House of Commons
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Mr Speaker
On the front page of today’s Order Paper, it is noted that on 3 November 1915, Lieutenant The Hon. William Lionel Charles Walrond, Rail Transport Officer in the Army Service Corps, Member for the Tiverton Division of Devon, died in Scotland of consumption contracted while on service in France. We remember him today.
Oral Answers to Questions
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
1. What his policy is on the level of autonomy provided to prison governors; and if he will make a statement.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Michael Gove)
I believe that prisons need a new and unremitting emphasis on rehabilitation and redemption. The best way to secure that is to give greater freedoms to prison governors. I would like to give governors more flexibility in managing their budgets and overseeing work and education in custody. With greater freedom must come sharper accountability, so that governors are held to account for their prison’s performance.
Andrew Rosindell
Does the Secretary of State agree that a central cause of criminal behaviour and violence within prisons is an inherent sense of disfranchisement from society? What steps will he take in implementing his reforms to encourage prison governors to instil a sense of British pride, national belonging and responsibility to the wider nation?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a characteristically acute point. It is vital that prison governors are given the right tools, particularly the capacity to play a greater role in deciding what curriculum prisoners follow, to ensure that prisoners, like any school student, have the chance, through the provision of great education, to appreciate the history of liberties that is so important to our country and our criminal justice system.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I am pleased that the Justice Secretary has said that accountability remains important. Will he consider how we can strengthen prison boards through more community involvement to give local direction to local decisions, while retaining accountability to the director general of the Prison Service and to Ministers?
Michael Gove
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. It is not only independent monitoring boards that are vital; a strong inspectorate is vital too. He is absolutely right that accountability to the local community matters. Only when prisons are rooted in their communities and forge the sorts of links that ensure that offenders go on to work and contribute to their communities on release can we make sure that prisons fulfil their task of rehabilitation effectively.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Prison governors already have a great role to play in deciding whether somebody should be released on parole, yet nothing is ever fed back to the governors, or anybody else for that matter, to determine whether their judgment was good or flawed. How can we give prison governors more discretion in decisions over whether prisoners should be released when we have no idea whether those prisoners go on to reoffend?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend will be aware that there is a vacancy for the chair of the Parole Board. I would encourage him to—[Interruption.] I encourage others to apply for that post who can ensure that we have a much more rigorous and evidence-led approach to reviewing the grant of parole.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Given the rising trend of suicide in prisons, what advice is being given to governors to allay this serious problem?
Michael Gove
This is a very serious problem and the hon. Gentleman is right to raise it. The work that Lord Harris of Haringey has done on self-inflicted deaths in prison has provided a series of recommendations that we are considering as part of our prison reform programme. More broadly, we are aware that the increased use of psychoactive substances in prison is leading to increased levels of self-harm and harm to others. The Psychoactive Substances Bill, which is being taken forward by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice, will play a considerable part in ensuring that our prisons are safer places.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
Having listened carefully to the last reply, I should say that psychoactive substances are not the only factor. We broadly support the Secretary of State’s aim to increase governor autonomy. I have long believed that governors are the best at finding new ways to reduce reoffending. The big problem that he has—he cannot just blame it on psychoactive substances—is that prisons are becoming very dangerous. So far this year, there have been 95 suicides and seven murders in our prisons. Is it not time that he took a fundamentally new approach? Have not the last six years been a wasted opportunity, dogged by petty interference from the centre? We look forward to him changing that.
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady is right to raise that point. One of the ministerial team’s biggest concerns is the incidence of violence and disorder in many prisons. As she acknowledges, giving prison governors a greater degree of autonomy is critical to changing things, as is a proper understanding of the mix of offenders in our prisons. As the balance of traffic through the courts has changed, a number of offenders who have violent pasts pose particular risks in prison, and we must ensure that prison officers are provided with the tools that they need to keep themselves and others safe. Those will sometimes be technical tools such as body-worn cameras, which are supported by my ministerial colleagues, but sometimes it is about ensuring that people have the support and training that they need to do their job well.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
2. When he plans to launch his consultation on plans to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Dominic Raab)
May I start by expressing my shock and sadness at the tragic death of Bailey Gwynne last Wednesday at Cults academy in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency? Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
We will bring forward proposals for a British Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act later this autumn. Preparations are going well, and we look forward to consulting widely, including with the devolved Administrations.
Callum McCaig
I thank the Minister for his condolences after the tragic events in my constituency. The thoughts of everyone in the Chamber are with the families affected.
As the Minister will know, human rights are not reserved under schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998, so the Human Rights Act cannot be repealed and replaced with a Bill of Rights without the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament—the First Minister of Scotland has said it is inconceivable that that would pass through Holyrood. With that in mind, why are the Government wasting money pursuing something that they cannot do?
Mr Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question but I am afraid that is not quite right. Revising the Human Rights Act can be done only by the UK Government. The implementation of human rights in a wide range of areas is already devolved to Scotland, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to focus his efforts in that area.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Given the constitutional importance of this issue, will my hon. Friend confirm that the consultation will result in a draft Bill that will be subject to full pre-legislative scrutiny in this House?
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
As we have heard, the Human Rights Act is fundamental to devolution in Scotland and there are different legal views about how changes might be introduced. The Act is also fundamental to Wales, and it is the cornerstone of the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland. Do the Government recognise that abandoning the Human Rights Act may have consequences that they had initially not thought of?
Mr Raab
We have engaged in consultation and taken a pause at this stage precisely to ensure that we work through all the different points. The hon. Gentleman mentions Scotland, and he will know that in 2014 and 2015 YouGov polling showed consistent Scottish support for a Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act. On that specific question, in 2011 YouGov found that 61% of Scots wanted the UK Supreme Court and this Parliament to have the last word in this country and across Britain, rather than the European Court of Human Rights.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
The article 8 right to family and private life under the Human Rights Act has been stretched to the extent that it is laughable, pitiful, and often costly and unjust. Will the Minister reassure the House that the abuse of that right will be dealt with in the consultation, to reinject proportion and to strike the right balance for fairness?
Mr Raab
A whole range of issues will be covered in the consultation and there will be plenty of opportunity to receive and listen to views, especially on article 8. That provision has clearly created problems concerning the deportation of foreign national offenders, and I would have thought that people across the House and the United Kingdom would support our consultation on that.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
3. If he will take steps to ensure that coroners provide an out-of-hours service for faith communities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)
The Government are committed to ensuring that bereaved people are at the heart of the coroner system, and we are working with coroners, local authorities and the police to develop a pan-London out-of-hours service. On 15 October we launched a post-implementation review of the coroner reforms of 2013, including views on the availability of out-of-hours services.
Mike Freer
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer, but may I press her specifically on Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Muslims, who require a speedy service and a speedy burial? Will she commit to giving strict guidance to coroners that they should turn around such decisions so that those burials can take place very quickly?
Caroline Dinenage
Coroners understand and should be sensitive to the fact that some faiths have religious and cultural wishes for burials after death. They should always try to take those wishes into account. In May 2014, the Chief Coroner issued guidance to coroners on their legal duties to deal with urgent matters out of hours. As I have mentioned, we are working with key partners to develop an out-of-hours service in London.
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
There are serious concerns about the coroners service that affect faith communities in west London in-hours, let alone out of hours. Will the Minister see what her Department can do to address those concerns?
Caroline Dinenage
We have been working on that. The Secretary of State and I have met representatives from the Jewish and Muslim communities and are very sympathetic to their concerns. We are working with key stakeholders to develop an out-of-hours service across London.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
4. What plans he has to encourage more businesses to employ ex-offenders.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
10. What plans he has to encourage more businesses to employ ex-offenders.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Andrew Selous)
Providing prisoners with employment is an important factor in preventing reoffending. In the Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending, we have around 200 employers who are positive about employing ex-offenders. Working closely with the Department for Work and Pensions, we are developing plans to increase the involvement of businesses locally and nationally, and community rehabilitation companies should play an important role in making those links with businesses locally to help ex-offenders to get jobs.
Seema Kennedy
My constituent Renee Blow, who volunteered with offenders for 15 years, emphasises that education is the most important part of rehabilitation. Does the Minister agree that making poorly educated offenders literate and numerate makes them more employable?
Andrew Selous
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I thank and commend her constituent for volunteering in her local prison for 15 years. Her point is absolutely correct: we need good numeracy and literacy, and a good level of qualifications that employers respect and value.
Stephen Hammond
Timpson has an extensive scheme to hire and train ex-offenders. The store in Wimbledon has benefited from that scheme and has found that ex-offenders are extremely hard-working and deserving of a second chance. Given the success of that scheme, does my hon. Friend agree that others might look at it, and particularly at the emphasis on training?
Andrew Selous
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right that the example set by James Timpson for his business is outstanding. He does not do it just out of altruism; he does it because it makes very good business sense, and because he gets dedicated and loyal employees from the scheme.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that the attainment and availability of affordable insurance—whether public liability, employers liability, content or driving insurance—for ex-offenders is an inhibitor for employers who would otherwise wish to employ ex-offenders and set them on the right path? Will the Ministry of Justice commit to working on extending the availability of affordable insurance for employers?
Andrew Selous
I will certainly look into that. I had heard that insurance was a problem in employing ex-offenders in certain categories, but, prompted by the hon. Gentleman’s question, I will look into it further and write to him.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Businesses can employ ex-offenders only if those ex-offenders have the skills that businesses need. Will the Minister therefore ensure that the shortage of staff in prisons—the shortage appears to be making it more difficult for prisoners to take part in education—is addressed as quickly as possible, which must happen if the scheme is to be successful?
Andrew Selous
There was a net increase of 420 prison officers last year, and we continue to recruit hard, but the hon. Gentleman makes the valid point that we need good quality qualifications. We will carry on with that work. Dame Sally Coates’s review will help us in that regard.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
18. With reoffending rates as high as 59% for those sentenced to a year’s imprisonment or less, and with the clear link between not reoffending and securing employment, what steps can the Minister take to encourage more employers in Dorset and elsewhere to take on ex-offenders as apprentices?
Andrew Selous
I would strongly suggest that employers in Dorset and elsewhere join the Employers Forum for Reducing Re-offending, where they will be able to talk to other businesses that have already gone down this road and found it profitable and successful for their businesses. We need many more employers to respond to this call to arms and to join Timpson and Halfords and the many other businesses that have gone down this route.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I am sure that we all agree that education is the key to ex-offenders becoming employable. Given that 25% of our young people in young offenders institutions have special educational needs, will the Minister confirm that all teachers in those institutions will be qualified and able to identify and support children with special educational needs?
Andrew Selous
The hon. Lady will be aware that Charlie Taylor is undertaking a review of the youth justice system, and I can assure her that he has education at the heart of that review. It will report in the spring of next year.
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Will the Minister explain what consultations take place with potential employers to ensure that the courses and training in prisons are relevant to the skills that employers want? Also, when a prisoner who is in the middle of such a course has to attend court and is then taken to a different prison, could arrangements be made to ensure that they can complete the course in their new prison?
Andrew Selous
My hon. Friend makes two extremely good points. First, we have to ensure that the training and qualifications that prisoners get are of high quality and are valued by employers. We are committed to involving employers in the reviews that we undertake. Secondly, we are looking to reconfigure the prison estate so that we move prisoners around less, but I absolutely get her point about continuity and allowing prisoners to complete the courses they have started.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Would my hon. Friend consider establishing a Queen’s award for prisoner rehabilitation, so that good employers such as Timpson and Halfords can be suitably recognised?
Andrew Selous
That is an excellent idea, and I will give it serious consideration.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
5. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of sentencing policy for dangerous driving offences.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
The number of road traffic fatalities has fallen dramatically over the past 10 years, but one death is still too many. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, and to the family of James Still in his constituency. I know that they have been campaigning on this issue for a long time. We have toughened up sentencing and we are continuing to look at this area.
Greg Mulholland
I thank the Minister for his answer, and for the real interest that he has shown in this issue. As he knows, we have presented a manifesto for better justice for victims of criminal driving, on behalf of a cross-party group of MPs and other organisations. Could we have a formal, point-by-point response to that from the Department? Will he also meet us again to discuss those points, so that we can get better justice for those people and their families?
Mike Penning
We will respond point by point as we develop the review of sentencing in this area, and of course, as the Minister with responsibility for victims, I will meet the hon. Gentleman. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), will perhaps also be available to meet the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and the team, as we respond.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
What assessment has the Minister made of the trends in the length of sentences handed down to those found guilty of causing death by dangerous or careless driving?
Mike Penning
We have extended the sentence from two to 10 years for driving without a licence or while suspended, and we continue to look at the sentences. At the end of the day, however, we must convince people to drive sensibly so that the highways are safer for all of us. The figures are dramatically down, but we are continuing to look at the sentencing regime.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
One of the most effective disposals for repeat dangerous driving offences involving alcohol is compulsory sobriety. Following the highly successful pilot in Croydon and the Minister’s very welcome licensing of that disposal across the rest of the country, will he join me in encouraging police and crime commissioners to set up facilities to allow for compulsory sobriety, so that magistrates can make use of them, particularly when dealing with repeat drink-driving offences?
Mike Penning
I am aware of the scheme, and I discussed it with the Prime Minister only recently. I believe that one of the sobriety bracelets that are being used in Croydon is on the Prime Minister’s desk as we speak. I am encouraging PCCs around the country to push this measure forward, as it has been very successful. I congratulate those who are pushing it forward.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
In 1998, Livia Galli-Atkinson was killed in Enfield by a dangerous driver. I know the Minister has in the past attended the Livia award, which was set up in her memory. This year’s award will take place this evening. The award commends service by police in relation to justice for victims, and highlights the fact that year by year too many drivers repeatedly flout the law, driving while disqualified and failing to stop. What action can follow on from the review?
Mike Penning
This area has been reviewed continually by previous Governments and by this Government. There is a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment. It is for judges to ensure they understand what sentences should be for each offence, but we keep a very open mind and continue to look at the review as we go forward.
Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
6. What assessment he has made of trends in the number of litigants in person since the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 came into effect.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
12. What assessment he has made of trends in the number of litigants in person since the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 came into effect.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
It has long been the case that some people represent themselves in courts. The proportion of individuals with legal representation has remained broadly stable in recent years, except in private family law cases where we have seen an increase in cases in which neither party has had representation. This year, we are investing in a new strategy designed to provide more support to litigants in person. Judges, magistrates and legal advisers are well equipped to support litigants in person through the court process.
Ian C. Lucas
It seems the Minister, in the company of the head of the Courts Service, is alone in thinking there is no crisis because of the increase in the number of litigants in person in our legal system. If the Minister really wants to know what is going on, will he commission an anonymous survey of district judges and court clerks to find out the truth of the crisis in our court system that is happening as we speak?
Susan Elan Jones
The Secretary of State and other Ministers will be aware of the concerns raised by the Justice Committee, the National Audit Office and others regarding litigants self-representing. Will the Department bring forward, from 2017, the planned review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012? It is sorely needed.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
There are longstanding and very important issues relating to litigants in person that go back much further than the LASPO Act. What actions are the Government taking to simplify and demystify the court process, and to take away the complicated legalities that make it so difficult for litigants in person?
Mr Vara
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who was a very distinguished Minister in the Ministry of Justice not so long ago. He is absolutely right. The concept of litigants in person is not new: it has applied for many years, indeed decades. To demystify the court process, we have put better processes in place—online guidance, guidance from court officers and judicial training—to ensure as much support from the judiciary and other legal advisers as possible.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
With the growth in litigants in person there has been a growth in McKenzie friends. There are two types: those who provide backgrounds to unfamiliar settings and those who act effectively as lawyers and charge for their services. What is the Minister going to do about the latter?
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
In the first quarter of the year, at least one party was not represented in 76% of private family cases, while the Master of the Rolls has warned that civil courts are experiencing significant impacts from the rise in the number of litigants in person. Part 1 of LASPO has been an unmitigated disaster. Will the Justice Secretary now bring forward the much-needed review of LASPO to mitigate the shambles of his predecessors?
Mr Vara
The hon. Gentleman refers to family courts. Being relatively new to his post, he might wish to reflect on the comments made by his colleagues, particularly the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), as reported in the Law Society Gazette on 24 September:
“Slaughter conceded that the Labour party would have been forced to make cuts to family law funding and promote mediation as a cheaper option. He added that a Labour government would seek to promote and improve mediation services on offer.”
The article also said—[Interruption.] It is understandable that Opposition Members do not want to hear the truth, but I am quoting one of their own colleagues—[Interruption.]
Mr Vara
I am sure that other Members, along with you, are keen to hear it, Mr Speaker.
The article quoted the hon. Gentleman as saying:
“‘We’re not going to get in a Tardis and go back to before,’ he said. ‘We are in a world where resources are tight and it would not be right to pretend otherwise.’”
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
7. What plans he has to improve the prison estate; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Andrew Selous)
Our current prison estate is overcrowded and out of date. We will close ageing and ineffective Victorian prisons and replace them with buildings fit for today’s demands. We will invest the money raised in a high-quality, modern prison estate, with facilities for training and rehabilitation, and where the dark corners that facilitate bullying, drug taking and violence can increasingly be designed out.
Stephen Metcalfe
I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that the prison estate sometimes acts as a barrier to delivering rehabilitation services, such as education and work, and I know he will work tirelessly to improve the situation.
Andrew Selous
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. The prison we are building in north Wales, for example, has a large industrial workshop complex that will enable us to create the positive rehabilitative environment we all want.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Given that the reoffending rate is nearly 50%, but that at Askham Grange open women’s prison just outside York it is 6%—the lowest in the country—and it has the best outcomes on all measures, why do the Government want to close that prison?
Andrew Selous
I heard from the hon. Lady in last week’s Westminster Hall debate how highly Askham Grange was performing, and I pay tribute to all its hard-working staff, who are doing extremely well. We have to look at the prison estate as a whole to make sure it is fit for purpose across the country, and all these decisions will be considered, but we will continue to focus on improving education and work opportunities for all prisoners.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
The Minister will know how successful the social investment bond at Doncaster and Peterborough prisons has been in tackling recidivism. Indeed, he, the Secretary of State and his predecessors visited the prisons. Will he recapitulate his commitment to social investment bonds as a means of tackling reoffending across the penal estate?
Andrew Selous
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and of course we recently provided additional capacity at Peterborough prison in the form of a new house block. We have studied carefully what happened at Doncaster and Peterborough and will learn lessons from it. The Government are keen that the use of social impact bonds continues across government.
Mr Bone
What a prisons Minister we have! He is going to get rid of the Victorian prisons and open modern ones, and it just so happens that Wellingborough has a mothballed modern prison, so it is terrific news he is going to reopen it and get rid of the Victorian prison. I thank him on behalf of my constituents, and will he confirm he is going to do it?
Andrew Selous
I say to my extremely persistent hon. Friend that should there be any new news on Wellingborough I will make sure that he is the first to hear it.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
8. Whether he plans to hold a consultation on UK membership of the European convention on human rights.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Dominic Raab)
As I have made clear to the House before, although we cannot rule out leaving the ECHR for all eternity, our current plans for human rights reform do not involve leaving it.
Ms Ahmed-Sheikh
The Minister will be aware that the ECHR is, of course, enshrined in the Scotland Act 2012, so the UK cannot withdraw from it without fundamentally undermining the devolution settlement. Why is the Minister considering doing that?
Mr Raab
As I made clear, our current plans do not involve our pulling out of the convention, although we cannot rule it out for all eternity. The Human Rights Act 1998 already has an uneven application of rights to the devolved Administrations because of the devolved settlement. In Scotland, for example, the hourly rousing of detainees in police cells is unrelated to risk; in England and Wales, we do not have that, as it is focused on those who are vulnerable. I encourage the hon. Lady to focus her fire on addressing devolved issues such as that rather than pretending that there is some imminent threat to human rights from Westminster.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
May I remind my hon. Friend that it was the English Parliament that brought in the Bill of Rights in 1688 and the British Parliament that brought in the Human Rights Act only 310 years later in 1998? Like so much legislation at that time, there were unintended consequences. Will the Minister therefore not listen to Opposition Members and get on with it?
Mr Raab
My hon. Friend expresses himself in his usual tenacious and powerful way. It is true that the Conservatives have a long tradition of upholding freedom under the rule of law. We want to protect and strengthen that tradition, but we also want to avoid human rights being abused. We want this place to have the last word on where the bar is set for human rights, and we want the Supreme Court to be the ultimate body deciding on and interpreting them.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for confirming that there are no plans to withdraw from the ECHR at this stage, but I note that he earlier confirmed that there will be a consultation on repealing the Human Rights Act and replacing it with the Bill of Rights. As he knows, the Human Rights Act applies across the whole of the United Kingdom, including Scotland. How does he propose to engage the people who live in Scotland, their Government at Holyrood and their elected representatives in this Chamber in his consultation on repealing the Human Rights Act?
Joanna Cherry
Last week, despite objections from SNP Members in a debate on the Floor of the House, Conservative MPs joined forces with Labour MPs to ensure that no MPs representing a Scottish constituency would be on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which scrutinises the compatibility of UK-wide Bills with human rights. In the light of that decision, how does the Minister expect us to have confidence that Scottish Members of Parliament will be fully involved in scrutiny of the implications of the Government’s consultations on repealing the Human Rights Act?
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that any successor to the Human Rights Act should ensure that no compensation is paid in future to foreign nationals who move into foreign war zones and are then imprisoned by foreign countries? The British taxpayer should not be responsible for what takes place.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
9. What plans he has to reform the court and tribunal estate; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
The Courts and Tribunals Service reform programme is once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a modern, user-focused and efficient service. As part of that programme, I announced on 16 July proposals for reform of the court and tribunal estate. The consultation closed on 8 October, and I shall carefully consider all responses before taking forward any decisions.
Matthew Pennycook
Two courts in my constituency, Greenwich magistrates court and Woolwich county court, face closure under the Government’s proposals to reform the HMCTS estate. Although I do not dispute that there can be a case for the closure of under-used or inadequate facilities in some cases, I am extremely concerned that these proposals will further restrict access to justice for my constituents, particularly older people and those on low incomes who may face far longer journey times. Will the Minister guarantee today that in constituencies such as mine that face court closures, a local HMCTS presence will be retained?
Mr Vara
First, may I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution to the consultation, which I read very carefully? He acknowledges in his submission that there are alternative methods, such as the use of alternative premises on a part-time basis. Access to justice does not mean physical presence in terms of attending a court. Modern technology such as video conferencing, teleconferencing and a variety of other methods is used in a variety of other sectors, so there is no reason why we should not be looking at that in terms of the court structure.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
Given that the consultation has now closed, will my hon. Friend commit to publishing a detailed financial analysis of the cost savings in each court area identified, and publish any errors in fact that have been highlighted in the consultation documents?
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I am sure I do not need to remind the Minister that the Welsh Language Act 1993 requires his Department to consider the impact of new policies on the Welsh language. Will he commit to undertake and publish a Welsh language impact assessment before deciding on the future of courts in Wales?
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
11. What plans he has to review the level of the criminal courts charge.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Michael Gove)
It is right that we find better ways to pay the costs of running our criminal courts, and the introduction of this charge has made it possible to recover some of the costs from offenders, which reduces the burden on taxpayers. The Government are, of course, keeping the operation of the criminal courts charge under review.
Tulip Siddiq
The Secretary of State will be aware of disturbing case studies highlighted by campaigners such as the Howard League showing that this charge is putting pressure on people to plead guilty in order to avoid legal costs, thereby restricting access to a free trial. I am pleased to hear that he is reviewing the charge, but will he admit that signing off such an absurd policy should not have happened in the first place?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue, because I know that concerns have been expressed across the House and, indeed, by members of the magistracy and the judiciary, as well as by pressure groups such as the Howard League. That is why we are reviewing the operation of the charge. It is important to stress, however, that our justice system already creates a number of incentives for those who enter early guilty pleas, in order to ensure that the wheels of justice can run more smoothly, but I will continue to listen to the points that the hon. Lady and others make.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend had the opportunity to review collection rates of the criminal court charge, a system that is wholly despised by the lay magistracy? The concerns go beyond inherent unfairness; there are worries that bailiffs will chase debts that will simply be written off and never collected.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a characteristically pungent point. He is right to say that we have listened to a number of representations from representatives of the magistracy, but we have to balance those concerns against other judgments as well.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
May I help the Secretary of State on the issue of collection? Earlier this year, the courts Minister told me that the minimum net sum that would be raised by the criminal courts charge in this Parliament would be £265 million. Last night, the Chair of the Justice Committee told the BBC that, as well as distorting the criminal justice system for most defendants and sentences, it may well run at a loss. The Secretary of State does not need to review the charge; it is worthless as well as dangerous. Should he not just scrap it now?
Michael Gove
I believe in evidence-led policy and it is important that we should look at not just the evidence from the magistracy, but, as the hon. Gentleman points out, the collection rate. The criminal courts charge is generating revenue, which helps ensure that the taxpayer is not the first port of call for supporting the way in which our courts operate, but it is important that we balance all the criteria in making a judgment on the review of the charge. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) is yapping incessantly, like an overenthusiastic puppy dog. He has practised in Her Majesty’s courts and I cannot believe that he comported himself in that manner when he was there. He must calm himself, even if momentarily.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
13. What assessment he has made of the effect of changes to civil legal aid on access to justice; and if he will make a statement.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
14. What assessment he has made of the effect of changes to civil legal aid on access to justice; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)
Civil legal aid reform has delivered important and necessary savings while protecting access to justice. Legal aid remains available for the most serious cases, including cases in which life or liberty is at stake, there is a risk of serious physical harm, or children may be removed from their families.
Debbie Abrahams
The Government rejected the Work and Pensions Committee’s recommendation that an independent body should be set up to investigate the deaths of social security claimants, saying that their relatives could seek redress through the courts. Given that the same Government have cut access to legal advice or representation on social security by 80%, how exactly are they meant to do that?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady will understand that I cannot go into details of such cases for reasons of confidentiality, but I will say that there are no easy choices when we are dealing with the deficit that we inherited from the Labour party. However, we recognise that legal aid is a vital element of any fair justice system, and ours is still one of the most generous legal aid systems in the world, on which we spend more than £1.6 billion a year.
Judith Cummins
The Minister talks about the scandal of our two-nation justice system, but under this Government many hundreds of thousands of ordinary people no longer have access to legal advice or representation. Other than asking lawyers to do more work for free, what does the Minister plan to do about that?
Caroline Dinenage
As I have said, we are already spending more than £1.6 billion a year on legal aid, and ours is still one of the most generous systems in the world. We have committed ourselves to a review of the reforms within three to five years of their implementation, and we have acted swiftly to address issues as they have come to light. For example, we have invested an extra £2 million in assistance for litigants in person.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
16. If he will review the criteria used to determine whether prisoners with a history of violence are placed in open resettlement establishments.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
When we are considering whether any prisoner should be transferred to open conditions, our overriding concern should be the protection of the public. Transfer to open conditions is not automatic, and should always be subject to risk assessment.
Caroline Flint
I am one of 14 Members of Parliament—including you, Mr Speaker—whose constituencies contain open prisons. Some 61 murderers have gone on the run from those prisons in the past five years. The opening of a new open prison unit in Don Valley, which has been given the welcoming name of Hatfield Lakes, has prompted concern about the kind of prisoners who are transferred to such establishments. The governor of an open prison often has little prior knowledge about a transfer, and may even have no say when it comes to the suitability of prisoners who are coming into their care. Will the Minister meet me, and other interested Members, to discuss the criteria for putting people in open establishments?
Mike Penning
I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady, who has campaigned extensively on this issue over the years, but I must say to her that the problem did not suddenly arise five years ago. There were absconders before that, which is a fact that she forgot to mention. However, I am sure that the prisons Minister will be more than happy to meet her.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Michael Gove)
As this is national pro bono week, may I take this opportunity to congratulate and applaud the solicitors and barristers who do so much to represent individuals for free? In particular, may I draw attention to the fact that Baroness Lawrence is paying tribute this week to the lawyers who acted for her pro bono in securing justice for her son Stephen? They have proved that the law is not just a profession, but a vocation for justice.
Susan Elan Jones
Many of us were very pleased when, 546 days ago, the Government announced a full review of driving offences and penalties, but we were rather less pleased that it was 546 days ago, and we still have not seen the results of the review. May we please have a date on which we will be able to receive them?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes an important point, but it is vital that we look at sentencing in the round to make sure that we make balanced judgments. One of the problems we have sometimes had in the past is that new offences have been created and new sentencing frameworks have been laid down that have led to confusion rather than clarity, and we want to ensure we have swift and certain justice.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
T2. What safeguards and guidelines are in place for the probation service regarding the category of residents at approved premises or bail hostels that are located within residential areas and within one mile of a school?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Andrew Selous)
I am well aware of the concerns of my hon. Friend and her constituents about this issue. The fact is, however, that the rate of reoffending among residents in bail hostels is lower than in other types of accommodation, and of course they do allow us to have a proper risk assessment and supervision. If my hon. Friend’s local authority can identify another site with guaranteed planning permission, however, we will certainly look at it.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
It looks likely that by the end of today 90 solicitor firms and 70 of the 85 bidding areas across the country will have started proceedings against the Legal Aid Agency over the award of criminal legal aid contracts. Given that we know, thanks to a whistleblower, that the tendering process was run by junior temporary staff with “very limited” legal training, does the Secretary of State agree with the Criminal Law Solicitors Association chair that if the Government
“were trying to handle it badly”,
they
“couldn’t have done a better job”,
and what chance does he think he has of winning those cases?
Michael Gove
It is rare that I ever disagree with the CLSA, but on this occasion I have to differ. The individual referred to as a whistleblower is merely one voice. The voices I have heard from many others, including those who have received their contracts, is that this was a well-run process in the tradition that the LAA has upheld for many years now.
Andy Slaughter
Turning from the chaos in the courts to the chaos in our prisons, the Secretary of State will agree with me that prison officers are doing an exceptional job in the most difficult of circumstances. Yesterday I met officers here who told me that, as one put it, as a result of the cuts in funding imposed so far,
“prison officer numbers have been cut to levels where prisoners are taking over the prisons.”
When we see that serious assaults on staff have risen by 42% in the last year, is he not right?
Michael Gove
I find myself distressingly often these days agreeing with the hon. Gentleman that our prison officers do a fantastic job. I value the meetings I have with them and the feedback they give me. We have recruited 420 new prison officers in the last 12 months. Of course we keep safety and security in our establishments under review, but as I explained earlier we are taking steps on the use of technology and also on the increased powers that governors will have which I hope will make our prison estate safer and more secure for everyone.
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
T4. In evidence to the Justice Committee in July, the Secretary of State confirmed that his Department would be undertaking a review of the Legal Services Act 2007. Can he please confirm today if a date has been set for that review, and if not when the date of the review will be set?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question and he is right that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice did say to the Justice Committee that there would be a review of the regulation of the legal services sector as well as the 2007 Act. Clearly this is something we need to give consideration to. It will happen within this Parliament and the House will be informed in due course of the exact scope and timeframe.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)
T3. Yesterday the Prime Minister announced changes to Government policy regarding the use of special guardianship orders. What assurances can the Minister give that this will not inhibit the ability of loving grandparents to assume legal responsibility for their grandchildren?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. I know he has been campaigning very effectively on increased transparency in the family courts. One of the points the Prime Minister sought to make yesterday is that sometimes special guardianship or other kinship choices will be absolutely right, but there have been cases where special guardianship orders have been granted to grandparents and others who have had limited, and in some cases no, contact beforehand with the child placed in their care, so we do need to keep the system under review.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
T6. Does the Minister agree that specialist courts for crimes with high reoffending rates like drugs and sexual offences can offer a number of benefits if implemented correctly, not only by reducing those reoffending rates but also by more sensitive handling of vulnerable witnesses, which can lead to better evidence and fewer cases collapsing?
Mr Vara
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that specialist courts can lead to a reduction in reoffending. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor recently visited the United States, where there is evidence that reoffending does diminish with specialist courts. We will be taking on board whatever we can learn to put into practice in the UK.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
T5. In the new ministerial code, published on 15 October, Ministers are obliged to comply with “the law”, but the phrase “including international law and treaty obligations and to uphold the administration of justice”has been removed. The former Attorney General did not like that phrase very much, so does the Minister feel this changes the obligation to comply with international law?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Dominic Raab)
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. There has been no change in obligations on Ministers. The code reflects the duty to obey the law. We have long had a dualist approach to international law, and it is also important that that is upheld.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
T7. Rehabilitation is likely to be on a smoother path if prisoners have access to good education in custody. What steps is the Department taking, in conjunction with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to ensure that maths and English are promoted within prisons?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am inclined to take a leaf out of the Education Secretary’s book here. In a speech she is making today, she is making the point that we need to reform our testing system to know how well children are performing when they enter school and when they leave primary school. In our prison estate, we should have tighter monitoring of the educational attainment of prisoners when they arrive in custody and when they leave. I am delighted that we are ad idem.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
T9. Legal aid was withdrawn from refugees who safely reached these shores and needed to be reunited with their families because this was deemed to be a straightforward process. The British Red Cross report entitled “Not So Straightforward” indicates that that is not the case. Has the Secretary of State read the report? Will the Government reintroduce legal aid or will they simplify the process so that legal aid is not required and the process in in fact straightforward?
Mr Vara
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the issue of legal aid again. As I said earlier, we have committed to having a review of the implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. That will be carried out within three to five years of its implementation, but we do keep a watching eye on matters as they evolve.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
T8. The Prisoners Education Trust does much to prepare prisoners for release, but to ensure that they get the skills they need for release, does the Minister think it would be sensible to encourage prison governors to be more entrepreneurial and start up more businesses inside prisons?
Andrew Selous
My hon. Friend and the PET make extremely good points. I know that the Secretary of State was very impressed with the prison entrepreneurship programme he saw in America recently, and last week I was in a prison talking to Sue Ryder staff who were very keen to help prisoners set up their own bicycle repair businesses. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to go further.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
A constituent of mine is seeking an appeal against an immigration refusal but has been waiting six months. Another has a family member who was given leave to appeal this June and has a date for a tribunal hearing next May. What is the Secretary of State doing to reduce these unreasonable waits?
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
T10. The Secretary of State has spoken about achieving swift and certain justice for the families of the victims of dangerous driving. Along with the families of Ross and Clare Simons, who were tragically killed in an incident in my constituency in January 2013, I have been campaigning for the maximum sentence to be raised from 14 years to life imprisonment. Will the Secretary of State meet my constituents and a delegation of interested MPs to discuss this issue?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend has been a particularly assiduous campaigner in respect of this heartbreaking case, and of course I would be delighted to meet him and other colleagues who want to make sure that the law can be changed appropriately.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware of the case of Tara Hudson, the transgender woman who was placed in a men’s prison and then moved to a women’s prison on Friday. Can he explain why it has taken so long to get Tara moved? Will he clarify the guidelines for sentencing procedures for transgender prisoners?
Andrew Selous
I cannot comment on the details of Ms Hudson’s case, but I can assure the House that she is being held in an appropriate environment and is receiving the care that she needs for legal reasons. The National Offender Management Service incorporates equality and diversity in everything that it does and treats offenders with decency and respect. The guidelines allow some room for discretion in such cases, and senior prison management review the circumstances in the light of medical and other expert opinion to ensure that we get these issues right. More generally, prisoners who are in transition to their acquired gender are entitled to live in that gender.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
Jobs, Friends and Houses is an award-winning initiative on the Fylde coast, which provides ex-offenders with real opportunities to work in the building trade. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating it on its excellent work and seek to support it and other such endeavours in the future?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that fantastic campaign to the attention of the House. In three simple phrases, he and the organisation sum up what ex-offenders need: work, strong relationships and a place to live.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Earlier, the Secretary of State mentioned the recruitment of prison officers. I think that the figure of 420 was used, but that is against a background of a 25% cut in prison officers in the previous Parliament. What is the current shortfall?
Andrew Selous
There is quite good news in this area. We appointed 2,230 prison officers between 30 June 2014 and 30 June 2015. That is a net increase of 420 additional prison officers. We have 600 candidates on the waiting list for when vacancies arise, and prison officer vacancies are at a low of 2.1% compared with 5.2% last December.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that the future of Chippenham’s courthouse is currently with the HM Courts and Tribunals Service consultation and that Swindon courthouse is in desperate need of renovation. While that work is carried out, Chippenham is perfectly placed to provide the ideal location. May I urge him to consider that key fact when the future of Chippenham’s courthouse is determined following the consultation?
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The needs of female offenders are different from those of male offenders in the Probation Service. That has been established across three Prison Reform Trust reports. When the call for evidence of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation finally reports, will the Government finally allocate the resources required to ensure that we reduce reoffending among women prisoners?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)
The transforming rehabilitation changes have been about trying to stop reoffending. The fact that they are now kicking in for people who have been in prison for less than a year, which covers more than 70% of the female prison estate, is key. Transforming rehabilitation is about what works, but I am keeping up a constant dialogue with the community rehabilitation companies to ensure that what works includes a very special provision for women offenders.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Whether or not the criminal courts charge survives in the long term, will the Secretary of State give the most careful and timely consideration in the short term to giving discretion to judges and magistrates as to whether it should be imposed so that they can do justice in the instant case?
Michael Gove
As I acknowledged earlier, the criminal courts charge is a cause of concern across the House, but it is also important that we maintain a balance between the funding of our courts coming from the taxpayer and that coming from those who use our courts. My hon. Friend makes a valuable submission on which I shall reflect.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
HMP Northumberland, like many other prisons, is awash with the legal high, spice. It is creating a really dangerous environment for prison officers and offenders alike. What action is the Minister taking to tackle that very dangerous situation?
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
As the House is aware, we have just come out of the Committee stage on the new psychoactive substances Bill. I amended the provisions in Committee with the support of Her Majesty’s Opposition and the Scottish National party to make it a criminal offence to have spice, or any other NPS, in prison. That was at the request of the governors and the officers’ union.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to disappoint remaining colleagues but we must now move on.
Speaker’s Statement
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Just before we come to the urgent question, I must advise the House that I have received a report from the Tellers in the Aye Lobby for Division No. 104 on the Housing and Planning Bill yesterday at 9.59 pm. They have informed me that the number of those voting aye was erroneously reported—
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman is easily shocked.
As I was saying before I was interrupted in such a gentlemanly fashion, the tellers have informed me that the number of those voting Aye was erroneously reported as 228 instead of 218. The Ayes were 218 and the Noes were 305. The House is now better informed.
Humanitarian Aid: Refugees in Greece and the Balkans
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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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.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for International Development to make a statement on humanitarian aid for refugees in Greece and the Balkans.
The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady and to you, Mr Speaker, for giving the House the chance to discuss this important matter today. As the House will be aware, more refugees made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean into Europe last month than in the whole of 2014. Indeed, in October 218,000 people crossed the Mediterranean, bringing the total for the year so far to more than 750,000. Greece and the Balkan states have borne the majority of that burden and although the response is being led by the Governments of those countries, the UK has led the way in supporting them and has provided essential humanitarian assistance across Greece and the west Balkans. That was part of the EU Ministers meeting that I attended last Monday, where we also discussed the issue of migration.
In September, anticipating the impact of the colder winter months, we released £11.5 million of life-saving aid for refugees in Europe, in the Balkans and in Turkey. This past weekend, I announced a further £5 million to provide sleeping bags, hygiene kits, nappies, food and clean water for people in need in Greece, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia and Croatia. In total, the UK has committed nearly £25 million to support refugees arriving in Europe as well as those on the journey in north Africa. We continue to respond to the requests that have been made. I recently approved a UK contribution to the EU civil protection mechanism, which deals with requests for in-kind assistance from other European countries. Of course, that is alongside the support that my Department has given in the Syria region over the past four years.
A total of £1.1 billion makes us the second largest donor country and that support has enabled the vast majority of Syrians affected by the crisis and displaced to stay in the region rather than feeling that they need to make the journey to Europe. Only a tiny fraction of the total number of displaced Syrians have therefore sought asylum in Europe and without the UK’s humanitarian response, that number would have been far higher. Of course, we continue closely to monitor the situation across Europe and we will consider further support as needs emerge.
Yvette Cooper
I thank the Secretary of State for the work that her Department is doing in the region and in Greece and the Balkans, but she will know that across Europe we are simply not doing enough. Too many people are dying and too many children are suffering on Europe’s soil and off Europe’s shores.
I stood on the north shore in Lesbos and watched the flimsy dinghies pull in. We heard that smugglers are giving discounts when the weather is worse, so more people are arriving, and although valiant work is being done by residents and volunteers on the island, there is simply not enough basic support to help. There are not enough rescue boats in the area, and HMC Protector and HMC Seeker have been sent home. One family was in the water for five hours, with a baby pulled out by fishermen who then managed to resuscitate him. There are not enough boats, but there also is not enough shelter or support. There are not enough blankets or enough basic sanitation—toilets and taps. An aid worker told me that they are worried about cholera in Europe. There are not enough doctors, ambulances or even morgues to help.
Yesterday, someone from Save the Children said:
“I was stopped in my tracks by a child shivering…her hands and lips…blue…Minutes later, we found three young men unconscious with hypothermia…forced to sleep for three days in a field”—
to queue for papers—
“there are not toilets for those waiting in those queues—so faeces is mixing into the flowing streams”
of drinking water. This is in Europe, so we are all failing.
May I ask the Secretary of State to do three things? First, will she go to Lesbos and to the Balkans herself to see what is happening, particularly in the Moria camp, which is just appalling and should shame us all? Secondly, will she call for more direct immediate humanitarian aid, both from Britain and from Europe more widely, before more people die? Thirdly, will she ensure that the British boats can return to the Mediterranean to assist with search and rescue so that people do not drown? Winter is drawing in and this is on our conscience. All of us need to make sure that there is action now.
Justine Greening
The right hon. Lady raises some very important points, which I and my Department have spent many years working on directly. She is right to set out the desperation that leads so many of those people to try and make what can, in some cases, be a fatal journey from the Syrian region to Europe. I can announce to the House that having been in touch with Frontex to offer further support, the UK will as of Thursday deploy a new ship to help provide search and rescue facilities in the Mediterranean. That offer has been accepted so VOS Grace will be part of that effort, which is good news. It is worth reflecting that the support from the UK by means of Border Force cutters and Royal Navy ships has saved over 8,000 lives to date.
The right hon. Lady is right about the need to press European partners to do more. We can be proud of the work that we as a country have done to help people affected by the crisis in Syria and latterly as they have arrived in Europe. That is not just the work I spoke about in relation to saving lives in the Mediterranean; we have provided asylum for thousands of people and, as I have just set out, we are actively helping key agencies on the ground, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Red Cross and the International Organisation for Migration. The right hon. Lady is right to highlight the fact that more needs to be done. That was precisely the point I made in Luxembourg last Monday at an EU Ministers meeting. Britain cannot do this work on our own. We can be proud of the work that we are doing—no country in Europe has done more—but we need other European states to join the effort, and I very much welcome the right hon. Lady’s highlighting of the issue through her own efforts.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for all the work that she is doing. Some 10 days ago I was in Kos as a member of a small delegation from the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. We could see with our own eyes how many of those hapless people have been cruelly misled into thinking that there is a place for them in Europe. My right hon. Friend refers to Syrians, but a large number of the people we saw were from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Why can we not do something to ensure that these people are processed, if that is the right expression, on the Turkish mainland, without the need for them to risk their lives crossing the Aegean?
Justine Greening
Much of the discussion in Europe has turned to how we can work more effectively with Turkey. It is worth pointing out that Turkey has around half the refugees who have left Syria to date—about 2 million refugees. My hon. Friend is right to highlight that. We are working with Turkey. We have worked with it to help it in its humanitarian support. Some of the work that I have just described that we are doing in Europe more broadly relates to registration and helping countries in Europe to process the refugees arriving on their shores.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware that it is not enough to say that people have been cruelly misled. Some 570,000 migrants have crossed the Greek border this year, and because of the onset of winter and Russian bombardment we are seeing a spike in the number of arrivals. The mayor says there is no room on Lesbos to bury any more refugees. We note that £20 million has been allocated, the Secretary of State has announced a further £5 million emergency fund and we will be deploying a new ship, but what action will the British Government, working with EU partners, take to tackle the increasing activity of people smugglers? The Government have promised to resettle 4,000 refugees this year and 20,000 over the next five years. Can we have a progress check on this? Are there any plans to increase the numbers? Does the Secretary of State recognise that while the Government are to be commended for the money that has been spent on the camps in Syria, we are seeing a crisis unfolding in Greece and the Balkans that shames the European family of nations?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady raises important issues. The point I made at the EU Ministers meeting last week is that this is an issue of European credibility. We have been in New York signing off on new global goals, we have a world humanitarian summit coming up next May and the UK has been at the leading edge of providing support to people affected by this crisis. It is important that when people arrive on Europe’s shore they are effectively taken care of. I have set out some of the work that the UK is doing, but it is vital that other EU member states play their role alongside our efforts.
In relation to people smuggling, some of the work that our ships in the Mediterranean have done is not just to save lives but to catch some of the potential people smugglers. The deployment of VOS Grace later this week will enable all that work to continue. The hon. Lady is right to highlight that this is an important part of how we tackle the refugee crisis. It is not just about providing support to people; it is also about tackling the criminality that is at the heart of the situation. Many of these people have been conned into giving away their life savings and any remaining assets they have to be told that they can possibly make a new life for themselves in Europe, but by going on a boat that may never get them to where they want to get to. It is important that we tackle the criminality. That is why it is important that the vulnerable persons relocation scheme works as it does. We are enabling people to relocate without having to put their lives in the hands of a people smuggler in the first place. That is a safer, more secure route, but crucially it also enables us to target the people who are the most vulnerable in the camps and in host communities who have been affected by this crisis and who would probably never have the means or the capacity even to begin such a journey in the first place.
We have said that during this Parliament we will relocate and support up to 20,000 people to come to the UK. I can assure the hon. Lady that we are on track with our initial resettlement of 1,000 people by Christmas.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Following the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), what percentage of these people does my right hon. Friend think are fleeing for their lives and what percentage are fleeing to get a better lifestyle?
Justine Greening
One of the challenges that Europe has had over recent months is understanding in detail the drivers behind the refugee flows. Of course, the two things that my hon. Friend set out are not mutually exclusive. Some Syrians are not only fleeing what they believe to be a very unstable region but are very well educated and want to get on with their lives and have a better life for themselves in Europe. The key drivers are instability and the search for opportunities. That is why all the work that DFID is doing, whether in humanitarian arenas such as the Syria region or in the doubling up of work that we have done over the past two years on economic development—creating jobs and livelihoods in Africa, for example—is so important. If people do not feel they have a life and a future where they are, in today’s modern world they will set off and find a better life and a better future somewhere else.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
We welcome the announcement of additional support, especially as winter approaches, but I was interested in the list of provisions being made available by the UK Government. I did not hear mention of tents. Sleeping bags have been mentioned, but it would be interesting to know whether people are going to be supported so that they do not have to sleep out in the open in winter. Of course, the best thing to do is to move people into secure and safe accommodation. It would therefore be helpful to know what support and advice the Government are giving to reception centres in arrival countries as regards moving people into safer accommodation, and whether this ultimately has to include a proportion of people coming here to the United Kingdom. Should not the UK take a fair proportion of the total number of refugees coming into the EU?
Justine Greening
The support we provide is very much driven by the needs set out to us by the agencies and non-governmental organisations with which we work. I can confirm to the hon. Gentleman that we have provided tents—for example, in Croatia—and we are playing our role in helping to make sure that when people arrive at reception centres, they are dealt with and processed properly.
As the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) set out, there is a real issue of scale, and Britain cannot solve that on its own. It is worth emphasising to the House that each of the countries where refugees are arriving is leading the response in that country, so it is up to UN agencies and NGOs to work as part of a national response by each country. As I have set out, Britain is also supporting those countries in order to have an adequate response. As the House has heard, there are real challenges, given the scale of the numbers and the flow of refugees who are arriving on European shores.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the UK taking its fair proportion. The reality is that we can be proud of the work the UK is doing to support refugees affected by the Syrian crisis—whether it is the work we are doing in the Mediterranean to save lives, the thousands of people who have been given asylum already, the approach we now have of relocating people from the camps safely and securely, or the kind of support closer to home that I have set out today. No country in Europe is doing more than the UK, and the House should be proud of that.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
May I thank the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for asking this urgent question? I entirely agree with the points she made. May I also thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for all the work that she and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees are doing? May I, however, urge the Government to engage directly with the Governments of countries which now have refugees? As winter comes, we cannot allow bureaucracy or any other impediment to get in the way of making direct contact to offer our support to the Governments of Greece and the other Balkan countries to ensure that no lives are lost needlessly.
Justine Greening
I can assure my hon. Friend that we are doing just that. The problem he sets out is one we commonly face when we are trying to help any refugees, wherever they are. We only have to look at some of the challenges in Lebanon, where many of the refugees are in so-called informal tented settlements. That means that it has been far harder for us to put in place water and sanitation and to get education to the children in some of those camps than it otherwise would have been compared with the work in Jordan, which, broadly speaking, has been more Government-driven from the word go. We are now facing the issue closer to home on our own shores in Europe. I assure my hon. Friend that we are working with those Governments, while also urging our other European partners to step up to the plate, too.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
One of the factors driving more refugees to Europe is the level of support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme in neighbouring countries. What can be done to ensure that there is the right level of resource to enable families who wish to stay in neighbouring countries to do so? I understand that the UNHCR does not have the kind of authority in Greece and the western Balkans that it enjoys in countries such as Jordan. What can be done to enhance the authority of the UNHCR on the ground in Europe?
Justine Greening
On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, the reality is that, even now, the UN flash appeal for Syria is just over 40% funded. As he sets out, the inevitable consequence is that it is actually hard for the World Food Programme to meet all the immediate needs of the refugees in the region, let alone to look ahead to providing some of the education that children need or some of the work on livelihoods that might, for young men, be an alternative to their setting off on the journey towards Europe. He is absolutely right to flag that up as a direct issue. On his second point, I will write to him.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
We have seen great generosity across the country in relation to the refugee crisis. In my constituency a few weeks ago, I attended a church service in Irthlingborough, where local people had brought an inordinate amount of goods to help the cause. What steps can the Government take to make sure that those items go to where they are most needed and will have the biggest impact?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend highlights the huge generosity of the UK public in responding to the refugee crisis closer to home. I know that many NGOs are helping to get those very kind offers through to people on the ground. I recommend that he looks at the part of the Government website that sets out the key places where people can offer support if they so wish, and signposts how people can get more involved practically.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) who has quite rightly asked this question today. Like her, I recently visited Lesbos, where I found very similar things to those that she observed. Some 94% of those presenting on the isle of Lesbos are independently attested to be refugees fleeing war and persecution. It is not that there is anything wicked about being an economic migrant, but those people were clearly running away from war, fear of death and instability for them and their children. It is shameful that we as a country are not taking a single one of the people in those camps at the moment.
Last week, I asked the Prime Minister about this, but he dismissed my call for the UK Government to accept 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children in Europe. He inaccurately claimed that there were worries that some of the children would be taken from relatives. The UNHCR has since confirmed that these would be children with no identifiable family, so I repeat: will the Government now work with Save the Children to take in 3,000 unaccompanied children who may otherwise face abuse, trafficking and exploitation?
Justine Greening
I have set out very clearly the approach that the UK has taken to helping people who are affected by this crisis. Our approach of taking people directly from the camps is safer and more secure. I have also set out how we have already provided asylum for several thousand people who have arrived in the UK, after making the journey because of the Syrian crisis.
The hon. Gentleman asks about unaccompanied children. If we look at Jordan, for example, about 80% of the children who originally arrived there unaccompanied were subsequently reunited with their broader family. The point that the Prime Minister quite rightly made is that it is very easy in this House to talk emotively about numbers and children. The reality is that we must be extremely careful to ensure that we do not make decisions on their behalf that fundamentally take them further away from the family with whom they would wish to be reunited. The hon. Gentleman has made his point very well, and I have responded to him.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Obviously, there is not agreement in the European Union on how to deal with these problems. Has the excellent Secretary of State thought of talking to the Council of Europe, which covers many more countries, about an overall solution?
Justine Greening
We are having a range of discussions to see how the situation can be better managed in Europe. This is not just about the challenge we face in the Syria region. Frankly, that challenge is to have the kind of support at the scale needed, but which is currently not being delivered. I have seen for myself from discussions among EU Ministers from countries in the Schengen region that there is very little agreement. What we need, in effect, is a co-ordinated approach within the Schengen region, but as far as I could see at the time—this was certainly the case last Monday—there was no political prospect of achieving that.
Although such discussions need to go on, the UK is right to provide additional support on the ground. However, we clearly all need to keep in mind the key objective, which is to help Syrian refugees in the region. People are leaving the region because food rations from the World Food Programme are starting to be cut, and because they are worried about how their children will have an education when so few Syrian children can be in school, in spite of the best efforts of countries such as the UK. We were instrumental in setting up the No Lost Generation initiative, through which many children are in school, and we are working with the World Bank to look at how to have better livelihood programmes. There is no doubt that the answer involves, first, some political resolution—ultimately—in Syria, and secondly, some political resolution in Europe, too.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is usually very sympathetic, but I do not like the way she has dismissed the claims of children, particularly unaccompanied children who have been separated from their relatives. Has she had any discussions with EU Ministers about what happened in Italy last year, when of the 13,026 children who arrived unaccompanied, 3,707 disappeared? What assessment has been made of where those children are? I support the request from Save the Children that 3,000 unaccompanied children be given refuge in the United Kingdom. It is not much to ask, surely.
Justine Greening
The right hon. Lady makes an important point very clearly. The UK has helped the International Organisation for Migration to do better evidence gathering to find out what is happening on the ground. Part of the challenge is that people, including children, often turn up without any papers. Some people are even concerned about registering with the authorities in the countries that they reach because they are worried that they will not be able to continue their journey. This is a complicated situation, but I assure her that we are playing a key role in getting support to refugees who arrive here in Europe, including children.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for the magnificent and effective way in which she is fulfilling the responsibilities of her office. The fact that the UK is second only to the United States in the amount of aid it is giving to the region is testimony to her efforts. Is it not the case that were all other EU countries to contribute towards aid in the region in proportion to what the UK is doing, the problem presenting itself on the Turkey/Greece border would not be nearly at its present scale?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, the cost that many European countries now face to support refugees who felt that they had no choice but to set off on a life-or-death journey is immense. That money would have been spent far more effectively, produced far greater value for money and enabled support to get to many more people had it been put directly into the UN effort on the ground, working with generous countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, which have taken so many refugees. If we had worked with those countries more effectively, many of the refugees—I have met many of them in my visits to the region over the past few years—would have done what they had wanted to do, which was to stay there in the hope that, in time, they could rebuild their lives and go back to Syria.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is right to be robust on criminality, but the only organisation that can deal with it on a pan-European basis is Europol. Why are we not giving more resources to Europol to deal with this problem? In the spirit of openness and transparency, will she tell the House today how many Syrian refugees have arrived in the UK following the Prime Minister’s pledge? That is a very simple question that has not been answered. It would be good to reveal that information to the House.
Justine Greening
We have been clear that we will not give a running commentary on how many refugees have been resettled here, not least because they need to receive support and treatment and to get on with their new lives here without the glare of the media upon them. I will ensure that Home Office Ministers write to the right hon. Gentleman with further details on his point about Europol.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
We have heard about the problems of the 3,000 unaccompanied minors and the Minister’s warm words on the generalities. May I press her on the specifics of the case of Mr Nawaf Ali, who fled Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime in Iraq 14 years ago and whose two daughters, aged 14 and 15, are currently unaccompanied and seeking asylum in Germany? Will she and the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees meet me to cut through the bureaucratic claptrap that I have had from the Home Office on this case, so that these children can be reunited with their parents in Wakefield?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady has raised that case with me, but it is not one with which I am familiar. I am happy to look at the details and, if necessary, to meet her. As she said, many of the refugees are going to Germany, where there is an existing Syrian diaspora. That is perhaps why the flows there have been larger than those to the UK, even though we have provided asylum to many of the Syrians who have arrived. I will look at that case and, if necessary, meet her.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
We have been talking today about the symptoms of the crisis, but the cause, as the Secretary of State knows full well, is that 11 million Syrian people have had to flee their homes, 7 million of whom are internally displaced and 4 million of whom are refugees. What are the Government doing to stop the barrel bombing and brutality of the Assad regime? Some 250,000 people have died and many more will die as a result of Russian air strikes and Assad’s barrel bombing. What are we doing about safe havens, humanitarian corridors and the protection of the population inside Syria?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman has raised one of the most important elements of the response to the Syrian crisis. It is incredibly important that we can get to people inside Syria. Many of our cross-border supplies are going into the country from Turkey. It took us over two years to get a UN Security Council resolution even to do that effectively. The action by the Russians is taking us further away from reaching a long-term political settlement in Syria. As the Government have set out, we believe that more action needs to be taken against ISIL, which is also perpetrating huge atrocities against the Syria people.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The Greek economy is in crisis, yet the Greek islands are at the front of the European response to the crisis. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Greek people have shown extraordinary resilience in the face of that pressure? I have seen for myself half a dozen volunteers feeding 1,000 people in Greek feeding stations. The pressure on public services means that the Greeks are simply unable to process people who are waiting for transit papers on islands such as Kos and Lesbos. Will she work with our European partners to ensure that people who are desperate for travel papers do not have to wait for days in worsening weather in order that they can move on? Feeding and housing people is one thing; making sure that they can get the papers they need is another.
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady is right that this is not just about giving people the bare essentials to be able to survive day to day. We are providing support for the kind of registration facilities that she has talked about. It is right to mention the broader issue of so-called host communities and their generosity. I have met communities in Lebanon and Jordan that have seen their local populations literally double in a matter of 12 or 24 months. That puts huge strain on the existing populations. That is why, as well as working directly with refugees, we are working with the communities that they suddenly arrive in. You may not be aware, Mr Speaker, that the refugees outside Syria are overwhelmingly living not in camps like Zaatari in Jordan, but in host communities. That accounts for 80% of them or more. That is why so much of the work that we have done has been to help local government and municipalities cope with those pressures.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
I was on Lesbos three weeks ago volunteering at Moria camp and on the shore at Sikaminia, where the boats from Turkey come in. The conditions are appalling and the scale of the human suffering and tragedy is soul destroying. Every time we saw a boat, all we could do was hope and pray for a safe landing. There was a shocking lack of presence on the ground of official authorities and the larger international charities that one would expect to see when faced with such a crisis. Instead, the work was left to smaller organisations and volunteer groups, which are utterly overwhelmed. Will the Secretary of State consider visiting Lesbos and working with the Greek authorities directly to provide British co-ordination assistance and infrastructure, particularly at Moria camp and Sikaminia, because if the rest of Europe will not step up to the plate, she should bypass it and go to Greece directly?
Justine Greening
I have been the first person to get on a plane. I have spent a lot of time in the region seeing for myself the issues affecting refugees, and I have no doubt that the European situation is no different. Such visits are important, and when I visited Lebanon we decided to introduce the No Lost Generation initiative to get children into school, because it was clear that there was so little facility. As the hon. Lady says, there are organisational challenges on the ground. Such initiatives are country-led—that is how they work—and in spite of efforts by countries such as the UK, and UN agencies, more work must be done to enable countries to cope with the flow of people arriving. Alongside such initiatives, the work that VOS Grace will be doing really matters, and we also need to disrupt criminality—the work of people smugglers is leading to the flows of people that countries such as Greece are finding it hard to cope with.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
As has been said, the weight of refugees often falls on those countries that are least able to cope. Has the Secretary of State considered increasing the number of refugees that the UK is willing to take in?
Justine Greening
We have set out our position on the vulnerable persons relocation scheme, which I think is responsible, but the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the issue of where refugees are. More than 85% of displaced people in the world—there are a record number at nearly 60 million—are in developing countries and the places least able to cope, rather than developed countries such as those closer to home in Europe. That is why the weight of our response has—quite rightly—been in the region, helping countries in Africa such as Ethiopia, which has 700,000 refugees. We do not see those refugees in the paper, but that country still needs assistance to cope with them.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
Will the Minister consider further the response that she gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz)? Transparency is important because the Prime Minister made a pledge about a specific number of refugees, and it is important for public confidence that we know how many people have arrived. Will the Minister think again about her reluctance to let the public know?
Justine Greening
The Minister responsible for the overall relocation scheme is in the Chamber—[Interruption.] I apologise. He was in the Chamber earlier, and I have no doubt that he will be watching these questions. We have been clear that we will update the House, but we will not be giving a day-to-day running commentary.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I also want to ask about the vulnerable persons relocation scheme, and I am disappointed that the Minister has left the Chamber. I was at a meeting on Friday in Hull, and I was told that four local authorities in Yorkshire are keen to take in Syrian refugees under the scheme and had reached a funding agreement with the Home Office. A few days later, however, they received a letter stating that the funding had been reduced by two thirds, which means that those local authorities are not in a position to take in the Syrian refugees who we all want to bring to this country. Will the Minister write to me and explain why the Home Office did that, and say what effect that will have on the 1,000 refugees who we are expecting here by Christmas?
Justine Greening
I will follow up that issue with the Home Office and ask Ministers to respond to the hon. Lady with more details.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Turkey is playing a critical role and has taken in 2 million refugees, compared with the 20,000 that the UK will take in over the next five years. Has the Secretary of State had time to assess the impact of the AKP victory, and does she think that it will lead to changes in Turkey’s attitude to the camps in that country? What might be the knock-on consequences for Greece and the Balkans?
Justine Greening
The continued mandate of the Turkish Government means that there is some stability in terms of the partners we have been working with. It remains to be seen whether there will be policy changes for how Turkey chooses to deal with what is now a huge number of refugees in its midst.
The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) asked a question on safe zones, which I did not answer at the time. Although safe zones may seem appealing, getting them in place effectively with UN backing, and enabling them to be delivered safely for people on the ground, is key. We never want to put people in the position that they faced in Srebrenica, for example, where they thought they were in a safe zone, but which proved fatally not to be the case. There is anecdotal evidence of refugees being worried that if safe zones are set up, they may be forced back over the border into Syria, and that is possibly one reason why some refugees are leaving the camps and making the journey to Europe. I assure the House that we are considering all possible means to ensure that we protect vulnerable refugees, but we also have a responsibility not to create a situation that could put people in even more danger.
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(9 years, 1 month 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.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Leader of the House of Commons if he will make a statement about the rationale that was applied in determining which members of the UK delegation should be reappointed to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in the Council of Europe over the past 10 years. He will know that decisions about appointments to the delegation are a matter for different political parties, and places are allocated in proportion to representation in Parliament. Normally, decisions are taken through the usual channels and approved by the leaders of the parties represented on the delegation. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s disappointment at the changes to the delegation for this Parliament, but I am sure that he will take advantage of the extra time that he has to spend in the Chamber by making more of his customarily pithy and perceptive contributions to debates.
Mr Chope
It is most reassuring to have confirmation from my hon. Friend that the issue of reappointment was not based on merit.
May I ask my hon. Friend what consultation has been carried out with political parties, as specified on page 174 of “Erskine May”? Why will she not confirm that the real reason why three independently minded former Ministers are being purged is because we voted in favour of a free and fair EU referendum with a strict 28-day purdah period, as recommended by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission and our Electoral Commission? Does she accept that that decision is being interpreted in Strasbourg as direct interference by Government in the work of the Parliamentary Assembly?
The Leader of the House said on Thursday that he was aware of the House’s desire to express its opinion on the membership of the new delegation, and he said that
“no doubt the House will give the matter careful consideration”.—[Official Report, 29 October 2015; Vol. 601, c. 511.]
How is that to be facilitated? Will the Deputy Leader of the House ensure that the House can express its opinion before you, Mr Speaker, transmit the list to the Parliamentary Assembly? As the Assembly cannot consider the list until 27 November, does she agree that there is plenty of time to do that?
Does the Deputy Leader of the House recall the speech made by our Prime Minister on 26 May 2009 entitled “Fixing Broken Politics”? In it he said that
“MPs should be more independent”
and that Select Committee members
“should be elected by backbenchers, not appointed by Whips”.
He called for Parliament to be a
“real engine of accountability…not just the creature of the Executive”.
Why do those fine words not apply to Conservative members of the Parliamentary Assembly?
Dr Coffey
Six months into this role, I am afraid that I have not digested all of “Erskine May”. I do not know what page 174 refers to, but since my hon. Friend has pointed it out to me, I will make it my urgent duty to consult it straight after this urgent question.
I recognise that my hon. Friend is disappointed. He was appointed by the leader of the Conservative party on the last two occasions, and new people have now been added to the delegation. The written ministerial statement was laid at 11.33 am today, and hon. Members can see the list. If it is of interest to the House, I could read it out, but I am sure that our time would be better served by moving on to important legislation, and that piece of paper is available in the Vote Office.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Far be it from me to intrude on private grief in the Conservative party, but we in the Labour party have elections for these posts. I recommend democracy to the Conservatives.
This smacks of a vindictive attitude by the Government towards some of their Back Benchers. I have never agreed with the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on a single thing in the history of his or my time in the House, and I am not entirely sure that I agree that he is always pithy—nor am I. He is, however, an extremely assiduous parliamentarian, as are the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), who have also been removed. To be honest, the only rationale that I can detect at work in the appointments is that anyone who has ever disagreed with the Prime Minister is for the chop.
It seems that the Deputy Leader of the House does not understand the rules that govern the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The whole point of the Assembly is that its members are not Government representatives but parliamentary representatives. Indeed, the statute of the Council of Europe is very clear. Article 25a states:
“The Consultative Assembly shall consist of Representatives of each Member, elected by its Parliament from among the members thereof, or appointed from among the members of that Parliament, in such a manner as it shall decide”.
The key point is that delegates to the Assembly are either elected, which has not happened in this case, or appointed in such manner as the Parliament decides, not in such manner as the Prime Minister decides.
Does the Deputy Leader of the House realise that the way in which the Government have proceeded could mean that the Assembly ends up questioning the British delegation for the first time ever? Does she accept that the Government have taken so long since the general election that the six-month grace period will have elapsed, and that the UK Parliament will have no delegation from this Saturday until it is agreed by the Assembly? That is happening at a time when the Assembly has important business to deal with, not least human rights issues in Turkey and Russia’s ongoing suspension and boycott, all because the Prime Minister has stamped his little foot.
Dr Coffey
The hon. Gentleman says that he rarely agrees with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). This is a rare occasion when I disagree with my hon. Friend.
I am sure the shadow Leader of the House recognises that this is the same process that has happened in the past five years. He will be aware that decisions are taken through the usual channels and approved by party leaders. I am not aware that his party leader has objected to the way in which the delegation was proposed.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I have a letter from the Ukrainian delegation to the Council of Europe to the Prime Minister on behalf of Georgia, Moldova, Poland and the Baltic states. It states:
“In international politics, it all too often comes down to personal trust and leadership shown in difficult circumstances. Mr Christopher Chope is such a man who has earned our trust and whose leadership deserves our highest esteem.”
The most important bit is this:
“It would be utterly regrettable if because of his absence during the coming crucial months the Russian Delegation would manage to have its credentials restored”.
I do not understand why the Leader of the House has not come to the Chamber. I suggest that the Deputy Leader of the House reconsiders the position and delays the submission of the names. The current situation is utterly undemocratic and utterly wrong. I am afraid to say that the Prime Minister should be ashamed of himself.
Dr Coffey
My hon. Friend is right to pay tribute to our hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for his work on the Council of Europe, but I put to him again the fact that, as happened five years ago, there are new people on the Council of Europe. As a consequence, I do not believe that changes in the new delegation are unreasonable.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
The urgent question asked by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) highlights the rationale that is applied in determining the make-up of such delegations and, further, of Committees and other groups. I advise the House that the Scottish National party is, characteristically, at one in relation to our members of the delegation. Such delegations and groupings should reflect the current make-up of the Parliament. To that end, I take this opportunity to express once more the disappointment of SNP Members that we are excluded from participating in the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
In respect of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and any other such assemblies, Committees or groups, will the Deputy Leader of the House give assurances and take due cognisance of the hugely important role that Opposition parties, regardless of size, play in the House? We are all democratically elected Members of Parliament and have a part to play, which should be recognised, and appropriately and fairly reflected, in all that we do.
Dr Coffey
The hon. Lady has been put forward as a new member of the Parliamentary Assembly, as has another SNP Member. All I will say on the matter of the Joint Committee on Human Rights is that there was a unanimous recommendation from the Committee of Selection, at which the SNP was represented. The House eventually voted on that recommendation.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Mr Speaker, I would have thought that, after the ridiculous and mean-spirited attempt to get rid of you at the end of the last Parliament, the Government would have learned a lesson about taking punishment attitudes to appointments.
The PACE is not simply a representation for the Government in Europe; it is a representation for the House. The Assembly will become progressively more important as Europe becomes more unstable, and as matters such as the European convention on human rights become important to this Parliament. Will the Deputy Leader of the House therefore return to the House at a future date with a procedure for ratifying the proposal, so that the whole House can decide who represents it?
Dr Coffey
The convention has been that representation is split up by political party as represented in the House. Different political parties take different approaches on how they put forward their nominations. The Conservative party puts the decision in the hands of the leader of the party.
I should add for my right hon. Friend that there was no attempt by the Government on the last day of the last Parliament to remove you, Mr Speaker. It matters that that is very firmly put on the record.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I am not a member of the delegation to the Council of Europe, but I am a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I am pleased to say that I have the confidence of my colleagues and was re-elected to serve on that delegation.
Is it not time that the Conservative party recognised that we are in the 21st century? It should put confidence and trust in its Back-Bench MPs so that individual Members of Parliament decide who represents the party in international bodies, rather than have a top-down, Leninist leadership-led structure.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Are there not two fundamental problems? The first is the way in which the Conservative party chooses its members of the delegation, and the second is that the Prime Minister decides on the delegation, not the House. Cannot the problem be solved by allowing the House to vote in a whole-House election on who should represent us on the Assembly? You, Mr Speaker, not the Prime Minister, should submit the list to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in your name only. I remind the Deputy Leader of the House that, although she is a member of the Government, she is also, as part of her duties, here to represent Members of the House to the Government—she is not always here to represent the Government to the House.
Dr Coffey
I take those duties very seriously. I am sure that the wise words that have been expressed today will be listened to. Nevertheless, the convention on appointments that has been followed on multiple occasions has been followed in this case. There is nothing to suggest that there is anything disorderly about it. My understanding is that you, Mr Speaker, will present the names on behalf of Parliament to the Parliamentary Assembly.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for bringing this matter to the House and allowing us all to make a contribution.
I agree that the groups should not only be made up of parliamentary representatives but be picked by the House. I share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) about the Scottish National party’s exclusion from the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I would like my party to be involved in that Committee, too. Will the Deputy Leader of the House tell us what steps are being taken to ensure that the House itself will decide who the representatives will be, and that Members will make that decision rather than just one person?
Dr Coffey
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman any assurances about changes in procedure, because there have been no such changes in the past five years. He should be aware, however, that the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) has been appointed as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly. There are 27 Members of Parliament on the list, 10 of whom come from the 2015 intake. This is just about changing with the new set of MPs coming into the House.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I should like to pay considerable tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I represent the party in a sister organisation in Europe, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists. My hon. Friend and I were involved in a lot of consultation during the last Parliament over the suspension of the Russians, and he did a terrific job in the Council of Europe. Many people regard it as a jolly, but if they study the work that he has done on that delegation, they will realise what a serious organisation it is. It needs people with knowledge, wisdom and determination, and those are the people this House should be appointing to the delegation.
Dr Coffey
I agree with my hon. Friend that the Council of Europe is a very serious organisation and that the work undertaken there is of the utmost importance. Yet again, I reaffirm my appreciation of the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch over the past 10 years. It is simply that a decision has been made to bring new people into the delegation.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I congratulate the Deputy Leader of the House on her first statement. Would she welcome other urgent questions that facilitate the washing of dirty Conservative linen in public? If so, I am sure that we on the Liberal Democrat Benches would be willing to help her.
Dr Coffey
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He was my predecessor in this role, so he will be aware of standing at this Dispatch Box. I do not think that this is a case of washing dirty linen. An orderly question has been asked, and although the answer might not be the one he wanted to hear, I believe that it has explained why the delegation is as it is.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I recognise the huge contribution that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has made to the Council of Europe, particularly on the important issue of migration. I encourage him not to be downhearted, however, because there are still independent-minded Conservative Members of Parliament on the list of delegates. There are, for example, Members who campaigned and voted for a European Union referendum. The shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), was wrong to suggest that the list is full of Conservative sycophants.
Points of Order
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During the replies from the Deputy Leader of the House to the urgent question, it was made clear that your signature would be required on the list of names before it could go to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Please could you advise the House on whether it is in your power to test the opinion of the House on the suitability of the names on the list?
Mr Speaker
The short answer to that is no. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He is correct to say that it falls to me to send to Strasbourg the list of those appointed to the Parliamentary Assembly UK delegation, together with important accompanying documentation. Rule 6 of the Assembly requires those credentials to be transmitted, if possible, at least a week before the opening of the session. I will of course consider the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised. Indeed, as he has already made it, I have essentially done so. That said, let me be clear that I interpret my duty as being to forward the names, not to offer a critique of them.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It has been drawn to my attention that Steve O’Connell, the London Assembly member for Croydon and Sutton, has been sending emails to my constituents in which he states that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who is in his place, is happy to take up cases to do with rail services on behalf of my constituents. I seek your guidance on this, Mr Speaker. I will give the hon. Gentleman the benefit of the doubt on this, as he is a new Member and I want to have a good working relationship with him, but could you remind me whether there is a convention relating to these matters, of which it might be useful to remind the House?
Mr Speaker
I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman if I did not hear him correctly, but I assume, given that he is an experienced Member of the House, that he notified the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) of his intention to raise this point of order.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I also thank him for giving me notice of the point of order. I confirm that it is a well established convention that, unless otherwise agreed between the Members concerned, the interests of electors should be represented only by the constituency Member. It is not possible or appropriate for me to ensure that that convention is enforced, however. It is best to leave it to the good sense of Members to work out any problems between them. I know both Members involved, and I have every confidence that they can be relied upon to do just that.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given your customary helpfulness, may I please seek your guidance? You have rightly said in the past that the criteria for granting an urgent question should be that it is newsworthy and that people are talking about the issue in the Dog and Duck. As you will appreciate—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his attempt. Let me just say that the responsibility for determining whether a matter warrants an exchange on the Floor of this House in the form of an urgent question lies with the Chair. I discharge that responsibility assiduously. The right hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House and he knows full well that those decisions are not subject to questioning by Members. He has had a go, but I am afraid that he made a bit of a mess of it.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Following the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), you rightly said that you had to submit the names to the Council of Europe. However, you do not necessarily have to submit them immediately, given that the Council of Europe cannot act until the end of this month. It would be possible to have a debate on the matter in this House on a substantive motion that had not been laid by the Government. Would you perhaps consider laying such a motion, to enable such a debate to occur?
Mr Speaker
The safest and most sensible response for me to make to the hon. Gentleman’s serious point of order is that I will reflect on it. Rather than giving him an instantaneous reaction, it would be better for me to reflect on it. He has raised a point that has not been raised in recent times, and it warrants consideration and possibly, on my part, consultation. I thank him for what he has said.
Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (Amendment)
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (the “1990 Act”) to establish additional factors, including environmental performance, health and safety and maintenance costs, as matters to be taken into account by the Secretary of State in considering whether to include, retain or release a building, or part thereof, in or from a list compiled or approved under the 1990 Act due to its architectural or historic interest; to make provision about excluding parts of buildings and structures within their curtilage from such lists; and for connected purposes.
I moved into a farm that is a grade II listed building. Although a public footpath runs between my house and the cowshed, I believe I would require listed building consent to put solar panels on the cowshed roof as it lies within what is called the curtilage, even though the cowshed is not mentioned in the listing for the farm. It is a corrugated metal building of no historic or architectural interest and it smells strongly of manure.
In the light of that experience, I believe that the curtilage requirement is a piece of red tape that needs to be removed: for the benefit of the planet; for the people who occupy listed buildings and do nothing about the environment to have their excuse of curtilage removed; to free up more roof space for solar panels; and to fulfil our desire to be the greenest Government ever. Yes, of course, we need to protect that which is historically valuable, but we need to protect the planet. By including just the elements of the buildings we wish to protect in the listing, we will not put at risk the history we love and want to cherish. I am looking to make changes only to grade II buildings, as grade I and grade II* protect buildings deemed to be “of exceptional interest” and of “particular importance”. I have confidence that Historic England has listed carefully all the important elements in those buildings.
In 2015, there were 376,099 listed buildings in England, 92% of which were grade II—346,011 buildings. In north Herefordshire, we have 4,150 listed buildings, of which 81 are grade I, 233 are grade II* and 3,668 grade II. Historic England’s website says:
“Any omission from the list description of a feature does not indicate that it is not of interest. Objects, structures and buildings affixed to a listed building or within its curtilage may also be protected by listing. These rules may mean that considerably more may be protected by the listing than is obvious from the list entry alone and there can often be considerable uncertainty as to what is covered.”
It is a criminal offence to carry out works that require listed building consent without first obtaining the required consent. Ignorance of a building’s listed status cannot be used as a defence. The maximum penalty for carrying out works without permission is two years’ imprisonment or an unlimited fine—all to stop a few solar panels and some insulation! I know that Historic England understands the need for change, because according to its website:
“As from 26th June 2013 some new list entries or list entries amended after that date may expressly exclude such curtilage buildings from protection.”
It is time to roll out that common sense to all grade II buildings.
Restrictions on listed status prevent environmentally friendly changes to buildings that are necessary to protect our planet. Older buildings can be enormously expensive to heat and have high maintenance costs. Their owners must face up to their environmental responsibility and save energy, and not just turn up the thermostat.
There are some social justice issues here, too. Many of the buildings do not belong to wealthy people who can afford more oil; even those who can are doing the wrong thing. It is far better to insulate and save fossil fuel.
We must make it easier for owners to make energy- saving changes, while protecting the sections of their historic homes that are valuable. They would then be able to spend more on looking after the buildings, which would become more affordable to live in, thus opening the market wider to members of society. It is therefore a question of balance: opening up the opportunities for grade II owners to do more for the environment, while saving the features of importance to Historic England.
If I may use Buckingham Palace as an example, although it is grade I, the listing goes into detail about many fine features both externally and internally. In reference to the roof, it says, “Slate and leaded roofs”. As the roof is mentioned in the listing it should be protected and solar panels would therefore require listed building consent. However, many other grade II listed buildings where the entry does not go into anywhere near as much detail should have only that which is listed protected, just the same as Buckingham Palace. Not every listed building is large or expensive; some homes just happen to be within the curtilage of a listed building. This curtilage “catch all” is a lazy and bureaucratic device that is out of date. One of the most important points is that it adds cost and workload to already overstretched council planning departments, particularly at a time when they are under enormous pressure—costs and constraints that in turn detract from protecting the valuable—as well as enforcement action, which is time- consuming and risky.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer often talks about mending the roof when the sun is shining. He never says we need to ask the council for listed building consent to be allowed to do so. However, we need to do more than simply mend the roof. We need to use it for solar panels, we need to insulate the roof and we need to be free to do so without having to ask permission. It is time to change the curtilage requirement. We need to be precise in what we want to preserve. We need to stand up for all that is good about our history and go forward protecting all that is good about our planet.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Bill Wiggin, Mr David Burrowes, Mr Richard Bacon, Dame Angela Watkinson, Zac Goldsmith, Mr Stewart Jackson, Robert Neill, Sir Gerald Howarth, Mr Mark Prisk and Boris Johnson present the Bill.
Bill Wiggin accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 March 2016, and to be printed (Bill 89).
European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Employment (Priti Patel)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The purpose of the Bill is to approve two draft decisions of the Council of the European Union. For the UK to agree the draft decisions at Council, Parliament must first give its approval, as the decisions rely on article 352 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. Article 352 allows the Union to take action to attain one of the objectives set out in the treaties but for which there is no specific power given. However, the European Parliament must give its approval, and unanimous support must be given by all other member states.
Section 8 of the European Union Act 2011 provides that a Minister may vote in favour of an article 352 decision only where a draft decision is approved by an Act of Parliament. I am setting out the draft Council decisions and will provide Members with the opportunity to debate and decide whether to approve the measures.
The first decision will enable the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to be granted observer status in the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. The agency is the EU body with the objective of providing assistance and advice on fundamental rights issues to the EU institutions and to member states when implementing Union law. It carries out the same role for EU accession states with observer status. This measure does not extend the competence of the agency.
The proposal has been in existence since 2010 and it cleared the UK parliamentary scrutiny process in place at that time. The Greek presidency lifted its block on the decision in April 2014 and the decision re-emerged last year with all other member states ready to vote in favour of the decision. However, the UK had to enter the scrutiny reserve for the decision pending approval by an Act of Parliament due to the requirements of the EU Act.
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has been an EU candidate country since 2005, but in recent years there has been serious backsliding on the reforms. A political crisis has been unfolding in the country in the past year, which has raised concerns about the rule of law and adherence to democratic principles. A European Commission report issued in June set out a series of recommendations needed to return the country to the path to EU accession. This included reforms related to freedom of expression and the rule of law. Observer status at the agency could allow the country to have access to advice and assistance on fundamental rights issues to help to tackle its reform challenges, and provide assistance and help to the country on human rights issues.
The second measure gives effect to a decision by the Council enabling the EU tripartite social summit to continue to operate. The summit is a meeting of representatives of European social partner organisations, the Commission and the Council, and it meets on the eve of the European Council in the spring and autumn for high-level discussions between the three parties on aspects of the European agenda for growth and jobs. The summit was established by a Council decision in 2003, but, under the Lisbon treaty, agreed in 2007, the legal basis for the summit—article 202 of the treaty of Rome—was repealed. The decision in the Bill re-establishes the legal basis of the summit.
The decision takes account of formal changes in the EU institutions since the last decision and name changes among the employer organisations. The Government can support the continuation of the summit because discussion of the need for jobs and growth can support the labour market reforms needed in other member states. In the intervening decade, during the existence of the summit, no apparent risk to the UK has emerged. The final agreed text of the summit measure has been published by the Council and has received consent from the European Parliament.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Are there any financial consequences from these decisions?
Priti Patel
I can assure my right hon. Friend that neither decision has any financial implications for the UK.
Finally, I do not consider that any of the Bill’s provisions engage the rights set out in the European convention on human rights, so no issues arise about the Bill’s compatibility with those rights. It is intended that the Bill will come into force on the day of Royal Assent. I look forward to hearing the views of the House.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for coming to the House to set out the provisions in the Bill, but people will find it surprising that such a relatively uncontroversial measure is being introduced through primary legislation, when tax credit cuts affecting 3.3 million working families were introduced through secondary legislation. The situation is actually worse than that. We have time today on the Floor of the House to debate the Bill, but we ran out of time on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, meaning that we did not reach the last group of 33 amendments, which included issues as important as cuts to social housing rents and changes to support for the mortgage interest scheme. Perhaps the greatest irony of all, however, is that the Government could not find more time to discuss the abolition of child poverty targets—the issue of child poverty in Britain no less—while the Bill actually facilitates similar European-wide targets on poverty.
Turning to the substantial measures in the Bill, I do, of course, welcome the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia being an observer of the work of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. The agency’s work fighting racism, intolerance and xenophobia is crucial, and it is a positive step that the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is to be an observer.
I was delighted to hear the Minister talk positively about the tripartite social summit. It was almost as if she had discovered her inner pro-European. How wonderful it was to hear her praising that body. The Bill continues the work of the summit and gives it a more specific remit on achieving the targets laid out in the Europe 2020 agenda. I welcome that because it is an important forum in which EU partners can discuss social and employment issues. Of course, part of the Europe 2020 agenda is recognising that the EU has a co-ordinating role to play in combating poverty by identifying best practice and national learning. The target has been set of reducing the number of people threatened by poverty and social exclusion by at least 20 million by 2020.
Will the Minister clarify what role the UK will play in the 2020 agenda? How do the Government propose to report on poverty, including child poverty, in an internationally comparable way, when they have decided to abolish their own domestic child poverty targets? Given the international context, which she set out, and the recent tax credit cuts, the abolition of the child poverty target is a remarkable anomaly. To put it simply: why are the Government scrapping poverty targets at home and then promoting them abroad? That is precisely what they are facilitating. [Interruption.] There is no point Ministers shaking their heads. That is exactly what the Europe 2020 agenda is all about.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Absolutely. It is great to witness this pro-European moment. Even the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) has come in for it. How great it is to see!
John Redwood
Given that the main purpose of the Bill is to endorse new procedures for discussing unemployment and the lack of growth on the continent, does Labour now think that getting countries out of the euro could help them price themselves back into work and get rid of the dreadful unemployment that now lies like a pall over much of the south of our continent?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
It is perhaps an indication of the paucity of my teenage years that I can remember watching the television in the mid-1990s and seeing the right hon. Gentleman ploughing his Eurosceptic furrow very finely, as he always does. In answer to his question, it is of course a matter for the countries themselves. I would not seek to dictate to them.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I agree with some of what my hon. Friend is saying, but, on the subject of countries digging themselves out of their problems, Greece was given a bail-out, but on strict conditions, including restrictions on public sector workers taking industrial action, and other such things. This is not a country making its own decisions, but a country that has had conditions imposed upon it by the EU.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am sure that across the House we have particular views about the conditions imposed. I have views, and I know that he does too.
On employment rights, I invited the Minister to praise the work on paid leave and equal treatment for part-time workers, as well as the EU’s work on fair pay for agency workers. I hope the House approves the changes to the tripartite social summit, but I also hope we can take this as an indication that the Government will not sign away the employment rights gained over many years for working people in this country through the European Union, and that decency at work will be a fundamental part of the Prime Minister’s renegotiation in the next few months.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
I hope not to detain the House for long, but I wish to make a couple of points.
First, in answer to the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), we are having this debate because we foresaw, during the passage of the European Union Act 2011, issues that might or might not be controversial but that would be worthy of proper scrutiny on the Floor of the House. We rarely divided on that Bill on the Floor of the House because we wanted to ensure proper scrutiny of things being done in our name at the EU level. In today’s Bill we see the provisions of the 2011 Act coming through. On the comparison with tax credits, I understand where he is coming from, but it could be argued that previous changes to tax credits have been introduced under statutory instruments. However, we foresaw this coming, so we amended the European Union Act, as it was then, to make sure that we could scrutinise these sorts of matters on the Floor of the House. These two examples are not the world’s most exciting, but we will see more and more such measures coming forward, and we will have more and more time to talk about them.
I have visited Macedonia and I am a fan of the country. Having been a Member of the European Parliament, I have seen how a neighbouring country has done everything it can to stop the Macedonian accession to the European Union, and I have seen what Macedonia itself has achieved, taking massive strides forward towards EU membership. I am pleased that Macedonia has been able to become an observer in the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
My only concern relating to the Bill and Macedonian entry is that the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights has come out of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, which had unbelievably difficult financial and administrative problems in the past. I would like to check with the Minister every now and again to ensure that the past problems of that organisation—which were responsible, among other things, for its name change—have been completely turned around so that the agency does what it is meant to do, without duplicating other problems.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend define “observer” for me? Does it mean the EU observes Macedonia or Macedonia observes the EU in respect of human rights, for example? I would like to know exactly what “observer” means.
Chris Heaton-Harris
It is a bit of both. The agency has the following main tasks:
“to collect, analyse and disseminate…objective, reliable and comparative information”
related to the situation of fundamental rights in the EU;
“to formulate and publish conclusions and opinions on specific thematic topics…on its own initiative or at the request of the European Parliament, the Council or the Commission”;
and it is also about
“the promotion of dialogue with civil society…to raise public awareness of fundamental rights”.
A debate is going on in this country about where those rights should lie, what sort of legislation should exist in relation to them and who should police them. Macedonia has had that debate in its own Parliament, has applied to join this agency and is willing to pay appropriations to it. I do not see why we should step in its way. As I have said, there have been problems with the agency in the past, but it serves an important function in that member states’ voting rights could be suspended, based on the findings of any of its reports. The agency has teeth in no uncertain terms, and it has a decent operating budget of over €20 million a year. Macedonia has made its own choice, and it is right for it to go down that route if it chooses to do so.
I want to speak briefly about the draft decision on a tripartite social summit for growth and employment. There is a new Council decision, following Lisbon, that allows the number of meetings to be increased from one to two a year, and allows the President of the European Council to attend. The European Commission is allowed to host and facilitate meetings, so there should not be too much of a cost to it. My questions are more about the direction of travel of this organisation, its duplication, its purpose in being and whether we can raise questions about what it does.
This is not the European Economic and Social Committee, whose abolition I have called for in the past because of the huge costs for members belonging to one of the three groups of employers, employees and various other interests. The employers group comprises businessmen, people from certain business lobbies; the workers group comprises members from 80 trade unions mostly affiliated to the European Trade Union Confederation; while the third group is made up of lobbies from civil society. Most of those groups are paid for by the European Commission to lobby it in different ways to get the Commission to do more. Many European countries have a national version. However, the organisation I am talking about is not that. It is a separate beast.
One important question is who are the EU’s social partners? A list of social partners organisations consulted under article 154 of the treaty of the functioning of the European Union includes Business Europe. Business Europe is quite an interesting organisation. Unsurprisingly, it has a particular view on the referendum we might be having here. It gets a small sum of money, nearly €457,000, as payment under a grant received for a project running over a couple of years, of which the total budgeted cost was €1.2 million. The members of Business Europe include our CBI—it is one of the ways in which the UK CBI receives some money from the European Union. It includes other organisations such as the European Trade Union Confederation, which I mentioned previously and which received €4 million from European institutions, spending over €1 million lobbying the EU.
Kelvin Hopkins
Given the sums that the hon. Gentleman mentions, is it not possible that these organisations will be more kindly disposed towards the EU—simply because they have received such substantial sums?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I would like to think that they would not be. If I were a leading light in the CBI or the ETUC, I would want to make sure of being in a position whereby I would not be accused of being biased in one way or the other. Receiving money from the European Commission that is then spent lobbying the EU to do things—whether it be business organisations lobbying for liberalisation or trade union organisations lobbying for workers’ rights or whatever—seems almost like manufacturing a market in this area.
Kelvin Hopkins
Just recently, there has been something of a controversy about the BBC receiving some millions of pounds from the European Union for educational purposes—no doubt educating us all about the wonders of the EU. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that if organisations that are supposed to be independent and impartial take large sums of money from the EU, it might have some influence on them?
Chris Heaton-Harris
Again, I would like to think not. I follow what the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friends have been doing on the European Scrutiny Committee. There has been a long and ongoing dialogue with the BBC, as I know because I was a member of the Committee over the last five years running up to the mandate of this Parliament. I hesitate to look in the direction of my Scottish National party colleagues, because I have a feeling they might have a view on partiality and the BBC when it comes to certain matters.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
Listening to the hon. Gentleman, I am wondering whether the BBC finds it more difficult when an organisation such as the European Commission gives it money or, in respect of human rights, when money is taken away, as is being done by the UK Government?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. In talking about the BBC, we are straying quite far from debating a narrow Bill.
Chris Heaton-Harris
Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I did rather provoke reaction from my SNP colleagues, because I wanted to prove the point that when questions are raised about the partiality of an organisation, either through its funding or its actions, it could devalue that organisation’s input into something important, such as a European referendum.
Let me return to the point about who our EU social partners are in this dialogue that we are facilitating through the Bill. As I have said, in 2014 the European Trade Union Confederation received €4 million from EU institutions and spent more than €1 million of that money lobbying those same EU institutions on legislation. In 2013 the CEEP—the European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services—spent €120,000 lobbying the European Union and received €155,000 from the EU’s directorate-general for employment.
I question the added value of the dialogue at the tripartite social summit for growth and employment. Like many things in the European Union, its title is motherhood and apple pie. Who could possibly be against a tripartite social summit for growth and employment? However, if it delivers very little and if the only people who attend it and talk to the European Commission are actually paid by the Commission to do so, that will be a significant issue because the conversation will simply go round in ever-decreasing circles.
The EU social partners have agreed to a number of things in the recent past, and they wish to discuss important matters. They have agreed to
“negotiate an autonomous framework agreement on active ageing and an inter-generational approach”.
That is obviously something we need to discuss at a national level, not to mention the European level. They have also agreed to
“step up efforts to improve the implementation of their autonomous framework agreements, with a specific focus on the 8-10 Member States where the implementation has been identified as insufficient”.
This group is going to lobby for more European regulation and harsher implementation of directives.
The social partners’ work programme also notes that they have agreed to
“highlight the importance of more public and private investments”—
I imagine that Labour Members would like to have a conversation about that, especially given their new leadership—
“in order to reach an optimal growth, to boost job creation and to revive EU industrial base”.
The joint working programme also wants to “prepare joint conclusions” on things that we would all wish to see, including
“promoting better reconciliation of work, private and family life and gender equality to reduce the gender pay gap”.
I cannot believe that any Member of this House would not want to achieve that. However, given that the European Commission pays indirectly for this group of people to turn up once every six months to talk about these things, and given that they have already done so for quite some time without any concrete achievements—in fact, some of those ideals may have gone into reverse during that time—perhaps we should question the validity of supporting such a social summit for growth and employment.
Another of the work programme objectives—this did not become controversial until quite recently—is to
“contribute to the efforts of the EU institutions to develop a mobility package, to address loopholes and enforcement issues on worker mobility and to promote mobility of apprenticeships.”
This country is currently having a debate about mobility and, indeed, the freedom of movement of workers and others. It is interesting that we are promoting such a debate—our European partners are also having a big debate on the very same issue—while at the same time funding a summit of the worthy and the good to discuss the same thing.
Kelvin Hopkins
The great constitutionalist, Walter Bagehot, said that there are two parts to the constitution: the decorative and the effective. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the body under discussion is one of the more decorative rather than effective parts of the EU constitution?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I probably do, yes. I hate to beat around the bush: I do not think it is worth funding this organisation. It is duplication for duplication’s sake. Given the number of other direct opportunities available to the bodies that will attend the summit to influence the thinking of the European Commission, member states and others, I really do question the value of the group. Obviously, that is why I am on my feet asking the Minister why it is, when we have an opportunity to prevent duplication and to prevent some of the European budget from being spent, we do not actually take it.
I want to ask a number of questions along those lines. Article 152 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union states that the EU will set up the social dialogue while respecting the autonomy of the organisations, but can those organisations and bodies that attend the summit truly be autonomous when they are funded by the EU? Will they not be a taxpayer-funded echo chamber?
What authority has the EU had until now if the former decision on hosting summits was based on an old article treaty? Article 152 states that the EU should respect the “diversity of national systems”. Given that our national system does not include such summits, can the Government guarantee that the outcome of the meetings will not have an effect on the European Commission’s work programme—in other words, the very programme to which the summit wants to provide input? Is there an estimate of how much the six-monthly meetings will cost, and will the UK choose to host them when it takes over the presidency of the EU in 2017?
The Commission’s directorate-general for employment, social affairs and inclusion has regular dialogue with all the parties that will attend the summit, and there are other EU bodies that do exactly the same thing. When voting on such matters, this place has been almost unanimously in favour of cutting the duplication of European spending. We need to make sure that this country’s massive contribution to the European Commission and Europe is spent more wisely. Given that I have some form in this area—I was a Member of the European Parliament for 10 years and raised many budgetary questions about the issues under discussion—I question the value of approving the Bill.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
It is interesting that this Bill underlines some of the positive work of the European Union. I am sure that Members across the House will welcome that, particularly at a time when we are debating our future in that Union.
First, may I associate myself with some of the excellent comments the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) made about child poverty? He also made an excellent point about the way in which tax credits were debated last week.
This debate is about the draft decision on the Republic of Macedonia becoming an observer in the work of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, as well as the decision on the tripartite social summit for growth and employment. I am sure that Members across the House will agree that the European Union’s expansion in 2004 was one of its great triumphs. It was a triumph both for Europe and, through our contribution to it, for the United Kingdom, and it has been good for us ever since.
Although they are not there yet and a great deal is yet to be done, I look forward to Macedonia and the other countries of the western Balkans joining the European Union, and hope that the decision on observer status is a step along the way. We have a great deal of work to do, but plugging the gap between Greece and Croatia will be welcome.
Giving Macedonia observer status may give it the help it currently needs. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) spoke earlier today about refugees, and I and others have pointed out that those countries that are least able to deal with the influx and weight of refugees to Europe are those that are taking the greatest strain, not least Macedonia. It is clear from the current refugee crisis that some front-line states can be helped in that regard. It would, of course, be a great help if the United Kingdom could take its fair share of refugees. That does not seem to be forthcoming, but access to the work of some of the EU agencies could also help. It would be interesting to hear from Ministers what assistance the UK is giving the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, with particular reference to the refugee crisis faced by the western Balkan countries.
Secondly, I want to say a little about the tripartite summit. I am sure Members on both sides of the House will agree that, given the positive impact that the European Union has had on social issues for many years—my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) is likely to comment on that point—the summit will play an important role in emphasising the social dimension of growth and employment between states, and the impact of EU policies on workers as well as executives. An approach that includes trade unionists, businesses and many others can only be a good thing, and in that respect the European Union has led the way in the past.
Finally, let me make a broader point. I think that the Bill shows us how the European Union brings added value to our daily lives. It helps to promote fundamental rights, and today’s debate is especially pertinent in the light of the refugee crisis. I also think that the Bill underlines the need for us to remain part of the European Union, and—this was touched on by the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris)—the ability of the UK Parliament to scrutinise European Union legislation. I often think that politicians, here and elsewhere in the EU, can be a bit lazy sometimes in hiding behind decisions that the EU has made. We must bear in mind the role that the UK Parliament ought to play, and I should welcome an increased scrutiny role for the devolved Administrations as well.
Stephen Gethins
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, if he wishes to take up my point about parliamentary scrutiny.
John Redwood
What does the hon. Gentleman think would happen if we said no?
Stephen Gethins
We shall have to see whether the people say yes or no, but I think that the scrutiny—
John Redwood
What would happen if our Parliament suddenly decided to vote this down? Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that that is a possibility?
Stephen Gethins
I can only speak for Members on the SNP Benches, who will not be voting no. I know that the right hon. Gentleman cannot speak for those on his side of the House—in fact, the leaders of both sides of the House can barely speak for those on their own Benches at the moment—but at least we are unified on our Benches. We will not be voting against the Bill today.
As I was saying, we can be lazy when it comes to European Union decisions. We must adopt a more honest approach: we must become more critical, and when we have backed EU decisions, we must be more open about it.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
We have just been given a wonderful illustration of why our democracy does not work in relation to any European subject. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) pretended not to have understood my question, but what would happen if the United Kingdom Parliament suddenly voted against a solemn decision of the European Union? Because the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to countenance that idea, he simply says “I do not want to”, but many of our constituents would like us to stand up to the European Union and start to change it, and one of the reasons why they would like us to change it is the very topic of this debate.
