bill. No longer would that disagreement have to go before a court—those doing the fracking will have an automatic right to frack.
I am not clear where planning law is involved in fracking. If someone has a UK Government lease to seek shale gas in a specific part of Angus, would they be entitled to go on to ground to do so even if the landowner objected? Do those rights override planning permission, or would people still need planning permission from the local authority? If so, where does the landowner stand? Is his only right to object to the planning permission?
There is a further difficulty. In any event, the planning process could cover only the area in which there is infrastructure for boring, but it will be very difficult to be sure where or how far any drilling into adjoining land will go until such time as the operation gets under way. Planning permission will not cover that. At most, it will cover the infrastructure for starting the bore. What happens once the hole is bored? What happens when the bore follows the gas deposits? No one knows where it will go once it has started. That is the difficulty.
The Scottish Government have powers over planning in Scotland and have taken a much more cautious approach to fracking than the UK Government have taken. They have called in the application from Dart Energy in Falkirk, and have introduced changes in planning guidelines for unconventional oil and gas. Another Member has made the point that the Scottish Government have confirmed that, for the first time, the concept of buffer zones should be applied to all proposals. They have asked for the additional requirement to prepare risk assessments to ensure a transparent and evidence-based approach for assessing the acceptability of proposed buffer zones. They have made it explicit that buffer zones will be assessed by the planning authority and statutory consultees, with a strong expectation that planning permission will be refused if they are unacceptable. They have ensured that operators are up front about their plans, and that communities are consulted on all unconventional gas developments, including close involvement in the risk assessment process. As an Opposition Member said, the Scottish Government require a fresh planning application and public consultation if permission had not been sought for hydraulic fracturing but developers subsequently intended to undertake the process. As the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) has said, the Scottish Government have also convened an expert scientific panel to review the scientific evidence on fracking.
I believe that all powers relating to fracking, and indeed everything else, should be moved from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament. The Smith commission recommended that powers over onshore oil and gas should be transferred to the Scottish Parliament. The political parties in Scotland agree on that, at least. It would be right and proper if all aspects, including planning and licensing, were dealt with in Scotland. That would reflect the views of the communities of Scotland where fracking might take place.
As I have said, fracking is at an early stage. Now is the time to transfer those powers. If we do not transfer the powers now, and if we wait until a Bill is prepared in the next Parliament after a general election, the transfer of the powers will, with the best will in the world, be at least a year down the line. A lot can happen in fracking in a year. We have the opportunity to have a proper look and ensure we do it right from the beginning, rather than transfer the powers in the middle of the process when it could be too late to stop some of those developments.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
I get two kinds of letters about infrastructure. The first kind says: “The infrastructure in this country is inadequate. It is the cause of congestion, housing shortage and economic inefficiency. We must invest heavily and speedily in more infrastructure.” The second kind objects to any specific item of infrastructure being built or proposed. Those letters say: “A new road? No. We should be investing in rail,” or “A new rail line? No. We should be relying on short-haul aircraft,” or, “More airport capacity? No. We should be staying at home,” or, “Build more homes? No. We can’t build more homes because we haven’t got the infrastructure to support them.” We suffer from infrastructural schizophrenia in this country. To some extent, that has been exemplified in the debate.
I congratulate the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who has responsibility for roads, on finding the one piece of infrastructure that does not arouse antagonism: the widening of the A1(M), for which my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) has campaigned so hard with my support. That has won near-unanimous support in our part of Hertfordshire, not least because it is economical, it will be done on an existing hard shoulder, it involves minimal disruption and it can be done rapidly.
I want to focus on the element of the Bill that empowers drilling under other people’s land. When I initially heard those proposals I was worried, although I am sympathetic to promoting and developing the shale oil and gas industries in these countries. The proposals sounded like an unprecedented invasion of people’s property and an act of trespass, but they are far from unprecedented. The London underground runs under the street where I live in London. I can often hear the rumble, even though we live a couple of floors above it. I doubt whether the owners of my property should have had the right to prevent the building of the London underground.
The tube is a maximum of 100 feet beneath the ground. Coal mining involves massive and relatively shallow tunnels, which can cause subsidence. Sewerage, water and other underground networks also run under other people’s property. By contrast, a lateral gas or oil well is usually just a 7-inch bore about 1 mile below ground. It can cause no conceivable disturbance to the surface landowner.
Dr Whitehead
The right hon. Gentleman observes that lateral drilling and fracking for gas takes place a mile underground, so why do provisions in the Bill deem deep-level land to be 300 metres underground?
Mr Lilley
Well, 300 metres is 10 times as deep as the London underground. The Bill states that deep-level land is at least 300 metres down, but normally drilling will be about a mile down because—as the hon. Gentleman will know from serving on the Energy Committee—about 7,000 feet of rock is needed to compress the shale sufficiently to turn it into gas or oil.
Rightly or wrongly, mineral resources in this country were nationalised before the war and, unlike in the USA, landowners do not have the right to extract them. I do not see why landowners should have the right to prevent the extraction of a national resource that is collectively owned by us all. After all, we do not have the right to prevent aircraft from flying over our property, although frankly the chance of an aircraft falling on our property is rather greater than that of anything welling up through a mile of rock and affecting our homes.
In theory we could revert to the pre-war situation, as in America, and give landowners rights over subsurface minerals and their exploration. If we did so, the general taxpayer, who stands to benefit from a 61% tax on profits from any shale gas, not to mention royalties and fees, would be the loser, while landowners lucky enough to own land above any of that natural resource would become richer—I am not sure whether that is the direction in which the parties of Keir Hardie or the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) are going, but I think we should keep things as they are. The resource is collectively owned; let us open it up for sensible, properly regulated and environmentally sound exploitation.
In the USA, when landowners are given the choice between preventing or allowing the exploitation of land from which they will profit, they overwhelmingly say yes. Despite strong campaigns to discourage the development of the fracking industry in north America, 2.5 million wells have been drilled and not a single person has been poisoned by contaminated water, nor a single building damaged by the minute seismic tremors that fracking can cause.
A lot of letters I receive say, “But this is against the laws of trespass. This is terrible. You’re trespassing under my land, which is as bad as trespassing on it.” Actually there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the law of trespass. My father did not have many political opinions but he was a libertarian. When we went out in the country and saw a sign saying, “Trespassers will be prosecuted”, he would say, “My son, as a free-born Englishman, you have the right to go anywhere as long as you do not cause damage. The landowners are bluffing and cannot stop you.” He was right, of course. Subsequently, Mr Fagan wandered into Buckingham palace and the Queen’s bedroom, but he could not be prosecuted because he had done no damage.
Mr Lilley
Indeed. Why on earth is it a sin to drill a hole a mile from where we live and separated from us by a mile of rock, when we do not prevent people from walking through woods as long as they cause no damage? I think we can dismiss the trespass argument. Of course, if there is damage on the surface from such activities, it is right and proper that people are compensated for that disturbance.
The organised opposition to shale gas drilling is part of a wider attack on fossil fuels. There is a legitimate case for opposing all drilling for oil and gas if we believe that hydrocarbons should be left in the ground to prevent emissions of carbon dioxide, and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley)—I do not know whether she is still in her place—honestly and frankly made that case. She does not want the stuff extracted because she does not want it to be burned, the energy used, or the CO2 emitted. I respect her and those who openly argue for that, but they know that they will not convince the people of Britain to give up using fossil fuels because our whole economy is based on them. If we were to try to transform our economy and move away from fossil fuels—well, we have been for 50 years, but with remarkably little impact—it would impoverish us and would be enormously disruptive. Those who cannot get that argument across therefore make it their duty to deploy unfounded scare stories and exaggerate them. They claim that fracking will harm the water table and trigger earthquakes, that it will use vast amounts of water and be of no advantage to society.
People with those fears should read the report by the Royal Society—our principal scientific body—and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which in its opening words concludes:
“The health, safety and environmental risks associated with hydraulic fracturing…can be managed effectively in the UK as long as operational best practices are implemented and enforced through regulation. Hydraulic fracturing is an established technology that has been used in the oil and gas industries for many decades. The UK has 60 years’ experience of regulating onshore and offshore oil and gas industries.”
Why do eco-alarmists say that we must believe the Royal Society when it tells us that CO2 may increase the temperature by a degree or two in a century’s time, but ignore it when it says that we can frack safely in this country as long as we adhere to regulations that we have developed over 60 years, with some sensible amendments that have been proposed?
A number of Members have said that fracking is a novel technology, but 2.5 million wells have been drilled and fracked since the process was developed in 1948. As the Royal Society report states,
“more than 2,000 wells have been drilled onshore in the UK”,
of which 200 have been fracked, although relatively modest amounts of water and pressure were used compared with what is now proposed. I am not aware of any objections to those 200 wells. On the use of water the report states:
“Estimates indicate that the amount needed to operate a hydraulically fractured shale gas well for a decade may be equivalent to the amount needed to water a golf course for a month…and the amount lost to leaks in United Utilities’ region in north west England every hour.”
In other words, the idea that we do not have enough water in this country for fracking is an absurd exaggeration.
On seismic threats, the report states that we have “naturally occurring” seismic tremors, which infrequently reach force 5 in this country and force 4 rather more frequently. There is consensus that the maximum seismic tremor that could be caused by fracking would be less than force 3. Forces 3, 4 and 5 sound close together, but for each move from force 2 to force 3, or from force 3 to force 4, power is multiplied 32 times. We have “naturally occurring” tremors in this country, and, as Members will know, 32 times 32 is just over 1,000, so those tremors are 1,000 times larger than the largest seismic tremor likely to be triggered by fracking.
In truth, shale gas represents a tremendous opportunity for this country if it exists in the quantities that we hope it does and it is economic to extract—we do not know that, and will not know until we have tried. Either shale gas will bring down the price of gas in this country, or if the price remains at the same level as on the continent, the profitability and tax revenues to the British taxpayer will be enormous. If successful, we will reduce either households’ energy bills or their tax bills. What is more, it will create jobs in the areas of the country that need them most, and in the areas of our economy—manufacturing and related industries—where that is most important, and it will improve the security of our supply.
I hope that we will continue, using the powers in this Bill and in other legislation, to develop this industry with proper environmental and safety controls, not throw it away because of scare stories spread by people whose ultimate objective is simply to prevent it from ever getting off the ground, even if it would cause no damage in this country, as it has not done anywhere else it has been applied.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), who I think has many certainties where I have many doubts. If his understanding of the law of trespass is anything to go by, my doubts are well founded, and I doubt his certainties, because trespass is a civil wrong that can indeed be the subject of a civil action. Although it is impossible to prosecute people for trespass, it is a civil wrong and so does in fact exist. I am sure that his father was a wonderful man, but he was not right about trespass.
My constituents also have worries. They are worried about an application for boring in a place called Borras, just north of Wrexham. Planning permission was lodged locally, dealt with by the local authority and rejected. That decision was overridden by the planning inspector and the boring process went ahead, which has created a very febrile atmosphere locally. People are upset because a local decision has been overridden and there is genuine concern about the fracking process. That honest concern is based on the fact that it is indeed a novel process for us.
It does not appear to me, either from this debate or more generally over the past few months, that the Government have listened at all to what our constituents have been saying. The Government seem determined to pursue shale gas extraction whatever the consequences. I am sorry that they have not shown the same enthusiasm in their pursuit of renewable energy goals.
Wrexham has a strong culture of using renewable energy. We have a company, Sharp UK, which in 2004 commenced production of solar cells in the town, and at one stage more than 1,000 people were employed in that. Visitors to Wrexham often observe that a large number of homes in the constituency have solar cells on their roofs, which is a tremendous example of renewable energy in a local community, and that is supported by all parties locally. Unfortunately, this Government’s policy on feed-in tariffs, which contradicts the far-sighted policy introduced by the Leader of the Opposition, undermined the market. As a result, Sharp’s solar cell factory in Wrexham has closed its production line, so those 1,000 jobs have gone, as have the local jobs created in the construction industry for putting the cells on roofs. That renewable energy had an immediate and beneficial impact for our local economy and community.
People in Wrexham are much less convinced about the benefits of fracking. The Government, however, have resembled a runaway train on the issue, with their latter-day “dash for gas”. Their cavalier attitude to public concern about safety is feeding into a widely held view that they are pursing this process with scant regard for public safety.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman, whose constituency neighbours mine, is speaking eloquently, but he must realise that the licences that cover both Chester and Wrexham are the same and that they were granted in 2008 by the previous Government. Did he speak so eloquently against their decision to grant those unconventional gas licences?
Ian Lucas
I am speaking about the application in my community currently, which is leading to large-scale demonstrations, which I will be pleased to take the hon. Gentleman to see if he is so interested. All I am talking about is responding to the public concerns that are being expressed to me.
I live less than a mile from the Borras site and know from speaking with neighbours and people who live locally that there is broad concern about the issue. I try to deal with these matters pragmatically and approach people in a straightforward way, and they are expressing genuine concerns to me. There is real frustration that local decisions have been overridden—a concern we heard earlier from the Government Benches—and replaced by those of the planning inspector.
The Government need to make it absolutely clear that they will not countenance fracking unless it can be shown to be a safe process. That is not the message they are sending at the moment. I understand that the Labour party will be tabling amendments to the Bill specifically to require environmental impact assessments in all cases; public recording of well-by-well extraction of frack fluid; and all sites to be monitored for methane and CO2 leakage. Such amendments are vital if the process is to continue. They appear to me to be eminently sensible, perfectly reasonable and the type of amendments that would build public confidence in the process.
Mark Menzies
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point about monitoring on behalf of his constituents. Does he agree that it is important that that is done by the Environment Agency and not left to the company doing the drilling?
Ian Lucas
I entirely agree with that important suggestion.
I would also like to see a much clearer process for addressing community concerns in individual cases. For example, the Borras site is only a few hundred metres from the scene of the 1934 Gresford mining disaster, which killed 266 coal miners. Sincere, legitimate and profound local concern has been expressed about exploration in the immediate area, where the bodies of the deceased miners lie. At present there is no process for those views to be taken properly into account. Will the Minister please explain how such local concerns will be addressed by the planning and regulatory process that will be put in place for fracking?
I am also unconvinced about the local benefits that will accrue to Wrexham as a result of the process. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) that the benefits should attach not to the landowner, but to the local community. Wrexham, as an industrial town, still bears the scars of its industrial past, and not only the memories of events such as the Gresford disaster, but physical scars such as slag heaps, quarries and spoiled land. If fracking can be shown to be a safe process, then before it goes ahead I want to be sure that Wrexham and the local area will benefit. Fracking is not a sustainable energy process, and before the Bill passes into law I need to hear far more about how my community will benefit from the extraction that is taking place locally and causing a great deal of controversy.
I urge the Government to listen much more closely to the concerns about fracking being expressed up and down the country and to make it much clearer why they think it is so important that the process goes ahead. It is a non-renewable technology that can be of benefit to our community, but it is not being projected to our constituents in that way or with the intensity that it needs to be if it is to carry public support.
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
I support every part of this Bill. Like many Members, I want to focus on part 5 and talk about energy security and fracking.
As far as I am aware, there is no possibility that we have a great shale reserve under the estuarial mud of Castle Point. However, residents in my constituency have enormous experience of living very close to two major top-tier COMAH, or control of major accident hazards, sites and have a connection to the UKOP and GPSS—United Kingdom oil pipeline and Government pipeline and storage system—networks. Some hon. Members—I do not think any of them are in the Chamber today—might remember an exceptional speech given by my illustrious predecessor, Sir Bernard Braine, who talked out a previous infrastructure Bill, the British Railways Bill, in order to prevent an oil refinery from being built on Canvey Island. We have enormous experience of what it is like to live near critical infrastructure and to be concerned about it and campaign on it.
Energy security is rightly a key concern of this Government, but it is also vital that communities support the resulting new infrastructure, especially if they may have to live with it for many decades to come. We have talked a lot about safety, security and trust. We need two things for buy-in from local communities: first, to ensure that they benefit from the presence of the infrastructure or the extraction of the resource; and secondly, to ensure that they have complete confidence in the safety of the operation and the risk management regime that is in place. Clause 40 and the various community profit-sharing agreements cover the first requirement quite nicely for fracking activities, but it would be valuable to have such compensation schemes for all newly registered top-tier COMAH sites and infrastructure sites. My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), who is no longer in his place, spoke about the need for more gas storage, which is a pertinent thing that the Government should be looking to make sure we achieve.
Needless to say, my constituency would have benefited enormously if such a scheme had been in place many decades ago when the oil and gas tanks sprang up on Canvey, although the current owners of the sites, Calor and Oikos, have become, with a little gentle prodding from me and Councillor Ray Howard, very good neighbours that give generously to the community. They have gone to great efforts to remove tanker movements from our roads after the very cold winter of 2012 when a lot of that was going on.
If these sites are to go forward, we need, from the absolute outset, clarity about the location, about the proximity to schools and to homes that will be acceptable, and about whether tanker movements will be required. We need the Government to have a very clear safe-siting policy, as advocated by my constituent George Whatley, who is a founder member of the former People Against Methane campaign in my constituency. Whichever areas are chosen for any critical infrastructure, local communities must know what to expect from the very beginning, and must be on board with that.
It is most important that we secure confidence in the safety regime, which is the hardest thing to achieve. We have a complicated safety regime in this country. We hear that it is the best in the world. I have investigated it many times, and that definitely seems to be the case. However, it is complicated and confusing. People always fear that faceless bureaucrats or profit-hungry businesses are not telling them the whole story, and that in any regime where the operator is doing the monitoring, a tick-box exercise is occurring and there is no transparency in the system. We can talk about bringing in new regulations and higher standards, and of course we want to have absolutely the highest standards, but they mean nothing if the public do not understand them and cannot make sense of them, and there is a lack of transparency about the process.
With fracking, in particular, it is vital that people living in residential properties have confidence in what is a new and popularly controversial process, because it is going on right under their feet. During a debate in the media on fracking in Scotland, the trade body Oil & Gas UK asserted:
“The underground activity of fracking will not be noticeable at the surface and will not impact on the enjoyment landowners have of their property.”
The first part of that statement may well be perfectly accurate, but I can certainly see that the loss of peace of mind someone may have if they are not confident in the safety of this could result in quite a considerable loss of enjoyment of their property if it is happening under their feet. It is vital that we instil confidence and do not just say that we have a great safety regime, but make people understand that and see it. Complete transparency and accessibility for the community is required.
The regulatory regime on fracking, which is administered primarily by the Health and Safety Executive in collaboration with the Environment Agency, with heavy involvement by the Department, seems to be extensive, but because a number of agencies are involved in different regulatory roles, it could hardly be called particularly transparent and easy for the public to understand. I suggest that at some point the Government consider a way of bringing in local reps or intelligent observers who can provide local confidence. We need not just men with clipboards and letters after their names, but a local rep who is totally independent, and who is not even a member of the council, because that might be interested in administering some of the planning gain from these sites.
The HSE’s 2012 guidance on fracking makes reference to “other interested parties”. I wonder whether there is the capacity for those people to attend meetings with the operators and the regular on-site inspections held by the HSE and the Environment Agency, because these have the greatest capacity to boost the transparency of safety and risk management operations. Perhaps the Minister could confirm whether there is scope for such local representatives to count as other interested parties under the regulatory document. I urge the Government to include that provision in the regulatory regimes for all significant sites in our nation’s infrastructure policy in future. Without a clear, transparent, understandable regime, no amount of officialdom telling us that we have the best regime in the world will satisfy local communities if they do not understand it.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Unlike the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), I do not rise to support every single part of this Bill.
Earlier in the debate, the Bill was described as a kaleidoscopic vision. I would prefer to describe it as a rag-bag. One dictionary definition of “ragbag” is “a confused assortment; a jumble”. Perhaps that is a little harsh, so I prefer an alternative definition: “a bag in which small pieces of cloth are kept for use in mending”. I am afraid that time prevents me from pulling more than a couple of pieces of cloth out of the ragbag to examine. I will therefore concentrate my remarks on just two pieces, neither of which seems to have been designed to mend anything in particular.
The first piece of cloth I want to pull out is the question of the so-called moves towards zero-carbon homes. I say “so-called” advisedly. The explanatory notes to the Bill clearly state:
“The Government is committed to introducing a zero carbon emissions standard for new dwellings in England from 2016.”
However, the Government have now made three attempts to knock down the original version of what would have been moves towards zero-carbon homes by 2016. As hon. Members will remember, that arose from the 2006 code for sustainable homes. There were rising levels of sustainability going up to code level 6, and homes were supposed to be getting towards that level by 2016. I accept that there could have been allowable solutions under certain circumstances when it might have been difficult to get homes up to that level, but they should have been the exception. The code level should have got as close to 6 as possible before those allowable solutions came about.
This is a very important infrastructure issue. If one is pursuing a major project to try to make sure that all the homes that are standing by 2050 are as energy-efficient as possible—as the Government claimed they had been doing with the energy companies obligation and the wider issues of energy efficiency in homes—it seems nonsensical and perverse not then to seek to build new homes that are as energy-efficient as possible to replace the ones that they were trying to make as energy-efficient as possible in the first place. However, that is what seems to be on offer in this Bill.
The Zero Carbon Hub is a group consisting of, among others, the National House Building Council, the Federation of Master Builders, the Home Builders Federation and major house building companies, all of which said that allowable solutions should be put in place only after the code for sustainable homes went up to something like a 60% improvement over part L of the building regulations. Yet the Government have simply said, “That’s not feasible—there’s no evidence. Lets put it down to 40%-odd over part L.” Indeed, the explanatory notes state:
“The intention is therefore to set a maximum on-site carbon dioxide emission standard for new homes and for the remainder of the zero carbon target to be met by house builders supporting off-site carbon abatement measures”.
What that means is that those homes will be built to nowhere near the zero-carbon-emission standard. Relatively modest improvements will have to be made over and above the part L building standard commitments and it will be possible to pay money to get out of that particular commitment.
Although the Government appear to be arguing, despite having no evidence, that the standard is unobtainable, the additional cost of building zero-carbon homes has halved since 2011. The payback for that additional cost takes only a few years in terms of the lower energy bills in homes built as close as possible to a zero-carbon standard, but the Government have decided that they do not wish to pursue that course.
Let us be clear that, under the Bill, a major element of infrastructure—new housing—is moving away from being zero or low-carbon in the future. The allowable solutions suggested by the Bill are not just applicable to circumstances in which it is not easy to make the homes zero carbon, but act as an excuse for making sure that those homes are nowhere near zero carbon. Moreover, the regulations are very unclear about the amount of money builders will have to put into the fund if they do not make their homes zero carbon. As we have heard, that may leak out from planning authorities and may not go towards alternative zero-carbon proposals for retrofit. That rag needs to be looked at.
A number of other hon. Members have addressed the other rag that needs to be seriously examined, namely fracking. We need to be clear that the relevant clauses are all about trying to make sure that fracking can be undertaken as speedily and with as little examination as possible, as opposed to making sure that there are proper environmental safeguards and that concerns are properly addressed if fracking is to go ahead at all. I mentioned in an intervention that fracking usually takes place at least 1 mile, possibly 2 miles, underground, so what could be the harm in that? Unfortunately, however, the Bill suggests that anything below 300 metres—a third of a kilometre, not even a third of a mile—will be regarded as deep underground and therefore available for fracking.
It will be possible for there to be access beneath the land on which people live. As we have heard, regardless of assurances about safety, there are no proposals for any kind of baseline or environmental impact assessment. Even if concerns are correctly expressed, such as the question of what might happen to the land should there be a fault with it that could lead to some damage being done, we do not know who would be responsible, because there will not be that baseline assessment.
We also do not know—there is nothing about this in the Bill or elsewhere—what the position will be regarding the accumulation of such holdings. It appears that the regime envisaged will simply enable drilling after individual planning permission is given and accumulation will not be an issue as far as water or fracking fluid are concerned. Indeed, it is not even an issue with regard to where fracking goes.
The Bill’s proposals fall far short of the very minimum that one might expect from any sort of regime that would make fracking an assuredly safe procedure as far as the public are concerned. It is of paramount importance that public concerns about the safety of the fracking process should be addressed. If we persist in putting through legislation that appears to suggest the opposite to the public, it will not be surprising if they continue to raise very serious objections about what is going on behind the whole process and ask whether the design of the process is in their interests at all or in someone else’s interests entirely.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
I am more optimistic about the Bill than some colleagues who have already spoken. It is common sense: it releases a huge amount of economic growth, jobs, houses and building potential. It gives us a vision for the future in which Britain is building again and moving forward.
A huge part of the Bill is the road investment strategy, which has not been discussed as much as it should have been. The strategy is a massive testament to what this nation is going to do. The strategic road network makes up only about 2.5% of all paved roads, but it accounts for about 30% of all road journeys. However, in my constituency in my part of Hertfordshire, which I share with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), the network accounts for a lot more than 30% of all journeys. Junction 6 to junction 8 of the A1M runs from Welwyn Garden City to Hitchin, and it goes down to two lanes along that route. For more than 30 years, my constituents and others in our part of Hertfordshire have been stuck in huge tailbacks, which has put a massive chokehold on the economic potential of Hertfordshire.
To put that in context, I should say that my constituency builds 25% of the world’s telecommunications satellites; has GlaxoSmithKline’s largest research and development facility in the United Kingdom; builds complex weapons systems; and houses the headquarters of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. We have more than 10,000 scientists and engineers, more than 800 apprentices starting work every year, and unemployment is at about 2.6% at the moment. The reality is that economic growth in Hertfordshire is being choked by the stranglehold on one of our main local arteries, and that has been a huge problem for a huge number of years.
I was absolutely delighted to hear the Secretary of State announce in his statement last week that the A1M is going to be widened and that there are plans to make our section of it a smart motorway. That will include widening the two-lane sections so that there are dual three-lane sections and hard-shoulder running, which will be absolutely amazing for my constituents and those of my neighbouring MP. This massive investment in our local roads will allow our constituents to get to work, and that is important.
On the importance of rail, Stevenage train station alone—it is one of two train stations in my constituency—has 4.2 million passenger journeys a year. We are 26 minutes from King’s Cross. About half of my constituents work in London and they make that journey either by rail or by road. It is incredibly important for our part of Hertfordshire that we now have a great railway system with more carriages, more seats and more services. We also have the huge opportunity to allow our constituents to get along the roads in Hertfordshire. The potential for economic growth from the huge investment in our road strategy is absolutely unimaginable, and I fully support the Bill in relation to that wonderful strategy.
On some of the bits and pieces, I understand that it will cost about £8 million a mile to do those two sections, so it is a huge commitment. Smart motorways were first introduced in 2006-07, a positive step by the previous Government. They have been trialled, and we very much look forward to their introduction in our section of Hertfordshire. That will be done quickly and with the least possible disruption for people who currently get stuck on those two lanes.
In relation to the Highways Agency being turned into a Government-owned company, I want to make a tiny point about non-offensive graffiti. I have had correspondence and discussions with Ministers about non-offensive graffiti on the strategic road network. Although it may seem a small matter, one of my constituents, Steve Prince, has campaigned for several years for its removal. Sadly, Ministers always say that there is a duty on the Highways Agency to remove it, but the Highways Agency’s employees and contractors say that they do so only in areas near where work is already being done. To put this in context, many people use the strategic road network in my constituency, which means that the entrance to such a high-technology area is sometimes affected by graffiti that is not usually removed; offensive graffiti is removed, but non-offensive graffiti is not. I hope that the new Government-owned company will take that matter a little more seriously than the Highways Agency does currently.
One provision in the Bill relates to speeding up the sale of public sector land. I am proud to say that Stevenage was the first new town in the United Kingdom. It was developed from 1946 to 1980, when the Stevenage Development Corporation ceased to exist. For us, there is still a huge amount of public sector land, and there is a huge opportunity to build houses on such areas. While I have been its Member of Parliament, the population of my constituency has grown—from 69,000 electors to nearly 73,000 electors. We are building the expected number of homes, and we are trying to ensure that there is a great opportunity for young people to have somewhere to live.
I am also proud that the local Labour council is building its first council houses for more than 30 years because of the investment that the Conservative Government have provided to enable that to happen. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is not in his place, but I am sure that he would be delighted to know that five of those houses are bungalows.
I asked the Cabinet Office some questions for written answer about providing a full inventory of local and national public land and property held, and about the timetable for when that might be published. Earlier today, I received an answer in good time, as always, which referred me to the Government property finder website. One aspect of the Bill relates to the Land Registry. Although the Land Registry building—a very large site in the centre of Stevenage that has been empty for a number of years—is owned by the Government, it is not actually on the website, and I was surprised that a range of other buildings and bits of land that I know are owned by the Government or the Homes and Communities Agency are not on it either. I am talking about a property in excess of 300,000 or 400,000 square feet, with seven floors and 300 car parking spaces—it is bigger than the Tesco next door—so its being left off is quite a big deal.
In discussing getting value for such a property by selling or releasing it, for me the question is about whether we should get economic value by trying to sell it for what it is worth or social value by handing it to an affordable homes provider, such as North Hertfordshire Homes, to develop it into affordable apartments for local people, who would then be able to work and reside in the community. When there is talk about selling a property, I want a better understanding about the distinction in relation to its true value: is there just an economic value or is there a social value? I have sites in my constituency that have been empty for a number of years; one has been empty for 16 years, and is also about 400,000 square feet. For us, such a step would make a huge difference by increasing the number of affordable homes in our area.
Finally, I want to talk quickly about the community electricity right in part 5 of the Bill. A number of solar farm applications are currently being made in my villages. The community electricity right will not kick in until June 2016, I believe, but will Ministers say whether local people can exercise that right in relation to solar farms that have not yet been given planning permission or been built?
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
Hon. Members’ comments have illustrated the very wide-ranging nature of the Bill. Mine will concentrate on the proposals for the strategic road network, and their implications for transport planning and regeneration.
I very much welcome the attention the Bill gives to the strategic road network. More than 65% of all journeys take place on that network. It is used on more than 65% of freight journeys. The Department says that more than 47% of English road users use the network at least twice per week. In estimates for future congestion and traffic increases, it is thought that traffic on the network will have increased by 46% by 2040.
It is therefore extremely important to look at the network, and to see whether investment in it can be made efficiently and effectively. We certainly need to end the current stop-go of announcements being made about road investments that simply do not happen, with maintenance being cut, which is greatly to the detriment of motorists. We need something better.
It appears that the proposals for the road investment strategy and the five-year funding packages could offer prospects for change and could bring some stability in funding, but I have major concerns about them. Such concerns are echoed by the Transport Committee’s recent consideration of the issues.
The plans for the strategic road network have not been put in a wider context that would allow us to look at different types of transport and consider not just different proposals for road schemes but whether road is better than rail or whether there are alternative ways of addressing the problem. The link between local roads —the role of local authorities and local enterprise partnerships—and the strategic sector is unclear. Decisions are increasingly made through city deals or by combined authorities, and there are proposals for further devolution; yet the Bill does not make it clear how such plans or proposals relate to investment in the strategic network. On the face of it, the road investment strategy plans mean firm commitments to an investment programme, but it is not clear whether that is the case. Will statements about what is going to happen simply be followed by stops and starts?
In the recent statement on road building—part of the autumn statement—there were many welcome announcements. However, many of them were old announcements in relation to which there had been cancellations and postponements, and much of what was said in Parliament is in fact for the future. The statement was not therefore what it seemed. Will the new regional strategy statements be what they seem, or will they in fact be more of the same?
The Bill contains a controversial proposal to replace the Highways Agency with a Government-owned company. Serious questions must be asked about whether that is the best way forward, or whether it would be better to reform the existing Highways Agency to have better management and relationships. Changing the structure by moving from an agency to a Government-owned company can be very disruptive and costly. The remit of the company would not be substantially different from the agency’s. It must be questioned whether the predicted £2.6 billion of savings, to be achieved over 10 years, will actually happen. That very big change has big implications, and it is not at all clear whether it is the right way to go.
There are outstanding questions about the accountability of the proposed company. It is planned that the Office of Rail Regulation will monitor what happens and that a reorganised Passenger Focus will be a watchdog. During the passage of the Bill through the other place, changes were made that might have made the situation better than it looked initially. However, there are still questions about how it will operate. Will all road users be involved? Will it just involve motorists, or will it involve pedestrians and cyclists as well? Will all people who have an interest in our road structures be able to have a say and to have some influence? That is not clear.
There is a wider question about the availability of the necessary skills to promote transport investment—investment in our roads and rail. That is a major question that is not fully addressed in the Bill.
My comments are a contribution to the discussion about the strategic road network. It is an essential artery for road transport in this country, but it is vital that it is looked at together with the need for investment in rail. There must be a proper assessment of what is the best mode of transport to deliver what is required. The Bill, as it stands, will not produce that end.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman). I, too, will speak about highways, but I will also speak about land use planning and fracking. The link between the measures on all those issues is that they will improve the competitiveness of the UK economy and provide the conditions for growth, which will mean more jobs and will enable us to fund the many things that we want Governments to do.
Part 1 of Bill relates to road transport, which is massively important to businesses in my constituency because Rugby is, of course, at the centre of the UK and at the crossroads of the motorway network, with the M1, the M6 and the A14 meeting at Catthorpe. I want to put on record my gratitude for the recent announcement of new flyovers and underpasses on the A46 at Binley and Walsgrave, which will be of great help to my constituents who suffer from congestion in that area.
Rugby is in a strategic location, which has meant that the logistics industry has developed apace over recent years. We have the Daventry international rail freight terminal—DIRFT—where Eddie Stobart and Tesco are big occupiers, and where Sainsbury’s is developing the UK’s largest warehouse. Immediately adjacent to Daventry is the Rugby radio site, which will become a large housing development with 6,200 new homes and will provide the workers for the many distribution sites on the eastern side of Rugby. There is significant warehouse development adjacent to junction 1 of the M6, where Gap and Pearson Education have substantial units. Nearby, there is the Gateway site, the first occupier of which will be H&M, the clothes retailer, which will have a substantial site. At other sites, we have DHL, which delivers for the NHS, and companies such as Premier Foods.
The logistics industry is massively important to Rugby’s economy. It was previously thought of as a low-wage, low-skill industry, with big lads lifting boxes, but nothing could be further from the truth. I recently spent time at Premier Foods, which has had notoriety in recent days for other reasons. It is a big supplier to our major food retailers. At its distribution site in Rugby, it was introducing jobseekers, many of whom had been out of work for some time, to the modern workplace. It was preparing them for interview and for the environment that they would find on going to seek work. I saw forklift truck operators moving products around the warehouse using barcode readers. They had computer screens attached to the forklift trucks to provide maximum efficiency in the warehouse’s operations. Logistics is far from the low-scale, low-skill industry that many people paint it as.
Logistics is an industry that I am familiar with because I ran a small-scale wholesale distribution business that took advantage of Rugby’s excellent location and connections. In addition to efficiency in the warehouse, the logistics industry depends on an efficient trunk road network. I want to draw attention to two issues. The first is how the transport provisions of the Infrastructure Bill will assist us in dealing with congestion. It is believed that congestion will cost £10 billion by 2040. We need more capacity on the strategic road network to minimise bottlenecks and avoid congestion. The second issue is the need for prompt reopening of the strategic road network, whether it is an entire motorway or A road or lanes thereof, after catastrophic events.
On the first issue, if there is insufficient capacity, the logistics industry is able to make fewer deliveries per vehicle, which leads to an increased cost per delivery, a higher price for the customer and smaller profits being available to businesses for reinvestment. Often, the consequence of the slow reopening of a motorway or other road on the strategic network after an event that has caused it to close is that set-day deliveries cannot be made on the allocated day, leading to customers getting goods a day late, which can lead to problems with production processes that operate on a just-in-time basis. In businesses such as the one that I ran, if one day’s deliveries did not get out, it was necessary to hire a vehicle and employ a temporary driver for the following day to get the goods out. Of course, that adds to the cost of getting the product to the customer.
All those issues make improvements to the management of the strategic road network essential. It is for that reason that I support the creation of a strategic highways company in the Bill. The improvements need to take place at the right time to avoid the stop-start approach that we have had in recent years. I was interested to note the view of the Institution of Civil Engineers, which stated:
“Transforming the Highways Agency into a government owned company will facilitate a welcome shift away from the costly and inefficient stop/start pattern of investment that has plagued the development and operation of our road network.”
That will deliver an upgrade to the important logistics businesses in my constituency, enabling them to operate more efficiently and keep costs to the consumer down.
The businesses in my constituency expect the Government agency to be more accountable, in the same way that they are accountable to their customers. I am therefore pleased that clause 5 gives the Secretary of State the power to impose fines when the strategic highways company fails to meet the requirements of the road investment strategy. I am also pleased that clauses 8 to 12 provide oversight through an independent road users’ watchdog, which is currently known as Passenger Focus. That will provide more transparency and accountability and drive costs down, which is of great importance to businesses in Rugby.
I am interested to note the Labour party’s criticism that there is a lack of any reference to local roads. Strategic roads make up just 2.6% of the road network, but account for 60% of freight and business traffic. It is therefore entirely right that the Bill focuses on them. Local roads are a matter for local authorities and local communities when they determine their priorities.
The second set of proposals that I want to refer to are those on planning, land use and buildings. The Communities and Local Government Committee is looking at the operation of the national planning policy framework to see how that revised system, which was introduced just three or four years ago, is bedding in. Members will have to await our report, but during the evidence sessions we found no evidence that an overhaul was needed. It is interesting that the Opposition have no proposal to change the national planning policy framework fundamentally. Clearly, the system is bedding in and needs more time. The introduction of further uncertainty would not be helpful at this stage.
There are two areas where the Bill introduces proposals to the national planning policy framework. The fundamental principles of the NPPF are localist, right down to neighbourhood plans where small communities have their say on the types of development that can take place in their areas, but there need to be processes for the developments that we would describe as bigger than local. Much of this is currently dealt with under the Planning Act 2008, and refers to nationally significant infrastructure projects. I was interested to hear a Member earlier referring to the Thames tideway tunnel and Hinkley Point C power station as the kind of development that would be dealt with through the national significant infrastructure projects. That does not mean a great deal for my constituency, but of course we all need roads, water and waste projects. Traditionally, we have been glacially slow in dealing with planning applications in this area, and there is no question but that we need to speed up the process in the interests of making our economy more efficient and our manufacturers and businesses better able to compete with their overseas competitors. The Bill proposes to speed up the existing powers by appointing inspectors more quickly and by reducing bureaucracy and the cost of inspection through fewer inspectors on a panel. That will enable the country to get on with it, once principles for development are established.
A second area where the Bill would help to enable development get under way more quickly is on the discharge of planning conditions. These are delays caused once the planning process has been gone through, once the principle of development has been given on a site. The NPPF gives developers more certainty by directing development to those areas where the local planning authority has determined that planning should take place. Often, however, that certainty is replaced by an uncertainty over when the regulatory burden, through conditions, might be discharged. Development has been agreed in principle, but the developer is unable to make a start pending conditions, such as the preparation of a report. I was interested to hear, I think, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) mention a builder who pointed out that a third of his land bank, a total of 5,000 plots, is currently awaiting reserve matters.
I am the first to acknowledge that planners are keen to see good development take place. Planning has a positive role, and the role of planning is not to frustrate developers. There are many good planning officers who hold regular meetings with developers, so that developers can understand well the priorities of a local planning authority. I single out as a very good planning department that of my local authority of Rugby borough council, which I know has a tradition of meeting developers. I am as keen as they are for good development to come to my constituency, because good development provides jobs and prosperity from which all my constituents benefit. I would expect a developer, faced with excessive conditions causing a problem with getting development under way, to meet local planners to resolve those conditions. That is the approach the Local Government Association, in its representation, is looking for.
Often, the local planning authority takes too long to respond to a request from a developer to be released from a condition. That can have the effect of delaying development from taking place, so I support the provisions for deemed discharge. I was interested to note the criticism from the Labour party that there are no garden city principles in the Bill. I think most of us can accept that the garden city principles are favourable principles, but it is a matter for local communities, if they wish to see them introduced in their area, to build them into their local plan to require that to take place.
On fracking, many years ago I studied land law and I seem to remember the principle that, “He who owns land does so up to the heavens and down to the centre of the earth.” That broad principle cannot exist in a general environment. We need to put this issue in perspective. Most fracking takes place at a minimum of 300 metres deep, which is 10 times deeper than the deepest London tube station. This is an important issue, because we need to get our energy costs under control. In my constituency, we have a cement manufacturer, and the most expensive place in the world to produce cement is the UK. We need to address fracking to get our energy costs down and to allow our businesses to be competitive with those in the rest of the world.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I shall speak briefly, because I am having some difficulties with my voice. I want to raise two or three points, the first of which relates to fracking.
Fracking is a cause for concern in my constituency in the north-west of England. Neighbouring constituencies have already experienced exploratory drilling, so local people are concerned and anxious about what might take place in their neighbourhood. I endorse some of the comments that have been made across the House, in particular by my hon. Friends the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) and for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead). There are a number of components, which have been overlooked and are not addressed well in the Bill, that need to be right before there is a rush for shale: the need for adequate safety regulation that offers people reassurance; and the need for transparency in that safety regime. Frankly, in our experience there has been far too much denial and secrecy where exploratory drilling has taken place. That secrecy, or non-acknowledgement of activity, understandably fuels alarm and anxiety further. Transparency is therefore a very important element of the safety regime that the Government need to introduce. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) pointed out—she has had particular experience of this in her constituency—the need for proper preparatory work before any exploratory drilling, let alone extraction, takes place. That is not just in relation to safety issues, although they are vital, but to transport links, local amenities, policing and so on.
I want say a little about missed opportunities in relation to housing. There has been too little attention to what it is that will be built. I think that all parties share an ambition to expand considerably the number of homes, but it is important that those homes respond to our changing demographic and to maturing ideas about people’s right to live independently and choose the kind of life they want for themselves. We suffer not just from a lack of homes, but from a lack of accessible homes that people can live in throughout their lives and can grow old in. If their circumstances change and they become more frail, or if they have an accident that reduces mobility, people should be able to continue to live in their own homes.
Demand for disabled facilities grants massively outstrips supply. One report suggests that demand is 10 times greater than the funds available. A lot of our current housing stock could not be adapted—indeed, my own home probably falls into that category. It is very important that, as we look to expand significantly the development of new homes, we ensure those homes are built, from the outset, to accessible lifetime standards. That has been happening in London since 2004 and has been very successful, producing good value for money, exchangeable, accessible properties that people can remain in. I would very much have liked to see that learning taken forward in the Bill in relation to infrastructure development. There is concern that we will end up with optional national housing standards that are subject to very narrow viability criteria. We need standards that are mandatory and challenging, which local authorities are cognisant of, and that are integrated holistically in the planning and development process while we deliver our ambitions for significant numbers of new homes.
On roads, some of the exact same issues apply. We need to think from the outset, but also as road networks are developed and modernised, about how they serve people and places, and make places accessible in the widest possible sense. I appreciate that the Bill deals only with strategic highways, but they feed into and are fed by local roads, so it is obviously important that they, too, meet the highest possible standards, and that they meet people’s needs too.
I hope we can use the Bill to address access issues on our local streets and roads, especially the need to ensure that people with mobility issues and other impairments can safely access our entire road transport network. Shared vehicle and pedestrian spaces can cause significant difficulties for people with certain impairments—visual impairments, for example—as, too, can some street furniture design. It is a pity we will not be able to consider those issues, unless Ministers are prepared to think strategically and holistically about the road network, which I think they need to do. No one thinks their journey on a strategic highway starts when they get on the motorway; first, they have to get off their own driveway and up to the nearest junction, and the Bill misses that connectivity, which is a shame.
I am running out of juice, Mr Deputy Speaker, but thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the debate.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
I commend the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) for her brevity and much of the content of her speech, and I congratulate the Minister on his opening speech. Those who heard it will agree that the shade of Disraeli stands permanently at his shoulder. He made an important speech about an important matter. For Governments of all shades and stripes, infrastructure—be it energy or transport infrastructure—has too often been a Cinderella subject, ignore and abused. As a result, today we have to invest a great deal of money—about £120 billion—in less than 10 years in our energy infrastructure: in the pipes, pylons and power stations that keep our lights on and our water warm.
Much of that investment will come—rightly—from the big six, but if the balance of the cost is not to fall on the consumer and taxpayer, much must also come from the small independent players that we must encourage into the marketplace. I know that that is what the Government want to do—it is what the Energy Act 2013 was intended to do—and I say to the Minister here now: do not let the great work of the Act and of the capacity mechanism be unwound by some siren voices in the Department of Energy and Climate Change who would like to see the capacity payments for 15-year contracts discounted to the value of an annual contract, because that will certainly discourage small players from entering the marketplace and entrench the position of the big six.
Whatever we do to invest in our energy infrastructure, in the short to medium term it will largely be in gas. Right now, as we sit in this Chamber, 38% of our generating capacity comes from combined cycle gas, 31% from coal, and just 6.5% from wind. If we are to turn off our coal-fired power stations in the next few years, we must, in the short to medium term, switch to gas to make up the shortfall—that is just the way it is—so we need to invest in those stations. However, that will expose us more to international hydrocarbon price fluctuations, which could hit consumers in this country. Part of the way to deal with that is to invest in gas storage, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) said, but part of the answer is to allow our shale gas resources and companies to expand to scale, which they say they can do by 2020, so that we can hew our home-grown gas. It is important that we do that, and I commend that particular industry to everyone in the House.
Some have raised the concerns of local communities where fracking might take place, and we must address those concerns soberly and sensibly. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who is no longer in his place. He is a real champion for his constituents, but he and we have to be careful not to allow those concerns to snowball into scaremongering. I shall focus on just one thing he said, however, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) eloquently demolished most of his concerns: the pollution of the aquifers.
In and of itself, fracking does not pollute the water supply. The shale gas layer is at least 300 metres, and often thousands of metres, beneath the earth’s surface, whereas aquifers are just a couple of hundred feet below it, and separating the water table and the shale layers are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet of solid rock. Impurities cannot move through that solid rock into the water table. Only if there is a failure of the integrity of the well can the water table be polluted. If someone drills a pipe half a mile underground, fills that pipe with concrete and then drills through that concrete and puts another pipe down, the chances of the well’s integrity being compromised are minimal—they exist, but they are minimal. That is the tone in which we need to address the shale gas opportunity and challenge, and I hope that everyone concerned about what shale might mean for their communities will make that fact clear.
I turn now to roads. The Secretary of State and I have not always seen eye to eye on transport. Our relations are very cordial—they have to be; he was once my Chief Whip—but he and I have not always agreed on HS2. However, there is not a grain of asphalt between us on the issue of road building which he announced last week and which the Minister made special reference to earlier today. In particular, I welcome the investment in the M42 around junction 6. It is a pity the Minister is not here, because he is a great student of G. K. Chesterton, and will know of Chesterton’s aphorism:
“The traveller sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he has come to see.”
A traveller or tourist on the central section of the M42 will not travel very far very fast, and all a tourist will see are the shimmering silos of the Kingsbury oil terminal. In the past, that road was often a car park. Now, 99,000 vehicles use the M42 each day, and more than 120,000 use the section of road around junction 6, so that investment has been very important.
However, I make a plea to the Minister here now. The opportunity that allows my constituents to commute more easily to Birmingham, where many of them work, and which encourages businesses to set up in Tamworth and people to come and live in Tamworth, also presents us with a challenge. We all accept the importance of localism, and we all accept that there must be devolution and that local authorities and county councils must control county highways. Unless we can also get investment in the road infrastructure in Tamworth, all those homes that there is pressure to build to meet the demands of people who want to live in the town cannot be built in the centre and might need to be built on the green belt and on the greenfield sites around it. Investment in the road infrastructure in Tamworth and similar towns will allow brownfield sites to be better developed for building homes. I hope that when the Minister responds, he will take care to recognise the importance of linking local authority development with the Bill.
That said, this is an important and welcome Bill. It takes our long-term economic plan and translates it into a long-term infrastructure investment. I say again that it is a pity that the Minister of State is no longer in his place because I know he is a great fan of St. Augustine, who said: “Go forth along your way as it must be on the path of walking”. I hope that with this Bill we will not simply be able to walk, but drive as well.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Upgrading the UK’s infrastructure is vital to create jobs and prepare the country for the challenges that it is going to face over the coming decades. The Government stated that the Bill would
“improve how we fund, plan, manage and maintain our national infrastructure”.
I would argue, however, that without some fairly radical amendments—above all, to take account of climate change—they will fail on all those aims. That is why I sought—sadly, unsuccessfully—to amend the Bill. What we need are priorities that will put the UK on the path to a prosperous, zero-carbon, jobs-rich economy and will improve resilience to flooding and other climate impacts coming our way.
At present, sadly, this “business-as-usual” Bill will lock the UK into high-carbon, inefficient, polluting energy and transport systems in particular—and that at precisely the moment when we should be turning around and heading fast in a different direction for the sake of both our economy and our environment.
The crucial, overarching context for this Bill is helpfully illustrated by the new climate economy report launched in September. It builds on a growing consensus on the benefits of low-carbon economic development among leading international economic institutions such as the OECD and the World Bank—about as far from the so-called green blob as one could possibly get.
In an article coinciding with the report’s launch, the head of the OECD as well as the London School of Economics Lord Stern highlighted the choice that the UK and other countries must now make. They explain that if investment in infrastructure over the next 10 to 15 years is high carbon, the world will indeed “lock in” the risk of dangerous climate change. More positively, they write:
“What is now becoming clear is that reducing emissions is not only compatible with economic growth and development; if done well, it can actually generate better growth than the old high-carbon model…But governments must choose. Over recent years many governments have vacillated over climate policy. They have introduced carbon prices but then let them fall until they are near-useless. They have backed renewables but also subsidised fossil fuels. These inconsistent signals have created uncertainty for investors, damaging growth and retarding innovation.”
They go on:
“The prize before us is huge. We can build a strong, inclusive and resilient global economy which can also avoid dangerous climate change. But the time for decision is now.”
They could have been talking about the very Infrastructure Bill before us today, and as we enter the second week of global climate talks in Peru, I think it is clear that this Infrastructure Bill is sadly failing to make the right choice.
It is puzzling, because sometimes Ministers and indeed shadow Ministers go to great efforts to convince the public that they understand the benefits of transforming our economy to radically cut emissions. Last year, for example, the Prime Minister explained that
“we are in a global race and the countries that succeed in that race, the economies in Europe that will prosper, are those that are the greenest and the most energy efficient.”
I could not agree more with him on that. The Leader of the Opposition in The Independent yesterday set out a welcome and impassioned pitch for his ability to offer leadership on climate change, highlighting the increasingly stark science and the economic and social harm caused by dither and delay. Again, I agree. Yet the unswerving support from Labour’s Front-Bench team for the coalition’s new roads, whatever the delivery structure, and for fracking, however well regulated, undermines any such climate credibility. It suggests that they may be a little bit in denial about the inconvenient truth that carbon emissions do not come just from electricity generation. Crucially, for the purposes of this Bill, they come from roads as well.
Transport accounts for 25% of UK emissions and most of that is from roads, but there are many other reasons why building new roads should be at the bottom—not the top—of the UK’s infrastructure priorities. As the Government’s own figures and studies show, road building is bad value for public money, and it does not even cut congestion. More tarmac simply means more cars.
Today, the Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, launched a new report that warns that air pollution from heavy traffic could be killing almost as many people as does smoking in the UK. During that inquiry, we heard that road traffic is the largest source of air pollution in most parts of the UK. To tackle the public health crisis of air pollution, we must redirect spending away from new road infrastructure, and into public transport, walking and cycling. It should be our priority to make those alternatives the cheaper, easier and more attractive options. Of course, we could also do more to improve existing local and national roads. I should like the Government to adopt the Campaign for Better Transport’s “green retrofit” programme for roads, which would be better value for money and good for local job creation, as well as having long-term benefits and undoing daily damage to both public health and our environment. I am also concerned about the setting up of strategic highways companies, a move which has been described as
“the final staging post to privatisation of the strategic road network”,
and which raises serious questions about accountability that have already been mentioned by Members
Let me now say a few words about fracking, because I know that the House would be disappointed were I not to do so. The proposals to allow fracking firms to drill beneath people’s homes and land without their permission is, to put it mildly, clearly hugely controversial and deeply unpopular. Ministers, however, are not listening to the public concern that has been expressed, although they keep talking about how important it is for the public to buy into fracking.
