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Oral Answers to Questions
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
I welcome the shadow Ministers to their roles and also, more importantly, welcome my new ministerial colleagues to theirs for our first oral questions session.
We have made it clear that the Office for Students must have student representation, and we will take every opportunity to embed student engagement in the culture and structure of the new organisation.
Kerry McCarthy
I thank the Secretary of State for confirming that. During the summer, I met students from the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England, who are very concerned about rising tuition fees, the scrapping of maintenance grants and, above all, the quality of teaching. Can she assure them that they will be listened to when they express concerns about those issues in connection with the Higher Education and Research Bill?
Justine Greening
In part, the Bill reflects our wish to secure value for money for students, which we are building into law for the first time. Our updating of the higher education regulatory framework is long overdue, and I am delighted that we are taking the opportunity to put the interests of students at the heart of it.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should beware the law of unintended consequences? Adding students to the board of the Office for Students would put at risk representation and engagement with students throughout the higher education system. Will she assure me, and the student community, that the OFS will put students at the heart of the system?
Justine Greening
I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I know that he has played an important role on the Public Bill Committee and presented his own proposals. As we have made clear, we do not want to be over-prescriptive. We want to set up the Office for Students and allow it to ensure that students have a voice not just through representation, but through the way in which the office itself works.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Act 2016, which the Scottish Government introduced in March, has given students a much stronger voice and increased their involvement in key decision making in Scotland’s universities. Does the Secretary of State agree that students deserve to participate more in the higher education sector, and will she look to the example set by Scotland to ensure that they can do so?
Justine Greening
I have no doubt that Scottish colleagues will wish to share the hon. Lady’s experience. As I have said, it is important to ensure that the voices of students are heard ever more clearly, and that is precisely what the Bill is intended to achieve—among other things, including improving choice for students. As was pointed out earlier, we now have a funding system that requires students to pay tuition fees, and it is vital that they obtain value for money.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend to her post and congratulate her on becoming Secretary of State for one of the most interesting Departments.
I welcome student representation, but may I warn my right hon. Friend that there is a danger relating to who she decides should be representatives? The National Union of Students is no longer the undivisive organisation that it was once, and a number of universities have already decided that they want nothing to do with it. How will the Secretary of State choose the students who are to be represented on the new body?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend sets out his concerns eloquently. During the Bill’s passage, we have made it clear that we want people on the OFS who have experience of representing, or indeed promoting, the interests of students. As I have said, the key requirement is for us not to be prescriptive, but to allow the new body to become established and then find sensible ways of ensuring—not just through the board itself, but, more importantly, through the way in which it operates—it provides a strong voice for students and represents their interests.
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
Both the national funding formula reform and the consultation document “Schools that work for everyone” are vital parts of the Government’s ambition for an education system that promotes social mobility and a true meritocracy. As my hon. Friend will know, work is under way on both. Future activity will be strongly driven by the outcomes of the second stage of consultation on the national funding formula and, of course, the Green Paper.
Heidi Allen
Given the mixed views on grammar schools and the huge amount of work that will be required to ensure that no child is left behind, which I certainly fear they might be, will the Secretary of State please explain how grammar schools can possibly be a higher priority than fixing the flawed funding model that has resulted in thousands of children being seriously underfunded for decades in counties such as mine?
Justine Greening
I very much recognise my hon. Friend’s concerns about funding. This was precisely why, shortly before the House went into the summer recess, I set out my determination to get on with the work of bringing forward a national funding formula. We will be responding to the first stage of the consultation shortly and at the same time setting out the next stage of how the formula will work in practice. We also need to challenge ourselves to look at how we can have more good school places, particularly in parts of the country where there are still not enough and particularly for disadvantaged students. We need to get on with both those pieces of work.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I have made a special journey down here today to ask the Secretary of State a question. There is another group of schools that offers real social mobility and in which the education gap is the most narrowed. More than 98% of these schools are rated good or outstanding, yet they are in the areas of highest deprivation and the majority of their children are eligible for free school meals. They are our much-valued nursery schools, but their funding is putting their ongoing viability at risk. Would it not be better if she focused on their continued attainment, rather than on grammar schools?
Justine Greening
I agree with the hon. Lady that early years provision is a vital part of the education system, which is precisely why we have been consulting on how we can have a sensible approach to its funding, but I disagree with her characterisation that we are cutting funding. That is simply not correct.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
The Secretary of State will surely agree that fairer funding for schools is a top priority, but another priority must be to ensure that we have adequate skills training, especially in the professional and technical sectors. I believe that that should be a key objective of the Green Paper. Will she reassure the House that that is also her priority?
Justine Greening
I made it very clear in my Conservative party conference speech last week that one of our biggest challenges is to ensure that we make the same progress in technical education that we have seen in academic education over recent years. This is vital for the more than 50% of children and young people who do not go on to university, and it will be vital for our employers if we are to have a Brexit Britain that can be successful.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Justine Greening
The reality is that we are providing an additional £55 million for maintained nursery schools for at least two years while we consult the sector. We are looking at children’s centres at the same time.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Thanks to the casting vote of the Liberal Democrat mayor, North East Lincolnshire Council has approved a motion in support of grammar schools. Given that the coastal communities have poor educational standards, may I invite the Secretary of State to allocate some of her Department’s time to looking at the situation in North East Lincolnshire?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend rightly raises his concerns about ensuring that the young people and children in his area get the best possible start in life. We have published our Green Paper and are consulting on how we can achieve this. There are still too many parts of our country where good school places are not available to children, and that is unacceptable. We should look at all the measures that we can take to change that.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Is the Secretary of State encouraged by the fact that two thirds of those canvassed on this issue support the Prime Minister’s policy of increasing social mobility among those from poorer backgrounds through the increased provision of grammar schools? Will she assure us that she will not be deterred by siren voices or the barrage of criticism of this policy from those who are ideologically opposed to it even though they had the benefit of a grammar school education themselves?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman sets out the situation very clearly. He points out that, for children on free school meals in particular, grammars are able to close the attainment gap because the progress that those children make is double that of their better-off classmates. Labour wants to close that opportunity down and we want to level it up—that is the difference.
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s comment that the national funding formula remains a priority. Schools in Somerset are hanging on for the introduction of that fairer funding model. Will she encourage the Chancellor to look favourably on the plight of rural schools so that they can be properly funded until that funding formula comes into being?
Justine Greening
I assure my hon. Friend that I am very conscious of the particular challenges that rural schools face. In fact, in the original first stage of consultation, the issues of sparsity and funding, and of looking at the percentages of children in schools, were on the table because they do matter. I am well aware of the issue, and we will try to do our best in the second stage of the consultation to ensure that the sorts of challenges that schools face and need funding for are met.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Given the cuts that have already been outlined by Members, can the Secretary of State tell the House whether she has secured new funds from the Treasury to meet the spending commitments outlined in the Green Paper?
Justine Greening
The Green Paper outlined additional funding from the Treasury in relation to setting up new grammars. The hon. Lady will be aware that, at the same time as steadily bearing down on the huge deficit that the previous Labour Government left us, we have managed to protect the real-terms core funding for schools, but that is no thanks to the legacy of financial disaster that was handed over to us.
Angela Rayner
I believe the word that the Secretary of State was looking for was “no”. Perhaps she can tell us how much has been spent on trying to find any facts to support the Government’s policy of segregated schools. Spending public money on policy without any evidential basis is simply wasting it. When she last came to the House, she could not cite a single piece of evidence that the policy would improve social mobility. Has she found any since?
Justine Greening
A lot of what the hon. Lady says is incorrect. She will be well aware that a report by the Sutton Trust clearly set out the improved attainment of free school meal children, in particular in grammar schools. It is totally untenable for her to set out her concerns about grammar schools while resolutely being opposed to any kind of consultation document that looks at how we should reform them. We want to look at how we can reform grammar schools. The education system has changed beyond all recognition over recent years, and it is right that we now look at what role grammars can play in a 21st century education system.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
Since May 2014, we have provided £44 million to local authorities to implement Staying Put. The latest data indicate that 54% of 18-year-olds who are eligible to stay put chose to do so. That is a massive increase on what happened before—I am proud to say this—a Conservative-led Government changed the law. We have also seen 30% of 19-year-olds and 16% of 20-year-olds still living with their former foster carers. For those leaving residential care, we have announced plans to pilot a similar scheme, Staying Close.
Craig Whittaker
Sir Martin Narey’s recent review of the children’s homes estate recommended that the vulnerable 9% of looked-after children who are currently excluded from Staying Put arrangements are given the opportunity to take part in Staying Close. Will the Minister update the House on what plans he has for exploring Sir Martin’s recommendations?
Edward Timpson
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and his continued support for care leavers in this House. A key part of our new cross-Government care leavers’ strategy, “Keep On Caring”, was the commitment to introduce Staying Close, as recommended by Sir Martin Narey. We now intend to pilot Staying Close so that we can understand the costs and practical implications before there is a wider roll-out. Part of the next phase of the children’s social care innovation programme will be an invitation to organisations to work with us to develop projects that are aimed at transforming support for vulnerable children, including Staying Close.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
As the Minister is clearly staying put, which many will welcome, will he ensure that he does what he can for those children in residential care who want to stay put? Will he recognise the campaign of Every Child Leaving Care Matters, which is calling for exactly those provisions and changes on the basis that we should be looking after children who most need help—those children in care, particularly in residential care—in the same way that we do with our own children?
Edward Timpson
I am delighted to be staying put, and I will work closely with everybody to make sure that we get this right. Two people who are prominent in the Every Child Leaving Care Matters campaign are working with us to design the system that we want to create in the future.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
The new joint inspections mean that for the first time ever Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission are inspecting vital special educational needs and disability services, showing families what is working well and where services right across education, health and care can improve. The reports, seven of which have been published so far, with many encouraging findings, will enable improvement in individual areas, provide opportunities for local areas to learn from one another, and establish a rich and growing picture of performance nationally.
Jo Churchill
As the Minister is no doubt aware, in my constituency I have outstanding provision in the Priory School—I hope to visit its new facilities on Angel Hill and Mount Road shortly. However, there are challenges in this sector, particularly in ensuring that all children are supported to make the most of their talents and abilities. What is the Minister doing to look at the quality of education, health and care plans, the rate of conversions from statements, the timeliness of those transfers and the quality of them once received?
Edward Timpson
I can assure my hon. Friend that the Department is monitoring closely the rate of conversions from statements and the timeliness of transfers through our annual data collection process. When a local authority’s performance is a concern, we follow that up with our team of professional advisers to offer support and challenge. They will also check the quality of the plans in local authorities that they visit and offer advice on improvement. That is a key part of ensuring that our reforms work for children and young people with SEND.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
In Trafford, where we already have selective education, fewer than 250 children with special educational needs support statements or education, health and care plans attend grammar schools, and that is out of a total of more than 7,500 children in grammar schools in the borough. Can the Minister say how the needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities will be properly taken into account in the consultation on the proposals included in the Government’s Green Paper?
Edward Timpson
The consultation is about lifting all schools to improve for all children, and the SEND reforms that we introduced in 2014 apply to all schools so that they are providing the support and education that the children in their care need to succeed. As part of the consultation on how we can improve all schools, it is important that at its heart children with special educational needs are considered fully.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
I was pleased by the Government’s commitment of £200 million for capital projects for special schools, not least because the Orchard School in Newark is one of the special schools in the worst condition in the country. When will local authorities be able to make a bid for funding and is there anything more that the Government can do, because these schools are incredibly important but extremely expensive to replace or renovate?
Edward Timpson
My hon. Friend is right that we have managed to secure more than £200 million of capital funding for special schools to increase the number of placements in his area and many others. We will be giving more details shortly, but I am sure that many people not just in Newark but right across England will be looking forward to seeing how they can improve the facilities and support that are available for children with special educational needs.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I heard the Minister’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), but I was dismayed that in the “Schools that work for everyone” Green Paper there was not one single mention of children with special educational needs or disabilities. Is it not true that this Government have simply forgotten about them?
Edward Timpson
I welcome the hon. Lady back to the Front Bench. I know that she has had a number of epiphanies in the past few months, going from a remainer to a leaver to a returner, but I am pleased that she has taken up her present role, where I know she is a good fit. It is Dyspraxia Awareness Week, and I know that she is a very strong supporter of the work that the Dyspraxia Foundation and others do. She knows a lot about that issue and I wish her well in her role.
The Green Paper looks at raising standards across all schools for all children, and it includes, as I said previously, children with special educational needs. I hope that the hon. Lady will work with us to make sure that they get the best possible deal.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will the Minister ensure that those areas that do poorly in the inspections are made not only to work with, but to visit, those areas that do the very best, so that the worst can learn by the example of the best?
Edward Timpson
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. One of the reasons why we want to hold local areas to account is to make sure that they do not just sit on their failures, but learn from other areas that are bringing about success. One of our intentions is to make sure that we give them the opportunity to learn from others that do it better.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Robert Halfon)
The proposed apprenticeship funding policy is designed to support an increase in the quality and quantity of apprenticeships. Our proposals include incentives and support for employers and providers that will encourage the take-up of many more apprenticeship opportunities by people of all ages and backgrounds, giving many people their first step on the employment ladder of opportunity. We continue to engage with employers and providers, and we plan to publish the final policy shortly.
Mary Glindon
A recent National Audit Office report condemned the lack of contingency planning for apprenticeship funding reform. How does the Minister hope to address that?
Robert Halfon
We are busy with our plans to introduce the apprenticeship levy. By 2020, we will be spending more than double on apprenticeships, or £2.5 billion extra. We are well on the way towards achieving our target of 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020, with over 500,000 starts in the past year alone.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Although I welcome the record number of people participating in apprenticeships in our country, will the Minister outline what steps the Government have taken to encourage more small businesses to offer apprenticeships?
Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend, who is a champion of apprenticeships in his area, will be pleased to know that, under the plans for the new apprenticeship levy, small businesses that hire 16 to 18-year-olds as apprentices will pay only 10% of the training costs. Furthermore, they and the providers will each receive £1,000. That will encourage small businesses to hire more apprentices.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to his place, and I welcome his commitment to social mobility, but is not the truth that he found this shambles—30% to 50% of apprenticeship funding is being cut for our most disadvantaged 16 to 18-year-olds—in the welcome pack in his in-tray? He knows that it is a shambles. Nearly a month ago, he and I spoke here to a full house of sector leaders and heard it from them. On the same day, the Prime Minister was caught on the hop when she said that she did not recognise the figures, and the chief executive of the Institute of the Motor Industry said that it was a looming car crash. With no proper impact assessment of these cuts, and with the Government’s credibility on the line, why one month later has the Minister still no solutions to these funding cuts?
Robert Halfon
I notice that the shadow Minister—I have great respect for him and am pleased to face him across the Dispatch Box—called his campaign “Save our apprenticeships”. We have been saving 2.5 million people on apprenticeships over the past five years. In 2014-15, in his own constituency, he had 1,040 apprenticeship starts, 218 under-19 apprenticeship starts and 10,500 people participating in further education. If that is not saving apprentices, I do not know what is. As I have said, the apprentice funding will be doubled to £2.5 billion. He is ignoring the increase in the STEM uplifts, the extra money spent on new apprenticeship standards and the £1,000 going to every employer and every provider when they hire a 16 to 18-year-old.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
Local authorities are responsible for assessing educational need in their areas, and they have a statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient school places, including in rural areas. Nearly 600,000 additional school places were created between May 2010 and May 2015, with many more delivered since then and in the pipeline. The Government have committed a further £7 billion for school places, which, along with our investment in 500 new free schools, we expect to deliver another 600,000 new school places by 2021.
Chris Davies
Very sadly, Builth Wells and Llandrindod high schools in Radnorshire are under threat of closure. What more can my hon. Friend do to ensure that we keep educational parity across rural areas, so that pupils have access to superb local schools no matter where they live?
Mr Gibb
In May, the Government set out a package of measures to secure the continued success and sustainability of rural schools in England, including a £10 million fund for expert support to help rural schools through the academy conversion process and a new double lock to sit alongside the existing presumption against the closure of rural schools. By contrast, in Labour-run Wales, with a Liberal Democrat Education Minister, there is no presumption against the closure of rural schools.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Schools in urban areas face challenges, too, with many reporting huge difficulties in retaining teachers. Today, the Education Policy Institute revealed that one in five teachers in England is working more than 60 hours a week. What priority is the Minister giving to analysing why schools are finding it so difficult to retain teachers and what impact workload has on that?
Mr Gibb
The EPI report is based on a 2013 OECD teaching and learning international survey. In response, in 2014, the previous Secretary of State announced the workload challenge—there were 44,000 responses to that—which highlighted issues such as dialogic marking and data collection. We set up review groups to look at that, and they have reported. We have accepted their recommendations, and now we are acting on those recommendations to ease the burden of workload on teachers in our schools. We are acting, and we have acted.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s comments today about rural schools, and I have a large preponderance of rural schools in my constituency. However, the fact is that Taunton Deane receives £2,000 less per pupil on average than the national average. I know that the Secretary of State and the Minister are working hard in the best interests of our young people, our teachers and our governors, but can he please confirm that due consideration will be given to righting the funding disparity between our schools and our pupils?
Mr Gibb
We have protected the core schools budget in real terms, but the system for distributing those funds, as my hon. Friend pointed out, is outdated, inefficient and unfair. That is why we consulted on the principles and the building blocks of the formula in the spring of this year. That will include sparsity as a concept, and also a fixed sum, which of course helps small schools. We will issue our detailed proposals on the design and impact of the formula for consultation in the autumn.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
The key to successful educational provision in rural areas is the quality of teaching. The Labour party has long believed in having qualified teachers in our schools. One area of cross-party agreement in the last Parliament was on having a Royal College of Teaching. Will the Minister update the House on how far the Government have enacted that?
Mr Gibb
There is a Royal College of Teaching. We are meeting the initial funding costs of the Royal College of Teaching, and it is going to be a great success. I should point out that 95% of all teachers in our system have qualified teacher status and that 93% of all teachers in academies have QTS.
David Mackintosh (Northampton South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
The inclusion of a language in the EBacc increased the numbers of students studying at least one language at GCSE between 2010 and 2015, and the Government’s ambition is that more pupils in mainstream secondary schools enter the EBacc subjects at GCSE.
Mr Speaker
Order. I had thought that the Secretary of State was seeking to group this question with Question 12, from the hon. Member for Banbury, whom we do not wish arbitrarily to exclude from our deliberations.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
David Mackintosh
Does my right hon. Friend agree that new schools such as Northampton International Academy, where I am the chair of governors, are crucial to secure the mix of education options that this country needs, with a focus on languages?
Justine Greening
Absolutely. Indeed, new schools such as Northampton International Academy, which has an academic curriculum with a language specialism and also links to schools in other countries, are the sorts of schools that can really play a key role in ensuring that there are strong options for children on languages.
Victoria Prentis
Thank you, Mr Speaker—I cannot tell you how grateful I am not to be excluded this afternoon. Given the importance of China in the global marketplace today, not least to my constituents who work in Bicester shopping village, does my right hon. Friend agree that our children should be taught Chinese in schools?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is quite right that having more young people learning Chinese is important for the UK’s place in the world; indeed, many employers are looking for more staff who are able to speak Mandarin Chinese. This September, we launched a £10 million Mandarin excellence programme, and hundreds of pupils in England have started intensive lessons in Chinese. By 2020, 5,000 pupils will be working towards a high level of fluency in Mandarin Chinese.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that rigorous teaching of English grammar to all our pupils, not just the grammar school elite, would not only increase the uptake of foreign languages in schools, but help them to achieve success in those foreign languages?
Justine Greening
I do agree with the hon. Gentleman. He will be aware that, alongside numeracy, a focus on literacy and language has been a core part of how we have improved standards in schools over the past six years.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
One of the most widely spoken languages in the United Kingdom is Punjabi. What steps are the Government taking to encourage students to study that language, particularly in the light of Brexit, after which our trade with India and Pakistan will become even more important?
Justine Greening
We are continuing with our community language GCSEs and A-levels. As the hon. Gentleman points out, it has never been more important for young people coming out of our education system to be successful not only in our own country, but in a global world.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
As I said in my letter to my hon. Friend, the Government believe that all students should study a broad and balanced curriculum. Design and technology is an important and valued subject, which is why we are doing a huge amount to promote the importance of D and T, and why we have reformed and improved the curriculum, working with the James Dyson Foundation and other experts to raise the quality and rigour of the design and technology GCSE. D and T is a very popular GCSE choice, with 185,000 entries this year.
Michelle Donelan
We have an annual shortage of 69,000 trained engineers in the UK, with only 6% of that workforce being female. Those shortages are much more severe than in computer science. As the Minister has pointed out, the new design and technology GCSE has the same academic rigour as the other subjects in the EBacc, so will he explain to the House why he felt that computer science was more worthy of EBacc status than design and technology?
Mr Gibb
The EBacc is about a small number of core academic subjects, focused on those subjects that keep options open. I am confident that the new, reformed design and technology GCSE will lead to even more young people wanting to take this qualification in future years, once the new curriculum is in place. However, our policy objective is for more students, particularly those taking design and technology, to study the traditional sciences.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister take seriously the role of technical education in our schools? Design and technology has been peripheralised in the opinion of many people. On the day that the Royal Greenwich University Technical College is to close, with university technical colleges closing up and down the country, there is something rotten at the heart of Government policy.
Mr Gibb
No. We have engaged in a huge reform to improve the quality of technical qualifications. That is what the Alison Wolf review did in 2011, by removing from performance tables the qualifications for which students were entered but that were not valued in the workplace. Technical qualifications taken by young people now have real value and provide proper jobs. We have also improved the quality of the apprenticeship scheme, which the Minister of State, Department for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), talked about earlier.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
Will the Minister join me in welcoming UTC Oxfordshire, based in Didcot in my constituency, which opened this time last year. In fact, it was opened by Brian Cox, no less. Thanks to this Government, children across Oxfordshire can now enjoy a first-class technical education, supported by companies such as BMW Mini, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and RM Education. I hope he will find time to visit it in the coming months.
Mr Gibb
I would welcome the opportunity to visit my right hon. Friend’s UTC. The UTC programme is another example of how, with our academies programme and our free schools programme, we are providing diverse types of specific and specialist education for every child in this country.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The Minister will recall from the meeting he held with me and some excellent headteachers in Slough to discuss our teacher shortage problem that two outstanding grammar schools with excellent GCSE and A-level results are not meeting his demands on EBacc levels because they have chosen, confidently, to provide subjects—such as design and technology, art and design, and drama—they felt their students would benefit from and needed. Why cannot schools without such confidence make choices for the future of their pupils, rather than to satisfy the Minister?
Mr Gibb
It is not to satisfy the Minister; it is to ensure that young people have the widest possible opportunities available to them. We kept the EBacc combination of core academic GCSEs small enough, at either seven or eight, to allow sufficient time in the curriculum for pupils to study those subjects that interest them. That is why I have resisted calls for more subjects to be added to the EBacc.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Robert Halfon)
We are transforming and reforming the technical qualifications available in schools and colleges, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools just said, to ensure that they are challenging and rigorous. We are creating clear technical education routes at the highest skill levels and will boost the capacity to deliver them through national colleges and institutes of technology in degree and higher apprenticeships. The post-16 skills plan that we published in July outlines the most radical reform of post-16 education in almost 70 years, by creating a high-quality technical track.
Helen Whately
I welcome the commitment of the Secretary of State and the Minister to technical education, alongside more academic routes. Employers in Faversham are keen to support young people in apprenticeships, but they have told me that apprenticeships need to be more flexible and less bureaucratic, so will the Minister involve such employers as he develops the technical education system?
Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend is exactly right. Technical education clearly needs to be aligned better with business needs. We are building on the apprenticeships reforms, whereby employers are designing the new apprenticeship standards to meet their needs, by giving employers a strong role in setting the standards across the 15 technical routes. They will advise on the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are needed, so that technical education has value for employers and learners alike, and is responsive to the requirements of the economy and employers.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
BTECs are challenging and rigorous. It would be quite concerning if we had an over-focus on technical education, pure and simple, without maintaining a strong applied route through BTECs. Will the Minister give us a commitment about the future of BTECs?
Robert Halfon
Clearly, we had to reform technical education, because there were far too many qualifications. There were over 13,000 qualifications, and engineering had something like 500. We are looking to offer students a technical pathway if that is what they choose, and we will look at the best qualifications for those technical pathways.
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
More than 9,000 families in England have received bespoke therapeutic support via the adoption support fund that we set up just 17 months ago. Such support is often crucial in making a placement a long-term success. We are improving support in schools by extending access to virtual school heads and designated teachers, and we are developing new care pathways to meet the mental health needs of adopted children. The establishment of regional adoption agencies and the £14-million practice and improvement fund were designed to bring about better support for adoptive families.
Nusrat Ghani
At a recent inspection, the performance of East Sussex County Council’s adoption service was rated by Ofsted as outstanding. What does the Department do to ensure that best practice is shared, so that local authorities that are identified as requiring improvement learn from those that are providing an outstanding service?
Edward Timpson
First, I congratulate East Sussex County Council on its Ofsted rating. I agree that we want others to learn from the best. The development of regional adoption agencies will see local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies working side by side to deliver excellent adoption services everywhere, with a strong focus on evidencing what actually works. We are setting up the aptly titled What Works centre for children’s social care, which will disseminate and promote best practice across the country.
Mr Burrowes
I recognise the great role the Government and the Minister have played in championing and supporting adoption, so he will share my concern at the statistics his Department released on 29 September, which show a reduction for the second year running in the number of children being placed for adoption and being adopted. What is the main reason for those figures, and what action are the Government taking to turn them around?
Edward Timpson
It is worth remembering that there were 4,690 adoptions in 2015-16—an increase of 35% on 2011-12. The latest figures, to which my hon. Friend refers, are due in large part to over-responses to the Re B-S judgment in 2013. They are disappointing figures. That is why, through the Children and Social Work Bill, we are amending legislation to improve the way decisions about long-term care options are taken, so that adoption is always pursued when it is in a child’s best interests. The Government’s adoption strategy, which we published in March, sets out plans to redesign the whole adoption system to ensure that we have the foundations in place to build a lasting change that benefits children.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
After several months of negotiations, we have secured the exam boards’ commitment to continue to provide all but one of the existing language qualifications at GCSE and A-level. I place on record my thanks to Rod Bristow of Pearson and Andrew Hall of AQA for their help and support in securing a long-term future for those important qualifications. It is right that we have a range of language qualifications available, reflecting the diversity and dynamism of today’s Britain.
Bob Blackman
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his answer and on the negotiations that have taken place.
Every year, thousands of young people from the age of five onwards begin learning Gujarati, Urdu or Punjabi, expecting it to lead to a long-term qualification. What steps can my hon. Friend take to make sure that those qualifications are secure not just for an interim period but in the long term, and that the teaching staff are available to provide that education?
Mr Gibb
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in helping to secure those qualifications, particularly in Gujarati, working with the Consortium of Gujarati Schools. I am pleased that we have secured the continuation of qualifications in community languages. There will be no gap in provision—the existing qualifications will continue to be offered until 2018, when the new qualifications are introduced. We continue to support the recruitment of high-quality language teachers, including by offering bursaries of up to £25,000. There are also many successful and long-standing Saturday schools, which help to ensure that culture and languages continue to be taught.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
We want motivated, enthusiastic teachers in our schools, and the latest OECD teaching and learning international survey reported that 82% of the teachers surveyed in England agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied with their job. We recognise the challenges for the profession, however, such as unnecessary workload, which we continue to address. The latest official statistics show that teacher retention rates one year after qualification have remained stable at around 90% for 20 years. In 2010, 70% of teachers were still teaching five years later, and more than 60% of teachers remained in the classroom 10 years after qualifying.
Christian Matheson
I am grateful for that answer, but is it not the case that 40% of teachers leave within the first five years, and why is that?
Mr Gibb
The figures are not dissimilar to those in other professions. We realise that there are workload challenges, which was why we set up the workload challenge in 2014. There were 44,000 responses, which we analysed carefully. Three top issues were raised: dialogic deep marking, data collection and the preparation of lessons. We addressed all three issues by setting up three working parties, led and staffed by experienced teachers and headteachers. They reported and made recommendations, which we accepted, and action has now been taken.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Thousands of EU nationals across the UK play key roles in children’s education, be it as classroom assistants, teachers, janitors or cleaners. We cannot overestimate how morale is affected by xenophobic rhetoric such as we heard last week at the Tory party conference. Does the Minister agree that it is time to do the right thing and give a solid guarantee that EU nationals can remain and contribute to our children’s education?
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Despite the Minister’s earlier response, the Education Policy Institute has shown how excessive hours are driving record numbers of teachers from the profession, including friends and former colleagues of mine. NASUWT has found that half of teachers have been to see a doctor in the past year due to work-related illness, and one in 10 have been prescribed antidepressants. We know that the Minister is on the record as not valuing those of us with the postgraduate certificate in education, but can he not see that the Government’s failure to support teachers is at the heart of the crisis in teachers’ morale?
Mr Gibb
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Education shadow Front-Bench team. I understand the challenges of the teaching profession, and we are taking action. That is why we set up the workload challenge in 2014. The report published today by the Education Policy Institute is based on the 2013 TALIS. When that survey was published we looked at it very carefully, which is why we conducted the survey that we did and are taking action. The key thing is that 1.4 million more pupils are in good and outstanding schools today than there were in 2010, including 4,500 more in such schools in Trafford and 27,900 more in the city of Manchester.
Mr Speaker
There is some sort of screed written in front of the Minister of State. He may find it profitable for himself and others to deposit it in the Library, where colleagues can consult it if they wish in the long winter evenings that lie ahead.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
This Government are determined to make this a country that works for everyone, and education is at of the heart of that ambition. I have already had the opportunity to see some of the excellent work being carried out in our classrooms. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools has said, there are now 1.4 million more children in good or outstanding schools than there were in 2010. The Department for Education has an expanded role, taking in higher education, further education and skills. That was reflected in my first announcement as Secretary of State of the six opportunity areas where we are going to trial a new approach to boosting attainment and outcomes in social mobility coldspots that have been identified by the Social Mobility Commission. We will work inside schools and outside them, with communities and businesses, to make sure that we can turbo charge those children’s opportunities.
Mr Speaker
The Secretary of State clearly does not wish to be outdone by her hon. Friend the Minister of State. That much is clear.
Alison Thewliss
I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. The reputation of Scotland’s higher education sector is of huge significance at home and in the wider world. What assessment has she made of the damage that could be caused to that reputation by the marketisation of the HE sector opening it up to unknown and disreputable new providers?
Justine Greening
That is not at all what the Higher Education and Research Bill seeks to do. It is about opening up the higher education sector, so that we have the next wave of institutions that can provide fantastic degrees, and about making sure that there is teaching excellence. It is a strong Bill that will move the sector forward for the first time in 25 years.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
I am of course more than happy to congratulate Sarah, Donna and the team on the progress they have made with the Aspire special school application, as well as on their clear commitment to children in their area with special educational needs and disability. The free schools programme has already supported the opening of 345 schools, including 13 schools with a specific focus on children with autism. I am aware that the Aspire special school aims to provide a further 112 places for pupils with autism and speech, language and communication needs.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I would like to come back to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell). The fairer early years funding plan has created a ticking time bomb for nurseries. Figures revealed by the Secretary of State’s own Department show that 25% of local authorities across the country will lose out financially. I am afraid that her earlier answer will do nothing to reassure the National Association of Head Teachers, which believes that that will lead to the closure of hundreds of nurseries. Will she today commit to a funding pledge for nurseries for provision for after the first two years, so that the pledge of 30 hours of free childcare will be honoured for all?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Lady to her place on the Opposition Front Bench. I can reassure her that the funding formula that we have consulted on will make funding fairer, more transparent and more sustainable. Indeed, she is misinformed: our proposals mean that 88% of local authorities and their providers can expect to see their funding rates increase.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
We will be announcing the response to the primary assessment arrangements shortly. It was important that we raised academic standards in our primary schools, and that is why we had a new curriculum introduced by 2014, after two or three years of preparation and consultation. We are raising standards in reading—there are now 147,000 more six-year-olds reading more effectively than they otherwise would be—and we are raising academic standards in maths and in grammar, punctuation and spelling. That is very important, and we will make further announcements about the details of the assessment soon.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)
The Higher Education and Research Bill will make student protection plans mandatory for the first time, putting in place systematic protection for students, which at present is very patchy and partial across our higher education system.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Justine Greening
The current rule is generally inoperative for many free schools when they begin, because they are not over-subscribed, and it only kicks in if they are. We are proposing to put in place much stronger, more effective controls to ensure that faith schools that are opening will be community schools. I would very much encourage the hon. Gentleman to read the consultation document, which sets out proposals, including that those schools should demonstrate clear parental demand from parents of other faiths or no faith and that they should twin with primary schools and other schools.