We are being invited to agree to a change in the arrangements whereby we debate and consult, and try to grapple with the huge problem of mass unemployment and austerity which is so visible in the south of our continent, and which was largely brought about by the euro scheme. Today, all that we hear is the usual nonsense: “Because one or two things that the European Union does are fine, we will not grapple with the real issues.” Where are the voices against European austerity on the Opposition Benches?
Stephen Gethins
The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point, but does he agree that the devolved Administrations should also be given greater powers of scrutiny as part of this process?
John Redwood
That is a debate for another day. We are not here to debate the relative powers of the different parts of the United Kingdom. At present, the member of the European Union is the United Kingdom, and we are in the United Kingdom’s Parliament. It is part of my case that we have precious few powers left to make major changes in relation to things that really matter on the continent. I want to explore, briefly, what we can do to engage with the problems of mass unemployment and the huge migrations of people who are unhappy with their lot in other European Union countries, and what we can do about the austerity policies that are so deep and vicious in parts of the European Union, having been visited on countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal by the European Union and the euro itself.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me for taking him back to the beginning of his speech, when he said that he would like this Parliament to vote down something from the European Union, or at least try to do so. Had he anything specific in mind, or was he just looking for a genuine fight with the European Union? I ask that question, quite openly, for the purpose of illustration.
John Redwood
The illustration that I was using was that there are now large areas in which this Parliament is not allowed to vote against something that the European Union is doing—because it has been pre-agreed, because we have been out-voted, because it is a consequence of a treaty that some previous Government signed years ago, or because it is the result of a decision by the European Court of Justice. Do Opposition Members not see that we are losing our democracy? We are losing our right to disagree with European decisions in this place, and we are losing our right to assert our wish to do things differently. I do not want to choose any one particular thing, but I could name at least 100 things which come from the European Union that I wish were better and different, because I think that they get in the way of prosperity, better wages and a better lifestyle for my constituents and others in my country.
That, however, is not the point. The question that we are debating today is whether, by means of the minor set of improvements contained in the Bill, we can have any impact on the hugely important issues of the breakdown of employment, the denial of opportunity to half the young people in large swathes of the south of our continent, and the effect that the euro scheme is having on people’s prosperity and life prospects. I find it extraordinary that an Opposition who are—sometimes rightly—full of passion on behalf of anyone in Britain who does not have enough income, cannot bring themselves to say a single word for the tens of millions of people on our continent who are being very badly affected by this dreadful scheme. They should think about all those young people who are out of work. How would they like to represent constituencies in which young people knew that they had only a one in two chance of getting a job?
Alex Salmond
Was not the right hon. Gentleman’s political heroine the late Lady Thatcher, who pursued majority voting—which, by definition, means accepting some decisions with which one did not agree—in order to complete the European single market?
John Redwood
She did indeed, but she was not my heroine. I have great admiration for the late former Prime Minister, and I gave her a great deal of advice. Part of my advice was that she should not surrender those powers under the Single European Act, for the very reason that the right hon. Gentleman has correctly identified. Unfortunately, although she accepted a lot of my advice, she did not accept my advice on two very important matters: majority voting in the European Union, and the poll tax or community charge. However, I do not think we have time to explore the question of what would have been better outcomes in the case of those two issues.
I just hope that our Ministers, if they insist on whitewashing this through, as no doubt they will—no doubt they will have the votes to do so—will also ensure that this body does something useful for a change. As my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) has already demonstrated, it is obvious that although they can range very widely, and can lobby and discuss a number of fundamental issues that matter to people throughout the European Union but especially in the euro area, they have been unsuccessful to date. Clearly this “social committee” has not been a voice against austerity policies in Greece, Portugal or Spain that has had any resonance. Clearly it has not been a voice for more employment. Clearly it has not been a voice for dealing with the problem that a great many southern countries are locked in a currency union with Germany at the wrong exchange rate, which has put them into poverty and unemployment.
Mr MacNeil
The right hon. Gentleman is making a fantastic speech as a Greek nationalist against the evils of a Union Parliament that is holding all the powers to itself, and, indeed, against anti-austerity. I do not want to castigate or to pigeonhole him, but we are seeing great progress in the debate. If the European Union is achieving one thing, perhaps it is achieving that.
John Redwood
If the hon. Gentleman was interested in my views and had read any of them, he would know that I have consistently over the years wanted more work, better paid work, people to own shares, and people to own homes. I believe in prosperity, not austerity, as I regularly try to remind him. I want that for our continent, but we are not going to get it for our continent under the system we have today—I am beginning to stray a little wide of the detail of this Bill.
In summary, I urge our Ministers to make sure of two things: first, that there genuinely is no extra cost to British taxpayers because so far this body has achieved nothing and is part of the problem, not of the answer; secondly, that, if they can, they start putting on the agenda of Europe the scandal of unemployment, the scourge of austerity, and the dreadful mess the euro is making of the economies to the south, because they are our friends and potential market, but I do not want them to be our country.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
The SNP will support this Bill today for the reasons most eloquently set out earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins). We will support it in practice as these are sensible and straightforward matters, but we also support the principles behind the legislation.
First, we support the work of the EU and the important role it plays through the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights in protecting our rights as European citizens. I particularly look forward to the opportunity of going through the Lobby today alongside many Government Members, united in our full and unambiguous support for the work the European institutions are doing in this vital area. It would be remiss of me not to comment on the fact that it is a little ironic, however, that as other countries are knocking on the door of the EU, looking to benefit from the work it does on our behalf, this Government are committed to providing the means for the UK to leave the most successful union of states in the world today.
Secondly, the SNP wholeheartedly supports the work to improve dialogue between European institutions and employers and workers’ representatives through the tripartite social summit for growth and employment. Working in partnership with trade unions and employers is fundamental to improving our economic foundations and driving economic growth. If only the Government took this advice when drafting the current Dickensian Trade Union Bill before us. I agree with President Juncker who recently stated that he desires a recovery based on social fairness. This summit will play a key role in delivering this and that is why it will have our support today.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for squeezing me into this vastly over- subscribed debate. That brings me to one of only two points I wish to make. The purpose of the Bill is to fulfil the requirement in section 8 of the European Union Act 2011 that EU legislative proposals made on the basis of the catch-all article 352 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union be approved by an Act of Parliament before the UK Government can support them in the Council of the European Union. That is presumably why the debate is so vastly oversubscribed.
Despite the clear lack of interest in the debate, as evidenced by the relatively sparse attendance in the Chamber, the usual channels have chosen not to timetable the Bill. We could speak until 7 o’clock. I could do so—I really could—and be perfectly in order, and the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) could have spoken for far longer if he had chosen to do so. Yet we have this open-ended timing today—there is no regulation that says a Second Reading has to take even a half-day—whereas next Monday Scottish Members are expected to cram in Government amendments to the Scotland Bill and its Third Reading. The contrast between the two timetables indicates the Government’s total lack of respect for the need to prioritise the House’s business in accordance with Members’ interest in contributing. I hope that the Government will take that on board.
John Redwood
Does it not also illustrate that the official Opposition never have anything to say about the EU and never want to say anything about it? However, should they not have a view on it?
Alex Salmond
The fact that the Bill is so full of motherhood, apple pie and things that even the right hon. Gentleman finds difficulty in disagreeing with, as we heard in his speech, illustrates that even the serried ranks of Euroscepticism could scarce forbear to cheer this particular piece of legislation.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) raised the issue of the official Opposition’s view on the EU. I am sure he heard that at the conclusion of my speech I praised the work the EU has done in improving workers’ rights. I would say that without the EU we would not have the workers’ rights in the UK that we have today.
Alex Salmond
My estimation of the official Opposition is that they are currently unified in their disunity and have, indeed, raised disunity to an art form, the latest example being over the Trident missile system on the River Clyde. I must congratulate the official Opposition on how they relish that aspect of disunity. There is an outbreak of debate and discussion in the Labour party that certainly was never allowed during the Blair years. We should relish the freedom of speech the Opposition now have, even if we note that there are very few Labour Members here to exercise that freedom in the current debate.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman is always amusing, but before he started scoring party political points he was making a significant constitutional point about the power of this House over our own schedules and timetables. Does he agree we should return the control of our own agenda to the House and take it off the Government?
Alex Salmond
As somebody who has been in government, I have to say that views on such matters can undergo a transition. There was debate earlier about representation in the Council of Europe, on which I would think Members throughout the House would be wise to insist on greater control and discretion. I think the Government would benefit from that; they may not realise it initially, but I think they would. That might be a good illustration of what the hon. Gentleman says, and there are a number of mechanisms by which it could be done. Also, I do not think he should underrate party politics; most of us have been engaged in it at one time or another.
The second point I want to make concerns the explanatory notes that accompany the Bill. With regard to the European convention on human rights, it is stated:
“Priti Patel has made the following statement under section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998:
In my view the provisions of the European Union (Approvals) Bill [HL] are compatible with the Convention rights.”
One reason why the Bill is relatively non-controversial is that we recognise and welcome the progress that Macedonia is making under the observation of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, located in Vienna. In welcoming that development, it occurs to me that that is another illustration of how foolhardy it would be for the Government to proceed with their plans to withdraw from the European convention in some form or other. We would find ourselves in an invidious position not just when debating issues such as this but in making representations on a range of issues. As First Minister of Scotland I did not just have to sign certificates saying that legislation was in accordance with the European convention; every act of a Scottish Minister has to conform to the European convention on human rights. Of course there are occasions when that can be inconvenient or even frustrating, but, significantly, my experience has told me that that is actually a very good and useful check on the actions of Government.
Earlier today we witnessed a most astonishing display of arrogance from a Minister at the Dispatch Box. In Justice questions, a Minister was asked specifically about withdrawal from the European convention and waved the question aside on the basis that it is up to the House and the Government to decide whether or not to be in the convention, and for the devolved authorities to administer it once that decision is made. I think the Government will find that that sort of attitude comes back to apply some severe retribution to them. The Government might be noted for that sort of insouciance and arrogance, but it does them no credit or good whatever. The devolved authorities, not just in Scotland but in Northern Ireland and Wales, are not in accordance with the Government’s view on the European convention, and the idea of watering down our commitment to it in some form is going to be totally unacceptable to the devolved nations. I suggest to the Government that they should think again.
My last point is that given the lack of interest and participation in this debate in the House, the very reasonable proposition put forward by my colleagues that the Scottish Parliament should be given more scrutiny power over European Council or European Parliament decisions is an excellent one. If people do not have the appetite to scrutinise those decisions in this Chamber, why not send the legislation to Parliaments and Assemblies where that appetite and desire exists?
Alex Salmond
I give way to the Chair of the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change.
Mr MacNeil
It should be noted for the record that as my right hon. Friend said that, there were nods from some Tory Members, which should be taken as encouragement for Scotland to take that scrutiny forward.
Alex Salmond
Not only that, but my hon. Friend is an excellent example of how someone can pursue duties as a Select Committee Chair and contribute massively to debates on the Floor of this Chamber. If we all followed his example, the House and Parliament would be a better place today. With that, I shall bring my remarks to a close, unless anybody wants to tempt me with another 30 interventions.
Priti Patel
I thank all Members for their contributions to the debate.
The Bill will approve two draft Council decisions, the first of which, as has been discussed, relates to the participation of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as an observer in the work of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s objective is to become a member of the European Union, but it needs to implement key reform priorities, as set out by the Commission. The Government want to encourage it on the path of reform, and granting observer status in the agency is consistent with that approach. The decision will allow the agency to collect, analyse and disseminate data on the human rights situation in the country. It will also allow the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to participate in the agency’s activities. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia should be supported to increase its human rights awareness and the promotion of fundamental rights within the country.
The second measure relates to the tripartite social summit. The summit has met for a number of years, and the draft decision will re-establish the legal basis for it. Just to be clear, it does not confer any new rights or competence on the EU. I want to restate that there are no financial implications, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) highlighted.
Bob Stewart
But there must be financial implications, because EU civil servants will be working and someone will probably be appointed to supervise this activity. That is a financial implication.
Priti Patel
There are no new financial implications, as I said clearly in my opening remarks. On that basis, I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords] (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
Proceedings in Committee, on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading
(2) Proceedings in Committee, any proceedings on Consideration and any proceedings in legislative grand committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
(3) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
Programming committee
(4) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to other proceedings up to and including Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(5) Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of any message from the Lords) may be programmed. —(Guy Opperman.)
Question agreed to.
National Insurance Contributions (Rate Ceilings) Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
National Insurance Contributions (Rate Ceilings) Bill
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
We have now reached the final stage of this House’s deliberations on this Bill, which implements our manifesto commitment not to increase national insurance contributions—NICs—for employers and employees. On Second Reading, hon. Members were reminded of the Government’s strong record of significantly reducing the burden of NICs on employers. At Budget 2011, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a £21-a-week above-inflation increase to the employer NICs threshold. In 2014, we introduced the employment allowance to support businesses and charities across the UK by reducing their employer NICs bills by up to £2,000 every year, and this has already benefited more than 1 million employers. The Government are now going further; hon. Members will recall that the Chancellor announced at the summer Budget that this would be increased to £3,000 from next April. From April 2015, the vast majority of employers employing under-21s were lifted out of employer NICs. This NICs exemption will be extended to cover apprentices who are under 25, supporting employers to provide young people with valuable workplace skills. The Bill enacts the Government’s commitment to provide certainty on NICs rates for the duration of this Parliament. Hon. Members will be aware that the commitment contained in the manifesto was not to increase the main rates of income tax, VAT or NICs. The Finance Bill contained measures to deliver that commitment for income tax and VAT, and this Bill delivers on that commitment for NICs.
Let me now deal with the detail of the Bill. First, it provides that the rate of class 1 NICs paid by employees and employers must not exceed existing rates. Secondly, it has been the convention that the level of the upper earnings limit for NICs is aligned with the level of the higher rate threshold for income tax. This Bill formally limits increases to the UEL so that its annual equivalent amount cannot exceed the level of the HRT for income tax. Both the restriction on NICs rates rises and changes to the UEL come into force on Royal Assent of this Bill, and apply until the start of the tax year following the date of the first parliamentary general election to take place after Royal Assent.
This Bill provides certainty for employers and employees: that the NICs rates that affect millions of employees and employers across the UK will not rise for the duration of this Parliament; and that the UEL will not exceed the HRT for income tax.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
My hon. Friend will agree with me that more jobs would be a very good thing and that better-paid jobs for people are a very good thing. He is saying that there will not be any increases but he is presumably not ruling out cutting taxes on jobs, because the less we tax, the more jobs we might have.
Mr Gauke
To be very clear, this is a cap, not a freeze. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for allowing me to make that point.
I thank the hon. Members who have participated in our debates on this Bill, both on the Floor of the House on Second Reading and in Committee. The Bill has not detained the House for any great length of time, but I am grateful for those contributions. The Bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to provide certainty on tax rates for the duration of this Parliament, and I commend it to the House.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
As we have heard, this Bill enacts the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge not to increase NICs in this Parliament. It is part of their wider pledge to cap income tax, VAT and national insurance contributions. The Bill contains only three substantive clauses and, as we have heard, no amendments have been tabled for consideration today. Clause 1 creates a “tax lock” for employee NICs, capping the rates of employee class 1 NICs to 12% and setting the additional percentage to 2% for the duration of this Parliament. Clause 2 freezes the rate of employer NICs by setting the maximum secondary percentage payable by employers at 13.8%. By doing so, it also fixes the class 1A and 1B contributions. Clause 3 links the upper earnings limit to the higher rate income tax threshold by setting out that it shall not exceed the weekly equivalent of the proposed higher rate threshold for that tax year. In practice, that means that employees stop paying class 1 national insurance contributions at the 12% rate when their income reaches the higher rate income tax threshold. Thereafter, the rate of national contribution is 2%.
As the Minister is aware, my Labour colleagues are not opposed to the principle of maintaining the rates of national insurance contributions. Indeed, it was Labour that, on 25 March, first committed to halt any increase, and I am pleased that the Conservatives heeded our wise advice. It is just one of our many pre-election pledges that the Chancellor has chosen to implement.
However, without wishing to repeat what has already been said by my colleagues in previous debates, I question the need to implement legislation that forces the Government to keep their own election pledges—surely they should do that anyway. The Chancellor also seemed to share my sentiments back in 2009 when he stated:
“No other Chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people that he has the political will to implement his own Budget.”
Indeed, he went on to suggest that only two conclusions could be drawn from such an occurrence:
“Either the Chancellor has lost confidence in himself to stick to his resolution, and is, so to speak, asking the police to help him, or he fears that everyone else has lost confidence in his ability to keep his word”. —[Official Report, 26 November 2009; Vol. 501, c. 708.]
John Redwood
I thought that the previous Labour Government enacted legislation to bring down the budget deficit, because they could not trust themselves with the money, and they were perhaps wise about that.
Rebecca Long Bailey
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but I am citing what the current Chancellor has stated.
I question which of the scenarios the Government feel is applicable. The Government have argued during the passage of this Bill that legislation is required to ensure that the market has confidence in their keeping their election promises. It leads to the question why the Chancellor thinks that the electorate and businesses will not simply trust his word. In addition, the Government promised before the 2010 election that they would not raise VAT, but then proceeded to do quite the opposite. Indeed, in the previous Parliament, the Chancellor raised taxes 24 times despite waxing lyrical about creating a low-tax, high-pay economy. The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said of the most recent Budget:
“The figures are quite clear though—this was a tax-raising Budget.”
Perhaps the Chancellor has lost confidence in himself. That is not surprising given that he has missed all of his deficit reduction targets for the past five years.
I fear that legislating in this manner is only a political gimmick to convince the market and the electorate that the Government are not increasing taxes when, in fact, tax policy measures in the Budget are expected to raise £5.1 billion by 2018, rising to £6.5 billion by 2021.
Putting that issue to one side, I must once again stress my concern that the Government are severely limiting their options should the economy take a turn for the worse. This summer, the Bank for International Settlements stated simply that this is
“a world in which debt levels are too high, productivity growth too weak and financial risks too threatening.”
The feeble recovery that we have seen thus far is built on private debt, which leaves us with a ticking time bomb. The IFS predicts that house prices will rocket across the whole of the UK, most drastically in London, leading to levels of household debt exceeding those of 2008 at the time of the credit crunch.
The warning signs are there and I harbour grave concerns that the Government are simply not paying attention. My sentiments are shared by many commentators, including the director of the IFS, who said that it would be
“extreme to tie your hands for such a long period of time with the main rates of the three largest taxes.”
Particularly worrying is the fact that the Chancellor’s spending plans are predicated on
“a forecasted rise in revenue yield from NICs.”
That fact was highlighted by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie). However, should the yield be less than forecast, due to an economic downturn, what will the Chancellor do? He cannot, according to his own legislation, raise VAT, income tax or national insurance contributions. Would further cuts be imposed on public expenditure at precisely the time economic stimulus would be needed?
In Committee, the Minister assured us that, in such a circumstance, the measures before us today would not endanger the fund or be an excuse to undermine the NHS. However, he did enter the caveat that such an assurance was predicated on the Government making “difficult choices” on public spending and
“identifying savings in the welfare budget”.––[Official Report, National Insurance Contributions (Rate Ceilings) Bill Public Bill Committee, 27 October 2015; c. 18.]
I fear that what he meant was that far from legislating on their election promises on the Government’s tax credit work penalty, they have ripped them up within months of taking office.
In conclusion, we will not oppose this Bill as before the general election we also committed to capping national insurance contributions. However, it is not an effective use of precious parliamentary time and resources, and I do hope that the Minister will bear that in mind for the future.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
If the European Union Bill was undersubscribed, this is even more so. Is it such an important Bill, or will we discover that it is not really necessary at all?
The Bill is designed to prevent any increase in the current rates of class 1, class 1A and class 1B national insurance contributions paid by employees and employers for the duration of this Parliament. The Minister said that it would also provide that each of the annual upper earnings limits could not exceed the higher rate threshold—the sum of the personal allowance and the income tax basic rate limit.
As I said on Second Reading—I am happy to put it on the record again today—there is absolutely nothing wrong with any Government providing certainty in the tax code for the duration of their term in office, but let us be clear that we do not need legislation to do that. Legislation is simply a gimmick.
I also said on Second Reading that these proposals should not have come as a surprise because, as the Minister has just said, they were included in the Conservative election manifesto. In many ways, this small three clause Bill is utterly pointless. The real failing with it is that it represents a wasted opportunity.
In July, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury commissioned the Office for Tax Simplification to review the interplay between income tax and NICs. He said:
“I would like the Office of Tax Simplification to look at what the impacts, costs and benefits of closer alignment would be and to set out what the necessary steps would be to achieve closer alignment.”
But this Bill does nothing to help deliver the perceived benefits of closer alignment, and does not offer any real progress towards tax simplification overall.
John Whiting, tax director of the OTS, gave evidence to the Committee. He argued that, although the maintenance of rate levels represented a simplification of the system as it removed some uncertainty, it could represent a complication of the tax system overall if the Government were to make changes to other taxes to compensate for the tax lock. The measure also introduces an inherent inflexibility.
Jonathan Portes of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has been quoted before, in particular his comment that the pledge not to increase the main taxes
“considerably reduces our flexibility if things turn out different from expected. This is why I have absolutely no doubt that Treasury and Bank of England officials were tearing their hair out at this.”
Yet I am not aware—and I have asked the question before—of what discussions, if any, the Minister or the Chancellor have had with the central bank about these proposals.
I also explained on Second Reading the complexity of the NICs regime. I will not go through that all again, but there is a complex series of employee, employer and self- employed NICs. There are class 1, class 2, and class 4 profit-related contributions, with primary and secondary thresholds, small profits thresholds and lower and upper profits limits. In all of those, the limits and thresholds are different and the rates paid above and below the various thresholds are different. Surely this Bill should have been the opportunity to iron out those inconsistencies in the NICs system. It is yet another wasted opportunity to make the whole system more straightforward.
I also said on Second Reading that individuals may be entitled to make voluntary class 3 contributions to avoid or fill gaps in their national insurance record to ensure that they qualify for basic retirement pension and bereavement benefits. But as yet there appears to be no answer to the question of whether more or fewer people will make additional voluntary contributions as a result of this so-called tax lock.
It is also the case—and this point was alluded to by the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey)—that most NICs receipts are paid into the national insurance fund, which is separate from all of the other revenue raised by taxation. The fund is used exclusively to pay for contributory benefits. If the revenue yield from NICs does not rise in the heroic way planned, can we expect to see cuts directed at the contributory benefits for which people have already paid? That is an important question given that the Minister was quizzed in Committee on the impact of the freeze on the national insurance fund.
It is doubly important given that the Centre for Policy Studies reported in 2014 that the surplus in the national insurance fund had fallen from £53 billion in 2009 to £29.1 billion in 2013. It warned that, as a result of persistent negative real earnings growth, fund exhaustion could transpire as early as 2016. That was echoed by the Treasury’s own figures, which have shown that the fund was able to cover 71% of liabilities in 2009 but that that fell to 25% in 2014. Perhaps the Minister can confirm whether, as is being speculated, the fund might fall below 16.7% of its liabilities this year, which is the minimum recommended by the Government Actuary’s Department. The measure might actually be storing up problems for the future and we still do not know for certain what behavioural change, if any, might be likely following these measures. We have also not yet heard any confirmation of the consequences for spending and other taxes that flow from this measure.
We know the level of discretionary consolidation tax rises and cuts being planned by the Minister and how they are meant to be paid for, but the entire spending plan is predicated on NICs bringing in £115 billion this year and £126 billion next year, rising to £152 billion in 2020-21. That is a forecast rise in revenue yield of 9.6%, 4.3% and 4.7% the year after that, so, even at this late stage, there is one question that the Minister must answer. Given the arbitrary freeze on NICs and other taxes, should the forecast yield be significantly less than expected, will other taxes rise, and if so, which ones, or will the Chancellor take the axe to yet further spending, perhaps pensions? Or will borrowing rise and will the deficit reduction forecast simply be abandoned, delivering the same failure as we saw in the previous Parliament?
We will not oppose the Bill, even though it is rather pointless, but finally, and most importantly, I said a moment ago that the majority of NICs receipts are paid into the national insurance fund, which is used exclusively to pay for contributory benefits, so may we have a cast-iron guarantee that this Bill is not the start of an attack on the contributory principle that applies to NICs in the UK?
John Redwood
(Wokingham) (Con): I welcomed the manifesto pledge and am very pleased that we know that for five years there will be no increases in the major tax rates. I listened carefully to the Labour response, and one of the worries expressed was what would happen if there were a cyclical downturn or if the economy hit a bad time because of a world recession or something similar. As I am sure the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) knows, it is common policy between the major parties in this House that if that happens we will normally borrow more. If revenues fall because people have lost their jobs and are not earning so much, and if costs have gone up because more people are out of work, which we do not foresee and do not wish, it is quite sensible to borrow a bit more to help the economy through the difficulties. Fortunately, the official and external forecasts say that we can look forward to several years of continuing progress and growth, as we have had since 2009, so, we trust, the problem will not arise. I think that that answers her point.
Stewart Hosie
The right hon. Gentleman would be right in normal circumstances, but we now have the fiscal charter. Given that it has a rolling four-quarter on four-quarter comparison, if forecasts begin to fall the automatic stabilisers might not necessarily kick in in the way that he has described, which was traditionally the case.
John Redwood
I think that we would make a judgment at the time, but fortunately we do not have to make that judgment now. If we should get into that awful position, I am sure that there will be a lot of debate in this House. The hon. Gentleman and I might even share the same view, or we might have a difference of view. We would have to judge it on the figures and on the merits of the case.
On this side of the House, we regard having more people in jobs as a very good thing and want to promote better pay, particularly for those whose pay is very low and needs topping up with benefits. I buy into the Government’s vision that we want more people in work and more people in better-paid work, with less benefit top-up needing to be paid. They should be better off as a result of these changes.
In the course of proceedings this afternoon on this Bill and on the European Union (Approvals) Bill, we have been told that not enough time has been allocated to debate tax credits. I recall that we have had three major debates on that subject quite recently, and three votes, and the House has come to the same view on each occasion. This is another such opportunity. I note that Opposition Members have not come to the Chamber, but it seems to me to fall quite within the remit of the Bill, which is about how to tax work and what people keep as a result of work, to discuss tax credits as another part of the equation. I see the Bill as an important part of the Government’s strategy of making work pay.
We regard work as a good thing, as I trust all parties do, and we do not really want to be taxing good things. Unfortunately, however, we live in a world where we need a lot of revenue, so we end up taxing good things as well as bad things. However, where we have the chance to shift the balance, surely it makes sense to tax the good things less, such as work and earnings, so that people can have more opportunity of finding a job and of keeping more from a better-paid job. We can then find less desirable things that we are more prepared to tax, as well as running sensible value-for-money government so that the overall demands are not too great.
The danger, if one went down the route of opposing the Bill, is that it might become all too easy to put an extra 1% or 2% on national insurance. One might say that people would not notice it, but it would have two immediate adverse effects. First, there would be fewer jobs as it is a direct tax on jobs and, secondly, employees would be worse off because of the effect on their contribution and we would have to find more money under our scheme for tax credits or other top-ups.
In conclusion, it is excellent that my party intends to keep its clear promises to keep these tax rates down, which I fully supported and campaigned on. We must see it as part of the wider debate, and today is another opportunity to debate national insurance in the context of tax credits. If we keep taxes down or reduce them more, there is more scope to deal with the tax credit problem.
Mr Gauke
With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to respond to the points raised by right hon. and hon. Members in this short debate. Before I do so, may I reiterate the main purpose of the Bill? It introduces the final aspect of the five-year tax lock, which is further proof of the Government’s commitment to provide certainty on tax rates for the duration of this Parliament and the commitment to low levels of taxation made in the Conservative manifesto for the general election in May, which resulted in a Conservative majority in that election. The commitment was that the rates of income tax, VAT and NICs would not increase. The Finance Bill introduced legislation to deliver that commitment for income tax and VAT, whereas this Bill delivers on the commitment for NICs. The benefits are that it provides certainty for employers and employees that for the duration of the Parliament NICs will not rise and the upper earnings limit will not exceed the higher rate threshold for income tax.
We have heard the argument that it is not necessary to legislate in this regard, but I remind the House that it was a Conservative manifesto commitment to legislate and we are fulfilling that commitment. Concerns were also raised that the measure might restrict flexibility for future Governments, and the comment made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) about the circumstances that might apply in such cases was very good. I do not think that anybody would advocate in the teeth of a recession that we should put these rates up. Fiscal credibility is very important, of course, and our determination in that regard will be demonstrated at the spending review on 25 November. It is important that we bring borrowing down, but we do not believe we should do that by putting up national insurance contribution rates, which is what the Bill prevents us from doing.
Future funding for contributory benefits, should NIC receipts prove insufficient, is a matter for the Chancellor and a decision to be made at the relevant fiscal event based on the latest projections available at the time and taking into account the NIC rate ceilings that we are introducing. The Government Actuary recommends a working balance of one sixth of benefit expenditure for the national insurance fund and there is provision to top up the national insurance fund from the Consolidated Fund to maintain the balance at that level. For the 2015-16 tax year a top-up of £9.6 billion has been provided for in legislation.
Let me point out, though, first, that this Government are committed to meeting our commitments in terms of the state pension and spending on the NHS. Secondly, the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) raises concerns that the projections might not be accurate. These projections in relation to national insurance contribution rates are made by the Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent body. I can understand why the hon. Gentleman might have concerns in general about projections for tax revenues, given that he fought a referendum not that long ago assuming that the tax revenues from North sea oil would be very much more substantial than they have turned out to be. In those circumstances, I can understand his sensitivity to the fact that receipts might not be what had been anticipated. However, this is based upon an independent assessment and, in the round, is nothing like the fiscal risk that the Scottish National party was offering the Scottish people just over a year ago.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
Has the Treasury Minister forgotten that the North sea oil revenues go to HM Treasury and that the recent fall in income from the North sea proves the point to the Treasury that its forecasts can be wrong?
Mr Gauke
The proposition of the independence movement was much more optimistic about receipts than the OBR at the time of the referendum. Most important of all, the United Kingdom is more easily able to absorb a volatile oil price than an independent Scotland would be—a point that I would have thought anyone looking at this fairly had to accept.
Stewart Hosie
I will not be tempted by the Minister, however generally he put it, other than to say that he is wrong and that the UK Government’s barrel price for gas was higher than that used in Scotland. That is not the point. I completely understand the technical answer that the Minister has just given, but will he please answer the specific question: does this pose a threat to the contributory principle which applies to many of the benefits that people in the UK receive?
Mr Gauke
Let us be clear that the OBR’s projections for oil prices—those are the ones that the Government use—were much, much more cautious than those of the independence movement. The black hole that would be the finances of an independent Scotland, had the SNP succeeded in obtaining independence, would have been very considerable, and it is about time that those who campaigned for independence were straightforward with the British people and the Scottish people about what has happened.
The Bill makes no change to the structure of national insurance contributions that would undermine the contributory principle. I am happy to make that explicit to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that is helpful to the House, and I hope the House will support the Bill before us.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill (Money)
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
15:58 - The House divided: - Ayes: 281 / Noes: 227 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences (George Freeman)
I beg to move,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.
The House debated the Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill on Friday 16 October, when it received its Second Reading. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) for the huge amount of work that he put in to get the Bill to a point where it can enjoy majority support in this House and the other place, and for his open approach to dealing with all the stakeholders with an interest in it.
I want to reiterate what I said on Second Reading. Although the Government support the intention behind the Bill to promote access to medical innovation—an intention which sits four-square within my ministerial responsibilities—the mechanisms of any Bill need to be considered on their merits. We are neither supporting nor opposing this Bill, but working with those with an interest in it and the sponsors to do what we can to help to get it to a place where it could contribute to the landscape for medical innovation that we are putting in place.
This money resolution is not a signal of Government support or otherwise for the Bill; it is merely a convention of the House once a Bill has received its Second Reading. We have brought forward this resolution to allow the Bill to progress to Committee stage, reflecting that convention, and the will of the House for further debate.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Government to be neutral on a Bill if the payroll vote is whipped for that vote?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
That is a matter for the Government, rather than for the Chair.
George Freeman
The debate on Second Reading raised a large number of issues, which clearly need to be addressed and I have no doubt will be addressed in Committee. We cannot second-guess where that Committee will get to or the shape of any Bill that might subsequently return to the Floor of the House.
The costs associated with this Bill, were it to be implemented in its current shape, arise from the establishment and maintenance of a database by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. Early discussions on costing with the HSCIC, which is leading on the construction of a number of databases and data streams crucial to the operation of the NHS, have provided an indicative costing of between £5 million and £15 million for developing the database of innovative medicines that the Bill anticipates.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
My hon. Friend has implied broad Government support for the Bill. Can he provide any evidence to suggest that litigation is preventing doctors from innovating in medical science and practice generally? That is the premise on which the Bill is based.
George Freeman
My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is the premise on which the Bill introduced by Lord Saatchi in the other place earlier in the year in the previous Parliament was predicated. My hon. Friend is right that it is a controversial proposition that fear of litigation for medical negligence is putting clinicians off innovating. The evidence that the Government received through the consultation was that some clinicians do feel that that is a problem, but very few saw it as the principal problem or the principal obstacle. A number of clinicians made the point that several factors have acted in recent decades to slow down the rate of innovative prescribing and other procedures in surgery and elsewhere, not least increasing central control of procurement from NHS England, which puts in place very tight procurement guidelines, as well as a general sense of an increasingly litigious society, which is just one of a number of factors cited in an extensive range of barriers to innovation.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Does the Minister not recognise the concern of the Association of Medical Research Charities and many within the profession about what the Bill opens up? The position when I started 30-odd years ago was that doctors could do what they liked. We have spent decades protecting people, slimming down the ethics paperwork to run trials, and I do not see that the Bill is necessary. I think it is dangerous. The problem is that people think it is about access to new drugs. It is not. Any drug that is licensed we can prescribe. This says that doctors can try what they like. That is quite scary.
George Freeman
The hon. Lady makes a series of interesting points. Her criticisms would perhaps apply more to the Bill introduced by Lord Saatchi in the other House. Let me confirm that this Bill has nothing at all to do with clinical research. It is to do with clarifying the freedoms that she is right to say that clinicians enjoy today. Clinicians are free to prescribe any treatment for their patients that they feel is appropriate on the basis of the clinical evidence.
The specific problem that the Government recognise, whether or not this Bill is the appropriate mechanism to deal with it, is that in order for clinicians to feel confident in making an innovative prescription or adopting an innovative procedure, the biggest barrier is the lack of information on what innovative procedures are out there already and being used by other clinicians. It was with that in mind that the registry was originally proposed in the Bill introduced by Lord Saatchi. It was originally intended as a registry of innovative practices that clinicians adopted under the procedures in the Bill, which merely clarify the existing protections already afforded by medical negligence law. It was felt that that registry would be a helpful innovation in itself.
The Government’s view is that, as we build an infrastructure for the provision of information to clinicians to support off-label use of medicines and access to the latest information on innovative treatments, that registry could provide a much more interesting function of providing to clinicians, at the click of a mouse, an up-to-date registry of innovative medicines that are available and off-label and other treatments that other clinicians are already using. I want to stress that this Bill, which has a very different structure from the original Bill introduced by Lord Saatchi, has nothing to do with research at all. It is purely to do with supporting innovative prescribing by clinicians by providing them with information on innovations that they might consider.
Dr Whitford
Does not this undermine our existing structures of clinical research? Those protect the patient through ethics and research being reviewed, whereas this allows a couple of doctors to say, “We’re going to give you liquorice for your cancer”, and that can get put on to a database. Many in the profession are anxious about this.
George Freeman
I want to make two things absolutely clear. First, this Bill, in law, would have no impact at all on clinical research. We in the Department have been very clear about that. If it in any way changed the basis on which clinical research is regulated, it would be a very serious matter, because we lead the world in terms of our ethical and regulatory controls on research, and it is vital that we do not affect that.
Secondly, it would be a matter of very serious concern if this Bill were to undermine patient or public trust and confidence in our NHS, our research medicine and our clinical trials infrastructure. I flagged up on Second Reading the fact that I do have some concerns. Some of those relate to the way in which this debate is conducted, although I am not making any comment about the hon. Lady’s intervention. It is very important that we explain to people what this Bill does and does not do. If we mislead them, it is not surprising that we will get a lot of unnecessary fear. It is very important that we clarify that this has nothing to do with clinical research.
Dr Wollaston
Does the Minister accept, however, that the Association of Medical Research Charities, the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, the British Medical Association, and an A to Z of other organisations involved with medical research are very clear that this does undermine participation in medical research? He should listen to those concerns and acknowledge that they are genuine.
George Freeman
Yes, indeed; I have listened. I acknowledged those concerns on Second Reading and said I was concerned about them. This is merely a debate about the Bill—there is no change in the law—and it is only this debate that is upsetting people at the moment. It is therefore very important that we carry it out in a way that makes it clear to them what this Bill does and does not achieve.
I am concerned that the passage of the Bill, the conduct of the debate, and any legislation that may survive the process of parliamentary scrutiny do not in any way undermine public or patient trust and confidence in clinical research or mainstream medicine. Were it to do so, I would be very concerned and the Government would be unable to support it. I have made it very clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry that that is the No. 1 consideration, and as this is his private Member’s Bill, it is his task to get it to a point at which the Government would feel able to support it. Public trust and confidence in our NHS and in our clinical research infrastructure is crucial.
Mr Baron
May I add to the voice of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) and suggest that not just the bodies she mentioned but many of the cancer bodies, charities and communities are very concerned about this Bill? Let me bring the Minister back to the issue of evidence. The pursuit of justice starts with evidence, and there is no evidence that litigation is deterring doctors from innovating. This Bill, in many respects, addresses a non-existent problem. If it is not necessary to legislate, it is necessary not to legislate.
George Freeman
As my hon. Friend knows, I have a lot of respect for his logic and his position, so let me be very clear again. As I tried to explain, I accept that if one were setting out a list of the biggest barriers to the uptake of innovation, fear of negligence would not be No. 1 on the list. However, it is equally true, as has been put to us during the consultation on this Bill, that it is a consideration. It is very important that the mechanism is proportionate to that obstacle. I think that that is the point he is really making, and I could not agree more. I signalled on Second Reading, and signal again now, that for the Government the most interesting part of this Bill is about access to information on innovative medicines and treatments for clinicians, who already have the freedom to innovate.
The second part of the Bill, as we understand it—we have taken substantial legal advice—does not in any way change the law on medical negligence; we would struggle if it did. Rather, it sets out a clear pathway for doctors seeking to enjoy the freedoms that are already in law to make it very clear what the procedure would be. People might say that these are fairly marginal improvements and ask whether they really merit the time of the House, but it is not for me to judge what is or is not an appropriate use of Parliament’s time. However, I do understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry is trying to tackle, through a small measure, something that we all have an interest in, which is increasing access to innovative medicine.
The focus on provision of information that is reflected in the Bill’s new title and structure has the potential for an interesting mechanism. That is why we have looked at what the costs might be of putting such a database together. The figure that I have given is based on the understanding that further significant scoping work would be required were the Bill to become law, including consideration of the modification of existing coding systems to capture an innovation in medical notes, the data flow and the searching capability before the information centre—the HSCIC—was able to provide a robustly costed solution. Until proposed options and variables undergo additional policy refinement, including the development of a proper specification, it is not possible to offer a further estimate of supporting costs. The affordability of any specific proposal and future investment in technology more generally will also need to be considered in the light of the forthcoming spending review settlement, and the work of the National Information Board, which is putting in place a broader framework for the flow of information in the NHS.
Medical practitioners are already required to comply with the General Medical Council and BMA guidance on record keeping, and the recording of an innovation for front-line staff is therefore based on existing practice. Thus no additional costs are foreseen for medical practitioners or their own organisation. Officials in the Department of Health are currently drafting an impact assessment to examine the estimated impact of the Bill and to understand better the likely costs and benefits of the proposals.
The database proposed by the Bill—should it survive parliamentary scrutiny—may ultimately improve the flow of information to clinicians on the range of innovative treatments that are already available. Those treatments might include off-label uses of medicines, about which the House is interested in connection with another Bill. In our view, the biggest barrier to the flow of information through the system is the lack of incentives or proper reward for innovation. That is to do with how we reward patterns of activity, rather than the promotion of health and healthcare. The lack of availability of data and information is one of the biggest barriers. Subject to whatever scrutiny and changes the Bill may undergo in Committee, we think that there is a potential prize worth winning, but I appreciate that the Committee will need to go through the Bill in some detail.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I will not detain the House for long, as my hon. Friend the shadow Health Secretary set out in detail our concerns about the Bill on Second Reading. I will say in summary that the Opposition believe the Bill to be at best unnecessary, and at worst a danger to patients.
The Bill is strongly opposed by a number of medical royal colleges, including the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. There is strong opposition from several medical research charities, including Cancer Research UK, Alzheimer’s Research UK and the British Heart Foundation. There is also strong opposition from bodies such as the Wellcome Trust, the Patients Association and Action against Medical Accidents.
Given the range and depth of concern, I do not understand how the Minister can be so comfortable in supporting the Bill, even though he contends that he is not supporting it. I ask him to reconsider the Government’s position. We will see very shortly whether the point made by the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) is correct, and whether the Government are as neutral on the Bill as they state.
George Freeman
The hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the procedures of the House, but I just want to confirm that once the House has given a private Member’s Bill a Second Reading, the convention is that the Government, even when they robustly oppose it, always table a money resolution so that the Committee need not concern itself with that matter. Doing so is not a signal of Government support; it is absolutely in line with the convention of the House with all private Members’ Bills, whether we oppose or support them.
Justin Madders
I am grateful to the Minister for his clarification. As I say, we shall see very shortly whether that is the case.
I understand that the part of the Bill to which the money resolution primarily relates will give the Secretary of State the power to set up a database. As the shadow Secretary of State set out on Second Reading, we consider that unnecessary because, under section 254 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the Secretary of State and NHS England have the power to direct the Health and Social Care Information Centre to establish and operate a system for the collection or analysis of information. I note that, in a recent letter to the shadow Health Secretary, the Minister said:
“Under section 254 of the Health and Social Care Act the Secretary of State has the power to direct the Health and Social Care Information Centre to establish and operate a system for the collection or analysis of information of a description specified in the direction.”
I understand that the Minister’s argument is that he thinks it is appropriate to give the Secretary of State an express power, but I am not convinced by that and neither are many in the medical profession, including the Royal College of Surgeons.
We believe that the Bill attempts to address a problem, namely the fear of litigation, that simply does not exist and for which the profession has provided no evidence. There is a risk that it will undermine the methodical and reasoned approach to research that already exists. In the context of the £30 billion challenge that the NHS faces and the financial problems that are taxing us all, we note that the Bill may prove to be a step in the wrong direction. We will vote against the money resolution for the Bill, and we will no doubt see what the Government make of it when they have considered their research on the costs.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
I thank the Government for introducing, as is the convention of this place, the money resolution on my private Member’s Bill.
Several colleagues have expressed their concerns about the Bill, as the Opposition spokesman has just done. I must say to them, and to the Association of Medical Research Charities and other bodies, that many of the briefings seem to relate to the previous iteration of the Saatchi Bill that went through three Readings in the other place and have not been changed for this Bill, even though this Bill is massively different from that brought forward by Lord Saatchi in the House of Lords.
The Bill has two elements. It proposes that a database of innovation be established for only registered medical practitioners to use when they innovate or depart from standard medical practice. As we have already heard, doctors and surgeons say that they regularly innovate.
Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)
I would never question my hon. Friend’s intentions in this area, but the AMRC’s summary states:
“we do not see the need for this legislation and do not believe the Bill will achieve its aim of encouraging medical innovation.”
It goes on to say that
“this Bill…as it stands is unnecessary and may adversely impact on patients and medical research”.
That view is supported, among others, by Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. Does that not give him pause for thought before he proceeds with the Bill?
Chris Heaton-Harris
Yes, it does. I have talked to those organisations constantly from the conception of the idea of stealing these two ideas from the Saatchi Bill, and I will continue to talk to every organisation that wishes to talk to me about the Bill. If that was a bid to be on the Bill Committee to offer an alternative view and help me pick through the details of the legislation to ensure that it does what I intend it to do, I welcome my hon. Friend’s approach because a couple of people who would have added great value to the process and the Bill are not able to sit on the Committee.
I gave the example on Second Reading of a surgeon who had innovated and saved the life of his patient, but who was unable quickly to communicate that to his peers as there was no comprehensive means of doing so. The database has been called for by many of the medical colleges, as is acknowledged in the briefings that my hon. Friend will have read. The database is important in spreading the best innovations, because it will include not just the successes of any innovation, but its failures. That will allow best practice to spread quickly and for other registered medical practitioners to learn from any innovation. It will not be available for patients to access and will be held by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, as we have just heard, which is where the money resolution directs the money towards.
The database will not cover research and will not hamper recruitment to clinical trials. Nothing in the Bill will allow doctors to bypass any process or requirement that has been set by their trust in relation to undertaking innovative treatments in the NHS, including the requirement to ensure that commissioners will fund any treatment that is not provided by the NHS. As we all know, individual innovation is incredibly important, but it is not a suitable substitute for medical research, which usually tests the efficacy of treatments in a systematic way. I hope that successful innovations will lead to systematic research projects as the evidence builds around a particular specialty and that they will thereby encourage more clinical trials.
The second part of the Bill, which I fully acknowledge is much more controversial, will give registered medical practitioners a supplementary method of demonstrating that they have acted responsibly while innovating. It closely mirrors the existing legal test, the Bolam test, that is used when clinical negligence proceedings reach the court stage. It brings the test forward and enables doctors to use it to demonstrate that they have acted responsibly before they enter the courtroom. It does not change the common law.
Mr Baron
I fully respect the good intentions behind the Bill and those of my hon. Friend. I suggest to him that his last point perhaps misses the more fundamental point that it is the fear of litigation that may deter doctors and medical professionals generally from innovating, and thereby put patients at risk. Does he accept that that is at least a valid concern?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I am not convinced that that is the case because doctors and registered medical practitioners innovate daily across the national health service. Litigation might be a consideration in the back of their minds, but they are all responsible doctors doing the best for their patients. I do not quite see my hon. Friend’s point.
Doctors have to demonstrate that they have acted responsibly and that remains the case under my Bill. If they have not acted responsibly, they will be subject, as they are now, to the full force of medical negligence law and bodies such as the General Medical Council.
I would argue that my Bill provides extra safeguards to protect patients from medics who peddle treatments that are dangerous or misguided. First, any doctor must act responsibly and in the best interests of his or her patients. They must also be able to demonstrate that they have done so—as they do now—if it gets to a court of law. Secondly, when an innovation is listed on the database, its successes and failures have to be listed. If a rogue doctor’s peers are able quickly to see the exact results of their innovation, would that doctor not be almost exposing themselves and their quackery to their peers?
My Bill has massively evolved from Lord Saatchi’s Medical Innovation Bill from which many of the criticisms levelled against it come. I have been working with the Department of Health, and others, to ensure that the Bill achieves its central aim, and I know that I have a long road ahead should the Bill get through Committee and its other stages. I fully intend to work with everybody who wishes to make suggestions and help constructively so that we can get to a point where we have a database of innovation that can help spread best practice across our NHS.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
There are many ways for a surgeon to share their experience if they have carried out an operation in the heat of the moment to save someone’s life. The BMJ publishes things on a weekly basis and can share interesting cases. The danger of the Bill is that the database is being used as a fig leaf to make it sound like access to innovative treatments. The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) said that a doctor would have to prove that something was safe, but the first person prescribing liquorice for cancer has no method of proving that it is safe. That is the basis of research.
Phase 1 trials involve a small group of patients who fully consent to undergo treatment and know what they are taking on, based on pre-clinical research. Phase 2 is larger, and phase 3 involves multiple hospitals. We have that process to avoid a couple of doctors in a canteen saying, “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll back you if you back me”, and patients being given something dangerous. The Bill would not, of itself, undermine research in some way, but if patients and the public feel that they are guinea pigs for any old treatment that someone wants to have a bash at, that will undermine research.
It has taken decades to get to our current level of safety, checks and balances. That has been streamlined, and single ethical permissions are carried out once for the whole country, and then recognised in all health boards and areas. That has made things a lot easier, but it is crucial that patients who sign up to a treatment know that there has been a degree of rigour before they are given that drug.
If someone is bleeding to death in the middle of the night, of course a surgeon can innovate because every operation is slightly different, but we are talking about access to medical treatment that will predominantly involve drugs that have not had sufficient pre-clinical work. That is of concern to research charities and the royal colleges—I am a member of the Royal College of Surgeons—because of patient safety. The absolute concern is not even the secondary impact on research; it is the impact on patient safety and people finding that they are being given something totally unproven.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The hon. Lady is making a good point, and I agree with everything she says. As a lawyer rather than a doctor, I think the problem with the Bill is that—unintentionally, I am sure—it also undermines carefully constructed jurisprudence on clinical negligence, and it is dangerous for that reason.
Dr Whitford
Of course the Bill is well intentioned, and its title will attract support from people who think that it means getting access to drugs to which we do not currently have access. It is not that any doctor can prescribe anything—we cannot. We can prescribe drugs that are licensed and recognised, and have a basic safety profile. In Westminster Hall we often debate access to expensive, innovative, brand-new treatments, but that is not about our right as a doctor to prescribe them; it is about who will pay for them because some of those drugs are expensive. As the Minister has said, that would still be an issue. In what sense would a commissioning group have evidence to allow a doctor to prescribe a drug that has absolutely no basis, but that would have to be funded?
The Bill is basically a bit of a mess. What problem is it trying to answer? People think it means that they will get earlier access to new drugs, but drugs should be taken forward on the correct path to protect patients and doctors. Doctors need to know that what we are doing is right, and not some random thing that has been on a database after somebody tried something once and it seemed to work. We know that there are placebo and random effects.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
I support everything the hon. Lady has just said. I was a research nurse in cancer care for more than 10 years. We observed good clinical practice standards, and the standards of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the FDA, because mistakes happened. Those safeguards are in place for a reason. The No. 1 reason is to protect the patient.
Dr Whitford
I did my MD thesis in the late ’80s on the use of monoclonals in breast cancer, which was then totally blue-sky thinking. What became Herceptin was found at that time. I remember speaking at a conference in America where people presented their research. At that time, they thought they had to put a toxin on the back of an antibody to make it work. They were using ricin, which was used in the Bulgarian umbrella murder, and—surprise, surprise—almost all their patients died. They got around that in America by going to Mexico and to prisons. It is not the case that everything a doctor thinks might work will be good for patients. We have developed a safe system over decades and we give it away at our peril.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I rise to oppose the money resolution because this is bad legislation. It is unnecessary and could undermine essential protections for our patients. That is why an A to Z of medical royal colleges and research charities oppose the Bill, as does Action against Medical Accidents, the British Medical Association and so on—the list goes on. This is the time at which the House must bring the legislation to an end.
I am concerned at the selective misquoting of a number of bodies. Many of the medical royal colleges have objected to being selectively misquoted during debates on the Bill. I will quote from just one of the royal colleges; the president of the Royal College of Physicians, Jane Dacre, would like to put the college’s views on the record. She says:
“The RCP does not support the progression of the Access to Medical Treatments Bill through Parliament. The primary objective of the Bill to create a parallel innovation process may result in unforeseen consequences that negatively impact on patient safety. The Bill may further undermine and overcomplicate the established existing process for conducting innovation, damaging the UK’s innovation process. As the RCP has previously stated prior to previous readings of the Access to Medical Treatment Bill and the Medical Innovation Bill it is unclear how the legislation will improve upon the existing innovation process or address the real barriers to conducting innovation. The RCP does not support the Bill’s progress through Parliament.”
We should also be clear that the Minister does not need the legislation in order to introduce the processes that all hon. Members would support to facilitate communication between research bodies about genuine innovations. We need to simplify the processes by which patients understand which research trials are out there from which they could benefit. When I started in medicine 24 years ago, many of the children I treated for leukaemia were dying. Children today with the same conditions survive not as a result of a series of unconnected, anecdotal, have-a-go treatments, but because of the medical research that built the foundation for the treatments from which they now benefit.
Our patients and our constituents want to contribute to research that benefits future generations, but they cannot do so through an unconnected database of anecdotal treatments. A series of anecdotes does not constitute evidence. We need to be careful of that. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). He has good intentions, but I simply do not agree with the Bill.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I, too, have concerns about the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). I agree in principle about the need for quick, easy and affordable access to effective treatments for patients, and new developments and initiatives that improve access to innovative treatments should be encouraged so long as they do not have a negative impact on patient safety. The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) made that point, as did other Members.
Questions and concerns have been raised by a number of prominent UK charities—the British Heart Foundation, Prostate Cancer UK and Alzheimer’s Research UK, to name but a few. We must be careful not to confuse intention with outcome. The main concern is the potential risk to medical research, and the Association of Medical Research Charities, which represents a large number of prominent and well-respected medical charities, has expressed concern that
“the bill may inadvertently act to discourage patients from participating in robust research studies”.
That is important, and we must be clear that we are concerned about introducing legislation that has perhaps not been fully thought out.
Further concerns include the vagueness of certain definitions in the Bill. For example, what exactly can be described as “accepted medical treatments”? Well-respected UK charities in the sector have expressed concern about the vagueness of that definition, and it is just one of many concerns.
The Bill is loose and it is not definitive. It is also unclear. With great respect to the hon. Member for Daventry, we need to go back to the drawing board with this one. In addition to concerns about unintended consequences, there is the question of whether the Bill is really necessary. I reiterate my support for innovation as a principle—it should be encouraged and welcomed—but I want the House to note the comments that many hon. Members have made today and be mindful of the concerns that have been raised, because we do not want the Bill, however well intended, to have unintended negative consequences.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I, too, wholly support the purpose of the Bill and the good intentions behind it, but I am opposed to the Bill itself. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party group on cancer.
Parliamentary scrutiny demands evidence. The Bill is based on the false premise that doctors are somehow deterred from innovating because of a fear of being sued for negligence. I am not aware of any evidence to support that. Doctors can and do innovate without the proposed law. The innovative response to the Ebola crisis was one example of that. Lord Woolf, a leading supporter of the Bill in the other place, wrote in The Daily Telegraph in April 2014:
“What I do know about, from sitting as a judge, are the cases where doctors are sued for negligence because they have innovated in the treatment they offer, rather than following generally accepted medical standards.”
A member of the public then questioned him and asked him to produce evidence of such cases, to which he replied:
“I am not prepared to be cross-examined further”.
Lord Woolf did not cite a single case to support his position. Surely the pursuit of justice starts with evidence. With respect, that sort of judicial paternalism has no place in the modern world. Nowadays, the public expect and deserve better. I am informed by the joint editors of the leading text “Clinical Negligence” that they are not aware of any such cases. Doctors are sued for poor practice, not for innovative practice.
The supporters of the Bill need to provide evidence that doctors are being sued for innovative practice. They need to identify the cases in which that is happening. There cannot be any informed debate until they provide that information. So far, they have not produced any shred of evidence to support their position. The Bill addresses a non-existent problem. If it is not necessary to legislate, then it is necessary not to legislate. Moreover, there is a duty not to pass bad law. This Bill, like the Medical Innovation Bill before it, proposes law that is not only unnecessary but would turn out to be bad.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I will be brief. The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) may be beginning to think that he had a lucky Friday when he got the Bill a Second Reading. When one looks at it in detail, it has a number of flaws.
Action against Medical Accidents, a reputable organisation that I have worked closely with, has stated:
“We believe that the proposed changes would have serious unintended consequences such as lowering protection for patients and patient safety”—
a point a number of Members have dealt with—
“causing confusion about the law which could hamper rather than help medical innovation; and leaving patients who have been harmed as a result of what currently would be deemed negligent treatment with no redress.”
It is the last of those points that concerns me. Many leading QCs in the field of medical negligence have also raised concerns about it. If people have been injured by negligent medical treatment, they must have redress. That redress was substantially withdrawn in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. It is only right that we are clear that we want to preserve it, not only for the individuals involved but because standards of medical practice are enhanced and improved if they are attacked on the rare occasions when they fall below standard. For those reasons, I oppose the money resolution.
George Freeman
It is not for me to defend this private Member’s Bill, promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), but I want to deal with two or three points that have been raised in connection with the Government’s view of clinical research and patient safety, both of which are very important.
The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) made an impassioned plea that patient safety not be undermined. I reiterate that the Bill will in no way have any impact on our clinical research approvals and ethical regulatory infrastructure, which are world-class and a much prized jewel in our crown. The Bill merely—by saying merely, I do not mean to undermine its potential impact—deals with freedoms to prescribe innovatively, which already exist and are enjoyed by clinicians. It is important that everyone understands that doctors are already free to prescribe medicines. They have sovereignty in prescribing treatment to their patients where they believe there is good clinical evidence.
The hon. Lady made a point about the importance of evidence. The part of the Bill that the Government think is of particular interest is the mechanism for accelerating the giving of evidence to clinicians on currently available innovations—both innovative medicines and the off-label innovative use of existing medicines. It is worth bearing in mind the House’s interest in accelerating off-label use through the provision of information. Patient safety and patient protection are absolutely key, and we will do nothing, and allow nothing, that undermines that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) raised a range of concerns. They are all legitimate, but I think the place to address them is in Committee. I reiterate that nothing in the Bill will interfere in any way with UK clinical research infrastructure.
In response to the point that the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) made about whether the Government support the Bill, let me be very clear: the Government neither oppose nor support the Bill. We are prepared to work with the Bill’s sponsors to get it to a place where it supports the environment that we want to see.
On testing the will of the House, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government always support money resolutions, even on Bills to which they are blatantly opposed. That is the convention, so he will be testing and proving nothing other than that we will stick to the convention of always supporting the money resolution to a Bill.
Question put.
Business without Debate
Military Personnel and Veterans (Children and Young Carers)
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Martin John Docherty (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I am glad to have secured this Adjournment debate on the need to support the children, young people and young carers of military personnel and veterans. In the week leading up to Remembrance Sunday, I am glad that so many Members—at least on the SNP Benches—have chosen to stay for the debate.
Given that we are approaching Remembrance Sunday, I should not need to remind the House that communities and politicians across these islands will seek to commemorate the fallen. During a recent Adjournment debate on mental health and armed forces veterans, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), it became clear to me and to those watching that there is a glaring omission in this House’s public policy with regard to military personnel, veterans and those who suffer as a result of a familial connection with the armed forces. I am grateful to the Minister for Community and Social Care for taking an intervention from me during that debate, but I am sure that neither he nor the Ministry of Defence would have thought it would lead to this Adjournment debate on the support that should be offered to the children, young people and young carers of the families of military personnel and veterans. I hope that the House will forgive me for reiterating the title of the debate. It is critical, given some of the glaring omissions in public policy that we are currently seeing.
Academics are rightly continuing to explore the impact, effect and outcome of participation in combat. I am grateful to Mr Paul Watson, who, having listened to the debate led by my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow, forwarded to me a range of research material and other information relating to the issue. I am especially grateful to Paul for highlighting the lack of research on the lives and experiences of children within the wider military family, which includes the Ministry of Defence.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is always a pleasure to be involved in Adjournment debates, and I commend the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. According to Beyond the Battlefield, a charity in my constituency that looks after ex-service personnel and veterans, 18,700 of them are receiving some sort of care in Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is not only the veterans who suffer, but their wives and children, and that the effects are far-reaching and long-lasting?
Martin John Docherty
I certainly could not disagree with the hon. Gentleman—who, indeed, has stolen some of the thunder from the rest of my speech—about the wider impact of service life on the partners, spouses and children of both veterans and those in active service.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I hope that I can add to the thunder of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I am sure that he was going on to mention the great work of Combat Stress, which—in Newport, Shropshire, which is in my constituency, and across the country—is doing a great job in helping veterans of not just the second world war but the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, among others, to reintegrate themselves in society. Will he join me in paying tribute to all those who do such a great job in supporting Combat Stress?
Martin John Docherty
I am more than delighted to congratulate those who support any organisation that helps veterans and their families, no matter who they are. My family has a long service record—that applies to both my father and my brother—and I am gratefully aware of the support that is offered to all our veterans and their families.
Even in the recently published Ashcroft review, a document consisting of more than 200 pages, the impact of service life on the lives of children is mentioned only about six times. Little or no mention is made of the impact of pre-deployment—what may be a three-month period during which a member of the armed forces undergoes training before what is usually an eight-month deployment—on the children who are left at home. There is no mention of the children who become carers to a parent who is at home, or a parent who is returning from active duty; no mention of the children who are isolated from both their families and their peers; no mention of the increased likelihood of emotional detachment; no mention of limited access to services outside the military family; no mention of the fact that children and young people may be providing practical day-to-day care in the family setting; no mention of children who experience difficulties at school, such as bullying, owing to external caring roles; no mention of the destabilising impact of a three-month pre-deployment period or subsequent eight-month deployment; and no mention of the impact of constant moving on the life choices of children in military families. That is indeed a sad litany.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue, and he is speaking with great eloquence. Does he agree that some of the more forward-looking and progressive local authorities have alighted on the issue of children’s services in the context of a commitment—which, as he knows, exists in Scotland as well as the rest of the United Kingdom —to the military covenant, the profile of which has been raised significantly in the last four or five years?
Martin John Docherty
I would welcome any local authority doing that and am grateful for the fact that all 32 councils of Scotland have taken the step to become either veterans champions or to promote the issue of veterans. I can commend that every council and borough, district or local, within the countries of England, Wales and Northern Ireland follows suit.
Research looks at a multitude of pre and post-combative effects on the health of service personnel, including post-traumatic stress disorder, pre-deployment stress, mental health, reintegration and the military family—that is for a spouse or partner. Again, there is limited literature in the UK on the issues faced by military children and young people and even less on military children and young people in a caring role.
The Ministry of Defence estimates that there are around 120,000 military children and young people both overseas and here in the UK, although the figures do not state whether they are “full-time” military children and young people or whether they include the children and young people of those who are in the military reserves—an increasingly important element of the UK’s military capabilities.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
This is a complex and important issue. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that we also consider the issues of service personnel who have been made redundant and the impact of that on their families and children?
Martin John Docherty
My hon. Friend raises yet another complexity of the issue—the impact of military life on children and, critically, those service personnel who have been made redundant, as many have in recent years. I can only hope the Minister will take that on board in his response to the debate.
On the published figures, these children and young people represent 10% of the UK’s under-18 population, which is a substantial amount. Mental health research shows that child and adolescent mental health conditions are in truth common for all children and young people—that is true of both military and non-military children and young people. Office for National Statistics records from 2013 indicate that in the UK there are 13.6 million children and young people. YoungMinds has identified that mental health issues affect between 10% and 20% of all children and young people in the UK. Furthermore, these statistics show that 12% of five to 16-year-olds have a diagnosed mental health condition, with conduct disorder nearing 7% and emotional disorders being 5%.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is doing the House a great service by raising this important issue. Is he aware that perinatal mental health problems among service families are much greater than for the rest of the population? SSAFA deals with these problems, along with the problems of higher than average domestic violence among service personnel families, with all the added pressures. It is one of the biggest employers of social workers dealing with child protection and child mental health issues and it does some very good work, but it is under huge pressure because of the problems not being taken as seriously as they might be.
Martin John Docherty
That intervention goes to the heart of the subject matter and its complexity. Domestic abuse is a huge issue in military life, as it is in many other aspects of ordinary life. I am sure the Minister will take that on board in replying to the debate.
When contextualised, the figures I mentioned show that 12,000 military children and young people may have a problem with their mental health. In addition, research from the USA shows that there is an 11% increase in the number of children and young people who access mental health services when one or both parents are deployed into combat.
The issue of young carers in the military family requires further explanation. They are typically aged between five and 24 and help to look after a relative with a condition such as a disability, an illness, a mental health condition or a drug or alcohol problem, who is serving, or has served, in the armed forces. We are talking about a condition or disability that, in all likelihood, may have appeared during active service.
Why do we need to support these carers? Some 13,000 of the UK’s young carers care for more than 50 hours a week. Young adult carers aged between 16 and 18 are twice as likely to be not in education, employment, or training. Figures from the MOD show that 2,130 military personnel were severely or very severely physically injured between 2001 and 2014 in combat action, and the relevant current ratio is one child per nearly two and a half veterans—that cannot be maintained. MOD figures also show an increase of 19% in the number of veterans being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from 2013, with the relevant estimated ratio being one military dependant child to nearly two and a half veterans. The impact on children and young people must be recognised, not only by the House, but in policy and in its implementation to improve their lives.
As a Scottish constituency Member, I am mindful of the ongoing and leading work being undertaken in Scotland. Along with my colleagues, I am grateful to the leadership of our Government in Edinburgh and the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities, Keith Brown, who has responsibility for veterans and is a veteran himself. This has been crucial in the appointment of the Scottish Veterans Commissioner, whose “Transition in Scotland” report of 27 March highlighted the myriad issues that have an impact on those in military service and their families. Like the Scottish Veterans Commissioner, I welcome the steps taken by the MOD in implementing some of the Ashcroft review recommendations.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
My hon. Friend rightly mentions the Scottish Government’s role in trying to deal with the complexity of these issues, and other hon. Members have mentioned the role of third sector organisations in their constituencies. In my constituency, Cathcart old parish church has set up a veterans centre to support veterans and their families. Does he agree that the churches are equally as crucial in helping to deal with the complexity of the problems that military personnel and their families face?
Martin John Docherty
My hon. Friend is correct in what he says. Not just faith organisations, but voluntary third sector organisations the length and breadth of these islands play a crucial role in the support provided to veterans and their families.
I am hopeful that the MOD recognises that as a Member of this House representing a Scottish constituency, I feel that there is little or no acknowledgment of the challenges facing service personnel and their families outside England, in terms of the policy context. This debate offers the opportunity for the Government to rectify the position in which they find themselves; they seem to be lacking in knowledge of the services in not only Scotland, but Wales and Northern Ireland, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) would agree.
I can at least take some comfort from the fact that the Secretary of State, and perhaps even the Minister, will meet my colleague the Cabinet Secretary shortly to discuss matters of common interest. I hope that, given the opportunity, the Secretary of State will use the occasion to advise the Department of the differing approaches in differing jurisdictions, which may offer some comfort and support to children, young people and young carers in families of military personnel and veterans.
Critically, I ask the Minister to consider the recommendation of the Ashcroft review and other MOD documents that are based predominantly on policy and service delivery models found in England and Wales, to the exclusion of those service families choosing to settle in Scotland or in Northern Ireland. The Ministry must recognise the differing policy geography in which it and the service families find themselves, especially in relation to housing, healthcare, employment, social care and education, which all have an impact on children in the military family. The sooner that is recognised, the sooner children across the services will reap the benefits of a transition from military life to civilian life when a parent ends their military career through discharge or, yes, through redundancy.
I am grateful to the organisations and individuals who have informed this debate, and, based on their recommendations, I leave plausible opportunities for the UK Government to improve the support offered to children, young people and young carers of military personnel and veterans. They include: supporting further research to understand service children and young people across the UK not in a silo, but in partnership with devolved Governments; utilising strengths within our military and civilian communities, critically learning from the other devolved Administrations, including Scotland; supporting military young carers to maintain good academic and emotional health and well-being outcomes, critically linking with differing policy approaches such as Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland, which leads the way in a more person-centred approach; and considering the creation of digital health passports to support health transition through the child’s military journey, reducing the times a child has to tell their health story to the NHS.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
This matter has also been brought to my attention in my constituency. Very often the problem is that when military personnel move to a new constituency, it takes an imponderable time to get NHS data. Is it not the responsibility of the MOD to give both service and finance to help ease that across the devolved nations?
Martin John Docherty
I would not disagree with my hon. Friend, not least because he is a lot taller than me. [Interruption.] Everybody is taller than me. Even my father is taller than me. That is enough of the light-hearted moment.
I hope that we can approach this matter in a collegiate manner across the Chamber. Critically, the Ministry of Defence must recognise the impact of its policy approach on other public services, such as the NHS. There is a need for resources, especially when we are talking about the recording of issues for children and young people who are part of the military family.
I ask the MOD to consider strengthening families at specific times during deployments. For example, we could have a wrap-around approach to service, especially for service forces children who, more often than not, are part of the military family. I am also talking about those who remain within their own distinct communities—critically, the children of those in the reserve forces who remain at home.
The MOD should also work with the devolved Administrations to educate and facilitate all involved with military families during both the deployment cycle and family reintegration; and to facilitate the empowerment of military families to enable the growth of resilience while supporting caring responsibilities.
I hope that the Minister uses this debate as an opportunity to improve things, particularly the support for children, young people and young carers in the families of military personnel and veterans, as we approach Remembrance Sunday.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin John Docherty) on securing this debate on the support for children, young people and young carers of military personnel and veterans. I thank him for the constructive way in which he has approached the subject. I have been a serviceman for some 27 years, and I remain in the reserve forces. Having been deployed on operations some three times, I appreciate the impact that service life can have on families —indeed it has had an impact on my own family—so I am particularly pleased to be able to respond to the debate this evening.
First, let me reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Ministry of Defence takes its overall responsibilities for service children and young people extremely seriously. In 2010, the significance of those responsibilities led the Ministry of Defence to establish a separate directorate for children and young people to ensure that all those with specific responsibilities for service children and young people understood, accepted and delivered on those responsibilities. Within that directorate, the MOD’s Children’s Education Advisory Service provides education-related information, advice and support to families and the military chain of command. I should point out at this stage that responsibility for service children and young people is not the exclusive preserve of the Ministry of Defence, and depends very much on where the service child or young person is living, whether they are in the United Kingdom or based overseas.
Within the four home countries of the United Kingdom, statutory responsibility for the care and support of our service children and young people remains with other Government Departments, the devolved Administrations, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, and local authorities. We expect our service children and young people to benefit from the same level of care and support as any other child, and that lies at the heart of the armed forces covenant. However, we recognise that a parent’s military service will often place additional pressures on service children and young people, particularly when families are required to move to new duty locations and when a parent is deployed for a lengthy period away from home, especially if deployed on active service. Recognising that, the MOD works closely with the statutory organisations to help them understand and mitigate these additional pressures. The work under the armed forces covenant has led to many significant improvements, not least in schools admissions codes and special educational needs and disabilities codes.
For its part, in 2011 the MOD created the MOD education support fund, which now disburses £6 million each year to assist state schools and settings across the United Kingdom in mitigating the impacts of family mobility and parental deployment on service children and young people. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the effective use that schools and settings across the United Kingdom have made of the fund. The list is almost endless, and includes setting up clubs to record and send electronic messages to deployed parents and recording school plays and other activities to be shared with those deployed parents, keeping them part of the family while they are away. The fund also provides nurture rooms or quiet spaces where it is possible for children to spend quiet time away from the noise of school during difficult times.
To underpin that financial support, an enormous amount of effective collaborative work takes place at regional and local levels. In partnership with education departments across all four home countries, the MOD has established a number of effective practitioner networks to identify and share best practice in the support of our service children and young people. I recognise that across the four home countries there are different practices, and I am keen to ensure that we share best practice to benefit our young people. Members of the networks support our children on a daily basis, and provide an early indication when things might not be going to plan. They provide the evidence that supports any changes in policy required better to support our children, and to remove any disadvantage that our children might be encountering.
Even though the MOD does not have statutory responsibilities for children and young people within the United Kingdom, our service children and young people can benefit from non-statutory support that the MOD provides. Each of the armed services maintains an occupational welfare service that operates below the statutory level and provides additional support to service children and young people through a range of services and activities, including community and youth work activities in addition to those provided by local authorities, as well as providing access to emotional support through trained and experienced counsellors. For service families who suffer bereavement when a parent or guardian’s death is attributable to their service, assistance with the education of their children can be provided from the armed forces bereavement scholarship scheme.
When our service personnel and their families are based overseas outside the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Defence acts in lieu of a local authority and delivers appropriate levels of near-statutory provision. In the case of our children and young people that means that the MOD provides, or provides access to, the normal range of children’s services: education, health, social care and safeguarding, and youth development activities. Our MOD schools overseas have an excellent reputation, and their Ofsted gradings and attainment results are routinely above the national averages. These schools have a rich history of mitigating the impact of mobility and deployment that our children can sometimes face. Importantly, this valuable experience is now shared widely and very effectively with schools in the United Kingdom attended by service children, either directly or via routine conferences held by the national networks that I mentioned earlier. In this context I would like to acknowledge the sterling work done to ensure that the over 2,000 service children who returned from Germany this summer under the Army’s basing programme experienced a smooth transition to their new schools and communities in the United Kingdom.
On the subject of MOD schools, I am sure the hon. Gentleman would wish me to reaffirm the Ministry of Defence’s commitment to our only remaining MOD school in the UK, the Queen Victoria school in Dunblane. Established in 1905 through public subscription and maintained in perpetuity by the Ministry of Defence, QVS plays an important part in providing continuity of education for service children with a Scottish connection.
In the case of our veterans, the MOD Directorate Children and Young People continues to provide educational information, advice and support to families during and immediately after their transition back to civilian life, and longer for any enduring issues directly attributable to their time in the armed forces. Thereafter, veterans who require welfare support can access this through Veterans UK, which is part of the MOD and was created in 2007 to help ex-service personnel get appropriate support from Government, local authorities, independent bodies and the charity sector. The Veterans Welfare Service can allocate to veterans a welfare manager who provides free and confidential advice on any sort of problem and works closely with voluntary organisations, local authorities and all areas of the Department for Work and Pensions to provide the best possible help and advice.
The issues raised in this debate are at the heart of the MOD’s welfare policies and will be further strengthened once the MOD launches the families strategy, which will be the sole topic of the MOD’s welfare conference to be held in London later this month. The strategy supports the Government’s manifesto commitment to supporting the unsung heroes—the partners and families of those who serve. Its vision is to facilitate resilient and self-sufficient families, and it is underpinned by the principles of fairness, increased choice, self-sufficiency and resilience.
I would like to express particular thanks to the group of people who contribute most to the support of our service children and young people. That group is, of course, those service children and young people themselves. The commitment that our servicemen and servicewomen make to our country places extraordinary demands on their families, and requires their children and young people to display enormous courage, resilience and stoicism, and they do so on a daily basis. The extraordinary thing is that when one speaks to our children, they make it very clear that they do not want to be treated differently from their civilian counterparts; they just want it recognised that, from time to time, the pressures of military life mean that additional support is required if they are not to suffer disadvantage. We all have a shared responsibility to ensure that they receive it.
Question put and agreed to.
EU Merger Control
(9 years, 1 month ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
It may be helpful if I remind the Committee of the procedure in European Committees. Proceedings must conclude no later than two and a half hours after we start. First, I shall call a member of the European Scrutiny Committee to make a brief statement on why that Committee has decided to refer the document for debate. Secondly, I shall call the Minister to make a statement, followed by questions for up to an hour. Thirdly, the Committee will debate the Government motion, and I shall put the question on the motion when debate or the time available is exhausted, whichever happens first. Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a brief explanatory statement?
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Thank you, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. It may be helpful to the Committee if I take a few minutes to explain the background to the document and the reason why the European Scrutiny Committee recommended it for debate.
The EU system for merger control seeks to create a one-stop shop, with the Commission essentially having jurisdiction over mergers with an EU dimension, while those below the relevant thresholds are subject to member state control. Where a merger has been notified to the Commission, it may not proceed unless it is compatible with the Common Market.
In 2013, the Commission took the view that since the current arrangements had been in place since 2004, the time had come to consider possible improvements. It therefore sought to canvass views. As a result, in July 2014, it produced a White Paper—Document 11976/14—reviewing the operation of the controls over the past 10 years and proposing specific changes. The White Paper says that although the majority of cases investigated have not raised competition concerns, merger control nevertheless,
“makes an important contribution to the functioning of the internal market.”
It also says that in addition to the part played by the Commission on mergers with an EU dimension, member states have an important role, although it goes on to note that there is
“room for further co-operation and convergence”
in certain areas and that there should be a single substantive test on mergers applied by both the Commission and national competition authorities. However, as that would require an ambitious overhaul of the regime, it has for the time being concentrated on two issues identified in 2013: the need for controls to be extended to certain acquisitions of non-controlling minority shareholdings and the effectiveness of the system for transferring cases between member states and the Commission.
The Government do not see the latter issue as having more than limited policy implications but say that the changes regarding non-controlling acquisitions require further clarification. In view of this, and the review that the White Paper provides of the overall control system over the past 10 years, the European Scrutiny Committee decided on 3 September 2014 to recommend the document for debate in European Committee C. Given the time that has elapsed since then, it would be helpful if, in addition to any more general comments, the Minister said what developments have taken place in this area in the meantime.
The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, and it is a great pleasure, finally, after six years in Parliament, to have begun to penetrate the mystery that is Parliament’s scrutiny of European legislation. I have never had that privilege before and it feels particularly appropriate to be standing under a huge painting of Alfred inciting the Saxons to prevent the landing of the Danes. I do not know whether that is why the proceedings are held in this room, though there is a picture at the other end that perhaps we had better glide over.
One does not have to be a great enthusiast in general for intervention by the European Union and the European Commission in domestic economic decisions to see the advantages of a EU-wide approach to mergers and acquisitions where they do affect the integrity of the single market. I certainly do not count myself a great enthusiast in general. I nevertheless see this as one of the areas in which the European Union performs a function that is absolutely valuable to British consumers and, indeed, British businesses that want to grow by expanding through acquisition into other European markets. Therefore, the Government very much support the principle of the European Commission having a role in the review of mergers and acquisitions that meet the tests.
This White Paper, as the hon. Member for Luton North succinctly explained, proposes a number of relatively minor modifications to the current regime: a change in how acquisitions of non-controlling minority shareholdings that could harm competition are considered within the EU; a streamlining of case referrals between member states and the Commission to make the process more business-friendly and less time-consuming; a move to exclude certain non-problematic transactions from the scope of the Commission’s merger review, such as joint ventures that set up and operate outside the European Economic Area and have no impact on European markets; and finally, proposals to foster greater coherence and convergence between member states to prevent divergent decision making in parallel merger reviews conducted by competition authorities in several member states.
Like many other respondents to the White Paper, the UK welcomes the overarching principles behind the European Commission’s proposals, many of which will streamline the system and reduce regulatory burdens on businesses and competition authorities—an aim we wholly support. It is right that we should review procedures and, wherever possible, minimise the burdens on businesses and citizens. However, the major proposal in the White Paper is to extend the scope of EU merger regulation to include the acquisition of non-controlling minority holdings. We have concluded that, in its current approach, as set out in the White Paper, the Commission’s proposal for achieving this appears to be over-burdensome and disproportionate.
The White Paper proposes a targeted transparency system, aimed at potentially problematic mergers that involve the acquisition of non-controlling minority shareholdings. The proposal suggests that an acquisition would be considered potentially problematic if the shareholding was in either a direct competitor or business in the same supply chain and was for around 20% of the ownership rights, or if the shareholding was for less than 20% but more than 5% and the acquirer would gain other rights—for example, a seat on the board. Such holdings would require notification.
The Commission’s objective is to ensure adequate control over non-controlling minority holdings and their acquisition, and we understand this aim. Our domestic merger law gives jurisdiction over certain transactions that give rise to material influence over another business and can apply to acquisitions of non-controlling shareholdings. We are aware of a few cases where action has been taken to address the anti-competitive effects that would result from non-controlling shareholdings. By itself, however, this is not a justification for action at EU level. Competition cases involving minority shareholdings are few and far between, as the Commission acknowledges. Its own impact assessment cites only two previous cases. Given the circumstances, the need for action at EU level would need to be carefully considered and justified to ensure that it adds value and is proportionate.
The system set out in the White Paper is rather complex. Considerable information would need to be supplied by the parties to assess whether the merger may give rise to competition concerns. This system would place a burden on businesses that would be disproportionate to the problem it is designed to solve. The standstill period may cause delays or, in fact, deter some acquisitions from occurring at all.
As outlined in our explanatory memorandum to Parliament in July 2014, we were keen to explore the Commission’s approach with interested parties. The feedback we received was clear: business and legal stakeholders considered that the proposals would impose onerous assessment and notification requirements on them and that this would give rise to costs and delay or discourage deals. Indeed, the notification burden would be even more pronounced in the UK, where there is no domestic requirement to give notification of mergers or acquisitions of minority holdings. It is hard to see the justification for such requirements, given the scale of any problems and the lack of any convincing case for action at EU level.
We therefore recommended to the Commission that it should take a more proportionate approach and encourage those member states whose merger regimes do not cover minority holdings to legislate to cover them. Aside from the Commission’s approach to minority shareholdings, we supported the general principles behind the other proposals. Notably, the Commission suggests replacing the rather cumbersome and time-consuming two-step process by which parties may seek referral of a case from member states to the Commission with a single-step process. We believe that this would bring greater efficiency to the system of referrals.
The Commission proposes amendments to remove or limit the EUMR’s application to certain transactions—so-called full function joint ventures, located and operating totally outside the European economic area. Like many other respondents to the White Paper, we unreservedly support those proposals, which will streamline the system and reduce regulatory burdens on businesses and competition authorities.
In conclusion, the Government strongly support the EU competition system, including the merger regime, and welcome some of the Commission’s proposals to improve its operation, but EU action should always be proportionate and matters should be dealt with at EU level only when necessary and at member state or regional and local level when possible. This is an occasion when we need to assert those principles.
The Chair
We now have until 3.35 pm for questions to the Minister. Hon. Members’ questions should be brief. It is open to Members, subject to my discretion, to ask supplementary questions.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
I have just one question on the digital issue. Much of the EU merger law is based on turnover. Digital quite often has lower turnover, but a high customer base. Does the Minister feel that that has been taken sufficiently into account in this document?
Nick Boles
I am not aware that the White Paper proposals have any specific application to digital industries, but if they do, I will be happy to write to the hon. Lady and the rest of the Committee, or perhaps she would like to explain the issue further. I was not aware of any specific proposal in relation to digital industries on minority shareholdings or these other referral requirements.
Yvonne Fovargue
That is the point. There is nothing referring to digital, but there is a lot about company turnover. As I said, digital turnover can be quite low, but the customer base is very high. Does the Minister feel that perhaps there should be something referring to the digital industry, which has a different sort of customer base and turnover?
Nick Boles
Certainly, we have not suggested that in our response to the White Paper, and I do not believe that it is a position that we would want actively to promote, but if the hon. Lady wants to make representations to me or to the Government generally on the issue, I will be happy to consider them.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, for, I think, the first time in one of these European scrutiny Committees, of which I have had much experience over the past six years. My hon. Friend the Minister has missed a great treat in not being able to come to more of them. I want to ask about his letter of 21 July 2015, in which he states:
“If a proposal does emerge from the White Paper, we think Articles 103 and 352 TFEU provide the likely legal base”.
If it is article 352, that requires an Act of Parliament to be brought into effect, as indeed is being debated at the moment, so I wonder whether he can give us an assurance that if the minority shareholder requirements remain, the Government will not give their consent, which will be fatal to the EU’s proposal.
Nick Boles
That was a long question, and I am happy to give a short answer: yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance.
Kelvin Hopkins
I am pleased that the Government seem to be resisting more powers being transferred from our national Parliament to the EU. I think that the Minister made the point that many mergers relate to companies that are not based in the rest of the European Union. It is appropriate that they should be managed at national level, rather than EU level. Does he agree?
Nick Boles
Absolutely. Full-blown mergers—acquisitions of the control of other businesses—have to pass clear criteria on turnover both within the EU and within the respective countries to be reviewed at European level rather than the national level. The criteria are reasonably complicated. My hon. Friend will be more familiar with them than probably any of us. I think that they are set at roughly the right level. As a result, the overwhelming majority of mergers and acquisitions that take place are reviewed by our excellent Competition and Markets Authority, which has a very high reputation. It is absolutely appropriate that only a very small number of mergers and acquisitions are reviewed at European level.
Kelvin Hopkins
I think that the European Scrutiny Committee, in general and broad terms, would agree with the Government on this. The principle of subsidiarity is much talked about in European Union circles, but the EU seems reluctant actually to indulge in it much. Would the Minister not suggest that the EU should recognise that some things should be dealt with at national level to make subsidiarity more meaningful?
Nick Boles
I cannot pretend that everything involved in preparation for the Committee was absolutely gripping, but nevertheless I found myself intrigued by a debate on the vexed question of subsidiarity between, in particular, the noble Lord Boswell and my predecessor and then me—in reality, the officials who drafted my reply. I had the layman’s understanding of subsidiarity, which is shared, I suspect, by most of us and by most of our constituents: “Don’t do it at European level unless you need to; do it at national, regional or local level.” However, I understand from the correspondence that, within a legal framework, the principle of subsidiarity at European level is applied only in certain areas, where it is acknowledged in treaties that the EU does not have sole competence—only then does something become a question of subsidiarity.
To the extent that this power is necessary for the EU to make the internal market function, questions of subsidiarity would apparently not be raised under the legal framework. That is why we have emphasised proportionality. It would be disproportionate for the EU to start interfering in a small number of cases that rarely have a European-wide impact. In a sense, I rest with the layman’s view of subsidiarity as useful—in general, the EU should not interfere unless necessary, and unless doing so will dramatically add value to individual nation states and their citizens—but in this case we are clear that it would not be necessary or proportionate for the EU to do so.
Kelvin Hopkins
I have one more question. Is it not right to be extremely wary of any kind of merger? Mergers inevitably lead to more monopolistic powers for companies to exploit markets. If we are serious about competition, we should maintain a sufficient number of competing companies in any industry.
Nick Boles
We are probably straying slightly from the subject. In general, I have agreed with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said, but I suspect that there will be a slight note of difference here. There are many fragmented industries in which the merger of two participants would in no way undermine the consumer’s power and might even enable them to become more efficient and productive, thereby lowering costs to the benefit of the consumer. I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that in cases of relatively concentrated industries—we can all think of many, and they are often where mergers are most frequently proposed—it is important to have a robust regime. I am glad to say that we have such a regime in this country. We should therefore allow most decisions about mergers in the UK to take place under the jurisdiction of the UK authorities.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
For a partial takeover—a minority stakeholding—involving two companies registered in the same member state, I understand the argument that the member state should be able to regulate the proposed purchase of shares. Does the Minister appreciate, though, that although the companies may be registered in one member state their activities might have a significant bearing on other member states? Aer Lingus and Ryanair are good examples. Both companies are registered in one sovereign state, but their activities can impact significantly on passengers and businesses in other member states.
My first question is about a similar merger involving two German or two Italian airlines that would have significant impact on passengers in the UK. Is the Minister satisfied that the Government’s proposals would give adequate protection to passengers in the UK? Secondly, on minority shareholdings, there can be a degree of integration vertically along a supply chain for the best of reasons, but it can be used to move profitability to the company in the group that is least likely to have a tax liability. Is the Minister concerned about that? Is he satisfied that the regulations that the Government propose to support give adequate protection against such mergers being used as a tax dodge, rather than to increase competition in the market?
Nick Boles
Those are two excellent questions. On the first, I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Government’s response to the White Paper specifically suggested that the priority should be to ensure that all EU member states should have, as we do already, a domestic regime for the review and, if necessary, control of the acquisition of minority shareholdings. If they did, we could be satisfied that issues relating to the putative purchase of one German airline by another would be covered. Although the hon. Gentleman is of course right to say that consumers in the broader EU might be affected by such a transaction, they are unlikely to be affected more than consumers in the market in which those two companies have their operational bases. I believe that Germany does have a national regime on minority shareholdings, but many other states do not. If such a regime is present, it should be capable of reflecting the interests of consumers from across Europe.
On the second point, the hon. Gentleman is right that tax dodging can be a driving force behind acquisitions, but it is not specifically about competition. Ensuring that the taxes due are received is an important issue of public interest, but it is not for the competition regime, which is about protecting consumers’ interests, to be the adjudicator in such a situation. I am unable to explain the detail to him, but many discussions are taking place at all sorts of levels about the problem of shifting profits around the world. Indeed, the Chancellor has made some fairly robust proposals about how that can be discouraged in the UK.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hanson. I have never taken part in a European scrutiny process, so this may be a naive question from me. Will the Minister confirm whether the proposals amount to everything in the EU’s 10-year review of merger policy? Is this the output from that review, or is it just the contentious piece? Is the purpose of the 10-year review that this will then lay the groundwork for the next 10 years?
Nick Boles
My understanding is that the White Paper reflects the sum total of the proposals that the Commission wanted to make following the review. It is worth acknowledging that there was a loose throwaway line at the end of the White Paper that seemed to suggest that, in the perfect future envisaged in Brussels, the EU would control everything, but the White Paper contained no such specific proposal. We have responded to all the proposals, as I have outlined. This is not in the Commission’s work plan for the current year, so we do not anticipate early action to take any of the proposals forward. There is certainly no indication of the Commission coming forward with other broader, more far-reaching proposals.
Richard Fuller
I thank the Minister for that. On the understanding that the proposals are it and that they look forward for the next 10 years and not wanting to drag the Minister too far into hypotheticals, will he confirm that the rules on mergers apply to the single market and not to the eurozone? We are likely to see a substantial change in the eurozone over the next 10 years with much more consolidation and co-ordination of fiscal policies. The concern with the merger policy is the emergence of a North American Free Trade Agreement-type arrangement in which we end up being Canada, but all the decision-making rules on mergers are produced by one set of countries that have much more common fiscal and economic frameworks. Will the Minister comment on this set of policies and the broader set of merger policies from the review in the light of those likely changes over the next 10 years?
Nick Boles
I am going to resist the urge to speculate in an area in which I can claim little expertise. I simply point out to my hon. Friend that this country retains strong laws and, more importantly, strong institutions that will continue to act under the policies and guidance set out by the UK Parliament. I do not anticipate anything that might happen in the eurozone undermining our own regime. The EU regime applies to the single market. As my hon. Friend will be aware, our right hon. Friend the Chancellor is very busy today seeking to secure guarantees that the single market will not be shanghaied by the eurozone for its own purposes and that there will be protections for those of us who are enthusiastic participants in the single market but will never be members of the eurozone. I am sure that that would include any attempt—not that we have any indication that there will be one—to dilute the regime or overburden it for the sake of eurozone members. We would resist such an attempt very strongly, but we have no sense that that is on the agenda.
Richard Fuller
My final question relates to trade treaties, particularly the transatlantic trade treaty, which will create a broader market in which there will be free and open competition. What is the likely impact of the application of this measure to a treaty with the United States and other countries? Has the United States been part of the consideration of this measure or of the overall merger policy in the European Union?
Nick Boles
I will not even venture to give an answer off the hoof, because that is not a subject considered in the White Paper, but I am happy to write to my hon. Friend and copy in members of the Committee on that question.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Committee takes note of European Union Document No 11976/14, a Commission White Paper: Towards more effective EU merger control, and Addenda 1 to 3; and supports the Government’s approach of questioning the proposal to widen scope of the EU Merger Regime (EUMR) to include acquisitions of non-controlling minority shareholdings, given that the evidence does not suggest it is justified.—(Nick Boles.)
Kelvin Hopkins
I will not speak for too long, but I would like to say a word or two about what the hon. Member for Bedford has said. Countries outside the eurozone are rather stronger in their economics than those inside the eurozone. There are those who think that the eurozone will not continue forever—people inside the eurozone, not just people who are, like us, outside it and who might take a more sceptical view. I do not think that the eurozone poses an economic threat to us. A much greater threat comes from places such as China and elsewhere.
In a merger, there are three interested parties: the shareholder company, the consumers and the workers. I had experience of representing a trade union delegation at the Monopolies and Mergers Commission many years ago, to make sure that workers were protected during significant industrial change. I promoted a private Member’s Bill some 15 years ago on the subject of giving workers more protection in situations of major industrial change, such as mergers.
It is important to retain powers at national level, because employees, in particular, will be represented by their Members of Parliament, or even by the Government and Opposition parties in their own Parliament, much more than by the more remote European Union and Commission. Retaining as much power as we can at national level over these matters is important, particularly for the worker interest. The consumer interest may be rather different, but the worker interest is certainly best served by keeping those powers at national level. We have seen some fairly serious mergers over the years in Britain, which have caused a certain amount of distress, and we want to make sure that workers are properly protected.
The European Scrutiny Committee, as I have said before, is happy that the Government have resisted the European Union’s pressure to take more powers to itself. I hope that that will continue and that the Government will recognise the interests of employees, in particular, in all merger situations.
We have to regard mergers with a degree of nervousness, because even when there are still several companies in a market—an “oligopoly”, for those of us who have studied economics—even a few companies can effectively have monopolistic powers, and of course they can collaborate privately and whatever else. If we want a competitive market, and not a socialised market, it is very important to have genuine competition between companies and not allow aggressive takeovers, which are more politely called “mergers”, for the purposes of exploiting markets, getting rid of workers and whatever else.
I hope that the Government will continue to take a strong view about how we manage mergers through legislation and Government. I imagine that the European Union is concerned as much as anything about the other nations—specifically the more recent members, whose legislation may not be so well developed as ours. They may not have the experience of industry that we have, and their industries may need a little more assistance from international bodies rather than just receiving assistance from their own Governments.
As I say, I hope that the Government will take merger powers and the legislation governing mergers very seriously in the future, and retain as much power to themselves as necessary.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Unusually in a European debate, I merely wish to provide paeans of praise for Her Majesty’s Government, who are doing things absolutely correctly. My hon. Friend the Minister will know that paeans of praise were sung to the god Apollo by the priestesses of Delphi; I am therefore putting myself in the role of the priestesses. [Laughter.] I am putting the Minister in the role of Apollo, which I hope he appreciates.
My purpose, of course, is to encourage the Government to remain robust. In the White Paper, the EU—the Commission—says that it currently does not have the powers to deal with the minority shareholders issue. It refers to articles 101 and 102 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, and says that they are not sufficient.
As Opposition Members, particularly the hon. Member for Luton North, will be only too well aware from discussions in the European Scrutiny Committee, the legal base issue comes back again and again. The EU, or the Commission, is quite good at saying at an early stage that it is not quite sure which legal base it will use and that it may not be certain of its legal base. Then it finds that there is a legal base that it can use under qualified majority voting rather than unanimity, and almost invariably finds that the Court of Justice of the European Union supports it.
Therefore, I was particularly pleased with my hon. Friend the Minister’s answer in relation to his letter, because article 352 is the catch-all provision that allows things to happen that are necessary to help the European Union to carry out its business but which are subject to unanimity. That gives the Government an absolute veto on this issue—indeed, it gives the House of Commons an absolute veto on this issue, if necessary. It is important that that is not given away in horse-trading around other issues. The Government’s response to the White Paper—in the name of the Minister’s predecessor, Jo Swinson—is very powerful in explaining why we should not be doing this; the Minister referred to the question of proportionality.
However, the statement, on page 36 of today’s bundle, is quite strong. It says that the proposal is
“unnecessary, highly burdensome and disproportionate.”
The proposal really is something that would be damaging to our merger regime, and it is worth bearing in mind that what it aims to address never actually happens. The paper says:
“Notification of minority shareholdings under the UK merger regime is rare and in the more than four decades that merger control in the UK has covered acquiring ‘material influence’ over another business only two cases have ever been referred for second stage investigation.”
Many people will remember those two cases: the BSkyB-ITV issue and the Ryanair-Aer Lingus one. The proposal by the EU may lead to many more notifications, not least on precautionary grounds, than the Commission seems to envisage.
That is an important point. Anyone in business will notify in respect of a regulation that they might get tripped up by, just in case; in that way, they are exempt from all the significant possible penalties and it is up to the regulator to look at the issue. That leads to lots of unnecessary but burdensome reporting by businesses, which, in the end, is more than the regulator can cope with. The existing system has worked so far. The Ryanair-Aer Lingus case covered two EU member states and was dealt with effectively by the UK competition authorities, which used its authority as a domestic regulator to require Ryanair to sell its stake in Aer Lingus.
We have a situation where things currently work, where the EU has no jurisdiction and where the proposals from the European Commission would be bureaucratic. That brings me back to a point alluded to by my hon. Friend the Minister about the EU looking to extend its powers. As he rightly said, there is a small note at the end of the White Paper:
“However, as set out above, there is room to further improve EU merger control.”
There is a little superscript “47” indicating that there is a footnote, which seems to me to be a classic of the EU ratchet:
“The scope chosen for this White Paper is without prejudice to additional evaluations of other important aspects of EU merger control by the Commission.”
There we have it! The Commission says, “We’re not going to do very much now, and the first bit we are going to do is actually very sensible.” No one can disagree with it. It is very mild and modest; even someone like me will happily go along with it. Then there is another bit, which is a bit more contentious and risky for the Commission given that it does not have the legal power, and then that lovely little footnote says that there might be more coming along a little later.
That is why I am so pleased with the Minister’s exceptionally robust and clear answer. It might be his first visit to a European Committee, but it has been a model of how such things should be done. We actually got an answer to a question, which is highly unusual and will probably get him into all sorts of trouble with Downing Street. I commend the Minister for his forthright answer, the position he has taken and the alertness he is showing.
Yvonne Fovargue
I am pleased to attend this Committee, the first European Committee I have attended, because too often the role of the EU in consumer protection is forgotten, along with many of the other things it does. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North was right to highlight the protection of workers in mergers, as well as of consumers and businesses, and I am pleased that a lot of the rules are based on those in the UK; the Competition and Markets Authority has done a good job for us in the past.
I ask, though, that we ensure that digital businesses are considered. EU mergers rules are often based on turnover. It is important that the EU looks ahead to what might happen in future and that digital businesses with low turnover but a high customer base are included in the rules. The future advances in business might be the part, referred to by the hon. Member for North East Somerset, that the EU might wish to look at. We know that the landscape can change dramatically.
The review has been sensible, and I am pleased that the needs of everyone—businesses, workers and consumers—have been taken into account.
Nick Boles
I thoroughly enjoyed my first ever appearance before a European Committee. I have never before been compared to Apollo, but that was a great consolation on the day after my 50th birthday. I am not sure that it will ever happen again.
I suspect that I am going to be in trouble for having given a clear answer to a clear question, but if I have won the approval of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, it was definitely worth it. We will write to the hon. Member for Makerfield on the questions she asked about digital businesses. She will be aware that that is one of the areas where the public interest test can apply, but she asked a specific question about measuring a business’s importance by not only its turnover but the number of people who consume its digital product, so we will write to her about that. I commend the motion to the Committee.
The Chair
It is good to see you in such fine fettle the day after your 50th birthday. Very impressive.
Question put and agreed to.
Immigration Bill (Tenth sitting)
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 93, in schedule 3, page 72, line 8, at end insert—
‘(8A) The Secretary of State shall provide any individual she determines to be a disqualified person with the information resulting from her checks under 40C(1) that led to this determination.
(8B) The Secretary of State shall provide an individual she determines to be a disqualified person, and any person or body by or for whom the relevant account is operated, with compensation in accordance with [New Clause: 40HA Compensation], where that determination is found to have been incorrect.”
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 94, in schedule 3, page 72, line 8, at end insert—
“40HA Compensation
(1) This section applies where—
(a) a person is determined by the Secretary of State (following a check under 40C(1)) to be a disqualified person;
(b) the Secretary of State provides notification to the bank that the person is a disqualified person under section 40C(3) or 40D(7);
(c) the bank closes an account or prevents an account being operated in compliance with section 40G; and
(d) the determination by the Secretary of State under 40C(1) is found to have been incorrect.