For me, the bottom line is that an effective response to climate change requires a complete shift to a carbon-neutral energy system within a generation in all the major economies, including Britain. We know how to do that: we have the technology and engineering capacity to do it, and we can afford to do it. All that we need is the political will, because we cannot do it while making ourselves more, not less, dependent on any kind of fossil fuel. According to the United Kingdom’s former top energy and climate diplomat, John Ashton,
“You can be in favour of fixing the climate. Or you can be in favour of exploiting shale gas. But you can’t be in favour of both at the same time.”
The Bill also provides for a duty to maximise the economic recovery of UK oil and gas. That flies in the face of the need for us to leave the vast majority of existing fossil fuel reserves unburnt if we are serious about tackling climate change. There was a growing amount of cross-party consensus on that imperative during last week’s debate on fracking. I hope that the Minister of State followed that debate, and I hope that his views on unburnable fossil fuels—and the financial risks of the carbon bubble—have changed since we debated such matters two years ago, when he maintained that my concerns were
“not only outside the mainstream, but, arguably, on the very fringe of the debate.”
That was his normal courtesy. I am only sorry that he is not present to hear me respond to it. He then told me that I should
“think again about the Government’s position.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 828-30.]
Given that the Governor of the Bank of England is now among those who are agreeing that most existing fossil fuel reserves need to be unburnable and need to stay below ground if we are to keep climate change below 2°C of warming, I hope that the Minister himself has had an opportunity to think again.
Meanwhile, the potential of UK renewables is huge. The sector already supports more than 100,000 jobs. Solar PV, which is just one of many diverse technologies that are at our disposal, could alone support nearly 50,000 jobs by 2030, and could power the equivalent of 18 million homes. A thriving home-grown renewable energy sector should be a top priority for the Bill, but, apart from the references to community energy rights, it is entirely absent. I think that we should replace the duty to maximise oil and gas exploitation with a duty to maximise sustainable energy generation from the UK’s wind, wave, solar, tidal and other renewable sources.
As for housing, energy efficiency should be the United Kingdom’s top infrastructure priority, and there should be funding to match. Retrofitting the UK’s leaky housing stock is the only permanent solution to fuel poverty and high energy bills, issues that I know are a high priority for my constituents. It is essential if we are to meet carbon targets, and it is also an economic no-brainer. Research for the Energy Bill Revolution campaign shows that an ambitious energy efficiency programme could create 108,000 new jobs, and would generate £1.27 in tax revenues for every £1 invested.
We need that retrofit programme, but new housing is important as well. The Bill, however, introduces an unforgivable dilution of the zero-carbon homes standard, and an exemption that could mean that up to 80% of new homes in some areas will not have to comply. That might be good news for the profit margins of developers who have been lobbying for it, but it is definitely bad news for carbon emissions, bad for home owners who will face unnecessarily high bills as a result, and bad for British businesses that would otherwise see a stable and growing market for on-site solar power and other renewables.
The Government’s arguments simply do not stack up. The UK Green Building Council and the Royal Institute of British Architects have pointed out that the exemptions will result perversely in higher costs for small-scale developments. They have also pointed to the dire lack of evidence to back up the Government’s claim that the exemptions would bring forward more house building activity from small builders.
Finally, I shall briefly put three areas of remaining concern in headlines, as I know others want to speak. The Bill fails to include measures to strengthen the UK’s resilience to flooding and other climate impacts such as urban heat waves. The provisions on invasive non-native species need to be rethought if they are not to threaten much-loved species such as beavers and barn owls. The changes to the planning system raise serious concerns that the quality of decision making and the rights of local people to have a meaningful say over development in their area are being sacrificed, along with so much else, on the altar of corporate convenience and speed.
Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)
I am very pleased to be able to contribute to the debate. The Bill is wide-ranging with many good features and I shall certainly be supporting its Second Reading, but it is certainly also not beyond improvement and I want to focus on one particular area where I believe improvements are urgently required.
The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) and the hon. Members for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) referred to the legislative provision for the introduction of zero-carbon homes standards in 2016, which is the focus of clause 32. When I was a Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government I was very pleased to have my signature on the regulations that raised the standards of new housing energy performance by 25% compared with 2006, and I was very pleased that at that time we could renew the ongoing commitment for the zero-carbon homes standard to be achieved in 2016. My successors in the Department have seen a further upgrading in October 2013 and again a renewal of the commitment to achieve that standard in 2016. Clause 32 is the enabling clause to make that happen.
The problem is that behind that clause lies what appears to be an intention by the Government to introduce something that will not achieve zero-carbon homes in 2016. That will clearly need to be put right in Committee. There is a two-stage process in achieving zero-carbon homes. The first is to set minimum carbon compliance standards for the building itself. That is partly about the fabric of the building—the walls, the insulation and the solid bits of it—and it is partly about whether or not renewable energy generation, such as solar panels on the roof, is installed in the building. That is the on-site provision—the minimum carbon compliance standard. The UK Green Building Council and the Zero Carbon Hub taskforce have made recommendations about how that can be achieved, but it cannot always all be achieved on site. The design, layout and orientation of the site may not make that possible.
There is also a second stage: that the remaining carbon saving will be achieved off site through allowable solutions. A range of things can be done, such as the builder doing it off site themselves or paying into a fund —a payment that is based on the price of the carbon that is being saved. A key decision is how challenging to make that first stage of on-site provision, and therefore how much spills over into the off-site provision.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) commented on the impact on London of having a high level of spillover to the allowable solutions and his concern that investment might move out of London as a consequence. In preparing clause 32, the Government sensibly asked the Zero Carbon Hub taskforce to advise them on what standard to introduce. The group recommended that the minimum on-site standard to be achieved before allowable solutions could be used should be an improvement of between 56% and 60% on the energy performance standards of 2006. We must bear it in mind that we have made something like a 33% improvement with the two upgradings that have taken place under this Government so far. The figures of 56% and 60% are based on the building type involved, because it is easier to generate savings from some types of house than from others. The recommendation goes on to say that in the case of flats, which are particularly awkward, we should be heading for a 44% improvement in energy performance standards compared with 2006.
The Government have responded by not accepting the proposal for an improvement of between 56% and 60%. Instead, they are going to apply the figure of 44% to all building types—the lower level of saving that the taskforce recommended only for flats. That is a matter of concern, and it is difficult to understand why the Government have come to that conclusion. Was it because of cost, or because of the impact on the market? When the commitment to building zero-carbon homes by 2016 was signed off by the Department in 2011—I announced it from the Dispatch Box, so I know it happened—the assessment was that that was deliverable and affordable, and would have no adverse impact on housing starts or housing delivery. Instead, it would cut the fuel bill of a new zero-carbon three-bedroom house by £1,200 compared with that of the highly desirable Victorian homes that so many of us aspire to have.
What has happened since that assessment and that announcement? The first thing to say is that, since that time, the cost of doing it has been halved. It has not gone up; it has been halved. Upgrading to zero-carbon home standards will now cost only 50% of what it would have done if we had done this in 2011. That is a 50% cost reduction in three years. By 2016—or, probably more realistically, by 2018, 2019 and 2020, when the homes are actually being built—it is likely that the cost will have been halved again.
In the meantime, I have taken the precaution of asking the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions whether it was still the Government’s intention to be the “greenest Government ever”. His response was a strong, positive yes. So my question to the Minister, and the issue that I want to explore as the Bill proceeds through Committee, is, why have the Government wobbled? It certainly was not as a result of the consultation they held, back in 2013, when 70% of the consultees were in favour of the standards proposed by the taskforce. We have heard about the consultation on fracking. Well, here we have a Government policy with a 70% approval rating that would cost at least 50% less than the Government thought it would when they first put forward the proposals. It therefore seems really strange that they should be watering down a policy with a lower cost outcome which is supported by 70% of consultees.
There is also the question of small sites. I am already on record in this place as saying that I think the size limit for small sites should be zero. I do not think there should be a small site exclusion, because that could open the door for unscrupulous developers to fiddle their site sizes and their phases so that they did not comply with the new standards. I am even more concerned about the false market that could be created in the longer term, whereby buying a home built on a small site could give someone higher bills than a home built on a larger site. What possible rationale could there be for that? I can see no logic in it or justification for it. It would ultimately be detrimental to the consumers who bought the homes if lower standards applied to them.
I hope I have said enough to ensure that the Whips do not put me on the Bill Committee. I hope I have also made the case that the Bill increases and improves the energy performance standards required of new homes. I do not deny the Government that, but they have unnecessarily hobbled themselves. They have failed to be as ambitious as they could be or as the consultees wanted them to be. There is an opportunity now to put that right and make sure that we take a genuine, positive, large step forward to zero-carbon homes in 2016.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I agree with every word that the right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) has just said. His speech follows on from the constructive work that he did when he was in the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Having learned that we are burning fossil fuels and bringing about climate change on such a scale that it could destroy our planet, I find it almost insane that we should be bringing forward proposals that would mean our relying on another form of fossil fuel. I totally oppose the development of fracking in this country.
I shall concentrate on part 1, which deals with the Highways Agency and the road network. Sometimes I feel like shaking people in this building. There seems to be a loss of collective memory. Part 1 is the first stage towards the privatisation of our road network and it is on the same scale as the privatisations of rail, water and energy under the previous Conservative Government. I have the same dystopian vision of what will happen: once a GoCo has been set up, it will be broken up into regional franchises and sold off, almost inevitably to foreign-owned companies, most of them state run, exactly as 80% of the rail industry has been sold off. The story of the energy and water industries has been similar. There will then be the introduction of tolls, exactly as laid out in the Government’s response to the Transport Committee, and the tolls will fund exorbitant profiteering by those companies.
The House needs to wake up and recognise that the Bill represents the privatisation of our roads. We should be honest with the electorate and warn people that that is the consequence of the Bill. Why am I saying that? It is evidenced by what has gone on throughout this Government and previously. There is a loss of collective memory of what happened when the Conservatives were last in government. Throughout the 1992 to 1997 Administration, there were proposals to build on the privatisation of rail, water and energy by also privatising roads. In 1992 the Government published “Paying for Better Motorways”, in which they said that they would establish a single Government-owned company funded by road levies—that is, tolls—and possibly break it down into a number of privatised regional franchises, as has happened with rail and water. That was the Conservatives’ plan when they were last in power; now it is being implemented under a coalition Government. I hope some of the coalition partners wake up to the consequences of the Bill.
What other evidence is there? The plan is evidenced by the appointments that the Government have made to the Highways Agency. They brought in Tom Smith. Who is Tom Smith? He has just been put on the Highways Agency board. He is the chief executive officer of the M6 toll road. The Government brought in Elaine Holt. What was she? She was headhunted by the Department for Transport to lead on the east coast railway line—first in public sector management, but then to prepare it for privatisation.
All the evidence is there of the Government preparing for the privatisation of our roads. We saw it with the A14. The more recent proposals for the improvement of the A14 included tolling on that road, but there was such public uproar that even the Government had to pull back. We saw the evidence in the Government’s response to the Transport Committee. Paragraph 79 states:
“The Government will consider tolling as a means of funding new road capacity on the strategic road network. New road capacity would include entirely new roads and existing roads where they are transformed by an improvement scheme”
—that is, the investment programme announced last week. The strategy, as far as I can see, is to invest as much public money as possible to bring the roads up to a certain standard in the current period so that they can be privatised under the new agency that will then be broken up into regional franchises.
I note that clause 1 refers not to “a highways company” but to “highways companies”, to enable the Secretary of State to amend the legislation, under the Henry VIII clause later in the Bill, to enable regional franchises to be set up. I warn all the travelling public—motorists, cyclists, pedestrians and others—that our road network is about to be sold off, they will soon be fleeced by tolls and the tolls will subsidise the private profits of foreign companies. If anything provides evidence of that, it is the example of what happened to rail, energy and water when the Conservative party was last in government.
Having said all that, I wish to raise a number of issues on which I would like a response during the debate. I am concerned about the 3,500 staff, who, until now, have been commended for their hard work, commitment and professionalism. What will happen to them? TUPE is not provided for in the Bill. We have argued for it time and again, and in the past four and a half years TUPE has been put into only one Bill. All we have been given, yet again, are assurances that the staff will be covered by COSOP, the Cabinet Office statement of practice on staff transfers in the public sector—the protocol agreement similar to TUPE, but not as enforceable. I reiterate that to give the 3,500 staff greater security we should insert a TUPE commitment in the Bill.
There are arguments to be made about the financial savings and the claim that they will be £2.4 billion. I note the debate over whether VAT is to be charged. First, the Treasury denied that the VAT would be saved and therefore the cost could be, over six years, some £2.4 billion—almost the savings the Government are seeking to find. Then, in the other place, we were told that there was a guarantee that VAT would not be charged. I think that is open to legal challenge. We need greater certainty, otherwise this whole operation will be jeopardised from the beginning.
We also need more details about the monitoring exercise, as we have a monitoring body that is not a regulator, no complaints procedure, and no information about the costings or the investment in the operation of the body. One of the worst aspects of privatisations in the past has been the way that remuneration at the top has gone through the roof while wages elsewhere in the organisations have not risen. We are told that remuneration will somehow be controlled through a central review. I do not think such constraints have worked elsewhere when these agencies have been set up—quite the reverse. I would like to see a ratio put in place between the highest paid and those who are on average earnings in the organisation. In that way we may be able to control the overall levels of remuneration in the future.
I am also concerned about clause 17, the Henry VIII clause, which puts such wide-ranging powers into the hands of the Secretary of State. We have now been assured that, through clause 46, the affirmative procedure will apply in respect of any changes in the legislation to be undertaken by the Secretary of State, but I am not convinced that that procedure gives those democratic protections of accountability to this House. I urge that the super-affirmative procedure be looked at.
Mr Hayes
I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. Gentleman but I want to make it perfectly clear that the Government and this Minister—I am the roads Minister, after all—have no intention of privatising our roads; have no intention of not having clear lines of accountability to both Government and this House for the work of the new agency; will set the priorities; will set the strategy; and will hold those responsible for delivering it accountable. I do not want to spoil the party, but I am afraid that he is fantasising.
John McDonnell
The Minister has not spoiled the party because I have no confidence or trust that this Government will not privatise. Assurances have been given on the Floor of the House about privatisation before and it has gone ahead. This Bill is the first step towards privatisation and towards introducing tolling on our roads—a new form of funding the road network that will be open to profiteering by foreign companies. I warn this House that if it passes this legislation, it will put at risk our road network in the future, our taxpayers and the future environmental policies that might be able to protect us against climate change.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
I will not detain the House for long, so that remaining Members get a chance to speak. I have just a few points to raise, as many issues have been dealt with exhaustively. My hon. Friends the Members for Wealden (Charles Hendry) and for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) spoke about gas storage. As I understand it, enough applications for gas storage have already been approved, but they have not been carried through. I raise the matter because Halite in my constituency has made an application for gas storage. It has been turned down three times—once by the previous Government and twice by this Government. It is now on its fourth application. I just want to underline the fact that we in the area are against that permission being granted, and I have the support of my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), for Fylde (Mark Menzies) and for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace). This is to do not with gas storage in the future but with the issue of approvals. The application from Preesall in Lancashire has not been approved and has been turned down three times. I just wanted to put the record straight on that.
The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) mentioned the matter of neighbourhood planning and raised some very sensible points. He and the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) talked about the ability locally to influence not just the number of houses but the style of houses. I wish I was in the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and able to get approval for a few more bungalows, so that older people could downsize but stay in the villages where they have always lived. I hope that the Bill delivers some real power to neighbourhood planning, as local people need a say in the type of housing required.
As Members expect, my main point is to do with clauses 38 to 40 in part 5 on geothermal energy—or fracking. Clause 38 (1) says:
“A person has the right to use deep-level land in any way for the purposes of exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy.”
As I understand it, the Government are trying to win popular support for fracking. To have such a clause in the Bill will act as a red rag to a bull. That subsection is reinforced by clause 39 (3), which says:
“The right of use includes the right to leave deep-level land in a different condition from the condition it was in before an exercise of the right of use (including by leaving any infrastructure of substance in the land).”
Whoever secures such a right can leave whatever they want below the land. As the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) said, a system already exists for securing such rights—people could argue their case before the courts. We are now removing that right. Some Members, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), for whom I have a great deal of respect, are telling me that there is nothing new in that, citing the example of the coal industry. Come to parts of Lancashire and see the ravages of the coal industry and coal mining in terms of subsidence and the fall in housing values, and tell me about support. If there are Members who believe in the issue and wish to win the political and community argument, I suggest that fewer references are made to the depredations of coal.
Unlike the hon. Members for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) and for Angus, I have no ideological argument against shale, but what many of us in Lancashire have said about winning the debate is that, unlike coal and other massive developments, there should be a real return for the people most affected. A number of Members, across parties, have been trying extremely hard to get that message across. To some extent, there has been some give. The references that the Chancellor and the Secretary of State made to a sovereign wealth fund, which some of us argued for on behalf of Lancashire but which has now become a sovereign wealth fund for the north—I have some views about Yorkshire sharing in anything that we produce—shows that there has been movement.
The argument is that it is the people most affected and closest to the operation, not just the Chancellor and the companies, who should get the long-term dividend from the operation. However, the Bill does not define the payment scheme. Clause 41(1) states:
“The Secretary of State may, by regulations, require relevant energy undertakings”
to make payments. I know that that is the terminology we use in the construction of Bills and laws, but the Government are trying to win an argument about the need to develop shale as rapidly as possible. I buy some of those arguments. I buy the argument on the need to replace coal, and the argument that renewables will not certainly exist in the quantities we need to fill the gap. I buy the argument that gas may lower carbon emissions for the time being. However, I do not believe that clauses such as those in such a complicated Bill will win anybody over in my part of Lancashire. People will not have the confidence that their concerns are being dealt with effectively until Ministers come forward and explain the situation.
Whatever happens with fracking—the security of the aquifers and the rest of it—it will, at the very minimum, cause disruption. I have argued long and hard in the House. I understand that Ministers are beginning to listen, but currently their argument is back to front. They should have come forward with much more definite answers. What are the returns for people in Lancashire who will be putting up with that new industry? Currently, I am not able to support that part of the Bill.
Mr Hayes
I hope I can persuade my hon. Friend to support the Bill on this basis: as a result of the arguments he and others have made, including the arguments made by Opposition Members during my speech, I will be happy to convene a meeting with Members who have concerns about the community interest in the exploitation of shale. We have debated that in the House and I have spoken about it. I am more than happy to ask the Department of Energy and Climate Change to convene such a meeting. I hope, on that basis, that my hon. Friend will change his mind about supporting the Bill.
Eric Ollerenshaw
I am grateful to the Minister, but with great respect—I have great respect for him as a Minister—we have had meetings and more meetings, and I have to go back to Lancashire and explain to people what the Bill means. As I have said, I understand the terminology we use, but when it comes to my support for the Bill, I am not convinced tonight that I have a definite figure for the benefit for Lancashire.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I welcome the Bill because I believe infrastructure is the key to our economy and recovery. I managed to secure £123 million-worth of investment for a link to the M6 motorway in my constituency. That road has been discussed for 60 years. My constituents can now see that vital route being built, and are grateful to the Department for Transport for giving the road the green light, if hon. Members will excuse the pun.
The road has brought with it an upgrade to the port, a footprint for the third nuclear power station in Heysham, and countless contracts for business in the White Lund industrial estate, not to mention a projected rise in house prices in the area. My constituents know only too well the benefits of infrastructure to our local economy.
No area in the country should be left to stand still, and I welcome the Government’s ambitions for a northern powerhouse. My constituents welcome the Chancellor’s vision, because they believe that too many of our past Governments’ policies have benefited only the south of our country. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. There seems to be some kind of noise. Is it the hon. Gentleman’s phone or is something else being picked up?
David Morris
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I welcome the Bill’s sentiments, which allow for long-term funding for strategic road building projects. A much needed strategic link in my constituency is a transport tunnel under the bay towards the Furness peninsula. A transport tunnel on that scale is the obvious next step as an extension, or phase 2, of the M6 link project. It would not only link the M6 to the port and nuclear power stations in Heysham, but create a streamlined route for access across the bay to the nuclear installations and BAE Systems on the Cumbrian coast. I want a tunnel that would allow two-way traffic between Heysham and Barrow. Currently that journey takes approximately one hour and 30 minutes, but a tunnel would cut it to 20 or 30 minutes maximum, saving more than two thirds of the journey time and freeing up traffic on the road in a vast rural area.
The inspiration for such a tunnel is twofold. For many years various groups have discussed how to link those two strategic areas, and there have been suggestions of a cableway across the bay and a barrage bridge over the sands. Before the economic downturn in 2007, £800 million was reportedly on the table from the Bank of Scotland to construct a barrage, but due to Morecambe bay being designated a site of special scientific interest and a habitat for rare birds and wildlife, the idea never became a reality. It shows, however, that there is commercial interest in linking the two areas.
Early this year I was approached by National Grid, which as part of connecting new energy installations in Cumbria came up with the idea of a power cable under Morecambe bay. The idea is currently under consultation. National Grid believes that as the tunnel would go under the sands and would not disrupt wildlife, it will not come up against the same environmental constraints as the barrage project did. National Grid invited me to Willesden junction in London to see the power tunnel that is being built underneath us right now, and to show me the technology it used. I was fascinated by the visit, which showed me that the technology for a tunnel not only exists in this country, but that it is being utilised as we speak. We have some of the best tunnelling experts in the world, and if a power tunnel can be built under the sands there is no reason why a transport tunnel would not be a viable option.
In my constituency, funding is becoming a bottleneck. Since becoming Member of Parliament I have secured more than £700 million of investment from the Government, and the area is booming with business. Opening the area further to the Furness peninsula would greatly benefit the many manufacturing and energy companies on my side of the bay and the peninsula. On the Cumbrian coast we have BAE Systems, Sellafield, and the National Nuclear Laboratory. If workers at Heysham power station in my constituency could access those sites more easily, it would create greater scope for the sites to work together. A tunnel would create more employment opportunities in science and technology for young people in my constituency. Both areas have expertise in energy and engineering, and if they linked together it would create an Aberdeen effect for skilled workers in both areas.
Due to the M6 link, Heysham port is receiving an upgrade to enable it to process larger and bigger ships. A faster link to Furness would mean that more companies on the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland and Cumbria would be able to use the port, creating more jobs and economic benefits for the area. A link under the bay would also help the local University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust. Under the last Government the hospital faced many problems, and recent reports suggest that the biggest factor holding the trust back was the locations of the two sites. Lancaster and Barrow are not naturally linked, and it is a long and stressful journey to travel between the two. It is difficult to transport staff and patients between the two sites, and even more difficult to practise a joined-up approach. A tunnel would halve the journey between the two sites, allowing them to work more easily and closely together.
The tunnel would go not fully into Barrow but across the coast to Heysham where it would join the existing road network. Residents from both sides of the bay have contacted me in recent weeks to express their support for the scheme, and it seems to have captured public imagination. For such a project to go ahead we would need private entities to come forward and agree to proceed with it. As I said earlier, £800 million was on the table for a barrage about five years ago, and there is no reason why such a project should not attract the same investment again.
I am in talks with the local enterprise partnership in Lancashire, and hope that it will fund a feasibility study. I will meet representatives from it in the next few weeks to discuss the proposal further. The transport tunnel is a huge undertaking that will require a considerable amount of investment, but I have a can-do attitude and firmly believe that after securing funding for the M6 link project after 60 years of deliberation, no scheme is too big to be delivered. I look for guidance from my right hon. Friend the Minister as to how the tunnel could become reality and economically boost Morecambe and Lunesdale, and how this Bill can help my constituency become more of a part of the Chancellor’s northern powerhouse.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to be called to finish the Back-Bench contributions to the debate. I wish to touch upon a number of items in the Bill, but I will focus primarily on one specific area. Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides have used various terms to describe the Bill, including a rag-tag Bill. I prefer to call it a Christmas tree Bill, given that we are in the festive season, because many things appear to have been hung on it.
I will first mention one point the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made on the design of new homes. She touched on something that is incredibly important for my constituency, which has an older population and where a considerable number of new houses are being built. The overwhelming majority of those new houses have bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs and living accommodation downstairs, but not living accommodation that could easily be reconfigured to cater for the needs of someone who is disabled or could become disabled, or who would not wish to have a chair lift fitted when they grow older or to move home. I urge the Government to give some serious thought to what measures could be introduced to encourage developers to build some future-proofing into new houses as they are being designed and as they go through the planning stage, because at the moment one size certainly does not fit all.
My purpose in rising tonight is to talk about an issue that concerns my constituency and that many other right hon. and hon. Member have touched upon: shale gas and fracking. It was back in 2011 that I secured my first Adjournment debate on the matter, and I have had subsequent Westminster Hall debates, in which my hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) and for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) participated.
One of the things I called for in 2011 was the establishment of an independent body to oversee shale gas regulation. The purpose was not to supersede the regulators, but to ensure that the regulations that were in place and were likely to be in place were fit for purpose. It was partly as a result of that call that the Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil was born. I know that it was the Minister here tonight, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who was responsible for establishing that body, but I think that since he left the Department that body has not continued to flourish in the way he had originally intended. I ask the Government to ensure that that body is fit for purpose and adequately resourced and that it looks at issues such as community engagement and involvement, because that is one of the things that has fallen by the wayside.
It is not sufficient to say that the regulations are robust and adequate; we must demonstrate that they are robust and adequate. We must also have enforcement on the ground. For the Health and Safety Executive, which is based in Aberdeen, to say that it can do all that from Aberdeen without any presence on the ground in Lancashire is completely unacceptable to me, to my constituents and to people in Lancashire. If it wants to have a serious role—it is the only body that can have a serious role in this—I think that it has to have a permanent presence in Lancashire, and not just at the development stage, but from the earliest point of the exploration phase.
That brings me to the Environment Agency, which should have responsibility, above all agencies, for ensuring the safe and thorough regulation of environmental aspects. It really concerned me when a colleague who is a Lancashire county councillor highlighted to me that Lancashire county council had been in discussion with both Cuadrilla and the Environment Agency over the site at Preese Hall, which is located in my constituency. The council requested that the Environment Agency monitor the site for a period of up to five years. It then discovered that it had no powers to compel the Environment Agency to conduct that monitoring. The agency expressed reluctance, or even refused, to conduct environmental monitoring at the site and said that that obligation should fall on Cuadrilla.
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend knows, as you do, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I eat reluctant bureaucrats for breakfast. If there is any such reluctance on the part of the Environment Agency, Ministers must ensure that it is aware of its responsibilities in this regard. I pledged to have a meeting with concerned colleagues, and I am more than happy to explore at that meeting what extra measures we need to put in place to ensure that the Environment Agency does its job. I am not aware that it is not doing it, but if there is a problem, let us for heaven’s sake deal with it.
Mark Menzies
I thank my right hon. Friend for that assurance.
As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) said, when the Bill gets into Committee we will have to be rigorous and specific in considering certain amendments as to how we can improve regulation and its enforcement, and make sure that that regulation is absolutely robust. If I had had the opportunity to intervene on him, I would have welcomed his sentiments on that point, which, to be fair, the Minister also made in his opening speech. Based on those two assurances, I will support the Bill’s Second Reading. However, I will be unable to support its further progress if, in Committee, we are unable to improve regulation and I do not get assurances on how it will be enforced. That would cause me great sadness, because the Bill contains many good things that are unrelated to shale gas.
It is important that Labour Members do not fall into the trap of seeking to turn this into a party political football. The licence round in my constituency was awarded under the previous Labour Government; indeed, the Leader of the Opposition may even have been Energy Secretary at the time. It is therefore beholden on them to make sure that regulation is in place. It is no good their now saying that they do not support shale gas fracking, because if that was their sentiment when the Leader of the Opposition was Secretary of State, they should not have ventured down that path to start with. We must work together on behalf of our communities to ensure that regulation is robust. If it is not, and we get to a point where this cannot be done safely, then the only way to proceed is to say, “Thank you very much, but it’s not right for us.”
I want to make a point to those on both Front Benches about planning processes. Two planning applications are before Lancashire county council. I have deliberately avoided getting involved in trying to influence its decision one way or the other, because I firmly believe that it is the role first and foremost of a planning committee— in this case, the council’s mineral rights authority—to consider the merits and the negatives of a planning application. If it feels, as a result of due deliberation, that rejecting one or both sites is the right thing to do, we must accept its will. It would be wrong to trigger a process of judicial reviews and central Government seeking to overturn that decision. I believe, above all, in the importance of localism and of taking local people with us on these matters. If local councillors feel that they have taken the right decision, we must stand by them on that. There can be no easy way out and no expectation that someone further up the food chain will take a difficult decision for us. If the answer is no, then that is where we have to be.
If shale gas fracking does proceed and inspections start to take place, they must include a large number of unannounced inspections. It is no good letting the operator know when the inspectors are coming, although there will be times when that is necessary. Unannounced, and rigorous, inspections have to be the core of what we are seeking to do.
I say to Government Front Benchers that for the past four years I have worked to highlight the concerns of my local residents. I have also worked with various Ministers to make sure that we can improve the process under discussion. The caveat of my support has always been to make sure that the regulation is robust and that it can be done safely, but if it cannot be done safely it should not be done at all.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
We have had a really good debate, with interesting contributions from Members on both sides of the House. I want to start by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) for making a powerful point about how unworkable the Bill will be if this Government’s approach to devolution is accepted. I also thank him for his comments on the need for a balanced approach to deemed consent and the need to update new towns legislation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) made an excellent case for the need for long-term planning for sustainable development. I also thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). He is no longer in his place, but I totally agree with him on the need to overhaul our system of compulsory purchase orders. Labour has made it very clear that we would do that, and he was right to point out that it is a mission set by this Bill. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) gave a very good list of all the things it would have been helpful to discuss this evening in terms of adding to our infrastructure but that are omitted by the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made an excellent point about the need for more measures to deliver more housing and said that those homes should also be accessible.
As always, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) made an excellent case supporting better climate change measures in the Bill. He also highlighted why we must not weaken the carbon abatement measures that should be in existence.
The right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) made an important point about the need to have infrastructure in place if we are going to deliver the homes needed in communities that people want to live in. I also agree with him about the importance of neighbourhood planning in this process. That point was also raised effectively by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw).
I am not quite sure whether the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) was arguing that graffiti is an invasive species and should be removed and not be part of the Bill. Unfortunately, he is not in his place to clarify that point.
Lastly, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), the Chair of the Transport Committee, for addressing the need for longer-term strategic planning and funding for transport, as well as the need to put transport planning in a wider context. Clearly, that is missing from the Bill.
I am sure we all agree that the subject of the Bill is really important. We all know that if we are to facilitate developing our economy, then upgrading old and delivering new infrastructure is vital. Our problem with the Bill is that it promises a lot but in reality delivers very little. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test said, this is a ragbag of measures. The Bill claims that it will bolster investment in infrastructure and improve Britain’s economic performance. It claims that it will improve the planning process, allowing us to get on and get Britain building for the future, and that it will provide a stimulus for job creation across transport, energy, housing developments and national infrastructure.
Although we acknowledge that a few measures here and there may be helpful—such as transferring land to the HCA, and simplifying procedures for nationally significant infrastructure projects—overall we think that the Bill represents a huge lost opportunity to set out a smart framework for the delivery of infrastructure that would provide high-quality places and the necessary support systems for the nation’s future needs.
This weak legislation has been produced against a legacy of poor Government performance and investment in infrastructure and in its delivery. They may have made a flurry of recent announcements on infrastructure, but they are unlikely to make up the ground lost in previous years when infrastructure investment slumped. For example, a Cabinet Office update in May 2013 showed that the value of construction work fell by more than a third—36%—or £11.1 billion between 2012 and May 2013. We have had a fanfare of announcements about the £40 billion for the UK guarantees scheme, but few projects have actually been supported, which recently led the CBI to comment that it was
“exasperated with progress to date.”
It appears that the lack of progress on loan guarantees is reflected elsewhere, with too little support for house building, transport and green energy subsidies. Let us remind ourselves of the Bill’s inadequacy with regard to the delivery of much needed infrastructure. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) pointed out so eloquently, there is complete bewilderment about why a top-down reorganisation of the Highways Agency has been proposed. I would have thought that Ministers had learned their lesson about unwanted and unnecessary reorganisations, but perhaps not. If they have, they need to explain why a reorganisation is necessary, when the market clearly wants funding certainty. As my hon. Friend said, the highways measures in the Bill will affect only 2% of roads.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
One of the things missing from the Bill is an emphasis on park and ride. To take people out of vehicles and on to public transport, we are making public transport more accessible and more cost-effective. In Northern Ireland, where it is a devolved matter, we have already taken steps to bring in park and ride—including in my constituency just last week—and there are other examples of what can be done. Does the hon. Lady share my concern about the absence of park and ride from the Bill?
Roberta Blackman-Woods
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I am tempted to add park and ride to the long list of items omitted from the Bill that hon. Members have mentioned.
Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)
The hon. Lady is taking a glass half-empty rather than a glass half-full approach. The Government are making a number of long-term commitments for improving the infrastructure of this country. Will she at least say that she will abide by those commitments should she ever get into power?
Roberta Blackman-Woods
The hon. Gentleman will have to wait to hear what I will say about the range of provisions in the Bill.
More alarmingly, the Bill could make things worse by diverting expenditure from the road network used by 67% of traffic. These are the very roads that need urgent attention in terms of the £12 billion funding black hole for potholes, not to mention measures to reduce congestion. Most tellingly, all this means that 91% of the public are dissatisfied with the state of the roads, which the Government surely need to address.
I am going to come on to the planning measures—or rather, the lack of them—in a minute, but it is obvious to everyone except this Government that meeting our infrastructure needs requires joined-up planning between strategic and local networks. That is the sort of devolution of powers that Labour is proposing—giving powers to local authorities, either singly or in combination, so that they can plan for the needs of the area—but we see no joined-up thinking coming from this Government. All the Bill does is to propose minor changes to the national infrastructure planning regime to allow two inspectors to sit on the panel of an examining authority and to allow the Secretary of State to make changes to development consent orders once they are made.
A recent report by the London School of Economics—one of the many recent reports on this topic—argues for a new approach to infrastructure in this country. Labour has grasped that, which is why we set up the Armitt review to look at how we should approach the planning and delivery of national infrastructure projects. Armitt accepts much of the Planning Act 2008, but argues for an independent national infrastructure commission and cross-party agreement to prevent the start-stop regime that is often experienced by major infrastructure projects. To tackle that, we shall table amendments in Committee to try to persuade the Government of the sense of adopting the Armitt proposals.
Mr Hayes
Just to be absolutely clear, the feasibility studies that we carried out on the major road schemes that I outlined were on the basis of a dialogue with all the local agencies through a series of stakeholder events in which I was involved personally and the proper analysis of local needs and how they interface with the major schemes. I would not want the hon. Lady to have the misguided impression that we were not diligent in the process by which we devised our roads strategy.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
I take the point Minister’s point, but I still think we are lacking a structure that will effectively link more strategic planning for roads with local planning and delivery. Perhaps that is something that he and I can discuss in Committee.
Ian Lucas
Are not the days of largesse being distributed by central Government for transport and infrastructure projects gone? The responsibility and the decision making need to be devolved to a much more local level so that people who know about these instruments, rather than people who hold a stakeholder event on a flying visit, make the decisions.
Roberta Blackman-Woods
My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is why I spoke of the importance of devolving powers to local authorities.
On the deemed discharge of planning conditions, conditions are there for a reason, which is often to make a development acceptable to local residents. Deemed discharge, if not done properly, risks losing the support of local communities and slowing up developments. According to the Government’s consultation, the main problems for local authorities are
“delays caused by third parties and resource constraints”.
The Bill does nothing to address those issues. Deemed consent needs to be appropriate to the issues concerning a specific development. We will study the impact of the changes closely in Committee.
Speeding up the transfer of land to the HCA is clearly to be welcomed, but I look forward to receiving further information from Ministers in Committee about how much additional land the changes are expected to bring into the system. It would also be helpful to know how many stalled sites the measures are expected to bring forward. Does the Minister envisage that the proposals will lead to the availability of more land for garden cities?
Given the recent announcements by the Government, the Bill is surprisingly quiet on measures that will deliver new garden cities in line with garden city principles, rather than just housing schemes. New housing is, of course, to be welcomed, but new housing developments do not become garden cities just because the Government label them as such. Again, it appears that the Bill represents a huge lost opportunity for the Government to update the new towns legislation and deliver the homes that our country so desperately needs.
If I am flummoxed as to why there are no measures to support new garden cities in the Bill, I am equally at a loss in trying to understand why the changes to the Land Registry are necessary. The Government have given no real rationale for that measure. That has led many Opposition Members and others to worry that the purpose is simply to fatten up the Land Registry for privatisation. Perhaps the Minister could reassure us on that specific issue when he sums up.
We have concerns about watering down the standards for zero-carbon homes, and that was mentioned by a number of hon. Members. A bit of advice I would give to the Minister is to listen to his right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell), who seems to have a pretty good grasp of what the Bill should contain.
On fracking, my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Warrington North (Helen Jones), the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, the hon. Members for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton) and for Angus (Mr Weir), my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) and others said they were very concerned that there were not sufficient regulations on fracking to allay public concern, and that they will be tabling amendments, as will the Opposition, in Committee. Clearly, the Government need to address this issue further.
In conclusion, I share the sentiment of many in Parliament and beyond that the Bill could have done much more to enable economic growth and deliver the infrastructure our country so desperately needs to modernise and develop. In government, Labour delivered on infrastructure: £93.7 billion on the road network and £32 billion on the decent homes standard; and we invested heavily in renewable energy. By contrast with this Government, Labour will put measures in place to promote growth, ensure that it is defined by quality and inclusion, and encourage development that will enhance the built and natural environment of the nation. I would like hon. Members to support the reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams)
This has been a wide-ranging debate, which is entirely appropriate for a very wide-ranging Bill that spans three Departments and several Government agencies. Between us on the Front Benches we have heard from 25 colleagues, so I hope the House will understand that I cannot respond to every point raised in the time I have available. I will focus on the main points that have been raised on roads, zero-carbon homes and the energy provisions.
On reform to our national road network, the upkeep of our road network is vital for the economy. That is why the Government are investing more than £6 billion in this Parliament, and £12 billion in the next, on highways maintenance for strategic and local roads—enough to resurface 80% of the national road network and fill 19 million potholes a year on local roads. One of the provisions is to convert the Highways Agency into a company that is wholly owned by the Government. Contrary to several observations that have been made, for example by the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), there is absolutely no intention that the new highways company will be privatised. In response to the question put by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), that applies to the Land Registry, too. The reforms to the Land Registry are necessary to bring local land charges into the 21st century and digitise 348 card indexes around the country. There is absolutely no intention to fatten up either company for privatisation.
Helen Jones
Many of us remember the Government saying that they had no intention of raising VAT either. Would the Minister like to give us a cast-iron guarantee that this wholly owned company will not be privatised by this Government in the future?
Stephen Williams
I can give a cast-iron guarantee that, during the remaining three or four months of the coalition Government, there is absolutely no chance whatever of the company being privatised. As for what happens in the next Parliament, I am sure the hon. Lady is as aware as I am that no Parliament can bind another, so it will come down to the parties’ manifesto commitments.
The national road network is vital. Even though it represents only 2% of the road length, it carries 30% of all traffic and 60% of all freight and business traffic, and 90% of our constituents will use it every year. My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) mentioned the M42 and quoted from G. K. Chesterton. I am sure the Minister of State will enjoy reading it in Hansard tomorrow.
Various questions were raised about the local road network, including by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden). A duty will be placed on the new company to co-operate, including with local authorities, and the road investment strategy will provide long-term certainty of investment and clear performance and delivery expectations. This will give local authorities greater clarity on the implications for the local road network, allowing them to prioritise their investments better. The governance and performance structure will ensure that the strategic highways company forges open and effective relationships with local bodies through their route strategies.
On the hon. Gentleman’s question about spending, I can tell him that £4.7 billion has been spent on local roads this Parliament—27% more than throughout the lifetime of the last Parliament—and we have already announced £6 billion for the period 2015-16 to 2020. He also asked, as did several other Members, about the accountability of the new company. Ministers will remain accountable to Parliament for the way roads are run, and the strategic highways company will be accountable to Ministers for delivering the road investment strategy. Oversight from the Department for Transport, the strategic roads network monitor and our new Transport Focus will ensure that those strategies are delivered.
The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), made a wide-ranging speech, but in particular she mentioned air quality. The Government obviously take their air quality responsibilities incredibly seriously, and the Bill will place a general duty on the company to consider the environment, including the impact of its operations on air quality. I am sure the report her Committee published today will inform its work.
The Government have invested £400 million this Parliament to support the market for ultra-low emission vehicles, with a further £500 million being invested through to 2020. Specifically on air quality, we have committed £100 million in the roads investment strategy to support improvements in air quality and mitigation for new schemes. I shall come to zero-carbon homes shortly, but I should mention at this juncture that one of the allowable solutions for off-site carbon abatement, across the range of possible measures, could be the development of a national network of electric car charging points—one of the barriers to the growth of low-carbon vehicles. I am sure we would all want to see that.
Further public accountability will be provided by the new watchdog mentioned by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey). We will be converting Passenger Focus into a new body, Transport Focus, which will better describe its reason for existence: it will now be commenting on the state of the roads as well as the modes of transport that use them.
Finally on roads, my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) made an important point about whether the company should have a view to the design and aesthetics of road infrastructure. It was an entirely reasonable point, and it allows me to mention the enjoyable evening I had last night in my constituency, watching a spectacular fireworks display over the Avon gorge marking the 150th anniversary today of the opening of the Clifton suspension bridge. That bridge, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, is surely the most iconic bridge not only in England or the United Kingdom, but possibly in the whole world. In the 21st century, we probably cannot aspire to the magnificent standards of the 19th century, but surely we can improve on the ugly concrete slabs that characterise our motorway network as laid down between the 1960s to the 1980s.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
When Brunel was building his bridge, there was no planning and no local inquiry system. If we are really serious about infrastructure in this country and if we are trying to build an extra runway in London or HS2, it will take at least five if not 10 years to get planning permission and the local inquiry through. What can the Bill do to shorten that period?
Stephen Williams
One of its aims is indeed to streamline decision making to make sure that national infrastructure projects are built on time.
A few Members mentioned the part of the Bill that deals with invasive non-native species. Species control orders will be used to support national eradication programmes for newly arrived species in exceptional circumstances. We expect approximately only one such order to be issued a year, and we do not intend species control orders to be used where the reintroduction of former native species is undertaken legally. I hope that reassures the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, who had a particular concern about the European beaver.
The shadow Minister asked about the operation of the habitats directive of the European Union. Our responsibilities under the habitats directive extend only to protecting those European-protected species whose natural range includes Great Britain. Many of the species listed in the habitats directive, such as the crested porcupine and the marsh frog, are clearly non-native to Great Britain and could be invasive. The directive allows for derogations from protection in certain circumstances, including for reasons of public health or environmental protection.
Several Members spoke in support of the deemed discharge proposals to speed up planning consents under the Bill. The deemed discharge of planning conditions is indeed a good example of where a small legislative change, as proposed in the Bill, provides far greater certainty for house builders, other planning applicants and communities. Feedback from the sector is that local planning authorities often take longer than the statutory eight-week period to reach decisions, preventing building work from starting on sites. This measure will help to ensure that local authorities hit the deadlines that they should already be working towards.
Zero-carbon homes is the part of the Bill for which my Department is responsible, and I am particularly proud that we have got to this moment. Concerns were, however, mentioned by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell). The intention of clause 32 is to make sure that all new homes achieve a zero-carbon standard from 2016—either through on-site measures or off site where on-site measures are not physically possible. As my right hon. Friend mentioned, there have in fact been two tightenings of part L of the building regulations in this Parliament: one when he held my post in 2011 and one in April this year. Together, those two measures have increased by 30% the energy performance of new homes built with planning permissions after those dates.
From 2016, we want another 20% advance in the energy efficiency of new homes across the mix of housing. Those energy efficiency measures should be done on site where possible, but off site where not. There could be practical reasons why those energy efficiency measures could not be introduced on site. That is why it is necessary to provide for a scheme of allowable solutions. This incorporates a wide range of measures such as the retrofitting of older housing stock—several Members mentioned that there could be a great need for that—and there could be local or national schemes where we need to act together as a nation and not necessarily tie the allowable solutions scheme to local authorities.
Mr Raynsford
The Minister said—I hope I quote him correctly—that where it is possible to achieve the zero-carbon standard on site, that should be the objective, and that only where that is not possible should it be off site. Why is he proposing to break that rule in respect of developments of fewer than 10 units?
Stephen Williams
I am coming on to the proposed exemption for small sites. One sad aspect of the housing crash—when I believe the right hon. Gentleman was the Housing Minister during the last Parliament—was that a lot of small house builders left the market, and they have not yet come back. Many of the measures that the Government are taking are designed to encourage small house builders to re-enter the market. We recognise that the progressive tightening of the building regulations regime—it will have been tightened three times in five years—is a bigger challenge for small house builders than for larger ones. That is why we think that some sort of exemption is necessary. However, we have issued a public consultation so that we can hear from the sector and all other interested parties what the size of that exemption should be. I cannot prejudge the consultation, but some of the figures that have been mentioned, such as 50 housing units, are certainly well wide of the mark.
Sir Andrew Stunell
My hon. Friend referred to small builders, although the consultation document refers to small sites. Will he confirm that he is planning an exemption for small builders rather than small sites?
Stephen Williams
We will develop the proposals after we have received the results of the consultation. We want this to be a workable, practical way for zero-carbon homes to be built by house builders of all sizes, but one thing we will certainly do when we introduce the secondary legislation that will probably be necessary is to ensure that there can be no gaming of the system by anyone. I hope that gives my right hon. Friend some reassurance.
Let me now say something about the energy provisions. Britain needs more home-grown energy. We expect to be importing nearly 70% of the gas that we consume by 2025 if we do not develop other sources such as shale. We must maximise domestic production of the fuels that we need for the transition to a low-carbon economy, including gas, renewables and new nuclear, and we must use our energy more wisely.
Stephen Williams
I have limited time left.
Both coalition parties know that this is an issue of great sensitivity and concern to many of our constituents. The provisions are narrow, but the Government will listen very carefully to all concerns that are expressed in Committee and on Report, and will seek to address them while the Bill progresses through Parliament.
Duncan Hames
I thank the Minister for giving way; time is indeed short. In listening to all those concerns, will he ensure that the Bill Committee hears evidence from the Government’s Committee on Climate Change on the impact of the Bill?
Stephen Williams
I assure my hon. Friend that we will take all evidence into account in Committee, as is now the normal practice when Bills progress through the House.
The Bill deals with access to land, proposing that horizontal drilling for shale or geothermal should take place only at a depth of 300 metres or below. As the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) pointed out in a thoughtful speech, that is far lower than many other drillings underground, including the London Underground. As the son of a miner, I should mention coal mines as well.
The Bill will keep people and goods moving around the country. It will remove some obstacles to house building, and will ensure that new homes are built according to a tough zero-carbon regime. It provides for community ownership of local electricity, and will give Britain long-term energy security. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State—the roads Minister—said that the A303 improvements would be the greatest improvements in the area since the stone age. I am not sure whether that is the case, but it is certainly true that under this coalition Government, investment is revealing the greatest revamp of strategic infrastructure since Victorian times. The Bill makes possible easier delivery of that investment.
I urge the House to reject the amendment, and I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Business without Debate
petitions
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
This petition is on behalf of 426 people of Fishburn in my constituency who are opposed to children from the village paying for school transport to their feeder school, Sedgefield community college. I thank the Fishburn mums, Councillor Rachel Lumsdon, Michelle Barker, Sharon Graham, Cheryl Richardson, Claire Gibson, Tracey Cullen and Kim Wright for organising the petition.
The petition states:
The Petition of residents of Fishburn,
Declares that there are plans for the free school transport from Fishburn to Sedgefield Community College to be withdrawn; further that Sedgefield Community College is the only catchment school for Fishburn; further that the withdrawal of free school transport will cost working families £285 per year, per child; and further that the Petitioners are opposed to the implementation of a charge for the school bus from Fishburn to Sedgefield Community College.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Sedgefield Community College to reconsider the school’s plans to withdraw free school transport from Fishburn.
And your Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001403]
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I have great pleasure in presenting this petition from the Friends of Penkridge Library, calling on Staffordshire county council to reconsider its proposed changes to Penkridge library and keep it as a full service library, staffed by trained librarians and offering a range of services for all users. The petition, along with another local petition on similar terms, has been signed by more than 3,200 members of the community in Penkridge and the surrounding area. I pay tribute to the Friends of Penkridge Library, in particular Claire Geoghegan, Sue Roberts, Robert Mottram Jones, Bevan Craddock, Mike Smith and Anne Simms, for all their efforts in setting up and obtaining signatures for this petition.
The petition states:
The Petition of members of the community in Penkridge and the surrounding area,
Declares that the Petitioners fully support Penkridge Library; further that the Petitioners recognise the important role that the library plays for all members of the local community; and further that a local Petition urging for the proposed changes to the library to be reconsidered was signed by over 3,000 individuals. The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to encourage Staffordshire County Council to reconsider proposed changes to the library, and to keep Penkridge as a full-service library, staffed by trained librarians, offering a range of services, workshops and groups for all users.
And your Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001404]
Free Cash Withdrawals
(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to bring this subject to the House. Most of us are lucky enough to take for granted that when we need cash, we can go to the nearest hole in the wall and access our money for nothing without being forced to pay for the privilege. However, many of us do not know how lucky we are. In almost 300 areas of the UK in the bottom quartile of deprivation measures, approximately 300,000 residents are more than a kilometre from an ATM where they can access their money for free.
Thanks to action from LINK, the ATM network, and the work of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), the situation has been getting better over time. Back in 2006 there were more than 2,000 areas without a free ATM. However, the fact that in 300 of some of our poorest areas people still have to pay through the nose to access their own cash is nothing short of a disgrace. One of those areas is in the ward of Lockleaze in my constituency.
LINK produces a financial inclusion map of the UK, showing distances from the nearest free-to-use ATM. Lockleaze can be found by locating the great gaping hole over Bristol. That is Lockleaze, one of the 300 official “outstanding financial inclusion areas”. In plain English, that means people there simply cannot access free cash withdrawals.
Lockleaze is an amazing, warm and vibrant community. It is where I go to church—a shout-out to St James’s—followed by a proper Sunday roast, tea and the Sunday papers at Cookies Cafe on Gainsborough square. But if a customer needs cash for their roast chicken and spuds at Cookies, or indeed for anything else in Lockleaze, the only ATM within a kilometre charges £1.85 for the privilege of accessing their own cash. That would make anyone angry, but for those on jobseeker’s allowance, struggling and able to afford to withdraw only small amounts at a time, it is simply a massive and unaffordable hit. Do not forget that over 7 million people, often our poorest, rely on cash for their regular payments for gas and electricity meters.
The grim irony is that so many of the communities without access to a free ATM are, like Lockleaze, some of the most deprived in our country. The Lockleaze community is warm, strong and vibrant despite the fact that it is among the top 10% poorest areas nationally. Many in Lockleaze simply cannot travel the distances to access cash for free, so they are literally trapped. To put that in context, in another ward in my constituency, Westbury-on-Trym, which is not financially struggling, there are at least six free ATMs just around the war memorial roundabout. It is simply wrong that our least well-off should have to pay the most to access their money.
It is not good enough just to talk about these things for a few months, maybe set up a Facebook page, get a few “likes”, drop a few leaflets, have a bit of a whinge and then move on; it needs to change, and it needs to be sorted. And it can be. In just a few weeks of working on this, I am delighted to report that LINK is coming to do a reccy of Lockleaze next week, when we will discuss potential providers and look at the venues that have come forward. We have already found a willing potential venue in The Hub community centre, and we are already talking with interested potential providers of a free ATM.