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Robert Halfon)
I am always pleased to meet my hon. Friend, who is a champion of skills in his constituency. He will know that people in Somerset will benefit from the increased number of apprenticeships and the 15 new high-quality technical routes, which he has heard about already this afternoon. The new National College for Nuclear, opening in 2017, will have a base in Somerset, supporting the local workforce to develop their skills and build capacity for the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant. He will also know that there have been 1,160 apprentice starts in his constituency over the past year, with 350 for the under-19s, showing the skills base in his constituency.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State has spoken about social mobility. Where is the evidence, from this country or other parts of the world, that bringing back selection at 11 will increase social mobility? I think the evidence shows the opposite. May I urge her once again to think again about this plan to extend grammar schools and instead work together to raise standards for all children in all our schools?
Justine Greening
Of course, the two objectives are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, our school reforms will continue, and they have already seen the best part of 1.5 million children now in good or outstanding schools who were not in 2010. We see attainment driven through grammar schools in places such as Northern Ireland. It is just wrong simply to set on one side schools that are closing the attainment gap for children on free school meals and not look at how we can make that option available to more parents and more children.
Several hon. Members rose—
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
On mandarin, I know my hon. Friend will be impressed of the work of St Catherine’s College’s Confucius school and the Eastbourne District Chinese Association. It is clearly important to promote language learning at home. I am pleased to note the uptake in Mandarin, even though I am a French teacher by profession. Can my hon. Friend assure me that we will continue to value opportunities for British students to study abroad?
Mr Gibb
On the last point, yes. We continue to value travel abroad. Learning a language is key to being able to travel and work abroad, and that is what the Mandarin Excellence Programme is all about. We hope 5,000 students will be fluent in Mandarin, reaching levels of HSK4 and HSK5, which go beyond A-level. We want more young people to take languages in our schools—including the language my hon. Friend teaches—following the fall in the numbers taking GCSEs thanks to the Labour party.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Today is World Mental Health Day. The Government acknowledge there has been an increase in the number of young people affected by anxiety, depression and other mental health conditions, yet so much more could and should be done to prevent them. When will the Secretary of State bring forward statutory compulsory and high-quality personal, social, health and economic education in every single school, so that we can equip the next generation with the skills and confidence to get help early on?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady is right to raise the issue of mental health. In September, we announced a package to tackle bullying in schools, which we know is one of the drivers of mental health issues. She is right to raise the broader issue. We are looking at how we continue to ensure that PSHE works effectively in schools, and we are working with the NHS.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that our young people need a mixture of routes by which they can go on to succeed, and that that will continue to underpin Government policy moving forward?
Justine Greening
Yes, I very strongly agree with my hon. Friend. As I said earlier, we are reforming the academic route for many of our young people. However, for the majority who are more interested in a technical route in education post-16, it is vital that we now bring together different policy areas—apprenticeships, university technical colleges and the work of further education colleges up and down the country—to ensure they deliver for them.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
The leaked small schools task force report shows that the Department ignored advice to continue funding small schools to provide universal infant free school meals. This will affect 566 children in the schools represented by the Education Front-Bench team and thousands more children represented by those on the Government Back Benches. Will the Minister today commit to reverse this short-sighted cut and ensure that small schools have adequate funding to feed their infant children free school meals?
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Minister was just attacked for removing the cap on faith schools. The implication was that they do not promote cohesion. Is it not a nonsense to suggest that our wonderful Anglican and Catholic schools are not broad-based and do not promote cohesion? Above all, they have good academic standards. The unacknowledged point of the cap was to stop 100% Muslim schools. It was simply not effective and was therefore useless, so the Minister was right to do away with it.
Justine Greening
I agree with my hon. Friend—he is right. We should reflect on the fact that about a third of our schools are faith schools. Many of our children will have gone to those schools. They have an ethos and a level of academic attainment that we are trying to achieve more broadly across the whole system.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
I commend the Secretary of State for announcing, or perhaps forcing, the U-turn on the nasty policy of employers naming foreign employees. Will she now give us another U-turn and announce that schools do not need to ask parents to provide birth certificates, thus potentially turning schools into immigration offices?
Justine Greening
This is about making sure we have the right data and evidence to develop strong policy. That is a sensible approach, but it is important we respond to the concerns of schools that see additional numbers of pupils related to migration. We need to have a better sense of the stresses and strains, so that we can target resourcing effectively.
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
True childcare costs in Twickenham are double the current Government funding formula. Will the Minister meet me to share how we can avert a crisis and ensure that every three and four-year-old in Twickenham will be able to get 30 hours of free childcare?
Caroline Dinenage
We recognise that the costs of providing childcare vary enormously across different areas of the country. That is why we have just completed an early years national funding formula consultation, which proposes an area cost adjustment to reflect cost differentials in both staff and premises. Some 88% of areas will see an increase and the hourly rate for Richmond Borough will rise significantly to £5.69 an hour. I will of course meet my hon. Friend to discuss this.
Mr Speaker
Order. Shrieking from a sedentary position is very unfair on the Member who is trying to secure a hearing from the House. Let us hear Karin Smyth.
Karin Smyth
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Following the report by the Public Accounts Committee on entitlement to free early years education and childcare and a Westminster Hall debate on the subject that I initiated in July, the then Minister promised me that the Department was due to publish the early years workforce strategy document, addressing the shortfall in qualified staff to deliver the 30 hours of free childcare. What progress has been made?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady asks an important question. I am clear that we need to help employers to attract, retain and develop their staff to the very highest possible quality of early years provision. The workforce strategy will be published very shortly.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to disappoint colleagues, but as usual demand has exceeded supply.
Calais Jungle
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary for a statement on the Calais Jungle in the light of its imminent demolition and the urgent need to provide safety for children who have a family link in the United Kingdom or in whose best interests it is to be here.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
Today I met my counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve, and we agreed that we have a moral duty to safeguard the welfare of unaccompanied refugee children. We both take our humanitarian responsibilities seriously. The UK Government have made clear their commitment to resettle vulnerable children under the Immigration Act 2016 and ensure that those with links to the UK are brought here using the Dublin regulation.
The primary responsibility for unaccompanied children in France, including those in the Calais camp, lies with the French authorities. The UK Government have no jurisdiction to operate on French territory and the UK can contribute only in ways agreed with the French authorities and in compliance with French and EU law. The UK has made significant progress in speeding up the Dublin process. We have established a permanent official-level contact group, and we have seconded UK experts to the French Government.
Part of the role is to assist co-ordinating efforts on the ground to identify children. Since the beginning of 2016 more than 80 unaccompanied children have been accepted for transfer to the UK from France under the Dublin regulation, nearly all of whom have now arrived in the UK.
Within those very real constraints, we continue to work with the French Government and partner organisations to speed up mechanisms to identify, assess and transfer unaccompanied refugee children to the UK where that is in their best interests. While the decision on the dismantling of the Calais camp and the timing of the operation is a matter for the French Government, I have made it crystal clear to the French Interior Minister on numerous occasions, including at our meeting today, that our priority must be to ensure the safety and security of children during any camp clearance.
We have made good progress today, but there is much more work to do. To that end, I emphasised to Mr Cazeneuve that we should transfer from the camp as many minors as possible eligible under the Dublin regulation before clearance commences, with the remainder coming over within the next few days of the operation. I also outlined my views that those children eligible under the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act 2016 must be looked after in safe facilities where their best interests are properly considered. The UK Government stand ready to help to fund such facilities and provide the resourcing to aid the decision making. I made it clear today in my meeting with Mr Cazeneuve that we should particularly prioritise those under the age of 12, because they are the most vulnerable. The UK remains committed to upholding our humanitarian responsibilities on protecting minors and those most vulnerable.
Mr Burrowes
With the Calais Jungle earmarked for demolition next week, what is being done to provide safety and refuge for children for whom we have a legal and moral duty of care? On the last count conducted by Citizens UK/Safe Passage UK, 178 children were eligible for sanctuary in the UK under the Dublin criteria and 212 under the Dubs best interests amendment. The Red Cross has told me today that
“the Home Office’s energy in the last few weeks has been significant and recognises the scale of the challenge.”
However, that energy is not shared by the French authorities, which do not provide appointments, interpreters or resources to make transfers in the “days” that the Home Office wants rather than the “weeks” or the “months”.
Last month, the Home Secretary told the Home Affairs Committee that she would get over to the UK as soon as possible all the children for whom we have a legal obligation, and she has confirmed today that she wants as many of them as possible over here before demolition. Last week, she said that
“compassion does not stop at the border”,
and she has been reported as saying today that the first 100 child refugees are coming to the UK “within weeks”.
Can the Home Secretary provide the assurance today that all children eligible for transfer to the UK will be in a place of safety before the demolition starts? The French accommodation centres are inadequate for children. When it comes to transportation, only 12 got on the bus to the centres on Thursday, and the next bus is not until tomorrow. The French Red Cross, however, has pledged to provide accommodation in one place for all children awaiting reunion with UK families. Will the Home Secretary ensure in her discussions with her French counterparts over the coming days that that happens before the demolition starts? Will the Government, with France, create a designated children’s centre sufficient for all children with relocation claims, whether under the Dubs amendment or Dublin arrangements, rather than risk dispersal and exploitation?
The Red Cross’s report—aptly named “No place for children”, as many who have visited the Calais jungle would testify—highlighted this weekend the humanitarian and bureaucratic nightmare. The “bureaucratic” aspect is particularly frustrating. No clear process has yet been established by the Home Office or France to identify, assess and relocate UK lone children whose best interests under the Dubs amendment are to be in the UK.
Will the Government use funds, whether they be from the Department for International Development or wherever, to establish an appropriately mandated organisation with the authority from France and the UK to identify all minors eligible for transfer and to assist in the progress of their cases, whether it be through investigating claims through family links under the Dublin arrangements or the Dubs best interests criteria? Finally, does the Home Secretary acknowledge that until we have those answers, that plan for the safety of those vulnerable Calais children will risk the Prime Minister’s words last week on the importance of standing up for the weak being just that—words?
Amber Rudd
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for raising this matter, giving me the opportunity to set out what the Government are doing. I particularly appreciate his comments about the urgency of this matter, and I share his view on that, as does everybody in this House. I attended a meeting with my French counterpart for nearly two hours today. He had eight or nine people with him, as did I. It is fair to say that the bureaucratic element will now be dealt with with the sort of urgency that we want to see.
On ensuring that there is access to a children’s centre when the clearances take place, I certainly share my hon. Friend’s view that it is essential to ensure that those children are kept safe during any clearances, and I have made that point to the French Minister.
The children who can be dealt with under the Dublin arrangements are not, by any means, all the children we want to take, but it is part 1 of where we want to help. We have been pressing for a list. I appreciate that Citizens UK and other non-governmental organisations have a list, but for the Dublin arrangements to work, the children have to come through the host country. We believe that the French will give that to us this week. My hon. Friend should be in no doubt that we will move with all urgency—a matter of days or a week at the most—in order to deliver on that commitment when we get it.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
In January this year, I visited the Calais Jungle refugee camp, and I remind Members that words cannot convey the horror of the conditions there. People are sleeping under canvas in sub-zero temperatures; there is squalor, a lack of sanitation, violence, and threats of sexual assault. Nobody should have to be in those conditions for a minute longer than necessary, and that is particularly true for children.
Will the Home Secretary reassure us that these children, who either have a legal right to come to the UK or whose “best interests” in the words of the Dubs amendment, would be served by that, will not be scattered to all parts of France? Will these children be in one place in a designated children’s centre?
I put it to the Home Secretary that, with her misconceived proposal to make companies keep lists of foreign workers, she has already revealed that she is out of touch with this country’s better instincts. For those children in those desperate conditions, will she step up and do what people all over the country want us to do, which is to fulfil our moral responsibilities? We need fewer words and more action.
Amber Rudd
I can reassure the hon. Lady that the only list I am interested in is the list from the French Government that will enable us to get the children who belong here safely back to this country. I am absolutely committed to ensuring that the safety of children is put first. I share her views about the horror for the children living there. It is because we are so committed to protecting those children that we are making them a priority in our arrangements with the French, and in our assistance, which the French have asked for, in clearing their camps. Be in no doubt that the French are committed to ensuring that they clear those camps. They have asked us for assistance, and we will be giving it to them in the form of taking children who have the right to be here, as I set out to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), and in the form of money, process and staff. No stone will be unturned in this Government’s assistance of the French in ensuring that we help those children come to this country when they should.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I am delighted that the Home Secretary is taking this problem so seriously, and that she is working well with her counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve in trying to ensure that those children are safe, and that the problem of the Calais refugee camp is solved. However, I am worried about the criminal gangs that are operating in the area and exploiting vulnerable people. I understand that, last year, the UK and French authorities co-operated very well, and that some 28 criminal gangs were disrupted. Will the Home Secretary tell us what success she and the French authorities have had this year in bringing those criminal gangs and their actions to a full stop?
Amber Rudd
My right hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the real villains of the camp, namely the criminal gangs who prey on the most vulnerable. It is their violent intentions towards the people who are in the camps that could be most damaging and disruptive for everybody, not just for the children but for all people in the camps. I am in close conversations with our French counterparts to ensure that they do what they can to disrupt any crime, in order that we have the safe dismantling of the camps.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s acceptance that there is a moral duty to help those children, but of course it is also a legal duty, which exists not just because of the Dublin convention, but because of the Dubs amendment passed by the House. It is clear that there is widespread concern on both sides of the House about the current lack of transparency from the Government in relation to those legal duties. Given the lack of meaningful action to date in bringing those unaccompanied minors to the UK, does the Home Secretary agree that it would be a good idea for the Government to commit to publishing a regular update on numbers and progress? Will she commit to publishing a fortnightly update?
Will the Home Secretary tell us how many children the United Kingdom is prepared to take in during the next week? We would like to hear numbers. We hear that there are up to 400 unaccompanied children in the camp—[Interruption.] I am being heckled, with an hon. Member asking how many Scotland will take. Scotland has already taken more than a proportionate share of refugees who have come to this country, and we stand ready to take as many as we can, but unfortunately we have to wait for the UK Government to act. That is what the urgent question from the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) is about.
I want to raise one final issue. I visited the camp in Calais at Easter with some of my Scottish National party colleagues and members of the Scottish Refugee Council. We heard that the last time the southern part of the camp was demolished, that happened with no warning. People came out of their tents in the middle of the night and what few belongings they had were crushed. Will the Home Secretary undertake to speak to the French Government to ensure that that sort of inhumanity does not occur again in relation not only to children, but to adults?
Amber Rudd
I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her question. She asked about the numbers under the Dubs amendment, which was agreed in May, and I can tell her that we have taken more than 50 in process. They are largely from Greece, because that was the area deemed to have the highest differential in terms of the children’s vulnerability compared with the UK. We are now focused much more on trying to get these children from the Calais camps, and for the past three weeks the French have been working with us on identifying them.
The hon. and learned Lady asked for details about numbers and plans for bringing children to the UK. I would say to her and to the House in all honesty and humility that we have to be careful about how much information we share publicly about those numbers and plans, because it is not always in the best interests of the children for the criminal gangs involved in trafficking them to have information about what the plans are, how many children will be taken—[Interruption.] Saying “Come on” does a disservice to the Government and to our intentions to look after those children. Simply adopting a high moral tone as if total disclosure were the answer is wrong, and I ask right hon. and hon. Members to work with us on this. I am happy to be completely frank and talk about the issue, but we do not think that public disclosure of this is in the best interest of the more vulnerable children.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Why do genuine refugees need to come from France to the UK to be looked after properly? Why cannot France process people’s asylum applications? What is so terrible about refugees living in France? Why do they have to come to the UK? Can the Home Secretary explain why these people are so desperate to get out of a safe country—France—into the United Kingdom, because I suspect that if we tried to palm off our refugees on another EU country the Opposition would be apoplectic?
Amber Rudd
I am always grateful for a question from my hon. Friend, and on this matter we have a legal obligation under the Dublin arrangements whereby children who have demonstrated that they have family over here are entitled to come here, but that process goes through the host French Government, so they have to apply for that right in France. As for additional children whom we wish to take, that battle has been fought in the Dubs amendment, and we intend to act on it.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I welcome the personal commitment by the Home Secretary to help, under the Dubs amendment and the Dublin agreement, children suffering in Calais. That is helpful. However, I must press her on the scale and timetable, as there are over 1,000 unaccompanied children and teenagers there. How many does she think Britain will end up taking and, in particular, how fast will that be? She said that all the Dublin children would be here within a few days of the camp closing. Is that all of the 178 whom Citizens UK has identified as being eligible, or is it just those who have managed to wrestle their way through the French bureaucracy, because that bureaucratic system is failing, and it is simply not acceptable for them to wait for weeks to fill in forms and wait in queues?
Amber Rudd
I admire the right hon. Lady’s tenacity in highlighting this issue. I am always pleased to speak to her about it, because I share her views about how important it is. On the numbers and bureaucracy, part of the purpose of meeting Bernard Cazeneuve was indeed to make that bridge much closer so that our officials can deliver with the urgency that she expects and which I hope to achieve. We have asked the French Government to confirm the number being given by Citizens UK and they tell us that they will do that within the next few days. Once they have done so, there will be no hesitation in acting on that as soon as possible.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
There can be no doubting the Home Secretary’s compassion or her determination to do something about this appalling problem for up to 400 children who have a perfect right to come here. I congratulate the Government on doing more this year than last year, as the numbers have gone up significantly. None the less, this is a major crisis, and the camp will be cleared within days. It appears that there has been huge bureaucratic confusion in France, and dockets have been lost. Apparently, there are only four French officials in the camp, which is poor. It is time for the British Government to set up a taskforce, with British officials working with French officials, which should go to the camp, sort out these people, find out who they are, and bring them back.
Amber Rudd
We have certainly noticed a significant uplift in the effort, people, time and professional commitment that the French are willing to put in. Because they are moving closer to clearing the camps, they are now very keen to work with us and help us to identify the children whom we can legally take over, and my hon. Friend should be in no doubt that we are working closely with them to ensure that we can do that with all possible speed.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The Home Secretary has estimated that there are between 600 and 900 unaccompanied children in the camp, and has said that if the United Kingdom were to take 300, that would be “a really good result”. May I just suggest that for the 600 who are left alone and cold in Calais, it will not be “a really good result”? The children who have come here so far have done so mainly as a result of Citizens UK’s safe passage programme, in the absence of any system to implement Dublin in Calais. Will the Home Secretary promise the House that she will step up the efforts? Will she give a number that is credible and also massively ambitious, given the changing circumstances? Will she ensure that, through bloody-minded determination, compassion and urgency, the Government act in line with this country’s values, and give those children sanctuary and refuge?
Amber Rudd
I share the hon. Gentleman’s views about the values of this country and the need to look after those children, but I hesitate to give a number, although I am often pressed to do so by various organisations and, indeed, by our French counterparts.
I think that the right way to deal with this is to identify the regulations under which we, as a Government and as a country, have said that the children should come here, and that means Dublin and Dubs. On Dublin, we are making good, fast progress. We expect to receive a list this week, and we will move with all due haste after that. As for Dubs, we hope to ensure that children are held safely—that is exactly what I have been discussing with the French today—so that we can assist with the process. We have not reached a final deal, or arrangement, with the French to process the children and establish the swiftest way for us to assist, but I hope that we shall do so within the next few days.
Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I am genuinely pleased to hear the Home Secretary speak with such a sense of urgency, and to read the reports in the newspapers. It seems that the Home Secretary had a very positive meeting with her counterpart, Mr Cazeneuve. However, I want to question her specifically on two priorities.
First, we understand that an offer has been made for the French Red Cross to provide a building with safeguarding and processing space for the children. Please may I encourage the Home Secretary to investigate that urgently, and see how swiftly it might be done? Secondly, I understand that the French police and France terre d’asile are carrying out a census today to establish the number of unaccompanied children, some of whom will be fleeing from that authority. I have seen the French police myself when I have been there, and they are not welcoming to children. When will the Home Secretary receive the list, and what will she do to identify the children who are actively avoiding that process?
Amber Rudd
I will investigate the issue of the French Red Cross and get back to my hon. Friend. As for the census, her question highlights the challenges that exist in camps such as this. What we need is information, but the people who are seeking that information are often not viewed as friends of those whom they want to help. We, too, have been told that they are carrying out the census now. We have people in the camp as well—we have people advising them—and we will do our best to ensure that the census is as complete as possible so that we can use it as constructively as possible. The French have the same interest as us, which is to ensure that the children who are entitled to come to the United Kingdom are brought to the United Kingdom. Now that they are clearing the camps, that is their intention, so I expect them to give us the list as soon as they have it.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Let me first congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on her appointment as shadow Home Secretary. We entered the House together, and I am delighted that she has done so well. I am sure that Home Office questions will be box office: not quite Trump versus Clinton, but certainly pretty fiery.
I welcome what the Home Secretary has announced today. She is right to make a start in getting this matter resolved, and I do not doubt her commitment. Does she agree, however, that the ultimate responsibility rests with the French, who have been warned for years about the deteriorating situation in Calais? Does she also agree that the European Union can deal with the crisis by processing and registering unaccompanied minors when they arrive in the EU—in Italy and Greece—so that there is no pull factor in Calais and other EU countries can take their responsibilities, as they should have done in the past?
Amber Rudd
The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that this is a French issue and a French responsibility: these people are in France. That is one of the reasons why it is sometimes hard for us to engage in the way that Members would like us to. The fact is that all European countries are now becoming much more aware of the need to have not so much clearer border controls as clearer assessments of who is coming in and their personal details. We will be moving towards that position throughout Europe, not just in the EU.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Past experience shows that even if the present so-called jungle is cleared, it will not be long before another one springs up, unless we do something to tackle the underlying reasons for so many people wanting to come to the United Kingdom. Will the Home Secretary tell us what is being done, with the French authorities, to tackle the underlying reasons for so many people not being satisfied with staying in France?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend raises an interesting point: if the camp is cleared, how do we know that a new one will not form immediately? That is what happened when the Sangatte camp was cleared. It was supposed to be the final clearance, but it was not, and a new camp formed. I am in conversation with my French counterparts to ensure that they take action to prevent that happening again, and I am sure that I will be able to fill my hon. Friend in when I have more information.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
With typical generosity, the British public and local authorities want to do something to help. The Home Secretary has made a personal commitment today to doing the right thing, and she is to be applauded for that, but what will happen if France does not meet its commitment to her over the next few days? Does she have a plan B?
Amber Rudd
I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that by the end of my two-hour meeting with Bernard Cazeneuve, we had arrived at a point at which we expect to reach an agreement. We have not reached one yet, but on the key subject of how the UK can contribute to the clearing of the camp, particularly in a way that supports the children, we have arrived at a point where we think we can reach agreement; I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will bear with me for a few more days, because I am confident that we will do so.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s remarks today. The people of Salisbury and south Wiltshire are certainly committed to seeing this through, and to seeing the right thing done. Does she agree that it is important for us to anticipate the widest possible range of needs in this cohort, especially in terms of educational and medical services, which are seen as particularly significant in Salisbury?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We talk about bringing over these children, who have a legal right to be here, and the communities receiving them want to help them, but these children often have particular needs, such as health needs, as a result of what they have been through, and it is essential to have an appropriate support package in place. That is one of the reasons why we want to be able to assess the children properly, so that the support packages can be well and truly in place when they come to the UK.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Home Secretary will be aware that there is a great deal of concern in the House today about the numbers. The voluntary sector has identified for her Department 387 children as being eligible to come here under Dublin III and the Dubs amendment, for example, but there is a wait of more than three months before many can even lodge an asylum claim in France; I do not think the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is aware of that fact. This country is spending three times as much on building a wall to block those children from coming here as on trying to prevent them from being trafficked. Given the Secretary of State’s welcome commitment to getting things moving, will she reverse that ratio and put more money into the administration needed to process the papers, so that we can get those children out of that hellhole today?
Amber Rudd
I understand and share the hon. Lady’s genuine passion and commitment to this subject. However, it is not a lack of finances for dealing with the paperwork that has been slowing things up; this is a question of ensuring that the French engage with us, so that we can commit to getting the numbers through that we want. For instance, we have already referred to the 200 agreed under the Dublin agreement, and to the additional number under the Dubs amendment, but the French have begun to work with us on this only in the past three weeks. They are now focused on wanting us to take children from the camps, because they now want to clear the camps. I can confidently tell the hon. Lady that there will be a remarkable increase in our ability to take those children over and to process their claims, not because of money, but because of the political will to get it done.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
May I welcome the dismantling of the Calais Jungle, if indeed it does happen this time? May I also welcome the concern and compassion shown by the Home Secretary for the plight of these children? Does she agree that Kent, which is on the frontline, has about a quarter of the total number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in this country? Will she act to ensure that there is a fairer distribution of children, so that every local authority and every nation in this country does its bit to care for these children left in this appalling situation? Will she publish on a regular basis the numbers taken by each nation and each local authority in this country?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend is right: we should all thank Kent for the enormous amount of work that it does to look after unaccompanied children. It bears the highest numbers and the highest responsibility, and does so with graciousness and generosity, and we are all very grateful to it. On ensuring that other counties and nations benefit from these children, we will put in place a national transfer scheme, so that we can indeed spread the responsibility.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Given the extreme vulnerability of unaccompanied children in Calais, will the Secretary of State commit to ensuring that the Home Office is charged with using discretion when it comes to the evidence required for establishing family links, as requested by the Red Cross?
Amber Rudd
There is legislation in place, and I would be careful about waiving legislation when there is already an obligation, as is the case with the Dublin agreement. There is, in a way, more discretion with the Dubs amendment, as the evidence is not quite as tangible, in terms of family links; it has to be proved that the children are more vulnerable staying where they are than in coming to the UK. There is enough latitude there to enable us to increase the numbers sufficiently, so that we can do the right thing by all these children.
James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
I agree with the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), and note that if this situation were going on in Dover, the UK authorities would promptly register any claims for asylum, and direct those vulnerable children to the authorities of the countries in which they had family ties. Sadly, the French have not done that, which means that our legal powers and responsibilities are simply not being engaged. What practical steps has my right hon. Friend’s counterpart guaranteed to put in place to speed up the process, as that is the only means by which the UK can speed up our response?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is happening in France. We are talking about French legislation and French authority territory, and we can engage with the French authorities only as they allow us to do so. I can reassure him that, given that the French have decided to clear these camps, they are approaching our offers of help with a lot more enthusiasm and certainty of purpose. That means that we can deliver on what we all want to do, which is look after those children.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome what the Home Secretary has said today. Rightly, the focus is on the appalling situation in Calais, but can she update the House on any progress on the Dubs amendment for children not in Calais? She mentioned the figure of 50, which sounds quite low. Can she update us on the work of her Department and the rest of Government, and also work with local government across the country, so that we can fulfil that goal of 3,000 unaccompanied children coming here?
Amber Rudd
We have focused on Greece and Italy, in terms of taking children according to the Dubs amendment. Our information told us that that was where the children were most vulnerable, and it was all about bringing the most vulnerable children to the UK. Of course, those children were always supposed to be refugees. The plan was always to ensure that they were Syrian refugees who needed to be transferred to the UK. We have been focusing on Greece and Italy, and we will continue to do so, but for a while, we will also make sure that, under that agreement, we take children from the Calais Jungle as well, and that work is ongoing.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I visited the Calais Jungle 10 days ago, and I welcome the commitment that the Home Secretary has made today to giving safe passage to these vulnerable children. People in the camp are genuinely frightened that it will be demolished with women and children still living in it. Does she share my concern about the fact that I met families who had made an asylum claim in France five months ago, but were still living in the camp because they have been told by the French authorities that there was nowhere else for them to go?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend brings disappointing news on that front. My experience of working with my French opposite number and his officials is that they are just as committed as we are to assisting in this matter. Their intention and aim is to dismantle the camp in the most humanitarian way possible. Clearly, it will be a challenge for them to do so, which is why we are offering financial and security support to ensure that it is done as effectively and as gently as possible.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I am a little concerned, because during this question and answer session there have been mixed messages. We heard initially that no stone would be left unturned in the process, but then there was hiding behind public disclosure restrictions, an unwillingness to commit to numbers and talk about waiting for the Government’s friends. The stark reality is that 80 unaccompanied children have been brought to the UK to date, and we are talking about nearly 400 being still in that camp, with a week to go to demolition. The Government must commit to numbers, confirm that they have the capability to bring in, in a short time, five times the number already brought in, and prove that they are working to identify those people and speak to their relatives in the UK.
Amber Rudd
I can only reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Government are doing that. We are working with the French. We are trying to identify the children who have a legal right to be here because of their family here. There is no lack of enthusiasm on our part to try to do that. There is no attempt to “hide behind” anything, as the hon. Gentleman put it. We are committed to doing what is in the best interests of the children with all speed and haste. We must be aware that there are people who wish those children evil, and we need to make sure that we protect them from the people who want to traffic them.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
My constituents do not understand why, if charities and non-governmental organisations can identify 387 unaccompanied children as having a legal right to be in the United Kingdom, the French authorities are unable to do that. Is the House to understand that, as the Home Secretary is trying to tell us, by the end of this week, the French Government will have confirmed to her the definitive number and individual names of those whom they believe are entitled to come to this country?
Amber Rudd
The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend’s question is that the children are not confirmed as qualifying under the Dublin agreement unless that is actually dealt with by the French Government, so the charities provide the numbers and the lists to the French Government, because the children are in France; then the French Government have to confirm it to us. They have confirmed that they expect to do that within the next few days. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) noted, they are doing a census, and during the next few days we expect considerably more information to come from them, which we can work with.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) for tabling the question. May I draw the Home Secretary’s attention to the question from the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) about a taskforce? We seem to be arguing about bureaucracy, but these are children who need help. Cannot a British and French taskforce get into that camp and sort it out?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Lady should know—or rather, I should like to inform her—that we are doing some of that already. My officials have been over in France every other day for the past two or three weeks, and French officials come over here a lot, so that we can work together to make sure that we can deliver the outcomes that we want. As we approach the final clearances, which may be in the next week, the week after that—the French have not set a date—or the next few weeks, we expect to be very much involved in working with them in the camps to make sure that we look after the most vulnerable. I cannot give the hon. Lady more information at present. As I said earlier, we have not arrived at a final agreement with the French—there are elements that have to be further discussed and agreed—but we will arrive at one, and I hope that at that point she will be able to see us working much more closely together in the interests of everybody there.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and the sense of urgency that she brings to this important issue. These are deeply traumatised children. Can she update the House on not only what mental health provision will be available for them when they come to this country, but what is being done to identify families who will have the specialist skills to help and support those children coming here under the Dubs amendment?