(2) Where subsection (1) applies, the Secretary of State shall pay compensation to—
(a) a person incorrectly determined to be a disqualified person;
(b) any person or body by or for whom the relevant account is operated.
(3) No payment of compensation under this section shall be made unless an application for such compensation has been made to the Secretary of State before the end of the period of two years beginning with the date on which the information resulting from its checks under 40C(1) is provided to the person incorrectly determined to be the disqualified person.
(4) But the Secretary of State may direct that an application for compensation made after the end of that period is to be treated as if it had been made within that period if the Secretary of State considers that there are exceptional circumstances which justify doing so.
(5) The question whether there is a right to compensation under this section shall be determined by the Secretary of State.
(6) If the Secretary of State determines that there is a right to such compensation, the sum of £10,000 is paid.”
To make provision for statutory compensation from the Secretary of State to compensate the holder of a bank account where their account is closed or suspended by their bank in reliance on incorrect information provided by the Secretary of State as to the status of the account holder as a disqualified person.
Keir Starmer
I had the opportunity when we were discussing clause 18, which inevitably included a discussion of schedule 3, to speak to the amendments. I hope the Minister heard my concerns. I do not think I will make them any stronger by repeating them.
The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for his observations. We believe amendments 93 and 94 are unnecessary and would create a disproportionately expensive bureaucracy around the provisions. The Home Office will only share the details of migrants who are liable for removal or deportation from the UK, such as those who have exhausted all appeal rights. Those will include people who have been served with a deportation order or enforcement papers or who have absconded from immigration control. They will be fully aware of the reasons why they are considered to be disqualified people. Those who are refused permission to stay will be warned in the Home Office decision letter of the practical consequences, including for their continued ability to operate a bank account in the UK. To require the Home Office separately to actively provide them with such information in every case where their data are shared would cause delay and waste resources. Details of the individuals are already shared with the anti-fraud organisation CIFAS for the purpose of enabling banks to comply with the Immigration Act 2014 and also to assist in the prevention of fraud. The accuracy of the data is subject to rigorous checks by the Home Office before it is shared. This is reflected in the fact that the Home Office receives very few complaints or inquiries from banks or individuals regarding the current sharing of data arrangements under section 40 of the 2014 Act. Only three official complaints have been received since the Home Office started to share data with CIFAS in 2011.
Under the new provisions, the Home Office will be notified by banks when they believe that an account holder is a disqualified person. It will then carry out a further thorough check before the bank will be required to take any action to close an account. The bank will be notified if circumstances have changed and the person is no longer disqualified. This double check will act as a further safeguard to make sure that the bank acts on the most up-to-date information. Individuals whose accounts are subject to closure will be told by the bank of the reason why, provided that it is lawful to do so. If, despite all the checks, a person still considers they are lawfully present and that incorrect information has been provided, they will then be given the information they need to swiftly contact the Home Office so that any error can be rectified.
As is currently the case with data provided to CIFAS, the Home Office will be able to correct any mistake in real time so that the person’s details will immediately be removed from the data that are shared with the banks. That will be a far swifter and more effective means of correcting any error than in the process proposed in the amendment. If an account is closed, any credit balance will not be withheld from the individual, but returned to them by the bank in the normal way. In the unlikely event that an account is closed by mistake, the situation can be swiftly rectified in the way I have described without the serious consequences for the individual that have understandably been envisaged by the hon. and learned Gentleman. We believe the proposed compensation would therefore be disproportionate in the circumstances, and I invite him to withdraw the amendment.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful to the Solicitor General for his explanation and reassurance as to how it is intended the scheme will work. Would he be good enough to write to me or to the Committee, setting that out, since it is not in the Bill?
The Solicitor General
I am happy to write to the hon. and learned Gentleman. That is now on the record.
Keir Starmer
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 19
Powers in connection with examination, detention and removal
Keir Starmer
I beg to move amendment 209, in clause 19, page 23, line 10, at end insert—
‘(2A) in paragraph 2(2) after “examine” insert “at the point of entry into the United Kingdom.”
To limit the power contained in Schedule 2, paragraph 2 of the Immigration Act 1971 to examination at the point of entry, as intended by Parliament.
We move to part 3 of the Bill, which is on enforcement. Amendment 209 is intended to limit the power contained in paragraph 2 of schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 to examination of individuals at the point of entry—on arrival in the UK—as intended by Parliament. There has been an ongoing dialogue, for want of a better word, between various concerned parties and the Home Office on the purported use of the power in places other than the point of entry. A number of organisations, including Liberty, have written to the Home Office.
At one stage, any purported reliance on the provision as giving a power to examine away from the point of entry was not accepted, but there is concern as to whether that is still the position, and the amendment is intended to clarify that. If that is the position, the amendment ought to pose no problem, because it would clarify that the examinations are at the point of entry into the United Kingdom. If, on the other hand, it is said to be the case that paragraph 2 of schedule 2 to the 1971 Act does give a power of examination away from the point of entry, obviously I will have more to say in my reply.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Part 3 of the Bill deals with the powers that will be handed over to immigration officers, members of the public, on-service police officers and detainee officers, amongst others. Their powers will be extended to an unparalleled level. With the aim of clamping down on illegal immigration, this part of the Bill will equip immigration officers with enhanced search-and-seizure powers to collect evidence that will, according to Government, help to secure more civil penalties and removals.
Before discussing the specific amendments tabled, we should take note of the points made by the organisations that have provided evidence during the passage of the Bill. Liberty, in particular, has voiced a number of concerns about the Bill, including the extension of powers to be handed over to immigration officials, a lack of training and accountability for immigration officers, the expectation that those officers will carry out police-like activities and the transformation of members of the public into the UK Government’s very own immigration agents.
We should be concerned about the impact that this part of the Bill will have on people. Regardless of our own views on illegal immigration, the Bill needs to deal with illegal immigration in a humane, respectable and appropriate manner. The amendments tabled by Scottish National party and Labour Members aim to capture that mood and, in doing so, reduce the damaging impact that some of the clauses may have on people.
The Bill aims to clamp down on illegal immigration, and we should accept that action must be taken on those who are here illegally. Being classified as an illegal immigrant, however, creates a number of difficulties. As we have heard in our discussions on illegal working, the status of illegal immigrant can push a person and their family into a serious and vulnerable position. We should still treat people who are here illegally with respect and dignity. In addition, although illegal migration exists in the UK, we should not tackle it in a way that damages the experience that other migrants have while here. Clause 19 highlights that point. Tackling illegal immigration will have an impact on those who are living here or enter the UK illegally, but we should equally be concerned about the impact that the clause will have on migrants who have been granted legal authorisation to live in the UK.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the clause and the Bill in general will make landlords and tenants, and employers and employees view each other with suspicion? It will create a hostile climate that I do not want to see in this country.
Gavin Newlands
Absolutely. As we heard in evidence from several experts, social cohesion will be affected by such measures.
Clause 19 further extends the powers of those who work at our airports and ports of entry. It will allow them to curtail leave, rather than simply determine whether leave has been given and act accordingly. It will create a nervous, unpleasant environment for those who have the correct paperwork and have gone through the correct process. Due to the new power, they will still have a nervous wait to find out whether they are able to pass through the gates and live and work here. Although this measure may affect only a small number of people, we need to be concerned about the effect that our fears about illegal migration have on people who have the right to live and work here.
Amendment 209, which is supported by Liberty, attempts to limit the speculative searches that are conducted by certain authorities to determine immigration status. As has been detailed and discussed, schedule 2, paragraph 2 of the 1971 Act sets out a power that is ostensibly to deal with individuals on arrival in the UK for the purpose of determining whether they have or should be given leave to enter or remain, but it has been used by the Home Office as justification for conducting speculative, in-country spot checks involving consensual interviews. The amendment would limit that power to examination at the point of entry.
The power to conduct stop-and-searches away from the confines of a point of entry derives from a decades-old case, Singh v. Hammond, when the Court of Appeal concluded that such a search can take place away from the place of entry if there is suspicion that the person is here illegally. That is all well and good, but the power has been somewhat abused. Home Office immigration officers have been conducting intrusive searches when they believe that a person of foreign origin is nervous about being in the presence of an immigration official. Such behaviour is detailed in the “Enforcement instructions and guidance” booklet. Chapter 31, in particular, highlights the need to curtail that sort of behaviour.
In considering the amendment, we should note that there is no free-standing right to stop and search people to establish their immigration status. I know the Government are keen to secure strong social cohesion in our communities, but such intrusive stop-and-searches have no regard for community relations. They should worry us all, and we should take action on them by passing the amendment.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I rise to speak to the objectives of amendment 209, as I understand them. They take us back to the intentions of the Conservative Government in 1971, whose Immigration Act 1971 created the opportunity to search to demonstrate immigration status at the point of entry to the country, which seems sensible, but not away from the border. [Interruption.] The Solicitor General is expressing some doubt about that, and I would be happy to pursue the matter with him. The power has been developed gradually by the Home Office, often without sufficient regard for the sort of community relations that we share a concern about.
As the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North pointed out, Liberty expressed concern when such speculative street and transport hub-based searches began in 2012, largely outside tube stations. Concern was expressed when what was then the UK Border Agency suspended such operations across the country and reviewed its guidance, but then reinstated them. The guidance was amended again in 2013 following the reaction to street searches.
The Solicitor General
I am grateful to all the hon. Members who took part in this useful debate, which has helped to tease out some of the important issues that underline the extension of powers in this part of the Bill. I am sure that will be a common theme in our debates on subsequent amendments.
I will make it clear at the outset that while it is interesting to hear analogies between the new power and stop-and-search, this is not a stop-and-search power; it is a different type of power. It is important to draw that distinction, because while it is important to talk about tensions in communities and to understand the reality of the circumstances in which immigration officials operate, it would be wrong to hurtle helter-skelter down that route without analysing precisely what we are talking about.
We are talking about a power to ask questions of an individual that has to be based on a reasonable suspicion. It is therefore not a speculative fishing exercise and it should never be based on the random prejudice of what someone looks like. Immigration officers must comply with their duties under the Equality Act 2010. Stopping and examining individuals by means of racial profiling is not in accordance with their public sector equality duty pursuant to section 149 of the Act. They are bound, like any other public body, to stay within the law.
Paul Blomfield
As I say, we are both concerned that we get this right. Are we not playing with semantics when we say that this is not stop-and-search? We could call it stop and check, but does it not have all the characteristics of stop-and-search? Is the Solicitor General satisfied with the definition of “reasonable suspicion” in chapter 31 of the enforcement instructions and guidance, which I cited? Does it not give enormous latitude?
The Solicitor General
Importantly, we have to remember that we are dealing with powers that relate to a potential civil consequence as opposed to a criminal one. Therefore, it is important to draw a distinction between the stop-and-search powers and this particular competence. There will be joint crime reduction operations—commonly known as CROPs, another unfortunate acronym, for which I apologise—where, for example, somebody is stopped on the underground for fare evasion and is then referred to immigration officers. That is intelligence-led enforcement. It is not about the sort of random checks that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central illustrated very eloquently and with proper concern—a concern that I share. I do not want that sort of culture to be spread through the use of these powers. As a result of duties under the Equality Act and due to of the importance of community impact assessments made before operations, which have to be signed off by a senior official in the rank of assistant director, some of the practical safeguards are in place to deal with the sort of mischief and problems that he and other hon. Members have identified.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North for raising the Singh v. Hammond case. It is important to note that that judgment of 1987—it is now nearly 30 years old—says:
“An examination…can properly be conducted by an immigration officer away from the place of entry and on a later date after the person has already entered…if the immigration officer has some information in his possession which causes him to enquire whether the person being examined is a British citizen and, if not…whether he should be given leave and on what conditions.”
There we have it—the basis of action.
Paul Blomfield
I anticipated that the Solicitor General might cite that case, which is the basis for the extension of powers. In reaching a view on that, the Court of Appeal said that
“the case does turn very much on its own facts”.
That case involved an immigration amnesty and an immigration officer’s specific and defined suspicion of identity deception. It was very narrowly drawn by the Court of Appeal and does not give a legitimate basis for the much wider use subsequently.
The Solicitor General
The hon. Gentleman’s interpretation is interesting. I am sure it would be an attractive submission to make were the issue to be revisited, particularly in litigation. It is nearly 30 years since that case. Since then, the Home Office has relied on it. There has been no attempt by a Government of any colour to redefine things and go back to what he would describe as the original 1971 position. There must be a very good public policy reason for that; that reason is simply that it is entirely reasonable to allow the immigration authorities to have a little more time and space, based upon a reasonable suspicion, in which they can question a person who they reasonably suspect might be an illegal immigrant. The published guidance reflects the Singh v. Hammond judgment. It makes it clear that before any inquiry begins, there has to be reasonable suspicion.
My concern is that if the power of examination is limited only to the point of entry, we could have—perversely—an increase in people being arrested, because the power to ask questions is, as I said, not a power of arrest, but a different type of power. It allows people to give a reasonable explanation before we get to the stage of any apprehension or arrest, which I think is a good thing. I would not want to see a perverse situation where, in effect, the immigration authorities are shooting first and asking questions afterwards. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that that sort of approach would definitely inflame the situation and lead to the perverse consequences that we all worry about.
Keir Starmer
I have listened very carefully to the Minister’s explanation and justification. It must follow that operations at tube stations or other places against a number of individuals, based perhaps on what they look like, would be outwith the guidance and outwith the Minister’s explanation and role.
The Solicitor General
I entirely agree. If their operations relate to other intelligence—for example, on organised fare dodging or some sort of illegal activity on the tube that was either antisocial or worse—then clearly, that joint working would be very important and would reflect the best intelligence-led operations. We are all keen to eliminate a random use of these powers that would be arbitrary and would not, in my judgment—and I am sure, in any reasonable person’s judgment—reflect the criteria set out in the Singh case and reflected in guidance ever since.
Sarah Champion
Opposition Members have real concerns about community cohesion and racial profiling, and it sounds as if the Minister too is concerned that the powers should not be used inappropriately. I appreciate what he said in relation to my hon. and learned Friend and the guidance notes. Would the Minister therefore commit to conducting a review to make sure that these powers are not overused, and that our concerns are just concerns and not reality?
The Solicitor General
I fully expect that any revised guidance notes published to reflect any changes passed in this Act will be a faithful reflection of the case law as we have outlined it today. I am absolutely sure that my colleagues in the Home Office will keep these matters under continuous review. If, indeed, a body of evidence emerges that challenges the position I have outlined today, I am sure that colleagues would look at that. It would perhaps be wrong of me to commit to anything specific today, but the hon. Lady has placed her concerns on the record for all to hear, and I am sure that the observations that we have made in this debate will be heard in another place and at other stages before the Bill, as we hope, eventually becomes law.
The final point I want to make is that I do not think that anybody wants to see the lawful and proportionate operations of our immigration authorities severely hampered. My genuine fear is that however well intentioned this amendment might be, it would lead to a hampering of those operations. Therefore, for those reasons, I urge Opposition Members to withdraw the amendment.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful to hon. Members for setting the context within which the powers that now exist operate and to the Solicitor General for his explanation. I accept that technically, in a number of legal respects, there is a difference between stop-and-check and stop-and-search, but I am not convinced that the impact on community relations follows from what are legal distinctions. In other words, I am not sure that the public out there quite accept and understand the nuances that we in this Committee might understand as the differences between the two, and there are real concerns about the way in which the existing power is being exercised. In the end, this comes back to the words that the Solicitor General used, which I jotted down. He said that it makes sense to have a little more time and space, and that that would avoid action possibly being taken on arrival that need not be taken. That is true in the sense that this is supposed to be a power that is excisable on arrival, but it very quickly moves from a little more space to a generalised power that has been exercised in the way that has been described. On that basis, I do not withdraw this amendment.
The Solicitor General
We have already dealt with some of the important provisions of clause 19, so I will try to be as brief as I can. In essence, clause 19 will amend schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 to provide clear powers for immigration officers—when, for example, they are examining a person to see whether their leave should be curtailed—to search premises for evidence of such purposes. It would also update existing powers to seize documents to include those held in electronic form. As we know, immigration officers may examine a person to establish whether they require leave to be here in the UK and, where leave is required, whether they already have leave or if it should be given, including the period and conditions of leave. However, the current provisions are not explicit about establishing whether any existing leave should be cut short. Situations are encountered by immigration officers where it may be appropriate to curtail the migrant’s leave because that person was found to be working or claiming benefits illegally or, sadly, had obtained leave by deception. As a consequence, where leave is ended with immediate effect, that person becomes liable to removal.
If the House consents, we will add a power for immigration officers, where they are already lawfully on premises, to search for and seize documents which may support a decision to curtail leave. This does not include documents which are subject to a legal professional privilege. Immigration officers already have powers to search for evidence of the offences of breaching conditions of leave or obtaining leave by deception, but this of course is only for evidence that would support a criminal prosecution. However, in the vast majority of cases where migrants fail to comply with immigration law or do not depart voluntarily, our strategy is to remove them from the United Kingdom rather than pursue costly prosecution and possible imprisonment for minor immigration offences. We believe that to be a proportionate approach which is in the public interest.
We therefore believe that it is more appropriate for immigration officers to have specific administrative search powers where they are exercising administrative rather than criminal powers, and we already have the framework in schedule 2 of the Immigration Act 1971. I have already mentioned the importance of updating powers so that legislation moves with the times, which is why we now include documents that might be stored on electronic media or devices.
Sarah Champion
I am sorry to labour this point. I hear what the Minister is saying, and I do not disagree with the argument that he is making. However, does the Minister really think that the Home Affairs team, the immigration team, have the resources to go in and do this work? In my constituency, when we have people who are waiting to be deported, there simply are not the officers who can go in and carry out the work. Surely the Minister should be looking at that.
The Solicitor General
I do not want to criticise the hon. Lady for repeating an important point but, as I have already said to her, it is vital to remember that these powers are going to be exercised in a proportionate way, based on genuine intelligence. They are not going to be exercised in a scattergun way that would demand a significant increase in resources. We are confident that the proposals and powers we propose to introduce will make it easier for immigration officers to take that action and remove some of the understandable practical obstacles that exist with administrative procedures such as this, which then end up with a civil consequence as opposed to a criminal consequence. In short, at the moment it is easier for immigration officers investigating a criminal offence to search and seize than it is when it comes to the more practical measure of enforcing the civil consequences of decisions made after due process. This is a harmonisation of powers, if you like—let us remind ourselves that this is not a new power of entry. It relates to a time when immigration officers are already lawfully on the premises. It is a reasonable and proportionate measure. I think that the concerns that the hon. Lady raises are therefore met by the increased flexibility that the authorities are now going to enjoy.
Keir Starmer
As I think the Minister accepts, powers of search and seizure in connection with the imposition of civil penalties are rare in our law. There are other examples, but they are rare. The usual circumstances are for search and seizure powers to be in connection with the imposition of criminal penalties. The question I want to put to the Minister is, what is the principle? I do not think that anybody would argue that it is sensible to move to a situation where all civil penalties give rise to a power of search and seizure and therefore there is a sub-class that may have these powers connected to it. What is the principle behind this clause and that sub-group of civil penalties that attracts the search and seizure powers?
The Solicitor General
Putting it as simply as I can, the principle is that we want to ensure that, rather than having to resort to the use of criminal sanction—which, although it might mark the commission of offences and impose a punishment and penalty on individuals, could properly be seen as a disproportionate use of state power—we can resort to what, as I have said, is perhaps a lesser used path but one that is still within what the hon. and learned Gentleman and I would regard the bounds of compatibility with the European convention on human rights and our existing law. It is a proportionate use of powers. I remind the Committee that this is not a power of entry. Immigration officers have to be lawfully on the premises before these powers can be used—and, of course, there have to be reasonable grounds to suspect that the person with regard to whom the powers are being used may be liable to be detained and removed from the United Kingdom. There is a caveat, too: the search should only be to the extent reasonably required to find the documents, so a complete top to tail, fingertip search of the house, which would be wholly disproportionate, would not be within the particular use of this power.
I will give another example. There is concern about seizure of mobile telephones. Yes, there is a power to seize, but any such device on which electronic documents are stored will be seized only if it is not possible for the owner otherwise to produce the document in a visible and legible form. Again, that is an example of the proportionality and the safeguards that exist in this particular instance. I hope that on the grounds of principle and particular efficacy I have outlined what I regard as a middle way, which these provisions represent.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 20
Search of premises in connection with imposition of civil penalty
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Solicitor General
Clause 20 provides a power for immigration officers to search premises for documents that might help in determining whether a civil penalty should be imposed on an employer or landlord. This power may only be exercised where immigration officers are already lawfully on the premises. Immigration officers already have powers to search for evidence of the offence of employing illegal workers and will have them for the new offence of leasing premises to a disqualified person. However, it is often more appropriate, as with my previous remarks on clause 19, to impose a civil penalty rather than pursue a prosecution. Therefore, we believe it is fitting for immigration officers to have specific administrative search powers when they are exercising powers for a non-criminal purpose. For that reason I beg to move that clause 20 stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 21
Seizure and retention in relation to offences
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill
The Solicitor General
Clause 21 provides a power for immigration officers to seize anything they may find in the course of exercising a function under the Immigration Acts while lawfully on the premises where they believe that it has been obtained in the consequence of committing a crime, or where it is evidence of an offence. They may do so only in order to prevent the item being concealed, lost, altered or destroyed and may retain it unless a photograph or copy is sufficient. Again, this is similar to the example of the mobile telephone seizure that I gave in the debate on clause 19.
Immigration officers sometimes encounter evidence of other crimes when they are searching premises using immigration powers. In such circumstances they will contact the police and, if necessary, wait for police to come in order to secure the evidence. In the meantime, the problem is that immigration officers have no specific powers to prevent other persons on the premises removing, altering or destroying the evidence before the police arrive. It makes sense that immigration officers who are trained in securing evidence should be able to seize it to ensure that this mischief does not happen.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 22
Duty to pass on items seized under section 21
The Solicitor General
I beg to move amendment 95, in clause 22, page 27, line 36, after “If” insert “the immigration officer has reasonable grounds for believing that”
This amendment clarifies that where an immigration officer is not absolutely certain that an item which has been seized under clause 21 is also evidence of an immigration offence, the immigration officer still has discretion to retain it rather than being under a duty to pass it to another investigating authority.
Amendment 95 is a minor and technical amendment that clarifies that where an immigration officer is not absolutely certain that an item that he or she has seized under the power in clause 21 is also evidence of an immigration offence, they still retain a discretion to hold or retain it, rather than being under a duty to pass it to another investigating authority. This addresses the very fine line between some offences, where it may not be clear at the outset whether they are immigration offences or not. For example, immigration officers investigating facilitation of an illegal entry in breach of immigration law may encounter forged, counterfeit or improperly obtained passports but may not necessarily know without further investigation whether they are being used by the facilitator or are unconnected with this offence.
Sarah Champion
On a point of clarification, how long can an item be held? For example, if a student has their laptop taken, that will have a direct impact on them. Is there any form of compensation or support around that?
The Solicitor General
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I am checking the subsection, but I do not think there is a specific timeframe. I will come back to her, if I may, once I have outlined the position regarding clause 22.
Amendment 95 agreed to.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
The Solicitor General
The clause provides a duty for immigration officers to notify the relevant investigating authorities, normally the police or National Crime Agency, where they have seized anything under clause 21.
It also applies where immigration officers, working in criminal investigation teams, have seized anything using their powers in relation to specified crimes that are commonly encountered in the course of exercising a function under the Immigration Acts, such as bigamy, forgery and human trafficking.
It sets out the arrangements for: notifying the relevant authority of the items seized; whether or not the authority will accept the items; handing them over; or returning them if, for example, the relevant authority does not believe them to be evidence of an offence.
In response to the concerns of the hon. Member for Rotherham about length, as I thought, there is no specific timeframe. However, there is an expectation that the immigration authorities will act reasonably. There are obviously practical concerns about retention of items such as laptops by the authorities. I am sure that they would view it as being in their very strong interest either to return the item, if it discloses the commission of no offence, or to pass it on to the relevant authority, if it were connected with the commission of a criminal offence. Therefore, there is a strong utility argument that would prompt the immigration authorities to act more promptly rather than hold on to items in the way that she fears.
Sarah Champion
I should be grateful if the Solicitor General would issue a statement on that in the guidance notes. I know from the experience of my constituents who have had mobile phones taken that they just seem to disappear, and that seems almost as a punishment or intimidation rather than for a productive reason.
The Solicitor General
I am happy to reassure the hon. Lady in this way. The arrangements in clause 21 mirror the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 arrangements, and that should reassure her at the very least that there is a framework. I accept that within that there will be occasions when individuals do end up waiting an inordinate time for items.
Of course, there are powers in relation to a criminal investigation under the Police (Property) Act 1897. Although I cannot give an undertaking, the points that the hon. Lady has put on the record are noted but I am satisfied that we have a framework mirroring PACE that acts as an exhortation to the authorities to act in a reasonable and prompt way. I am grateful to her for raising that point.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 22, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 23
Retention of things seized under Part 3 of the Immigration Act 1971
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Solicitor General
Clause 23 inserts a new section 28ZI into the Immigration Act 1971 that provides for the retention of material seized by immigration officers for the purposes of a criminal investigation. This simply aligns the framework for the retention of anything seized by an immigration officer for a criminal purpose with that applying to police in England and Wales under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. That should be a welcome insertion that all Members will feel comfortable with, knowing that there is a harmonisation of the powers.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 23 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 24
Search for nationality documents by detainee custody officers etc.
Keir Starmer
I beg to move amendment 197, in clause 24, page 30, leave out lines 13 to 16
To remove the power to conduct a strip search from detainee custody officers.
We now move to an area of considerable concern. The amendment would remove the power to conduct a strip search from detainee custody officers. The context in which the amendment is put forward is one of considerable concern for some time about the exercise of powers over those in immigration detention—a concern that I believe is shared across the House.
Clause 24 (1) provides:
“The Secretary of State may direct a detainee custody officer, prison officer or prisoner custody officer to exercise any of the powers in subsection (6) in relation to—
(a) a detained person who is detained in a removal centre, prison or young offender institution, or
(b) a person who is detained in a short-term holding facility.”
Subsection (5) provides that the relevant officer must then comply with the direction, with subsection (4) providing that the Secretary of State must have reasonable grounds to believe that,
“a relevant nationality document will be found if a power in subsection (6) is exercised in relation to the person.”
If we press on through the clause, we find a point that ties in with amendment 198—that the definition of nationality document is very wide. Under subsection (15) “nationality document” means,
“a document which might—
(a) establish a person’s identity, nationality or citizenship”.
A document that might establish a person’s identify is a very wide class of documents for all of us. Many documents might establish or help to establish our identity. This gives the Secretary of State a wide power to make a direction in relation to a wide class of documents where the relevant officer must then comply, and the power to include strip search in an environment and a context where there has already been heightened concern about the exercise of powers within immigration detention.
Those are the reasons why these amendments will be pursued. They are pursued with real concern about how the powers will be exercised, based on many points that have already been raised and the reports that have been written about this area.
Sarah Champion
There is frequent reference to a young offender institute. Does my colleague share my concern that this means that the power to strip search will also be extended to children?
Keir Starmer
Unless the Minister assures me otherwise, that is precisely how far the strip search provisions will go and it heightens the concern about the exercise of these powers. In those circumstances, a powerful case has to be made for the power to exist at all and for it to be as wide as it is, bearing in mind the definition to which I have already referred.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I want to focus on Clauses 24 and 25, which hand power to detainee custody officers to perform strip searches. Women are in this country because they have experienced horrific sexual abuse in the countries they have come from. Whether or not they can prove it, does not take away from the fact that they have experienced it. All sexual abuse is horrific and we have all heard truly harrowing stories. I would like to share one with Members.
When I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament, I attended an event addressed by an academic from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who had sought and been given asylum here. She was addressing a group of MSPs and talked about how on the day that she published her academic research into the sexual abuse of women in the DRC, she got a phone call from her family to say that by way of punishment the army had come to her family home, taken her teenage niece, and stood in a circle round her. One by one they raped that child and the rest of the family was forced to watch. It goes without saying that that is incredibly horrific. She hoped to be able to bring her niece over to this country. I do not know whether she ever did, because I never heard from her again, but let us say that she did and her niece ended up here. Her niece, like many women who have experienced such things, will no doubt have a lifelong terror of anyone in uniform—male and female soldiers conducted the abuse—and of people in authority. If it is absolutely necessary for anyone to undergo a strip search, it has to be conducted with professionalism and sensitivity and must meet the highest standards, which means extremely experienced, highly trained officers.
Anne McLaughlin
I will give way, although I have reached the last sentence of my speech.
Sarah Champion
Subsection (8) states:
“A strip search may…not be carried out in the presence of…a person of the opposite sex.”
Does the hon. Lady share my concern that the Bill does not detail whether the search itself may be carried out by someone of the opposite sex?
Anne McLaughlin
I am concerned. I see the Minister nodding, which I hope indicates agreement that we have to be exceptionally careful and carry out strip searches only if they are essential. We must bear in mind that, whether or not the Home Office believes that person, we do not know unless we were there—they may well have experienced such horrific abuses.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I think we have all been moved by the story that the hon. Lady mentioned, but does she take comfort, as I do, from the fact that in circumstances in which a strip search has to be undertaken, it is just a surface strip search, if that is the correct term, rather than an invasive strip search? I think that will probably go some way towards addressing her earlier point.
Anne McLaughlin
I am not entirely sure that that would be a strip search. For people who have experienced any kind of sexual abuse, or any kind of powerlessness, somebody touching the surface of their clothes can have—
Simon Hoare
I may have been a little more delicate than I needed to be. Clearly, people will be taking off their clothes—gosh, I certainly would not want to be strip searched—but my understanding is that it would not be an internally invasive strip search, as can often happen.
Anne McLaughlin
I now understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I reiterate that sometimes it is not about whether, to be blunt, there is an internal search. Somebody can be a victim of sexual abuse simply by being touched on the surface of their body—they can be fully clothed and be sexually abused—and such searches are extremely distressing for somebody who has experienced abuse. I take his point, but I ask for a great deal of sensitivity. The example I have cited is not a one-off. I have heard many similar stories, and we should always bear in mind that the person who is being strip searched may well have experienced such abuse. There should therefore be the highest levels of professionalism.
The Chair
Before calling the Minister, I remind the Committee that we are considering amendment 197. We will consider amendment 198 separately.
The Solicitor General
I am grateful for that exhortation, Mr Owen. I will therefore resist eliding the two issues and specifically address amendment 197, which has prompted an extremely useful debate on strip searches. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Rotherham and for Glasgow North East for speaking clearly and making the right points about the need for the highest possible standards when using such a draconian power.
First, I offer reassurance to the hon. Member for Rotherham, who asked about the meaning of the guidance that a strip search may not be carried out in the presence of a person of the opposite sex. That includes the person conducting the search. That is absolutely essential, because any other scenario would be wholly wrong and insensitive.
Sarah Champion
It is incredibly reassuring to hear that, but will the Solicitor General put it in the Bill?
The Solicitor General
My understanding of what I prefer to call “full searches”—full non-intimate searches is probably the correct term—is that they are never done to a male by a female or to a female by a male. That has been the case for a considerable period, and probably ever since PACE. I might be wrong, but that is certainly my understanding from years of using the code of practice in my work as a criminal practitioner, prior to my entry into the House.
I want to deal with the question of what precisely we mean here. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset adumbrated the point that this is not about an intimate search. This is not a search of body orifices—for example, the mouth. It is what we would describe as a non-intimate search. More importantly, it is not the rather horrific image that might be created in our minds of someone completely unclothed being searched. That is not what happens. The individual must not at any stage be completely naked, so searches have to, in effect, take place with regard to each item of clothing in turn. Of course, that involves looking between the clothing and the skin, because experience sadly teaches us that important documents can often be concealed there, but at no time is the individual humiliated to the extent that they are left without any clothes on at all.
Paul Blomfield
I do not question for one moment the Government’s intention or the guidance, but does the Solicitor General accept that the context makes a big difference? For example, at Yarl’s Wood, which I know the Government have concerns about and are reviewing, allegations were made as recently as January this year by the charity, Women For Refugee Women, about the treatment of women. Until issues with practice on the ground in detention centres are adequately resolved, the best intentions in the world are at risk, are they not?
The Solicitor General
This is one of the most important functions that we as a Committee can perform: not having artificial debates but putting on the record the concerns, using the evidence we have as Members of Parliament or, indeed, from our observation of important events at places such as Yarl’s Wood, then seeking clarification from Ministers. I hope that my colleague the Minister for Immigration feels exactly the same way I do—that this is an opportunity for the Government to put on the line what we expect the standards to be when it comes to non-intimate full searches.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for the Solicitor General’s explanation, and I understand exactly the case he puts for the power, but there is sometimes, as he will understand, a gap between the words that go into Hansard as a result of this exchange and what happens on the ground. That is the real cause for concern, particularly in the light of the Yarl’s Wood example. What practical steps can be taken to turn the assurances the Solicitor General is rightly giving into reality on the ground?
The Solicitor General
We are going to provide additional guidance on the power to search under clause 24. That is for those who are directing the search on behalf of the Secretary of State and those who are conducting the search. Detainee custody officers, prison officers and prisoner custody officers are trained in the use of search powers, which includes strip searches. Detention services order 9/2012 provides instructions to detainee custody officers, and prison service instructions 67/2011 and 16/2014 provide instructions for searching persons in prisons and young offenders institutions respectively. We will build on those and ensure that the new provisions contain clear guidance.
The hon. Member for Rotherham made a point about the wording, “in the presence of”. We would say that the words are clear: it obviously means the person conducting the search as well. I hope that the explanation that I give as the Minister presenting the clause will be sufficient clarification to allay her fears on that point.
Sarah Champion
I thank the Minister for that clarification, and now that he has specifically put that on record, I am comfortable with that. I know that the Minister is always honourable in his intentions. Could I ask him to answer my point about youth offenders? At what age does he think it acceptable for young people and children to go through this search?
The Solicitor General
I was coming on to that very point. The power to search children in this way will only be used in exceptional circumstances. Let me explain the background. The Government’s policy is not to detain children in immigration and removal centres, so as part of the family removal process where children are held in a short-term holding facility a few days prior to removal, we believe that this search power will not be necessary because we will have the travel documents in place already.
Regarding young offender institutions, children under the age of 18 are exempt from the automatic deportation provisions for foreign national criminals, so one ground is already removed. Let me give me an example of exceptional circumstances. A 17-year-old male might be held in a young offender institution following a conviction of rape. He is facing deportation on conducive grounds because of this sentence and gang affiliations. If the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds to believe that he may have nationality documents in his possession, then it may be necessary for officers to conduct a full search in the way that we have described. I hope that gives the hon. Lady reassurance that we really are talking about exceptional circumstances, such as an older male who has perhaps been convicted of a very serious offence, where there is a clear public interest in making sure that all reasonable steps are taken before removal from the UK.
Keir Starmer
The example that the Solicitor General gives is a 17-year-old male. What does he see as the limits on children under the age of 17? At what age does it become inappropriate to ever exercise this power? I know that is a difficult question in general but this is a sensitive area. A 17-year-old male is one thing—he has given a good example, but there are clearly other examples of concern. What are the limits as the age goes down?
The Solicitor General
The only answer I can give is that it will depend on a thorough case-by-case analysis. For example, it might be somebody younger who is a persistent offender who has committed a very serious offence. It would be wrong to say that there would be a hard and fast threshold, other than one that would be based on a genuine case-by-case analysis. Many people in this room have had experience of the youth offending system. I think that with training and guidance, we can get this right and make sure that the power is not used in a disproportionate way that reasonable people would regard as an infringement and an inappropriate use of the power with regard to young people. [Interruption.] There is Ministry of Justice guidance which says that searches of males in young offender institutions must be risk based or following intelligence on a case-by-case basis. That is the guidance that will be followed. There will be a read-over and therefore the fear of randomness and of arbitrary judgment is removed by the use of that guidance and careful case-by-case analysis.
Keir Starmer
I appreciate that to some extent we are exploring the limits of this as we go along and I am grateful for the way that the Minister is dealing with that. It may be a simple question of reassurance but are there any circumstances where under this provision, a child under the age of 10 would be subject to a search? I do not think that would be available under any other provision in criminal law because they would be under the age of criminal responsibility. This is a genuine concern. I am not asking for an instant answer if it is impossible. It may be something that is better done in writing. I think for all criminal law provisions, 10 would be the lower trigger for obvious reasons.
The Solicitor General
I think, in asking the question, the hon. and learned Gentleman is almost answering the point. In that case, a child under 10 would not have been convicted of any criminal offence. That is an important start. I am happy to give the assurance that the measure would not apply to a child under 10.
Keir Starmer
Of course, the question answers itself regarding young offender institutions. I was not exploring that aspect but I am grateful for the Solicitor General’s assistance. My concern relates to those and any other centres. It is an exploring question, rather than one that may be capable of being answered straight off the cuff.
The Solicitor General
I am happy to give a direct answer. In any circumstance, this will not apply to children under 10.
Keir Starmer
I have said all that I need to say on amendment 197. I wish to press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
We now come to amendment 198 to clause 24. The hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras has briefly discussed the amendment but he needs to move it.
Keir Starmer
I beg to move amendment 198, in clause 24, page 30, line 45, leave out from “which” to end of line 2 on page 31 and insert
“establishes a person’s nationality or citizenship.”
To narrow the definition of nationality document to mean a passport or identity card for the purposes of custody officers, prison officers and prison custody officers who are given powers to search for nationality documents.
I think that the Solicitor General avoided eliding amendments 197 and 198, but I am not sure that I did; therefore, I have already made the point about amendment 198. He sought to give some assurances in his answers to my questions on the previous amendment. My question is the same. The category of nationality documents is potentially very wide. What practical steps can be taken to bring it within reasonable limits and ensure that it is exercised proportionately? It may be that it could go in the envisaged guidance, but it would be useful to have some reassurance about this category of document.
The Solicitor General
The definition given in clause 24 is frequently used elsewhere in immigration legislation where immigration and police officers have various powers to search for, seize and retain documents that will facilitate a person’s removal from the UK. When it is not possible to obtain passports and identification cards, other documents that contain information such as date of birth, place of birth or right of residence can indeed assist foreign Governments to identify their nationals and provide travel documents for them. Those could include: birth, marriage or civil partnership certificates; divorce documents; adoption papers; maritime or military discharge certificates; tickets for travel in and out of the UK; stubs of boarding passes; resident status documents; and visas and vignettes.
The effect of the amendment would be to hinder the efforts of the Home Office to secure emergency travel documents and to remove people with no leave to enter or remain in the UK. We therefore fear that, despite the understandable intentions of the hon. and learned Gentleman, it does not reflect the reality of what we are trying to achieve, which is to help foreign Governments to facilitate the return of foreign nationals who, after having exhausted due process, are no longer entitled to be here.
Keir Starmer
I appreciate that the definition has been used elsewhere. It is the combination of that definition with the strip search that is of such great concern, although in the circumstances, and given the assurances on strip searches, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 24 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 25
Seizure of nationality documents by detainee custody officers etc
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Solicitor General
Clause 25, like clause 24, deals with a gap in the powers of officers charged with the care and security of immigration detainees and foreign national prisoners who are liable to deportation to obtain nationality documents to help the Home Office remove these people from the United Kingdom. As noted on a number of occasions, the ability to remove foreign nationals who have no right to remain here is often delayed by the need to obtain a passport or other travel document. We need to take all necessary steps to obtain those documents that will facilitate removal. This clause allows relevant officers to seize nationality documents that are found in the course of a routine search conducted using their existing powers and to seek the Secretary of State’s consent to retain that document and to pass it on to the Home Office where the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds to believe the document will help with the person’s removal from the UK.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 25 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 26
Amendments relating to sections 24 and 25
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Solicitor General
Clause 26 amends schedule 11 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, as a consequence of clause 24, by expanding the offences of assaulting or obstructing a detainee custody officer to include where an officer is performing functions under clause 24 to search for nationality documents. It ensures that a reference to a detainee custody officer in this context also includes a reference to a prison officer or a prisoner custody officer. It is only right, in extending the functions of those officers, that they are covered by existing offences of assault and obstruction. They deserve a degree of protection by criminal law if they are assaulted in the course of their duties.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 26 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 27 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 4
Amendments to search warrant provisions
The Solicitor General
I beg to move amendment 24, in schedule 4, page 73, line 17, leave out from “application” to “, or” in line 19.
This amendment and amendments 25 and 28 to 30 are to clarify that the definition of “specific premises warrant” in section 28K(13A) of the Immigration Act 1971 inserted by paragraph 5(8) of Schedule 4 to the Bill applies to any warrant under that Act which is not an all premises warrant.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 25, 49, 50, 51, 26 to 28, 52, 53, 29 and 30.
The Solicitor General
These amendments to schedule 4 amend the provisions for immigration warrants. I am happy to say that they have been tabled as a result of lengthy dialogue with the Scottish Government—I know that will please and satisfy hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Glasgow North East. Amendments 26 and 27 remove the requirement for immigration search warrants obtained in Scotland to be returned after they have been executed. At the moment, under section 28K of the 1971 Act, warrants must be returned if issued by a justice of the peace in Scotland to the clerk of the district court for the commission area for which the justice of the peace was appointed or, if issued by the sheriff, to the sheriff clerk. These amendments will make it easier for the warrants to be available to the procurator fiscal as productions in criminal proceedings in Scotland, making the process a better way of working with our friends in the Scottish criminal justice system.
Amendments 24, 25, 28, 29 and 30 are technical amendments that clarify the definition of what is known as a specific premises warrant, which allows officers to enter only the address named on the warrant. Schedule 4 to the Bill introduces all-premises warrants, which allow officers to enter more than one set of premises occupied or controlled by a person who has to be specified in the warrant application, even if only one address is actually specified on the warrant. These amendments would make it clear that any warrant that is not defined as an all-premises warrant is therefore a specific premises warrant.
Amendments 49 to 53 are minor and technical amendments that ensure that the provisions regarding warrants in sections 28J and 28K of the 1971 Act, as amended by schedule 4, also apply to a warrant obtained for entering premises to detain a vehicle.
Amendment 24 agreed to.
Amendments made: 25, in schedule 4, page 74, line 14, leave out from “application” to “, or” in line 16.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 24.
Amendment 49, schedule 4, page 75, line 40, after “section” insert “24DA(6)(b),”.
This amendment and amendments 50 to 53 ensure that the provisions regarding warrants in sections 28J and 28K of the Immigration Act 1971 as amended by Schedule 4 also apply to a warrant obtained for entering premises to detain a vehicle.
Amendment 50, in schedule 4, page 75, line 43, after “section” insert “24DA(8),”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 49.
Amendment 51, in schedule 4, page 76, line 5, after “seizure” insert “or detention”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 49.
Amendment 26, in schedule 4, page 76, line 23, after “(8B)” insert “Subject to subsection (8C),”.
This amendment and amendment 27 reflect Scottish criminal law by removing the requirement for immigration search warrants obtained in Scotland to be returned to the clerk of the district court or the sheriff clerk after they have been executed, allowing for them to be retained for use by the Procurator Fiscal in court.
Amendment 27, in schedule 4, page 76, line 28, at end insert—
‘(8C) Subsection (8B) does not apply to a warrant issued by a justice of the peace in Scotland or by the sheriff if the warrant has been executed.””.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 26.
Amendment 28, in schedule 4, page 76, line 33, leave out from “warrant” to end of line 35 and insert “which is not an all premises warrant;”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 24.
Amendment 52, in schedule 4, page 76, line 37, after “section” insert “24DA(6)(b),”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 49.
Amendment 53, in schedule 4, page 76, line 40, after “section” insert “24DA(8),”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 49.
Amendment 29, in schedule 4, page 77, line 8, leave out from “application” to “, or” in line 10.—(The Solicitor General.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 24.
Keir Starmer
I beg to move amendment 220, in schedule 4, page 77, line 33, at end insert—
‘(1) The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 is amended as follows—
(2) in section 145(1) for “may” substitute “must”.”
Makes mandatory the issuing a code of practice that immigration officers must follow.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 221, in clause 54, page 45, line 9, at end insert—
‘(3A) Sections 19 to 28 shall come into force on a day to be appointed, that day being no earlier than the day on which the Secretary of State gives a direction under s 145 of the Immigration Act 1999 and lays before Parliament the codes specified in that direction.”
To delay the entry into force of the provisions in Part 3 Enforcement under the subheading “Powers of immigration officers” until such time as the Secretary of State has made a direction under s 145 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and has laid the codes specified in that direction before both Houses of Parliament.
Keir Starmer
Let me start by setting out the purpose of these two amendments. Amendment 220 is intended to make mandatory the issuing of the code of practice that immigration officers must follow. Amendment 221 would delay the entrance into force of the provisions of part 3—which concerns enforcement, under the sub-heading “Powers of immigration officers etc”—until such time as the Secretary of State has made a direction under section 145 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, and has laid the code specified in that direction before both Houses of Parliament. The context here is an agreement across the House that there has to be care, professionalism, necessity and proportionality in the exercise of all the powers that we have been discussing this afternoon.
The amendments are prompted by the current mismatch between Home Office guidance and the successive reports of the chief inspector of borders and immigration. To elaborate on that, the Home Office guidance by and large suggests that enforcement raids on premises and businesses are directed on the basis of specific intelligence about an individual who does not have leave to be in the UK. However, successive reports by the chief inspector of borders and immigration paint a different picture. In the inspection that the chief inspector conducted from October to November 2013, he reported that 59% of the cases he examined lacked the required justification for the use of the power and that in a further 12% there was insufficient information for him to form an opinion. Taken together, that 71% is a very high percentage of cases that the inspector is reporting. There is a mismatch between the guidance being issued and what is happening on the ground.
In the same report that related to October and November 2013, the chief inspector reported high varying use of the power across the country. In south London it was used in two-thirds of illegal working operations, and in east London it was used in 3% of cases. Therefore, the purpose of the amendments is to bolster the provisions for a code, to make the code mandatory and to delay the provisions until the code is laid before the Houses of Parliament.
The Solicitor General
In essence, our objections to these amendments are, with respect, that they have no substantial effect, given that it is already the case that immigration officers’ coercive powers are subject to the Immigration (PACE Codes of Practice) Direction 2013 and that the specified codes themselves—that is, the PACE codes of practice—have been laid before both Houses of Parliament.
Section 145 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 makes it mandatory that immigration officers should have regard to such provisions as the PACE codes of practice as may be specified. “Specified” means in a direction given by the Secretary of State. It is already the case that the 2013 direction applies the relevant parts of the PACE codes of practice to the powers exercised by immigration officers. This direction is available in the Libraries of both Houses and is also published on the gov.uk website. Hon. Members will be well aware that any changes to the PACE codes of practice are laid before Parliament. We will of course update the immigration direction to reflect the new immigration powers in part 3 of the Bill and will ensure that is done in time for the commencement of these enforcement powers.
The hon. and learned Gentleman raised some points about a criticism about the use of enforcement powers, for which I am grateful to him. I think it was Liberty that referenced some statistics from the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration’s report on the use of the power to enter business premises without a search warrant—that was published in March of last year. An internal review had already highlighted that as an area for improvement, and the inspector’s report noted the following:
“During the course of our inspection, the Home Office moved quickly to address the issues that we identified. This was positive and demonstrated that the Home Office was, for the first time, starting to exert a much stronger grip on how the power was used by its staff.”
I hope that that is encouraging information for all Members present.
Where immigration officers are entering premises using a warrant, in order for that warrant to be issued, they will have to have satisfied the court that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that a person who is liable to be arrested for a relevant offence is to be found on the premises or that there are reasonable grounds for believing that material that is likely to be relevant evidence of an immigration offence is on the premises. The safeguards for the use of these warrants is set out in sections 28J and 28K of the Immigration Act 1971 and reflect those provisions in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
In the light of those points, I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree to withdraw his well-intentioned amendment.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for the Minister’s explanations and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment made: 30, in schedule 4, page 78, line 1, leave out from “application” to “, or” in line 3.—(The Solicitor General.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 24.
Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 29
Immigration bail
Keir Starmer
I beg to move amendment 115, in clause 29, page 33, line 13, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 117, in schedule 5, page 78, line 29, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 118, in schedule 5, page 78, line 40, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 119, in schedule 5, page 79, line 2, leave out “bail to a person, grant that person bail” and insert “temporary admission to a person, grant that person temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 120, in schedule 5, page 79, line 11, leave out “immigration bail, in relation to a person, are to the grant of bail” and insert “temporary admission, in relation to a person, are to the grant of temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 121, in schedule 5, page 79, line 14, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 122, in schedule 5, page 79, line 15, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 123, in schedule 5, page 79, line 22, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 124, in schedule 5, page 79, line 24, leave out “immigration bail from when a grant of immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission from when a grant of temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 125, in schedule 5, page 79, line 26, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 126, in schedule 5, page 79, line 38, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 127, in schedule 5, page 80, line 1, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 128, in schedule 5, page 80, line 3, leave out “Immigration bail” and insert “Temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 129, in schedule 5, page 80, line 5, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 130, in schedule 5, page 80, line 11, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 131, in schedule 5, page 80, line 15, leave out ““bail condition”, in relation to a person on immigration bail, means a condition to which the person’s bail is subject.” and insert ““temporary admission condition”, in relation to a person on temporary admission bail, means a condition to which the person’s temporary admission is subject.”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 132, in schedule 5, page 80, line 20, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 133, in schedule 5, page 80, line 21, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 134, in schedule 5, page 80, line 23, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 135, in schedule 5, page 80, line 28, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 136, in schedule 5, page 80, line 30, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 137, in schedule 5, page 80, line 37, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 138, in schedule 5, page 80, line 40, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 139, in schedule 5, page 80, line 46, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 140, in schedule 5, page 81, line 2, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 141, in schedule 5, page 81, line 7, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 142, in schedule 5, page 81, line 9, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 143, in schedule 5, page 81, line 10, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 144, in schedule 5, page 81, line 11, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 145, in schedule 5, page 81, line 13, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 146, in schedule 5, page 81, line 43, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 147, in schedule 5, page 81, line 44, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 148, in schedule 5, page 82, line 3, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 149, in schedule 5, page 82, line 9, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 150, in schedule 5, page 82, line 10, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 151, in schedule 5, page 82, line 35, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 152, in schedule 5, page 82, line 41, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 153, in schedule 5, page 82, line 43, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 154, in schedule 5, page 83, line 9, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 155, in schedule 5, page 83, line 22, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 156, in schedule 5, page 83, line 25, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 157, in schedule 5, page 83, line 33, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 158, in schedule 5, page 83, line 35, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 159, in schedule 5, page 83, line 41, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 160, in schedule 5, page 83, line 43, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 161, in schedule 5, page 84, line 2, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 162, in schedule 5, page 84, line 34, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 163, in schedule 5, page 84, line 41, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 164, in schedule 5, page 84, line 43, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 165, in schedule 5, page 84, line 47, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 166, in schedule 5, page 85, line 2, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 167, in schedule 5, page 85, line 3, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 168, in schedule 5, page 85, line 23, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 169, in schedule 5, page 85, line 25, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 170, in schedule 5, page 85, line 37, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 171, in schedule 5, page 86, line 5, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 172, in schedule 5, page 86, line 15, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 173, in schedule 5, page 86, line 18, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 174, in schedule 5, page 86, line 36, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 175, in schedule 5, page 87, line 2, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 176, in schedule 5, page 87, line 12, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 177, in schedule 5, page 87, line 31, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 178, in schedule 5, page 87, line 32, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 179, in schedule 5, page 87, line 35, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 180, in schedule 5, page 87, line 38, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 181, in schedule 5, page 87, line 42, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 182, in schedule 5, page 87, line 43, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 183, in schedule 5, page 87, line 45, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 184, in schedule 5, page 88, line 1, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 185, in schedule 5, page 88, line 17, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 186, in schedule 5, page 88, line 19, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 187, in schedule 5, page 88, line 23, leave out “Bail” and insert “Temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 188, in schedule 5, page 89, line 23, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 189, in schedule 5, page 89, line 26, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 190, in schedule 5, page 89, line 32, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 191, in schedule 5, page 89, line 34, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 192, in schedule 5, page 89, line 37, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 193, in schedule 5, page 89, line 38, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 194, in schedule 5, page 90, line 1, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 195, in schedule 5, page 90, line 3, leave out “immigration bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
Amendment 196, in schedule 5, page 90, line 5, leave out “bail” and insert “temporary admission”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 113.
You do not have to speak to all the amendments, Mr Starmer.
Keir Starmer
Thank you, Mr Owen. It is a daunting list of amendments; I am sure those on the Government Benches are asking themselves whether I intend to push each of them to a vote, which would probably take us most of the rest of the afternoon.
These amendments are all directed to the concern that there is a merging in the Bill of immigration bail into what is, in truth, temporary admission. Temporary admission, temporary release and bail are being replaced by one form of admission, subject to conditions, which is being called “immigration bail”. The purpose of the amendments is to re-name “immigration bail” as “temporary admission”. Not only will that accurately reflect the status of the individual; it carries with it presumptions and assumptions about the way they are to be treated. The best example of that I can give is that, in relation to temporary admission, the presumption is in favour of temporary admission. By re-naming it immigration bail, the presumption—not in the Bill, I accept, but in practice—is one of detention, to which bail is the exception. This will obviously affect a wide category of individuals, including refugees, children, survivors of torture, trafficked persons and so on. Those presumptions and assumptions make a real difference on the ground and these amendments address that concern.
Gavin Newlands
It is important to remember that not all people who are being detained in detention centres are criminals or offenders. With that in mind, the wording and terminology is extremely important as we do not want to create a system or a process that gives a false, misleading or wrong impression. The Bill removes the concept of temporary admission and creates a situation whereby anyone without leave who is waiting for a decision on their application will be on immigration bail. Therefore, saying that someone is on immigration bail implies that they have conducted a criminal act of some sort, and that they are on temporary release from their place of imprisonment. However, as has been pointed out by the helpful House of Commons Library paper, people can be detained for a number of innocent and excusable reasons, such as detention until such time as a person’s identity or basis of claim has been established—asylum seekers, stateless citizens and so on. It is not right to claim that such people are on bail, since they are innocent people who have not done anything wrong. As such, “temporary admission” is a more fitting and appropriate term.
The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association and others make the important point that:
“The terminology of ‘immigration bail’ suggests that detention is the norm and liberty an aberration and also suggest that persons seeking asylum are a form of criminal”.
Liberty also makes the point that:
“A large number of asylum seekers, previously granted temporary admission will now be seen exclusively through a prism of detention and bail, casting aspersions of illegitimacy and criminality”.
The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)
I thank the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras and the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North for their contributions to this debate. As has already been alluded to, clause 29 simplifies the current complex legal framework contained in schedule 2 and schedule 3 to the Immigration Act 1971 that allows individuals to be released while liable to immigration detention. The clause brings into force schedule 5 to the Bill which replaces six separate existing bail, temporary admission and release on restriction powers with a single clear framework setting out who can be bailed under immigration powers; the conditions that can be imposed on individuals; and the consequences if an individual breaches bail conditions.
The administration of the system will be largely unaffected by the changes. Rather, it is the underlying power that is being modified. The role of the Home Office and the tribunal would be largely unchanged and processes will remain the same. In responding to the amendments, it is important to understand that we do not seek to change anything as a consequence of this in terms of the treatment of people. It is important to spell out that clause 29 and schedule 5 do not effect any change in policy. Our policy remains one under which there is a presumption of liberty.
As hon. Members have highlighted, the amendments essentially serve the same purpose. They rename immigration bail “temporary admission”. It has been said that the use of the term bail may give some criminal context to individuals. I reject that view. The concept of immigration bail is long established and there should not be any confusion with criminal bail, which is provided for under an entirely separate legislative framework. We heard in evidence to our Committee that Schedule 5 simplifies a number of these provisions. We believe it will make these structures and systems more understandable and easier to follow by having them in the one place and presented in the way that they are. Individuals will have a much better understanding of the system and of their position.
It has also been said that the reference to immigration law reflects a change in policy, perhaps indicating that there is some emphasis that is taking us in a different direction. That is absolutely not the case. There is no presumption for immigration detention. I want to be clear that that is not the case. Our policy remains as it is on the presumption of liberty with the use of detention only as a last resort.
I note the point on the terminology of immigration bail. We reflected on the language and determined to choose it, because we believe that it is already commonly understood among practitioners in the system and should therefore aid attempts to understand the system better. It is not in any sense an effort to give some sort of criminal context nor to change policy in any way. It is, rather, using a term that is already used in many contexts that would continue to be covered in respect of the provisions that clause 29 and schedule 5 seek to operate.
I recognise the extension that has been highlighted in the different forms of leave. In our judgment, it would make it more complex to try to self-categorise and we therefore, in drafting the Bill, felt that the term bail reflected the right approach and terminology. I take on board the genuine sentiment behind the amendments, but with the clarity that I have given on there being no change in emphasis, policy or the manner in which anyone would be viewed or treated under the provisions, I hope that Members will withdraw their amendment.
Sarah Champion
The Minister is extremely generous. I think the Minister understands where we are coming from. We have an international reputation for our human rights and for the progressive way in which we treat immigration issues. But there has been an undercurrent of language that has been used by the Government and has also been cropping up in this Committee. The language is more aggressive in tone and we have been told that it is about putting out statements to prevent people coming here. While I completely agree with the Minister’s logic, I think the use of the term “bail” has criminal connotations in the general population.
James Brokenshire
The tone the Committee has adopted towards the measures in the Bill has been that they should be firm but fair. That is the approach that I have sought to provide. Yes, this is about sending a clear message that those who have no right to be in the country should leave, and we will support and facilitate that. With regard to the specific provision, it is not a pejorative term. The term immigration bail is already used and I have sought to distinguish it from criminal bail. That is understood in respect of the differences in the system.
The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North was right that people who might be subject to an Immigration Act might not have committed a criminal offence. Detention can be and is used properly for the removal of someone who does not have the right to be in the country to their home country. Bail may be appropriate if it is determined that the principles that underpin detention—often referred to as the Hardial Singh principles—are not adhered to. In such circumstances, bail or continued detention may not be appropriate.
It is understood in that context, rather than having any negative sense. I certainly would not wish to communicate to the Committee—and I do not think I have—any negative approach or term by the use of the word bail in the context of this provision. I do understand the sentiment and the point made by hon. Members across the Committee. With that clarity of intent and approach towards the provisions, I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras will withdraw the amendment.
Keir Starmer
The Minister has been very clear in his response to the proposed amendments, both as to the intent and as to what is not intended to change. I am grateful to him for that and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
James Brokenshire
I rise briefly to speak to clause 29 as I know that the more substantive debate will be on the underlying schedule—schedule 5. I emphasise that the proposal is intended to give clarity to the circumstances in which immigration bail is intended to operate. There are various lines of cases that operate in this sphere, in particular a current Court of Appeal case that has suggested that immigration bail conditions could be applied only when there was a right to detain. That certainly goes against existing understanding and practice and pre-existing law. That particular case is subject to appeal to the Supreme Court and has been stayed, so it does not have immediate effect.
Our judgment is that the provisions in clause 29 and schedule 5 give further clarity and are important in the context not only of simplification, putting everything into one place and promoting better understanding, but of providing clarity and certainty in law. That is why I hope that the Committee will be minded to include the clause in the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 29 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 5
Immigration bail
Keir Starmer
I beg to move amendment 199, in schedule 5, page 78, line 28, at end insert—
“( ) The following provisions apply if a person is detained under any provisions set out in paragraph (current Schedule 5 paragraph 1(1))—
(a) the Secretary of State must arrange a reference to the First-tier Tribunal for it to determine whether the detained person should be released on bail;
(b) the Secretary of State must secure that a first reference to the First-tier Tribunal is made no later than the eighth day following that on which the detained person was detained;
(c) if the detained person remains in detention, the Secretary of State must secure that a second reference to the First-tier Tribunal or Commission is made no later than the thirty-sixth day following that on which the detained person was detained and every twenty-eighth day thereafter;
(d) the First-tier Tribunal hearing a case referred to it under this section must proceed as if the detained person had made an application to it for bail; and
(e) the First-tier Tribunal must determine the matter—
(i) on a first reference, before the tenth day following that on which the person concerned was detained; and
(ii) on a second and subsequent reference, before the thirty-eighth day following that on which he was detained.
( ) For the purposes of this paragraph, ‘First-tier Tribunal’ means—
(a) if the detained person has brought an appeal under the Immigration Acts, the chamber of the First-tier Tribunal dealing with his appeal; and
(b) in any other case, such chamber of the First-tier Tribunal as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
( ) In the case of a detained person to whom section 3(2) of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997 applies (jurisdiction in relation to bail for persons detained on grounds of national security) a reference under sub-paragraph (3)(a) above, shall be to the Commission and not to the First-tier Tribunal.
( ) Rules made by the Lord Chancellor under section 5 of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997 may include provision made for the purposes of this paragraph.”
To make provision for automatic bail hearings, after eight days, 28 days and every 28 days thereafter.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 200, in schedule 5, page 79, line 22, leave out paragraph 1(6)
To remove from the Bill the power for the Secretary of State to detain an individual granted bail by the Tribunal without just cause.
Amendment 210, in schedule 5, page 79, line 42, leave out “, occupation or studies” and insert “or occupation”
Probing amendment to understand why restriction on a person’s studies is to be included in the list of conditions to which a person may be subject when on immigration bail.
Amendment 211, in schedule 5, page 80, leave out lines 1 and 2
Probing amendment to ascertain what additional conditions are envisaged to be imposed on immigration bail.
Amendment 201, in schedule 5, page 80, line 5, leave out sub-paragraphs (3) to (5)
To remove the provision which would allow the Secretary of State to override a decision of the Tribunal with regard to electronic monitoring or residence conditions placed on immigration bail.
Amendment 212, in schedule 5, page 80, line 32, leave out “in that person’s interests or”
Amendment 213, in schedule 5, page 80, line 33, leave out “and”
Amendment 214, in schedule 5, page 80, line 34, leave out sub-paragraph (f) and insert—
(f) whether the person’s removal from the UK is imminent, and
(b) such other matters as the Secretary of State or the First-tier Tribunal thinks relevant.”
To remove a requirement that that the Tribunal or the Secretary of State have regard to - when considering a grant of bail - whether continuing immigration detention is necessary in a person’s best interests.
Amendment 202, in schedule 5, page 83, line 4, leave out sub-paragraph (5)
To remove the provision which would allow the Secretary of State to override a decision of the Tribunal with regard to electronic monitoring or residence conditions placed on immigration bail.
Amendment 203, in schedule 5, page 83, line 12, leave out sub-paragraphs (8) to (10)
To remove the provision which would allow the Secretary of State to override a decision of the Tribunal with regard to electronic monitoring or residence conditions placed on immigration bail.
Amendment 204, in schedule 5, page 83, line 22, leave out sub-paragraph 7(1), (2), and (3) and insert—
7 (1) The Secretary of State must provide, or arrange for the provision of, facilities for the accommodation of persons released on immigration bail.”
To restore the power, provided by section 4(1)(c) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, for the Secretary of State to provide such accommodation pursuant to a detainee’s application for bail to the Tribunal.
Amendment 205, in schedule 5, page 83, leave out lines 30 to 32
To remove the purported limitation on the use of the power to provide support to persons to enable them to meet bail conditions to circumstances where the Secretary of State considers that there are “exceptional circumstances” justifying its use.
Amendment 206, in schedule 5, page 83, line 29, at end insert—
‘(2A) If the Secretary of State decides that the applicant does not qualify for support under sub-paragraph (2), the applicant may appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal (Asylum Support).”
To provide a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Asylum Support) where the Secretary of State decides not to provide support or to discontinue support under this Part to enable a person to meet bail conditions.
Amendment 207, in schedule 5, page 84, line 34, leave out from “(a)” to “otherwise”
To provide that a person arrested without a warrant and detained because it is considered that they are likely to breach any of their bail conditions or that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that they have done so must be brought before the First-tier Tribunal.
Keir Starmer
There are a number of amendments grouped together for obvious reasons. In my view, amendment 199 probably stands slightly apart from the others, being of a different nature, and I will deal with that first.
Amendment 199 would make provision for automatic bail hearings after 28 days and every 28 days thereafter. Bail hearings in immigration cases have been a source of considerable concern on both sides of the House and outside the House. There is concern about how bail hearings work and how effective they are, and there have been a number of questions as to what changes should be made.
Sarah Champion
My hon. and learned Friend is making a strong case but, on the flip side, surely it is in no one’s interest to have people languishing in a detention centre, because the cost to the taxpayer will be enormous.
Keir Starmer
The flip side of this argument is important. It is right that we should not detain people who do not need to be detained, both for their own sake and because it is costly to do so. I raise this issue because often, since I have been here, we take up the case across the House of those with mental health issues and many Members readily pledge greater support. It is those who have mental health issues who are least likely to be able to operate under the current system with no automatic right of bail. When we sign those pledges, make those commitments and say what we say about mental health, there is an obligation to see it through in a practical context—where it makes a real difference to people with mental health issues. In that spirit we put forward the amendment for automatic bail hearings, to cure a defect in the system that has been picked up by the APPG, has been accepted by the House and goes to central issues about vulnerable people and their ability to access a review of the decision to detain them.
Sarah Champion
If I went into a situation such as this, it would put enormous pressures on my own mental health. My hon. and learned Friend is talking about people who go into detention centres with mental health issues, but I would also say that to be incarcerated in sometimes very extreme situations will bring on underlying mental health issues that perhaps no one knew about.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for that intervention and I agree. I wait to hear the Minister’s response on the amendment. I conclude by asking what the Government response to the APPG inquiry and its recommendations is, in light of their acceptance by the House. Mr Owen, I do not know if it is convenient to go on to the other amendments at this stage as they move into different territory.
The Chair
It is indeed convenient to debate them now if the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to proceed.
Keir Starmer
I am happy to. Amendment 200 would remove from the Bill the power of the Secretary of State to detain without just cause an individual granted bail by the tribunal.
Clause 29 and schedule 5 taken together make a significant change to the powers of the Secretary of State and the first-tier tribunal in relation to immigration bail. The changes will have a significant effect on the ability of the tribunal to provide an effective safeguard against prolonged detention. In particular, paragraph 1(6) of schedule 5 provides that a grant of bail by a tribunal does not prevent the person’s subsequent re-detention. That is a significant departure from current provisions where bail is granted by a tribunal, under which re-detention is permissible only where the individual has breached the conditions of their bail. Paragraph 1(6) would allow the Secretary of State to effectively ignore and overrule the decision of an independent tribunal to grant bail. That is an issue of some concern.
There is a point in being able to go to a tribunal. It is generally recognised that at some point within the process, the individual must have access to an independent judicial body, with all the attributes of a judicial body, in order for a decision to be made on their liberty. Put bluntly, there is not much point in providing for an individual to go before a body with judicial characteristics if, at the end of that exercise, the Secretary of State can simply override the tribunal. In that sense, the amendment makes a point about rule of law and separation of powers. In what circumstances is it envisaged that it will be necessary for the Secretary of State to have the power to override a tribunal on a question of bail such as this?
Moving on to amendment 210—
The Chair
Just to help the Minister, he can refer to the amendments either as a whole group or individually. It is up to you.
Keir Starmer
I am probably being obtuse. Are you inviting me to stop at this stage?
The Chair
No, I am just offering you advice that you can speak to the amendments individually or as a group.
The Chair
Order. We are expecting a Division in a few minutes’ time, which will provide an opportunity to have a break for 15 minutes.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful, Mr Owen. As I have said on several occasions, I am learning the procedures, so I will simply continue until someone wrestles me to the ground or otherwise orders me to sit down.
Amendment 210 is probing and seeks to understand why a restriction on a person’s studies is to be included in the list of conditions, imposed by the Home Secretary, to which a person may be subject when on immigration bail. The reason for that is unclear to us. A decision from the Home Office should take about six months, but a constituent who came to see me last Friday has been waiting for two years. He was more concerned about the fact that he could not work, but such decisions can take a considerable period of time, so the introduction of a condition meaning that someone cannot study requires significant explanation.
Amendment 211 is probing and seeks to ascertain what additional conditions are envisaged to be imposed on immigration bail. The Bill states that a condition to require a person
“to appear before the Secretary of State or…Tribunal at a specified time and place”
can be imposed on someone currently on temporary admission, now renamed immigration bail. The conditions imposed by an immigration officer are those currently—
Keir Starmer
I think I had just got pretty much to the end of amendment 211, dealing with additional conditions. The concern here is that there has been the ability, obviously, to impose conditions for a significant period of time under an understood regime. That now includes a power to impose additional conditions that are unspecified. At the moment, as I understand it—unless the Minister says otherwise—judicial review is the only opportunity to challenge in many cases. There is a concern about what the likely additional conditions are. What is the need for them, given that the current regime has been in operation for some time, and what assurances can be given on challenging the conditions without going to the High Court through judicial review, which is a long and expensive route and only for those who can get support or otherwise afford to go that route?
James Brokenshire
On the point about vulnerability and acute mental health episodes, that is something that we are considering closely with the Department of Health. I am clear that an individual in those circumstances is best suited in a health setting and not in detention. At times, difficult assessments must be made in ensuring that transfer. Perhaps that will give him a sense of the purpose and manner in which we apply the powers in relation to mental health. He might be reading something into the Bill that we certainly do not read in that way.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for that intervention; it certainly clarifies the issue and deals with part of my concern. As the Minister will know, the High Court looked at this in 2010. The case then went to appeal and its decision was upheld. The High Court said that,
“the use of immigration detention to protect a person from themselves, however laudable, is an improper purpose”
and that,
“there are alternative statutory schemes available under section 48 of the Mental Health Act 1948 or under the Mental Health Act 1983”
for people with acute and real mental health issues. Notwithstanding the intervention, the concern is that on their face, the provisions are wide enough to enable an individual to be detained in such circumstances. I will wait to hear what the Minister says about how his assurance will be carried into effect in practice, because the provisions are currently wide in the Bill.
I conclude by asking the Minister two questions. First, in what circumstances, if not the harm to self or harmed by others examples—classic criminal justice examples—is it envisaged that the provisions would be used? Secondly, how does the Minister intend to put his assurance, or at least his statement of intention, into practice to ensure that it is not used in the way that the High Court thought inappropriate, as endorsed by the Court of Appeal in 2011 and 2014, and is now considered inappropriate in a criminal justice context? I will wait for the Minister to deal with those two questions before saying any more on that.
Amendment 204 is intended,
“to restore the power provided by Section 4(1)(c) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 for the Secretary of State to provide such accommodation pursuant to a detainee’s application for bail to the Tribunal.”
It is a practical amendment. In part 5 of the Bill, the Home Office is making changes to arrangements for support to be applied to persons under immigration control. We will get to that part of the Bill in due course. One set of circumstances in which support is provided is in the case of persons who might be released on bail who would otherwise be destitute. In other words, section 4(1)(c) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 is used to enable an individual to be granted bail. The concern is that in the absence of that support, the individual will not be able to propose a bail address to the tribunal. If that is the case, they will be detained in circumstances where they would not otherwise be detained.
I am not sure whether that was the intention of those drafting the Bill, but it appears to be one of the consequences. If we are wrong about that, we will reconsider the amendment, but it seems that the consequence could be that a number of people who under the current system would be granted bail without difficulty, because they can provide an address because of the support they have received, will now not be able to do so and will not be bailed, to their detriment and to the detriment of public expense.
Amendment 206 picks up the same theme. It is intended:
“To provide a right of appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal (Asylum Support) where the Secretary of State decides not to provide support or to discontinue support under this Part to enable a person to meet bail conditions”.
I think that the background points are pretty much the same as the points that I have just made.
Amendment 205, linked to the previous two amendments, would remove the purported limitations on the use of powers to provide support to people to enable them to meet bail conditions to situations where the Secretary of State considers that there are “exceptional circumstances” justifying its use. We have similar concerns here. We wait to hear what the Minister has to say on those three amendments. If our concerns about possible unintended consequences are allayed, it may be sufficient for us to have set out the concerns.
Finally, amendment 207 would provide that a person arrested without a warrant and detained because it was considered that they had breached bail, or there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that, is brought before a tribunal. The amendment almost speaks for itself. In a number of contexts, individuals are released on bail or condition. It happens frequently in the ordinary criminal justice arena. It also operates for those released from prison on condition. In most circumstances, where someone is arrested and re-detained on the basis that they have breached bail conditions, there is usually a provision for a tribunal before which that individual can argue that they had not in fact breached bail. There are thousands of cases, year in, year out, where on examination by a tribunal it is found that the suspected breach of bail is not made. The person concerned is usually put back in the position they were in before being arrested for breach of a bail condition. The amendment would align the provisions with that common-sense approach that prevails elsewhere. That brings me to the end of this group of amendments.
Gavin Newlands
I will not go through the exhaustive list of provisions. Amendments 199 and 200 attempt to take action on the length of time for which someone can be held in detention, with amendment 199 requiring that bail hearings should be automatic and held on a more regular basis than is currently the case.
The Bill does not discuss the use of detention centres in great detail, and it may not be the time and place to have that debate. However, I hope we can use the scope of the Bill to take action to prevent and reduce the inhumane practice of detaining men, women and children in detention centres for over-long periods of time.
In fact, some of the changes that the UK Government intend to make in schedule 5 may prolong the time for which someone is held in detention. Justice and the Law Society of Scotland have expressed concern that the proposals in schedule 5 will have a significant effect on the ability of the first-tier tribunal to provide an effective safeguard against prolonged detention.
Schedule 5 extends the powers of the Home Secretary to unparalleled and worrying levels. The amendments submitted by my party and by the Labour party aim to take that power back from the Home Secretary and place it back in the hands of the correct and appropriate authorities. We should all be concerned that the Bill would provide the Home Secretary with the power to override a decision that has been made by an independent tribunal court. In its briefing, Justice highlighted the views of Lord Justice Neuberger who claimed:
“A statutory provision which entitles a member of the executive to overrule a decision of the judiciary merely because he does not agree with it would not merely be unique in the laws of the United Kingdom, it would cut across two constitutional principles which are also fundamental components of the rule of law.”
For the second time in a matter of days I find myself agreeing with a Lord, and therefore urge the Minister to accept the amendments.
James Brokenshire
We have had a wide-ranging debate on this group of amendments. I say at the outset to the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras, on the subject of the report of the all-party parliamentary group, I wrote to Sarah Teather, who chaired that group as a Member of this House prior to the election, with a formal response. On the issue of vulnerability and the use of detention, we have commissioned Stephen Shaw to review a number of the themes that the hon. and learned Gentleman on. We will be coming back to the House to publish Stephen Shaw’s review and to provide the Government’s response to his recommendations. There is ongoing work on and consideration of the issue of vulnerability and the appropriateness of detention in those circumstances.
I underline the importance that I attach to appropriate procedure and to issues of vulnerability being taken into account within the system. The hon. and learned Gentleman will know that I took the decision to suspend the detained fast track system so that I could be satisfied that the checks and balances and safeguards in the system were applied appropriately in the context of issues of vulnerability. I frame my opening comments in that way to give him a sense of the significance that I attach to these issues. Depriving someone of their liberty is a serious thing and needs to be allied to the issue of removal. Indeed, there should be the presumption of liberty, to which I think I have alluded to in a previous debate.
Before moving on to the amendments I will briefly touch on the question of mental health and the appropriateness of detention. I have given a clear indication of the most appropriate setting for someone with severe or significant mental health issues that cannot be addressed in a detention setting. I underline the Home Office policy on the detention of individuals suffering from mental illness: other than in very exceptional circumstances, those suffering from serious mental illness which cannot be satisfactorily managed in detention should not normally be detained. All cases are considered on the basis of particular circumstances, and all factors arguing both for and against detention must be considered when deciding whether to detain. Serious mental health problems are likely to be an argument against detention but do not automatically preclude it. There may be other factors, particularly the risks of absconding and of public harm, that argue in favour of detention, and equally I point to cases where detention may be appropriate. For example, it may be necessary and appropriate in exceptional circumstances to maintain a short period of immigration detention when an individual is to be transferred to local authority care where otherwise they would be released on to the streets with no support and care. It may also be necessary for safeguarding reasons; for example, if an unaccompanied child arrives at a port, especially late at night, and there is uncertainty over whether there are any complicating factors.
I underline—and this is something that I continue to discuss with colleagues in the Department of Health—the transfer from detention to a health setting. Someone with a severe mental health episode is likely to require some form of stay in, for example, a secure mental health unit. It is not appropriate to hold someone with an acute mental health problem in an immigration removal centre. There is guidance in place and we have to analyse the issue carefully on a case-by-case basis. If detention is not appropriate, someone should be dealt with under the Mental Health Acts and be taken to a place of safety such as a secure mental health unit. Equally, where a mental health condition may arise in detention, consideration would be given, particularly if it is a severe episode, to their transfer from an immigration removal centre to a health setting in order to treat them properly and appropriately.
Sarah Champion
On a point of order, Mr Owen. At the beginning of the Committee stage, the Minister said that he would outline the position of unaccompanied minors under the Bill. It would be incredibly helpful if we could have clarity on how it impacts on them, or where they are excluded, particularly in the forthcoming provisions, otherwise we will keep returning to this area. Would the Minister confirm that we will have that, ideally before Thursday?
The Chair
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. Points of order are for me, not for the Minister. I do not consider that to be a point of order; it is more a point of clarification and a reminder to the Minister that he has promised something. I am sure that he will do his best to deliver that.
James Brokenshire
Before turning to the amendments tabled by the hon. and learned Gentleman, I will give way to him.
Keir Starmer
Perhaps the Minister would clarify something. I understand the argument that mental health in and of itself does not override the provisions if there is another reason to detain. It would depend on the facts of the case. The assurance the Minister has just given applies where mental health is the only concern, and there is not another reason to detain. Would he be good enough to write to me to set out what he has just said? That is the real issue of concern. I accept that in the other cases, there is the overlap that he has described.
James Brokenshire
I appreciate the manner in which the hon. and learned Gentleman has sought to raise this issue. As I have tried to elucidate, there has to be an examination on a case-by-case basis but, to return to the principles, the purpose of immigration removal centres and of detaining somebody should be for removal. However, there may be public protection issues as well, particularly if we are looking at foreign national offenders, for example. There are other elements which sit alongside this. There could be someone who is potentially dangerous, and obviously balancing decisions must be taken on the use of immigration detention for public protection reasons.
I understand the point that the hon. and learned Gentleman makes about whether, from the utility of a public protection standpoint, the provisions and the conditions for immigration bail might be triggered purely on the basis of the individual’s state of mind. I am happy to reflect further on that. Certainly, as I have set out, the approach and the intent concerns what is an appropriate setting for someone. I will look at what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said in Committee and, if there is some further clarification that I can offer, I will certainly review that. There is a sense of the most appropriate setting, and immigration removal centres have to meet certain criteria. The normal Hardial Singh-type principles on detention operate. The hon. and learned Gentleman has made a specific point on mental health, and I will reflect further on whether there is anything I can add to what I have said.
Amendment 199 would require a bail hearing in the tribunal after eight days, after 28 days, then every 28 days thereafter. As I have highlighted to the Committee, the Government take matters of liberty extremely seriously, but we do not consider that there is a need for mandatory judicial oversight of detention in terms of the checkpoints that the hon. and learned Gentleman outlined. There is already well-established judicial oversight available. Individuals detained under immigration powers have unrestricted opportunity to apply to the tribunal for bail at any time. They can also apply for a judicial review of their detention, or for a writ of habeas corpus to the High Court, again at any time.
The current system was designed to be flexible in the interests of justice, and allows the detainee ready access to the tribunal. Legal advice and legal aid remain available for challenges to immigration detention. All detainees are made aware of the ability to apply for bail, but there is obviously a need to strike a balance. Introducing automatic bail hearings in all cases would be a further significant burden on the tribunal, with potential financial loss to the taxpayer, and would utilise time that could be spent on other matters. That could prolong the time spent in detention, and could deny other appellants timely access to justice.
It is interesting to note that the House has considered this issue before. The hon. and learned Gentleman may indeed wish to reflect on the comments of his hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) when the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill was in Committee. In respect of the repeal of an uncommenced provision that then existed, the hon. Lady, who was then a Home Office Minister, said:
“We concluded that it would be a logistical nightmare that would divert scarce resources from processing asylum applications. That would make it harder for us to complete the asylum process as speedily as all members of the Committee want…We have to be honest and open about these issues. The administrative consequences of automatic bail hearings are substantial. Given the figures and the potential for bringing the whole system to a halt, it was our reluctant judgment that unfortunately it would not be realistic for us to introduce part III bail hearings. We thought it more open and transparent to repeal those provisions, as the amount of available funding and the priorities we have for getting asylum claims through the system would not allow us sensibly to bring them into effect without that having an adverse or catastrophic effect on our system.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 14 May 2002; c. 256-57.]
Although I understand the intention behind amendment tabled by the hon. and learned Gentleman, it is worth understanding the history and, equally, the challenges of automatic hearings.
During our evidence sessions, much was made of the Home Office seeking to take control of bail from the tribunal, and I want to assure the Committee that that is not the case. It is an inaccurate description of the effect of the bail clause and the schedule. I want to make it clear that the Home Office is already responsible for the management of the vast majority of cases on conditions imposed by the legislation that is being consolidated.
I turn to amendment 200, which would prevent the detention of an individual on bail unless it was thought that they intended to breach, or had breached, their conditions. I think that I understand the intention of the amendment. I underline the purposes for detention, primarily on removal but equally there might be public policy conditions. I suppose what the hon. and learned Gentleman asks is whether we can do more to achieve removal from this country of people who should not be here, without the necessity of detention. That might, in part, underline some of his thinking. Our approach to immigration enforcement seeks to promote and encourage more facilitated or encouraged removals, rather than simply to use detention as a means of achieving the outcome that I think people would want to see. Certainly that is an approach—an embodiment—that we seek to take with our removal strategy. The hon. Member for Rotherham made a point about not only the cost but the efficiency and effectiveness of the system.
Keir Starmer
I understand the Minister’s comments about detention and its purposes, but we are talking about a situation in which the tribunal is charged with faithfully going through a test of the individual circumstances of the case. In that situation, in what way and for what purpose does the Minister see the Secretary of State overriding the tribunal? Normally, if one side in a tribunal loses an argument on detentional conditions, there is an appeal route, but this appears to be something different in that the side that loses simply gets on with what it wanted in the first place.
James Brokenshire
I will come on to that point. It is a slightly different one from the one I was addressing. On amendment 200, I was responding to points about preventing detention where bail had been granted and about re-detaining if there was no risk of a breach. Sometimes, very close to a removal, when it is felt that the safest and most appropriate action would be to use detention, that mechanism may be adopted. Re-detention could be appropriate. It is also worth remembering that people granted bail might never have been detained. There will be people who are allowed into the UK on conditions while their claim is being considered. The amendment would mean that the Secretary of State could not detain such individuals if there were a change in their circumstances—for example, if their claim had been refused—without a suspicion that they were about to breach or had breached conditions.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful to the Minister for outlining the position on changes of circumstances. He has given a degree of reassurance, because what he said chimes with other not dissimilar regimes, but the matter is not clear in the Bill. Nothing in the Bill refers to changes of circumstances, so what level of assurance can he give that the provision is not intended to be used, nor will it be used, in a case where there is no change of circumstances?
James Brokenshire
If we are talking about detention, we are in many respects back to some of the basic principles as to why detention would be used, such as the immediacy of removal. Alternatively, we are talking about some other public policy objection on the basis of established legal principles around the matter. Those principles are what guide the potential use of the power, in addition to the obvious example of a change in circumstance.
Amendments 210 and 211 are probing. The Committee wants to better understand why there is a need for a restriction on study and what other conditions are envisaged on immigration bail, and when they may be imposed. We have chosen to include a restriction on study as it is something that may be considered under the bail powers. Like the other conditions listed, a restriction on study is only an option that is available; it is not a mandatory requirement and can be imposed as appropriate.
The power is not, as was suggested, about trying to deny education. If a child can lawfully access education services, we will not seek to disrupt that by using restrictions under the bail power to place a prohibition on them attending. We also do not intend to impose through the use of the power a blanket ban on asylum seekers accessing education. Where the power could have utility, however, is on specifying the place at which someone can study, for example. That would mean knowing where they are and saying that they are permitted to study, but only at a particular institution. For example, the wrap-around for a particular family group may be most appropriately provided for by conditions that are allied to a child going to a particular school. I point to it in that way. We have other regimes where conditions can be attached to study that are more towards that stance and approach.
On the broader power to impose conditions as appropriate, it is designed to maintain current flexibility in the ability to impose bail conditions specific to the facts of the case. That is most readily seen in Special Immigration Appeals Commission bail, but it is also seen in some of the most harmful foreign national offender cases. SIAC bail conditions are often bespoke, based on the risk the individual poses. Some cases will require specific conditions to mitigate specific risks. For example, we may want to impose an overnight curfew based on the risk posed, or it may be appropriate to create an exclusion zone if a convicted paedophile is bailed pending deportation.
A slightly more general point I would make is on the question posed on the general conditions that can be attached. The hon. and learned Gentleman sought to argue that that should be limited. My understanding and advice is that that is already maintained in the existing legislative framework and is in essence a read-across from pre-existing legislation. The power to impose any conditions appearing to be likely to result in the appearance of the person answering bail is currently in primary legislation at paragraph 22(2) of schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971. I think it is to maintain the existing flexibility that that applies.
Amendments 201, 202 and 203 would remove the ability of the Secretary of State to require a residence condition or the imposition of an electronic monitoring condition as a condition of tribunal bail, undermining the Government’s commitment to deliver electronic tagging as part of our manifesto commitments. If we did not take this power, the tribunal could in theory decline to impose a tag. During the evidence sessions earlier in Committee, it was suggested that these provisions make the role of the tribunal meaningless. Let me assure the Committee that that is not the case. The tribunal will still be able to order the release of an individual on bail and will still be able to impose the conditions it sees fit, subject to the specific point that I have highlighted on requiring that an individual resides at a certain address or wears an electronic monitoring device where the tribunal has declined to impose such a condition when granting bail. We expect this power to be used very rarely, as the tribunal would normally impose a residence condition or tag when one is requested. If the Home Office seeks to impose a condition where the tribunal earlier declined to impose one, such a decision would be challengeable by way of judicial review. The Secretary of State would need to justify why the condition was imposed.
Keir Starmer
How is it proposed that this will work in practice? There is a hearing before the tribunal. The tribunal goes through the individual facts of the case and there is an argument before the tribunal on whether a condition of electronic tagging, for example, is appropriate. The tribunal looks through all the relevant material and says that in this case, it is not necessary according to the test. As I understand the Minister, the Secretary of State then comes along and says, “That’s all very well, tribunal, we disagree and we are now imposing a condition that you have just decided it is not necessary to impose.” If the individual does not like it, they go to the High Court on judicial review. Is that the regime?
James Brokenshire
I think the hon. and learned Gentleman has set out what I have just indicated to the Committee. It is that sense of requiring. We have looked at, for example, foreign national offender-type cases. Our judgment is that foreign national offenders who are in this country unlawfully should be subject to ongoing monitoring through electronic tagging. It is that clear policy intent that we judge, but, as I have indicated, there would be a right of challenge by way of judicial review.
There is a precedent for such a power. The House passed a similar provision in the Immigration Act 2014; the Secretary of State is required to consent to the release of an individual on bail by the tribunal when removal is 14 days or fewer away. The Secretary of State already has that mechanism—in, I accept, a slightly different situation—and that sets a precedent on how the Secretary of State has a direct interest.
Amendments 212, 213 and 214 remove the requirement to consider whether it is in a person’s best interests to be detained before releasing on bail. I understand that these are probing amendments to understand when it will ever be in anyone’s best interests to be detained under immigration powers. First, I want to repeat that it is the Government’s policy that there is a presumption of liberty and that immigration detention should be used as a last resort. I make no apologies for stating that fact again and I hope that the Committee welcomes that clear and unequivocal statement. However, there may be some cases in which immigration and detention powers have to be exercised while arrangements are made for an individual to be transferred to appropriate care. I have given some examples of that in my earlier comments. I want to be clear that the power should only be used in a limited way and for the shortest period possible, but I hope that the Committee understands that that may be needed in those exceptional circumstances.
Amendments 204 and 206 relate to accommodation arrangements for individuals who are on bail. Amendment 204 would create a duty to provide accommodation to anyone released on bail even if they had the funds to secure their own accommodation. Amendment 205 would remove the term “exceptional circumstances” from the new power in the Bill and amendment 206 would create a right of appeal against refusal to provide accommodation to a person released on bail. Schedule 5, paragraph 7 provides a power to allow the Secretary of State to meet accommodation costs and travel expenses for those granted immigration bail. That arrangement is designed to replace section 4(1)(c) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, which is repealed by the Bill, but to date has been used to provide accommodation for persons released on bail in the limited circumstances where we judge that that is appropriate. The repeal is part of the wider changes to support provision for failed asylum seekers and other irregular migrants which will be debated later, so I hope to leave detailed debate on that until we get to schedule 6, when we can have a much fuller debate.
The power is deliberately drafted in a restricted way as in general, individuals seeking bail are expected to accommodate themselves or arrange accommodation through friends or relatives. This is no different from the way the section 4 power is currently used. It is clearly inappropriate to spend public money providing accommodation for people who do not need it. It should therefore only be in exceptional circumstances that the Secretary of State should pay for the accommodation of people seeking release from detention on bail. If the person is truly unable to arrange their own accommodation, the powers can be used to provide it on a case-by-case basis, considering the particular circumstances, including whether they are able to avoid the consequences of being left homeless by returning to their own country. It would be unnecessary to use the power to accommodate asylum seekers, as section 95 or section 98 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 are already available for this group.
On amendment 205, the concern expressed about the provision appears to be based on the assumption that there will be increased use of detention for a longer period, because bail can only be granted when an address is available. The new bail powers contain the concept of conditional bail, at paragraph 3(8). That will allow the tribunal to grant bail conditional on arrangements specified in the notice being in place to ensure that a person is able to comply with the conditions. Where a residence condition has been applied, it will be for the individual to find a suitable address during the period of conditional bail and, if a suitable address cannot be found, for them to go back to the tribunal for a further hearing. If the person is unable to find an address, consideration will be given to using the powers in paragraph 7 to provide one. We do not consider it necessary to add further complexity to the process by creating a specific right of appeal against refusal to provide an address. Any claim that there has been a refusal to provide an address could be challenged by way of judicial review.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way because it may settle this amendment. As I understand the Minister, it is envisaged that the tribunal will use conditional bail to bail someone on the condition of a residence, or an address, unspecified. There will then be a period during which the individual either finds an address or consideration will be given to supporting the individual to have an address so that they can be released. Is that how it is envisaged that this will work, when looked at in the round?
James Brokenshire
That is how conditional bail can be used in these circumstances, as I think I described in my response to the hon. and learned Gentleman’s points. I think that I have covered all his amendments and, in the light of that, I hope that he will be minded not to press them.
Keir Starmer
I want to press amendment 207 to a vote. I do not know whether it is appropriate, but on amendments 199, 200, 201 to 203 and 212 to 214, I have listened to the Minister with care and I will not press them to a vote now, but I reserve the right to bring them back later, having reflected on what has been said about them.
The Chair
Just for clarification, the hon. and learned Gentleman is pressing amendment 207 to a vote?
The Chair
I am grateful. The decision on amendment 207 will be happening shortly. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman wish to withdraw amendment 199?
Keir Starmer
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Keir Starmer
On a point of order, Mr Owen. I said that I was not pressing amendments 199 to 203 and amendments 212 to 214 to a vote.
The Chair
You either withdraw an amendment or press it to a vote, and you decided to withdraw.
The Chair
That is the position. It has been a long day and it was a complex group of amendments.
Sarah Champion
Further to that point of order, Mr Owen. The Clerks are raising their eyebrows, so may I check that that is the correct position?
The Chair
Yes. It is absolutely clear that the hon. and learned Gentleman has withdrawn the amendments that he named and will press amendment 207 at a later stage.
Sarah Champion
On a point of order, Mr Owen. the Minister confirmed during the witness stage that he would come back with clarity on the issue of unaccompanied minors and how they are impacted by the Bill. I asked the Minister for a point of clarification in the previous debate on when that would be forthcoming, but he did not respond. He just implied in his summation that it would be covered under the debate on schedule 6, but schedule 6 refers to asylum seekers as being people of
“at least 18 years old”.
May I ask for clarity on when we will get the confirmation on how the Bill impacts on unaccompanied minors?
The Chair
As I explained earlier on, there is a difference between a point of order and a point of frustration. I can see that the hon. Lady is frustrated by not getting an answer from the Minister, but that is a matter for him. He has heard what has been said. He may want to intervene now or to indicate that he will do so later. He is not indicating anything, so that is the position. It is not a point of order.
Keir Starmer
On a point of order, Mr Owen. I am sorry if I am labouring the point but, whatever the procedure, I want to preserve the right to raise amendments 199 to 203 and amendments 212 to 214 on Report. There is a temptation when someone is doing this for the first time to possibly take advantage of their ignorance.
The Chair
I have got the gist. I think what the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying is that he will not press those amendments to a vote at this stage, but he reserves the right to do so on Report.
Amendment made: 54, in schedule 5, page 84, line 9, at end insert—
‘( ) Sections 28J and 28K of the Immigration Act 1971 (warrants: application and execution) apply, with any necessary modifications, to warrants under sub-paragraph (3).’.—(James Brokenshire.)
This amendment provides for the supplementary provisions about warrants in sections 28J and 28K of the Immigration Act 1971 to apply to warrants issued under Schedule 5 for entry into premises to search for and arrest named persons.
Amendment proposed: 207, in schedule 5, page 84, line 34, leave out from ‘(a)’ to ‘otherwise’.—(Keir Starmer.)
To provide that a person arrested without a warrant and detained because it is considered that they are likely to breach any of their bail conditions or that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that they have done so must be brought before the First-tier Tribunal.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Keir Starmer
I beg to move amendment 216, in clause 30, page 33, line 28, after “decision)” insert—
“(a) leave out ‘and’ at the end of subsection 1(b);
(b) leave out subsection 1(c);
(c) in subsection (2) for ‘The leave is extended by virtue of this section’ substitute ‘The leave is extended from the day on which it would otherwise have expired’”
To ensure that a person whose application is refused before their original leave expires and is still in time to bring an appeal or has brought an appeal by the time their original leave expires, benefits from the protection of 3C leave in the same way as they would had they been refused by the Secretary of State only after their original leave had expired.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 217, in clause 30, page 33, line 28, after “decision)” insert—
“(a) in subsection 3C(1)(c) after ‘decided’ insert ‘or declared invalid’
(b) in subsection 3C(2)(a) after ‘withdrawn’ insert ‘nor declared invalid’”
To ensure that a person who makes an “in time” application which is later determined to be invalid benefits from “3C leave” for the period, if any, between the expiry of their original leave and the Secretary of State’s notification to them that the application is invalid and thus to give effect to the interpretation of the law for which counsel for the Secretary of State argued in the case of R(Iqbal v SSHD) [2015] EWCA 838.
Keir Starmer
I apologise for coming to very technical amendments at this stage of the day and the proceedings; we seem to have been dealing with technical amendments for some time. Perhaps it will be possible for the Minister to give an assurance; the purpose of the two amendments is to ensure that individuals in the circumstances set out in the explanatory statements will not be in a worse position under the Bill than they are now.
The Solicitor General
Amendment 216 seeks to change the way the leave that is extended by section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971 operates. With respect, there has been a misunderstanding of the current position. The effect of the amendment would be that where a person applies for leave to remain and their application is refused while they still have immigration leave, their leave would be extended by section 3C while they bring an appeal or administrative review. Where an appeal or administrative review is lodged, leave will continue to be extended until any appeal or administrative review is no longer pending.
It was said that the reason for the tabling of the amendment is that people in that situation do not have their leave extended by section 3C, and that is an unintended consequence of the Immigration Act 2014. That is not the case. In fact, if anything, the 2014 Act actually improved the position with regard to section 3C. It has always been the case that, where an application is refused while the applicant still has immigration leave, leave is not extended by section 3C while a challenge to the refusal can be brought. In other words, section 3C applies only to undetermined applications. Where somebody is still waiting for an application to be dealt with, section 3C kicks in to allow the delay to be remedied.
Keir Starmer
Just to clarify that point, what is the position if the Secretary of State cancels the leave during that period?
The Solicitor General
The whole purpose of the provision is to deal with the question of cancellation where there has been a breach of the conditions. I will come on to that point in the clause stand part debate. At this stage, we see no reason to change the position in the way that is outlined in amendment 216.
Amendment 217 would have highly undesirable consequences and is unnecessary. With respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, he does not fully outline the Government’s case in the Iqbal case, the Court of Appeal judgment by Lord Justice Elias that was reported earlier this year. The amendment, as outlined by the hon. and learned Gentleman, would mean that immigration leave would be extended by virtue of section 3C for anyone who makes an invalid application for further leave.
The problem is that that is clearly open to potential abuse. A person could deliberately make an invalid application, for example by neglecting to pay the required fee or by failing to provide mandatory documents, and continue to remain in the UK lawfully. That leave would continue until the Home Office determined that the application was invalid. That, I am afraid, would potentially be a charter for exploitation by unscrupulous people who could make invalid applications simply to extend their immigration leave and to take advantage of the section 3C provision.
The amendment is also unnecessary, because our rules and guidance set out clearly how to make a valid application, and an opportunity is provided for mistakes that lead to an application becoming invalid to be made good. That provides a safeguard for people who, from time to time, make a genuine error. Where a fee is paid, we will contact those who make invalid applications to tell them what steps they need to take to make their application valid. Where people respond within the specified time limit and provide the missing information, they will be deemed to have made a valid application, and their leave will be extended by section 3C if the application was made before the expiration of their previous leave. That point was dealt with chiefly in the case of Iqbal.
The safeguard works. More than 650,000 applications were made between April last year and June this year, of which only 2.45% were rejected as invalid. I understand the concerns expressed about access to services and about the offences that the Bill introduces for those who work illegally or drive while unlawfully in the UK. However, in practice, those measures will not be applied to individuals until the Home Office has determined whether an invalid application has been made.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful to the Solicitor General for that clarification and assurance as to how the provision is intended to operate. Obviously, the public interest will be for the Crown Prosecution Service, but what he has said will no doubt be taken into account by it. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 30 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Charlie Elphicke.)
Immigration Bill (Ninth sitting)
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 4 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 2 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)
I beg to move amendment 69, in clause 13, page 11, line 29, at end insert—
“( ) The notice may be given—
(a) by delivering it to the tenant or tenants,
(b) by leaving it at the premises,
(c) by sending it by post to the tenant or tenants at the address of the premises, or
(d) in any other prescribed manner.”