Many of the problems we hear about in this place seem insoluble, but this is one that we can demonstrate is not. It shows what can be achieved if the issue is properly highlighted, sleeves are rolled up and real work is put in. This is not an insoluble problem. If we can sort this out in Lockleaze, it is not only individual residents who will benefit, but the whole community.
Lockleaze is seeing welcome investment and development in the area. It already boasts, as I have mentioned, an amazing community café called Cookies, run by the amazing Lou and her family, as well as a pharmacy, a newsagents and a smoothie and vegetable bar, and there is more to come. However, if people have to go elsewhere to access their cash, those who can will, and they will spend their cash elsewhere. That will leave the people who cannot travel to access their cash trapped, and it means that all this new welcome investment and the new businesses moving into the area will wither on the vine.
What can be done? The Minister will be relieved to hear that I know that the Government cannot simply sprinkle magic dust cash machines around the country. However, I wonder whether the Government could work more with the industry to identify quickly these free cash deserts, make the data more widely available and prioritise ways in which organisations such as LINK can help bring free ATMs to these free cash deserts. I am a reluctant user of regulation, but perhaps the Government could consider whether it might be possible to introduce banking regulation to mandate the provision of free cash machines by population area.
Finally, we must look at the incentives in place for shops, in particular, to act as free ATM venues and providers. I urge the Government to review the application of business rates to ATMs, and the shops that provide them, to see whether that is deterring provision. I urge local authorities to consider greater use of discretionary relief to exempt shops with free ATMs. I urge my fellow MPs—it is a pleasure to see colleagues here this evening—to look at LINK’s financial inclusion and exclusion map, which is a very interesting document, and ask themselves whether some of those 300,000 people without access to free cash withdrawal are their constituents. These actions can all be taken at a national level to help to eradicate this appalling silent ball and chain around some of our most challenged communities—but Lockleaze needs action now.
To LINK, which is coming to Lockleaze in the next few days to help find a solution, I would say, “Thank you—there is no more deserving community.” To The Hub, which is considering accommodating the ATM and has been so practical and helpful, I say, “Thank you—tell me what else you need.” To the interested free ATM providers who have been in touch, I say, “Welcome. Lockleaze is brilliant. It’s an amazing, vibrant community. It’s going places—get in there before your competitors do.” Finally, to the people of Lockleaze, I say, “We need more than words—more than moribund Facebook groups and forlorn little leaflets.”
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
We have similar problems in my constituency, where ATMs are not as available as they should be. I am sure that the Minister will be able to address the issue of how we can encourage banks and building societies to put in ATMs. Perhaps she can also consider raising the awareness of those who use credit cards for withdrawals and should be using debit cards instead. If some of these issues were addressed at this level, that would greatly assist in enabling people to get better access to cash withdrawals without charges.
Charlotte Leslie
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes an absolutely superb point about financial education and information, which could perhaps empower people to kick up a bit more of a stink about the fact that they are having to pay £1.85 to access their own cash. Often people are just getting on with it—life is pretty tough and they do not want to complain and kick up a fuss. Those people should not be having to pay this money. We should empower them to say “No, this isn’t right and we shouldn’t have to put up with it”. I hope that the Minister will address these points.
A lot of words are said in this place, but we need more than words. It is encouraging that action can be taken when Members raise matters and sleeves are rolled up, but I never promise anything before it is done. However, I do promise my constituents—this might be a slight beacon of hope for other people across the country who cannot access free ATMs when they should be able to—that I will do everything I possibly can to end the scandal of lack of access to their own cash in Lockleaze. I have every faith that the Government will do everything they can as well.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrea Leadsom)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) on securing this debate on an incredibly important matter. She has presented her case very eloquently.
I assure the House that this Government are committed to helping ensure the most vulnerable people in society have access to the banking services they need. That is why we took action to tackle payday loans, placing a duty on the Financial Conduct Authority to impose a cost cap. The Treasury, as widely reported, has been in discussions with the banks on improving the minimum standards for basic bank accounts. Only a few weeks ago, I hosted a round-table meeting with senior executives from the UK’s major banks. As part of that discussion, I set industry the challenge of coming up with new and innovative ways in which ATMs can be used to offer a wider range of banking services to consumers. I look forward to hearing back from the banks later this month. One of the most fundamental banking services—the subject that my hon. Friend has raised—is the ability of customers to be able to withdraw their own money conveniently, and free, at ATMs.
Forty-four years ago, the Enfield town branch of Barclays bank opened the first ever automated cash machine in the world—another first for the British retail banking industry. Since then, the ATM sector in the UK has been in a state of constant progress. The number of cash machines has grown from 36,000 in 2001 to over 67,000 this year, making cash far more accessible to customers. The number of free-to-use ATMs is at an all-time high, and over 97% of all ATM cash withdrawals by UK cardholders are made free of charge. Pay-to-use machines now account for only 3% of the total volume of transactions.
It is important to recognise that, in areas with greater need for free-to-use ATMs, LINK—the network that connects the UK’s ATM machines—provides subsidies to ATM providers to allow them to offer services under its financial inclusion programme. The LINK scheme is unique in Europe: it allows banks and building societies to give their customers access to cash from any ATM across the UK, no matter which bank they hold an account with. That gives customers universal access to their cash without the need to walk into a bank. Across much of the rest of Europe, pay-to-use machines are the norm and the cost of withdrawing cash is not transparent. By contrast, as I have said, the vast majority of machines in the UK are free to use, and those that are not must be very transparent with their pricing, as per LINK rules, so ATM customers typically get a good deal in the UK.
As my hon. Friend has pointed out, however, some cash machines do charge customers for the withdrawal of cash. These machines are typically operated by independent, non-bank providers, which install ATMs in areas with a low footfall and that tend to be in rural or less well-off communities where banks feel it is not commercially viable to operate a free-to-use machine. The fees they charge need to be completely transparent prior to the customer withdrawing cash, and ensuring that the service is commercially viable is the reason for independent ATM machines charging those fees. If independent ATMs could not charge, they might withdraw entirely from these sites, which would risk leaving the rural and more vulnerable communities with reduced access to cash.
I completely understand, however, the concerns of my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) regarding pay-to-use machines in less well-off communities. I am well aware that it is precisely in those disadvantaged communities that people most need affordable cash machines nearby without having to take public transport several miles to use one. Many hon. Members have made compelling cases for areas in their own constituencies. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has made representations to me in the past.
I am pleased to inform hon. Members that a programme of work is under way to address exactly that issue. LINK has developed the financial inclusion programme, which sets up free-to-use ATM machines in areas where they are most needed. The programme provides subsidies of £1 million per annum to ATM operators to allow them to operate commercially viable free-to-use ATMs. The cost of this subsidy is shared out among LINK members. Through the programme, 1,400 target areas, mainly in rural and less well-off places, have access to an industry-subsidised ATM. In the remaining difficult locations, such as areas with low population or those with a lack of suitable installation sites, LINK has launched specific, individual projects to address that and reports regularly to the Government on progress.
Jim Shannon
ATMs could be set up in post offices, because there are lots of them. There have been some discussions about this issue with the banks in Northern Ireland. Has the Minister given any consideration to setting up ATMs in post offices, where they would be accessible for people in rural communities?
Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that very good point. In fact, precisely one of the challenges I gave to the banks during my recent round table with them was to look at what more they could do to put ATMs in easy to access sites such as post offices and supermarkets.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West is quite right to question the fairness of pay-to-use machines in less well-off areas. However, where customers feel that an area lacks a free-to-use ATM, LINK has made a commitment to assess that location for the suitability of establishing one. As the number of target sites reduces, LINK also has a programme of identifying new segments of consumers for whom there may be access issues. LINK is working with Age UK and Toynbee Hall on specific projects, such as the “Older old” and “Deprived inner-city housing estates” projects, which aim further to improve access to cash for those more vulnerable members of society.
My hon. Friend’s mentioned that Lockleaze in Bristol North West has just one pay-to-use cash machine for 10,000 people. I have looked into the case, and I agree that it is absolutely unacceptable. My officials have contacted LINK, and I am pleased to say that, as she pointed out, it has committed to bringing the area into the scope of its financial inclusion programme. LINK has offered to visit the area to understand any further issues that her constituents are facing in accessing cash and locating free-to-use ATMs in the area.
In conclusion, I believe that the ATM sector is currently working well for consumers. The number of pay-to-use machines is low—only 3% of transactions are made from those ATMs—and the availability of free-to-use machines continues to rise. LINK membership rules offer consumer protection, particularly with regard to transparency of fees. The industry is taking action. For communities that have a greater need for free-to-use machines, LINK is setting them up in many places, and it is looking at how it can help segments of society that currently have difficulties.
I again thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue and for bringing it to the attention of the House. I assure her that the Government and I will stay closely involved in this issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Petition
Negligence Claims
Written Statements
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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EU Energy Council
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
In advance of the forthcoming Energy Council in Brussels on 9 December, I am writing to outline the agenda items to be discussed.
Under the first item on the agenda the Italian presidency has suggested a policy debate on the main issues essential for the governance of the 2030 climate and energy framework to ensure that the EU meets its energy policy goals. The UK will be arguing for a flexible, light-touch approach and working to ensure that the system does three key things: ensure that credible national plans are in place; enable effective monitoring of our collective progress towards EU energy goals; and respect national flexibility over choice of measures.
The Council will then be asked to adopt conclusions on the completion of the internal energy market, reaffirming the need for effective and consistent implementation and application of the third energy package by all member states and the timely adoption of network codes and guidelines. The Council will agree on the need for more investment in strategic infrastructure and a follow-up review of progress by the Commission by 2016. The UK agrees that more needs to be done by member states to complete the single market and that particular priority needs to be given to the facilitation of new interconnection and investment projects.
As part of the mid-term assessment of the “Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” all relevant Council formations are being consulted. Ministers in the Energy Council will be asked to debate the contribution of the energy sector to the 2020 economic reform strategy.
The Commission and presidency will then report on developments in external energy relations, including agreement on the terms of winter gas supplies between Russia and Ukraine, facilitated by the EU.
Finally, the Latvian delegation will inform the Council of the priorities for their presidency in the first half of 2015. They intend to focus on competitiveness and growth, the digital agenda and the EU as a global player.
CAP—Single Payment Scheme
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
The window for payments to farmers in England under the EU CAP Single Payment Scheme (SPS) for 2014 opened on 1 December 2014.
The Rural Payments Agency paid more customers than ever before on the first day and had already, on the first banking day, exceeded the end of December targets for payments.
The agency paid out £1,370,328,624 to 96,669 SPS customers. This equates to 95% of all SPS customers and 91.4% of the total estimated fund value. The target was for 93% of customers and 86% of total estimated fund value to be paid out by 31 December.
Over the last four years the Rural Payments Agency has improved beyond recognition and I am delighted that once again almost all farmers received their CAP funding on the first day of the payment window. I congratulate everyone involved at the agency in achieving another record-breaking performance in the final year of the Single Payment Scheme.
Food and farming is an economic powerhouse of our economy, worth £100 billion and employing one in eight people. I am determined to do everything I can to help this vital industry to thrive.
That is why we are making the new CAP rules as simple and flexible as possible so that farmers can concentrate on continuing to provide-high quality British food.
I will keep the House updated on the agency’s progress against delivery to customers on 2014 payments.
Mesothelioma Claims
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
My noble friend the Minister of State for Civil Justice and Legal Policy, (Lord Faulks QC) has made the following written ministerial statement:
The Government have made a priority of addressing the high costs of civil litigation in England and Wales. To that end, part two of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act 2012 reforms the operation of no win, no fee conditional fee agreements (CFAs). Those reforms came into effect generally in April 2013, but were deferred for mesothelioma cases pending a review under section 48 of the Act. The Government undertook a review in 2013 with the issuing of the “Reforming Mesothelioma Claims” consultation paper on 24 July 2013. The Government announced their decision following that consultation on 4 December 2013 (column 56WS). In particular, it announced that, following the review, the Government have decided to implement the no win, no fee reforms for mesothelioma cases. Full reasons for that decision were given in the response paper published on 6 March 2014. However, that decision was challenged by judicial review and on 2 October the High Court quashed it. CFAs in mesothelioma cases therefore continue to operate on a pre-LASPO Act basis for the time being. The decision was also investigated by the Justice Committee which published its report on 1 August. The Government’s response to that report will be published shortly.
The Government intend to undertake a review under section 48 in due course; further details on the format and timing of that review will be set out at a later date. The Court’s judgment and the committee’s report will be considered as part of that process.
Mesothelioma is a terrible disease and the Government are determined to do what it can to help sufferers and their families. Changes in the law over recent years, including the Mesothelioma Act 2014, have made it easier for victims to obtain compensation. The Ministry of Justice is working closely with a wide range of stakeholders to take forward reforms where we can improve the mesothelioma claims process further:
Provisions in the Deregulation Bill, currently before Parliament, will enable HM Revenue and Customs to restore its practice of disclosing the work records of deceased victims to their personal representatives or dependants for the purposes of claiming compensation without the need for a court order; and
We are working with the National Cancer Registration Service and others to secure resources for the implementation of expedited receipt of pathology records and imaging reports.”
Motoring Services Strategy
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)
In a written statement to the House on 15 August 2013, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), announced that the Department for Transport would undertake market engagement and a procurement competition to find a commercial partner to form a joint venture to grow the work of the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA).
I now inform the House that the competition has not been successful in identifying a suitable joint venture that would achieve the objectives of both partners.
The VCA will continue to provide vehicle testing and certification services, as it does at present. The Department will consult with a wide range of stakeholders before considering any alternative proposals.
Office for Nuclear Regulation
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is the independent regulator of nuclear safety, security and occupational health and safety at nuclear sites, created on 1 April 2014.
The ONR has prepared its strategy for carrying out its functions, including the general priorities it will apply and principal objectives it will observe when carrying out its functions. I welcome this strategy for efficient and effective regulation of the nuclear industry on behalf of the public.
I attach a copy of the Office for Nuclear Regulation strategy 2015-2020 to this statement.
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)
My Lords, it is now 3.30 pm. As is the wont on these occasions, I have to advise the Grand Committee that in the—I think unlikely—event of there being a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.
Sudan and South Sudan
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Earl of Sandwich
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are taking a lead in the diplomatic and humanitarian response to the conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the timing of this debate is very tight. The current allocation of time comes to 58 minutes, and we have a request for a two-minute speech in the gap. I would therefore be very grateful if noble Lords could be succinct.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, I warmly welcome the Minister and thank all colleagues for joining this debate. I have chosen the anniversary of the fateful coup in South Sudan last December as a reminder of the continuing conflict in the north and the south.
I start with a brief interview with a woman from Upper Nile called Nyantay, who went blind at the time of South Sudan’s referendum and then became a refugee. Nyantay, a mother of four, fled from gunfire in her village but then found herself alone. “I just kept running”, she said. She fell into holes, ran into trees and suffered from heat exhaustion. At one point she sat down expecting death. She went on, “I thought, if the animals eat me, that’s fine. If the soldiers kill me, that’s fine. I no longer felt fear”. Luckily, she was found and taken across the border into Ethiopia and later reunited with her family, whom she had presumed had died.
Nyantay has survived but many thousands have not. At least 10,000 have died in the south—perhaps twice that number. Nearly 2 million have fled from their homes; half of them are in neighbouring countries. Ethiopia now has the largest refugee population in Africa. Some 100,000 are in UN camps in the south but many of them still live in fear for their lives, the Nuer from Salva Kiir’s SPLA and the Dinka from Riek Machar’s opposition SPLA 1.0. There have been terrible massacres on both sides. With the onset of the dry season, fighting will resume and further genocide may be around the corner. One-third of children are acutely malnourished and literacy levels for women remain among the lowest anywhere.
South Sudan is now a level 3 crisis, which is the highest UN category. The figures from UNOCHA’s situation reports are staggering: 618,000 are displaced in Jonglei state alone. Can we even imagine the challenge this presents to aid workers? Nyantay, the blind refugee, nearly gave up hope and, as onlookers, we, too, at times feel helpless and hopeless. So long as the warring parties fail to agree, South Sudan—the world’s youngest country—will remain in a state of chaos.
We may ask why we should care. We should care because people are suffering; because we may have friends living or working there; because any failed state threatens its neighbours; because we, as a country, have a historic commitment, not least as one of the troika who have been continually present at the talks in Addis; and because if we do not end the conflict in South Sudan, more refugees will come to Britain.
If we do help, will aid through the Government reach the people, considering that oil revenues have gone direct to the SPLA and South Sudan is near the top of the corruption list? Did not the World Bank health programme seize up altogether so that NGOs had to take over? Is this not a reason for some to argue that we should reduce our aid budget, or will the Minister confirm my view, which is that through the UN, aid agencies and NGOs, we can and do help effectively if we apply strict conditionality? In principle, humanitarian aid is given safe passage by both sides but there are many obstacles and restrictions, especially on foreign aid workers. The UN doctrine of responsibility to protect is the hardest to apply in such conditions.
I do not want to imply that South Sudan is not functioning, because it has a professional elite and a vigorous civil society—and not only in Juba—with many NGOs and heroic individuals providing essential services where the Government have failed. I remember them from my last visit. For the moment, famine has been averted. Although the UN mission is constantly harassed by the Government, the ICRC is now active again. The British Council has stayed open for most of the conflict. Ministers and celebrities such as David Miliband are also constantly visiting. There is a Jamaican singer in town this week. The churches are preaching reconciliation and, despite widespread unemployment, people are getting by. So I ask the Minister: what part has the UK played in the recent Addis negotiations, and to what does she attribute their failure? Does membership of the troika give the UK a particular advantage? Can the Ugandan army remain on one side of the conflict when IGAD, the regional authority, is promoting dialogue?
In Sudan itself, while there is a so-called national dialogue at the political level, whole areas of the country are still cut off by civil war. The UN say that 6.9 million are in need of humanitarian assistance across the north. Over half of these are in Darfur, with 431,000 displaced up to November of this year alone. Peace negotiations with the JEM and SLM factions in Doha, and more recently in Addis under Thabo Mbeki, have stalled yet again. One can sympathise with the writer who said that Addis is just a paid holiday for wealthy male negotiators in large cars who bring home nothing for anyone else.
Meanwhile UNAMID, the UN mission, has been severely criticised by NGOs and others for inaction and providing too little security. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, can testify that it was slow to respond to allegations of rape of 200 women and girls by Sudanese soldiers. Lubna Hussein, the human rights activist, says the UK should stop funding UNAMID, as it may be causing more harm than good. DfID has turned lately more to WFP and the other humanitarian agencies. In any case, UN peacekeepers have been progressively opposed and are now reduced in numbers by Khartoum. South Kordofan and Blue Nile are the other two provinces most affected, with civilians now caught between two wars, with the overspill from the southern conflict, and continuing hostilities between north and south. Um Dorein county has suffered renewed aerial bombardment since October. Other counties see regular overflying and troop movements. Only last week, Antonovs dropped 32 bombs in six different locations. The two areas have also suffered heavy rainfall, although it is said that SPLA-controlled counties are less affected by flooding and damage to crops. However, food insecurity has raised market prices in general, and there has been a higher incidence of malaria and malnutrition.
In Abyei, since the murder of the Ngok Dinka chief in May last year by a member of the Misseriya tribe, there has been no progress in negotiations. The town is scarcely functioning, even with the presence of peacekeepers, and the hospital is short of drugs. The national dialogue, which has offered some hope to reformers, has stalled again, with Khartoum resiling from AU-backed agreement, and Islamist rhetoric taking over from serious commitment on the part of the National Congress Party. The landmarks this year have been the Paris declaration in August which brought together the Umma party and the Sudanese Revolutionary Front; the Addis Ababa agreement in September, which included members of the Government’s dialogue mechanism; and valiant attempts by the AU Peace and Security Council to bring parties to all the conflicts together. Some of us had a positive glimpse of this dialogue when Sadiq al-Mahdi came to address our All-Party Group on Sudan and South Sudan, although it is hard even for a seasoned politician to hold the line between so many power blocs.
Two points emerge. First, we should not—in our natural concern in the UK for the Christian south—be diverted from the necessity of a political solution in the north, intractable as it is. We must give the strongest support to the AU high-level panel and IGAD forums. Taking account of Sudan’s oil revenue, there needs to be a concerted international effort on the scale of the peace agreement between north and south, which, in spite of its many failures, at least led to South Sudan’s independence.
Secondly, Khartoum seems to be reverting to its old habit of suppressing legitimate opinion in the media and civil society, and there our embassy and the NGOs must be especially watchful. There have been some alarming attacks on universities and discrimination against Christians in Khartoum, including the partial demolition of a church last week.
What is HMG’s response to the Government’s attempts—and, more recently, their failure—to achieve greater openness to dialogue? How do they judge the performance of the UN mission in Darfur and the security of aid workers? Can our Government, as a major contributor to the UN’s Common Humanitarian Fund, match their generosity with more diplomatic effort and results? Finally, will they give an assurance that the Sudan unit in the FCO will survive the cuts and be strengthened, if necessary, to inform and advise diplomats, politicians and civil society? Does the Minister share my regret that the position of EU special representative was combined with that for the Horn of Africa?
We should remember that ECHO, the EU’s humanitarian agency, has warned of famine in the south. I end with the words of the new Commissioner, Kristalina Georgieva:
“Aid operations will remain inadequate as long as the conflict continues. It is the responsibility of the political leadership of South Sudan to end the unnecessary suffering of its people”.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Sandwich has a long-standing and consistent interest in the people of Sudan, and we are all indebted to him for instigating today’s debate. When the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, comes to reply, I hope that that she will share whatever information she has about the continuing humanitarian crisis in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states—which my noble friend talked about—about Khartoum’s refusal to allow charities and NGOs into the area, and about the regime’s aerial bombardment of civilian populations.
Endorsing what my noble friend just said, the South Kordofan and Blue Nile Coordination Unit told me that, last month, a total of 28 Antonov bombing raids dropped more than 130 bombs on 20 different villages. Can the Minister tell us when we last raised what Dr Mukesh Kapila CBE, a former senior British official and former United Nations resident and humanitarian co-ordinator for Sudan, described at a meeting held in Parliament as,
“the second genocide of the twenty first century … unfolding in South Kordofan”?
The first was in Darfur, and the perpetrators in South Kordofan are the same indicted war criminals and fugitives from justice.
I will use my short time today to concentrate my remarks on Darfur, where up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2 million people displaced. A further 300,000 people have been displaced this year. Darfur is a region where governance as a civil concept has collapsed, law and order are a distant memory and the social fabric has been left in tatters. The current policy responses, including UNAMID, the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur that was finalised in 2011, and the government-led national dialogue, are all wholly inadequate to address the national political and the local social and economic drivers and consequences of the crisis. Are the objectives of the DDPD now being reviewed?
In its paper, Darfur 2014: Time to Reframe the Narrative, the Sudan Democracy First Group says:
“The relevance and performance of UNAMID continues to be severely questioned by many observers. Recent events and revelations have not only shown that UNAMID is unable to undertake its mandate to protect civilians and provide protection for humanitarian actors, but it has become complicit in undermining these goals”.
Following my visit to Darfur in 2004, I welcomed the UN Security Council’s decision to send a peacekeeping force with a Chapter VII mandate to protect civilians. However, peacekeepers were only part of what was required: it was also crucial for the international community, and the UN in particular, to hold Sudan accountable for the continuing aerial and ground attacks against civilians by its armed forces and their proxies. UN Security Council resolutions imposed targeted smart sanctions on the architects of the ethnic cleansing. They should have been enforced but they were not, sending Khartoum a signal that there was little political will to hold it to its commitments under international law. Little wonder, then, that Darfur has happened all over again in South Kordofan. That failure meant that there was no peace to keep, and it soon became apparent that UNAMID was not fit for purpose, despite its annual £1.29 billion cost.
There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that UNAMID has repeatedly failed to properly investigate alleged attacks on Darfur civilians, and that it has been systematically impeded and intimidated by Sudanese security services and the Sudanese authorities, in direct contravention of the 2008 status of forces agreement signed by the Khartoum Government.
Those concerns, expressed by local people and international NGOs, have been reinforced by the testimony of former UNAMID spokesperson Aicha Elbasri. The events on the night of 31 October in Tabit, in which 200 girls and women were allegedly raped—and which I have raised in questions and correspondence with the noble Baroness—are only the latest incident in which UNAMID has failed the people of Darfur. When UNAMID personnel finally went to Tabit to investigate, they allowed Sudanese security services not only to accompany them but to film, and therefore intimidate, the local witnesses to whom they spoke.
Following Aicha Elbasri’s allegations, the UN Secretary-General set up an internal review of UNAMID—the Cooper review. However, the Security Council has not been given the full Cooper review team report, and the Secretary-General gave an incomplete summary of its contents to the Security Council. This only adds to the sense that fundamental problems at UNAMID are not being addressed as they should be by either the Department of Peacekeeping Operations or the UN Secretary-General. I hope that the noble Baroness can tell us what we are going to do to insist on transparency and accountability
As a permanent member of the Security Council, and as a general contributor to the peacekeeping operations, the UK must hold Hervé Ladsous, the head of the UN’s peacekeeping operations, accountable for UNAMID’s lamentable performance. There must be an independent external evaluation that examines Aicha Elbasri’s accusations and Ladsous’s appeasement of senior Sudanese officials. Moreover, lessons learnt must be applied to other vastly expensive peacekeeping operations, because this is hardly the first time that civilians have been badly let down by those who were ostensibly protecting them.
Dag Hammarskjöld, one of the great Secretaries-General of the United Nations, once said:
“We should … recognize the United Nations for what it is—an admittedly imperfect but indispensable instrument of nations working for a peaceful evolution towards a more just and secure order”.
He also said:
“The UN wasn’t created to take mankind into paradise, but rather, to save humanity from hell”.
What has happened in Darfur—and most recently in Tabit—does not reveal an imperfect organisation creating a more just and secure order, nor has it saved the people from the hell which Khartoum has imposed. It is our duty to say so.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, I, too, must congratulate the noble Earl on securing this short debate to question the Government on whether they are taking the lead in the response to the conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan.
It is hard to believe that more than three years have passed since I travelled with the noble Earl as part of a parliamentary delegation to Juba in Southern Sudan, as it then was, and then to Khartoum in the north. In the south there was great excitement over the referendum on the creation of a new and independent South Sudan and the prospect of self-determination. Meetings with President-elect Salva Kiir and his team of Ministers were full of promise and reasonableness, of welcoming the expertise of aid and development NGOs, and of deploying teams of volunteers to train teachers, nurses, technicians and administrators to help rebuild the economy shattered by decades of war.
Less than three years after gaining independence, South Sudan finally degenerated into civil war. Negotiations in Addis Ababa continue in their tortuous fashion, holding out the possibility of a peace agreement but, more likely, a power-sharing arrangement between the warring parties. The danger here is that many in South Sudan would see this as rewarding the aggressors without resolving the underlying issues. Of course, talks continue in Tanzania between the three factions of the governing Sudan People’s Liberation Movement—the SPLM—attempting to overcome the tensions that led to the civil war.
Many commentators take the view that a genuine national reconciliation process will be needed to bring together the different communities set against each other by this conflict. Notwithstanding the tension and outsize egos at the top of the SPLM, there is an ethnic dimension, too. President Salva Kiir is a Dinka, the largest of some 60 ethnic groups in South Sudan, many of whom are his supporters. The rebel leader and previous deputy, Riek Machar is a Nuer, the second largest group, of which many support him. When fighting broke out in December in Juba, hundreds of Nuer were killed on suspicion of loyalty to Machar. This provoked Nuer military units to defect and Machar’s rebels responded with ethnic massacres in Bor, Bentiu, Malakal and elsewhere.
The ethnic power bases of each leader are a significant part of their strength, and many believe the hardest task will not be to stop the fighting but to restore trust between the different communities in South Sudan. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that the international community has grown impatient with the failure of South Sudan’s leadership to stop the fighting. Last Wednesday, the United States warned South Sudan’s Foreign Minister that UN sanctions could be the punishment for people who stand in the way of peace.
For the past three years, the Government of Sudan have denied international aid organisations and the media access to non-government controlled areas in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, made clear. According to the US NGO the Enough Project, which campaigns against crimes against humanity:
“Taken together, the desperate situation of the people in rebel controlled areas, the Sudanese Government’s aid blockade, the indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and statements attributed to senior commanders in the government forces, lay the foundation for a case of crimes against humanity”.
While Sudan expert Eric Reeves considers the Government of Sudan’s military campaign,
“unique, presently and historically. Never has a recognized government, and a member of the United Nations, over many years deliberately and extensively bombed, strafed, and rocketed its own citizens—with almost complete impunity”.
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir on the charge of genocide, yet he travels without hindrance throughout the region.
The United Kingdom is one of the troika of nations appointed to oversee the comprehensive peace agreement process, yet our observer status apparently carries no enforcement powers. What, therefore, as a permanent member of the Security Council, is the UK doing to deliver on its responsibilities in the humanitarian and diplomatic fields? What measures is it taking within the UN to strengthen sanctions and other measures to tackle impunity, as practised in Sudan? What actions is the UK taking within the UN to hold the UN mission in Darfur to account for the accusations, so graphically described by other Members, of mass rape criminality? What further measures is the UK taking within the FCO to strengthen the UK’s response to the tragedy that is South Sudan and Sudan?
This month, South Sudan marks one year since the return to brutal conflict. The humanitarian impact has been catastrophic, with at least 1.9 million being displaced. The UK Government have responded accordingly, spending more than £143 million on humanitarian relief. However, if short-term relief is to translate into long-term recovery, emergency humanitarian aid must be accompanied by a wider focus on the risks to the development of a fair and democratic state in the long term.
Lord St John of Bletso (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandwich for securing this important debate on one of the most pressing challenges facing Africa. I wish to devote my brief contribution to current challenges in South Sudan.
I met President Salva Kiir just a few weeks ago when I was in Juba on a private visit, and was able to meet several NGOs there. My first impression on landing in Juba—it was my first time there—was that it was as though one were landing at a United Nations military airport, with few domestic airlines. It is indeed tragic that the dreams of peace and prosperity after gaining independence in July 2011 have been shattered through the recent political and ethnic power struggles. The new conflict has reversed so many of the gains achieved post-independence, particularly disrupting health services, access to clean water, sanitation, transport infrastructure and, most importantly, food security.
As my noble friend mentioned, South Sudan is now in a level 3 crisis. The country faces chronic poverty, inequality is a massive problem, and there is a growing threat of famine now that the dry season has started. Almost 2 million people are displaced, with at least 400,000 South Sudanese across the border in Ethiopia and other neighbouring countries. Many of this displaced population are in camps that are largely inaccessible to relief agencies. It is alarming that ethnic tensions and violence have returned to the forefront of intra-South Sudanese relations, with increasing mistrust of their political leadership. There is a strong supposition that both sides have used ethnicity to fuel conflict to stay in power and that the fighting has been more complex than simply Dinkas fighting Nuers. I am in no position to pass judgment, but what appears to be the case is that the military lacks decisive leadership and is deeply divided. To quote a recent Chatham House report:
“South Sudan is not a country with a military. Rather, it is a military with a country”.
Most people in South Sudan either want the security of being left alone to get on with their lives or want the SPLA to deal with threats to local security, which normally stem from outside their immediate community.
One issue that we discussed with President Salva Kiir was that of the borders. Clearly, one of the unresolved issues following the 2005 CPA is the demarcation of the borders, particularly in Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The President mentioned that he was seeking to identify the original maps to resolve this dispute.
The dramatic recent drop in oil production revenues over the past few years has also had a catastrophic impact on the economies of both South Sudan and Sudan. As the recent Chatham House report on South Sudan said:
“Politics and development are not alternatives in South Sudan, they are two sides of the same coin … It appears that Western countries, including members of the Troika, do not have a coherent policy towards South Sudan, with strongly worded statements followed up by inaction”.
There is an ever-growing groundswell of support for civil society, more specifically the churches, traditional local authorities, media and other civil society groups. Despite the continued conflict and worsening humanitarian crisis, there are a few positive developments. Since independence, there has been a revision of the national curriculum for all primary and secondary pupils, which has so far been remarkably successful. This has been funded by Global Partnership for Education and supported by DfID. I have the report here, but time restricts me from speaking to it. There is a strong need for a shared vision for South Sudan that unites rather than divides the very diverse society. Most commentators are in agreement that inclusivity is the only way in which to achieve a sustainable peaceful solution. The international community has a pivotally important role to play, but it is clear that there needs to be a more co-ordinated effort. Our Government’s work in South Sudan has made a significant contribution to addressing the MDG challenges, but we need to keep the focus.
Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Sandwich on holding this debate. In this media-driven world, there is always a risk that the perennial turmoil and conflict in Sudan and South Sudan will be just out of view and that the attention given rightly to Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, ISIS in Iraq and Ebola will keep questions about Sudan and South Sudan just below the media’s—and therefore the public’s—radar screen. At least the Guardian realises that Sudan and South Sudan need the continued attention of the world, Parliament and the Government.
When I was in Juba and elsewhere in South Sudan just before independence, there was a powerful sense of excitement and expectation, as the referendum results and their immediate aftermath showed. However, at that stage, among many external observers and analysts, that sense of expectation was more than tinged with concern about the prospects for both stability and economic development in South Sudan itself and for relations between Juba and Khartoum. So far, alas, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said so eloquently, the pessimists have been proved right.
The conflict between Sudan and South Sudan is just the kind of conflict in which well directed external pressure, encouraged by media attention, can make a real difference to both their and our benefit. I very much support the questions raised by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and look forward to the Minister’s replies. I just add one or two points myself.
First, on Darfur, I very much share the views of my noble friend Lord Alton. I well remember, when I was in the Foreign Office, the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, when a Minister there, asking me whether, with all the Foreign Office’s proper focus on relations between Khartoum and Juba, the north and the south, we risked forgetting about the humanitarian disaster then under way in Darfur. That was indeed one reason why a joint Foreign Office-DfID Sudan unit was established, and I am delighted that it is continuing and has been strengthened since then. Can the Minister assure us that Darfur continues to get to the attention that it needs at a time when, once again, focus is rightly on relations between Khartoum and Juba?
Secondly, there is the role of the European Union. Again, when in Juba, I was impressed by the European Union’s aid effort in South Sudan, which I am sure is continuing, although no doubt adversely affected by the continuing conflict. Can the Minister assure us that the US-UK-Norway troika is working closely with the European Union and that the United Kingdom is, in the jargon, leveraging its position as the only country present in both the troika and the EU?
Thirdly, there is the role of China. China has for some years now had a close relationship with Khartoum. It also has substantial interests in the south, in particular with its investment in the oilfields. It is striking that it has recently agreed to contribute to the peacekeeping forces in the UN mission to South Sudan—deficient though those forces are in many ways. China has traditionally tried to see its economic interests in the developing world as separate from the politics of individual countries and tried to avoid involvement in those politics, but China’s influence in both the north and the south mean that it can be a major player in working for longer-term peace and security interests with both Khartoum and Juba. Finally, what are the troika and the EU doing to work with China in a truly international effort to end conflict in the region?
Lord Luce (CB)
My Lords, I very much support the noble Earl and all Peers who have spoken today, who have persistently, over the years, drawn attention to the atrocities that have been committed in Sudan, from Darfur to Blue Nile province, and from Kordofan to the south, and to the humanitarian crises which face both Sudan and South Sudan.
I am probably the least expert of all Peers who will have spoken today, but on the other hand, my link goes back to the late 1940s—55 years ago when, as a child, I watched my father contribute alongside other administrators in Sudan to the move towards independence, which took place on 1 January 1956. I had very clear impressions in my mind as a teenager of the beginning of the development of institutions such as the parliament in Sudan, which I remember attending, the judiciary as it developed and the very strong administrative system and civil service. In the south, when I visited Equatoria Province in 1950, I remember the relative peace between the various Nilotic tribes but there was a very separate administration between the north and the south. At one time, the British contemplated linking South Sudan, as it now is, to east Africa in the form of a federation. That was an historic decision, which I will not comment on now, but it probably would have had profound consequences because they decided not to do so.
Since the first rebellion took place in the south in August 1955, the people of the south have lived in almost perpetual conflict. Noble Lords have demonstrated that with all the statistics they have given today—the displaced people, the deaths, the hunger and starvation, the violence, and the refugees, from Darfur to Kordofan to the south. It is simply a total tragedy. I have often thought about what our attitude should be once a country has been granted independence from our former Empire, and as far as Sudan is concerned— South Sudan above all—I have no doubt that after 60 years of colonial rule we have a moral responsibility to do our best to help the African Union and east African nations do their best for Sudan.
As far as Sudan is concerned, I want to endorse and reinforce the words of the noble Earl that there needs to be a genuine dialogue if the international world is going to recognise and support what Sudan says it wants to do. If there is to be a road to peace and unity in Sudan, it has to embrace everybody: it has to be inclusive and comprehensive. Yet the undermining of freedom of expression, the imprisoning of opposition politicians, the detention and torture of activists, press censorship, and continuing violence in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile do nothing to give one confidence that Sudan is moving in the right direction. All I can say is that I hope the Government are watching and monitoring very carefully and will give support to that dialogue only if it moves forward in a comprehensive and inclusive way.
As far as the south is concerned, it is an untenable position, above all for the long-suffering people of the south but also for the international community, because following the euphoria of independence in 2011 we have had an interminable cycle of failed attempts to end the conflict, with the militias resuming fighting time and again, and human rights abuses and atrocities, with the international community constantly needing to step in with fresh humanitarian support—against compassion fatigue, which is undoubtedly taking place, and other competing demands, from Syria to Somalia to Zimbabwe, for example. The south can be described only as having the makings of a failed state.
The first thing that the people of the south need is the ability to survive—before you can even talk about development or political institutions. To that end, I ask the Government to consider one thing, which is our experience in Sierra Leone, where there was a serious civil war in the 1990s. At that point, the United Nations, with Britain in the lead, took up a UN peacekeeping mission which was mandated by the UN Security Council. Britain led reforming the police force and revamping the country’s courts. In the past decade we have seen one of the fastest rates of development in Africa in Sierra Leone. Yes, it is a new kind of trusteeship, and I ask the Government if we can learn from that experience and see whether this is not the best way in which a new transitional Government—with the help, no doubt, of the diaspora— can hold the ring and give the long-suffering people a chance to move forward and have a decent quality of life.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)
My Lords, I thank your Lordships for allowing me to make a brief contribution to this important debate. I also express my appreciation to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for instigating this discussion.
My interest is in South Sudan. I am a trustee of AID—Anglican International Development—which manages a number of projects in South Sudan in conjunction with the Episcopal Church of Sudan: in healthcare, microfinance, sanitation, agriculture and, hopefully, education. The disruption in South Sudan caused by the conflict a year ago between Salva Kiir and Riek Machar has been devastating. Following the comprehensive peace agreement and the vote for independence, South Sudan promised so much. The potential is huge, whether in food production or in wealth creation more generally. However, for understandable reasons, inward investment is on hold; many NGOs and companies we wish to work with are not interested, in the current climate, in investing in South Sudan. This is a tragedy for the people of South Sudan.
We have to be realistic and accept that these two egotistical leaders will never reconcile their differences and that neither is now capable of uniting his country. I request of the Minister that we redouble our efforts, through the UN and the African Union, to find a solution. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, has suggested a Government of national unity, if that is possible. The current stalemate is destroying the country. If peace were to prevail today, South Sudan would have a massive uphill struggle to address health issues—it is bottom of the international league table in its health status—poverty and its dependency on aid. Without a resolution, these devastating circumstances are going to continue. The people of South Sudan had hope until 12 months ago. That hope has been replaced by despair, and we need to help them re-establish hope in the future of their country.
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl on securing this debate and thank the other speakers for their expertise and interest in this subject. We look forward to the Minister summing up and giving us the government position, particularly on the UNAMID question that has been raised by a number of noble Lords.
The people of both South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan continue to suffer in a way and to an extent that is almost incomprehensible to us in the UK and the West. Reports from both countries indicate that the inhabitants of these two states are the victims of practically every kind of outrage known to humankind. This is a story that seems very difficult to stop or to break into, however hard the rest of the world tries. There can be no doubt that the world, whether in the form of the United Nations, the African Union, various NGOs or individual countries, including our own, has employed and continues to employ considerable resources in personnel, advice and finance in an attempt to encourage peace and to get good government—or at least moderate government—in that part of Africa.
From this side, we support Her Majesty’s Government in their aid programmes to both countries. By way of example, as part of the humanitarian response to the rising food crisis in South Sudan, I understand £150 million has already been given. However, there is clearly a need to widen the international effort from other countries. As we have heard, nearly 2 million people have been displaced by a civil war that has already killed a vast number, and now the rainy season is over, hostilities have been resumed. As the Daily Telegraph wrote on 10 November,
“a resumption of hostilities … could tip the country into a full-blown famine”.
The politics of both countries seem cursed. As we have heard, South Sudan’s independence, only a few years ago now, was warmly welcomed by the outside world, but the civil war, now one year old, has changed all that. Attempts at mediation by IGAD, allowing prolonged peace talks, are of course to be praised, but the failure of three or four deals already that were meant to stop the fighting, and the recent putting on hold of a new round of talks in neighbouring Ethiopia are, frankly, not good omens.
The position of the Republic of Sudan today is hardly more promising. As was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, the Guardian is running a series of articles all week, which is very much to be welcomed. The first is out today and sets out the backdrop to where we are. President Bashir, now 70, having been in power for 25 years, now has an even greater desire to stay there, of course, because five years ago the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant so that he might face grave charges, now also including genocide. Of course, any successor might well be tempted to hand him over. The description in the paper this morning is of a pervasive climate of fear and paranoia in Khartoum.
The economy in the Republic of Sudan seems moribund. There is little hard currency because of the loss of a huge amount of oil production to South Sudan. Many teachers and doctors have left in the past few months—the figure of 4,000 is given. There is the new influx of refugees from South Sudan, to add insult to injury. Add to that 40% inflation and the effect of American trade sanctions.
It is disappointing but perhaps inevitable to end by quoting the head of the UN’s Mission in South Sudan, who told the Security Council:
“I have been shocked by the complete disregard for human life”.
That is a suitably depressing note on which to end. I hope the noble Baroness may be able to cheer us up a bit, but I fear that we have to say what we find, and the situation at the moment looks very grim indeed.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Earl on securing today’s debate at such a timely moment, as he well put it, in the development of the recent conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan. I also take this opportunity to commend the work of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Sudan and South Sudan, of which the noble Earl is an active member—as, of course, are other noble Lords here today.
Peers have practical experience of the problems facing this area, as the noble Lord, Lord Luce, reminded us of his experience. Their work together ensures that parliamentarians on all sides of the House are well informed about developments in the region. It helps to raise awareness of the dire humanitarian situation facing millions of people.
The Government listen, especially my noble friend Mr Duddridge, the Minister with special responsibility for Africa. I have made him my noble friend too soon; he will win his seat at the next election. I meant my honourable friend Mr Duddridge. We would not like him to be translated here just yet.
Today’s debate comes as we approach a grim milestone: one year since the outbreak of the current conflict in South Sudan. It had a devastating impact on ordinary people in a nation that was born amid such hope barely three years before.
The noble Lord, Lord St John, reminded us that he made a recent visit to the area and gave us a description of it. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, gave a moving example—the story of Nyantay.
Those are both examples of the background, where there are terrible humanitarian consequences of conflict. In the past year, nearly 2 million people have been displaced from their homes, almost a quarter of them to neighbouring countries. Many remain without any source of food and are dependent on the assistance of the international community, in particular the United Nations.
The conflict has led to appalling violations of human rights, with reports of villages being razed to the ground, with widespread ethnic and sexual violence. Despite the signing of a cessation of hostilities agreement in January, both sides have continued to re-arm, and have yet to demonstrate the leadership, commitment, and urgency needed to end this suffering. It is essential that any agreement brings peace on the ground of South Sudan, and also leads to an inclusive transitional Government.
The UK has demonstrated strong leadership in responding to the crisis throughout this period. At the outbreak of conflict in December 2013, the former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, my right honourable friend Mr Hague, and the Secretary of State for International Development, my right honourable friend Ms Greening, immediately called on all parties to lay down their weapons and come to the negotiating table. Our officials have worked tirelessly to press the parties on this. In New York they have worked to strengthen the UN Mission in South Sudan, and in South Sudan itself they have worked to support the safe evacuation of British nationals. The noble Earl, and the noble Lord, Lord Jay, raised the issue of the Sudan unit. To ensure that we had a proper response, extra staff were brought in to strengthen the Sudan unit during that period, but we continue to keep that under review; it is not a one-off. So we will keep our levels of resourcing under regular review to ensure that we respond appropriately to the range of government priority issues in Africa, which must include Sudan and South Sudan at all times. I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Jay, that Darfur gets the attention it needs from us.
Since January, we have been active in supporting the peace process led by the region and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, through the engagement of our special representatives and with our troika partners in the peace talks. The noble Earl asked about the troika, while the noble Lord, Lord Jay, asked about our engagement with the EU and China. Our troika partners, Norway and the United States, have been deeply involved in the region for a number of years. We work with them in a way that leverages our authority together. That includes our work through the EU. It is used as a strong method for negotiating influence and will, I hope, eventually lead to a successful conclusion. Together, we played a key role in the comprehensive peace agreement that led to South Sudan’s independence in the first instance. So we do have strong links.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, also asked about China, and our engagement there. China is an increasingly important international actor in both Sudan and South Sudan, and we engage with it diplomatically on a regular basis. In particular, our former special representative and our ambassador in Beijing have discussed the South Sudan peace process with Chinese Special Representative Zhong, and we raise the two countries regularly with China in international fora in New York and in Addis Ababa.
Returning to the peace process itself, the UK has provided expertise and more than £2 million to support both the talks and the monitoring and verification mechanism, to ensure that violations of the ceasefire are investigated, and that those who are responsible are held to account. We continue to champion the need for accountability for all the grave human rights abuses that have been perpetrated by all parties to the conflict. It is important that impunity is not permitted.
My noble friend Lord Chidgey referred to sanctions. The UK was a leading player in pushing for the EU sanctions implemented in July, and we think the time has come for the United Nations Security Council to consider sanctions. As well as leading international efforts to support peace, the UK has also been the second largest contributor to the humanitarian response. I will not repeat information given by noble Lords. In particular I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for pointing out the detail of the contribution that this country, over many years, has provided under different Governments. In particular, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to humanitarian aid. The UK has provided clean water, or improved hygiene and sanitation, to more than 180,000 people in South Sudan, and nutrition for more than 90,000.
Throughout all this, I have taken account of what has been said: severe malnutrition exists. It is something we bear in mind. There is danger to the harvest in this current season, and nobody should relax their attention as to the severe outcome that there may be for those in this whole area in the next spring. However, we think that the Government of South Sudan should do more from their own funds to support their own people. The UK is also a leading donor in neighbouring Sudan. However, I shall not repeat the figures—instead, I shall move over to other matters raised by other noble Lords, because those facts have been put in Hansard during the debate.
To end the humanitarian situation, there has to be an end to Sudan’s internal conflicts. Sadly, this year’s events in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile, have reminded us of the violence and criminality suffered by the people of Sudan. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised Darfur in particular and the violence alleged to have taken place there. I am glad that he put on record the detail of that, although time does not permit me to go into as much detail myself. He reported what is in the media. What I can say is that we are using every opportunity to press the Government of Sudan, through bilateral discussions and through the United Nations Security Council, to end this violence and culture of impunity.
The noble Lord gave the particular example of Tabit, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, referred to this as well. The fact is that we do not know precisely what happened in Tabit. We know why we do not know—because of they way in which soldiers in the Sudan army went in with UNAMID when it was making its inquiries—but we do not know the detail. It is vital that we uncover whether there were indeed such gross violations of human rights and human dignities. If those are uncovered and proved, the perpetrators must be held to account.
The Tabit case is a reminder of the difficult environment in which UNAMID operates. The noble Earl is right to draw attention to that. This makes it especially important that the mission communicates clearly and openly with the UN Security Council and the wider international community, and provides all relevant facts. We recognise the constraints that UNAMID faces and, for that reason, we are strong supporters of the ongoing UN-led strategic review. We are working with the UN, the African Union and international partners to consider what further steps can be taken to increase the mission’s effectiveness, especially in its core function of protecting civilians. To the noble Lord, Lord Alton, I can say that we welcome the fact that the Cooper review was established to investigate reports of past underreporting in UNAMID. We believe that it is essential the United Nations communicates its findings openly and transparently, including through publishing a full report, and we have raised this in the Security Council. It is important that the UN system acts as a result of the report to ensure that in future all relevant facts are reported to the UN Security Council.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, also drew attention to the ICC. I am grateful to him for what he said about how valuable that organisation is. I am visiting the ICC later this week, and I shall make a statement there. I would be happy to discuss the matter of the ICC further with the noble Lord after I have made that visit.
We certainly support all the efforts in Sudan to achieve a full resolution. A national dialogue is crucial. The noble Lord, Lord Luce, is right that the UK, building on its historical ties, should continue to play a leading role in efforts to promote reform in Sudan and bring stability to South Sudan. There is clearly a huge amount yet to be done to bring peace to both countries—and peace also means stability and being able to grow your crops and have a living, not relying on others to feed you and keep you going. It means to have your own dignity and your own country. Ultimately, it is the region and, most importantly, leaders in Sudan and South Sudan who must take the initiative. But we, along with our partners in the international community, will not give up our support.
Tuberculosis
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to work with global stakeholders to address investment in research and development in global health, and particularly to support the development of new tools and treatments for tuberculosis.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, an estimated 13.7 million people die every year from or in connection with a group of diseases known as “poverty-related and neglected diseases”. These include TB, HIV, malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and many others.
Research and development is expensive. Some estimates claim that developing a new drug through commercial routes can cost £1 billion. Naturally, pharmaceutical companies therefore invest in developing products where there is a potential to see a significant financial return to pay for the original development costs and, ultimately, to make a profit. Because the diseases that I have mentioned primarily affect poor people, there is no financial market to incentivise commercial sector pharmaceutical development and accordingly very few new products are developed.
Where there is an affluent market, as is the case with adult HIV drugs, we can see significant private investment. In comparison, there are very few formulations of paediatric HIV drugs, where the market is smaller and more heavily based in developing countries. There is therefore a market failure in developing drugs, diagnostics and vaccines for diseases that impact predominantly on low-income and middle-income countries. This market failure is similar to the failure of the commercial sector to develop new antibiotics—again because there is insufficient financial return on offer for such products.
In the absence of the commercial sector, public and philanthropic organisations attempt to fill the gap, but progress is slow. The purpose of today’s debate is to highlight that there are significant improvements to be made in co-ordination, the level of financing and the policies of public sector donors. In 2002, DfID launched the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, which looked at the impact of intellectual property on development policy. In a landmark document, it recommended that Governments should invest more to explore the impact of IP on development. DfID supported this recommendation by sponsoring the establishment in 2003 of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health, which paved the way for global reform efforts.
However, those efforts have since stalled and significant controversy remains over the role of IP within global health research and development, particularly around de-linkage, a term meaning separating the incentive for R&D from the potential financial returns, a point that I made in an Oral Question to the Minister last week, on World AIDS Day. During that exchange, I also mentioned the launch that day of Access Denied, a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS, which the noble Baroness confirmed that she was attending, and of course I saw her there. In response to questions at the launch about the absence of a formal response from the Government to the report, the Minister promised to share her speech notes with the all-party group so that they could be viewed publicly. Does she still intend to do so? Can she tell me whether her department will be championing within government the recommendation from both the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global TB and the HIV/AIDS all-party group that the UK commission an economic paper to contrast the total costs of developing and purchasing medical tools using the current R&D model with the costs of a de-linked model?
Global reform efforts have stalled. There is a lack of global consensus around the reforms necessary to drive improved investment in global health and there is a lack of global co-ordination around what is funded. What steps will the Minister take to initiate dialogue between the pharmaceutical industry, civil society and the Government to reach an agreement over a possible R&D treaty in the run-up to the World Health Assembly in 2016?