Amber Rudd
My hon. Friend raises a very important point: once we have them over here, how will we best look after children who have been traumatised, and families who are feeling vulnerable? We are working closely with the local authorities to ensure that they can provide the necessary support, and we can assist them.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
It is really good to hear that the Home Secretary has decided to put her foot on the accelerator, but earlier this month, newspaper reports suggested that the French had issued, under Dublin III, a number of take-charge requests relating to children in the camp that had been lost or not responded to by UK authorities. Can she assure the House that there are no take-charge requests from France that will not be acted on within the next week?
Amber Rudd
I can assure the right hon. Lady that if we have all the information from the French, which we expect to get over the next week or so before they clear the camp, we will move very quickly—within a few days—and remove those children where we can. There will be no hesitation. Part of my conversation with my French counterpart was about ensuring that he and I, as the two Ministers responsible, have a direct line to ensure that there is no bureaucracy slowing down any of the action that needs to be taken.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
Will the Home Secretary join me in thanking my constituents Esther and Tim O’Connor, who have visited the camp and done everything they can in a voluntary capacity to help to ease the situation, particularly for children? Has she had any discussions with her French counterpart on the Le Touquet agreement, and does she expect any changes to that agreement in the coming months?
Amber Rudd
I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking any of his constituents, particularly Mr and Mrs O’Connor, who have been so helpful in supporting vulnerable people in the camp. With regard to the Le Touquet agreement, it is well known that in the French political engagement, there is a certain discussion about it. I believe that it serves us as well as it serves France, and I confidently expect it to stay in place.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I echo the deep concerns about the condition of children in the camps. More generally, will the Home Secretary acknowledge that the Government’s approach is leading to a toxic, two-tier system focused on distinguished between “good” refugees and “bad” economic migrants, even if they are fleeing equally desperate situations? Can she say whether an adult who fled Afghanistan, faced mistreatment in Iran, travelled through Turkey, where he had no chance to work, and is now trapped in Calais, desperately trying to meet his brother in the UK, would be defined as a migrant or a refugee?
Amber Rudd
I respectfully say to the hon. Lady that we have legislation and regulations in place to help the people we can help, and they are also there to prevent people thinking that they can come here when they cannot. We must have clear signs about who this country will willingly and enthusiastically protect and look after, because we have strong, proud British values, and about who we cannot. We should not do ourselves damage or in any way downgrade our values by saying that we should do more.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
My constituents have looked on with utter dismay this year at the glacial speed of transferring children with relatives in this country. What reassurances can the Home Secretary give my constituents that that will be sped up sufficiently, and that the medical needs that will inevitably have arisen among the nearly 1,000 children unaccompanied and alone in Calais will be dealt with?
Amber Rudd
I ask the hon. Lady to reassure her constituents that during the next eight to 10 days, we expect to see a great number of the children who qualify under the Dublin agreement come to the UK. Now that the French have made this very clear decision, there is accelerated co-operation between our countries. I hope that she and her constituents will see a marked difference over the next 10 to 14 days.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
The last time there was a clearance in Calais, 129 children went missing. Demolition is due to start again, perhaps within the next few days, so the Home Secretary will understand the intense desire in this House to know that there will be a change and progress. Will she return to the House, perhaps on Thursday or next Monday, to tell us what is happening? She will not say how many children are affected, but will she tell us as much as she can about what is happening, because the level of concern about the issue in the House is unprecedented?
Amber Rudd
I agree with the hon. Lady that the level of concern is very high, and for good reason, because we all want to ensure that those children are looked after. I can say, after careful conversations with our French counterparts, that they have learned lessons from previous clearances, but there is a very sensitive balancing act between trying to get the right information out to the children in the camp and ensuring that their best interests are looked after. Our French counterparts are sensitive to ensuring that those children are looked after—and they are led, as we are, by the humanitarian need to look after them.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
In the last hour, the media have been reporting that the Home Office has announced the doubling of asylum experts in France working on the Calais cases—from one to two officials. Does the Home Secretary really think that is enough?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Lady has an advantage over me; I have not seen that particular announcement. [Interruption.] It has been my great pleasure to be here for the past hour; naturally, she has seen it before I have. I look forward to having a good look at it, and if she would like me to, I will certainly write to her about it.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Would it not have been a good idea for the Home Secretary to make that announcement in the House, rather than a press officer doing it from her Department? However, we are talking about some of the most vulnerable children, by any objective measure, in the world: children who will have been traumatised in a way that no child should be traumatised, and children who will have seen things that no child should have seen. Will she turn on its head the budget in her Department, so that instead of spending money on a wall, she spends it on making sure that those children are protected, so that their future is as bright as that of any other children?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Gentleman, I am sure, will have heard my comment earlier that this is not about the budget; it is about having the absolute determination and focus to make sure that we address the need to take those children out, where there is a legal right to do so. I hope that I have reassured him and the rest of the House that we will be doing that as the French move towards their clearances.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I recognise the genuine efforts that the Secretary of State has made to deal with this very difficult issue—an issue that has captured the hearts of many people across the United Kingdom. However, does she not recognise that as long as the criminal gangs who bring these people to our shores are free to operate, the problems we are dealing with today will re-emerge tomorrow? What action is she taking to ensure stiffer prison sentences, the seizing of assets, and co-operation with other Governments to cut down the international network that these gangs have, and to cut off the routes by which they bring people to the United Kingdom?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the people really profiting from this are the criminal gangs who deal in this terrible crime of trafficking children and people. We are working internationally, and primarily across the EU, to ensure that we stop these gangs and, where we can, disrupt them, so they stop this heinous crime.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I also welcome the Home Secretary’s sense of urgency, but while the Government were dallying about this, hundreds of local authorities around the country were already ready and willing to register, transport and accommodate these children. Could I ask her officials to work in particular with Hammersmith and Fulham Council? It is a personal initiative of the leader—Stephen Cowan—and Lord Dubs, who is a Hammersmith resident, to do everything necessary to help the children of the jungle.
Amber Rudd
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment, and he is right: it is great that so many councils have stepped forward and said that they are willing to take children. I will urge my officials to work particularly with Hammersmith, which I know has generously stepped forward with assistance, and we look forward to taking that up.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The Home Secretary made the very welcome statement that the UK had a duty to protect and look after those children with a legal right to be in the UK. She talked about having the determination and focus to deliver that. Will she match those commitments with a commitment to deploying the necessary resources to ensure that the job is done properly, and that no child, as a result of failure on the part of the UK to do its job, goes missing in that camp in Calais?
Amber Rudd
I can reassure the hon. Lady that the UK Government will not lack resource commitment to remove the children who are eligible to come here under the Dublin agreement or who qualify under Dubs. On the children being cleared from the camp, I once more say that this camp is in France. We will do what we can, and we will lean into the French. We have offered them assistance with money and security. Our priority—and, to be fair, theirs—is to make sure that those children are protected. We will give them all the support we can.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
What recent discussions has the Home Secretary had with the French Government on the future steps to be taken to avoid another Calais camp acting as a magnet next year, to the detriment of another generation of vulnerable children?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Gentleman raises an absolutely critical point. This camp will be cleared by the French, but what will be done to make sure that another one does not grow up, given that although the clearance of Sangatte in 2002 was supposed to be the end, we now have the jungle in Calais? The French are taking that point very seriously: they have plans to ensure that another camp does not grow up. He will forgive me for not entirely disclosing those plans, but careful consideration is being given to them, and I would be happy to speak to him about that.
Next Steps in Leaving the European Union
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the next steps in leaving the European Union.
The mandate for Britain to leave the European Union is clear, overwhelming and unarguable. As the Prime Minister has said more than once, we will make a success of Brexit, and no one should seek to find ways to thwart the will of the people expressed in the referendum on 23 June. It is now incumbent on the Government to deliver an exit in the most orderly and smooth way possible, delivering maximum certainty for businesses and workers. I want to update the House on how the Government plan to reflect UK withdrawal from the European Union on the statute book while delivering that certainty and stability.
We will start by bringing forward a great repeal Bill that will mean the European Communities Act 1972 ceases to apply on the day we leave the EU. It was this Act that put EU law above UK law, so it is right, given the clear instruction for exit given to us by the people in the referendum, that we end the authority of European Union law. We will return sovereignty to the institutions of this United Kingdom. That is what people voted for on 23 June: for Britain to take control of its own destiny, and for all decisions about taxpayers’ money, borders and laws to be taken here in Britain.
The referendum was backed by six to one in this House. On all sides of the argument—leave and remain—we have a duty to respect and carry out the people’s instruction. As I have said, the mandate is clear, and we will reject any attempt to undo the referendum result, any attempt to hold up the process unduly or any attempt to keep Britain in the EU by the back door by those who did not like the answer they were given on 23 June.
We are consulting widely with business and Parliament, and we want to hear and take account of all views and opinions. The Prime Minister has been clear that we will not be giving a running commentary, because that is not the way to get the right deal for Britain, but we are committed to providing clarity where we can as part of this consultative approach. Naturally, I want this House to be engaged throughout, and we will observe the constitutional and legal precedents that apply to any new treaty on a new relationship with the European Union. Indeed, my whole approach is about empowering this place. [Interruption.] Think about it.
The great repeal Act will convert existing European Union law into domestic law, wherever practical. That will provide for a calm and orderly exit, and give as much certainty as possible to employers, investors, consumers and workers. We have been clear that UK employment law already goes further than European Union law in many areas, and this Government will do nothing to undermine those rights in the workplace. I notice there were no cheers for that on the Labour Benches.
In all, there is more than 40 years of European Union law in UK law to consider, and some of it simply will not work on exit. We must act to ensure there is no black hole in our statute book. It will then be for this House—I repeat, this House—to consider changes to our domestic legislation to reflect the outcome of our negotiation and our exit, subject to international treaties and agreements with other countries and the EU on matters such as trade.
The European Communities Act means that if there is a clash between an Act of the UK Parliament and EU law, European Union law prevails. As a result, we have had to abide by judgments delivered by the European Court of Justice in its interpretation of European Union law. The great repeal Bill will change that with effect from the day we leave the European Union.
Legislation resulting from the UK’s exit must work for the whole of the United Kingdom. To that end, although no one part of the UK can have a veto over our exit, the Government will consult the devolved Administrations. I have already held initial conversations with the leaders of the devolved Governments about our plans, and I will make sure that the devolved Administrations have every opportunity to work closely with us.
Let me be absolutely clear: this Bill is a separate issue from when article 50 will be triggered. The great repeal Bill is not what will take us out of the EU, but what will ensure the UK statute book is fit for purpose after we have left. It will put the elected politicians in this country fully in control of determining the laws that affect its people’s lives—something that does not apply today.
To leave the EU, we will follow the process set out in article 50 of the treaty on European Union. The Prime Minister will invoke article 50 no later than the end of March next year. That gives us the space required to do the necessary work to shape our negotiating strategy. The House will understand that this is a very extensive and detailed programme of work that will take some time. The clarity on the timing of our proposed exit also gives the European Union the time needed to prepare its position for the negotiation. The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said that the Prime Minister had brought, and I quote, “welcome” certainty on the timing of Brexit talks.
We will, as Britain always should, abide by our treaty obligations. We will not tear up EU law unilaterally, as some have suggested, but ensure that there is stability and certainty as Britain takes control on the day of exit, and not before.
People have asked what our plan is for exit. This is the first stage. To be prepared for an orderly exit, there is a need to move forward on domestic legislation, in parallel with our European negotiation, so that we are ready for the day of our withdrawal, when the process set out in article 50 concludes. Therefore, I can tell the House that we intend to introduce the great repeal Bill in the next parliamentary Session. It demonstrates the Government’s determination to deliver the will of the British people, expressed in the EU referendum result, that Britain should once again make its own laws for its own people.
It is nations that are outward-looking, enterprising and agile that will prosper in an age of globalisation. I believe that when we have left the European Union, when we are once again in true control of our own affairs, we will be in an even stronger position to confront the challenges of the future. The Government will build a global Britain that will trade around the world, build new alliances with other countries and deliver prosperity for its people.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and thank him for advance notice of it.
The decisions the Government take over the next few months and years on exiting the EU will define us for a generation, so I look forward to seeing the Secretary of State regularly at the Dispatch Box. However, I have to say that he is not making a very good start. His first statement on 5 September was widely criticised for saying nothing, and this one is not much better. When I first read it, I thought it was the statement he gave last time—a bit of process and no substance—but I congratulate him on a bit of humour in the phrase, “we are committed to providing clarity where we can”.
During the referendum campaign, much was made by the leave side of parliamentary sovereignty. In his statement, the Secretary of State said, “We will return sovereignty to the institutions of this United Kingdom.” Yet it seems that the Government want to draw up negotiating terms, negotiate and reach a deal without any parliamentary approval. That is not making Parliament sovereign; it is sidelining Parliament. That is why Labour is calling for a vote on the basic terms proposed by the Government before article 50 is invoked. Some argue that that is a device to frustrate the process. It is nothing of the sort. It is making sure that we get the best possible deal for Britain; it is making sure that the Government actually have a plan; and it is basic accountability on some of the most important decisions of our lifetime.
Let us remind ourselves that the Government had no plan for Brexit in their 2015 manifesto. In fact, they had a manifesto commitment to
“safeguard British interests in the single market.”
Whitehall famously made no plans for the leave vote, and the Prime Minister did not explain her plans for Brexit before assuming office. Now the Government plan to proceed to an exit deal without a vote in this House, which is wholly unacceptable in any democracy. If there is to be no vote when the terms of negotiation are agreed, at what stage in the process does the Secretary of State propose that the basic terms of the article 50 negotiations, about which he said nothing today, should be debated and voted on in this House?
The Secretary of State makes much of the great repeal Bill, so we are having a conversation and debate now about what will happen at the very end of the process instead of what is happening at the beginning of the process. That Bill will not provide for parliamentary scrutiny of the article 50 negotiating plans; it is about what will happen after exit. Can he confirm that the vote on the great repeal Bill will come after, not before, article 50 is invoked next March?
We accept and respect the result of the referendum, but neither those who voted to remain nor those who voted to leave gave the Government a mandate to take an axe to our economy. Throughout the process, the national interest must come first, but by flirting with hard Brexit the Prime Minister puts at risk Britain’s access to the single market, rather than doing the right thing for jobs, business and working people in this country. In fact, I observe that the words “single market” did not appear at all in today’s statement. So much for putting the national interest first.
We need clarity, and we need answers. Can the Secretary of State assure the House today that the Government will seek continued access to the single market on the best possible terms? Will he also assure us that they will end the divisive and hostile tone of Brexit discussions in recent weeks? This is the defining issue of this Parliament and, quite probably, Parliaments to come. The job of any responsible Government is now to bring the country together, not to drive it apart. I hope that he will take that approach.
Mr Davis
I start by welcoming the hon. and learned Gentleman to the Dispatch Box. It is a pleasure to appear opposite him.
I will read to the hon. and learned Gentleman a warning from his own party’s shadow Home Secretary, who has said of his comments:
“We have to be really careful that we’re not seen to be not listening. There will be scrutiny but it is, I think, not helpful to pretend we can reverse the result.”
That is a summary from inside the hon. and learned Gentleman’s own party, which does not really support where he is coming from today.
The hon. and learned Gentleman is a lawyer by training and career. Article 50 is a prerogative power in the view of all the lawyers we have spoken to, and in the view of the Attorney-General, who will be presenting that case in court in the coming week. It will be decided in court, which the hon. and learned Gentleman ought to take seriously.
As for the hon. and learned Gentleman’s comments about parliamentary accountability, my Department has effectively existed since the middle of the summer, and in the two weeks of parliamentary sittings that we have had since, we have had two statements and a couple of debates, and we will have his own debate on Wednesday. We are announcing a major piece of legislation very early, and successor legislation to that Bill will also take place. A new Select Committee will be set up to oversee the Department, and there will be numerous debates over the next two years. At the end of the process, we will follow each and every legal and constitutional convention and requirement that applies to all European legislation and treaties. I cannot see how the hon. and learned Gentleman thinks that is in some way not accountable.
After that has happened, Parliament will be able to amend all European Union law, which it has been unable to do before—a fact that the hon. and learned Gentleman overlooked in his comments about accountability. I am afraid he really has to understand the distinction between accountability—I have a little bit of experience of holding Governments to account—and micromanagement, which is what he is trying to do. We have made our view on the negotiations pretty plain. We have said very clearly that we want to control borders. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree with that? He can nod or shake his head. Does he want to control borders? He is absolutely stationary—no sign. We want to control our laws. Does he agree with that? No sign. We want the most open barrier-free access to the European market, full stop. That is very clear.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
What about the economy?
Mr Davis
The hon. Lady is shouting, “What about our economy?” That is the answer: we want the most open barrier-free access to the European market. We have heard lots and lots of very unhelpful—misleading, frankly—comments about hard Brexit and soft Brexit. We want the best possible access terms, full stop. The best terms—that is it.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement, and urge him to resist the temptation of advice from a second-rate lawyer who does not even understand the parliamentary process? If he is to advise his opposite number, the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), he might remind him that the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 will give many opportunities to amend and debate every single aspect of the discussions around the invoking of article 50. In case the hon. and learned Gentleman has not noticed, the Opposition have the device of Opposition days, when they can debate absolutely anything they choose, including the whole issue of the European Union. May I urge my right hon. Friend to get on with the process and not to listen to those who want to bog it down and never let it happen?
Mr Davis
With the mild exception of the rudeness about the legal qualifications of the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), I agree with everything my right hon. Friend has said. The simple truth is that the attempt to block article 50 is an attempt to block the will of the British people, full stop. There will be plenty of opportunity for debate in the next two and a half years, during discussions of the Act and the successor legislation, and any number of other debates between now and then.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
May I also thank the Secretary of State for coming to the House to try to update us today? I wish him all the best for trying to get through his statement without getting into trouble with his boss, the Prime Minister, this time. He seems to be aiming to do that by not telling us anything. We may be no clearer on whether this is a soft Brexit or a hard Brexit, but we know it is a dog’s Brexit. I will be frank: this Government’s frankly irresponsible failure to provide any details about their plans is having an impact beyond this place. The Fraser of Allander Institute reckons that in Scotland alone there could be between 30,000 and 80,000 jobs lost because of his plans to take us out of the European Union.
My first question is, will the Secretary of State tell us what plans he has to formally involve the devolved Administrations? I noticed that he talked previously about involving them, but now talks about consulting them. The Government have provided us no answers, so I am going to try to make it easy for him. He has had 89 days since he took up his post—three months on Thursday. To stop him getting into any more trouble with the Prime Minister, I am going to make the next question very, very simple. Does he agree with page 72 of the Conservative party manifesto, on which he was elected, that it should be
“yes to the Single Market”?
In fact, I will make it easier: is it his objective to keep the United Kingdom in the single market?
Mr Davis
Well, that was longer on length than it was on content. Let me answer both the hon. Gentleman’s comments. He intimated that we were not going to involve the devolved Administrations. That is not the case, as his own leader in Scotland will tell him—indeed, she was called before we announced the great repeal Act to make sure she was aware of it. I cannot remember her exact words, but she said she thought it was very straightforward or common sense—something of that nature.
On our approach to the negotiations, I will not go into the details, but it is very clear. The objectives are simple: to meet the instruction from the British people, which means regaining control of our borders, regaining control of our laws and regaining control of our money, and at the same time getting the best possible access to the European market that we can negotiate—end of story. It is very simple.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
By definition, we cannot negotiate taking back control—we have to take back control; that is what we voted for—so I find the Secretary of State’s view very clear and refreshing. Does he agree that the way to deal with the trade issue is to offer to our partners to carry on trading tariff-free on the same basis as at present and to challenge them to say how they want to wreck it?
Mr Davis
My right hon. Friend is right that we want them to operate tariff-free, but it is not just tariff barriers. We also have to negotiate non-tariff barriers. It is central to the argument he makes that it is in both Europe’s interest and our interest to have tariff-free and non-tariff barrier based trade. That is where the jobs are. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) raised the question of jobs in Scotland. It is jobs in the whole of the United Kingdom that we have to maintain, expand and create opportunities for, and that is precisely what we will do.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
There is clearly a mandate for Brexit from the referendum, but there is no mandate for the particular form of Brexit. Three days before he was appointed, the Secretary of State published an article saying it was very important to publish a pre-negotiation White Paper. Can he tell us when he will publish that White Paper? As someone who for many years railed about the importance of the powers of Back Benchers and Parliament against the Executive, can he now give us, with a straight face, an answer to this question: where is the Government’s mandate for their negotiations, either from this House or from the country?
Mr Davis
Let us deal with the last question first. I really cannot believe my ears. Here we have the largest mandate that this country has ever given to a Government on any subject in our history. It is very plain. Frankly, I will not take lectures from the right hon. Gentleman on accountability either. We have two things to balance. One is the national interest in getting the right negotiation. I know of no negotiation in history, either in commerce or in politics or international affairs, where telling everybody what we are going to do in precise detail before we do so leads to a successful outcome. What I have said to two Select Committees of this House and the other House—indeed, I said this in the last statement—is that we will be as open as we can be. There will be plenty of debates on this matter. What we will not do is lay out a detailed strategy and a detailed set of tactics before we engage with our opposite numbers in the negotiation.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
May I make it very clear that, like everybody on the Government Benches, I was elected on a clear manifesto promise to respect and honour the referendum result? We know that we will leave the European Union, but the comments of the director general of the CBI should cause us all much concern. She has confirmed the fears of many on these Benches that there is a danger that this Government appear to be turning their back on the single market and not valuing the real benefit of migrant workers. Can my right hon. Friend now give assurances to British business that we have not turned our back on the single market and that we welcome migrant workers to this country?
Mr Davis
My right hon. Friend was, if I remember correctly, at the Conservative party conference, and she may have heard what I said there. There were two things that relate to this. One is that the single market is one description of the way the European Union operates, but there are plenty of people who have access to the single market, some of them tariff-free, who make a great success of that access, and it is that success that we are aiming for.
The other point I made was that the global competition for talent is something that we must engage in. If we are going to win the global competition in economic terms, we must engage in the global competition for talent. We are entirely determined to do that, but that does not mean, and it is not the same as, having no control of immigration. They are very different issues. We will be going for global talent and we will be going for the best market access we can obtain.
Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)
I have always been a great admirer of the Secretary of State for his staunch defence of civil liberties and his staunch defence of the prerogatives of this House. I was a great admirer when he brought forward the Parliamentary Control of the Executive Bill in 1999 and stirringly told us that
“Executive decisions by the Government should be subject to the scrutiny and approval of Parliament”.—[Official Report, 22 June 1999; Vol. 352, c. 931.]
Can he tell us on the basis of what constitutional principle he believes the Prime Minister can now arrogate to herself the exclusive right to interpret what Brexit means and impose it upon the country, rather than protect the rightful role of scrutiny and approval of this House?
Mr Davis
Here we go again. The right hon. Gentleman cannot tell the difference between accountability and micromanagement—it really is as simple as that. The simple truth is that there will be debates galore in this House, starting on Wednesday and thereafter, about what the Government’s strategy will be. We will tell the House as much as we can, but not enough to compromise the negotiation. At every turn, right through to the end, we will obey the conventions and laws that apply to the creation, removal and reform of treaties: every single one. This Government believe in the rule of law and that is how we will behave.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend observed that some seem to have forgotten that the European Union Referendum Act 2015 gave the right to make the decision? Furthermore, the sovereignty of the people was given the opportunity to make that decision on the occasion of the referendum itself. As regards the repeal Bill, the sovereignty of Parliament will be maintained, because it will be decided in this House. All the procedures relating to article 50 are Government prerogative and not subject to the decision of Parliament itself at this stage.
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend is exactly right. He will remember that the Referendum Bill was carried in this House by a 6:1 majority, which included the vast majority of those on the Opposition Benches. He will also, because he is a constitutional lawyer, understand better than anyone else that Crown prerogative rests on the will of the people—that is the theoretical underpinning of it. There is no exercise of Crown prerogative in history that is better underpinned by the will of the people than this particular exercise.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
This is the first time I have ever heard parliamentary sovereignty referred to as micromanagement.
In the past few weeks, we have seen many hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals working here question the welcome they received in this country and their future in this country. We know that many UK citizens living and working abroad in Europe are going through similar turmoil. We have heard now that the Foreign Office has told the London School of Economics that it cannot involve foreign nationals in the work of Brexit as part of a contract. Will the Secretary of State condemn that? Will he reassure the UK citizens living abroad, and will he reassure EU citizens living and working here that they are welcome here in this country? Will he reassure Parliament that, however the Brexit negotiations go, the current arrangement will be maintained?
Mr Davis
I am sure the hon. Lady would not willingly give the House information that is not right, so let me first say that the supposed decision or comment from the Foreign Office is simply not true. I am assured of that by the Foreign Secretary sitting next to me and I think the LSE has also said that.
The other point the hon. Lady made, which is one I raised last week, is extremely serious. I will say two things, first not on the legal status, but on the attitude of some people post-referendum—the encouragement of hatred and so on. I condemn that unreservedly and I think everybody in this House would condemn that whipping up of hatred unreservedly. In terms of European migrants here, the intention of the Government is to do everything possible to underwrite and guarantee their position, at the same time as we underwrite the similar position of British migrants abroad. That is what we intend to do—
Mr Davis
I will answer that shout from the Front Bench. The answer is as soon as I can get that negotiation concluded with the European Union—full stop. Individuals should not worry people unnecessarily or get them concerned. Bear in mind, five out of six migrants who are here either already have indefinite leave to remain or will have it by the time we depart the Union. It is an important question that I take seriously, and I am determined that we get an outcome that is successful for everyone.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Did my right hon. Friend note the comments by President Hollande that the United Kingdom should be made to pay a price for leaving the EU, presumably by having tariffs imposed on our trade with it? Did he respond to the President that clearly he feels that, in the absence of such punishment, leaving the EU would leave the UK manifestly better off? Such punishment would fall primarily on French exporters, as they export far more to us, whereas our exporters are benefiting from a 14% improvement in their competitiveness—three times the likely tariffs, on average, that may be imposed on them.
Mr Davis
My right hon. Friend—and erstwhile Trade Secretary, if I remember correctly—is exactly right. The damage done by a supposed punishment strategy would be primarily to the industries and farmers on the continent who export to this country. I am afraid that Mr Hollande, Mrs Merkel and others will experience pressure from their own constituents that says, “This is not a good strategy to pursue.” In this country, we believe in free trade because it is beneficial to both sides. I do not see the logic in exercising a punishment strategy against one of their strongest and most loyal allies.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
EU citizens living here and UK citizens living in the EU deserve to hear as soon as possible from the Government that their rights are protected and will continue to be protected. Within that process, will the Secretary of State also talk to the Home Secretary and recognise that the current system of registration certificates, residence cards, indefinite leave and permanent residence requirements for comprehensive health insurance is incoherent and inconsistent? Unless he gets some consistency into that whole packet, establishing those rights and how we go further will be very difficult.
Mr Davis
The right hon. Lady had an opportunity about half an hour ago to make that point directly to the Home Secretary, but I will draw it to my right hon. Friend’s attention. That is the best thing I can do. The simple truth is that I am concerned if people are afraid for their position in this country, and we will put that right as soon as we can.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will understand and probably appreciate the irony that the more successful he is in delivering a negotiation that meets the mutual interests of ourselves and the 27, the greater the political challenge for the 27, as it will be seen as rewarding the United Kingdom for Brexit. That opens the rather obvious possibility that at the end of the negotiations they may be blocked, either by a qualified minority on the Council or by the European Parliament. I welcome his undertaking to deliver certainty and clarity where he can, but what plans does he have to enumerate publicly the implications of having no deal at the end of two years of negotiations?
Mr Davis
What I say to my hon. Friend at this point is that if the European Union adheres to a punishment plan and it fails—as I believe it would—that would be an even bigger incentive to countries that want to leave than no punishment plan at all. The approach that is being talked about would put at risk the stability of the European Union, which has financial instabilities of its own, and it should take that seriously.
Mr Speaker
I gently implore the Secretary of State to face the House so that we can all benefit from his mellifluous tones. [Interruption.] Somebody chunters rather ungraciously from a sedentary position or otherwise, “You pays your money and you takes your choice,” but the right hon. Gentleman must be heard.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Last week, the Government were required to publish the submission they put into the court defending their reasons for using the royal prerogative. This is what it said:
“The relief sought…to compel the Secretary of State to introduce legislation into Parliament to give effect to the outcome of the referendum—is constitutionally impermissible. The Court would be trespassing on proceedings in Parliament.”
It is obviously nonsensical to say that to involve Parliament is trespassing on Parliament. Did the Secretary of State really give the instructions to the lawyers for this submission?
Mr Davis
I shall be very careful because one has to be careful when we are talking about court cases. The main guidance I gave to the Attorney-General was that a would-be vote in this House on article 50 could have two outcomes. It either lets it through or it stops it. If it stops it, what would be the outcome? It would be a refusal to implement the decision of the British people, creating as a result a constitutional problem to say the least. That was then interpreted by the lawyers as they saw fit.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
May I congratulate the Secretary of State on the steady and careful progress he is making at the head of a brand-new Department after being in the job for only 12 weeks? I think he is now dealing with a totally unprecedented constitutional issue and that he should take it slowly and carefully. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee had the Cabinet Secretary before it on 14 September. He told us that there was no shortage of very talented and highly qualified civil servants queuing up to join my right hon. Friend’s Department and the other new Department of State. However, he also told us that it was only staffed to the level of 80%. Can the Secretary of State tell us whether he is now fully staffed at 100%?
Mr Davis
I thank my right hon. Friend for her compliments, but I would say two things to her. First, we need to make expeditious progress. That is, I think, one of the requirements that the referendum lays upon us. Secondly, the staffing is not yet 100% because we have to acquire sets of very specific skills. There have recently been arguments in the papers about everything from passporting to customs and just-in-time systems, and we have to be able to deal with that. These are not normally skills that are widely available in Whitehall, so it will take a little time to get from 80% to 100%.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State understand that the conflicting signals emanating from the Government about the type of Brexit that they wish to pursue are creating a great deal of uncertainty among businesses and the people who rely on them for their living, one aspect of which is the fear that we might leave the European Union without an agreement on trade, which would leave these businesses to cope on World Trade Organisation terms? Can the Secretary of State tell the House whether it is his policy, in those circumstances, to seek a transitional agreement to cover the period until such time as a final status agreement on trade and market access is agreed with the other 27 member states?
Mr Davis
I am inclined to say that the right hon. Gentleman’s father will be smiling down on both of us. He makes a good point on the effect of the uncertainty. It is partly a problem of the preparation process and that there is less out there. I have said to every single interest group I have spoken to—that includes the CBI, despite the comments made this morning, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Engineering Employers Federation and others, as well as the TUC and others on the other side—that we need to have the hard data about the nature of the problem. For example, there are about nine different sorts of passports and we need to be more specific. We also need hard data about the size of the problem in terms of both money and jobs, and the actions we can take to deal with that. That is why we need to take the time until perhaps March. In doing so, we will try to winnow down the size of the negotiation that needs to be done, and then make it faster than it would otherwise be.
We start with an advantage, which the right hon. Gentleman, being who he is, has probably spotted, in that we will have exactly the same regulatory basis on the day we leave as the rest of the European Union. That is normally the biggest thing that gets in the way of major trade negotiations. I therefore do not expect the circumstance he describes. I will not offer a view, but simply say this: we will do everything possible to protect, enhance and maximise the opportunities for British business. He can draw his conclusion from that.
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that sometimes it is very important to pay attention to the liberal elite. He will be aware that, on referendum night, we were told:
“I will forgive no one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken whether it is a majority of 1% or 20%...When the British people have spoken you do what they command…Either you believe in democracy or you don’t.”
Those are the words of Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon in the district of Yeovil in the county of Somerset, who is the most elitist liberal I know, which is saying something. I therefore urge my right hon. Friend to be true to the views of Lord Ashdown, the principles of liberalism and the traditions of this House, and to give effect to the British people’s vote. Seventeen million votes were cast on 23 June for Britain to leave the European Union. Attempts by anti-democratic and illiberal voices on the Opposition Benches to thwart the British people’s will will rightly be treated with disdain.