This amendment clarifies how a landlord may serve a notice terminating the tenancy on the tenant(s). Provision is made to allow for service by electronic means if prescribed in regulations at a future point.
James Brokenshire
Welcome back to the Chair, Mr Owen. Amendment 69 clarifies how a landlord may serve on tenants a notice terminating a tenancy. It provides that the notice may be delivered to the tenant or tenants directly—in other words, given to them by hand—left at the property, sent through the post to the property or delivered in any other prescribed manner. The clarification puts beyond doubt what constitutes effective service of the notice. I am pleased that in its evidence to the Committee Crisis welcomed the amendment as providing greater clarity. It ensures that, in circumstances where the illegal migrants choose to leave a property of their own accord once a Home Office notice has been issued, the landlord is able to use the powers in the Bill to recover his or her property at the end of the 28-day notice period and re-let it to someone with a legal right to occupy it. I note that the amendment has been welcomed outside the Committee.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Is it envisaged that the regulations that refer to electronic means will provide for notice to be served by email, for example?
James Brokenshire
The reference to possible future prescription in regulations regarding electronic means covers email. The wording is understood as referring to some means of service of documentation, and we give it that emphasis. I was about to say that the amendment future-proofs the provision—I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman took account of that. It enables the Government to introduce new methods of serving notice on tenants—email, for example—should such arrangements for dealing with tenancy agreements become more commonplace.
Amendment 15 ensures that a landlord can engage the powers of eviction in new section 33D only if they have a Home Office notice in respect of all the occupants. In the absence of such a notice a landlord cannot rely on the provisions in that new section.
Amendment 16 changes the definition of “occupier” of a rented property in respect of action taken to evict. New section 33D(7) provides that occupiers shall be taken to be tenants, named occupants on the tenancy agreement and others who the landlord, through reasonable inquiries, comes to know as living at the property. Illegal immigrant tenants may, however, choose not to co-operate with the landlord’s inquiries about other occupants and, indeed, bring in another occupant who is lawfully in the UK to frustrate eviction. Such occupants may then accuse the landlord of unlawful eviction. The amendment provides that a landlord may pursue eviction on the basis of who they know to be occupying the property, including where that knowledge has been established through inquiries with the tenant or tenants.
Amendment 69 agreed to.
Amendment proposed: 87, in clause 13, page 11, line 33, at end insert—
“(6A) A landlord does not commit an offence under s33A of this Act during the period of 28 days specified in subsection 4.”
To protect a landlord/landlady from prosecution for renting to a person without a right to rent during the period for which they are prohibited from evicting the tenant under subsection 33D(4).—(Keir Starmer.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
The question is that clause 13, as amended, stand part of the Bill. Does the Minister wish to say anything? No?
The Chair
The question is that clause 13, as amended, stand part of the Bill. As many of that opinion say Aye. [Hon. Members: “Aye.”] To the contrary No. [Hon. Members: “No.”] The Ayes have it. Sorry—are you saying No?
Keir Starmer
On a point of order, Mr Owen. This may just be a point of clarification. We have had a debate on the amendments to clause 13, but we have not had the debate on clause 13 itself as far as I recall. I do not want to miss that opportunity, and if I am about to I would like to know.
The Chair
We did not have a debate at the beginning; you are right. I hesitated when I looked at the Minister because I thought he was going to say something.
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Charlie Elphicke)
Further to that point of order, Mr Owen. It seems that the hon. and learned Gentleman had his opportunity. We moved to a vote, and you already asked for a cry of voices. It is incumbent on every member of this Committee to ensure they are aware of its procedure.
The Chair
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I am as even-handed with the Minister as I am with Opposition Members when we go through these amendments. I tried to catch the Minister’s eye, but I did not do the same with Mr Starmer, so I am going to give him the opportunity to debate this clause before we move on. It is at my discretion.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Keir Starmer
I want to raise some issues about clause 13, because it contains some innovative measures that need to be considered. I want to address clause 13(2), on eviction. I understand that under clause 13 a landlord has the power to terminate an agreement under proposed new subsection (1) of new section 33D if the condition in proposed new subsection (2) is met, which is that the Secretary of State has given notice,
“which, taken together…identify the occupier…and…state that the occupier or occupiers are disqualified”.
So it is the Secretary of State’s notice that triggers the landlord’s ability to terminate the agreement under clause 13.
Proposed new subsection (3) states:
“The landlord may terminate…by giving notice in writing to the tenant”.
So far so good. The date for the termination
“must not be earlier than…28 days”.
Proposed new subsections (5) and (6) are much more controversial. Proposed new subsection (5) states:
“The notice is to be treated as a notice to quit”.
As I understand the amendment that we debated moments ago, in future, that may be a notice by email if prescribed in regulations.
Proposed new subsection (6) states:
“The notice is enforceable as if it were an order of the High Court.”
That is an innovation. It is a first in landlord and tenant legislation. In fact, it may be a first outside the area of civil penalties. It appears to be borrowed from a regime in which some orders can be treated under civil penalty schemes as an order of the court.
If applied to fines, the provision may not be problematic. In other words, it may not be necessary for the individual to go to court to have the level of the fine determined, but this is an order for eviction. The position in housing law is that in the 1970s a decision was taken to end for ever the prospect of people being forced on to the streets by landlords. Once upon a time, a landlord could change the locks, put the furniture on the street and throw the family out there and then. It was so repugnant to all parties that it was thought that we should set our face against that ever happening again. From then on, as far as I am able to research and as I know from my own practice, there has always been a requirement to go to a court to have an eviction order put through proper due process to avoid the prospect of a family literally being put on to the streets.
If the provision means what it says on the page—there may be an explanation for it that the Minister can help me with—it appears to reintroduce something that has been outlawed for the best part of 50 years. The provision means that, once the notice is served, if it is enforceable as if it were an order of the High Court, the landlord can resort to self-help and can change the locks, put the furniture on the street and put the family on the street as well, without any more ado.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
On top of the points of serious concern that my hon. and learned Friend has already mentioned, does he also share my concern that there is now no safeguard if the landlord pursues a wrongful conviction?
Keir Starmer
There is a very serious concern, because as far as I can see there is no ability in the clause for the tenant to appeal the landlord. I am not even sure under these circumstances whether judicial review is available.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
I understand what the hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to put across. However, currently the eviction order is looked at by one person in a court. Surely he must agree that if the order comes from the Secretary of State, a much higher due diligence is gone through in following the eviction process first.
Keir Starmer
I accept that the notice will have come from the Secretary of State, but it will have gone to the landlord unbeknownst to the tenant. The first thing the tenant will know is when the notice is served on him or her. At that stage, there is nothing in the clause, as far as I can see, that allows the tenant to appeal or to challenge the order. I can see that some might argue that the Secretary of State could be challenged by judicial review for issuing the order in the first place, but that is a long and very complicated High Court route to deal with eviction, which would normally be dealt with in the county court.
Craig Whittaker
Although I accept the point the hon. and learned Gentleman was trying to make, to say that the tenant is not aware that they are illegal immigrants is, even he may agree, a little far-fetched.
Keir Starmer
That is why I did not say it. I said that the tenant would not know that the notice had been served. Just to stand back a moment, this issue was taken so seriously by the House because it happens in real life: landlords change locks, they put furniture on the streets and families are in the gutter. That is what happened and everybody thought it was something we could not tolerate in a modern democracy, whatever the rights and wrongs, whether the eviction was justified or not justified. Many evictions, for many other reasons in land law, are justified, but everybody considered that process was important, particularly where families would be put on the street. This is a step back to the dark ages of landlord and tenant law.
Craig Whittaker
Again, I see the exaggerated point that the hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to make, but can he explain what currently happens once someone has been to court as a landlord and got an eviction order from the court?
Keir Starmer
I will happily do that. Sensibly, the law has been set up in such a way that the landlord gets a High Court enforcement officer with powers of a constable to carry out the eviction if necessary. That is to prevent landlords from resorting to violence in the premises—that is why that change was made. The presupposition is that the eviction is lawful, but in order to regularise the process, the landlord gets a court order and then a High Court enforcement officer exercises the powers of a constable to enforce it. The whole point was to stop families being put on the street without due process and to avoid the violence that was happening when a landlord resorts to self-help and changes the locks and boots someone on to the street. That is why “with the power of a constable” is included. That is what happens now, but what is proposed here is radically different and I have seen nothing to justify it.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I guess that, like me, my hon. and learned Friend was pleased to hear the Minister a moment ago cite the expert evidence of Crisis in support of Government amendment 69. Crisis is a highly respected organisation doing extraordinary work to help sections of homeless young people. Does he therefore hope, like me, that the Minister will take note of Crisis’s view on the eviction routes that are being created by this Bill, which is that they should be completely opposed because they will make tenants much more vulnerable to rogue landlords?
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for that intervention, and I ask Government Members to take notice of that evidence. I also ask them not to just nod this change through. This is not just a provision in an immigration Bill in 2015; this will turn the clock back 40 years in landlord and tenant law against a practice that everybody recognized served great injustice. That law does not mean that there cannot be an eviction; it means that there must be due process and it avoids self-help, and self-help by landlords is a very bad idea.
There is no appeal, and I would again like to hear from the Minister, on the record, whether his answer to that point is that there should be a judicial review of the issue of the notice by the Secretary of State in order to challenge the eviction. I want that to be clear, because it would introduce a costly—much more costly—prolonged process than going to the county court in the ordinary eviction process under landlord and tenant law. If not, and there is either no remedy or appeal, what if the notice by the Secretary of State is wrong? Is that to be appealed by way of judicial review? Is that the only prospect? If that is the prospect, why is it better than going to the county court in the usual way, where it could be challenged in the eviction process?
Sarah Champion
Another consideration that I have not heard the Minister speak of is that if families are effectively made street homeless, it then falls on the local authority and will put additional pressures on existing housing stock. Going through this route, the local authority may have absolutely no awareness of it until the family literally rocks up on their doorstep.
Keir Starmer
That is the situation. The Government may say that I am just exaggerating, but I am not. I had a number of housing cases in my practice and some Government Members probably have as well. Having self-help evictions is a real problem for everybody, because of the injustice and the violence. Under self-help, there is nothing wrong with waiting until the family go out and changing the locks so that they cannot get back in when they come home. That means that families are out and, if there are children involved, it probably leads back to the same route, with the local authority having to carry out an assessment under the Children Act 1989.
This is a thoroughly bad provision. It is innovative—it has never been used, as far as I know, in landlord or tenant law or outside the realm of enforcement of regularised fines. There is no appeal and no regular forms of enforcement. To again clarify, under the existing regime, High Court enforcement officers have special powers of eviction and there are processes of eviction to ensure that there is no violence, that there is due process and that everybody is treated fairly.
There is absolutely no reason to change that scheme for this group of individuals. I hope that Members will not simply nod this change through as another bad provision not worth raising any concerns about. This goes way beyond immigration and into the housing field, where there has been unanimity about this process for a very long time. I ask the Minister to clarify, if necessary in writing, how he sees this provision working and what the routes of appeal are for an individual who says either that the notice from the landlord or the notice from the Secretary of State is wrong. This an area, as heard in evidence, where there are high levels of error.
Paul Blomfield
My hon. and learned friend is making the point extremely powerfully and, like him, I hope that Government Members will give consideration to it. Is he also concerned about proposed new section 33E of the 2014 Act, which allows the landlord to terminate the tenancy if one of the tenants no longer has the right to rent but others do? It provides a summary eviction route of the sort that he describes for people who actually do have the right to rent.
Keir Starmer
I am concerned about that provision but, in fairness to the Minister, I think there is a relationship between that and the amendment that he moved earlier this morning. I think that was the effect of the amendment he moved, so would he please clarify that—in other words, that the notice applies to all the occupants? If I am right about that, I hope it does not detract from the other points I am making. I am trying to make them powerfully because this is an important point of principle. The Committee needs to know what it is doing if it votes for such a provision, which is an historic first.
James Brokenshire
I note the hon. and learned Gentleman’s contribution. I will come later to the detailed points he has highlighted about rights of appeal and so on.
It might be helpful to set out the basis and background to the provisions. We recognise that the vast majority of landlords are diligent in their responsibilities regarding housing and immigration legislation. With the planned roll-out of the right to rent scheme, we wanted to help them more easily to evict illegal migrants through the mechanism outlined, the Home Office notice.
The hon. Member for Sheffield Central highlighted the technical point about the notice having to specify all occupiers of the premises, and that has been dealt with, as the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras, in fairness to him, indicated in his contribution. I hope that is helpful on that narrow point.
Proposed new section 33D of the Immigration Act 2014 would provide a new power for landlords to terminate a residential tenancy agreement if the Secretary of State has issued one or more notices to the landlord naming all occupiers of the property and identifying all occupiers disqualified from renting as a result of their immigration status. To do that, the landlord must give written notice to all the tenants, specifying the date at which the agreement will end, at least 28 days after the written notice has been given. The notice is to be treated as a notice to quit, where such notice would otherwise be required to end a tenancy and is enforceable as if it were an order of the High Court, as the hon. and learned Gentleman said. That allows a landlord to engage High Court enforcement officers to evict occupiers in the event that they do not leave peacefully of their own accord. The minimum 28-day notice period gives an opportunity for illegal migrants to make arrangements to leave the UK. A landlord does not need to obtain a possession order from the county court in order to seek enforcement of the notice.
New section 33E provides for and signposts court eviction routes, which should be used in the case of a mixed household, where some occupiers are disqualified from renting as a result of their immigration status and others are not. That is the distinction that is drawn between the two new sections. To be fair to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central, if there were no mechanism to provide that, there would be further understandable concerns about people who have the right to rent in those circumstances. That is the intent of new section 33E.
The hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras highlighted what he considers an inappropriate reversal of the law. I would say to him that this is about people who do not have the right to be in the country. I will come on to what happens next and the manner in which the Home Office would exercise its duties. Ultimately, it is a parallel provision to other measures in the Bill to ensure that residential properties that are let are provided to people who have the lawful right to be in the country, rather than those who do not. The mechanism proposed by clause 13 applies where someone has been identified by the Home Office as not having that right. In other words, the mechanism does not allow someone wantonly to assert that; it has to be grounded by the notice from the Home Office.
James Brokenshire
I was going to come on to the hon. and learned Gentleman’s points about legal challenges, which may be helpful. There are two elements to that. If the Home Office notice is incorrect, it can be challenged by judicial review, but if the conditions for eviction are not satisfied, my clear understanding is that injunctive relief may be available in the county court. I refer to the distinction between whether the notice was lawfully issued and whether a landlord simply made that assertion, not on the basis of the notice, to try to rely on the provisions.
I can see two potential lines of challenge, which I think is what the hon. and learned Gentleman was seeking for me to elucidate. There is a right of challenge and the individuals concerned can also contact the Home Office to challenge the notice directly. There are routes available when an incorrect notice has been served, although I am very happy to give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman on whether I have clarified the questions he posed.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. On the first point, although I accept that the process is similar to the right to rent, in that it is the Secretary of State who makes the decision and serves a notice, the Minister must recognise that there is a fundamental difference between not letting premises to someone in the first place and turning them out on to the street. There is a fundamental difference between those two actions. Turning people out on to the streets who may have been living in the premises for years with their families is fundamentally different from saying that they cannot rent premises from tomorrow or next week or whenever.
James Brokenshire
The hon. and learned Gentleman is right to make the distinction, which is why the decision on whether a notice should be served has to be triggered by the Secretary of State, with all the duties and responsibilities that the Secretary of State holds. It is important to underline that because the Home Office will not invoke the eviction process or serve notices until a full consideration of family circumstances has been undertaken. Families who have initial application claims for international protection or human rights contentions will not fall subject to these proposals until their cases have been finally determined. That includes the conclusion of any appeal and, in most circumstances, any other outstanding legal challenges. Although the families will be given warnings throughout the eviction process that it may be invoked, they will be encouraged to make a case on why these measures are not appropriate to them.
The Home Office will consider the circumstances of each member of the family. Eviction will generally be inappropriate where there are existing medical conditions or specific care needs evident, and eviction may mean that a local authority is placed under a duty to remedy the loss of accommodation. There will also be cases where invoking eviction is considered inappropriate. These will be cases where the family involved is considered to have recognised barriers to returning home. These instances can include no viable route of return to their home country, difficulties in securing travel documents or in ensuring that their home country will accept the family’s return, and medical or health conditions that make it difficult for a family to return home.
The intent of the issuance of the notice is that the Home Office will have gone through that process. It is only at the end of the process of examination that the Home Office would seek to issue a notice to allow the process contemplated in clause 13 to operate. That is the approach the Government will take in the operation of this provision before getting to the point that the hon. and learned Gentleman elucidated.
Keir Starmer
I understand and recognise the considerations that the Home Office will have to give to any particular case, but it will make mistakes. There will be errors. There will be information that was perhaps not before the decision maker that should have been. Everybody understands that position. In an ordinary, sensible system, there would be a simple right of appeal to correct those errors, which in these sorts of cases can range up to about 30%.
What is the justification and the thinking behind going the long route of judicial review at the High Court rather than a much simpler appeal route? I accept the Minister’s point about injunctive relief, but that is neither here nor there. That is where a landlord does not have a proper notice and is not doing what he or she is entitled to do. That was not the position I was aiming at. Why is it necessary, given that there is an automatic right of possession, to remove the court from the process and to go back to self-help in this small group of cases? What is the necessity for that? The landlord goes through the process and gets possession from the court almost automatically, unless it is challenged. What is the justification for the long route—which will be costly—and for removing the court?
James Brokenshire
I go back to the principle of ensuring that when properties are occupied by tenants who have no lawful right to be in this country, there is a speedy process, as part of the removals process, to ensure that those individuals can be evicted. That mechanism is therefore in place as part of the removal process, in order to assist with that removal. That is the important point to understand: that is the group of people that we are talking about. There is also a process in cases where, for example, someone has left a property and the landlord wishes to bring matters to a formal conclusion as well, and notification has been given from the Home Office. The Bill provides a speedy mechanism to allow that.
In respect of the hon. and learned Gentleman’s key point about how this provision will lead to violence, violent eviction will remain an offence under the Criminal Law Act 1977. It is important to recognise that that would remain in place in this context.
Keir Starmer
I see the Solicitor General nodding his head. Is it his proposition that a landlord will not be allowed to use reasonable force to evict a family who will not physically get out of the door? That is not an offence.
James Brokenshire
The hon. and learned Gentleman has already highlighted the avenue that is available to the landlord in terms of relief that is provided by virtue of the order being from the High Court. That mechanism is therefore available to landlords seeking removal if that cannot be achieved by peaceable means. That is why I made the point that the Criminal Law Act 1977 remains in place.
In that respect there is also the issue of children, and I am aware that what the Secretary of State will do when these duties are undertaken has been of concern. We would not give an undertaking that a family with children will never be evicted under any circumstances. As I have already indicated, a family will not be subject to eviction if there are insuperable barriers to their returning to their home country. Families in private rented accommodation are unlikely to be destitute if they are renting in the first place, but at every stage in the discharge of functions relating to the family returns process and when issuing a notice in respect of a child who would be disqualified from renting, regard will be had to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in accordance with the duty in section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009.
Again, I underline some of the safeguards which we already have within the family returns process. We have a family returns panel that examines the mechanisms and routes that are used to seek a removal of a family with children from the UK. The panel looks at the removal strategy; in essence, as moves are made towards deportation, the panel can and does comment on the removal approach. Equally, there are mechanisms in the context of section 55 that provide safeguards, as well as the practical operational steps that are embodied in the way in which immigration enforcement conducts its duties when removing family groups which, obviously, involve children.
Sarah Champion
I wonder whether the Minister can provide clarity on what would happen to the person or family’s bond, which can be quite a hefty amount of money. For a bad landlord, there is quite an incentive to get people evicted if they then keep the bond.
James Brokenshire
Again, this is not about rogue landlords and bond arrangements. This is about those who have no lawful right to be in this country and it provides a mechanism to create the eviction process. Obviously, contractual provisions in respect of bond arrangements and returns of deposits would remain in place. We are talking about the eviction process itself. I think the hon. Lady is flagging a more general issue of bad practice by rogue landlords, who do not necessarily return bonds. That is a slightly tangential point, but that is not in any way to undermine its significance or importance. There is a need to ensure that landlords fulfil their contractual duties to repay deposits and other moneys due to the tenant at the end of their tenancy.
The Home Office will work closely with individuals who are subject to the notification to facilitate removal prior to the service of the notice, so this measure should not be seen in isolation. The Home Office will not simply issue a notice; it will be part of an overall removals approach. Tenants will have access to Home Office support should they consider a notice has been served in error; it is not simply a judicial review route. We anticipate the individuals would have a route of direct challenge to the Home Office, although judicial review provides a further mechanism through the courts. As I have already indicated, the landlord would be able to evict only by using peaceful means. Force or violence could not be used. Where a landlord is not able to evict peacefully, they will need to seek the help of High Court enforcement officers to carry out the eviction.
We have considered the clause carefully because of all the issues. I hope that having clarified the process that is intended, the remedies that are available, the nature of the provision and the safeguards that are provided, the Committee will be minded to include the clause in the Bill.
The Chair
We have had a lengthy debate and both Front Benches have taken interventions. I shall now put the Question.
Question put, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
Before I move on to stand part, may I make it clear to members of the Committee that the clause is debatable? I have not been here for all the amendments, but there has been a full debate. If Members wish to speak, please rise to catch my eye before I move on.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
James Brokenshire
Clause 14 amends the Housing Act 1988 to create a new mandatory ground for a landlord to obtain possession of a property following receipt of notification from the Secretary of State that an occupant is disqualified from renting as a result of their immigration status. The clause works in parallel with clause 13 and enables landlords to regain possession of their properties where some of the occupants are illegal migrants and some are in the UK lawfully with the right to rent. We have debated clause 13. Clause 14 provides slightly different mechanisms: it inserts a new mandatory ground into the 1988 Act, as I have indicated, and contains some ancillary provisions. Rather than delaying the Committee, I will leave my comments there and allow Members to ask questions and raise further points.
Keir Starmer
We debated the clause when we debated the Government amendments and the amendment to make special provision for children. That has been dealt with, so I will say little more than this: if the clause is agreed, it will provide a mandatory ground for eviction in cases involving children, older people, those with mental health issues and so on.
James Brokenshire
I think all I will do in response is amplify some of the points I raised in the previous debate on notices by the Secretary of State and the factors that he or she would take into consideration as part of the removals process. I indicated that medical issues may be a factor that he or she can take into account when determining whether to issue a notice. The clause is part of that process and builds on the debate we have had.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 14, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 15
Extension to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 78, in clause 15, page 16, line 6, leave out “Scotland”
This amendment would limit the ‘right to rent’ provisions of this Bill so that they do not apply to Scotland.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 79, in clause 15, page 16, line 9, leave out “Scotland”
This amendment would limit the ‘right to rent’ provisions of this Bill so that they do not apply to Scotland.
Amendment 80, in clause 15, page 16, line 16, leave out paragraph (4)(b)
This amendment would limit the ‘right to rent’ provisions of this Bill so that they do not apply to Scotland.
Amendment 81, in clause 15, page 16, line 26, leave out paragraph 5(c).
This amendment would limit the ‘right to rent’ provisions of this Bill so that they do not apply to Scotland.
Amendment 82, in clause 15, page 16, line 31, at end insert—
‘(5A) The Immigration Act 2014 is amended as follows, after section 76(3) insert—
(3A) Sections 20 to 37 and Schedule 3 shall not apply to Scotland.”
This amendment would limit the ‘right to rent’ provisions in the Immigration Act 2014 so that they do not apply to Scotland.
New clause 12—Immigration Act 2014: Extension to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
‘(1) The Immigration Act 2014 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 76(2) insert—
“(2A) Sections 20 to 37 and Schedule 3 extend to England only unless an order is made under this section but no order may be made under this section—
(a) Extending the provisions to Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Ministers;
(b) Extending the provisions to Wales without the consent of the Welsh Assembly;
(c) Extending the provisions to Northern Ireland without the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly.””
To remove the power to extend by regulation the provisions of this Act on residential tenancies beyond England and to restrict the provisions of the Immigration Act 2014 pertaining to England unless the devolved administrations consent to their further extension.
Anne McLaughlin
I start by asking the Minister whether he will acknowledge that housing is a devolved responsibility. Lengthy provisions in the Bill affecting housing for those already in the country are in effect housing legislation under an immigration banner. The Law Society of Scotland believes that the residential tenancy provisions will require a legislative consent motion to be placed before the Scottish Parliament. My understanding is that the Minister disagrees with that. It is clear that the Bill affects all landlords and tenants in Scotland and thus fundamentally alters a sector for which legislation is devolved. Moreover, it is clear that the changes are not merely incidental. Calling it the Immigration Bill does nothing to change the fact that it substantially alters housing law in Scotland.
The Bill allows for the measures on residential tenancies to be brought into effect in Scotland simply through a regulation-making power. That power specifically prevents functions being conferred on Scottish Ministers and means that the regulations can revoke, amend or repeal any Act or order made by the Scottish Parliament. That would enable the Minister and the UK Government to use secondary legislation powers simply to overturn primary legislation on matters devolved to the Scottish Parliament without its consent and often against its will.
What has happened to the respect agenda? Where is the constitutional principle that the UK Government will not legislate on devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament, which clearly represents the Scottish people? The Bill also runs counter to clause 2 of the Scotland Bill, which is being considered here in Westminster and is intended to recognise that principle in statute.
If the Scotland Bill is passed next week and the Immigration Bill is not amended, would I be right to tell the people of Scotland that this British Government have no regard for Scotland’s right to legislate on devolved matters? Given the enthusiasm with which the UK Government have embraced English votes for English laws, could some people not rightly suggest that it is perhaps a little hypocritical to attempt to ride roughshod over the will of the Scottish Parliament?
The Law Society of Scotland highlighted some other concerns. When issues such as asylum support, taken together with the housing law measures, are also taken into account, the changes to devolved functions such as local authorities, health, child protection and social work can no longer be described as incidental to a reserved matter, in this case immigration. Following the devolution referendum, it was clear that the settled will of the Scottish people was to have these issues decided in Edinburgh. It is also clear, given the SNP majority in Holyrood and the fact that only one Conservative MP was elected in Scotland, that these right to rent proposals do not have the support of the Scottish people or the Scottish Parliament. I propose that these provisions be removed from the Bill.
Of course, I am making the big assumption that the Minister is not going to rise to his feet shortly and tell us that this was an oversight and that he will of course amend the Bill to reflect the principle in clause 2 of the Scotland Bill and to include in the regulation-making powers in clause 15 a duty on UK Ministers to consult Scottish Ministers and to seek the Scottish Parliament’s consent to regulations before they are introduced. That would be the right thing to do and it would allow the Scottish Parliament to consult with relevant stakeholders in Scotland about these proposals.
Keir Starmer
If this is the appropriate time I shall speak to new clause 12, which is grouped with this. If it is not the appropriate time I shall wait.
Keir Starmer
I can deal with it very quickly because it is on a theme. It is simply a new clause to remove the power to extend, by regulation, the provisions of the Bill on residential tenancies beyond England and to restrict the provisions of the Immigration Act 2014 pertaining to England unless the devolved Administrations consent to their further extension. It is a fall-back position.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I previously discussed briefly how the Bill affects areas of devolved legislation in Scotland and how it, and clause 15 in particular, fit with the UK Government’s implementation—in full, allegedly—of the Smith commission. There is another debate to be had about whether the Smith commission lives up to the vow that was made to the Scottish people. Members will be aware that a vow was made to represent near federalism or home rule within the UK. They will also be aware that most, if not all, definitions of federalism or home rule suggest that all powers except defence and foreign affairs will be devolved to another local level—the Scottish Parliament, in this case. That debate will be had in another time and place, but we should reflect on the manner in which the Bill affects Smith and the passage of the Scotland Bill.
The Smith commission opened up the possibility that the Scottish Parliament will be allowed to develop and design certain immigration powers to cope with the particular and different demands affecting Scotland. When we combine that with the fact that housing is already devolved to Scotland, the uncomfortable truth for the Minister is that the Government are trying to pull a fast one here. Why else would the Minister refuse to meet the Scottish Government Minister for Housing and Welfare, who requested a meeting on this very issue?
Amendments 78 to 82 provide that the right to rent policy would not apply to Scotland. There are a number of additional reasons over housing being devolved as to why the SNP group believes that these amendments are justified. The powers in the previous Scotland Act have just started to be implemented and we are debating further powers in the latest incarnation of the Scotland Bill, including putting the Sewell convention on a statutory footing. However, we also think that the right to rent policy is simply a bad policy that lacks the appropriate evidence base. If it is rushed through it will not only have a significant impact on tenants but affect landlords and letting agencies.
During the evidence session we heard from a range of bodies that have voiced concern about the right to rent policy. A lot of these experts and agencies have already been quoted at length, so I shall not test the Committee’s patience by repeating them ad nauseam. However, it is not only these important UK-wide organisations voicing concern about this policy; as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East mentioned, the Law Society of Scotland has deep concerns. It is worth reflecting on its contribution:
“In relation to the proposal to empower the Secretary of State to amend or repeal provisions of Acts of the Scottish Parliament, we are concerned that the potential for unlawful discrimination and for human rights breaches have not been fully considered. We consider that consultation with a view to seeking the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament should be initiated”.
The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations is also calling for the right to rent policy to be repealed, as the checks that are required to be undertaken are causing
“disproportionate and unnecessary stress upon our members’ resources that are already under pressure due to the financial impacts of supporting tenants through welfare reform, and other financial constraints”.
However, organisations are not only voicing concern about the financial costs that are being levelled against landlords as a result of the right to rent policy; they also do not think it is right that they are being asked to perform the duties of an immigration official. The SFHA’s written evidence questioned whether it was appropriate for landlords to be acting as the UK Government’s very own immigration agents. That is a reasonable question, since our landlords and letting agencies do not have the training or the expertise to be able to ascertain someone’s immigration status. These are fundamental concerns that need to be addressed, and the snapshot, rushed and ill-equipped evaluation that the UK Government have hastily put together on the right to rent policy fails to address the points that have been raised.
The SNP would like to see the right to rent policy being scrapped across the whole of the UK, reducing the discrimination that our international friends face regardless of where they might be staying. Nevertheless, we accept that the UK Government have the mandate to roll out this scheme across England. Equally, however, they must be willing to accept that Scotland should be exempt from the right to rent roll-out. The fact that housing is already devolved, combined with the content of the Smith commission, the views and evidence provided by a range of housing bodies, and the general election results in Scotland, create a strong and justifiable argument that amendments 78 to 82 should be accepted by the Government and the right to rent roll-out should not take place in Scotland.
James Brokenshire
At their essence, I suppose that the arguments advanced by the hon. Members for Glasgow North East and for Paisley and Renfrewshire, as well as by the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras, are—on the basis of what I have heard—that the provisions contained not only within this Bill but within the preceding Immigration Act about the right to rent are not reserved matters, and are actually devolved matters; that is if I understand the points that have been set out.
The Immigration Act 2014 provided for the right to rent scheme. That scheme is part of a wider set of reforms to immigration control within the United Kingdom. It restricts the access that illegal migrants have to the private rented sector, stopping them from setting down roots and building ties while they are here unlawfully. The scheme also protects the finite housing stock in the UK for our lawful residents, not least our settled and lawfully staying migrant populations. Yet these amendments seek to prevent the application of the new measures set out in the Bill that assist landlords in evicting illegal migrants and that create new offences for the rogue landlords and agents who deliberately and repeatedly rent premises to those who they know or believe to be illegal migrants. These measures provide new levers for us to hold to account the rogue landlords who exploit illegal migrants.
At its fundamental essence, immigration control is a reserved matter. These amendments would lead to different immigration controls being in place across the United Kingdom. That would mean that immigration control could be less effective and it could serve to draw illegal migrants to one part of the United Kingdom, with the corollary that there would be no meaningful sanctions that could be applied against the minority of landlords who choose to act in this way in that part of the United Kingdom.
Therefore, I say directly to the SNP Members that I recognise the political difference between us—they object to the policy and do not like it. That is their view and, as always, I respect the views of all right hon. and hon. Members. However, that is distinct from an issue of whether a matter is reserved or devolved.
For example, the point has been made that these provisions would not be captured by clause 2 of the Scotland Bill, because this is legislation relating to a reserved matter, in relation to which the UK Government have competence, and therefore consent is not required. The point was made that housing is a devolved matter, which I absolutely acknowledge. However, the measures in this Bill and in the preceding Immigration Act are part of a reform to the immigration system and immigration control. These are immigration measures for an immigration purpose, and so are within the powers reserved to the UK Government.
I have to say that it is striking, notable and in some ways surprising that the official Opposition have tabled new clause 12, because it appears to cede a reserved matter. That is quite a fundamental point that we are debating here—the position that the Opposition have taken.
Anne McLaughlin
This is the first time during the consideration of the Bill that I have noticed the Minister looking impatient. I appreciate that I might just be putting my interpretation on things, but he has been shaking his head and he looked quite defensive to me.
Anne McLaughlin
Do you want me to sit down and take interventions? I think that we have hit a sore spot, because the Minister is well aware that the measures will have a significant impact on—
Simon Hoare
It might help to know that we on the Government side see my right hon. Friend as a swan gracefully gliding over the surface of the legislative lake: paddling energetically underneath, but always maintaining a calm veneer.
James Brokenshire
I hesitate to intervene after the last intervention. All that I would say to the hon. Lady is that she is wrong; that is the fundamental thing. There is clearly a difference of view between us, but I am certain of the ground on which we stand and the points that I have elucidated about our belief that this is a reserved matter. She is obviously entitled to her particular view, but I would not want to give her an indication of any irritation with her at all. Far from it; she has made her points in a fair and reasonable way.
Anne McLaughlin
I thank the Minister for allowing me to find some common ground with him at last, because I too think that he is wrong. I think that the Scottish Refugee Council, the Law Society of Scotland and the Scottish Government are right, and that he should reconsider the so-called respect agenda between the two Governments. As my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North said, the Minister refused a meeting with the Scottish Government Minister for Housing and Welfare, who has significant concerns not just at a policy level but at an implementation level. She requested a meeting and was refused with a “My people will talk to your people; I don’t have to talk to you” sort of response, although maybe—definitely—not in those words. If there is respect between the two Governments, why would the Minister not just sit down with the Scottish Government Minister to go through things if he is so convinced that he is right? I do not withdraw the amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Gavin Newlands
On a point of order, Mr Owen. Would it suit you to put the question on the remaining amendments as a group?
The Chair
I am afraid not. We will be taking them individually. I have just sought advice, and we have to take them one by one.
Amendment proposed: 80, in clause 15, page 16, line 16, leave out paragraph (4)(b). —(Anne McLaughlin.)
This amendment would limit the ‘right to rent’ provisions of this Bill so that they do not apply to Scotland.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
James Brokenshire
Clause 15 permits the Secretary of State to make provision that has a similar effect to the residential tenancy provisions in relation to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where different housing legislation applies. The intent behind these measures is to restrict the access that illegal migrants have to the private rented sector and, as such, they are not within devolved competence, as per the debate we have just had on the amendments. The intention is to extend the residential tenancy provision UK-wide. The clause specifies that regulations made under it may make provision that has a similar effect to any of the residential tenancy provisions in housing legislation in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The regulations may amend, repeal or revoke any enactment, including enactments contained in legislation passed by the devolved legislatures. They may confer functions on any person. However, they may not confer functions on Scottish or Welsh Ministers or the Northern Ireland Executive.
New housing legislation has been introduced in both Wales and Scotland that may come into force in advance of these provisions. As the application of these provisions will necessitate an amendment to Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish legislation, there will need to be further liaison before the provisions can be commenced UK-wide. The intention is for the residential tenancy provisions to be brought into force in England first and in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland at a later date.
I assure Opposition Members that discussions with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have already begun. We intend to take into consideration the housing Bills that the Scottish and Welsh Governments are progressing through scrutiny, and therefore continued engagement will take place in respect of the implementation of the regulations and the mechanism as set out in clause 15.
Keir Starmer
I do not want to waste the Committee’s time, but want formally to indicate that I do not intend to press new clause 12.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Solicitor General
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. Clause 16 amends schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 to insert new paragraphs 25CA, 25CB and 25CC. These new provisions provide the power for an authorised officer, such as an immigration or police officer, to search for and seize a United Kingdom driving licence held by a person not lawfully resident in the UK. Searches of people and/or premises can be carried out. The clause builds on the existing power introduced by section 47 of the Immigration Act 2014. That provision allows for driving licences held by illegal migrants to be revoked. This relates to driving licences issued both by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Driver and Vehicle Agency in Northern Ireland.
Subsection (2) of clause 16 inserts the new paragraphs which set out the circumstances in which the search, seizure and retention powers may be used. Safeguards are provided through a requirement that there must be reasonable grounds to perform a search. With the exception of a constable, authorised officers must generally also obtain the consent of a senior officer before conducting a search, unless it is not reasonably practicable to do so. A seized licence must be returned to the holder if a decision is taken not to revoke it or where the holder successfully appeals against revocation.
Subsection (3) of clause 16 amends the Immigration Act 1971 to provide that the holder of a seized licence cannot have access to that licence or be provided with a copy. That ensures that a copy of the licence cannot then be used as a form of identification that might help a person settle unlawfully in the United Kingdom. Subsection (4) amends the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to allow an authorised officer to use reasonable force when searching for or seizing a licence.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for that explanation, but I want to clarify the position. I think, having listened to the Solicitor General, that the primary purpose of the clause is to enable a valid—on the face of it—driving licence to be seized for the purposes of revocation, and if it is not revoked or if it is challenged, it is returned. It would be helpful if the Solicitor General could confirm that that is the driving purpose of the clause.
The Solicitor General
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. The position is that, for revoked and unrevoked driving licences, the power will be there to seize both. For example, a valid driving licence can be seized and proceedings then undertaken to revoke it because it is held by someone who ought not to be here.
Keir Starmer
I do not think we are at odds, but I need to ensure that I understand. The process is straightforward where a driving licence is invalid or already revoked, but if a licence is not revoked and is, on its face, valid, the purpose of the provision is to allow a revocation process to be completed.
Sarah Champion
I understand the principles and the motivation behind the provisions, but I have some concerns about clauses 16 and 17. As with the right to rent provisions, they will undoubtedly have an impact on legal migrants, British citizens who cannot easily prove their immigration status and ethnic minorities. The measures could lead to an increase in the racial profiling of drivers. The powers are worrying in that they are, in fact, stop-and-search powers. If they are exercised by immigration officers those officers need to be regulated in the same way as police officers are, with checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. Can the Solicitor General spell out how the rights of individuals will be protected, and what redress they will have for wrongful or repeated searches and arrests?
The Solicitor General
I would, Mr Owen.
In our evidence session, those points were, quite properly, put to the chief superintendent, and we received reassurances that it is all about intelligence-led policing and intelligence-led investigations by immigration officers. The provisions will not, in my view, lead to the random targeting of people based on their ethnicity. That would be wholly wrong and it is not something that the Government support.
As I said, the police will have cause to stop a vehicle; they may then check the driver’s circumstances, and then, if the driver is found to be an illegal migrant, the powers we intend to introduce can be used. There will not be a misuse of power, as the action taken will be based on information that is already available. Bearing in mind the demands that are placed on our investigative authorities, it is a sensible use of their resources. Certainly I, and the Government, will not encourage the authorities to randomly target individuals based on any arbitrary judgment about their status. I hope that that gives the hon. Lady the reassurance she seeks.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 16 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17
Offence of driving when unlawfully in the United Kingdom
Keir Starmer
I beg to move amendment 75, in clause 17, page 19, line 39, at end insert—
“(1A) A person does not commit an offence under subsection (1) if they had a reasonable belief that they had legal right to remain in the United Kingdom and acted in good faith.”
This amendment would provide a defence for those prosecuted for driving while illegally in the UK if they can show that they had a reason to believe that they did have legal right to be in the UK.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 76, in clause 17, page 20, line 6, at end insert—
“(3A) Nothing in this Section shall prejudice the validity of insurance relating to motor vehicles.”
This amendment would ensure that the introduction of an offence of driving while illegally in the UK would not interfere with the validity of motor insurance.
Keir Starmer
I can be relatively brief. My underlying point, which I put to the Minister now, is that in the evidence we heard two weeks ago, it was made clear that the police did not seek the new power and that they had not found any gap in their ability to deal with drivers who did not have regular status. Will the Solicitor General, at least for the record, set out the evidential basis for the creation of a new criminal offence? I go back to a proposition I put forward last week that criminal offences should not be introduced unless there is a clear case of necessity and a gap in the provisions available to law enforcement. If the law enforcement witnesses have not found a gap or asked for this, it would be helpful for the Committee to know the basis for the provisions in the first place.
Amendment 75 is in keeping with my other amendments to provide a defence for those who have a reasonable belief that they have a right to remain in the UK. The problem with this offence, as with the offence of illegal working, is that it is quasi-strict liability—in other words, there is no defence in the Bill. I ask Members opposite simply to read the amendment and ask themselves why they think it is necessary to criminalise someone who:
“had a reasonable belief that they had legal right to remain in the United Kingdom and acted in good faith”.
Why is it necessary to criminalise someone in that position? If Members vote against the amendment, that is what they will do.
I use again the example I used last week or the week before, where someone has been sponsored but, unbeknown to them, there is something wrong with the sponsorship. They may therefore find themselves in a position where they do not have the status they should have, although they have a reasonable belief that they have a right to be here and they acted completely in good faith. What is the legal case and the moral case for criminalising a person in that situation? The measure applies only in a case of reasonable belief and only if the individual acted in good faith. What is the case for criminalising such an individual?
If the Minister indicates that amendment 76 is unnecessary, I will withdraw it. It is driven by a concern not for the driver of the vehicle but for the victim of a road accident. It introduces a whole new category of individuals where there is a concern that there is a possible consequence. If I am wrong about this, I will withdraw the amendment. A possible consequence of these measures is that otherwise valid insurance that would have been available to the victim of a road traffic accident will be unavailable, having been made invalid because of the driving offence that has been created by this section. That is a real concern to those who are concerned about victims of road traffic accidents.
Sarah Champion
As I said earlier, we do not have a problem with clauses 16 and 17. The two amendments are designed to protect innocents. If the Minister is able to confirm that protection is in place, either in guidance or in the Bill, we would like to hear it.
The Solicitor General
Let me deal first with the question raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman about the evidence. There is a loophole involving people who are unlawfully here—illegal migrants—who are driving with foreign-issued licences. The offence will cover all aspects of driving by migrants who are in the United Kingdom unlawfully.
Every year, about 10,000 queries are referred to the Home Office by the police relating to either road-side stops or vehicle stops. We do not have precise numbers on cases where an illegal migrant was found to be driving a vehicle, but of the one fifth of cases related to vehicle stops, about 10% relate to drivers who are in the UK legally. I am talking about a loophole here. I think it is right that we try to close that when it comes to covering all incidents in which the authorities through other intelligence and other reasons to stop vehicles come into contact with people who are here unlawfully. The provision is another important tool to deal with a matter of public concern.
I recognise the reasons behind amendment 75, but in my view it is very broad and very subjective. It will create scenarios, for example, in which a defendant might claim they had reason to believe they were in the UK legally, simply because they had misunderstood the date on which their leave expired. It would be difficult to prove otherwise and then the purpose of the offence is undermined.
Let me deal with offences of strict liability in the context of driving. This concept is not new. For example, the offence of driving while disqualified under section 103 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, as amended, is an offence of strict liability, so this is not a new departure, although the defence would be a new departure when it comes to driving offences of this nature.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful to the Solicitor General for his explanation. I readily accept that this quasi-strict liability is not uncommon when it comes to driving and disqualification. The difference is that if someone is disqualified, they know they are disqualified. If there were a situation in which somebody, perhaps through sponsorship, genuinely and simply did not know that their status was as it was and would come within this defence, is the Solicitor General’s answer that that is just tough?
The Solicitor General
Not quite. There are a couple of caveats. First, a person who is prosecuted for this offence has the opportunity before the court issues judgment to put in mitigation about their belief as to whether they were legally present in the UK, and that would affect any sentence that might be passed by the court. Also, the Crown Prosecution Service will have guidance to ensure that migrants are not inappropriately prosecuted for this offence. Should a migrant be able to genuinely show that they believed themselves to be legally present, the public interest test, with which the hon. and learned Gentleman is very familiar, would apply.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful—I can see where this is going. Obviously, any guidance will be for the CPS to draft. Will the Solicitor General be writing to the Director of Public Prosecutions to ask her to consider whether this matter should be included in the guidelines? Obviously, it would be a matter for her, but he could suggest that she consider it.
The Solicitor General
I am more than happy to draw the DPP’s attention to this debate, which I hope will be of assistance to her in drafting guidelines.
I assure the Committee that the offence is not aimed at victims of modern slavery who have been forced to drive. I hope that goes some way to answering the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Rotherham. As she is aware, the statutory offence under section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 will apply. If a person has been compelled to drive as a direct consequence of slavery or human trafficking, they will not commit this offence. Further, there are common-law defences. For example, it will remain a defence for someone to show that they committed the offence under duress, regardless of whether they are a victim of modern slavery. I have mentioned potential new guidance, and there is existing guidance from the DPP to ensure that victims of modern slavery are not inappropriately prosecuted. These are effective safeguards against the inappropriate use of the offence that hon. Members have expressed concerns about.
Amendment 76 has been tabled because of genuine concerns about the validity of motor insurance. We are exploring with the insurance industry the potential impact of the offence on policies, but I can give reassurance today that a person involved in an accident with an illegal migrant driver will be protected. By virtue of sections 151 and 152 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, insurers have certain liabilities to innocent third parties that they cannot exclude from insurance policies. Those liabilities derive from obligations under European law which mean that an innocent third party involved in a traffic collision with an illegal migrant driver will be entitled to make a claim on the illegal migrant’s insurance policy, even if the policy is voided as a result of the migrant being unlawfully present here.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for those explanations and beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Solicitor General
I beg to move amendment 44, in clause 17, page 20, line 33, leave out “as to whether” and insert “not”
This amendment and amendment 45 clarify that a vehicle must be released where a decision is taken not to institute criminal proceedings for the offence of driving when unlawfully in the United Kingdom.
The Solicitor General
As we know, clause 17 inserts a new offence of driving while unlawfully present. Amendments 44 and 45 are technical in nature. They make clear that a vehicle must be released from detention where a decision is taken not to institute criminal proceedings for the offence of driving when unlawfully in the United Kingdom.
Amendment 46 ensures that a police or senior immigration officer may detain a vehicle at any place where they are lawfully present, including private property that is open to the public, such as a privately owned car park. Amendment 47 provides a power for the police or a senior immigration officer to enter premises, such as the suspect’s property, for the purpose of searching for and detaining a vehicle used in the commission of the offence. Those two amendments ensure that a person cannot frustrate seizure of the vehicle used in the commission of the offence by keeping it on private land, such as in a garage. Amendment 47 also provides that the power to enter premises may be exercised by a senior immigration officer or constable without warrant, where the officer knows the vehicle is present—for example, they can see the suspect’s car parked on the driveway. Where a senior immigration officer or constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that a vehicle may be found on premises but does not know it is there, the amendment provides the facility to apply for a warrant enabling the officer or constable to enter premises to search for the vehicle.
The provisions for obtaining a warrant reflect certain differences in the legal, procedural and administrative framework governing the issuing of warrants between Scotland and the rest of the UK. In particular, the Scottish criminal justice system does not provide for warrants to be issued for multiple entries to multiple premises by constables in Scotland. These forms of warrants are a feature of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 in England and Wales. The amendment therefore makes special provision to disapply this form of warrant for constables in Scotland. I hope Scottish National party Members note that great care has been taken to ensure that the two systems dovetail in a way that is acceptable to everyone.
Amendment 48 ensures that a person accompanying a constable in the execution of a warrant, such as a person contracted by the police to remove and store a vehicle used in the commission of the offence, may detain that vehicle. It also provides that a constable may use reasonable force in order to detain a vehicle.
I invite the Committee to accept those amendments.
Amendment 44 agreed to.
Amendments made: 45, in clause 17, page 20, line 35, leave out “have been” and insert “are”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.
Amendment 46, in clause 17, page 20, line 45, at end insert—
‘( ) A power in subsection (1) or (3) may be exercised by a senior officer or constable at any place at which the senior officer or constable is lawfully present.” —(The Solicitor General.)
This amendment makes clear that a vehicle can be detained by a senior officer or constable at any place they are lawfully present.
Keir Starmer
I beg to move amendment 74, in clause 17, page 21, line 30, at end insert—
‘(10A) Before laying regulations to bring Section 24D into force, the Secretary of State must ensure a pilot of the arrangements takes place.
(10B) Following the completion of the pilot mentioned in subsection (10A) the Secretary of State must prepare a report and lay it before each House of Parliament.
(10C) The pilot mentioned in subsection (1) must take place in a minimum of two police force areas and last for a minimum of six months.”
This amendment would ensure that the Home Secretary conducted a pilot of the proposed powers to allow police forces to confiscate the cars of suspected illegal immigrants before the measures were introduced.
I can deal with this amendment briefly. We have debated the provisions in the clause itself. Several concerns have been raised and several assurances have been given by the Government, but these are new provisions, so the amendment simply provides that they should be piloted before they are rolled out, partly to ensure that those assurances work in practice and partly because, when introducing new provisions of this sort, piloting is always a good idea to ensure that they work in practice. However, the substance of the debate has already been had, in terms of the concerns and assurances.
Sarah Champion
I was on the Select Committee for Transport and went out with the DVLA when it was doing some of its stops with police officers. I apologise for raising this question in this debate, but I did not know where else to raise it. I was shocked when the Minister said that 10,000 inquiries were made to the police last year. I know that the DVLA has vast concerns that it does not have the resources to investigate people driving illegal vehicles rather than illegal driving. How will the police, immigration and the DVLA work together? Also, has he considered the resources, which will be considerable if there are already 10,000 inquiries? Acting on those and investigating will be pretty resource-intensive. Can he comment on that?
The Solicitor General
I will certainly endeavour to answer the hon. Lady’s queries, but I will deal first with the substance of the amendment. I understand fully the intention behind it, but I view it as unworkable for two reasons. First, the regulations will set out the circumstances in which a vehicle may be released from detention and make provision for how vehicles should be disposed of where conditions governing the release of a vehicle are not met. Without laying regulations, therefore, we will not have the necessary legal powers to conduct a fully functioning pilot. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras can accept that.
Secondly, there is a point of principle here that I am sure he will understand straight away. A pilot would require a criminal offence to be enforced in certain parts of the United Kingdom and not in others. Such a piecemeal approach is clearly not desirable from a practical point of view given, for example, that vehicles can be driven across a number of regions. I do not know about you, Mr Owen, but the thought of car chases in 1980s American films is coming to my mind, where people cross a state boundary and offences that might have been committed in one state are not enforceable in another.
The Solicitor General
I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras would not wish us to go down that particular path—it is axiomatic, but it needs to be said. A pilot could therefore create confusion for migrants and complicate matters for the police when enforcing the offence.
As I have said, the chief superintendent, David Snelling, indicated to the Public Bill Committee in his evidence how the offence could work in practice. He explained that the police would first have cause to stop a vehicle and would then, as appropriate, ascertain the circumstances of the driver. If it is found that the driver is here illegally, the detention provisions can apply. The police are well versed in general processes relating to detaining, releasing and disposing of vehicles, so there are no new processes in the clause that might justify a pilot.
I will attempt to deal with the concerns of the hon. Member for Rotherham. The statistics that I mentioned concerned referrals to the Home Office. There is already a high degree of joint working and information sharing, which is proving an effective means for targeting and appropriately identifying people who are here unlawfully. On resources, for example training, the Home Office has been working with the police on developing the proposals and will continue to examine the potential need for further training with police colleagues. However, as I have said, these are not new types of power, so there is no absolutely overwhelming need for a complete start again on training.
I am assured that immigration resources are already in place and, as I said, this is not about a sudden general expansion in our expectation of how the police are going to behave. This is not an encouragement to the police to start randomly stopping people, which would of course have a huge impact on resources. Intelligence-led policing is not only intelligent, it is efficient. For those reasons, I hope that I have answered the genuine concerns that the hon. Lady raised.
Sarah Champion
With respect to the Minister, I am not concerned about resources for training; I am concerned about resources to have the police officers who can go out, stop or go into premises. In the Home Office cases that I get, a lot of the delays in deportation are caused by a lack of staff to carry out the work. Can the Minister reassure us that if we agree to this legislation, the police have the resources to act on it?
The Solicitor General
Yes, I can. Perhaps I have not clearly outlined that we do not expect police officers to take on a whole new swathe of different inquiries, independent of already existing intelligence and information; rather, this provision is a bolt-on. It allows police officers to follow another reasonable line of inquiry as a result of the intelligence they have already obtained. The scenario that the hon. Lady is concerned about is not one that is going to come to fruition. This is about putting another tool in the box, rather than an expectation that there are suddenly going to be new independent operations as a result of these new powers. I hope that gives the hon. Lady some reassurance.
Keir Starmer
The Minister mounts a “Dukes of Hazzard” defence. I am not quite sure that is right, because this provision is focused on the confiscation of the vehicle rather than the moving vehicle, but he makes a persuasive argument about the technical issue, which is his best point, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments made: 47, in clause 17, page 21, line 32, at end insert—
“24DA Powers to enter premises to detain motor vehicle
(1) A senior officer or a constable may enter and search any premises for the purposes of detaining a vehicle under section 24D.
(2) The power in subsection (1) may be exercised—
(a) only to the extent that it is reasonably required for that purpose, and
(b) only if the senior officer or constable knows that a vehicle which may be detained under section 24D is to be found on the premises.
(3) The power in subsection (1) may be exercised—
(a) by a senior officer (“S”) only if S produces identification showing that S is an immigration officer (whether or not S is asked to do so);
(b) by a constable (“C”) only if C produces identification showing that C is a constable (whether or not C is asked to do so).
(4) Subsection (5) applies if, on an application by a senior officer or constable, a justice of the peace is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that a vehicle which may be detained under section 24D may be found on premises mentioned in subsection (6).
(5) The justice of the peace may issue a warrant authorising any senior officer or constable to enter, if need be by force, the premises for the purpose of searching for and detaining the vehicle.
(6) The premises referred to in subsection (4) are—
(a) one or more sets of premises specified in the application, or
(b) subject to subsection (10), any premises occupied or controlled by a person specified in the application, including such sets of premises as are so specified (in which case the application is for an “all premises warrant”).
(7) If the application is for an all premises warrant, the justice of the peace must also be satisfied—
(a) that there are reasonable grounds for believing that it is necessary to search premises occupied or controlled by the person in question which are not specified in the application in order to find the vehicle, and
(b) that it is not reasonably practicable to specify in the application all the premises which the person occupies or controls and which might need to be searched.
(8) Subject to subsection (10), the warrant may authorise entry to and search of premises on more than one occasion if, on the application, the justice of the peace is satisfied that it is necessary to authorise multiple entries in order to achieve the purpose for which the justice issues the warrant.
(9) If it authorises multiple entries, the number of entries authorised may be unlimited, or limited to a maximum.
(10) A justice of the peace in Scotland may not issue—
(a) an all premises warrant under this section authorising entry on premises by a constable, or
(b) a warrant under this section authorising multiple entries by a constable.
(11) In the application of this section to Scotland, references to a justice of the peace are to be read as references to the sheriff or a justice of the peace.
(12) In this section “senior officer” means an immigration officer not below the rank of chief immigration officer.”
This amendment provides the police and immigration officers with the power to enter premises in order to detain a relevant vehicle. This ensures that an illegal migrant who commits the offence of driving when unlawfully present in the United Kingdom cannot frustrate seizure by keeping the vehicle on private land.
Amendment 48, in clause 17, page 22, line 22, at end insert—
‘( ) In section 16(2A)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (powers of persons accompanying constables in execution of warrants) after “seizure” insert “or detention”.
( ) In Article 18(2A)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 (SI 1989/1341 (NI 22)) (powers of persons accompanying constables in execution of warrants) after “seizure” insert “or detention”.
( ) In section 146(2) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (use of reasonable force) before paragraph (a) insert—
“(za) section 24DA(1) (powers to enter premises to detain motor vehicle),”.”—(The Solicitor General.)
This amendment ensures that a person accompanying a constable in the execution of a warrant may detain a vehicle and that a constable may use reasonable force in order to detain a vehicle.
Clause 17, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 18
Bank accounts
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 77, in clause 54, page 45, line 11, at end insert—
‘(4A) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (1) in relation to Section 18 shall only be made after having been laid in draft before each House of Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House.”
This amendment would require the regulations bringing into force Clause 18 to be subject to debate and approval by the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
The Solicitor General
Without anticipating the arguments of Opposition Members, I will try to deal with matters in the round so that we can be as efficient as possible. I will speak to clause 18 and schedule 3 because they are indelibly linked and provide new powers to tackle existing bank accounts held by illegal migrants. That includes accounts that were opened during a period of legal stay by a person who is now, as a result of due process, deemed to be unlawfully in the United Kingdom.
These measures build on the Immigration Act 2014, which prohibits banks and building societies from opening new current accounts for known illegal migrants. As with other measures in the Bill which deny services to illegal migrants, the aim is to deter illegal migration and to encourage those who are here unlawfully to leave the country. The process introduced by the Bill will operate in the following way. First, banks and building societies—I will use the generic term “banks” to refer to both—must carry out immigration checks on all their current accounts at regular intervals. The check will be made against the details of known illegal migrants which the Home Office shares with an anti-fraud organisation, currently CIFAS. Secondly, the bank must notify the Home Office of any matches that it believes it has found. Thirdly, the Home Office, if it confirms that the person is disqualified from holding an account, will then have a range of options available to it.
Keir Starmer
Let me indicate to the Committee that our general approach to these provisions is not to oppose them. Clearly there have not been difficulties in the provisions that are already in law, and we did not see in either the written or oral evidence any concern expressed by those operating banks that this proposal posed an undue burden on them. I think that is probably because banks are used to carrying out a number of checks—not just, as it were, immigration checks, but all sorts of other checks that are required now.
The concern we are really driving at—if I may, I will stray into schedule 3, which is triggered by clause 18—is the position of an individual where there has been closure or suspension in error and loss as a result. It is in that spirit and that limited way that the point is being made. That is what amendments 93 and 94 are driving at: essentially to explore—and, if necessary, push on—what the position of the individual is where closure is made in error and loss results from that.
The Chair
Order. Just to be helpful, we will be taking those amendments separately, so there will be an opportunity to debate and vote on them later.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for that clarification, Mr Owen. To some extent, given the way that it is set out, the amendment pretty well speaks for itself in any event. There is obviously a distinction between the freezing provisions and the closure provisions, in terms of the right of appeal open to individuals. It may be that the Minister can give a degree of assurance about how that will operate, but the reason I raised it at this stage is because amendment 77, requiring scrutiny, is to some extent premised on the concern about that limited class of individuals. I take it together in that way, but I hope I have made the sprit clear. This is about being supportive of the approach, but also exploring and seeking assurances on what happens in the case of an error that could be very costly to the individual.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 18 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 3
Bank accounts
The Solicitor General
I beg to move amendment 22, in schedule 3, page 70, line 35, leave out “or a court of summary jurisdiction”.
This amendment and amendment 23 change the definition of “relevant appeal court” for appeals in Northern Ireland. The effect is that an appeal against a decision by a court of summary jurisdiction in Northern Ireland to make a freezing order is made to a county court instead of the Crown Court.
The Solicitor General
Amendments 22 and 23 change the definition of “relevant appeal court” in relation to appeals in Northern Ireland. In effect, the amendments change the court to which an appeal against a freezing order is made. Where the order was made by a court of summary jurisdiction in Northern Ireland, the appeal would be to a county court rather than the Crown Court, which is the appropriate court in these circumstances. These amendments are the result of engagement with the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland in particular to make sure that these provisions are appropriate for the circumstances.
Westminster Hall
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Corporate Economic Crime
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of prosecuting corporate economic crime.
It is hardly necessary for me to point out what a pleasure it is to serve under your auspices, Mr Stringer, and I am sure that I speak for every person in the room when I say that it is marvellous to be here on this crisp autumnal morning. As the fog lifts from our city, I intend to cut through some of the fog around Government policy on the prosecution of economic crime. I have every confidence that the Minister will be able to illuminate this dark part of the legislative process. I called this debate to focus on economic crime and on whether our law enforcement agencies and related prosecuting authorities have the necessary tools to prosecute such crimes.
All current indicators seem to show that economic crime, such as fraud, tax evasion or bribery, are on the rise. City traders, previously perceived as paragons of virtue, are being convicted of rigging key bank lending rates, and some of our biggest banks and institutions are under investigation, challenging the very fabric of our society. This debate is clearly timely and important and comes at a point when the Government are sending out, if I may say, extremely mixed signals about their approach to holding individuals and companies to account for wrongdoing. It gives me no pleasure to say that they appear to have U-turned on a key manifesto pledge. It is widely accepted that a major issue in corporate economic crime in this country is how we can hold companies to account for their actions, and in particular make corporate wrongdoing a criminal offence. The UK’s corporate criminal liability framework is widely considered to be inadequate and lags far behind that of the US.
The Government have made some promising signals about finally getting to grips with the matter, with the Attorney General promising in September 2014 to introduce a corporate liability offence, a promise repeated—may I say, carved in stone?—in the Conservative’s manifesto. Yet, having heard nothing since the election, we learned just over a month ago that the Government no longer see any need for such an offence, even claiming that no such economic crimes go unpunished, which is a slightly Panglossian perspective that I hope to challenge in the next few paragraphs of my speech. Given what we know about economic crime, the impact that it has on businesses and the difficulties that law enforcement agencies face in prosecuting individuals and companies for such crimes, the decision is extremely disappointing. I hope that when the Minister has listened to the many concerns raised in the debate, he will be able to reassure hon. Members that he will look again at the proposals.
It is always a good idea to define what one is talking about. In response to the fairly reasonable question, “What is economic crime?” I turn, as sadly do so many people in the Labour party nowadays, to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Its economic crime survey defines economic crime as
“the intentional use of deceit to deprive another of money, property or a legal right.”
That includes money laundering, bribery, tax evasion and fraud, and such acts can be committed by employees of companies. The financial services industry, according to a recent Treasury risk assessment, is seen as being at most risk of harbouring money-laundering activities. I will return later to how we can prosecute or deter such activities, but one way is to hold companies liable if they have not adequately prevented such activities, and to make it an offence to have not prevented economic crime. For those present who sat through the debates on the Bribery Act 2010, this will be familiar territory.
The Government announced in late September that they were no longer pursuing proposals to introduce a corporate liability offence, on the basis that such an offence is unnecessary. That came to light in a fairly roundabout way following a written question from the hon. Member for Gower (Byron Davies),who is a prominent member of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption, requesting an update, to which the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), replied:
“The UK has corporate criminal liability and commercial organisations can be, and are, prosecuted for wrongdoing. The UK Anti-Corruption Plan tasked the Ministry of Justice to examine the case for a new offence of a corporate failure to prevent economic crime and the rules on establishing corporate criminal liability more widely. Ministers have decided not to carry out further work at this stage as there have been no prosecutions under the model Bribery Act offence and there is little evidence of corporate economic wrongdoing going unpunished.”
That prompts the question whether there is any evidence of economic crime going unpunished, and how prevalent economic crime is. The figures speak for themselves. KPMG’s twice-yearly fraud barometer—riveting reading that I recommend to all Members—reports that fraudulent activity in the UK totalled £385 million in the first half of 2015, which is up 22% on last year. The Government’s National Fraud Authority—a marvellous title—has reported a £52 billion-a-year loss to the UK economy from fraud. Indeed, the Attorney General himself has identified the growing threat of economic crime in this country. In a 2014 speech announcing his intention of pursuing the case for a new corporate liability offence, he observed that
“in the modern global economy, economic crime is more pervasive than ever before…the evolving nature of economic crime means we need to continue to find and develop new ways to expose and combat it.”
More high-profile cases of economic crime are being alleged or prosecuted. This summer saw the first prosecution of a UBS City trader following the LIBOR scandal. Tom Hayes was found guilty of rigging global LIBOR interest rates and sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud in a case brought by the Serious Fraud Office. Two more British traders are also standing trial in New York for their alleged role in a scheme to rig LIBOR. That followed the extraordinary revelations in February that the Swiss private banking arm of HSBC, which is headquartered in London, had helped over 100,000 wealthy individuals to evade and dodge tax all over the world. HSBC has admitted to that. In spite of all that, the number of defendants prosecuted by the SFO and City of London police—as I presume everybody knows, as well as investigating crime, it is often the lead agency in such matters—has fallen by a fifth since 2011, from 11,261 then to 9,343 last year. According to the Financial Times, the fall in prosecutions has been largely put down to both a lack of resources, given the significant spending cuts of the past five years, and the fact that agencies are ill-equipped to pursue and prosecute white-collar crimes.
How do we make sure our law enforcement agencies are properly equipped to ensure that those who commit economic crimes are held accountable, punished and ultimately deterred? The answer many turn to is some form of corporate liability offence, which essentially makes it a crime if a company fails to prevent acts of economic crime, such as fraud and bribery. However, with one exception, such an offence does not exist in the UK. Instead, current UK corporate liability law is based on the identification principle. Again, this will be familiar territory to those who remember the passage of the 2010 Act. To prove that a company is guilty of an economic crime, the prosecutor must show that a person who is the directing or controlling mind of the company intended to commit, or had knowledge of, the criminal act. That requires identifying somebody at the most senior level in a company as being responsible. In the modern, globalised world in which we live, where companies span numerous national borders and jurisdictions, that is no small task; it is virtually impossible. Many believe that it sets the bar far too high for prosecutors to prove corporate liability. There is one exception: bribery, in which that burden of proof is essentially reversed.
Thanks to section 7 of the 2010 Act, which the previous Labour Government introduced, commercial organisations can be held liable if they are found to have failed to prevent bribery by their employees; unsurprisingly, that is known as the “failure to prevent” principle. As such, companies are required by law to prove that they have carried out adequate procedures to prevent acts of bribery by their employees. That acts as their statutory defence. Many see section 7 as a model that could be used to hold corporates criminally liable for all kinds of economic crime, not just bribery. The director of the SFO, David Green, has made it clear on a number of occasions that he would support such a move. In 2013, he said:
“A more sensible and just approach might be that embodied in Section 1 of the Bribery Act 2010. This creates the offence of a commercial organisation ‘failing to prevent’ bribery by its employees, with a statutory ‘adequate procedures’ defence. Extending this approach, a Corporate, or certain types of Corporate (such as banks and companies listed on stock exchange) could be liable for failing to prevent certain types of criminal offence by their employees subject to a statutory defence.”
Until recently, that view was echoed by the Attorney General, who said a little more than a year ago, in his first major speech in the role:
“Government officials are considering proposals for the creation of an offence of a corporate failure to prevent economic crime, modelled on the Bribery Act section 7 offence.”
That promising start from the Attorney General did not last, and the Government have now decided that no such offence is required, despite the fact that the leading prosecuting authority for white-collar crime, the SFO, clearly favours such an offence.
What people had to say about that decision can help us to understand how important many see a new corporate liability offence as being to strengthening the ability of law enforcement agencies to prosecute white-collar crime. Robert Amaee, a former head of anti-corruption at the SFO, said:
“This retraction by the government is unlikely to be welcomed by the prosecutors who have been calling for an extension of the law on corporate criminal liability. I expect that there will be renewed enthusiasm for revisiting this topic once the SFO has shown that it can bring successful prosecutions under the existing failing to prevent bribery offence.”
Alan Sheeley, head of civil fraud and asset recovery at Pinsent Masons, said:
“The new criminal offence of failure to prevent bribery might not have resulted in any dedicated prosecutions as yet, but its impact on the attitudes and policies of businesses of all sizes has been staggering. I would have expected the potential legislation of failing to prevent economic crime to have the same impact if and when implemented. Frankly, this seems like a wasted opportunity by the UK government to target economic crime and, at the same time, reinforce the role of the UK as a leader in tackling economic crime in global financial markets and businesses.”
The Conservative manifesto, a document that I study with great interest and care when I have difficulty getting to sleep at night, states:
“We are also making it a crime if companies fail to put in place measures to stop economic crime, such as tax evasion, in their organisations and making sure that the penalties are large enough to punish and deter.”
Without commenting on the rest of the Conservative manifesto, that was a sensible proposal that seemed to be supported universally. It is therefore disappointing that the Government have seemingly performed a screeching handbrake turn.
Only the month before last, the Treasury published its long-anticipated “UK national risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing activities”. We need only look at the report’s conclusions to understand the importance of equipping law enforcement agencies, and of ensuring that prosecuting authorities have the tools in the armoury to prevent and punish economic crime. The report stated:
“The size and complexity of the UK financial sector mean it is more exposed to criminality than financial sectors in many other countries, including abuse enabled by professional enablers in the legal and accountancy sector...The UK’s response is well developed, but more needs to be done to ensure it is commensurate with our status as a well regulated global financial centre.”
I speak as a London MP, and about 60% of the offences we are discussing take place in my city. More clearly needs to be done; that is the key.
A criminal offence of failing to prevent economic crime would enable agencies and authorities to do more; as we have heard from the director of the SFO, it would clearly help him and his teams to do more. In our increasingly interconnected, digital world, economic crime is arguably more prevalent than ever before, as the Attorney General has conceded. The tools at our disposal and the resources available to our agencies and authorities must evolve to keep pace with developments.
I hope that the Minister can today say proudly that the option of introducing a criminal offence for failing to prevent economic crime is still on the Government’s agenda and that they intend to propose one in due course. I hope the Minister will be able to provide that reassurance today, because given the events of 2007-08 and everything that followed, the public have a right to expect that those who defraud, launder money or commit other white-collar crimes are brought to justice.
In common with many Members of Parliament, I have a fantasy. My fantasy—don’t worry, Minister—relates to the marvellous “The Comic Strip Presents” television series. “The Strike” showed how Hollywood would imagine the miners’ strike. Al Pacino played Arthur Scargill, and Jennifer Saunders played Meryl Streep. At one stage a young Arthur Scargill entered the Chamber of the House of Commons and made an impassioned speech in favour of the mineworkers, whereupon the Speaker, who was apparently Leader of the Opposition and Head of Government at the same time, said, “You have convinced me, Sir. We will throw out all our existing policies on pit closures and reverse everything. We will do precisely what you, young Scargill, have asked for.”
I would not put myself in the place of Al Pacino or Arthur Scargill, but how wonderful it would be if the Minister said, “Having considered the matter, I will break free from the shackles of this Government and from the rigid centralism that permeates the Conservative party. I accept that a point has been made and that we need to do something. We will act; we will overturn the previous policy U-turn, and we will revert to the noble words in the Conservative party manifesto. We will introduce that crime.” The nation would be happy; the City might not be utterly delighted in the first instance, but it would be delighted as our reputation improved; and, above all, the SFO and decent people who care for the probity of our financial services in these islands would look to the Minister and thank him, were he to make that statement today.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) on securing this important debate. As we heard from him, economic crime is on the increase and fraud very much remains a hidden crime. I, too, turned to the 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers global economic crime survey, which found that 44% of UK organisations reported some type of fraud—the global average is 37%. The majority of respondents felt that the number of instances and the financial impact of economic crime had increased since 2013. The proportion of employees committing economic crime increased from 34% to 41%, and most crimes are committed by junior staff.
The Treasury’s money laundering and terrorist financing national risk assessment found:
“The size and complexity of the UK financial sector mean it is more exposed to criminality than financial sectors in many other countries”.
The risk assessment also stated that the banking sector is at highest risk of money laundering because London is home to 250 foreign banks and is the largest centre of cross-border bank funding. We clearly need laws to combat economic crime.
Existing UK corporate liability law is based on the identification principle, which requires prosecutors to show a person who is the “directing” or “controlling” mind of the company—that is, that someone sufficiently senior intended to commit the criminal act—to prove the company guilty. In the case of large multinational corporations, however, it is difficult to identify individuals who are the directing or controlling mind. In other words, they are getting away with it.
Indeed, in 2013 the director of the Serious Fraud Office, David Green, said that
“a corporation is only liable if the top personnel can be shown to be complicit, but this is very hard to prove—rarely does the email chain go above a certain level”.
Furthermore, the identification principle creates perverse incentives for board-level officers to distance themselves from knowledge of wrongdoing, so any decision to engage in wrongdoing is split between individuals with different knowledge, making it difficult to prove that one person had the intent.
What are the alternatives? The Labour Government introduced the Bribery Act 2010, but there have not been many prosecutions, and the first convictions did not take place until December 2014, when three men were jailed for a £23 million biofuel investment scam. Those men, who worked for Sustainable Agroenergy plc, preyed on people, conning them into investing their savings and pension funds.
The Bribery Act overhauled laws that dated back 122 years and gave prosecutors new powers to fight modern internet bribery. As we have heard, section 7 of the Act made it an offence for a commercial organisation to fail to prevent bribery by its employer; the defence is adequate procedures. No prosecutions have been pursued under that section, so it has not been tested in the courts, but Alan Sheeley, the head of civil fraud and asset recovery at Pinsent Masons, said that the Act’s
“impact on the attitudes and policies of businesses of all sizes has been staggering.”
The Labour party sees section 7 as a model that could be used to prosecute all economic crimes. A company would be liable for failing to prevent certain offences of economic crime unless it showed that it had put adequate procedures in place to prevent it. As we have heard, however, although the Attorney General made that proposal in September 2014 and included it in the 2014 anti-corruption plan—and even though it was in the Conservative party’s manifesto and it received widespread cross-party support—the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) responded to a written question from the hon. Member for Gower (Byron Davies) to say that the proposal had been dropped.
The Government have received much criticism for reneging on that promise. Indeed, Elly Proudlock, a member of WilmerHale’s white-collar crime team, said:
“It is surprising that the Government has decided not to pursue law reform in this area, given the small number of corporate prosecutions to date and the repeated insistence by David Green…that the threshold for establishing corporate criminal liability must be lowered.”
The new offence of failure to prevent bribery has had a profound effect on the attitudes and policies of businesses of all sizes. The threat of prosecution has reduced offending, so we need to change the culture in companies on committing economic crime. It is concerning that the attitudes of those in senior positions in companies contributes to the prevalence of economic crime committed by their employees. To broaden section 7 to include all economic crime may well have a positive effect on those senior people and, in turn, that may change the culture of their employees. The threat of prosecution may well be persuasive in itself.
The alternatives include introducing a new vicarious liability regime similar to the US model, whereby companies are liable for the illegal acts of employers and agents when such acts are in the scope of their employment and benefit the company. However, vicarious liability is notoriously difficult to prove.
What about deferred prosecution agreements, another import from the US, where they are used extensively? DPAs were introduced to the UK in 2014 by the Crime and Courts Act 2013. They are a method by which an organisation can avoid prosecution by entering into a contract with certain conditions, which may include paying a financial penalty, paying compensation or co-operating with future prosecutions of individuals. They can be used for fraud, bribery and other economic crimes. The SFO says that a DPA would be appropriate when the public interest is not best served by mounting a prosecution. No DPAs have been signed yet, but there is speculation that two small private companies, Barclays and Tesco are involved in discussions. The SFO’s director, David Green, suggested that two will be signed by the end of 2015.
On one hand, many see DPAs as a proven method of compensating for economic crime. In the US they brought in more than $4.2 billion last year and more than $9 billion in 2012. That may be evidence of their effect in reducing economic crime. On the other hand, they are a way for companies to get out of jail, because no one goes to jail.
Of greatest concern is whether DPAs will work in the UK. Without the threat of criminal liability prosecutions and the likelihood of an organisation being prosecuted, what is the incentive to sign a DPA? Why pay a significant fine, pay compensation or co-operate in prosecutions if there is no chance of getting caught in the first place?
One of my concerns is the practical question of the lack of resources needed to pursue large, complicated cases against well-resourced multinational corporations. If the resources are not there, adding new offences to the statute book will not be effective. We need new methods to combat economic crime, but we also need resources.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) on his inspiring and passionate speech. The image he gave towards the end of his speech of Al Pacino playing Arthur Scargill will live with me for the rest of the day.
Before I start, I must declare two interests: I am the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), and in a previous life, I worked for the World Economic Forum, many of whose members were FTSE 500 companies. In fact, my experience should reassure the City and our friends in the financial services sector that I am not here to attack them; on the contrary, I come here today with their best interests at heart.
We all remember the events that led up to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the tumultuous events of the ensuing months and years—events that changed the course of history and caused many of the troubles that the world faces today: the sovereign debt crisis, chaos in the eurozone and the freezing of public and private sector investment. A sluggish economy with an uncertain future means that many who have been worst hit want to see “the bankers”, as they are characterised, punished. People feel that the law is broken and that those who broke it have been let off scot-free.
Cool heads have prevailed and blanket retribution has not been applied, which is a good thing, but the Government now seem to have swung far too far in the other direction, towards total and complete inaction, with the odd knighthood stripped but little more to show than that.
The City and the financial services sector need to be held accountable, for their own good as much as for the public’s, and our common interest should now be to rebuild trust. Right now, trust levels are at rock bottom. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, financial services is the least trusted industry worldwide. Almost 60% of the British public rates the banking industry’s performance as poor or very poor. That is not sustainable if we want the City to carry on thriving. In fact, if we break the figures down, we see that the City’s trust score is artificially inflated by higher levels of trust in retail banks, while of those polled only 18% trust investment bankers and only 12% trust fund managers.
In the light of such a fundamental breakdown in confidence, hon. Members can imagine how pleased I was to read the following paragraph in the Conservative party’s 2015 manifesto:
“We are also making it a crime if companies fail to put in place measures to stop economic crime, such as tax evasion, in their organisations and making sure that the penalties are large enough to punish and deter.”
To Labour Members, that was music to our ears, so the Government’s recent decision to backtrack on corporate liability was all the more disappointing and puzzling. I am concerned that, in backtracking on that vital manifesto pledge, Ministers will have opened themselves up to suggestions—totally unfounded, of course—that they are acting on the demands of a number of those who donate large sums of money to the Conservative party. I urge the Minister to dispel those nasty rumours.
The Conservatives’ courageous and correct manifesto commitment had teeth and was a wholly proportionate response to the fact that fraudulent activity increased by 22% in the first half of 2015 compared with the first half of 2014. That is not good for our financial security or for the future of an industry that fundamentally requires public trust and backing more than ever before. Despite promises to the contrary, there have been no criminal sanctions for reckless management, nor have we seen any sign of the much touted rule that bars managers of failed banks from running other companies.
I want the City to succeed, because it is vital to our economy, but I am concerned that the Government are too short-sighted to see what real, long-term, sustainable success means. Success means rebuilding trust and changing how the City is perceived. In closing, therefore, I would like to make a number of recommendations on smart regulation.
First, the Government must act on their own manifesto and enforce corporate liability. Criminal sanctions for bad management are almost universally supported by the public and are key to establishing a new corporate culture based on transparency. Secondly, the Government must act on the Treasury’s “UK national risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing” by cracking down on professional enablers in the legal and accountancy sector. Thirdly, they must get serious about investing in the tools and technology necessary to keep pace with these criminals.
Labour Members want only to see a thriving financial services sector. For the sector to thrive and prosper, it must regain the trust of the British people and reclaim its licence to operate. That is why the measures in the Conservative party manifesto were so welcome, and why it is vital that they are urgently incorporated into law. It is absolutely right to be pro-business, but it is wrong to be pro-business as usual.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) for securing the debate.
Like many of my hon. Friends here today, I was disappointed to learn that the Government appear to have dropped their plans to introduce a corporate liability offence. By going back on their manifesto pledge to prosecute economic crime, this Government are pandering to corporations. They are not following through on their promise to tackle tax evasion. They are not adequately holding corporate criminals to account, in the same manner as other criminals. After the crash of 2008, the public have a right to expect those who launder money, defraud or commit other white-collar crimes to be brought to justice. The bail-out cost UK taxpayers was £133 billion—more than £2,000 per person.
As the Attorney General identified in September 2014, in the modern economy, economic crime is more pervasive than ever. According to the Financial Conduct Authority, white-collar crime is estimated to cause the UK losses of more than £40 billion a year. The number of defendants prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office and the City of London police has fallen by a fifth since 2011, despite an increase in tip-offs. Figures from June 2014 show that the number of leads reported to Action Fraud—a national crime reporting centre that is part of the City of London police force—had jumped 46% year on year. According to Pinsent Masons, the Serious Fraud Office received more than 2,000 reports of suspected white-collar crime from whistleblowers last year.
The clear disparity between the evidence of rising economic crime and rising tip-offs and the falling number of prosecutions highlights the fact that the mechanisms in place are not working. Current legislation is inadequate to prosecute economic crime. That point is acknowledged by the SFO’s director, David Green, who would support extending section 7 of the Bribery Act. The Government’s lack of political will to address this issue is acting against the public interest.
Stephen Pound
My hon. Friend makes an important point when she talks about existing legislation but an absence of will. When deferred prosecution agreements were introduced, as part of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, we could have gone the way of the United States, which uses them with great skill and effectiveness, but for some reason not a single DPA has been signed off in this country. Does she agree that that is an example of where the legislation exists, but the will demonstrably does not?
Kate Osamor
That is a fantastic point, and I totally agree.
I end by urging the Government both to honour their manifesto pledge to tackle economic crime and to reassess their rejection of extending the Bribery Act to cover all kinds of economic crime.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
It is a pleasure for me, too, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) for introducing the debate. I also thank the hon. Members for Neath (Christina Rees), for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) and for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) for their thoughtful and insightful contributions.
The debate is predicated on the widely held public view that the bankers seem to have got away with it over the last five, six or seven years. Whether that is correct or not, it is certainly the widely held public perception. The urgings from the Opposition and the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge seemed to indicate that they were inclined to address that widely held view. I welcome that, and it is right that the issue is addressed. As we have heard from Opposition Members, corporate economic crime has increased over the last few years, and there is a question about whether both the means and the inclination and the will to tackle it exist.
I speak on behalf of the Scottish National party, of course, and section 7 of the Bribery Act applies only to England and Wales, not to Scotland. Most of the prosecutions that could be brought by the Serious Fraud Office or another entity relate to subjects—financial crime and financial regulation—that are reserved functions. However, Scotland has a long and well established criminal court system, which could bring charges for individual crimes to bear on individual directors, but as we have heard, those tools may not be up to the job. The SNP would be very interested, to say the least, in Government proposals on this point, but we recognise that there are difficulties. We, too, live in a jurisdiction where the prevalent public perception is that the bankers have got away with it. My constituents, like people across Scotland, are demanding that something be done.
I should declare a slight interest as a former practising lawyer, qualified on both sides of the border. Having come to this debate fairly recently, one difficulty I would point to is the difference between holding a company, as opposed to an individual, criminally liable. I am not saying that we could not get around that problem in law, but it strikes me, as a legally qualified person, that there are difficulties involved in bringing an entity into the realms of criminal liability. However, if the Government come up with proposals to get round that, I would certainly look at them.
The message to the Government from the SNP and Scotland is that if they do consider giving Scotland more tools to address these reserved issues, they should carefully consider the provisions that already exist in Scots law and make sure that the principles of Scots law are not set aside. It is in that spirit of co-operation that I come to the debate, and I am very interested to hear what the Minister has to say. We welcome moves to tackle this issue, but we are cautious about how they can be achieved.
When it comes to how the bankers have apparently got away with it, the message I hear from my constituents and from people across Scotland is really about actions and consequences. Over the last five to eight years, many ordinary people have, they would argue, suffered enormous consequences as a result of the actions of others. The public’s view in Scotland—I suppose this is replicated across the rest of the UK—is that there are people in the financial services industry who are earning huge sums and have suffered no consequences as a result of their actions or the actions of the company they are employed by. On the face of it, that needs to be addressed. We in Scotland are very interested to hear what the Minister has to say about what seems to be a substantial tide of opinion. Of course, we recognise that there are difficulties, which need to be addressed in any proposals.
Stephen Pound
The hon. Gentleman brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the matter, which is welcome. In the context of what he was saying about perceptions, is he aware that in the summer BIS consulted the business community about whether to water down Labour’s Bribery Act guidance to businesses? That surely sends completely the wrong signal to business. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when there is consultation on whether even a measure as modest yet effective as the Bribery Act 2010 is potentially dilutable—if there is such a word—it sends an appalling signal?
Richard Arkless
Yes, wholeheartedly. The public perception is real and tangible, and in my view it is entirely based in fact. The Government’s reluctance to continue on the road, and the suggestion that the 2010 Act, which does not apply to Scotland, might even be watered down, sends entirely the wrong message. If we can convince the public that we are serious about the issue, the trust in financial services that has evaporated in the past five to 10 years can, I hope, be restored. The reason Parliament thought it right to bail out the banks was their intrinsic role in the economy, and that has not changed; however, the public need to have confidence in the financial services sector. For the time being, they do not have such confidence, and I will be interested to see what the Government will propose.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) on securing this important debate on prosecuting corporate economic crime, and on his argument, which he put forward with his customary elegance. The debate is timely, in the light of recent announcements by Ministers. I congratulate all the hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, who made powerful contributions and set out strongly the arguments that the Government should listen to. Each of them made important points, to which I shall refer. I do not mean to diminish the Minister’s presence when I say that I am disappointed that neither of the Law Officers could attend the debate. I hope that is not a sign of Government obfuscation on these important issues.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), I am not here to bash bankers. The City of London is the world’s second-largest financial centre and a major contributor to the UK economy. Its success is clearly founded on the professionalism and integrity—for the most part—of those who work in the sector. That is why we cannot allow its reputation to be undermined by the actions of the minority who engage in fraud, corruption and market manipulation. Yet despite the events of 2007 and 2008, and all that has followed—parliamentary commissions, Select Committee inquiries and the setting up of new regulators—economic or white-collar crime remains a serious problem in the UK. We need only look at the horrifying spectre of LIBOR rate rigging to be reminded of why the Government cannot rest on their laurels in this matter; yet the ability of our law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to tackle such pernicious crimes remains limited.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North pointed out, the Government gave some promising signals. They announced the introduction of a senior managers regime to hold named executives to account for their actions, and they pledged to introduce a new corporate offence of failure to prevent economic crime. It is disappointing that that was not, as my hon. Friend pointed out, etched in stone, but it was in the manifesto for all to see. Both proposals were seen as vital to prevent the repetition of the failings of the past and bring the UK regime into the 21st century. However, in both cases, the Government have backtracked.
What do we know about the reasons for the Government’s change of heart about the corporate liability offence? According to a response to a written question to the Ministry of Justice,
“there is little evidence of corporate economic wrongdoing going unpunished”,
despite the fact that according to the Financial Conduct Authority banks have paid an estimated £1.8 billion in compensation for mis-selling financial products such as interest rate swaps and have already set aside an additional £27 billion to compensate for payment protection insurance mis-selling. That is not to mention the £4.4 billion lost each year to tax evasion, according to the latest estimates from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, or the countless banks and financial institutions that are being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for various types of misconduct, but have not yet been prosecuted. Why have the Government concluded that no action is required? I hope that the Minister can enlighten us.
Some recent disclosures are cause for concern. Last month, the Treasury published the national risk assessment, the first comprehensive assessment of the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing—both from within the UK and flowing through it. It is the first assessment of its kind and has been highly anticipated since the Government committed themselves to producing it, in their 2014 anti-corruption plan. The Government’s assessment of the risks posed by elements in the financial sector is clear:
“The size and complexity of the UK financial sector mean it is more exposed to criminality than financial sectors in many other countries, including abuse enabled by professional enablers in the legal and accountancy sector”.
Nevertheless, the report notes that the UK has “significant intelligence gaps” with respect to money laundering, despite what is judged to be a serious threat from, for example, the legal, banking and accountancy sectors. The conclusions are not encouraging:
“The UK’s response is well developed, but more needs to be done to ensure it is commensurate with our status as a well regulated global financial centre.”
The message is clear: far more needs to be done. I would therefore welcome reassurance from the Minister that something is being done. The aim must be to ensure that the appropriate measures are in place to deter behaviour that facilitates or contributes to the committing of economic crime. That would not only encourage good practice and the right corporate culture, but mean that wrongdoers were held accountable, which would be a deterrent. There is widespread concern that the UK’s current corporate liability regime is not up to the job. That is the view of the Law Commission and the OECD’s working group on bribery, both of which have produced seminal work on the subject. Both concluded that the current regime does not allow the UK to hold corporations and key persons within them to account effectively for their part in economic crimes.
In its extensive work on the UK’s corporate liability measures, the Law Commission described the present regime as
“an inappropriate and ineffective method of establishing criminal liability of corporations”.
It also noted the unfairness inherent in the identification doctrine, explained by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North, which makes it far easier to prosecute smaller companies, where the “directing mind” is more easily determined, than large corporations with much more diffuse chains of command.
Stephen Pound
My hon. Friend raises a point that has given me pause for thought. Does she agree that there is such a thing as a corporate culture in certain companies—I think that there is ample evidence of such behaviour—and that if, often, the culture is not in the interest of probity or the wider public, it is difficult to identify the person of whom an example should be made? If the culture is allowed to fester and permeate, inevitably it spreads. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is an issue of identifying an individual, pour encourager les autres at the very least?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend makes an important point that goes to the heart of the argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon argued cogently that, ultimately, we need a better way of establishing responsibility for the actions of a company and those who serve within it. It is not enough for those at the top to wash their hands of responsibility for the actions of the officers and employees who operate, act and work under the company’s name.
There needs to be much greater clarity about the legal framework. Many bodies, including the Law Commission, have called for that. What is even more key is that the Government seem to share that view. In a consultation undertaken in July 2015 on the introduction of a new corporate offence of failure to prevent tax evasion, the Government concluded:
“Under the existing law it can be extremely difficult to hold the corporations to account for the criminal actions of their agents”.
That observation has been made by the Government and Ministers on several occasions, as well as by my hon. Friends in their contributions today.
The Law Commission, the OECD working group and the director of the Serious Fraud Office point to section 7 of Labour’s Bribery Act as a potential solution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North set out in his speech, section 7 of the Bribery Act makes it an offence to fail to prevent bribery. It places the onus on companies to prove that they have put in place adequate procedures to prevent bribery and is widely seen as a far more effective way of holding companies and the individuals within them to account, which is why many want to see that model extended to other types of economic crime.
Stephen Kinnock
We have talked a lot about accountability and trust today, but another important word here is “risk”. We saw in the events leading up to 2008 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers a systemic failure to manage risk. It is in the interests of both Government and the private sector more broadly—the real economy and the financial services sector—to put systemic measures in place to manage risk in a way that ensures the appalling events in and following 2008 never happen again. Some regulation of the market is therefore, by definition, required as a risk management tool. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend makes an important point and anticipates my next point. First, I want to clarify exactly where the Government seem to be on this issue.
The Government’s recent announcement has caused much confusion among those who care about this issue, because it seems to be very much at odds with what they have been saying and the messages and signals they have been sending out. In his first speech as Attorney General over a year ago, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) suggested that he was considering the section 7 proposal. We then discovered, in an answer to a written parliamentary question, that it had been dropped. We need clarity from the Minister today about exactly why that decision was made and what the Government will do to ensure that our concerns are addressed if they are not proceeding with that proposal.
The director of the Serious Fraud Office, David Green, has made clear his support for the expansion of section 7 of the Bribery Act. He has described how useful it would be to better facilitate the use of deferred prosecution agreements. My hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) set out eloquently how deferred prosecution agreements work and their potential importance in dealing with some of the issues that have been highlighted. It is no secret that the Serious Fraud Office director favours the use of DPAs, which are currently more widely used in the United States. To clarify, they provide for a corporation to avoid prosecution by entering into an agreement with a number of conditions attached, which may include paying a financial penalty, paying compensation or co-operating with future prosecutions of individuals. In doing so, they avoid prosecution. The aim is to hold key individuals to account, to secure significant financial penalties from companies that have committed wrongdoing and, ultimately, to prevent future wrongdoing by encouraging or mandating reforms within those companies.
Deferred prosecution agreements are not without their critics, but they have been widely used in the US for the past 20 years or so and brought in some $4.2 billion to the Department of Justice in 2014 alone. One key problem with importing the use of DPAs to the UK is that they are intended to be a carrot, while the stick is the prospect of prosecution for corporate economic offences.
Stephen Pound
My hon. Friend is giving us a masterclass, and it is greatly appreciated. I am sure that she, like me, felt her heart leap when the American authorities started to act against FIFA using their Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Does she agree that we can learn much, for once, from the American example and the action they took against the appalling, utterly corrupt situation regarding FIFA? I am not remotely comparing any British business to FIFA—it would be hard to find anything outside the Augean stables or the seventh circle of hell that compared to that organisation. The Americans seem able to achieve things that we cannot. Is that because of the quality of the excellent US Attorney General and her staff, or should we be learning from the American legislation?
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We should not shy away from learning lessons from any jurisdiction that manages to control risk, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon highlighted, and to hold companies to account where wrongdoing has occurred. Where there are lessons to be learned from the US, we should learn them and do what we can to implement them within our own system. We could then hold ourselves up as a beacon for other countries and hold our heads high as a well-regulated, world-leading financial centre. That has to be our aim in all of this.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Neath pointed out, without the fear of corporate economic crime being prosecuted, there is little incentive for companies to enter deferred prosecution agreements and no incentive for companies to co-operate with the SFO to change their practices as mandated under a DPA. Unlike in the US, which has far stronger vicarious liability laws, there are still far too few corporate prosecutions in the UK under the current identification principle. No matter how much we may wish to learn from the United States—if that is what we see as the right way forward—without a strengthened corporate liability regime, we will be hampered in our efforts to implement such changes.
Finally, I turn to another area that shows concerning signs of backtracking by the Government and in which we would otherwise have seen individuals in companies held accountable for their own and others’ actions. In its 2013 report on the banking sector and how to prevent the failings that led to the 2008 crash, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards similarly recognised the difficulty in identifying individuals and holding them to account. One of its key recommendations was to introduce a senior managers regime to hold named executives personally responsible for key risks in the bank. That issue was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, who made a powerful speech about encouraging better and more responsible management within companies to change bad practice where it is found. The commission recommended that the regime place a burden of proof on those named executives, who would have to show the regulator that they had done all they reasonably could to prevent failings or misconduct if they were to avoid sanction.
Christina Rees
Does my hon. Friend agree that even though we have the legislation in place in section 7, there is no will to use it? That is the problem. There has not been a single prosecution.
Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend raises a concern relating to the Bribery Act, but there are two ways of looking at the Act’s implementation and the fact that no prosecutions have yet happened under it. There is evidence that it has already brought about significant changes in corporate culture and that the managers tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that they have taken all the steps they could reasonably be expected to have taken to prevent bribery in their organisations have taken those steps. Some positives can therefore certainly be derived from the situation, but I agree that a very close eye needs to be kept on prosecutions. I note that there are already murmurings from the Government about backtracking on the Bribery Act and trying to weaken that legislation, and we must stay vigilant about that.
On the senior managers regime, the commission recommended that the regime place a burden of proof on those named executives. The recommendation was accepted by the Government and enshrined in the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013. However, the Bank of England and Financial Services Bill, which is currently in the other place, is set to reverse that burden of proof, meaning that instead, the regulator—the Financial Conduct Authority—will be required to prove that senior managers have failed in their duty to prevent misconduct or prudential failings. The onus will be back on the regulator, and not on the named senior executives. Is that just more backtracking from the Government, who seem to be going soft on economic crime? I would be grateful if the Minister provided reassurance that that is not the case.
Ministers urgently need to look again at their approach to tackling economic crime, because without change, the prospect of ensuring that justice is served to those who have mis-sold financial products, evaded tax, laundered money and defrauded seems as remote as ever, and the risk of the scandals of recent years being repeated has far from disappeared.
Graham Stringer (in the Chair)
I remind the Minister that although he has an unusually large amount of time in which to wind up, under the new procedure, there is time at the end for Stephen Pound, the proposer of the debate, to sum up.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Dominic Raab)
I am grateful for your advice, Mr Stringer, and it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. At the outset, I should say on behalf of the Solicitor General that he is caught up in the Immigration Bill Committee, and although I understand the chagrin about that of the shadow Justice Minister, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), my hon. and learned Friend is attending to important business there.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) for securing the debate and for delivering a tenacious, eloquent speech in his usual fashion. He made some excellent points. I fear that he may have rather lost me at Arthur Scargill, even if other Opposition Members were rather more enthused, but none the less, he made some very important points. I also formally recognise the important contributions from the hon. Members for Neath (Christina Rees), for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless), for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) and from the shadow Justice Minister.
I think that we all agree that the prosecution of corporate economic crime is vital and can be complex. We have heard about some of the challenges this morning and there are others, but there are opportunities, too, and we should be mindful of seizing them as best we can. One issue has been the identification principle, which applies in many instances of economic crime and sets a clear bar that must be met before a corporate can be found criminally liable. Technical challenges around the disclosure of material, for example, can also be very significant, not least given the huge volumes of material that need to be sifted and potentially disclosed in many of these cases.
Much has been made of section 7 of the Bribery Act, which makes it an offence for corporates to fail to prevent bribery in certain circumstances. As important as that provision and model is, I did rather feel that hon. Members have pinned a huge amount of confidence—I would not say blind faith—in a model and provision which has not yet secured any convictions, although I appreciate that it was authored under a previous Government. To be clear—I am not saying that the hon. Member for Neath was suggesting this—I do not think that anyone seriously blames the Government for failing to enforce that. Prosecutions in this country are rightly independent from Government interference and we want to see full use made of the measure. I just say—the hon. Member for Ealing North will perhaps want to address this point—that Opposition Members have pinned rather a lot on a measure that has not yet delivered a prosecution, much as we wish it will in the near future.
Stephen Pound
I entirely agree with the Minister’s point, but there has, in fact, been one self-referred case under section 7 of the Bribery Act. It took place in Scotland and I am not entirely sure how the jurisdiction applies, but it was a self-referred case using precisely that template.
Mr Raab
I am grateful for that intervention. I stand better informed than I was before, but obviously I cannot comment on individual prosecutions or cases until they are in a position to conclude.
Much has been made of the Conservative manifesto commitment, rather caricaturing the nature of what was very clearly stated and ignoring the fact that we are specifically further considering legislation relating to tax evasion. As hon. Members will know, but this is an opportunity to remind them, the consultation on that closed on 8 October. I am sure that further announcements will be made in due course.
The shadow Justice Minister made some of her most powerful points on deferred prosecution agreements, which were introduced in the last Parliament and represent a significant opportunity for prosecutors to take action. I think that they rather refute the suggestion that this Government have been either lax or demonstrating inertia in trying to develop the tools we need to deliver convictions and accountability in this area.
It is also worth saying that, as a basic principle, we should try to exercise existing law enforcement powers to the full before we go back to Parliament and ask for more. I fear that it was rather the epitaph of the previous Labour Government to legislate hyperactively and leave the statute book littered with offences that were not really ever used in practice, so I make no apology for saying that we really ought to be crafting criminal legislation on the statute book that will deliver convictions in practice.