Product development partnerships, of which I am sure we will hear more in today’s debate, are non-profit organisations which attempt to fill the gaps in global health R&D. They receive public and philanthropic donations, build partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and attempt to develop new drugs, diagnostics and vaccines. Successful examples of these are found in the TB field, with Aeras helping to bring a new vaccine through trials and TB Alliance aiming to bring a new drug regimen to the market. There are many other examples of successful partnerships in the fight against malaria. Again, I am sure that we will hear more of that in this debate. Nevertheless, products from PDPs, despite often being publicly funded, are sometimes protected by patents, which make them more expensive.
On a similar theme, the UN Secretary-General recently stated:
“Public funding often subsidizes private sector research, at times leading to the public being priced out of the benefits through disadvantageous licensing and patent”.
The reports from the all-party groups on HIV and TB—the latter came out last year, which prompted me to table this debate—recommend that DfID should continue to support R&D through product development partnerships. However, both argue for a commitment to open access, generic production and a non-patent-monopoly-based approach. Will the Government commit to reviewing PDP funding with regard to a potential top-up of funding and will they commission a paper examining the impact of open access requirements on products generated with public money? Can the Minister tell me what her department will be doing to address the growing problem in middle-income countries, as highlighted in the Access Denied report, of funding being pulled out from all directions, including from the Global Fund, while the pharmaceutical industry continues to expect such Governments to afford higher prices for ARV treatment?
DfID is one of the world’s leading funders of global health. Its commitment to the Global Fund will save a life every three minutes. Commitments to Gavi could save a life every two minutes. The work of these organisations relies on having appropriate drugs, diagnostics and vaccines to test and treat people. If we are to move beyond investments to control diseases such as TB, HIV and malaria and towards eradication, we desperately need new tools. We will not eliminate HIV unless we have a cure, nor wipe out TB without an effective vaccine.
DfID’s R&D strategy expired at the end of 2013 and has not been replaced. Will the Minister state the UK Government’s long-term strategy to secure the development of the new drugs, diagnostics and vaccines needed to eliminate HIV, TB and malaria? Will the Minister reassess the Government’s decision to cut funding for the development of AIDS vaccines as part of a larger review of the scale of investment that the Government are making to ensure that we have the pipeline of new medical tools that the world so desperately needs?
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and to thank him for introducing this debate with great authority and conviction. I shall confine my remarks to tuberculosis.
Historians such as me are under no illusions about the dreadful threat that tuberculosis presents to mankind. Large numbers of people in our country have in the past fallen victim to it. In the 19th century, it was responsible for one in every four deaths in Britain. Our culture has been deeply marked by it. Harrowing accounts of the suffering that it inflicted can be found widely in English literature. It is a significant theme in opera, too, although often in unduly romanticised form.
In human affairs, final victories are hard to achieve over determined enemies of well-being. For a time, we came to believe that Britain had conquered tuberculosis and made it a spectre that belonged firmly in the past, but we now confront this terrible menace once again. Some 9,000 new cases are being diagnosed year by year. The threat to our country’s well-being is heightened by growing resistance to the drugs that are used to treat it. Medical advance is urgently needed to bring new, effective drugs into the service of mankind that can overcome the severe problems created by increasing resistance to the drugs that are currently being prescribed. These drugs were, in most cases, developed decades ago. I understand that only one new drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the last 50 years.
In Britain, we face a return of an old enemy. The world faces a pandemic. What is happening here surely sharpens our consciousness of the extent of the global threat and of our duty to do all that we can to tackle it, drawing on the highly developed skills and expertise that we possess and pressing for the medical advances on which so much depends. Across the globe, nearly 9 million new cases of tuberculosis occur each year. Well over 1 million people die of tuberculosis annually, part of the estimated 13.7 million who are victims of poverty-related and neglected diseases, to which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, referred. That is why the debate that he has initiated is to be welcomed so greatly. Once again, this afternoon, the noble Lord has demonstrated the deep concern and commitment that he consistently brings to global health issues. I much enjoy working with him on the cross-party basis that is so necessary in this area of policy, which includes combating the prejudice—particularly prejudice against gay people—that sets back progress in too many countries of the world.
Successive Governments in this country deserve the credit that they have been given for the major contributions that they have made to the global campaign to tackle poverty-related and neglected diseases. The significance of our country’s role was underlined in the impressive and authoritative report Dying for a Cure: Research and Development for Global Health, published in July by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Tuberculosis. The report shows that Britain is the world’s second-largest provider of funds for global health research—only the United Sates provides more. The report sums up our record as follows:
“From policies, to levels of funding, to coordination and cooperation, the UK is at the forefront of R&D for global health”.
It is not the least of this Government’s achievements to have kept our country at the forefront of this vital work. The report acknowledges that what the Government have done, and are continuing to do, could have huge implications for global health.
The reason why Britain’s official contribution under successive Governments has been so important, and will remain crucial, has been emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Collins. Although they often demonstrate deep concern for public welfare, pharmaceutical companies are not charitable undertakings. They invest in developing products where there is a potential for significant financial return, in order to pay for development costs and make a profit. Diseases such as tuberculosis mainly affect poor people, so there is little financial incentive to encourage pharmaceutical investment in research and development, to repeat the point made so effectively by the noble Lord.
It is widely agreed that in this overwhelmingly important sphere of global health the market has failed. The all-party group’s report in July was emphatic. It stated:
“The failure of commercially driven R&D for these diseases is a problem that affects us all”.
Public spending in Britain can help to overcome that failure. The report continues:
“From government departments to academic institutions, we support, fund and conduct outstanding research. Every penny of public funding should be spent as effectively and efficiently as possible. As a nation we excel at research and development, we should do more of it and we should share our expertise with our colleagues and neighbours”.
Against this background, the group recommends that the Department for International Development’s budget should be rebalanced to a certain extent, in order to enhance R&D capacity further in future.
There are many areas of global health in which decisive progress is needed, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has made clear. As regards tuberculosis, the search for new and more effective drugs is the highest priority in order to shorten basic treatment and to deal with the bacteria that to an increasing extent are resistant to existing drugs. To that end, DfID should surely consider investing more in drug developers such as the TB Alliance, which are not seeking a financial return. Would there not also be merit in considering a prize fund to encourage TB research and development, along the lines of the Longitude Prize, designed to stimulate diagnostics for microbial resistance?
At the recent global consultation on research for TB elimination conference in Stockholm, a Swedish spokesman said:
“There has been a 45% reduction in TB mortality since 2,000. A great achievement, but not enough. Investments in research and innovations now are crucial to reach the global targets”.
Here in Britain we look to our Government to continue and, if possible, to enhance the contribution that has brought them much well deserved praise. The world will not eliminate tuberculosis until an effective vaccine has been found.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Collins, on initiating this debate and I echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, about the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Collins, to this field and his determined work to improve healthcare for some of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people. I draw attention to my interests in global health, particularly malaria and NTDs.
It is about those two areas and the need for more and innovatively funded research in them that I shall speak. I congratulate the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global TB on its overall report, Dying for a Cure: Research and Development in Global Health, with its emphasis on TB and its recognition that the needs of the 1.4 billion people who suffer from neglected tropical diseases are tremendously important, as is the interaction of those disabling, disfiguring diseases with the big three killers, TB, AIDS and malaria. It has also recognised that these are diseases not only born of poverty but which create poverty. They undermine education, employment, health—all the opportunities that would allow people to claw their way out of poverty. Therefore, combating the diseases of the poor, including the big three, is an essential element of the fight against poverty and for social and economic development.
For some of those diseases, we already have treatments for which we need more resources—for example, for mass drug administration for soil-borne helminth diseases—but we still desperately need to develop better medicines, smarter diagnostics and, above all, vaccines if we are to make progress. If we look at the position with malaria, there is an urgency to do all those things and to develop new insecticides if we are not to face exactly the same problems of resistance that plague the current fight against tuberculosis.
The main point I want to make today echoes that made by the noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Lexden, in terms of the challenges that are born not of scientific difficulties and obstacles but of economic difficulties and obstacles in developing new products. I think it is now universally accepted that we have a market model in pharmaceuticals that will never, on its own, deliver for the poor.
Ebola is a very good example. Ebola was such a minority interest until this year that it was not even on the WHO’s list of 17 neglected tropical diseases—it was a neglected neglected tropical disease. But the reason that treatments and vaccines have not been developed for Ebola is not because it is a uniquely difficult scientific challenge but because so few people were considered at risk and those few people were considered to be poor and a long way away. As I understand it, the candidate vaccines and treatments now being rushed through are all compounds that had already been discovered but not developed because, although potentially valuable in therapeutic terms, they were not potentially valuable in commercial terms. Of course, we now have the recognition that in a global world, epidemics are a mere flight away, so the world has now pledged to spend $2.4 billion on combating Ebola but did not in the past invest the fraction of that which would have been necessary to develop a new vaccine.
Of course, progress has been made in the area of funding of research for such diseases. We should pay tribute to the UK Government and DfID for their support for the concept of product development partnerships and to the work of the philanthropic, academic and private sectors in coming together with Governments in important and fruitful partnerships such as the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative and PATH, and in malaria vaccine development. But the number of chemical compounds with potential being brought forward is still worryingly low. Ebola should have taught us that we cannot afford for potential drug candidates to be left on the shelf because pharma companies have no incentive to screen them against key diseases. We have to find a way to fund discoveries that are potentially life-saving, even when they are not in the current market, profit-making.
My plea to the Government today would be for them to increase their commitment, and the resources they devote, to the vital work of PDPs. As the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said, this is an area where we have tremendous skills and expertise. I recently took up the position of chair of Cambridge University Health Partners, and seeing the huge scientific potential we have for patient benefit on that fantastic campus is a real privilege. We also have a history of, and a great ability for, knowledge transfer through our academic institutions, particularly the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. I was in Zimbabwe and saw midwives and obstetricians from this country delivering training packages for midwives and skilled birth attendants in Zimbabwe, which then became sustainable programmes for supporting maternal health.
I have one other plea: we should not neglect the importance of the research that can take place in the countries and the communities where diseases are themselves endemic. Building capacity in those countries, as enlightened funders are now recognising, can have really powerful results in the quality and relevance of the research undertaken. Finally, I would encourage the Government to look at mechanisms to invest in local clinician-led research agendas in developing countries.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, wish to congratulate my noble friend on securing this important debate, in particular for his persistence, and for it happening so close to World Aids Day. I wish to concentrate my remarks on the need for better tools, research and development for HIV/AIDS, and why it is so necessary. Unfortunately, listening to the three previous speakers, the story is the same, which is a real tragedy.
HIV/AIDS has placed a huge burden on developing countries, where the majority of the 35 million people with HIV now live. The disease kills 1.5 million people each year. Two-thirds of those living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, where families can ill afford to bear extra healthcare costs or care for orphan children. Initially seen as a male disease, HIV/AIDS is rapidly becoming a female epidemic, with further impacts on families, given the greater share of responsibilities of women within households. HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among young women of reproductive age in Africa. The region’s young women are twice as likely to contract HIV as their male counterparts. This is in part due to a greater biological risk, and in part due to the unequal status of women, the effect of which constrains women’s ability to negotiate condom use, which is a major problem for those women, particularly those who are sex workers. Risk to sex workers stems from an increased number of sexual partners, greater exposure to sexual violence, being forced to have unprotected sex, or accepting more money to have sex without a condom. Sex workers can also face harassment from the police, who in many countries have been known to use the possession of condoms, or attendance at HIV clinics as a reason for arrest, or as a basis from which to extort further money or commit incidents of sexual violence. I found it strange, but I was told by a cousin who for many years was a sexual health worker in Africa, that in the 1960s and 1970s they wrapped condoms in coloured paper to make them look like sweets for exactly the same reasons. Is it not an indictment that all these years later we are still having exactly the same debates?
There are other identified groups who are particularly at risk of HIV. For example, the estimated 75 million male clients who visit the 10 million sex workers globally, and are a key transmission group to other women and men in the community. Men who have sex with men are 13 times more likely to be living with HIV than the general population due to the biological risk of transmission and having higher numbers of partners, yet they are stigmatised if they attempt to attend an HIV clinic. It is truly frightening to witness the current slide to criminalisation of homosexuality, for this impacts on the wider population, given that men who have sex with men will often have wives or other female partners. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, recently remarked:
“Not only is it unethical not to protect these groups; it makes no sense from a health perspective. It hurts all of us”.
Therefore, it is crucial that tools are designed to provide diverse groups with innovative and long-term ways of protecting themselves from HIV/AIDS.
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which I was fortunate to visit earlier this year with my noble friend, is undertaking trials on several innovative approaches, from broadly neutralising antibodies to cell responses, and including replicating vectors for vaccine delivery. It is also carrying out follow-up trials to studies in Thailand that pointed to the efficacy of two vaccine candidate compounds when used together. We hope that those will be able to be developed. Such a vaccine would protect women, particularly those most at risk such as the female sex workers whom I mentioned earlier. Not only is it essential in helping to save those women’s lives but, from the decrease in the need for treatment alone, the savings are estimated to be $95 billion over the first 10 years.
Another study by the International Partnership for Microbicides is undertaking clinical trials of its new ring. It is a simple and affordable product. It is worn internally and works by releasing an antiretroviral drug that has been found to prevent HIV infection. Other studies are looking into gels and films that work in similar ways. If there is ever going to be a reduction in, or the elimination of, the 2.3 million new cases each year, prevention is key. It is absolutely essential, and the funding and the resources have to be found to make that possible. There are four new cases for every three people who are started on treatment. Detailed modelling has estimated that, even after significant scaling up of treatment efforts, there will still be 1.4 million new cases each year. Add a vaccine to that, however, and the number drops to 400,000, and very likely, with herd immunity, it will be brought down still further year by year.
Moreover, we must look at what can be done to change a situation where diseases affecting richer countries are prioritised for research and development above diseases that affect those less able to pay. I found it absolutely shocking to discover that 15 FDA-approved drugs were initiated to treat hay fever in the last 50 years compared with the one drug for TB mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. Health programmes must be targeted at the poorest and most marginalised groups, not at those where the pharma companies are going to make the most profit.
The millions of women I mentioned earlier who cannot protect themselves from HIV/AIDS desperately need leadership from people such as us. However, there is another side to this debate. I have talked about availability—the need for drugs to be developed—but there is also a need for the drugs to be affordable. The excellent report of the HIV/AIDS all-party group, Access Denied, records how the generic medicine industry has been pivotal in bringing down the price of antiretroviral drugs from more than $10,000 per patient to less than $100. This has allowed nearly 10 million people to access HIV treatment, with 1.6 million of these beginning their treatment in 2012. To put this in context, 28.6 million people are estimated to be eligible for treatment under new World Health Organization guidelines, and that figure is expected to be 55 million by 2030. However, only 34% of the millions in need can access treatment in low and middle-income countries. That is just for adults. Access to treatment for the 3.3 million children living with HIV in developing countries is only 18%—how disgraceful; that is half the adult rate.
Surely the partnerships that have been talked about should also agree that the price of essential drugs and vaccines should not be out of reach of those who need them—perhaps through voluntary or compulsory licensing of patented products. My noble friend rightly referred to this as market failure. De-linking the final cost of a drug from research and development incentives could not only spur investment in work on diseases of poverty but also ensure that those drugs can be marketed at a price affordable to the greatest number of people, and so save many millions of lives. After all, if we think about it, manufacturing a drug is a remarkably low-cost exercise. We should be looking to pharmaceutical companies to ensure that there is more transparency in their research costs, to make it possible better to access the level of finance needed.
The UK, as a global leader, can ensure that the partnerships can continue their work, but only if they get adequate funding to do so—funding that allows long-term planning to progress potential candidates through the many stages their work requires—and take steps to explore how a reformed system might work that pushes companies to do the right thing, which will allow us, one day, to cross World AIDS Day off our agenda.
Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury on securing this debate on a subject so important to a world which contains an estimated 35 million people living with HIV.
Today’s debate is focused on investment in research and development in global health, in particular to develop new tools and treatments for TB. I welcome the fact that the TB Alliance has four combinations of drugs in late-stage development and will soon launch a trial of a combination of drugs suitable for those who are co-infected with TB and HIV. More people living with HIV die from TB than any other coinfection, but the first new drug available for TB in 50 years, Bedaquiline, is still not reaching the 1 million people who may need it because of its high price, as the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, mentioned.
The Doha declaration of 2001 must continue to be enforced and respected by all countries to ensure that public health is prioritised over profits. Currently, a number of free trade agreements are causing concern. Most, if not all, FTAs involving the EU or the USA contain provisions on intellectual property rights that are TRIPS-plus and have the potential or likely effect of hampering or preventing the use of one or more TRIPS flexibilities—TRIPS being Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreements. Where there is a public health imperative, countries can issue a compulsory licence to a generic manufacturer on payment of a royalty to the owner of the patent.
We need to examine the role of the pharmaceutical companies as part of the debate. In 2002, the world watched as 39 pharmaceutical companies took the South African Government to court. Their complaint was that the Government, under the presidency of Nelson Mandela, had passed legislation paving the way for the purchase of cheap anti-HIV drugs from India to tackle the worst HIV epidemic in the world. By buying those cheap drugs, the companies claimed, the South African Government would be breaching their intellectual property rights. Thankfully, the case was eventually dropped, but the issue of intellectual property rights in that context remains controversial.
In 2003, the Labour Government launched a commission to explore the relationship between IP and development. They published a landmark document recognising the enormous impact of intellectual property legislation on international development. The commission recommended that further research be carried out, and the Labour Government led the way by supporting the establishment of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health. The commission sought to create global consensus around research and development for global health, and led to a series of reform proposals. Progress on these reforms has stalled and has been pushed back to 2016, as my noble friend has already highlighted, but the progress of diseases such as HIV and TB has not stalled, and the time wasted in coming forward with new research and possible vaccines sees 2.7 million people die from these two diseases alone every year.
As noble Lords have already emphasised, intellectual property is not, in itself, a bad thing, but IP is designed to incentivise innovation by helping innovators to make a profit on the products they invent. Companies will concentrate on developing drugs to address the illnesses besetting the developed West more quickly than addressing the needs of the developing world, as my noble friend Lord Collins has already mentioned. The disparity in wealth between high- and low-income countries means that the markets which offer greatest returns are those in the developed countries. The pharmaceutical companies predominantly invest in developing products with the greatest potential to generate sales in high-income countries, and price their products accordingly.
The establishment of the Medicines Patent Pool—MPP—in 2010 to address intellectual property barriers to generic production is of course welcome and is already making a difference, but there is still a time lag from the period when a licence is agreed, given the two to three years it takes for a generic manufacturer to develop a new drug. More pharmaceutical companies need to be encouraged to sign up and there is still a need for greater investment in R&D.
The Government need to show the same leadership as the previous Labour Government did in this field by commissioning a new report to examine the differences in overall costs between a commercially driven model of development and models that are open access and do not include IP protection, so that global solutions can be found to global health problems. The aim of such a study would be for the UK Government to find the most effective ways of creating incentives to encourage investment in R&D, and to look at the benefits and challenges with different approaches to drug development.
As my noble friend Lord Collins highlighted, there is a concern about this Government’s reduction of funding into research and development around a vaccine for AIDS by more than 80% for the period 2013 to 2018. The new grant for the next five years has been reduced to only £5 million—one-eighth of its previous level. Does the Minister support the recommendations in the report launched by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS, Access Denied, to carry out an inquiry into alternative models of research and development investment which separate the cost of R&D from the demands of profitability? As my noble friend Lord Collins has already mentioned, a new global research and development fund could reward all who contribute to it, and the UK Government could negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry and civil society to create a research and development treaty to provide the framework for such a fund. Notably, the report calls on,
“the UK government, the pharmaceutical industry and multilateral organisations to work together to make second and third-line ARV drugs available and affordable to all, including marginalised populations and people living”,
in middle-income countries. The report also says:
“DFID should lead the way in harnessing donor support for the Global Fund to cover the cost burden of the increased numbers of people (28.6 million) now eligible for ARV treatment under WHO guidelines”.
Most importantly, Access Denied suggests that,
“DFID should use its leverage as a donor to ensure multilateral institutions such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, WTO, WHO, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and UNITAID are doing enough to bring prices down. It must use its voice to demonstrate leadership on this issue”.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Northover) (LD)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for securing this important debate. I also thank all other noble Lords who contributed to the debate this afternoon. This is indeed a very important area and I am glad that we have recently had Oral Questions on it and that my noble friend Lord Fowler has a related debate on the Global Fund on Thursday. I was very glad to speak at the All-Party Group on HIV and AIDS, of which I used to be an officer, at the launch of its report Access Denied, and I am very happy to share my speech.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, pointed out, these are not only diseases of poverty; they are diseases that cause further poverty. I thank the noble Baroness for her tribute to DfID. Like her, I pay tribute to our outstanding institutions that are working in this area, and I welcome her new involvement with Cambridge University Health Partners. We have a formidable academic record in the United Kingdom in this area.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, pointed to a market failure in drug development in relation to diseases of poverty. Other noble Lords made reference to this as well. Between 1975 and 2000, just 13 new drugs were registered for use against the so-called diseases of poverty. That is about 1% of the total number of new drugs developed globally. Of course, the question is: why have those diseases been so badly neglected? As noble Lords have indicated, the answer lies in the lack of incentives for the pharmaceutical industry. Developing and bringing a new drug to market is an extremely costly and risky business and the industry did not see the incentives to bring those drugs forward. If we add the extremely limited profit margins associated with making those badly needed drugs available, it is not hard to see that fundamental market failures have meant that the development of affordable and accessible treatments has not been prioritised in the way it should have been. Noble Lords were quite right in their analysis of that.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, and others mentioned the product development partnerships—PDPs. These have changed the situation, harnessing the best of the private sector so that it is channelled for the public good. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, also spoke about de-linking and several noble Lords spoke about intellectual property. All PDPs negotiate access to intellectual property for all products developed in order to ensure affordability and access. We need a number of approaches, not just de-linking, to ensure that many players can be involved and to bring in the expertise and resources from the private sector that may contribute to the PDPs.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, asked whether we would commission a report on de-linking. I assure them that a number of groups are already looking at this, including a Treasury-sponsored group looking at antimicrobial resistance. If they want further details of that, I am sure that we can assist in that regard.
Since the emergence of PDPs, we have seen 10 new technologies brought to market and there are more than 350 candidates in the pipelines of PDPs collectively, including 90 drug and vaccine candidates and 32 diagnostic or vector control candidates. The UK is a leading investor in PDPs; in 1999, we were the first Government to provide support to a PDP, and currently support 10 PDPs covering neglected diseases. Since 2008, we have committed approximately £323 million to PDPs.
I assure the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that DfID has an open access policy. All research funded by DfID has to be placed in the public domain. For product development research, all new products must be made available for the lowest possible price. The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, rightly emphasised the key importance of such access to medicines and vaccines. I hope that they are reassured by what I have just said.
I am pleased to report that the DfID-funded PDPs have a strong track record of delivering a wide range of new technologies for diseases of poverty and of getting those into use in the developing world. This has included five new diagnostic tests for TB and six new drug combinations for malaria.
My noble friend Lord Lexden referred to the long history of TB and humankind. Like him, as a former historian, I am fully aware that that history is very different from the situation today. However, TB disproportionately affects the most vulnerable and marginalised in society. In 2013, 9 million people fell ill with TB and 1.5 million died. TB ranks as the second leading cause of death from an infectious disease worldwide, after HIV. The UK remains committed to help achieve the goals of the Global Plan to Stop TB to reduce deaths and prevalence of TB by half, compared to 1990 levels, by 2015 through our bilateral and multilateral support. A big part of that effort is investing in research into more effective diagnostics, treatment and vaccines. Noble Lords are absolutely right about that.
I assure my noble friend Lord Lexden that DfID is already the second-largest government funder in this regard. Following a funding gap for TB drugs this year, we gave an extra £5 million to the TB Alliance. I want to highlight the work of two DfID-funded PDPs in particular. The Foundation for Innovative Diagnostics has developed GeneXpert, a new diagnostic test for tuberculosis that gives fast and accurate results in four hours, compared to a previous wait of between six and eight weeks. Noble Lords will appreciate immediately how important that is. The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development is about to start a registration trial for a new combination of TB drugs. If successful, it has the potential to reduce treatment times for drug-resistant TB from between 24 and 30 months to six months—another issue that my noble friend raised.
What are we doing to change the global landscape? We recognise that effective co-ordination is crucial but challenging, given the number of different players in the field, including Governments, philanthropic organisations, the private sector and others. As well as investing directly in research and development, the UK will continue to play our part, working with others to improve co-ordination and maximise overall returns for the global poor. We are working with the WHO Secretariat as it develops a mechanism to implement the recommendations of the recent consultative expert working group process.
We welcome the proposed global observatory for health R&D, to be based at the WHO, which will provide an opportunity for co-ordinating information about what health research is going on globally. In tandem, the WHO Secretariat is developing a mechanism to operationalise the pooled WHO member states fund for product development, which, if established, will aim to attract new funders and donors to support product development. We currently chair the PDP funders group—an informal group of bilateral agencies and philanthropic foundations that provide support to PDPs and encourage others to invest.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, emphasised the need to build research capacity. We are working not only within the United Kingdom but she will know, I hope, that we are also working within Europe generally, supporting the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, which has a UK lead—the Medical Research Council. The EDCTP is a partnership of 16 European and 48 African member states to pool resources and skills and to co-ordinate and implement clinical research.
I note what my noble friend Lord Lexden said about the incentive of a prize. I suggest that he might look to a major donor with an interest in naming such a prize. Given the impact on India, he might initially look to that country.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, also mentioned HIV funding. We discussed this the other day. He will know that past vaccine research looked promising but looks less promising now and needs a basic research approach. That work is therefore much more appropriately taken forward by the MRC and the Wellcome Trust, which have been increasing their funding for AIDS vaccine research. I note that an incredibly interesting research paper may indicate that HIV may be weakening slightly. Let us hope that it heads in that direction.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, mentioned the Ring Study. DfID has committed £15 million to the International Partnership for Microbicides, and I hope that she will be encouraged by that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Healy, talked about TRIPS. DfID supports countries that use provisions to overcome IP barriers through TRIPS.
Solving many of the challenges that we will face tomorrow will rely on the R&D investments that we make today. DfID has an outstanding record in this area in terms of its support over the last few years. We are committed to maintaining our record of funding high-quality, high-impact research and playing our part in improving global communication. We are committed to putting that knowledge into use so that ultimately it will save lives. We also emphasise that rights should underpin our support for the poorest and most marginalised, as my noble friend Lord Lexden made clear should be the case.
Noble Lords mentioned Ebola. That has shown how interlinked we are. It will not have escaped the notice of the pharmaceutical industry that a disease that was seemingly limited to a poor area geographically and socially may well have a far wider impact. Those who had Ebola vaccines on their books are now able to power ahead. We need to ensure that we support those suffering from the so-called diseases of poverty. We also need to recognise that we are in a changing world, and we need to do our best to ensure that that is fully recognised.
Peatlands
(9 years, 4 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Greaves
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what policies are required for the future conservation and upkeep of peatlands in the United Kingdom.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, I start by thanking everyone who has put their name down to speak in this short debate. I also thank the various organisations that have sent copious briefings. There is far too much to discuss in the time available; nevertheless, it is extremely interesting. I particularly mention the John Muir Trust, which motivated me to table this Question.
I live in the Pennines on the border of Lancashire and Yorkshire, where I am surrounded by peat-covered moors. This becomes obvious every time there is heavy rain and our local becks turn dark brown. I first came across peat in a big way when I started wandering round these moors when I was still at school. I remember a friend and I doing that on Kinder Scout when we would have been about 15. We discovered the peat-covered plateau and the groughs, which dissect the peat. We thought that it was wonderful and a great playground and we went racing up and down the peat, and all the rest of it, probably doing no good at all to it. Those groughs themselves are a significant indication of the erosion of the peatlands that is taking place in many places. When I was in university, I did an undergraduate dissertation on the North York Moors and came across a wonderful book written by a man called Frank Elgee, The Moorlands of North-Eastern Yorkshire, where he divided the peat-covered moors into the fat moors and the thin moors. The fat moors were where the peat was six feet thick or more and the thin moors were where it was just a few inches. I learnt to love peat and I have spent a lot of my life since on mountains and moors and in peat areas.
While peat is important, most people would not consider it an exciting subject; they think of it as fairly uninteresting, so it is undervalued. But it dominates our upland landscapes and the moors and mountains of all the countries in the United Kingdom. Both the upland blanket bogs and the lowland peat bogs are an ecological treasure house that has reduced in size enormously in the past 150 years, particularly in the lowlands, yet it is our largest natural carbon store and a vital part of our water environment—it is vital for water management and flood prevention, which is pretty topical nowadays.
Peat is the remains of plants, particularly sphagnum and other mosses, which are not fully decayed; they are only partly decayed due to the presence of water and a lack of oxygen. The great blanket bogs of the British Isles have developed mainly in the last 4,000 years, some over a longer time than that. Peat bogs are very slow growing, whether they are the raised bogs of the lowland or the blanket bogs of the uplands. They form very slowly. It is estimated that they form at no more than 0.5 millimetre to 1 millimetre a year, so they are not something that can be quickly replaced, in comparison with ancient forests—those are impossible to replace, but you can at least replace the trees. In the case of peat, offsetting is simply not an option when development takes place. The United Kingdom peatlands store more than 3 billion tonnes of carbon, so it is vital to preserve what we have and restore the quality of the bogs that we have, thereby reducing the annual loss of carbon from them.
What are the problems? First, there is digging it up for commercial purposes, particularly as fertiliser in the horticultural industry, in the case of the lowland bogs. There is still a certain amount of digging up peat for fuel, particularly in the Western Isles, but I do not think that that is a major contribution to peat loss. Then there is destroying it for development of any kind and degradation by past activities, particularly agricultural activities. Government grants were given to drain the uplands and moors and dry out the peat, resulting in the exposure of peat and its serious loss by erosion, of which the prime example is Kinder Scout. Only 18% of the United Kingdom’s blanket bog is in natural or near-natural condition and, overall, the position is getting worse. It is better than it used to be in that people recognise the importance of peat and recognise the problem, but it is still getting worse year by year.
I have a number of questions to put to the Government. I had hoped to send them in advance to my noble friend the Minister but, unfortunately, other things got in the way. Nevertheless, I hope that he will be able to answer some of them. First, the new Scottish planning policy from the Scottish Government reads:
“Where peat and other carbon rich soils are present, applicants should assess the likely effects of development on carbon dioxide … emissions. Where peatland is drained or otherwise disturbed, there is liable to be a release of CO2 to the atmosphere. Developments should aim to minimise this release”.
I would like to ask the Minister whether the National Planning Policy Framework that refers to England and is the direct responsibility of the Government could include a statement similar to this. The Minister will not be able to answer that now, but he may be able to do some digging within the Government and have discussions with his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government. Will the Government consider amending the National Planning Policy Framework to include a requirement that where significant development takes place on peatlands, an assessment of the balance of carbon emissions must be made as part of the assessment of the planning application?
Secondly—and this may be more in the Minister’s own domain—will the Minister give an update on progress on the Peatland Carbon Code and the pilot phase, which was expected to run from September this year? In the past he has been quite enthusiastic about this, I believe. Thirdly, will the Government promote the best practice guide that is currently being updated by the John Muir Trust and the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust? Will they put their weight behind it?
Fourthly, most upland peatlands are mapped as access land under the CROW Act. Will the Government work closely with the Ramblers and the British Mountaineering Council and similar organisations—I declare my interest in relation to the BMC—to promote better understanding of good practice in relation to peat both by walkers in areas of blanket bog and the people managing the areas where people walk?
Next question: following the statement of intent to conserve peatlands issued in February 2013 by the four United Kingdom Environment Ministers—that is, the United Kingdom Government in relation to England and the three devolved Administrations—what further progress is being made for joint action by the four countries?
What measures are included in the new environmental grants under the common agricultural policy that are replacing the old environmental stewardship schemes, particularly in relation to the conservation of areas of peat? What measures are being taken to close down the use of peat for horticultural and gardening purposes? That is entirely unnecessary. There are perfectly good substitutes that can be used and the time has now come, surely, to phase out in a serious manner the use of organic peat.
What action is being taken to ensure that the burning of heather moors occurs only under best practice conditions? This refers to the burning of heather on grouse moors, which, if it is carried out in inadequate ways, results in huge releases of CO2 from those moors. It is estimated that burning accounts for 74% of all emissions from blanket bogs. I am not against heather moors. I am not against grouse shooting. But the heather moors are one of the glories of the north of England and the burning of them, which in my part of the world is known as swithering, should be properly controlled.
Finally, what progress has been made in developing a national plan for the restoration of England’s peatlands and when will such a plan be published, particularly as our peatlands are such a big factor in future flood mitigation measures? I would be very grateful to have answers to these questions from the Minister. If he cannot answer any today, perhaps he could write to me. I look forward to hearing everybody else in this debate.
Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Greaves, who has been assiduous in pursuing this important interest. I need to declare my interest in that my family leases to Natural England 750 acres of lowland peat bog, or raised mire as it is sometimes called, situated in south Cumbria. It adjoins one of Natural England’s oldest nature reserves, called Roudsea, which is also part of our estate. The total land involved is about 1,000 acres. Much of the remainder of the estate falls under one or other of the numerous designations that will be familiar to your Lordships.
Natural England pays us a decent rent, on time, and relations between us are mostly cordial. Whatever opinion I might venture this afternoon, let me be clear that I feel no animosity towards Natural England personnel and that I would single out the senior reserve manager, Mr Rob Petley-Jones, as being especially approachable and, I would even say, visionary. That said, while they are all experts in their field, I would argue that their field is a narrow one and it is that which contributes to the problems which I want to touch on this afternoon.
As I understand it, until the Great War there was quite extensive exploitation of these bogs; I believe a number of families had turbary rights over them. The experts agree that the integrity of the bog, which the noble Lord has touched on, cannot be restored to pristine condition but that a high enough proportion can. It will therefore be rewetted, restored and preserved in line with whatever European directive deals with matters of this sort. The directive’s authors are specific that our bog is important and merits the expenditure that, in my estimate, runs to millions of pounds.
I am not qualified to challenge this assessment of the desirability of making this bog boggier. However, when I am told something is important, I feel entitled to ask how importance is measured against other desirable things such as education, health, care for the mentally ill, the plight of refugees and much else. Plainly, no one is pretending that the well-being of a raft spider ranks alongside that of a child trafficked into slavery, but what no one can tell me is whether anyone looks at this kind of policy and this kind of expenditure with the independence of mind capable of determining where the balance of advantage lies. Is a totally committed bog buff really the right person to give the Government advice? Can such advice realistically be impartial? What mechanisms are in place to allow Ministers to challenge both policies and outcomes?
When I commented gently to Natural England in passing on the cost of its operation, I was truly shocked by the reply that I need not worry, as it was mainly “European money”. It is difficult to imagine a better illustration of the attitude of so many in the public sector to matters of financial accountability. I very much doubt that our local experts would agree with one bog owner who observed some years ago:
“Many of these sites are cultural landscapes, forged by a subtle interaction between people and nature over centuries”.
Natural England is clear with us that its intention is to obliterate that interaction. Its ambition is to eliminate trees, mainly by drowning them. Its original plan was to remove these trees by helicopter, although that plan was mercifully abandoned. I like to think that the prospect of implementing such an insensitive plan within view of hill farmers suffering the effects of foot and mouth and low farm prices might have contributed to this change of heart. Rural poverty deserves more attention than it gets. It seems to have bypassed many of those who have safe jobs in the countryside and who are more comfortable with high-vis jackets and clipboards. I see scant evidence of policymakers in Brussels losing much sleep over rural poverty in the Cumbrian fells.
The up-to-date position on our bog is that Natural England has already killed some of the peripheral trees that it promised to preserve for amenity reasons and seems very well pleased with that outcome. It is hard to see how destroying perhaps half a million naturally regenerated trees sits with a mission statement of protecting England’s nature and landscape, especially given that no one disputes the fact that Britain has too few trees rather than too many. In fact, the world has too few trees. Natural England will not tell me—it probably cannot tell me—what the impact will be of this destruction and what habitats will be lost. What will the effect be, for example, on our nightjars? How will the destruction of our unique post-war wilderness impact on the safe haven it offers to a range of species seeking refuge from ever increasing human access, dogs and noise? There is no balance to be found in the argument. Who will benefit from these policies and how? The website offers a few bland lines, which itself is a failure of accountability, given the scale of change being imposed. I even understand that the alleged value of peat bog as a carbon store has been challenged by some scientists, and it remains an uncertain field.
It is fashionable nowadays for experts to run things. Experts are wonderful people—we could not do without them—but with every year that passes, I move increasingly to the view of Winston Churchill, who believed that experts should be on tap, not on top.
My purpose in speaking today is not to target Natural England specifically—it does a huge amount of good work, which I see every day. It is just one of numerous agencies that impact on all of us who try to earn a living in the countryside. My purpose is to draw attention to the fact that most if not all quangos, often through no fault of their own, are unaccountable, hugely bureaucratic, frequently conflicted and a cost to the taxpayer. Does my noble friend plan to look at those questions?
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Greaves for initiating this debate this afternoon, for his constant championing of the peatlands in our country and because it allows me the chance to reminisce on a rather wonderful weekend I spent over the summer up in Exmoor on the blanket bogs, looking at the Exmoor Mires project, which is being run by South West Water—one of a number of pioneering projects by water companies that have come to understand the importance of peat bogs for their long-term business sustainability. Peat obviously dissolves in water, which then needs to be cleaned, so the companies are looking to restore the peatlands, with ensuing benefits not only for their business but the local community, wildlife and biodiversity more broadly.
My noble friend Lord Greaves outlined the challenges facing peatlands, so I want to pick up on only two issues in the time allotted to me. The first is to say a little more about what I believe is a strong need for a national plan for the restoration of England’s peatland. Some noble Lords may be aware that the Scottish Government have recently conducted a consultation on a national peatlands plan to protect and restore peatlands. The plan fully recognises the important contribution that restoring peatland makes to carbon capture and storage, clean water, flood alleviation—critically—improved biodiversity, tourism and outdoor recreation. If it is good enough for Scotland to have a clear plan with a set of long-term objectives for peatland restoration, I, too, ask the Minister what progress we are making in developing a national plan for the restoration of England’s peatland and when it will be published.
More fundamentally, I want to touch on the need for secure funding to ensure well-managed upland peatlands through a combination of market-related funding routes. I mentioned at the beginning how South West Water and other water companies are increasingly aware of the value to their businesses of investing to reverse the damage to peatlands. A further new model for the corporate sector to support the challenge of restoring and maintaining peatlands was championed by the Ecosystems Market Task Force back in May 2013. Since then, as my noble friend Lord Greaves mentioned, work has begun on a peatland code to help to provide the standards and verification of the carbon storage and other benefits arising from peatland restoration projects. I am delighted that Defra has been funding the pilot phase of the UK peatland code. I say to my noble friend Lord Cavendish of Furness that it is very encouraging that it is using some of that funding to develop metrics to measure some of the greenhouse gas emission reduction benefits of restoration which, as he rightly said, are at the moment still at a very early stage. We cannot proceed until we have those metrics in place, but it is welcome news that Defra is contributing that funding.
As I understand it, that project is designed to provide a credible and verifiable basis for business sponsorship of peatland restoration in the UK, operating in a similar way to the Woodland Carbon Code, assuring that restoration delivers tangible greenhouse gas emissions, alongside other environmental benefits.
Although I understand that the code is in a pilot phase at the moment, working with those businesses that are very much interested in developing their own corporate social responsibility projects, I ask what the Minister sees as the longer term potential for the plan and the code. I also ask the Minister whether the Government believe that, longer term, that peatland restoration could be included in the greenhouse gas accounting guidelines, which would be a more sustainable long term way of building in further market funding to develop peatland restoration? Growing markets in this area would not only provide funding for peatland restoration, but stimulate competitive rural businesses and provide new opportunities for knowledge providers, for technical and market-support services, which can have very important export potential. It is very much in my mind that, having recently looked at the Defra website, just how geared the department is to export potential. It is important that we do not forget that peatland restoration, and finding new markets for supporting peatland restoration, could in the long term have export potential for us and our rural businesses.
For too long, the benefits of peatland in its natural state have been frankly undervalued. Consequently, as both my noble friends carefully articulated, many are in a damaged and deteriorated state. I hope that we are now entering an era where the value of peatlands is recognised for the ecosystem services that they provide, and that those benefits for society, community and businesses are reflected more broadly in public policy, and achieve more sustained leadership by the Government on this important issue.
The Earl of Lindsay (Con)
My Lords, I join my noble friends in thanking my noble friend Lord Greaves for raising this important debate. I declare two interests. One is that I am a patron of the IUCN’s Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands. The other is that I am the chairman of Scotland’s Moorland Forum.
Given the title of this debate, and the proportion of the United Kingdom's peatlands that are north of the border, it would be appropriate if I said something about the Moorland Forum and its relevance to policy-making in Scotland. The Moorland Forum has developed into a unique partnership consisting of 30 or more member organisations, all of whom have an interest in the uplands and moorlands of Scotland. These member organisations are drawn from across the Government, the public sector, the private sector, the NGO community and the science and research sector. With every relevant perspective involved, the Moorland Forum is able actively to engage on all interests and all issues, with a breadth of focus which I think my noble friend Lord Cavendish would welcome; is able to actively seek consensus; and, importantly, actively to promote improvements in policy, as well as practice and management.
The Moorland Forum’s value to policy-making is proven in practice and we are regularly consulted by the Scottish Government and their various agencies for advice and commentary on policy options and policy delivery. Five years ago, I and others were concerned that peatlands in the United Kingdom were on the edge of the policy agenda, both in Westminster and Edinburgh. I therefore start by commending the United Kingdom and the Scottish Governments that that is no longer the case. Both have shown leadership and commitment to safeguarding our peatlands.
I initially focus on developments in Scotland. I welcome, as did my noble friend Lord Greaves, the new Scottish planning policy, announced by the Scottish Government this summer, with its special provisions for peatland protection. Like my noble friend Baroness Parminter, I also warmly welcome the National Peatland Plan that is being developed and overseen by Scottish Natural Heritage in consultation with all interested parties. The National Peatland Plan, which will be launched in March, will include a strategic vision for Scotland’s peatlands, an analysis of their current state, and opportunities for achieving better collaboration in order to deliver healthier peatlands.
For the first time, in Scotland we will have a clear set of long-term objectives for peatland restoration, and I commend the Scottish Government and Scottish Natural Heritage for this overarching initiative, and for their ambition. The National Peatland Plan would be even more valuable to both Scotland and the United Kingdom if it was linked to similar initiatives elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I also welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to provide £15 million for peatland restoration. Five million pounds of funding is already in place through the Peatland Action project, and restoration work on the ground is under way on approximately 120 projects. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether he has plans for measures and initiatives similar to those that are taking place in Scotland.
As have other speakers, I want now to touch on a UK-wide point—the importance of the development of the peatland code. As we have heard, of the many benefits that will flow from having an agreed peatland code, perhaps one of the most significant is its potential to provide the confidence that would unlock corporate funding for peatland restoration. If corporate and private sector funding could be secured, as has been so successfully the case for forestry and woodland planting through the UK Woodland Carbon Code, it would enable the restoration and improved management of tens of thousands of additional hectares of peatland over and above those that can be afforded through government and EU-funded schemes. I would be interested to hear from my noble friend what steps are being taken by the Government to encourage private businesses to fund peatlands through the peatland code.
I should also ask my noble friend what steps the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are taking to support and co-ordinate their efforts with the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, as it is that programme which is overseeing the all-important development of the peatland code. The IUCN UK Peatland Programme deserves considerable credit for attracting and maintaining a solid partnership of relevant interests. However, if it faces a challenge, it is the same challenge that I believe Governments are facing, and that is the mixed success to date in reaching out beyond the usual suspects of the academic and NGO communities to inform, influence and motivate the mainstream private owners and private land managers of our peatlands.
Private owners and managers will be key if we are to secure and save our peatlands, but so far they have had little substantial engagement with the debate. To this end, the Moorland Forum is promoting the establishment of demonstration sites as one way in which private owners and private managers can become better engaged. The forum also feels that there are fears among land managers that peatland restoration techniques could trigger problems relating to livestock health, heather management, increased costs and foregone income. We are of the view that policymakers and others must understand and address those concerns if the efforts of land managers are to be fully harnessed.
In closing, therefore, I ask for my noble friend’s thoughts on demonstration sites for restoration purposes and other initiatives to engage private landowners and land managers. I also ask about the extent to which efforts are being made to understand and address the concerns felt by land managers.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, along with other noble Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Greaves for instigating this debate. I was particularly interested in hearing about the North York Moors and the thin moors and fat moors. We always learn something in every debate we attend in your Lordships’ House.
My noble friends have drawn attention to the various ways in which the management of the peatland has benefited the environment, from its effect on the ecology and wildlife to possible carbon capture and, last but by no means least, the effect of these lands on water management.
I will specifically mention horticulture, which was touched upon by my noble friend Lord Greaves. I want to look at the relationship between peatlands and horticulture in the United Kingdom and the resultant pressure on these lands from the extraction of peat. As far as I am aware, this extraction, amounting to in the region of 3 million cubic metres, is largely from lowland peat sources, of which, I gather, all but 6% remain from extraction which started in the 1960s. I acknowledge that in the whole scale of things the area involved is not that large. In total, I understand it to be in the region of 960 hectares.
In response to concerns raised by the industry, the Minister’s department set up the Sustainable Growing Media Task Force, which delivered a comprehensive road map to reduce and phase out the use of horticultural peat. The major commitment in Her Majesty’s Government’s response was the phasing out of all peat use in domestic gardens by 2020, and commercially by 2030. Can the Minister tell the Committee whether targets have been met and if this commitment is still achievable? There was also a planned review in the second half of 2015. Is this still going to happen? I also understand that a committee was to be set up to meet on an annual basis. Can my noble friend confirm that this has happened and, if so, have the reports been published?
Having looked at what is on offer to the public, progress has definitely been made on labelling products. No longer can I find bags of compost labelled “low peat”, which can, in fact, contain up to 60% peat. However, having visited a garden centre yesterday, I found 26 different types of compost containing peat at varying amounts, from 70% down to 40%. I asked a member of staff whether any peat-free material was available, and was told there was not; there is obviously still much to be done. There still does not appear to be much evidence of education of the gardening public into the use of peat-free materials, but these must be available for the general public to purchase—not only to those committed individuals who work hard to find them. Over the years, I have used many hundreds of bags of green waste compost, with excellent results; so it is possible to be peat free.
I know that there are documents stating that the issue of peat extraction has been exaggerated by environmentalists, and that the use of lowland peat is acceptable. However, when we have a finite resource, we want to think very carefully about any use that could lead to the reduction of such a natural asset.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in thanking and congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on securing and introducing this debate. I declare my interest as a farmer in Cheshire in receipt of EU funding, but the farm has no peat.
The noble Lord has highlighted the importance and significance of peatlands in the UK, covering about 9.5% of the land area, and from which around 70% of all drinking water is derived, and surface water from upland catchments is generally peat dominated. In the Peak District, my area of northern England, there are 55 reservoirs providing water to major conurbations to the east and west. Peatlands are significant natural carbon stores, and in England hold an estimated 140 million tonnes of carbon, worth billions of pounds. Furthermore, nearly 40% of the upland peat areas in England are designated as sites of special scientific interest.
Peatlands’ importance is highlighted by Professor Joseph Holden of the University of Leeds, who called peatlands the “Amazon of the UK”. Yet, as the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, said regarding the horticultural aspects of peat, our peatlands have been degraded to such an extent that, in the words of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change, only around 4% of England’s deep peat is in a sufficiently good condition to still be actively forming peat.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, spoke on the effectiveness of restoration, even though the timescales can be significantly long. All speakers have highlighted the benefits to society of restoration, which clearly outweigh the costs. Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme, has been quoted as saying:
“The restoration of peatlands is a low hanging fruit, and among the most cost-effective options for mitigating climate change”.
Against this yardstick, the Government have made very little progress. It will be two years next February since the Government published their response to the report of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the UK Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands. Peatland habitats continue to degrade and to reduce water quality regulation services.
Since the recent change in Secretary of State, flooding has needed to be restored as a key priority of Defra, yet iconic species continue to decline and the rate of release of CO2 stored in England’s upland peat is increasing. The current scale of restoration, although worthwhile and important, has to be improved upon by a strategic step change resulting from clear improvements that the Government need to make.
The Adaptation Sub-Committee has highlighted that two-thirds of upland peat is still without a management plan. While much good work has been undertaken by several NGOs and funds have been leveraged up with contributions from water utilities, the Government have failed to achieve widespread buy-in from private landowners. While some £27 million has been paid to farmers and landowners to take up moorland restoration under the higher level scheme since 2007, will the Minister outline what new measures under the greening proposals the Government will be focusing on? Even now, large areas designated as SSSI continue to burn peat and heather. Surely there needs to be better enforcement of existing protocols. Perhaps this could be improved upon by the wide range of NGOs that the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, spoke of today.
In an earlier debate, my noble friend Lord Knight highlighted the issue of water management in the uplands and asked the Minister what costs could be avoided if the water storage and purification provided by peatlands were to be restored. I hope that the Minister will be able now to give us a clearer answer. This would underline the target and set clear goals through the England biodiversity strategy of restoring 15% of degraded ecosystems by 2020 for climate change mitigation. The water companies could benchmark their activities against this figure, and provide data and be informative in the debate on reducing greenhouse gases under the UK’s targets for emissions reduction. Here I welcome the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. Will the Minister update the Committee on the percentage of deep peat that is currently in a degraded condition, and is that figure improving?
How will the newly announced environmental stewardship schemes be used to restore peatlands, address the continuing burning, especially by shoots on private estates, reduce the amount of inappropriate grazing, and encourage the blocking of “grips” and gullies to reduce water run-off? Does the Minister agree that the restoration of peatland ecosystems should now be a more important priority in his department? From this side of the Committee, Labour will ensure that investment by water companies in peatland increases in line with their resilience duty under the newly passed Water Act 2014. Will the Ofwat determinations show any increase in investment in upland restoration?
Recent debates have also highlighted that effective restoration is a key factor in future flood mitigation planning. What progress has been made in developing a national plan for restoration, and when is it likely to be published? What measures is the noble Lord’s department bringing forward to extend the uptake of management plans, especially through improving incentives to landowners?
Labour will follow the example of the successful use of payments for ecosystem services and regulation to improve flood management, such as in the Pumlumon Project in Montgomeryshire. This highlights that co-ordination has to be encouraged across a wider area. The noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, spoke of similar experiences provided by the Moorland Forum in Scotland.
The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, highlighted the important focus provided by the Peatland Carbon Code. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, spoke of the need to utilise these benefits in carbon accounting. Labour will provide the development of a Peatland Carbon Code to facilitate further private investment in restoration and build on the existing incentives for environmental stewardship schemes and catchment-scale management plans. We see advantages in the long-term aim to have a system in place whereby landowners and managers can offer up for sponsorship the carbon and other benefits of peatland restoration to businesses that are interested in helping to deliver action against climate change and other environmental benefits.
A very important development to capture long-term improvements could come through implementing conservation covenants to future public funding that will be attached to land. While it seems that this introduction may be captured only through new primary legislation—and we all know how difficult it can be to secure that—could the Minister inform the House what plans his department may have considered to capture in large measure the benefits of attaching such conditions of positive action to management behaviour through other measures that the Government could take? That and other measures need to be put in place with utmost urgency.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord De Mauley) (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Greaves for giving me this opportunity to discuss the extremely important topic of peatlands, particularly since Friday marked the start of the International Year of Soils. As we have heard, peatlands are an essential resource and deliver much for the climate, environment and society. I have recently had a number of meetings on peatlands, and it is clear that there is strong support for action on peat from a wide range of organisations. This interest has led to a number of examples of landowners, conservationists, scientists, local communities and businesses being brought together, working together to deliver local solutions to peatland degradation.