Mr Davis
The liberal my right hon. Friend mentions is the mentor of my favourite liberal. I have to tell my right hon. Friend that I consider myself to be a liberal Conservative, so I am not entirely sure that I accept his characterisation of the liberal elite, but I take his point that the referendum was the biggest mandate given to a British Government ever. It is our job to carry it out and we will not allow it to be thwarted.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
This summer’s new £5 note is 15% smaller than the old one, but since the referendum the value of the pound in our pocket has shrunk by even more than that because of the Government’s actions. Our constituents did not vote to be poorer. Should not the Secretary of State at least offer an apology?
Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State please clarify for the benefit of Opposition Front Benchers this incredibly simple point: independent countries can trade most successfully with the single market without being a member of the single market?
Mr Davis
My right hon. Friend is right that more than 20 countries have had more success in growth terms when trading into the single market than we have had in the past 10 or 20 years. He is absolutely right that it is not necessary to be a member of the single market to trade incredibly successfully inside it.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
The press reported over the weekend that hate crime was up following the Brexit vote. In particular, homophobic attacks were up 147%. Given that members of the Secretary of State’s Government and party fostered an atmosphere of division and intolerance, what will they do during the negotiations to ensure that the human rights of everyone in our society are protected?
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I point out, as a director of Vote Leave, that it was made clear in our campaign that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market. My right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) made that clear in an interview with Andrew Marr. Is it not ironic that the remain campaign spent a lot of time telling us, “Oh, if you leave the EU you will have to leave the EU internal market.” Now they are all saying that there must be a way of leaving the EU and staying in the single market, even though all the EU leaders say that that is not possible. I do not expect the Secretary of State to say anything instantly now, but is it not a fact that every advantage is to be taken in moving towards a relationship based on mutual recognition, rather than compulsory harmonisation?
Mr Davis
It was my hon. Friend who got me into trouble the last time I made a statement, so I will not offer him a detailed answer. All forms of free trade are beneficial, whether based on mutual recognition, single legal areas or any other free trade mechanism. We will seek to get the best mechanism of free trade that we can, full stop.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
May I take the Secretary of State back to the article to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) referred? He promised
“a pre-negotiation White Paper”.
He also said:
“I would expect the new Prime Minister on September 9th to immediately trigger a large round of global trade deals with all our most favoured trade partners.”
Will he update the House and tell us whether the Government are still committed to the pre-negotiation White Paper that he promised, and the countries with which we have triggered trade deals since 9 September?
Mr Davis
If I may say so, that is a slight collapsing of what I said in that article, which I remember very well. The simple truth is that on the day we leave the European Union we will be looking to set up a whole series of very beneficial trade deals. That is an enormous benefit of being outside the Union.
Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I welcome the statement from my right hon. Friend, and I welcome what the Prime Minister said last week about triggering article 50. As someone who is alleged to have voted to remain in the European Union I take that as a matter of process on which I accept a mandate from the British people on 23 June. As for the detail of the negotiation, that is rather different. May I press my right hon. Friend on what he meant by engagement with Parliament, and whether that is the same as influence? It is one thing to come to Parliament and be engaged and tell Parliament what the Government are doing. It is quite another to come and be engaged and influenced by Parliament on things that we still need to clarify.
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend—my right hon. Friend; I will not hold the allegation against him—makes a very good point. I point to my own history. For a considerable period—four or five years, I think—I negotiated another treaty with the European Union. [Interruption.] It was Amsterdam. The approach was very simple. We did not disclose the upcoming negotiation, but we talked about what was under way and what the priorities were, and that is how I expect this to pan out in future. There will be large numbers of debates in the House, with the first on Wednesday, and even if we did not want to do it— but we will—the Opposition could have as many debates as they liked on the subject. I do not accept the argument that we are simply not going to talk about this.
Second, there will be a Select Committee whose sole job for the few years for which it will exist will be to scrutinise the Department. As far as I can, I will be open with it, but I will not give away things if that is deleterious to the national interest. This is an important point to remember: it is the national interest that is engaged, whether we want to talk about the outcome, or whether we want to get the outcome.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State take steps to achieve an early UK withdrawal from the common fisheries policy, with the re-establishment of Britain’s historic waters, both to rebuild fish stocks in our seas and to revive the British fishing industry?
Mr Davis
The hon. Gentleman has raised a very important benefit of leaving the European Union, but I cannot promise him an early departure on that issue alone. We will obey EU law, and all the policies that go with it, until the last day we are in the EU. Thereafter, we will get the benefits that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, and they will be very sizeable benefits.
Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend accept from me that it is clear beyond any doubt what the country voted for? He is right to say that our countrymen want to see our country as outward-looking, enterprising and agile, and as a country that will prosper in a very difficult and fraught period in our lives. What will matter, however, is ensuring that our fellow citizens can have absolute confidence in this perilous process, and that Parliament plays its historic role, to which he and I have always attached the most profound importance.
Mr Davis
I pay particular attention to my right hon. Friend’s comments. I know that he was a fierce remainer who fought hard for the cause. He has, however, taken on board the fact that it is now our duty to make the will of the British people come into being in the best possible way. He knows my history, so he must take it as read that I will treat Parliament with respect, but I will not give up the national interest in negotiating terms to that end. I will carry out the balancing act to the best of my ability, and I will leave the judgment of whether that it is good enough with my right hon. Friend.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State explain how a margin of 4% in a referendum in which Brexiteers themselves confessed that they had voted to leave for a variety of reasons can become what he has just described as an overwhelming mandate for what the Government are currently doing in respect of a “hard Brexit”, with all the damage that that will entail for our economy and our prosperity?
Mr Davis
The majority was over a million. This was, I think, the largest vote gained by any Government ever. [Interruption.] I assume that the right hon. Gentleman voted “remain”. It is rather rich for someone like him, who voted the other way, to try to be the arbiter and interpreter of those who voted to leave.
First, we must obey the democratic instruction that we were given. Secondly, I strongly challenge the idea that this will somehow cause an economic downturn. It will not: it will create economic opportunities on a major scale, and that is what we look forward to.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
The Government’s negotiating position will leak as soon as other member states are told about it. Does the Secretary of State not recognise that it would be wholly unacceptable for the British public to find out what the United Kingdom’s position is from our counterparts in the negotiations?
Mr Davis
Had the Chairman of the Treasury Committee read my evidence to the Lords Select Committee, he would have seen that I gave an undertaking that this House and the other House would be at least as well informed as democratic institutions on the continent, including the European Parliament. That has never been done before, but it will be done now.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s assurance that he will consult the leaders of devolved Administrations, and I assure him that the leader of our party will work with him to ensure successful negotiations for our exit from the European Union. Will he recognise, however, that the rhetoric that we have heard today about parliamentary scrutiny is really designed to do one of two things—either to overturn the referendum result, or to undermine the negotiating position that the Government would take by continual squabbling in the Chamber about the bottom line? Does he agree that the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom now want the Government to go out and ensure that we have control of our borders, the ability to spend our own money, and the ability to make our own laws?
Mr Davis
The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. The words that he used were not “52%”, but “the vast majority”. The vast majority of the country wants us to get on with this and to make a success of it, and that is what we will do.
Let me also say to the hon. Gentleman that one of the areas receiving the most attention at the moment is Northern Ireland. We do have issues to resolve on the border, and we will resolve them. We will not return to the old borders—the border style of old. We will maintain the common travel area. Indeed, we will maintain all the benefits that we had in Northern Ireland before we entered the European Union.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
Frau Merkel is reported to have been cheered by German industrialists for asserting that Britain will not have access to continental markets unless we are prepared to accept free movement of labour. Will my right hon. Friend tell her that securing our borders was a non-negotiable instruction from the British people? Will he also tell her that if she will not make EU markets available to us, industrialists such as BMW, which has its UK headquarters in my constituency, will not be cheering her if tariffs are imposed on German car imports into the United Kingdom?
Mr Davis
I think Mrs Merkel will have read the Prime Minister’s speech last week and will know exactly where our priorities on the control of borders lie. I will not get into tit-for-tat rudeness with our European opposite numbers, because I do not think that that would be successful. I will say, however, that these are the first days of a two-and-a-half-year negotiation, and the first days of negotiations are always tougher than the endgame —[Interruption.] Well, I speak as someone who has done one or two of them, unlike many of the people chuntering on the Opposition Benches. I think we can take it as read that what our European opposite numbers are saying today is not necessarily what they will be saying tomorrow.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I cannot think of any major treaty in history that this country has signed in which the Government have not come to Parliament to get a mandate for their negotiating position. They have done that every single time over the past 400 years. If the right hon. Gentleman really wants to make a success of these negotiations, he needs to gather as much support as he possibly can across the whole country, including among the 48%. That will involve at least a White Paper and preferably a draft repeal Bill before the final repeal Bill.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
The Secretary of State is absolutely right to seek success, but the question is: what does success look like? What will actually happen when Britain leaves the European Union? Is he thinking of applying any tests along the journey of the negotiations that he feels we might need to meet, particularly in relation to the state of our economy?
Mr Davis
It is hard to have tests along the track of the negotiations; it is the outcome that matters. In response to my opposite number, the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), I highlighted three of the four main aims that we are after. One is to regain control of our borders. Another is to get back control of our laws. The one I did not list was our aim to keep our justice and security arrangements at least as strong as they are. Finally, and most importantly in this context, the United Kingdom must aim to maintain the best possible open access to European markets and vice versa. If we can achieve all that, there will be no downside to Brexit at all, and considerable upsides.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
There seems to be some political forgetfulness here. Does the Minister not recall that the Chancellor has forecast financial bumps along the road? Others fear that they will not just be Brexit bumps, but that a vast sinkhole will open up in the road, into which the British economy will fall in a tailspin. If that Brexit slump occurs, how can the Minister deny the public a second vote on this? Second thoughts are always better than first thoughts, especially as the referendum was conducted on the basis of untruths from both parties. Is he going to honour the pledge to give an extra £350 million a week to the national health service?
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. In particular, I liked the section in which he said that he wants to give as much certainty as possible to employers, investors, consumers and workers. Half of St Albans’ economically active population works in London, and many of them work in financial services and the knowledge-based economy. What conduit can they have to input into the process through which we are now going, and what assurances can he give me that London and the UK will maximise free trade with Europe while tapping into the growth markets around the world?
Mr Davis
Given that my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) is sitting next to me, I am bound to say that London is a massive global city and an extraordinarily successful one. We will do everything necessary to protect, defend and enhance that success in the markets that my hon. Friend mentioned—in the financial services, the digital markets and the intellectual markets. We are looking at all of them right across the board. She should tell her constituents who want to have an input into the process that they should go through their trade organisations or come directly to the Department to tell us where their concerns are and where they think the opportunities are and we will take their comments on board.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the great repeal Bill will include incorporating all the existing rights currently guaranteed by EU law to EU citizens?
Mr Davis
My job in the first instance is to bring that decision back to this House. What I have said to those who have expressed concerns about that matter is that we will certainly not be removing employment rights or employment law from British citizens as a result of bringing back that process. That is the situation: we will not be withdrawing employment rights as a result of this process.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I hope you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, for giving the Ladybird guide to the constitution. Her Majesty’s Government are behaving completely correctly and traditionally. It is for the Government to determine treaties, and it is for Parliament to decide whether to bring them into legislation. If Parliament does not like the Government of the day, it can always hold a vote of confidence in that Government to change the negotiating stance. It seems to me that the Opposition may not want that, as they have a record of losing elections at the moment.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Days after the Tory party conference, why has the pound dropped to a 30-year low?
Mr Davis
I recommend the hon. Lady reads the book, “Flash Boys”, because the major part of that fall was the flash crash. There are lots and lots of speculative comments that will drive the pound down and up and down and up over the next two and a half years, and there is little that we can do about it.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
May I ask my right hon. Friend to ignore those people on both sides of the House who cannot bring themselves to come to terms with the referendum result? Will he confirm that there are no such things as hard Brexit and soft Brexit? There is either Brexit or no Brexit. It is rather like being pregnant —a person is either pregnant or they are not pregnant. We are either in the European Union or out of the European Union. Being in the single market would mean keeping EU laws and the European Court of Justice making decisions. It would also probably mean free movement of people and paying into the EU budget. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that would be a betrayal of what the British people voted for in the referendum?
Mr Davis
Yes, my hon. Friend is right. That is precisely what is driving our negotiating strategy. Beyond that, I say this to him: the words hard and soft Brexit are designed to deceive. They are not meaningful in any way. We are talking about the best possible trade access. The Labour party does not understand the economics of that, but this party does. We are simply going to get the best outcome for this country, and that will be open trade.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State recognise that although 52% of people voted for us to leave, of course with the consequence that we will exit the European Union, the suggestion that the more than 16 million people who voted to remain are some kind of liberal elite is utterly false and divisive? A majority of young voters, a majority of ethnic minority voters and a majority of people in three of the constituent parts of our country all voted to remain, and the job of the Government is to find a deal that serves the interests of everybody—those who voted to remain and those who voted to leave—not to try to sow further seeds of division in our country.
Mr Davis
The hon. Gentleman will be surprised to hear that I agree with almost every word he said. The only distinction that I would make is that I consider myself a liberal, as I said earlier. The aim of the Government is to find an outcome that meets the needs of all the United Kingdom; again, it is invidious to talk about one’s own speeches, but that is precisely what I said last week. We need to engage the interests of all citizens of the country, whichever way they voted, in order to get the best outcome for the country.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
There has been talk today of vast sinkholes and punishment plans, but surely great nations such as France and Germany act in their own self-interest. Take passporting: what has not been mentioned so far is that 7,000 passports are issued to financial companies in Europe to come into the City of London, and 5,000 passports go in the opposite direction. It is a simple regulatory licensing system, so let us have no more talk about Armageddon for the City of London; a deal can and will be made.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
I have been at a bit of a loose end in the past few weeks, but I have been putting my time to good use: I have been reading the Secretary of State’s back-catalogue. In one of the speeches I found, which I can quote for him, as it is invidious for him to quote himself, he recommended—this was just a few years ago—that we have two referendums on Brexit, the second referendum being held only when the terms of the negotiation were fully formed. Did he change his mind only when he saw the result of the referendum?
Mr Davis
The hon. Gentleman may have had some time to spare, but he has not used it very well. Indeed, he needs some reading lessons, or maybe reading glasses. Ten years ago—not two years ago; he should get his dates right—when I talked about the possibility of a double referendum, in the early days of our discussions on the matter, I said that we should set up a mandate referendum, laying out exactly what our claims would be, and then if we won that, use it as a lever to get good terms and make a decision thereafter. That is not what the Government did; they put a straight question. If the hon. Gentleman went out on the streets of London and asked people, “What do you think you voted for? Did you vote for a mandate, or did you vote to leave?”, the answer would be that they voted to leave.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I urge my right hon. Friend to ignore the siren calls from the Opposition for a running commentary on our detailed negotiating position, because as everyone knows, that would make for poor outcomes, and it might account for why Labour got rolled over by the EU on so many occasions, including when it came to the sacrifice of our EU rebate. Will my right hon. Friend say a few words on something that has not yet been covered in the statement or questions—that is, on the growing divide in the EU’s position on Brexit between the ideologists in the Commission and the elected politicians, who recognise that if they play hardball and fall back on tariffs, it will cost them much more than it will cost us?
Mr Davis
I need no urging to ignore the party that, after all, gave us the Lisbon treaty. My hon. Friend is right with respect to the viewpoint of nation states. This will take time to play out. Some nation states, including Germany, are at present very committed to making the punishment arguments, but I think that will change. Other nation states are already making the counter-arguments, and we will see that group grow and grow as the next two and a half years pass.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
Today at airports, holidaymakers are being offered less than €1 to the pound. My hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) and for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) have asked about the 15% decline in the value of sterling since the referendum, but so far the Secretary of State has failed to answer. We have seen huge uncertainty since our decision to leave the European Union. What efforts will the Government make to provide greater clarity for businesses and the economy, and to ensure that the Government are a little more careful with their words, which would help with the volatility and the sharp declines we have seen in the value of sterling in recent weeks?
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that if the Bill to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 is blocked in the other place, the Government will not hesitate to use the provisions of the Parliament Acts to ensure that the Bill reaches the statute book?
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will know that the process for exiting the EU will have two steps: first, the article 50 negotiations, which will be by qualified majority voting; and secondly, the negotiation of a new trade deal, which will require unanimity and ratification by all the Parliaments of the EU. Will he guarantee that businesses will have the reassurance, which they desperately need, of a guaranteed transition period, rather than their falling off the cliff edge immediately after the article 50 negotiations conclude?
Mr Davis
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but I am not sure that he is exactly right about the mechanism for the final decision. He talks about what is effectively the next procedure, which is what has happened to the Canadian treaty. We have not yet engaged in the negotiation process, so we do not know exactly how it will work, whether it will be sequential or parallel—well, it will be parallel—and how the linkage between the various components will work. At that point, I will be in a better position to answer his question.
Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to reassure business leaders around the world that, contrary to what is said in some of the commentary, the Government will grasp the opportunity of Brexit to create a low-tax, lightly regulated, open economy that is ready to seize growing economies around the world and create prosperity for our nation?
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
I was recently contacted by a constituent who is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow. Not only does she have serious concerns about the loss of EU funding for universities and colleges, but her partner is a French national who is unsure about where his future will lie, post-Brexit. Why can the Secretary of State not understand that the Government’s reluctance to outline any future plans is having a real and negative impact on many people across the UK?
Mr Davis
First, the Treasury has already made some underpinning promises over the summer about research funding, and they apply to Scotland, so I suggest that the hon. Lady looks carefully at that. As for the concerns of her constituent’s French partner, I have already said that we are doing this as fast as we can, consistent with our responsibilities to not only people in that position, but British citizens abroad.
Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)
I wonder whether my right hon. Friend shares my interest in and gratitude for the fact that the Opposition are speaking the language of markets, currency and the FTSE, and showing incredible interest in that. Speaking of markets, I would like him to assure the House and my constituents that if we were to leave the single market, we would be an open, welcoming, friendly and dynamic free trade area.
Mr Davis
The point that I have made time and again is that we are seeking the most open, most barrier-free trade in goods and services that we can possibly achieve. Like my hon. Friend, I think it is good to hear those words from across the Floor, even if they are not well understood by those saying them.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
When will the Secretary of State reassure businesses based in the UK, and particularly in my city of Sunderland, including the Nissan manufacturing plant, about the potential for tariffs to be paid on every car sold to mainland Europe, as some 80% of cars from the Nissan plant are? Investment has been halted at that plant, and a contract that had already been awarded has been put in abeyance while we wait for reassurances from the Government. When will the Government act on real people’s jobs and reassure companies? That is what is at stake. This is not chatter; it is real people’s jobs. When will the Government act?
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s statements. Can he say whether, as part of the consideration process, he will look to review the UK’s involvement in the European Commission’s single European sky initiative?
Mr Davis
Yes, the Department for Transport is on that issue as we speak. They were some of the people I was thinking of when I said that there are many areas where we have a very strong negotiating hand because of our current position. Britain is the strongest target, as it were, for flight arrivals in the entire European Union.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Many hundreds of people in my constituency working in the automotive and pharmaceutical industries are very worried about the transitional phase between now and when we leave the EU. Decisions are being made by their employers now about investments, and the worry is that those decisions will take investment away from south Liverpool, and put it somewhere else in Europe. What can the Secretary of State do to reassure my constituents, and to reassure those automotive and pharmaceutical businesses about continuing to invest here?
Mr Davis
The first thing I would say is that, if I remember correctly, after the referendum decision, GlaxoSmithKline confirmed multiple hundreds of millions of pounds of investment in this country, so I do not think the pharmaceutical industry is running away from this country—just the reverse. In Europe, the pharmaceutical industry is predominantly in the UK, for reasons that relate to intellectual property among other things. The second thing I would say is that we are consulting widely; one of the things we are doing is establishing where the fears and concerns are, so that we can deal with them. We are doing that accurately and carefully, in exactly the way the hon. Lady would, as I know from her time on the Public Accounts Committee. That, in the long run, will guarantee the jobs of her constituents.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
As a remainer, let me gently say this to the remainers on the Opposition Benches: scupper or delay triggering article 50 at your peril. Workers will not respect you for it; nor will businesses. We must respect the democratic will of the British people. I appreciate the pragmatism surrounding the decision not to involve Parliament in every single minute detail. However, does the Secretary of State agree that Parliament must, constitutionally, be involved in setting out the principles of negotiation—that is, on single market membership and free movement rules—to ensure that when things like the great repeal Bill are put before this House, they receive full support?
Mr Davis
I always pay a lot of attention to the people who voted remain, and take seriously the responsibility we have to the people of this country to make this work. My hon. Friend laid down a couple of criteria that are very tight in one sense. I am saying, in terms, that we want the best outcome, but what is the best outcome? The best outcome is open market access; that is the point. How we do it may come down to what the negotiations are about, but I cannot go into great detail. However, I would say to my hon. Friend that the process, from now until roughly two to two and a half years’ time, or whenever it is, will be absolutely full of parliamentary events—unless the Opposition are not doing their job, but they will do their job; unless the Select Committee is not doing its job, but it will do its job; and unless we try to block things we are obviously not going to block. We take parliamentary accountability very responsibly and very seriously, and we will keep Parliament as well informed as we can.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I agree with the Secretary of State that we need barrier-free access to the single market—no tariff barriers and no non-tariff barriers—but we all know there is a tension between delivering that and restricting free movement. On an all-party visit last month, a German employers’ organisation suggested to us that it might be possible to square the circle by agreeing a redefinition of free movement, so that it applied only to people with a firm job offer in the UK. Are Ministers going to pursue that possibility?
Mr Davis
As always, the right hon. Gentleman has asked a serious question, and I thank him for it. My job is to bring back control of these issues to the United Kingdom, which can then exercise that control in the way that Parliament and the Government see fit. What they negotiate thereafter is not a matter for me to speculate on, and I certainly would not offer an opinion on what is or is not a good negotiating hand at this point in time. However, I hear what he says.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
I satisfied my appetite for voting on this question on 23 June, but like my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), I want some influence over the process. However, if influence has to be measured by holding a Division, as Labour Members appear to believe, they might be reminded that they get a Supply day every week.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has said that he will provide some certainty and clarity. I have had an email from a general practitioner in my constituency saying that a lady who has lived there for over 40 years is having mental health problems as she is concerned about being deported. Parents have contacted me saying that their children are awake at night worried that they are about to lose their mother or their father who is an EU citizen.
Mrs Moon
It is absolutely imperative that we have some clarity. A glib individual on the Government Benches claims I should reassure them. I have done that, but they need reassurance from the Government, because I do not have such a power. May we at least have clarification that those who have lived in this country for over five years will have an automatic right to remain? They need it, and it is only right that citizens should have such clarity.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
It is perfectly natural for us to want as much detail as possible, but it is more important that the outcome is the success that we need. Does my right hon. Friend therefore agree that we should not tempt him to give details now, but that we should keep as much secret as we can, while our opponents are talking about tariffs and punishments? Should he not do everything he can to play with his cards as close as possible to his chest?
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Should we not at least commend the Secretary of State for once again presenting us, at the Dispatch Box, with a full range of cosmetics without a single microbead of substance? Does he realise that his reassurances about the consultation with the joint First Ministers in Stormont, and his indication of his hopes for the profile of the border, do not measure up to a response on the profound implications that the course he is piloting will have for the Good Friday agreement, with its delicate layers of understanding, constitutional foundations and key political premises?
Mr Davis
I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is just wrong. We have already invested a lot of resource in this issue. Indeed, the quotes from the Northern Ireland Secretary on the front page of The Guardian this morning are accurate. We are talking to the Irish Government to determine, as well as we can, a technical mechanism to ensure that we will maintain an open border and underpin the agreement.
Andrew Bridgen
I am disappointed that so many Members of this House—I might politely call them the “unreconcilables”—seem intent on using every ploy of parliamentary procedure to undermine the will of the British people, claiming that it is the democratic right of this House. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most important principles of democracy is that everyone’s vote counts the same, and that on 23 June, everyone in the country, including Members of this House, had a vote and the result was clear?
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
After the referendum and three days before his appointment, the right hon. Gentleman wrote in an article that a White Paper outlining the negotiating terms for Brexit should be published. Will he please explain to the House his thinking at the time of writing that article?
Mr Davis
The simple answer is this. Throughout the entire referendum campaign, I was trying to think through not so much the retention of the European market, but how we best develop the international markets. Those were my thoughts at that time and, as a Back Bencher, I was entirely entitled to have those thoughts.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Airbus is a wonderful example of European co-operation. The fuselages are built in France and Germany, and the wings in this country. Does my right hon. Friend agree that any politician or bureaucrat who tried to punish such a project, which has created so much wealth and prosperity and so many jobs, would be mad, bad or totally out of touch with the people they professed to represent?
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
The tone and content of the Home Secretary’s speech to the Tory party conference were profoundly hostile to the recruitment of international students, who are estimated to be worth £40 billion to the economy and represent a valuable growth market. Will the Secretary of State explain whether he backs the Home Secretary, and will he give assurances that in the Brexit negotiation on EU students, he will do nothing to damage their access, our world-class higher education system or the wider economy?
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Is it not the truth that the depreciation of sterling since 23 June has provided a massive boost to Britain’s international competitiveness and has been great news for British exporters? Has my right hon. Friend been encouraged or discouraged by the number of countries knocking on our door, willing to make free trade agreements when we leave the European Union?
Mr Davis
One of the interesting things today has been the willingness of the Opposition to carp on the downside of every single aspect of Brexit. The simple truth is that those who are talking about the competitiveness of their own industries are not paying attention to the level of the pound. While it has some downsides, it certainly has a very large number of upsides.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
As chair of the all-party group on medical research, I am extremely concerned about the impact of Brexit on scientific and medical research in this country. Scientists have always worked collaboratively across borders, but researchers are now worried about funding and about the job insecurity and uncertainty faced by their EU national colleagues. Can the Secretary of State reassure scientists in this country that their research will continue to be funded and that their EU national colleagues will continue to be welcome to work here?
Mr Davis
The Treasury has given underwriting guarantees, as it were, for the current round of applications, so that is not to be worried about. This country is a science superpower, so the idea that after our departure from the European Union funding will somehow dry up is for the birds—it is simply nonsense. I have had discussions with the presidents of some of the royal academies, and we will continue those discussions with the aim of ensuring that they do not feel at risk. Some of the comments we have got back indicate that the European Union rules on issues such as clinical research have not exactly been helpful to British science, so there will be an improvement, not just an underwriting guarantee.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
Many City of London institutions rely on the financial services passport to do business across Europe. Some say that as many as 20% of their jobs depend on that access. The danger is that, as it would take a year or two to relocate staff, some may take action before the end of the two years. To encourage them to keep those jobs here in London, can the Secretary of State give an assurance that financial service passporting or some equivalent mutual recognition is his priority?
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend makes a good point; as there may be something like an 18-month lag, some people might try to pre-empt the decision and, rashly, move early. The Treasury has held a roundtable on this specific issue. It has looked very clearly at various mechanisms of mutual recognition as a fall-back on passporting. Somebody made the point earlier that we issue more passports than we seek. As a result, our negotiating leverage in this area is at least reasonable.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
This is the Secretary of State’s second statement on this issue. Frankly, he would have said more if he had said nothing at all. Can we conclude from his statement today that his definition of “taking back control” is that this sovereign Parliament will get no binding say on the negotiating stance, article 50 or even the final deal? What he said today is that of the 28 current members of the European Union, 27 sovereign Parliaments will get a say, but not this one.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that the voices of agriculture, industry and business more generally are heard as part of our Brexit negotiations, and to ensure that their needs are fully understood?
Mr Davis
First, there have been a number of consultations and discussions with those people. This whole exercise is an all-Government operation. That means that the individual Departments will deal directly with them. Secondly, the Treasury moved unusually quickly to ensure that they knew that their current round of funding was underpinned, for example under pillar 1 of the common agricultural policy. The Government are taking this matter extraordinarily seriously and they have no reason to worry.
Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)
I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) for coming to my constituency last week to meet businesses in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. I appreciate the Secretary of State’s point about an open border with the Republic of Ireland, given that four counties of the Republic of Ireland border my constituency, but how does he envisage stopping the smuggling that may take place after Brexit?
Mr Davis
That is a very good and difficult question. The simple truth is that we have to make a judgment, as is the case with all borders of that nature. Norway and Sweden have a good example of an open border, as do Canada and America. There are small-scale movements, but big-scale movements can be found and dealt with.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
Writing in The Daily Telegraph following the referendum, the Foreign Secretary claimed that we would still have access to the single market and that the rights of EU citizens living in the UK, and those of UK citizens living abroad, would be respected. If that is no longer the case and the Foreign Secretary was confused, will the Secretary of State clear up these issues in the pre-negotiation White Paper that he promised? Can he tell us when that will be published? If, as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) suggests, the Vote Leave prospectus is to be the basis of the Brexit negotiations, will he tell us when we will be getting £350 million a week for the NHS?
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
As the Secretary of State knows, large swathes of EU law are intertwined with devolved legislation in Wales, and indeed in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Will he confirm that in the proposed great repeal Bill, and in their actions thereafter, the UK Government will not interfere with Welsh legislation without the formal—I emphasise formal—consent of the National Assembly?
Mr Davis
I cannot see the great repeal Bill interfering with Welsh legislation, but as I have said, we will talk at length to each of the devolved Administrations about issues that will affect them as a result of the Bill. We will do that before we draft it, let alone before we publish it.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
In their open letter to the Government at the weekend, the CBI and other business leaders said that it was extremely unlikely that the complex negotiations on Brexit would be completed within the two-year period stipulated in article 50. If negotiations have not been completed, what will happen then?
Mr Davis
With the best will in the world, the CBI is hypothesising. The simple truth is that we will have an unusual negotiation, because the standards that apply inside the Union will apply to us on exactly the day when we depart. That is one reason why the great repeal Bill will put the acquis communautaire straight into British law, which will make some of the transition issues quicker to deal with. I will deal with that issue if it arises, but at the moment I do not see it arising.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Does the Secretary of State not think that his party’s Back Benchers will see the irony that when they walk through the Lobby to enshrine the great repeal Bill in law in a great act of parliamentary sovereignty, they will in fact be enshrining all the hated European regulations that they have campaigned against for so many years?
Does the Secretary of State accept that sovereignty in Scotland lies with the people and not with Parliament, so it is ultimately for the people of Scotland to decide whether they remain in the United Kingdom or the European Union?
Mr Davis
I will make two points to the hon. Gentleman. First, unlike the situation prior to the passage of the great repeal Bill, we will be able to change those European laws. We are not able to do that at all at the moment.
I have forgotten what the hon. Gentleman’s other point was now. [Interruption.] Yes, Scotland. I apologise; I should not have forgotten that. The simple truth is that the decision was UK-wide, and had it gone the other way, he would not be arguing against it.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Some UK legislation for workers goes further than EU rules, but not all of it. It is also clear that European Court judgments have been far more worker-friendly than those in our own tribunals, and certainly more friendly than this Government. If the Government seriously intend to protect workers’ rights, they should adopt my Bill, which is intended to maintain EU standards for workers and their employment rights, especially those set out secondary legislation. Failing to do that would leave the door wide open for future Governments to eat into hard-fought and hard-won rights through statutory instruments. The Secretary of State claims to be a champion of workers, so will he consider introducing stand-alone legislation at the earliest opportunity to continue the protection of Britain’s workers?
Mr Davis
I hear what the hon. Lady says, but I have given an undertaking that there will be no reversal of the protection of workers’ rights, as has the Prime Minister. Indeed, my right hon. Friend has gone beyond that and said that there will be an expansion of that protection.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
As it stands, the steel and ceramic industries are covered by 52 separate trade defence instruments that the EU provides for this country. In negotiations taking place in conjunction with the Brexit negotiations, the Government wish to support market economy status for China. Which of the 52 trade defence mechanisms does the Secretary of State desire to keep in order to maintain the British steel industry?