The hon. Member for Aberavon, who unfortunately is no longer in his place, made an interesting speech. He widened the debate to talk about systemic risk, which is an important point, and expressed some of the concerns about the 2007-08 financial crisis that are understandably still feeding calls for further action to be taken now. In that context, I highlight the action that has been taken on the banks by the coalition Government and this Conservative Government in relation to capital ratios, the bank levy and regulating to ensure proper separation between the investment and retail arms of banks. He was absolutely right to make that point, but the whole system of regulation on systemic risk looks fundamentally different today from when the Labour Government left office in 2010.
Going back to the identification principle, we have heard that the law on corporate and criminal liability has that very much at its heart. The identification principle means that a corporate is criminally liable only if a person who is its controlling mind and will is criminally liable. In most cases, there will be liability only if a director is criminally liable. Hon. Members made perfectly reasonable points about that and about the related difficulties and challenges. Many other assertions were made about the state of the current law, such as that the evidential threshold is too high and that it makes it easier to prosecute smaller businesses than larger corporates and particularly difficult to prosecute large and complex multinational corporations. Those are all valid points, rather inherent, though, in trying to regulate and enforce offences in this sector. We certainly do not want small businesses to be hammered while the big ones get off scot-free. That is absolutely the wrong approach and one that we are mindful of the need to avoid.
Other points made about the current state of the law are that it can result in corporates escaping prosecution where there is criminal wrongdoing on behalf of a corporate and the corporate benefits; it does not do enough to deter economic crime in the UK or to promote good corporate governance; and it puts UK prosecutors at a disadvantage compared with some law enforcement agencies overseas where the attribution of corporate criminal liability does not have such a high threshold. The hon. Member for Ealing North made the point about the United States very well. Some have called for a much broader vicarious liability for companies, closer to the US model.
I recognise the point that a different approach, combined with the DPAs introduced in 2013, could have a powerful impact. We need to consider the criminal legal basis along with the prosecutorial tools. That combination is the key to getting more convictions and plea bargains under the DPA arrangements. Notwithstanding the common desire for accountability and convictions, we need to take half a step back and acknowledge the need to be careful to guard the basic principles of justice that we all, at least notionally and rhetorically, hold dear—the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof—and ensure that we have a focused, targeted law enforcement system.
The Bribery Act 2010 contains the much-discussed new offence of failure to prevent bribery by a person associated with the company, which allows prosecutions of corporates for failure to prevent bribery in cases in which the identification principle threshold could not be reached. There have been suggestions for further change by extending the Bribery Act model to other areas. Under that legislation, a commercial organisation is guilty of an offence if a person associated with it bribes another person while intending either to obtain or retain business for the organisation, or to obtain or retain an advantage in the conduct of its business. The legislation sets out that it is a defence for the organisation to prove that it had in place adequate procedures designed to prevent people from undertaking such conduct. That is the balance struck.
The legislation relates specifically to bribery—a very serious economic crime—and is designed to encourage more responsible corporate behaviour. Extending section 7 as some have suggested could criminalise commercial organisations that fail to prevent other types of economic crime, including fraud and tax evasion; I am sure that hon. Members can think of other examples. Some people have urged the Government to go even further and advocated a more dramatic change, calling for legislation to create an offence of vicarious liability. That would be far more like the US model.
As I think was mentioned, the Government published last December the “UK Anti-Corruption Plan”, which included the commitment to consider the case for a new offence of a corporate failing to prevent economic crime. Much has been made of the statement made on 28 September by the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), that we will not be carrying out further work on this specific point at least at this time. It is important to understand the reasons for that. Again, they have been rather caricatured, although not intentionally; I would not say that.
The reasons for not taking the work forward at this stage are as follows. First, the UK has corporate criminal liability and commercial organisations can be and are being prosecuted for wrongdoing. Secondly, as I have mentioned, there have been no prosecutions under the Bribery Act offence, so it is not as though we have a huge amount of concrete practice to learn from—in fairness, that point was also made by the hon. Member for Neath. Thirdly, as a result of that and the information and evidence that we get as we look at whether the case is made for new offences, there is little concrete and specific evidence of the wider corporate economic wrongdoing that we should now target that is currently not unlawful and could reasonably be caught by a proposed new offence. If hon. Members want to tell me about a specific area and tailored offence, I will be all ears.
Catherine McKinnell
It does not sound as though the Minister will go on to explain how he intends the Government to live up to their manifesto pledge. He indicated earlier that it was in relation to tax evasion only, but the Government did in their manifesto state:
“We are also making it a crime if companies fail to put in place measures to stop economic crime, such as tax evasion, in their organisations and making sure that the penalties are large enough to…deter.”
If the Minister explains how the Government will fulfil that manifesto pledge, that will give hon. Members reassurance today.
Mr Raab
I will not give way again at this point, but perhaps I will shortly.
The hon. Lady referred to the manifesto commitment, which specifically cites tax evasion. I will go on to say a little about that. I thought that one of the best points in her original speech was about the intelligence gap. That feeds the point that I have been making that we should not confuse the difficulties or challenges that we have in enforcing, which is what the intelligence gap is all about, with the breadth of the criminal base that we have on the statute books. That is a very important distinction, which she made rather well.
The bottom line is that there is no point in legislating for the sake of it. The hit and hope approach does not do any good; in fact, it feeds public mistrust. Frankly, we saw far too much of that under the Labour Government. I want to know that when we legislate we are putting in place a model, a criminal offence on the statute book, that will deliver prosecutions, convictions and the wider deterrent effect that we all want.
Richard Arkless
The Minister uses the vivid phrase “hit and hope” and has given three reasons why the Government will not pursue the position in their manifesto. I ask this very simple question: were those three reasons not prevalent before the manifesto was written?
Mr Raab
We are taking forward the manifesto commitment. We have an ongoing consultation on tax evasion and, if the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I will come on to it. The other point made in the manifesto commitment is about the need to punish and deter. That is not just about legislation; it is about the enforcement regime. Over the years, hon. Members have been far too willing just to nod legislation through without thinking properly about how it will be enforced in a targeted and effective way.
Having said all that, I can give examples of very good outcomes, including in the high-end serious and complex cases dealt with by the Serious Fraud Office, which emerge from within the existing legislation and even pre-Bribery Act in some instances. There are other outcomes aside from criminal prosecutions. Deferred prosecution agreements are a further and significant tool. Civil recovery orders are an option.
The SFO cases involving prosecution or substantial civil recovery orders for a corporate have included the cases of AMEC, BAE, Innospec and Macmillan. Fines and civil recovery orders for more than £40 million were issued in SFO cases between 2008 and 2012. Nearly £30 million was paid by BAE to the people of Tanzania, following a settlement with the SFO and the US Department of Justice. More recently, last year, the SFO completed the Innospec and Smith & Ouzman prosecutions, both of which resulted in the conviction of the corporate as well as senior officials in relation to foreign bribery. And the SFO had its first prosecutions under the Bribery Act—they were associated with a biofuel fraud—albeit not under section 7.
The director of the SFO has said that there are current cases that may prove suitable for prosecutions under section 7 of the Bribery Act. Hon. Members will appreciate that I cannot go into too much detail on things that are subject to either a pending prosecutorial decision or investigation. The Crown Prosecution Service and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs have had important successes, too, and some have also been very high-profile.
On tax avoidance, HMRC is responsible for policing the tax and excise laws. It has a range of tools and powers to secure compliance, including the power to conduct criminal investigations in appropriate cases in line with HMRC’s criminal investigation policy. Since 2010, HMRC has increased the number of criminal investigations leading to prosecution by 500%. That is a very clear example of where we have managed not only to have the legislation in place but to deliver a quantum leap in successful law enforcement. I am sure hon. Members from all parts of the House agree that that is what we should be aiming for.
Marketed tax evasion schemes have been one strand of priority work for HMRC during this period, and the CPS has brought a number of complex prosecutions against individuals. There are a number of high-profile examples, including Vantis and cases relating to the film industry. I have acknowledged the suggestions that have been made about extending the remit of section 7. Although Ministers have decided to halt that work for the time being, the criminal law is always monitored and if any clear and well evidenced difficulties come to light on which we can take targeted action, we will, of course, do so.
A proposed new offence of failing to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion, whether onshore or offshore, was the subject of public consultation by HMRC between July and October this year. The consultation closed on 8 October, and the Government are considering the responses. That clearly falls within the area of the manifesto commitment that Opposition Members have enjoyed citing. That work is ongoing.
Deferred prosecution agreements, which became available on 24 February 2014, are one of the critical law enforcement tools that the Government have brought into being. To date, no DPAs have been concluded, but I am aware that a number of cases in the pipeline may yield DPAs. Under a DPA, a prosecutor charges a company with a criminal offence, but proceedings are automatically suspended. The regime has been designed carefully and we consulted on all its aspects. There are important safeguards in place, which is why we need to be a bit careful about the rather gung-ho suggestion that we should follow the American approach lock, stock and barrel. If we did so, concerns would be raised by Members on both sides of the House about the lack of safeguards in place.
Catherine McKinnell
I agree with the Minister that a gung-ho approach should never be taken to any of those matters, but does he acknowledge that significant concerns have been raised about the DPA tool not being as effective as it could be, while it remains so difficult to bring prosecutions against corporations, because the identification principle has set the bar for prosecution so high?
Mr Raab
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that the combination of the law enforcement tool—in this case, the DPA—and the criminal base will be the key to securing convictions. We will constantly look to fine tune and sharpen up that double act of legislation and law enforcement. If she has any suggestions about how that can be done in a sensible way, I will consider them. I am not sure that the extension of section 7 more broadly and exponentially will be the panacea that she is looking for, but if she can come up with specific, tailored and targeted areas in which that might be the case, I will consider them.
Mr Raab
I will give way shortly, but I want to make a little bit of progress, because I am mindful of your advice about timing, Mr Stringer. I want to talk briefly about the code of practice for DPAs that the director of the SFO and the DPP issued on 14 February 2014. That followed the consultation, and I am sure that the hon. Lady made her views known at the time. Prosecutors should have regard to the DPA code when they negotiate a DPA, when they apply to the court for approval of a DPA and when they oversee a DPA after it has been approved by the court. A DPA can be appropriate where the public interest would not be best served by entering into a prosecution. Entering into a DPA will be a transparent event, and the process will be supervised by a judge. That is important, because even if a DPA is in place, we want justice to be seen to be done as well as to be done.
I recognise that some organisations and others have raised concerns about the amount of information that will be available about DPAs as they are being negotiated. Letters of invitation to a company to enter into a DPA negotiation are confidential, for understandable reasons. The code of practice for prosecutors explicitly states that the letter of invitation to a company to enter into negotiations should make an undertaking in respect of confidentiality about the fact that DPA negotiations are taking place. Negotiations are, and need to be, confidential in the early stages to encourage co-operation on the part of the corporate. Any DPA that is agreed will be publicly announced, and that will provide transparency and accountability. As soon as a DPA is approved, the court must make a declaration to that effect, along with reasons, in open hearing. Unless it is prevented from doing so by an enactment or order of the court, the prosecutor will be expected to publish the DPA on its website.
I hope that hon. Members will agree that there is much to be positive about. Good results are being achieved in cases across the prosecuting authorities. We are giving active consideration to further changes where there is evidence that they are warranted, particularly in relation to tax evasion, but we remain open-minded if a case can be made broadly from a specific evidence base.
Outcomes other than prosecution should be acknowledged and welcomed. It may not always be in the public interest for a company to be prosecuted, and that is one of the considerations that led to the DPA regime. The director of the SFO, David Green CB QC, has said that he expects the first DPAs to conclude this year. I know that hon. Members will join me in looking forward to seeing the first successful outcomes. We are seeing a step change in the law enforcement model and the vigour with which it has been applied since 2010. The tax gap was reduced to record levels in 2014. The SFO’s asset recovery against serious criminals has been expanded; in 2014-15, 26.5 million financial orders were made. Since 2010, HMRC has increased the number of tax evasion criminal investigations leading to prosecution by 500%, as I have said, and we also have the DPAs. A huge amount of action is being taken. I am grateful for the contributions of hon. Members from across the House today.
Stephen Pound
Inevitably, this has been an interesting debate; it could not have been otherwise. I hope that the Minister will not consider me ungracious if I say that he has offered hon. Members thin gruel rather than a great Damascene conversion. To get the silly stuff out of the way first, I must just say that it was Peter Richardson playing Al Pacino playing Arthur Scargill, just as it was Dawn French playing Meryl Streep playing Mrs Scargill.
I think I know where the Government are coming from. On one hand, they are trying to create a thriving, vibrant business and economic sector, which continues to be as successful as it already is and becomes even more so. On the other hand, they do not want to over-legislate in any way that would restrict that sector. That goes back to what Adam Smith wrote about the actions of business people when they gather together. The 18th century has been characterised as oligarchy tempered by riot, which is the inevitable logic of a completely unregulated financial sector.
I say to the Minister that there is a real problem of perception. Everybody thought that the days written about in books such as Michael Lewis’s “Liar’s Poker”, which was written in the late ’80s about Salomon Brothers, “The Bonfire of the Vanities” and “Barbarians at the Gate” had gone. We thought that the macho, only-wimps-eat-lunch days of the City had gone. Particularly given the wise and thoughtful words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, about his time as a City trader, many of us hoped that a different ethical standard was emerging from the City. Sadly, though, the evidence tends to suggest otherwise.
I entirely understand why any pro-business Government —to be honest, a Government that is not pro-business is not worthy of being called a Government—would want to provide succour and support to an incredibly successful sector, which is one of the most important in our economy. However, I gently say to the Minister that the public are not with him. They simply do not see it that way. They see an unregulated financial sector in which individuals go unpunished for wrongdoing. Individuals in the sector make vast, obscene, eye-watering amounts of money. Yes, the odd knighthood may be stripped away, but that is as nothing compared with the sort of punishment meted out to some poor woman who forgets to pay her TV licence and gets hauled up and banged in chokey. The problem of perception is that individuals in the financial sector seem to be getting away with it.
If only we could have an entirely ethical City, we would all be happy. We have not got one, however, so there has to be regulation. Should that be light touch and suggestive legislation in absentia of the sort that the Minister has referred to, or should it be the slightly more rigid and structured legislation that the country is ready for? When the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills tried to consult this summer on whether the Bribery Act should be watered down, it sent out a desperately wrong signal.
I do not count an enormous number of people in the City as my personal friends, but I know quite a few and I do not think that they want to exist in this wild west, free-booting, cowboy economy in which there are no rules and regulations, and anything goes. I think that they want the support of some sort of regulation, because it is good for image, good for business and good for the country. Ultimately, we have to have an ethical economic sector in this country. There is no alternative. I deeply regret that the Minister has not given us that pathway and that signpost.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Sight Tests in Special Schools
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the provision of sight tests in special schools.
Every child has the right to a free NHS sight test. It is vital that all children have their sight assessed regularly and early on, as undetected problems can lead to deterioration or even permanent loss of vision. For a child with learning disabilities, it is an even more pressing issue. A relatively small number of students attend special schools, but they are the most in need when it comes to eye care. Those children also have a right to free eye tests, but often experience serious obstacles to getting the eye care they need. In fact, children with learning disabilities are 28 times more likely to have serious sight problems, and about half the children in special schools need glasses, but about 40% of children with learning disabilities have no history of sight tests. Many have to go to hospitals for specialist eye examinations, meaning more medical appointments and more time out of school. Those appointments are also more expensive than routine eye checks and, for those not under the care of a hospital, attending a high street optician can bring a whole new set of challenges.
In the very worst cases, children with learning difficulties who cannot access the eye care they need can eventually suffer from ultimately preventable sight loss. They are unable to make the most of their vision and are losing out, when a good pair of glasses could radically improve the quality of their lives. Therefore, I call on the Government, the NHS and the Department of Health to deliver eye examinations and dispense glasses to children in their special schools.
I draw the attention of hon. Members to the excellent work of the charity SeeAbility, which has worked extensively on this matter. The charity exists to support people with sight loss and multiple disabilities. Established in 1799 as the Royal School for the Blind, it now provides a range of services including residential care and supported living, and speech, language and rehabilitation services. Since 2005, it has run projects to address the health inequalities faced by adults and children with learning disabilities. Indeed, its “Children in Focus” campaign has attracted thousands of petition signatories and support from well-respected, professional bodies including the College of Optometrists, the Faculty of Public Health, and the National Association for Special Educational Needs. SeeAbility’s work is vital for so many reasons—most significantly because those children, who are most likely to suffer from the most serious sight problems, face the greatest challenge in accessing eye care.
Although the recommended guidelines for all children to be vision-screened at the school entry age of four to five need to be followed, the issue is significantly more pressing for children with special needs. When a child has a severe or profound disability, or multiple disabilities, they might not realise that they have a sight problem. They might not be able to tell a carer or a parent about it, or their sight problems might be overshadowed by other, more obvious needs. All of that means that parents, teachers, GPs and others might not realise that there is a problem.
SeeAbility has piloted an excellent project to offer sight tests for children in six special schools in London. It has used its own charitable funds and specially trained optometrists and orthoptists to visit those schools, including Perseid school in my constituency of Mitcham and Morden, to test sight and dispense glasses. Children, parents and teachers are all seeing the benefit of that work. Perseid school is a community special educational needs school that is rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted. It offers an exceptional, supportive atmosphere for children aged three to 19 who have severe and complex learning difficulties, including learners with an additional diagnosis of autism, or physical or sensory disabilities.
SeeAbility went to Perseid school with its proposal in May 2013, after consulting the eye clinic at Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust. One of the aims was to pilot the provision of eye examinations in the school for those who the clinic felt it was not necessary to see in hospital. It was after I visited the project at Perseid lower school in September 2015 that I felt compelled to table this debate. The visit was eye-opening in so many ways. I discovered just how much eye health and vision information a skilled optometrist can get from a child who may not be able to respond verbally, or to read. It was a real education to see the techniques that Marek, the SeeAbility optometrist I met, used to judge whether a child needs a pair of glasses or whether their vision is in more serious need of treatment. He was absolutely fantastic with the children.
I also met a super little girl, named Ellie, and her mum, Alyson. In so many ways Ellie is just like any other nine-year-old girl. She is active and sociable, loves music and chocolate, and her favourite colour is pink. Ellie was one of the first appointments of the day. She cannot speak and relies on her eyes to communicate by using eye gaze technology. Because of her condition, she has been attending hospital eye clinic appointments to ensure her sight is regularly checked. Her vision is her primary means of communication, but it is vulnerable to deterioration, making check-ups absolutely crucial.
Ellie gets very stressed having to go to the hospital for her sight checks. Taking time out of the school routine, and having the pressure to arrange it alongside her many other medical appointments is a logistical nightmare. She also uses a wheelchair and is now tube-fed, which add to the practical barriers she faces to access the eye care she needs. I heard from Ellie’s mum, Alyson, who said that SeeAbility’s work at the school has removed all that stress, and she has the comfort of knowing that Ellie is getting good eye care in school. Ellie can get her eyes tested, and glasses dispensed and fitted at school by SeeAbility, in a much more familiar, comfortable and convenient environment.
After I met Ellie, a little boy who is autistic came in for his eye test. He is nine years old and suffered sight loss in one eye in early childhood. Despite very little co-operation from the boy—who spent most of the time walking around the room—Marek, the specialist optometrist, was able to assess that his one good eye was focusing well and that he did not need glasses.
It is clear that it would be very difficult indeed for a standard community optometrist to assess the sight of children with special needs, such as the children I saw. Community optometrists rarely see a child with profound disabilities and may not command the necessary experience and skills, or have access to the specialist equipment that is so important. Furthermore, a child may become distressed in an unfamiliar dark room with lots of lights and menacing-looking equipment. In stark contrast, SeeAbility’s regular visits to Perseid school provide the children with the safe environment they need to have their eye sight assessed. The team can introduce themselves and become familiar with children in the weeks preceding an appointment and during regular visits. Furthermore, a child can have parts of their sight test on different days, if necessary, in the event that they need more time to become familiar with the process. It is even possible, if a child is very anxious, to complete tests in the classroom or in a sensory room, where they often feel more comfortable.
Testing vision in the schools is not only more familiar and reassuring to the children. It also reveals so much to the teaching staff and parents about how the children see, which can really maximise the potential of children with special educational needs. The project is now well embedded in Perseid school and the visits fit in well with the school’s day. The school’s fabulous headteacher, Tina Harvey, said:
“It has been fantastic to work with SeeAbility and we fully support this initiative. Our pupils can’t necessarily tell us what they can or can’t see in the classroom and now we have that information. And parents aren’t having to worry about how to get their child to yet another medical appointment outside of school.”
As the Minister’s portfolio includes eye care, I sincerely hope that he accepts SeeAbility’s recent invitation to visit one of the special schools that it is working in and to discuss the detail of its proposals, as I have done. I assure him that such a visit would be a greatly inspiring experience.
The work at Perseid school strengthens the case for national reform of eye care for children with learning disabilities. Having provided 600 eye tests, SeeAbility’s pilot, with the help of Cardiff University’s school of optometry and vision sciences, provides the most comprehensive study of eyesight in children at special schools in England. The sight of vulnerable children is being failed again and again. The early vision screening programme should be available to all young children when they first start school, but present provision is subject to a postcode lottery.
Furthermore, suggesting the use of hospital examinations as an alternative for children with learning difficulties is not good enough. Hospital appointments mean more medical appointments, more potentially distressing locations and more expense for the NHS. For instance, the average reference cost of a paediatric ophthalmic appointment is £115, and SeeAbility has found that 75% of children who have been discharged from a hospital eye clinic have had no follow-up sight tests in the community, leaving those children lost to the system. The compromise is unacceptable. If children go without sight tests, the tragedy is that they can suffer unnecessary sight loss and live their lives with poor vision just for want of a decent pair of glasses.
Hon. Members may be surprised that the appropriate checks are not already happening in schools. A few health bodies fund local NHS services similar to the one provided by SeeAbility, but the vast majority do not, which means that appropriate care for such children is limited. I am sure the Minister will agree that it is not acceptable for those children, who are so much more likely to have serious sight problems, to be reaching their teenage years having never had a sight test or the opportunity to see clearly. We need a more preventive and beneficial method, and we need to commission a new national programme of eye examinations and direct dispensing of glasses for children and young people in special schools.
The Minister may highlight that it is for NHS England to decide its priorities on eye care commissioning. To their credit, NHS England officials have been engaged in SeeAbility’s work. However, the Department of Health plays a crucial role in shaping legislation and establishing a payment regime for sight tests. The Department does the latter under the general ophthalmic services—GOS—contract, but the associated contract fee rates for sight testing are compounding the inequalities in eye care that I have described, which does not sit well with the fact that addressing the health inequalities of people with learning disabilities is a shared priority for both the Government and NHS England. Indeed, it sits well within the Health Secretary’s legal remit.
In August 2015, SeeAbility was awarded a GOS contract to run NHS sight tests in the special schools in which it works, but the contract provides only a £21.31 payment per sight test. That is the amount paid for a routine test in a high street optician, but SeeAbility estimates the actual cost of its tests to be some £85, which means that the charity is having to fundraise to keep this important project going. The GOS contract provides only a quarter of the actual cost of delivering eye examinations for children with learning disabilities.
As I have described, the sight tests provided by SeeAbility and others are specially adapted to the needs of children with learning disabilities and require specialist expertise and equipment. Furthermore, skilled orthoptists who can assess unusual and uncommon abnormalities of eye movement, and specialist dispensing opticians who are experienced in fitting glasses for children with special facial characteristics, are often needed. Can we truly accept such an inadequate fee that represents only a quarter of the overall cost of providing such adapted tests? The overall costs include the cost of what is often a longer, specially adapted test and any repeat visits to a child in a special school.
The current status quo ill-advisedly applies a one-size-fits-all approach to a complex issue. The needs of children with learning disabilities are varied and often unique, and such children need eye care provision that reflects that. We all know there are funding pressures on our health and social care systems, but the eyesight of children with learning difficulties is not a sacrifice that should be made.
In a few instances, there is already some recognition that those adjusted and specialist sight tests need proper funding. That extra, local support sometimes comes from local commissioners paying optometrists an additional £60 towards supporting someone with a learning disability to get a sight test. Although that is a good step forward, it occurs in only a handful of areas. Furthermore, the Department of Health has set enhanced fee rates for disabled adults to receive a sight test at home if they cannot leave the house unaccompanied. Clearly, some officials already recognise that specially adapted tests cost more. I sincerely hope that the Minister will acknowledge that his Department has set an NHS payment of £21.31 that does not cover the cost of those tests.
I hope the Minister will agree to open a consultation, as is happening in Wales, on how to cover the shortfall between GOS contract payments and the cost of providing such a specialist service. The provision of a reliable long-term alternative is essential. The relatively small number of children in special schools should mean that a fully funded NHS programme to address their needs is wholly realistic. Indeed, the quality of vision, and quality of life, of those 100,000 children should not be left to a postcode lottery in our 209 clinical commissioning groups.
Children with learning disabilities need a one-stop shop for the input of optometrists, orthoptists and dispensing opticians, as needed, with glasses provided on site, breakages repaired quickly and good links to hospital eye clinics if necessary. In turn, a fully comprehensive and tailored system would help to reduce NHS costs from unnecessary hospital visits. The programme should also be wholeheartedly supported by the Department for Education, which purports to help children with special needs to achieve their full potential. Let us be clear that the target will not be met if children are not provided with the best possible eye care.
SeeAbility and I eagerly await the Minister’s indication of support for a nationally funded programme of sight tests in special schools and a commitment to meet us to discuss those plans further. I urge all hon. Members to consider signing early-day motion 629, which supports the provision of such sight tests. The eyesight of children with special needs has been let down for too long. We look forward to this vital issue being treated with the seriousness it truly deserves.
The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) not only for securing this debate but for the usual thorough and highly competent way in which she has presented her case, which was full of facts, information and understanding, and informed in particular by her visits. It will be slightly easier to respond to one or two of her requests than to others, but I will come to that in my remarks.
Before anything else, I acknowledge what everyone recognises, which is that, although all our senses are precious, sight is probably the one that we value most. Sight is the key way in which children learn about the world. Ultimately, as the hon. Lady said, undetected sight problems can lead to a reduced quality of life and unnecessary damage to the eyes, which we all wish to prevent. The risk is that the vision of children with learning disabilities can be overlooked and assumed to be just part of their overall condition and behaviour. There is no doubt about the background to the campaign she mentioned.
We all share the desire that all children should be able to access sight tests, especially that group of children for whom we know that visual impairment is much more possible. There are more than 100,000 pupils in special schools in England. New arrangements have been introduced for children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities to develop more integrated approaches to meeting need. There is rather more variability than the hon. Lady suggests, and that variability is necessary to cope with the different conditions we are talking about.
A new framework was introduced in September 2014 that will see commissioners and local authorities working together to agree arrangements for meeting the needs of children with special educational needs. That includes publishing a local offer of services and ensuring that health and education professionals undertake a co-ordinated assessment of a child or young person’s needs that will inform an education, health and care plan. The plan has to consider the aims and aspirations of the young person and focus on the outcomes that will have the biggest impact. It has to include the needs of a child or young person with a visual impairment. That approach has tremendous potential for stimulating much more joined-up approaches in local care settings; meeting children’s needs; and helping health commissioners and local authorities to understand jointly how population needs can be supported by more flexible delivery methods.
The hon. Lady spoke about a postcode lottery, which is the term commonly used when anything that is provided in one area is not provided in another. I am slightly hesitant about using that term, because it suggests that nothing can be done and implies that it is an accident of fate, when in fact it is not. The difference in provision in different areas often depends on the ability of the leadership and management in an area to recognise a problem and the local determination to make a change. We get change around the country when somebody takes a lead and does things differently, often because they have been stimulated by changes at a national level and have taken the opportunity to do something differently. I recognise that, at its worst, the term “postcode lottery” implies that people get less of a service in one place than another. However, we lever up standards by pointing to what is done best. If we did not allow for some variation, we would not be able to learn. I take the hon. Lady’s point, but SeeAbility’s work in London demonstrates what can be done and shows others the way forward.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
The Minister is right that the term “postcode lottery” can be pejorative. We need centres of excellence that can be spread out more widely. Warrington hospital is well-funded in that regard, and it considers itself a centre of excellence, at least in Cheshire. For that spreading out to happen more quickly, we need a national programme or some kind of national impetus, which is where the Minister might come in.
Alistair Burt
I am delighted to recognise the centre of excellence about which my hon. Friend speaks so powerfully. I will talk about the national side when I get to the conclusion of my remarks. I will illustrate how we are moving forward and what we are doing, which will address some of the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden and my hon. Friend.
Let me turn to the issue of children with learning disabilities and problems with vision. It is widely recognised that children with learning disabilities have a greater risk of a wide range of eye problems, including refractive errors that require correction with glasses, squints, cataracts and glaucoma. All children under 16 and those between 16 and 18 in full-time education, including children with learning disabilities, are entitled to free NHS-funded sight tests. Sight tests are an extremely valuable heath check of the eye that can pick up a need for glasses and early signs of eye conditions, many of which can be treated if they are found early enough.
As the hon. Lady said, NHS England is responsible for commissioning the NHS sight testing service. I will come on to the work that NHS England is doing with SeeAbility in a moment. The hon. Lady said that she is concerned that an optical practice is not necessarily the best environment for undertaking a sight test on a child with learning disabilities. I agree, which is why we want greater use to be made of different ways of providing sight tests for children with learning disabilities. The NHS can contract with providers for mobile, funded sight tests for children, which can take place at special schools. We appreciate that that provides a familiar environment for the test, as the hon. Lady said, which best serves the child. Any provider can apply for a contract with NHS England to provide those services, provided they meet the conditions for holding a general ophthalmic services contract. I will come on to the point about payments in a moment.
However, I am aware that, even with current provision, the concern remains that children with learning disabilities may find it more difficult than other children to access services. SeeAbility has been doing valuable work in that area to develop evidence and promote awareness of the specific needs of children with learning disabilities. I am pleased to accept the invitation to meet SeeAbility and visit one of the schools in which such work has been going on. It will not be my first visit. I visited it when it was the Royal School for the Blind when I was Minister with responsibility for disabled people 20 years ago, and it will be nice to renew the acquaintance.
I am also aware of SeeAbility’s “Children in Focus” campaign, which seeks a nationally commissioned service to provide sight tests and glasses for that important group of people in special schools. In addition, I understand that SeeAbility has recently been awarded a contract by NHS England to provide eye care services at a number of special schools in London.
Reducing health inequalities is a key part of the five-year forward view and NHS England’s 2015-16 business plan. In that context, I know that NHS England recognises a growing body of evidence that suggests that access to sight tests and glasses is an issue for some children and that regular eye tests and the wearing of appropriate glasses make a vital contribution to those children’s health, educational progress and general quality of life.
As the hon. Lady said, NHS England has been in dialogue with SeeAbility about sight test provision for those pupils, and it has met Dr David Geddes, the head of primary care commissioning. I welcome the engagement between the NHS and patient groups. As I said, SeeAbility has recently been awarded a contract by NHS England to provide eye care services at a number of special schools in London. NHS England is keen to see how that work is going, so that it can consider what can be built on it and see whether the model of care that is right for that cohort of parents can be rolled out elsewhere. Some good early work has been done, but it is early days. It is appropriate that NHS England carries out some longer term work with SeeAbility to assess how that contract is working and see what can be done. Although we would all like to see rapid progress, it is early in the contractual relationship, and NHS England needs to develop the evidence base further.
The hon. Lady rightly spoke about fees. SeeAbility has pointed to a structure that is considerably higher than the current fee of £21.31 per test. We all recognise that the current financial stresses in the NHS mean that a robust case has to be built before further funding is committed. NHS England is happy to work with SeeAbility to understand better what financial model best contributes to those patients’ needs. Its view is that SeeAbility has done some very good early work, but it is only two months into the contractual relationship. We therefore need to take a little longer to find out what is actually happening and what more can be done. NHS England expects to have concluded that work by next spring, and it will be in a position to consider the need for changing the current arrangements and possible service developments.
I hope that gives the hon. Lady a sense of where this is going. First, we all recognise the scale of the problem. Secondly, because there is now more variability in the NHS’s ability to meet this need, some things are being tried out to see how they work—particularly through the contract with SeeAbility. I am keen to see how it works in practice, which is why I am happy to accept the invitation to see some of the work it is doing in schools. I will work with NHS England on how it is assessing the work and on the next steps.
In closing, I reiterate that I recognise the importance of properly considering the needs of children with learning disabilities in service planning. If children are to be given the best chance in life, it is important that any vision problems that could affect or impair their development are identified and addressed. I am pleased that NHS England is closely looking at this issue and is already in discussion with SeeAbility. I look forward to hearing about the outcomes of NHS England’s work in this area and its proposed way forward.
The early day motion that the hon. Lady mentioned states that, as a start, it
“encourages the Government and the NHS to work together to create a comprehensive national programme and a properly-funded system to make sight tests available in all special schools in England”.
In the spirit of encouraging the Government and NHS England to work together to see what can be done, the hon. Lady can be sure that that is indeed happening.
I look forward to meeting SeeAbility and NHS England to pursue this matter further. I am sure the House will have a further opportunity to discuss it in the future. Once again, I thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate and conducting it in her normal thorough and effective manner.
Question put and agreed to.
Police and Fire Shared Services
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the issue of police and fire shared services.
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank the Minister and fellow Members for their time. I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the issue of shared police and fire services. The integration of blue-light and amber-light services is a topic that many hon. Friends and colleagues have raised over the past few years, for good reason. This afternoon I will focus on police and fire. I welcome the Government’s recent consultation on enabling closer working between emergency services, which closed last month. The consultation demonstrates the Government’s commitment to the concept of greater collaboration between blue-light services, as set out in the Conservative manifesto.
Before I discuss the matter in detail, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the blue-light services for the work that they do. Each makes a vital contribution by serving and protecting our communities and ensuring that we are safe and secure, often in the most difficult circumstances. Their members put their lives on the line for others. We were starkly reminded of the dangers of policing only recently with the tragic death of PC Dave Phillips, who was hit by a stolen car while on duty. I take this opportunity to offer my sincere condolences to his family. We cannot overestimate the sacrifices made by the blue-light services, and I place on record my thanks.
Why did I apply for this debate? Earlier this year, Staffordshire fire and rescue service conducted a consultation on the future of fire services across the county that considered several options for changes to the services’ operations, resources and activities. The purpose of the changes was twofold: to help make our communities safer and to deliver efficiencies and savings. Before a meeting with the fire authority in July, fellow Staffordshire MPs and I called on the authority to consider an alternative option to those already tabled. The alternative was to investigate the feasibility of a single integrated police and fire service. In our view, a fully integrated service would provide a more viable and cost-effective means of creating a long-term sustainable future for both services in Staffordshire and, all-importantly, of protecting the public’s safety.
Despite all our efforts, regrettably, that option was not pursued. The options progressed involved cuts to front-line services. In my constituency, fire engines have been removed from both Cannock and Rugeley fire stations, and other stations across Staffordshire have been similarly affected. Although I appreciate and welcome the fact that given prevention, protection and response activity, the number of accidents has fallen across Staffordshire—reflecting the national picture—I do not believe that front-line services should be cut ahead of a complete review of governance, leadership, estate and back-office functions.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I agree that nothing should happen until the review is completed, but that said, I am sure that the hon. Lady is aware that certainly in the west midlands, fire and police service wages have been frozen at 1%, the value of pensions has been reduced and many redundancies have been made, as well as the fire station closures that she mentioned.
Amanda Milling
What I want to discuss in this debate is what we can do to ensure that we consider where savings should be made, to ensure that front-line services are protected and that jobs are supported.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. As a fellow Member of Parliament from Staffordshire, does she agree that given that Staffordshire police field some 2,000 calls a day while the fire service fields only 40, integrating back-office services could allow savings to be ploughed into the frontline? That is why the proposal is supported by many police officers who see that money going into their jobs and future.
Amanda Milling
I thank my fellow Staffordshire MP for that intervention. I totally agree, and I will come to the point about considering where savings can be made so that we can push resources into the frontline.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend enormously on securing this debate. Many of us have been discussing these issues with our police and crime commissioners, police forces and fire services. I certainly have been doing so in Somerset with my MP hat on. I would like to widen it even more. Avon and Somerset police already have a loose arrangement with Wiltshire, but there is certainly interest in sharing back-office IT and admin, which would allow our police officers to stay on the street doing their jobs.
Equally, I recently had a very successful meeting with Somerset fire and rescue service. I urge that we bring the ambulance service into the picture, because it is something of a model case, with the biggest fire service outside London. [Interruption.] Oh my goodness, that is my phone going off. I apologise, Mr Pritchard.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
Order. Interventions need to be short so that other colleagues and Members can speak later.
Rebecca Pow
Thank you, Mr Pritchard. The Somerset service is working so well that it has the largest number of retained firemen, who work closely with the ambulance service. It is working exceedingly well and saving a lot of money.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
I ask Members to check that their phones are on silent or mute.
Amanda Milling
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. There are a number of examples around the country of services that are collaborating. It is not just police and fire; it is fire and ambulance, police and ambulance and all three of the blue-light services. I will come to those points in a little more detail.
On collaboration, I am not alone in posing the question that my hon. Friend asked in her intervention. The concept of greater collaboration between the blue-light services, particularly police and fire, has been the subject of debate for some time, well before I was elected to this place. I read with interest the Knight report, published in May 2013. A number of its key findings relate to this discussion.
As I have said, the number of incidents has decreased by more than 40% in the past decade, while at the time when the report was published, expenditure and firefighting numbers had stayed broadly the same. That suggests scope for reform and efficiencies to better match risk and response. The report also found evidence of a disparity in the amount of money spent per person per year across the different fire authorities, with little to explain those differences and a limited relationship between expenditure and outcomes. There was clear widespread duplication among fire and rescue authorities across England: each had its own management structure, leaders and operational differences.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
One thing that we intend to do in Northern Ireland, although we have not yet delivered on it, is to bring together police and fire training in one place, which will save on training across Northern Ireland. The Minister might be aware of this. Does the hon. Lady feel that it might be a way to save more money if we had regional training places for the police and fire service together?
Amanda Milling
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree that that is another area where there is the opportunity for further collaboration by bringing police and fire training together.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she agree that it is better when solutions and mergers come from the ground up, as was the case for example, when Devon and Somerset fire services merged, when the West Midlands and Staffordshire fire services agreed to share a control room, and when Devon and Cornwall police work together with Dorset police? All those examples were better than what we saw with the regional fire control projects, where top-down direction went totally wrong.
Amanda Milling
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and he makes the valid point that there are many incredibly good examples of such collaboration across the country. Indeed, when I put pen to paper for this debate, I was able to write down several such examples, although I will not repeat them this afternoon; I have saved people from that. Nevertheless, as I say, there are many good examples out there.
Although there is evidence of progress in terms of fire services’ collaboration, co-responding and co-location with other blue light services, the Knight report highlighted that such collaboration was actually quite patchy, even though it could create real savings when it did happen. It gave some really good examples of collaboration, which were quite wide-ranging in nature, including the co-location of stations and headquarters, shared training, joint communication centres, joint operations and joint fleets. Those examples demonstrate that a clear appetite for collaboration, where there is the will to do it.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that in a county such as Hertfordshire, where there is a shortage of staff for the ambulance service and it is difficult to recruit them, it would be a good idea if firemen who already have some medical skills could be trained up to paramedic status and possibly deployed—by agreement—in accident situations or when required?
Amanda Milling
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his intervention. He makes the very good point that where people have such skills, it is right that when they respond to situations they should use them, although we may have to be quite careful with that approach in the future.
As I said, the Knight report identified that collaboration was not universal; in fact, it was quite patchy across the country. It is for that reason that I welcome the Government’s commitment to greater collaboration, which was set out in the Conservative manifesto as a commitment
“to enable fire and police services to work more closely together”.
In September, a joint consultation was launched by the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Health Secretary, which invited views on proposals to improve joint working between services. I welcome those proposals, as I believe that legislating for greater collaboration will go some way to seeing more areas adopting shared initiatives, providing positive outcomes for the public, in terms of both their safety and their pockets. I will make a few points about this joint consultation, because my view is that the proposed moves should be the first step towards a more formal, mandatory integration, by which I mean the creation of police and fire commissioners.
Although I appreciate that it might be unrealistic and too complex to integrate the two services ahead of the police and crime commissioner elections in May 2016, the moves proposed in the consultation should provide the road map to achieving combined police and fire commissioners. This hybrid role could be created in the next term of the PCC, with full police and fire commissioner elections taking place in 2020.
I have been disappointed to read some press reports that cite some resistance to the proposals, the implication being that the police are taking over the fire service. Before I go any further, it is worth noting that I am by no means suggesting that the police go out and fight fires while firefighters go out and arrest criminals.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and I congratulate her on securing this important debate. She is right to insist on the specificity—the different roles—of the police and fire services. One of the issues that is of concern in my community is that any changes do not lead to the loss of those different roles in the community, because both are very important.
Amanda Milling
The hon. Gentleman makes the very important point that the police and fire services perform different roles, but I will go on to discuss why there should be some integration and sharing of roles in the services that are not necessarily specialist.
Kevin Foster
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to me again and for being so generous with her time. I have heard her comments about integration, with PCCs becoming police and fire commissioners. How would she deal with an area such as Torbay, where the PCC covers Devon and Cornwall while the fire service covers Devon and Somerset?
Amanda Milling
My hon. Friend makes a good point and that is an example of some of the complexities in the landscapes covered by fire authorities and PCCs, which is why I am realistic about the fact that this process will take time.
I simply suggest that all common aspects—such as buildings, fleets, resources, and back-office functions—are integrated, so that resources can be better utilised on the frontline. As I see it, integration is a bit like running a business. There is a managing director or chief executive, who has the overall responsibility. Then there are functional heads; in this context, there is one for police and one for fire. Each of these functional heads has responsibility for their own budgets, but staff and resources are shared, not duplicated. Practically speaking, this cuts out waste and means that more funding can be protected for the frontline. It also means that operational excellence and specialism are retained, and can flourish.
There is a difference between integration and collaboration. In my view, integration is about the pooling of relevant functions, with an emphasis on the back office, while collaboration emphasises the frontline, where teams work together when they respond to incidents. I have read many interesting speeches and reports from hon. Friends who spoke about front-line collaboration in the last Parliament. It is that collaboration that is essential to the delivery and enhancement of public safety.
As I have said, I welcome the Government’s proposals, as set out in the consultation, although I would like to pick up on a few points, because—put simply—we should be moving from voluntary collaboration and integration to mandatory collaboration and integration.
The consultation proposes
“encouraging collaboration by introducing a new statutory duty on all three emergency services to look at opportunities to work with one another better to improve efficiency and effectiveness.”
However, I am concerned that “encouraging” such collaboration might not go far enough. After all, one of the issues that we have faced so far is that collaboration is far from universal. There is a danger that this voluntary integration will be inconsistently applied, and what will the statutory duty do to ensure consistent levels of consideration? Even the simplest things, such as the back-office staff, offices, human relations, payroll and even the stationery orders, are clearly areas where integration is just common sense.
Mr Jim Cunningham
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way to me again, and I also thank her for securing this Adjournment debate today; I should have thanked her earlier. Does she not think that mandatory collaboration could ultimately lead to a one-service situation, where the police and fire services are actually amalgamated under one management, which would lead to an elected part of an elected mayor process?
Amanda Milling
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I will go on to discuss the points about leadership. There must be leadership, but it must be provided in such a way as to recognise the difference between the two services, especially on the frontline.
I welcome the proposal in the consultation to enable
“police and crime commissioners to take on the duties and responsibilities of fire and rescue authorities, where a local case is made”.
I am concerned that a voluntary opt-in process adds to the complexity. I believe that it should be mandatory, although I accept that getting to that point might take time, given the complexities and details I referred to earlier.
I cannot understand why the integration of administrative and back-office functions would differ from location to location. Why would a local case need to be made? The aim, as I see it, is to streamline the common functions so that resources can be targeted at the frontline. When the bodies involved are responsible for public safety, variations in service risk lives and can make more people vulnerable to harm. We simply cannot have a postcode lottery on safety.
The proposal involving abolishing
“the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and giving the Mayor of London direct responsibility for the fire and rescue service in London, as will be the case for the new Mayor of Greater Manchester”
sets a precedent that the Government believe that one person is capable of being responsible and accountable for both police and fire. The Mayor of London is responsible for everything from transport to tourism, including policing and now, potentially, fire. Given that that portfolio is so broad, I cannot see why there would be barriers to rolling out a combined role throughout the country, to police and fire commissioners. It is absolutely the right time, now that the devolution agenda is being debated, to plan for the medium-term future of police and fire leadership.
Accountability is also important. Those making decisions where local taxation is concerned are all, but for fire, elected representatives, accountable to the public. The council’s share of the council tax bill, and any changes to it, is subject to decisions made by elected representatives—so too, with the police, since the introduction of police and crime commissioners. It is not, however, the case with fire and rescue services under the fire authorities. It is time for change. There should be no taxation without representation. Although some may argue that the fire authority is made up of appointed people, who in another guise are elected, that representation should not be confused with democratic accountability. The devolution agenda is increasing the question of accountability to the public and is another reason why it is time for reform of fire authorities and a move to police and fire commissioners.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
The hon. Lady said that the fire authority was appointed; I suggest that the fire authority are people elected in their own constituencies and boroughs. If we take that analogy to its conclusion, surely we would have to elect the Minister. He was appointed by people elected to this House and the people from my constituency and hers cannot get rid of him. If that should apply to a police commissioner it should also apply to the Minister, although he is doing a good job—[Interruption.]
Amanda Milling
I am sure the Minister would be pleased to hear that. My point is that in local government all local taxation ultimately sits under the responsibility of elected representatives, whether it be councillors or police and crime commissioners.
In conclusion, the Government want to see greater collaboration. I recently posed a question to the Home Office, and the Minister answered:
“It is common sense to break down silos and get the emergency services working together to secure more money for the front line.”—[Official Report, 12 October 2015; Vol. 600, c. 5.]
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)
My hon. Friend is typically generous in giving way as she concludes, and typically forceful in putting the interests of her constituents first. Does she agree that collaboration and the sharing of services amounts not to amalgamation but to an opportunity to improve services, save money and help protect the front-line services on which my constituents—all our constituents—rely?
Amanda Milling
My hon. Friend makes a good point. He succinctly summarises the benefits of sharing and integrating services, and of collaboration.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for introducing the debate. I agree with all her wise words, but one of the greatest difficulties we face is public perception. When the public sees services amalgamating, buildings closing and a police station based in a fire station, they see a loss—they do not see the gain. Our job as MPs, and that of police and crime commissioners and others, is to deal with that perception and put a good case over, which says that they are gaining rather than losing.
Amanda Milling
My hon. Friend makes an important point. In Staffordshire, I had to face the public when fire engines were being removed from fire stations. There is a point in having the frontline. It is all about ensuring that we protect the frontline and enhance its services so that our communities are, and feel, safer and safer.
I was talking about the Minister’s response to a recent question. The Home Secretary supports the idea of greater collaboration—as does the Prime Minister. On 11 September, the Prime Minister outlined, in his “vision for a smarter state” speech, his support for collaboration, and he gave Hampshire as an example of where emergency services have brought functions together to save millions of pounds a year. In Staffordshire, there has been resistance to greater sharing, collaboration and integration, but I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s proposals. All the evidence suggests that reform is required and this is an opportunity to create police and fire commissioners.
The proposals set out in the Government consultation could provide a platform and a road map for creating such commissioners over the next few years, ahead of full elections for them in 2020. I simply ask the Minister to consider, as part of his work in the cross-ministerial working group, to consider the mandatory introduction of police and fire commissioners by 2020.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) on bringing this debate on an extremely topical and important issue to the House. We might have some disagreements about it, but perhaps we will have agreements as well. I have to say at the outset that I do not share the view that taking fire engines away from a fire station means that people feel safer, as one speaker said. Quite often, taking fire engines away and dropping pumps off at local fire stations does not make people feel safer.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
I certainly share the view that taking fire appliances or engines away from fire stations does not make anyone feel safer, but does the hon. Gentleman share my view that the people who are expecting firefighters to turn up on the frontline are probably pretty relaxed about who does the human resources for the fire service and whether that function is shared with the police force? It would not make them feel any safer, or any less safe, if HR were shared between the fire, the police and the ambulance services.
Ian Lavery
The hon. Gentleman makes a viable point, which can and should be discussed if we want a top-class blue-light service, whether it be the ambulance service, the fire service or the police service. That can, and will be I am sure, the topic of much discussion in the future.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
It is unusual for me to intervene, but there are four emergency services in this country. We must not forget Her Majesty’s Coastguard. It would be inappropriate for me, as a former Shipping Minister, not to raise that point.
Ian Lavery
I thank the Minister. There is actually a fifth emergency service—the Mines Rescue Service.
Ian Lavery
Of course we can. The only problem is that we have only one mine left—but anyway, I am sure we will discuss that. The coastguard is an important service as well.
The issue that has been brought to the House is the greater collaboration and work between the police and the fire service. I think we all agree that we want a top-class service, across all four blue-light services. We want to have the best possible and the safest service we can have—top class, with the best technology and everything that the communities that we represent need. The real cause for concern is that this is not just about having a top-class service or enhancing the blue-light services; it is being approached as a cost-cutting exercise. That is what the general public are concerned about.
Since 2010, there has been a huge reduction in the police service and the fire service and we cannot get enough people in the ambulance service. People are rightly concerned about the cuts in the services, whether front-line or back-office staff.
Sir Oliver Heald
Suppose that the fire service had someone who wanted to train as a paramedic and also someone who was capable of filling out the accident book, as the police do at a straightforward road accident. Why should that multi-tasking not take place? If it saves money, what is wrong with that?
Ian Lavery
It is not as easy as that. I wish it was. To multitask between being a crime officer and being a fireman or woman in the fire and rescue service is difficult. To be a paramedic takes a three-year university course. It is not as simple as transferring basic skills; the individual needs to be properly skilled, with a university degree. Unlike in other parts of the blue-light services—in the NHS, for example—there are no bursaries for people to train to be paramedics; they have to pay their own way. The issue might seem simple, but it is not as simple as many people believe.
Mr Jim Cunningham
No matter which way the argument is put by Government Members, the fact remains that there will be rationalisation, which means saving money that will not be ploughed back into the service. As I said earlier, West Midlands police has lost about 2,500 policemen. In Kent, the private sector is being employed to do the police’s job. It is surely all leading to privatisation.
Ian Lavery
There is obviously a whiff of privatisation in the air in relation to all the blue-light services. The people involved in the services fear that themselves. It is not just me or my hon. Friend as Members of Parliament who are suggesting that; people working in the services are worried. That is why we have to consult with people and listen to those who are delivering the services.
Amanda Milling
Are we not also accountable to the public? If the public see us purchasing or procuring two things that are exactly the same, are they not going to say, “That is waste and there are savings to be made.”? We can get rid of the duplication.
Ian Lavery
I totally agree with that. I will come on to this, but if there is duplication in procurement, of course it would be sensible for that procurement to be done jointly. There is no argument about that.
Kevin Foster
Is the hon. Gentleman interested to hear that my police force in Devon and Cornwall is involved in the project in Hayle that has produced the UK’s first tri-service responder? A gentleman called Andrew Hitchens is an on-call firefighter and an ambulance service emergency first responder, and he has been trained in specific crime and disorder duties, too.
Ian Lavery
Well, that is interesting. That could be put on the table in the consultation with other people up and down the country who work in the services. We need consultation and discussion with those delivering services, such as the gentleman that the hon. Gentleman just mentioned.
There is a huge difference between a firefighter and a police officer. They have completely and utterly different remits. The police are law enforcers—it is as simple as that. The fire and rescue service is basically a humanitarian service. The two services have totally different remits. For example, firefighters need to be neutral in their communities and politically neutral. They cannot be seen as law enforcers or even to be connected in any way to law enforcement. In many areas, they have built up trust that the police probably do not have.
Mike Penning
I am listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman, and I declare an interest as a former firefighter. The fire service is exactly as he described—part of the community—but its members have been law enforcers since day one. As a fire prevention officer, I used to do that sort of work. We would go to clubs and we would shut them down because we were protecting the public, as the police do in their way. It is wrong to say that members of the fire service are not law enforcers, because they are, they will be and they must be.
Ian Lavery
That is something we must disagree on. I think that the two roles have to be completely different. Firefighters are not law enforcers in the name of the law or in statute—[Hon. Members: “Yes, they are.”] I disagree. Perhaps the Minister can send me the information that shows that each firefighter in each community is, as part of their job, a law enforcer.
Mike Penning
The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. We are good friends, so it is right that we debate this matter. As a young fire officer, I used to do FPO inspections in clubs. If that club did not adhere to the recommendations made, in statute that club could be closed and sometimes it was closed. That was the fire authority; it was nothing to do with the police or anybody else.
Ian Lavery
I understand the instances to which the Minister refers. In my constituency, fire authorities have checked alarms and different things in buildings, and I understand that, but what I am describing now is the different in terms of law enforcement. As the hon. Member for Cannock Chase said, we will not have fire and rescue service officers detecting crime and clipping young people around the head or doing things of that nature. It will be completely different. I understand that there is a duty and obligation on the fire and rescue services in relation to alarms and things of that nature, and they do an absolutely fantastic job; they have built up a great reputation. The Minister was a member of the fire and rescue service many years ago. I am sure that he was up to the task then and that he will support the issues we are raising today. When he was in the service, I am sure he had the utmost respect of his community, because that is what happens with the fire and rescue service.
There are alternatives that will not compromise the trust in and integrity of the fire and rescue service, and they are what we need to look at. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase mentioned joint procurement, which is absolutely on the money. Why should there not be joint procurement? There is no reason not to look at sharing administrative services and, potentially, servicing roles with other public sector bodies where that is appropriate—but not necessarily between the fire and rescue service and the police service. It should be with other public sector services that share the humanitarian remit, rather than the crime remit.
That brings us on to a number of points, such as the difference in the roles and remits. As I have just explained, there is a huge difference between the fire and rescue service and the police, and that needs to be considered. The police and the fire service perform very different roles and consequently have very different command and control structures. If the proposal went ahead, that would limit the opportunities available for any joint working.
Members have mentioned the police and crime commissioners. I am sure we will have a massive disagreement about this, but there is already a lot of concern about the police and crime commissioners’ role, without giving them extra responsibility for the fire and rescue services. After all, they were elected by, on average, only 15% of the electorate. I am not even sure that the commissioners themselves want any additional responsibilities; in fact, commissioners up and down the country have emphatically said, “We don’t want any additional responsibilities. We are police and crime commissioners. What on earth have we got to do with the fire and rescue service?” Again, we have to listen to the people who are actually delivering services on our behalf.
It is obvious that, unlike many public sector organisations, including the police, the fire service lacks common guidance and a natural procurement channel. That is a wasted opportunity. We must improve the procurement channel for fire-specific products.
The hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) mentioned the ambulance service. I have to be honest: the ambulance service—certainly in my area—is creaking. The North East ambulance service needs 120 recruits—the paramedics we discussed, who cannot suddenly appear because of the training and expertise they require—so I wonder whether the ambulance service should be involved in these proposals.
We have fantastic blue-light services—the four services—and every member of every one of those services deserves lots of credit. They have all suffered massive cuts. They are all working as hard as they can in the most stringent financial circumstances, and that is very difficult for them. It is easy to criticise them, but I am not sure the answer is to bring them all together and plonk them in one place, although I accept that some of the measures I have mentioned should be looked at for the common good.
The hon. Member for Cannock Chase said it was time to move to a mandatory position, rather than a voluntary one. Well, call me a dinosaur—
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
Order. That remark was made from a sedentary position. If Members want to intervene, I encourage them to stand up.
Ian Lavery
I have lost my thread, Mr Pritchard. I was in full flow until I asked people to call me a dinosaur.
Sir Oliver Heald
One of the latest and most popular cartoons is called, I think, “The Happy Dinosaur”.
Ian Lavery
I have been called a dinosaur many times, but rarely have I been called a happy dinosaur, so that is a first.
In her very good speech, the hon. Lady suggested that we need to move immediately from a voluntary to a mandatory arrangement. We have a duty as Members of Parliament to listen to the people on the frontline—the police who are dealing with crime in our communities, and the fire and rescue services that are dealing with problems every day—rather than just tell them what to do.
Mr Anderson
I concur that my hon. Friend is a dinosaur, because he has a big heart. Is there not a pattern here? The Government just do not want to talk to ordinary people. For example, they insist on places such as the north-east having regional mayors without any consultation with local people. They insist on police and crime commissioners, even though there is no demand for them. They are now suggesting that we combine the roles of police and crime commissioners and fire commissioners, which would do away with another job done by local, elected people. Is this not really about the diminution of democracy?
Ian Lavery
That is a fair comment. There is a lot I could say about the failure of the democratic process nationally, regionally and locally.
Jake Berry
I fundamentally disagree. Actually, combining the police and crime commissioner and fire commissioner roles will give much more democratic accountability. Does the hon. Gentleman think that a fire panel made up by local authority councillors is much more accountable? Could he name everyone on the fire panel in his area? I admit that I cannot do that for my area. If MPs cannot do that, how are constituents meant to?
Ian Lavery
That is a fair point. The Northumberland fire and rescue service is completely different from the services in the rest of the country. I can tell the hon. Gentleman the names of the people elected to run the service on behalf of Northumberland County Council because I have met them on numerous occasions, but I understand his point about whether constituents know who is on the fire panels.
To conclude, this is a serious issue. I understand the points that have been raised by almost everyone here. There are a lot of things that need to be discussed, and I urge the Government not to move forward with any plans without holding proper consultations with the people who deliver these services. It is important that we represent those people and, of course, the people in our communities who rely on these services in the most difficult times.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
Order. We have three speakers and 14 minutes left, so can we have a time limit of four to four and a half minutes?
Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) for securing this important debate. I also pay tribute to our blue-light services for everything they do to keep us all safe every day of the week. I was the chairman of Hampshire fire and rescue service for five or six years; in fact, I was a member of the authority for about 15 years. I was perhaps the only chairman who was interviewed by Sir Ken Knight when he did his review.
Austerity—this situation in which the country faces significant financial challenges—brings not only challenges but opportunities for our services, if people are prepared to take them. As a result of my leadership, that of the former chief fire officer, John Bonney, and that of his former deputy, Dave Curry, who is the current chief fire officer, Hampshire fire and rescue service has become one of the best, if not the best, fire and rescue services in the country. Of course, I would say that, because I was the chairman, but I think most people would acknowledge that it is right up there in the top 10, if not the best.
The service has tried to innovate its way out of the financial challenge it faces. If other fire and rescue services and police services did the same, we would not be having this debate about mandatory mergers. I think that that is a step too far and is completely unnecessary.
We talked about merging back-office functions; Hampshire has set up a business, as it were, called H3, which merges all the back-office functions of the police, the Hampshire fire and rescue service, and the county council, so when it comes to bringing in another public sector body, we are not necessarily talking about the police and fire; it could be the police and anything, or fire and anything. H3 merges IT, human resources and the back-office functions that the individual organisations involved would otherwise have, and it can bring more in. Other local authorities are looking to bring in their back-office functions. There is a philosophical argument about whether to privatise back-office functions. Some people feel a lot more comfortable about outsourcing those functions to an organisation that is publicly owned and run. Hampshire has already done that, and it was not rocket science.
Kevin Foster
If the arrangement were not mandatory but voluntary, what role does my hon. Friend envisage the Local Government Association, and in particular the national fire services management committee, of which I used to be a member, would play in encouraging such co-operation?
Royston Smith
It can have a role, precisely because that is a forum in which chairmen and others could meet and share best practice. I do not think that has been done, even now. People know what Hampshire is doing, and it is not just about H3 and back office. We have merged 18 or 19 premises with police—and I mean premises, not people; that is fundamental. We try to keep as many people as possible operating on the frontline. We will merge our headquarters into a police and fire headquarters, using the Government’s transformation fund. That will put police and fire in the same building, where they can work collaboratively on, for example, marketing and communications. Just putting them in the same building will save the police the cost of another building and will bring money into Hampshire fire and rescue service. Hampshire is in effect commissioned to run the Isle of Wight fire and rescue service; we are partnered with that service. I pay tribute to its former chief fire officer, Steve Apter, who in effect negotiated himself out of his job so that the saving could be made and so that Hampshire could effectively run the Isle of Wight’s fire services.
There are relatively minor savings in merging such things as governance, and it comes with a risk, as the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) suggested. That is not to say that fire and rescue authorities should not be leaner, and perhaps smaller. Hampshire fire and rescue has 25 members; a county brigade has one member. Of course, there are obvious savings to be made. In all likelihood the police and crime commissioner would spend at least half of what it costs to run a fire and rescue authority in running it himself, and that would mean less of a saving.
Mergers of all three services make no sense. One police and crime commissioner said it was ridiculous to send three vehicles to a road traffic collision, but of course it is ridiculous not to. The fire and rescue service may be needed to cut a casualty from a car; an ambulance may be needed to evacuate the casualty; and the police will be needed to ensure that traffic can continue to run. That could not be done with one vehicle; it would be physically impossible.
I do not think any place in the developed world has a merged police and fire service, but ambulance and fire services have been merged in many places, and that works well. Hampshire now provides a medical co-response to thousands of calls a year. That could be improved and increased. However, there is no operational reason for police and fire to merge. There is synergy in the merging of ambulance and fire, as I have said, and if savings in blue-light services are wanted, I think that is where the resources should be put. What the three services have in common is the fact that they all operate with blue lights; beyond that, much of what they do is entirely different, so we should be cautious before talking about mandatory mergers.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time in this Parliament, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) on securing a hugely important debate that matters particularly to Lancashire Members; the idea of sharing services to reduce costs will be particularly important there, given changes to the police funding formula. The Minister will not have scope to respond to me on that matter, but I want to thank him for meeting me and a cross-party delegation of Lancashire MPs who expressed concern about potential savings. His Department and officials have supported us every step of the way and have enabled Lancashire MPs to contribute to the continuing consultation to try to protect services.
Blue-light services are under pressure throughout the country because of financial constraints such as those I have mentioned. When MPs talk in the House about blue-light services—police, fire, ambulance, the coastguard and the Mines Rescue Service—they should reflect on the huge contribution that they make. My grandfather patrolled the docks in Bootle in Liverpool during the blitz—a tremendously brave thing to do—while he was in the police service. He put his life at risk every night to try to keep people safe in the city. We had a tragic reminder of the risks yesterday in the same city, at the funeral of PC Phillips at the Anglican Liverpool cathedral, where there were amazing scenes as more than 1,000 police officers lined the streets. I know that the Minister attended, to pass on the condolences of everyone in the House. When we discuss the blue-light services, we must remember that they are like no other part of the public sector. We ask and expect the people in those services to put their lives at risk to keep us safe.
Nevertheless, the new funding environment is here to stay. There must be savings and all services must play their part in helping us to pay down a record deficit. There is an opportunity for blue-light services throughout the country, but particularly in Lancashire, to begin saving by sharing more back-office services, to protect the frontline. When our constituents dial 999 or 101, they really care about whether someone will arrive on their doorstep in the worst of emergencies—or perhaps for a more minor incident if they dialled 101. Will someone arrive to help them? They do not particularly mind whether those people share headquarters or training facilities. We heard a fantastic example from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the sharing of training facilities in Northern Ireland. I support services sharing if, and only if, all the savings are used to maintain investment in and support of officers in all front-line services.
I was involved in running a business before I came to the House, and we had 1,500 employees, who were all fantastic and made a huge contribution. They would have thought it bizarre if we had had five HR, payroll or training departments for our five offices. They would have thought it even more bizarre if I had told them that to maintain the five payroll departments, we would sack people doing the work in the five different offices. That does not work in business, and it should not work in blue-light public services. For too long, there has been a silo mentality, and public services have not wanted to co-operate with each other, because they thought of that as a bit of an attack on their independence. The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) made some fantastic points, with some momentum. We agree on quite a lot and he made some constructive comments about how we can share services but still maintain independence. I agree that if I phone the fire service I expect someone to turn up in the uniform of a firefighter, not a police officer. We have a special relationship with firefighters, which is to do with the fact that they are independent and not linked to crime fighting. That needs to be maintained.
I want to keep my remarks brief; perhaps I have already gone over the time limit. I just want to say that there is an opportunity, through PCCs, to look at increasing democratic accountability. I outed myself as unable to name everyone on the fire panel in my constituency. I doubt whether many hon. Members could do so for theirs. I can name a few whom I have met in my constituency, but there is an opportunity to increase democratic accountability, and that is why I support the Government’s consultation.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
I will, because of Standing Orders, have to call the Front-Bench speakers at 3.30 pm, so I call Chris Davies, who has 70 seconds.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. My speech goes on a lot longer than 70 seconds, so I shall leave it where it is. I agree with most of what has been said. It is clear that first and foremost our blue-light services must be not buildings or machinery, but people on the frontline. That is what the general public want and what our voters are after, and the Government must give that priority.
In areas such as mine—I represent the largest rural constituency in England and Wales; it is 85 miles long—the reality is that we must have a mix of services. We have first responders; it may be the fire service that responds, doing a marvellous job and saving lives. The crew may not be putting fires out when they do that, but they save lives doing the work of paramedics. They have trained accordingly and keep people alive until the paramedics arrive. There is a need for this crossover, and thank goodness we have it. I will sit down within the 70 seconds, but I want to pay tribute to the blue-light services and to the Government for having the consultation. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) for securing this debate.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
May I also pay tribute to Mr Berry and Mr Smith for keeping their remarks brief? I am sorry, Mr Davies, that you did not have as much time as I anticipated. I remind newer colleagues in particular that if they want to speak, they have to put their names forward. That allows the Chair to introduce a formal time limit, rather than an informal one, as exampled in the past few moments.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies) was cut short, but I absolutely agree with his remarks about the services and the importance that they play in all our constituencies. I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) for securing this debate.
It has been interesting for me as a Scottish National party Member to see how the debate about shared services is developing in England. In Scotland, we have had this debate, and we went in a slightly different direction, with national services for police and for fire. As a former member of the Strathclyde fire board, I am aware of the way in which that developed. There were difficulties in merging different types of services, given the difference between urban and rural areas, and all the things involved. There are lots of challenges. The imperative was to save money. We asked whether we needed eight different services in eight areas and whether we could share back-room functions. We ended up with a national Scottish fire and rescue service and a Scottish police service, rather than locally based services. So we had that debate.
The hon. Lady talked about the pressures on all the services. They are a vital lifeline, and I agree that they need to be protected as much as possible. If we can remove duplication of services, it is definitely worth pursuing. Some Members picked up on shared training between different services. As one of its last acts before it was abolished, Strathclyde fire and rescue established a new training centre in Cambuslang near Glasgow. It is an absolutely fantastic service. If Members have not been there, they absolutely should go, because it is a state-of-the-art facility. Police, firefighters, paramedics and other emergency services go there to do line rescue, road safety and accident training. It is very worth while. All the services have gained a great deal from that shared working and training together. They have learned a lot about accident response, including large-scale accident response.
The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) talked about amalgamation and privatisation and the threats that they can bring to services, particularly with the loss of specialist expertise. If we have full amalgamations, will the services be liable for VAT? The Scottish services became liable for VAT. The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) made interesting points about the remits of different services in the community and the particular importance of the fire service being neutral. That is an interesting and key point. In my experience, in Glasgow, where young people might not trust the police or attend events with them, they would attend events with the fire service. The Fire Reach programme in Glasgow brought in young people who were at risk of offending and who were attacking firefighters, and reduced the level of criminality. The fire service has a very important role in doing such work.
There has been a lot of talk about procurement, but perhaps there are alternatives. In Scotland, we have a procurement portal for public services called Scotland Excel. I am not sure whether there is a parallel body in England, but that might be an interesting way forward. Local authorities and public bodies can buy into the service and get the benefits of procurement without having to go through formal mergers. Councillors sit on the Scotland Excel panel, so there is accountability.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) made interesting points about the experience in Hampshire and the voluntary arrangements to share services. He is absolutely correct to say that we are talking about premises, not people, and that everything that can be done to protect the frontline should be tried. We have certainly not seen any closures of fire stations in Scotland, or reductions in firefighter posts. England has lost 4,700 firefighters since 2010. We have seen nothing like that in Scotland, and police service numbers in Scotland have been protected as well, despite the mergers. Back-room savings have gone towards protecting the frontline.
The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) made interesting points about these jobs being special. We must recall that every day when firefighters, police and ambulance staff go to do their job, they put themselves at risk. I associate myself with his comments, because I am aware of the difficulties and tragedies that can occur every day for the police service and particularly the fire service, and I thank them. The debate has been very interesting, and I again thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase for securing it.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, as I perform my first duty as a shadow Minister. I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) for securing this debate, and I think we all agree that it has been interesting. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) that there are areas where we can agree and areas where we will disagree. I was pleased to hear the comments made by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith). Hampshire has been mentioned several times during this debate as a shining example. I think that he said it was innovating its way out of financial problems. It was interesting to hear his view that mandatory mergers are unnecessary and that savings can be made by merging back offices and sharing functions with the council, the police force and the fire service.
I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss): we need to think about premises and not people when we talk about making savings. Also, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck that we need to thank people who work on the frontline. We have all paid tribute to our emergency services and the fantastic work that they do and the dedication that they show in keeping us safe and secure. We absolutely must pay heed to the workers and what they want from the services, not just what we might think is a good idea. We really need to consult those people and listen to them.
I want to keep my remarks brief because I want to give the Minister time to reply. I was quite entertained by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) who used the phrase “mandatory collaboration”. As oxymorons go, that wins this week’s prize. That emphasises how we are talking about a one-size-fits-all model across the whole country, and I do not think we can have such a model for providing emergency services. The Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill is being considered at the moment, which will give responsibility back to local areas, and we also have the localism agenda. To try to bring in mandatory legislation for every police and crime commissioner to have control over every fire service in the country goes against both the Bill and the localism agenda.
Several Members referred to the fire service working with the ambulance service—I think we can explore that route—and many fire services already do that. I am sorry to keep referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck, but he is a fount of wisdom—[Interruption.] In my opinion he is. He discussed the different ways the police, fire and ambulance services are perceived by the public. Firefighters have a real fear that if they come under the jurisdiction of the police, they will be perceived differently by the public. I have spoken to them, and they feel that their role is very much a humanitarian one. They can see themselves working with the ambulance service—in fact, there are many examples from up and down the country of firefighters collaborating with paramedics and ambulance services—but they feel that their role in outreach work, helping in the community, dealing with community issues and going into people’s houses would be changed, and that the trust in them would be eroded, were they to go into partnership with the police, even though it might work in some areas. That is why, with all due respect to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, I do not feel we should be going down the mandatory route. It should be for local areas to decide how best to run their emergency services.
I will move on to a few quick points that I wanted to address, and then I will give the Minister time to answer. I have just touched on the need for firefighters to be seen as neutral to gain access to people’s homes for prevention and rescue work. What assessment have the Government made of the effect on public perception of integrating front-line police and fire services? Several Members have discussed the fact that the police and fire services perform very different roles, so have very different command and control structures. I put it to the Minister that that might limit the opportunities for joint working. Significant concerns have been expressed about the role of the chief fire officer, who it appears would be subordinate to the police and crime commissioner under the new proposals. For such a partnership to be successful, it would have to be a partnership of equals, not a subordinate relationship.
An important point was made about fire and rescue services not serving the same geographical areas as police forces. That might make reorganisation in certain areas particularly challenging, with the possibility of further fragmentation to the service. The fire service currently lacks common guidance and a national procurement channel, so that is an opportunity we could explore that might provide some of the financial savings that are required. I am sure the Minister has a view on that and I would be interested to hear it.
I have already discussed how the fire and ambulance services work closely together, and there are several examples of that from England and Wales. The Government proposals seem to reflect a clear preference for collaboration between the police and fire services. Will the Minister consider revising the proposals? Given the common humanitarian remit of the fire and ambulance service, we should explore that option. There is also a general feeling in the Chamber that we could explore the possibility of integrating back-office services.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I welcome the shadow Minister to her post. One reason why collaboration works so well in the county where I am fortunate to represent a seat is that we have done it voluntarily through local partnerships. The PCC in Hampshire, Simon Hayes, is crucial to the work between the police and the fire service. Before the election, the Opposition’s policy was to abolish PCCs. Can the hon. Lady confirm that that has now changed?
Liz McInnes
It was our policy at the general election. It was in our manifesto that we would abolish PCCs and put the money back into front-line policing. I am not aware that Labour party policy on PCCs has changed, but we are where we are. Whether I like it or not, we are in opposition and have to work with PCCs. That is the situation. I obviously have to deal with reality and with the here and now.
As I have already said, I do not believe that the proposed new arrangements should be mandatory. I stress to the Minister that local areas should be able to make local decisions. Where a fire and rescue service identifies that it could benefit from collaboration with another service, such as the ambulance service, or even first responders, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies), it should be able to. Fire services should be free to consider other partnerships. They should not be tied to a single arrangement with the police.
The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)
As usual, Mr Pritchard, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) on securing this debate. What perfect timing, with the consultation having just finished and Her Majesty’s Opposition accepting that Vera Baird and Paddy Tipping were absolutely right that police and crime commissioners should be kept. We agree. Thank goodness that the Conservative party won the election, or Vera and Paddy would not have been happy.
I declare an interest: I am an ex-firefighter and an ex-military paramedic, and I have also worked in counter-terrorism, so, perhaps unusually for a Minister in a debate on this subject, I know what I am talking about a fraction. I apologise to the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery): I was in no way saying that firefighters have the same sort of powers as the police. The police are warranted, of course, but it is important to note that fire services have statutory powers as well. At no stage in any part of the debate has it been said from the Government Benches—or anywhere, I think— that front-line operational officers in the police, fire or ambulance services should be amalgamated. I will explain and reiterate what has been said, using anecdotal evidence.
I came out of the military, having done four years as a qualified battlefield medic. I joined the fire service and was told to take a first aid certificate. I attended what used to be called RTAs—road traffic accidents; they are now called road traffic collisions, or RTCs—often with no ambulance in sight, not for minutes but for a considerable length of time. Sometimes, the police were not there. These days, very often the police will not be there, because it will be the Highways Agency traffic officers—they have renamed themselves since I left the Department for Transport—who attend. Having better skills to protect the public is crucial. That is part of what we are trying to do. In my own county, the fantastic chief fire officer, Roy Wilsher, who almost 10 years ago did an amazing job saving half my constituency when the Buncefield oil depot blew to smithereens, is the CEO of the PCC’s office. As well as being the chief fire officer, he actually runs the PCC office. Why? Because it is logical and sensible.
The public often talk about buildings. It is our job to ensure that they talk about not buildings but people. I welcome the shadow Minister to her role. I think we will probably meet fairly often, although I am not the Minister responsible for the fire service—that falls to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Communities and Resilience; I am here because of the connection to PCCs. When she reads Hansard, she will find that she said it is about buildings, not people. I think she meant that the other way around, but I fully respect and understand that. A church is not a building; it is a group of people who come together. Emergency services should not be about buildings, but about how we deliver the best service.
We must learn from the mistakes in the past. The amalgamation of the ambulance service met a fair bit of opposition. I am not a Health Minister, although I was shadowing the public Health Minister responsible for the ambulance service when it happened, and we had real concerns about it, some of which came true. We fundamentally opposed the regionalisation of fire control centres. Thank goodness we stopped that in time, although there are still some very expensive buildings out there, at least one of which is occupied by the coastguard. Actually, this is nothing new. I remember that in the early ’80s—all those years ago when I was a fireman in Essex—there was a tri-service control centre in Warwickshire. They were doing it then, so we have come full circle.
The skills of the people who are there to look after us are rightly interoperable. I hear forces saying, “We are going to lose x amount of front-line people”, “We are going to lose this” or “We are going to lose that,” but have they really looked at where those savings can be made so they can deliver the taxpayer-funded service that the public deserve?
We were talking about procurement a moment ago. I am not one to say that one size fits all and that we should procure everything from one place, but I published on the Home Office website how much each police force spends on the average 20 items. We all want our officers to have body armour, but there is a £300 difference between the price that two forces pay for it. Surely, as we approach the police and crime commissioner elections, that is the sort of thing we should be talking about. The fire service and the police both buy white shirts, so why do they not buy white shirts together? If a local provider can match the average national price, I am sure we would all want to support that local business, but if it cannot we have to question seriously whether that would provide value for money. We have changed the way we procure vehicles. There was some criticism from the Opposition, but for the first time the Government are buying huge amounts of very expensive equipment at e-auctions at the best value we can get it for. That is our responsibility as representatives of taxpayers.
There are myriad other things that can be done. Hampshire is very well represented in the debate this afternoon for a reason: it is one of the most forward-thinking authorities in the country. I went to Winchester fire station, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), and met the chief fire officer. The station is shared. I went to the yard, where the fire brigade was carrying out a drill—I am sure they do joint drills with the police in that yard, because that is the sort of thing we need to see—and at the bottom part of the yard is a brand spanking new building for the armed response unit and other police facilities. Nobody would ever know, and, frankly, I do not think the public would care if we explained to them that we want to do this to look after people.
Sir Oliver Heald
One of the advantages of what was suggested by our hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) is that it would mean we have the flexibility of having a company, which other authorities can join and move their back-office functions into. Equally, the sort of contracts that he talked about—outsourcing contracts and others of that type—have a flexibility to them. Do the Government support that sort of thing, or are they going to create new institutions through statute?
Mike Penning
We do not want to make it mandatory. We need to learn from the mistakes of the past. As an illustration of the support that my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) alluded to, the Home Office gave £1.8 million to support H3, and we supplied extensive moneys for the relocation from the police innovation fund. That is the sort of innovation we are looking for.
The only thing I disagreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase about was her point about compulsion. I know exactly where she is coming from, and I have a huge amount of sympathy with it. I was arguing this point long before austerity was even thought of, when we were throwing money at our emergency services—we have sometimes seriously thrown money at our emergency services over the years, not least for kit that is hardly ever used—because it is right that we have a better, joined-up emergency service. We need people who are trained for the 21st century; we cannot look at the fire service, the police service and the ambulance service in a historical way.
Community first responders were never heard of previously. Communities came together for that. People said, “I want to be part of this community. I would like to do this.” We have them in my constituency, and they do really well. My point is that it is always better if the Government can bring people together and say, “This would be better for you,” rather than say, “This would be better for you, now come together and do it.” The consultation specifically looks at some areas where it would be difficult—for example, where forces and fire authorities are not co-located.
Northamptonshire is a good example, because the Northamptonshire PCC is one of the most forward-thinking PCCs in the country. He is already running the fire service management, but he does not interfere in the operational running of the fire service, in exactly the same way as PCCs do not have any effect on the operation of the police force. He is now looking at the ambulance service to see whether, for instance, the clinical commissioning groups would like to commission non-blue- light or blue-light vehicles from him. The vast majority of the ambulance services that are offered in this country, such as patient transport, do not use blue-light vehicles. It is hugely expensive, and it is often very highly qualified people doing those sorts of jobs. Where we are short of paramedics, we have to ensure they are doing front-line jobs, not administrative jobs or ordinary patient transport jobs.
I want to touch on that point in relation to the police forces, too. It is imperative that highly paid, highly skilled, hugely brave people—I was at Liverpool cathedral yesterday with David Phillips’s family and the thousands of people from across these islands and the world who came to pay tribute to him—are in operational positions, not behind a desk. In some forces, 10% of the warranted officers are not available because they are not fit for duty. How can that be right?
The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) said policemen have been made redundant, but we have not made anybody redundant. They may have been declared medically unfit for duty, but we do not have the power to make officers redundant. We have got to ensure that as many people are in front-line roles as possible in the fire service, the ambulance service and the police service. They should be doing the jobs they trained for and joined the force to do, and they should be serving the community.
When we go in one direction away from danger, those people go in the opposite direction for us. We should pay tribute to them and ensure that they have the right kit and body armour. When I was in the fire service, we had cork helmets and serge jackets from the second world war. Now, they have the proper equipment. We had body armour that it was almost impossible for me to stand up in, and I am pretty hefty—not as big as them, but still pretty heavy. Now, they have lightweight breathing apparatus. We rightly praise their skills, but let us save money in the back offices, the bureaucracy and procurement before we dream of saying that we are not going to provide front-line officers, no matter which of those services it is.
This debate is a massively important part of the consultation. It is brilliant that we agree on most things, which is what this Chamber was designed for.
Amanda Milling
Thank you, Mr Pritchard, for giving me a couple of minutes to conclude. I thank all hon. Friends and Members for their contributions, and I thank the Minister for sharing some of his experiences. He spoke not simply as a Minister but as someone who was on the ground in various roles in the emergency services. I found it interesting that although we have some differences of opinion—[Interruption.]
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the issue of police and fire shared services.
Gay Conversion Therapies
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered gay conversion therapies and the NHS.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Bailey.
I am conscious that this subject has been raised before; however, it remains possible for people in the UK to be referred by a national health service professional to a psychotherapist for gay conversion therapy—the so-called gay cure. Being gay is not a disease, it is not an illness and it is not something that I or any other gay man or woman can be cured of. To suggest otherwise is not only demeaning, but morally and medically wrong. Not a single medical body supports the concept of a gay cure. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, the UK Council for Psychotherapy, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and the British Medical Association have all concluded that such therapy is unethical and potentially harmful.
Various techniques and methods have been used, and I will list a few to give a bit of colour to the level of quackery available. Exorcism is one method—in The Times today is a story about a young man taken to a backstreet exorcist because his parents were concerned that he was gay. Cycling, too, was thought to be a cure for being gay, although as a keen cyclist I can tell colleagues that it does not work. Then there is prayer—pray away the gay, apparently—although that does not appear to work either. An Austrian doctor trialled testicular transplants: he took the testicles of a heterosexual man and transplanted them into a homosexual man to see whether that curbed his homosexual desires. Unfortunately, I could not find the outcome of the trial anywhere on the internet, although I am sure that it was of interest to both recipient and donor of the testicles.
I mention those as examples of how far from the mainstream some so-called cures can be. They are also a far cry from mainstream psychotherapy—I need to put that on the record. However, I want to focus on current techniques and to debunk the thought that so-called cure therapies might simply be gentle counselling, laying on the couch and talking about one’s feelings. They are not gentle therapies.
Such therapies purport to change a person’s sexual orientation or to reduce attraction to people of the same sex. Dr Christian Jessen, for a television programme in only 2014, underwent treatment for homosexuality, including one of the most extreme cures, aversion therapy, which looks to teach patients to associate same-sex attraction with pain or nausea. Patients are given a drug that makes them extremely ill and they are then played pornographic images and sound recordings while they vomit violently. That is not counselling. Usually patients experience a session every two hours, night and day, for three whole days. That is not counselling. Similarly, in electric-shock treatment, people who respond to same-sex stimuli are shocked so that their response is associated with pain. That is not counselling.
Imagine the outcry if Parliament were to give tacit approval to curing heterosexual men and women of their heterosexuality. There would be uproar. Allowing conversion therapy to try to turn our straight colleagues gay would not last a day, yet we allow therapists to peddle the myth that they can cure people of being gay.
If such views were held only by crackpots on the fringe of society, it would be laughable. It is not. Some psychotherapists and some NHS staff hold the view that a gay cure is possible. YouGov polling in 2014 for Stonewall, the excellent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organisation, found that one in 10 health and social care staff have heard other staff express a belief in gay cure therapy; in London that figure rose to one in five. Only six years ago the BMC Psychiatry journal surveyed over 1,300 accredited medical professionals and found that more than 200 of them—over 15%—had offered some form of conversion therapy. Those 200-plus professionals said that 35% of their patients had been referred to them by GPs, and 40% of the patients receiving the so-called treatment were treated in an NHS practice. For any health professional to refer someone for such therapy is fundamentally abhorrent and it is time to call a halt to it once and for all.
Where are we today? In spite of numerous calls for an outright ban, the practice continues, although I accept that there has been some progress. In January, the “Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK” was launched. It was developed by the UK Council for Psychotherapy and signed up to by some major organisations, including the NHS. It is welcome as far as it goes, but a number of regulators have not yet signed up to the memorandum—and it is voluntary. The memorandum seems to cover only sexual orientation, not gender identity—and it is voluntary. The memorandum states that practitioners need to be aware of the ethical issues relating to such cure therapies and that the public should be made aware of the risks of such therapies—and it is voluntary. The memorandum seeks to apply standards to a sector of therapy that has no statutory regulation—because it is voluntary. We regulate dentists, but we have no statutory regulation for psychotherapists.
My hon. Friend the Minister has an impeccable record on LGBT issues, especially in health, and I put on the record that on this issue and many others she has a deep commitment to helping to eradicate flaws in the system and to pursuing equality. So I have to ask: why we are allowing this abuse, this so-called cure therapy, to continue? Why are we allowing the practitioners, the psychotherapists, to have merely a voluntary code of practice—a memorandum of understanding?
I acknowledge that psychotherapy has a role to play for adults who need support when dealing with a range of issues connected with their sexuality and sexual identity. Dealing with conflicting feelings is difficult at the best of times and I do accept the role of proper, regulated counselling.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that availability of such programmes would have a serious effect on the mental health of LGBT individuals?
Mike Freer
My hon. Friend makes a good point, given the evidence. I am about to quote the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which states that such therapies are damaging not only to the physical health, but to the mental health of individuals who have such therapies inflicted upon them.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this important issue. Is he as disturbed as I am to see figures from the United States on people who have gone through conversion therapy showing that they are 8.9 times more likely to commit suicide, 5.9 times more likely to suffer depression and three times more likely to take illegal substances than their peers as a result of this frankly outdated and cruel method?
Mike Freer
My hon. Friend makes an extremely powerful point. I am not surprised to hear those figures.
Anyone who is conflicted and in need of support while coming to terms with their sexuality is experiencing some difficult feelings. If they are told that they can be cured—I am yet to find a case of the cure being proved successful—they then have to deal with those feelings as well.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
I speak as a Member of Parliament and as a psychologist. In all my experience and practice in the NHS, this is not something I am familiar with, although the hon. Gentleman says that there are a number of cases. It is important to recognise that such therapy is without any evidential basis—not surprisingly, given that most of the research findings indicate an adverse impact on people’s mental health, rather than a cure per se.
Mike Freer
The hon. Lady makes a good point. I have to say that no one I know has come forward to support such psychotherapy, yet if there is such violent agreement, why are we struggling to get aversion therapy banned? There is this conundrum: we all agree that it is harmful and that it should not be done, yet we do not seem to be able to get it banned.
I accept that my hon. Friend the Minister has difficulty in regulating the sector in terms of setting legal definitions for what would constitute illegal therapies. The legal situation is fraught, but it is not acceptable to leave vulnerable men and women susceptible to aversion therapy. There can be no justification for pursuing therapies that put a person’s mental health and, in some therapies, their physical health at risk. It is time to say that such therapies have no place in our society and no place in our healthcare system. It is time to say simply that aversion therapy has no medical merit and can be harmful and it is time to say that it is going to be illegal. It is also time to ensure that psychotherapy has statutory regulation, so that those who do not comply and continue to perpetuate such cure therapies face stricter and harsher penalties than those currently available under a voluntary code.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists contacted me last week to reiterate that
“the college remains in favour of legislative efforts to ban such conversion therapies.”
In its letter, it said that
“there is no scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.”
It also said that
“so-called treatments of homosexuality can create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish, and there is evidence that they are potentially harmful.”
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate and for all the work he does to champion LGBT equality. I am sure that many of us received the Core Issues Trust’s interesting briefing, which suggested a link between homosexuality and same-sex attraction and mental ill health and other forms of physical illness. Has it not got that the wrong way around? It is discrimination and the suggestion that there could be a gay cure that makes all LGBT people, and young people in particular, feel that they are different and somehow alien. That is what causes them mental ill health, not their homosexuality.
Mike Freer
The hon. Gentleman has a track record in this area even though he is new to the House and I am sure that he will be extremely vocal on these issues. He is absolutely right. It is the suggestion that homosexuality is a disease or illness that can be cured that drives mental health problems, not the other way around. Frankly, I wasted no time on reading the Core Issues briefing.
I will finish with a couple of comments from esteemed colleagues. On 29 April, in an interview with Pink News, the Prime Minister said, on banning such therapies,
“if we need to go further…we will.”
As far as I am concerned, we do need to go further. The Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities said a couple of weeks ago to Pink News:
“Let me be clear: gay cure therapies have no place in our countries and we must stamp them out.”
I ask my very good friend the Minister if she will agree to explore how stipulated aversion therapies can be banned and whether the voluntary memorandum of understanding should and can be reviewed to put it on a statutory footing.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) for initiating this debate on this important issue. Let me start by wholeheartedly agreeing with his opening premise. The Government do not believe that being lesbian, gay or bisexual is an illness to be treated or cured. We are concerned, therefore, about the issue of so-called gay-to-straight conversion therapy and we have consistently spoken out against the need for that practice.
I will outline some of the background to the work my hon. Friend touched on and try to respond to some of his concerns, but I suspect that this is the beginning of an ongoing conversation—I am happy to say that at the outset. The UK Council for Psychotherapy first raised its concerns about the perceived increase in this type of therapy with the Department of Health in late 2013. Department officials met with the council to discuss those concerns and agreed to work with it and others to identify ways to eradicate the practice. At that time, we also welcomed the fact that the key professional counselling and psychotherapeutic bodies had already made public statements on the issue.
As a result of the UK Council for Psychotherapy’s approach, the Department agreed to support the publication of a statement that made clear that the major therapy bodies in the UK were united in speaking out against conversion therapy, because they believe that that particular approach is based on the assumption that homosexuality is a mental disorder or that it begins from the preconceived view that the client should change their sexual orientation. As homosexuality is not an illness, as my hon. Friend said, the professional bodies argue that it is both logically and ethically flawed to offer any kind of treatment. The House may be interested to know that the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its diagnostic glossary of mental disorders in 1973 and the international classification of diseases produced by the World Health Organisation eventually followed suit in 1992.
A consensus statement was published in February 2014 as a result of the exercise we convened. It was initially signed by eight organisations and others added their support later on. The statement is clear: those bodies believe there is no good evidence that such therapy works and that, actually, it has great potential to cause harm. It goes on to say that such approaches are often based on religious interpretations of sexuality rather than on a researched and informed understanding of sexual orientation.
As my hon. Friend said, the Department agreed to host a roundtable event on 2 April 2014 to which we invited a range of interested organisations comprising signatories to the consensus statement as well as royal colleges, the Association of Christian Counsellors, regulators and other counselling bodies. The right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who was then the Minister responsible for equalities, was fully supportive of the work and attended and contributed.
I am pleased to say that the meeting was positive and that out of the discussions came agreement that more could and should be done by those present to prevent this kind of therapy from being offered. The participants agreed to develop the memorandum of understanding, which has been referred to. The UK Council for Psychotherapy agreed to lead on the work, in partnership with other bodies and the Department.
The memorandum was published in January and launched at a second roundtable event at the Department. Once again, my former colleague the right hon. Member for North Norfolk was present and publicly made clear his support for the memorandum and its commitments. Its purpose was to set out an agreed framework for activities for all the parties concerned to help address the issues raised by this practice. One such aim is to ensure that the public are well informed about the lack of evidence and the risks of so-called conversion therapy. There are a range of other important professional objectives.
Professionals from throughout the healthcare and psychological professions committed to work together to promote the public interest. Each of the signatory organisations committed to actions appropriate to their function and purpose. To give one example, those with practitioner members agreed to review their statements of ethical practice and consider whether there was a need to publish a specific ethical statement on conversion therapy. Secondly, those with a responsibility for training committed to work together to ensure that training prepares therapists sufficiently, so that they can work effectively with their lesbian, gay or bisexual clients.
The memorandum is owned by the organisations who signed it. They have continued to meet together and to work on those commitments throughout the year. The Department fully supports that work.
My hon. Friend drew attention to the NHS’s part in such therapies. Discussions with the sector uncovered the fact that there were no reliable, up-to-date figures on the use of conversion therapy. However, a 2009 survey of 1,300 mental health professionals found that more than 200 had tried to help at least one client to reduce the attraction they felt for someone of the same sex. A third of those clients were said to have been referred for therapy by a GP and 40% were reportedly treated in the NHS.
The Government are clear that moneys from the public purse should not be used to fund such therapy. Ministers in the previous Administration wrote to NHS England in March 2014 seeking confirmation that such treatment was not taking place on the NHS and I am pleased that we received a robust and supportive response from Simon Stevens. Not everyone in the House may be aware of his response, which was that
“so-called gay-to-straight conversion therapy is harmful nonsense and the NHS should never be funding it.”
Wes Streeting
Clearly, the memorandum has been effective since it was introduced, but it concerns me that the briefing from Stonewall suggests the Nursing & Midwifery Council, the Care Quality Commission, the General Medical Council and the Health and Care Professions Council are not yet signatories. Does the Minister agree that they should sign up? It has clearly been helpful for other organisations and is a powerful statement of intent.
Jane Ellison
The hon. Gentleman will see, when I propose some next steps, that I might be able to respond to his point.
Simon Stevens went on to say that he would direct NHS England to make that position—that the NHS should never fund such therapy—clear and explicit in all public statements on the issue in future. I cannot be clearer than that. If Members have examples of the NHS funding such therapy, I would be particularly interested to know about them.
Dr Poulter
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) for securing the debate and to my hon. Friend the Minister for the work she does to raise awareness of the LGBT community’s needs. It is, of course, unacceptable for the NHS to sponsor these therapies. All registered medical professionals can be disciplined by their professional bodies, whether that is the Royal College of Psychiatrists or the GMC taking action against doctors in these cases for discriminating against certain patients. Is the real issue not, however, that the regulation is not there for some therapists? This is the issue that needs to be looked into: do we need to regulate more effectively some of the therapists in this field?
Jane Ellison
My hon. Friend speaks from a position of great knowledge. I am well aware of the challenges to the current position, which I will outline, from hon. Friends and other Members. I will try to respond to those.
I want to make this point, for the record: we are not saying that lesbians, gay men and bisexual people should not seek counselling or therapy if they are distressed about a particular aspect of their sexuality. It is important we recognise that family arguments over sexuality or hostility from other people might well be a reason for someone to seek support for that aspect of their life. That is obviously a core part of what many therapists do, so I want to be clear that there is a place for that in supporting people appropriately.
Ben Howlett
May I pick the Minister up on a point? She referred to lesbians, gay men and bisexual people, but it is transgender people as well.
Jane Ellison
I am duly chastised, having recently given evidence to the excellent inquiry being led by the Women and Equalities Committee, of which my hon. Friend is a member. The Chair of that Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), has just joined us in the Chamber. I duly correct myself and thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.
I fully understand the concerns about so-called gay conversion therapy, but the Government have no current plans to ban or restrict it via legislation, or to introduce statutory regulation for psychotherapists. I say that in the knowledge that that position is challenged, and I will go away and reflect on that after the debate.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 introduced provisions to enable the accreditation of voluntary registers for unregulated healthcare professionals and healthcare workers across the UK, social care workers in England and certain students. We should not underestimate the fact that these voluntary registers are having an effect and can be effective. They are accredited by the Professional Standards Authority For Health and Social Care where statutory regulation would be neither proportionate nor an effective response to patient safety. These accredited voluntary registers already provide some safeguards for the public. We feel they are working, and we have examples of that.
Both the Government and the PSA recommend that when a patient or service user chooses to visit a health or care practitioner who is unregulated, only those on an accredited register are consulted. That ensures that organisations holding an accredited voluntary register have been thoroughly assessed by the PSA. The PSA also ensures that those organisations handle complaints fairly and thoroughly. If a practitioner is removed from one register, they are not allowed to join another. We have seen some recent examples. In one case, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy removed a practitioner from its register for professional malpractice after they were associated with this sort of therapy. The Department is clear that it encourages employers and commissioners, when recruiting, to choose practitioners who are committed to the highest standards and who are on accredited registers.
Although we have decided at this stage not to take a legislative approach, I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities who my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green quoted at the outset of the debate as saying that these therapies must be eradicated. We want to keep up the momentum to do that. I suggest to the House that as we pass the anniversary of the MOU, we should convene another roundtable in the new year, at which we ask the original signatories to report on their progress and challenge them to identify where we can be more ambitious on ending conversion therapy. That would be an opportunity to pick up on some of the specific challenges mentioned by my hon. Friend in his opening speech, as well as one or two of the points made in interventions. I am open to discussing how we bring the concerns raised by Members to the attention of that group and to discussing who comprises it, although I think it originally included some organisations representing LGBT people, as well as professionals in this area. I commit to doing that.
As we work towards that event, I am happy to engage outside the Chamber with hon. Friends on where they think we can do more. I have taken on this brief since the election. Before that, I was a Minister for inequalities; I am now a Minister for inequalities and equalities—I think that makes me even. It is a brief I take extremely seriously and one that I have committed a huge amount of time to.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I sense the Minister might be about to end, but I hope she will accept this point. While a ban might not be appropriate, a stronger statement of guidance from the Government, reflecting the comments of colleagues, to all parts of our national health service would be welcome, because of not only the harm these conversion therapies do to individuals but the signal their availability sends to the wider public that it is somehow abnormal to be gay and that being gay is a condition that can be cured. That is not acceptable in today’s society, and our major public service should not be allowing the promotion of that idea in any part of it.
Jane Ellison
I completely understand my right hon. Friend’s point, which he made extremely well. I am happy to talk to Simon Stevens at our next regular meeting about that, and it is perhaps an issue we can explore further at a roundtable. My right hon. Friend makes an extremely fair point about how we send those signals. I will reflect on what more I can do.
To conclude, I ask hon. and right hon. Members present, perhaps in anticipation of the next broad discussion of this issue, to seek the counsel and insight of their local LGBT communities. I regularly guest-chair my local LGBT forum in Wandsworth, which I find a useful opportunity to engage with the issues and get up-to-date insight. I encourage all colleagues to do that, because it will greatly inform our deliberations in the new year. I will take away all the points made and the continued challenge to the Government to go further on this issue. I know that all Members present look forward to a time when this practice is a thing of the past.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered gay conversion therapies and the NHS.
Maternity Discrimination
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)
The Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy recommended the use of regular digital public discussion forums to inform debates held in Westminster Hall. A digital debate has taken place on Twitter ahead of today’s debate on maternity discrimination. Mr Speaker has agreed that for this debate, members of the public can use handheld electronic devices in the Public Gallery, provided that the devices are silent. Photos, however, must not be taken.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered maternity discrimination.
I am pleased to introduce this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey, and to have secured a debate on a subject that is vital for women and for everyone who is concerned with justice and equality.
I would like to thank constituents who have contacted me about this issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), who suggested its suitability for a debate. I thank Maternity Action for its invaluable help in preparing for today, and Parliament’s digital team, which you mentioned, Mr Bailey, for supporting our Twitter debate on this subject yesterday. Most importantly, I thank everyone who contributed their ideas and experiences; I will return to that later. Finally, I pay tribute to campaigners both inside and outside Parliament who have pursued this issue over many years, and I very much look forward to hearing the contributions of some of them this afternoon. I am pleased to have been able to lend my support by securing this debate.