Over the past few years, we have had significant successes in the protection of peat soil. There have been reductions in horticultural use, with the total volume of peat used in horticulture having decreased by almost 30% since 2011. I am pleased to see that the Defra family is nearly peat free, and that the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew continues to lead the way in using new alternatives and working with its supply chain to deliver high-quality plants without peat. There have been significant reductions in the amount of peat cut in the UK and, in many locations, peat extraction and milling operations have been brought to an end. One such location is Bolton Fell Moss, where Natural England has now commenced an ambitious programme to restore bog vegetation to the 400-hectare site. This site will complete our network of special areas of conservation for this habitat type, which is an important step forward.
The Committee for Climate Change suggested that we should improve,
“incentives for land-owners to invest in restoration”,
and we are doing just that. Defra has committed over £3 million to peat-related research between 2010 and 2015, improving our evidence base on issues including restoration, lowland peats, peatland-related greenhouse gas emissions and alternatives to horticultural peat. This will be used to inform future policy and to aid landowner guidance. However, of course, there is more we must do to strengthen the policy framework to enable further peatland conservation.
In 2013, through environmental stewardship covering around 98,000 hectares, we committed more than £30 million to management options for the maintenance and restoration of moorland habitats. A further £4 million was committed in capital grants for grip blocking. Support will continue to be provided under the new countryside stewardship scheme, a forward-looking measure seeking to maximise opportunities to deliver biodiversity, water quality and flooding benefits together.
Natural England is developing an operational plan for the strategic restoration of blanket bog, covering special areas of conservation and much of the uplands. The plan flows from work prompted by the uplands evidence review and recognises the need to ensure that this habitat is actively moved towards favourable conservation status.
The protection of our peatlands for future generations is not a challenge that the Government can meet on their own. We need to work with others, encouraging local communities and landowners to deliver the best land use and management for their peaty soils. There are examples of how such partnerships are already delivering results on the ground, such as the Dark Peak nature improvement area, and we should learn from and build on them.
We need to be innovative and explore new economic opportunities as new technologies and approaches become available. For example, some companies are already growing sphagnum moss as a wetland crop. There is ongoing research to explore the economic feasibility of that and other ways of using areas of lowland peat in a manner that both enhances habitats and protects farming livelihoods.
Three billion tonnes of carbon are locked up in UK peat. That makes peat the single biggest terrestrial carbon store in the country—even bigger than forests. By including wetlands in the UK greenhouse gas emissions inventory, peatland restoration will contribute to UK emissions targets. That will provide another incentive to invest in peatland restoration.
We are doing more work to put tangible figures on the benefits that peat delivers, and that will help us to make the business case for saving peat. The UK pilot peatland code is exploring how we can encourage funding from businesses to restore damaged peat bogs. If successful, it will provide standards and robust science to give businesses confidence that their financial contribution will make a measurable and verifiable difference to UK peatlands. That will help to mobilise private sector finance: investing in natural capital because it makes sense for the bottom line but delivering benefits for wider society. The pilot phase is scheduled to finish in July 2015, but early signs are promising. Water companies have been particularly responsive, due to the known improvement of water quality with healthy peat.
My noble friends Lord Greaves, Lady Parminter and Lord Lindsay, and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked a number of related questions about national peatland planning and how we compare to Scotland. The Natural Environment White Paper set out the Government’s ambition for the environment, including a commitment to sustainable management of all soils by 2030. Natural England is currently developing an operational strategy for upland peat to help to identify where progress has been made and where more work is needed. My officials and I work closely with our counterparts in the devolved Administrations, and I will consider whether we need to review the joint ministerial statement which commits our four Governments to work together on peatlands, including on the peatland code.
On funding, on which my noble friends Lady Parminter and Lord Greaves, and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, commented, I can confirm that support for moorland and peatland habitat management will indeed continue to be provided under the new countryside stewardship scheme. The new scheme will be more targeted, aiming to identify the options which should be prioritised in agreements with farmers and other land managers to deliver the right action in the right place.
My noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Lindsay asked about the future of the peatland code. We will continue to support the code’s initiatives to encourage private businesses. Our objectives for the remainder of the pilot phase will be to seek out opportunities to promote the code and attract indications of interest and firm offers from potential private sector sponsors.
We recently held an event with the IUCN for a number of business contacts, run by the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, to seek feedback on the code’s operation and to raise awareness of it in the business community—indeed, to improve the code’s offer to businesses. We are in discussion with the IUCN, the UK peatland programme, the devolved Administrations and others on the possibility of future projects across the UK, building on what the peatland programme has achieved over the past four years.
My noble friend Lord Greaves and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, referred to the burning of moors. Natural England is in the process of reviewing its guidance on burning and blanket bog restoration as part of a broader refreshment of its guidance, working closely with all interested parties and reflecting work undertaken by the Best Practice Burning Group.
My noble friend Lord Lindsay spoke about the role of private owners. The partnerships we already have in the UK are a novel mechanism for delivering results, but we recognise the need to engage a wider audience. Successful engagement depends on a strong evidence base with improved interpretation and dissemination, hence the commitment of over £3 million to peat-related research between 2010 and 2015. All involved will need to use this evidence to engage with landowners and local communities and make restoration decisions around which services are most important for them.
My noble friend Lady Parminter spoke of the inclusion of wetlands in greenhouse gas emission inventories. Including peatland carbon fluxes in the GHG emission inventories will reinforce the value of restoration and contribute to UK emissions targets. Three billion tonnes of carbon are locked up in UK peat, making it the single largest terrestrial carbon store in the UK. As of 2011, damaged UK peatlands are releasing about 3.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, which is equal to the average emissions of about 660,000 UK houses. Restoration would stop this and eventually lead to slow carbon sequestration once the peatland was back to actively forming condition in many years’ time.
The difficulties in including GHG emission reductions from peatland restoration were due to a lack of an approved international methodology for calculating emission removals from peatland restoration. The methodology now exists, but it still requires significant further work to make it operational in this country. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is leading on this work. The peatland code will provide guidance on quantifying climate and other benefits. To reinforce the value of the sponsoring of restoration, it may also be possible to count these benefits in corporate carbon accounts in future.
My noble friend also asked about Ecosystems Markets Task Force recommendations. The recommendation for carbon reduction through nature resulted in the pilot peatland code, which of course we continue to support. Other recommendations such as using nature to enhance resilience and soft flood defences also have the potential to be addressed by peatlands, but the evidence is limited and needs further work.
My noble friend Lord Cavendish raised a number of issues. Much of what he said needs to be heard, and I propose to send a copy of Hansard for this debate to the chairman of Natural England. My noble friend asked in particular about progress on the bonfire of the quangos. There are now around a third fewer quangos than there were in 2010. We have abolished at least 185 and merged more than 165 into fewer than 70. Over £2 billion has been saved cumulatively since 2010 through reforming and abolishing public bodies, and we are on track to reach the forecast £2.6 billion saving ahead of schedule.
My noble friend Lord Courtown spoke about the use of peat in horticulture. UK sales of peat for horticultural use fell from 2.8 million to 2.2 million tonnes between 2011 and 2012, and the total volume of peat use in horticulture has decreased by almost 30%. The Sustainable Growing Media Task Force report published in 2013 sets out where our resources will be focused over the next few years to assist in the transition to sustainable growing media and reduced peat use.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked what estimate the Government have made of the costs that could be avoided if the water storage and purification services provided by upland peat were restored. There is an estimated overall benefit of £2 billion over 30 years from restoring 200,000 hectares of uplands, due to carbon sequestration, biodiversity and other ecosystem services such as water storage and purification.
Although the scale of the challenge both financially and on the ground is daunting, the size of the prize is great. We have had some successes but I recognise that there is more to do. By building on the wide support for this important ecosystem and the good practice that is demonstrated in so many places across the United Kingdom, I have great hopes that it is a challenge that we will be able to meet.
Multi-agency Initiatives in Health and Social Care
The Countess of Mar
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the effectiveness of multi-agency initiatives in the field of health and social care which operate without a separate governance framework.
The Countess of Mar (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as recorded in the register.
Multi-agency working is not new and some agencies have worked together well over the years, but in the field of health and social care there are some serious problems. Apart from the universal ones of lack of funding and high staff turnover, most importantly, there is no governance framework. This concept is familiar to the Department of Health and to social services for research projects but for some reason there is no framework for multi-agency working. This means that, after major changes in working practices over the past five to 10 years, there is a severe lack of leadership, accountability and conformity in the provision of health and social care for some of the most vulnerable members of our community.
In its introduction to multi-agency working, the Social Care Institute for Excellence states:
“Working in collaboration is essential if individuals are to be offered the range of support they require in a timely manner. Multi-agency working is about providing a seamless response to individuals with multiple and complex needs”.
I will show that this is not so. Professor Steve Field, Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care, said in the introduction to the Care Quality Commission’s June 2014 report on the transition of young people from childhood to adulthood, From the Pond into the Sea:
“This report describes a health and social care system that is not working, that is letting down many desperately ill youngsters at critical times in their lives. We have put the interests of a system that is no longer fit for purpose above the interests of the people it is supposed to serve”.
In my contacts with people suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis—also known as chronic fatigue syndrome or CFS/ME—particularly those who are very severely affected, I encounter some of the worst practice, although I recognise that there are other rare and misunderstood diseases that cause similar problems for the authorities. Part of the problem is the perception held by many in the medical profession that ME is a psychosocial behavioural problem and that the people concerned do not deserve the benevolence of health and social care providers. This is despite an increasingly large body of evidence that demonstrates that this is a very real illness, albeit with psychological symptoms common to many chronic illnesses.
One case that I have been dealing with since the summer is of a young lady who is in the transition process. Prior to reaching the age of 18, she had the very unpleasant experience of being locked away in a unit for anorexics for 16 months when she did not have an eating problem. Her parents, threatened with child protection proceedings, agreed simply because they were terrified of losing their daughter altogether. Little did they realise how ill their child would be when, after the intervention of a very good social worker and myself, she was allowed home. She is now bedridden and has to be tube fed. Health and social care was provided within the purview of social services, which took the lead. The current problems started with negotiations between the CCG and social services for her transition from children’s to adult services in March 2013. She turned 18 in November 2013. Because of the mismanagement of her case by the neighbouring CCG, which had been appointed to conduct her assessment for adult health provision, and the inability of social services to call anyone to account, no decision has yet been made.
It seems that those concerned have not read the National Framework for Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care, which requires assessments to be completed within 28 days. Her parents have had dealings with at least nine different agencies, excluding her GP, nutritionist and hospital. The health authorities are disputing her need for funded nursing care. Instead of resolving differences together, social services believe that healthcare is necessary and must now appeal to a committee. This is only a very small part of a very complex story. The acute stress that this is causing to the family is not conducive to the patient’s recovery.
In another case, a 16 year-old is also bedridden and being tube fed after being forced to perform graded exercises in a hospital because a paediatrician diagnosed idiopathic chronic pain, and later produced a string of alternative psychological diagnoses. Her parents had, again, co-operated with the authorities in the face of Section 47 proceedings under the Children Act, but they also asked for a second opinion as they were convinced that their daughter had ME. This was refused by the paediatrician. Subsequently the parents obtained two opinions from recognised CFS/ME specialists, both of whom found their daughter to have the illness in its severest form. In fact, she has been found to be only 3% functional. The community paediatrician refused to engage with them and called a strategy meeting without the parents knowing. Senior hospital paediatricians then became involved in the case. The parents have also had to cope with five different social workers in 10 months. To cut another long story short, the hospital finally agreed to withdraw, provided that certain physical tests were conducted on the child. These were done by one of the CFS/ME specialists, himself a paediatrician, who had given a second opinion, and the child’s GP. Her social worker was also present and agreed that the child was well cared for and that there were no child protection issues. The specialist and the GP agreed that they could manage the case until a suitable and acceptable adult hospital physician could be found.
What concerns me about this case is that the hospital medical professionals involved have been determined to hound the parents of this very sick young girl in their determination to prove a point—that the child has a psychological condition. They have distorted evidence at joint strategy meetings, to which the parents were not invited and could not defend themselves. In fact, I have been described as writing intimidating letters to them when I have been trying to help. They are still pulling strings in the background, despite their agreement to withdraw, by demanding to be present at meetings when the parents and the patient have made it perfectly clear that their trust in the doctors has irretrievably broken down and that the doctors are not welcome. They seem determined to pursue a vendetta against this family because they have had the audacity to disagree with the doctors’ diagnosis of the child’s condition. Yet they are answerable to no one unless patients complain to the GMC—a very protracted process.
These problems do not affect only children. A young woman who has had ME with other complications for five years became severely affected and required health and social care. She was then given a psychological diagnosis by a psychiatrist and, on the basis of this, her GP ordered social services to gradually withdraw her care provision over a period of six weeks so that she would be forced to care for herself. Her food was left out of her reach, yet she could not hold a bowl. She has not had her hair washed for eight months. When care was finally withdrawn, kind friends and neighbours went in to cook for her and to feed her. Fortunately, they have managed to help her change her GP and some of her social care requirements are now being met—but no one is answerable for her previous treatment.
I have spoken of instances with which I am familiar. A charity, the Young ME Sufferers Trust, has dealt with more than 140 cases of children with ME where child protection proceedings were instigated at the behest of doctors or teachers because the children were not recovering or attending school. None of these cases was found to be proven, but no one could be held accountable for the untold pain and anxiety suffered by the families. Many are still very frightened that their case might be reopened and are afraid to speak out publicly. This is a terrible situation and it is kept under covers because the parents are so afraid.
I am sure that those who designed the health and social care legislation did not mean it to be like this, and I ask the noble Baroness the Minister to do all in her power to improve the situation. There really is a crying need for leadership, accountability, integrity and competence in this field.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I very much welcome the noble Countess securing this debate and what she has to say. She has used examples of a number of young people with CFS/ME and has illustrated some of the issues that arise where it appears that no one person or agency ultimately takes responsibility for the way that they are treated and supported. It would be helpful if the Minister were prepared to have a look at some of the detail of the issues raised by the noble Countess. I understand that Ministers cannot intervene in such cases, but there may be a pattern here which it might be valuable for her department to be prepared to look at.
The question of accountability applies to many aspects of health and social care. Recently, I was reading the National Audit Office report on the better care fund, the fund that has been created, partly from NHS money, to invest in community care in order to reduce some of the pressures on our health service. The Minister will be aware that the original fund ran into trouble and that there was a redesign of the scheme in April this year. Interestingly, the National Audit Office has some concerns about how what should be an integrated approach will actually work. I was also interested to read another report, from the King’s Fund, which was cited in a briefing that I received from the Royal College of Nursing. The King’s Fund looked at common challenges to integrated care. It talked about lack of funding, lack of GP engagement, the inability of wider health systems to innovate effectively, the lack of integrated IT systems and problems caring for people in remote and rural locations.
It is patently obvious that unless you have some agency, or a multi-agency approach, in which someone is held accountable for the way the whole thing works, we are unlikely to see major improvements. My experience in Birmingham, when I chaired the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, was of the kind of pressures that you get in the health service: problems with out-of-hours and primary care, and big cutbacks in social care. Demographics mean that more frail and older people go into hospital, and then it is hard to discharge them. There can be any number of meetings, and you can have regulators coming down to beat the acute trust up, but nobody seems to be able to hold the system to account. It is so obvious that these are problems of a collective system.
That is why I think that the noble Countess is absolutely right to ask this Question. My party’s proposal for whole person care is designed to try to deal with those issues by bringing health and social care together under the auspices of the health and well-being board, with an integrated budget and a single point of contact for people with multiple needs. These seem to me to be the essential ingredients. Also, we have to get back to a situation where someone takes responsibility for the way that a local health and care system actually works.
I do not want to reopen our debates on the Health and Social Care Bill in 2012, but it is patently clear that the Government have produced a set of arrangements in which nobody is accountable for anything. That is the huge problem that we face. If we try to raise issues with Ministers on a particular condition—I have three cases running in relation to different medical conditions—essentially, they will say that it is a matter for NHS England. You then go to NHS England, where you find that there is no one responsible for single service areas, because they have the mantra either that it is specialised commissioning or that it is down to clinical commissioning groups.
That is replicated elsewhere. For instance, I ask the Minister: who is responsible for the effectiveness of the Birmingham health system? Nobody is, because it is split between different clinical commissioning groups and a variety of NHS trusts. The local office of NHS England clearly does not have the capacity to exercise leadership, nor do people at the centre think that it should.
One way or another, we have a big problem around the need for integrated services, whether it is services for the community as a whole or services for individuals, in the cases that the noble Countess has cited. At the moment, it seems very difficult to produce a set of arrangements where, in the end, you can finger somebody and actually say, “You are responsible for making this thing work together”. The noble Countess has done us a great service in raising a fundamental issue about the current arrangements. We all look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Countess for securing this debate. She has raised some important issues. I would particularly like to thank her for providing information to me and my officials in advance of today’s debate. She will understand that I am not able to comment directly on specific cases, save to say how much I sympathise with those afflicted with this terrible condition, and indeed their families supporting them. She is right to emphasise the need for integrated approaches to meet the needs of people with ME or chronic fatigue syndrome. This is a condition that presents in a variety of systems, but the point that she raised is that it remains incompletely and inconsistently understood. Partnership working between different professionals is key to getting a consensual approach to treatment.
I am not able to determine from her speech whether she was talking about one particular geography, or a whole different load of geographies, so what is the common factor? Maybe ME is the common factor of that geography. But certainly, a lot of work has been done very recently to put in place a framework for achieving multi-agency working. There is consensus about the need to better integrate health and care and, in the case of children, education services, too. You need the three services working together. Under the Care Act, the much maligned Health and Social Care Act, and the Children and Families Act, we have made progress in ensuring that the right statutory enablers are there, while allowing local areas the freedom to develop their own accountability mechanisms depending on their local circumstances.
NHS England and clinical commissioning groups are under statutory duties to promote integration. They are required to act with a view to secure that health services are provided in an integrated way, and to secure the provision of health services integrated with the provision of health-related services, or social care services, where this would improve the quality of the services. The better care fund and integration pioneers provide a mechanism for driving the good practice of integration of health and social care for adults. Areas have pooled £5.3 billion of health and social care funding through the better care fund, with each area needing to set out a robust plan to access their share of the fund. Noble Lords are clearly aware that the Government asked areas to revise plans following an initial submission in April. They were asked to resubmit to ensure that their visions for integration, no matter how impressive, were supported by robust governance and accountability that was required to ensure the successful delivery of these joint plans. This included more evidence of how areas would move towards having a single accountable professional for people with the most complex needs, so they do not repeatedly have to tell their story; they know who to turn to when they have questions or concerns about their care. I should highlight that from 1 April 2015, all GP practices will have a named GP for every patient, including the children, taking responsibility for co-ordination for their care, which should help strengthen the links between primary and secondary care, particularly for those with a long-term condition.
For children and young people with special educational needs or disability, we have introduced a statutory framework for integration across health, social care and education. Children in this group usually have complex needs and, too often, families face a battle to get the care they need, having to repeat the same story to different services and professionals. The new framework will change that. The statutory requirements are designed to improve integrated working across health, education and social care, to deliver improved outcomes for children and their carers. Clinical commissioning groups and local authorities will work together to develop for each child an individual education, health and care plan, focused on the outcomes that will make a real difference to the child or their family. It is a statutory framework; its key points set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 and its accompanying code of practice. It requires clinical commissioning groups and local authorities to have formal arrangements in place for working together to secure joint needs assessments and the subsequent care required by the plan, as well as agreeing personal budgets for the child or young person.
Involvement of children, young people or adults in care planning, as well as their families and carers, is essential, and not just for children with special educational needs. It should be fundamental to securing an understanding between professionals and patients. For children, the EHC plan should capture the services that the child is receiving and the specific outcomes that those services will deliver. The plans must be truly person-centred by describing what success looks like in terms of the child’s experience and abilities, and each plan will have a section that allows the child and their family to talk about themselves, their wishes and aspirations. This new approach has been extensively piloted by local authority pathfinders, which have found it a tremendously invigorating way of bringing commissioners together and thinking about provision in integrated ways. I am confident that this new approach will be a powerful exemplar for other services, not just for children, on effective integration.
We should also acknowledge the related issue of getting transition right. We have heard about this through discussions of mental health and disability, when suddenly at 18 one becomes an adult. Moving from children’s to adult services, for both physical and mental health services, is too often a challenge. It is important for services to work together around the needs of young people as well as their families and carers. This is something that necessarily requires the service as a whole to be mobilised to change.
The noble Countess highlighted the CQC’s report, From the Pond into the Sea, which showed how much more we need to do to secure effective transitions. Our system-wide pledge, signed last year by the major health organisations, includes the ambition to secure care co-ordinated around the individual young person with complex needs, to deliver a positive transition to adult services. The partners to this pledge are working to deliver it, not least NHS England, which has a specific mandate commitment to support smooth transitions between children’s and adult services. NICE is developing for publication in 2016 a guideline on transition from children’s to adult services for young people using health or social care services for use in England. This promises to have a big impact on stimulating cultural change.
Our mandate to Health Education England requires it to work with key partners, including the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to develop a training course to allow GPs to develop a specialist interest in the care of young people with long-term conditions, for introduction by September 2015, which will include particular emphasis on supporting transition from childhood.
Of course, there are cases in which integrated approaches may not work as smoothly as intended, but such disappointments will be fewer in number as we develop the necessary culture and partnership, working across health, social care and other services. I hope that I have provided some reassurance to the noble Countess that we have in place the right national legislative and policy framework.
I would just like to pick up on some points. Both the noble Countess and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, talked about the funding for the NHS and the social care issue. The care that a person needs must not be held up by disputes over who pays or the distribution between nursing care and social care. The statutory guidance for the Care Act makes that absolutely clear. In the case cited, if discussions had begun earlier, before the young girl’s need for transition, this would have allowed significant differences of opinion to have been resolved.
I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that it is not the case that there is a lack of accountability just because we have local commissioners. CCGs remain responsible for the healthcare they commission; local authorities are responsible for social care. In social health and well-being boards, we have a means of unifying local accountability. Health and well-being boards have local members and Healthwatch members. The parents of the children the noble Baroness has been dealing with may be making complaints, and we know from the Francis and Clwyd reports that there is more to do in improving complaints handling for health and social care. However, there is still a duty on all NHS bodies to handle complaints, and obviously the health ombudsman, to whom one can have recourse subsequently, can link up with the Local Government Ombudsman where issues covering health and social care demand it.
This has been a really interesting debate. I am quite happy to have a conversation with the noble Countess afterwards about some of the individual cases, but it is not appropriate to raise them in this context. I hope that she is confident that robust governance and accountability mechanisms are coming down the track and will be in place. They were incorporated in legislation—the Care Act and the Children and Families Act—and we should allow these mechanisms to happen locally.
House of Lords
Introduction: Lord Green of Deddington
Child Poverty
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of child poverty on children’s early years educational development.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, evidence strongly shows that good-quality early years provision has benefits for children’s educational development, particularly for disadvantaged children. This Government are improving children’s outcomes through key reforms including additional funding for disadvantaged children through the early years pupil premium, the introduction of 15 hours a week of funded early education for the most disadvantaged two-year olds and providing up to 85% of childcare costs through universal credit.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that reply. As he has acknowledged, there is overwhelming evidence that links poverty with poor educational outcomes. This starts with the poorest children not being school-ready at the age of five and becomes a widening attainment gap as they progress through school. How can the noble Lord justify the latest report from the Children’s Commissioner which shows that since 2010 the Government’s tax and welfare measures have in fact widened—not reduced—the poverty gap, with the poorest 10% of households with children suffering the greatest losses? Is that not inevitably going to damage their education and life chances? It is not a great legacy for this Government, is it?
Lord Nash
The most important thing to combat poverty is to improve the economy and I think that nobody could argue that this Government have not done a great job on that. It has resulted in 300,000 fewer children living in relative poverty and nearly 400,000 fewer living in workless households.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that over the past five decades the gap has stayed the same, if not widened. Does he agree that all the evidence suggests, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that the provision of high-quality early years provision in dealing with the problems of poverty is a way of tackling this problem? Does he agree that we should extend the provision for all two and there year-olds and the provision of a pupil premium?
Lord Nash
My noble friend is entirely right that the attainment gap in early years is stubborn, although under this Government the number of pupils achieving five good GCSEs has risen from 31% to 38%. It is a question of money and we do not currently intend to extend this further, although I can say that of the 260,000 two year-olds eligible for this provision, on the latest figures, 150,000 are taking it up, which is a remarkable achievement in terms of an increase in provision.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that child health is also affected by child poverty, and that child health in turn affects educational achievement and child development? How are the Government maintaining links between child health and education at government and local level?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness is quite right in this regard. Health is closely tied to achievement, and we work very closely with colleagues across government to ensure that children get all the support they need. In particular, we worked closely with the Department of Health on the passage of the Children and Families Act to ensure that the reforms to special needs and disability, impacting on one-fifth of children, would ensure joined-up provision. Our new entitlement to nutritious free school meals for all infant pupils is another example of this Government working together to support children’s health and achievement. As the noble Baroness will know, there is a lot happening in mental health as well.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, hungry children make poor learners. In view of today’s all-party parliamentary inquiry into food hunger in the UK, will the Government now accept that chronic hunger and food poverty blight this country? Will they take action, including in their policy on benefit sanctions, which the inquiry found to be an important contributory factor to the increased need for food banks?
Lord Nash
We welcome the APPG report on this matter; it raises some interesting points and recognises that it is a complex issue. Of course, the level of take-up of food banks is a relatively new phenomenon. It went up 10 times under the previous Government. The OECD tells us that the use of food banks in this country is in fact well below the international averages. The key way of reducing the dependence on food banks is through education so that people are more likely to be in work and are able to prioritise their funding better, making work pay through our reforms to the benefit system.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
Can my noble friend outline what measures the Government have enacted to improve the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children?
Lord Nash
It is true that this Government have done a huge amount for disadvantaged children: the pupil premium, reforms to the curriculum, reforms to the exams and making sure that particularly disadvantaged pupils have that core cultural knowledge that is so essential, as has been acknowledged by many, including the Labour MP Diane Abbott. As we know, the number of pupils who got that core cultural knowledge under the previous Government fell from 50% to 22%. Thanks to our reforms, it is now up to 40%. Some 800,000 more children are being educated in good and outstanding schools than in 2010, and Ofsted tells us that our school system is in the best shape ever.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, the Government have very commendably given early years provision to two and three year-olds with discretionary places for other vulnerable groups, but Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children have hardly benefited from this at all. What assessments have the Government made with regard to the early childhood development of children in these groups, most of whom live in poverty?
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the development of children’s brains and therefore their whole life chances and attainment are crucially affected by the diet of pregnant women? What steps are the Government taking to improve the diet of pregnant women on a low income?
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, has the Minister heard of the report At What Cost? produced by the Children’s Commission on Poverty, which is a group of young people supported by the Children’s Society? If the Minister has come across the report, what will the Government do about the recommendations in it?
Short-Term Holiday Lets
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what guidance they issue to local authorities in respect of enforcing planning and other regulations relating to short-term holiday lets.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the Government have not issued guidance to local authorities on short-term holiday lets. However, through the Deregulation Bill, we are reforming legislation on short-term letting in London to allow residents to let their property on a short-term temporary basis without applying for planning permission. In order to provide greater certainty before new legislation comes into force, we will issue guidance shortly that will clarify the Government’s view on planning and short-term letting in London.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord but I do not agree at all with the proposed new clause. My interest in property is on the register and I speak as a flat owner. My concern is the effect of illegal lets in blocks with long-term residents. There are 15 flats and three or more of these are being let through an agency specialising in short lets. People arrive, 10 at a time, to overoccupy a small flat, acting in a way they would not in a hotel, and even destroying the safety and security of the block by leaving the street front door open. What action can the legal residents or the head lessee take to deal with this problem at present?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I first point to my own property interest in leasehold in the House of Lords register. Having done so, I will take up the point of my noble friend. There are specific requirements in terms of the residential leasehold properties themselves and the rights available deriving from the long lease in the first instance and whether the property can be sublet. There are also conditions under any short-term letting agreements. The other factor I draw to my noble friend’s attention is the new powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which came into force on 20 October, which provide particular rights under both possession and eviction.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, is not the Government’s approach to this a classic example of how not to legislate? They have brought forward a piece of legislation without prior consultation, with provisions to enable the detail to be set out in regulations but clearly some difficulty in framing those regulations to meet the rhetoric of the proposition advanced. The Minister has told us that their only wish is to deregulate to allow Londoners to let their homes on a short-term, temporary basis, such as when they are on holiday, without having to obtain planning permission—in itself a not unreasonable proposition. However, is it the Minister’s contention that for these purposes it does not have to be somebody’s only or main home? As for being a Londoner, what period of residence, or rather attachment to London, is the Minister suggesting?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
First, I am surprised by the noble Lord’s suggestion that there was no consultation, as I am sure he is aware that there was a consultation conducted in February 2014. There were 97 responses to the question on short-term letting in London. Fifteen local authorities responded: eight were strongly against; six were not opposed to review; and, indeed, one was actually supportive of it. Secondly, the noble Lord has been involved in various bilateral meetings on the subject and he knows full well the Government’s intentions in deregulating in this particular sector.
Lord Fowler (Con)
Could my noble friend remind us how long the consultation period was?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I will need to write to the noble Lord on that. The consultation got more than 70 responses. As I said, the important bodies, to which I draw my noble friend’s attention, were the local authorities that responded to the consultation.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As I mentioned in my initial Answer, we have introduced faster and more effective anti-social behaviour powers through the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. For example, one of the measures is the new absolute ground for possession where housing-related anti-social behaviour has already been proven by a court. This will make it easier for landlords to evict persistent anti-social tenants.
Lord Fearn (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister state what special regulations there are as regards fire in these sorts of sublets? In the constituency of Southport, there are many young people who cannot find anywhere to live who are cohabiting in flats of this nature. Is there any particular reason why there are no fire restrictions on many of those flats?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My noble friend raises an important point about fire safety orders. They apply to all accommodation for paying guests irrespective of the business model used to market the accommodation. As he will be aware, under the order those offering accommodation to paying guests have a responsibility to assess the risk from fire and to consider fire precautions. If there are specific issues on the matter he has raised that he would like to take up with me, I shall certainly look into them.
The Earl of Lytton (CB)
I declare an interest in the matter as a lessor of short-term holiday accommodation outside London. Given the ongoing responsibilities of various public authorities for other things such as environmental health, what reassurance can the Minister give that the proposed removal of local authority control in London for these very short-term and holiday lettings will not result in an untidy free for all which will be difficult to police because of its short-term nature, with potentially serious overcrowding? Is there an intention to consult further with property managers?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Earl raises an important point about consultation. The regulations, when they are issued, will be subject to an affirmative order. In developing the guidelines and the subsequent regulations, we are working very closely with London local authorities to ensure that all the points and concerns that they raise are covered.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
I am not sure that the Minister has answered my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours’s question. The Minister referred to anti-social behaviour measures and said that they were for persistent bad behaviour. How does this apply in a short-term let of two weeks, four weeks or even a month?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
If the noble Lord so desires, I can write to him in detail about the full provisions of the Act, which I am sure he knows well—I think that he participated in the legislation. The Act also provides for community triggers, for example. This will for the first time give victims and communities the right to require agencies to deal with persistent anti-social behaviour. I am quite happy to provide chapter and verse on those orders to the noble Lord.
Unpaid Carers
Baroness Pitkeathley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have made any recent assessment of the financial contribution of unpaid carers to the national economy.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, the Government recognise and value the significant contribution made by informal carers in providing care and support to their family and friends or those who may be frail, elderly or disabled or have mental health conditions. In our recently updated carers strategy action plan, we have made it clear that we will explore the available evidence to assess the impact of the caring role on people’s broader circumstances.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, I put this Question down because of a response I had from the noble Lord, Lord Freud, on 10 November, when I asked him a Question about carers and the bedroom tax. In a reply which I think shocked the whole House, he implied that carers were not taking part in the economic life of this country, so I am glad to have an acknowledgement from the noble Baroness that the Government recognise that. I remind her of the sum that it is estimated that carers contribute, which is £119 billion.
Does the Minister agree that as well as acknowledgment there must be some practical back-up? In the national carers strategy, which was launched in 2008, a pledge was made to alleviate the financial hardship of carers by 2018. I am sorry to say that this pledge was dropped when the strategy was reviewed by the Government, as the Minister mentioned. Given that a recent survey stated that 45% of carers are going short on food and heating because of the contribution that they are making, will the Minister agree that putting that pledge back into the national carers strategy should be a matter of the utmost urgency?
Baroness Jolly
I do not think that anybody can underestimate the value of carers. Carers UK, when it did its sum, took from the census the number of carers there were, how many hours they said they worked and multiplied the answer by £18, which is the hourly rate that it worked from, and came up, as the noble Baroness said, with £119 billion per annum. That figure is in the same sort of ballpark as pensioner benefits, which are £112.7 billion, so we certainly do not underestimate the numerical value of carers.
Baroness Greengross (CB)
My Lords, there are estimated to be 670,000 unpaid carers working with people with dementia. This saves approximately £11 billion per annum. Does the Minister agree that the Government need to make sure that those carers get continuing support after the person whom they have cared for, often for many years, dies? They are not only bereaved but have lost their job, lost their friends and lost the person they were caring for, and they continue to need support. Will that be available to these carers?
Baroness Jolly
The noble Baroness will know about the Care Act 2014, under which local authorities are asked to consider the needs of carers. Part of that was to set up peer support groups. I do not think there is anything in legislation or secondary legislation about what a carer does when the person they care for has died, but I imagine that the support from those peer groups will continue.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, it is very good news that in the Autumn Statement last week the carer’s allowance was increased—to £110—as well as, particularly for unpaid carers, the element of hours that they can work and still receive it. Will my noble friend outline other support offered to carers? For example, there is the carer’s passport to give them support in finding their way around the NHS.
Baroness Jolly
Certainly. Carers have rights, thanks to the Care Act. Under the carers strategy, we are considering four areas: identifying carers—there are still too many carers that we do not know about; ensuring that that all carers can fulfil their potential; it is really critical that we personalise the support for carers; and it is very important that we keep carers fit and well.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, do the Government regret whipping against and voting down the amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, which would have revealed how much blood-relative carers contribute to the economy? Is the suggestion of several billion pounds annually very far adrift? Is that why the Government did not want it made public? Will the Minister now tell us what these blood-relative carers contribute to the national economy?
Baroness Jolly
I do not have figures that split out blood relatives from other carers. I shall find out whether such figures are available and let the noble Lord have them.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that providing good quality home care and respite care is crucial to enabling carers to take up work and remain in jobs and not to descend into poverty or debt? Good care means dignity, respect and a better life for the person carers care for. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that health and social care commissioners recognise this point and provide for and pay for decent care?
Baroness Jolly
It is critical that carers have lives outside that of caring for the individual. The Government are therefore working very hard to ensure that carers can remain in employment or get employment but also have a social life outside their caring duties. Anyone who wants to return to work can get support from Jobcentre Plus and, as of 30 June this year, carers can request flexible working from their employers.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, will the noble Baroness care to address the question she was asked by my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley about the pledge that was originally made, and when she does so, can she tell the House why it was dropped in the first place?
Baroness Jolly
The whole carers package was reviewed in 2010. I was not party to the discussions, but I imagine that the Department of Health and the other departments which put together the carers strategy took a look at the broader economic situation they found themselves in and decided that they would support carers in other ways than giving them a living wage for what they were doing.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Carers Trust and Mencap have demonstrated how unpaid caring often has a detrimental impact on working life and mental health, yet carers—who are often parents of people with long-term disabilities such as autism—must regularly battle tooth and nail to support those whom they care for to stay afloat, particularly since the Government removed the ring-fencing around funding for respite breaks and local authorities to save money, which drastically restricted short breaks for carers. Will the Government commit to ending the postcode lottery in short breaks for carers by reinstating the state ring-fence and at the very least monitor and report back to the House the impact of the cuts in this area?
Baroness Jolly
The noble Baroness is right; when you are a carer and the person you care for is difficult to deal with, that can cause very severe emotional and mental stresses. Therefore, under the Care Act, which comes into effect on 1 April next year, a carer is entitled to exactly the same level of assessment as the person they care for, so that sort of thing will be looked at. Local authorities make decisions about how to spend their money.
Prisoners: Work
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why there has only been a one per cent increase in the number of prisoners in England and Wales at work since 2010.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)
My Lords, the number of prisoners working in industrial activity reported by public sector prisons increased from around 8,600 in 2010-11 to around 9,900 in 2013-14, an increase of 15%. Over the same period, the total number of hours worked increased by 33% from 10.6 million to 14.2 million in public sector prisons. That excludes activity such as cooking, serving meals, maintenance and cleaning, and work placements undertaken by offenders on release on temporary licence.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. The derisory increase to 15% in the numbers working in prisons is matched by a decrease by 2% since 2012 in the numbers of those who get work on leaving prison. Despite all the rhetoric we have had, recently a prison governor was brave enough to tell a court of the effects of the imposed new way of working in prisons, which has resulted in staff cuts and not enough work for prisoners to do. Only last week, G4S told the Justice Select Committee in another place that the ability of governors to govern their prisons was being undermined by government policy. Furthermore, the increase by 69% of the numbers who commit suicide raises the possibility of a charge of corporate manslaughter. Can the Minister please tell the House when Ministers—with the notable exception of Simon Hughes, who has been brave enough to admit that there is a crisis in our prisons—will stop fudging the public about what is happening in our prisons?
Lord Faulks
My Lords, I do not accept the noble Lord’s characterisation of what is happening in prisons. We have increased the number of working hours. Our aim is to replicate as far as possible the normal working week in the community, real work experience and the acquisition of skills, which support effective rehabilitation. As to deaths in custody, any death is a tragedy. We have a number of different ways of investigating them. A review chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is looking into the deaths in custody of 18 to 24 year-olds and we are expecting its report in April next year. We have a number of measures in place to ensure that those unfortunate incidents can be reduced.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
On 27 November I asked about prison overcrowding and staff shortages. In an uncharacteristically peremptory tone the Minister replied that he did not share my gloom, that the work done in prisons is of a very high standard and that we have a dedicated body of prison officers. What is the ratio of officers to prisoners now compared to 2010? What is the Government’s response to the worrying report on work-related stress among prison officers and the well-being of prison officers produced by the occupational health and occupational psychology departments of the University of Bedfordshire?
Lord Faulks
We are always concerned for the welfare of prison officers, who do a very fine job indeed. Benchmark reports incorporate staffing resources for escorting and patrolling activity areas. We are satisfied that prison officers are enabling people to do the work, which was the subject of the original Question. We are recruiting more prison officers but we are satisfied that they are doing an excellent job.
Baroness Sharples (Con)
How many prisons have writers in residence and would it not be helpful if there were more of them?
Lord Faulks
I am not able to give an answer as to the number of writers in residence, but I agree with my noble friend that literature and writers can contribute very considerably.
Baroness Rebuck (Lab)
My Lords, last week the High Court ruled that restrictions on books for prisoners introduced last year by the Secretary of State for Justice were unlawful. Mr Justice Collins further pointed out in his ruling that because of various cuts libraries can be inadequate in meeting prisoners’ needs. I declare an interest in that I was for many years a book publisher. Does the Minister agree that reading can be a vital part of rehabilitation and that improved literacy is crucial for future employment? Is it not now time to end the restriction on prisoners receiving books from family and friends?
Lord Faulks
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. It was a surprising judgment. It related to HM Prison Send, which I recently visited with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who sits two places away from the noble Baroness. We visited both libraries there and spoke to the librarian. We attended a readers’ group. Frankly, the provision of books was excellent. There were a number of books written by noble Lords or their relatives. There is no ban on books. There is only an attempt to restrict bringing in drugs, via parcels, inside books. If you are a prisoner you can get books.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. Does the Minister not agree that the most effective work in prison is that which leads to employment outside? Would he like to take this opportunity to commend those employers who have participated in Through the Gate training towards getting a prisoner a job after imprisonment as a means of rehabilitation and urge other employers to join this scheme?
Lord Faulks
I am happy to take that opportunity. The Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending, which includes employers such as Greggs, DHL and Timpson—the forum is chaired by James Timpson—is providing a valuable service. Halfords is also a recent addition. They offer employment, which is usually in prison, which can then provide a bridge into employment in the community. That is a very important contribution and I am happy to acknowledge it.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill
Specialist Printing Equipment and Materials (Offences) Bill
Business of the House
(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
That Standing Order 40 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Tuesday 9 December to enable the Motions standing in the name of Lord Lipsey to be taken before the Second Reading of the Childcare Payments Bill.
Mutuals’ Deferred Shares Bill [HL]
Consumer Rights Bill
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, these three amendments are minor and technical amendments to tidy up the Bill. Amendment 1 simply serves to update a cross-reference in Clause 21 to make sure that the Bill’s requirements relating to how refunds are paid apply also where the consumer rejects only some of the goods.
Amendment 2 adds Clause 38—other pre-contract information included in the contract—to the list of provisions in Clause 48(1) from which the trader cannot “contract out”. It corrects an omission and aligns the clause with Clause 31(1) for goods.
Amendment 4 simply retains some provisions originally considered to be obsolete. The provisions concerned insert provisions into the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 which we now consider need to be retained. I beg to move.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, at this stage of a Bill, I always feel that the subject matter should be aspirational, involving the high reaches of policy-making and big speeches. It is always a slight disappointment when we deal simply with technical matters. However, I congratulate the Minister on raising the issue. I am glad that she has done so and even gladder that she was able to battle through the noise made by those leaving the Chamber in such numbers as she was speaking. I am sure she will be delighted to hear that we fully support these amendments.
However, we were expecting to see in today’s Marshalled List amendments concerning issues that had been raised by Ofcom. We had understood that such amendments would be tabled, given the meetings arranged by another government Minister, which were attended by many Members of this House, on the subject of provider-led switching and whether or not the Government might support measures to reduce anti-competitive behaviour in relation to the internet. However, those amendments are not in the Marshalled List. Will the noble Baroness comment on that situation?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I understand that my honourable friend Mr Ed Vaizey is dealing with this issue. I think we have the powers that we need, and we discussed this on a previous occasion. As I say, my right honourable friend is dealing with the issue. We are not in a position to add a provision to the Bill but I assure the noble Lord that the issue is being progressed very keenly.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I do not know whether I am in order in speaking now but, before the Minister sits down, it may help the House to hear that I have received correspondence which I assumed had been copied to other noble Lords around the House on precisely the two matters which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned. One was a letter from my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and the other was a letter from my honourable friend Ed Vaizey, so they have responded to the amendments tabled on Report—not wholly positively, I may say, but they have responded and set out their reasons for doing things other than agreeing to the amendments that were tabled on Report.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
“(ca) section 38 (other pre-contract information included in contract),”
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
“Appointment of judges to the Competition Appeal Tribunal
(1) In section 12(2) of the Enterprise Act 2002 (constitution of the Competition Appeal Tribunal) after paragraph (a) insert—
“(aa) such judges as are nominated from time to time by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from the High Court of England and Wales;(ab) such judges as are nominated from time to time by the Lord President of the Court of Session from the judges of the Court of Session;(ac) such judges as are nominated from time to time by the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland from the High Court in Northern Ireland;”.(2) In section 14 of that Act (constitution of the Competition Appeal Tribunal for particular proceedings and its decisions)—
(a) in subsection (2) after “the President” insert “, a judge within any of paragraphs (aa) to (ac) of section 12(2)”, and(b) in subsection (3) for “either” substitute “the judges within paragraphs (aa) to (ac) of section 12(2),”.(3) In Schedule 4 (Tribunal procedure) to that Act, in paragraph 18(3)(b) (consequences of member of Tribunal being unable to continue) after “if that person is not” insert “a judge within any of paragraphs (aa) to (ac) of section 12(2) or”.”
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, noble Lords who were in the House during the second day of Report will have heard the case presented by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Mackay of Drumadoon, in support of their amendments. Both were intended to remove a potential barrier to judges sitting in the Court of Session or the Northern Ireland High Court, from sitting as chairs in the Competition Appeal Tribunal. As I told the House at the time, I shared those concerns. I have met with the noble and learned Lords and I believe that the amendment before us today will address the issues they raised. I am pleased that we have been able to make progress on this matter.
First, as a consequence of the proposed government amendment, the Judicial Appointments Commission will no longer be required to recommend the appointment of judges as CAT chairs to the Lord Chancellor. Instead, the Lord Justice of England and Wales, the Lord President of the Court of Session and the Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland may nominate any suitably qualified individual who is already a judge sitting in the relevant court to be deployed as a CAT chair. This includes the Court of Session and the High Court in Northern Ireland. We are also providing that nominations in England and Wales may be from any division of the High Court, rather than restricted to the Chancery Division as at present. This will ensure that CAT chairs are drawn from the widest possible pool of expertise.
Moving to a nomination process will also address concerns that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, spoke about in relation to the limited appointment terms currently applying to CAT chairs. Currently, chair appointments are restricted to a maximum of eight years. As a consequence, experienced judicial officeholders are required to stand down regardless of their age and whether they wish to continue to serve. This requirement results in loss of expertise from the tribunal.
As part of the move to a nomination process, we will no longer impose such a limit on judicial officeholders who are nominated. Instead, judges will be eligible to be deployed to sit as CAT chairs until they retire or resign from their existing judicial office; if at any time they cease to sit in their judicial office, they would also cease to be a CAT chairman.
I should make clear that the changes I have set out here will apply only to those who are full-time salaried judicial officeholders. Fee-paid CAT chairmen—private practitioners who want to hold a part-time judicial office for the first time, or to add another part-time judicial office to their portfolio—will continue to be recruited through the Judicial Appointment Commission selection process and be subject to an eight-year term of appointment. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that this is an appropriate amendment, ensuring as it does that judges from all the UK’s jurisdictions are able to be deployed to sit in the CAT.
Before I sit down, I would like to convey my warmest thanks to my noble friend Lady Jolly who has provided me with such valuable support and assistance, and of course to the Bill team drawn from several departments, a great example of joined-up government. It has been a very great pleasure to steer this, my first Bill through your Lordships’ House and to engage with noble Lords on every side so very constructively. I beg to move.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for bringing forward these amendments. As she explained, the initiative was taken initially by me and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Drumadoon, at the request of the Lord President in Scotland and the Lord Justice of England and Wales. Their concern about the need for these amendments was, to some extent, due to the extended jurisdiction of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which is the result of other provisions in the Bill.
As it is, the amendment that has been proposed today addresses all the concerns of all three senior judicial officers. I express on behalf of myself and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, our gratitude to the Minister and her Bill team for meeting us and checking whether the amendment would meet with our approval. We were happy to say that it did. This is a good example of the way that the House works to solve a technical, but not unimportant, problem. It says a great deal for the Government that they were prepared to accept this suggestion.
Viscount Eccles (Con)
My Lords, I would like to add my congratulations to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, on bringing forward this amendment, following the advice that he had. It has been made very much, if I may say so, towards the last minute, but it is clearly a very necessary amendment because the responsibilities of the Competition Appeal Tribunal will be greatly widened by the Bill. If the House will forgive me, I will say a few words about Schedule 8, which does the widening. These are not the sort of words that will become entirely suitable when we consider whether the Bill do now pass—I had a grandfather who said “powder before jam”, and those who are as old as me will remember that it was Gregory-powder.
Schedule 8 makes a complex and major change to the law. It greatly widens the responsibilities of the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Similar jurisdictions have done the same sort of thing with opt-out arrangements for redress, and similar jurisdictions have had problems. I think that we have not thought this through nearly carefully enough. We live in a society where we aim to minimise disputes and maximise social cohesion. We do not want to incur additional costs when we know we have not got any more money.
What happened to scrutiny in your Lordships’ House? It may have something to do with this being a long Bill and this important part of it being put in a schedule very near the end. It may have something to do with it amending two other Bills. It might be something to do with trying to minimise the significance of the change. However, I have to say that Her Majesty’s Opposition did not really join the debate at all. Maybe they think it is a good Labour measure; it would be unsurprising if they did so. Maybe they were in thrall to Which?. The Cross Benches—apart from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope—did not play any part in the Bill and nor did my legally qualified friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches. I wonder why not, in circumstances of such a major change.
To conclude, Her Majesty’s Government have changed their position during the progress of the Bill. A lot of safeguards were promised after the House of Commons Committee reported on the Bill, but those have mostly disappeared. The House of Commons suggested that the Secretary of State should be subject to affirmative resolution when it came to the rules of the tribunal, to which we have already had reference; now the Secretary of State—I wonder who that will be—will be subject to a negative instrument only. All this has gone on while the public, as far as I am concerned as I played some part in Schedule 8, expressed no interest in this change—no interest at all that I have seen. They probably see it just as a Westminster village lobby measure. This is at a time when the two great parties of our nation are in decline; the third one I leave noble Lords to judge for themselves. At this stage in our history it is sometimes better to defer something, however good an idea it seems to both Front Benches. When both Front Benches agree one has to have doubts. To me, this is an excellent example of what not to do and how not to do it.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I was expecting someone else to be on their feet before me, but if they are not going to be—
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I think it would be in order to make my comments, which are not on these amendments, after the Motion is put in a moment. I look forward to doing that.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
In that case, I will make my comments now. We agree with the amendments in this group but, unlike the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, we very much welcome Schedule 8. This is not because we are in hock to Which?, although it has played a very good role in the Bill, but because we have campaigned on this for many years. Why should it be that when a company has broken competition law, the consumers who have been ripped off do not get compensation? That is what Schedule 8 deals with and I congratulate the Government very strongly on it. Just occasionally, it may be that consensus in the House is because we are doing the right thing, not the wrong one.
I will say my final words about the Bill now, because I hope it will be the last time we see it back. I hope we will hear shortly, from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, that the Government will not seek to bring this Bill back by overturning in the Commons the view of this House on ticket touting. We hope the other place will see sense and accept this and that this will, therefore, be the final time we see the Bill here. Because of that, I would like to thank the Ministers, the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Jolly, for their hard work and co-operation on the Bill and I pay tribute, as they have done, to the dedicated and professional Bill team, who have seen us, as well as them, through the process. I would also like to thank and pay tribute to the support and hard work put in by my noble friends Lady King—for whom it was her debut Bill on the Front Bench—and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. However, the three of us could never have stood here without the behind-the-scenes expertise of our PLP colleague, Nicola Jayawickreme, to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude.
The Bill leaves this House looking very different from how it arrived. The Government chose in effect to bring forward the introduction of their rules on transparency for letting agents by writing the details in the Bill, and I congratulate them on that. The Ministers with, I am sure, help from their officials, also met—in full or in part—many of the suggestions we made. They agreed in full to no charge on returning faulty goods, to the right for all higher education students to take complaints to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator and to mandatory caller-line identification for marketing calls as a way of tackling nuisance calls. They also largely accepted our amendment over no deduction for use for faulty goods, leaving this measure applying only to cars. Thanks to input from the noble Lord, Lord Best, the Government amended the wording to clarify the fact that trading standards have to give 48 hours notice only before a routine visit. They also agreed to a review of that in two years’ time. Although they could not agree with us that client money protection should be made mandatory, they have required transparency which we hope will drive change in this area. They have agreed to a review of product recall for dangerous electrical goods and we hope this will improve practice in that area. Furthermore, as a result of the concerns raised in this House about the impact on children of exposure to payday loan ads on television and the calls for a watershed, the body that controls the Code of Broadcast Advertising is to consider whether change is needed to both the content and timing of such advertisements.
This is testimony to the listening and negotiating skills of the Ministers, to the support of many noble Lords for these changes and, in particular, to the role of this House in scrutinising and improving legislation. A wide range of thanks are due to a large number of people.