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
On Saturday I met a constituent who is a member of academic staff at the University of Nottingham, one of many EU citizens living and working in our city and helping to ensure its future economic success. The Secretary of State says that he wants an outcome to the negotiations that benefits the interests of all UK citizens, and I agree. Does he agree that giving our universities and their EU staff the assurances that they seek is in our best interests—yes or no? If yes, when will he give those assurances?
Mr Davis
I have made the point already that we have duties and responsibilities to British citizens abroad as well as to EU citizens here. We seek to give the latter the best guarantees we can as soon as we can, but the answer to exactly when that will be is not solely in my hands.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I hope that the whole House will accept the Secretary of State’s sincerity in seeking to avoid what I think he referred to as fostering divisions and creating hostility in our communities. In that context, does he believe it is appropriate for Ministers to refer to EU citizens living in the UK using terms such as “bargaining counters” and “cheap foreign labour”?
Mr Davis
I do not think I have ever referred to them in those terms—in fact, I know I have not. The simple truth is that they are not bargaining counters. One problem that would arise if we divided the two categories of EU citizens here and British citizens abroad would be that we would turn one of them into a bargaining counter, which is precisely what we are avoiding.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Twelve weeks ago the right hon. Gentleman was a champion of the Back Bencher. Today, he says that there is no role for Back Benchers in deciding on the triggering of article 50 or the terms of the negotiation. He says, however, that he respects the role of Parliament. To show that he has not gone over to the dark side completely, will he confirm that there are no plans to include in his great repeal Bill shortcuts to repealing any protections that currently exist under EU law, and that such a change in law would require the full parliamentary process?
Mr Davis
Certainly any further changes in law will require parliamentary process. On article 50, the right hon. Lady is right that I have fought hard for the rights of Parliament with respect to the Executive, but I would never put Parliament in a position of being in a clash with the British people. That is what an article 50 vote would do.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Yesterday on “The Andrew Marr Show”, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who is not in his place today, said:
“The reason the pound keeps zooming south is that absolutely nobody has the faintest idea what exactly we’re going to put in place”
for the single market. I rather got the impression from the Secretary of State earlier that he did not agree with that statement. If he does not, to what does he attribute the repeated plummeting of the pound since 24 June, and does he agree with the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), who is no longer in his place, that it is a good thing that the pound keeps plummeting?
Mr Davis
It is an unwise Minister, particularly one who is not a Treasury Minister, who passes comment on what the right value of the pound is. There are benefits and disadvantages in movements in either direction. If we look at other countries—it is safer for me to do that—we can see that the euro is widely viewed as being undervalued for the German economy and overvalued for the Greek economy. The hon. and learned Lady can decide for herself which she prefers, but the Greek economy is in a worse state than the German economy.
I do not agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). There will definitely be very large markets for British industry after we exit the European Union. What the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) has seen on the currency markets has been a response to an article about President Hollande’s comments, massively exacerbated by program trading, which is corrected later on.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Just today, the British Retail Consortium has said that if we depend on World Trade Organisation rules, we could see price rises of 27% for meat, 16% for clothing and footwear and 14% for Chilean wine. Those are not some theoretical actions, they are price rises in the real world. Will the Secretary of State accept the reality of the damage that would be done by such price rises, and what will he do to ensure that the BRC’s predictions do not become a reality?
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Secretary of State may be interested to know that this morning Glasgow City Council launched with its partners a report on Brexit and the Glasgow economy; it is a far more comprehensive report than we received today from him. It has six key asks, among them clarity on long-term funding beyond 2020 for higher education and infrastructure. It also calls for the acceleration of the capital for the city deal for Glasgow. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether he intends to go beyond simply consulting local government on the impact of Brexit, and will he engage and actually respond to the concerns of local government, which is responsible for implementing so much of EU law?
Mr Davis
We will be engaging with local government—including on that report, I imagine. I say this to the hon. Lady, however: beyond 2020 there will be a new EU budget round. As it stands, it is not at all clear that that will be as generous as the current one. I do not think that she should extrapolate based on today’s numbers.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware of the importance of the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries to our economy. He will also be aware of the comments of the chief executive of AstraZeneca over the weekend, who warned that if we are not part of the European common approvals process the cost of drugs to the NHS will rise. Is the chief executive of AstraZeneca right on that? If so, that is less money for the NHS, so how much does the Secretary of State think that is going to cost us?
Mr Davis
I am not in a position to do those sums for the hon. Gentleman, but I will tell him that that is one of the things that we will seek to get standardised. There will be a number of areas such as life sciences where we have a big interest. We are, after all, the largest life science centre in Europe, so that will be front and centre of our negotiations.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
When Carolyn Fairburn of the CBI says that businesses will fear the worst in the event of not knowing the sense of direction of the Government, the Secretary of State should take that seriously. If she has spent the past hour and thirty five minutes listening to his comments she will still be none the wiser about what the Government are trying to achieve with the negotiations. The White Paper that the Secretary of State suggested he would bring forward would be a very good way of providing some certainty to business. He has dodged the question four times, so will he now come to the Dispatch Box and confirm whether it is still his intention to bring forward that White Paper, and if it is not will he tell us why?
Mr Davis
First, I spent some time talking to Ms Fairburn a few weeks ago. She knows what the objectives are, and they are the same as I have given here—that we get the best possible access. I suspect that if she is asked she will say that getting the right outcome is more important than talking about the right outcome. That is what we intend to do.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
As the last man standing, what chance do I have of actually getting anything out of the Secretary of State? He has spent his whole life planning for this big day in the sun, yet he is like a rabbit caught in headlights. Today’s is his second statement, full of bingo buzzwords—“sovereignty”, “control”, “the right deal for Britain”, “mandate”. We have heard it all before and it adds nothing to the argument. One addition we had is “outward-looking”, which is very ironic in the week after the Tory conference. We hear that he cannot give a running commentary on negotiations; last week we got a running commentary on how foreigners are going to be targeted in future, and then he stands there and talks about divisive nationalism. When will he take control, develop a coherent plan and advise this House about what is going to happen, how he will involve the devolved Administrations and how he will protect the rights of EU nationals living here?
UK Exit from the European Union: Terms of Negotiations
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I seek leave to propose that the House should debate a specific and important matter that should receive urgent consideration, namely the terms upon which the Government are proposing to conduct negotiations with the European Commission for the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
Let me be crystal clear what the proposed debate is not about. It is not about reversing the referendum result. It is not about subverting the will of the majority who voted, as I did, to leave the European Union. It is not about trying to secure a second referendum. We had a vote, the country voted as it did and that result must be respected.
Personally, I had nothing whatever to do with the leave campaign, which was, in my view, conducted in what I regarded as a disgraceful sea of falsehood, spin and propaganda. Like many, however, given that fundamental reform of the EU appeared impossible I exercised my own vote on the sure and simple basis that the people of this country should be able to throw out of office those who make the rules that govern their lives—in other words, I voted on the basis of sovereignty.
The Government have a mandate as a result of the referendum to take the UK out of the European Union, but they do not have a mandate as to the terms on which that should be done. Nearly half of those who voted wanted no substantive change at all in the relationship between this country and the European Union. Their voices, which did not chime with my own, appear entirely to have been forgotten in the rhetoric of hard Brexit that has somehow become received wisdom on the part of the Government. The Government have no mandate for that. We cannot extrapolate from the result of the referendum the specific terms upon which the majority of those in this country wish their relations with the European Union now to be governed. That can only be done by seeking a mandate from this House, to which the citizens of this country return right hon. and hon. Members to express their views.
The suggestion that the Government will not consult this House and listen to the voices of those who represent the voters of this country is fundamentally undemocratic, is inimical to the traditions that underpin our constitution, and in my view is wrong. It also runs contrary to the reasons for which I and others voted as we did. I did not vote leave to see one tyranny that failed to consult this House, in the form of the European Commission, replaced by another in the form of a Government who fail to listen to what this House thinks about their negotiating position.
Fundamentally, this House should—in my judgment, must—be consulted by the Government through debate, and the views of Members heard, before a decision is made as to the broad negotiating position that should be adopted in negotiations with the European Union. For that reason this debate is both important and urgent. I am thus grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for having permitted this application to be made, and hope that both you and the whole House are left in no doubt at all that this matter should be considered by right hon. and hon. Members at the earliest possible opportunity.
Mr Speaker
The hon. and learned Gentleman asks leave to propose a debate on a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely the terms upon which the Government are proposing to conduct negotiations with the European Commission for the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
I have listened carefully to the application. I am not persuaded that this matter is proper to be discussed under Standing Order No. 24. In determining whether a matter is urgent, I am directed by Standing Order No. 24(5) to
“have regard to the probability of the matter being brought before the House in time by other means.”
As of now, I have reason to expect—I believe that the hon. and learned Gentleman himself might well now be aware also—that there is a strong prospect of a debate on this matter as early as this Wednesday. Needless to say, I say to the hon. and learned Gentleman and for the benefit of the House that there will doubtless be many other opportunities to debate these matters through various vehicles in the House. It is perfectly right and proper that those various vehicles should be used as is appropriate. I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman, and hope that that is clear to the House.
Syria
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I seek leave to propose that the House should debate a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo and more widely across Syria.
Since the House last met, the humanitarian position in Aleppo and across Syria has deteriorated significantly, but the international community has not been successful in exercising its duties to protect innocent civilians—duties clearly identified and understood throughout the United Nations and in our responsibility to protect. On 19 September, a United Nations relief convoy was destroyed in the early evening. Thirty-one trucks loaded with food and medicines were attacked from the air. Warehouses and clinics were severely damaged and 18 humanitarian workers were killed. This is undoubtedly a war crime and it was undoubtedly perpetrated by Russian forces. In the last three days, 100 war wounded have been attended to in Aleppo. There have been 12 bombing runs and many people, including children, seriously injured, and at lunchtime today in Aleppo at least five people died as a result of a Government rocket attack.
When it comes to incendiary weapons and munitions such as bunker buster bombs and cluster bombs, the UN makes it clear that the systematic use of such indiscriminate weapons in densely populated areas amounts to a war crime. We are witnessing events that match the behaviour of the Nazi regime in Guernica in Spain. Russia is shredding the international rules-based system of law, destroying the United Nations and its ability to act in the same way that the Germans and the Italians destroyed the League of Nations in the 1930s.
I ask, Mr Speaker, that you allow urgent consideration by this House of what more the Government could be doing to protect the mass of humanity that is suffering in and around Syria today, how we can do more to support the International Syria Support Group, what more can be done to secure access and safety for humanitarian workers, what further steps we can take with our allies to support future cessation of hostilities and how, working with our allies in the United Nations, Europe and NATO, we can discharge our responsibility to protect.
Mr Speaker
I have listened carefully to the application from the right hon. Gentleman and I am satisfied that the matter raised by him is proper to be discussed under Standing Order No. 24. Does the right hon. Gentleman have the leave of the House?
Application agreed to.
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman has obtained the leave of the House. The debate will be held tomorrow, Tuesday 11 October, as the first item of public business. The debate will last for three hours and will arise on a motion that the House has considered the specified matter set out in the right hon. Gentleman’s application.
Members leaving the Chamber after these substantial exchanges should do so quickly and quietly. There is a point of order on its way and I wish to hear it.
Point of Order
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last Thursday on “Question Time”, in an exchange with Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru, the Secretary of State for Wales said, first, that
“when there’s… migration into Welsh-speaking communities…your members have taken direct action in the past”;
secondly, that there are
“communities in Wales where there are nationalist activists who take direct action against people who come in”;
and thirdly:
“It wasn’t so long ago that some of the cottages were being burned down”.
Despite many requests to the Secretary of State, he has failed to provide any evidence for this. Neither has he withdrawn his accusations or apologised.
People throughout Wales are outraged at these slurs on their communities, but for us today the Secretary of State’s accusations relate to Plaid Cymru Members. I am a Plaid Cymru Member. Is he accusing me? Or is he accusing my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) or my hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), English by birth and bought up in Eltham in London? Bizarrely, he might even be accusing his own Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), who previously was a prominent and vocal member of Plaid Cymru. Mr Speaker, what action can be taken in respect of those who, outside this Chamber, baselessly bring Members of this House into disrepute?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for notice of his point of order. However, the “Question Time” to which he refers is on the BBC, not in the House of Commons. While my responsibility extends to the latter, it does not do so in respect of the former, as I dare say he knows very well. None the less, his views are on the record. I do not treat what he has said in any way with levity or disinterest, but as a matter of fact it does not fall within the remit of the Chair to handle. We shall have to leave it there for now. I thank the hon. Gentleman for registering his views on the record.
Privileges
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
I beg to move,
That this House—
(1) approves the Second Report of the Committee on Privileges (House of Commons Paper No. 672);
(2) endorses the recommendation in paragraph 12; and
(3) accordingly suspends Justin Tomlinson from the service of the House for a period of two sitting days, beginning on Tuesday 11 October.
The facts of this case are set out in the Privileges Committee report and the report published by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) was found to have shared a draft report by the Committee of Public Accounts with an outside party in breach of the confidentiality rules. The Privileges Committee concluded that my hon. Friend committed a contempt in disclosing a draft Committee report to a third party and that his actions constituted substantial interference in the work of that Committee. His co-operation throughout the relevant inquiries was noted by the Committee, which also made reference to the fact that he was not motivated in his actions by financial gain.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his personal statement of 15 September, in which he accepted in full the findings of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, took full responsibility for his actions and made his apology to the House. I invite hon. Members to endorse the findings of the Privileges Committee
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. On this, my first appearance as shadow Leader of the House, I would also like to thank my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), for his hard work. I agree with the Leader of the House and add my thanks to the Privileges Committee and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for their work and diligence in coming to their conclusion.
The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) made a personal statement on 15 September, at the earliest opportunity. He indicated that he was naive. However, the draft report was sent to the company that was under investigation by the Public Accounts Committee and, as the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said in paragraph 40 of her report, it gave the company
“an additional opportunity, not available to or known to anyone else, to influence the recommendations of the Committee.”
In my experience, Committee Clerks are assiduous in stating on the draft report that it is confidential, and the copies produced are numbered and password protected. It is alarming to other members of a Committee when a draft report is leaked. It undermines the Committee process and, as “Erskine May” says, may be a contempt. In this case it was found to be a contempt.
Perhaps I could make a suggestion that when new Members join a Select Committee, and at the same time as they declare their interests, they are reminded of the confidential nature of draft reports and discussions.
It is normal practice to agree with the reports of the Privileges Committee. The Opposition therefore support the motion.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
This case came to light when Wonga contacted the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards in June 2015 to say that it had evidence that appeared to show that two years earlier the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) had provided a draft report by the Committee of Public Accounts to a Wonga employee and given that employee a chance to comment on the draft. The commissioner rightly referred to the matter to the Committee of Public Accounts, which conducted its own initial investigation and published a special report that concluded that the disclosure of the draft report by the hon. Member constituted a substantial interference in the work of the Committee. It is for the Privileges Committee to investigate such allegations, but we felt that in this case there were complications which made it desirable to ask the commissioner to conduct an investigation on our behalf. Not least among the reasons for this were media allegations that the hon. Member had benefited financially from his actions. I wish to stress from the start that those allegations were unsubstantiated and were dismissed by the commissioner as groundless. The Privileges Committee agrees completely with that finding.
The commissioner reported to the Standards Committee, as required under Standing Orders. In view of her conclusions that the case touched on matters of privilege, the Committee referred the commissioner’s report to us for adjudication. On behalf of the Privileges Committee, I thank the commissioner for her thorough investigation and the Standards Committee for its co-operation.
There have been three separate inquiries into the allegations and at each stage the hon. Gentleman made no attempt to deny his role in these events. Instead, he has continually apologised unreservedly. Our role on the Privileges Committee is therefore less concerned with what happened. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman disclosed the draft report without authority and therefore committed a contempt of the House. I am more concerned about what sanctions should be applied as a result.
In 2008, the then Standards and Privileges Committee concluded that the unauthorised disclosure of a draft report or of advice to a Select Committee not only betrays confidence but can damage trust between Members, and between those who work for or with them. It also undermines the effectiveness of the Committee’s work. Leaking is a reprehensible act. In any case, where the Committee is able to discover the source of a leak it will be prepared to recommend appropriately severe sanctions. There is no doubt that the hon. Gentleman’s actions did have a significant effect on the work of the Committee and so more than an apology is in order. We now turn to mitigating factors.
The Privileges Committee explored with the hon. Gentleman his motives for sharing the draft report and his grasp of the confidential nature of such documents at the time he committed the contempt. It was clear to the Committee that he did not act out of financial gain and was not seeking to ensure that the views of Wonga were written into the report. Instead, this was part of a long-running campaign he had led against payday lenders. He described his actions as the result of his own naiveté and stupidity. We accept that this was the case. We also accept the sincerity of his apologies and have borne in mind his full co-operation with all the inquiries into his behaviour.
Turning to sanctions, there are few precedents for this kind of case. In 1999, there were two cases involving the passing on of draft reports to the Government, which we consider to be more serious than the circumstances we are currently examining. In those cases, one Member was suspended for 10 sitting days and another was suspended for five sitting days. Bearing in mind the mitigating factors above, but also the undoubted seriousness of the offence in the hon. Gentleman’s case, we have recommended a personal statement to the House and a suspension for two sitting days. The hon. Member made a personal statement at the first possible opportunity: on the day the report was published. I ask the House today to approve our recommendation on suspension as proportionate to the offence and as a clear message to others inside and outside the House that leaking Select Committee papers is wrong and will be met with appropriate sanctions where the source of the leak is identified.
Question put and agreed to.
Neighbourhood Planning Bill
Monday 10th October 2016
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 View all Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Sajid Javid)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I welcome the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) to her new position. I wish her and her team all the very best.
I have been a Member of this House for six-and-a-half years. In the countless contacts I have had with my constituents over that time, one issue has come up more often and more consistently than any other: housing. I am sure other hon. Members would say the same. Whether it is a lack of affordable accommodation, standards not being met, calls for housing to be built on one site or campaigns against it being built on another, the subject dominates inbox, postbag and surgery alike. Meeting that challenge requires action on many fronts, but at the heart of it all is the need for a clear, fair and, above all, effective planning system.
My two Conservative predecessors at the Department for Communities and Local Government did more to reform planning than all their Labour counterparts combined. More than 1,000 pages of policy was reduced to just 50 and the Housing and Planning Act 2016 did much to streamline and speed up the process. It is a record of real action and real change that is already paying off. The year 2015 saw more planning permissions delivered than in any year since records began. Almost 900,000 new homes have been delivered in England alone since the start of 2010.
As I said just last week, however, there is much more to do. The Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that, if we are going to build a Britain that works for everyone, we need a housing market that works for everyone. That means doing still more to tackle the housing shortage by giving communities greater certainty over development and reducing the time it takes to get from planning permission to completion. This Bill will help us to do just that.
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way so early. He is quite right about the inbox: this subject dominates so much of the dealings we have with our constituents. There are two areas the Bill does not cover that I think it ought to. I wonder if, over the course of the next few weeks, he and his fellow Ministers could consider whether the Bill should be amended to deal with them.
The first point is that inspectors, on dealing with developers’ appeals, take into account the number of planning permissions given but not the number of housing starts. Planning permissions are in the hands of the district planning authority, but housing starts are in the hands of the developer. If the developer will not make use of the planning permission, it is unfair on the district council and unfair on the affected neighbourhood that does not want to see the planning go ahead.
Secondly—I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will be very, very quick indeed—in relation to matters going up to an inspector, I gather from the Minister for Housing and Planning that they cannot be called in once they have gone to the inspector, but they ought to be if there is to be any even-handed justice and equality of arms.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Just before the Secretary of State responds, my patience with and tolerance of the extremely long intervention by the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not to be taken as a precedent.
Sajid Javid
My right hon. and learned Friend makes some very good points. The first part of his question was whether we might be able to take some of them into account in the Bill. I anticipate that at some point there will very likely be some amendments to the Bill. If that is the case, they will of course be discussed properly at that time. He made some suggestions that I will think about carefully, in particular regarding what some people call “landbanking” by certain developers.. I talked about that very important point last week in my party conference speech. It is something on which we will be taking further action.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)
Might the Secretary of State also consider amendments that focus on the sustainability of new housing, in particular moving towards carbon-neutral housing, which also has the benefit of reducing cost to occupiers because of lower energy costs?
Sajid Javid
The right hon. Gentleman will know that several initiatives are already in place to make sure that new development is sustainable. A review is looking at what further measures we could take.
Neighbourhood plans are a key part of the Bill. Not all planning takes place at local authority level. Neighbourhood development plans, which were introduced in 2011, have proved to be extremely effective. Far from being a so-called nimby’s charter, some neighbourhood groups with plans in force have planned for housing numbers above the number set by the local authority for that area. Those communities have, on average, planned for 10% more homes. Neighbourhood planning gives residents and businesses greater certainty about developments in their area, ensuring that they have a choice on how best to meet local housing needs.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
The Bill contains some excellent provisions on neighbourhood planning, but neighbourhood plans are predicated on a local plan being in place. I represent two authorities: one has a local plan and the other does not. Will the Secretary of State, either through the Bill or otherwise, take strong action against those authorities that do not have a local plan in place?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend makes a good point about the lack of consistency in approach by neighbourhoods. So far some 2,000 community groups have got together, out of which some 240 neighbourhood plans have been adopted. We would like to see a lot more, and these measures will achieve just that. My hon. Friend will know that giving communities greater influence over the planning process can reduce the number of objections to planning applications so that more homes can be built more quickly.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
The introduction to the Bill says that one of its central aims is strengthening neighbourhood planning and giving local people more certainty over where homes will be built in their area. The Minister for Housing and Planning has said that putting power into the hands of local people to decide where development occurs is a key objective. The Secretary of State will be aware that Birmingham’s Labour council wishes to build 6,000 homes on the Sutton Coldfield green belt and no account has been taken of the virtually unanimous opposition of the royal town’s 100,000 residents, who have been completely disfranchised. Will he agree to take account of the unanimous view of the newly elected Sutton Coldfield town council, who are adamantly opposed to this on behalf of the 100,000 people they represent?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I have already made it clear that the first long intervention was not to be a precedent. This second long intervention is definitely not a precedent. I have been patient because this is the first day back, but perhaps Members who have served several decades in the House have forgotten that interventions have to be short. We have many Members wishing to speak this evening and I will have to impose a time limit, so it is simply wrong for interventions to take so long. Short interventions make good debate!
Sajid Javid
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) has spoken passionately about this issue before. I listened to him then and I have just listened to him again, and I will of course reflect on what he has said. I am sure he will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to talk about a specific planning application, but I will reflect on what he has just shared with the House.
The Housing and Planning Act reforms to speed up and simplify the process came into force just a few days ago, and the Bill will strengthen the process still further. It will make it easier to update a neighbourhood plan as local circumstances change. It will give communities confidence that advanced neighbourhood plans will be given proper consideration in planning decisions, and it will give neighbourhood plans full legal effect at an earlier stage.
Of course, there is no point giving control to communities if they do not know that they have it or lack the skills to use it. So the Bill will also require planning authorities to publish their policies for giving advice or assistance to neighbourhood planning groups. It will also allow the Secretary of State to require planning authorities to keep those policies up to date. These provisions will make the neighbourhood planning process fit for the future. They will make it more accessible for everyone, and they will ensure that neighbourhood plans are fully respected by decision makers.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Should the Bill become an Act, will there be any circumstances in which a local authority can overrule a neighbourhood development plan that has been duly endorsed by said authority?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman may be aware that for a neighbourhood plan to become effective it needs to be adopted. It will be looked at by the inspector and a local referendum will be held. As I mentioned earlier, some 240 plans have gone through that process and, when that happens, they need to be given due weight in the consideration of planning decisions.
John Mann
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way again. He will know that Bassetlaw has more local plans in process and agreed than anywhere else, so we do know a little bit about them. If he is saying that a local council or the Secretary of State can decide to overrule a local community that has been through a huge, state-funded consultation, had a referendum and decided where the housing will go, what is the point?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman will know that once a neighbourhood plan is adopted, it becomes statutory and is taken into account when planning decisions are made. It is not a question of a local authority overruling a neighbourhood plan; once it is adopted, it is part of the local plan, so they are part of the same package, when it comes to making those decisions. Local authorities do not have the right to overrule a plan once it has been adopted.
Local and neighbourhood plans are vital tools for delivering new planning permissions. If we are to tackle the housing deficit, it is crucial that shovels hit the ground as soon as possible once permission has been granted for a development. There are a number of reasons why that does not always happen. One is because too many planning authorities impose too many pre-commencement conditions that unreasonably hold up the start of construction.
Of course, conditions can play a vital role. They ensure that important issues such as flood mitigation and archaeological investigation are undertaken at the right time. That is not going to change, but pre-commencement conditions should not be allowed to become unreasonable barriers to building. Not only do they delay the delivery of much-needed houses, but they create cash-flow issues for builders—something that is particularly problematic for smaller builders and new entrants to the market. To tackle this, the Bill reflects best practice by stopping pre-commencement conditions being imposed without the written agreement of the applicant. It will also create a power to restrict the use of certain other types of planning conditions that do not meet the well-established policy tests in the national planning policy framework. We are currently seeking views on both measures in a consultation paper published by my Department last month.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for taking a short lawyer’s intervention. When he is consulting on planning obligations, will he also consult on the option that was considered in the Housing and Planning Act 2016: the ability for local authorities to buy their own land with planning obligations, as the local planning authority? That would greatly speed up the redevelopment process in urban areas.
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend speaks with great experience on this subject, and it is something that I will consider.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the changes to pre-commencement regulations will not mean that developers will not be held to their obligations to develop the infrastructure surrounding new housing? It is often a real challenge for local communities if that is not delivered in a timely way.
Sajid Javid
I can assure my hon. Friend that the provisions will not mean that happens. Developers will still have clear obligations, and this process will ensure that they will be held to them.
The system of permitted development rights already offers a rapid means of turning commercial premises into much-needed homes. However, we lack accurate and precise data on how many homes are created in this way, which makes it all the harder to build the right number of homes in the right areas, so the Bill will create a requirement to record on the planning register certain applications made under permitted development rights. Collecting these data will bring more facts to the national conversation on house building, help communities to develop neighbourhood plans, and help planning authorities and inspectors to make informed, appropriate decisions. Such a move is long overdue.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Before my right hon. Friend moves on, may I ask whether he will use this Bill to clarify an issue that is much discussed in Wycombe: the status of green-belt land? Is it sacrosanct, or should local authorities review it with a view to getting their local plans through the inspector, who I am told will not pass local plans unless the green belt has been reviewed?
Sajid Javid
The Bill does not look at green-belt issues, and it does not change in any way the very important protections for the green belt. As my hon. Friend will know, green-belt development can be looked at only in the most exceptional circumstances, and the Bill will not change that.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Before my right hon. Friend moves on, I was wondering whether he would mention the privatisation of the Land Registry. I understood that that was to have been done under the Bill, but that no decision was taken, and that the issue was, in effect, kicked into the long grass. Has privatisation of the Land Registry gone? Could it be brought back? Where are the Government on the issue?
Sajid Javid
As my hon. Friend has rightly identified, measures on the Land Registry are not part of the Bill, and the decision on privatisation will be for the Government to make in the future; it will not form part of this Bill, nor will it be introduced into the Bill in any shape or form at a later date.
Part 2 concerns compulsory purchase. In an ideal world, such a process would not exist. I would always prefer to see agreement secured through negotiation. However, as a last resort, we all know that it is sometimes necessary, and when that is the case, it is right that the process operates clearly, quickly and, above all, fairly. That does not always happen. Part of the problem is that the process is governed by a complex patchwork of statute and case law that has built up over many years. This slows the process down, increases costs, and bewilders individuals who are caught up in it. Ultimately, it benefits nobody—with the possible exception of lawyers. Clauses 9 to 30 will tackle these issues, making the system more effective, more transparent, cheaper and easier to navigate. Untying the tangle of red tape will speed up the process. Once again, this will mean more homes—and the infrastructure that is required to support them—getting built more quickly.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
On the compulsory purchase clauses, what action have the Government taken adequately to consult with Welsh stakeholders, and to learn the lessons of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, given that the Assembly voted down a legislative consent motion relating to the Act on the grounds of insufficient consultation with Welsh stakeholders?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady will know that there has been widespread discussion, and we are still in discussions with the Wales Office and Welsh stakeholders on the issue that she raises.
The first set of provisions will make the process of compulsory purchase clearer. They include consistent rules for temporary possession of land where a permanent compulsory purchase is not required, giving all relevant bodies the same powers. The Bill also establishes a clear and coherent framework for compensation in such cases, filling a long-standing gap in the law and ensuring that all landowners are treated fairly. It sets out exactly what a property owner’s rights and options are when faced with a temporary possession; it is the first time that has been enshrined in primary legislation. The Bill also provides a clearer way to identify market value, making it quicker and easier to agree compensation.
At the moment, the price paid for property subject to compulsory purchase is assessed in the so-called “no scheme world”. This is the market value of land if there were no threat of compulsory purchase, not taking account of any increase or decrease caused by the scheme. The no scheme world is a mixture of obscurely worded statute and over 100 years of sometimes conflicting case law. This Bill brings things up to date; it clarifies and codifies the no scheme world, without altering its core principles, to provide a clearer starting point for all compensation payments.
The new provisions put mayoral development corporations on the same footing as new town and urban development corporations for the purposes of assessing compensation, and extend the definition of “scheme” in those limited circumstances in which regeneration is enabled by a transport project. The Bill repeals redundant legislation that allowed additional compensation to be negotiated after the original settlement. This will further reduce the potential for confusion and uncertainty.
The next set of provisions make the process faster. They create a statutory deadline for bringing confirmed compulsory purchase orders into effect. They also allow Transport for London and the Greater London Authority to make a single, overarching compulsory purchase order for transport and regeneration purposes. At present, they have to artificially divide projects and run parallel processes. This causes unnecessary cost, confusion and delay to much-needed development.
The final clauses will make compulsory purchase fairer. In particular, they ensure that where property is acquired by compulsion, the compensation entitlement is fair to all business tenants occupying the property. They will align the disturbance compensation entitlement of businesses with minor or unprotected tenancies with the more generous entitlement of licensees.
There are already many excellent examples of local authorities working together to meet the housing needs of their areas. Through devolution deals, we have seen combined authorities’ ambitions to bring forward strategic plans that address the needs of real-world communities, rather than of administrative divisions. I want to see more of this. I want more joint planning, more tiers of government working together and, of course, more plans put in place. I want all areas to have one. Failing to put a plan in place creates uncertainty among communities, who are left with no idea of what will be built where, and it creates resentment when developments are eventually imposed through speculative applications.
The House will not be surprised to learn that I agree with the central thrust of the local plans expert group’s recommendations in this area. We need more co-operation and joint planning. The requirement to have a plan should not be in doubt, and the process for putting a plan in place needs to be streamlined. As the expert group set out, most of those changes can and should be made through national policy and guidance, rather than through primary legislation. Should primary legislation be required, I look to use this Bill as the vehicle for it. If we do use the Bill in that way, we will of course ensure that the House has sufficient time to consider the provisions.
In conclusion, we have a nationwide shortage of high-quality, secure, affordable housing. To tackle this, we need new ideas, new policies and new legislation. This Bill provides a solid foundation on which to build. The Bill gives greater responsibility to local communities, letting them decide what sort of development they should have, and where it should take place. It removes more of the red tape that all too often delays construction. It gives us more of the data we need to make informed decisions about planning, and brings the compulsory purchase system firmly into the 21st century, turning it into a well-tuned machine for making development happen. Moreover, the Bill has been welcomed by the British Property Federation, the Royal Town Planning Institute and many others. Above all, the Bill will make it easier to build the homes that our children and grandchildren are crying out for. That is why I am delighted to commend it to the House.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I would like to put on record my thanks to the Secretary of State for his warm welcome.