This is the first time we have had the opportunity to debate properly the first set of findings from the research project being undertaken on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Further research findings are to be published in the near future, and that will further inform our understanding of the scale and nature of the issue and how Government choose to respond. However, we cannot do nothing in the meantime. Waiting is not an option and never was, and there are certain steps that can and should be implemented immediately as we set out to end maternity discrimination. This is an opportunity for Members to make that strength of feeling absolutely clear to Government.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Does he share my concern about the scale of the problem and about whether there is a true appreciation of that scale? I refer particularly to the EHRC report, which states that there could be as many as 54,000 mothers a year who are treated so poorly that they feel they have no option but to leave their jobs.
Stuart C. McDonald
I agree absolutely with the right hon. Lady, and I will briefly turn to some of the report’s findings. The issue is not just the scale of the problem, but the fact that the numbers seem to have increased over the last decade.
It is important to put on record some of the report’s findings. On the basis of interviews with over 3,000 employers and over 3,000 women with young children, investigators were able to conclude, as the right hon. Lady said, that unlawful maternity and pregnancy discrimination is more common in Britain’s workplaces than ever, with an estimated 54,000 pregnant women and new mothers—that is one in nine—forced out of their job each year. They also found that one in five women—as many as 100,000 a year across the UK—reported having experienced harassment or negative comments either because of pregnancy or flexible working. Investigators found that one in 12 women were treated with less respect by their line manager, and one in eight felt that they were treated less favourably in some other way, as a result of their pregnancy. One in 10 women were discouraged from attending antenatal appointments, despite those being absolutely essential for protecting the health and wellbeing of mother and baby, as well as there being a legal right to paid time off for antenatal appointments.
Investigators also found that one in six of the women interviewed reported suffering a negative impact on their health or stress levels because of poor treatment at work. One in 12 women who had attended a job interview while pregnant reported being asked during that interview whether they were pregnant, and finally, two in five women said that they would have liked to work more flexibly upon return from maternity leave, but did not ask to do so as they were concerned that it would not be approved, or that it would result in negative consequences.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing today’s debate. Does he agree that when maternity pay is just £138 a week, there is a disincentive for women to make tribunal claims against the discrimination that they experience, given that they have to pay £250 to submit their application and £950 for a hearing? Having to pay £1,200 is massive disincentive for women to make a claim, but on top of that, it means that employers are more likely to discriminate. Should that area of discrimination claims in the tribunal not be exempt from fees?
Stuart C. McDonald
The hon. Lady makes a very valid point, and I will turn in due course to tribunal fees and access to justice.
It is interesting to note that despite all the discrimination that I laid out from the report, only one in 12 of those women who raised a concern about their treatment at work obtained legal advice from an external advice provider such as Maternity Action, a law centre or a citizens advice bureau, so there is probably an awareness-of-rights issue, even before we get to the equally important consideration of tribunal fees.
Looking at the other side of the coin, the research found that seven in 10 employers felt that mothers should declare up front in interviews if they are pregnant. Almost three in 10 employers felt that pregnancy put unreasonable cost burdens on the workplace, and a horrifying one in four of the employers surveyed wrongly believed that it is lawful to ask women job candidates about their plans to have children.
The sad fact is that these findings, published in July, probably did not come as a surprise to campaigners. For example, in its 2013 report, “Overdue”, Maternity Action estimated that up to 60,000 women were being forced out of employment because of maternity discrimination. As the research suggests, it is a sad fact that the problem is becoming more, not less, widespread. The number of mothers being forced out of work through maternity discrimination is almost double the figure of 30,000 identified in similar research undertaken back in 2004-05 by the then Equal Opportunities Commission.
The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) touched on the point that causes some of us the most concern: it is beyond reasonable doubt that certain Government policies have made it harder, not easier, to tackle the issue, by making it more difficult for women to challenge such discrimination. The supply of free legal advice has been severely reduced by funding cuts. Maternity Action’s free helpline now receives 42 times more calls than it is able to answer, and as she said, since July 2013, there have been up-front fees of up to £1,200 to pursue an employment tribunal claim for pregnancy, maternity or other discrimination, which has undoubtedly had a devastating impact on women’s access to justice. In the words of Lord Justice Underhill,
“It is quite clear…that the introduction of fees has had the effect of deterring a very large number of potential claimants.”
It is important to say that not only are fewer claims being made, but it is undeniable that meritorious claimants are being stopped from proceeding.
Those statistics are easy to rattle through, but on their own, they do not give us a proper understanding of the nature of what is going on. That comes only from hearing the very individual stories of women across the UK who endure this discrimination, such as the stories that I was told yesterday during our Twitter debate and by various campaign groups. I heard appalling stories of pregnant women being forced to use different toilets at work, finding it impossible to access their employer’s maternity packages, being told that they had taken too many sick days, or being made to take antenatal appointments during their lunch breaks or on annual leave. The treatment of pregnant temporary workers seems particularly awful, according to the messages that I received.
So what are we looking for by way of a response from Government? Maternity Action, members of the Alliance Against Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace and members of the public taking part in our debate yesterday all believe that it is clear that Ministers need to respond with a strong, comprehensive and effective plan of action, including a number of detailed measures.
First, Ministers must send a strong message to employers that there is simply no excuse for flouting the law on pregnancy and maternity discrimination. Perhaps the Government could consider that in their proposals for a new director of labour market enforcement—a post being introduced, rather oddly, under the Immigration Bill. Alongside that, support has to be provided to small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups to assist them with planning for maternity leave, as smaller employers in the private sector were most likely to report difficulties across many areas in managing pregnancy and maternity issues.
Secondly, the Government must develop a high-profile information campaign aimed at improving women’s awareness of their rights, and employers’ understanding of their legal obligations and the business benefits of compliance. Best practice should be benchmarked, and the benefits of best practice, including flexible working, should be highlighted. Too often, the women most vulnerable to discrimination are those who know least about their workplace rights, and that includes young workers, recent migrants and many of the millions of women working in small, non-unionised workplaces. We can put that right.
Thirdly, that general awareness-raising must go hand in hand with a significant injection of funding to the specialist information and advice services that pregnant women and new mothers clearly need to help protect their rights at work. Pregnancy and maternity discrimination presents a massive challenge to women when they are least able to handle the additional stress and financial costs. Too many are unable to benefit from a trade union’s advice and support services, and cannot afford to pay for legal advice.
Fourthly, when women are aware of their rights and have the specialist advice that they need, they must have genuine access to justice. That means getting rid of the employment tribunal fees introduced in July 2013, which, beyond doubt, represent a substantial barrier to justice. We should also consider extending the time limit for claims from three to six months, or even beyond, because during pregnancy or after birth are hardly the time to pursue stressful legal claims.
Once women have access to the tribunal, we must ensure that those awarded financial compensation for pregnancy or maternity discrimination receive the money due to them. It is unacceptable that Government-commissioned research in 2013 suggested that 50% of all awards go unpaid by employers. I hope that, as a starting point, the Minister will agree to meet Maternity Action and the Alliance Against Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace. I have barely scraped the surface of this topic; I look forward to colleagues filling in as many of the gaps as possible.
In conclusion, pregnant women and new mothers deserve strong protection and high levels of support. Too many experience the opposite, and discrimination is far too widespread. It is time the Government stepped up to the plate; they must do so now.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mr Bailey. I commend the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on bringing this matter to Westminster Hall. I firmly support him, and I think it is important that I do that.
It is a sad reflection on our society that in 2015 we are still discussing matters of gender equality, but any opportunity to improve maternity leave for women is most welcome. I hope that we can have a fruitful debate today about how we can best do that and that the shadow Minister and the Minister will add to our discussion. There have been many welcome advances in recent times and the national consensus is now firmly in favour of viewing maternity discrimination as wholly unacceptable, as the hon. Gentleman said. However, it is imperative that we do not take our eye off the ball and that is the purpose of this debate.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the recent findings of a survey by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which clearly underline that. Of those surveyed, 11% reported having been dismissed. That figure multiplied across the United Kingdom means that some 54,000 women have lost their job. The problem is not just women losing their job, but the impact on their children and families. Those figures must be taken into consideration and must not be ignored.
The fact that so many mothers have said they were harassed or heard negative comments from their colleagues, bosses, friends or work mates when they were pregnant or returning from maternity leave underlines the issues. One third thought that their employer did not support them willingly during their pregnancy or when they returned to work. Those issues cannot be ignored, but here we are in 2015 addressing them. I am sure that we have moved on greatly, but we need to move just a bit more to ensure that a final conclusion is reached.
Mrs Miller
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is curious that the Equality and Human Rights Commission report says that many businesses find it
“reasonable and easy to implement”
pregnancy and maternity regulations, yet so many women are dissatisfied with the way that works out in practice?
Jim Shannon
I suppose that that is why we are having this debate today. It seems that not everyone is totally convinced that the changes to the legislation are making a difference. The right hon. Lady is right: the legislation is there and people understand it, but there has been a move away from putting that understanding into practice. That is the issue and perhaps that is also what this debate is about.
It is clear that although we have made great progress and have some fantastic champions of gender equality throughout the House and society, a lot more needs to be done. The right hon. Lady highlighted that. I hope that the statistics mentioned by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East are noted by hon. Members and that we have renewed vigour in tackling maternity discrimination. It is apparent that we have taken our eye off the ball. I hope that we can use today as an opportunity to put on the record the need to come together once again to address the issue. That is the reason for this debate.
Although the study found high rates of discrimination against pregnant women, 84% of employers said they believed that supporting pregnant women and women on maternity leave was in their best interests. It is interesting to hear those figures and the information that the right hon. Lady referred to. There seems to be a clear difference. Either the statistics are wrong or there is an undercurrent that we need to address. In addition, 80% of employers agreed that pregnant women and those returning from maternity leave were just as committed to their work as their colleagues. Again, it seems that four fifths of employers understand that when the lady returns to work, she is as eager, keen and enthusiastic as before her baby was born.
A member of my staff is on maternity leave at the moment. I certainly did not view her as being of less value than other staff due to her pregnancy. She is hard-working and has worked for me for some 12 years. This is her second baby in just over two years. She gave birth about three weeks ago and has another few months of maternity leave. I want her back, but at the same time I understand that she has a wee child to look after. For the record, the baby’s name is Esther and she was born at Ulster hospital just a few weeks ago, weighing 8 lb 4 oz. She has a wee sister. Their mother has had two girls in the last two years, so it has been a busy two years for her and for everyone else.
There are no problems in my office when it comes to maternity leave. The law says what we must do and we do it, but we must do it right. In this House, MPs can have a substitute to help and we are lucky to have that opportunity.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
I am sure the hon. Gentleman is a reasonable and understanding employer. We have arrangements in place in the House that, in the main, support people who work for us and who go on maternity leave. Having a child is a life-changing event for the whole family and the need for more flexible working arrangements after childbirth is often one of the greatest challenges that many women in particular face after returning to the workplace. Should there not be a more proactive duty on private sector employers to recognise the need for flexible working?
Jim Shannon
The hon. Gentleman brings a wealth of knowledge to these debates and I thank him for his intervention. He is absolutely right to say that private businesses need to do more to ensure that that happens. The system in the House is there for us and it is good to have that, but we need to address the situation outside.
I am not sure whether the figures and statistics that hon. Members have referred to relate to private businesses and other employers, but there is an issue still to address. Perhaps the Minister will tell us her thoughts on that. Although the incidence of discrimination is still relatively high, it is clear that attitudes are changing. We need to see what we can do to deal with the disparity between changing attitudes and changing actions.
I welcome the opportunity to have spoken on this issue in Westminster Hall today. I hope that comments made have been noted by hon. Members. I thank them for their contributions and interventions and the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East for setting the scene. I look forward to moving forward positively on this issue and others like it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)
Order. To give both Opposition spokespersons five minutes and the Minister 10 minutes to respond, I would be grateful if Back Benchers could confine their remarks to about five minutes. I have the authority to put a five-minute curb on speeches if I so wish. I want to allow a degree of flexibility, but could hon. Members bear that in mind?
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr iawn—thank you very much, Mr Bailey. I thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) for securing the debate, which is of course relevant to every family. I also applaud the digital debate initiative; the debate has been interesting to follow on Twitter.
As a former manager in a further education college, I appreciate that the task of dealing with female employees during pregnancy and maternity leave is not easy. It is time consuming and, by its very nature, unpredictable. However, the logical conclusion of being complicit in condoning maternity discrimination is to consent to discrimination against every woman of child-bearing age. Proper support and management of employees during pregnancy and maternity is simply another aspect of effective management. It is what good managers do, and it pays rewards in staff loyalty and skills retention. The fact that this debate is necessary gives the lie to the assumption that equality for women is assured. Women are treated as the equal of men in the workplace only as long as their behaviour mimics the traditional behaviour of men in the workplace, in terms of presenteeism and the subordination of family life to work life.
It seems extraordinary that the first findings of research commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Equality and Human Rights Commission would reveal evidence that so many mothers experience discrimination, even though the majority of employers, as has been said, were broadly in agreement—at least in public—with the law and women’s rights regarding maternity leave. The figures extrapolated from the research’s direct evidence indicate that tens of thousands of women are likely to be suffering discrimination in relation to pregnancy and maternity. An earlier report estimated that almost half of pregnant women in the United Kingdom experienced disadvantage at work arising from the fact that they were expecting a child or taking maternity leave.
I would like to take the opportunity to consider the significance of the report to women in Wales, where 29% of women earned less than the official living wage in 2014. That is partly because a greater proportion of women than of men work part time. Of women working part time in Wales, 43% earn less than the official living wage. The BIS report states that women on low incomes are more likely to report experiencing unfavourable treatment or a lack of support during pregnancy.
Given that for more than two years now, women have been required to pay an up-front fee of £1,200 to take a claim for pregnancy, maternity or sex discrimination to an employment tribunal, that legal advice is unaffordable for many and that the situation is worsening, surely Ministers must face up to the fact that employers are breaking the law and families are suffering as a consequence. That is, sadly, just another example of justice being an optional extra, a luxury item for the wealthy, rather than a shield for the powerless against the powerful. I look forward to the post-implementation review of employment tribunal fees in anticipation that that injustice will be addressed.
While awaiting the review of employment tribunal costs and adding my voice to calls for the publication of an action plan arising from the BIS report, I propose that the impact of shared parental leave and pay should also be reviewed, say in April 2016, following a year’s implementation. I understand that that worthy initiative, whereby parents of newborn babies or adopted children may share between them up to 50 weeks off work, is intended to challenge the assumption that the mother alone undertakes the nurturing responsibilities. The degree to which fathers take up shared parental leave is evidently the rulestick by which to measure the success of shared parental leave. Sadly, it is likely that raising the status accorded by men to nurturing roles will prove to be a critical step towards demolishing long-established maternity discrimination.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on bringing this important debate to the Chamber. It is a delight to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. When I worked as a Unite representative, I was involved in many maternity discrimination cases.
It is approximately 40 years since the first legislation was introduced to protect women from unfair dismissal because of pregnancy. Despite those legal rights, it appears that maternity discrimination is still a significant issue for a number of women. The report recently published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission suggests that women returning from maternity leave are even more likely to face discrimination in the workplace than they were a decade ago. The report estimates that about 54,000 UK women may be forced out of their jobs each year simply for falling pregnant. That includes being dismissed outright, being made compulsorily redundant when others in the workplace were not, and being treated so poorly that they had to leave. However, that figure does not account for the women who were self-employed and could not continue, women who were demoted, passed over for promotion, or overlooked for job opportunities that arose while they were on maternity leave, or for training and development opportunities. All those women may have been adversely affected, so the estimate of 54,000 may be just the tip of the iceberg.
For the women who are affected by such discrimination, it can have a devastating impact. I note that some truly shocking personal experiences have been highlighted on online sites. One individual stated that she returned to work only 11 weeks post partum because of pressure put on her by her employer. Another individual stated that she had been placed two hours away from home, and that it was virtually impossible for her to get back to breastfeed her baby. Sometimes discrimination against women who are off with their babies does not fit neatly into legal categories, but it can have the effect of making it impossible for the person to get back to work, and therefore it is discrimination all the same.
In this day and age, any discrimination of this nature is wholly unacceptable. However, statutory maternity rights are worth little if victims are unable to enforce them. As has been described, the two biggest barriers that may prevent women from challenging maternity discrimination are the introduction of employment tribunal fees and the three-month time limit. The statute of limitations on discrimination cases means that individuals have only three months from the point at which they were subjected to any kind of workplace discrimination to lodge a claim. In the case of maternity discrimination, those three months usually come at a time when the individuals are exhausted and lacking in confidence, have their hands full and are trying to adjust both to having a new baby and to getting back to work. For many, it just would not cross their mind to go down the route of contacting ACAS or seeking advice regarding their situation.
The Select Committee on Justice is conducting an inquiry on the effects of the introduction and levels of court and tribunal fees and charges. I want to highlight that the Scottish Government have pledged to abolish fees for employment tribunals when their additional powers are received, thereby ensuring that all employees have a fair opportunity to have their case heard. That includes those who may be suffering maternity discrimination. There is also a need to learn lessons from complaints. About half of employers fail to implement changes following a finding of discrimination, so it is important that recommendations be enforceable against the employer.
In conclusion, research suggests that pregnancy and maternity discrimination continues to be both widespread and deeply entrenched, with a significant minority of employers displaying outdated and wholly inappropriate attitudes and behaviours. That is bad for women and their families, bad for gender equality and bad for our economy. There is a clear need for urgent Government action in this area.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald)on securing this important debate. You would have thought, Mr Bailey, that by 2015 much discrimination in this country would have been eliminated. We have had the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, race relations legislation and the Disability Discrimination Act 2005—all introduced by Labour—but maternity discrimination, as mums like me know, and as the research that the hon. Gentleman has laid before us shows, is still very much with us. This discrimination can start in pregnancy, and even before conception, when women of a certain age go for a job interview and are sidelined because they are thought of as potential baby machines who are about to drop.
The increase in the number of women in the workforce from the first world war onwards was meant to bring economic independence, and in many ways it did. We all know, however, about glass ceilings and the fact that women often end up in lower-status employment, such as caring, cleaning and—the thing I did before I came here—teaching jobs. There used to be the idea in the ’80s of having it all, and we should not have given up on that. Women’s caring responsibilities and biological functions, if we are blunt about it, should not preclude their earning a wage.
People have talked about flexible working, and I am proud of the fact that the last Labour Government empowered women to do that. I was one of the first generation to benefit. In reality, however, women are made to feel embarrassed to ask, and many feel unable to do so. The EHRC report found that when mothers were allowed to work flexibly, half reported negative consequences, such as receiving fewer opportunities at work or feeling that their opinion was less valued than that of colleagues. I remember the incredulity that greeted a colleague of mine at a former workplace who had recently returned to work when she asked a male manager if she could have access to a fridge to store expressed breast milk. He could not get his head around that concept at all.
Some of the ways in which maternity discrimination can manifest itself include being overlooked for promotion and not being allowed to go to antenatal appointments, as well the more obvious bullying and harassment. A survey by the TUC found that six in 10 mothers felt sidelined at work as soon as they announced their pregnancy. The discrimination starts even before maternity: four in 10 managers admitted that they were wary of hiring a woman of childbearing age.
My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and others have pointed out the punitive effects of tribunal fees. The costs add up: £250 just to take the case, and £1,200 in total. New babies are not cheap, when we take into account childcare, kitting out the nursery and all that stuff.
I am dismayed that things appear to be going backwards under this Government. We all know that the austerity cuts seem to be hitting women disproportionately. Women are employed in the public sector in greater numbers than men. Research has showed that some 70% of the losers under the proposed tax credit changes, which may change again, will be working women. To top it all, in my constituency, the maternity unit at Ealing hospital has closed since the election. I think it is a bit sinister that it happened in June, probably for electoral reasons, when it was going to close before that. That is a personal observation.
I only wanted to speak briefly, but I call on the Minister to increase access to justice and strengthen leave for fathers; I echo almost all that has been said. Our Prime Minister suddenly announced last week at Prime Minister’s questions his conversion to feminism. What is going on is illegal; maternity discrimination is against the law, so he needs to act now, in correspondence with his self-definition as a feminist.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) and Maternity Action for the work that they have done to bring us this debate today.
I want to talk briefly about the position of women in pregnancy, who are, I suppose, in a position of weakness in relation to their male colleagues in the workplace. We need to do all we can to redress that. During a woman’s first pregnancy, she is not sure how it will be, how she will feel and how her health will be affected. We need to make employers more aware of their responsibilities in that respect. Lots of things can happen during pregnancy, including basic morning sickness, tiredness or complications that may require attendance at further hospital appointments. Women in the workplace should feel supported to attend those appointments, because they are necessary.
I also want to mention women who are having in vitro fertilisation treatment, which can have a difficult impact on women’s health, and which can be very invasive and tiring. Not enough is said about the health impact of IVF, or about the need to attend extra hospital appointments to undergo the treatment, and employers need to recognise those things.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) mentioned the storage of breast milk. There are problems with awareness of what is required to support women who wish to breastfeed when they return to work. They may require time away to go and see the baby, if it is very small, or time to use a breast pump to express milk in a space where they feel safe, comfortable and relaxed. An appropriate space that is not a toilet would be good. In debates I had about breastfeeding earlier this year, the point was raised that a lot of employers do not recognise that women need a space that is clean and safe, and a toilet is not that space. For that matter, some breast pumps require a plug. That is a practical issue that employers, particularly male employers, might not recognise or understand. The more education that employers can be given about their responsibilities, the better.
A lot of employers may be well-meaning, and I suppose I can give them the benefit of the doubt. I had a colleague who thought that I might not want to go on a particular committee because I had just had a baby. He did not ask me about that at the time—this was a few years ago—but that assumption was made, without my knowledge until I queried it later. We need to open up employers to speak to the women in their employ and ask them what support they need. Employers need to ask what they can do to retain skills and talent in their workforce by ensuring that women return to work and continue to work, if their job is one that they enjoy. They must be supported at every stage during their pregnancy and thereafter, and adjustments must be made to allow them to continue to work.
In the run-up to this debate, I have been looking at some of the issues that have been raised on the website “Pregnant Then Screwed”, where people can anonymously tell their stories. Some of the stories there are absolutely shocking. It is heartbreaking to read about the bullying, stress and discrimination that women are being put through at what should be a very happy time in their life. Those blog posts make me absolutely furious. There is no excuse for making women feel that way during the perfectly natural process of pregnancy, childbirth and starting a family. Women should feel supported at that time; they should not be made to feel as though what they are doing is somehow wrong, because that is absolutely crazy.
We need to do all we can, as MPs in this House, to make sure that women are supported through pregnancy. We must challenge problems with tribunal fees and discrimination to make sure that women and their families are supported.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on securing this important debate, which allows us to highlight the issues faced by pregnant women in the workplace. Legislation has been in place for more than 40 years to protect women from unfair dismissal because of pregnancy. Since then, maternity rights legislation has been strengthened, protecting women from any unfavourable treatment in the workplace.
As a woman has the right to 52 weeks’ leave and 39 weeks’ statutory pay, and the right to return to work after that time, she has the choice to start a family without sacrificing her career. Although the law in this country has created an environment that is fair, balanced, sensible and manageable for recent and expectant mothers, that is not always how the law is interpreted, and women often experience maternity and pregnancy discrimination. Despite the protection written into law, in practice the facts are less clear, and the evidence shows that the laws are often flouted. Often, pregnant members of the workforce are coerced into agreeing to waive their rights. Unfair dismissals often go unchallenged in the legal system.
A recent report outlined women’s experiences. One woman was given 24 hours’ notice to resign. The boss of another woman assumed that, as she was pregnant, she was unable to cope. Yet another woman commented that she was unable to wear her engagement ring because she was concerned that it would put her future employer off giving her a promotion, or even giving her the job in the first place. One woman said:
“It’s hard to make a stand when you need a salary”.
Those are the experiences of women in the workplace. Although the laws and protections exist, many women are not able—or feel they are unable—to access and make use of them. With half the workforce likely to fall pregnant at some point in their career between the ages of 16 and 50, it is high time that our society recognised the deeply entrenched and outdated situation that many women face in their employment. Women who choose to balance work and family face huge inequalities.
A report published this year by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in conjunction with the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that instances of unlawful maternity and pregnancy discrimination have slightly worsened over the past decade. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East mentioned, the findings are that the scale of the issue is huge: figures indicate that 54,000 pregnant women and new mothers are forced out of their jobs. However, the Alliance Against Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace indicates that the figure may be closer to 60,000 women. This equates to one in nine women being forced out of work for choosing to have a child. Of the women surveyed, one in six reported suffering a negative impact on health or stress levels due to poor treatment at work. Of course, existing pressures are only exacerbated by pregnancy and maternity discrimination. How does a woman with fluctuating working hours and an unstable employment contract defend herself against a discriminatory employer?
Hundreds of thousands of women employed in social care, childcare and hairdressing have indicated that they were employed on zero-hours contracts and in unstable forms of employment. As such, they were offered little security in their employment and were therefore unable to challenge the discrimination they faced in the workplace. It is our job to flag up the widespread societal issues that have led to this situation. We must ensure that our laws are fit for purpose; that is not the case at present, in the case of legal aid for maternity discrimination cases. The supply of free legal advice has been severely reduced by funding cuts and the abolition of almost all civil legal aid. I mentioned that recently at Women and Equalities questions, and I am pleased to hear that the matter will be reviewed, so I will not take this point any further.
For any women to progress in their careers, it is important for us to smash the gender pay gap, tackle child poverty and deal with some of the real societal issues. It is impossible for any change to come into effect without the support of Ministers. We need to send a strong message to employers that there is simply no excuse for flouting the law on pregnancy and maternity discrimination, and we must ensure improved access to justice by abolishing employment tribunal fees. As things stand, we are damaging families, diluting gender equality, and doing no favours to the economy. However, this will not be resolved simply through legislation. We need engagement and provision across services and Departments. I urge the Minister to take action, to meet with Maternity Action and others, and to indicate when the report will be published that addresses these concerns.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. Five minutes is barely enough time to do justice to a situation in which one in nine mothers feel that they are forced out of work. Maternity discrimination is bad for women and their families, for gender equality and for the economy. The incidence of maternity discrimination is alarmingly high, and there are clear indications that the situation is getting worse.
TUC research in 2014 found that six in 10 mothers felt sidelined at work as soon as they announced their pregnancy, and four in 10 managers admitted that they were wary of hiring women of childbearing age, so it comes as little surprise that advice lines, such as Maternity Action’s helpline, report that they are receiving 20 times more calls than they can take every day. I was privileged to hear the testimony of Aisha, a new mother who contacted the Labour women and equalities team recently to talk about the situation she faced when she revealed to her employer that she was pregnant. I do not have time to go into much detail, but her manager did not do a risk assessment, which led to Aisha being hurt at work, as she suffered from symphysis pubis dysfunction and pulled muscles easily. She turned to her colleagues for assistance in doing her job, because she was scared of losing it. In the end, her employer reduced her hours. She said to me:
“I feel that he discriminated against me because I am a female of childbearing age and he could never understand what I went through while working for him or suffering during my pregnancy.”
Thankfully, she went on to have a successful pregnancy, but no expectant mother should ever have to go through what Aisha experienced. However, the Government are making it harder for people like Aisha to access justice.
My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) made a point about the increase in tribunal fees at a time when women do not have very much disposable income—when they are on statutory maternity pay and have the expense of a new baby. I raised that issue during Women and Equalities questions on 15 October, and the Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities said that she would look into the matter. Will the Minister guarantee that the findings and recommendations of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the EHRC will be taken into account as part of the review of tribunal fees?
The current situation is completely unacceptable. We must not accept the status quo. In addition to abolishing tribunal fees, as I mentioned, a good starting point would be a commitment from the Minister that the Government are taking the findings of BIS and the EHRC seriously and, following the final report, will publish a comprehensive plan to address the policy recommendations stemming from that report. It is vital that the Government engage with mothers in developing a strategy to end maternity discrimination. It is therefore extremely disappointing that, to date, Maternity Action has not been given a date to meet the Minister; I ask the Minister to meet it.
To address pregnancy discrimination, we must know the scale of the problem. Will the Minister commit to calculating the overall cost to the economy of unlawful and maternity discrimination in the workplace, and require employers to publish return-to-work rates identifying how many of their female employees return to work after having children, and how many are still in post a year later?
The TUC and the Fawcett Society have identified paternity leave as one area that could be improved, as only 55% of new fathers take time off in the baby’s first two weeks. The Government’s impact assessment of the introduction of shared parental leave estimates that only 8% of men will use it. Will the Minister commit to reviewing how paternity leave provisions could be strengthened? It is likely that women will remain discriminated against if they change their working patterns following pregnancy unless flexible working options, such as job shares, part-time working and compressed hours, become more widespread. Will the Government look into giving employees the right to request flexible working from day one of employment? Finally, will the Government work with employers to ensure that they learn lessons from complaints? About half of employers fail to implement any changes following a finding of discrimination.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on securing this important debate. Let me be absolutely clear from the outset that pregnancy and maternity discrimination, whether at work or when seeking access to services, is unlawful and completely unacceptable. We have all been shocked by some of the experiences highlighted in the joint Government and EHRC interim research report on this problem in the workplace and by the stories we have heard via the blog and, indeed, today such as the story of Aisha, which was raised by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith). Those stories reflect badly on the employers concerned.
When the interim report was published in July, I was horrified that one in eight women reported that they felt that they had to leave work as a result of their pregnancy or maternity leave. It is clear that far too many women feel that they face unacceptable treatment in the workplace, causing additional stress and difficulties at what, as the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) quite rightly said, should be an exciting and happy time for their family.
The Chairman of the Women and Equalities Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), rightly said that it is not difficult for employers to understand, implement or comply with the legislation. The report shows that most mothers feel supported by their employer—four in five mothers said that their employer supported them during pregnancy, and three in four of those returning to work said that their needs as a new mother were met. It is encouraging that, despite the bad stories, most employers, such as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), embrace their legal and moral duties to their employees. It is good news that most women have a positive experience during and after pregnancy.
It is also important to recognise that the vast majority of employers believe it is important to support pregnant women and those on maternity leave. More than four in five employers feel it is in the interest of their business to do so, and of course it is. Although it is reassuring that the vast majority of employers recognise the important contribution made to their organisation both by pregnant women and by mothers returning from maternity leave, it is still nowhere near the 100% that we want. So many mothers do not have a good experience, and we must do all we can to ensure that all employers see the benefits to their organisation of having a diverse workforce.
To address the problem effectively, we need to understand the causes and extent of pregnancy discrimination in our workplaces, which is why in 2014 the coalition Government commissioned an extensive research project into perceived pregnancy and maternity discrimination. It is the largest research project of its kind undertaken in Great Britain, and it is interviewing more than 3,000 employers and 3,000 employees. The final report, which will come out later this year, will tell us what issues women face, who is most at risk and which types of employers are most likely to receive complaints about discrimination. We will use that information to decide our next steps to ensure that both employers and mothers are aware of, and act on, their legal obligations and rights.
The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East is right to say that access to the correct advice is a key priority. In the meantime, the Government have ensured that support is available both to mothers and employers on their rights and responsibilities. The EHRC has produced guidance in the form of frequently asked questions to help employers to understand their legal obligations and to provide suggestions for good practice in managing pregnancy, maternity leave and return to work. The EHRC has also produced a toolkit for employers, with a stock of pre-prepared letters, checklists and ready-made policy templates to make administration as simple as possible.
More generally, some £49 million has been provided to the EHRC, ACAS and the Equality Advisory and Support Service as part of the Government’s commitment to support both employers and employees. The EASS helpline is available for those who may have a discrimination issue, often outside the workplace, such as women who feel that they have faced unlawful restrictions on breastfeeding in public. The helpline provides in-depth free advice and support, helping individuals to solve their problems informally, and covers England, Scotland and Wales. More than 80,000 individuals have been helped to date.
ACAS provides advice both to employers and employees on pregnancy and maternity discrimination, including specific guidance on breastfeeding at work. ACAS is also developing guidance and products in relation to gender pay reporting and the menopause. It has also published new guidance on equality and discrimination, equipping people with the knowledge and ability to take action to avoid discrimination and to respond to it if it occurs. Of course, we must not forget the excellent work of organisations such as Maternity Action and Working Families to support employers and women while pregnant and on maternity leave.
Employment tribunal fees were introduced to cut the burden on taxpayers and encourage parties to seek alternative ways to resolve their dispute. It is not right that hard-working taxpayers should pick up the entire bill of some £71 million for employment disputes and tribunals, but to protect the lowest paid workers, there is a system of fee remissions under which fees may be waived in part or in full for those who qualify.
We have also taken steps to divert people away from potentially acrimonious tribunal hearings where possible, which is important. Under the new early conciliation scheme, people must notify ACAS of their intention to lodge an employment tribunal claim, and they are then offered an opportunity to settle their workplace dispute without going to court. The scheme has already been used by more than 80,000 people in its first year, and 56% of complaints in the “suffered a detriment or unfair dismissal—pregnancy” category were settled through the ACAS early conciliation process. ACAS services are free of charge, making it a cheaper, quicker and less stressful option for all concerned.
On 11 June 2015, the Government announced the start of the post-implementation review of employment tribunal fees. The review is well under way and will be completed in due course. Among other things, the review will consider the impact of fees on particular groups, including women. The EHRC report will be taken into consideration. The review will broadly consider how successful the policy has been in achieving its original objectives, which will include, so far as possible, whether the fees have had any differential impact on people with protected characteristics and the types of cases they bring.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned compliance and tribunal award payments, which are clearly unacceptable and are something that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is currently evaluating. We want everyone in our society to fulfil their potential, and we cannot afford to waste the talents of half our population. Addressing discrimination is only part of what we are doing to ensure that women are able to make the most of the opportunities available to them. Our ambition is to end the gender pay gap within a generation. There are now more women-led businesses than ever before, a record number of women in work, and the gender pay gap is at an all-time low. Do not take that as complacency; there is more to be done. That is why we will require large employers to publish information on the difference between men and women’s pay, and last week the Prime Minister announced that we will ensure that large employers regularly report on bonuses as part of that gender pay reporting.
Angela Crawley
I appreciate the Minister’s point about large employers, but the vast majority of people work for smaller companies with fewer than 250 employees. Has she considered that those people will be equally affected?
Caroline Dinenage
Yes, absolutely. I ran a small business for more than 20 years from the age of 19, and I think a culture change is required. We need to secure that change in large companies that can afford to do the gender reporting and can afford the posh websites on which to report it. We hope that will bring about a culture change that filters down, but we will keep it under review. Nothing is off the table.
The measures build on our support for working families. From September 2017, we will double the amount of free childcare to 30 hours a week for working parents of three and four-year-olds, which will be worth around £2,500 a year. Some 1.8 million families could also benefit from the new tax-free childcare scheme from 2017, which will be worth up to £2,000 a child. We will extend shared parental leave and pay to working grandparents. The policy, when implemented in 2018, will support working parents with the cost of childcare and help the 2 million grandparents who have given up work, reduced their hours or taken time off to help with childcare. That is in addition to the families who are already benefiting from shared parental leave, which was introduced earlier this year. We need time to assess the impact of shared parental leave, which will of course be reviewed in due course. We need a cultural change so that the chaps understand that they have an equal responsibility for childcare. We will also introduce a national living wage.
The Government are committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, age or background, is able to fulfil their potential, which is why we are determined to address pregnancy and maternity discrimination, wherever it may arise. This issue affects us all. It is not only utterly reprehensible that women feel they have experienced discrimination in the workplace, but it represents an unacceptable loss to our country’s productivity. Valuable employees are being misused. I was interested to see the digital debate on Twitter yesterday, using #MothersWork. Many useful points were raised in that debate, as well as in today’s debate, and they will all be taken into consideration. I am more than happy to meet Maternity Action, and I am pleased to see so many colleagues from both sides of the House agree that maternity discrimination is an important issue. I look forward to reading the final report.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am grateful to all hon. Members for their contributions to this debate. Many people who have spoken are far more expert on the issue than I am and have been campaigning on it for far longer. We heard from the right hon. Member for Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the discrepancy between the many employers who seem to find planning around maternity leave straightforward and the far too many who still find it a challenge. Perhaps we need to share best practice more widely. We heard from the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) that it is not always easy to manage, but the motivation is there, and that employers can be rewarded with skills retention and employee loyalty.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) spoke eloquently from her own professional experience, which is invaluable in such debates. The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) discussed the fact that discrimination starts even before conception, a point worth emphasising. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke poignantly from personal experience, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) said that we are in the process of improving legislation, but we need practice to match up with implementation.
I am grateful to the shadow Minister and the Minister for their contributions. We are moving towards some degree of recognition that more must be done and of the reasons why we need to tackle the problem. I am grateful that the Minister has recognised the problems that we face. We still have a long way to go, but I am grateful that she is going to meet Maternity Action. I had better finish now, or I will run out of time.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered maternity discrimination.
Written Statements
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Equitable Life Payment Scheme
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Harriett Baldwin)
As at 30 September 2015, the Equitable Life Payment Scheme has now issued payments of nearly £1.08 billion to 915,453 policyholders. This means the scheme has now paid 88% of eligible policyholders, and 92.9% of the money due. The scheme will today be publishing a further progress report, which can be found at: www.gov.uk/equitable-life-payment-scheme.
The scheme has made major efforts to trace policyholders, including extensive electronic tracing methods, writing to policyholders’ last known addresses, a national advertising campaign, working with other Government Departments and liaising with group scheme trustees. As announced at the summer Budget, a final attempt to trace policyholders has been made through the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) by the DWP sending letters to all untraced policyholders due £50 or more for whom the scheme holds a national insurance number and other data such as their name. These letters have now been sent. Despite this there remain approximately 125,000 policyholders whom the scheme has been unable to pay.
As the Chancellor announced in the summer Budget on 8 July, the scheme will be closing to new claims on 31 December 2015. Any policyholders who still believe themselves to be eligible are encouraged to call the scheme on 0300 0200 150 before 31 December 2015. The scheme can verify the identity of most policyholders on the telephone, which means any payment due can usually be received within two weeks. This will not affect the yearly payments made by the scheme to with-profits annuitants, which will continue for the duration of those annuities. The scheme has written to all with-profits annuitants to make them aware of this.
In the summer Budget, the Chancellor also announced that payments to non-with profit annuitant policyholders who receive pension credit will be doubled. Any policyholders who have made a claim from the scheme by the time it closes on 31 December and are receiving pension credit on that date will receive this second payment without having to take any action.
Policyholders can check their eligibility for pension credit using the Government’s pension credit calculator at: www.gov.uk/pension-credit-calculator.
[HCWS286]
GCSE and A-Level Content Consultation
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
Today, 3 November 2015, I am launching a public consultation on revised subject content for AS and A-Levels in geology and politics, and GCSE short course in physical education. The new content will be taught from 2017.
We are reforming GCSEs and A-Levels to be rigorous and more knowledge-based and to match the qualifications used in the best education systems in the world. This consultation is a continuation of our drive to raise standards and ensure all young people reach their potential.
The reforms aim to ensure that GCSEs are more academically demanding and will be qualifications that command the confidence of students, employers, and further and higher education institutions. At A-Level, our reforms aim to ensure that they prepare students for undergraduate study and the world of work.
A priority in the development process has therefore been to secure the views of subject experts, particularly university academics in the relevant subjects, so young people gain high quality qualifications that are respected and valued.
The new subject content documents being published today set high expectations which all awarding organisations’ specifications must meet. Awarding organisations have drafted content, working with the Department for Education and Ofqual.
This consultation is an opportunity for teachers, parents, students, further and higher education, employers and all those with an interest in these subjects to provide their views, which will be taken into account when redrafting the content for final publication.
Summary of changes to subjects
The reformed geology AS and A-Level content ensures a greater level of detail and provides parity with other natural science subjects. It requires students to take a more quantitative and mathematical approach to the study of geology, and new content includes geochemistry and engineering geology. The content also ensures that students develop a range of practical skills and techniques relevant to higher education, and requires students to undertake four days of fieldwork at A-Level and two at AS.
The revised subject content for politics AS and A-Level contains significantly greater detail, and aims to enable students to develop an understanding of the structures of British politics and its underpinning ideas and institutions. There are options to study US and global politics. For the first time, at A-Level, all students will study the core political theories of conservatism, liberalism and socialism and the ideas of their key thinkers. Students will also study key historic political events and movements.
The new physical education (PE) GCSE short course content represents half the content of the revised PE GCSE that was consulted on and published by the Department in January 2015. Like the full course GCSE, demand has been increased. Students will be assessed in one team and one individual sport/activity.
The consultation is available at: www.gov.uk/ government/publications?departments%5B%5D= department-for-education&publication_filter_ option=consultations
[HCWS283]
Agriculture and Fisheries Council
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
My hon. Friend the Minister of State for Farming, Food and Marine Environment (George Eustice), represented the UK at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 22 October in Luxembourg.
Two fisheries items were discussed. On Baltic sea fishing opportunities in 2016, unanimous political agreement was reached after a long discussion. The other item involved an exchange of views between member states and the Commission on the annual fisheries consultations with Norway, where Commissioner Vella noted the points made by member states and agreed to take them into account.
As part of the fisheries items, the Commission also agreed to increase quota banking rates including for the UK priority stocks—mainly mackerel—in the light of the ongoing Russian import restrictions.
The main agenda item for agriculture was on climate-smart agriculture. A presentation was given by academics from Belgium and Luxembourg on how to mitigate the climate change impacts of agriculture. The Commission highlighted the role that greening in the CAP has in reducing agricultural emissions. All member states intervened to highlight the importance of mitigating climate change through agriculture. The UK set out its ongoing support for this initiative through significant investments in agri-tech, precision farming and gathering and using data on farm.
The following were AOB items on the agenda:
The Netherlands proposed establishing a temporary working group on sustainable plant protection products. This would be to develop an action plan for the delivery of integrated pest management and to improve regulations for low-risk products. It was supported by 13 member states including the UK. Additionally, the UK argued that the group should focus on better procedures and incentives, and pushed the need for a review of pesticide legislation.
France, supported by Ireland, urged the Commission to publish the reports on milk products for infants and sports people, which are late coming from the Commission. The Commission promised to publish these in the near future.
Germany highlighted the discussion on anti-microbial resistance at the G7, as well as its national law on reducing the use of antibiotics. Commissioner Andriukaitis acknowledged this is a priority and agreed the EU needed to share its best practice globally.
The Slovenians presented a paper which focused on how to maintain a GMO-free Europe, which led to a number of interventions. The UK, which was supported by Spain, argued for a rigorous science-based approach. Commissioner Andriukaitis intervened, highlighting the policy incoherence of 19 member states with a GM cultivation ban but opposing the legal basis in the GM food and feed proposal. He argued that a switch to non-GMO feed was unrealistic and would lead to a 10% increase in costs. Following this, Germany asked the Commission whether new breeding techniques fell within the GMO definition. The UK agreed that there was a lack of legal clarity which was having a negative impact on industry, but also cautioned the Commission not to rush to regulate.
The Czech Republic reported on a recent Visegrad 4—Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia—meeting which also included Austria, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Romania on land and soil management, dairy prices and food chain fraud.
[HCWS285]
Environment Council
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rory Stewart)
I attended the EU Environment Council in Luxembourg on 26 October.
After adopting the agenda, Ministers set out preliminary positions on the reform of the EU emissions trading system for the period 2021-30 signalling the range of issues to be resolved. The UK set out its preference for a “tiered” approach to using free allocation of allowances to mitigate the risk of carbon leakage in energy intensive industries. This was supported by France, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Ministers debated the phasing out of environmentally harmful subsidies and the implementation of environmental policies and legislation. Most member states recognised the importance of addressing environmentally harmful subsidies. The UK highlighted the importance of tackling fossil fuel subsidies and pointed to the recent reforms of the common agricultural policy and common fisheries policy as important steps. All member states recognised that better implementation of existing legislation was vital to reducing costs and improving environmental outcomes. The UK stressed that the European semester needs to remain focused on jobs and growth. The presidency will summarise the discussion into a report for the next General Affairs Council with a view to preparing the European Council in March 2016.
The Council exchanged views on putting into practice the recently adopted United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Member states generally agreed that implementation would require existing EU policies to be harnessed and adapted to align with the 2030 goals, rather than new policies or structures. The UK called for the EU to focus on those areas where it can add the most value.
Under the AOB items, the presidency and commission summarised progress made at recent key climate change meetings. The Netherlands presented the Make it Work initiative for better regulation, led jointly with the UK and Germany. This initiative aims to improve the quality of legislation across the environmental acquis.
Under a final AOB item, member states discussed developments concerning the car sector and real driving emissions. Ministers emphasised the need to act quickly and effectively to resolve the issue of manipulation of emission testing, because of the effect on air pollution and the need to restore public confidence. The Commission stated its determination to play an active part in resolving the problem.
Over lunch, Ministers for both environment and development exchanged views on common challenges and integrated approaches towards the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
[HCWS284]
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
This written ministerial statement confirms that the United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is as follows:
Sir Roger Gale MP (Leader)
Full Members | Substitute Members |
|---|---|
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh MP | Lord Balfe |
Lord Anderson | Lord Blencathra |
Guto Bebb MP | Liam Byrne MP |
David Crausby MP | David T C Davies MP |
Geraint Davies MP | Baroness Eaton |
Jeffrey Donaldson MP | Suella Fernandes MP |
Earl of Dundee | Lord Foulkes |
Baroness Eccles of Moulton | Khalid Mahmood MP |
Nigel Evans MP | Baroness Massey of Darwen |
John Howell MP | Huw Merriman MP |
Ian Liddell-Grainger MP | Baroness O’Loan |
Sir Alan Meale MP | Mary Robinson MP |
Kate Osamor MP | Paul Scully MP |
Lord Prescott | Virendra Sharma MP |
Mark Pritchard MP | Paula Sheriff MP |
Christina Rees MP | Kelly Tolhurst MP |
Alex Salmond MP | Phil Wilson MP |
Mike Wood MP |
[HCWS287]
House of Lords
Introduction: Baroness Pidding
Introduction: Baroness Scott of Bybrook
UK Constitutional Convention
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider establishing a United Kingdom constitutional convention.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
The Government continue to consider a variety of approaches as they reflect on the British constitution, but our immediate focus must be on implementing a fair and balanced constitutional settlement that works for all the people of the United Kingdom.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, are the Government aware that such a convention is now supported by almost all the other political parties; by a wide variety of organisations, including the Local Government Association, the Electoral Reform Society and Unlock Democracy; and by most of the academics in this field—and, indeed, by many of the noble Baroness’s colleagues on her own side? When will the Government join this growing consensus so that constitutional reform is dealt with in a coherent and comprehensive way instead of in the current piecemeal fashion?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I know that the noble Lord is passionate about and an expert on this subject, and I would like to say to him that the objective of all these groups is one that the Government share: to ensure that while the constitution continues to evolve, it does so in a way that safeguards its stability and fairness, the unity of the nation and the sovereignty of Parliament. There will of course be plenty of opportunities for constitutional scrutiny and debate along the way.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that, under our first past the post system, modern Governments are formed with the support of a mere quarter of the electorate and only a third of the votes cast in general elections? Should we not at least try to restore our lost democracy through some form of proportional representation?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
My Lords, there is nothing to suggest that the public want to be involved in a constitutional convention. The Government were elected on a mandate to deliver their commitment to further devolution, and that is what we are doing.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I share the Minister’s view about the passion and expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes—my co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Reform, Decentralisation and Devolution in the UK. Does she not also agree that a common feature of the debates that we have been having recently on English votes for English laws, on boundaries and electoral registration and on the size and role of this House is that they should no longer be looked at in isolation and should take into consideration the wider whole? I might be immodest, but I would suggest that the Constitutional Convention Bill, which is currently being debated by your Lordships’ House, may well be the best opportunity to bring not only all parties but also the civic groups together. At the very least, will the Government offer technical support or even time in another place, if the Bill passes in this House, for civic groups to progress this work?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
The noble Lord has promoted his Bill with passion. There will be plenty of opportunities for constitutional scrutiny and debate both in the House and beyond, and I am in no doubt that all these groups will benefit from the insight and experience of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. I cannot guarantee House of Commons time; that is down to the other place and the usual channels.
Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)
My Lords, there is an overwhelming body of opinion in support of a constitutional convention as by far the best way to make changes to the constitution of our Parliament and our country. In view of what the Minister has just said, is it not inappropriate that we should now be contemplating a significant change to the powers of this House on the basis of a temper tantrum by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer? The Joint Committee’s report on the conventions of the UK Parliament, which was unanimously approved by this House and the other place, stated that this House is perfectly entitled to vote down a statutory instrument. Is this any way to make fundamental constitutional changes?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
My Lords, all these matters are going to be looked into shortly. As noble Lords will know, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde is setting up a review to look into these matters and it would be wrong for me to pre-empt what that review is going to say.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, the United Kingdom itself is hanging by a thread, thanks to constitutional tinkering; there are now disputes between both Houses of Parliament; and we have experienced piecemeal constitutional reform. If we are not to have a constitutional convention, how do the Government propose to look at these things together, in the round, and find a long-term, stable relationship for the future of our constitution?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
A static convention, deciding constitutional matters once and for all, does not really fit with this country’s tradition of evolving and adapting its constitutional arrangements in line with its people’s expectations and needs. A convention would bundle together a number of complex issues and it is likely not to give each due attention. We prefer a tailored approach, ensuring that each part of the UK gets a fair settlement and that the overall settlement is always balanced and fair.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness says that we prefer a different approach. She has come forward with that approach because the Government lost a vote last week. Does she accept the comments made at the weekend by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, when he described Members of the House of Lords as “rabble rousers” and said that he will make them pay in his review? Does she accept that a constitutional constitution is the best way of looking at all these issues—and wider ones—in the round and that any changes that are made to how your Lordships’ House, or the other place, operates should be made in the public interest, not the Government’s narrow, partisan one?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
My noble friend Lord Strathclyde’s review is very specific. It is on the matters of last week, when this House withheld its approval to financial measures that had been approved three times by the other House. A convention exists and it was broken. We want to get things back on an even keel.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, would my noble friend accept that it is very important indeed that, before my noble friend Lord Strathclyde reports to this House—it is to the House that he is answerable—he takes with him those Labour constitutionalists who voted in the government Lobby last week and people like the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, so that whatever is produced commands a cross-section of support in this House?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
My Lords, I know that there is wide interest in this subject. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde will report back to the Government. During the review he will take careful interest in what noble Lords from all sides of this House say.
Housing: Underoccupancy Charge
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Quin
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to undertake a regional study of the effects of the under-occupancy charge.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)
We commissioned a two-year independent evaluation in 2013, which included looking at the regional effects. The final report will be published in due course. There is already clear evidence that regions are adjusting to the policy. In the north-west, for example, there has been a 22% fall in the number of households subject to a reduction over the past two years.
Baroness Quin (Lab)
My Lords, I believe that recent studies show a wide variation between and, in some cases, within regions. In the north-east, in Newcastle for example, there has been no overcrowding problem—a problem that the Government said they wanted to address—but there is a huge shortage of one-bedroom flats, so that people cannot downsize but bear the full brunt of the bedroom tax. The Newcastle University study showed that many people had been forced into debt for the first time and that their health and well-being, contrary to the Government’s claims, have suffered hugely as a result. I urge the Minister—indeed, I invite him—to visit Newcastle and the north-east to meet with people directly affected and listen to their experiences.
Lord Freud
The noble Baroness is right that there is quite a lot of variation in the regional responses. I gave the example of the north-west, where there had been a reduction of 22%. The two regions that have reduced the smallest amount in England and Wales are the north-east, and Yorkshire and Humber. Other areas, such as London, the east of England and the north-west are the outliers on the upside. The other two have had the least-efficient response to this policy.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, I know that the Minister feels immense sympathy for those people who are unable to move, such as the tenants in Knowsley, where I was on Friday, who cannot downsize even though they wish to. They have taken a big hit in their standard of living. Will he join with me in commending the resilience and fortitude of those families that have taken a drop in income as a result of the so-called bedroom tax and borne a disproportionate share of the burden of deficit reduction?
Lord Freud
The noble Lord is quite right to make the point that this is about deficit reduction, for which this has been an important policy. It has now had savings of £1 billion over that period. People have had a range of responses, but the most important is that many people have gone into work or moved off the benefits system, mainly by going into work. That is 70,000 of the 90,000 reduction.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
Does the Minister accept that there is an important regional dimension to all this? I support the request made by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for a regional look at some of this, and also her idea of looking again at the Newcastle study, which demonstrated not only that the bedroom tax increased poverty but that it had an adverse effect on health and well-being, and on social responsibility and networks within neighbourhoods. When the final report is published, will he use his best offices to get a regional dimension into it, so that it considers the community-wide impact, not just the household impact, and the totality of the policy across the piece? I hope that the report will be published before the end of the year.
Lord Freud
Yes, the current plan is to publish the report before the end of the year. It does incorporate the regional effects, and I will take the noble Lord’s points about how thoroughly it does so when I go back and talk to the team. For very obvious reasons, I have not seen what is inside that report before it is published, but I will transmit those thoughts to the team.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, back in 2013 the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee urged that social housing in rural areas should be excluded from the underoccupancy charge, because of the near impossibility of finding alternative accommodation in many rural areas, where it simply is not available for people to downsize. Already people in rural areas have higher social and housing costs, and there is some evidence that the underoccupancy charge is pushing some families further into debt. Will the Minister tell the House whether Her Majesty’s Government would be willing to undertake a reconsideration of their policy and exclude social housing in rural areas from this measure?
Lord Freud
We are actually sympathetic to that point about rural communities, and we ramped up the amount of discretionary housing payments which were particularly targeted at the most remote rural areas, so that the policy could be dealt with by that route.
Baroness Eaton
Could my noble friend the Minister say what Her Majesty’s Government have done to support local authorities in mitigating the effects of this policy?
Lord Freud
The key route is through the discretionary housing payments, on which we have now spent £470 million in total—£175 million on this particular policy. We have had a range of initiatives to support people, including those living in social housing, into sustained employment. The figure for those in social housing who are workless has now dropped to an all-time low of 39%.
EU Migration: Valletta Summit
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Hylton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what they hope will be achieved at the November European Council meeting on migration to be held in Valletta, Malta.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns)
My Lords, we are working to ensure that the Valletta summit builds a genuine partnership between Africa and Europe to tackle the causes and consequences of irregular migration. Our aim is an action plan that addresses the root causes, combats people smuggling and human trafficking, provides protection for those in need and agrees action to return those who do not require protection.
Lord Hylton (CB)
I thank the Minister. Will the European Council take account of the fact that there are some 2.5 million people between Ethiopia, Libya and Turkey, all eager to get to Europe? Has there been any progress so far on creating safe zones and safe routes, and will the Government respond to the statement by a large number of lawyers, including some former judges, on this very subject?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, the noble Lord refers to the European Council. The Question refers to the meeting in Valetta, which was called following discussion in the European Council. However, this matter concerns relationships between Africa and the EU. I am sure that the European Union is looking at a wide range of issues. The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise safe zones. The UK is open to considering any feasible options to protect civilians—for example, in Syria. There has been talk of safe or protected zones but history tells us that implementing genuinely safe zones is difficult. However, the fact that it is difficult does not mean that we should avoid trying to achieve it.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, as winter approaches conditions in refugee camps, particularly in the Lebanon, are becoming deplorable. In last week’s debate on Syria in this House, the noble Baroness the Minister for DfID said that the Government intended to take 1,000 refugees before the end of this year out of the 20,000 that they promised to take. Does the Minister really think that this is an adequate response to this crisis?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, although this issue is not related to the Question on the Order Paper, which concerns the Valetta summit, I appreciate the real concern around the House on these matters, so, with the leave of the House, I will respond to the noble Lord. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister announced that over this Parliament we would take an extra 20,000 people from Syria who are in desperate need—so it is not a quota but a judgment regarding those in desperate need—and gave a commitment that 1,000 of those would be in this country by Christmas. All departments across Government are working to make sure that they have safe accommodation and care when they are here. Overall, we have led the way in providing aid to ensure that those in unsafe zones can have a life there. At the moment, £1.15 billion has been invested in the Syria and Iraq area.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, the International Organization for Migration estimates that over this weekend alone 28,000 refugees and migrants tried to enter Greece. That puts the figures into perspective. That is 40% more than Her Majesty’s Government are saying they will take from Syria over the course of a whole Parliament. The Minister mentioned that one of the focuses of the Valletta summit is addressing the root causes of immigration. Another one is establishing and organising legal migration channels. Can the Minister tell us whether Her Majesty’s Government will engage in this aspect of the Valletta summit, or will they merely opt out?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, it is clear that everybody who will participate at Valletta will consider what legal routes of migration are appropriate. This Government have already made it clear that migration has assisted this country but it needs to be managed and legal. Other aspects will need to be discussed at Valletta. There will be an agreement at the end to make sure that all parties understand that we need to assist those in greatest need and in the greatest crisis areas across all of the Horn of Africa and north Africa.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, how many people smugglers have now been arrested by the new methods we are meant to be using with our ships as part of the EU force? Have any of any importance been arrested or are we actually encouraging more people to try to take that route and, as the weather gets worse and worse, which it is day by day, thereby effectively condemning more and more people to death?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, progress has been made as a result of a United Nations security resolution that has enabled us to move from stage 1 to stage 2 and seize those at sea who are peddling this appalling trade and making billions out of victims of smuggling and trafficking. Those are operational matters. Now, we wait to see what the results of that are. However, the National Crime Agency is in the forefront in Europe in tackling organised immigration crime. This is an issue not only across the Mediterranean but across the whole of the Balkan area.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, if the meeting in Valletta is between the European Union and African countries, will the Minister raise the issue of LGBT individuals who are fleeing those countries in Africa because of state persecution based on their sexuality?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I had the honour this morning to have a discussion with a journalist from PinkNews. I made it clear that I believe it is for Ministers always to raise issues of discrimination against LGBT people when they are under threat and therefore seeking asylum. The Home Office is very clear on the rules it applies to asylum. Being able to show that there is a reasonable threat that one is going to face persecution in the host country is one of the first stages in being able to claim asylum.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, the presumption must surely be in favour of affording protection to those fleeing war zones such as Syria, but the case is far less strong in respect of countries in west Africa. Will the Minister look at the position adopted by Spain in respect of the Canary Islands and see to what extent that might be relevant to the position of the European Union—the north of the Mediterranean looking at the south?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, all 28 members of the European Union have different economic drivers and different approaches to economic migration and asylum policy. We always look with interest at how other countries manage to welcome those in need, and I am sure we will continue to do so. We have a rigorous system to ensure that there can be legal migration and that those in need of protection receive it.
Ministerial Code
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)
My Lords, the Ministerial Code is normally updated and reissued after a general election. The updated code makes it clear that Ministers must abide by the law. The obligations on Ministers under the law, including international law, remain unchanged.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, it is somewhat puzzling for the Government to make quite a significant change in the code and for the Minister to say that it makes no difference. Some of us wonder why the change has been made at all—if it had not, the Minister would not have had to answer this Question and others on this. As an annexe to the Ministerial Code, there are seven principles of public life, one of which is openness. If Ministers have to show openness, why can the Government not show openness on this?
Lord Faulks
The Government are showing openness. The Ministerial Code is available for all to see. It is normal for there to be a variation of the Ministerial Code, just as there is with the Civil Service Code from time to time. For example, the noble Lord may be aware that the Civil Service Code changed from 1999 to 2006. In 1999 it included,
“the duty to comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations, and to uphold the administration of justice … together with the duty to familiarise themselves with the contents of this Code”.
That became much shorter in 2009. The updated code says:
“You must … comply with the law and uphold the administration of justice”.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Minister may recall that Justice Scalia of the US Supreme Court has argued on a number of occasions that the United States should not pay attention to the conventions and constraints of international law because of the exceptional perfection of the US constitution. Is there a similar degree of exceptionalism in the British Government’s approach to international law, or do we expect others to pay perhaps a little less attention to the constraints of international law than previously?
Lord Faulks
Justice Scalia is an originalist on the American Supreme Court and has a particular view of America’s position. Our position is that all Ministers are obliged to abide by the law, including, in so far as it is ascertainable, international law in this country.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
Why can the Government not transfer responsibility for carrying out investigations into the conduct of Ministers to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards in the House of Commons and the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards in the case of Lords Ministers? Surely that would restore some confidence in the system, which has been discredited by recent cases.
Lord Faulks
The Ministerial Code sets out clearly what the Prime Minister expects of his Ministers. If they depart from that code, it is evident that they have departed from it and there are modes of dealing with that. I take the noble Lord’s suggestion, but at the moment the situation seems to be satisfactorily dealt with.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
Am I right in supposing that this amendment is really a prelude to the introduction of a British Bill of Rights in place of the existing Human Rights Act, and is intended principally to clarify the fact that our own domestic primary legislation trumps unincorporated treaty law?
Lord Faulks
The noble and learned Lord is quite right. He points to the difference between the dualist system, which we have, and the monist system whereby unless law is incorporated in an Act of Parliament, it does not become automatically a part of the law. The question of the amendments to the Bill of Rights, when or if it comes before Parliament, is somewhat separate but he accurately states the necessary constitutional principles.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, if the former AG, journalists, campaigners, senior lawyers, ex-Ministers, ex-civil servants and academics think this change is wrong, is it possible that they are right and that the Government are not? Can the Government explain why they sneaked this change through, along with a change to the code for special advisers, rather than make a proper Statement in the House?
Lord Faulks
There is no question of sneaking it through. It has been available since 15 October 2015 and this is the second time in a week that I have answered questions at the Dispatch Box on the Ministerial Code. It has also been the subject of much debate, as the noble Baroness points out, in the newspapers and elsewhere. Those authors she cites are entitled to their view, but it is not a view that I agree with.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, if the change makes no difference why make the change?
Lord Faulks
I indicated that from time to time the Prime Minister may clarify duties, just as the Civil Service Code does. That is his prerogative. The duty on the part of Ministers is to obey the law.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, I am not clear whether I heard an answer to either my noble friend Lord Dubs’s Question or the question from our Front Bench. Why exactly did the Government change the wording?
Lord Faulks
I fear that I will be repeating myself but they have changed the wording because it is a simple summary of what is plainly the position, which is that Ministers have an obligation to obey the law. The code does not change the obligation that comes from the law; it is simply a summary for Ministers.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister, who I listened to with care, referred to clarification. Clarification often implies that something was missing before that was not clear. What exactly is this change of wording for?
Lord Faulks
Clarification is very much in the eye of the beholder. A Minister reading the Ministerial Code might feel better or less well informed by the subsequent iteration of this code but, as I said in relation to the Civil Service Code, from time to time Prime Ministers feel that the matter might be expressed in one way rather than another. What it does not do is alter the nature of the obligation.
Lord Pannick (CB)
Can the Minister assure the House that the change has absolutely nothing to do with government concern about judgments of the European Court of Human Rights with which they do not agree?
Lord Faulks
The noble Lord knows only too well the Government’s obligation in relation to judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. There is an obligation under Article 46 of the European convention, whereby parties to a judgment undertake to abide by the final judgment of that court, but those judgments are declaratory. We and previous Governments have been in regular communication with the Committee of Ministers over how best to reflect those judgments in our own law. That is an iterative process, which involves Ministers going from time to time to Strasbourg. At the moment, Parliament has given no indication—I suspect that this is what lies behind the question—that it wants to give prisoners the vote.
Administration and Works Committee
The Chairman of Committees
That Lord Kerslake be appointed a member of the Select Committee in place of Lord Moser, deceased.
Privileges and Conduct Committee
The Chairman of Committees
That Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Dear be appointed members of the Select Committee.
Selection Committee
The Chairman of Committees
That Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers be appointed a member of the Select Committee in place of Lord Moser, deceased.
Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Relevant Authorised Persons) Order 2015
Lord Ashton of Hyde
That the draft orders laid before the House on 20 and 21 July and 13 October be approved.
Relevant documents: 3rd and 6th Reports from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 27 October
Arctic Committee Report
Lord Teverson
That this House takes note of the Report of the Arctic Committee.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, we are the Arctic’s nearest state, other than the eight members of the Arctic Council—I will talk about that organisation later. In fact, Out Stack in Shetland is only 320 miles from the Arctic Circle. The committee sees this report as a wake-up call not just for Parliament but, in particular, for the Government about the United Kingdom’s role in the Arctic and our policies towards it.
I assure noble Lords that your colleagues spent some time up in the Arctic Circle. We were very pleased to visit Svalbard, which is only 800 miles from the North Pole. Your Lordships will be pleased to know that it was in September and it was not too cold at the time. We managed to avoid the attentions of the wildlife in Spitsbergen, I am particularly delighted to say. It was insisted on that we were accompanied by armed guards while we were out on field studies there. In fact, the university there offered what were known as welfare rifles, in case we should come across some of the native fauna. Perhaps that is a phrase that the rifle association in America could use.
I was also very privileged to join a parliamentary delegation of the Arctic Council in the Yukon, on behalf of the Lord Speaker. That was a lesson to us about the Arctic as a whole. Its size is immense: Arctic Russia is the largest area belonging to a nation state in the Arctic, but the Yukon is only one—in fact, it is the smallest—of three Canadian provinces in the far north. Its size is twice that of the United Kingdom, but its population is pretty well the same as that of my nearest town, St Austell in Cornwall: 37,000 people, of whom 28,000 live in the one city of Whitehorse, where the conference was held. It is an immense place and one that is very empty. Altogether in the Arctic there are about 4 million inhabitants, most of them in the Russian Federation, and half a million of them are indigenous tribes and populations—First Nation Indian, including all the different ethnic groups that there are around the Arctic.
The big issue in the Arctic and why that wake-up call is important is of course that of a changing climate. The committee did not get into why the climate is changing—we did not see that as part of our remit; it was perhaps rather too contentious a subject—but what is true is that the climate is changing. The average temperature has increased by 1.5 degrees centrigrade since the period 1961 to 1990, and the climate is warming at something like double the rate of temperate areas such as ours. Sea ice has halved over the past two decades in terms of area, but in terms of volume it has decreased by 75%. That difference is because, when the sea ice re-forms and is just one-year sea ice, it is much thinner, so that whole area is changing. Noble Lords will understand that melting water from the ice cap itself does not affect ocean volumes or depths, or rising sea levels; they cancel each other out. But should the Greenland ice shelf melt, we will have a sea rise of some 7 metres, or 23 feet. So again this is an important area for the United Kingdom; whatever happens in the Arctic affects the United Kingdom directly.
The governance of the Arctic is in many ways in some of the safest hands there are globally. The Arctic Council is made up of eight member states, three of them not with boundaries on the Arctic Sea and five with boundaries. The council was formed in 1996 and has grown in that time in authority and organisation, getting a secretariat that works between meetings. While we were undertaking our study, the Canadians held the chairmanship of the Arctic Council and that is now the role of the United States. We welcome very much the fact that in the Arctic region there is the rule of law, not just through the Arctic Council but through other conventions—particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—and those are areas of law by which all those nations around it abide. All the very high-profile claims on land and sea in the Arctic are based on the international convention. We welcome that very much.
The Arctic Council itself, of which the United Kingdom is one of the original observer states, is changing. We welcome one of the changes, in that it is starting to have enforceable conventions itself—one on oil spills, and another on search and rescue—showing strength of agreement and working between nations. But the other area of change is that the number of observer states is increasing greatly, so the United Kingdom is a smaller part of the whole. What is particularly interesting is who the new observer states are; they are India, China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Italy. The point is that the Asian states, the big growth states of the world, are taking an increasingly important interest and involvement in the Arctic, and we should make sure that we are not marginalised.
The committee believes that we also have an important role as a country in terms of the indigenous people, in that perhaps a by-product of the increase in observer states is the fact that the permanent representatives to the Arctic Council from each of the indigenous peoples have been marginalised in their influence. Can the UK take a role in making sure that indigenous peoples and their permanent representatives on the Arctic Council continue and increase their role in decision-making? We were particularly concerned that certain groups, primarily those from the Russian Federation, often found it very difficult to get to Arctic Council meetings, partly because of distance and communications but also because of a lack of finance. We would like to think that the UK could help in that area as well.
On the subject of Russia, two major things happened while our Select Committee was taking evidence. One of those was the Russian occupation and annexation of Crimea, and the other was the big fall in oil prices. The Crimea situation clearly changed many of the relationships among the nations of the Arctic Council. Canada took quite an aggressive stance on that move—rightly, to my mind—but it meant that some aspects of Arctic Council business became a little more difficult. However, one key thing that we say in the report is that, despite the issues around the international legality of certain actions of the Russian Federation, we must make sure as an international community that we can isolate to some degree the co-operation on science and search and rescue, as well as other areas, that take place in the Arctic area.
Our knowledge of the Arctic is severely wanting. We did not manage to get to the research station in Spitsbergen because the weather was inclement, but we had a videoconference. A large amount of research, which is reasonably co-ordinated, is taking place there, but that does not mean that we fully understand the Arctic, its ecosystems, its environment and its future. In fact, there are huge gaps in our knowledge. Therefore, one of the main areas we concentrated our report on was increased scientific research. I very much welcome the Government’s response in terms of scientific programmes to ensure that we play a bigger role in that area. We do not understand the ecology of the sea there, we do not understand the effects of permafrost, in particular, and we do not understand the risks of fisheries as the Arctic becomes more commercially exploitable. That is why we suggest very strongly that there should be a moratorium on fisheries until we understand that area of the ecosystem far better.
In terms of the environment and commercial exploitation, there is not going to be a scramble for the Arctic immediately. The costs, the distances, the remoteness and the ice still mean that commercial exploitation and use of the region is a little way off, but it is starting. This gives us an opportunity to manage that exploitation and to get the conventions into place now. That is the priority, and it is one on which the United Kingdom can help. For shipping, the north-west passage will not be the motorway of the north for many years. However, the lack of hydrographic mapping of all those areas means the risks of oil spills and search and rescue needs are high. Shell has this year withdrawn from exploring in Arctic waters, which gives us a gap and gives the international community an opportunity to lay down strong rules around oil exploration, particularly that there should be no exploration where there is sea ice. We believe that a moratorium on fisheries is important.
What about the UK’s role? We believe very strongly that the UK should keep the leading role it has had historically, but it will be displaced by other parts of the world, particularly Asian nations and the Arctic states, if we do not ensure that we are a major player within the Arctic Council. I am pleased that the Government have said that they will make sure they always have representation at political meetings of the Arctic Council. Will the Minister say at what level that representation will be?
We feel most of all that, like France, Poland, Singapore and many other countries, the UK should have an ambassador for the Arctic—not someone with a desk and a satellite phone at the North Pole, but someone with a scientific and diplomatic background who can co-ordinate the various areas in which Britain should be involved and in which it should be seen as a major player. The Government’s response said that they believe the UK’s Arctic policy is right and that it is,
“based on respect; cooperation; and leadership”.
I completely agree with those three words, but I would like them to become “leadership, respect and co-operation”. I beg to move.
Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)
My Lords, I came to the committee’s work part way through when I replaced a member of the committee. Despite the fact that I was there for only part of the time, I learned a great deal. It was one of the most informative committees I have had the good fortune to be on.
The chairman has set out extremely well the grounds that the report covers. It illuminates the state of affairs and the policies that are being pursued in a part of the globe that, frankly, does not get a great deal of attention in its own right. I thank the committee staff and the clerks for the way in which they helped us in our deliberations and calls for evidence, and I thank the chairman for the way in which he led our deliberations.
Testimony to the quality of the report came from a surprising source—well, perhaps not surprising but certainly unexpected. I was asked not long ago to speak at a meeting in Helsinki about the Arctic. I was the only non-Arctic state speaker. It was quite obvious that I was there because of the committee’s report, which it was clear the participants had read and considered to be a well-balanced, positive and helpful contribution. They very much welcomed the fact that attention had been paid to the issues that concerned them. If I detected anything that was less than totally positive, it was that they wished not that the quality or direction of the UK’s policy would change but that it would do more. We are viewed as one of the most positive and active of the non-Arctic state contributors. Nevertheless, the fact that we are regarded so well means that people would certainly like to see more from us.
Our chairman has given the House a good conspectus of the ground that we covered, which was quite extensive. It included economic development, fishing, hydrocarbon exploration, indigenous peoples and so on, and I am sure that other members of the committee will speak on those aspects with rather greater authority than me. I just want to make a couple of observations about the committee’s work before I say something about science, about which I very much agree with what the chairman has just said.
One of the things I would say about the Arctic is that the way it has developed up to now has often been the outcome of policies that have been pursued without necessarily any regard to their effects on the Arctic region, or alternatively have been pursued for their own ends with sometimes unwanted effects on the Arctic. It is quite obvious that climate change falls into that category. People did not really talk about climate change because of its effects in the Arctic; the Arctic, on the other hand, has been the taker of quite a lot of those effects, and we need to be careful that we do not allow that situation, with changing water and so on, to have damaging effects that go wider than the Arctic itself, quite apart from what is happening there.
There is also the fact that policies pursued for other reasons produce cross-currents and tensions in the Arctic itself. Take some of the aspects of economic development done without necessarily reflecting on the effects on the ecosystems and the ecology of the area. Similarly, one could point to things such as the ban on seal culling. No doubt that was done for good reasons and with laudable values but it has an effect on the indigenous inhabitants and their culture, and indeed on their way of life and prosperity, since seals are something that they used to sell. We need to think rather more widely about whether it is right to deprive people of traditional ways of life, and indeed we need to offer them a say in such decisions, which certainly they did not have in this case.
Obviously the Arctic is not going to stand still. I am not suggesting at all that it should not have further economic development, and it will certainly be greatly changed if and when the two sea passages—the north-east passage and the north-west passage—ever become high roads for international shipping. We took a great deal of evidence showing that that is not an immediate prospect for all sorts of reasons, including the difficulty of ensuring safety. There is only a small number of ships in the world that are equipped to sail into such waters. Nevertheless, there will be further development.
The implication that follows from what I have just said is that it is very important in future to consider the Arctic in its own right. It ought to be the case that when one talks about a policy, the effects in the Arctic should feature. I therefore welcome, as the chairman did, the Government’s commitment to attend future meetings of the Arctic Council at political level. I am as curious as he is to know precisely what that means—what level of person one can expect to attend. Does it mean that we will get occasional Ministers? I would also like to ask for reassurance from the Government that in future, when thinking about, say, shipping policy or climate change, the effects on the Arctic are embedded in the policy-making process and are not something that come as an afterthought or a side-consideration, possibly when something unwanted and undesirable has happened. So let us try, if we can, to get the Arctic further into the centre of policy-making.
My second brief comment is on Russia. Our chairman has mentioned some of the issues that we dealt with, and the Russian ambassador has written to him about the report in a letter which I must say I regard as largely positive. There is more than a hint in the letter that the committee failed to take into account Russia’s extensive interests and the contribution that she makes to Arctic issues. I say to the Russian ambassador that it is a pity that he did not take up the offer of giving evidence; the report is poorer for not having a Russian input. We need to be careful, as some commentators—not the committee—have suggested that Russian is introducing a great deal of militarisation into the Arctic area. There has certainly been military activity, but one has to realise that the Russians are the largest Arctic power, as the chairman said, and have extensive interests there. There has been a certain securitisation of their interests there, but I would not want to accuse them of militarisation.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
Can the noble Baroness say whether there is any mention of the programme to dismantle ex-Soviet submarines and their ice-breakers, and the impact of that? I have not read the full report as yet.
Baroness Neville-Jones
No, we do not deal with that aspect at all—we do not cover a great deal of the military activity. I am talking about issues that we know are taking place, but they are not covered in the report.
Lord West of Spithead
I was thinking in terms of the pollution of that area, which was the reason we funded a programme with the USA and Norway, and I wondered if that was covered at all.
Baroness Neville-Jones
I do not think, subject to correction from our chairman, that it is covered. However, one of the things that the report does is open up a number of areas that we could fruitfully discuss with the Russians. A great deal of additional co-operation could take place not only between Russia and the Arctic Council but between Russia and other countries that are interested in the Arctic and have knowledge of it. We could develop co-operation with the Russians in this area, and I think there is a future for such co-operation. It is a hopeful and positive sign that the Arctic Coast Guard Forum has now come into being and the Russians are included. I hope they will be very active and pursue a policy—which, certainly on the western side, we would like to see—of trying to insulate the Arctic from wider disagreements.
I am running out of time, but I want to say just one thing about our scientific effort. What really distinguishes the UK contribution, and which is distinctive in its own right, is our scientific contribution to the understanding of the Arctic. I hope very much that we can major on that area. I accept that resources are limited, and I do not expect the Government to pour a great deal more into it, but I suggest that we could make more of what we do. Majoring on an area of strength, where small increments give considerable added value, is the way to proceed. The Government made a number of suggestions, particularly regarding one of the research councils which is thinking of doing a piece on the changing Arctic Ocean. I hope very much that the Government will encourage it to do so and that some of the “options” that it lists as things that they might consider will turn into policy intentions and goals.
I agree with the chairman that the Government are missing a trick in not accepting the committee’s recommendation to have a UK ambassador for the Arctic—I do not mean someone sitting at a desk. It would help bring together the strands of what are necessarily rather disparate areas of policy; it would give focus and would give other nations a door to knock on and a telephone to call. It would help to raise our profile—we do not get as much credit for what we contribute as we could. We could blow our trumpet a little more with the help of an individual nominated to do that.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)
My Lords, I should like to compliment the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on his diplomatic chairing of the committee and his energy, as well as the excellent work of the staff. One of the staff members—the clerk—took the nice photograph on the front. We had a bit of a discussion about what should be on it—some people thought there should be beautiful mountains and clouds, and I said we had to have people as well.
The Select Committee report is based on much excellent expert evidence from the UK and internationally. The theme of the report is the extraordinary importance of the large changes of the Arctic environment and their impact on the globe. I am afraid that after my years of experience of these reports, I was expecting the usual “steady as you go, there’s no more money” response from the Government, so this response has been quite positive. I would give it a good alpha/beta. Departments have clearly worked together and seen the need for new approaches, even though not much extra money will be available.
The report emphasises the maximum warming of the atmosphere that occurs over the Arctic and, in one or two special areas, the Antarctic. But neither the report nor the government response pointed out the relatively recent scientific discovery as to why these temperature patterns affect the global weather patterns. Neither did they mention the conclusion of the Royal Society polar conference last year that only by a massive reduction of global emissions will the Arctic possibly be restored. Paragraph 7 of the Government’s response is certainly emphatic. A key objective is national and international polar research, which should include the excellent work done in Russia. Anyone who has visited Russian institutions knows the rigour of their science and the ferocity of their questioning. UK scientists have been visiting Russia, as has the Royal Society. The important point about this research, as explained in the Government’s response, is to measure and predict the melting of the permafrost on the polar lands of Russia, Canada and Alaska. The reason it is so serious is that as it melts, it leads to a huge release of methane. There is no precise estimate of the effect of this release on global temperature, but various approximate calculations indicate that it should be at least another degree or more.
I hope that the Minister will make it clear that the Met Office Hadley Centre, along with NERC, is collaborating with other major research centres to develop global climate models so that by the time of the next International Panel on Climate Change model in a few years’ time, there will be definite intercomparisons between the models of the global effects of the melting of the permafrost and release of the methane. You might ask: why has this not been done already? The answer is that the United States chairman of the Arctic climate impact assessment programme in 2003 stopped it being done. There was a very distinguished American scientist who said, “You shouldn’t be doing this because we don’t know enough about it”. However, the fact is that scientists have to do calculations and studies and make predictions even when things are not certain.
I was in Norway last week helping with the review of the Arctic environment research in that country, much of which, I am glad to say, was being conducted with UK institutions—a point made in the report. It was very surprising to me that there was not a strong commitment in the programme to model the melting of the permafrost. Indeed, when the media reported on our Select Committee report, they did not pick up on this either, so I am afraid that we have to be a bit boring and keep going on about it.
However, it was very gratifying to see our Norwegian colleagues planning to join the German-Russian collaboration in Arctic research. It is vital that the Government fund this urgent research programme and, as I said, there are indications in their response that they are doing so. Perhaps they will also consider practical solutions, which are not mentioned.
The Government, in paragraphs 13 to 16, respond to the Select Committee’s concern that the UK has not been as active and influential in the deliberations of the Arctic Council and its committees as other countries with observer status, such as Singapore. In fact, non-governmental organisations that have observer status, such as the UK-based ACOPS— the Advisory Committee on Protection of the Sea, which was originally set up by Lord Callaghan and of which I am president—are also active in linking UK activities with those of other countries on the Arctic Council. I believe that if we do not have an ambassador or an ambassador’s office, there should at least be a rather more positive mechanism for exchanging the activities of the various groups in the UK which participate in Arctic Council activities. At the moment there is no such organisation but I believe that it would be quite straightforward to organise.
There is also an important case for a more active role for UK diplomacy in the Arctic, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, will talk about this. However, there is a scientific aspect that I should like to mention. The UK should work with other countries in the Arctic Council and in the EU towards the EU joining the Arctic Council, even as an observer. One might ask why the EU is not an observer. This will happen only if the EU stops trying to tell the Arctic people about their traditional customs, including the hunting of seals. In very powerful video conference evidence, the committee heard from a political representative of the Canadian Inuits. So my question to the Government is: what is the UK doing to open up this issue and to understand the complex nature of traditional activities and natural life in the Arctic?
A more immediate diplomatic issue is the future of fisheries in the Arctic, which has also been mentioned. Rightly, this concerns the UK fishing industry because of the northward movement of the fishing grounds as the sea ice melts in the summer periods. The UK is a member of international bodies such as OSPAR, which is based in London. I should like to know from the Minister what proactive ideas the Government have. The government response in paragraph 87 about the defence and marine security and associated capabilities of the UK and the Arctic is very weak, given the strong criticism that the committee heard of cutting the aircraft survey of the northern waters—a criticism made by a junior Minister, Mr Brazier. It was also made by a representative of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, who talked about the now weak air-sea research capability. Last November, the Sunday Times reported on current arguments in the MoD about buying or not buying a US aircraft system. This is a critical issue and I think that the Government need to be much stronger in this area. Much closer collaboration with other countries is needed as part of the multibillion-pound expenditure in naval ships above and below the water—to be diplomatic—that the UK is involved with.
The final paragraph of the report, paragraph 90, refers to the important role of the Hydrographic Office. That will be particularly essential in mapping the Arctic Ocean, which is rather a shallow sea often only 10 metres deep. Such mapping will be vital for the Arctic shipping route. The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office has a unique global role.
The noble Lord, Lord West, who was here earlier, commented on the nuclear environment, especially nuclear pollution. This was discussed by the committee. The UK was involved, along with NGOs such as ACOPS, but this is still a dangerous area.
Lord Oxburgh (CB)
My Lords, I, too, want to begin by recognising the contribution of our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who did a great job, and that of our clerk, Susannah Street, who kept us on the straight and narrow even in some rather curious and perilous places.
I will talk largely about science, but various aspects of this have been talked about already and I shall try to avoid repetition. It is important to remind colleagues that the Arctic and Antarctic are almost exact antitheses, in so far as the Antarctic is a large continental mass surrounded by ocean, and the Arctic Ocean is almost landlocked because it is surrounded by sovereign states, many of which are to a large extent covered by permanent ice and snow. As your Lordships have heard, this region is warming up and the area covered by sea ice is becoming less. It is not less every year; what one sees is a sawtooth up and down, with some years an increase and some years a decrease, but there is no doubt that the blade of the sawtooth is tilted downwards and that, on average, the sea ice is becoming less both in volume and in area. The August sea temperature in the Arctic Ocean is now about three degrees higher than it was towards the end of the last century. Basically, this reflects global climate change, with local amplifications which are not really understood—that does not mean there are not explanations, but as yet there is no full or generally accepted explanation. These changes have a series of direct consequences, both for the littoral communities and for the biota.
I suppose that a question could reasonably be asked: why should the UK be involved in Arctic science? It is not sufficient justification, although it would be a true statement, that we have a long and proud tradition of Arctic research: a combination of exploration and science work. The Arctic area is of particular interest for the reasons already touched on by several noble Lords: that it is warming several times faster than other parts of the globe and plays a key role in both ocean circulation systems and atmospheric circulation.
New science, new studies, have become feasible for the first time because of the reduction in ice area. Places can now be reached and studies carried out for longer than was previously possible. This work has the virtue of both being worthwhile science in its own right and having a great many practical applications. The warming and reduction in ice affect the flora and fauna and marine life, but, of course, open up the Arctic to much more human activity as well. Human activity in the Arctic can have implications and consequences far outside the Arctic, so it is of significance to us as well.
We all know that humans pollute. They traffic across the Arctic and they throw away waste on a large scale, be it the abandonment of old nuclear submarines or icebreakers, the domestic waste associated with onshore activity, and broad commercial activity such as drilling for oil, mining and so on. In other words, humans introduce a significant and previously unexperienced perturbation to Arctic life. If we are to study this, what we must have is some kind of baseline so we can recognise changes, and those baseline studies for the Arctic are not really there yet. That has to be one of our highest priorities because without a baseline, you do not know what is happening. If we then look at the activities being carried on by humans, we may well find that those we expected to have an effect the biota in fact have very little, whereas others produce much greater consequences than we expected.
The other general reason for the need to maintain our scientific activity has been touched on by several speakers already. We have observer status on the Arctic Council, but we can no longer take that for granted. Observer status has to be renewed periodically, but there are now many more competitors for it. Before long, the Arctic Council is going to have to wonder how many observers it can actually have.
Let us turn to what the UK has done and is still doing. I commented earlier on the UK tradition of research in the Arctic, which has been largely academic. In general in the UK, academic research is reflected in a series of individual scientific workers or groups pursuing their own chosen problems, in many cases with little coherence between different projects and very little external visibility. In the changing scenario which has already been described, that is probably not good enough, but I am glad to say that as far as the UK is concerned, things are changing. There has been a big expansion of the available informal collaborative fora, an extension of the remit of the British Antarctic Survey a few years back to include the Arctic, and the establishment by the Natural Environment Research Council of an Arctic office which happens to be located in the British Antarctic Survey, with the role of co-ordinating UK work. All this is welcome. Moreover, I understand that efforts are being made to recruit the first purpose-appointed director for the office, which is also a welcome step forward. But as has been pointed out, the Arctic is vast and there is a lot to do, so collaboration is essential. The appearance in the past couple of years of the European Union in the form of the EU-PolarNet consortium—another network that promotes and supports collaboration—is welcome.
Finally, let me turn to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. The Arctic Council has a significant interest in scientific research and related topics. Most of the practical work is done by working groups, task forces and expert groups. There are working groups on Arctic contaminants, the protection of the marine environment, and emergency prevention and response. There is a task force on scientific co-operation and expert groups on black carbon and methane. But the trouble is that UK representation on these groups has been patchy and unco-ordinated, and it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that before a meeting of one of these groups is held, a sort of round robin is sent out to parties that might be interested, asking who would like to go—“If you are not too busy; and by the way, you are going to pay your own expenses”. This is no way, frankly, to prosecute a UK Arctic research policy. We have to have a clear policy, which probably has to be developed between the Arctic office of NERC and the FCO. It has to be clear which of these fora we are going to have a regular presence in and the reason for doing so. This will help us to understand climate change. We need to understand the human impact and it is important to establish the baselines for change.
The prospects are good for higher profile, more co-ordinated UK Arctic science. As noble Lords have pointed out, there is now a forward looking NERC programme, which should help. To what extent does the Minister feel we will now be able to regularise and achieve appropriate representation on the Arctic Council’s sub-bodies?
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking four individuals, without whose contributions we could not have produced the report we are debating today: the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who was an outstanding chair; Susannah Street, senior clerk to the committee; Matthew Smith, who ably assisted her; and Professor Klaus Dodds, who defied many a Select Committee precedent by proving the committee right in appointing him from a strong list of original candidates. The work undertaken by this quartet was exceptional.
For the committee’s formal work, I supplemented my interests by travelling, in a personal capacity, to meet a wide range of experts in Oslo and St Petersburg on a number of occasions. My interest lay in the way in which Norway manages its relationship with Russia, what we could learn from that and, particularly, how both countries approach the development of their substantial oil and gas reserves in the Arctic. No consideration of the importance of the Arctic, seen through the prism of environmental change, global warming, scientific, political, strategic or defence policies, can be complete without a full appreciation of Russia and its objectives for the region. The current permanent secretary of the oil and gas ministry in Oslo, Elisabeth Berge, highlighted the truism that you can never sweepingly describe the Arctic in general terms—the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, has just made the same point. The Arctic is exceptionally diverse: although parts are covered by ice, other Arctic oil and gas developments, such as the huge 193 billion cubic metre Snøvhit field in the Barents Sea, where the Gulf Stream keeps the hostile conditions free of ice all year round, pose very different challenges. These challenges are similar to the hostile water conditions which impact our own oil and gas activities in the northern North Sea.
In St Petersburg, I was indebted to Artur Chilingarov, the doyen of the Russian Arctic community, whose planting of a titanium flag in 2007, from one of the two Mir submersibles on the seabed 13,980 feet below the North Pole, gained widespread international coverage, not least in strengthening Russian territorial claims—as the Russian Government saw it—and reinforcing the importance of the Arctic in the consciousness of the Russian people. I would also like to place on record my thanks to Professor Litvinenko, rector of the university of mines in St Petersburg, and to rector and academician Alexander Zapesotsky from the St Petersburg University of the Humanities and Social Sciences, for the access to experts which they facilitated; and to Victor Boyarsky, director of the museum of the Arctic and Antarctic, with whom I had lengthy discussions.
I will come back to some reflections on Russia. During my work on the Select Committee, I declared my interest as a director of Rowan Companies, a major international offshore drilling company, which has gained an enviable reputation for technical excellence and the strongest emphasis on safety. After 19 years, I have now retired. Today, Rowan’s CEO, Dr Thomas Burke, has few equals in the sector. He is vice-chair of a very important body in the context of the Arctic: the International Association of Drilling Contractors. The IADC is on record as having a task force responsible for delivering a safe working environment in the Arctic. Its work supplements the work on oil spill response in the Arctic undertaken by the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association, which is working on the critical area of spill response in the Arctic offshore.
IPIECA has highlighted considerations to ensure responsible future drilling operations in the Arctic. In 2014, the Arctic Council’s task force on oil pollution prevention announced its HSE case guidelines and activities related to well control and training. Day by day, I believe, this work makes the Arctic an increasingly safe environment for oil and gas activity. Why? It is because the key to future safe operations in the Arctic lies in the ability to evaluate and to seek continuously to improve spill prevention technology, well control, containment and response infrastructure specific to drilling in the Arctic environment. Hardly any of this work needs to be proprietary. We should continue to share oil spill prevention commitment and response technology advances on a global and international basis.
As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was right in stating, our report focused on the fact that the current downturn in world oil prices provided an opportunity for allowing operators and supply and service companies to focus yet further on the key areas of safety, environmental protection, regulation, oil spill prevention and response preparedness. In doing so, I believe that the committee was right to recognise the sheer scale of the Arctic in global hydrocarbon activity, where around 10% of global oil production and 25% of gas production takes place, with 97% of this oil and gas production coming from onshore fields in Russia and Alaska, the clear majority of which are in Russia. Oil prices are cyclical and will come back. When they reach the levels we witnessed in 2008, the Arctic will represent a return of frontier exploration, which is what upstream oil companies do best, but they must use this opportunity to focus on safety and the environmental challenges, which are essential if that is to be sanctioned and licensed.
In the mean time, climate change in the Arctic is predicted to have two decisive outcomes: the economic exploitation of 25% of the world’s remaining natural resources; and the gradual opening up of the northern sea route, which, while far from commercial today, was still projected by some to become a global trade route, shortening sea transport times around the globe by as much as a third in some cases. In this context—I am glad that this has already been mentioned in the debate—we should not underestimate the directional change and the high importance that China attaches to the surfacing benefits of engaging with Russia in the Arctic for shipping, energy resources and, especially, Russian gas. Withdrawal from Alaskan drilling by Shell does not strengthen the case for a moratorium in the Arctic. It simply highlights that this is a business and, at current and near-term foreseeable prices, the cost involved did not match the benefit.
I believe that the Arctic Council should be seen as centrally important and unique. It should be nurtured and strongly supported by government. We should contribute more to the core business of the council and offer our services and financial support to the many vital environmental, scientific and strategic initiatives that it undertakes. We should continue to strive to be respected supporters. We should always respect the fact that we are not an Arctic nation, but as a near neighbour we have as much at stake as we did during the Second World War, when the Arctic and specifically the Norwegian and Barents Seas became significant strategic theatres.
Having focused on hydrocarbon development and the Arctic Council, I finally turn to Russia. Regional security co-operation and the security architecture lag behind political, environmental, scientific and economic co-operation in the Arctic. Duncan Depledge from Royal Holloway, University of London, told us:
“The biggest challenge facing international governance in the region concerns how relations are managed between Russia and the other Arctic states”.
The Arctic is an intrinsic part of the Russian soul, history and identity. Any plausible policy for the Arctic should start by fully engaging with Russia in the region. This can be best achieved by our Government through a foreign policy towards Russia that is built on compartmentalisation.
Russia has the longest Arctic coastline and an extensive exclusive economic zone. It would be surprising if it did not claim a legitimate right to expand its military presence in the Arctic maritime region. I do not believe that current developments are an attempt to regain the influence that Russia once held in the Soviet era. I do not see the Russians as pushing a “sphere of influence” policy in a way that could threaten neighbouring states. Understandably, current bilateral and multilateral relations impede progress on this front and colour our thinking, yet collaboration with Russia is essential to the UK as a near neighbour state to the Arctic. Through a policy of compartmentalisation, we can collaborate with Russia if we are to see essential progress on a broader front, including in our relations with Iran, the future of Syria, the resultant refugee crisis, and the success or otherwise of ISIL in the region.
In the summer of 2012 Russia re-established a permanent military presence in the Arctic, and evidence provided to us by Dr Andrew Foxall says that it has,
“increased the Northern Fleet’s forces, including commissioning a new icebreaker fleet and developing new nuclear attack submarines; modernised its forces in the three military districts that border the Arctic … including creating new Arctic brigades; begun constructing a missile early-warning radar in the Arctic, and re-opened Soviet-era military bases in the Arctic”.
Some witnesses saw these developments as instances of military restoration rather than expansion, arguing that Russia was investing in renewing its military presence to a far lesser extent that it had done during the Cold War, at a time when countries such as Canada, Denmark and Norway have also invested in their Arctic military capabilities and upgraded command structures in recent years. I interpret the build-up as “securitisation”. Throughout the region, tasks such as aerial surveillance, anti-smuggling inspections, fisheries monitoring, patrolling, search and rescue, and assistance with oil spill response efforts, fall to the armed forces because they have a near monopoly on the training, equipment and capabilities necessary to operate in Arctic conditions. Russia aims to make the Arctic its,
“foremost strategic base for natural resources”,
by 2020. To do so it must invest in both economic infrastructure and the military means to police an enormous region being restored to national economic centrality.
One perverse consequence of the current round of sanctions is that, if people want the safest technology in place to protect those who work on the oil and gas rigs and the environment in which they work, the best way to achieve this objective is collaboration with the West. The oil service technology at the disposal of Houston and Aberdeen-based companies ranks among the safest in the world. It is in our mutual interest to co-operate on this front and not impose sanctions in the oil and gas sector, where they impact on increasing safe and environmentally sensitive operations. The Government’s response to our report that,
“Despite Russian actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the Government remains committed to cooperating with Russia on Arctic issues”,
is therefore welcome, and I look forward to the Minister expanding on that point.
Finally, I believe that the work of the Arctic Council would be strengthened by our recommendation to appoint a British ambassador responsible for closer co-ordination and a raised profile for the area, and for the issues we have covered—possibly for both poles. That would bring more financial support and prove more effective in drawing together the myriad lines of communication—scientific, academic, trade and political—which tie us, as the Arctic’s nearest neighbour, to this important part of the world. The UK has a hub of Arctic expertise—a fact that we learnt more about every week that we met—and a focus on significant information and expertise, which should be put to good use and offered for the benefit of the Arctic Council, the relevant Governments and the indigenous people. An ambassador would mean the need for a policy, for priority, for urgency, for commitment and for adequate resources. That should be the first and most positive step forward towards closer engagement with all members of the Arctic Council and all interested parties.
Lord Soley (Lab)
My Lords, I second the thanks to our chairman who showed not only the usual skills of chairmanship of a Select Committee but also very great commitment to the work of the body. I also identify myself with the comments about the staff, who were all excellent. The clerk, Susannah Street, has a second career beckoning as a photographer—although I might want to delete the photograph of me trying to stay upright on an ice sheet, dressed in full Arctic clothing. Indeed, I might pay a substantial sum to delete that.
The Arctic is changing, as has been indicated very clearly. Over the past few weeks I have talked to some oil people and the general view is that oil prices will not recover to where they were until the end of next year at least, and possibly later, and possibly will not recover to a level which makes the Arctic an attractive proposition, because the cost of drilling there will be so very much greater than in other areas. That is an important point. Having said that, we should not be blind to the enormous resources in the Arctic—everything from fish to rare earths, as several noble Lords have mentioned. China is showing great interest in rare earths and the opportunities for rare earth mining in that area are very important. The growth of interest in the Arctic, not just in shipping but in mining, fishing and tourism is very great.
On tourism, one thing that troubled us a little was that if a tourist ship got into serious trouble there, the problems associated with rescue would be very considerable. Because the area is so vast and difficult, there have been incidents, most of which have been dealt with fairly easily, but one of the things I would certainly like to see, and which I hope will be fully addressed, is the replacement of our maritime patrol aircraft, as suggested in the strategic defence review. We do not have it at the moment and we ought to have it. I know that we can rely on other NATO countries but we really need to have our own maritime patrol aircraft operating in the area. Tourism will grow and, as it grows, there needs to be emphasis on protecting the environment. Mention was made earlier of people throwing waste away or generally despoiling the area. There is also the rescue issue, to which I referred.
Governance is one of the most important aspects. We were all very impressed by the Arctic Council. It is working very well and we have a close relationship with it. However, we could build on that very considerably. Several members of our committee have great scientific knowledge. It is clear that some of the best work that Britain can do is on science. We have a great scientific reputation which is well recognised by other Arctic countries which are keen to work with us. Indeed, it is interesting that there were expressions of interest in working more closely with the United Kingdom in a number of areas. Iceland was interested in working with us on search and rescue, for example, and a number of other issues we thought were important.
We gave great thought to the question of Russia. It is a great pity that the Russian ambassador did not come and give evidence. Since then he has sent the chairman a letter, which is helpful but again it leaves you with the feeling that Russia is still holding back and is anxious about being involved. There is almost a feeling of an inferiority complex, and yet Russia controls a vast area and is doing some incredibly good science. The one thing you can say about Russia is that the quality of its science is very good and there are opportunities for us to work together.