Lord Moynihan
My Lords, since the noble Baroness has broadened the scope of the debate from the immediate context of the government amendments, perhaps I may thank noble Lords on all sides of this House for their support for the protection of consumers, which is now embedded in Clause 33. In particular, I thank my noble friend the Minister and the officials who have gone beyond the call of duty in listening to a wide array of governing bodies of sport which are committed to seeking protection for consumers and, in this case, for sports fans. I do not expect my noble friend to say what the Government will do in another place but, in thanking noble Lords who have supported the amendment I absolutely give an assurance that my noble friends and I who moved the amendment will apply characteristic vigour in discussions with Ministers in another place to ensure that consumers are protected in the way in which we sought in this clause. In conclusion, I again thank my noble friend the Minister. She has done an outstanding job on this Bill, which has been a tough Bill. Now amended, the Bill will go to another place. I hope that the other place will recognise the importance that should be attached to protecting consumers, particularly sports fans, which we sought to achieve through new Clause 33.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)
As these are the final moments in which to say farewell at last, the Minister might be interested to know that I received in my post today from John Lewis a piece of paper complying with the regulations in the new EU directive. She has assured us several times that they are not due to be implemented yet, but John Lewis has decided to implement them. When I questioned that decision, it answered, “Oh no, this has been law since March of this year”. At a later date when I can put this question more formally to my noble friend, she might want to enlarge on that.
Baroness Heyhoe Flint (Con)
My Lords, back-tracking slightly, I echo all that my noble friend Lord Moynihan has said, as well as his and our cross-party thanks to the Bill team and to my noble friends the Minister and Lady Jolly. They met the persistence from our side in the early stages with such courtesy and patience. I hope the Minister accepts that we simply are trying to protect those hard-working fans who spend their hard-earned money on watching sport or entertainment—I know that “hard-working” is very much a buzzword of the Government. That is where we are coming from and why we wish to continue to press this issue as regards the Bill. It slightly embarrasses me that the Government seem more keen to protect those operating as ticket touts—perhaps I should change that name to preserve the not-so-innocent and call them “secondary sellers”.
Surprisingly, you get more protection when buying a tin of baked beans. Heinz—or Crosse & Blackwell or whatever brand you use—manages to stick on all the necessary details of the content within, as well as the redress if you are not satisfied with what you have got. In the ticket-touting amendment, we tried to say that what is on the tin is what the consumer will get. The ticket market should be obliged to provide the same honest details on their sites—obviously, I hope that they do not have “Heinz” or “Crosse & Blackwell” in brackets. I trust that the Minister will agree with the cross-party feelings behind this Bill and with those of all the national governing sports bodies that a fair deal is given to all consumers. We are very happy to discuss the matter further.
Finally, perhaps I may add that I do not have any tickets for the Ashes series next summer.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, inspired by my noble friends Lord Moynihan and Lady Heyhoe Flint, I thought that I, too, should get my retaliation in first before we pass the Bill. I was provoked by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, almost to wave my practising certificate as a legally qualified Member on these Benches, but I did not take part in assessing the virtues of Schedule 8 because I certainly agree with it as well. I agree that the Bill is in better shape now than when it entered the House, and that is a great tribute to my honourable friend Jo Swinson in the other place, as she had a strong hand in creating the Bill’s architecture. That is not to say that there were not valuable qualifications and changes made as it passed through this House. In particular, I thank the Minister and my noble friend Lady Jolly for the clarifications that they gave to the motor manufacturing industry with regard to one repair, and the clarification and the Pepper v Hart-type statements that they gave to the software industry as well. In future years those will prove extremely valuable.
Of course, there are still a number of bees buzzing in my bonnet. Lookalikes will continue to be an issue that I am sure will be raised on further occasions, and I hope that progress will continue to be made. There are a number of other areas—such as Ofcom powers, which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson—on which I hope further progress will be made. I am somewhat concerned about some of the unintended consequences of the definition of “consumer”, which, strangely enough, we did not debate in this House but which may well crop up in the future. I, too, thank my noble friends very much for all their help. “Hard work and co-operation” were the words that were used, and I thoroughly agree with that.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, having played some part in the arguments on difficult subjects in the Bill, I also thank the Minister for the courtesy and care with which she approached it. This was her first Bill and it bodes enormously well for future Bills. I hope she will carry from the House an understanding that this is a Bill on which this House has done its job very well. It has shown why this House is here and how changes can be introduced, encouraged and made in a non-partisan manner. It is important that the Government recognise that one major amendment was of precisely that kind. When all those with a direct interest in and knowledge of the sporting world have supported a change, and when every sporting authority has supported that change, it would be as well for the Government to recognise that making such changes is precisely what the House of Lords is here for. They should not seek to reverse something in those circumstances, for those circumstances range much further than the simple matter of asking those who sell tickets to be as concerned about their customers as those who sell baked beans are about theirs.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I had not expected a debate on secondary ticketing, so I will not delay the House for very long. There is an alternative argument. I would dispute the idea that this change is necessarily in the interest of consumers. It may well be in the interest of the sporting establishment but not necessarily in the interest of consumers. It might actually drive secondary ticketing more into the hands of street touts rather than the formalised, recognised secondary ticket sellers who give guarantees that the tickets are genuine. That is a debate for another time, but someone ought to make the argument.
I have greatly enjoyed working on this Bill. The coalition side has worked well together and I congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Jolly, on all their work to keep us in touch with the developments. I have also enjoyed working opposite the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and alongside my colleagues and noble friends Lady Bakewell and Lord Clement-Jones. I look forward to the Bill going to the Commons now, and I imagine that at some stage it will return here.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Eccles for his engagement on the CAT rules and I have noted with interest the points he made today. We have had several discussions during the passage of this Bill and I am already planning to meet with my noble friend to discuss how he might input into the forthcoming consultation on those rules, which are the right place to look at his concerns. My office is in contact with him to arrange a suitable date and I look forward to that meeting.
I am also most grateful to my noble friends Lord Moynihan and Lady Heyhoe Flint for all their efforts, and to my noble friend Lord Stoneham for his unstinting attendance at our debates on the Bill. I have listened closely to the debates in this House on the resale of tickets and I thank all noble Lords who have brought their expertise to bear on them. As noble Lords are aware, this is a complex issue and one where a number of important matters have to be balanced. We want British sport to flourish and to protect fans, and we also want the resale market to stay above ground in the interests of consumers and sports goers. That is why, since our debate on Report, I am taking the time to continue with discussions of these issues with my ministerial colleagues.
I was delighted to hear from my noble friend Lady Oppenheim-Barnes that John Lewis, at least, is ahead of the curve, and I join my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones in thanking my colleague the honourable Jo Swinson in another place for all her work on this important Bill.
My noble friend Lady Jolly and I are overwhelmed by the kind comments of noble Lords. I am particularly grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for his gracious words, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for hers. I join her and my noble friend Lord Deben in agreeing that we have improved the Bill as a result of the process of scrutiny that this House is famous for.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Modern Slavery Bill
(9 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Warner
“(1) The Commissioner must encourage best practice in—
(a) the prevention of modern slavery;(b) the identification and protection of victims;(c) the prosecution of perpetrators of modern slavery;(d) the promotion of co-operation and partnerships to meet paragraphs (a) to (c).”
Lord Warner (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 66 and speak to Amendment 68 in this group. I am pleased to see that the noble Lord, Lord Bates, has been in his place for some time. No doubt he will have noted the warm words given to his colleagues from another department about the concessions granted during consideration of the Consumer Rights Bill in this House. I am sure that he will want to be no less able to receive such tributes from us all at the end of this particular Bill.
Amendment 66 would remove subsections (1) and (2) of Clause 41 and replace them with a broader, more ambitious and clearer description of the functions of the anti-slavery commissioner. These changes are more in keeping with the advice in the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, of which I was a member, based on the evidence that we received. We received a very large amount of evidence on this issue, particularly from those rapporteurs and quasi-commissioners in other countries with long experience of working in this sphere.
My Amendment 66 proposes that the wording of the Joint Committee’s own draft Bill, at Clause 33(1) on page 28 of the Joint Committee’s report, should be used in place of the Government’s approach. Amendment 68 elaborates that role internationally and in terms of partnership working. There is a fundamental difference between the Joint Committee’s view of the anti-slavery commissioner’s role and that of the Government. As the Home Office Minister told us rather graphically in oral evidence—captured in paragraph 156 of the committee’s report for those who wish to see it in all its glory—the commissioner was intended to be,
“the person who put the rocket up the law enforcement agencies”.
Thankfully, she did not go into more detail on how that might be done.
The Joint Committee’s approach was to define the role rather less colourfully but more broadly. Based on the evidence from overseas, particularly that from the highly effective Dutch and Finnish national rapporteurs, we saw the commisioner’s role as covering what we called the three Ps of combating modern slavery: prevention, protection and prosecution. To these we added a fourth P: partnership. As we said on page 84 of our report:
“It is essential that the Commissioner is empowered to work with national and international partners and to promote and facilitate domestic and international collaboration on the part of others”.
My Amendment 66 is broadly drawn and enables the commissioner to undertake the four Ps that I have mentioned. My Amendment 68 makes the international dimension explicit and makes clear that the commissioner is not restricted to the enforcement agencies as to where he distributes his “rockets”, to borrow Karen Bradley’s terminology.
I recognise that this more widely drawn role may well not commend itself to Home Office Ministers and officials. However, I would ask them to go back and read, or reread, the evidence given to the Joint Committee from experienced overseas equivalent commissioners. The unanimity of view among those witnesses was astonishing. Perhaps I may give the House a few examples from that evidence specifically on the importance of the role of embracing protection of victims. The US Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Luis CdeBaca, emphasised the indivisibility of protection, prosecution and prevention. The Dutch rapporteur said:
“Protecting victims and prosecuting criminals are two sides of the same coin”.
These witnesses found it strange that we should be going to all the trouble of fashioning a Modern Slavery Bill and then appointing an anti-slavery commissioner with such a narrow remit. The Modern Slavery Bill evidence review has recommended that the commissioner should,
“represent and give a voice to the concerns and best interests of victims and survivors of modern slavery”.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees concurred.
Despite this evidence, the Home Secretary has chosen to draw the remit narrowly in the present draft of Clause 41. Even though the victims are mentioned in Clause 41(1)(b), it is only in terms of “identification”. There is nothing about their protection in the commissioner’s role, as the Joint Committee clearly recommended in paragraph 160 of its report. As we said there: this,
“is fundamental to achieving the Government’s aim of improved law enforcement”.
If the commissioner is to be given a wider role, as the amendments in this group all propose, he clearly has to have the freedom to decide the priority for his work within the budget available to him and to expect his reports to be available promptly to Parliament. That is why we had what I suggest was the forceful discussion on his independence during our previous Committee day, and why I and others will be challenging the Home Secretary’s control in the next group of amendments. These groups of amendments are all of a piece; they are all about the independence of this commissioner including a wide brief that will enable him to help the country to combat trafficking and exploitation of victims, both here and abroad. The Home Secretary really has to think again on these issues if she wants the kind of world-class Act which she claims will result from this Bill to be a reality. I beg to move.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness D’Souza)
If this amendment is agreed to, Amendments 66A to 67ZAA cannot be called by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak to the group of amendments that stand in my name, starting with Amendment 66A. As the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has already said, many of the amendments in this group and in subsequent groups are of a piece. There will therefore no doubt be some duplication in the comments that we make. We have already discussed issues related to the independence of the anti-slavery commissioner on previous amendments in Committee. None the less, I ask the leave of the House to repeat some of the points.
Two themes have been much repeated by the Government in connection with this Bill and their wider intentions in the fight against modern slavery: first, that the victims must be at the heart of the Bill in everything we do; secondly, that the Bill would make the United Kingdom a world leader in tackling modern slavery. Sadly, as it stands, the Bill does not live up to these aspirations. One way in which it falls short is in the provisions for the anti-slavery commissioner. Despite the addition of the word “independent” in the title, the commissioner currently has neither the independence nor the remit to be world leading. Moreover, Clause 41, which sets out the commissioner’s remit, has nothing to say about the protection and support of victims, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, who was in her place just now, reminded us at Second Reading. Many noble Lords made these points at Second Reading. Leaving aside the Front Benchers, of the 29 speakers, 19 drew attention to the commissioner and among these, there was near unanimity that the Bill provided neither the requisite independence nor remit. Calls to address that came from across the House.
In opening the Second Reading debate, the Minister said:
“The commissioner’s role is set out in a similar way to other commissioners”.—[Official Report, 17/11/14; col. 239.]
I wonder: which other commissioners? Certainly, the role is not set out in a similar way to that of the Children’s Commissioner for England or that of her counterparts in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales. These commissioners are not controlled by their respective government departments in the way that is done in the Bill, particularly in Clauses 41 and 42. Those clauses give power to the Home Secretary to edit the anti-slavery commissioner’s report and to approve, and by implication disapprove, his strategic plans. They also give similar powers to the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland and to the Scottish Ministers.
The amendments to Clause 42 in my name give us an opportunity to consider these unusual restrictions on the commissioner. Amendments 72ZA, 72B, 72C, 73A, 74A, 74B, 74C and 74D would remove from the Home Secretary the role of approving the commissioner’s strategic plan. Surely, setting his own strategic plan, without interference or the need to have approval from the Home Secretary, is the least we should expect of an independent commissioner. Why does the Bill empower the Home Secretary to give or withhold approval for the commissioner’s strategic plan? How is such a power compatible with a truly independent commissioner? My Amendment 74E would remove the power given to the Home Secretary and her counterparts in Northern Ireland and Scotland to remove material from the commissioner’s annual report. The amendment removes the final four subsections of Clause 42. These subsections allow material to be removed from the commissioner’s annual report on the grounds of the interests of national security, jeopardising the safety of any person and the risk of prejudice to the investigation or prosecution of an offence.
Baroness Cox (CB)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 67, 72, 73, 74, 77 and 105, which seek to incorporate into the Bill the international dimension of modern slavery, which is currently missing—as has been highlighted by other noble Lords—although it was highlighted by the Home Secretary in the foreword to the Government’s recently published and very helpful Modern Slavery Strategy. The Home Secretary rightly emphasised that,
“we must step up the fight against modern slavery in this country, and internationally, to put an end to the misery suffered by innocent people around the world”.
The Home Office press announcement regarding the publication of the Bill on 10 June 2014 claimed:
“The Bill reflects the Government’s determination to lead the global fight against modern slavery”.
Modern slavery is, by its very nature, a global issue, which no one Government can tackle alone. This was reflected in another welcome statement by the Home Office in July this year in Modern slavery: How the UK is leading the fight:
“The new Modern Slavery Bill will be amongst the first Acts in the world specifically tackling modern slavery and reflects the Government’s determination that the UK lead the global fight against this evil”.
I was therefore encouraged by the Home Office announcement regarding the Modern Slavery Strategy. It is very positive and states:
“The strategy also underlines the government’s commitment to not only tackle modern slavery in this country but around the world. It sets out ongoing work to tackle international modern slavery crime at source by working with law enforcement, civil society organisations and governments overseas. This will include an annual identification of priority countries, which will include both those from which significant numbers of victims are trafficked to the UK, as well as additional countries that suffer disproportionately from a high incidence of modern slavery, and individually tailored plans for each”.
To see this global dimension featured in the strategy is a very welcome commitment.
However, the Bill as it stands falls far short of these commitments to fulfil an international remit. It currently focuses specifically—and importantly—on various forms of slavery within the UK. Clearly, the very important issue of supply chains addresses an international dimension of exploitation and servitude related to UK-based companies. I strongly support the measures relating to this problem in the Bill and the amendments under discussion in your Lordships’ House to strengthen these provisions. However, apart from these measures, there is currently nothing in the Bill that recognises and begins to address the many other forms of slavery around the world in many different countries. It is therefore important to highlight the scale and scope of the continuation of this barbaric practice.
The International Labour Organization estimates that there are at least 21 million people in slavery in the world today. Other estimates put the figure much higher. Even if we did manage to stop all the trafficking of people into the UK, does this mean that such people would not still be trafficked? We would be likely to have displaced the problem elsewhere. Those people would still be very vulnerable to being trafficked elsewhere or exploited in another form of slavery.
In my humanitarian work with victims of oppression I have personally met many hundreds of victims of modern slavery and heard first-hand the heart-wrenching stories of the anguish of physical torture, humiliation and hopelessness, often lasting for many years. For some, their loved family members are still missing and enslaved. I have met and talked to many hundreds of former slaves from South Sudan and the Nuba mountains abducted into slavery by the Government of Sudan, using slavery as a weapon of ideological warfare. I have heard first-hand the heartbreaking stories of many victims of forced labour and sexual slavery in Burma; children abducted and forced to become child soldiers by the infamous Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda; and victims of bonded labour and enforced so-called temple prostitution in India. In this context, I would like to record my deep appreciation of organisations such as the Dalit Freedom Network UK and Anti-Slavery International for their immensely important work, reflected in their comprehensive briefings.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendment 66, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, partly because I was a member of the pre-legislative scrutiny committee. The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, is right to say that there should be at least some reference to overseas: we should not be seen as looking at slavery exclusively within the United Kingdom. How far that should go, through high commissions and embassies, is probably a matter for Government to look at, but I think there should be some reference. I shall also speak about Amendments 67ZC and 68ZA, both of which are in my name.
I went to the European Commission anti-slavery trafficking meeting this morning as the first speaker. One of the other speakers, apart from the Minister in the Commons, Karen Bradley, was Kevin Hyland, so I took the opportunity to ask him how he sees his role. He has just sent me a long e-mail, which I shall summarise. He sees himself as exercising a very large degree of freedom. He sees himself as independent. He says that victims are at the forefront of his plans. He is very concerned about wrongful arrest, particularly of children. He is making a survivor of human trafficking one of the panel of the group that he is using. He is recruiting a policy lead externally, by advertisement, with the agreement of the Home Office; so the number 2 will come from outside, with experience of NGOs, experience on the NRM and experience of supporting victims.
The Bishop of Bath is advising Kevin Hyland on the ecumenical response, in relation to all faiths. He has a group of lawyers to look at issues and best practice. He has a group from the NHS working to look at health issues and he has asked business leaders to form another group, all of them being there to advise him. He sees his office as independent. I must say, regardless of what the words are, listening to Kevin Hyland today I was enormously heartened by what he had to say. This does not mean that we should not put the words to the deeds, but we actually have the deeds. I thought that the House would like to know that, and I thought that it was very good news.
I will add a few things to the duties of the commissioner. My Amendment 67ZC deals with the supply chain. It is splendid—the Government are to be congratulated on it; they talk about the necessity for companies to check right down the ladder and to write reports. However, nothing at the moment in that part of the Bill says who should monitor it. My amendment would allow the commissioner to have oversight and a monitoring role. I also suggested, perhaps slightly cheekily, that he should have the power to impose penalties. I am not sure whether the commissioner will have that power, but we have not yet heard from the Government who will impose penalties if companies are not prepared to obey Clause 51.
It is very important that the commissioner should receive copies of the statements required from commercial organisations so that he can check on what is going on. The commissioner seems to be the ideal person to know what commercial organisations are doing on the ground, which their reports will have to state. Of course, if they do not like doing the reports, he could be the person to pick up the phone to say, “Why haven’t you done it?”.
The other point, which is perhaps not of the most immediate importance but which is a crucial part of any commissioner’s job, is the collection of data. It is quite interesting that as far as I can see, so far in this Bill nobody has a duty to collect data. We know that the human trafficking organisation in Birmingham does not consider itself to be the data collection organisation. Now that we have the NRM report from Jeremy Oppenheim, entirely new groups will deal with that, according to the Government, who I believe say that they accept the report on the NRM. However, there will be about eight of those panels, and at the moment there is nothing to show who will collate the data on who the victims are, what is happening to them, where they come from, and so on, and the commissioner is the obvious person to do that. Therefore I would like to see those amendments in the Bill.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in my name and the name of my noble friend Lord Rosser. In doing so, I also warmly welcome the other amendments in this group. We certainly subscribe to the evidence-based views of the Joint Committee on the role of the commissioner, as do other noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon. I also find of great interest the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, on the international aspect, and I would certainly like to see that explored further.
The commissioner’s role, set out in Clause 41, is narrowly centred on promoting good practice in law enforcement and the identification of victims, which in practice also involves law enforcement agencies to a large degree. That focus on prosecutions and investigations has been emphasised by the appointment of a police officer as the commissioner-designate. Of course I note what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, and warmly welcome that the commissioner-designate is determined to be independent and all the various aspirations that she cited, and that he will take advice from a very wide circle of people. However, it should not be up to the judgment of that one man to decide what his remit is and how he acts. It is extremely important for the future—for future commissioners and Home Secretaries—that the definition that we consider fitting should be in the Bill.
The limited remit of the commissioner reflects the fundamental flaw in the original draft of the Bill, which has been ameliorated to some extent already, although there is further to go: namely, the absence of measures to meet the needs of victims. Our Amendment 67ZAA seeks to widen the remit of what the commissioner must encourage in relation to good practice. The Government have raised concern that there should be no overlap with the work of the Victims’ Commissioner. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Patel, we believe that is not beyond the two commissioners in question—and I am delighted that the noble Baroness is in her place—to set clear protocols to guarantee smooth and constructive working.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I have Amendment 67F in this group but, before I discuss it, I should say how much I agree with the thrust of everything that has been said this afternoon. I tabled some amendments which we discussed at the end of our proceedings last Wednesday, which went in the same direction as many of the amendments in this group. It is perhaps as well that the group was not made even longer by having those amendments in it.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, asked why we should go to all this trouble and then constrain the commissioner’s remit and role. That seems to me to go absolutely to the heart of the issue. The commissioner should be able to take a holistic—I do not much like that word—viewpoint of everything that is going on that relates to trafficking. The issues are very complex and interrelated and our understanding of them is developing fast, so the commissioner should be allowed the scope that the commissioner designate has clearly identified. However, as others have said, we should not leave it to him to find ways round the legislation, as it were, which is what it sounds as if he is seeking to do, although I am sure that he would not put it that way.
Moreover, I wonder whether the Secretary of State should have a power to redact passages from reports in the interests of national security. I am not sure whether I am right about this, but I could not find a similar power for the Secretary of State in respect of the reviewer of terrorism legislation, where you would think that would certainly be needed. I think what this boils down to is that we have to respect the fact that the commissioners who are appointed will be entirely sensible.
My amendment picks up the point about data collection and would insert a power to collect, compile, analyse and disseminate information and statistics. The Government’s response to the report of the pre-legislative scrutiny committee, which argued for the ability to deal with data, did not, as far as I could see, address that. As Governments always do, they said that the scrutiny was welcome. However, the point was also picked up by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which commented:
“National human rights institutions … generally do not have the Ombudsman-type power to take up individual cases, but they do have a significant role in collecting data in order to monitor the State’s performance in observing the rights of individuals”.
If I can put it less assertively, may I ask my noble friend whether he can confirm that research, which is mentioned in the clause, covers the points which I have included in my amendment? Even if the role is restricted to enforcement, which I very much hope it is not, data collection is important in enforcement. Enforcers need to know what they are up against. I also ask my noble friend whether the Government will be producing a data-sharing protocol, which is recommended in the review of the NRM. There will be another point on data later, but if the Minister is able to answer, that would be interesting.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I rise in support of these amendments aimed at strengthening and broadening the remit of the anti-slavery commissioner, which is very much in the spirit of the recommendation put forward by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member. The JCHR concluded that the commissioner’s mandate,
“remains weak … and narrowly focused”.
Following questioning of the Government, the committee accepted the need to avoid any overlap or confusion with the role of the Victims’ Commissioner—I see that the noble Baroness is in her place—but we said that we did not consider this to be an inevitable result of broadening the role beyond its narrow focus on law enforcement.
Amnesty made the point in its briefing that the Home Secretary has emphasised the need for a co-ordinated and holistic approach, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to tackling modern slavery. It said that this is why it is so important that the commissioner is properly resourced and empowered to look fully across the piece. I agree with that.
The JCHR recommended that the Government should follow the model of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, which the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has talked about. When we discussed this at our last sitting, I commended the Government for having strengthened the position of the Children’s Commissioner and made it a much stronger body than it was. That was very much to the Government’s credit, although I would add that the Minister mentioned on Wednesday the fact that the Children’s Commissioner is housed in a Department for Education building, as if that meant that it was fine for this commissioner to be. The JCHR strongly recommended against that, because it impinges on the commissioner’s independence—but that is by the by.
Despite having set up this very good model of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, the Government deliberately decided not to pursue that model for the anti-slavery commissioner. They then pointed out that this was reflected in the much smaller budget for this commissioner than for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. I could not help but wonder whether this was partly about trying to save money. Are they trying to have an office of the anti-slavery commissioner on the cheap? The old proverb about a ha’p’orth of tar came to mind.
I want to return to a question I asked the Minister at our previous sitting, when perhaps I did not make myself fully clear. I asked the Minister why the Government do not see the anti-slavery commissioner primarily as part of the human rights machinery, as they told the JCHR. The Minister replied that the commissioner,
“is not a national human rights institution as defined under the Paris principles”.—[Official Report, 3/12/14; col. 1382.]
However, he agreed that it would play a key part in improving our human rights response to tackle modern slavery. In my speech last week I quoted from the exchange between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Lewis Carroll, on how we understand the meaning of words. When I reflected on the Minister’s reply to me, I rather felt as though I had walked through the looking-glass. It was, of course, perfectly open to the Government to make the anti-slavery commissioner compliant with Paris principles. That was a political decision and choice. However, they chose not to.
So let me rephrase my question. Why did the Government choose to make the anti-slavery commissioner not compliant with the Paris principles? That is: why do they believe it should not be part of the human rights machinery—not why it is not technically part of the human rights machinery—when we are all agreed that it has this key role in improving our human rights response to modern slavery? I am baffled, I have to say.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, I support the principle contained in Amendments 66, 67ZA and 67ZAA, but also most, if not all, of the amendments that have been spoken to, all of which are immensely important to the debate. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Cox on what she had to say, because that dimension clearly is important and needs to be taken fully into consideration.
It is essential that the commissioner’s role engages with the experience of victims, and in particular that he should have the authority to take a leading role in promoting best practice and the highest possible standards in the care that victims are given. There are two very clear reasons for this. First, I believe that we have a duty to protect and support victims of these terrible crimes. I will speak more about how I think we need to strengthen the Bill in that regard when we reach Part 5. To see that that duty is effectively carried out, there needs to be some form of oversight—someone to champion the cause, not of individual victims, but of all victims. Good practice in how to provide support and care to victims needs to be shared with other organisations that fulfil the same role. We need someone who can independently identify that good practice and help to disseminate those models or skills to the wider network of organisations involved in this support work. The recent review of the NRM was a welcome development, but ongoing monitoring of support that is able to pick up examples of especially good care provision and identify where things need to be improved should be much more effective. I understand that there are probably some assessment processes built into the contract for providing the victim support programme, but in reading the NRM review and the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill I feel that there is a vital co-ordinating and monitoring role that the commissioner could and should play in this regard.
The second reason why I support these amendments is that it is well known that victims who are well supported make better witnesses in police investigations and court proceedings. It therefore seems to me that, since Clause 41 requires the commissioner to promote good practice relating to investigations and prosecutions, he may well need to encourage practice that promotes the needs of the victim as a witness. Yet, by not giving him authority to promote good practice in the support and protection of victims, he will only be able to look at improving the way that law enforcement agencies treat victims in the course of investigations or court cases, not the wider structure of support. This seems to be very short-sighted and could possibly limit the commissioner’s effectiveness.
In conclusion, I find that it is rather disappointing to discover that the role is purely focused on operational improvements in law enforcement. The title “anti-slavery commissioner” conjures up images of a much more holistic and comprehensive approach to addressing modern-day slavery in our nation. I urge the Government to accept the principle of Amendments 66, 67ZA and 67ZAA and many, if not all, of the others that have been mentioned today, and expand the role of the commissioner to include oversight of support and protection of victims.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of a company which, in working with companies on their corporate responsibility, has to look at ways to eradicate modern slavery in their supply chains. One therefore has some direct understanding of the problems that the commissioner will face. I associate myself with the generality of the arguments put forward, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness who spoke so movingly earlier on. It is obviously difficult to get the balance right and none of us should ignore the fact that, if you are not careful, you have a commissioner who is commissioner for everything. The Government are trying to ensure that the commissioner has a series of priorities and deals with things sufficiently narrowly so that he is not pushed all over the place. I understand the Minister’s problems, but I suggest that there are some elements in what has been said which may not have been adequately presented in the wording of the amendments but which the Government might like to look at to see whether they can bring forward amendments themselves to cover some of the central issues.
The first of these was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, who pointed to the fact that the international implications of what we are doing here must not be ignored. Modern slavery is not a national activity: of its nature, it has international ramifications. We may well not want to put in the Bill that the commissioner may work with high commissioners, ambassadors and the like all over the world, but we must have something which would make it impossible for people to object if the commissioner, in his work, were to reach out beyond the shores of the United Kingdom. Otherwise, I do not believe that he can achieve what the Bill intends.
They may not be the ways of doing it, but the kinds of implication which the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, put forward have got to be thought of seriously by the Government. In practical terms, you may be working with a British company but, in order to give advice on its corporate responsibility, you have to deal with some possible slavery situation far away. If you were restricted in not being able to be in touch with, deal with and discuss with people in those countries, you would not be able to do your job properly. That is an important parallel with the commissioner.
Secondly, independence is a vital part of this. I am very excited about the Bill: it is another of those occasions when Britain has taken a significant step ahead of very many other countries. As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I see a sort of parallel to this. We are doing something of real value to the world as a whole. Drawing from my experiences with that committee, it is of considerable importance to your independence that you are seen not as a departmental subject but as open to advising the Government as a whole. I therefore hope that the Government will look again at exactly how the terms of the relationships between the Home Office and the commissioner are drawn. This is not because I think that either this Home Secretary or this commissioner will find it difficult to work together. It is that we are not legislating for this Home Secretary or this commissioner; we are legislating so that the office of commissioner shall develop in the way that offices develop in the context of different personalities in the Home Office and as commissioners.
Therefore, I hope that the Minister will think seriously about whether there are ways to make sure that the independence of the commissioner can be seen to be clear even in those countries where the idea of independence is quite difficult—which brings me to the core of this argument. We are of course legislating for Britain but we know that we may well be legislating in a way that will be copied by others. Indeed, Ministers have been very clear in saying that they hope that this will be copied by others. It is true that we will not deal with modern slavery unless it is copied by others.
The Government need to be very careful about assuming that, if you have the relationship which at the moment is adumbrated in the Bill, people will understand that the commissioner is as independent as he actually is. The wording about redaction and the like can easily be adapted by those countries where what that would mean would be that the commissioner would not be independent at all but would be the subject of whatever is their equivalent of the Home Secretary. One thing that we need to be careful about here is not to feel that other people carry with them the cultural understanding that we have when we talk about independence and know that that independence will in our system be properly respected. When my noble friend replies, I hope that he will not say, “Well, we all know that it will all be independent and perfectly all right”. Even if we knew that, the Bill will not be seen by others in the context of that knowledge. Therefore, getting the wording right and making sure that the independence is clear is crucial.
As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I have to say that it is extremely helpful to be able to point to the Act and say, “I am doing this because the Act tells me not only that I have a right to do it but that I have a duty to do it”. That is important because the choice of what you do does not of itself imply a political or other bias. I am now about to start on the report which will assess the success of the Government in mitigation and adaptation, which will come out in the middle of next year. No one can say that it will come out in June because I have chosen the moment in order to inform some possible new Government; it comes out in June because the Act says that it has to come out in June. That gives enormous independence, because it makes sure that the choice cannot be cast into dispute.
My worry about the way in which this commissioner’s job is placed is that, at the same time, it appears to restrict him and not to give him sufficiently strong direction for him to be able to say, “I have done this because the Act requires me to behave in this way”. So I suppose that I am asking the Government particularly to listen to today’s debate and to say to themselves, “Are we sure we’ve got this balance quite right? Can we take from what has been said today a sufficiency of advice and information to rewrite this part of the Act in order to make the amendments perhaps not as extensive or as detailed as has been suggested but to make such amendments as will ensure that what the commissioner says he wants to do will be absolutely congruent with what the Act says he ought to do?”.
Otherwise, if from the beginning he does what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reports that he intends to do, there is ground for arguing that that is in some sense outwith the scope of the Act. I have a very simple worry, and I ask my noble friend to accept it entirely in this spirit: it is that this great démarche—this Act of such importance—might find itself in this kind of argument, which is the last thing we want, very early on in its implementation.
Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)
My Lords, I have just a few remarks to make on Amendment 67AA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. These amendments all seek to remove the restrictions placed on the commissioner in respect of the ad hoc reports that he may write. As has been said before in this House, the independence of the commissioner is key to his effectiveness and his credibility among civil society and with colleagues in similar roles in other countries. The ability to report on any pertinent matter as the commissioner sees fit is a vital part of building that independence.
I wish to highlight one aspect of the restrictions that particularly concerns me. Changes were made to the definition of a “permitted matter” on which the commissioner could make ad hoc reports in order to allow the commissioner’s work to be extended to Northern Ireland and to Scotland, with devolved Ministers having a significant role in relation to the commissioner’s work alongside the Home Secretary. I welcome the inclusion of these references to the devolved Ministers as I believe it will make a contribution towards the separation of the commissioner from government priorities. However, in making this change, the ability of the commissioner to make reports on his own initiative has been further restricted, and that concerns me greatly.
In the Bill that was introduced to Parliament in June, a “permitted matter” under this clause was defined as a matter on which the Secretary of State had authorised the commissioner to report, or which was contained in the commissioner’s current strategic plan and therefore previously approved by the Secretary of State under the mechanism for approving those plans; whereas we now see that Clause 41(4)(a) states that a,
“‘permitted matter’ means a matter which—
(a) the Secretary of State”,
or the devolved Ministers,
“have asked the Commissioner to report on”,
or a matter in the pre-approved strategic plan.
In adding these references to the devolved Ministers, “authorised” has become “asked”. No longer can the commissioner initiate an idea for a report outside of the strategic plan and seek the authorisation of the relevant Minister to make the report—and one might consider even that to be rather restrictive. Under the present clause, the commissioner can report matters that are not included in his plan only if the Home Secretary or the devolved Ministers ask him to make such a report. In my opinion, it would have been possible to amend the text of the Bill to include references to the devolved Ministers without further narrowing the commissioner’s capacity to initiate reports. I believe that this additional restriction is most unfortunate and I would urge the Minister to look again at this part of the clause.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
My Lords, we all recognise that the work and functions of the commissioner are of paramount importance to make the role effective. Because victims are often trafficked from other countries, I support the view that surely it is important that the commissioner is able to work and co-operate with people and bodies abroad, as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, in her Amendment 67.
Amendment 68, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, talks about,
“engaging with international commissioners or equivalent persons”.
The sharing of best practice and the findings of similar bodies in other countries would be of mutual benefit in trying to stop this heinous practice. At Second Reading I spoke about the role of the commissioner in providing a central resource to gather data and information, to monitor trends, and the impact of policies and legislation. Working with people in other countries would greatly facilitate that work. Amendments 72 and 73, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, would include the involvement of our embassies and high commissions. That would have the effect of ensuring that they are aware of what is going on in the countries they serve in and guarantee that modern slavery is on their radar.
Widening the remit of the annual report in Amendment 74 would mean that what is happening in the UK is set in a global context. That is because bringing trafficking and slavery to an end cannot be done by one country alone. We are thus going to have to work closely with other countries and we need to monitor and understand what is happening across the world so that abolition can really be tackled. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend the Minister about this.
One of the criticisms made of the Bill at Second Reading was that it is focused too much on targeting traffickers and not enough on helping victims. It is terribly important that victims who have suffered so much are supported in the best way possible, as has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others. Victims of trafficking are surely special cases. By the fact that they are trafficked, these victims often have no home in this country and are in a foreign land, and perhaps they do not even speak the language. They probably have no money and only the clothes they stand up in. They need special support and assistance if we are to ensure that, having been freed, they have choices about how to move forward in their lives. If the anti-slavery commissioner is not focused on the support of victims, I believe that a strong and special mechanism must be put in place for that. I hope that my noble friend will give further consideration to this aspect so that we can ensure that those who have fallen victim to being enslaved have the best chance of putting their lives together again in the future.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendments 72, 73 and 74 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. Her amendments rightly seek to ensure that the Bill has an international remit by providing that our diplomatic missions across the world have a duty to engage with foreign Governments and international NGOs on human trafficking and slavery, that the anti-slavery commissioner has a duty to receive those reports and learn from and act upon them, and that through the annual plan, Parliament can debate them. Having each embassy and high commission produce an annual report on government action to fight slavery and trafficking would mean that there will be more thorough research into slavery across the world. It will mean greater dialogue with a wide variety of world government officials, NGOs, journalists, academics and survivors. It will mean that the issue of slavery and trafficking will rise up the world’s political agenda.
Through these annual reports, the UK will be fulfilling an important global leadership role. Involving embassies and high commissions in preparing annual reports about trafficking and slavery in its areas of operation is not new. The US has been doing it for the past 14 years —since 2001 it has produced a Trafficking in Persons Report—and the UK should do the same. I ask the Minister why the UK cannot do the same. The more information we collate and share across the world, the better our national and international responses will be. Having official reports on an annual basis which set out the scale of the problem in each country, the forces that lead to the slavery, the conditions that need to change to fight the slavery and what works best to tackle the root causes of slavery, protect the victims and prevent it from happening in the first place, will lead to the global solutions we need to eradicate this global problem. There is much we can learn from around the world.
Although I welcome the notes in the Modern Slavery Strategy that modern slavery will be included in the country’s annual plan, those embassies target only a small number of countries. If we can increase embassy engagement throughout a wider group of countries we can learn much more. For example, a pilot project conducted in the Netherlands offers specialised assistance and shelter to male trafficking victims. There is also a partnership with the Government of Norway whereby caseworkers in the field are using mobile technologies in Uganda to collect information about the protection needs of young trafficked children. In Austria, youth public awareness campaigns about local trafficking are taking place through school exhibitions and the provision of resources for teachers.
In this way, the annual reports would play a key role in shaping the debate and have a positive contribution to our ongoing dialogue here in the UK. As well as being a valuable source of information, these reports would also prove very useful for NGOs and civil society. They would serve as an additional tool for advocacy and a benchmark for evaluation. They would allow NGOs and others to build stronger relationships with high-level policymakers across the world. The reports would also, I hope, allow us to hear more clearly the international voices of survivors. There is much that we can learn from survivors. They know better than anyone what Governments need to do to identify and protect those who are enslaved and to bring to justice those who are responsible.
Finally, one particular feature of the US Trafficking in Persons Report which I think we should replicate here is the annual recognition that it gives to individuals around the world who have devoted their lives to fighting human trafficking. This year, among others, they honour a former orphan from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who has spent his life providing support for vulnerable children; a leader of 75 front-line anti-trafficking workers in northern India; a director of a centre for victims in South Korea; and the first trafficked victim in Peru to face her traffickers in court. These are inspirational people working day in, day out to fight slavery and trafficking, deserving of international recognition but not wanting it. For them, having British embassies and, through them, the British Government take an active interest in their work, listen to their survivor stories and learn from their work, are recognition enough. We should give it to them. I therefore hope that the Government will support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, I have listened to the debate on this group of amendments, and I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and with a number of previous speakers. I do not know to what extent the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was consulted during the drafting of the Bill, but even at this stage I think it should be consulted.
I am glad that Clause 51 is in the Bill, but it must inevitably bring in an international dimension—and who else will deal with that dimension if not the commissioner?
It would be most helpful if the Minister could say that he will take away all these amendments and come back with appropriate government ones on Report. If such government amendments could be published at least a few days in advance of Report, that also would be very beneficial.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, it would be inconceivable to move forward with this legislation without an international dimension to the Bill. As somebody who has worked in international work professionally for much of my life, it seems to me that there are two fundamental points to be made about this. The first is that the issue with which we are dealing is international by definition, and therefore the response has to be international. We cannot be as effective as we should be unless we are taking that into account and making it central to our whole approach.
There is the whole psychological and social dimension as well. When dealing with youngsters in this incredibly traumatic and sensitive situation, not to have a relationship—and a growing relationship—with those grappling with the problem internationally calls into question how far we will be able to understand the background and underlying issues in the context of a particular child. This is a challenge to humanity and the response has to be by humanity overcoming national frontiers and borders, and making sure that we work with those who care and are putting their whole lives into tackling this problem, not working quite separately from them.
Baroness Newlove (Con)
My Lords, I ask the Minister to listen to some of the views in your Lordships’ House in respect of the support for victims. As the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, I welcome much of what is in the Bill and, as I mentioned at Second Reading, I look forward to working with the anti-slavery commissioner at an early stage to ensure consistent, co-ordinated and high-quality support for victims of trafficking. It seems that as it stands, the Bill considers the needs of victims to be mainly in securing successful prosecutions of the perpetrators. While I want to see the guilty convicted and punished, I want the Bill to go further for victims of trafficking by helping to ensure that they are helped to recover and supported in leading fulfilling and healthy lives.
We in your Lordships’ House have all been shocked to learn about the experiences of some of the victims of trafficking. We have heard about the physical, sexual and emotional abuse and about almost unimaginable cruelty, so we should understand that helping victims to recover cannot be achieved in a matter of weeks or months. It may take a number of years, or indeed a lifetime. Yet I have seen for myself that with the right support, victims can be helped on to a recovery journey and to get on as best they can. We must not stop the support for victims of trafficking when a court case is over; we must consider them as a traumatised human being, not simply as a means to secure a conviction. That is why I want to work with the anti-slavery commissioner; I want to ensure that the victims of these terrible crimes can access good-quality services for as long as they need them.
I had a very helpful meeting with my noble friend the Minister last week to discuss these issues and I would welcome meeting the anti-slavery commissioner soon. We considered a number of options which may come under the duty to co-operate in the Bill. We could have a memorandum of understanding to make sure that there is nothing specific between the victims’ commissioner and the anti-slavery commissioner. We could specify in more detail how the commissioners could work together regarding the commissioning and quality of services, and the provision of services for victims. We could also have the two commissioners co-operating by agreeing in letters to work together to make sure that we support the services of victims.
What matters to me most is not how this co-operation is achieved but that it is achieved. As victims’ commissioner, I want all victims to have a voice and for them to be helped to recover from their ordeal. The quality and duration of the help they need should be determined by their needs and not by the type of crime they have suffered. The criminal justice system should expect to fit around the victim instead of the victim fitting around the system, as is the case today. As I said at Second Reading, I look forward to meeting the anti-slavery commissioner to consider some of these options, but I ask the Minister to look at how the support of victims is going to be carried forward. We need this Bill and we welcome it but as victims’ commissioner I meet many victims and we have to support them through the lifetime of their journey to make them better people and to give them healthier lifestyles.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to be able to respond to this extraordinarily high-quality debate. It is a large group of 26 amendments and there have been 15 excellent speeches. In the time permitted it will perhaps not be possible to go into every detail but I assure noble Lords we will—as we have done throughout—pay considerable attention to all the points made very powerfully and eloquently during this debate and seek to respond to them as we go through the remaining stages of the legislation in your Lordships’ House.
I will try to direct as many of my remarks as possible to addressing the many specific points that were made. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, began in good style by asking me to reflect on the previous legislation which had just secured its passage through your Lordships’ House, and invited me to think about whether we ought to be as accommodating of amendments. I want to put on record that the Government continue to amend and refine this piece of legislation in the light of our own experience and consultations but also in the light of the comments made and the concerns expressed by Members of your Lordships’ House and, indeed, the other place. As evidence of that I was just calculating that there are 16 government amendments in the Marshalled List today and there will be many more to come.
We have seen the Bill strengthened to include child trafficking advocates. There have been changes with regard to the victim’s personal circumstances, including their age. There is a statutory defence—which was a major change—and reparation orders to ensure that victims are actually compensated. Identification of victims has become part of the commissioner’s remit and the commissioner’s independence has been put in the Bill. We have had a new clause on supply chains, which was introduced in the other place. We have had a requirement on child trafficking advocates to act in the best interests of the child. We have introduced a statutory defence for victims. We have introduced an amendment so that a lack of consent is not required; it applies to all children. I do not mean to be tedious and to test the patience of your Lordships’ House but I put on record that the Government have engaged with people across the House, recognising that this is a landmark—or démarche as my noble friend Lord Deben put it—piece of legislation. We all want to make sure that we get it absolutely right.
As the starting point of an excellent contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, referred to pre-legislation scrutiny in refining this legislation. It identified four elements—prevent, protect, prosecute and partnership. It is no coincidence that when the modern day slavery document was produced just before Committee in this place we identified four elements—prevent, protect, pursue and prepare. They broadly followed that line of alliteration highlighted in the previous Bill and in the previous consideration of this, so that is part of what we are trying to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, said that he was very concerned about redaction, essentially. That is a key concern that a number of noble Lords have referred to. He wondered how this fitted in with other commissioners and whether it was going to be singled out and limit the effectiveness of the designated Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. I draw noble Lords’ attention to Clause 41(6)(a), (b) and (c). That is not simply carte blanche to say that matters can be redacted from the report that may lead people out there to question its independence and authority. There are very specific instances that would be given where, for example, something,
“would be against the interests of national security, … might jeopardise the safety of any person in England and Wales, or … might prejudice the investigation or prosecution of an offence under the law of England and Wales”.
When I say England and Wales, I mean simply that the Bill goes on to reference Scotland and Northern Ireland after that.
I know that my noble friend Lady Hamwee asked whether this was required under the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation provision. That is the case; the Secretary of State must be satisfied that it will not prejudice criminal proceedings. Then there is the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. If the Secretary of State thinks the content is undesirable for reasons of national security or might jeopardise individual safety, then information can be redacted under those very narrow and specific circumstances. It was actually with regard to the latter case that we sought to draw the wording for this part of the Bill from the latest piece of legislation that we had. It has very specific elements in it.
With regard to the location of the commissioner, I am aware of the view that he should perhaps sit outside the Home Office; we had that debate, and a number of noble Lords said that. Physically, he sits outside the Home Office in Globe House, with the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. It was interesting to talk to Kevin Hyland last week. We went through the comments that had been made in Committee on Wednesday. He expressed the view that being attached to the Home Office, rather than standing alone, helped his case. He coined a phrase to me, which he gave me permission to use, that if he were on his own it would be a bit like being a corner shop trying to take on Tesco, although I suggested that we use the word “Sainsbury’s” just in case that was not appropriate. The point is that he would be a small, independent operator seeking to battle in the marketplace with a major government department. The fact that he carries the weight behind him of one of the major offices of state seems to him to help rather than hinder his case.
Those sentiments were backed up by the conversation that Kevin Hyland had with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, at the meeting this morning of the European Commission, where he seemed to reiterate that he felt that he was given a degree of independence to operate as he saw fit. Linking back to the conversation we had on Wednesday in Committee, he also made the point that he felt he had freedom to appoint from outside the pool of the Home Office. I have since sought clarification of that and that is the case. I can inform your Lordships’ House that he is at liberty and not restricted to drawing from the Home Office. He might draw from there some of his more junior roles, but the request was that the senior roles should be ones that he appoints and that they should be people who he wants to head up particular elements. Therefore, I was heartened that some of the appointments he was discussing were at a senior level but from outside.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
In terms of independence, the point was made very forcefully by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and others, that it is not a matter of personalities. The commissioner-designate is clearly a jolly good chap and all that but this is not about him. This is about the role of the commissioner, how the role is seen by other countries, and the ability of the commissioner to interact with other agencies both here and abroad. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord to address that point. Might it also be possible for him to organise a meeting with the commissioner-designate for all Peers who might be interested?
Lord Warner
When the Minister replies to my noble friend, could he say how what he said about Kevin Hyland’s views squares with Clause 40(4), which makes it very clear—if I understand the English in the Bill—that the Secretary of State is in the driving seat on the staff made available to the commissioner? If I may put this rather unkindly to the Minister, he may be dropping the commissioner who has been appointed somewhat in the cart, in that it may convey to your Lordships’ House that this man actually is a creature of the Home Office rather than the other way round.
Lord Bates
I certainly would not want to do that. I agree that there should be a meeting. I would be very happy to facilitate that meeting, perhaps between conclusion of Committee and Report. My reading of Clause 40(4) is that, as these appointments are within the Home Office and as the Home Secretary has made this a personal passion, then clearly from a procedural point of view there ought to be a sign-off from the Secretary of State to those positions. That would seem eminently sensible in the sense that they are accountable to your Lordships’ House, delivering on the strategy before us.
Lord Warner
I want to press this point with the Minister as we are in Committee. Is he saying then that other commissioners in the Home Office or outside, such as the Children’s Commissioner, get sign-off from the departmental Secretary of State before they appoint people?
Lord Bates
On that point, one of the things I was coming to in my rather conciliatory wind-up at the end—but I will bring it forward if I can—was to say that of course we are open to ensuring that, in the words of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the words match the deeds. If refinement is necessary to communicate what is happening—namely, that we have an Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner who is appointing his staff, in whom he has confidence, and setting up his operation in a way that he sees fit and will be held accountable for—then we will continue to look at that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, reminded us of the global dimension. Again, that is extremely important and we are mindful that we need to look at ways in which that could be strengthened. In the strategy document—the noble Baroness referred to this element, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley—we have strong sections on page 54, from section 6.9 on, which talk about country plans. I know the point was made that these country plans ought to cover all countries, all high commissions and all embassies. However, with limited resources, we want to make sure that at least those countries that we are all aware must be at the vanguard in stopping the trafficking and tackling the problem are the ones that we direct resources to. I am delighted to see on the Front Bench my noble friend Lady Anelay, who will confirm that we have a number of projects, though the FCO and DfID, working on tackling modern-day slavery in India, Bangladesh and west Africa under the Work in Freedom programme working in partnership with the ILO. Those projects are also working with girls and women in south Asia and in the Middle East in the domestic worker and garment manufacturing sectors. Therefore, those are specific projects that we are doing.
Does more need to be done? Yes. I recognise in particular the noble Baroness’s deep expertise in this area and long track record, as she very kindly gave me a copy of her latest book, This Immoral Trade. I was particularly struck by some of the chapters where she had taken direct verbatim evidence from people who had been victims in South Sudan and Uganda. There were some inspirational stories as well, such as the young man who had gone on to compete in the Olympics, despite having been trafficked as a young boy. Therefore, I am aware of the need for us to go further. I think that that will be something that can be included in the anti-slavery commissioner’s strategy and plan. In fact, we would like to see that enhanced and expanded.
We have also experienced over the past few days the major conference that took place at Lancaster House, addressed by the Home Secretary and the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner designate. It was attended by 30 countries of the Santa Marta group—a group set up by the Home Secretary with other countries to try and get a more co-ordinated and robust international response. I hope that noble Lords will feel heartened by that. I can also advise noble Lords that, ahead of their next meeting next year, the group of 30 countries working hand in hand in this area, in partnership with the churches, including the Vatican and the Bishops’ Conference, have identified how this can be prosecuted further. They indentified four topics to work on: exploiting technology to tackle the problem; education and raising awareness among professionals, particularly with children; increased engagement with the diplomatic community and embassies; and the fact that new models of exploitation continue to emerge. That is the working task of the Santa Marta group. I would certainly be happy to facilitate a meeting and engagement between that working group of the Santa Marta group and noble Lords with an interest in that area.
Regarding the comments raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about the supply chain, I am getting briefing on that coming through to me, but it may well arrive in time for our next day in Committee on Wednesday, when we will look at the supply chain in more detail under Part 9.
The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, to whom I pay tribute for her long track record in this area, asked about, among other things, the operation of the interdepartmental ministerial group on modern slavery. I can confirm that the Home Office chairs that group and it works closely with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DfID, as would be expected. The Ministry of Justice, in which the Victims’ Commissioner my noble friend Lady Newlove is located, the Department for Education, where the Children’s Commissioner is represented, the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Attorney-General and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills all take part in that cross-departmental group.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee asked for specific information on data sharing. Clause 41(3) sets out a non-exhaustive list, simply giving some examples of what the commissioner may do. The commissioner may already collect statistics if he feels it would be useful to him. Indeed, this is also covered by the express reference to research in Clause 41(3)(c). We are therefore not convinced that we should seek to insist that the commissioner focus on collecting statistics, given that the interdepartmental ministerial group on modern slavery is already formally tasked with reporting on trafficking statistics. Indeed, statistics are also a major element of the Review of the National Referral Mechanism for Victims of Human Trafficking, which has already been referred to. Section 9 highlights “Data and Intelligence” and the changes that should be made there. There are several recommendations on page 58 on data and intelligence gathering. The Home Secretary has already said that she accepts in principle all the recommendations.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked whether the redaction of reports is different for the Children’s Commissioner. The Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner will be able to require law enforcement agencies to provide sensitive information concerning ongoing investigations into modern slavery offences. This may include information on law enforcement criminal investigation capabilities. The redaction powers are there to ensure that matters of important public interest are not inadvertently put at risk. We would not expect the Children’s Commissioner to request sensitive operational material, but this may be an important part of the anti-slavery commissioner’s role. We have therefore included the redaction power in the Bill.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee asked whether this works across the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. I reassure my noble friend that the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation also has safeguards built into the legislation regarding reports. The Secretary of State must be satisfied that a report will not prejudice criminal proceedings, as set out in Section 36 of the Terrorism Act.