The Neighbourhood Planning Bill does not appear at first glance to be a controversial one. Indeed, it includes many measures that we support. There are, however, elements of the Bill that could be strengthened or amended, so it was good to hear the Secretary of State say that he might be open to amendments in Committee. Labour Members will support appropriate measures that seek to streamline the delivery of much-needed new homes and further engage local people in the shaping of their communities.
We urgently need new homes, so it is a shame that the Bill misses measures to achieve what was announced in the Queen’s Speech in May, namely putting the National Infrastructure Commission on a statutory footing. However, we are pleased that, following pressure from both sides of the House, the unnecessary step to privatise the Land Registry has been dropped. That has been warmly welcomed by almost everybody in the housing sector, but the Bill must be seen in context, and it cannot be detached from the wider housing crisis we currently face.
The Government say that the aim of the Bill is to free up more land for new housing and to expedite the beginning of building once planning permission has been granted. We face the biggest housing crisis in a generation and urgently need more homes, and the Bill does not go far enough to provide them. The Bill could do so much more to encourage development and engage local residents in the process.
The Bill introduces measures in four key areas: neighbourhood planning, planning conditions, the planning register and compulsory purchase orders. The proposals on neighbourhood planning will allow neighbourhood plans to influence the planning process at an earlier stage, and will help to streamline the making and revision of neighbourhood plans. We support measures to streamline neighbourhood planning and to promote the ability of local residents to participate, but the Bill raises a number of questions. First, as the British Property Federation has noted, greater clarity is needed on the level and weight attributed to neighbourhood plans at every stage of their preparation. For example, more clarity is needed on whether a general direction of travel of a neighbourhood plan would be considered in the determination of a planning application.
Secondly, there is huge concern surrounding resources and the impact that the measure will have on our already stretched local planning authorities. Many of them already lack the resources they need to promote quality placemaking. The new measures make significant demands in terms of time and resources, and many planning departments are working on local plans before the deadline next year. How will the Minister ensure that they will be able to resource both adequately? Local authorities have a statutory duty to support neighbourhood planning groups and to provide a local plan. That could present problems for smaller district councils that have limited resources and capacity to respond to multiple pressures.
Teresa Pearce
I would rather not give way because many hon. Members want to speak and we are short of time.
The Bill needs further measures to clarify the true costs of neighbourhood plans. Currently, councils receive £5,000 for each neighbourhood plan area designated, and £20,000 for each neighbourhood plan referendum, but those figures are the same regardless of the number of electors or the complexity or size of the neighbourhood plan. The costs can exceed the moneys that the council receives.
In addition, neighbourhood planning must be open to all, and disadvantaged communities need to be able to participate. Neighbourhood planning comes with complexities and can require professional support. Planning Aid England and the RTPI help to support groups across the country pro bono, but the Government should adequately support local planning authorities and local communities to shape development in their areas.
The Bill allows the Secretary of State to prescribe when councils should review their statement of community involvement, but why are local councils, which understand their communities and can respond directly to local needs, not trusted to decide when to review their statements of community involvement? Why cannot that be decided at local level rather than being imposed from above? A better balance can be achieved, possibly through amendments in Committee.
The British Property Federation has made a number of recommendations on neighbourhood planning that the Government have failed to explore, including ensuring that neighbourhood plans are consistent with and conform to the national planning policy framework, and setting a minimum turnout threshold in referendums on the adoption of neighbourhood plans. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister is receptive to those suggestions.
The greatest concern in the Bill is on pre-commencement planning conditions. Councils approve almost nine of every 10 planning applications and there is little evidence to suggest that development is being delayed by pre-commencement planning conditions. There has been a cautious reception for the Bill from the sector. London Councils has said that there is little robust evidence to suggest that the current planning conditions system has led to an under-supply of housing.
Chris Philp
Before being elected to the House, I ran a business that financed construction projects. I have to tell the hon. Lady that people engaged in such projects frequently complain about the onerous conditions. To give one example, they complain about the requirement to have a bat survey.
Chris Philp
And newt surveys. Such surveys can be done only at certain times of the year. That is a very onerous and often very serious set of conditions.
Teresa Pearce
I am very interested in the hon. Gentleman’s previous employment, but people always complain about restrictions. Our job is to balance the complaints of the developer against what is best for a local community. I am yet to see firm statistical evidence of how much pre-commencement planning conditions restrict building.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Gavin Barwell
If the hon. Lady is not inclined necessarily to listen to the voice of developers, may I refer her to the representations all hon. Members have received from the District Councils Network? It states:
“The DCN has acknowledged that the discharge of planning conditions can be a factor in slow decision making and supports the government in seeking to address conditions.”
Teresa Pearce
I thank the Minister for his intervention but I would like to see real statistical evidence. Are we trying to solve a problem that does not exist? We all have anecdotal evidence, but perhaps in Committee we will see more evidence.
It is my experience that some developers welcome pre-commencement planning conditions because they enable planning permission to be secured without finalising the full details. It can save work duplication. For example, a developer may not wish to spend significant amounts of time deciding between different types of render for the outside of a development when they know it could be agreed at a later date. Indeed, a condition could be established in the consent to match the local area and street scene.
London Councils says that the measure will put considerable strain on the resources of local planning authorities. It proposes that a better solution would be to promote best practice in pre-application discussions between developers and local planning authorities. There are questions on the process. For example, what if late representations are received, and what if a councillor wishes to add a pre-commencement condition on the night of the planning committee?
Behind that lies the fact that pre-commencement planning conditions are not a bad thing. They have an important role in securing sustainable development that is careful and considerate of local communities. Conditions should be imposed only when consent would not be acceptable without them. By allowing room for negotiation, we are changing the nature of how conditions are set and their purpose. We could inadvertently either encourage inappropriate development by lowering our standards of acceptable development or, when disagreement arises between applicant and planning authority, discourage developers from building, which no hon. Member wants. There are questions about whether the measure is necessary. I look forward to seeing the stats behind it to show that it is. There is an existing framework for applicants to appeal specific conditions that they consider do not meet the national policy tests.
If we are to proceed, it is essential to ensure that the Bill does not have unintended negative consequences. Greater clarity is needed on appeal routes when agreement cannot be reached, and on pre-completion and pre-occupation conditions. It is right that there is a public consultation, but even if the Bill becomes law, I do not anticipate it adding any of the extra homes that we urgently need. It is not pre-commencement planning conditions that slow planning consent, but the chronic underfunding of local planning authorities. It is not pre-commencement planning conditions that slow construction, but the drastic skills shortage in the construction sector. It is not pre-commencement planning conditions that slow new schemes coming forward, but the lack of strategic infrastructure involvement.
Teresa Pearce
I am afraid I need to move on because many hon. Members wish to speak and the hour is late. [Interruption.] There are lots of Government Members.
The Bill makes provision for permitted development to be recorded on the planning register. Given the existing pressures and further commitments in the Bill— I have mentioned the wider question of resourcing—I should like the Minister to consider the funding of planning authorities. When local authorities are pressed for resources—they must decide, for example, between child protection and adult social services—planning is often squeezed.
The Bill attempts to streamline compulsory purchase powers, and includes temporary possession of land to enable schemes to store equipment and machinery so that they can be delivered. The temporary possession of land has been used widely in my constituency under the Crossrail Act 2008. The proposed changes to compulsory purchase orders would enable councils to capture the value from increased land prices to invest in the local infrastructure needed to complement and facilitate new housing schemes. While that can accelerate development, CPOs still require approval from the Secretary of State. Nevertheless, it is hoped that those measures will help to encourage development.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the Bill is what is not in it. Along with the Local Government Association and others, we welcome the news that the Government have not included the planned privatisation of the Land Registry. Will the Minister clarify whether the initiative to privatise the Land Registry has bitten the dust? Has it been kicked into the long grass or is in the rubbish bin?
The Bill is quite different from the measure outlined in the Queen’s Speech earlier this year. The Prime Minister said in her conference speech last week,
“something…we need to do: take big, sometimes even controversial, decisions about our country’s infrastructure.”
However, in the Bill, the Government’s proposal to place the National Infrastructure Commission on a statutory footing has been withdrawn. I hope that the Government will think again.
The Bill aims to build houses, but it does nothing to build communities. The failure to provide the commission with statutory powers to enable strategic decision making on infrastructure is a missed opportunity to tackle the housing crisis. The House Builders Association, which represents small and medium-sized builders, said that the Bill was unlikely meaningfully to increase supply.
This is the sixth piece of legislation in the past six years to make provision for planning. Another Bill passes and the Government fail adequately to resource planning departments, which have faced a 46% cut in funding over the past five years. A recent survey by the British Property Federation identified under-resourcing as the primary cause of delays to development. Another Bill passes, and the Government fail to increase the transparency of viability assessments, which many people believe is the key to ensuring that there is sufficient and appropriate affordable housing. Another Bill passes and we are no closer to developing garden cities and new towns, which we need to build to ensure that our children and our children’s children can find a home of their own.
The Bill will not deliver social housing and the genuinely affordable homes that are desperately needed. It will not provide facilities on new housing developments that are required to build communities, and it is unlikely to facilitate opportunities for the struggling SME builder, or tackle the growing skills crisis in the construction sector. The Bill has failed to tackle those issues, but I am interested to hear the Minister say that there is an appetite to look at the Bill and perhaps amend it in Committee. If it is not amended, the missed opportunity will manifest itself in a continued housing crisis until the Government can step up and match their rhetoric with substance.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
I have to admit that I did not expect to be stirred by the statements of the shadow Secretary of State, but her remarks about clause 7 would strike anyone who has been engaged with the planning system over the past many years as quite extraordinary. Pre-commencement conditions imposed by local authorities are a major cause of delay and also distract the officials who she complained were underfunded. One reason why they are over-occupied is that they are too preoccupied issuing absurd pre-commencement conditions that are not properly enforced and lead to massive delays in the process. I warmly welcome clause 7, and hope that the regulations introduced by the Secretary of State will be extremely strong on that issue and will be accompanied by measures to enable us to do in parallel what is currently done in sequence. It takes about two years on average from the time of the first application to the actual completion of homes. Other countries manage that in a year or less, and we could too if processes that are currently done repetitively and in sequence were done in parallel and singly. I hope that we will see those regulations as the Bill proceeds.
Those of us who have been involved with neighbourhood planning since the Conservatives first introduced the proposals—amazingly, nine years ago—are conscious of its huge success. We were told at the beginning that it would be a nimby’s charter, as the Secretary of State rightly mentioned. We were told by others that it would never grip the nation and that there would not really be any neighbourhood plans, but we find that they have been introduced in some 2,000 places. Judging by my constituency, that is the beginning of a tidal wave: more than half the villages of West Dorset intend to engage in neighbourhood planning, and that is increasingly the case for the towns as well. There is no doubt, as the Secretary of State rightly said, that the measure is far from being a nimby’s charter, but as communities engage in neighbourhood planning they wrestle with two conflicting issues: their desire to preserve the look and feel of the places in which they live, which is a reasonable human desire; and the desire that their children and grandchildren should be able to find a home in the locality. I do not know whether the Secretary of State has experienced this, but people have come to my constituency surgery in tears because they could not get a foot on the housing ladder. I cannot remember another subject that has provoked that kind of emotional intensity. For families who have grown up, in some cases over hundreds of years, in small villages where they simply have not been able to build, this is liberation. It has been brought about by neighbourhood planning, because the community feels that it can control the shape and character of what is built so that it is appropriate to the location. That is not something that can be judged from miles away: it is judged on the spot by the locals, and it is a huge success. I therefore warmly welcome clauses 1, 2 and 5, which are the guts of the Bill.
I want to make a few observations about things that I hope can be developed in Committee and on Report. Clause 5 deals with assistance for neighbourhood plans. I had hoped that it would be a little stronger and meatier. It simply requires local authorities to produce an explanation of what they will do to support neighbourhood planning. That is fine—there is nothing wrong with that at all—but I know local authorities, and I suspect that the Department does too, that will write any number of plans and do absolutely nothing. What is needed is the ability for neighbourhoods—in some cases, hard-pressed neighbourhoods that do not have much money; in other cases, neighbourhoods that are small parishes that do not have much money—to get on with the job of neighbourhood planning. I do not think that anyone can expect the public purse to meet those costs, so we need to examine the proposal introduced by the National Association of Local Councils for more of the community infrastructure levy to be devoted to neighbourhood plans, at least when they introduce local development orders, which are extremely effective. We should also look at the possibility of a loan arrangement, in which money from the community infrastructure levy for a neighbourhood plan is used to repay or defray the costs of engaging in the exercise.
It is not a simple exercise. In most neighbourhoods that I have visited up and down the country, and in my own constituency, hundreds of people get involved and it is quite a management exercise. Neighbourhoods can only do it if they employ one or two people who can put the vision up on the board, explain what is proposed, and go through the detailed process—the examination, the referendum and so on—which requires up-front funding. I hope that that can be looked at.
Finally, clauses 1 and 2 are long overdue. In retrospect, we should have introduced them right at the beginning, in the 2010 legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and I were both involved in that, and it is great to see weight being given to post-examination, as in clause 1, and it is absolutely right that post-referendum neighbourhood plans should go into local development plans even if the local authority does not, for one reason or another, complete the task of introducing them. That is an excellent provision in clause 2. However, my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) made a point that is highly relevant. As the Secretary of State said, there are too many local authorities that have not yet introduced new-style local development plans. Unless the neighbourhood plan is couched in terms of a new-style local development plan with a proper strategic grip it is impossible to formulate the right kind of neighbourhood plan, which must conform to the strategic considerations of the local development plan. In some cases, I fear, local authorities have discovered that they can stymie the ability of neighbourhoods to produce neighbourhood plans simply by being recalcitrant about producing new-style development plans.
Given that, in clause 7, the Secretary of State is rightly taking powers to make regulations relating to pre-commencement conditions, I think he should at least consider the possibility of taking further powers to force local authorities to produce new-style local development plans, or else simply to allow a neighbourhood plan to stand in as the development plan for that neighbourhood, sui generis. Either would do, but I think that something must be done to address the problem raised by my hon. Friend.
Having said that, I will end by saying that the Bill is a progressive piece of legislation which should be welcomed throughout the House and throughout the country, because it may help our children and grandchildren to have the homes that they need.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I must congratulate the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on a perfect speech. In my opinion, of course, the content does not count; what counts is merely the length, in precise minutes. I was about to say to the House—but the right hon. Gentleman has illustrated my point perfectly—that if everyone who wishes to take part in the debate speaks for between seven and eight minutes, as the right hon. Gentleman has just done, everyone will have the opportunity to speak, and there will be no need for a formal time limit. If Members do not stick to a self-imposed time limit, there will be a formal time limit, which makes for much less easy-flowing debate.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Before I express my agreement with the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on one important point, let me congratulate the Secretary of State on his brilliant campaign 18 months ago to stop the development of more than 2,000 houses, which was well advertised in his local newspaper. He is truly the king of the nimbys—or, as some would say, he is backing his constituents and his local communities. That contrasts slightly with the message that I understand him to have conveyed somewhere last week when he was attacking the nimbys, because over the past two or three years, following his successful campaign, he has been the greatest of all the nimbys in the House.
I should like to see precisely what the right hon. Member for West Dorset proposed. If a neighbourhood goes through the pain and democracy of agreeing on where more houses should be built in its community, which is part of the requirement of a neighbourhood development plan, and if that is agreed by referendum and endorsed by the local council, it should not be possible to overrule such a level of democracy; but it is.
For example, at the most recent planning committee meeting in the Sturton ward in Bassetlaw, which I know extremely well, the neighbourhood development plan was overruled because the planning officers pointed to the Government’s five-year housing land supply, as identified by the developer. They said, “You can’t have that; you’ve got to have this.” In other words, they said, “You have a plan. You have specified where the housing should be, and what type of housing it should be. A huge number of members of the community participated in the consultation, there was a massive turnout for the ballot, and the plan was unanimously adopted by the district council, but you cannot do it, because Big Brother”—the king of the nimbys—“says that you have to have this, because you have not got enough housing.” However, they had just agreed that they would have more housing. The people who had agreed to have more housing were overruled, which is a total nonsense. The Government could do something about it today, but if they feel that they do not have the necessary power they could stick it in the Bill and then some of us would be happy, because that would be local democracy.
It is not true that the Government are not responsible for the delays in local development plans. On 1 March 2013, 95% of councils in England had to start their development plans again because of a change in the rules that was announced out of the blue, whereby everyone had to consult every adjoining authority. That is why there has been a delay in my area, which, proportionally, has more neighbourhood development plans either agreed or under way than anywhere else in the country. We have adopted this philosophy. I have argued the case in communities throughout my constituency. However, the whole process has to start again because we have not consulted Sheffield, Mansfield and other places that are nowhere near the 500 square miles of Bassetlaw.
That is a nonsense, and the Government could do something about it instantly. Our plan would be speeded up overnight if that happened. The public would be consulted, and would agree where housing should go. The Government would get their numbers, and we would get our housing everywhere. Even Bromsgrove would get the housing that it needs.
Let me give a couple of examples of the beauty of neighbourhood development plans. The Sturton ward provides one of the prime examples in the country of how a development plan should be written: an environmentally green development plan that specifies the kind of energy that we want in the community, the implication being that priority in new housing will go to developers who use green technologies. That is a community which is looking to the future and encouraging the right kind of housing. Such planning will enhance green technologies in this country, unlike the arbitrary wind farms and so forth which communities, strangely, do not like. Let communities have control through their development plans. The Government could announce that today—and that is my second request to the Minister.
When mayors are coming to city regions like the new Sheffield city region of which Bassetlaw will doubtless become a part, we should let those new mayors have the appeals. Let us localise the process more, so that there is more accountability, which will mean more housing rather than less. Let us take the process away from the Minister and the Minister’s officials. Surely that appeals to Tory Back Benchers and their sense of community.
Another big plan of which we in Bassetlaw are pioneers is the urban neighbourhood development plan. Virtually everywhere in the country has villages and parishes with parish precepts. They have a bit of money, and they have a democratic structure—rightly so—and that includes parts of my area. But how can such plans be created in an urban area where there is no such structure? It is necessary to think imaginatively. We had the great historic priory church and the Chesterfield canal, and we said to the community, “This is why the church is here, and this is how houses have developed. The church, as an institution and as a building, formed the centre of the community.” Neighbourhood planning of that kind would transform urban environments through lateral thinking. As for funding, hopefully the Canal & River Trust might lend us a plan or put in a bit of money, because the development of the canal would obviously be in its interests.
We have recreated the old, traditional church community. Imagine how planning in this country would have developed if the same had been done in the case of great cathedrals such as St Paul’s 30 years ago! Perhaps people who would visit the other place rather than here would be happy about what might have happened at St Paul’s.
The ability to define community by what has historically been there—waterways, forests and churches—is fundamental to the possibility of transforming urban planning through neighbourhood development planning. The key barrier will be money. That little impoverished community in my area around the great priory church, which was once the biggest church in the country—the end of the road through the forest, historically—has no funding itself, and has no structures for funding. We could have 30 or 40 urban neighbourhood development plans in my communities, but that would impose a huge burden on a small district council. The Government need to think about how to provide incentives, and get the models going. In Retford, for instance, the church is keen to be not just “church as building” but “church as the heart of the community”. Retford can lead the way in developing the built community around the church. Not just churches, but the many communities that have been built around those churches historically, need that kind of original thinking. That could be allowed, but the Government need to give a bit of flexibility. The powers that are local must be kept local. The Government must not overrule them.
Mark Pawsey
The hon. Gentleman is speaking with great eloquence about local powers. Would he care to tell us what happened to local powers between 1997 and 2010?
John Mann
The hon. Gentleman ought to know that neighbourhood planning had its origins in the 2003 legislation. That is how Bassetlaw got in first, and I have been around since then promoting it. The concept has been part of the planning arrangements since 2003.
I have endorsed the moves by the Government, except for the absurd one introduced on 1 March 2013 to stop all the development plans and frameworks that were in progress and delay them for three years. That was a chronic error on the part of past Ministers. I hope to hear from the Minister that the Secretary of State and the Government will not overrule neighbourhood development plans on appeal. They must send out the message that if a community takes responsibility for where its new housing and the rest of its developments should be, it will not be overruled by the Government. That could be done today; it would be a huge boost to communities across the country.
Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Finding a way to build the new homes we need while ensuring that we safeguard our green spaces and protect the character and quality of life in our urban and suburban neighbourhoods is one of the biggest challenges we face in modern Britain. We clearly have to respond to the concerns of the many young people who are finding it difficult to buy or rent the homes they want in the places where they want to live. In my view, however, it is also crucial that we do all we can to protect our open spaces, which play such an important role in the towns and cities of this great country of ours. As an MP representing a constituency that includes substantial areas of green-belt land, I am very much aware of how important it is to maintain full green-belt protection. I welcome the fact that the Bill is entirely consistent with that aim. It is crucial to prevent the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas, to conserve wildlife habitats and to provide crucial opportunities for outdoor health and sporting activities.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend also acknowledge that we need to conserve the ecology of such areas, especially through the use of hedgehog superhighways?
Mrs Villiers
I warmly agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment and commend his hedgehog campaign.
A number of provisions in the Bill will be helpful in delivering the new homes that we need and to which the Government are committed. We have had some helpful insight into how clauses 1 to 6 will help to strengthen neighbourhood planning and make it more effective. Establishing a register of prior approval applications for permitted development rights under clause 8 will also be welcomed, not least because of the concern felt about such rights. More visibility and transparency will be helpful in that regard. Clauses 9 to 30 look as though they will make the eye-watering complexity of some aspects of the compulsory purchase system somewhat easier to navigate. I hope that that will assist some of the major regeneration schemes.
However, a concern has been raised with me by my constituent Dr Oliver Natelson about the provisions in clause 7 on pre-commencement planning conditions, about which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) has spoken eloquently. Dr Natelson was worried when media coverage of the announcement of the Bill in the Queen’s Speech indicated that obligations to carry out archaeological and wildlife surveys would be “swept away”. I welcome the Secretary of State’s clarification on that today, and I invite the Minister to expand on it and to confirm that clause 7 will not restrict the power of local councils to impose the planning conditions necessary to make a development acceptable, including those relating to wildlife, habitats, flooding and heritage.
I would also urge the Minister to consider an important point that is not covered by the Bill. It relates to vacant public sector land. An example in my constituency is a site in Wood Street in High Barnet that is owned by the NHS but has not been used for many years and is becoming increasingly derelict. No matter how many times I raise this with the NHS, nothing seems to happen. In my view, it should take a decision either to use it for healthcare purposes or to sell it on so that it can be used for new homes or open space.
I should like to illustrate some of the general issues underlying the Bill and its objectives by considering the situation in my Chipping Barnet constituency. Over the last five years, around 5,300 new homes have been delivered in the borough of Barnet, including more than 2,000 affordable homes. This is the biggest programme of house building in outer London, and Barnet’s Conservative council plans to deliver another 20,000 homes over the next 10 years. In order to do that while conserving our precious green spaces and protecting the character of our suburban environment, the council has embarked on a number of large regeneration projects. These include four of the borough’s largest housing estates, one of which is Dollis Valley in my constituency. These regeneration projects are due to deliver 7,000 new homes—4,000 more than were previously on the estates—with a mix of social rent, affordable and market rate homes to buy. Although this work started over 10 years ago, it has much in common with the council estate regeneration strategy announced by the Government in February. By 2020, it is hoped that the council will have built 500 new council homes. So far, 40 have been built but the pace of delivery is increasing.
A key consideration in relation to planning and house building, whether in national debates in Parliament such as this one or in local discussions on development proposals, is whether the local infrastructure can cope with the new demands being placed on it. Locally in Barnet, work is under way to try to deliver this in relation to the housing schemes I have mentioned. For example, 10 new or replacement schools are planned across the borough at primary and secondary level, as well as new college and university buildings. I also warmly welcomed the recent opening of the Hope Corner community centre as part of the Dollis Valley regeneration scheme in my constituency, and I thank Barnet Council and Barnet Churches Action for enabling that to happen. I am sure that the community centre will be a great asset for the many new homes that are already being delivered as part of the regeneration.
However, issues surrounding infrastructure are sometimes difficult or impossible to resolve. In my constituency, that is particularly true when they relate to local roads and transport. This was one of the many reasons I opposed the redevelopment of Cat Hill on the boundary of my constituency. It is deeply regrettable that my constituents are already suffering the negative consequences of Enfield Council’s decision to grant planning permission for that project. I am also concerned about a proposal to redevelop the North London Business Park in the Brunswick Park area of my constituency. Many residents are strongly opposed to this plan, and understandably so. I try to support new homes where I can, but that application is just not acceptable. Some 1,200 new homes are proposed, including five blocks at least seven storeys high, with other blocks of up to 10 storeys high. As my constituent Gilbert Knight put it in his representations to the planning authority, this would be
“massive in scale and out of keeping with the surrounding low-rise residential areas”.
Another grave concern is the proposal to create an entrance to the site from Ashbourne Avenue. A similar proposal was rejected back in the 1960s because the roads could not cope with it, and I sincerely hope that it will be rejected again for that reason. That is one of the many reasons I am resolutely opposed to this development, alongside ward councillor Lisa Rutter.
I should like to move on to some happier examples in which the planning system looks as though it will deliver new homes in a way that is much more acceptable to local residents and much more in tune with the local environment. New Barnet provides an example of how active community associations can shape the character of their local neighbourhoods, defeat plans they do not like and still deliver significant numbers of new homes. In a four-year battle, the Save New Barnet campaign group defeated attempts by both Asda and Tesco for new supermarkets in the area. Rather than just opposing the plans, residents put forward a credible and workable alternative for new homes. Eventually, both supermarket giants gave up the struggle and decided that it was best to work with rather than against the local community. New homes have been built on the Tesco site, and around 364 are now likely to go ahead on the Asda land. There are still issues to be resolved, not least in ensuring that section 106 money goes to benefit the immediate surrounding area rather than being spent further afield. None the less, this is an illustration of how a system that has a very active role for local communities is not incompatible with delivering new homes, which is why I thought it was appropriate to refer to it in a debate on this Bill.
In conclusion, although the Bill provides some useful improvements to a number of aspects of the planning system, there are still some important issues with which to grapple. I will leave the Minister with a few questions about the Bill and the Government’s approach to delivering more homes. First, I would like his views on the calls by local authorities to be able to recover more clearly the costs of the planning process through the fees that they levy on applications made. Secondly, what further steps can be taken to ensure that landowners build the homes for which they have been given planning permission, rather than land banking them? Thirdly, what further action can be taken to help London residents to buy property in the capital and compete with investment buyers from around the world who are pushing up prices?
Finally, I wish to draw the House’s attention to some picturesque fields in the northern part of my constituency in High Barnet. This is known locally as Whalebones because of the whalebone gateway that frames the entrance to the land. With its field of geese, it is a local landmark that is held in great affection. Sadly, it is now under threat from development.
In my speech this evening, I have sought to emphasise some of the big efforts that are being made to deliver thousands of new homes in my local borough through regeneration and brownfield development. We need new homes, and this Bill will help to deliver more of them. We can build them without sacrificing vital green spaces such as Whalebones. That is why I will be campaigning with determination to protect this much-loved enclave of green space, which matters so much to my constituents in Chipping Barnet.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate on the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, and it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers).
I am a supporter of neighbourhood planning. Before entering this place, I spent my working life as a town planner seeking to involve and engage communities in planning policymaking. I know the benefits that come from giving communities the ability to shape planning policy and from giving that policy formal weight in the planning process. I therefore welcome the measures in this Bill, which will strengthen neighbourhood plans and neighbourhood planning. I also have concerns about several aspects of this Bill, which reflect my wider concerns about the Government’s approach to planning.
We have in the UK a strong plan-led system, which allows democratically elected local authorities to lay out the basis on which applications for new development will be considered. There is no excuse for not having a plan in place or for poor performance. Last year, the Government made that system less coherent with the introduction of permission in principle, which introduces a blunt form of zoning into our finely balanced plan-led system that is capable of balancing so many different interests and concerns to get to a good decision.
I am concerned that this Bill does nothing to address the serious under-resourcing of planning departments while also giving local authorities new responsibilities to resource neighbourhood planning. Resources for local planning departments have been cut by 46% in the past five years, and the British Property Federation—not councils themselves but the private sector—identifies that this under-resource is the primary cause of problems in the planning system. During debates on the Housing and Planning Bill, I argued that councils should be able to recover the full cost of development management services through fees. I was very disappointed that the Government rejected that proposal at the time, and I hope that the new Minister will reconsider it. It is a common-sense proposal that will make a huge difference to efficient planning decision making.
Councils must also be properly resourced to support neighbourhood planning, Involving and engaging communities is resource intensive, particularly in areas where there are high levels of deprivation, but unless it is done properly we will not have neighbourhood plans that fully represent the views of the local community. Sadly, it remains the case that those in our communities who often stand to gain the most from the things that planning can deliver—for example those in housing need—are often those whose voices are not heard in debates about planning policy, and that must change.
I am concerned that this Bill proposes to water down pre-commencement conditions. Planning conditions are one of the significant levers that local planning authorities have to secure the best possible outcomes for communities. Very often, the things that form the basis for conditions are make or break issues for communities—anything from providing additional sewer capacity to the choice of bricks. Conditions should not be unreasonable, but it should remain the prerogative of the local authority to decide what conditions best protect the interests of local residents. The idea that conditions can be imposed only following the written agreement of the developer greatly underestimates the role that conditions play in ensuring good outcomes. This proposal also sets up an unnecessarily adversarial relationship between applicant and local authority where, in reality, it is best practice for the parties to come together to discuss and agree conditions through the pre-application process. I hope that the Government will reconsider this proposal.
I am concerned that the measures in this Bill relating to permitted development rights do not even begin to address the problems that are being caused by the extension of those rights to allow the conversion of offices to residential without planning consent. In London, the policy is having a detrimental effect on the supply of business space in some areas. We are also seeing new homes being delivered without regard for the physical infrastructure or public services to support an increasing population because they are not subject to section 106 agreements. We are seeing new homes being delivered without regard to minimum space standards or the types of homes that are most needed. Most importantly, we are seeing new homes being delivered with no affordable housing being provided in areas where it is desperately needed.
Instead of tinkering with the policy around permitted development rights, the Government should be radically rethinking it so that all new homes are subject to the full requirements of the planning process and developers are not able to profit from new homes without contributing to the green space, play space, school places and medical facilities that their residents will need in the future.
Fundamentally, this is a tinkering piece of legislation when we need major reform. It is polishing the bannister when the staircase is falling down. The housing crisis is one of the most significant issues facing our country. The planning system is critical to delivering both the new homes that we need and the successful communities that we want to see. This is no less than a debate about the future of our communities for our children and our grandchildren, the kind of places that we want them to be able to live in and the quality of life that we want them to have. Properly resourced planning is a tool for delivery not a barrier—a tool for ensuring fair outcomes and high quality. Instead of this paltry Bill, the Government should be setting out a vision for planning and for involving communities in planning; bringing forward a national infrastructure commission on a statutory footing, because infrastructure is critical to the delivery of new homes; building up our plan-led system as the basis for certainty in decision making; establishing a basis in legislation for new towns and garden cities; setting a context for communities and councils to come together to plan for the future; and resourcing councils to build the genuinely affordable council homes that we so desperately need. As this Bill passes through Parliament, I hope that the Government will take the opportunity to reconsider it and to make it fit for the challenges that we face.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). I agreed with some of the things that she said, and certainly with the emphasis that she placed on infrastructure and the need to get it right. We have a strange system in which we bring forward development as if it is a bad thing, and put in facilities—she mentioned green spaces, but there are many other things that communities want, such as health facilities and primary schools—afterwards to mitigate the “bad effects” of development. However, recognising that the words “cities” and “civic” are cognate with “civilisation”, we should be bringing forward holistic schemes that create good places in the first instance.