I wish to make the following point very strongly. I am absolutely clear about the need to have made the response that we did over Ukraine. However, I listened to a speech by Condoleezza Rice, the former American Secretary of State under George Bush, making the point very forcefully, with which I agree, that although that was understandable and necessary, it was vital that we continued to work closely with the Russians in other areas. Science and the Arctic is one such area and we have to separate in our minds the actions of the current Russian Government from those of the Russian people as a whole and Russian institutions, particularly scientific institutions and universities, which would like to work closer with us. It is difficult for them to do so at times, but wherever possible we ought to encourage that and develop it as much as we can. I was very pleased to read in the Government’s response that they are going to organise an international conference at Wilton Park next year. That will be very important and something that we can develop and usefully build on.
I want to mention the indigenous people again. We met a number of these people. It is a question not just of protecting their rights, important though that is, but of recognising their knowledge of and skills in the area. One of the women, who was a key organiser for the group, actually herded reindeer for half the year and did her work for the indigenous people in the other half. We all felt that although it would be too intrusive for the United Kingdom to fund them directly, we could offer help in some way; for example, as the Government seem to suggest, in terms of educational opportunities at British universities, or in terms of funding particular activities for them from time to time.
It was very clear that the indigenous peoples’ groups were underfunded. The Russian one was particularly underfunded; I think the Russians are still struggling with the concept of whether there can be an interest for their own indigenous people as opposed to all Russian people being the same. It is not like that and the other members of the Arctic Council, ourselves and others, all recognise that indigenous people have a particular role. Here we have another interest in common with the Russians; that is, so many British companies are involved there that we have to be aware of the rights of the indigenous people when British mining companies or others start to work in the area. It is important both for the protection of the area and the rights of those people.
The most important issue, which the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has just commented on—and we have all commented on—is that we recommended that there be an ambassador for the Arctic. The Government have turned their face against that. I understand that and respect their decision. But I say this to the Minister: please do not close the door on that completely. As our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, pointed out, all these other countries—India, China, Singapore—are moving into the area and developing associations. It may be only a matter of time before they start appointing ambassadors and we might find that we are running behind if we do not do something similar. Whether that is right or wrong, I simply say to the Government: do not close the door on that opportunity just yet.
When the Government turned down the suggestion of a United Kingdom ambassador in the Arctic, they indicated that they understood the problem we were identifying—that our policy was too often reactive rather than proactive and that therefore we needed a better strategic response to it. The Government specifically mentioned that in their response. If we are not going down the road of the ambassador, that strategic response is crucial. If they do not make that come alive and be a really effective strategic response, we will fall behind again. I think we were all impressed by the lady from the Arctic department in the Foreign Office. She was very good and she was on top of her job. When we see that, we see the opportunity there for the United Kingdom to do more than we are doing. The British reputation in the Arctic, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, indicated, is very good, not just because of our history but because of the science that we do.
Finally, I have yet to understand how we are going to divide the polar research ship between the Arctic and the Antarctic—whether the front half goes to the Arctic and the back half goes to the Antarctic. I am not quite sure how this is going to be done. I would welcome some indication from the Government of how they plan to use it, presumably over a period of time, in both the Arctic and Antarctic. There is a very interesting question, which the committee dwelled on but we have not discussed much today, about how much we could make what we do in the Arctic and the Antarctic—with the British Antarctic survey, for example—one and the same. There are arguments around that which I do not want to get into now, even if I had the time. But this is important when we have something like the polar ship, which we must use in the best way we can because it is a very advanced ship, as I understand the proposal.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
My Lords, as one of the very few speakers this afternoon not to have served on the committee, I must congratulate it and my noble friend Lord Teverson, its chairman, on producing such an interesting report. I have learnt a great deal more this afternoon by listening to contributions from members of the committee.
I want to make a short intervention on what I think my noble friend Lord Teverson referred to tangentially as an enforceable convention—it does not exist yet. My interest in this subject began when I visited Nova Scotia in 2008 and went to Thinkers’ Lodge, which is run by the Canadian Pugwash Group, the Nobel laureate group that does a lot of work on peace. In 2007, it produced a very interesting report on the Arctic as a nuclear weapons-free zone. This was in response to the push from the indigenous people of the Arctic in 1977, 1983 and 1998 to have the issue considered. It is perhaps a worthy addendum to this report to mention this subject.
It was unfortunate timing that a very wide survey of Arctic Council populations was published in April 2015, by which time the committee had finished taking its evidence and the report was published, but it is worth sharing some of the conclusions from that survey. The question was whether:
“The Arctic should be a nuclear weapons free zone just like Antarctica is, and the United States and Russia should remove their nuclear weapons from the Arctic”.
To give your Lordships a flavour of the responses, in Sweden the population surveyed was 90% in favour of that proposal. In Finland and Iceland it was 88%, and so on. The percentages obviously varied in that 2015 survey but when a similar question was put into 2010, the responses were more or less between 70% and 80%, so considerable support is growing for this idea. Very surprisingly—it certainly surprised me—even in Russia, support for it was 68% and in the USA it was 67%. Since Antarctica has been a nuclear weapons-free zone since 1961, the idea certainly has a strong precedent. For the Russians, as long ago as 1958 Premier Bulganin proposed that the Arctic should be a zone free of atomic and hydrogen weapons. That idea was also explored later by President Gorbachev in 1987.
I wanted to intervene briefly to throw that issue into the mix because it really concerns the Arctic Council, which bothered to have that survey done. The results are so positive that it merits much further serious consideration. As one of the nuclear weapon states, the UK is in a position to progress these discussions as well. There were a couple of mentions of some of the threats from nuclear weapons—not only the obvious issues but that of pollution, which the noble Lord, Lord West, mentioned when he intervened. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, also mentioned them. This bears further discussion. I think the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, also mentioned Wilton Park. I do not know what that discussion will produce but perhaps this idea might be taken further there.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, speaking as a member of the committee which prepared the report we are debating today, it would, I suspect, be unduly complacent of me to comment on its quality. However, I pay tribute to our chair, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who guided our sometimes somewhat wayward discussions with great skill and has admirably introduced the report today. I also pay tribute to our clerks and our special adviser, who supported our work so effectively.
Reporting on Britain’s response to a changing Arctic was a worthwhile exercise for this House to undertake, and it was right to appoint an ad hoc committee to do it. The changes taking place in the Arctic, mainly as a result of global warming, are running ahead of us at an unprecedented rate, and Britain’s policy, as the Arctic’s nearest neighbour, needs to adapt too. I am not quite sure, judging by the Government’s response to our requests, that they have fully grasped all the implications, or the great speed at which these changes are taking place. The evidence that we took soon brought home to us how much less straightforward handling the Arctic is than one might have supposed at the outset. For one thing, there is rather more hype about everything to do with the Arctic than is entirely justified—for example, about the speed at which new shipping routes will be established and the rapidity with which the Arctic’s mineral resources can or will be developed.
There are far more differences between the Arctic and the Antarctic than there are similarities. One is an expanse of frozen sea; the other is a land-mass. Apart from scientists, Antarctica is uninhabited, whereas in the Arctic there are 4 million or so inhabitants. The Antarctic is governed by a full international treaty regime, which is already in place; there is the possibility of such a regime in the Arctic but, partly because of the two differences I have referred to, that kind of approach, attractive though it might seem at first glance, is unlikely to be suitable.
The Government’s response to our report was, in many respects, welcome and supportive of our recommendations. Particularly welcome is the clear recognition of the desirability of sustaining co-operation among the Arctic states amid the current mini-cold war over Russia’s activities in Crimea and Ukraine. The global common goods of the Arctic can be satisfactorily managed only through a process of international co-operation. That needs to include the European Union as an observer, so I hope that Russia will soon overcome its hesitations in that respect, which are rather short-sighted, just as the Canadians have already done.
I will touch on three specific subjects in more detail: hydrocarbons, fisheries and the UK’s role in all this. The present trend in oil prices, particularly if it is sustained, is likely to slow exploration for oil and gas and, even more so, exploitation of it. Shell’s recent announcement that it is ceasing work in offshore Alaska demonstrates that very clearly. We are right to welcome that pause as a good thing, but it will be a good thing only if the companies and the regulatory authorities continue their research into handling the risks of operating in the Arctic. We were not convinced that enough had been done yet to reduce those risks and to strengthen the response capacity to any accident.
The Government’s response to our recommendations on fisheries—about fishing in the area of high seas not covered by any national regime—seems to me both inadequate and, by now, completely out of date. It is inadequate because paragraph 63 suggests that the best way to deal with this is through the negotiation of a new implementing agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which is designed to protect marine biology in areas beyond national jurisdictions.
Judging from practical experience of negotiating about UNCLOS, that could involve a very long delay and many complexities, covering as it would many parts of the world even more sensitive than the Arctic, so that is not a good route to go down. It is completely out of date, because the five Arctic littoral states all agreed in July this year to impose a moratorium on their fishing in these waters and have invited other interested states to join discussion about a possible regulatory regime. That is surely a far better approach than the Government’s preferred one, and a good deal less likely to replicate the experience elsewhere in the world, where the regulation of fisheries tends to be agreed only after extensive damage has been done to fish stocks.
I hope the Minister can respond to these questions: will the Government be responding positively to the invitation of the Arctic littoral states to join their discussion of a regulatory regime for fisheries in the Arctic high seas? Will they encourage the European Union to do so too? Meanwhile, will the Government subscribe to a moratorium until a regulatory regime is agreed?
That brings me to the whole matter of UK policy and its future role in the Arctic. I cannot resist saying that reading the Government’s response to our report made me wonder whether some hitherto non-broadcast script for “Yes Minister” had been unearthed. Thus, with the right hand, in paragraph 13, the Government state that they,
“will send representation to all future political level”—
note the adjective, carefully tested in “Yes Minister” exchanges—
“meetings of the Arctic Council”,
and, with the left hand, in paragraphs 25 and 63, they state that they will represent UK interests,
“at priority Arctic Council working group meetings, where resources permit”.
I am afraid to say that Sir Humphrey would have been proud of that piece of tergiversation; I think the Government should be less so.
As to the Government’s rejection of our proposal for the appointment of a UK ambassador as special representative to the Arctic, along with previous speakers, I am deeply disappointed. The resource issues prayed in aid of that rejection surely should not be the only consideration—although obviously they have to be given due weight. Even if they are, perhaps the Minister could kindly tell the House just what the added cost of making such an appointment would be, so that we have some idea of what it entails, and just what the supposedly inadequate added value of appointing such an ambassador would be. If we do not know what the figures are, we cannot tell whether they are right. Perhaps he could give us both those figures.
As one who filled a post of special representative for seven years, I assure the Minister that the added costs—that is, the amount I was paid—were pretty modest. In any case, as several other noble Lords have said, I hope that the Government will agree to review that regrettable decision. I do not think it measures up to the requirements of the situation.
I have two final thoughts. Is it really not worth considering some way of levying a charge on Arctic tourism so that a contribution is made to the excessive costs of providing adequate search and rescue facilities? People who go on tour to the Arctic are not normally among the lower deciles in income of our population. Although it is helpful of the Government to offer possible periodic updates to the Liaison Committee of this House, what on earth can the Liaison Committee do when it gets them? That is one small part of the case for establishing an international committee of the House, which I trust we will return to rather shortly, and on which I hope there will be a positive decision.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
My Lords, I often wonder why many people show little concern in the face of the impending catastrophe of global warming. I am reminded of a fundamental dichotomy in human perceptions to which Voltaire famously drew attention. In 1757, Voltaire published an influential work of social philosophy and satire under the title Candide or Optimism. It is said to have been prompted by a disastrous earthquake in Lisbon, which is estimated to have killed 60,000 people in that city alone. It raised the question of how a belief in a benevolent deity could be maintained in the face of such natural disasters, or acts of God. There are two main protagonists in the satirical story. The first is the eponymous Candide, who roams the world with various companions and is confronted by an outrageous series of disasters. Some of the disasters are acts of God and others are attributable to human malfeasance. The second protagonist is a certain Doctor Pangloss, who is unaffected by the tragedies; he refuses to allow them to distract him from his everyday concerns and he asserts, repetitiously, that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
Candide represents a category of people who could be described as catastrophists or absurdists: they see disasters everywhere that are compounded by human folly and ignorance. Doctor Pangloss, on the other hand, exemplifies a category of people whom one might describe as normalisers. We can recognise both classes of people in any assembled company. However, events that people experience at first hand may eventually cause them to move from one category to the other. Indeed, most of us embody both tendencies in varying degrees.
The absence of dramatic first-hand experiences of the effects of global warming has led many people to ignore the hazards. Their recognition of them has been much delayed. A full recognition requires a first-hand experience of such events as the flooding of the Somerset levels or of the city of New York, the inundations of Hurricane Patricia or the devastation of the island of Tacloban by Typhoon Haiyan. The difficulty is compounded by the unwillingness of scientists to attribute individual events to global warming; they prefer to consider only the average effects of those events. We have every reason to fear that, when we begin to feel the full force of the effects of global warming, it will be too late to avert a catastrophe.
The dichotomy of perceptions is clearly evident in the report of the Select Committee on the Arctic, an excellent and a well-crafted document for which the clerk of the committee, Susannah Street, and the policy analyst, Matthew Smith, must take much of the credit. On the one hand, the report conveys the evidence of an impending catastrophe; on the other, it documents the processes that are the normal social, political and economic responses to the ongoing changes in the Arctic environment. The report declares in its introduction that the committee did not seek to examine the global causes, processes or consequences of climate change. Nevertheless, its first chapter clearly displays the startling evidence of climate change that can be seen in the Arctic, and which will have inevitable global consequences.
In the period from 1900 to the present, Arctic surface temperatures over land have risen by as much as 4 degrees centigrade, if one takes the least favourable base year, and by no less than 3 degrees, if one takes the most favourable base year. The rise in temperature has been twice the rate of the global average, and can be regarded as the harbinger of a global temperature increase of the same or greater magnitude. The current scientific consensus is that if the present trends continue, they will result in an utterly destructive increase in temperature of 5 degrees centigrade. If the commitments to limit emissions that are likely to be confirmed by the forthcoming Paris conference were realised, the rise in temperature might be limited to 2.7 degrees by 2100. This figure must be set beside that of a rise of 2 degrees, which we have been told repeatedly is the maximum we can allow if we are not to experience severe disruptions to our way of life.
One very visible effect of the warming of the Arctic is the reduction in the ice cover. The report contains a compelling diagram, which is a product of satellite monitoring. Since 1980, the extent of the ice cover in the North Pole region has almost halved. This is a measurement only of the area of the ice; the picture becomes dramatically worse when one takes account of the diminution in thickness. Thin ice is quickly melted in the Arctic summer. The volume of ice appears to have decreased by 75% in the past 30 years. Many predict that the ice will have gone completely by the middle of the century. The prospect of an ice-free Arctic Ocean points to the opening of viable circumpolar sea routes, which would greatly shorten the distance of sea voyages that presently pass through the Suez and Panama canals.
In such circumstances, we must also envisage a dramatic rise in the sea level. Of course, the melting of sea ice alone cannot raise the sea level, but there will be a concomitant melting of land-based ice. The rate of loss of ice from Greenland has increased by a factor of five in the past 20 years. It is currently causing a rise in sea level of 2 millimetres per annum, which seems small enough. However, if all Greenland’s ice were to melt, the sea level would rise by more than 7 metres.
The rise in temperature and the reduction in ice cover are accompanied by vicious processes of positive feedback. The reduction in ice cover reduces the albedo, or solar reflectivity, of the Arctic region, which leads to a greater absorption of heat. The melting of the Arctic tundra is giving rise to emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Mole for mole, or volume for volume, it has 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide.
The melting of the Arctic ice has been witnessed by the members of the committee who travelled to Svalbard, a cluster of islands dominated by Spitzbergen, which is 20 to 25 degrees from the North Pole. This is the world’s northernmost area of permanent habitation. The largest settlement is at Longyearbyen, which accommodates some 2,000 permanent inhabitants. The port of Longyearbyen, which has become substantially free of ice throughout the year, is the main logistic base for the cruise industry and for the cargo supplied to the settlements on Spitsbergen. Surface temperatures in Svalbard have increased by 3 degrees centigrade since the mid-1970s. The normal processes of commerce and industry have been evolving rapidly, in step with the evolving climatic and environmental conditions. The coal-mining industry, which has been present on the island since the beginning of the 20th century, is now in long-term decline, but a booming tourist industry is taking its place. The island is envisaged as a major logistical hub for the development of commercial and maritime activities in the polar regions. It is difficult to witness such normal activities and, at the same time, bear in mind the notion of an impending catastrophe. Svalbard provides a singular instance of the difficulty of reconciling the conflicting perceptions of normality and catastrophe, and of fully recognising the dangers we face.
There is, however, one factor present in Svalbard that should serve regularly to remind us of the dangers: the international university centre that is devoted to Arctic studies. A stream of information and analysis emanates from the centre, which can leave us in no doubt of the prospects for the Arctic. Svalbard hosts a large and growing scientific community in which the British have, so far, been major participants. One of the main recommendations of the Arctic Committee’s report is that our scientific presence in the Arctic should be bolstered in order to maintain the importance of our participation. This and other recommendations have met with a favourable but lukewarm reception in the Government’s response. Given the stringent limits the Government are imposing on the nation’s limited scientific budget, I am fearful that the recommendation will not be heeded. I urge that it be given the utmost priority.
If the processes we have witnessed in the Arctic continue, there is a strong likelihood that we will be tipped into a runaway process of global warming that will wipe many of us off the face of the earth. This is a means by which anthropogenic global warming might eventually be overcome. It seems to me that an ant colony has better instincts of survival than does humankind. I have witnessed at first hand the effect on the Arctic of a rapid process of warming, and I have been alarmed by what I have seen. I wish to voice my alarm. I firmly believe that, by maintaining and increasing our engagement in Arctic matters to an extent that may far exceed what the present Government regard as appropriate, we can raise our awareness of the hazards and enhance our ability to react to them in a timely and resilient manner.
Lord Greenway (CB)
My Lords, I was amused by the introduction by the noble Viscount who has just sat down regarding the pros and cons of global warming. I am not certain which camp I fall into. I am prepared to recognise that things have been changing, but will they go on changing? No one can predict what is going to happen in the future. All the computer models rely on the data that are put into them, and nature can throw up a googly at any time. What, for instance, would happen if we had a major volcanic eruption such as has happened in the past in Yosemite Valley or the Western Ghats of India? It would totally transform the weather pattern and to all intents and purposes would probably increase the ice extent enormously. So the problem is totally unpredictable. We can prepare only for what we think is happening, but we do not know that it is going to continue to happen. I will not say any more on that subject.
I also was not a member of the committee but I have visited Svalbard—admittedly about 10 years ago—when I went on a cruise in a former Swedish Government ice-breaker operating as a cruise ship. That was one of the last years when the ice extent was fairly severe, and in fact we were unable to do what was intended for the cruise, which was to circumnavigate the main island of Spitsbergen. However, we went up to 80 degrees north and had the delightful enjoyment of following polar bears in the ship—at a respectful distance. I must say that the Arctic is simply wonderful. The silence is another thing that struck me.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the committee on their report. He said that they were unable to visit Ny-Ålesund. We did get there, on midsummer night, as it happened. We were strictly warned not to mix with the natives—that is, all the scientists—who were having an enormous party around a big bonfire. They had partaken of liquid refreshment, and as we were walking around the small settlement it took no time at all for them to say, “Come and join us”—and we all had a very good party.
I want to talk about the maritime side of the Arctic, which has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. It is true that the much-trumpeted northern sea route has so far turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. The vast majority of the ships transiting the north-east passage are Russian, and a lot of them are taking oil or minerals from Russian settlements—not exactly going the whole way around the north of Russia. Those few other ships, apart from specific ice-breakers that go around, are in the main special ice-strengthened ships, which, as has been said, makes them a lot more expensive. They belong in the main to just two or three companies. One in particular, a Danish company called Nordic Bulk Carriers, has four reasonably large bulk carriers and two slightly smaller ones. These ships are specifically built for Arctic conditions. One of them has circumnavigated the world around the top, by going through the north-west passage and the north-east passage.
The ships transiting the north-west passage are mainly small yachts and the odd small cruise ship. The bulk carrier that I have just mentioned did it once eastwards, taking coal from Vancouver to Finland, and last year a Canadian bulk carrier took 23,000 tonnes of nickel concentrate to China. She is a specially built vessel and was able to complete the trip on her own without any assistance. Most of the ships going through the north-east passage have to have ice-breaker assistance and ice pilots. It is all very well to say that the distance is shorter—indeed it is, quite a lot shorter—but there are those expenses, and some types of ships like to call in at other ports.
Container ships are a particular example. A Chinese container ship went from China to Europe three years ago; the same ship has just completed its second voyage, which has led China to announce that a new “golden waterway” is opening up for trade. I will believe that when I see it. The season is not particularly long; it lasts from early July to mid-November—about now—and most of the ships in the early period are specifically ice-breakers. I very much doubt if the Chinese, as reported—this happened only last week—will set up a regular container route, because of the unpredictability. We have heard talk that the hydrographic charts in the area are not necessarily up to normal international standards, and the unpredictability of ice means that you can sail along in clear water for two or three days quite happily, but the next day you are completely surrounded by thick ice, because the ice is moved by wind and can shift all the time.
Therefore, certainly for the time being, there will not be any major traffic routes for international traffic round the north. Indeed, the Russians, who were very overoptimistic when they started opening up this waterway, have had to eat their words, and now say that international traffic will be very small: less than 1% of what goes through the Suez Canal. The other reason that ships go through Suez is that they stop off at a lot of way-ports to load other containers. If you go round the north, you will not load anything.
In May this year the International Maritime Organization, which is based on the other embankment, just across the river, adopted a new environmental part to its Polar Code, which from 1 January 2017 will be mandatory for all new ships to adopt and which deals with environmental matters such as discharge of oil, sewage, ballast water, and so on. All ships after 1 January 2018 will have to be brought up to standard when they go through renewal surveys.
The noble Lord, Lord Soley, mentioned cruise ships. Many small cruise ships have been operating in Antarctic and Arctic waters for some time. The larger ships, which have been going down to Antarctica, are beginning to move into northern waters—I am talking about ships carrying 3,000 or 4,000 passengers. Greenland is particularly worried about this. In fact, I believe that it has stipulated that whenever a ship of that size goes up, it must be in consort with another ship of the same size so that there are two of them. That is not necessarily a good thing. I was talking to a former captain of the QE2 earlier on today, who said that it is dangerous enough for one ship; two can double the danger, if noble Lords see what I mean. So quite a number of things are still to be sorted out. Incidentally, looking on the web today I see that the Greenland ice sheet has been growing this year, at the fastest rate for the last four years—so the situation is still very unpredictable.
The Government’s response has been measured, recognising the supremacy of the Arctic Council. However, they are absolutely right to continue to be as engaged as is possible, certainly as regards British expertise on oil-spill response and all those sorts of things.
The key to everything, as has been said, is co-operation—not only between the Arctic states but internationally. Russia has been mentioned at length. It is always a bit of an unknown quantity. It is certainly building new ice-breakers and rescue ships and is setting up reporting stations along the northern sea route. One can never tell what Russia is going to do. If I was a commercial shipping man—which I am not—I would think very carefully about sending my ships regularly round the north of Russia. We have had a very interesting debate and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, towards the end of a debate like this, with so much expertise in the Chamber—experts here have listened to everything that I have listened to—there is not much new to say. However, I have one small advantage over the rest of the committee—I was the member who was sent to the Arctic Circle Assembly, an event in Reykjavik roughly a year ago. This was a meeting of all those based and interested in the Arctic; it included everything from commercial to scientific interests. If I concentrate most of my remarks on what I saw, I might be able to bring something new to our debate.
James Gray MP, who is no longer at the Bar of the House, led the delegation. It had been noted the year before that the British had been absent; it was not appreciated that a nation that was close to the area, had a scientific base, and knew what it was talking about in terms of research was not represented. So there was a large British delegation; I was a member of the Artic Committee, which was once again greatly appreciated by the rest of those present. It was thought to be a very good thing, something which resonated far beyond most reports, especially when they were being discussed. We were seen by major European powers and just about everybody else. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, has just talked about shipping. We were seen by every major shipping nation on the planet—Singapore, India, China, Japan, Korea; you name it, they were there. It was seen as a very good thing that we sent a delegation and took an active part in that conference.
This led to one of those moments that happen only by accident. As the conference took place at this time of year, everyone was wearing poppies. It was suggested that we should all wear a proper poppy, not the little badge like I am wearing today, and that when we were on stage at this major conference of about 2,000 to 3,000 people, we would all have a nice big poppy on our lapels and make a short speech. There was, if not a water cooler moment, a coffee queue moment when a 23 year-old German research student said to me, “Why are you wearing flowers on your lapel? Is it something to do with gay rights?”. That was an interesting conversation which may not add very much to our deliberations, but it goes to show that any time spent in such a conference lets you give something to the rest of the world and your understanding of each other.
Most of the issues mentioned in this debate were discussed in small groups and clusters. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, spoke about melting permafrost releasing methane. I saw films about jets of flame coming spontaneously out of the ground; sometimes light catching on water can create this spontaneous effect. It can happen in the Arctic where the permafrost is melting. Anybody who denies that the world is getting warmer should have had a good long listen to the speeches that were made. It is getting warmer—there are no two ways about it—but we do not know at what rate that is happening. We have heard many discussions about ice regarding shipping. There is no way of knowing exactly when you will get a mainly ice-free route. Because most of the ice has been got rid of, it does not mean to say that it is safe for shipping. Forget the “Titanic”—an iceberg the size of a small car can take out a supertanker and, if that big ship is carrying oil, God help us all. All those considerations came through. There were discussions about insurance and what is required to go with that.
If people think that it is a good idea to extract minerals from the melting permafrost, they need to know that it cannot be done for some time, because you do not get firm ground; you get swamp and scrub forest, which is probably more difficult to operate in than permafrost. We just do not know what the changes are going to be. That is probably why we should pay far more attention to the scientific observer base—and, indeed, not just pure science but applied science, including engineering. Without that, we will not know what we can do and what the opportunities will be.
There was a huge absence at the conference. I was going to say that it was the elephant in the room but in fact it was the bear. Russia was not present because of what had happened in Ukraine, although there were one or two representatives from Russian regional government. I remember an incredibly colourfully dressed gentleman who said that he represented all the reindeer herders across a huge area of Russia. He claimed that there was a reindeer herder somewhere up in Scotland. I must admit that I was ignorant of that before the event started but apparently that is the case. One question that I want to ask is: how can you discuss the Arctic and the shipping lanes when the person providing safety and monitoring is not there? Unless we manage to establish practical lines of communication, we are never going to achieve at least some useful activity in the area and we will never be able to protect our own interests there, as I think everybody agrees.
In drawing to a conclusion and overview, I say that the changes in the Arctic that we discovered are leading to opportunities, but the fact is that we simply do not yet know what they are going to be. Everything is going to change, including attitudes towards people and social pressures, and unless we interact at a more grounded level, we will make mistakes. The committee heard—this was confirmed to me when I was in Reykjavik—how Greenpeace is bombarded by expletives from the Canadian Inuit and Greenlandic Inuit. They really do not like Greenpeace, whose members tell them, “You mustn’t kill things. It’s naughty”, but the Inuit make a living from harvesting seals. Indeed, it was suggested to me that polar bears are also harvested. I found that a little hard to take but that was said to me by people who come from there.
How do we integrate with these people? If we do not talk to Russia, we cannot find out what most of them think. We cannot walk to those territories. If we bring about economic growth and development there, we cannot pass it on to the huge parts of the population who are directly affected. We have to have lines of communication open at all times. We need to invest in the diplomatic and scientific community and study this at a global level. It may not be the most densely populated area of the globe but this is a global issue. If we do not invest in that way, we will miss out. I hope that in future the Government take on this work and realise that it is merely a starting point. We must invest time and energy—although probably not that much money—to get the best out of this. If we do not, we will miss out on a changing situation which will tell us about the troubles and opportunities to come.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in thanking the committee for its excellent report. I think that photographs should become de rigueur for committee reports. They certainly add a little to the enjoyment of those who have to read them from cold. In this case, they played a special part because, without seeing some of the photographs, I do not think that we would have carried the narrative quite so well. Having come to this knowing relatively little about the area, it was very helpful to have them. I also thank the chair of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his excellent introduction. He managed to draw the climate issues, the politics and the science strands of the report very neatly together and left us with a full appreciation of the issues at the heart of the report.
I am one of three people speaking in this debate who was not a member of the committee, but I think that we have missed out because the trip seemed to weigh heavily on those who were able to do it and they came back with new insights. Even if one was not there, it has been said enough today that we all need to think much harder about this area—its size, its remoteness, the fact that climate change is real and is happening there, the fact that there are so many people who live in what appears to be a barren and open space—the figure of 4 million has been mentioned—and that a population like that needs to be supported and looked after.
We have also learnt of the slightly odd governance arrangements, whereby those who live there are not directly involved in how the area is governed, and of the need for more science because we simply do not know enough about the issues. More co-operation is also a theme that comes out strongly from the study. We need to think, too, about the fact that the group that largely controls things is now being joined by more countries taking an interest in the area, not because they have geographical connections but because they see their interest perhaps in the resources and more generally—so we are seeing people from Asia and other parts of Europe getting involved. As has been said, our interest is not just because we are the closest neighbour to the Arctic Circle, which is important, but because we have engaged with the area over a long period and think it important enough to want to continue to do so.
What comes out of the report for me, reading it relatively cold—I am sorry about the pun—is the need to try to insulate the Arctic from tensions arising in other parts of the world, whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. It also raised the question whether that is feasible. The report is interested in not just the geopolitical tensions, which I think are important and will have an impact if action is not taken, but the physical and resource questions—which I want to come back to—which might require some form of isolation or protection of the area as a whole in terms of fishing, drilling and access to its resources.
However, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, made the important point that most of the immediate pressures on the Arctic originated elsewhere and continue to have a huge impact, so we are talking about carbon dioxide and methane warming and the economic developments that are causing resource pressures which may in turn impact badly—we have just heard about seal culling and other impacts which affect the indigenous people. So a lot of things are going on here and it is not at all clear how the present governance structures or our own interests will be calibrated to deal with them.
The bear in the room is Russia—several noble Lords made important contributions to this effect. It is clear that realpolitik is as important as the long-term games and objectives in terms of calibrations about nation-to-nation relations, but the presence there of people wanting to do different things suggests that we as a country, using whatever power and influence we have in other areas, need to work directly with people with whom we would perhaps want to differ on certain issues if we are going to protect the Arctic. That strand comes through as very important. In that respect, the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, on the possibility of creating a nuclear-free zone is surely worth a response by the Minister.
It is not just nuclear positions; militarisation is also going on. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned that most people seem to think that Russia has at least regenerated its military capacity of a few decades ago and others are not far behind. What is going to happen about that real and present threat? Are the Government ready to take this on and, if so, can the Minister comment on it?
I have mentioned already that we are talking about a significant number of people who live in this area and who have to gain the resources necessary to provide their living and to work with whatever other agencies are up there. We note that in their response the Government agree with the committee that the right way to do this is through the Arctic Council. The questions then are how that is developed, who is on it, what the relative powers and responsibilities are and, in particular, how we take forward the interests of the indigenous people. In his opening remarks the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, called for a strengthened role for the indigenous people if we are going to make sure that this is a sustainable, long-term arrangement, but of course there are real practical and operational difficulties in doing that. Again, I will be interested to hear how the Minister will respond further on this.
The most startling thing I noticed in the report was a figure which has been mentioned by a couple of people, which is that,
“30 per cent of the world’s undiscovered, recoverable, gas and 13 per cent of its undiscovered, recoverable, oil”,
supplies are located in the Arctic. The point was made by a number of speakers that we have an opportunity created by economic effects elsewhere that would possibly allow us to get our act together, if we are going to think about how best to approach the issue. It would be largely led by the private sector, and those who wish to be involved will make representations, but the march of progress given that amount of resource available, together with the changing climate making these gas and oil supplies easier to reach, is going to cause problems in the near term, if not immediately. How is this going to happen? The Government’s response says that the best way to do this is by working through the existing arrangements and instruments, and so far as it goes that is obviously a good starting point.
If we take first the oil and gas issues, the problem if they are developed, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is the need to ensure that proper remediating activities are put in place and that we are alert to the fact that such activities will cause incredible damage if they are not properly looked after. There is quite a bit of policy in this area now, particularly through the United Nations guiding principles and other action on mining and the extractive industries. Will the Minister share with us whether he feels that the Government’s response to this is strong enough, given the need to make sure that should there be any development of this type in the Arctic, these are important principles to be relied on?
On the question of fishing, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said that the Government’s response is inadequate and out of date. Given that the Government are relying on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which one of the major partners, the USA, is not a signatory, that is obviously a bit of a problem. But as he said, the convention may not be the best mechanism because, if there is already a moratorium in place which has been signed by four of the littoral countries, that is something we should look at carefully. Again, the Minister might wish to respond on progress in this area.
A lot of this will be about diplomacy and the willingness of the Government to invest in order to make sure that the desirable objectives set out in this report are achieved. As has been explained, there is an FCO Minister for the polar regions, but the Government do not seem to believe that there is a need for the appointment of a single UK ambassador, although a number of noble Lords have suggested that that would make a difference. But whether an individual is appointed with plenipotentiary powers or as part of the ambassadorial service, the issue is surely about whether the resources are in place to ensure that the decisions we take in this area and the impact we wish to have can be effective. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, made much of the fact that when we did send a delegation recently, it was well received and the wish was expressed that we should continue to do so. However, Governments should not will the ends of policy without also willing the means, so I would be grateful if the Minister can confirm that the Government’s commitment to have representation, even though it may be described rather diffidently in the report, will be resourced on time. Logically, if we are going to do more, and given the importance of the area and our UK interests, we should not be saying that we will do this only if resources permit; we should be doing it anyway.
The final phrase in the report before the summary and conclusions states that:
“The UK is the Arctic’s nearest neighbour and the Arctic is the UK’s neighbourhood”.
That is a clever arrangement of words, and I think that for us it means that the Government must invest in this relationship if they are going to reap the benefits for the UK and for international common interests. It is too important to be left to others; we have a role to play and we should pick up the areas where we want to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, described this report as a “wake-up call”, and I think he probably meant that it is a wake-up call for the Government. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that—and of course he was a member of the committee so I think that he has some prior knowledge of what to say. But I hope that this has also been a wake-up call more generally. Often in this House we keep our heads down on our day-to-day business and look only at domestic issues. When we read this report, we see a wider world for which there are great aspirations and huge interests in which we should be more involved. I am grateful to have been given the chance to speak in this debate because I have learnt a little more about this wonderful world. I recommend the report to the House.
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
My Lords, this has been an interesting debate, on an important subject, and I thank all noble Lords who contributed and gave of their wide experience and knowledge. It is customary in Select Committee debates to thank the chair. I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, since, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned, I was a member of this committee, all too briefly, before I was entombed in the permafrost of the Government Whips’ Office. I also thank all other noble Lords and staff involved with the Select Committee for their outstanding efforts in putting together a balanced, thoughtful and well-evidenced report. Lastly, I thank my noble friend Lord Tugendhat, who originally proposed the idea for this Select Committee, for consequently focusing attention on the important issue of the changing Arctic.
As their response to the committee’s report makes clear, the Government believe that their approach to the Arctic, as laid out in the Arctic policy framework, was and remains the right one. However, we also agree with the committee that more can be done to ensure that the UK continues to take a leading role in the Arctic issues that affect us, and we are grateful to the committee for its constructive suggestions on how to do this. Our response sets out a number of steps which, taken together, represent a significant evolution of the UK’s Arctic policy. It is worth noting and celebrating the fact that, of the 67 conclusions and recommendations in the committee’s report, in only two specific areas have the Government not been persuaded of the strength of the committee’s recommendations. These are the appointment of an official Arctic ambassador, which I will come to later, and reassigning the existing Arctic policy framework as a strategy.
The UK’s Arctic policy is based on respect, co-operation and leadership. The Government will show that leadership—the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, wanted it to come first—by hosting an international policy forum at Wilton Park. The event will address a major policy issue affecting the Arctic. We will organise it in co-operation with our Arctic partners to ensure it complements, rather than duplicates, the work of the Arctic Council. We will focus the event on the best way to ensure that we and our fellow non-Arctic states can engage, in practical policy terms, in working with the Arctic Council states in delivering their long-term vision for a safe, peaceful, successful and inclusive Arctic. We are working hard on this with Wilton Park and we hope to be in a position to confirm the date of this conference in the near future.
The committee’s report rightly pointed out the gaps in our understanding of the Arctic Ocean. I am delighted that, following the Government’s response, the Natural Environment Research Council decided to fund a multiyear, £16 million strategic research programme called “The Changing Arctic Ocean: Implications for Marine Biology and Biogeochemistry”, looking at important changes in the Arctic Ocean. This was also highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones. The research will help to address some of the biggest knowledge gaps in our understanding of the Arctic. It is a worthy demonstration of the continued UK commitment to this unique region. The programme builds on the £15 million Arctic research programme that ran from 2010 to 2015, and is already producing valuable data and conclusions that assist our understanding of this rapidly changing region.
We are also committing to a number of steps that will build on the existing co-ordination across government and the research community. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office will lead discussions across Whitehall to develop and agree plans for engaging with the Arctic Council. The plans will align with the set of Arctic Council chairmanship priorities and enable us to focus and maintain our engagement on the subjects that matter most to us. The UK’s Arctic office, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and hosted by the British Antarctic Survey, will assist co-ordination to ensure more effective involvement in the Arctic across research disciplines. The Government, through the science and innovation network, will explore options for agreeing memoranda of understanding on Arctic and polar research with key partner countries. These will help to build on and support the already extensive framework for co-operation that exists between UK scientists and their international counterparts.
The Government’s commitment to the polar regions as a whole has been very visibly demonstrated by the announcement earlier this year of the decision to procure a new £200 million polar research vessel, to which the noble Lord, Lord Soley, referred. This vessel, which will be built by Cammell Laird in the UK, will provide a state-of-the-art platform for the latest polar science. I will come to how that will be used.
The main point that we disagreed with the committee on was the appointment of an Arctic ambassador, as mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Hannay, and my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones, among others. We accept that we need to have a better co-ordination of effort, but we are not convinced about the added benefits that an Arctic ambassador would bring to the UK’s engagement with that region. We have a Minister for the Polar Regions to represent the UK at a political level. We have senior civil servants who provide the same functions as the Arctic ambassadors of other countries in all but name.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, mentioned the cost of the ambassador. I almost thought that he was putting in a job application, but he says he is not. There will be some costs, but we also have 200 scientists who work in collaboration with others in the Arctic. They are fantastic ambassadors for the UK.
Our response commits us to a more strategic engagement with the Arctic Council and a greater role for the head of the UK’s Arctic office in assisting co-ordination across scientific disciplines. We feel that our methods so far have actually been rather more effective, but I say in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, that we have not closed our minds. We take note of the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Soley and Lord Hannay, about the ambassador. I also welcome the positive comments about the Polar Regions Department in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
I mentioned costs, but I do not think that the additional costs of an ambassadorial appointment are the main issue. We feel that the extra job that the ambassador would do is not currently fully convincing.
The noble Lords, Lord Hunt, Lord Oxburgh and Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones asked what the practical points about appropriate representation to all future political-level meetings of the Arctic Council meant. We have been represented by the Polar Regions Department at political-level meetings—by that I mean senior Arctic official and ministerial meetings—since the start of the Arctic Council in 1996. The exact level of representation from the UK, official or ministerial, is obviously determined by the nature of the business under discussion. We keep all the meetings under review and we will always ensure that the UK is represented at the appropriate level. The UK’s Arctic office will fund the UK’s expert participation with the Arctic Council’s working groups and task forces, in line with the UK’s scientific and strategic priorities. Obviously, that is subject to resources.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about the UK’s presence at the Arctic Circle Assembly in 2015. He mentioned the fact that we maintained a profile set by the 2014 delegation that he attended. This year’s delegation was led by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Robin Grimes. Interestingly, Russia had a very significant presence at the Arctic Circle Assembly in 2015: its Arctic Council representative, its Deputy Minister of Transport and the governor of Archangel province. These fora are useful for co-operation at many different levels.
The noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Oxburgh, asked whether we should have better co-ordination of UK effort in the Arctic Council. We agree that we can be better co-ordinated. Paragraph 75 of the Government’s response is pertinent here. The FCO’s Polar Regions Department, together with the head of the UK’s Arctic office, under the direction of the director of the British Antarctic Survey, will work to assist this co-ordination.
Many noble Lords mentioned Russia—one of the largest Arctic states and obviously a key player—given the problems occurring with co-operation with Russia and sanctions in the rest of the world. In fact, the Arctic is a model of co-operation with Russia so far. Russia is a signatory of the Ilulissat Declaration of 2008, which commits the five Arctic coastal states to orderly settlements of disputes using international systems, such as UNCLOS, and minimising potential for conflict. So far, in any disputes that Russia has had—for example, the Barents Sea dispute with Norway— it has used international rules-based organisations to address them. This commitment, which Russia agreed, was reiterated in 2015 at the end of the Canadian chairmanship.
However, we are not naive about Russia’s military posture and related issues in the Arctic. The establishment or reopening of relatively small-scale military and search and rescue facilities has been proceeding for some time. It is taking place in Russian sovereign territory and we do not believe that it creates a real cause for concern. I stress that we absolutely do value co-operation in the Arctic, which we think is a special place in the world, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others mentioned. So far, this applies to Russia and is in many ways a model of what could happen in the rest of the world. For example, I can point to scientific co-operation with Russia that is still ongoing. In fact, a small team from the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute visited the UK in April 2015. The Russian scientific base is extremely important. Russia is crucial to understanding Arctic systems, as has been mentioned, in particular the melting of the permafrost and release of methane gas.
We are keen to find broader and deeper ways for British and Russian Arctic scientists to co-operate in this field. We will look at ways to collaborate more effectively. We are keen to ensure follow-through in order to work more closely with Russia. The head of the UK’s Arctic office will address these issues, in addition to numerous others.
My noble friend Lady Neville-Jones made an interesting point about consideration of Arctic issues in policy-making. The publication of the UK’s Arctic policy framework demonstrated the Government’s commitment to consideration of Arctic matters across a range of UK policy interests. This will be reviewed by the end of the financial year. The Foreign Office will continue to chair the cross-government Arctic network to ensure continued focus on Arctic matters across relevant policy areas.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked about principles for mining and extractive industries. Governance of those extractive industries lies primarily with the Arctic states, which is where their work currently takes place and will to a great extent. The UK encourages the highest safety and environmental standards, both in regulation and directly with British companies. As has been mentioned, the first part of the polar code has been signed as part of the International Maritime Organization’s efforts.
The noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Hunt, talked about fishing in the high seas in the Arctic. The UK supports the creation of marine protected areas where the science supports it. We are working with other partners and OSPAR to assess appropriate marine protection measures. We are aware of the agreement between the five Arctic littoral states on a moratorium on fishing activities in the Arctic high seas area, and we are sympathetic towards their intention to gain further support for this from the EU and other fishing nations.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned search and rescue in the Arctic. We have world-renowned expertise and significant knowledge and experience of search and rescue as a general subject, but we do not have specific expertise in Arctic search and rescue. That is held by the countries surrounding the Arctic. However, we are very much alive to coastguard and search and rescue issues. The requirement for the UK maritime patrol capability is being considered as part of the 2015 strategic defence and security review process.
The noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Greenway, talked about Arctic tourism, and possible help with search and rescue. We think that any charge on tourism in the Arctic is a matter for the sovereign states, but operators, and so passengers, already pay landing fees when they land in the Arctic—for example, in Svalbard and Greenland. So a route for funding search and rescue is already in existence, and it could be argued that passengers are already supporting such systems—although it would usually be linked to military forces as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Soley, asked about the new polar research vessel. It has the capability to deliver science in the Arctic as well as the Antarctic, but its primary function is to support the UK’s Antarctic presence. It will also be able to operate in the north during the Arctic summer—that is, the Antarctic winter—as the science priorities require. I cannot give a more precise timetable for where it is going at the moment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, introduced an interesting new point, which was not in the committee’s report, about a nuclear-free Arctic, and mentioned the growing support for that idea in many countries. We recognise the aspiration for a nuclear-free Arctic, but of course such matters are, in the main, for the sovereign Arctic states. In the meantime, it is encouraging that the Arctic states—sadly, currently without Russia—meet at defence level in the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable. This also includes the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France. That level of co-operation and engagement is encouraging.
The noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Soley, asked about indigenous peoples, and especially mentioned the specific knowledge they can contribute to the science base. We fully respect their rights, and the focus of our efforts is to ensure that indigenous peoples’ knowledge is taken into account in developing Arctic science. We are pleased that the UK was able to work so successfully with the Arctic Institute and the Science and Innovation Network to incorporate the views of indigenous people at the recent Arctic Circle assembly in Iceland. We will keep our engagement with indigenous peoples firmly at the front of our Arctic policy.
I am running out of time. If I have not answered all the questions asked by noble Lords—
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
We have not mentioned Scotland in the whole of the debate. There was a very important laboratory—SAMS, the Scottish Association for Marine Science, whose head resigned. Surely we should not be having the conference in Wilton Park; it should be in Scotland—the part of the UK closest to the Arctic. It will be a typical example of the London-based thinking that people criticise if we do not have this big conference up in the north.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I take that point, but I do not think that when scientists sit round and discuss issues, it matters whether they are in Scotland, England or any of the other Arctic observer states, including South Korea, China and India. They are not all in the north.
We have had a very constructive and informative discussion about the importance of this unique region to the UK. The Arctic is undergoing rapid change. It is not the Arctic of 20 years ago, and it will be different again 20 years from now. Global Arctic policy must be ready for, and take account of, these changes. The UK will play its part. The steps outlined in the Government response will help to ensure that we remain one of the most active and influential non-Arctic states. The Government are clear that our policy towards the Arctic will be kept under review. It has to be, to keep up with the rapid changes we are seeing, and our improving understanding of those changes.
The Government will report back to the House, through a letter to the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, on developments outlined in our response within 18 months of the report’s publication. The United Kingdom has a key role to play in the Arctic. Our scientists, our business leaders and our Government representatives will all be closely engaged. The steps outlined in the Government response will help to ensure that we remain one of the most active and influential non-Arctic states, while—importantly—acknowledging the rights and primacy of the Arctic states themselves.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. When I spoke earlier, I did not declare an interest as a board member of the Marine Management Organisation. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, not least those who were not on the committee—the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. I did not think anybody would manage to get the Western Ghats into the debate: although they exploded 56 million years ago, I hope that will not happen again in our lifetime.
I particularly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, about the tourist tax. When we arrived in Svalbard, only 800 miles from the North Pole, we thought we were heading an expedition into the unknown and the dangerous, but where we were staying we were confronted by about 100 German tourists who would make the average age of the House of Lords seem relatively young. That shows how the tourist industry is changing there: perhaps we should tax them even more for their search and rescue.
I especially thank the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, for taking all the questions from the noble Lord, Lord West. That was quite undeserved, but the questions were beautifully answered. I thank her for that. On the question of Russia, which the noble Lord raised, I personally invited the Russian ambassador to give evidence, but unfortunately that was not possible. Through the good offices of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, we also asked Mr Chilingarov, the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for International Cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctic. Unfortunately, neither of those two gave evidence.
Like many of my colleagues, I regret that we are not going to appoint an ambassador for the Arctic. I am pleased that the Minister said that the door is not closed. I saw the noble Lord, Lord Howell, on the Government Benches a while ago—oh, I see that he is still here; I apologise for not noticing him. A year ago he produced a report on soft power, and it seems to me that our recommendation represents a very cheap way of achieving that.
I thank the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for its co-operation, through Jane Rumble, its head of the Polar Regions desk, and the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, for suggesting that the House address this subject. Not least, I thank our special adviser, Professor Klaus Dodds of Royal Holloway College, Susannah Street, our excellent clerk, and Matt Smith, our excellent policy analyst. To the Government I say that I and the other members of my committee will keep our eye on this issue. It is a subject on which Britain needs to wake up, not from a deep sleep but from a snooze. We move forward: the Government’s response is very encouraging in that respect, and we will ensure that we too keep a strong interest in this subject.
National Insurance Contributions (Rate Ceilings) Bill
Electricity System Resilience (S&T Committee Report)
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Earl of Selborne
That this House takes note of the Report of the Science and Technology Committee on The Resilience of the Electricity System.
The Earl of Selborne (Con)
My Lords, the electricity system of this country is embarking on a period of profound change over the coming decades. This change will be driven by technological development such as the increasing penetration of automation and intelligent systems, the deployment of advanced fast-acting control systems, dispersed generation and the transition to a smart energy system. This will increase complexity enormously. We will be increasingly reliant on electricity for transport, heating, air conditioning and much else. This change will also be driven by our national commitment to decarbonise electricity systems, yet our record for anticipating supply and demand, and for ensuring that the desirable capacity margin is in place, has in recent years been unimpressive; and this at a time when these far-reaching changes are really starting to make an impact.
It was against this background, and with some speculation in the media that the country might be subject to national blackouts, that the Science and Technology Committee decided to undertake an inquiry into the resilience of the electricity system. I refer to my interests as listed in Appendix 1 to our report as an honorary fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a fellow of the Royal Society and a shareholder in two companies. I thank our specialist adviser, Professor Jim Watson, and our clerk, Chris Clarke, for their invaluable contribution to producing our report.
The Government have spoken of the need to “reset” policy and have initiated a number of energy policy changes mainly designed to cap costs to the taxpayer, but have yet to set out a long-term vision for energy policy. Until a comprehensive long-term energy policy has been formulated, there is a danger of the momentum on new investment in the energy sector being lost. The record is quite impressive: more than £42 billion has been invested in renewables since 2010, with more than £8 billion being invested in UK-based renewable energy in 2014. Every Government must be prepared to formulate and articulate a clearly understood energy policy that results in an optimal balance between the three interconnected and competing demands of security of supply, sustainability and affordability, widely known as the energy trilemma.
The fact that security of supply has become a real issue for the next few winters demonstrates that previous Administrations have failed to get it right. Had not demand—that is, industrial demand—been reduced by the economic crisis of 2008, the capacity margins would have been even tighter or non-existent. Obviously, a commitment to nuclear power at £92.50 per megawatt hour, and to some of the more expensive renewable energy technologies such as offshore wind, currently costing around £118 per megawatt hour, has to be reconciled, at least in the medium term, with the requirement for affordability.
We concluded that successive Governments might have anticipated the shrinking margin earlier and taken steps to address it. As a result of inaction, the narrow capacity margin that emerges poses a threat to resilience. The coalition Government addressed this failure of previous long-term planning by introducing at short notice and at considerable cost, and in a way that conflicts with the decarbonisation agenda, the capacity market, also known as the capacity mechanism. From 2018 on, an income stream will be available to capacity providers for keeping capacity available to meet demand when the system is stretched. Interim measures known as new balancing services have been introduced to plug any shortfalls in the period to 2018. The capacity market provides no incentive for the building of new generating plant, the development of demand response or the extension of interconnectors. Instead it rewards incumbents, including coal-fired units, thus acting as a counter to decarbonising policies.
Professor David Newbery of Cambridge University warned us that if the capacity market overprocures, the consequences would be higher prices to consumers, the undermining of renewable energy by transferring support to conventional generators and the weakening of the business case for other options, including future interconnectors, which will be increasingly important as the share of intermittent electricity from renewables rises.
We were surprised by the paucity of information on the true costs of electricity shortfalls. The potential contributions of interconnection with foreign suppliers and of industrial back-up generation need to be rigorously assessed to make the appropriate decisions on the procurement of capacity. We recommended that the Government review the contribution that interconnection and industrial back-up generation could make to capacity margins. Since our report, the national grid has published some helpful information on interconnection in its 2015 Electricity Capacity Report.
In the medium to long term, new technologies and the development of existing technologies will be the key to achieving a resilient electricity system. As with every aspect of our economy, we will depend on investment in research and development to be competitive in the long term. We must ensure that we attract to this country the innovative companies that are most likely to advance these technologies. Investors value continuity of policies and want to be assured that whatever national energy policies are put in place will stay in place for at least the medium term.
Investors will also be attracted to this country by the quality of our publicly funded research. There is a case for public funds also to contribute to development and to the demonstration of new technologies, but such support should be given only if, in the medium term, it reduces the costs of these new technologies. A technology with long-term reliance on subsidies is clearly not sustainable.
Our national record of improving energy efficiency of buildings compares unfavourably with that of most other European countries, yet energy efficiency can make the greatest contribution to the affordability of electricity. Improving energy efficiency is also often the cheapest way to bring down emissions. The Committee on Climate Change has noted that industrial energy efficiency lacks effective policy. The Government have terminated the Green Deal, while the energy company obligation is due to end in March 2017—both measures aimed at improving energy efficiency in the built environment.
The key message from our report is that we need to improve our long-term planning of the electricity system. This requires clarity of the roles of the many participants in the electricity market and openness about the present and foreseeable state of the technology. It is imperative to look at the electricity system as whole so that complex interactions are not missed between the many components of the system.
The Institution of Engineering and Technology made the case to us for an “electricity system architect”. This architect would have responsibility for embedding whole-systems thinking across the whole electricity system. We agreed, as did the then Secretary of State Ed Davey, that the IET was asking the right questions, and that it is imperative that the electricity system is looked at as a whole to enable effective engineering integration across the electricity system as changes occur.
The major players involved in maintaining resilience are the Government, of course, the national grid, Ofgem, the electricity generators and the distribution network operators. The IET in supplementary evidence said that while there was wide industry consensus on the need to introduce effective whole systems, there was continued debate on the role of government and industry self-regulation in delivering this. The network companies, for example, would be concerned about the possibility of close government engagement in aspects of their business that require specialist technical knowledge and experience. However, given their policy objectives, the Government have had little choice but to play a greater role in managing the electricity system. We therefore endorse the Government’s adoption of a managed market and stress that it is explicitly for the Secretary of State to provide leadership and clarity on responsibilities.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change has asked the Energy Systems Catapult to investigate further the concept of a systems architect and to provide evidence of what functions will need to be performed in the future power system as a result of transformative change, and by when. This is a helpful response. The sooner this exercise can be undertaken the better. Can my noble friend the Minister tell the House when he expects the Energy Systems Catapult report and what its role might be thereafter in this respect?
Many believe that we should be heading towards a system of small-scale, decentralised power generation, with an integrated grid based on flexibility. New nuclear power plants have the potential to provide greater flexibility through emerging technologies such as small, modular reactors, yet we seem to be favouring large-scale block generation such as at Hinkley.
Demand-side response describes the process of electricity users adjusting the amount of electricity they use at certain times in response to incentives. We heard that while demand-side response has significant potential, current policies do not set it on an equal footing with generation and more could be done to harness its potential. We recommended that the Government develop a plan with specific targets for the public sector to implement demand-side response measures and so set an example to others. Technologies such as electricity storage, interconnection, carbon capture and storage, and demand-side management will all be key to a resilient electricity system.
I said that it is incumbent on each Administration to formulate a clearly understood energy policy, which results in an optimal balance between the competing policy demands of security of supply, sustainability and affordability. Investors in big projects for post-2020 electricity generation and transmission—indeed, any investors—need to understand what policies will be in place and to have confidence that such policies will not be overturned by short-term considerations. We need to seek consensus on UK energy policy based around the trilemma and we need to achieve this consensus soon. I beg to move.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Selborne—I think I can call him my noble kinsman, since we share a great-grandparent —on this excellent report and on chairing this inquiry with his characteristic skill, courtesy and perceptiveness. I declare my interests as listed in the register, including, most importantly, an indirect interest in coal mining and a small shareholding in National Grid.
I would like to make four main points. The first is that I think our report was, if anything, a little too sanguine. The string of closures of power plants since then has left us even more exposed. The closure of Longannet, Eggborough, Ferrybridge and Ironbridge and the delay to the Trafford gas-fired station make the capacity margin even tighter this winter. As Professor Dieter Helm of Oxford University told our inquiry:
“It is a quite extraordinary state of affairs for a major industrialised economy to find itself even debating whether there is a possibility that the margins may not be sufficient in electricity to guarantee supply”.
My second point is that “the lights going out” is a red herring. The national grid has many weapons at its disposal to keep the lights on somehow. That is a misleading test of policy health. The risk of system failure, which is always present, can be kept within bounds—but by pouring consumer funds into the sector.
My third point is that rising costs are the correct index of policy success or failure, and here I am afraid the news is bad. Even leaving aside the emergency costs of bringing on diesel generators when the wind does not blow, we are paying very heavily to have a resilient electricity system because of what I would consider deliberate policy mistakes. The Office for Budget Responsibility has recently published data showing that the cost projected for the capacity mechanism, which my noble friend mentioned, will be £1.3 billion in 2020—about 10% of the total levy control framework cost in that year. As my noble friend said, it is not for new capacity but for existing capacity. We should remember that most of that is going to fossil fuel plants, which should not need subsidising at all.
So why are we subsidising them? Because we have destroyed all incentives to build new, efficient, dispatchable generators, by using the law to force unproductive, expensive renewables on the consumer. That is why nobody is building new combined cycle gas turbine plants here unless they get subsidised. We should remember that those subsidies do not come from general taxation. They are added to electricity bills so they hit the poor hardest. As Rupert Darwall of the Centre for Policy Studies told our inquiry,
“if you subsidise high-fixed-cost, zero-marginal-cost intermittent electricity generation, you will end up destroying the market and incentives to invest in the capacity to keep the lights on when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. That outcome was wholly predictable but wholly unanticipated by policymakers”.
Can my noble friend the Minister assure us that the study currently being carried out by Frontier Economics into whole-system impacts of electricity generation technologies will take this into account—how much has wind prevented new gas being built and at what cost?
We have spent £14 billion so far subsidising renewable electricity. The cost is rising rapidly and will soon hit roughly £10 billion a year and stay that way for decades. What are we getting for that money? A less reliable electricity system, a big increase in cost and no discernible cuts in CO2 emissions, because of the need for back-up, the failure to allow gas to replace coal, and the leakage of energy-intensive industries to other countries with the loss of jobs here. I do not think that is a trilemma: it is a trisaster.
My fourth point is that interconnectors, while clearly a good thing, are in many ways irrelevant to the resilience debate, for two reasons. First, the current ones from France and the Netherlands are running one way—into the UK—at near-full capacity most of the time anyway, so they are no use for extra electricity in times of emergency. Secondly, they are not much use in in managing the variability of large renewable fleets because, as John Constable of the Renewable Energy Foundation pointed out to us, wind speeds are well correlated across Europe: a calm day here is usually a calm day in Germany. At 3 pm today, for instance, I looked up how much electricity was coming from wind in this country and in Germany: 1.4% in this country and less than 1% in Germany.
Where do the four points that I have raised leave us? It is now clear that instead of building windmills in the North Sea, whose electricity will cost three times the wholesale price, we should have been using cheap gas to phase out coal and putting more money into R&D designed to bring down the price of nuclear power. What Professor Helm called the “Miliband-Huhne-Davey policy” was based on the assumption that fossil fuel prices would go up. Instead, they went down.
In the spreadsheet released last year by Department of Energy and Climate Change, in the low fossil fuel price scenario, the cost of renewable subsidies for small and medium-sized businesses would add 77% to their electricity bills by 2020. Even in the high fossil fuel price scenario, the impact is still an increase of 45%. In other words, even if fossil fuel prices go sky high, the policies do not in fact offer any significant protection.
Every part of the world is increasing gas consumption at the moment except one: Europe. All the others—North America, South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the former Soviet Union—are all increasing their use of gas, often to displace coal, as a response to the falling price of gas thanks to the shale gas revolution. Europe is doing the opposite. The Competition and Markets Authority has reported since our report that the renewables target is more of a constraint than the carbon budget; that is, there are cheaper ways of meeting our carbon targets.
I feel that we have the worst of all worlds: a system that has the high finance costs of the private sector but where all decision-making is nationalised; a system that has all the costs of renewable energy but trivial emissions reductions; a system that depends on regressive subsidy for even the cheapest and most reliable power; a system whose high cost is driving employers abroad; and a system with such low margins that costs will spike in the months ahead. I think there is a lot of work on my noble friend the Minister’s plate.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I am not a member of the committee but I am pleased to take part in the debate about this important subject. I would say one thing about the logic of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, on wind-power renewables not reducing carbon. He said that it was because there has to be an equal amount of back-up, but that logic does not work. Even if you need that amount of back-up, if it is not operating then it is not producing carbon. I do not understand the logic there. With the existing regime, even without renewables, the utilisation of generating capacity is, on average, about 50%. It is estimated by National Grid—these are not my figures—that intermittency with renewables becomes a real problem only when they are at about 20% of total generation, so I am not sure whether all that really adds up. However, I agree with the noble Viscount that we should absolutely be taking out coal. I am glad that he agrees with these Benches on that. We should also be getting on and substituting gas in the short term. He was absolutely right about that, too.
I want to concentrate on a couple of things in an excellent report, which is a good reference and has a number of important issues in it. I particularly like the space it gives to the demand side. As the noble Earl said so well, energy efficiency effectively solves the energy trilemma. It helps security, brings down bill costs—even if not necessarily the unit price—and decarbonises the economy. There has always been frustration for all Governments in how to turn that benefit and make that leap, without causing all sorts of unaffordably large public expenditure. Unfortunately, the Green Deal was not very successful in the coalition Government period. It is unfortunate that it seems to have disappeared altogether rather than being improved, which is what was needed. I hope we can move forward in some way in that area.
Demand reduction is key and the UK economy has been quite good at that in recent years, increasing energy efficiency by some 2% or 3% per annum, but the other part of demand is demand-side management. Again, the report tackles that subject, which has been very unfashionable. It has often been forgotten about and is only starting to be considered. In that context, the report specifically mentions capacity payments, which are particularly important. What has effectively happened is that the aggregation of demand-side management, which should really be competing with generation under the capacity payment, has been discriminated against. I remember from the coalition Government years that there were all sorts of issues in DECC about getting the two to compete properly that were legally quite difficult. I do not know but it certainly seems that it should be a priority of government to make sure that demand-side aggregation and management plays an equal part to that of capacity in the capacity mechanism.
The noble Earl was also right to say that most of the existing capacity mechanism has brought in fossil fuels, which is unfortunate. But demand-side management aggregation on the capacity mechanism would make absolutely sure that we do not build extra capacity. We actually need less and should solve it in that way, by taking out the peaks.
I also wanted specifically to mention interconnectors, which is an important area but has been relatively sleepy over the past few years. DECC may have got involved in this again in the last couple of years, so we now have interconnectors with Ireland, the Netherlands and France. We have opportunities, perhaps, for geothermal to come in from Iceland; that may be rather a big ask but I know we have a memorandum of understanding with the Icelandic Government. I would be interested to hear from the Minister where interconnector policy is going. That would not only seem to take out the peaks but has export potential for us as well. We should very much welcome it.
My last point on this excellent report concerns storage. As renewables grow and intermittency becomes a problem, energy storage will be part of the solution. There seems to be a frustratingly slow evolution of efficiency in energy storage. We have run out of capacity in dams and water, and all that side of energy storage. The Tesla corporation seems to be making good progress in the commercial field but I would be interested to hear from the Minister what investment the Government are stimulating in R&D at present. There is clearly a worldwide demand for this, especially in the UK. I commend the report fully and look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (CB)
My Lords, I declare my membership of your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee and thank our chairman, the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, for his skill in guiding us over some complicated and, for some of us non-scientists, rather stretching terrain.
Among the gifts that we like to think we possess as a people, there is a special cluster on which we pride ourselves: strategic thinking, horizon-scanning and forward planning. The subject before us, I regret to say, does not sit easily within this pleasing self-image for when it comes to the divine spark of electricity, we all too often believe “It’ll Be Alright on the Night”. We are an all-right-on-the-night nation in so many areas, including this one. Our optimism is sometimes burnished by our belief that just over the horizon lies a technological and scientific breakthrough that will match cheapness with abundance, leading to a bright, well-lit future that takes care of itself for generation upon generation, while avoiding harming the planet as a bonus. I am of course talking about nuclear fusion, which I remember reading about as a boy in the late 1950s.
In January 1958, science and energy journalists were invited to Harwell to be briefed on Project ZETA, the Atomic Energy Authority’s nuclear fusion experiment. They were enthused—they really were—and news of it fired up the national newspapers and straddled the globe. The Prime Minister, Mr Harold Macmillan, was on a Commonwealth tour at the time and when he reached New Zealand its prime minister, Walter Nash, asked Macmillan how ZETA worked—a testing question for a classical scholar. As the British high commissioner, Sir George Mallaby, recorded:
“‘Well’, said Mr McMillan, looking vaguely about him, ‘You just take sea water and turn it into power’”.
He paused for effect before adding:
“We are pretty good at sea water”.
We are still waiting for the promise of fusion to be fulfilled. Some experts think it might now be a mere decade away; others reckon that another 40 years should do it. All the rest of us can do is live in hope that the shining hour will come.
This evening I should like to concentrate, first, on the need for a consensual, long-term strategy for electricity supply, as outlined so well by our chairman. I am pleased that this will be central to the work of the new National Infrastructure Commission, for which I generally have high hopes. Secondly, I should like to anticipate briefly the array of threats that we may face as an advanced society, ever-more dependent on an uninterrupted supply of electricity.
There are certain thresholds that a country cannot afford to reach, let alone to cross. Electricity supply is one of them. As the committee’s report notes, last winter:
“National Grid procured extra capacity to raise the capacity margin from 4.1% to 6.1%”,
to,
“guard against a potential shortage of electricity”.
The committee stressed that it was,
“a matter for concern … that this extra capacity was put in place at short notice, at considerable cost, and in a way which conflicts with the decarbonisation agenda”.
The report goes on:
“This should not be allowed to happen again; it is not acceptable for an advanced economy, hugely dependent on electricity, to sail so close to the wind”.
As the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, emphasised, the committee also noted that but for the economic slowdown which followed the financial crash of 2008,
“capacity margins would have been much tighter”.
I must confess that it is a mystery to me why this question has lacked the bite it deserves in the Cabinet and across Cabinet Committee rooms over several Governments. In political terms, there are few surer or swifter sappers of public confidence in a Government than serious interruptions to electricity supply, as those of us who lived through the 1970s winters of discontent remember all too vividly.
In its own way, security of power supply is a first-order element in the defence of the realm. Indeed, given our justified anxieties about the nature and scope of future cyberattacks, it will rise higher still up the hierarchy in the risk register. Already, we are facing between 150 and 200 serious cyberattacks on government and business every month. Those wishing us serious, widespread and swift harm in the future will go for the electricity grid first. Our ever-greater reliance on the internet and on the coming internet of things will no doubt bring great and accumulating economic advantage, and improve personal consumption and comfort, but the risks will rise too.
I am a natural consensualist but not, I hope, an indiscriminate one. I am convinced that a sure and safe electricity supply is an area where consensus is justifiable and desirable. By all means let us have our arguments about the ingredients of our energy mix, and the respective roles of the state and private suppliers, but the evidence presented to the committee during its inquiry demonstrated a near-universal belief that electricity supply is, and must remain, a managed market in the United Kingdom. Muddling through, however smartly, is not enough. The problem we are dealing with today requires an enduring national effort, ranging from sustained political attention to large-scale investment, energetic R&D on the possibilities of electricity storage, the development of interconnectors with our neighbours, as other noble Lords have mentioned, and as many cyberdefences as our scientists and technologists can provide.
Short of a devastating solar event—which we considered, for reasons of completeness, I am sure—about which we could do very little, remedies are very much in our own hands. Let us seize them and avoid our becoming an outage society. If in future we go into the dark, our people will be unforgiving, and they will be right to be so.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, just before the right reverend Prelate speaks, I want to apologise to the House. I think I referred to “the noble Earl” when I meant the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, when I addressed the House. I apologise for getting my titles wrong.
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield
My Lords, along with many others, I warmly welcome this report and its principal recommendations. It seems to me to be clear and timely, and the issues it highlights for the United Kingdom in the medium term are very significant indeed. I particularly welcome, along with others, the recognition that the electricity market is now a managed market. I underline the statement in paragraph 37:
“Balancing security of supply, sustainability and affordability (the trilemma) is a first order issue for the Secretary of State”.
I will focus my remarks on two specific areas. The first is to highlight the importance of the needs of industry and manufacturing when looking at our future energy needs. It seems to me that this area is not addressed in sufficient depth in this otherwise excellent report. The future forecasts of energy consumption are largely focused on the demands of domestic consumers. The report focuses on the rise in the use of electric cars and heat pumps, and on the demand for more air conditioning—rightly so. But there is very little if anything about research into the future energy needs of the manufacturing sector, which is so critical to a rebalanced economy, particularly in the north of England.
Your Lordships will be all too familiar with the crisis facing the British steel industry. I made a visit in October, a few weeks ago, to Tata’s Speciality Steels in Stocksbridge, near Sheffield. I saw at first hand the process of rolling the steel made from recycled scrap metal into immense 60 or 80-metre bars for use in parts for the aerospace, energy and car industries. The future supply and price of energy is vital to the future of the steel industry and of engineering in this country. In 1970, the industrial sector was responsible for 40% of final UK energy consumption. By 1990, this had fallen to 24%, and by 2014 to 17%. But manufacturing remains a vital part of our economy. Competitively priced electricity is essential.
Conversations with the senior team in Stocksbridge during my visit focused on future energy pricing and supply. The British steel industry currently pays much more for its energy than its competitors in Germany and the rest of Europe. The playing field is not level. According to Luis Sanz, managing director of Celsa, quoted in the Financial Times on 27 October, his company faces electricity bills of €68 per megawatt hour to run its steel plant in Cardiff. A similar operation in Germany would cost about €24 per megawatt hour.
The Government have promised a full package of measures for energy-intensive industry but only once they receive clearance from the EU on state aid rules. I do not believe we can wait any longer to bring this vital help to our steel industry. We have already seen the closure or reduction of plants in Redcar and Scunthorpe, with the consequent damage to communities and to Britain’s industrial base. I urge the Government to act and bring forward this support in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement.
The present and future pricing of electricity in the reality of a managed market is very different for domestic consumers and for industry. Our industry is competing month by month for contracts in a global market. It is vital that manufacturing continues to grow again as part of our economy. Our energy pricing must take account of the needs of industry in the leadership offered by the Secretary of State across the sector.
My second area of focus is on the need, for environmental reasons, to decarbonise electricity generation while keeping the lights on at an affordable price—the energy trilemma. The Government have made, and I hope are about to make, clear promises to the international community in the new global goals and in the forthcoming climate change talks in Paris to reduce our carbon emissions significantly. This is vital for the future of our planet and for the poorest people on the earth. The Committee for Climate Change has rightly recommended an ambitious target: that carbon intensity of power generation should be reduced from 500 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour to 50 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour by 2030. This represents an enormous transformation in our energy market over the next 13 years—a very short time. I warmly support the Government’s strong manifesto commitment to reducing the impact of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Much in this report supports that agenda.
The report underlines the importance of honest, straightforward communication about the energy trilemma. It highlights the benefits of better long-range planning and information about the costs of energy shortfalls. It recommends the rapid rollout of smart meters and better information for Parliament and consumers. I particularly highlight, as others have done, the key recommendation at paragraph 244 on page 87 of the report:
“We recommend that the Government publishes a systematic review of the evidence available on the predicted costs of integration to 2030 and beyond, taking into account a wide range of scenarios”.
This seems to me to be a plea for a much more detailed and transparent long-term energy budget. I encourage the Minister to respond to this recommendation in particular in his response to the debate.
Managing the future of our energy supply is vital for our quality of life, our industry and our economy, and for the future ecology of our world. Along with other noble Lords, I warmly welcome this report.
Lord Dixon-Smith (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate, because he reminds us, as we should not need reminding, that this industry is wholly about serving individual people. We of course are an unrepresentative bunch here, but the effects of the decisions that we can influence can be very profound for people across the whole country. I wish this evening to talk about something that we did not really get into in this particular debate.
We heard that we were able to get away with the low-reduction margin of electricity at present because the system was very diverse and, very complex, and, if there was a breakdown, it would affect only a small part of it. That meant that there was resilience, because if a small part breaks down, it is not the same as if, let us say, the new power station at Hinkley Point were to break down, because that would knock a large chunk of generating capacity offstream in one go.
One thing that we did not talk about, because it was not particularly helpful, is the amount of heat that the whole electricity-generating industry creates. It is remarkable that not least of the vital factors in running a major generating plant is how you cool it. We then produce electricity which we supply all over the country, to industry, commerce and private homes, a large proportion of which will be used to produce heat. Somehow, we have to escape from the historic trap that we are in because of the planning system. The old coal-fired generating stations, in particular, were pretty dirty places and caused a great deal of atmospheric pollution, which could affect local communities. Quite rightly, we put the generating plant as far away from people as we could.
We can now escape from that, and we need to look at the whole planning system so that we can bring our generating capacity to the very fringe of the communities it serves, if not actually within it. I hope that no one will be too surprised at this, but we used to have a wonderful generating station in Battersea. Part of the solution to the heat-generation problem was to use it to heat the houses in large parts of Battersea and a certain amount of Chelsea. We could considerably reduce overall electricity demand, I suggest, if we began to put our power, generating plant on the urban fringe or even in the urban areas on industrial sites.
There is a policy implication there that we rightly did not go into. I have no concern about the health implications of bringing, let us say, the Hinkley Point generator on to the fringe of London, although some people unquestionably might have. My view is set by the fact that a large and vital part of our Navy is now totally nuclear powered. We have men who live, apparently without any ill effect on their health or anything else, in a totally enclosed environment next to a nuclear reactor. I do not think we have a health issue if we start to bring plant such as Hinkley Point to, let us say, the fringe of London or even—although it is too late—Battersea Power Station. We would diminish the pressure for increased electricity generation at a stroke if that were to happen.
Rightly, we did not look at that during this examination, because we were looking at the way we are doing things now, but I hope that the Minister in his reply will acknowledge that there are policy aspects to this issue that need radical reconsideration. I hope that by the time my grandsons are my age, we will have a much more effective system and they will not be looking back and saying, “Why didn’t my grandfather and his generation, who knew there was this problem, do something about it?”.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan (Lab)
My Lords, I have interests in the electricity industry, and I have declared them in the register. First, I congratulate the noble Earl on this report. He and I have served as colleagues on the committee for many years, and I was more than delighted when he assumed the chair. He has already acquitted himself with great distinction today and in the production of the report.
When we embarked on this inquiry, I do not think we anticipated that we would be debating it at such a significant time of year. About now there is usually a meteorological Cassandra forecasting the coldest winter in living memory and concluding that we are all doomed to months of freezing darkness. Although I would not want to adopt a Panglossian view of the prospect for the next few months, I think that some cautious optimism is called for, at least for 2015-16.
National Grid, the system operator, has forecast a loss of load expectation of 5.1% de-rated capacity margin, which will be met by 2.43 gigawatts of additional balancing services. At the time we were given the evidence, I could probably have explained all that to your Lordships in very simple terms, but I will not trouble the House this evening by going into great detail. Suffice it to say that a major element will be demand-side management.
When we were taking evidence, we were told, as I said, that we could be confident that in 2015-16 the lights would not go out. National Grid has a reasonably sound track record in that area. The question remains: what of subsequent winters? It is perhaps easy to say that the margins are getting ever narrower and that we should have dealt with the anticipated problem earlier. I have been participating in debates in the other place and here for nearly 40 years, and I have always heard people saying that we must have a long-term strategy.
I came into Westminster in the 1970s, when, like the welfare state, the coal industry was big. It was something that we took pride in. Within about five years, the coal industry was to be destroyed. After 1989, we embraced gas because we could start burning the gas in the North Sea to keep our houses warm. There was a major change in European policy, and we embraced gas-fired power stations at the expense of everything else. We abandoned nuclear. Then we discovered that it might be a wee bit dangerous if we were to be completely in thrall to gas, because we did not always know where it was going to come from. The somewhat hyper-enthusiasm for gas of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, this afternoon suggests that he has forgotten where a lot of the gas that we depend on comes from. We might not want to be overdependent on some of the sources of supply.
Nuclear was out; gas was going to be the answer. Then, people began to wake up to the fact that we were going to be shutting down our nuclear power stations, which in those days accounted for about 25% of our power. Even if we kept just a few coal-fired power stations and imported the gas, European diktats were going to require us to start closing them down as well.
So I am very cautious when people tell us that what we need is a long-term strategy, because most long-term strategies last about seven or eight years, maximum. At the same time, if we are investing in nuclear power, it is very expensive at the beginning but has a very long life. It is therefore possible to pay it back over time. Nevertheless, it is a major expense. We know at the moment that it is very difficult to attract investors to it.
We have been looking at the closure of power stations, the reduction in our capacity quickly to replace them and, at the same time, our dependence on renewables. The dependence is on plants that are too small and, invariably, interruptible. Therefore, while we can look forward with some confidence to Hinkley, it is not quite in the fusion category, yet it is taking rather longer than we had anticipated. It is not that many years ago when we thought the Christmas turkeys of 2017 or 2018 might be being roasted with nuclear-generated electricity; it might be more realistic to talk in terms of 2027. Certainly, the French record of building nuclear power stations is none too encouraging, although one would hope that, having had two test runs in Finland and France, they might be able to make a better job of Hinkley than they have hitherto. One thing that is certain is that the electricity that will come out of Hinkley will not be cheap, because unfortunately the first-generation kit being constructed in the UK is the most expensive, and takes the longest and is the most difficult to build. Some might say that we could get new nuclear from other sources almost as quickly as we get it from Hinkley—but that is another issue.
Demand management, which is really the self-imposed reduction in demand by major consumers, is seen by National Grid as an important contributor. It will ensure that there will be no enforced blackouts in the foreseeable future, but this will have to be achieved in the context of emerging electricity markets, which are in the process of being reformed. The committee expressed concern about the quality of information on which many judgments are being made, particularly the appropriateness of the reliability standard. The Government are required by law to monitor that every five years. They would be well advised to produce annual reports to let us see what the thinking is, rather than dashing to get the information in place in the last nine months before the end of the five-year period.
As has already been said, it is not all about indigenous generated power, because we have interconnection. However, the situation is not very clear, as the information we received on back-up generation and interconnection was somewhat less than satisfactory. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether that information has been updated. Certainly, we would want reassurance regarding the scaremongering that often provides the headlines, fills the space between the adverts in social media and feeds the paranoia of the bedsit conspiracy theorists; we need better information to dampen those anxieties at source. It is fair to say that we were impressed by the awareness of the appropriate authorities of the dangers of cyberattacks on the system and terrorist threats generally. There was a reassuring absence of complacency; they certainly seemed to anticipate what the bad guys would be trying to do. In that sense, we have some degree of consolation. Nevertheless, eternal vigilance is required in this area, as in so many others; we underestimate the dangers of cyberattacks and other attacks on our system.
We must be cautious. People say that we will have smart meters and better integrated grids, and that all kinds of technical possibilities will be realised, such as storage batteries, carbon capture and storage, electrical vehicles and electrification of the transport system. All those technologies will come at a cost; many are still immature and cannot really be depended on with any degree of certainty. We have to strike a somewhat cautious note, but it is a bit frustrating for Select Committees when the report has been produced and we have what we think is the most up-to-date information, yet we get very cautious responses. I draw some consolation from my experience in Select Committees, which goes back quite a while. I am reminded of what George Bernard Shaw said—that when he was 18 he was convinced that his father was one of the most ignorant men he had ever met; yet, by the time he was 21, he was surprised how much his father had learned. We often find that, within a very short time— before the dust has settled on Select Committee recommendations—civil servants, the machinery of government and eventually Ministers change their tune. It will be unfortunate if that does not happen here, because this excellent report can be ignored only for so long. We ignore it any longer at the peril of our economy and our quality of life.
Viscount Ridley
The noble Lord says that he is concerned about where the gas is going to come from, but we are more dependent on imported coal than on imported gas, in that 85% of our coal comes from abroad and 40% of it comes from Russia.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
I am not sure whether I am supposed to respond to that. My point is that there are a number of uncertain sources of gas. I think we would all agree that the nature of our dependence on coal is essentially temporary. The long-term requirements of a section of our fossil fuel demand will be met by gas, which will still come from areas that will be unpredictable politically and socially, to say the least.
Lord Broers (CB)
My Lords, this was a rigorous inquiry, chaired with consummate skill by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and supported with detailed expertise by Professor Jim Watson and highly professional co-ordination by the committee staff, led by Chris Clarke. I join others in congratulating them all and declare my interest as a fellow the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, and also the national academies of engineering of the United States, China and Australia, where I have also discussed energy.
I shall discuss only the committee’s recommendation that:
“The Government should ensure that incentives are in place so that all new generation is built in such a way as to maximise its flexibility, whilst ensuring that the costs to consumers are minimised”.
The emphasis is on flexibility, but it is really about costs. I will briefly discuss the recommendation that,
“the Government should also disseminate more comprehensive evidence on the potential costs of low carbon generation and improve communication with the public”.
There has, in fact, been significant progress over the past two years in telling people what is happening. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, has just said, we had been in a worse situation. We now have the full set of strike prices, including that for nuclear power, and it is becoming possible to evaluate the various scenarios open to the country. This is a welcome change from the time when it seemed that no one knew what was possible, or even what was happening. For example, I recall the Government in late 2009 insisting that we would have 8 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in the North Sea by 2011, which was clearly impossible and revealed a total lack of understanding of the challenges of that technology.
I experienced the new openness in a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, in answer to a supplementary question I asked earlier this year, and I thank the Minister for his letter and apologise for being so late in doing so. I had asked whether the capacities that he had referred to for various renewables were the gross capacities or the power actually delivered to the grid. He pointed out in his letter that they were the latter, and that the load factors used for onshore wind and solar were 24% to 32% and 9% to 11% respectively—a welcome recognition of reality. Solar PV yields 1/10th of what it says on the label.
It is clear that DECC is getting to grips with the complex and difficult energy trilemma. Five years after we were being told we would have 8 gigawatts of offshore wind in the North Sea, we are at least approaching 4 gigwatts and data are being produced that help us to estimate the real costs of offshore wind, although it will be a long time before we can assess the maintenance costs of these huge machines in the hostile environment of the North Sea. There is also some action, rather than endless talking, on new nuclear, even if, regrettably, we are not going to build it ourselves but will put it in the hands of the French and the Chinese.
Overall, we now have enough data to assess quantitatively different combinations of power generation type. Some of these have been laid out in the Electricity Market Reform Delivery Plan. What becomes clear, however, is that renewable energy generation is extremely expensive. The strike price for offshore wind, for example, has been set at more than three times the cost of electricity today: at £155 per kilowatt hour compared with £50 per kilowatt hour for conventional fossil fuel, which is the reference price. It is also more than 50% higher than the £92 per kilowatt hour projected for nuclear in 2023.
So the high deployment of the offshore wind scenario, in which offshore wind provides about a third of the power, shown in the EMR delivery plan would require the taxpayer to provide a subsidy amounting to two-thirds of the present cost of electricity, which is twice the reference price for about a third of the power generated. In fact, if one relies on the data available today, the high deployment of the nuclear option would seem to provide the lowest cost for meeting our carbon targets, especially as nuclear can be used to back up the intermittent renewables as well as producing little carbon itself. However, this cost will be much higher than the cost of electricity today. The high deployment of the CCS option may emerge as attractive in the future, but there is too little evidence available at this time to evaluate it. The hope is that large cost reductions will be realised as the renewable methods are scaled up, but this is anything but certain.
It is also argued that energy bills are already coming down and that this trend can be continued, but the reductions we have seen recently have nothing to do with progress with low-carbon generation. They have resulted from other factors, and I shall mention some of them. First, there have been significant reductions in the cost of fossil fuels. DECC data show that, between the second quarter of 2013 and the second quarter of 2015, UK energy suppliers paid 20% less for natural gas, 23% less for coal and 40% less for oil—the noble Viscount has mentioned some of this already. Secondly, there is what DECC calls products policy. This is the adoption of Europe-wide standards and energy labels that have increased the efficiency of household appliances. It is a truly excellent initiative. There is also the 80% energy saving that results from the use of LEDs rather than incandescent bulbs, and the increasing use of improved insulation, even if we are not as good at that as the rest of Europe, and the ability better to monitor usage through the use of smart meters.
Realising these gains is very good news, but they are likely to be overwhelmed by the vast increases in renewable generation cost, and taxpayers are going to have to bear the burden imposed upon them when the strike prices are higher than the reference price. It is essential that we continually monitor progress across the spectrum of low-carbon energy generation and adjust the mix to minimise cost, while, of course, meeting our carbon targets. At present the data suggest that this will mean maximising the use of nuclear power despite its higher cost, so I impress upon the Minister the need for the Government to press on with nuclear, and I include the small-scale modular reactors which the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, mentioned.
Before finishing, like others I emphasise the need to increase support for R&D in energy generation and, as stated in chapter 8 of the report, ensure that the objectives of the nuclear industrial strategy recommended by NIRAB are met. I shall also look forward and join the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, in saying a few words about fusion power. There has been and remains a lot of scepticism about fusion, but there has been recent progress in plasma fusion on three fronts. First, at ITER—the international thermonuclear experimental reactor project in the south of France, where a doughnut-shaped reactor the size of the Arc de Triomphe is being built with the aim of producing half a megawatt of net output some time in the late 2020s—there have been delays and management problems, but in September an important milestone was achieved. A billion-dollar contract was placed to deliver the 200 kilometres of superconducting wires that will produce the magnetic field used to compress and confine the plasma and reach the temperature of 10 times that of the sun needed to produce fusion.
Secondly, here at Culham and at Princeton in the US two new tokamaks are being built to explore a new geometry for the fusion chamber. These are known as spherical tokamaks where the reactor chamber is not a torus, or doughnut, but is spherical, more like a cored apple with a single conductor down the middle. This geometry has been shown to be three times more effective in harnessing the magnetic field, and there are hopes that this may make reactors smaller than ITER feasible.
Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)
My Lords, listening to the fascinating account of developments in fusion given by the noble Lord, Lord Broers, I am brought back to 34 years ago when I was Secretary of State for Energy. All my scientific advisers assured me that fusion would be economic within 25 years at most. Is it not dangerous to engage in wishful thinking?
Lord Broers
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, for that intervention. It is dangerous to be overly optimistic, and people have accused some of the people working on the new types of reactors of overoptimism, but the promise of fusion, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, said earlier in this debate, is great. I am not suggesting that we replace huge quantities of investment elsewhere with work on fusion; I am just suggesting that we continue working on it because of its very great potential. It would be criminal not to continue to pursue it, particularly as we are making advances today. I am not suggesting at this stage that it is going to be tomorrow’s answer. It has always been tomorrow’s technology, but sometimes tomorrow’s technology comes home to roost, sometimes when we least expect it. I shall end on that optimistic note. If we could harness fusion power, we would have a lot of our problems resolved.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, I was not a member of this excellent committee. I declare an interest as an adviser to Mitsubishi Electric. Like others, I agree that this is an extremely valuable report. In fact, I would go further and say that it casts a much-needed beam of light on an area where in the past we have not been told the full facts or what it is going to cost us. So the report is excellent, and its message is quite appalling. That reliability of power supply should be even an issue in one of the world’s leading industrial nations—the nation that founded the Industrial Revolution based on steam and power—is quite amazing and deplorable. It makes one ponder what has gone wrong and what has happened. This report helps enormously in beginning to answer that question.
Of course, the lights will stay on in the short term. That is obvious, and we are right about that. Thanks largely to the immense skills of National Grid, which is a brilliant company, and various devices, which I will come to, on the supply side and the demand side, in the short term, in the next two or three years, we will have adequate power, even at the most difficult times, unless something really catastrophic happens. It is going to cost us; it is going to be expensive, and I will come to that, too.
Then we come to the medium-term future. The issue is the capacity margin, however you define it: the derated margin or the full-capacity margin. That is a central issue. Here I have one slight quibble with the report, although I think that the noble Earl, with his excellent chairmanship and his excellent speech, clarified this. Paragraphs 23 and 71 state that the additional capacity that would be brought forward by the capacity market is 49 gigawatts. That is true, but it does not quite tell the story, which is that in terms of new capacity the auction so far has brought forward miserably little: 2.7 gigawatts, which consists of only one single combined-cycle gas turbine, the Carlton Power one, which admittedly is quite a big one, and a lot of small capacity. The larger figure of 49 gigawatts comes not from truly additional new capacity but from existing companies in the power game crowding in and seeking to get contracts for capacity payments to add to theirs so that they can get capacity revenues on top of market revenues. That is natural; any one of us would do the same.
So that is terrific: except, as my noble friend Lord Ridley reminded us, in 2018-19 it is going to cost just under £1 billion—£956 million, to be exact—which will all be piled on to the consumer, and I think that he mentioned an even higher figure for 2020. These are enormous sums of money, and what are they buying? We are going to need at least 20 to 25 new gigawatts of capacity in the late 2010s and early 2020s to compensate for the fact that our coal stations are being closed at a great rate, thanks to the European directive for larger combustion and the fact that our nuclear fleet is ageing and some of it will have to be closed as well. So that is the scene up to 2018.
In the short term, as I said, the national grid will be able to cope. It will use all sorts of devices such as the supplemental balancing reserve, which will cost a bit, and the demand side balancing reserve, which may involve what we used to call in the old days of gas supply interruptible contracts, where a firm agrees that it could bring on its own local generation or somehow manage to do without for a time if there is a crisis—all of that, of course, at more expense. As one of the reports before us today reminds us, domestic bills have doubled since 2004. Paragraph 217 of this excellent report tells us that up to last year green policy costs had added 15% to bills; by 2020 that figure will be 27% and by 2030 the figure will be 29%. There is a case for subsidy. I am not against the idea of infant industries being encouraged, but only up to a point.
The report reminds us that the policy of the last seven or so years, at the end of the Labour Government but particularly under the coalition, which was largely under the guidance of our then friends the Liberal Democrats, went too far, too fast. Many good things emerged from the coalition but, frankly, our energy policy was not one of them. It was a bad legacy. I heard one of your Lordships say in last Thursday’s debate what a wonderful success energy policy had been under the coalition, and I did not know whether to laugh or cry. In fact, on almost every front that success has turned into a miserable failure; my noble friend Lord Ridley put it in even more graphic terms. It was of course a policy inherited from Labour, particularly from Mr Miliband when he was at the Department for Energy and Climate Change. It was called the trilemma and someone was going to solve it, but in reality it has been a complete failure on the three fronts.
What are those three fronts? The first is affordability. That has gone out of the window: we have some of the most expensive electricity in Europe. We have households having to go to fuel banks in order to get tokens to get enough money to stay warm, which is an incredible situation in this country. We had a story graphically put before us by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield about the impact on our steel industry, which is appalling, and where energy costs have undoubtedly played a major part. So affordability has been a failure.
The second aim was supposed to be reliability. Well, here we are, talking about reliability and security; I think that we will get through, but it has been quite a narrow margin and will continue to be.
The third front was decarbonisation. There are different views on this. If you look only at the production of energy, it is true that CO2 has fallen quite dramatically, partly because of the recession and flat demand, and partly because of various measures taken. Of course, carbon does not come only from the production of energy; it comes from a huge range of sources, and carbon per head is consumed in vast quantities by imports as well as by the whole carbon leakage process that other speakers have described. This is a scene that leaves one—“sad” is the right word, but I shall say almost “depressed” that so many policy errors have been made and applauded that have led to such an appalling situation.
We have been saved for the moment by the national grid. I think that later we will be saved to some degree by the interconnectors: we should be able to get up to 5 gigawatts from interconnectors in the middle of the next decade, which will be—this will please the climate change lobby—mostly green electricity. There will be volcanic from Iceland, if we build a wire to there, and hydraulic storage from Norway, while the Danes will supply us with wind power; they have such a surplus that someone suggested that they would actually pay us to take it. We will also be saved a bit by prolonging the life of the old warhorse, AGR reactors. They can go on a little longer into the 2020s, so that is another possibility. We will be saved if the storage technology develops fast, and may be saved a bit by the development of local power of various sorts—small modular reactors and so on.
I do not know about fusion, which the noble Lord, Lord Broers, referred to. When I was Secretary of State, the late Walter Marshall came into my office to try to explain it to me. He began by saying, “It’s like trying to put the sun into a bottle”. That was his description and it rather left me without words. As my noble friend Lord Lawson said, it all looks very much the thing of the future, but somehow it never arrives.
For the longer term, we have to have a safe system. We cannot go on living with this constant worry about margins for the next 10 or 20 years. We need a new, less expensive and more realistic policy, frankly explained and costed. This report does a marvellous job in helping in that direction—but, my goodness, we certainly need it.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest regarding the work that I am currently doing with the Electric Infrastructure Security Council. I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and the Science and Technology Committee on producing an interesting and extremely important report. The report is interesting for me because when I was very young, more than 30 years ago, I was deputy director of an organisation then called the Electricity Consumers’ Council. It used to produce all sorts of papers on electricity supply questions that were no doubt deeply irritating to the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, who is not in his place today but who then led the electricity supply industry as chair of the Electricity Council. This was, of course, pre-privatisation.
One of our concerns was the financial burden borne by consumers of what then seemed like an excessive margin of overcapacity. If I recall correctly, the margin was something like 40% over maximum likely demand. The late Lord Marshall of Goring, whom the noble Lord, Lord Howell, just referred to, described that as a strategy of belt, braces and string as regards protecting the country from power outages. However, the pendulum has now swung very far the other way, with, as the report says, capacity margins of potentially 3% or 4%. It is no longer belt, braces and string but a wish and a prayer. I therefore welcome the central conclusion of the report that the Government must play a greater role in managing the electricity system. However, I will focus on one very narrow part of the report, which I would have liked to be much larger, although I am sure that the pressures on the committee made it much more difficult to do that. That is the focus on what happens if, or perhaps when, something goes seriously wrong. I am talking here not about a short-term power outage but a catastrophic failure—one that goes on for more than a short period.
Chapter 4 talks about the threats to the resilience of the electricity system. It identifies four areas: technical failures; extreme weather, including flooding; terrorism—both physical attack and cyberattack—and space weather. Not included of course is earthquake, which is fortunately a very low-probability event in the UK. Therefore, when the report talks about a variety of technical failures—the fires at Ferrybridge, Ironbridge and Didcot—and the precautionary shutdown of four nuclear reactors at Hartlepool and Heysham, these incidents all call into question the capacity margins now available. Let us consider those technical failures coupled with other things that might happen.
There is extreme weather and flooding. Christmas two years ago saw storms that resulted in 750,000 households being without power and, as the report notes, the incidence of severe weather is likely to rise as a result of climate change. Then there is threat of physical attack—such as the IRA’s planned attack in 1996 to cut off the electricity supply to London—or cyberattack. For serious and sustained disruption to take place, clearly there would have to be multiple attacks, which we know terrorist groups have in the past envisaged or contemplated. Perhaps it may be beyond them at the moment, but one should certainly consider that possibility.
On the cyber side, as the Institution of Engineering and Technology has pointed out, the UK electricity system is heavily reliant on ICT systems, and that reliance is increasing, with more and more automated systems increasing the vulnerability. The IET also warns—I am well aware of this from the interest I have taken in security over the years—that foreign states and others have been identified as probing the systems that underpin our critical national infrastructure. Imperial College, as quoted in the report, highlighted the vulnerability of SCADA systems and the reliance on legacy unsupported software platforms. My noble friend Lord O’Neill talked about the reassuring absence of complacency in looking at these issues and recognising that these threats are real and significant. I am pleased that there is no complacency, but the very fact that there is a reassuring lack of complacency indicates that these matters must be taken very seriously, which concurs with the private discussions I have had. Let us therefore be quite clear that there would be catastrophic consequences in the event of something significant happening.
I should just mention the risk of adverse space weather or solar storms. I think the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, suggested that this was perhaps less likely than some of the other risks. Such solar storms can generate geomagnetically-induced currents into power systems. In 1859, solar flares were so intense as to produce red, green and purple auroras all round the world. At that time it made the telegraph systems go haywire and fail catastrophically, with spark discharges that gave telegraph operators electric shocks and set telegraph paper alight. That was in 1859; our reliance on electrical systems is rather greater now than it was then. More recently, in 1989, a geomagnetic storm knocked out power in large sections of Canada. These are things that happen which could have catastrophic consequences.
The report acknowledges the importance of these threats, but what about these low-probability events which would have a very high impact? How well prepared are we as a nation to deal with them? It is a characteristic of complex integrated systems that we now have, such as the United Kingdom’s critical national infrastructure, that a combination of low-probability events coupled with those integrated systems may produce a catastrophic domino effect—a catastrophic failure—which becomes more likely rather than diminishingly rare in prospect. It might be one of the threats already discussed or a combination, or it might be some incident or issue not previously encountered. However, let us consider what might happen and how ready we would be to respond as a nation.
Most vital services have contingency plans in place to deal with power outages; most have emergency or standby generators. Usually—although not always—they work. The reason I add that caveat is that I am well aware of the incident a few years ago when some overenthusiastic workmen cut through a cable in Victoria Street, cutting off the power to New Scotland Yard. When the Metropolitan Police said, “This isn’t going to be a problem—we have two back-up generators and, what is more, every day somebody checks that the fuel gauges are still working”. They had not taken into account that both fuel gauges were faulty, and in fact they did not have sufficient fuel. Fortunately, the Metropolitan Police has a back-up control room that is not in New Scotland Yard, and the issue was rapidly rectified.
However, even assuming that the standby generators are functional and working, they have fuel to last only 12 or, at most, 24 hours. What if the high-impact event leads to a widespread outage that lasts longer than that? What plans are in place then? How will the consequential domino effects be managed? Who, for example, will take responsibility for arranging and prioritising the distribution of emergency fuel to the standby generators? Who will have priority, and who will determine that priority? Will it be the emergency services, the hospitals, the water industry and the sewerage system, food warehouses or supermarkets? Eleven years ago, MI5 warned that Britain was four meals away from anarchy—that is just as true now as it was then. Our systems are based on the assumption that if something goes wrong, it will be rectified in most areas within 12 hours. That is not necessarily the case.
The report talks about the importance of the single emergency number, but that will not help very much because our landline telephones will not work without mains electricity and our mobiles will run out of charge. If there is no power to pump water underground, in London the pipes underneath the ground will probably collapse because in many cases they have not been repaired since the Victorian era, and without water going through them the ground pressure will cause them to collapse. Therefore, even if the power is restored, water supplies will remain disrupted. Without power, the sewerage system cannot function and, without being too graphic, the contents of the sewers are likely to solidify and will not be easily cleared. Food refrigeration cannot work without power, and supermarkets relying on just-in-time distribution will run out of stock. We are not equipped in this country to run our medical services without electrical power.