My noble friend also asked about introducing data-sharing protocols. The Home Secretary has agreed in principle all the recommendations in the national referral mechanism review. They included data-sharing protocols.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, was probably having another go at trying to get an answer, so I hope that this is a more satisfactory response. The focus of the commissioner is to drive improvements in the operational response to tackle modern slavery. On the ground, the Government expect that in pursuance of this objective there will be significant human rights benefits. However, the Government are confident that it is not necessary to create a national human rights institution like the Equality and Human Rights Commission in order to achieve this goal. I hope that goes somewhere. Perhaps when she reads it in Hansard, it might help. If not, then of course the opportunity to come back is there.
Lord Warner
My Lords, the last part of the Minister’s remarks was, I think, the most helpful. We have heard some extraordinarily powerful speeches this afternoon, particularly from the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Deben. The Minister said he would reflect on those views. The mood of the House is very clear across the Benches that the remit of the anti-slavery commissioner needs to be widened and the shackles of the Home Office need to be loosened in the Bill. I noticed, slightly twitchily, that the Minister talked about the modern slavery strategy almost, on occasion, as a kind of substitute, avoiding memoranda of understanding—devices, I would suggest, for avoiding making some of these changes to the Bill. I think that most noble Lords who spoke this afternoon expect the Minister to come back with some changes in the Bill about the remit of the anti-slavery commissioner. As long as the Minister is clear about that, I am very happy to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 70, 71, 75 and 76 in this group. I suspect that this group will not detain your Lordships to quite the extent that the first group did. As noble Lords will be aware, when the Bill was introduced in June, the remit of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner was limited to England and Wales. After very constructive discussions with the devolved Administrations, the Government brought forward amendments in another place to extend the remit of the commissioner to cover the whole of the UK, subject to the approval of the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly.
The amendments I propose today are technical changes to ensure that the limited and specific redaction powers in relation to reports made by the commissioner fully reflect responsibilities within the Scottish Government. These amendments make it clear that, where a report may inadvertently prejudice the prosecution of an offence under the law of Scotland, the Lord Advocate is the appropriate person to remove the necessary material from the report. We have worked closely with the Scottish Government to extend these measures and are content that the commissioner will still work effectively with this amended redaction power.
A supporting memorandum of understanding will set out the timeframes around the exercise of the redaction powers to ensure that there is no undue delay in the publication of the commissioner’s reports. Given that these amendments support the UK-wide remit of the commissioner, I hope that the House will support them. I beg to move.
“( ) The Lord Advocate may direct the Commissioner to omit from any report before publication any material whose publication the Lord Advocate thinks might prejudice the prosecution of an offence under the law of Scotland.”
Lord Warner
Lord Warner
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 72D, 73B, 74AA, 74CA and 74DA in my name. These amendments are all designed to give the anti-slavery commissioner greater freedom of manoeuvre in dealing with the Home Office and to prevent endless procrastination over the release of reports submitted to the Home Secretary and the Home Office, particularly if they contain what I would call “unacceptable messages”. We have been over this ground in both sets of amendments at some length. This is all of a piece with some of our earlier discussions. We have certainly seen in real life how reports of other independent sources of inspection or advice can—how can I put it?—languish in government department in-trays. Some of these amendments attempt to address real issues.
I accept that my amendments are pale imitations of the more radical amendments moved and discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, in the previous group. I would certainly withdraw some of mine if the Government were moved to accept many of his. That is not bargaining across the Table but a statement of fact; the noble Lord has some very powerful amendments which deliver more effectively than my amendments. I do not always travel hopefully about whether Home Office Ministers in this place are able to deliver changes, so I shall press on with my more limited amendments.
Amendment 72ZZA requires the commissioner to produce a three-year plan, not just a one-year plan. That enables him—sensibly, I think—to plan ahead for a reasonable period of time. Amendment 72B removes the detailed control of the Home Office over the plan, as prescribed in Clause 42(4), (5) and (6). These seem totally superfluous, given that Clause 42(1) already gives the Home Secretary the power of approval over the strategic plan. Why do we need these extra, more detailed control methods, other than to demonstrate what we have said for some time about the Bill: that it too often finds ways of controlling the room for manoeuvre of the anti-slavery commissioner?
Amendment 73B removes the detailed Home Office control over the nature of the commissioner’s annual report by removing Clause 42(9). It is another attempt to loosen the shackles, in the phrase I used earlier. Amendments 74AA, 74CA and 74DA are designed to ensure that Ministers do not delay in laying the commissioner’s annual report before Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. They all require the annual report to be laid within a month of receipt by the particular Ministers.
These amendments are in the best interest of the commissioner’s independence and safeguard the position of Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. We have to remove some of these controls in order to give the commissioner more freedom of manoeuvre and to ensure that important reports are not delayed in reaching Parliament and public scrutiny. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I have Amendments 73ZA and 74ZA in this group and it would be very odd if I did not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Warner, given the debate we have just had. I do not think that I need to lay it on with a trowel. However, I will use this opportunity to refer to the duties of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, because Section 36 of the Terrorism Act 2006, to which my noble friend referred, has a mere six subsections, and that is it—and he gets on with it. I have still not been able to find the constraints on his report, which would take the form of redactions, to which my noble friend referred. However, as I said, I can understand the need for them for the commissioner as well as for the reviewer.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee for tabling their respective amendments. The provisions that we have put in the Bill enable the commissioner to produce strategic plans and to report in a way that will make a real difference to the fight against modern slavery. Those are important and necessary aspects of the role.
Amendment 72D would remove subsections (4) to (6) of Clause 42, which set out what the plan involves. Removing those subsections would weaken the effect and focus of the plan. It is important that the commissioner sets out a clear plan of action for the time period they specify. The commissioner will be best placed, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to determine what should be in the plan and the period of the plan. Removing those subsections would also seriously weaken the constructive and collaborative relationship we want to establish between the Secretary of State and the commissioner, because the amendment would also remove the provision which permits the Secretary of State to propose modifications to the plan for the commissioner’s agreement.
I fully understand the intention behind this amendment and the concern that the independence of the commissioner should be guaranteed. However, I should set out at the start of my contribution why the provisions in the Bill which relate to the plan take the right approach. If the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner is to make a real difference on the ground, it is important that he should have a constructive relationship with the Secretary of State. In that way, even if the commissioner’s reports are highly independent and very critical, there is a good chance that they will be implemented and make a real difference, not only through the Secretary of State but through the interdepartmental ministerial group.
The provisions in relation to the commissioner’s strategic plan and reports reflect that. It is the commissioner who prepares the strategic plan. He defines his own role: setting out priorities, objectives, areas he will report on and other activities he will undertake. It is the commissioner who decides how long the plan should last, between one and three years. There is then an opportunity to ensure that there is effective collaboration with the Secretary of State and the devolved Administrations through the process set out for the Secretary of State to approve the plan after consultation with the devolved Administrations. That ensures that the commissioner’s work will properly cover the whole of the UK and that it respects devolution settlements. However, the Secretary of State cannot rewrite the plan. She can approve a plan only where any changes are made with the agreement of the commissioner, so the principle of the independence of the commissioner is respected at all times.
Amendment 73B is consequential on Amendment 72D and removes what the annual report must include. Although I appreciate why the noble Lord has tabled such an amendment, it would not help the commissioner to focus on his key priorities. It is important that the plan indicates what the commissioner will do and the report provides an assessment of how the commissioner has undertaken the activities proposed in the plan. That would mean that the report is not structured or focused on tackling the issues that have been collectively identified as priorities.
Amendment 72ZZA seeks to require the commissioner to prepare a three-year plan as soon as reasonably practicable after their appointment. The commissioner can already prepare a three-year plan under the existing provisions. However, the commissioner may wish to draft a plan for a shorter time period, particularly when first in the role, which is why the provisions enable the commissioner to produce a plan that is between one and three years in length. That gives the commissioner the flexibility to decide the period of any plan, based on what he proposes to deliver in that specified time period and having regard for any other relevant factors.
Amendment 73ZA in the name of my noble friend Lady Hamwee seeks to require the commissioner to report on the voluntary sector’s role in relation to providing protection and support for victims and to make recommendations. I have made it clear that the commissioner will set the strategic plan, in consultation with the Secretary of State, and that the plan will be focused on delivering the commissioner’s key aims; namely, to encourage good practice in the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of modern slavery offences and the identification of victims.
At this point I join my noble friend in paying tribute to the remarkable work that the charities and NGOs which operate in this area have done over very many years. In many ways this has come to the fore. It has been picked up as an issue by government and is now in the public square. However, long before it arrived there, many of the NGOs and charities to which my noble friend referred had been doing invaluable work in looking after the broken lives that are the result of these crimes.
I firmly believe that the commissioner in setting out his plan will have full regard to the voluntary sector. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, referred to her conversation with Kevin Hyland, who talked about the importance of NGOs and said that he would perhaps draw someone into his senior team who has a significant and respected NGO background to underscore the importance of partnership in that work. I firmly believe that the commissioner should develop his plan first and I am not convinced that it would be helpful to his independence to dictate very specific areas that he should include at this stage.
Amendment 74ZA seeks to require the commissioner to report on the extent to which he has undertaken activity in providing information, education or training. Of course, that is exactly the type of information that we would expect the commissioner to include in any annual report, as well as the other things he may do in pursuance of his functions as set out in Clause 41(3). However, it is not necessary to specify that the commissioner must report on this particular aspect over and above the other things he may do. In addition, we should not stipulate to such an extent the things that the commissioner must report on. That is exactly the type of constraint we are seeking to avoid.
Finally, Amendments 74AA, 74CA and 74DA require the Secretary of State, the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland, and the Scottish Ministers to lay any strategic plan or annual report they receive from the commissioner as soon as reasonably practicable and no later than within one month of receiving it. Again, I fully accept the intention behind these amendments—to get the reports and plans laid quickly—but they are not needed. The pre-legislative scrutiny report raised this concern. The Government responded positively by altering the Bill so that the annual report has to be laid as soon as is reasonably practicable, as was the Government’s intention in any event. In addition, to support the laying of the strategic plans and annual reports produced by the commissioner, we will be developing a memorandum of understanding between the Secretary of State, the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland and Scottish Ministers to ensure that plans and annual reports are laid promptly and simultaneously, following receipt from the commissioner. This is an area on which all the Administrations agree so that Parliaments and legislatures can undertake scrutiny of them.
In responding, I should deal with the point raised by my noble friend Lady Hamwee about Section 36 of the Terrorism Act 2006. With regard to redaction under subsection (5):
“On receiving a report under this section, the Secretary of State must lay a copy of it before Parliament”
as soon as the Secretary of State is satisfied that doing so will not prejudice any criminal proceedings. That is the only element there.
With those comments and assurances, and in the spirit in which I dealt with the previous group of amendments—that we remain open to considering all the comments made—I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I accept the emollient way in which the noble Lord has responded. We seem to be making progress. When I tabled these amendments I recognised that they were makeweights to the rather wider, more sweeping amendments that were in the previous two groups. As the noble Lord goes away and reflects, he should look again at the evidence to the Joint Committee from the overseas rapporteurs. It shows a level of trust between the rapporteurs and Parliament and Government that does not require Government to specify in enormous detail, in primary legislation, how people are going to behave. If he looks at that, he will see why I tabled these amendments. In that spirit, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bates
Lord Bates
“( ) The Lord Advocate may remove from an annual report any material whose publication the Lord Advocate thinks might prejudice the prosecution of an offence under the law of Scotland.”
Baroness Hamwee
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I have two short amendments in this group. I will come back, outside the Chamber, to just what Section 36 says. I am not taking issue with the substance, in any event.
Amendment 76A would delete Clause 43(4). The clause is about the duty to co-operate with the commissioner. It provides that complying,
“does not require or authorise any disclosure of information which contravenes any other restriction on the disclosure of information (however imposed)”.
Looking at Clause 43(4) alongside Clause 43(3), which provides that disclosure,
“does not breach any obligation of confidence”,
I would like to ask my noble friend why one is accepted by the legislation and the other is not. Why does data protection, as I assume it is, apply but not confidential—I am not sure about privileged—information?
My second amendment, Amendment 77A, is quite different, but it is to enable me to ask a question. Clause 43(6) refers to regulations being allowed to be exercised by Scottish Ministers and by the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland. I have suggested that the Welsh Assembly Government be added to the list in order to ask my noble friend about the question of health. Health, after all, is one of the issues to which we need to have regard when we are looking at the needs of people who have been trafficked or enslaved. This seems to me very relevant. I do not know whether it is intended that Wales should come under Clause 43(6)(c), as “any other public authority”—I think that they might be a bit insulted if that were the case—or whether I have got it wrong that health is not intended to be covered in all of this. I beg to move.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for moving this amendment and I will try to deal with the questions of clarification that she raised.
The effect of Amendment 76A would be to permit public authorities to provide information to the commissioner where it would otherwise contravene restrictions on the disclosure of information, other than those as a result of an obligation of confidence under the common law. Therefore, public authorities would, for example, be obliged to disclose information to the commissioner where such a disclosure would otherwise be restricted by statute or order of the court. While we want to ensure that the commissioner is able to gain access to information from relevant authorities to improve the UK’s response to modern slavery, in doing so we must ensure that we are not requiring those authorities to provide information in breach of existing restrictions on information sharing or permit authorities to disregard court orders, although we recognise that a balance has to be struck.
For this reason the public authorities and officials have been given a certainty that they will not be breaching any obligation of confidence under the common law when providing information to the commissioner. We consider that this subsection ensures that we achieve the right balance between respecting existing information safeguards and ensuring that the commissioner has the necessary powers to carry out the role effectively.
My noble friend’s Amendment 77A seeks to create a power for the Welsh Government to specify which Welsh public authorities are required to co-operate with the commissioner. The Welsh Government play a key role in the UK’s effort to tackle modern slavery. They are active participants in the interdepartmental ministerial group on modern slavery, and we have worked innovatively and determinedly to raise awareness of modern slavery and improve the response in Wales. We have worked closely with the Welsh Government on the development of the Modern Slavery Bill.
The focus of the commissioner’s work, and indeed of this entire Bill, is to combat crime and protect its victims, which are non-devolved matters as regards Wales. Engagement with Welsh authorities by the commissioner would seek to deliver on these objectives and any infringement on those authorities’ devolved functions is entirely incidental to, or consequential on, this purpose. It is therefore wholly appropriate, and consistent with the devolution settlement for Wales, for the Home Secretary to specify that a Welsh public authority is required to co-operate with the commissioner without the need for regulations made by the Welsh Government.
The Welsh Government have been regularly consulted on the role of the commissioner and it is worth nothing that they have not requested the inclusion of a regulation-making power within this clause. We will, of course, consult fully with them before specifying Welsh public authorities in regulations. I pay tribute to the good co-operation which is already taking place between the Welsh Government and the UK Government in relation to modern slavery issues.
Given this explanation, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I will, of course, do so. I felt that the response to Amendment 76A was more about “the what”, which I think I understand, than “the why”. However, I do not want to comment further without having had the opportunity to read what my noble friend had to say.
I am not sure that I am persuaded about Wales but that is perhaps not a discussion for now: we may have other opportunities to do so. I will think about that further and perhaps have a word with my noble friend about it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) the person is aged 18 or over when the person does the act which constitutes the offence,”
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, in moving government Amendment 78, I wish to speak also to government Amendments 79 to 84 in this group. I thank noble Lords for tabling Amendments 80A, 82A, 83A and 84A, which are also in this group, and which all relate to the statutory defence for victims.
Since Second Reading, we have reflected on the specific circumstances of child victims who commit offences as a direct consequence of their slavery or trafficking situation, and that is why I am moving these government amendments. They remove the test of compulsion for children who commit an offence as a direct consequence of their trafficking or slavery situation.
Clause 45 establishes a statutory defence for slavery or trafficking victims where they have been compelled to commit an offence as a direct consequence of their slavery or trafficking situation. It is vital that genuine victims, trapped by their circumstances in a world of crime, can feel confident to come forward and give evidence without the fear of being inappropriately prosecuted or convicted. We currently have measures in place to meet this objective through the use of prosecutorial discretion by the CPS, backed up by bespoke guidance. Ultimately, the courts can stop an inappropriate prosecution of a victim as an abuse of process. The Director of Public Prosecutions issued revised guidance earlier this year to prosecutors, setting out clearly the policy on non-prosecution of victims.
However, the pre-legislative scrutiny committee heard significant evidence that victims, including child victims, were still being prosecuted for crimes committed while being trafficked or enslaved. The committee looked at the arguments carefully and on balance recommended the creation of a statutory defence as an added protection for victims. The pre-legislative scrutiny committee also recognised that there are risks involved in the radical step of a new defence. There is a need for appropriate safeguards to ensure that a new defence is effectively applied and is not open to abuse—for example by organised criminals, even if they have once been trafficked themselves. There is a delicate balance to be struck here and we want to get that balance right.
To be effective, the defence must work effectively for both adults and children who may commit an offence while in a slavery or trafficking situation. We have listened carefully to parliamentarians and NGOs which have raised the particular situation of children. To that end, government Amendments 78 to 84 remove the requirement for a child victim to prove that they were compelled to commit an offence. This will ensure that, regardless of whether a child felt compelled to commit an offence, they will be able to invoke the statutory defence when the offence was committed as a direct consequence of their trafficking or relevant exploitation. The other aspects of the test for the defence will remain, notably that a reasonable person of the same age and in the same situation as the child would have no realistic alternative but to commit the offence.
We all want this defence to apply when vulnerable, abused and exploited individuals are forced into criminality. I am confident that the defence as drafted will protect those people, while at the same time ensuring that criminals acting on their own volition cannot use a protection for the most vulnerable to get away with their crimes.
I look forward to listening to the debate as noble Lords move their amendments and will respond to those in due course. However, I hope that the House will support these government amendments, which improve protection for child victims. I beg to move.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 80A and 82A.
I very much welcome the Government including a non-prosecution defence in the Bill. It is right to target the real criminals who wallow in the wealth that they have made from exploiting the vulnerable. They have to be stopped from getting clean away. A non-prosecution defence for victims is critical to achieving this. Not only will it protect the human rights of adults and children and stop them being punished for the crimes of their traffickers and slave masters, it will ensure from the outset that victims are seen as witnesses to enable the successful prosecution of traffickers and slavers, so that the real criminals are brought to justice.
I also welcome the government amendments to remove the element of compulsion before the non-prosecution defence can apply for children. Where my position differs from that of the noble Baroness is that my Amendments 80A and 82A seek to remove the inclusion of a “reasonable person” test before the non-prosecution defence applies to adults and children. I shall explain as simply as I can why I think it is necessary to remove this “reasonable person” test for adults, and particularly why it has to be removed for children.
First, the addition of a reasonable person test is an extra hurdle for a non-prosecution defence that does not exist in international law. Article 8 sets just two tests for a non-prosecution defence to apply: that a person’s involvement in criminal activities needs to be compelled and a direct consequence of their being trafficked. Clause 45 therefore goes beyond what we need to do to bring the UK into compliance with our international obligations. To quote Parosha Chandran, an expert barrister in the field of human trafficking, its inclusion is “a potentially unlawful tier” that does not exist in Article 8 of the EU directive on human trafficking.
Secondly, the UK has many joint investigations with police forces in other countries. This is necessary because the organised criminal networks we all seek to prosecute operate transnationally. For example, a gang may force trafficked victims to steal from museums in London, Florence, and Paris, and threaten to harm their families if they do not do so. In this situation, Article 8 would be correctly and swiftly applied in France and Italy. Therefore, the victims would be free from the risk of prosecution and would be able to stand as credible witnesses in the criminal prosecutions of the organised criminal network which trafficked them. However, if the authorities in France and Italy asked for the assistance of the UK in approaching trafficked victims who committed robberies in London in order for them to give evidence against the network, the reasonable person test would mean that the UK could not give any guarantees in this regard. The UK would be forced to say that the trafficked victims would be acquitted only if the jury accepted that the conditions of the test were satisfied. Have the Government considered how the inclusion of this test may impact on our cross-border operations to ensure that traffickers are prosecuted?
Amendment 82A seeks to remove the reasonable person test for children. The particular vulnerabilities of children have been discussed many times in this House throughout our discussions on the Bill. Children specifically should not have to satisfy a reasonable person test before a non-prosecution defence applies for three reasons. First, the addition of a reasonable person test goes further than our own existing law for children. In the landmark case of R v L and others the Lord Chief Justice and his colleagues pronounced that only two questions must be addressed for the non-prosecution principle to apply to child victims: age and the criminal offence need to be,
“consequent on or integral to the exploitation”.
This is mirrored in the current CPS legal guidelines on human trafficking as regards children, where it states:
“When considering whether to prosecute a child victim of trafficking, prosecutors will only need to consider whether or not the offence is committed as a direct consequence of, or in the course of trafficking”.
This guidance does not put a third legal reasonable person test into the guidelines after that landmark case. The CPS guidelines repeat the two tests necessary for a non-prosecution defence to apply, namely age and if the offence is directly due to the trafficking. So if Clause 45 is passed unamended, it will go further than our existing law and our obligations under international law. Therefore, when the CPS guidance is rewritten following the passage of this Bill, it will end up being tougher than it is now. The reasonable person test keeps the compulsion test in, but in a different form of words. It will lead to more prosecutions being sought, not fewer.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
Our amendment proposes a new clause to the Bill providing for the Director of Public Prosecutions to issue guidance on the charging of known or suspected victims of human trafficking, and for a prosecution of a trafficked, enslaved or exploited person to be reviewed by the Director of Public Prosecutions before going to trial.
The first part relating to guidance reflects a feeling from a number of groups and organisations involved in these cases that it is far from clear how the Crown Prosecution Service deals with the public interest test when looking at victims of trafficking. We need to reduce uncertainty about when victims will be prosecuted. A model for the clarity of guidance called for in our amendment is the DPP’s guidance in relation to a totally different issue—assisted suicide.
On authorisation for a trafficking prosecution, which is also addressed in our amendment, we want to establish the principle that prosecutions of trafficking victims should happen only in exceptional circumstances, which is why we wish prosecutions of those who have had a national referral mechanism decision or are awaiting one to be authorised at the most senior level, namely the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Trafficked victims can be badly damaged and vulnerable and can wait 12 months in remand before a trial goes ahead, which only adds to their problems considerably. Evidence from the Helen Bamber Foundation to the Joint Committee on the Bill referred to the need for women to feel supported—to feel that they would be believed and that they would not normally be prosecuted. Allowing prosecutions to go ahead goes along with what traffickers would have told their victims: that they would do better to stay with them than go to the authorities and be prosecuted and deported.
Similar evidence from the Poppy Project discussed the 55 women that it has helped in the past year who were identified as trafficking victims only once they were in prison, usually on remand. Another example from the Poppy Project involved an adult woman who had been underground for 11 years in a brothel. She escaped and used a passport that her trafficker gave her and that she thought was legal. It was not and she ended up being imprisoned for immigration offences, even though she was not the one who had committed the crime. No one, it seems, investigated the trafficker who had given her the passport and who was able to carry on recruiting and procuring more victims. While the crime the woman committed was not committed during enslavement, it undoubtedly arose from her trafficking.
One consequence of the examples to which I have referred is that it seems almost certain that more trafficking victims have been prosecuted in this country than traffickers. There is a need for all those coming into contact with people who have been or may have been trafficked to be able to recognise the offence and that we do not find such cases ending up in court unless authorised at the top level as being appropriate to prosecute. I hope that will also be the Government’s objective and that the terms of our amendment will be accepted.
Finally, I would like to raise one point on the issue that my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley has so effectively raised in relation to the reasonable person test. My point is simply a query, since I shall await with interest the Government’s response to her amendments. On the reasonable person test in Clause 45(1)(c), I ask the Minister whether the reference to the reasonable person “in the same situation” as the slavery or trafficking victim means that the assessment of whether a reasonable person would have had no realistic alternative to doing the act which constitutes the offence will be based on a view of what a reasonable person who had had experience of suffering the same kind of traumatic experiences and effects as the victim would have done. If so, how many people, in the Government’s view, would be able to make that assessment?
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, I welcome the principal provisions, but I share her concerns. I thought that she was entirely clear in speaking to the amendments. Trafficking and slavery are trafficking and slavery. Not to be prosecuted for offences committed when one is trafficked or enslaved is a matter of human rights. Those rights should not be dependent on the individual’s characteristics; they are completely separate issues. I do not need to repeat everything that the noble Baroness said, but I will quickly refer—the title is probably longer than the reference—to Policy and legislative recommendations towards the effective implementation of the non-punishment provision with regard to victims of trafficking, by the Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings. She said:
“The penalization of a person for acts that they have committed as a cause or direct consequence of being trafficked must be seen in that context:”—
the context of human rights—
“not only does it unjustly punish and stigmatise victims of serious crime; it would also violate these human rights objectives”.
I come back to that. It is not a small point, but it is very specific and clear, and I fear that we will be muddying the waters if the wording remains as it is.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to the debate, and I am grateful that they felt able to welcome the government amendments.
I turn to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley. As she set out, Amendments 80A and 82 would remove the “reasonable person” test for children and adults. Whenever any statutory defence is created, we must be very careful to ensure that the line is drawn in the right place so that the people who need it can access it, but also to avoid unfairness or injustice to potential victims of serious crime and to prevent the defence being abused by those seeking to escape justice.
The noble Baroness raised concerns that the reasonable person test would breach EU directive requirements, which would make it difficult for us to work in cross-border operations. However, it does not place the UK in breach of the directive. As the pre-legislative scrutiny committee identified, the UK is already compliant with all its international obligations. The test will have no impact on cross-border operations. However, I note what she said, and the comments of my noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Perhaps we can agree to discuss this again before Report.
The reasonable person test is an objective test. The “no realistic alternative” formulation in the reasonable person test came directly from the case law that the noble Baroness mentioned. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, on whether the reasonable person would be someone who has suffered the same sort of experiences, that is indeed how that would be applied in these cases. People who have been enslaved or trafficked may commit criminal offences in a wide variety of circumstances. Such a defence may not be justified in every case. For example, the courts have consistently ruled that the defence of duress can never apply in cases of murder. We must not create a defence so wide that it amounts to a loophole in the law. It is important that we protect not just victims but society. An objective test plays a crucial role here: allowing a prosecutor or jury to consider all the circumstances, while also considering the accused’s characteristics, such as age and the other characteristics set out. We consider that removing the objective test would leave the defence dangerously broad.
Turning to Amendment 84A, which deals with Director of Public Prosecutions’ guidance on non-prosecution of victims, the Code for Crown Prosecutors is issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions. It gives guidance to prosecutors on general principles to be applied when making decisions about prosecutions. The code requires the prosecutor to complete two stages: is there sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction, and is a prosecution required in the public interest? It is not the case, and never has been, that just because there is sufficient evidence to bring a prosecution the public interest will require one. That discretion is a vital protection and helps avoid unnecessary or unjust prosecutions. The code is supplemented by a body of legal and policy guidance on specific offences and procedures, which includes guidance on suspects in a criminal case who might be victims of trafficking or slavery. This is updated on a regular basis to reflect case law or any other changes and is published on the CPS website.
Lord Rosser
Before the noble Baroness sits down, I referred in my contribution to the evidence from the Poppy Project of the 55 women who have been helped in the past year. They were identified as trafficking victims only once they were in prison, usually on remand.
Am I to take from the Government’s response to Amendment 84 that they are now satisfied that with the Bill they have put measures in train to prevent that kind of situation arising? The purpose of our amendment was to say that the prosecution had to be reviewed at the top level, by the Director of Public Prosecutions, before going to trial. Referring to the DPP issuing the guidance was an attempt to stop that kind of situation arising. If the Government are saying that they are satisfied that what they are doing will also address the situation to which I referred, I would be grateful to have it confirmed and on the record.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Lord is right in saying that the measures we have put in train should avoid that situation arising again. We are seeking to identify the victims before prosecutions are brought, to ensure that all the relevant evidence is there and that all the concerns about their situation are brought to the fore in any legal case.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for the responses she gave to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. She will have seen the representations by the Refugee Children’s Consortium, which refer to the link between the compulsion test and the reasonable test. Specifically, it says:
“Now the compulsion test no longer applies to children, the reasonable person test in relation to children is obsolete and should also be removed”.
As the noble Baroness goes away to reflect on the points made in this very helpful debate, will she promise us that she will look specifically at the representations made by the consortium?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, we will, indeed, look at them very carefully because it is important to get this right.
“(4A) A person is not guilty of an offence if—
(a) the person is under the age of 18 when the person does the act which constitutes the offence,(b) the person does that act as a direct consequence of the person being, or having been, a victim of slavery or a victim of relevant exploitation, and(c) a reasonable person in the same situation as the person and having the person’s relevant characteristics would have no realistic alternative to doing that act.”
“relevant characteristics” means age, sex and any physical or mental illness or disability;”
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley
In Schedule 3 there are very serious, violent crimes listed and it is understandable why they have been included. However, there are over 130 different offences to which the non-prosecution defence will not apply and along with the very serious—murder and rape—there are offences relating to immigration, criminal damage and theft. Schedule 3 has ramifications for victims, so the offences listed, and the existence of such a schedule, should not become law without a debate in this House. We should probe a little deeper and consider five issues with the Schedule.
First, does such a list help the trafficker? Evil minds work in evil ways. To a trafficker, Schedule 3 could be an escape strategy. It has been described, by Parosha Chandran, an award-winning human rights barrister, as a traffickers’ charter. It is a list of crimes that traffickers know the state will prosecute for—they just need to find victims to do them—and traffickers will make sure that victims know that the state will prosecute for those crimes. Will the Schedule therefore have the unintentional effect of dangerously exacerbating the vulnerabilities of those who are already enslaved or trafficked and lead them to become involved in more serious crimes?
Secondly, does such a list lead police and prosecutors to stop looking for the signs of slavery and trafficking for these offences? Despite clearly listing the offences most frequently committed by enslaved and trafficked adults and children, the guidance we already have has not been effective in stopping victims being prosecuted and convicted for these offences. There are a number of examples where no police investigation into the victim’s situation, as a trafficked or enslaved person, has taken place and the victim has been wrongly imprisoned. Even when crimes are flagged as frequent crimes of trafficked victims in the CPS guidance, there is still little or no investigation. So a list of crimes specifically for non-prosecution may never lead to an investigation into the trafficked or exploited situation of the victim. This means that, once again, the traffickers get clean away.
Thirdly, does such a list contain the right offences? As pointed out in the other place, the impact assessment of this Bill states that Schedule 3 is drawn from Schedule 15 to the Criminal Justice Act. However, immigration offences are in Schedule 3 but not in Schedule 15. As Michael Connarty MP rightly asked, how can we deny a trafficked victim the right to a statutory defence because they resist arrest? We know that children especially—and adults too—are suspicious of authority, because the traffickers have made them that way; they are scared and do not understand the language. Should this offence be included?
Fourthly, the crime that a victim is typically forced to commit today is not what they may be forced to commit tomorrow. Even though there is provision in the Bill for Schedule 3 to be reviewed, this takes time. In this time, victims are being criminalised by our system and the traffickers are making their escape.
Finally, the facts are established for each individual case, no matter what the crime. If a crime is committed, whether or not it is listed in Schedule 3, the police will investigate and the CPS will still consider whether the evidential threshold has been met, whether it is in the public interest to prosecute and whether the non-prosecution defence applies. If the police and CPS can satisfy themselves that they can secure a conviction by being able to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt, they will proceed to prosecute—whether the offence is listed on Schedule 3 is immaterial, as the child or adult will be prosecuted. If the offence is serious it would, inevitably, be in the public interest to prosecute. Why is the list of exceptions necessary? In Committee in the other place, Peter Carter QC, said:
“I think legislating by list of exceptions is a recipe for disaster and confusion”.—[Official Report, Commons, Modern Slavery Bill Committee, 21/7/14; col. 36.]
I agree. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I support the points made by the noble Baroness, who has pointed to unintended consequences, among other matters. This is a list of the most serious offences and there has not been much consideration of offences which may very often be committed in the context of trafficking. The noble Baroness rightly referred to the violation of immigration law. We heard this afternoon of an instance of false information relating to travel documents. To my mind—I am completely unbiased of course—this sort of thing is entirely understandable.
Looking at the list, I was interested in the inclusion of Sections 1 and 2 of the Bill, when we know that some victims of trafficking and slavery are forced into positions where they act on behalf of their own slave-masters in carrying out some of the acts which are comprised in those offences. But that is no different in substance from the concerns that the noble Baroness has raised about other matters. I share that concern. I do not think that by including the list we are doing anything other than creating difficulties for ourselves in applying the non-prosecution provision.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, it is entirely understandable that Schedule 3 should be part of the Bill. It is important that the serious offences should not be included in a defence. However, listening to what the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy and Lady Hamwee, said, and looking through Schedule 3, it seems to me that a great deal of it is utterly unnecessary. I remember discussing this with the former Attorney-General, Dominic Grieve, at a time when he was eventually agreeing that there should be a defence at all. He said that Schedule 3 would apply and I cheerfully said, “Yes, of course it will apply”, but I did not read all the way through. It was not until this version of the Bill came, with all these exceptions to the defence, that one sees that this really goes beyond what is necessary, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, has put out extremely effectively. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, says, that may be a problem.
I would have thought that this was absolutely a situation in which the Government, with the assistance of the Director of Public Prosecutions, could sort the wheat from the chaff. A great deal of these offences are not applicable or appropriate for victims of slavery, although they are entirely appropriate in other areas of criminal law where you should not have a defence on these issues. The Government should look at this and consider whether they want the whole of Schedule 3.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I, too, would like to raise one or two questions about Schedule 3, since my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley has given us the opportunity to consider it.
As I understand it, under Clause 45, a victim is not guilty of an offence only if they have done the act which constitutes the offence because they have been compelled to do that act, the compulsion is attributable to slavery or the relevant exploitation and a reasonable person in the same situation as the person, and having the person’s relevant characteristics, would have no realistic alternative to doing that act. If the victim has managed to meet these requirements, Clause 45(1) still does not apply if the offence committed is listed in Schedule 3, which, as has already been pointed out in another way, extends to six and a half pages of offences. Some are easily understandable for being on that list, such as murder, manslaughter and kidnapping, but others are not so obvious bearing in mind the requirements under Clause 45 that the victim will already have had to meet in order to use Clause 45 as a defence.
In view of that, how does the Minister justify the need for such an extensive list of offences for which a victim can be found guilty even though they have met the three requirements to which I have already referred under Clause 45(1)? How and against what criteria was this list of offences compiled? To look at one example, included in the list is an offence under Section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971 of assisting unlawful immigration to a member state, which is an offence one might normally associate with a trafficker rather than the victim. Is there evidence that victims of trafficking are committing this offence of assisting unlawful immigration to a member state unrelated to their being trafficked themselves? If there is, is it also appropriate that they could be found guilty of such an offence, despite meeting the requirements in respect of compulsion and the reasonable person test under Clause 45(1) to show that they cannot be guilty of an offence unless it is listed in Schedule 3?
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, I am puzzled by this. In Part 5, Clause 45(1) seems clearly to set out, in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), under what terms prosecution would ensue or not ensue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, has rightly told us, the danger with lists is that there may well be things that have not been included on the list that might in due course pertain. I simply ask what may be an entirely innocent and naive question: why is it not possible to put in the Bill a generic term rather than having to have all these details in the legislation?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for tabling Amendment 83A and for asking whether Schedule 3 should stand part of the Bill, which relate to the offences excluded from the statutory defence for victims. I also thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Rosser, for their contributions.
As we have previously discussed, Clause 45 establishes a statutory defence for slavery or trafficking victims where they have been compelled to commit an offence as a direct consequence of their slavery or trafficking situation. As we discussed in the previous group, this builds on the existing use of prosecutorial discretion by the CPS backed up by bespoke guidance. Ultimately, the courts can stop an inappropriate prosecution of a victim as an abuse of process.
Noble Lords questioned how Schedule 3 was drawn up. It was drafted very carefully in consultation with the DPP and CPS. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned in his previous intervention, it is very important that we get involvement from the DPP and CPS in drafting these pieces of legislation. As I have said, it was with approval and consultation that this list was drawn up. There is a need for appropriate safeguards to ensure that a new defence is applied effectively and is not open to abuse, for example by organised criminals, even if they once have been trafficked themselves. There is a delicate balance to be struck and we want to get that balance right.
Amendment 83A, together with the suggestion that Schedule 3 should not stand part of the Bill, would mean that the defence could apply to any offence, including serious sexual and violent offences such as murder and rape. People who have been enslaved or trafficked may commit criminal offences in a wide variety of circumstances and it will not always be the case that a defence is justified. We must not create a defence so wide that it amounts to a loophole in the law. It is important that we protect not just victims but also society. As we developed the statutory defence, our approach was always to ensure that we covered the types of offences often committed by those who are enslaved or trafficked. We have taken detailed advice from the Crown Prosecution Service on this point. As I have mentioned, the offences listed in Schedule 3 reflect those discussions and discussions with the DPP.
The defence is therefore designed to provide an effective protection against prosecution in the types of circumstances that actual victims of modern slavery find themselves in—for example, cannabis cultivation. The list of excluded offences in Schedule 3 can be amended by statutory instrument if experience shows the offences listed are not right and fail to protect vulnerable victims. But, in order to avoid creating a dangerous loophole for serious criminals to escape justice, we think it is right that the defence is not available in the cases—mainly serious sexual and violent offences—as listed in Schedule 3. This does not mean that a victim who commits a Schedule 3 offence in a modern slavery context will automatically face prosecution. Where the defence does not apply because the offence is too serious, the Crown Prosecution Service will still be able to decide not to prosecute if it would not be in the public interest to do so. It is right that in very difficult cases involving very serious crimes, including rape and murder, the Crown Prosecution Service carefully considers both the victim of trafficking and the victim of a very serious crime, and seeks to act in the public interest.
I understand the concern of noble Lords that victims should not be inappropriately criminalised; we agree on that, but that is why we are strengthening protections for victims in the Bill. We must be careful, however, that we do not create a loophole for very serious criminals. In the most serious cases, it is right for the CPS to use its discretion—and I emphasise that there is always discretion in these cases—to act in the public interest, based on the specific facts of the case. We are, of course, open to further discussion before Report, but I hope that these assurances will enable the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I ask the following question seriously and not frivolously: if this has been the subject of discussion with the DPP, is it therefore the case that there are already examples of victims of trafficking having committed all those offences listed in Schedule 3?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
No, I do not think for a moment that there are examples of victims having committed all those offences in Schedule 3. This is simply set out for public protection, in order to ensure that serious crimes are not automatically given a free ride as a result of the criminals being victims.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
Looking at paragraph 33 of Schedule 3, I think that the last three offences seem improbable for somebody who is compelled to act as a slave: “exposure”, “voyeurism” and “sexual penetration of a corpse”. I do not really see that those three are likely to arise in the circumstances of a victim of slavery.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I think, perhaps, that we will need to discuss this further before Report, because, as I said, this list was drawn up in consultation with the DPP and the CPS. I presume there was a reason for putting those particular items there; it is subject to review and the discretion of the people concerned.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley
I thank the noble Baroness for her reply and the way in which she has responded. I hope she will reflect on the points made by many noble Lords. We would welcome the opportunity for further discussion on this point. If the CPS has discretion—as it always does in all cases—on the threshold of evidence brought to it by the police, I do not see why a schedule of this detail is necessary. Though it is open to amendment, the time it would take for a statutory instrument to go through this House would be time spent by a victim in the criminal justice system; the trafficker would get clean away. The most serious might still need to be included on a list, but the unintended consequence that may arise by us producing something of such length and detail is that we end up with a traffickers’ charter—a recipe for disaster, as described by a barrister and QC. Obviously, I will withdraw the amendment today, but I welcome the further discussion that the noble Baroness has offered before Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bates
“Civil legal aid for victims of slavery
(1) Schedule 1 to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (availability of civil legal services) is amended as follows.
(2) In Part 1 (services), after paragraph 32 insert—
“Victims of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour32A (1) Civil legal services provided to an individual in relation to an application by the individual for leave to enter, or to remain in, the United Kingdom where—
(a) there has been a conclusive determination that the individual is a victim of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour, or(b) there are reasonable grounds to believe that the individual is such a victim and there has not been a conclusive determination that the individual is not such a victim.(2) Civil legal services provided in relation to a claim under employment law arising in connection with the conduct by virtue of which an individual who is a victim of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour is such a victim, but only where—
(a) the services are provided to the individual, or(b) the individual has died and the services are provided to the individual’s personal representative. (3) Civil legal services provided in relation to a claim for damages arising in connection with the conduct by virtue of which an individual who is a victim of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour is such a victim, but only where—
(a) the services are provided to the individual, or(b) the individual has died and the services are provided to the individual’s personal representative.Exclusions
(4) Sub-paragraph (1) is subject to the exclusions in Parts 2 and 3 of this Schedule.
(5) Sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) are subject to—
(a) the exclusions in Part 2 of this Schedule, with the exception of paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 of that Part, and(b) the exclusion in Part 3 of this Schedule.Definitions
(6) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1)(b) there are reasonable grounds to believe that an individual is a victim of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour if a competent authority has determined that there are such grounds.
(7) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) there is a conclusive determination that an individual is or is not a victim of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour when a competent authority concludes that the individual is or is not such a victim.
(8) For the purposes of this paragraph “slavery”, “servitude” and “forced or compulsory labour” have the same meaning as they have for the purposes of article 4 of the Human Rights Convention.
(9) The “Human Rights Convention” means the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, agreed by the Council of Europe at Rome on 4 November 1950, as it has effect for the time being in relation to the United Kingdom.
(10) The definitions of “competent authority”, “employment”, “employment law” and “personal representative” in paragraph 32(8) also apply for the purposes of this paragraph.”
(3) In Part 3 (advocacy: exclusion and exceptions), in paragraph 13 for “or 32(1)” substitute “, 32(1) or 32A(1)”.”
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 102. The Government recognise the importance of providing victims of modern slavery with appropriate protections and support. Currently, victims of trafficking are able to apply for civil legal aid for advice and representation in relation to certain immigration matters and damages and employment claims arising from their trafficking exploitation under paragraph 32 of Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Following the pre-legislative scrutiny committee’s recommendation that victims of slavery should be provided with enhanced access to legal assistance, the Government committed to extending this provision to cover victims of all forms of modern slavery; that is what these amendments seek to do. I know that there is significant concern across this House that victims should receive appropriate access to legal aid, so I hope that noble Lords will agree that this measure is both necessary and welcome. I beg to move.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I congratulate the Government on that; I think it is splendid.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
I add my congratulations to those of my noble and learned friend. The Government have listened to the representations that have been made and their response is to be greatly welcomed.
Lord Hylton
Following those congratulations, it appears to me that Amendment 85 is, on the face of it, desirable. Is it the Government’s intention that the provision will apply to overseas domestic workers in this country? If that is the case, how will such people get access to the benefit of this proposed new clause? In particular, how will they get access if they have already been deprived of their passport by their employer, if they are locked in by the employer or if they happen to be working seven days a week and perhaps 16 hours or more a day? These are very important and relevant questions, and I look forward to a response.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
They are indeed very important and relevant questions. We shall be coming on to this issue in a later group of amendments, so I suggest that we take up the debate on this topic with the later group of amendments that is related to these particular workers.
Lord Patel
Lord Patel
I add my congratulations on the previous amendment, which was brought by the Government. There are some questions to be asked, and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, addressed one of them, but there will be others that we will come to later. Meanwhile, I will address my Amendment 85A, along with Amendments 86A, 86B, 86C, 86D, 86E, 86F and 86G. My name is also on Amendment 86, under that of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for putting their names to my amendment.
I will be brief because I see this as an exploratory or probing amendment, depending on the answers that I get from the Minister. I, of course, welcome Clause 47, which introduces an enabling provision for child trafficking advocates. In the light of the government amendment that we just agreed, we will see whether the legal assistance also applies to advocates. This is a significant and welcome step forward to protect child victims of trafficking. My amendment seeks to raise the issue of another extremely vulnerable group of children who, under current legislation, would miss out on the valuable support of an independent advocate to act in their best interests.
Amendments 85A and 86A to 86G would widen the scope of child trafficking advocates to provide advocates for all separated children. It is the separated children who are my concern. This is important for two reasons. Awarding an advocate to all separated children is, in my view, the only way to ensure that all trafficked children are awarded an advocate who can deal with the problems around identifying the victims of trafficking. Separated children are extremely vulnerable and need someone in this country to defend their interests. I can illustrate this with one real example. Let us call the child T for the sake of anonymity. The case study was provided at my request by the Children’s Society.
T is a 14 year-old boy who was referred to the Children’s Society by a walk-in health centre. At the time of referral, T was living with an older couple and some other young people, none of whom were related to him. He had come to the UK two years previously but had never regularised his immigration status, registered with a GP or attended a school. He was made to do all the cleaning and cooking in the house in exchange for his accommodation. The Children’s Society immediately realised that he had been trafficked, so the charity contacted the local authority as a matter of urgency.
Despite all efforts, the local authority and the local police were not sufficiently aware of the London Safeguarding Children Board’s guidance on working with trafficked children, and delayed prioritising the case with the degree of care it needed. The young person escaped from the family and ended up going missing, but due to the trusting relationship that he had built up with his project worker, he made contact again. The project worker went to pick him up and requested social services to arrange an emergency foster placement, which they agreed to do on the same day.
T is now in foster care and has started school. Timely access to education was something that the society had to advocate for strongly since none of the professionals involved seemed to know that an undocumented child is in fact required by law to attend school. T was referred to an immigration solicitor, who is helping him with his asylum claim and court order referral to the national referral mechanism for victims of trafficking. T was granted a “reasonable grounds” decision and is now taking part in social activities in a regular boys’ group. The key message of this case is that the help of a trusted, independent adult to ensure that children such as T can access vital services is needed for the welfare of these children and to ensure that they are recognised as the victims of trafficking.
I will focus in more detail on the problems of identifying victims of trafficking. Trafficked children are frequently not identified as such when they first enter the country. They may not acknowledge or disclose that they have been trafficked for some time. This is because of the level of exploitation they may have suffered at the hands of atrocious criminals, and they may even have been trafficked by a family member. Having an independent legal advocate will help to ensure that more children are identified as trafficked and then receive the support and services they are entitled to.
Separated children are extremely vulnerable. We all know the importance of having someone who is looking out for their best interests. However, many of these children have fled war, persecution and torture; they may have become separated from or even abandoned by their parents and carers once outside their country of origin. They are often physically and emotionally scarred when they enter the country. An independent legal advocate would support them while they overcome the language and cultural barriers, and help them to exercise their rights by holding local agencies to account. Without advocates, these children often end up living outside the system, destitute and homeless, and denied the safety and support they need and are entitled to as children.
Finally, there are financial benefits from providing advocates for all separated children. Research by the Children’s Society and UNICEF has found that for every £1 spent on service provision for three years, as much as £1.25 can be saved. This increases to £2.40 once the financial benefits for separated children who reach adulthood at the age of 18 are factored in. I will welcome the Government’s response to this amendment and their view on whether the evaluation of the ongoing pilot of child trafficking advocates will address the problems of identifying the victims of trafficking and review whether advocates should be provided for all separated children. I beg to move.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 86H, 103 and 104. Along with colleagues from all parties, I have been proposing the introduction of child trafficking advocates under a variety of different names since I first introduced my Private Member’s Bill on human trafficking in 2011. Since then your Lordships have consistently supported this measure as I, with others, have tabled proposals on several occasions over the past three years. Indeed, the clause in the Bill before us today is a direct result of the support shown by this House for the child trafficking guardian amendment to the then Immigration Bill, which was won by a majority of 98. I also recognise the degree to which the Government have moved their position from initial opposition to where we are today, and I am grateful to successive Ministers for taking the time to listen to these debates and engage constructively with the issue and with your Lordships’ concerns.
I warmly welcome the amendments made in the other place to give a stronger commitment to the introduction of child trafficking advocates and in setting out clearly that advocates must always act in the best interests of the child. These demonstrate the Government’s continued openness to listening to the concerns regarding this clause. and I very much hope that the Minister will continue in that vein as he responds to my amendments today.
I know that the Minister will say, as he did at Second Reading, that because there are pilots of child advocates going on around the country in 23 local authorities, we cannot take any further action on advocates during the passage of the Modern Slavery Bill. I support the trials to look into the practicalities of delivery, but I would respectfully disagree with the Minister on the point of substance. I believe that the trials should not hinder us from doing our job to provide the best framework for victims and that we should set out in statute a definition of the powers and functions of an advocate.
Before I explain my amendment, I would like to draw the attention of noble Lords to a significant change in the landscape both practically and politically that has come about since we last debated this matter in April. On 20 October, the Northern Ireland Assembly voted to create a system of guardians for trafficked children in the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Further Provisions and Support for Victims) Bill, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. The relevant clause in that Bill contains on the face of the legislation a full statement of the functions of the role, which are similar to those set out in Amendment 86H. I want to clarify for your Lordships that this provision, which was mentioned by various speakers at Second Reading, has been introduced without any sort of pilot scheme being run in Northern Ireland. In his closing speech at Second Reading the Minister said that the Home Office,
“will learn from that”—
the pilots—
“and on that basis set out in regulations what those responsibilities should be. That is exactly the same as what has happened in Northern Ireland”.—[Official Report, 17/11/14; col. 323.]
I am sure that the noble Lord was aware that there have been no pilots or trials in Northern Ireland; I am not implying that there were and I wanted to clarify the point.
I turn now to Amendment 86H. I am very grateful for the support of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I have tabled this amendment with their support because I believe that Clause 47 needs to be strengthened to ensure that the advocates are equipped and empowered to be effective in this vital role, to make sure that the clause meets international best practice and that it fulfils the intentions of this House, which were made clear in the Immigration Bill vote in April. It is my opinion that, without Amendment 86H, Clause 47 falls short of these objectives.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I have put my name in support of these amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich. He and I have battled for three years—he having taken the lead—and this is a great moment. The Government are to be congratulated on Clause 47. They are to be congratulated on going as far as they have, but they have not gone far enough.
One of the most important points made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, was on the child advocate having an absolutely clear statutory position. I remember discussing this with representatives of Barnardo’s who had had to work from time to time with local authorities on children in whom they had an interest and who found that some local authorities would not help them because they had no statutory power. This is a serious matter. You have to be able to say to a local authority, “You’ve got to give this to me”, and not, “Please would you mind giving it to me?”. It is a crucial distinction. In Clause 47(4), to which the noble Lord referred, the fact that it says:
“The Secretary of State may make regulations about functions”,
and about,
“requiring public authorities to co-operate with, and provide information to, child trafficking advocates”,
is not good enough. The word has to be “must”; “may” will not do.
As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, also pointed out, certain basic things are to be found in our Amendment 86H, the majority of which have to be in primary legislation. However, I can see that much of Amendment 86 could be done by regulation. It seems to me that the Government should go away and have a look at these two amendments. Some provisions could appropriately be made by regulation but the really important ones need to be made in primary legislation to give the child trafficking advocate the jurisdiction, to use a legal word, or actual control over what they wish to do for the child by working with local authorities, the police and other agencies, including the National Health Service. They would need to have the right to require those agencies to provide them with documentation and information about the child who is a trafficked victim. Other than that, each of these agencies may, and probably would, be very difficult about supplying the information. That information is crucial for the advocate, who should be there from the beginning of the identification of the child to the moment when the child is settled. With these amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, three years on from when we started, we have got a long way, but the Government need to listen to see that it is not quite sufficient. We need to give the child trafficking advocate the powers as well as the duties.