I disagreed with the hon. Lady, though, when she nearly made it sound as though the planning system would be almost as perfect a work of art as any rendered by Leonardo da Vinci were it not for one thing—the way that not enough taxpayers’ money was being hosed over the planning departments of this country. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) said something similar. It seems to me that the problems are rather more fundamental.
I welcome the Bill, mainly because it gives people a local voice. I agree with all the views expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin); he is no longer here, so I shall not dwell on this, but I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is in his place. He is a great tribune of his constituents and is also the vice-chairman of the all-party group on self-build, custom and community house building and place-making, which has a longer name than any other all-party group as it is a better and more important all-party group than any other, with the possible exception of the all-party beer group. It recognises, as does the hon. Gentleman, that the really important thing about getting the voice right is that it should be the voice of the people who are going to live in the dwellings.
The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood said that the local planning system should embrace every single house, and talked about the colour of bricks as if it were a good thing that local councillors were deciding the colour of bricks. I had a conversation recently with a local house builder who had a plan for a very modern house. Naturally, he wanted a render that was appropriate for that. It was bright white. He had a conversation with his local planning officer—I am not making this up—who said, “No, no. It’s too white. It’s too stark. You shouldn’t do that,” so he asked the planning officer to look at the relevant page on the website and choose the colour. She was a little nonplussed by this, but the house builder said, “You don’t want the one that I want, so why don’t you choose one and save a lot of time?” Eventually she chose a colour, which he said he would change in due course if he did not like it. It ought not to be necessary to have such a conversation. I have met house builders who have had seven or eight choices of gutter colour refused.
Helen Hayes
In each of our constituencies, we can think of examples of developments that, because of poor finishing and poor-quality choices of building materials, blight their communities for decades. It is not a trivial point that I am making. Once something is built, it affects that community for many, many years to come. These things are important.
Mr Bacon
I agree that they are important. The best people to choose the quality of the materials, and to make sure that they are of the highest possible standard, are the people who will live in those dwellings, not somebody else working to a profit margin, which is why more self-build and custom house building will result in higher quality.
I said earlier that I agreed with the hon. Lady on the subject of the local voice. I support the Bill because we need more local voice. The fundamental problem we face is that when people oppose development, they do so not because they want to see their family in trouble or not having somewhere to live. I have yet to meet the woman who wants her daughter or granddaughter to live in a ditch, and I do not think I am going to meet that person. They oppose development because they feel that local people have no say—no voice—in what gets built, where it is built, what it looks like or who has the first chance to live there. If we change that, we change the conversation completely.
Another reason why self-build and custom house building driven by customers is so important is that instead of opposition, it is met with local acceptance. I know that the chairs of many parish councils want to see dwellings in their local areas designed by local people for local people, to help local people. Of course, that also has the benefit of helping local house builders—local small and medium-sized enterprises, rather than large combines such as Persimmon, which are interested only in the bonus pool, which will result in 150 top managers getting a £600 million bonus pot, if they do reasonably well; it will be larger than that if they do very well. That business, like the banks, has been propped up by huge amounts—many billions of pounds—of taxpayers’ money through Help to Buy and various other schemes. I would rather see that money going into higher-quality materials, better thermal performance and bigger spaces.
The fundamental question, which we have not been very good at answering so far, is why we have a shortage. People give different answers. We have heard about the lack of planning resource, although we have thousands of unbuilt extant planning permissions, so the reason can hardly be planning by itself. We often hear that there is a lack of land. Only 1.2% of the land area of this country is taken up with houses. The Ministry of Defence alone has 2% of the land area of the UK. There are more golf courses in Surrey than there are houses. The problem is not planning per se; it is a lack of accessible land, a lack of financeable propositions, rather than a lack of finance, and a planning model that is broken.
If we want to correct that, we need to put customers at the heart of that model—people who will live in those dwellings. The way to do that is to separate the business of placemaking—all the things that I am sure the hon. Lady would agree with: creating places that are well served, well designed, well run, well governed and well connected—from the business of building houses on infrastructure that is already in place, with well serviced plots that have all the things that we would expect, including fibre to the premises, water, gas and so on, provided by one of the many hundreds of suppliers. There is a growing market of people out there who are willing to supply the house that people want, rather than what a very small number of large companies are telling people that they want. We need to put the customer at the centre, as in all other successful markets. That is the way that we will solve the housing crisis.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), who is an authority on housing and planning. It did not take him long to get on to self-build homes.
It is a great pleasure to participate in a debate on planning—an area in which we get only one opportunity in many generations to get it right. Once land is developed, it stays developed for many years—perhaps several hundred years, if it is housing. We need to give more thought to getting that right. Development provides economic activity, the homes that are so badly needed, better conditions and a better environment.
Since the Localism Act 2011, the role of neighbourhood planning has been well entrenched as an integral part of our planning system. I am proud that in my constituency the 100th referendum has taken place in Coton Park. That arose as my constituency is the fastest-growing town in the west midlands. I am pleased that the neighbourhood plan was developed in an urban area. It was interesting that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) seemed to indicate that it was easy for villages to draw up a neighbourhood plan, but more challenging for urban areas. That certainly is the case. One of the first issues for Coton Park was identifying the area that the plan would relate to. I was very proud to add my foreword to its neighbourhood plan, and I would like to learn from its experience.
It is important to understand how the neighbourhood plan came about. This was a new community with housing that was built 10 or 15 years ago. There was no established community in the area. The community came together, interestingly, to oppose a planning application for industrial use close by. It argued its case and succeeded, causing the developer to change his plans for the site. I advised members of the community that, having come together to effect that change in planning, there was a strong reason for them to remain together and produce a neighbourhood plan that would influence future development in the area. They started in 2011 with their application for front-runner status. It took them until October 2014 to submit their neighbourhood plan, which went to a referendum in October 2015 and was finally approved in December last year.
Among the many observations I have about the plan, the first is that it took too long. The process took four years, and I am concerned that the time taken on the only such plan that has been prepared in my constituency will be a disincentive to other communities. It was my hope that, the community having been a front runner and having got its neighbourhood plan in place, I would see other communities in my constituency come forward. However, only four others have done so, which is disappointing. I hope that when he responds, the Minister will talk about ways of speeding up and simplifying the process. I am pleased to see the provisions in the Bill that require local authorities to set out the nature of the support that they are able to provide to communities. That will give those communities the confidence to embark on the project.
In Coton, the community was incredibly lucky to have a number of forum members who were not in full-time employment and were able to put in the work involved in developing the neighbourhood plan. That is pretty extensive. It involves surveying the entire area, talking to residents and getting those surveys back before starting the work of drawing up the document. Perhaps the Minister will speak about the level of detail required in some neighbourhood plans. In some instances, it goes too far, which exaggerates the amount of work and time required to develop the plan.
It is certainly harder for urban areas to bring forward a neighbourhood plan, but in constituencies such as mine, where the majority of development is focused in the urban areas, rural communities often wonder why they should bother with a neighbourhood plan when it is so much easier, cheaper and quicker to develop a parish plan. Parish plans do not carry the same weight within the planning system, of course, but if development is unlikely, there is a question mark over whether a community would want to go through the substantial amount of work involved in drawing up a neighbourhood plan.
However, there are some absolutely wonderful benefits of a community undertaking a neighbourhood plan, and one of them is that it gets new people involved in the democratic process. It strengthens local democracy and brings forward people we might not otherwise see. A great example is a lady called Jill Simpson-Vince, who chaired the Coton Park neighbourhood plan team. She had never considered getting involved in local democracy, but she was persuaded, through her involvement in the community, to become a councillor. She now chairs our local planning committee. Neighbourhood plans are therefore a great way of bringing people forward.
Of course, when people get engaged in that way, they become much more receptive to development, because they can have a hand in influencing exactly what takes place. The Secretary of State spoke about this earlier. Communities that develop their own neighbourhood plan tend to take, on average, 10% to 11% more housing than they otherwise would, because they find themselves in the driving seat. To pick up on the remarks from the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), where people can shape development, they will ensure better development. Sometimes it is hard to get a community to understand what good development is. They often know what bad development is, because they have seen it, but too often they do not recognise good development when they see it. However, if they are involved in a neighbourhood plan, they will go to places to see what good development is, and they will then be able to recognise what is good in their own neighbourhood plan.
I have one negative point to make. One experience from the Coton Park neighbourhood plan is that the community at times felt a little hamstrung by the control that the local planning authority held. For example, the grant that was provided to the community to develop the neighbourhood plan was initially devolved to the local authority, which led to a feeling within the neighbourhood plan team that the local authority had a say in what they were bringing forward. If the Minister can find some way to subvert that, so that the money goes directly to those communities, we will end up with better neighbourhood plans.
I want to thank the Royal Town Planning Institute and its team of Planning Aid officials. For example, a gentleman called Bob Keith provided expertise to Coton Park. I gather that that advice and expertise is being provided from other sources. It is incredibly important that a community that is coming together to draw up a plan has someone who can offer help and assistance but is not part of the local authority.
The success of Coton’s neighbourhood plan is that the team identified serious issues within their community, particularly with access roads and existing roundabouts. The area covered by the neighbourhood plan has been extended and will include Coton Park East, and the developer of the area has adopted within its planning the principles laid down in the Coton Park neighbourhood plan. I am delighted that the community has just been informed that the section 106 moneys that are coming forward from development will improve the roundabouts, which were the biggest single item that emerged from the local survey. That would not have happened without the neighbourhood plan, but it is frustrating that it took as long as it did to rectify a problem that was identified five years ago.
I am delighted that more weight will be given to neighbourhood plans as this process is developed. It means that even if the process does take time, there will be much greater regard for it, and the results will be evidence-based.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you are indicating that I should bring my remarks to a close. There is much in this Bill that is of great advantage. The neighbourhood plans system is working effectively. We just need more encouragement for more communities to take advantage of the opportunities that the Bill will provide them with.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey). Since becoming a Member of Parliament, I have found that, rather like the Secretary of State, concerns about planning are by far the most common issue that constituents raise with me, whether it is increasing pressure on local services and transport infrastructure or frustrations with the local council for failing to listen to and act on their concerns. A recent email I received perfectly captured local feelings in just four words: “Enough housing, infrastructure required”.
Planning failures—everything from the daily commute, to people’s children having access to a good local school, to the place where they live having a sense of community— have the greatest impact on peoples’ lives. When building new houses, the focus has too often been on providing new dwellings for newcomers, with an apparent disregard for existing residents. Road networks designed for a village have to cope with the traffic of a town, plus the additional out-of-town traffic thundering through narrow streets. As the demand for housing increases, we must recognise and respond to the challenges that additional housing brings for existing residents, rather than focusing all our attention on creating new residents.
A glaring example of the failure of planning is the A5225 in my constituency, which ought to be serving the local population. Wigan Borough Council has built most of the route that goes through its borough, but Bolton Council has not followed suit. In fact, in Atherton there is a roundabout junction with massive concrete blocks showing where the A5225 should have been continued, and daily we see the problems that its absence creates. There is now a proposal for 1,700 houses to be built over the proposed route of the A5225, thus preventing its completion. That is a double failure that guarantees that road upgrades will be impossible while delivering massive and unsustainable housing development.
Hundreds of constituents replied to my online survey about congestion in Bolton West, and the vast majority of people from Westhoughton thought that a revived plan for the A5225 would be the right solution to our congestion problems. I am currently running a petition, to be presented to Bolton Council, against the proposed 1,700 houses at the Chequerbent roundabout, and it has been signed by over 1,000 local people. This development, and those proposed for Hulton and south of Atherton, will add many thousands of people and cars to the local area. Local opinion is that the council, rather than seeking to fulfil a house building quota, should be playing catch-up for the decades of missing infrastructure.
My constituency is now part of the commuter belt for Manchester, a work destination for other commuters and a place where people further out in Lancashire use the local railway stations for park and ride. That all adds pressures on the local road and rail network that do not seem to have been addressed when each individual housing project is designed and built. The pace of development for transport is lacking considerably in Bolton West. For example, I receive many complaints about the rail service and how capacity can be increased on the line, which takes people from Blackrod, Horwich and Lostock en route to Bolton and Manchester. Although I welcome the electrification that will add 281 new carriages to the local route, with an increased service of 12% by 2019, in the longer term that will not reduce the pressure on services due to an increased population resulting from the additional housing.
I would be grateful if the Minister informed the House what discussions his Department has had with the Department for Transport on what type of housing developments are best for encouraging the use of public transport, and what conclusions have been drawn from this. The right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who is not in his place at the moment, highlighted carbon neutrality as an important part of any new development. A great problem with suburban developments and rolling suburbia is that it is very difficult to have local transport infrastructure—whether buses or railways—that works. We perhaps need to be more mindful of the need to build up and not necessarily always out.
I am pleased that the Bill includes measures to further strengthen neighbourhood planning and to give even more power to local people, but I hope that, by setting ambitious targets to build 1 million homes by 2020, the Government are not creating an environment in which councils—perhaps under pressure from developers—will disregard infrastructure requirements or the opinions of local residents. After all, the original title of the Bill, as introduced in the Queen’s Speech, was the Neighbourhood Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and we should not make a decision on one without being mindful of the other.
Communities need as much certainty as possible about where and when development will take place. I am encouraged that the Bill seeks to increase transparency on the part of the local council, requiring local planning authorities to publish their policies for giving advice and assistance to people preparing or updating neighbourhood plans. At present people have little faith that their council has the bigger picture in mind when several smaller developments are approved without thought to local amenities, while a development that is as large as the sum of those smaller developments would require accompanying infrastructure support. There is much more to be done to give communities—not councils—more rights in the planning process.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green).
Let me say at the outset that I have no quibbles at all with the provisions of the Bill, which are sensible enhancements to the neighbourhood planning process. I very much support the overall principles of neighbourhood planning: it is absolutely right that local communities have the ability to shape the future size and content of development. I also accept absolutely that neighbourhood plans cannot be out of kilter with the overall strategic housing needs of a town or a wider local authority area. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) correctly made the point that neighbourhood plans have not been a nimbys’ charter, and communities engage enthusiastically with them.
However, I do have some concerns, which I would like to put on the record. I am concerned that the potential for neighbourhood planning is impaired by some of the unintended consequences of wider planning issues, and several Members, particularly the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), alluded to that. Let me illustrate the point further with an example from my constituency.
On the southern edge of Milton Keynes is a charming little village called Bow Brickhill. It has a few hundred residents. It is a place of great civic pride and engagement. If there is a charity event to raise funds for a local facility, the residents are the ones who put together all the events to raise the money. They have engaged enthusiastically with neighbourhood planning, and many of them have devoted considerable time and energy and their own resources to developing the plans. They are far from being nimbys; in their plans, they wish to see some sensible development. They want, naturally, to preserve the semi-rural character of the village, both for its own sake and because it is one of the leisure facilities of the Milton Keynes area, with plenty of open spaces. However, the residents are now becoming confused, exasperated and, indeed, angry that the hard work they have put in may come to nothing. The problem is nothing to do with their neighbourhood plan; it is to do with Milton Keynes’s ability to meet the rigid five-year supply target. Let me just put that in context.
Milton Keynes has made an enormous contribution to the number of new houses in this country. We celebrate our 50th birthday in January, and our population is already well in excess of the quarter of a million the original planners envisaged. We have developed plans, which are now being considered by the local authority, to further expand the population—potentially by as much as 400,000—over the next few decades. The National Infrastructure Commission has been tasked by the Government to look at developing the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge corridor as an economic and housing growth and a transport development project, with projects such as east-west rail and the Oxford to Cambridge expressway. I am in the top 10 electorates in the country, and at every election I contest there—I have done four now—there are more and more doors through which to deliver leaflets.
In addition, in 2013, Milton Keynes Council passed its core strategy, which will deliver 28,000 houses over the next 10 years, but they are not being developed quickly enough. I do not have time to go into all the reasons why that is the case, but we are not meeting that target. Consequently, unplanned, speculative applications for housing outside the development areas are being granted, and some of those are immediately adjacent to the village of Bow Brickhill. If they are granted, they will, effectively, render redundant its neighbourhood plan. That is why the neighbourhood is considerably concerned.
Compounding this situation is the fact that the neighbouring authority—Aylesbury Vale—had a local plan that did not get through the inspectorate. It is now working on a new plan, but in the absence of that, applications for even larger speculative developments are being put in right on the border between Aylesbury Vale and Milton Keynes. These are massive developments and would change utterly the semi-rural area around Milton Keynes.
Therefore, we have a situation in which, in a part of the country where we have expanded and want to develop; where we have enthusiastic communities that want to take part in shaping their neighbourhoods; and where we are in line with wider Government objectives on transport planning and we are developing the Oxford to Cambridge corridor; all that planned, sustainable development is under threat because we are not meeting the rigid targets I mentioned.
I therefore simply ask the Minister to give us some space and flexibility to develop our plans, either by giving flexibility on the five-year target or by bringing in measures to speed up the delivery of already agreed housing. That would be widely applauded in the local area, and it would reignite the enthusiasm for neighbourhood planning.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I am grateful to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). I will be brief, as the hour is late. I have one or two things, as a chartered surveyor and declaring my Member’s interests as a landowner, that I would like to say about the Bill, which I warmly welcome.
Neighbourhood planning is very important. The problem is that, in my constituency, it is not working. It is not working because I represent two local authorities, one of which has a local plan and the other of which—Cotswold—does not have a local plan, for reasons best known to itself. The result, I say to my hon. Friend the Minister, is that, in The Cotswolds, which is 80% in the area of natural beauty, we have one of the most complicated planning systems anywhere in the country. I represent over 100 towns and villages, and we do not have a single neighbourhood plan adopted, because we do not have a local plan in place. That cannot be acceptable, and I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement today that he will take powers in the Bill to force local authorities, that have been laggards, like mine, to get a local plan in place.
Mr Bacon
Does my hon. Friend agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who said that it would be a good idea, where the planning authority does not have a local plan, for the neighbourhood plan to become, sui generis, the local plan for that parish?
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My hon. Friend has taken the words out of my mouth—I would do exactly that. We need to simplify neighbourhood plans, as we have done in this Bill. We need to give them greater weight, as we have done in the Bill.
However, there are problems even where there is a local plan in place. Stroud District Council has a local plan in place. I have a village in the very south of my constituency, which is huge—65 miles long—that has an advanced-stage, very professional neighbourhood plan, and there is also a local plan in place. However, a developer took the district council to appeal over an area right next to the cricket pitch and the village hall. The village was desperate not to develop it, but the decision was overturned on appeal. I would just say to my hon. Friend the Minister that, where there is a local plan and a neighbourhood plan in place, it should be de rigueur that the Planning Inspectorate does not overturn those plans on appeal, except in wholly exceptional circumstances.
I warmly welcome the powers to look at pre-commencement orders. As a chartered surveyor, I have advised, on an unpaid basis, on a very big development in East Anglia. Although it was designated in the local plan from the beginning, the process took five years because of the over-zealousness of the local authority. Think of all the houses that could have been built by now if the over-zealous pre-commencement conditions were not in place.
Finally, I want quickly to move on to compulsory purchase because nobody has said much about that in this debate. I spent many months sitting on the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Select Committee, and I have seen how HS2, as a major public acquiring authority, works. Some of the compulsory acquisitions, of which there were a very large number, were in my view over-zealous. We need to be careful about large acquiring authorities being over-zealous.
I am grateful for the provisions in the Bill on temporary acquisitions, but, equally, the requirement for such acquisitions should be tempered by what the acquiring authority needs to do on them. If it needs to demolish somebody’s house, proper compensation should be paid.
I am concerned about the provision to do away with the 10-year disturbance payment. Where there is an uplift in the value of the land, even subsequently, the person whose land has been acquired gets some benefit from that uplift. I heard what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said about the no scheme world. In theory, that is an ideal way of valuing a property—as a chartered surveyor, I know about these things—because it ignores the uplift, or indeed the fall, caused by the scheme itself. The danger is that the acquiring authority will acquire properties too cheaply, because there will be no allowance for any hope value for potential planning permission. Given that a lot of the big schemes are near centres of population, where the land will—if not immediately, at least in due course a few years down the line—get planning permission, it seems to me that the acquiring authority is getting an unnecessary advantage.
However, I warmly welcome the provisions for compulsory purchase whereby interest can be paid and payments in advance can be made. As we saw on the HS2 Bill, all these things are desperately necessary. With those few words, I warmly welcome this Bill.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate because planning has certainly affected my constituency for a good number of years. I was going to touch on the five-year land supply issue, but that has been ably covered by a number of colleagues.
My constituency is part of Leeds. It has enjoyed a great deal of prosperity and growth, but if I look at just one of the wards in my constituency, it has seen more than 1,000 homes built in it during the past few years, with very little infrastructure to support it. There is therefore a growing sense of frustration when people cannot get to work because the roads are congested, when their children cannot get into the school or when they struggle to get a doctor’s appointment. As a consequence, when neighbourhood planning was first introduced, it was seen as an opportunity for communities such as mine.
I must say, however, that in our instance there was concern right from the very outset. In its core strategy, the city council decided to build 70,000 homes during the plan period. That is an ambitious target—it will mean a considerable number of houses have to be built each year—but the problem is that that target, we believe, was based on outdated information. It was based on the 2008 population projections, which said that the number of people across the city would go up to 765,000 by 2011. The census showed us that that was wrong, with a 14,000 difference.
I am raising this matter because the city council obviously has to find sites on which to build these houses. In my constituency, all the mills and factories have gone, and we have done the right thing by building houses to regenerate those sites. However, all we have left now is the green belt. The neighbourhood plans in my areas have to conform to the strategic approach of the city council, which says that we have to build 70,000 houses. My areas have to adhere to that in the neighbourhood plans, and are therefore being forced to look at green-belt sites. They do not want to do that—of course they do not want to—and they are actively trying to stop that happening. I see a real problem because if my areas put forward such green-belt sites in a referendum, there is absolutely no way that that would get through, and we would not therefore have a neighbourhood plan.
I have asked questions time and again. I welcome my hon. Friend to his post. He will be hearing a lot from me, I am sure, over the coming months.
Stuart Andrew
Indeed. I extend to my hon. Friend a warm invitation to visit my constituency so that he can see the issues that we face at first hand.
Time and again, in questions and letters, I have asked about the exceptional circumstance in which the green belt can be developed and, time and again, we have been told that housing targets cannot be considered as an exceptional circumstance. However, in the neighbouring authority of Bradford—it abuts my constituency—the inspector recently said that such houses can be built because the figure is aspirational and the employment criteria allow it to happen. There is now even more concern in my constituency that when this goes to the inspector, he will say, because the figure of 70,000 has been agreed, that we can build on the green belt. That would have a terrible effect on my constituency. The green belt is there to stop urban sprawl. We do not want to be just a part of the big city of Leeds. The identifiable towns of Guiseley, Yeadon, Rawdon, Horsforth, Calverley, Farsley and Pudsey all have their own identity.
Stuart Andrew
Yes, Rodley. If I miss one out, I will be in real trouble.
I am trying to make the point that there is a willingness to make neighbourhood plans work, but when there is such a conflict with the city council, it is very difficult to introduce them. There is real concern about the green belt, and I hope that the Minister will come to my constituency soon so that I can show him, in detail, the problems we are facing.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, and to welcome the Minister to his place. I will be comparatively brief because I endorse everything said by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) about neighbourhood plans. One of the great enjoyments of my earlier career was to work with him in developing the policy at an early stage. He is right that we did not pick up on some bits of it at the time, but the Minister and his colleagues now have a chance to finish the job.
I have two thoughts about neighbourhood plans. It is important that we push forward with them. I have been disappointed by the slow take-up in areas of outer London, for example, compared with many other parts of the country. That is why it is right to take the measures we are taking. If I may be blunt, I also have a concern that, in some cases, some of our colleagues on local government planning authorities do not always encourage the development of neighbourhood plans because, frankly, they do not want to give up the power that comes from sitting on the borough or district planning committee. That goes wholly against the spirit of what we, as a party, are trying to do. I therefore welcome such steps.
I have another practical suggestion. Currently, the Government leave a gap of eight weeks between the referendum and the making of the plan. I understand why that is done. According to the statute, it is essentially to enable the consideration of any conflict with European and human rights law. Will the Minister consider whether that gap is necessary? Eminent lawyers have suggested that it is almost inconceivable that a plan would advance to the referendum stage without those issues being considered. If we revisited that, we could probably shave another two months off the bringing of a plan into force. Perhaps we may discuss that as the Bill progresses.
The proposal on planning conditions is right. I have seen the abuse of planning conditions. To give just one example, a religious body based in my constituency wanted planning permission for a place of worship in a neighbouring authority, I am glad to say. It was hit with 24 conditions, 14 of them pre-commencement. A number of them in effect duplicated building regulation requirements, including one that undermined the exemption that the faith group has under part L of the building regulations on fuel conservation. That cannot be right and is an abuse.
There is a concern that if one appeals against a planning condition, potentially the whole permission is up for consideration by the inspector. Would it not be sensible to amend the regulations such that it is purely the condition that is appealed against that is subject to the appeal and any consideration of papers or, although unlikely, an inquiry? That would save uncertainty for the whole scheme and encourage people to move swiftly.
Robert Neill
It would certainly speed things along markedly.
The planning register is a sensible and useful device. May I float another suggestion with the Minister? The Welsh Assembly Government have put the historic environmental record on a statutory footing. It might be useful to do that here so that local heritage information is available. That would avoid the risk of something being thrown up that delays the process after a good deal of investment has taken place.
Finally, I endorse all the comments made by my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), about compulsory purchase. He referred to the rates of interest. It is important that we deal swiftly with those matters. As I said to the Secretary of State, perhaps he would be prepared to meet some of us to yet again revisit the vexed issue of the inability of local planning authorities to impose planning conditions on their own land—land that they own as a landowner—that they would enforce as a local authority. Their inability to do that is bizarre. My London Borough of Bromley has ambitious schemes to drive business and business rates growth, but it is bizarre that it cannot, as an authority, put an obligation on its own land that it wishes to comply with in order to drive the rest of a scheme.
I hope that those are constructive suggestions that will make a good Bill even more useful.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I am delighted that the Government are giving local people the opportunity to shape the future of their communities. Our constituents have long asked for a greater say on planning, so I welcome the fact that the Bill gives them more power and delivers on our manifesto promises.
There can be no doubt that there is a need for housing, but it is vital that it is delivered in a way that is not only sustainable, but that complements and enhances our local areas. I am therefore very supportive of the key aims of the Bill. Results are already emerging to show that the Government are right to trust our communities to develop their own neighbourhood plans. As has been pointed out, early figures indicate that the level of house building in areas that have a plan is more than 10% higher than in the council’s local plan.
I will raise three matters with the Minister that are of concern to my constituents. He may be able to reassure them that they need not worry. First, I am conscious that although an acceleration in house building is required, developing a neighbourhood plan is a long drawn-out process. That means that those who are now starting on the journey and have a plan that is sufficiently developed to provide meaningful input to the local plan do not have the protections of those who have gone through the referendum phase. Clause 1 goes some way towards addressing that, but will the Minister clarify what guidance will be given to local authorities so that there is consistency in the decision-making process not only from community to community, but across all decision makers? I welcome clause 5, which sets out the support a local authority will offer those who wish to create a neighbourhood plan by way of a statement of community involvement, which should be an enabler of quicker implementation.
Secondly, sustainability should be a key consideration for any development. It is understandable that local residents show concern when consultations are put forward for sizeable developments in their area. A good example is Dordon and Polesworth in my constituency, where 3,000 new houses have been proposed. That would have a huge impact on the infrastructure and services that residents enjoy, not least on the already creaking road network. It is important that plans are made and that residents always have an input on potential new schools, roads, doctors’ surgeries and other local services. With that in mind, I ask the Minister to ensure that the provision of infrastructure and amenities is always a key consideration for local authorities when granting planning consent, and that when there is any significant house building the sustainability of the area is at the forefront of the design plans.
Finally, I wish to raise an issue of particular interest to me and to many of my constituents and those of other Members: the protection of our green belt. I am fully aware that the NPPF puts great emphasis on that, and there has been minimal development on it under the Conservative Government. However, areas such as Keresley and Fillongley in my constituency live in constant fear that a perceived demand for housing, particularly under the duty to co-operate with larger neighbouring councils, puts their green belt at risk of being developed on.
One of the key messages that I receive regularly from parish councils is that the calculation of housing needs seems to be over-inflated and does not reflect actual requirements, especially when local borough councils have met their supply targets. There is a real threat that predominantly rural areas such as North Warwickshire, which, as I have said, are annexed by much larger authorities, will be forced to develop on their green belt to meet the needs of other areas. That cannot be fair.
I must question the method of calculation. I was recently given the example of Coventry, which is seeking to take a number of properties in my constituency as it is unable to meet its own housing demand. It was calculated by the Office for National Statistics that there would be a population increase of about 79,000 in Coventry by 2031, which Coventry was unable to satisfy. Closer inspection of that number is quite revealing, however, showing that the predicted numbers of internal migration and immigration movements essentially cancel each other out, leaving the 79,000 people to come almost wholly from international immigration. As a result of the referendum in June, the Government are committed to a system of controlled immigration, so it is reasonable to assume that that number may no longer be a true reflection of need once the Brexit negotiation is concluded.
I would therefore like the Minister to consider including a further measure in the Bill: a pause on green-belt development unless there is a specific request from local residents. That would enable a review of the demand that our councils will face, which is surely difficult to estimate until the exact nature of what breakfast will look like—[Interruption.] I mean Brexit—somebody else got into trouble for that the other day. It is catching. It is difficult to estimate until the exact nature of what Brexit will look like is concluded. Once the green belt is developed on, it is lost for ever. We should always ensure that we have strong safeguards to protect it wherever possible.
Good development requires the developer, local people and the council to work together, and the Bill encourages dialogue to ensure that development better meets the needs of all interested parties. There should always be a balanced approach between providing the right number of houses and affording our local communities the opportunity to improve their infrastructure while retaining their identity. The Bill strikes that balance by giving local people real control over their future, and I will support it tonight. However, I ask that due consideration be given to the important concerns that I have raised.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to support the Second Reading of the Bill, and it is always a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey). I do not intend to speak for more than five minutes, because I have noticed for the last hour that when Members do that, the cough of the Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), gets worse and worse. In the interests of preserving his voice, I will keep my contribution short.
I wish to focus on a couple of key points. First, we in Fylde are not against development. Indeed, about 6,000 houses have been developed there, mostly on greenfield land. However, Fylde is a small local authority, so 6,000 houses represent a lot of new build. We are currently working through an emerging local plan, and during the first stage, as part of an agreement, certain sites were taken off the plan and others were added. However, developers who realised that lucrative sites had come off the plan slapped planning applications on them, regardless of the will of the neighbourhood or the council. That was particularly true in villages such as Warton and Wrea Green, much to the frustration of local people. The result is an even greater number of houses than the plan started with.
I find it frustrating as a Member of Parliament that after people and the council have been asked to go along with the process of neighbourhood plans and local plans, and after they have identified suitable sites near the M55 that could be developed without controversy, developers seem to have given them the two-finger salute by putting in big applications on sites that were taken out of the plan. Everyone seems to lose out but the developers.
My main focus is on the number of sites for which planning applications have been granted yet nothing seems to have happened. There is no great reason for that—there are no infrastructure blockages or any of the other reasons outlined tonight by other Members. It is just land agents sitting on top of blocks of land with planning applications, and God only knows what is happening other than that they are trying to extract the best possible price from developers. That is not acceptable. If a site has a successful planning application and there is no good reason why it is not being developed, it should be developed to meet housing needs.