Therefore my questions to the Minister are the following. We are told in the report that the Secretary of State has been involved in exercises on these issues. For how long was it assumed in those exercises that the power would be off, and over how widespread an area? With local authorities already having made budget cuts of up to 40%, and with more to come when the CSR is published later this month, how resilient are the contingency plans for managing this sort of emergency? Do the authorities have a prioritised list of service providers that will need emergency fuel to keep their standby generators going? What arrangements are in place to distribute emergency fuel under such circumstances? How will food supplies be maintained? What steps are in place to ensure that water and sewerage systems continue to function, and how will communications be maintained to a no doubt increasingly panicked population with no power to maintain telephone systems, charge mobiles or power televisions or radios?
Individually, these threats may have low probability; each threat might be a once-in-50-years event, but any one of them could have a high, not to say devastating, impact. Our chances of avoiding all of them over the next few years are not necessarily as reassuring as one might hope. The nature and complexity of integrated systems and an increasingly power-reliant and ICT-reliant world mean that we ultimately depend on those services and that we are all the more vulnerable.
The report warns us that the Government must play a bigger role in managing the electricity system, given the narrowing of capacity margins. Can we be reassured also that the Government are actively preparing for the handling of a significant outage that turns out to stretch beyond 24 hours?
Lord Rees of Ludlow (CB)
My Lords, it was a privilege to serve under the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, in preparing this report, which highlights the narrowing gap between supply and potential demand. Further decommissionings in the last few months have surely sharpened these concerns.
We talk about keeping the lights on, but if there is a power cut, the blackout of lights is by no means the worst downside. IT systems, the infrastructure of cities, the habitability of high buildings all depend on electric power. Rather than multiplying the number of emergency diesel generators, at great expense and no little environmental damage, it is surely prudent to prioritise an enhanced safety margin in our primary generating capacity.
Moreover, although National Grid’s methodology is careful and transparent, it underweights the most devastating risks, about which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has just been curdling our blood. When crises arise, there can be a knock-on effect, where a malfunction, either mechanical or cyber, cascades through the system. The Cambridge Judge Business School, in collaboration with Lloyds, recently explored a hypothetical scenario of this kind in the eastern United States, claiming that economic damage could run into hundreds of billions of dollars. So I think we should be prepared to pay a higher insurance premium, as it were. This clearly requires a change in the regulations and incentives to ensure that fossil fuel stations are not decommissioned prematurely.
The downside of gaining this extra security would, of course, be to raise our CO2 emissions in the short run. Indeed, the most plausible projections towards 2050 envisage continued substantial dependence on gas-powered stations, but the hope, of course, has been to fit them with carbon capture and storage—CCS. However, the construction of CCS demonstration plants worldwide, especially in the UK, is lagging compared to what we had envisaged five years ago. Even if a demonstration project works, can we be optimistic that the technical, legal and environmental hurdles will be surmounted on a scale that allows widespread deployment, even by 2050? I wouldn’t bet on it.
If we are serious about achieving 80% reductions in CO2 emissions by 2050, as mandated by the Climate Change Act, then diminishing optimism about CCS means that nuclear power must be a bigger part of the mix. Indeed, DECC projections indicate that 30 or 40 gigawatts of nuclear power may be required—far more than current plans envisage.
According to recent statements from EDF, the operators of Hinkley, it should be on stream by the end of 2023, but few consider this credible. There may be legal challenges within the EU to be dealt with first; it might in any case be prudent to wait until at least one of the comparable EPRs now under construction, in France and Finland, have been completed. They are both famously billions over budget and years behind schedule. Realistically, Hinkley cannot be on stream before 2025, and if it suffers even a fraction of the delays of its two precursors, this date could slip towards 2030. It is not clear whether the lifetimes of existing power stations can be extended that long, nor that Bradwell could be constructed by then. Even if we are optimistic about the growth of renewables, nuclear cannot provide all the balance so there will be a gap that would surely have to be met by gas, without CCS.
Let us look further ahead. Decisions we make today will resonate well beyond 2050 and on that longer timescale there are prospects, even in the nuclear arena, that could lead to more economical and flexible baseload generators. There is no other high-tech area where one would be satisfied with 30 year-old designs. This was emphasised in a short debate last month initiated by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley.
Can we seize these opportunities? In an earlier report in 2011, the Science and Technology Committee discussed the nuclear industry, revealing a depressing picture. We have lost expertise in fields where the UK was once a world leader. That is why new nuclear reactors will be state-owned, but by the French or Chinese state and not by us. That is why we do not have the indigenous expertise to be major players in the development of fourth generation nuclear reactors.
We should surely aspire to spearhead some of the developments, especially when we are budgeting £80 billion over the next few decades to decommission Sellafield’s dreadful legacy of nuclear waste. From that perspective, it is anomalous that the National Nuclear Laboratory cannot spend more than the current few tens of millions per year on R&D.
Looking beyond 2050, there are exciting prospects for renewables. Although wind, tides, geothermal and bio have contributions to make, my prime long-term bet would be Europe-wide large-scale solar energy generation. We would need DC grids, which are transcontinental, carrying solar energy from north Africa and Spain to the less sunny northern Europe, and east-west to smooth peak demand over different time zones.
Moreover, if solar or, indeed, wind is to become a dominant source of energy, it must be capable of being stored, and supplied when and where it is needed. There is already a big worldwide investment in improving batteries. An exciting potential breakthrough in lithium air batteries was intimated just last week in an important paper from Professor Clare Grey and her Cambridge colleagues. There are also other possibilities, including thermal storage, capacitors, compressed air, fuel pumps, flywheels, molten salt, pumped hydro and hydrogen.
This is an arena where public and commercial efforts need to mesh together. The forthcoming Paris conference offers an opportunity to encourage nations to expand and co-ordinate their publicly funded R&D into clean energy, especially solar power, storage techniques and the design of smart grids. I would add fourth generation fission and, indeed, fusion into the mix. At the moment, only 2% of publicly funded R&D is in clean energy. Why should energy research not be comparable to spending on medical or defence research, higher than it now is?
This welcome and timely debate has focused on the short-term resilience of the electricity on which our lives depend. It is a wake-up call, a reminder that we need a long planning horizon. Our present anxieties are a legacy of decisions dating back decades. Likewise, decisions made today will resonate to 2050 and beyond, so let us hope that we get them right.
Baroness Worthington (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank the noble Earl for his excellent chairmanship of the committee which prepared the report. I also thank the committee members, many of whom have spoken today, and the committee staff, who worked incredibly diligently to prepare an excellent report.
This has been a characteristically deep and wide debate on a topic of particular significance. As has been said, the timing of the debate comes when we expect to see from the media the characteristic response that the lights are going out and woe is upon us. Perhaps this report has helped to calm some nerves and to demonstrate that, although there are issues in front of us in the short term, we have a resilient electricity system. That is the overriding point that I take away from the report. However, there are some challenges, some of which have been raised today.
I start by referring to my noble friend Lord Harris and the noble Lord, Lord Rees, who expertly drew our attention to the fact that we should not be complacent. Rare events which might have catastrophic impacts should be part of our planning, and we need to bear them in mind as we also try to grapple with the more mundane issues of maintaining a resilient system, keeping the lights on and maintaining the power supply to our essential services in a day-to-day sense. I am grateful that those perspectives have been highlighted this evening.
A number of noble Lords talked about the trilemma. The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, coined a new, delightful phrase: “the trisaster”. Energy policy is complex and there are always competing tensions, and it is definitely necessary for Governments of any colour or description to produce clarity and clear strategies. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Earl who began this debate so expertly, referenced the fact that we seem to lack a long-term strategy at the moment. I hope that everybody will agree that we are waiting for the Government to produce a document that sets out a new approach to a long-term energy strategy. I believe that there has been a shift since the coalition Government and we now need to see a restatement from the Government. We look forward to that. I suspect that we will hear it in the autumn. Perhaps it will coincide with the comprehensive spending review or another such convenient juncture at which the Government can clarify their position.
A number of noble Lords touched on different technologies. In particular, this evening we had quite a detailed debate about the role of nuclear, which is often the case when we debate this issue in this House. Clearly, there is more that the Government could do in setting out their strategy beyond the immediate concern of trying to get Hinkley off the ground. There needs to be a much more comprehensive look at the role that nuclear can play in providing resilience. There may well be a much scaled-down version of nuclear that helps to replace, in more bite-sized chunks, capacity that is being lost. By that, I mean that we will be losing Magnoxes and will eventually lose the AGRs. Those could be replaced by similarly scaled capacity, rather than the huge 3.X gigawatt projects that we seem to be struggling to get away on time. We also need to look at the slightly medium-scale and smaller-scale options for nuclear—a point raised by a number of noble Lords.
Whenever we talk about the resilience of our electricity system, we should look not only at supply; we must also look at the demand side, as has been raised by a number of noble Lords. I thought that the report was excellent in highlighting that the demand curve has changed. It is now in decline, and that is not simply as a result of the recent financial crisis and recession. It looks as though our demand for electricity peaked in around 2005 and it has been coming down steadily since then. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield highlighted one aspect of this—our continued deindustrialisation, which has obviously been picking up pace, or at least has hit the headlines, in recent weeks, but it is not a new phenomenon; we have been seeing the loss of industrial capacity over decades. That has been one contributing factor.
On the more positive side, we have seen big advances in energy efficiency and demand reduction. Some of that has come about as a result of policy; some of it has come about simply through technological improvements. One of the most notable successes that we have seen has been the revolution in lighting in recent years. The use of LED lighting for street lights and all over the place has happened almost invisibly, almost without government involvement. In response to energy pricing and the availability of new technology, we have seen a significant shift in demand, and those sorts of advances are likely to continue. The same can be said for flat-screen televisions and computer screens. There has been an awful lot of change, including in refrigeration motors. I could continue with the list of areas where we have seen progress in the more efficient use of energy, which has helped to soften the demand curve.
That has been both a blessing and a curse. It has certainly helped to make sure that the margins are not tighter than they would otherwise have been. However, it also makes investors rather lack confidence. It is quite easy to build into a market where the demand is growing. Where demand is shrinking, it starts to look a little harder to justify the spending of billions of capital. That is the nub of our problem at the moment. We have recognised that we have a low-carbon agenda which is delivering capacity, but fast deployment in that category is intermittent or varying and therefore is not providing firm power. The slower versions—CCS and nuclear—will eventually help us but we have no confidence that they will be available in the near term. As a result, we have a low-carbon agenda which is certainly helping to build capacity but it will not be firm capacity unless we ramp up our use of energy from waste, which of course is firm and classed as a renewable.
We have had another intervention—the capacity mechanism. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I dwell on this because it is a crucial issue and was referenced by the noble Earl. We have a capacity mechanism that is currently in conflict with our low-carbon agenda. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield also mentioned this, as did others. It is a curiosity that we have this mechanism, which was intended to bring forward investment in new gas generation. If the Treasury’s or DECC’s gas strategy is to be believed, this was the policy that was going to bring forward investment in replacement capacity for our CCGTs, which are both efficient and relatively clean compared with our ageing coal fleet. However, the first capacity market auction did not deliver anything like what we expected.
The noble Lord, Lord Howell, and others referenced the fact that we are not seeing the volumes of new capacity in the capacity market that we might have expected. That is despite the fact that a 15-year contract was made available to encourage such investment. The problem is that, in addition to the 15-year contract, one-year and three-year capacity market contracts were given for existing capacity. Of course, if you had existing capacity, your capital costs would have been amortised decades ago and you could bid in at very low prices, and those in that position have taken the lion’s share of the capacity auction contracts. Of the £11 that DECC’s capacity market is expected to add to the average consumer bill, just 53p has been spent on new infrastructure and £7.50 will go to the big six for their existing capacity. When we need to see new capacity being built, you have to ask whether this policy is calibrated in the wrong way. This has been an ongoing discussion and we have certainly raised the perverse effect that it has had in making old coal stations last potentially longer than need be the case, giving coal an advantage over gas. In a market where there are already problems with the relative prices of coal and gas, is that sensible?
I turn to the latest problem that seems to have emerged in the capacity market. Page 3 of tomorrow’s FT carries a story about the rather odd fact that we are now funding distributed diesel generators, a huge number of which will be relied on to keep the lights on under certain circumstances. We raised this at the Report stage of the Energy Bill and the Minister was kind enough to acknowledge it. He knows that there is an issue but, as yet, we do not seem to have had a response. Given that no carbon price is paid by these diesel generators, that they have almost no air-quality restrictions and that they were going to be subject to tax breaks, one can see why the market has flooded into this new loophole. In the first auction, we saw 2 gigawatts of small-scale generators coming forward—around 700 megawatts was successful; in this auction, which is scheduled for this December, the number has risen to 3 gigawatts pre-qualifying, half of which we think are diesel. We can only speculate as to how many of those will be successful.
In the context of the UK not being compliant with our air quality standards and of the VW scandal, which has highlighted the damaging effect that diesel has on our human health, is it sensible that our capacity market should be about to flood our electricity market with a whole host of distributed diesel generators? It does not feel like the energy policy of a modern, industrial, rich country; it feels as if we are looking at a policy that you might deploy in a developing country such as India or even an island state. We can do better than this. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who said that we seemed to be muddling through. I could not agree more. In this case, we are muddling through, relying on a quasi-market system that is delivering the worst of all answers—which is distributed diesel—to keep the lights on. The Government must act on this. The FT article quotes Tim Emrich, the CEO of UK Power Reserve, as saying that the only answer is to pause this year’s auction. Will the Minister respond to this? What is the Government’s plan? How will we prevent the opportunity cost of having a capacity market that simply delivers us massive amounts of distributed diesel as the answer to our capacity problems, when it should deliver sound investment in future-proofed, firm, low-carbon power? That is what we would expect the capacity mechanism to deliver. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
It was the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, who pinpointed with most clarity the blackouts problem. We have this cycle of debate that takes place in the media. Often, it is filled with rather more sound and fury and not too much sense or fact. What the report and this debate have shown is that, when we look at the facts and present them properly, it brings a lot of light to the subject. I wonder whether the time has come for us to consider whether we need a permanent body of people to oversee energy security questions. When we look at the trilemma or trisaster or whatever one wants to call it, we see the climate change element taken care of by and large through the Committee on Climate Change, which does an excellent job of taking into account a whole host of factors and making recommendations about the pace and nature of our decarbonisation efforts. When it comes to costs, we have Ofgem, which perhaps does not have the teeth that it should have but is certainly set up to protect consumers. That is a price regulator; it is a very clear role. But who is responsible for that security of supply? It is often a ball that gets passed between National Grid, Ofgem, DECC and assorted other people, including now noble Lords, who have done a valiant job in trying to bring some sense to this question. However, the committee will move on to other topics, and that three-way tug of war between DECC, National Grid and Ofgem may just continue, with the media throwing in their own interpretation of the facts.
Is it not time that the Government got a grip and created some body of experts that could oversee this issue? We know that a body of experts was recruited to help DECC with the Energy Act 2013 and presumably they still exist. What has happened to them? Are we going back to them to ask for progress reports on how things have turned out since the passing of that Act? A number of noble Lords from all sides of the House have raised concerns that the EMR may not be delivering as expected for various reasons, the change of Government also having had an impact on that. We need to continue to create important frameworks that can help government to navigate this issue of how to make energy affordable, reliable and low-carbon. It is that security-of- supply aspect that lacks an overseeing body at the moment.
I shall not detain the House any further. It has been an excellent debate. The report is incredibly illuminating, thoughtful and well written. We need more of this sort of analysis and I do not think that the committee can be relied on to do it. It is incumbent on the Government to set out their long-term strategy and, within that, to tell us how they propose to manage this situation going forward.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, for this important discussion, for the excellent way in which he has obviously chaired the committee and for the report. I also thank noble Lords for their contributions to this first-class debate—it has been a debate of extraordinarily high quality.
I start by saying how much I agreed with the comments of my noble friend Lord Howell about the excellence of the national grid. My first ministerial visit was to National Grid at Wokingham to see the excellent work that it is doing, which is really reassuring.
There is no silver bullet. If one thing has been clear in this debate, it is that there is no single source of energy to solve the trilemma. If there were, I am sure that somebody would have come forward with it by now and we would not be debating these issues. It is a very complex matter.
Just to illustrate the point, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield—with whom I remember sharing an introduction day; we came in at the same time—in an extraordinarily profound and well-thought out contribution talked about the importance of the Paris COP negotiations at the end of the year. Indeed, they are important, they are vital and we are playing a leading part in them. That negotiation is centred on decarbonisation.
The right reverend Prelate spoke also, quite rightly, about the need to do something for the steel industry, which we are doing. What we are doing is what we are being pressed to do by people of all political persuasions and none, which is to provide some sort of subsidy, payment or compensation in relation to carbon emissions. Nothing could better illustrate the nature of the problems that we have to address as a Government, as a country and as a department. They are unchanging, whoever that Government are.
I will not ramp up this debate by making it a party- political knock-out issue. I share many of the views put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, which I think she knows, and I think that there is broad agreement in this House about many issues. I regret that that is not the case in the Commons. If we are able to get to a position where it is, we will benefit from it. I think that is a view broadly shared.
The committee’s report was a wide-ranging and important contribution to this vital debate. I will try to touch on a few of the main themes discussed, picking up points made by noble Lords, and then I will go back and perhaps pick up one or two points that are broader than the committee’s report.
It has been rightly identified that we are wedded as a Government—again, there is a consensus on this—to the trilemma to ensure security of supply. I share the view put forward, for example, by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and my noble friend Lord Howell and all others that this is central. We have recently published the Statutory Security of Supply Report 2015 to Parliament.
Secondly, we are determined to ensure that energy is sustainable. The Government have recently responded to the Committee on Climate Change’s annual progress report on meeting the carbon budgets. I would mention the key role that we are playing in the climate negotiations: my right honourable friend Amber Rudd has played a leading part on the finance and the Prime Minister has made a powerful statement about the Government’s commitment to helping developing states. That, too, has been widely welcomed, and I know that it has from speaking to representatives of other countries.
Thirdly—these are not in any significant order; they are the trilemma in whatever order we address them—there is the issue of affordability. Many people, including my noble friend Lord Ridley, have stressed the importance of this and quite rightly so, because this is central: we have to ensure that electricity is affordable for consumers, both for domestic consumers and for industry. Points were made about the position in Germany in relation to the steel industry. It is true that electricity prices are cheaper for industry, but domestic bills are far higher, so again there is no silver bullet in this.
Perhaps I may say something about the Government’s report to Parliament Statutory Security of Supply Report 2015. This fulfils our statutory duty and obligations, and we take this very seriously. I thank the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, for much of what he said about nuclear and the consensus, but I disagree with him when he suggests that this report, as far as the Government are concerned, is ignorable and being ignored. Let me reassure noble Lords that that is not the case. The department takes the report very seriously, and rightly so. At the same time as our report was made to Parliament, National Grid published its winter outlook, setting out its view of the electricity and gas supply and demand situation for the winter ahead. It shows a margin of 5.1%, which is well within the Government’s reliability standard and gives us confidence that there is enough spare capacity to meet demand even in tough system conditions such as cold weather. We are confident that the capacity margin is manageable this winter and we have the right tools in place to address the immediate future.
Points were rightly made in the debate about the long-term future, and this relates to the vision behind the energy policy of the Government that many people have talked about. I think that we have made some things very clear, and no doubt other points will be made clearer this autumn. As the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, suggested, we are in the middle of a spending review. Some things are clear, one of which is the importance of nuclear. We have made headway with Hinkley Point, we are making headway with Sizewell, and after that comes Bradwell, although that is in its early stages at the moment. It is not limited to that type of reactor because we are also bringing on Wylfa B.
Mention has been made of small modular reactors, and many noble Lords who took part in the recent debate on nuclear power will recall the issue coming up then. I responded by saying that there is going to be a progress report on it in March of next year. I will make sure that the letter I wrote to noble Lords on that occasion is also sent to those who have participated in this debate because there is a read-across, certainly on the nuclear issue and possibly on one or two other things that were touched upon in that debate as well.
I shall move on to say something about the capacity market. I may possibly disappoint the noble Baroness when I say that it would not be responsible to cancel or defer the capacity market auction this winter. Although she did not ask for the latter, there is the demand-side response option which comes in in January of next year. We have a trilemma, and if we were to do that, I think it would prejudice things. I have to say that that will not be happening. We believe that the capacity market is the right tool for incentivising long-term investment and we need to deliver security of electricity supply. There is an issue that the noble Baroness has touched upon. I rightly acknowledge that and we are looking at it. This was also touched upon by my noble friend Lord Howell. We have to refine the capacity market and see how we can deliver capacity while ensuring that it is new capacity and that it is not from diesel and so on. I accept that these are things that we will have to address, but at the moment there is no evidence to suggest that it is going to be purely or substantially diesel.
Baroness Worthington
I understand that it will not all be diesel, but my point is that each successive auction diminishes the pot for future auctions because we sign 15-year contracts. Once those 15-year contracts are signed, they cannot be repealed or changed; they are simply granted. Every time we build a diesel generator, we are not building something that could be cleaner, more sustainable and more efficient.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
That is a point well made, as I have indicated, but I do not think the right answer is to cancel the auction for this winter. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that that would not be the right approach at all.
Baroness Worthington
But there needs to be a response because this is a loophole that is being exploited. It started last year and it is now building up into a worse problem. As I understand it, the Secretary of State has quite significant powers under the electricity market reform to shape that auction. Now that this has come to light, what are the Government going to do about it? Are they simply going to let things go on as they are now, which will see 15-year contracts granted to large numbers of diesel generators?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
As I have indicated to the noble Baroness, what I will not do is make policy on the hoof and I certainly will not recommend that we cancel the auctions this winter. But as I say, it is an issue that we will look at.
Let me move on to say something about the reliability standard, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, among others. The committee recommended further research into the true costs of electricity shortfalls to set the reliability standard. We agree entirely that an understanding of the costs of shortfalls is crucial to an assessment of the measures taken to prevent them. They are difficult to assess given that, I am pleased to say, there is a lack of much historic evidence domestically in relation to this issue because we have not had shortfalls. In 2013, a comprehensive study was jointly commissioned by Ofgem and DECC that resulted in the current figure of £17,000 per megawatt hour, which we use for the purposes of our reliability standard. The research looked at the position overseas in a thoroughgoing and exhaustive exercise, and it was as evidence based as possible. We are working with National Grid and the independent panel of technical experts to investigate further the costs of dealing with electricity shortfalls, and we will take action accordingly.
Let me say something about resilience. The major contributor on this issue was the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who spoke with some passion, and spine-chilling it was, too. In preparing for this debate and looking at the issue more broadly, I asked many of these questions as well; that is, what do we do if the following happens? The noble Lord suggested that there are things that perhaps we cannot foresee happening, and I seem to recall that a similar exercise was undertaken after 2011 in which there was a review of procedures. I think he will understand when I say that detailed information cannot be given out on something like this. If it was something in the nature of a terrorist attack, obviously we would not want to publish any detailed blueprint about what we would do in particular situations. But what I will try to do is ensure that we get a response around to noble Lords to set out the position in broad outline. There are plans in place to take the necessary action in so far as we can. But as the noble Lord rightly said, there are situations which we probably have not foreseen. Again, I will ensure that noble Lords are given a response on this matter in whatever detail is possible, although I think that it will be broad in nature.
The noble Lord also mentioned the three-digit number and rightly said that it was not going to be a silver bullet. It will help in some situations but not in the most dire ones. Noble Lords will be aware that this is due to be implemented in April 2016, so for those situations that fall short of the catastrophic, obviously it is still important that there is a three-digit number that people are able to use to ensure that they know what is happening in their locality and what the advice is in a particular situation.
Perhaps I could say something in relation to demand-side response and on storage, which was rightly brought up in the debate. The report stresses the potentially important role of newer technologies such as demand-side response management and storage. Demand-side response could mean industrial customers shifting the timing of their electricity-intensive processes away from peak times, for example. We will ensure that an auction will take place for demand-side response in January 2016, with the first capacity payments for those who are successful following in 2017. An analysis of the currently available evidence indicates that demand-side response in existing generation does not generally require as significant up-front capital investment as new-build plant and therefore does not require as long-term capacity agreements as new-build plants do, and that is the reason for the shorter period in relation to that auction. On 15 October, we published an assessment of this issue which shows the diverse nature of the demand-side response, and one or two noble Lords raised questions about that report.
On storage, we very much share the view put forward in the report of the potential role that energy storage could play and the flexibility that storage offers as a balancing solution. While we are not currently planning to introduce a framework of incentives specifically for energy storage, we are encouraged that in the recent pre-qualification for the next capacity market auction, which is to take place this December, the majority of existing pump storage sites have pre-qualified this year, bringing a potential 2.7 gigawatts de-rated capacity of storage into the capacity market.
Some noble Lords also mentioned battery storage in the context of zero-carbon cars and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred to Tesla. Work on this is, as yet, at a relatively early stage but we are the second largest producer of zero-carbon cars and the Government are determined that we do not lose our market edge.
Smart metering is clearly important and work is progressing on it. We have around 1.7 million meters already installed. I had a meeting about smart meters this morning and, as one would expect, it is beginning to ramp up. This will make a difference to demand, which is welcome.
The significant issue of interconnection was raised by many noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Selborne and Lord Howell. We are committed to increasing Britain’s interconnection capacity, which can help to lower consumer bills and meet decarbonisation objectives. Great Britain currently has 4 gigawatts of interconnection, across four interconnectors, to France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Earlier this year, financial investment decisions were reached on two new interconnectors—one to Belgium and one to Norway. Denmark and Iceland are also being talked about but they are not yet at the decision stage. Interconnectors will bring additional security of supply benefits by giving access to generation beyond our national borders when it is needed. I stress that connection to neighbouring countries with different sources of generation increases the resilience of our electricity system.
Cybersecurity is one of the Government’s top national security priorities. I welcome the supportive comments made by the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill. This is taken seriously across government and certainly within DECC, which is working with government departments and agencies, as well as with industry partners, to ensure that the risks to the energy sector are understood and that appropriate mitigations are established. This includes ensuring that cybersecurity factors are considered, where possible, at the early design stages of future systems, as they have been at Hinkley C, for example. Smart meter security has been a key consideration at every stage of system development.
At the outset, my noble friend Lord Selborne rightly talked of the importance of looking at the whole-system impact. The committee’s report recommends the Government take a look at the whole-system costs of low-carbon technologies. The report on the Energy Systems Catapult is due to be published early in 2016—I think that the noble Earl raised a question about that—and DECC has also commissioned Frontier Economics to examine the whole-system impacts of electricity generation. Its report will be published in March 2016. These points were also raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield and my noble friend Lord Ridley. The Frontier Economics review aims to systematise DECC’s understanding of the impacts of electricity technologies, system balancing, overall capacity adequacy and networks.
My noble friend Lord Selborne, and other noble Lords, mentioned energy efficiency. I agree that it is vital and we are committed to insulating 1 million homes in this Parliament.
The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, talked about the importance of the planning system. I agree that it is central to this issue. He also mentioned the loss of heat from the production of electricity. DECC takes this very seriously, too.
This has been a high-quality debate, to which noble Lords have brought different perspectives. However, it has demonstrated, once again, that there is no silver bullet. There is a diversity of energy supply. Renewables and CCS—to which the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, referred—are in the Energy Bill and are central to what the Government are doing and were mentioned in the manifesto, and there are the two projects at White Rose and at Peterhead.
Baroness Worthington
Can the Minister respond on the structural question of how we govern the security aspect of the trilemma, compared to the other two, given that Ofgem looks after costs and the CCC looks after climate change? Who do we rely on to get expert, apolitical advice on security of supply? Should we not be thinking of creating something that helps us to bring this kind of analysis to the table more regularly and with a similar degree of rigour?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I will ponder on what the noble Baroness has said. As she knows, I was very responsive to the committee in looking at the CCS policy across parties: I was very willing to take it forward and it will be covered in tomorrow’s Third Reading debate. I will look at it—at present it is the responsibility of DECC, within government, and I do not want to say that we will have another committee just for the sake of it. However, I will consider what the noble Baroness has said because she has put it forward in a very constructive way.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Broers, for what he said about the substantive reply I gave him. I am pleased about that—we do not often get complimented on our parliamentary responses. He is right about the importance of capacity factors, nuclear and so on and about the fact that solar and wind costs are coming down. At the outset, the noble Earl said that we did not want a system on subsidies. We need them to get things moving initially and there are subsidies that remain, but, ideally, we do not want a system driven by them.
My noble friend Lord Howell mentioned fusion. That will be covered in the letter on nuclear that I will ensure goes to noble Lords. Work is being done by the Government, a lot of it at the excellent Culham centre in Oxfordshire, and it is certainly part of the mix. The noble Lord, Lord Rees, talked about support for battery storage and other methods of storage. The Government are looking at that.
I apologise for going over time, but I thank noble Lords for a very high-quality debate. We will ensure that any points that I have missed are picked up and covered in correspondence. I have undertaken to consider some points and will do so, but without commitment.
The Earl of Selborne
I thank the Minister for his very constructive response. I agree that this has been an interesting debate and we have benefited enormously from a great deal of expertise and experience of the energy sector from around the House. I join in the appreciation for National Grid. My noble friend Lord Howell drew attention to the fact that we should not be facing these capacity margins, but we recognise and respect the expertise of National Grid and the way it is approaching this.
As my noble friend has just explained, the Government are looking for a reset of energy policy. We are looking for a realistic, fully costed energy policy which recognises the complexity and wide range of scenarios which we could face over the next two decades.
EU Referendum: Assessing the Reform Process (EUC Report)
Lord Boswell of Aynho
That this House takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on The referendum on UK membership of the EU: assessing the reform process.
Lord Boswell of Aynho (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am delighted to introduce this report by the European Union Select Committee entitled The Referendum on UK Membership of the EU: Assessing the Reform Process. This report, published in July, marked the committee's first formal response to the Government’s announcement that they would seek to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with the EU, followed by an in/out referendum on UK membership by the end of 2017. The report took account of an evidence session held with the Minister for Europe, David Lidington, and meetings with EU institutions and others during an intensive committee visit to Brussels. At the outset, I record my thanks to all those who took part: those who gave evidence or discussed matters with us; those Members and colleagues who participated and, as ever, our expert and committed staff.
To be clear, the committee did not and will not make a recommendation concerning whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union. Neither did the report focus on the provisions of the European Union Referendum Bill, which is currently before your Lordships’ House. Rather, the report was designed to inform noble Lords of our views and concerns about the process of renegotiation and reform.
The committee reached the following conclusions, which I will summarise. We supported the Government’s efforts to ensure that the referendum takes place as soon as possible, in order to minimise uncertainty. The UK’s upcoming presidency of the European Council, scheduled for the second half of 2017, makes the arguments for an earlier referendum all the stronger. Notwithstanding the Minister for Europe’s assurances that it would be possible, in theory, to hold a referendum during the course of the presidency, common sense tells us otherwise. On the other hand, an earlier referendum creates the possibility of the UK having voted to leave before the presidency takes place. While the Government were right to press ahead with their plans for the presidency in 2017, it is only fair on our fellow member states to be ready to put contingency plans in place should the referendum either be delayed or result in a vote to leave.
The Minister told us that the internal Whitehall system for carrying forward negotiations—which seems to involve the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office, No. 10, HM Treasury and our Brussels officials in UKRep—was intended to work,
“by network rather than by hierarchy”.
This struck us as both unrealistic and a recipe for confusion. By way of example, the media frequently report that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is in fact leading this process, as exemplified by his high-profile visit to Berlin this week. Is that true? If so, what role is his department playing? How will he be held to account by Parliament for his actions? How is he interacting with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and our diplomats in Brussels? I would be grateful if the Minister provided some clarity on this in his response.
Equally, from the UK perspective, it would be helpful to know more about who our key interlocutors are in Brussels. The Government’s written response to our report—brief as it is—stressed that the Prime Minister’s key contacts were with the presidents of the EU institutions. But what about the role of influential, well-regarded and technically expert officials in their teams, such as the Council Secretary-General Jeppe Tranholm Mikkelsen, the Head of Commission President Juncker’s Cabinet, Martin Selmayr, or, indeed, Jonathan Faull, who has been appointed to head a Commission task force for strategic issues related to the UK referendum? Will the Minister tell us more about what role they are playing and how they interact with interlocutors at official and ministerial level in the UK Government?
The committee was pleased to have the opportunity to meet Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, to discuss these issues. It is essential that the Government do not overlook the role of that Parliament in the reform process, as its approval is likely to be required for any legislative proposals that emerge. What assurances can the Minister give us that the Government are actively engaging with the European Parliament?
I acknowledge that, at the time of our report’s publication, the Prime Minister had left a good impression with other member states thanks to his efforts to engage with them ahead of the June Council. We stressed that the onus was on the Government to explain what they seek to achieve by way of reform, and to ensure that such positive momentum was not lost. It is therefore regrettable that a number of member states, notably Estonia and Finland last week, as well as the EU institutions, have expressed frustration at the lack of detail on the Government’s reform objectives.
The Prime Minister last week promised to “quicken the pace” of negotiations and reiterated that he will write to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, in “early November”, setting out his position in more detail. The calendar tells us that we have now arrived in early November. Can the Minister tell us when the stamp will go on the letter which is so greatly anticipated by all? Can he also provide clarity on how the letter will be brought to the attention of my committee and the House?
On the subject of parliamentary accountability, our report acknowledges that the sensitivities of the process meant that the Government were unwilling, in their words, to provide Parliament with a “running commentary”. Yet, the committee also warns in it against presenting Parliament with a fait accompli. The Government have consistently repeated the mantra that Parliament will be kept informed. Yet actions speak rather louder than words. By way of illustration, last Friday’s Financial Times reported that the Chancellor was pushing for an “emergency brake” to safeguard the interests of non-eurozone countries. Is there any truth to this? If so, when will Parliament be given an opportunity to scrutinise or consider such proposals? It has come to a poor pass when Parliament must rely on media reports, rather than the Government, for the latest update.
To give another example, two months ago the Minister assured the House that the Foreign Secretary would be willing to appear before my committee, but we have yet to receive a response to our invitation to him to do so. Will the Minister repeat his assurance this evening and assure us that we will get a swift response to our outstanding invitation?
Equally, given the profound implications for the nations of the United Kingdom, we feel that it is vital that the Government engage fully with the devolved institutions. We, for our own part, are seeking to do so. Last month we visited the National Assembly for Wales, where we met the First Minister and the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, and we will be travelling to Belfast and Edinburgh over the coming weeks. We therefore note with concern that our colleagues in the Scottish Parliament have apparently been met with a brick wall in their efforts to secure an evidence session with the Minister for Europe. What assurance can the Minister here tonight give us that the Government are engaging with counterparts in the devolved institutions, including meeting their legislatures’ committees—and, more to the point, taking their views and concerns into account during the negotiation process?
Our report also dwelt on the question of treaty change. We accept that it is not feasible for changes to the EU treaties to come into force ahead of a referendum. Nevertheless, the Government are right to seek to ensure that any agreement on key aspects of a reform deal is legally binding. Two potential precedents are the 1992 Edinburgh agreement, by which Denmark secured legally binding opt-outs to be incorporated in future treaty change, and the guarantees offered to Ireland before its second referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which were contained in conclusions of the European Council.
In the absence of firm details, the report found that it was premature to examine the Government's policy priorities at this stage. However, the committee naturally takes a close interest in the question of enhancing the role of national parliaments. We have no principled objection to the Government’s proposal for a red card, by which national parliaments would be able to block unwanted legislation. Yet viewed in isolation, it could give the misleading impression that national parliaments should, or could, only play a blocking role. If the Government are serious about enhancing the role of national parliaments, they should explore means such as our own proposal for a “green card”, whereby national parliaments could make a positive and proactive contribution to the development of EU policies and legislation—which could, of course, include proposals for deregulation or decluttering the system, as well as altogether new innovations. Can the Minister give us an assurance that the Government will take the green card model seriously in their forthcoming negotiations?
To conclude, we recognise that the question of UK membership of the EU is only one of several fundamental issues facing the EU at present. Nevertheless, as our report says, the process that is now under way,
“presents significant challenges and opportunities, not only for the UK, but for the EU as a whole. As the Prime Minister has stated, the package of reforms … should be for the benefit of every nation and citizen of the EU”.
For the committee’s part, we will continue to engage with the Government, the devolved institutions, the EU institutions and other member states, in particular in the context of our new inquiry, entitled “Visions of EU Reform”. However, that debate is for another day. For the moment, I commend this report to the House and look forward to contributions from noble Lords on all sides.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, this is a good report from a very able chairman, my noble friend Lord Boswell; I congratulate him. When we consider the colossal implications for the whole future of our nation for years ahead, quite why we should be debating this matter late in the evening, in the dinner hour, puzzles me. Sometimes the arrangements for business in this House baffle me, and this is one of those times.
For me, the last paragraph of the report, to which the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has already referred, is the most important, because it emphasises the fact that reform,
“should be for the benefit of every nation and citizen of the EU”.
That suggests that one gigantic piece of the whole jigsaw of the negotiation process, and the policy behind it, is still missing. The missing bit is what I call the deep reform agenda—the careful unpacking of the old 20th-century EU model, which everyone knows is obsolete—that is the view of the vast majority throughout Europe—and its reassembly in a form fit for the digital age. Some people call that the “somewhat looser Europe” model.
The challenge is not actually a British problem: it is to create a modern and resilient European Union. That is what millions of people throughout Europe want—and all the blogs and all the airwaves we see and hear every day are full of new ideas along those lines. Even the most ardent Europeans know that the European Union’s core institutions and procedures must be revisited. That is the essential context for the negotiations.
My question, which is prompted by the excellence of the report, is simply: where is the British contribution to this deeper debate? If we are against ever-closer union, what kind of union, or co-operative structure, do we want to work for Europe, both in Europe’s best interests and in our own, assuming that we want to see Europe enjoying stability and prosperity, never again to be destroyed by the horrors of the 20th century?
There are answers to that question, and I hope they are ones that the committee, under my noble friend Lord Boswell, will address in the future. I shall give your Lordships a brief list. First, the nature and scope of the competences—the powers—of the European Union, and the allocation of powers at different levels between the Union and nation states, need the most thoroughgoing review. The balance of competences exercise conducted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was not thoroughgoing. It did not look at the essential point that many of the competences, the boxes into which they were put 20 and 30 years ago, and the definitions, are simply out of date, or muddled. They do not match the nature and shape of the modern economy at all. Energy policy is a classic example of that.
Secondly, the nature of the single market itself needs total re-examination. The single market today is something quite different from what it was even 10 years ago. There are entirely new supply chains, a whole new pattern of trade agreements around the world surrounding the European Union—what has been called a spaghetti bowl of global trade agreements—and new world markets which hardly existed 10 or 15 years ago. There is far more ambiguity in the rules of origin of any product or service. One could elaborate on that but that is the reality now.
Thirdly, the doctrines of standardisation of rules and integration, which were economically fashionable in the 20th century and which argued for more and more cohesion, size and scale, no longer apply in the digital age. The opposite is now the reality.
Fourthly, the whole subsidiarity process needs vastly expanding and applying rigorously to existing overcentralised and outdated acquis. This is acknowledged by everybody privately but somehow does not come into the negotiating scene.
Fifthly, fewer central powers for the European Union would mean a more limited area for EU laws and the European Court of Justice. There have to be laws governing the good conduct of trade but they should cover far fewer areas than they do. EU legislation anyway, as every lawyer will tell you, is full of problems that need uncovering and reforming. In that context, we also need context to look at not just the relations between the European Parliament and our national parliaments but at the role of the European Parliament itself, which also needs reform and which many people are very uncomfortable with.
Then there is the euro currency’s problems which, of course, are chronic and insoluble. As even the Financial Times, the great cheerleader for these things, warns, there will be unending crises. Any day of the week you can see a profound pro-European commentary in the Financial Times warning us of that. My own view is that modern Europe should leave the whole eurozone system to wither on the vine.
The great principle of freedom of movement in Europe is, of course, crumbling before our eyes. Again, it is not just, or even mainly, a British problem. Recent weeks have shown that very clearly.
Obviously there must be treaty change eventually. I think that is mentioned in the report. Ministers keep admitting it. The Prime Minister has conceded it in the past and, indeed, has argued for it. Clearly, there is no time to do that between now and 2017, or whenever the referendum comes, but the process should be set in motion for another intergovernmental conference to bring forward the reforms that are wanted by everyone throughout Europe, not just by Britain and one or two other countries.
Reform must come before, or at least alongside, renegotiation. That is the essential framework without which just negotiating a list of demands makes no sense at all. The Prime Minister has said that the EU is an organisation in peril, and so it is. It is riddled with crises, of which the refugee and migrant issue is only the latest. There will be many more and there have been many more. Negotiating with an unreformed European Union is negotiating with yesterday. Our focus should be on negotiating with tomorrow.
Lord Desai (Lab)
My Lords, I very much welcome the committee’s report. As the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said, we are not deciding whether we are in or out; right now we are looking at the process by which the negotiations will be carried out. The report points out that the structure with which we are negotiating is a very complex, multitiered one. As Henry Kissinger once said, “You never know who to call to find out the mind of the European Union”. On the one hand we have the trinity of the president of the Council, the president of the Commission and the head of the Parliament to talk to, then there are the 27 countries. On the other side, there is not only the Westminster Parliament but also the devolved Administrations, so it is a very complex process.
I do not know whether we have the time to do an adequate job in this respect, with negotiations starting, as it were, after the election victory, and given that we are setting ourselves a deadline of having a referendum by the first half of 2017 to avoid the fact that in the second half of that year we will hold the presidency of the European Union. It would be reassuring if the Government could tell us that they have a strategy, the machinery and the lines laid down that will, in good time—that is, by the end of 2016 or very early in 2017—let us look at what has been agreed and what has not. As I said, this is not the time to go into what we should or should not insist on. One thing that would be clear from this process is that if we stay in—as certainly I hope—we ought to go much further in reforming the governance structure of the European Union than at present. At present it is neither fish nor fowl; it is not a confederation; it is not a federation. The whole euro crisis has shown that it is a very inadequate form of governance and perhaps we could reform it. Of course, we will have our own agenda to negotiate with the assembly of bodies we are negotiating with, and I wish the Government luck in whatever they say.
I will add just one more thing because I do not want to go on for too long. There is a question about whether the Government can take Parliament into their confidence. That is a tricky one, I understand, because to take Parliament into their confidence as the process is going on might disrupt the process. I have a helpful suggestion for the Government. I think they should constitute a small committee of privy counsellors in both Houses of Parliament and, on Privy Council terms, let them know what is going on. They can be trusted—let us hope—not to blabber, and to give the Government good advice on what they, as representatives of Parliament, think about the process. That may be an adequate bridge between consulting Parliament and not being able to tell everybody what is going on.
Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)
My Lords, I join in the congratulations to my noble friend Lord Boswell and his committee on having produced an interesting report and having elicited a perhaps even more interesting written response from the Government. I must declare some interests. I am a member of the EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee of the European Affairs Committee now, but I was not when this report was being produced; I am president of Conservatives for Britain; and my home is in France. I think that is all the declarations I need to make now.
The central question that was asked in the report is: what exactly are the Government up to? What are their negotiating demands? What are their requirements? We had a somewhat inadequate response, but a response of sorts, in the Government’s written response to the committee’s report, and we have heard a little bit more today, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s speech in Berlin. I have a high regard for the Chancellor of the Exchequer but I found his demands—or requests—in Berlin today disappointingly unambitious. However, what he did reiterate, which the Prime Minister has said on a number of occasions, is that we need an opt-out from ever-closer union. That is certainly necessary. At least since the Solemn Declaration on European Union in Stuttgart in 1983, and probably before, it has been clear that the objective was the creation of a single state—a united states of Europe, albeit of a federal nature—and that is not something that we wish to see; at least, it is certainly not something that we wish the United Kingdom to be part of.
What does an opt-out mean in practice? There are two things at least that are characteristic of a single state. One is that it has its own currency and the other is that it has control of its own borders. In a single state, as in the United States of America, there is free movement of people from the northern United States to the southern states and so on, but the state has control of its own borders.
We have the first of these—control of our own currency—and the Chancellor of the Exchequer may be right to say that the European Union must resile from the claim that the euro is the currency of the European Union. But we do not have control of our own borders and it is necessary that we achieve this. The Prime Minister’s suggestion that this is simply all about welfare benefits is nonsense. The vast majority of people who wish to come to this country, whether from the European Union or outside it, come to work and not to claim benefits. Some do it to claim benefits but they are a tiny minority. We have to achieve not merely securing our own currency, which we have, but control of our own borders. That must be a condition.
There is also a third requirement. Under the spirit of ever-closer union, although it will be presented as bringing economic benefit—not that it will—there will be a continual flow of integrationist legislation and regulation from the European Commission in Brussels, and that is not something which we can block. We have not been able to block it hitherto but, at least technically, we might have assembled a coalition of member states to block some of it. But from next year, the eurozone countries will have an automatic qualifying majority, and since everything requires only a qualifying majority and not, understandably, unanimity, we will not be able to block it. Therefore we have to seek to build on the Luxembourg compromise, to which the French used to attach such importance at the time of General de Gaulle.
We should have an agreement that if we believed anything to be contrary to the fundamental interests of this country, we should not block it—as General De Gaulle wanted to do—but it should not apply to the United Kingdom. This is particularly important in the field of financial services. I noticed that in his speech in Berlin today, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made much reference to the problems of European legislation in this area. Even then, if we secured all these things that I have talked about, we would still be unable to negotiate free-trade agreements with third countries. Even then, there would also still be the democratic deficit or what Andrew Tyrie MP, the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee in another place, has called a crisis of legitimacy—because that is what it is.
In a recent speech in Iceland, the Prime Minister stressed the need for, in his own words, continued access to the single market. That is most misleading. The single market is frequently misunderstood and it is not merely the Prime Minister who gets it wrong. The single market is the single regulatory system. Understandably, when the European market was intended to be a “single market” and there was the common external tariff but no tariffs within the member countries, trade did not flow freely because each country had its own regulatory system, and they were different. The single market initiative simply created a single regulatory system—so “access to the single regulatory system” makes no sense whatever.
The Prime Minister also said that the arrangements that Norway has with the European Union are not good enough for us. Curiously, he failed to mention Switzerland, which has a better arrangement, but he is right about Norway. It is a small country, with a correspondingly small negotiating strength. Just compare these two figures. The exports of goods and services to Norway from the rest of the European Union, apart from this country, amount to £50 billion a year. Exports from the rest of the European Union to the United Kingdom amount to £300 billion a year—about the same, incidentally, as they do to the United States. That suggests that we ought to be able to negotiate an arrangement which is six times as good as Norway has done—and I will settle for that.
I recall that a couple of years ago my old friend and former homologue, as we say in France, Jacques Delors, the father of the euro, said:
“If the British cannot support the trend towards more integration in Europe, we can nevertheless remain friends, but on a different basis. I could imagine a form such as a European economic area or a free-trade agreement”.
I will settle for that, too—and so, I believe, would the British people.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lawson of Blaby, but I will spare the House a description of the very large number of areas in which what he said relates more closely to fantasy than to reality. Speaking as someone who is no longer a member of your Lordships’ EU Select Committee, I can without embarrassment or self-congratulation say that the report we are debating maintains the high standards of topicality, forensic inquiry and probing of the Government’s positions which remain the mark of the committee’s work. The same can be said of the opening remarks of the committee’s chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho. If I have a criticism of this report, it would be that it is overly focused on process and says too little about the matters of substance that are at stake. I would hope that the committee will remedy that shortcoming in further reports as we move closer to the date of the referendum.
In paragraph 49 of its report, the committee, very wisely in my view, urges the Government to engage fully with the devolved Administrations. The Government’s response to this recommendation can best be described as limp and inadequate. The consequences of a vote to leave the European Union for the three devolved Administrations could be dramatic, and would certainly be irreversible. The risk that Scottish and Welsh votes to remain in the European Union might be overturned by an English vote to leave is extremely likely to trigger a demand, in Scotland at least, for a further referendum on independence.
The risks in Northern Ireland are different but even more severe. In the event of the two parts of Ireland emerging with one part inside the European Union and the other outside, we could find ourselves slipping towards a re-establishment of border controls on goods, services and people. This would be a major backward step, fraught with political dangers. So would a loss of the European arrest warrant, which has underpinned the depoliticisation of the island-wide fight against terrorism and organised crime. One should not underestimate the importance of that particular instrument. The issues at stake in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland really need to be better understood and more fully debated. Otherwise, we could be sleep-walking towards a binary choice best described as that between two unions and no union.
The committee’s report rightly devotes a good deal of attention to the role of national Parliaments in influencing and shaping EU legislation. The committee’s comprehensive list of ideas in this area remains, I suggest, the best available quarry for possible reforms. The Government’s attachment to the terminology of a “red” card is, I fear, too likely to prove both misleading and counterproductive: misleading because there is no question of a single national parliamentary veto being agreed and counterproductive because red card terminology will cut across the necessary task of gaining support in other member states for the strengthening of the existing yellow card procedures so that they work more effectively. This is a case where the Government’s and your Lordships’ House’s objectives are cutting with the grain of European opinion, but they could be damaged by overbidding.
In last night’s Committee proceedings on the EU Referendum Bill, there was some mockery by those who advocate the UK leaving the EU of the fact that those of us who advocate Britain’s best interests being served by remaining in the EU are focusing attention on the weaknesses of the possible alternatives to membership in the event of a vote to leave. But to do otherwise would surely be to display astonishing complacency, which could only bring its own nemesis. Moreover, those who advocate leaving need to explain and to defend the alternatives they favour, if the electorate are not to be duped and left completely unaware of the consequences of the decision they are being asked to make.
The problem is that there is no agreement among those advocates of leaving on the alternative to be picked. Do they favour the Norwegian model, the Swiss model, the Turkish customs union, a WTO membership framework or simply a leap in the dark? Nor is there any agreement among them as to whether the UK outside the European Union would set a tariff lower than the common external tariff, higher or, perhaps, just the same—in which case, what on earth is all the fuss about? These are all important choices that need to be made and to be set before the electorate before they make their choice.
So there are plenty of substantive issues relating to the referendum, and they do not involve—here I respond to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Boswell—taking sides in it, which I entirely agree would be quite inappropriate. But there are issues here on which our Select Committee could turn the spotlight of its attention. After the noble Lord has completed the trio of visits to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, it would be extraordinarily valuable if a report could be produced setting out the main issues that have arisen during those visits and the conclusions of the committee on the attitudes of the devolved Administrations as, so far, we are in total ignorance from the government side of what those attitudes are. There is not a word in the reply to this report about their attitude; it merely says that the Government are engaged with them and that, if they are jolly lucky, Mr Lidington might go and see them one day. I think that we have to go a bit further than that. Of course, whether the committee takes up such a matter is of course entirely a matter for its present membership and not for a former member like myself.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, when I was a member of European Union Sub-Committee A, we produced copious reports. Most of them were pretty dull and boring as far as most people were concerned, but I must say that this report takes the biscuit—it really does. This is the most fantastically missed opportunity. I know that it is the convention of this House that I should congratulate my noble friend Lord Boswell on such a wonderful report, but I am not going to do that. I am actually going to address the report; I am not going to rerun the campaign, which is what we have been doing over the past few days in Committee on the European Union Referendum Bill. It is quite interesting that there are 19 members of the Select Committee, and only one is here tonight to debate the report—and that is the chairman of the committee, my noble friend Lord Boswell. I am not surprised that the other 18 have copped out; I would not want to put my name to this report, because it is a very dreary contribution to the debate.
Let us look into all this, because what is being negotiated in Europe is extremely complicated. People do not understand—or I, certainly, do not understand—what the different options are facing the Government if they want to get concessions out of Europe. There are three categories. There is the sort of stuff that can come through as a press release, which basically makes no difference to anybody and is probably stating the obvious. There are then certain measures that have to be taken which involve treaty change but, as I understand it—and I am more than happy to be put right on this, as we have great experts here this evening—if we are amending an existing treaty, and that is all that is involved, that can probably be ratified by national parliaments and does not involve a referendum. On the other hand, if what we are talking about involves a new treaty, at that stage we are in the business of ruling the thing out completely. The reason for that is, as stated by President Hollande of France, that he is not going to countenance the idea of a new treaty, because under the French constitution he has to hold a referendum and, if he holds a referendum in France on a new treaty he thinks—and he is probably right—that Le Pen would beat him. That seems to be sensible, logical politics. The Dutch would have to have a referendum, and I should think that they want one like a hole in the head, and the Danes are in the same position. The Irish would be extremely reluctant, and under their constitution they have to hold a referendum on a new treaty. So anything that is a concession given to our Prime Minister that involves a new treaty is actually not going to happen.
On top of that, I would have hoped that the committee would have looked around Europe and seen where we had friends and where we had enemies in terms of measures that we might put forward—what countries might support us and what countries would be against us. That would be a constructive element in this report, in response to the very vexed questions that we face. One big question, as raised by my noble friend Lord Lawson, is on the free movement of labour, which as I understand it involves a new treaty. On top of that, I do not think that a renegotiation has the support of member states of the EU. So on two questions, it is actually ruled out as something that can be negotiated, so we can forget about free movement of labour. I suspect that the Social Chapter and employment legislation would fall into the same category—that they would need a new treaty and, therefore, that is not going to happen. Also I doubt whether there is support for that within the EU.
We have to clarify what is going on here, what is negotiable and what is not. When the Government discovered that free movement of labour was completely unnegotiable, they started talking about depriving immigrants who come into the country from the EU of benefits. I gather that that has had a certain amount of flak from the Poles, who are not very keen on it. I am speaking off the top of my head, and I am happy to be rectified—I had rather hoped that the report might put one straight on these things—but I gather that that would involve amendment of existing treaties and therefore could be ratified by national parliaments. Then we go through all the things that have been raised by the Government, which they say they are negotiating about, such as ever-closer union. I must admit that, in my ignorance, I thought that John Major years ago negotiated that we did not have to be involved in ever-closer union, but I am told that that involves treaty change as well. Then there is the support for the single market and the financial services. It seems to me rather amazing that a number of countries in Europe have managed to exempt themselves from the single market in financial services, but that seems to be what happens. I thought the single market was designed to cover all areas of activity, but quite clearly it does not.
Then there is great determination that defence policy should remain the sovereign responsibility of this country. I am not sure an awful lot of negotiation needs to go on about that because that is the position as it stands now, and although there have been efforts to pool defence capabilities in Europe, I do not think they are getting very far.
There is lower EU spending. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, will remember the times when we used to look at the reductions in the EU budget and compare it with the great undertakings. For some reason, whenever it had been reduced, we found it had actually gone up, and there was some very magical form of accounting which meant that lower spending meant that you spent more.
Reform of the common agricultural policy and structural funds are another area on which the Government are apparently looking for concessions. I remember when half our rebate was given away by Tony Blair in return for reform of the common agricultural policy. Of course, nothing has actually happened since, so I do not think we have to worry about that too much.
At the end of the day, we have a big problem—this has been alluded to by my noble friend Lord Lawson—that if the eurozone is going to survive, it has to have fiscal and political union. It has to come together, and inevitably we are going to be outside that, in which case we will be excluded. Decisions will be taken by the members of the eurozone who have a majority in the Council of Ministers. We have this great debate on whether we are going to be like Iceland or Norway, but at the end of the day if we stay in the EU we will be like Iceland and Norway because what will happen is the eurozone will hand down decisions that have been made by the eurozone members of the Council of Ministers and we will have to go along with them. It is extraordinary that we seem to be going on endlessly about the awful fate of being outside the EU and being like Norway and in fact we are going to be inside the EU and still have the fate of Norway.
A great deal has been made of the signing of trade deals. This is one of the other things the Government are very keen on getting agreement on. There are a number of trade deals. There are trade deals with the United States of America, China, India and Japan, and to date none of them has been ratified or signed. We hear constantly about how it is so much better to be a large unit representing 28 different countries to achieve trade deals, but when it comes to the main countries in the world that we want to do business with, to date we have not signed a free trade deal with any of them.
We are going to get concessions from Europe that we can remain a multicurrency EU. Is that not a wonderful thing? As long as you have people who are outside the eurozone, they will have their own currencies and we will inevitably be a multicurrency EU, so I do not think that is much of a concession either.
It would have been nice if this report had explored these issues. We know what has been debated, but the reality is that the committee, about which I have the gravest doubts, made up its mind. It did not want to say that our Prime Minister is an emperor with no clothes, so therefore it produced this perfectly absurd report which has not addressed any of the issues that are of any interest to anybody whatever. I am very sorry that I cannot support my noble friend Lord Boswell and congratulate him on producing it.
Viscount Brookeborough (CB)
My Lords, I shall change the tone by thanking my noble friend Lord Boswell, so he can be relieved to a certain extent, and the EU Select Committee for this short but, I agree, very light introduction to the referendum and reforms. I agree with much of what the report says, but it is very vague and does not open up all the issues. We look forward to something further from the committee.
I would like to comment, and perhaps plead, on two issues. The first is enabling the electorate to understand the issues and the reforms by keeping the language as simple as possible. My noble friend Lord Hannay has already brought up the second, which is the engagement of the devolved institutions in our nation: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where I come from.
I could not believe this, but I have been in your Lordships’ House for 28 years this month. Most of that time I have spent on EU sub-committees, except when I have rolled off—rather too regularly—and, once, on the EU Select Committee. I was on the finance and economics sub-committee until this spring, which caused quite a stress level from my point of view, coming from rural Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, where, in order to get money out of a bank, it appears that you need a JCB and to do the job quickly. However, I have been enlightened that there are better ways of doing it.
I have been involved in many inquiries. They have stretched from the irradiation of food, which should have been taken on but was not because, in the view of most of us, the EU quashed it; carbon trading, which made millionaires out of people who did not even know what a tonne of carbon looked like and could not explain it, and I am not sure exactly how cost-effective that has been; the financial transaction tax and banking union; and other subjects, many of which would now be in the realms of whether there should not be reform of the powers that the EU has had in order to override other people.
As Members of this House, we are in a privileged position. But the language in which most of the report is termed is beyond the average person in the street—the citizens who are leading a busy life. I am not maligning them but we all have other things to do, and without them doing their work we would not have an economy. So we simply have to look at this in a reasonable light for them. The negotiations will be and are hard work and very complicated, and we accept that, but they must be explained in a way that the public can understand. I remember, as might some noble Lords, a wonderful lady, the late Baroness Elliot of Harwood. She seemed to remain on the Agriculture Committee and never left it, whether I was on it or rolled off it. She would sit there and after amazing evidence from whoever, her first question was always, “Why can’t you speak plain English?”. She was part of our privileged society, yet she was saying that. Perhaps we should have a ministry of plain English in her remembrance. Okay, obviously we would not, but in order to translate so much of what we are doing at this moment in the process of EU reforms and so on, somebody must be able to put it all into a language that people understand.
The progress must be transparent and comprehensible to the vast majority of people in their own homes. It must not require them to go to meetings and become politicised by attending rallies. We should just remember one thing: inasmuch as we discuss it, and the Government do a certain amount of negotiation and may or may not tell us about it, we are not the people who will decide that referendum. The people who will are outside this Chamber, this Palace and this city, and if we do not achieve something on this we need not be surprised when the emotional vote comes out.
As my noble friend Lord Hannay mentioned, paragraphs 47 to 49 deal with the issue of the devolved institutions. I share his disappointment not in the performance but in the attention of the Minister for Europe to this issue. It is not very impressive, because when he was asked various things at paragraph 47, a paraphrase of his answer is: “UK membership—reserved matter. Not for them”. But every single bit of what is agreed will have an impact on every single bit of the lives of people in those areas, and in my own area of Northern Ireland. He says that there is no veto, but there is only no veto if the poll is so far apart that the numbers of people in those devolved areas cannot change it. To leave them out of it and then antagonise them into perhaps a different way of voting will give them a veto—so basically, he is wrong.
It says that their interests are “to be respected”. The respect agenda has not worked very well with devolved parts of the United Kingdom, and that applies to both sides. When I have been on committees and in my case have asked the Northern Ireland Executive to give us an opinion on something, either it has not arrived at all, or, on a very good day, it has arrived just after we have done the report. However, it goes both ways. We do not give them the chance, therefore we cannot expect to be respected at all. We have to do something about it.
Lord Wigley (PC)
If indeed there is a reluctance or a refusal to engage from the point of view of the Minister in London with the attitudes of the devolved Assemblies, would the noble Viscount accept that those devolved Assemblies have not only a right but a responsibility to give a leadership to the people within the devolved territories as to how they should address this question?
Viscount Brookeborough
Absolutely. I agree entirely with what the noble Lord said. All I am saying is that it is a two-way thing and that it cannot happen without people respecting each other, getting on with each other and talking. I note, too, that the Minister says that he will visit Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by the end of the year. That is very nice—that shows a lot of urgency, does it not? We are talking maybe— according to my noble friend Lord Boswell—about a referendum perhaps not in the new year but in the early part of it. It is crackers—sorry, I mean it is a bit bemusing.
We also have the problem—which I do not want to go into because it goes into devolved things—that we have three hugely devolved systems, so nobody knows how to deal with each system, and each one demands something different from the other. I know that Northern Ireland was devolved first, therefore you would not have taken it as a model. However, would it not be lovely if we had a devolved package, and, if somebody wanted to be devolved, they could be devolved, with a package? That would end all the further demands for corporation tax, for this and that and everything else. You would get it or leave it. We are now going into powers for Manchester or further into the north and maybe the west of England. We are inventing things by the day, and how will we deal with them, because it is not an EU thing? However, on this issue, it is.
Scotland has been through a referendum; perhaps it went through an emotional vote, but I will not argue about that. However, it was quite interesting to talk to people in Scotland about their motivation. When one said, “North Sea oil isn’t doing very well”, and so on, they would say, “Okay—we accept that. It may not be”. Then you would say, “Do you want to be like Iceland”, to which they would reply, “Actually, Iceland seems to be better now”—I was there the other day, and it has not destroyed them. “We want to try something new”. They want to do that because they cannot see what the Government and everybody else are going on about when it comes to the EU, because it is not explained.
I will make one small plea and then I will stop. It is from a Northern Ireland point of view; other areas have their own. We have the only land border with the EU, which perhaps means we can smuggle, but it means a lot of other things, too. We should also take note of the report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on EU Affairs, in the Republic of Ireland, on the effects that a UK exit could have in Northern Ireland and Ireland as a whole. It is quite interesting, because the Republic is being very sympathetic towards us, and it knows how damaging an exit could also be to it if we exit; the Republic will have to take account of that. I believe the Prime Minister said that he would respect an exit decision if that should come through the referendum. Where is the Government’s plan B? If they accept that they may respect it, they must have a plan B. I hope that the Minister will lead us not too late into the night and let us know what the Government’s plan B is. Maybe it will not take him very long, because it might be quite short, but let us see.
What about our land border? What about the restrictions and tariffs for Northern Ireland? What about border controls, which have already been mentioned? Northern Ireland is an agricultural community—82% of farm incomes come from the CAP. What are the Government going to replace that with? The Minister may not have reckoned on the fact that peace funding will have given £5 billion by 2020. Are the Government going to replace that because it means a lot?
This report raises important issues but only as an introduction. We look forward to a more detailed inquiry, sooner rather than later—clarity is the key. I appeal to the Government to try a bit of clarity for once.
Lord Suri (Con)
My Lords, having heard noble Lords’ worthy speeches, I would like to say that I read this report with great interest. The authors have done an excellent job in uncovering the indicators which can signify the direction of travel for these negotiations. The information given to the public and us parliamentarians from the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister’s office has been very light on detail. This is, to an extent, understandable, as these discussions are very much in flux, but I call on the Government to be more open with information on how the negotiations are progressing. One existing problem that the committee uncovered was that the existing principles and mechanisms for parliamentary accountability are inadequate and do not cover satisfactorily this sort of negotiation, which is extremely rare and has no precedent. Indeed, it would be a wise move to generate some sort of consensus on what Ministers should tell Parliament in cases such as this, to save future generations the arduous task of drawing up and entrenching new conventions.
Another salient point was how to guarantee treaty change. Some of the Prime Minister’s aims, as set out in the Bloomberg speech, will certainly require full-blooded treaty change, especially reform of ever closer union and the free movement of people—treaty revision will simply be inadequate. In the mean time, Ministers have refused to confirm or deny whether they are planning to use the 1992 Edinburgh agreement model, by which Denmark secured legally binding opt-outs to be incorporated in future treaty change, by depositing such agreements with the UN.
It is welcome to see from the report that the Minister for Europe is said to be pushing for greater competitiveness in the EU, but he has not said how he plans to safeguard the City of London from the onerous financial regulations that the Commission will be generating over the coming years. The UK is by far the largest financial hub in the EU and we must make protecting the financial services marketplace a priority in our negotiations. I feel that this could be rolled into the existing demand for greater subsidiarity in the red card system to simplify negotiations. Of course, I, along with members of the committee, welcome the Government’s efforts to enhance the role of national parliaments as part of the reform agenda.
The last salient point pertains to the committee’s recommendation of a green card system so that national parliaments can club together to propose new rules or reforms to existing ones. I feel that this would return power back to states more effectively than the veto that the red card system would entail. Controlling the process and outcome is far better than controlling the outcome alone. I thank the members of the committee for their detailed report.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the report with all the enthusiasm of a former member of a team who, sacked by the manager and sold by the proprietor, hears that the team is still winning. My enthusiasm is enormous.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, showing all his customary understatement and finesse, was a little hard on the report. To even things up, I thought I would be hard on the Government’s response to it. It reminds me of the story of the old lady who said that she had greatly enjoyed “Hamlet”—it was full of quotations. The Government’s response seems to me to consist only of quotations of things said previously by the Government. I look forward to the Minister’s reply, in which I suspect we may hear some of them again. However, I hope that none of them will descend to the level of the first substantive point made by the Government in their response to the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell:
“The Government has been clear that the outcome of the renegotiation will determine the timing of the referendum”.
I have never been in doubt about that but it is good to be reassured.
I want to make a couple of points about process, because the report is basically about process. The committee says at paragraph 69 that it found some of the foreigners a bit concerned at not knowing precisely what we want. The report is dated July. They may not perhaps be much the wiser now, but next week the famous letter to Mr Tusk may tell them. Actually, I thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s speech to the BDI today told us quite a bit. In the passages that dealt with what seem to be much the most intellectually difficult and complex problem in the negotiations—the relationship between the euro-ins and the euro-outs—it seemed that what the Chancellor was suggesting to the BDI, although I do not know what he said to Mr Schäuble, was both reasonable and achievable. The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, suggested that it was a little unambitious—something about “reach and grasp” comes to mind—but “reasonable and achievable” is not too bad as an aim at this stage of the negotiations.
I admit that the process being followed is one I have never seen before. I worked for Mrs Thatcher, who had a rather different technique. Officials would be summoned and interrogated as to what the maximum was that we could possibly achieve. She would then publicly announce 120% of what the officials had advised. This was an excellent technique—it worked extremely well. For example, in the 1988 negotiation on the budget and the CAP, which started the process of bringing down the CAP as a proportion of the budget with the introduction of stabilisers on agricultural spending, in the end she settled with remarkable ill grace for 100%, denouncing her officials, her allies and her ministerial colleagues as feeble and wet. The foreign foe, defeated, went home able to say, “Well, at least we got 20% off her”. It was an excellent technique in my view.
I am a little worried about the technique of not saying what you want until you have established what you can get. From my point of view, it is a slightly unusual order in which to proceed. I suspect that real negotiations are going on—I know nothing—but that they are taking place on the basis of non-papers, without commitment and probably prepared not by British officials but by the admirable Council secretariat and Mr Faull in the Commission, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, referred.
That is fine, and it is rather the way that, in 1992, we, the British presidency, dealt with the Danish issue. It was a small circle and the Council secretariat played an important role, particularly the remarkable Mr Piris, then chairman of the Council’s legal service. But when we had the outlines of a deal, it was then spread EU-wide to successive meetings of the Committee of Permanent Representatives and then the General Affairs Council. Finally, when it went to the Edinburgh European Council, there were absolutely no surprises in it for anybody. Many had started out with suspicions—suspicions of the British for perhaps being in bed with the Danes, suspicions of the British for perhaps not wanting the Maastricht treaty to be ratified by Denmark. In the end, it was Mr Piris’s presentation of the text to the European Council, a well-prepared European Council, which saw the Danish problem solved and the Danes ratify Maastricht.
Blind-siding is always a mistake. The committee is absolutely right to say in the report that it has found some concern among other member states at not knowing what is wanted. It is really important that they should be brought in, because unanimity will be required in the European Council—that means Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Slovenia just as much as Germany and France. Everybody has the right to feel that they have been consulted and their views taken into account. Blind-siding does not work. That should have become painfully clear to us in 2011, in the strange midnight disaster when the Prime Minister sprang a series of detailed demands on a European Council most of whose members are still not sure precisely what he was asking for, only to have the ridicule of Mr Sarkozy obliging Mr Cameron to walk out. Small circles are all very well, but well before an attempt is made to secure a European Council agreement, everybody has to be in some way brought on board.
It is perhaps worth noting that the deal that was struck for the Danes, like that struck for the Irish, did not involve either treaty change or a promissory note promising future treaty change—I mention this just as a footnote to paragraph 61 of the report. The texts that were agreed were common acknowledgements of statements the Danes made as to their intentions, and common interpretations—clarifications—of the treaty. They were legally binding. They took treaty form, in that at least one of them was registered at the United Nations as an international treaty, but they did not change the treaty of Maastricht, which meant that the ratification problems elsewhere did not arise.
I feel sympathy for the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, in his ceaseless attempts to bring the Government to account. This report is clear that it would be very good if the Government kept Parliament fully informed throughout. I understand that, but if I were in government, I would be doing exactly as the Government are doing. To be involved in a running commentary and a negotiation is not a good idea. If I were back in my old haunt as a faceless bureaucrat, I would be extremely anxious to avoid close parliamentary scrutiny of each negotiating move. I do not therefore criticise the Government. At some stage, they will have to tell the foreigners exactly what they want and they will have to widen the circle of those involved in the negotiation. But I would not myself be rushing to insist that at that point, we should cross-examine the Government as to their intentions. They will require flexibility.
I am sure that the reason why the Government are resisting the overtures of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has nothing to do with him. I am reminded of some of the noble Lord’s friends, possibly even the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. It could be that they worry the Government. I am also reminded of the Duke of Wellington, not the present one but the great Iron Duke, when he said of his army in Spain:
“I don't know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God, they terrify me”.
Mr Cameron may well have that in mind.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, for chairing the committee that produced this report. Whatever reports are produced on this subject, I am afraid that they will not please many people for a long time because it is a long-running saga. I have been part of this saga for almost as long as it has run. The opposition Benches are not fully staffed, but I can tell them that they have an organisation that used to be known as the Labour Common Market Safeguards Committee. It is run by a remarkable person called John Mills. I understand that he is the only person who has given a seven-figure sum to a political party and got nothing for it for it apart from running the Labour Common Market Safeguards Committee. It has been in operation since around 1971 and it has constantly niggled about the EU. At first it wanted the referendum to result in a no vote, which it did not. It then spent 20 years, from roughly the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, arguing for expansion and enlargement. It wanted the EU to do more and it wanted it to have more members. When you challenged the committee as to why, its members would say, “Because that is the way it will break down. It will break down under its own pressures”. That was the only reason they wanted it.
Of course, a number of noble Lords and Members of the other House have a long history in this. My good friend Kate Hoey has never hidden her reluctance, shall we say, to have anything to do with the EU and the people it represents. I am sure that the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, will correct me if I am wrong, but she alleges that she represents a strong strand of opinion in Northern Ireland, because although she represents Vauxhall, she represents a good part of Northern Ireland as well, so this has been a long-running saga.
One of the saddest things about it is that it is a very short queue because only one country is actually talking about leaving the EU. Everyone else who is dissatisfied with the EU is talking about reforming it because they all realise that Europe is quite a small part of the world. It is made up of a number of small countries and even the biggest of them is not that big. Put Germany against Bangladesh, and I am afraid Bangladesh wins. So let us have a look at what we want to do. We will not get anywhere by constantly saying that we want to leave: “Our solution to your problems is that we will go away”.
What will happen if there is a no vote? Nothing will happen. Britain will have voted no and we will then start a long process of negotiation about withdrawal. I do not know whether it is an interest that should be declared, but I am the chairman of the European Parliament Members Pension Fund. I also served for a period as a director of the CERN pension fund in Switzerland. I mention that because many member states are represented in CERN and there are many member states in the European Union. At one point in CERN, we had to look at what the consequences of a member state leaving would be. We decided that the pension fund would have to buy out its liabilities. Buying out liabilities from a pension fund on an insurance basis not only takes a long time but is extremely expensive. That is just one little corner.
I tell you what would happen if there was a no vote: there would be another referendum about three years later and it would be called a general election. Without predicting too much, I think noble Lords on the opposite Benches and their party would be saying, “We have had three years of negotiating to leave the European Union; the thing is a whole mess. We never wanted to leave anyway and if you vote in a Labour Government next Thursday, we will scrap the whole thing”. So a no vote would actually be a “let’s have another vote after you have got yourself into a thorough mess”, which is what would happen if we started negotiation for withdrawal. Do not doubt it: no one in Brussels would have any vested interest in making our process of withdrawal easy. Everybody would want something out of the pot as Britain goes. There would also be enormous complications. What would happen to the TTIP arrangements with the United States? Are we to withdraw from them before they are signed or will we go along with them? Then what will we do—have separate negotiations with the United States? Are we going to endorse TTIP and ask Congress to approve it, in two or three years’ time, because it is not covered by the decision that gives Obama the right to conclude the treaty? This would be a compounding of lots of different interests. I am not saying that we do not need reform in the EU: of course we do.
I shall finish with a different story. There is a lot of concern about migration in Europe, but let me retell a conversation I had in Frankfurt three weeks ago, with someone who is well placed to know the feelings of the German Government. The migrants are coming into Europe; Germany needs more population. Some people in Germany believe that the cost of absorbing the migrants, even 800,000 of them, would represent about 0.5% of its GDP, which is a really serious amount. However, within five to eight years, all that money would have come back into the economy because of the productivity of the migrants. Do you know what they said about the British Government’s brave idea that we would take migrants from the camps? The gentleman I was talking to said, “Fine. They’re the losers, Richard. The winners are the ones who have crossed Europe to get to Germany; they are the ones with the initiative and the get up and go. You go to the camps and take the people who want to stay there. The people who will build a modern Germany are the refugees”. That may be a controversial point of view but it is probably an economically sound one, if you look at the quality of the people who are now in Germany. I am not saying that we should change our policy, but when we look at mainland Europe we should not be full of pity, saying, “Oh dear, poor them”, thinking that none of them has thought it out or has any idea what to do, or that these people are just washing in and the response is, “Oh dear, poor little us”. There is quite a well-developed school of thought at the upper levels of European polity which says that we have to control the refugee crisis but it will not necessarily be the worst thing for our economy and our future. We should not forget that.
Last week I was in Turkey, monitoring the election. Turkey still wishes to join the European Union. It has been the wish of all three parties that have served in government that Turkey should join. Frankly, we have treated it disgracefully. We have treated it to promises and we have gone on about human rights, which are important, but we have used things to hide behind. We should start looking around Europe at the large number of countries that want to join. We should say that a stable Europe is one that has one of its biggest countries—namely, us—firmly anchored in the middle, pressing for the sort of reforms that many countries want and leading from within Europe, not this nonsense of sitting on the sidelines and constantly carping, which means that we lose influence because people say, “Oh God, you’re at it again are you?”. We can do much better than that.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I will endeavour not to detain the House for too long. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, pointed out, we are already debating late into the evening. Many of us have been here debating late into the evening night after night. I note that we are missing the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. I thought that he and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, constantly had to spend time interacting, but he and the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, seem to have been given time off for good behaviour.
Some of us are taking part night after night in the EU Referendum Bill, which is now in Committee. As preparation for that, I read the excellent report produced by your Lordships’ EU Committee on the referendum and the reform process. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, I found it a useful document and one that very much sets the scene for what we are thinking about.
However, I feel a little as if I am intruding on private grief or an internal dispute, because so much of what we have heard is from the Conservative Benches: differences of opinion, whether the renegotiation is doing the right thing, what the renegotiation may or may not be doing and whether there will be treaty reform. Essentially, it is asking what the Prime Minister thinks he is doing. There seems to be quite a lot of dissatisfaction on the Conservative Benches.
In the very insightful comments from the noble Lord, Lord Howell, there was a comment about the timing for reform, renegotiation and referendum, and the fact that we ideally need reform to come first. However, it was not this side of the House or the Cross Benches that put forward the idea of reform, renegotiation and referendum. That was the Prime Minister in his Bloomberg speech of January 2013. It may have served him and his party well until 8 May 2015, but he now has to deliver it. The triptych of reform, renegotiation and referendum is very difficult to manage in the time he suggested. The fact that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, is struggling to know whether there will be treaty reform, whether it will be legally binding and how it will come about very much depends on what the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary are asking. In response to one of the points in the report, I say that those seem to be the three key figures from the Government who are leading negotiations—that is certainly what I have been told privately—but clearly the Minister for Europe is playing an important role.
We know broadly what the Prime Minister is asking for. On several occasions your Lordships’ House has been told by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, about the four baskets that the Prime Minister is talking about. We have heard them again in Berlin today in various different iterations from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have a sense of what is being asked for. Obviously we are all very much looking forward to the letter that is officially going to President Tusk in, we assume, the next few days.
I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. While it is a nice idea that your Lordships’ House and the other place should get a running commentary on the negotiations—that we are apprised at various stages of what the Prime Minister is doing—it clearly is not appropriate for us to try to monitor the negotiations on an ongoing basis. We see that with the Danish model of mandating; one gets a Government who are very much constrained. Negotiations of this type—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has already said that he finds this a very strange sort of negotiation—are a complete innovation. Nobody has tried to negotiate prior to a referendum on potential departure before, so we are in unknown territory. The idea of Parliament trying to mandate the Prime Minister, to second-guess what he is doing or to ask too frequently for reports back, is unhelpful, I suggest.
The noble Lord, Lord Desai, had an interesting idea about a group of privy counsellors trying to listen to the Prime Minister and maybe advise him, but given the differences—
Lord Balfe
Is that not an extremely good idea, which would give Mr Corbyn, as a privy counsellor, something to do?
Baroness Smith of Newnham
I am not aware whether Mr Corbyn is yet a member of the Privy Council.
The thought is an interesting one—but given the differences of opinion that seem to persist, even on the Conservative Benches, in your Lordships’ House, the idea that a selected group of privy counsellors are somehow going to be able to give wise counsel to the Prime Minister when he is in the process of negotiating something that is a manifesto commitment rather than something that the ordinary man or woman on the street is necessarily demanding, and that they will be ideally suited to assisting him, is not persuasive.
On the subject of the man or woman on the street, the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, made a first-rate point. I have not declared any interests, but my day job is teaching European politics at Cambridge University, and I occasionally get funding from the European Commission. I say that so that it is on the record, and your Lordships’ House does not feel that I have misled anybody, or failed to acknowledge it. I talk about Europe all the time, but there is a whole set of jargon used in discussing the European Union, which we need to get away from. Clearly, it is hugely important to have plain speech in the discussion, in the renegotiation and in the referendum. However, a fact that we often fail to recollect is that your Lordships’ House also uses language that is not necessarily common parlance in the outside world. It is easy to assume that the European Union has too many intricacies and is too complicated, when the language of British government is not necessarily straightforward either.
I shall now turn to a couple of final points on the report. First, it mentions bilateral engagement. The fact that the Prime Minister and other Ministers have now started talking to the 27 other Heads of State and Government is hugely important. But may I ask the Minister: to what extent is the Prime Minister going beyond bilaterals just with Prime Ministers, and also talking through party organisations and with sister parties? Is there an opportunity to work on a cross-party basis as well, and involve members of the Labour Party, or the Liberal Democrats, which also have sister parties with Prime Ministers in government? Yes, it may come as a surprise, but the Liberal Democrats do still have sister parties in government in other member states, which might possibly be able to give assistance in the negotiations. As the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said, there is an issue of, “Where are our friends, and where are our enemies?”. I think that none in the 27 countries would say, “We are an enemy of the United Kingdom”—but clearly some member states are closer than others. One of the important things is to identify the countries with which we can easily make common cause, and those with which we need to work harder. For those of us who believe that Britain’s place remains within the European Union, working on a cross-party basis, or even a no-party basis, with partners across the European Union appears to be one way of dealing with that.
Reform is important. We have heard that from the Cross Benches and the Conservative Benches. However, that reform must benefit the European Union as a whole. It cannot be done on a unilateral basis just for the United Kingdom. The idea of a Luxembourg compromise that works merely to enable the United Kingdom to opt out of things we do not like will not be the way forward. To keep the negotiations going with 27 other member states we need to work on a basis of compromise and co-operation. The reforms need to be realistic and to reflect the needs of the whole European Union. Most member states want the United Kingdom to remain in the EU, but not at any price. The Prime Minister needs to remember that if he is to get the deal which he is seeking, which this country and the European Union need, it has to be done on the basis of working to a common agenda, not one that simply appears to be pick and mix for the United Kingdom.
Like noble Lords on both sides of this House and our colleagues in other European member states, I very much look forward to the Prime Minister’s letter to President Tusk, but I also look forward to the next report of your Lordships’ committee on visions of reform.
Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, it feels as if we have been here for weeks, talking about the same issues for days and days, and we have more to come tomorrow, of course.
I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and his committee for the report, which is very good as it talks about what is in the title—the reform process. It is not about the content of the negotiations themselves, but rather the process and mechanics of the reform negotiations. The report highlights a number of important areas on which the Government should focus their attention. The Government have not given us much back in terms of anything new or exciting, or any vision. They have kept their cards close to their chest, as they have done throughout the negotiation process.
The committee focuses on a few issues, including the timetable, and on the fact that the French and German elections have to be avoided. However, it has missed out the fact that a lot of other elections will take place in Europe between now and 2017. Spain will hold elections this December. Next year, Ireland, Slovakia, Cyprus and Lithuania will hold elections, as will the Czech Republic, Luxembourg and Holland. We ignore these countries at our peril. This is about not just how Germany and France feel about the British desire for change, but how every single member state feels about it. It is a shame that that was not alluded to in the report. We should please remember that every country is important in this negotiation.
We know, and hope, that David Cameron has learned the lesson that squaring matters with the German Government does not guarantee delivery, as we saw when he failed to stop Juncker being nominated as President of the Commission. He thought that was all sorted out because he did some nice little deal with Germany, but he did not manage to deliver on it. You have to go beyond Germany and France. Let us please learn that lesson. It is incredible to think that we are in line to take the presidency of the EU in the second half of 2017. What a situation that would be if we had just voted to come out of the EU. It would be absolute chaos, as the report rightly points out.
The killer point of the report is that the internal Whitehall process for handling renegotiation is unrealistic and unaccountable. There is no mechanism for keeping Parliament informed of the discussions, so we are all fumbling in the dark until the white smoke appears, when we are expected to cheer and celebrate. The report is highly critical of the complexity of the negotiations, and questions who is in charge. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, rightly brought to the attention of the House the question that Henry Kissinger used to ask: “Who do I phone if I want to call Europe?”. We have an answer to that now: Donald Tusk.
It took a while to get there, it has to be said, but we are there, and that proves that this is not a one-off negotiation; negotiations are constant in the European Union. We are constantly seeing reform. But imagine you are a civil servant in charge of social security in Latvia and you want to discuss in-work tax benefits; who would you call and how would you be sure that the line given by the Cabinet Office or the Department for Work and Pensions would be the same as that given by the Treasury or the Foreign Office? Can we be confident that they would give the same answer? The mechanisms of the process are unclear.
There would be a requirement for the European Parliament to approve any legislative proposals that emerged, so it would make sense for the Prime Minister to become very friendly indeed with the European Parliament very quickly. It has invited him to go and speak to it and present his desires for the nation, and I suggest that he take up that offer because it will be important for the Government to get the blessing of the European Parliament.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
What should the Prime Minister say to the European Parliament when he gets there?
Baroness Morgan of Ely
The European Parliament has invited the Prime Minister to put forward his objectives for the reform process. It would like to know what they are—we would all like to know what they are—but it will have a say in the process. So it is about enlightening the European Parliament, and I think it absolutely right that he goes and presents to it. Once the letter has been written, we should all be in a better place, but it is taking a long time.
It is also important for us to take note of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, about the devolved Administrations. They do not feel loved on this issue at all. It is important that they feel loved and feel involved. It is part of their nation that is being negotiated with. They need to be involved in that process, and a little visit, perhaps by the end of the year, when actually everything has more or less been decided about what we are looking to change, is probably not the best way to work with them. I suggest that the Government ignore the devolved Administrations at their peril.
The committee is also right to underline the fact that the implications of EU withdrawal would be profound for Gibraltar. The Government there have even gone as far as to suggest that this would create an “existential threat” to Gibraltar—imagine that. It is clear that Gibraltar will need some real reassurance on that matter.
We know there are four broad areas where the Prime Minister wants to see change. Of course, we are all waiting for that letter. It is true that a little more light has been shone on the situation today but the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is right: the whole approach to this negotiation seems very odd. The Government should probably take some advice from junior doctors, who seem to have managed to negotiate a deal with the Government that the Government were not prepared to give. Taking some tips from junior doctors—or some pretty good trade unionists—would be a good place to start. This method of communicating and negotiating is not necessarily the best way to work.
I take issue with the Government’s response to the committee, especially their suggestion that they would like to reform welfare,
“to reduce the incentives which have led to mass immigration from Europe”.
I brought this to the House’s attention yesterday. It is a load of nonsense. According to the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Population Change, a number of EU countries are as generous as Britain in terms of social security per head. France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands all spend more in real terms than the UK on social security. Last year, a European Commission report concluded that there was no evidence of systematic or widespread benefit tourism by EU nationals migrating within the EU, including to the UK. The UK is the only EU member state where there were fewer beneficiaries among EU migrants than among its own people. So let us stop this scaremongering and stop talking it up as an issue, when it is simply not true. According to the DWP’s own figures, 6.4% of those claiming benefits were non-UK nationals. That means that British nationals were two and a half times more likely to be claiming working-age benefits than non-UK nationals. I would like to hear the Minister withdraw that statement because I think it was misleading and wrong.
We would like to wish the Prime Minister all the best in his negotiations with the EU. The future of our country depends on it, and the stakes for the UK could not be higher. The Prime Minister does not have a great track record on working with his EU colleagues, so lots of diplomatic schmoozing will be essential in the next few months. The Prime Minister has painted himself into a corner on the EU date. While this issue might be at the very top of his in-tray, with the migration crisis unfolding in Europe, the effects of the financial crisis still unfolding across the continent and the tension between the EU and Russia, it is probably not a priority for any other member state. This year, following weeks of trailing, the start of UK negotiations was going to be on the agenda of the June EU Council meeting. How long was the Prime Minister given to bring up his ideas on the changes he wants to see? He was given 10 minutes. We were hearing for months that this was going to be the big occasion, but he was given 10 minutes. I hope, for the sake of the country, that he is given a better hearing in future. We hope and trust that he will do much better in his negotiations than he has in the past.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, this has been a quite excellent debate with some very varied and informed speeches.
The Earl of Courtown
Yes, we have been here for some evenings now and—please excuse me—it has all been blending into one debate.
As noble Lords will no doubt be aware, the Government published their response to the committee’s report on this issue on 28 September this year. They welcomed the report and responded to its recommendations in turn but things are moving swiftly on this issue, so let me begin by setting out the Government’s position before I turn to the individual points raised by noble Lords during the debate.
My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has been clear about the changes that are needed. He has set out four clear areas of reform. First, on sovereignty and subsidiarity, Britain must not be part of an ever-closer union, which may be right for others but will never be right for the United Kingdom. We want a greater role for national parliaments in the European Union.
It is vital that the European Union adds to our competitiveness rather than detracting from it. We need to sign new trade deals, cut regulation and complete the single market. On this, we have already made much progress. As the Prime Minister set out in his Statement to the House following the October European Council, there has been an 80% reduction in new legislative proposals under the new European Commission. We have reached important agreements on a capital markets union, on liberalising services and on completing the digital single market. We have also championed vital trade deals but there is more to be done.
On eurozone governance, we need to make sure that the European Union works for those outside the single currency as well as those within it. The single market must be protected and we must face neither discrimination nor additional costs from the integration of the eurozone. Finally, as has been mentioned, on immigration we need to tackle abuses of the right to free movement and deliver changes that ensure our welfare system is not an artificial draw for people to come to Britain. There is a clear process to secure these reforms.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
I am sorry, but the facts, as I pointed out, simply do not bear that out. I request that the Minister withdraw that statement because it is simply not factually correct. Welfare is not a magnet, as has been proved by a European Commission report, and I ask the Minister to withdraw the statement.
The Earl of Courtown
I have some notes for later in my speech that will refer to that point, which the noble Baroness made in her speech. As far as withdrawing something that I did not put out in in the first place, I understand what the noble Baroness is saying, but I will write to her on that and put a copy in the House Library if possible.
The European Union Referendum Bill has passed through the other place and is now making its way through this House. The Prime Minister has already met with leaders of all 27 other member states as well as with the presidents of the European Commission, of the European Parliament and of the European Council to discuss the reforms that we seek. Technical talks have been taking place in Brussels to inform our analysis of the legal options for reform. There will now be a process of negotiation between all 28 member states, leading up to the December European Council. The Prime Minister will be writing to the President of the European Council to set out the changes that we want to achieve.
I will now address the points raised today. The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, asked a number of questions in his speech, which I will do my best to answer. He asked whether my right honourable friend the Chancellor is leading on this and how he interacts with the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is leading the renegotiation, working closely with the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary, supported by the Minister for Europe and Cabinet colleagues.
The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, also asked about treaty change. The Prime Minister has been very clear in his discussions with other leaders that the reforms we are seeking must be legally binding and irreversible and that, in some areas, that will mean treaty change. There must then be agreement to those changes before the referendum.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
I congratulate the noble Earl. He has proved my prophecy correct. The last sentence that he read out is there in the Government’s response—the same clichés in the same order.
The Earl of Courtown
I thank the noble Lord for bringing that to my attention. The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, also asked about the role of the European Parliament. We will work closely with the European Parliament and recognise the important role that it plays in the European Union’s institutional architecture, for example as co-legislator for secondary legislation and in scrutinising trade agreements. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister welcomed President Schulz to the UK recently, and the Foreign Secretary has also met key players in the European Parliament.
The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, also raised the subject of the key interlocutors in Brussels. As I mentioned earlier, the Prime Minister has met all the leaders, as well as the President of the European Commission. The technical talks, led for the UK by the Prime Minister’s Europe adviser and UK Permanent Representative to Brussels, have been taking place in Brussels, and there will now be a process of negotiation between all 28 member states leading up to the December European Council. The Prime Minister will be writing to the President of the European Council to set out those changes.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
I am most grateful to the noble Earl for how far he has taken this. Can he give any news—or at least an undertaking to reflect and report back—on the possibility of the Foreign Secretary honouring his undertaking to attend our committee?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, I was going to come to that. Yes, I will bring that point about the Foreign Secretary appearing before the noble Lord’s committee to the attention of the department.
A number of noble Lords mentioned the devolved Administrations, including the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough. The Government have been clear that they will continue to keep Parliament informed on the progress of this renegotiation. As foreign policy issues are reserved, relations with the European Union are the responsibility of the Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom. However, the United Kingdom Government involve the devolved Administrations as directly and fully as possible in decision-making on EU matters that touch on devolved areas.
The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, asked about the green card issue. The Government are committed to making it easier for national Parliaments to work together to influence the European Union’s decision-making. Many member states agree with the United Kingdom that there are shortcomings in democratic accountability in the European Union, and there is widespread support for enhancing the role that national Parliaments play. It is clear from the noble Lord’s letter to President Juncker that the House of Lords EU Committee—and, I am sure, the other committees around the EU—sees this as a way of shifting the political culture for the better within the European Union. The Government share that overall objective.
Several noble Lords mentioned the letter. As the Prime Minister said when he arrived at the European Council in October, he will again be setting out the four areas which we need to change and laying down what the changes will be at the start of November. The Government will continue to keep Parliament informed, and the Prime Minister will share his letter with Parliament.
My noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford referred to treaty change. The Prime Minister’s position that some of the reforms we are seeking will require treaty change has not changed. We must have agreement to such treaty change before the referendum. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister also said that Britain would benefit from being in a reformed European Union, but that a reformed European Union would also benefit from having Britain in it. The Prime Minister has clearly set out the four areas where we are seeking change, and I will not repeat them.
I take note of the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Desai, relating to a Privy Council committee, but Her Majesty’s Government continue to believe that the scrutiny arrangements are valid. Our strategy is reform, renegotiation and then referendum. We will work together with other countries to discuss and agree reforms, many of which will benefit the entire European Union, before holding a referendum to ensure that the British people have the final and decisive say.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, raised the question of national Parliaments and the red card. As I have already set out, the Government want a greater role for national Parliaments in the European Union. Many member states agree with the United Kingdom that there are shortcomings in democratic accountability, and there is widespread support for enhancing the role that national Parliaments play.
The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, mentioned matters relating to enabling the electorate to understand the issues. At the conclusion of any deal, the public will rightly expect Ministers to set out the results of the renegotiation, how the relationship with Europe has been changed and if and how those changes address their concerns. As my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in June, the Government will publish assessments of the merits of membership and the risks of a lack of reform in the European Union, including the damage that could be done to Britain’s interests. The noble Viscount also asked about plan B. The Prime Minister is focused on success. He believes that he can and will succeed in reforming and renegotiating our relationship with the European Union and in campaigning to keep the United Kingdom in the European Union on that basis.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, mentioned welfare and migration. If I can add anything more, I will, but I will go through the note I have. We accept that the free movement of people to work is one of the four fundamental freedoms of the European Union, and these negotiations do not seek to curtail this freedom, but we want to protect the United Kingdom’s welfare system from abuse and reduce the incentives that encourage highly skilled workers to travel to the UK to do low-skilled jobs. This undermines economic growth in their countries of origin and belief in the fairness of free movement in destination countries. That means reforming welfare to reduce the incentives that have encouraged such mass migration from Europe, including the very generous way in which you can access our welfare system and in-work benefits almost on day one of arrival in Britain. We must also develop other freedoms, in particular freedom of movement of services and capital, to ensure that it is not just free movement of people that contributes to convergence of living standards across Europe.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
I am sorry, but the noble Earl keeps repeating things that are simply not true. I ask him to go back to the Department for Work and Pensions, ask for the figures and make sure that there is an understanding that this is not abuse in the way that people are making out that it is. Let us not talk up this issue, because it is not a problem—it is making a problem up.
The Earl of Courtown
I have already committed to the noble Baroness that I will take this back and look at it.
I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, over his suggestion about not revealing what we want. The Prime Minister has been clear and has spoken on several occasions about the areas where we are seeking change. Technical talks started in July, and their purpose is to explore the technical and legal options for delivering reforms. We are not going to give a running commentary on those discussions. Unsurprisingly, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about giving a running commentary, as also made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. I add that his self-description does not do him justice.
This has been a fine debate, and I thank noble Lords for their important contributions. The Government are clear about the interest that the House has taken in this issue, and rightly so, as it is one of the utmost importance and one in which the Prime Minister is focused on success. He believes that he can and will succeed in reforming and renegotiating our relationship with the European Union and campaigning to keep the UK in the EU on that basis, before holding a referendum to ensure that the British people have a final and decisive say.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
My Lords, veterans of debates on the European Union and reports of the Select Committee and its sub-committees will be familiar with the fact that we are often obliged to do this at a late hour. That is partly a function of being able to get the reports debated in a timely manner. If we are honest, there are occasions when the subject matter is somewhat staid and the comments are occasionally even a touch self-congratulatory. I think we have been spared that tonight. The convention is to say that we have had a very good debate, but actually, amazingly enough, we have; it has been very lively, and one could almost call it enjoyable. I would take some encouragement from that, in that there may be something going on in the air, because there appears to be a renewed interest, sensitivity and liveliness about the debate, which is probably to the good for the future.
It is late and I do not intend to speak at length, but, first, I should say that the Minister is very good—sometimes better than some of the professional politicians, if I may put it that way—at playing a straight bat against both fast bowling and some deadly spin. He has done that in a way that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, forecast, almost quintessentially. In a sense, I admire that technique. Amazingly enough, we manage to distil words of wisdom even as we go along, albeit that it is a slow process. I reflect on my own experience as a Minister, when the dilemma was not what you knew—that was quite easy—but what you knew but could not remember whether you were allowed to say, which was more difficult. However, the debate will continue, as it will with other noble Lords.
I do not want to go through in seriatim, but there have been some important calls for better vision and fascinating suggestions about better communication with this committee and the role of this committee in communicating at large. If I can do so without invidiousness, I shall single out three contributions to comment on. The first is that of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, who remains my good friend. He is very right, occasionally, to shake us up. He did not like the report, and I am sorry about that. I suppose my excuse is a sort of Billy Bunter excuse for eating the cake: it was quite a small one. The reason the report was quite a small one was, as we say in our final paragraph, that we are beginning the process of shedding light on the process. There is more work to be done.
Many of his adversions related to the treaties and how they would interact, what would happen to them and whether it would be necessary to change them. Frankly, we need to remind the House that the Government, not the EU Select Committee, have called, in their terms, for a new settlement with the European Union, which they are negotiating and on which it is our duty to comment. We are not, as it were, functioning as the Government. We are not striking out too far. However, I take the point, and I think in our forthcoming report on visions we will want to give a bit more meat to this process. As we learn more of the Government’s intentions from the letter to President Tusk and otherwise, we will take that forward.
The second contribution was made by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, who talked about a possible scenario on exit. I know that the Government are very reluctant to talk about this. I would like to report to the House and to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, that it may not be as simple as that. If one thinks that there may or may not be treaty change engaged in remaining, it is almost certain, on the intelligence and advice I have received, that there would be treaty change on leaving. It would require three treaty changes under Article 50: a treaty of withdrawal negotiating our exit; an amending treaty for the remaining 27 member states who would have to take us out of the equations of the Lisbon treaty; and, one assumes, a future treaty of association between the United Kingdom and European Union. That is a triple bill which might entail all these potentials for referenda and other debates to go on. However, I leave that.
I shall close on two aspects of the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough. I acknowledge that he was not the only speaker, although I think he is the resident most directly affected, who talked about the sensibility of the devolved Administrations. He singled out the problems in the island of Ireland. I think I am right in saying that near Clones one of the major roads crosses the border four times in five miles, which is an example of the kind of issue that can arise—and that is before you look at some of the constitutional implications of the Anglo-Irish agreement and so forth. We are sensitive to that and we will continue that work with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations.
Even more, he made an impassioned point which reflects the view of us all that there should be as much plain speaking and common sense about this discussion as there can be. I understand that the words “derogation”, “protocol” and so forth trip off our tongues easily because we are used to them, but they not the kind of thing that will engage the electorate. We have a primary duty to report to this House, and we have an important secondary duty to contribute to the national debate which will now start to get under way and to do it in a fair and objective way. In doing that, we will need to focus very carefully on what the Government are doing. We will then report as we can and as material becomes clearer to us. We have made a start. We intend to carry on. I am very grateful for the support of noble Lords in this debate tonight.