My last point is about the power to appoint and instruct legal representatives. It is also absolutely crucial to give that child trafficking advocate the powers that these children—mainly brought over from other countries, although there are also some internal children—actually need from them. For those reasons, I strongly support these amendments. As I say, some provisions could be in regulation but there are basic points that have to be in primary legislation.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I support Amendment 85A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, to which I was pleased to add my name. I also express my support for the case made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and pay tribute to him for his role in bringing us as far as we have got.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights made the case for a guardian or advocate system for all unaccompanied migrant children in its report Human Rights of Unaccompanied Migrant Children and Young People in the UK. In that report we pointed out that,
“the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child called for the establishment of a system of guardianship in its General Comment No. 6. It says a guardian should be present in ‘all planning and decision-making processes’ to provide ‘the continuum of care required by the child’. The presence of a guardian was also a specific recommendation to the United Kingdom in the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s State Report in 2008, which called for an independent system to ensure that a child’s best interests was considered throughout the decision-making process. The UNHCR insisted that a guardian would help ‘best interests remain a primary consideration throughout the procedure’”.
We repeated our recommendation in our report on the Modern Slavery Bill. In essence, the argument is very much that put by Sarah Teather MP in the Public Bill Committee that any unaccompanied child is vulnerable. This is recognised in other European countries, including Scotland. Indeed, these children become vulnerable to trafficking, a point made by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights. It argued that unaccompanied children and children without parental care living in residential institutions are at higher risk of being trafficked. In response to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, I suggest that that is perhaps one reason why it is appropriate for this amendment to be in the Bill.
I understand the Government’s fear, as expressed in the Public Bill Committee, that this would risk diluting the advocates’ skill set and expertise and that spreading the expertise too thinly could mean trafficked children not receiving the support that they need, a point made by the Minister, Karen Bradley. However, I think that this argument is weakened by the powerful argument put by the noble Lord, Lord Patel—it is an argument that civil society groups, particularly those in the Refugee Children’s Consortium, have put to us—that we do not always know who is a trafficked child. In order to ensure that trafficked children are not falling through the net, it is important that the advocate or guardian is not restricted only to helping trafficked children. Again, I hope that that meets the reservation expressed by the noble Lord, Lord McColl. It is essential for trafficked children for this to be widened. I hope that the Minister will address this argument and think a bit further about the argument about dilution, which I think is misplaced.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I support these amendments, including the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who have been at the forefront of this commitment to there being an advocate for children.
I want to emphasise some of the things said by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I, too, sit on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and we took evidence on unaccompanied migrant children. The concerns about dilution are somewhat misplaced because the experience of people who are doing this kind of work—and I am speaking about colleagues at the Bar—is that children, like adults who have been trafficked, in the first instance because of fear of those who have trafficked them, do not immediately disclose. It is often after some trust has been developed that children will eventually disclose matters that show that they have, in fact, been trafficked and that they are precisely the kind of child whom we should be concerned about. If a child is unaccompanied, almost invariably there is a back story and it takes time to gain the confidence of the child for the full story to become clear. It is important that we recognise that the role of the child advocate should be from the very point of dealing with the child arriving in the country or identified in the country as being unaccompanied but being a migrant.
I want to reinforce some things that were said by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Local authorities often, I am afraid, fail to understand or respond adequately to the needs of trafficked children. Of course, they have their own problems now financially and so they are feeling particularly hard-pressed. A legal advocate has to have powers to compel the council to act; otherwise we will see real gaps in the provision for these children, who need to be properly assessed and supported. Without having that power, the advocate will be no more than a pleader to local authorities and there will be times when children will fall through the net.
I also press on the Government the importance of having a power to instruct legal representation. These things are complicated. The law around this is not simple and I think at quite an early stage there is going to have to be support from experts in the field of immigration law. Invariably it is about immigration law but also children’s law. If the power is not there to be able to access the right kind of legal representation for a child, then the child’s rights may not be properly argued. We often talk about international conventions. It is an area of law that is not straightforward. I hope that the Government will listen to the pleas being made by noble Lords moving these amendments, which I strongly support.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, clearly things have moved on a little since we debated the Immigration Bill on 7 April. Nevertheless, there is clearly a long way to go. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who I thought made a brilliant speech, and to the other noble Lords who signed this amendment and again brought this issue before your Lordships’ House with Amendment 86H. I am pleased to support them.
While I welcome the action of the Government in trialling the delivery of a child trafficking advocate system, I am disappointed that they are not being bolder in their statement of the principles that would underpin the role of the advocates. I agree with the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, which said that pilots are not,
“a substitute for a statutory advocacy scheme”.
Since that report, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has recommended that the UK prioritises,
“the appointment of a competent and statutory guardian as expeditiously as possible to safeguard the best interests of the child during the criminal justice process and ensure that a child victim is referred to asylum-seeking or other procedures only after the appointment of a guardian”.
There are many pages of recommendations from well established and respected international organisations on how a guardian advocate system should function, which would allow us to set out a framework that could be adopted by the Bill.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger
My Lords, trying to give protection to trafficked children is such an important part of this Bill. I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord McColl on his excellent Amendment 86H, which would do much to help trafficked children. There are many excellent additions, and I shall touch on some that I consider particularly important.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, that it is very important that the advocate is appointed as soon as possible; the sooner that they can start getting to know the child and gaining their trust, the more effective they will be. I support the advocate having powers to appoint and instruct legal representation, as that will ensure that the child’s outcome is best protected.
With reference to establishing contact with the child’s family where the child so wishes and it is in the child’s best interests, I wonder who in this instance judges what is in the child’s best interest. I suspect that most children who are trafficked are probably old enough to have a view on what they want, and it is incredibly important that they are listened to and weight given to those views.
With reference to the appointment of the advocate coming to an end when a child reaches 21, although that is technically adulthood it is still a very young age to be left on your own, perhaps in a strange country and away from any family, not being proficient in English and having gone through all the desperate trauma of being trafficked. Perhaps in this regard the wishes of the child could be considered as to whether they would like some further support from the advocate or to be given a mentor until the time when they feel they can cope on their own.
With regard to a durable situation being found for the child, children need to be returned to their homes wherever possible. I was very moved by the statistic that 60% of the trafficked children put into care abscond and often fall back into the hands of their traffickers. This means that often they are very unhappy being put into care. As we know that generally the outcomes for children in care are very low, returning children to their families wherever possible is surely the right thing to do.
Lord Browne of Belmont
My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of Amendment 86H in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I am sure that other Members of this House will want to thank the noble Lord and the noble and learned Baroness for their persistence and perseverance in repeatedly bringing the need for a child advocate for trafficked children before this House.
As we look today at Clause 47 of this Bill, which in some ways makes provision for child trafficking advocates, I am sure we can agree that we have come a long way on this subject from 2011. I am aware that the Government seek to justify the rather weak nature of the clause on the basis that they want to wait for the conclusion of the advocate trials before providing more detail. In some ways I think this argument stands up to scrutiny but in others I have to say that I find it wanting. No doubt important things will be learnt from the trials that will inform practical questions regarding matters such as implementation, but I do not accept that that should be used as a reason for not providing a clear and up-front statutory definition of the role of the advocate. It seems odd that we should sign up to the name “child trafficking advocate” in the Bill without signing up to a proper definition of the role.
There are at least two major problems. First, in terms of the basic definition of a child trafficking advocate, the definition is set out in numerous international best practice documents and confirmed by our own experience. The Still at Risk report, for example, recommends that an independent trusted adult should be appointed as soon a trafficked child comes to that authority’s attention. Amendment 86H makes it clear that this should happen. The Still at Risk report also says that that person,
“would ensure that all potential victims of trafficking are able to understand their rights, ensure that their voice is heard in decisions that affect them and are supported effectively through the different legal processes they are engaged in”.
I am very supportive of the principle of setting out the functions of the advocate in the Bill, as exemplified in Amendment 86H.
It is significant that this same definition and approach are also reflected in all the relevant international best practice documents developed by the EU, UNICEF and the UN. For example, the UNICEF guidance states:
“The role of a guardian is to be an advocate for the child in a wide range of discussions and decisions about what should happen to the child, in particular to ensure that the decision-making process primarily considers the best interests of the child. The role is also to be a link between the child and the various agencies the child comes into contact with, to ensure the child is kept informed of any relevant developments with respect to him or her, and to accompany the child in a physical way, in particular when she or he is moved between various places”.
It is also essential that the role of the advocate should be recognised by other public authorities, otherwise, as the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said just over three years ago,
“it risks creating confusion for children if plans for their care are not effectively co-ordinated”.—[Official Report, 25/11/11; col. 1282.]
The second reason for my belief that this is not a strong enough clause as it stands is observing the debate on guardians that has occurred over the past few months in Northern Ireland, which the noble Lord, Lord McColl, has referred to. Noble Lords may be aware that the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, has introduced a Bill on human trafficking to the Northern Ireland Assembly. He is sadly not able to give his own wisdom to the House today, as he is in Northern Ireland speaking on other matters on human trafficking before the Assembly. The key point is that, in another part of the United Kingdom, a clearly independent adult will be appointed to a child who has been or who is about to be referred to the NRM or to a separated child. That adult, an independent guardian, will be trained, qualified and supported in that role and the functions are set out in statute in Clause 21 of the Northern Ireland Bill, which will very soon now become law. That person needs to ascertain and communicate the views of the child, represent them, and liaise with other organisations involved in their care and making decisions in relation to the child—for instance, a court or tribunal. They will assist the child to obtain legal advice, keep the child informed about relevant proceedings, contribute to a plan for the long-term welfare based on an individual assessment of the child’s best interests, accompany them as necessary, and work to establish contact with the child’s family where it is in their best interests.
Interestingly, the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety may add to their functions as necessary by order so that if new functions arise they can be added. I suggest that this freedom to adjust provides a crucial model for the United Kingdom Government given that, on the one hand, it is simply not credible to include a child trafficking advocate provision in the Bill without a proper definition—especially when, thanks to domestic and international best practice, the definition is clear—yet, on the other hand, adjustment may be desirable in the light of the experience of the trials. It provides a mechanism whereby we could give child trafficking advocates a proper definition but not remove scope for that definition to be amended, although I stress that I think the real usefulness of the trials will pertain to practical matters of implementation rather than that of definitions. If I were to add anything to Amendment 86H, it would be the power to make such additions to the list of the advocates’ functions.
The other thing I should note about the Northern Ireland definition, like that of proposed new subsection (8) in Amendment 86H, is that it makes plain that other persons or bodies providing services or taking decisions about the child have to recognise the role of the guardian and provide the guardian with relevant information so as to allow the guardian to carry out their role effectively. In contrast, Clause 47(4) only enables the Home Secretary to issue regulations to this effect if she so wishes. It seems to me that the provision of child trafficking guardians in Northern Ireland goes much further than the current proposals in Clause 47. The reason we are rightly concerned to help victims of trafficking is because they are, without doubt, among the most vulnerable people in our society and that vulnerability is greatest when dealing with children.
Given their greater vulnerability, it seems very odd that the Government should have included such a weak clause in the Bill. While I am happy to celebrate that Northern Ireland will provide the best protection for child victims in the whole of the United Kingdom, it pains me to consider the many trafficked children in England and Wales who will not benefit from this greater protection. I am not satisfied with this, and I very much hope the Government will not settle for such an inequality. The good news is that Amendment 86H closes the gap. I very much hope that the Minister will accept it.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, the determination of those who have pursued this cause is admirable. The noble Lord and the noble and learned Baroness are a formidable pair. I simply want to comment on one point in Amendment 86H, about legal representation. From my—now not very current—experience as a solicitor, I well know the importance of being able to take clear or reasonably clear instructions, and to be able to rely on those instructions. I take the point about the voice of the child but I do not think that that is inconsistent with the role of representatives.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, in recent years three children took their own lives after spending a night in a police cell. They were 17 year-olds and, under current legislation, they could be kept in police cells overnight—if they had been 16 that would not have been allowed, but as 17 year-olds, they were. One of them was Kesia Leatherbarrow. Her mother is a teacher. She leads the maths department in her school. Her father is the deputy head of a local school. Those children had parents to advocate for them, parents who were passionate to see that what happened to their children did not happen to other children. Through their advocacy they managed to persuade the Government to change the law so that in future 17 year-olds will not be placed in custody overnight.
I hope I can also express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss for their hard work and determination over years to bring about the change that we are seeing today. I also thank the Government for working with them and for their constructive engagement in making this the best possible arrangement for these young people, so that while they may lack parents they have the advocates they need to have the best chances in their lives.
I support these amendments. I particularly add my support to the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Patel to extend this to all unaccompanied children. This June, thanks to the kind help of the Children’s Commissioner for England, I and some colleagues had the pleasure of meeting five young men from Afghanistan. They had all arrived here as unaccompanied children. One young man was doing extremely well in his studies and spoke with great gratitude of the help he had received. Another had spent time in a mental hospital. His health had been wrecked as a result of the lack of support he had received. I hope your Lordships will agree that we should take steps to ensure that all separated young people have the best help as early as possible so they can do well and not fall. I hope this will be changed as soon as possible. I recognise that the Government have come a long way, but I hope they will give this very careful consideration.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 103 and 104 and to speak to Amendments 86 and 86H, to which I have put my name.
The noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, have been veritable champions of these young vulnerable people and it is thanks to them—I have to say, with our support—that the Government have got far as they have. Of course I welcome Clause 47 and the government amendment that was introduced in the other place—but, as so many have said, we have not quite got there yet, but I have no doubt that we will.
Throughout the passage of the Bill, my colleagues in the Commons, together with some other Members of the House of Commons, consistently argued that unless advocates are given legal powers they will not be able to act effectively in the child’s best interests and truly protect trafficked children. We have a great example before us tonight. It was mentioned by several noble Lords. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and to the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, who introduced the Bill in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I hope that our Government will ensure that the laws pertaining to trafficked children are the same throughout the United Kingdom. It is very important and I very much hope we will follow their excellent example.
If we are truly to deliver for these most vulnerable of children, we must ensure that advocates have legal authority to act for the child in cases where they lack the legal capacity to do so. We want guardians to be able to instruct solicitors on their behalf and represent the child’s best interests. Advocates must also have the power to compel local authorities to take action where a child is not receiving the services and support to which they are entitled, such as appropriate accommodation. We also want the UK to be brought into line with its obligations under the Council of Europe convention and, as has been said, under the anti-trafficking directive.
Evidence resulting from the work and experience of members of the Refugee Children’s Consortium and from research commissioned by the Home Office and conducted by the Children’s Society and the Refugee Council demonstrate that local authorities often fail to understand, prioritise and adequately respond to trafficked children’s needs. This too often results in these vulnerable children falling through the gaps, as has been said, being housed in inappropriate and unsafe accommodation, such as bed and breakfast, and receiving inadequate adult and financial support.
Those most closely involved also find that the only way to force local authorities to act is litigation, or the threat of it. A legal advocate with powers to compel the local authority to act is therefore vital if we are to ensure that these children are correctly assessed and get the services to which they are entitled. Evidence from the evaluation of the Scottish guardianship pilot found that because guardians did not have legal powers and were not on the same statutory footing as local authority staff, they sometimes struggled to ensure that local authorities provided trafficked children with the correct services, and that because the service had no statutory footing the guardians found themselves having to negotiate, and sometimes renegotiate, the position in order to assist the young people with whom they worked. We have that very fine example before us. We know that it did not work in Scotland, so please let us act now to ensure that it works when we introduce these advocates.
Giving advocates legal powers to instruct solicitors would not conflict with the local authority, which remains responsible for the welfare and safeguarding of the child. The Northern Ireland Assembly’s amendment to its Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill 2014 puts child trafficking advocates on an equal footing with the local authority and states that local authorities must recognise and pay due regard to the functions of child trafficking advocates. That is another fine example to be followed. The Northern Ireland Bill even has the wording right.
I urge the Government to support this amendment, or something very similar, in order to ensure that advocates have legal powers and that trafficked children are entitled to the support and protection that they deserve, because they deserve no less.
Lord Bates
My Lords, on that last point, the remarks on Northern Ireland of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, we are, I am sure, as one. We recognise that we are moving. The general consensus, if I may try to sum up the debate, is that progress has been made and we have come a long way, to quote the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, but perhaps there is further to go. Well, we still have more stages in the consideration of this legislation.
I come to some general remarks. I join nearly all noble Lords in the debate on these amendments in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord McColl for his determined and—I am tempted to say, as a former member of the Government Whips’ Office—unyielding advocacy on behalf of children, going back to the Immigration Bill, but also his own Private Member’s Bill. It has been an example of how it is possible, from the Back Benches, to make significant, important changes to government legislation.
I urge my noble friend, in saying this, to recognise that we have in front of us something that is not timid or weak. Such terms have been used a few times during our discussion. I totally accept that that is how parliamentary discussion and scrutiny should work: the Government give a bit and then people say, yes, thank you—17 year-olds, legal aid—but can we have some more? I understand that, but there is an audience outside this place who needs to have some confidence that we have before us something that is robust and that they can act upon. Yes, okay, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner may not have everything spelt out to the last letter as far as your Lordships would like, but the fact is that he is there, he has a vital role to play, and others should work with him to ensure that victims are identified and perpetrators prosecuted. With child-trafficking advocates, again, we may not have everything spelt out to the letter in the Bill, but the reality is that we do have a provision there.
We have heard a lot about the “mays” in Clause 47, but there are some “musts” as well. For example:
“The Secretary of State must make such arrangements as the Secretary of State considers reasonable to enable persons (“child trafficking advocates”) to be available to represent and support children who there is reason to believe may be victims of human trafficking”.
In the next subsection,
“the Secretary of State must have regard to the principle that, so far as practicable, a child should be represented and supported by someone who is independent of any person who will be responsible for making decisions about the child”.
Also, of course, in Clause 47(6):
“The Secretary of State must, no later than 9 months after the day … report on the steps the Secretary of State proposes to take in relation to the powers conferred by this section”.
So there are “musts” there.
I shall deal with some specific points put before us. The issue of support and protection for victims of child trafficking is of the utmost importance across the Floor of both Houses of Parliament. I share the aim of providing a bespoke support system for this most vulnerable group of children. I am dedicated to ensuring that these children receive the support and protection they deserve after the nightmare of their traumatic experience of being trafficked and exploited.
Before I continue, I assure noble Lords that, although modern slavery is a devolved matter, we continue to work closely with the devolved Administrations on the issue. We are fully abreast of the similar provisions which the noble Lord, Lord Browne, in particular, referred to in respect of Northern Ireland, as well as the Scottish guardianship service, and we are learning from these. We continue to maintain our positive partnership with the Welsh Government on this matter. We have listened intently to the debate on the issue of child trafficking advocates. Amendment 86 seeks to extend the provision to child victims of slavery and sets out in detail the minimum responsibilities of child trafficking advocates.
In that context I will set out the Government’s approach to achieving the best result for child victims of trafficking. We are trialling child trafficking advocates. The trials are being delivered by Barnardo’s across 23 local authorities in England and are now well under way, having started in September, with a growing number of children receiving the services of a specialist advocate.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, rather in parenthesis, a few moments ago the Minister introduced a new component into the debate when he talked about the financial implications that might be involved were we to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. Can he give us a figure? He has talked about the financial implications and must have some idea of what the cost might be. I was surprised to hear that argument being produced in your Lordships’ House. Does he have a figure that he can share?
Lord Bates
I think that what I am getting at there is self-evident. If you extend the service of child trafficking advocates, clearly there is a cost implication. I was not suggesting at any stage that that was in any way an argument for or against. I was simply saying that it ought to be taken into account before we embark on an extension of the scheme. I am happy to write and come back on that, with further information about the basis of our assessment.
On the points made by my noble friend Lord McColl, it is intended that the functions and role of advocates in any national scheme will be set out in regulations. This will give the advocates the desired legislative basis without forcing us to make decisions about their role prior to the outcome and evaluation of the ongoing trial. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee accepted our approach—a point I have already made. We accept that a different approach has been taken in Northern Ireland, where an advocates scheme has not been trialled prior to setting out details of it in the Bill. It is our position, however, that the detail of advocates’ roles covered in the Northern Ireland Bill can be covered in our regulations, should this be supported by the findings of the ongoing trial. This takes in the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, when she said that there was a description effectively set out in the Northern Ireland legislation; that could be taken into account. We know that the pre-legislative scrutiny committee acknowledges that there is no one-size-fits-all in terms of advocacy schemes.
This is worth underscoring briefly. We accept that this is not a homogeneous group. This is not a group of people who have had similar experiences or who have similar needs. They are a very heterogeneous group and have different needs that must be addressed. That ought to be taken into account. The report highlighted that the Scottish system, which works very well without any legislative basis, would not necessarily translate well into England and Wales because of the different circumstances regarding trafficked children in different areas.
While we are concerned about child victims of modern slavery, the current trial and the provision in the Bill are focused on a particularly vulnerable group—namely, trafficked children. We know that trafficked children need to receive consistent support and protection to avoid them going missing and being retrafficked. We agree with my noble friend that the Bill is not the appropriate place for measures to extend the provision of advocates to all unaccompanied children, given its specialist focus on modern slavery.
I have dealt with the points raised in particular by my noble friend Lord McColl. I am aware that other points were raised. As I said when we discussed previous amendments, we will reflect on those points very carefully. I am sure that my noble friend Lord McColl, who accurately anticipated my response to his amendment, will probably tell us that he wants to revisit this issue later in our proceedings—which of course is his right. Perhaps in the interim we could have more discussions about how we can ensure that these child trafficking advocates work in the best way possible. We might also be able to share some interim findings from the trial that started in September, which would help inform the debate. With those assurances, I ask the noble Lord to consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Patel
My Lords, I pay tribute to my friend, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I paid tribute to them at Second Reading but do so again. We all know how hard both of them, particularly the noble Lord, Lord McColl, have worked for years for this Bill.
I thank those who supported my amendment—namely, the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I understand the difficulties of including all separated and unaccompanied children in the Bill. However, I was trying to emphasise that we have enough evidence to suggest that separated children are very much at risk and often end up being trafficked or becoming involved in modern slavery: for example, the example I gave of child T. It would be a great shame if a Bill on modern slavery ended up excluding this group of very vulnerable children, for whom we have to find a solution in due course. However, I recognise the complexity of involving all unaccompanied children.
As the Minister rightly said, the central amendment in this group is Amendment 86H under the lead name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. My name was added to that amendment, but the vagaries of communication over the weekend and of the printing of the Marshalled List meant that it was not included.
In summing up, the Minister said it was likely that the noble Lord, Lord McColl, would wish to revisit the issue. I noted that the noble Lord nodded enthusiastically, so the Minister was left in no doubt that he and those who support the amendment, including me, will return to it at a later stage.
The vagaries of the House procedures do not allow the noble Lord, Lord McColl, to thank all those who supported him, but I do so on his behalf. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
“Assessment of victims
A person suspected of being a victim of an offence under sections 1 or 2 shall be assessed psychologically during the investigation of the offence.”
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I have Amendments 86J, 86K and 86L in this group. Amendment 86J seeks to insert a new clause. I contacted a member of the Bar who practises in this area and asked him whether the provisions available to protect and support victims in court and in their dealings with the police were adequate, even if they were not always well used. In other words, should we be thinking of anything to go in the legislation or is it really a matter of guidance and practice? He came straight back to me with the thought which I have incorporated in this amendment.
Of course, protection in court is very much a matter of practice, in line with some legislation and with guidance. The practice needs a foundation. This would be a foundation for something quite wide. My counsel friend said:
“Every other measure follows from an assessment and those presenting a case will do so fully informed if they have the psychological assessment”.
The victims of slavery and trafficking are so very unlike others. There are many issues that befall them and their presentation in court is difficult. My counsel friend believes, as is obvious, that an assessment should be mandatory.
This is not about referral to the NRM; it is about investigation and prosecution as well as support. An assessment may say that there is nothing too much to be concerned about, but it may say that this individual is very damaged, very vulnerable and that the best way to investigate is as follows. Or, in court, someone with the appropriate knowledge can say, “The victim giving evidence is not able to articulate what, from my work with him, I believe he is feeling. A different line of questioning may be appropriate”. This is not just about support; it is also about the resilience to give evidence and to assist the police, and resilience in proceedings.
My other two amendments can be put very briefly. The first adds a reference to consultation to Clause 48 —the Secretary of State’s guidance on the items listed. I am suggesting that this should be after consultation. I hope that my noble friend will be able to reassure me that it will be after consultation. The second amendment—in order to get the grammar right, it requires a few more words—essentially changes “determining” to “identifying” in Clause 48(1)(c)—the arrangements for identifying whether a person is to be treated as a victim of slavery or trafficking. This is to probe whether this provision is about the NRM, where the term “determination” is used, but so is the term “identifying”. Determination has a whiff of formal proceedings which may be wider than the Government intend. As I say, this is a probing amendment.
Amendment 86M is probably the central amendment in this group and I do not want to steal any thunder by speaking to it, save to say that it is an extremely important amendment and I am very glad that it has been tabled. If we are establishing rights for victims, the logic is that those with the power to grant or deny the right must also be held to account—and that would be via a right of appeal. My first amendment is 86J and I beg to move.
Lord McColl of Dulwich
My Lords, I am pleased to introduce Amendment 86M in my name, that of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I am grateful for the input of the charities involved in its development, including CARE, ECPAT and the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group.
The amendment deals with what is, for me, a foundational aspect of any modern slavery Bill worthy of that name, yet it is not adequately provided for in the current draft. The Bill will be the foundation of legislation for all action on modern-day slavery for decades to come. As such, it must have the victims at its heart and make proper provision for them. I welcome the addition of Part 5 following the recommendations of the pre-legislative scrutiny by the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, of which I was privileged to be a member. However, I feel that Clause 48, which provides a mechanism for guidance on identifying and supporting victims, does not go anywhere like far enough to ensure that the Bill is victim-focused.
I thank the Minister for his comments in his letter sent to Peers following Second Reading, sharing the concern that we provide victims with the services that they need. I am pleased to know that the Government are considering the recommendations of the review of the national referral mechanism and hope that this will lead to a significant improvement in the identification of victims and the provision of support services. However, I do not share the view implied in the Minister’s letter that legislating for the NRM will make the system inflexible, nor do I believe that legislation is a distraction from the process of improvement.
In my opinion, Amendment 86M provides a much needed statutory foundation for operational and structural improvements, in response to the critique of victim identification and support in the review. The flexibility of guidance can be useful in responding to changing circumstances, but guidance is not the place to establish fundamental principles. It is my view that the fundamental principles for identifying victims and providing them with support and assistance should be laid out in legislation. Amendment 86M lays out these core principles. The clause relates broadly to two issues: first, the processes around identifying victims; and secondly, supporting victims—how long we should support them and with what types of services.
Let me first turn to the matter of identifying victims. Amendment 86M addresses the fundamental principle that the formal process for identifying victims and conferring on them a certain status that makes them eligible for services and support needs to be transparent through proposed new subsections (1) to (4). During our scrutiny of the draft Bill, the Joint Committee heard evidence from many NGOs that, because the national referral mechanism is established only in policy and guidance, there is a lack of transparency about decision-making. Anti-Slavery International described this as leading to,
“arbitrariness of application and access for victims”.
The 2013 report from the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group, Hidden in Plain Sight, indicates that existing guidance relating to processes under the NRM does not seem to be consistently followed, which gives me great cause for concern over the Government’s proposal that guidance under Clause 48 will be sufficient to ensure the correct operation of the NRM process.
I welcome the review of the NRM that has been undertaken and I am pleased that the Modern Slavery Strategy states that the Government are giving serious consideration to its recommendations for a radical restructuring of the process. However, I believe that any such restructured process should ultimately be established in regulations. This was also the view of the Joint Committee, which said that the Home Secretary should set out the process for identification by order. This approach will provide the flexibility which the Minister mentioned in his letter, but equally allows for greater transparency in the process than exists at present.
Amendment 86M requires the Home Secretary to establish the identification process in regulations and to seek the input of an Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner on the guidance about the identification of victims. One key aspect of this transparency is the process for which Amendment 86M specifically provides. It is the creation of an internal and external appeals process. The current NRM process has no such formal mechanisms for review. Where individuals wish to challenge a negative decision, they must either make an informal request for reconsideration or seek judicial review. The informal process, relying as it does simply on the discretion of an official, is in no way transparent and provides no sense of security for victims when they enter the system. On the other hand, judicial review is extremely formal and costly and does not review the substantive merits of the person’s case. A formal built-in appeals process, with the possibility of a second-tier external review, is needed to provide appropriate transparency and accountability. This is why I have proposed new subsection (1)(c). I was rather disappointed with the response of the NRM review to this point. I am not convinced that its proposals for regional multidisciplinary panels will reduce the need for challenge, nor that the review’s suggestion—that another panel chair could offer a second pair of eyes when a review is requested—will be adequate to provide the transparency that is so important. I hope the Government will support my proposal for a more formal process set out in regulations.
I was also disappointed to read that the NRM review reported that the submissions from many NGOs showed overwhelming support for the preservation of the national referral mechanism solely for victims of trafficking. I am sorry, but I disagree. I recognise that international reporting structures and data comparisons mean we need the clarity of specific statistics on victims of trafficking, but we must ensure that there is a clear mechanism for the identification of victims of slavery who have not been trafficked. Without such a mechanism, we are left, once more, with the problems of transparency which I am seeking to address through Amendment 86M. As it stands, Clause 48 applies to victims of the offences under both Clauses 1 and 2, and this is right. Amendment 86M also applies to victims of slavery and trafficking offences and would require a formal mechanism for identification to be established in regulations.
Having set out the requirements for identification, I turn to proposed new subsection (5). This sets out how long the assistance must be provided for under the reflection and recovery period. There are two questions for your Lordships. First, how long should it be and, secondly, should we set this time period in statute? Those of your Lordships who have studied the European convention will know that our international obligation is to provide a so-called recovery and reflection period of at least 30 days. Such a period shall be sufficient for the person concerned to recover. The UK already has a recovery and reflection period of 45 days, so we are ahead of the minimum. However, I have heard NGOs say, time and again, that even 45 days is not long enough for a victim to properly reflect and recover and that 90 days would be far more appropriate. This is what I am proposing in Amendment 86M. Indeed, the NRM review says:
“Many to whom we spoke thought that victims ‘are failed’ at the end of the 45 day period”.
This is a very sobering assessment of how we are treating victims. Studies show that, during the first three months, a high proportion of victims of human trafficking display symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and that longer reflection periods can greatly improve chances of providing substantial assistance to victims of trafficking. That is why I am supporting a 90-day reflection and recovery period.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I am very pleased to speak in support of Amendment 86M, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, to which I, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, have added our names. At Second Reading, I welcomed the fact that the Government had responded to the concerns expressed by the Joint Committee on the draft Bill about the absence of any victim care provision through the introduction of Clause 48, which requires the Secretary of State to offer guidance about victim care. I also made clear, however, that in my view this fell far short of the provision of the statement of support services for victims of trafficking that would be expected to be itemised on the face of any ambitiously titled Modern Slavery Bill, which we are encouraged to think is leading the world on these very important matters. I, too, thank the Minister for the comments in his letter sent to Peers, following Second Reading, in which he shared the concerns that we provide victims with the services that they need.
Those of your Lordships who have had an opportunity to look at the Modern Slavery Strategy, published on 29 November, will see statements about the Government's commitment to continue raising the profile of victims, which is very welcome. Paragraph 7.1 of the strategy states very clearly that,
“our approach to tackling modern slavery is victim-focused”,
but any victim looking at the support promised to them by this Bill would, I fear to say, fundamentally disagree. The current wording of Clause 48 gives very little reassurance to victims and seems to pay scant attention to our international obligations under the European convention and the European directive.
I am sure the Minister will say that we do not need Amendment 86M because all the assistance and support is being provided already. I am not convinced by that argument. I do not dispute that the Government take seriously their obligation to care for victims, as the Modern Slavery Strategy, the NRM review and the interdepartmental ministerial group policy statement have all indicated. However, I am not convinced that in practice all victims are receiving the support they are entitled to. The Joint Committee said:
“The quality of victim support and assistance provided under the NRM varies greatly. We have privately heard from victims some harrowing stories of poor medical treatment, no access to legal advice and wholly unsuitable accommodation”.
This is not an acceptable way to treat victims who, as the Government rightly say,
“have often endured horrific physical, psychological or sexual abuse at the hands of slave drivers and traffickers”.
If this Bill contained details of the minimum levels victims should be receiving under our international obligations, it would strengthen the likelihood that all victims would receive that level of assistance. Noble Lords will know that in 2012 GRETA, the Council of Europe’s group of experts, published its first analysis of UK compliance with the European Convention against Trafficking in Human Beings. Recommendations 26 and 27 state that the UK,
“should make further efforts to ensure that all potential and actual victims of trafficking are provided with adequate support and assistance from their identification through to their recovery. This should involve, in particular: … adopting clear support service minimum standards for victims of trafficking and the provision of adequate funding to maintain them; … ensuring that all children victims of trafficking benefit from the assistance measures provided for under the Convention, including appropriate accommodation and access to education … ; …. enabling victims of trafficking to have access to the labour market, vocational training and education as a form of rehabilitation; … ensuring that victims of trafficking who need it can benefit from translation and interpretation services; … improving the provision of legal advice or assistance to victims on various matters (NRM, asylum criminal proceedings, compensation)”.
Amendment 86M, which proposes to replace Clause 48, meets GRETA’s recommendations, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, has told us.
Not only do we need to ensure that victims have access to all the support they are entitled to under the European convention and the EU directive, we also need to ensure that more victims can access this support. According to the National Crime Agency, some 60% of the potential victims who were encountered in 2013 by local authorities, police forces and NGOs were not referred to the national referral mechanism and thus could not access government-funded assistance under the victim support programme. Many other charities also say that they provide assistance to victims who do not wish to be referred to the NRM. We need to do all we can to build confidence among individual victims that, if they come forward, they will receive help.
The evidence review chaired by Frank Field for the Home Secretary prior to the publication of the draft Bill makes the following recommendation:
“The protections, entitlements and support that victims are entitled to should be clearly defined in law to help ensure that victims (and the NGOs that support them) are more confident to come forward. Formalising these provisions in law should in turn increase the accountability of the agencies responsible for delivering this support”.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, which is why I have put my name to Amendment 86M. As the UN says, in commentary on its model laws on trafficking,
“Adequate victim assistance and protection serve the interests both of the victim and of the prosecution of the offenders. From a law enforcement perspective, poor victim assistance and protection may discourage victims from seeking assistance from law enforcement officials for fear of mistreatment, deportation or potential risk to their personal safety”.
Baroness Cox
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 102B and 102C as probing amendments in order to return to the important issue of legal aid for victims of trafficking and slavery. Possibly these amendments might be more appropriately grouped with government Amendment 85, which has been widely welcomed and on which I would like to add my own congratulations.
These amendments have two aims, identified by the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group and the Refugee Children’s Consortium. The first is to clarify the Government’s reason for preventing the commissioner from examining individual cases; and the second is to highlight the concern that, unless legal aid is provided for trafficked and enslaved persons as soon as they are encountered, many will continue to fall through the cracks of provision of desperately needed help. There is currently a protection gap that should be filled by the full provision of legal aid for all trafficked and enslaved persons from the first point of contact with a lawyer.
The amendments highlight the situation that, as things stand, the anti-slavery commissioner will be prevented from investigating individual cases when Clause 44 comes into force. They provide that Clause 44 cannot come into force until such time as legal aid is expanded for victims of slavery and trafficking. That is not to say that Clause 44 should then do so. The powers of the commissioner can be brought into force without the restrictions that Clause 44 would impose. It would give the commissioner a power to investigate individual cases and to be able to respond appropriately, including responding to emergencies.
By making orders under Section 9 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the Lord Chancellor can change which cases are eligible for legal aid. Orders under Section 9(2)(a) are orders to broaden the scope of legal aid. My amendment is not more precise than that. One reason for this is that the national referral mechanism is under review. We do not yet know exactly what the new system for victims of trafficking and slavery will look like. Indeed, the Home Office review of the national referral mechanism states:
“In the event that reasonable grounds determinations were to be phased out … Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 would need to be amended. This is done through the making of an Order under Section 9 of the Act …six months should be allowed for drafting this process”.
The other concern is the great need for more legal aid to be available at an earlier stage in the process. Victims of trafficking currently qualify for legal aid for their immigration cases if they have a decision that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that they have been trafficked. Until the competent authority and the national referral mechanism have made a positive “reasonable grounds” decision, a person is not eligible for legal aid. If the competent authority subsequently reaches a negative decision at the final conclusive grounds stage, this renders them ineligible once more. I have been advised by the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association that the Government’s amendment on legal aid for victims of slavery is subject to the same limitations.
It is of great concern that legal aid is not available to those who are afraid to approach the national referral mechanism in the first place. According to the anti-trafficking and labour exploitation unit, a person who escapes from a trafficker or situation of exploitation and comes to them is likely to be destitute. The person is usually frightened and often illiterate and unable to speak English. In most cases that person has no immigration status, papers or passport. Traffickers keep control of the passports of their victims in many cases. Perversely, fear of immigration enforcement has therefore become a tool in the traffickers’ arsenal. Traffickers tell their victims that they are illegal and threaten to report them to the immigration authorities, which they say will arrest them, detain them and remove them from the jurisdiction. These are not idle threats; victims of trafficking are often disbelieved and detained.
Before turning to the authorities, including the statutory services such as police, who are first responders, victims of trafficking want to know what their options are. Will they be allowed to stay in the UK? Will they be safe? They have been in situations of powerlessness and subject to abuse. They are inherently very vulnerable, so victims of trafficking and slavery need advice about immigration. Without it, some opt to stay in situations of exploitation. It is a crime to give immigration advice if not authorised to do so, and for good reason—to protect people. Yet this means that NGOs providing shelter, which are first responders but not authorised to give immigration advice to the necessary level, cannot step into that breach left by the lack of legal aid.
If I may give one example to illustrate the dire predicament of such vulnerable people, Pranjali is an Indian national whom the excellent charity Kalayaan has assessed as having been trafficked. Pranjali is afraid to approach the national referral mechanism. She was subjected to appalling labour exploitation in the Middle East and here in the UK. She has tried to commit suicide multiple times and has visible scarring on her body. However, Pranjali is the sole provider for her family back in India. She became vulnerable to being exploited because her husband at home is disabled and needs money for his medical treatment. She entered on the tied, six-month domestic worker visa scheme last year but escaped from her employers, yet the Immigration Rules prevent her working for a different employer. She needs advice now as to whether she is likely to qualify for a residence permit as a victim of trafficking, which is her only option to regularise her status. She is weighing the risks of approaching the national referral mechanism, including the risks of being detained and removed, penniless, back to India—jeopardising her ability to provide for her husband’s medical treatment.
Victims of trafficking and slavery are thus in a Catch-22 situation. They will not receive help from a lawyer unless they get a positive decision but are far less likely to get a positive decision without a lawyer to assist them, both in making disclosures about what happened to them and in supporting those disclosures with evidence. The Home Office review of the national referral mechanism records that:
“Victims who escape and present themselves may not know where they have been held or the names of those holding them and the only evidence they have is the story of their experience. Research has shown that those who are severely traumatised have difficulty in providing a coherent story. These factors together can create a perception that decision-making is heavily (and wrongly) based on credibility whereas the decision-maker may feel constrained by the lack of evidence of a crime”.
Mistakes at this stage are difficult to rectify later and can adversely affect the rest of the case. It may be claimed that legal aid is available for everyone who claims asylum but not every victim of trafficking or slavery is a refugee.
In essence, my amendments seek to clarify the situation where a legal adviser encounters a person whom they determine needs legal advice on the immigration consequences of a referral to the national referral mechanism as a victim of trafficking or slavery. That person should surely be eligible for legal advice and for representation in their immigration matters whether or not a referral is ultimately made. Without such eligibility victims of trafficking and slavery, who are already inherently immensely vulnerable in so many ways, are also vulnerable to falling through the gaps of provisions that they so desperately need. I would be very grateful for any clarification or reassurance that the Minister is able to provide.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, Amendment 86M, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is important in its own right and I am happy to support it. The amendment includes a period for reflection and recovery, which will be particularly helpful to overseas domestic workers who have been exploited or abused and who may have little or no English. I believe the amendment could be a ladder by which these overseas domestic workers in England, and particularly in London, could have access to legal aid and due process in civil cases as provided for by the Government’s Amendment 85, which was accepted earlier. In particular, if applications on behalf of aggrieved persons could be made by NGOs and law centres, the thing might be made to work and it would help those who particularly need it. For years we have seen bad and vicious employers enjoying a large measure of impunity. This must be ended. The amendment seems to agree with the Government’s stated wish to improve protection for victims.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I would like to be associated with the remarks from my noble friend Lady Cox concerning the potential gaps that people could fall through and her remarks and questions about the national referral mechanism and legal representation for those who are caught up in trafficking.
I particularly support Amendment 86J, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and Amendment 86M, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McColl. There is a link between these amendments because the noble Baroness quite rightly identifies those who may have been psychologically traumatised by their experiences. She rightly said that people could be extremely vulnerable and very badly damaged. Any of us who have met people who have been trafficked know that that must be true. If people have been concealed in a vehicle, smuggled into the country and exploited in the ways that have been described in speech after speech in Committee, these grotesque experiences will have maimed them psychologically. Hence it is important that there should be some psychological assessment and support for people who may be suffering from acute trauma and mental illness of one kind or another—something that is always neglected anyway in the National Health Service for our own citizens, let alone for people who have come through these kinds of experiences.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is right to say that people should be assessed psychologically during the investigation of the offence. That theme is picked up in Amendment 86M, in subsection (6)(c) of the proposed new clause, where the noble Lord, Lord McColl, would make provision,
“to assist victims in their physical, psychological and social recovery”—
a point returned to in proposed new subsection (10)(c) with,
“medical treatment, including psychological assistance”.
This is a recurring theme in these two amendments and I am surprised that provision is not being mandated anyway by the Bill and wonder whether it is not possible to do what the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have argued for. What do the Government intend to do to safeguard people who may be suffering from mental illness and who may have been traumatised through their experiences?
Lord Browne of Belmont
My Lords, I support Amendment 86M. The focus of the amendment is on improving the provision of support for victims of human trafficking and slavery, which I believe to be imperative if we are to appropriately respond to the impact of these crimes. The United Kingdom is a signatory to both the 2005 Council of Europe convention against trafficking in human beings and the 2011 EU directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims, both of which are legally binding on the UK.
However, as we all know, signing up to a directive or a convention is only half the battle. The key issue is how a member state decides to implement the directive or convention in practice. In many areas the British Government and the devolved Administrations, who are responsible for criminal justice powers, have flexibility in deciding how they will implement these international instruments. A good example of this is seen in how we decide to design our human trafficking offences. Both the convention and the directive mandate that such offences are required, but the relevant legislatures in the UK can shape the offences as they choose.
However, Articles 11 and 14 of the directive and Article 12 of the convention set out the details of the practical assistance and support that states must provide to victims. Among these requirements are that assistance and support should be provided to victims before, during and—for an appropriate period of time—after the conclusion of criminal proceedings, and that the assistance and support should include at least standards of living capable of ensuring victims’ subsistence through measures such as the provision of appropriate and safe accommodation and material assistance, as well as necessary medical treatment, including psychological assistance, counselling, information and translation and interpretation services where appropriate.
The UK is obliged under international law to provide those measures of assistance and support; that is not in dispute. Now it is being argued that the obligation to provide such assistance and support does not need to be in statute, and that we can merely rely on guidance to fulfil the requirements. I do not believe that that is good enough. Indeed, as we have heard, the group of experts established by the Council of Europe convention, GRETA, has recommended that the UK put into statute this right to a reflection and recovery period during which the assistance is provided. To my mind, there is no logical reason why such obligations should not be outlined in statute with the details of delivery being set out in guidance. Amendment 86M would achieve such a goal.
I am afraid that, once again, I will take this opportunity to refer to the Northern Ireland Bill. Amendment 86 mirrors the requirements for assistance and support under the directive and convention, and unsurprisingly, therefore, it is similar to Clause 18 of the Northern Ireland Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill introduced by my party colleague, my noble friend Lord Morrow. The Northern Ireland Assembly unanimously supported this clause when it was debated a few weeks ago. It sets out clearly in statute the range of assistance and support that adult victims of human trafficking will receive when they have been, or are about to be, referred to the national referral mechanism. Indeed, the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland fully supports Clause 18 of the Northern Ireland Bill. He agreed with my noble friend Lord Morrow that such a move would be a positive one for the victims in Northern Ireland. The Minister of Justice and my noble friend co-operated very effectively to put forward an excellent clause that has been accepted by the Assembly.
I am very proud of the fact that Northern Ireland is leading the way within the United Kingdom through the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill. This Bill is superior to the Modern Slavery Bill in its proposals to assist and support victims of human trafficking. There is a risk—one that can be avoided but I fear will not be—that the support for victims will be superior in Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom. The setting out of the minimal level of assistance to victims in Clause 18 of the human trafficking and exploitation Bill is a model that the Modern Slavery Bill should follow for England and Wales. It is not more expensive, and it provides much greater clarity for victims and NGOs working with victims to as to what assistance and support they are entitled to. I urge your Lordships to consider carefully what is being done in Northern Ireland and to produce a similar measure in the Modern Slavery Bill. I commend Amendment 86M to the Committee.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I am struck in these amendments by how prescient contributors are of the arguments I am about to deploy. I was wondering how it could be that people were so aware of this. The reality is that we have had a rather open and extensive consultation period. Indeed, the officials working on the team are constantly meeting with outside groups and talking to people. Alongside that, my noble friend Lady Garden and I have been trying to do the same with your Lordships’ House. Therefore, I suppose that it is not too much of a surprise that respective positions are known—but that does not mean that they cannot be moved on either side.
I take slight issue with one of the caricatures put forward, perhaps unintentionally, by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, that somehow victims’ protection in the United Kingdom may not be of the same standard outside Northern Ireland. I do not accept that. Not least, of course, we are going to have an Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, who will cover Northern Ireland. I am sure that that would be a key part.
The other point is that, as I have said before, we are open to looking at the legislation and experience in Northern Ireland and to sharing best practices with each other. The notion that somehow victims are just a passing shot in the Bill does not stack up to the discussions we are having or the legislation, where we talk about victim reparation orders, enhanced access to legal aid—which has been widely welcomed—special proceedings in court to encourage victims to come forward, presumptions about age, child trafficking advocates, and statutory defence if they are involved in committing a crime. All the way through, we all shared a commitment that those who have suffered most should be considered most. At the same time, we recognise that one of the best ways that one can serve victims is by ensuring that others are not added to their number by making prosecutions.
Those points made, I am not quite sure I will live up to the creative billing the noble Lord, Lord Alton, urged on me, but I shall respond as best I can to the points made. I am grateful for the tabling of Amendments 86J, 86K, 86L, 86M, 102B and 102C, which deal with crucial issues relating to identifying and supporting victims of modern slavery and to legal aid. This is why the Modern Slavery Bill includes a provision requiring the Secretary of State to issue guidance to ensure that front-line professionals understand how they might encounter and identify potential victims of modern slavery and how they can help them to access the support they need.
This guidance will focus on the effective identification of both child and adult victims of modern slavery and will provide information to front-line professionals and others on potential signs that someone may be a victim and on what to do. It will also set out the assistance and support on offer to victims through the government-funded adult victim care contract, currently operated by the Salvation Army, and local authority child welfare and safeguarding arrangements, including the presumption about age provisions in Clause 49. The Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner will also have a key role in ensuring that victims can be quickly identified by all front-line professionals. We are fully intending to consult on this guidance so that we can get it right, and therefore I do not believe that the amendment is necessary.
Amendment 86J seeks to require all victims to be psychologically assessed during the investigation of a modern slavery offence as set out in Clauses 1 or 2. While I appreciate my noble friend’s intention of ensuring that an assessment of victims’ needs is undertaken at an early opportunity and her awareness of the often deep psychological trauma these heinous crimes can inflict, I do not believe that this amendment is the right approach to achieve those laudable aims. The amendment may force victims to undergo a psychological assessment, even if they do not want one. I am sure that that is the last thing we should do. Added to that, all the way through this victim-focused legislation is the idea that victims have to consent to all the actions taken on their behalf. Instead, I offer the following reassurance. Adult victims who are referred to the national referral mechanism are entitled to receive psychological support through the national victim care contract currently run by the Salvation Army. Any such support would be provided following an appropriate assessment of an individual’s needs.
I now turn to Amendment 86L, tabled by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. I believe it is a probing amendment in relation to the intention of Clause 48(1)(c), which sets out that guidance should include,
“arrangements for determining whether a person is to be treated as a victim of slavery or human trafficking”.
The purpose of this paragraph is to ensure that such guidance covers the national referral mechanism decision-making process to determine whether a person is to be treated as a victim of slavery or human trafficking. The wording of the Bill reflects the terminology used in relation to the national referral mechanism. “Determination” is used to describe the reasonable and conclusive grounds decisions by the competent authority, whereas “identify” is used to refer to the initial identification of potential victims by first responders. I reassure my noble friend that the paragraph as presently drafted covers both these elements of the national referral mechanism process, and I trust that the intention of the amendment is not to limit the scope of the guidance in any way.
Amendment 86M seeks to put a referral mechanism into statute which ensures that victims get at least 90 days’ support which is not conditional on the willingness of the person to act as a witness in any criminal proceedings. Although administratively we provide potential victims with a minimum of 45 days to recover and reflect, in practice many victims are supported for a much longer period. As noble Lords may know, we are currently retendering the contract for adult victim care services and have reflected on the national referral mechanism review recommendations in building the requirements for the new contract. That includes consideration of how we might provide ongoing support to victims once they have received a decision confirming that they are a victim of modern slavery. Our aim is to help these individuals move on with their lives so that they are not revictimised through being retrafficked.
Finally, Amendments 102B and 102C will enable the commissioner to exercise functions in relation to individual cases until amendments are made via secondary legislation to legal aid provisions. The Government are strongly of the view that it is not the role of the commissioner to champion individual cases or to track victims who receive support. Their role is to strengthen our collective response to modern slavery, working closely with law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders, including civil society organisations, to identify more victims and prosecute more perpetrators. We recognise the importance of understanding the longer term outcomes of victims. That is why we are considering how we can work with the victim care contractor to best achieve this. Of course, information from individual cases may help inform the commissioner’s work in this regard, but it is not for the commissioner to advocate for individuals.
Potential victims of trafficking currently gain access to legal aid following a positive reasonable grounds decision of the national referral mechanism. Legal advice is not necessary for an NRM referral. The reasonable grounds decision is generally made within five working days after an individual has been referred to the NRM, and the decision has a low threshold. This test is an important gateway to avoid abuse of a system that provides access to a range of support, including legal aid. We recognise that there are concerns about the operation of the NRM. That is why we commissioned a full review of the system and will be piloting a new approach to the NRM in response to that review. We will ensure that any wider changes to the NRM are reflected in the provision of legal aid.
I thank noble Lords for tabling these amendments and allowing us to discuss some crucial issues. I hope that I have addressed noble Lords’ concerns and that—with the undertaking, as with previous groups, that we will continue reflecting on the detailed comments that have been made—they will take that reassurance and not press their amendments.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I was looking to see if the noble Lord, Lord McColl, wanted to come in. I know that all noble Lords are very appreciative of the time and effort that Ministers and officials are putting in to meetings and discussions outside the Chamber. I hope that the teasing and the prescience does not deter them from continuing with that; I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton. My amendment about psychological assessment—I take the point about consent —is really not about the NRM or about support for victims and their recovery; that is obviously extremely important. I was seeking to pick up the role of psychological input into an investigation and prosecution. That is a different matter. It is clearly not appropriate now for me to expand on that any further, but if I can test the Minister’s patience, maybe this is something for outside the Chamber.
I note what the Minister said on my other two amendments—I am happy about those—and I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 86J.