Another key point is that on many sites developers seem to be building just 30 or 40 houses a year, regardless of the market conditions. They drip them out to a steady drumbeat of 30 or 40. That makes it more difficult to deliver against the five-year housing supply number and the local council’s annual build targets. Frustratingly, it does nothing to make houses more affordable for local people. The prices keep going up. The Government are being robbed of their whole aim of building more houses and making them affordable, because we are dependent on a large number of developers who have got us by the throat. They decide how many houses enter the local supply chain, and nobody else. That is not right.
I urge the Minister to get tough with the developers. We want to build houses that are affordable and available to buy, and it should not be down to developers to dictate planning policy and tell us what ultimately is going to happen. We are the Government. We decide. This is something we care passionately about.
My other key point is that I want councils to be imaginative about provision of affordable homes, and not simply pass over responsibility to housing associations. They should not just pass the buck, pass the cash and hope it all comes out in the end. I want councils to ensure that there are more affordable homes to buy, to allow people to get on the housing ladder, have a stake in the game, feel part of their community and own part of that community. It is not acceptable for a council to say that it is building 30% affordable homes, when that provision is being made by housing associations, which are often very unresponsive to the needs of local people. Councils must understand that we as a Government want affordable homes to be owned by people, to give those people the opportunity to trade up.
I can see that the throat of my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness is starting to go again, and I do not want to make the cough any worse. I am delighted to see the Minister in his place. I know that he is committed to housing. As an MP for a Greater London constituency he knows the pain of not being able to get on the housing ladder more than many other people in this House. I wish him well in his endeavours, but he needs to know that we on the Conservative Benches will support the Government provided that we see the Government doing everything they can to get those houses built.
William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
I am pleased to be able to speak on Second Reading of the Bill, which I broadly welcome. I support its main aims of making the housing market work better for everybody, helping to identify and free up more land to build homes, and speeding up the delivery of the new homes that are so badly needed in many areas of the country. Those aspects of the Bill will help to improve the planning system to make it easier to deliver the Government’s ambition of 1 million new homes by the end of this Parliament.
When I arrived in the House last year a sage senior colleague advised me never to get involved in planning matters. Although that may be very sound advice on conservatories and house extensions, it is none the less our duty to ensure that we play a full role in the scrutiny of the Bill. With that in mind, it is good so see such a strong new ministerial team on the Treasury Bench; I look forward to engaging with that team constructively.
I also support the Government’s manifesto commitment to encourage communities to be more engaged in neighbourhood planning, particularly as a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for civic societies. Community engagement is vital; we need it to build homes and infrastructure while ensuring that that is done in a way that is sympathetic and sensitive to the wishes of local communities. In my view, that will mean that we can build more, not less, as developers and local authorities ensure communities are brought on board at an early stage and are therefore more likely to support developments. That process is under way in Marple in my constituency.
There is no magic wand to solve the housing shortage. It will require many years of investment, hard work and difficult choices, and while Government play a role, ultimately the work is done by those building houses: the developers. To my mind, there are three ways that developers are stalling in the process to deliver the homes we need at the rate required. The first is land banking, which many hon. Members have mentioned, whereby developers buy up land, often brownfield sites suitable for building and sometimes with planning permissions already granted, but do not build on it, either because they have priorities elsewhere or because they are waiting for the value to increase.
The second issue is when developers are keen to build, but there are delays between the granting of an outline application and the submission of the full planning application. Thirdly, once planning approval has been granted, there can be delays from developers in starting construction, which can sometimes be the result of deliberate land banking, as I have mentioned. These delays cannot always be laid at the door of the planning system, which is a common cry of developers. Developers must take some responsibility themselves. However, measures from the Government to encourage developers to reduce delays are welcome, and these are contained in the Bill.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In Northern Ireland we have a planning system that enables social housing to be set aside in each new development for private house building. When it comes to social housing and those who cannot afford a new house but need a rented house, does the hon. Gentleman feel that some of the land in a development should be set aside for that purpose?
William Wragg
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. That is something that my local authority in Stockport is looking at, to ensure it can use its land assets for the development of housing, so I agree with him on that.
One thing missing from the Bill, although certainly not from our debate this evening, is the issue of the green belt. We know that green-belt land is protected under the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, and it plays an important role in protecting the environment and semi-rural communities, such as the ones I represent, from urban sprawl. Fundamentally, the green belt preserves natural green land, open spaces, wildlife habitats and the character of such areas.
Although it is not currently addressed by the Bill, I am deeply concerned about the threat posed to the local green belt in my constituency by potential massive building development. For instance, the Greater Manchester spatial framework, a policy of the Greater Manchester combined authority, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) referred to, will determine where residential development can take place, including the release of green-belt land. The policy could threaten large areas of green belt in my constituency. I am concerned by the prospect of thousands of properties being built on previously protected land, especially in the High Lane and Marple areas of my constituency. There are significant doubts about whether already stretched local infrastructure could support such development.
Saying that, there is no doubt that we need more housing. However, the areas that should be developed first are brownfield sites, which are those areas previously used for other purposes. Stockport has many such sites that have not yet been developed for housing, and across the country it is conservatively estimated that there is enough brownfield land for the development of some 650,000 properties, making a significant contribution to the Government’s target. I therefore want to ask my hon. Friend the Minister, if this is not covered in the Bill, what is being done or can be done to prioritise brownfield development and to protect green belts from over-zealous local authority plans, such as that in Greater Manchester. I can only hope that development in the green belt in my constituency will be as sparse as Members on the Opposition Benches are this evening.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I welcome this Bill. The importance it places on neighbourhood plans validates the extremely hard and challenging work that so many of my constituents in the village of Brereton and the town of Sandbach have undertaken, in some cases over years, to develop neighbourhood plans and have them adopted. I congratulate them. Other areas in my constituency are working on their neighbourhood plans, which are vital in a constituency with distinct and individual local communities, lying as it does in a relatively large unitary council, Cheshire East, which stretches from the fringe of Greater Manchester down towards Shropshire. If localism is to mean anything, it is important that the people who live in such towns and villages have a real say in the development of their communities.
Does this Bill go far enough? I want to challenge the Minister in one or two ways.
I am pleased to hear the Minister say that neighbourhood plans will be given “proper consideration” in the planning process, that “due weight” will be given to them and that they will have full effect. However, will he clarify precisely what that means where a large principal authority still has no local plan and no agreed housing supply numbers? My constituents who have gone to the trouble of preparing neighbourhood plans are asking whether, if there is no local plan and no agreed housing supply number, their plans should have the status and strength of a local plan when planning decisions are made. That is the critical question.
Without that reassurance, my constituents—particularly those in Sandbach, who are besieged by developers and who have gone far beyond making what I believe is a reasonable contribution to housing numbers in the Cheshire East area—are saying they are becoming “very disillusioned” with the neighbourhood planning process. They quote a recent planning decision in September with respect to an area of land in Sandbach. The inspector acknowledged that the Sandbach neighbourhood plan had been adopted, but said he would not examine the application in the light of that plan. Instead, he set it against the as-yet unadopted local plan with the housing supply number as yet not agreed, which relates to the whole Cheshire East area. According to my constituents, the inspector seems to be saying that the neighbourhood plan is “an irrelevance”. Will the Minister look again at strengthening the authority of neighbourhood plans where there is no completed local plan and no agreed five-year land supply, and declare that the neighbourhood plan has the weight of a local plan where there is no such plan in place?
My constituents have been encouraged by three recent appeal decisions to the Secretary of State in East Sussex, West Sussex and Bath. The Secretary of State cited local plans in the appeals and prevented developments, highlighting neighbourhood plans as a key factor in his decision. I thank the Minister for that and hope that it indicates a trend of thinking in this area.
I support the references that have been made to land banking, or, as I refer to it, permission banking. The former mayor of Sandbach, Mike Benson, wrote to me saying:
“During the Public Inquiries held in Sandbach…Cheshire East’s Head of Planning Strategy…gave evidence that in some parts of the Borough, planning permissions granted over the last 5 years”
had resulted in not one house being built in those locations. Nevertheless, appeals continue to be allowed across Cheshire East on the basis that Cheshire East Council does not have a five-year housing supply. He says:
“What would be fairer is a formula which regards the granting of permissions as the determining factor, not the number of houses actually being built.”
Will the Minister consider that as the Bill progresses? Will he also consider the fact that it is very important to ensure we balance the need for housing with the need for employment land? Businessmen in Congleton tell me that they need more employment land. We cannot afford to have our communities turned into vast commuter belts, because there are simply not the jobs for local people to work in.
I have two final points. First, it is quite clear that in some cases where developments are occurring, for example in Congleton where 4,000 houses are projected to be built in the draft local plan, we will need extra health facilities. However, Cheshire East Council officers have contacted Public Health England, which has been unable to identify any community infrastructure levy-compliant projects to which contributions could be sought for development. It is very important that the Minister liaises with his counterparts in the Department of Health to ensure that health provision projects that can be used for community infrastructure funding are in place.
If I may stretch your patience, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to add one further point, which relates to an issue I have been asked to raise by Cheshire East Council on the importance of guiding developments so that they avoid the most sensitive locations. I refer to a recent decision by the Court of Appeal that renders protective policies, such as green belt, green gap, wildlife conservation and Jodrell Bank safeguarding, which is critical in my constituency, as similar to “housing supply policies”. If a local authority cannot demonstrate a five-year supply of housing, such housing supply policies are deemed out of date, carrying much less weight.
I have an appeal going through now to the Secretary of State for a large development near Jodrell Bank. Jodrell Bank is concerned that having many more houses in the area will interfere with its instruments. It is a critical, individual, specific issue, and that area needs protection. It is important that that protection is not weakened if the council is unable to resist housing in unsuitable locations. Will the Minister clarify that the Bill will ensure that such sensitive designations will not be overridden and developers’ appeals will not be allowed? Will he confirm that that will be embodied as an amendment to the NPPF?
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I welcome my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), to his place; I am delighted to see him on the Front Bench. I am also glad to see the hon. Members for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods), and for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce), fighting the fight from the Opposition Front Bench. I recall with fondness the many hours we spent this time last year on the Housing and Planning Bill Committee.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I have a shareholding in a company that finances construction projects.
I welcome the power that the first part of the Bill on neighbourhood plans will place in the hands of local communities. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider strengthening that power further in two ways. First, the preamble to the Bill says that in all but exceptional circumstances local authorities are expected to grant planning permission only in conformity with a neighbourhood plan, but if permission is granted in contradiction to a neighbourhood plan, I ask that it be made clear that it would be expected that the Secretary of State would call that in as a matter of routine, in order to create a clear incentive for local planning authorities to respect neighbourhood plans.
Secondly, is there any way to strengthen further neighbourhood plans in relation to local plans, given that neighbourhood plans will, by definition, have been passed by local referendum? The stronger they are in relation to local plans, the better. I fully accept that the local plan must be respected when it comes to total housing supply, but on questions of detail, I wonder whether the neighbourhood plan should trump the local plan, providing that it would not damage overall housing supply. The Minister will know some examples from our borough of where that might happen.
I say gently to the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead that pre-commencement conditions are frequently a significant problem. The bureaucracy they create ties up both the local planning authority office and developments. When I intervened earlier, I touched briefly on a couple of examples—the notorious cases of bat and newt studies. Bat studies can be done only at a certain time of year, so some developments get held up for an entire year while the bat survey gets done. As for newts, the greater crested newt is apparently an endangered species across Europe. It is not an endangered species in the United Kingdom, as the wretched creature pops up on every site for development as a potential reason for delay. If the Minister could give serious consideration to making sure that the requirements relating to bats, newts and similar creatures were proportionate and appropriate, it would help to expedite the construction of housing in our country.
I agree with the point made by the hon. Lady about resources for local planning departments. The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) also correctly pointed out that resources in those departments are under great pressure. They do not have enough officers, time or resources, and that is a real constraint on the granting of planning consents. Although I am not of course usually in favour of any taxes or fees, many developers would be willing pay significantly higher planning fees if they were ring-fenced to fund local planning offices and attached to a particular service level—so if a planning decision were delivered within a certain time, a higher fee would be payable.
As Louis XIV’s Finance Minister, Colbert, said, the art of taxation is about plucking the goose so as to produce the least possible amount of hissing; well, here is a goose that is begging to be plucked. The goose, if I may put it this way, wants to pay extra money to have these decisions made more quickly. It wants to pay more fees. That would help local authority planning departments, as they would then be properly resourced. I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to that point in his concluding remarks. I shall trespass no further on the House’s time or patience, and conclude with that point.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
Beneath the thatch and clay tiles, in the shady byways and cobbled marketplaces of North West Hampshire, people are breathing a little easier as this Bill starts its passage. I would go so far as to say that on the village hall wall, next to the portrait of the Queen and the newly hoisted portrait of the Minister with responsibility for broadband, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), they are making space for a picture of the Minister for Housing and Planning, because he has finally taken a big step in bringing some sanity to what has previously been a gamble of a planning system.
We managed to get ourselves into a high-stakes game of poker between developers, councils, landowners and the Planning Inspectorate, and the compromise that emerged was often unsatisfactory to local residents, extremely expensive, and bureaucratic. That injected a sense of tension and an adversarial tone into the planning system, which should be constructive, in all senses of the word, and try to build the homes that we need.
The Government’s great peace offering to local people was the neighbourhood plan. Nowhere has embraced neighbourhood planning as strongly as my constituency, and the string of pearls running down the A303 from Oakley, Overton and Whitchurch down to Andover. We are destined to take tens of thousands of houses there over the next 20 or 30 years. Those places are embracing neighbourhood planning as the only way that they can see of making sure that planning is done with them, rather than to them.
Notwithstanding that, some ridiculous decisions have been taken in my constituency over the last year or so. In Oakley, just seven days before the referendum on the neighbourhood plan, which had been three years in the making, the Planning Inspectorate allowed an appeal for a slab development of 80 houses, which drove a coach and horses through the plan. The community might as well not have bothered. At that stage, people in the village had already voted by post, yet they knew that permission had gone through. I am very pleased that this Minister and his predecessor took on board the concerns of lots of Members, particularly rural Members, about the need to strengthen such plans.
I would like to raise with the Minister a couple of areas where the Bill could be given even greater strength. The interaction of the different actors I mentioned and the interaction between neighbourhood plans and local plans are absolutely key. Many Members have talked about providing some kind of stick to make sure that councils have a local plan in place. Thus far, neighbourhood plans are pretty pointless without the local plan being in place. Too many councils do not have them.
I wonder whether we could offer councils an incentive, rather than a stick. Where a village has put a neighbourhood plan together and it has been approved, where a borough has a local plan that has been approved, and where there is a five-year land supply, there should be a double lock, whereby the Planning Inspectorate has no remit. These people are playing ball. They have said, “Yes, we will take the houses. This is where we want them, and this is the size and mix we want.” That has all been approved by the Planning Inspectorate, so why should a speculative developer, with an ability to pay legal fees and for hearings, and with QCs on tap, be able to come along and bully the council into reaching some kind of compromise? The council knows that if it goes to the Planning Inspectorate, the decision may not go its way, and is worried about the fines it faces if it loses. A double lock would be a way of freeing people from the man in the suit from Bristol; that would be an enormous incentive. There would certainly be a huge amount of pressure from local residents on borough councils to get a neighbourhood plan, so as to protect the residents. I put that proposal on the Minister’s plate.
My second point is on getting local people to accept housing estates. Neighbourhood planning certainly makes people much more accepting of housing, but the Government’s admirable starter homes scheme could be used to get even more acceptance. When starter homes are built as part of a development—I will have a huge development with lots of starter homes outside Basingstoke in my constituency—anybody from anywhere in the country can apply for them. How about we give local people a short period of perhaps 28 days after completion in which they have first dibs on the houses built in their neighbourhood? That way, the children and relatives of local people—people who can prove a local connection—could snap up those houses first. It would go a long way to getting people over the line, particularly as regards the large-scale developments I will have, if they have that incentive, on a generational basis.
My final point, which I would be grateful if the Minister could address, is on the provision of broadband in new developments. I raised the issue in debates on the Digital Economy Bill. It seems mad to me that we are not putting broadband compulsorily into new developments, as we would gas and electricity.
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend makes a fine point. When he refers to broadband, is he talking about fibre to cabinet, or fibre to premises? Is not the latter the key future-proof mechanism we need to enable properties to access high-speed broadband?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend shows his customary ambition. I agree that we should make developers provide fibre to premises in all developments, particularly large ones. The Government are pumping billions into the housing industry over the next few years—rightly, because we need more houses. That will inflate the housing industry, and there will be a lot more activity and a lot more money to be made. The least developers could do is absorb the cost of putting future-proofed broadband in those houses. If we can get those measures into this great Bill, we will have something that neighbourhoods, particularly in North West Hampshire, will welcome. They will wave aloft the Bill as they hoist the Minister’s portrait in the village hall.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who made important points about the local development plan process, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin). My constituency is a tale of two halves. The half that is in the Cheshire West and Chester Council area is protected by a local development plan. The numerous beautiful areas in my constituency that have put their neighbourhood plans in place have a protection that is not afforded to the other half of my constituency, which is in the Cheshire East Council area. Without an LDP, the neighbourhood plans do not have the same legal status. I join other hon. Members in urging the Minister to ensure that neighbourhood plans carry full protection and force.
I agree with the suggestion for an incentive. When Cheshire West and Chester Council was run by Conservatives, a proportion—10%—of the new homes bonus automatically went to the local parish council to allow it to improve amenities. I urge the Minister to consider putting that proportion in the Bill, because it allowed my local communities to make improvements to their area when they could see a direct result from new housing. For example, Tattenhall in my constituency would have used the money to build six homes for rent for local people in the agricultural community—they would have been permanent protected homes available for young people, allowing them to stay in their farming communities. Unfortunately, the council has switched to Labour control, and has swiped the whole of the new homes bonus. It will not now go to my local communities that are bearing the brunt of the housing development.
I, too, have a string of pearls in my constituency—wonderful villages such as Bunbury, Audlem, Tattenhall, Malpas and Tarporley, which developers are desperate to develop. It is vital that those communities that accept housing see a direct benefit from it. I urge the Minister therefore to consider allocating a proportion of the new homes bones to those communities. Ten per cent. is not unreasonable, and would give an incentive to people to accept development.
On the impact on infrastructure, the Minister has heard many Members of Parliament say the same thing. A recent planning decision exempted doctors’ surgeries and schools, which are statutory services, from section 106 agreements and leveraging funding from developers. This is an ideal opportunity to deal with that and allow the developers to contribute to the additional infrastructure costs that otherwise fall on the local council.
Finally, I urge the Minister to crack down hard on developers who repeatedly put in applications against neighbourhood plans, knowing that they are acting against an adopted neighbourhood or local plan. If planning permission is turned down by the local council, and the developer appeals unsuccessfully and is turned down again, I urge the Minister to consider penalty costs against them. A third of those costs could go to local councils; that could contribute towards alleviating the legal costs that they incur trying to fight these appeals. Another third could go to his Department to provide the resource that is needed for it to look at those appeals, and the final third could go to the Treasury to deal with the infrastructure impact of other developments. That would be a real win.
I urge the Minister to look at that in the Bill, because my constituents are frustrated when they see a planning process in which developers have deep involvement. They think that it is an unfair fight, with no incentive for councils to appeal against decisions or stand up to what they regard as bully developers. Not all developers are the same—we have many good developers in Cheshire—but the feeling among local people is that they are fighting a tide of applications that are swamping them. Some form of disincentive to tackle those repeated applications would, I hope, go some way towards discouraging that type of behaviour.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach). I fully support the provisions of the Bill, and I congratulate Ministers on giving people unprecedented power over planning. It is clear that this is a power not to limit development, but to decide where properties will go and what infrastructure is required. It is a power to decide how it looks—design is a key element in persuading local communities to support new housing in their area.
I welcome the Bill’s giving more weight to neighbourhood plans, which, as detailed in clause 1, will be effective earlier in the process. However, there is a conundrum, as colleagues have mentioned, but, as is not uncommon in the House, I will mention it again. A neighbourhood may have an effective neighbourhood plan that works with the numbers given by the district in its local plan, but it may not be able to demonstrate a five-year land supply. In those circumstances, would it not be appropriate to give full protection to a neighbourhood that delivers those numbers within the overall context of the local plan? That would be a great incentive for local communities to develop a neighbourhood plan and deliver the extra houses that are important to our communities and our national economy.
The neighbourhood planning process is dealt with in clause 5. Local authorities can give help, support and advice to neighbourhood planning steering committees. Some local authorities are less keen than others on neighbourhood plans, and regard them as an encumbrance. Would it be possible to provide some formal training, perhaps delivered centrally? I was delighted when my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), who has been such an advocate of neighbourhood plans, came to my constituency to talk to local steering groups about how to develop them. As a result of his intervention, we now have some neighbourhood plans back on track.
I also think that small and medium-sized enterprises should be given more help. As we know, SME developers used to build 100,000 houses a year, whereas today they build about 20,000. They are critical to the supply element of the equation. I understand that the idea of extra financial support for SMEs has been mooted in connection with the autumn statement, because lack of finance constitutes one of their biggest difficulties when it comes to developing new homes, but another of their difficulties relates to land, and finding suitable small sites. The whole planning system seems to be stacked against SMEs. It is far simpler to build houses on allocated land than to build them on the windfall sites on which SMEs tend to develop them, but such sites are few and far between.
SMEs are important not just in terms of the number of houses that are delivered, but in terms of their contribution to local communities. They employ local people: local suppliers and local apprentices—SMEs account for a much higher percentage of penetration of apprenticeships per completion than larger developers—and local consultants as well. There are plenty of good reasons for the provision of more small sites that would be suitable for SME house builders, and there are a number of ways in which we could do that. It is frustrating that one of the local authorities in my constituency concentrates all its housing on large allocated sites, rather than spreading the load around the towns and villages for the purpose of not just sustainable development but sustainable communities.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman has mentioned sustainable communities in the context of planning. Does he agree with Dame Alice Hudson, the head teacher at Twyford Church of England High School in my constituency? The school wants to expand, but feels that it is stymied by planning legislation. It has identified the site for a badly needed new high school, but at present there is opposition because of housing that will come with it. Dame Alice says that there must be a way of helping the school to provide more performance and other facilities for community use and public benefit. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me, and with my constituent, that there should be more joined-up thinking?
Kevin Hollinrake
I definitely agree that there should be more community engagement. However, although many people in smaller villages and towns want more development, the policies of local authorities prevent that from happening, which is entirely counter-intuitive. The lack of new development puts schools, shops and public houses at risk. I wonder how we can influence local authorities and encourage them to spread the load around our smaller communities as well. Alternatively, could not a percentage of one of the larger sites—10% or 20%—be allocated to SME developers, so that they could meet some of the needs of larger communities?
Those are some thoughts for the new Housing Minister. SMEs are critical to the successful delivery of the houses that we need in the United Kingdom. However, I am happy to support the measures in the Bill and the ideas behind them.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
It is a delight and a pleasure to see the Minister for Housing and Planning, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), sitting on the Front Bench. I have known him for 20 or 25 years, since he worked in the environmental research department of Conservative central office. He was also the special adviser in the department, and he has been following this issue for a long time.
I must declare an interest. As is shown in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I still have some shares in a public relations consultancy which advised developers on how to obtain planning permission. I have to say that I have also worked for the opposition, notably in Fulham. However, I have a fairly good understanding of the importance of taking the local community with you to get a planning application through.
One of the best people I ever came across was a man called David Prout, who was in the Department. He was also the director of planning at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea when we were trying to do a development on what was known as the Tesco tower on the West Cromwell Road. We had failed to get planning permission, and he eventually decided that we needed to produce a master plan in order to ensure that the local community was very much engaged in the whole process. In such cases, it is important to talk not only about the design but about the other community facilities that will be made available. I therefore urge my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that as we seek to put housing development in place, we also look at other issues such as community facilities. I shall say more about design in a moment.
I am the chairman of the all-party group for excellence in the built environment, and we have just published an important piece of work on the quality of housing. I am pretty unique—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I am pretty unique on the Conservative Benches in that I represent a totally inner-city seat. The only piece of countryside in my constituency is the Ponderosa pony sanctuary, which, to be honest, is just a rather muddy field. However, I have a large amount of parkland, which was developed by the Victorians and is absolutely wonderful. What is so super about it is that it has space and the settings of the properties are absolutely brilliant.
We need to recognise that if local authorities grant planning permission, that should not be the end of the matter. They must also ensure that the developers produce the development for which they have been given the planning permission. All too often, companies build up land banks but do not do anything with them. I therefore urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider a proposal whereby a local authority could charge a developer business rates if it had not produced the development, having got people’s expectations up. Developers should not be allowed to have property sitting around doing nothing. It is not good enough simply to get planning permission; getting the property developed is the most important thing. That is what we on this side of the House will be judged on.
We also need to ensure that we have good-quality design. I have a lot of new build in my constituency, thanks to the party opposite. When Labour was in power, it provided a lot of money for new development down in Devonport. I have to say that I am appalled by some of that development. There is brown mould on some of the buildings, and I hear stories of windows and doors that do not fit. The other day I even heard of an instance of sewage going in underneath the floorboards. That is not good enough. This is one of the reasons that I am looking forward to talking to my hon. Friend the Minister about the all-party group’s report. We must ensure that we have better-quality buildings, rather than shoddy developments that could become the slums of the future. We need to have quality in our design as well as quantity.
I also want to encourage the Government to consider ways of getting local authorities to appoint someone to review the quality of the building and design in their area. I have been very lucky. I went to the most beautiful school in the whole country: Stowe. It has the most beautiful Palladian architecture; it is absolutely fantastic. I am not arguing that we should have Palladian architecture throughout the whole country—well, I probably am, actually—but we need to ensure that the volume house builders do not simply build the same factory-produced developments all over the country. I am passionate about this. It is vital that we give people a sense of belonging in their communities, and we need to ensure that we have quality development that will also deliver good community facilities such as doctors surgeries and village halls. It is vital that neighbourhood planning should be done in the round, rather than in isolation.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I thank all Members—they were mostly Government Members—who have contributed to this debate. They did an excellent job speaking up for their constituencies and the various planning issues that affect them, and extolling the virtues of neighbourhood planning. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) also did an excellent job in explaining how important neighbourhood planning was to his constituency and the need for local plans to refer to it. I was also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) who, as always, pointed out exactly what was wrong with the Bill, what needs to be improved and how we need to support planning more effectively.
I am rather surprised to be speaking again on planning legislation so soon after our proceedings on the Housing and Planning Act 2016. After all, the ink is barely dry on the paper. However, as there have been six pieces of planning legislation in the past six years, I perhaps should not be that surprised.
The Minister said that he wants to have shovels put in the ground, but I am not sure that this is the Bill to do it. Indeed, the Bill is much more interesting for what is not in it than for what is. I am not sure whether it represents—in the words of the Secretary of State earlier— “action on many fronts”. In fact, his own colleagues came up with quite a substantial list of things that should have been in this Bill. They thought that there should be something about infrastructure and how it could be funded effectively to underpin developments and something about carbon-neutral housing. They felt that local plans should have a strong relationship with neighbourhood plans, or that neighbourhood plans should trump local plans, and that there should be a green-belt review. There was some suggestion that there should be a statutory footing for local plans and deadlines for their delivery. There were other suggestions that the Bill should cover broadband in developments, the use of vacant public sector land, how to protect hedgehogs, how to pluck geese, how to repeal applications, how to use fees more effectively, land banking and permission banking, the failure to address Brexit, and a call-in procedure for neighbourhood plans. Those were just some of the issues that were raised, so there is a lot to be addressed by the new Minister, whom I welcome to his post. I look forward to working with him in Committee on improving the Bill.
We strongly welcome the measures to strengthen neighbourhood planning. We all agree that communities should be at the heart of development and that development should start with our neighbourhoods. Any measure that will strengthen neighbourhood planning should be welcomed. Too many people think that planning is done to them, and we need to return to a much happier place in which communities feel that they and their representatives have some control over planning.
There are a few issues about neighbourhood planning that I hope to address in Committee. We need to look at whether it is being properly resourced, and whether the links to local plans are strong enough. We welcome the opportunity of a planning register that will allow for better scrutiny of permitted development and, in particular, the scale of use of permitted development. The Government Front-Bench team will know that we have a long-standing objection to permitted development being used for the delivery of housing in this country. Indeed, we would not need a register if we did not use permitted development in the way that it is used, as all homes would have to go through the planning process properly, and there would be some control of the infrastructure that supports them and the quality and standards of the properties being built. However, as the Government are using permitted development, it seems sensible for a register to be in place.
One of our main bugbears with the Bill is that it does not sufficiently recognise the difficulties that local planning departments are facing as a result of the lack of resources to carry out their responsibilities. Ministers would be living in a cupboard if they did not know that right across the housing and planning sector, developers large and small, a large number of agencies and planning departments are saying that the lack of resource for planning departments is the major spanner in the works for delivery. Since 2010 spending on planning by local authorities has almost halved, from £2.2 billion in 2010 to £1.2 billion last year. The Royal Town Planning Institute, the Local Government Association, the Town and Country Planning Association and the British Property Federation have all pointed to the fact that greater expectations must mean greater support for planning, yet the opposite is happening. Planning fees are vital to plug the gap.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Would the hon. Lady support greater flexibility for each local authority to be able to set its own planning fees to meet its own circumstances, and possibly to allow higher fees to give accelerated results?
Dr Blackman-Woods
Indeed. That was one of the amendments that I tabled to the Housing and Planning Bill when it was going through the House. Alas, it was rejected by the then Housing Minister. It was interesting to hear the same point being made earlier in our discussion. I am pleased if Conservative Members are coming round to our view that planning departments should be able to set fees at full recovery level.
On a more positive note, we welcome the measures to streamline compulsory purchase orders. The new Ministers must have been studying their copy of the Lyons review. We argued strongly there that CPOs were not fit for purpose and needed to be streamlined. I am pleased to see those measures in the Bill but, again, they could be improved.
I want to spend a minute or two on pre-commencement planning conditions, which is the area of the Bill on which we will probably have most discussion in Committee. I am pleased that the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) is in his place. He criticised pre-commencement planning conditions at length, yet I have a list from a development taking place in my constituency and I cannot see what is wrong with any of these conditions. The developers have to provide samples of materials. The development is in a conservation area, so that is important. They have to provide full details about bats. Well, we must protect bats. There must be noise mitigation and notice of demolition.
Gavin Barwell
The hon. Lady gives the example of notice of materials. I can entirely see why that is a legitimate issue if the development is in a conservation area, but why must that be settled before a spade goes into the ground and the groundworks start?
Dr Blackman-Woods
That is a question that I would like the Minister to put to his constituents. People surrounding new developments very much want to know what the development looks like, what the quality of the build will be, what materials are going to be used and whether they fit into the surrounding landscape. If he is serious about neighbourhood planning and giving people a say over what happens in their area, pre-commencement planning is important. Some of the measures could lead to more delays in the planning system, rather than speeding it up, which I think is what the Minister is trying to do.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady mentioned landscape. One of my SME developers was required to submit a landscape scheme before starting on the development itself, as a pre-commencement condition. Does she not see that some of these conditions are completely inappropriate?
Dr Blackman-Woods
The problem is that we do not know why the local authority required that particular condition. It could have been worried that no plan might ever be produced.
John Mann
I recall that when I was knocking down and rebuilding a wall, for which I required planning permission, I was expected to provide a sample of brick in advance, from the wall that I had not yet taken down because I did not have planning permission. Is there not the potential for some compromise between the two sides on this?
Dr Blackman-Woods
Certainly not is the answer to that question—absolutely not.
In conclusion, we think that it is a real pity that the Bill does not contain more about infrastructure and how to deliver garden cities and new towns, but we look forward to having those discussions with the Minister in Committee. We do not intend to divide the House tonight, but we will see what happens in Committee.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
This has been an excellent debate, with contributions from 18 colleagues on the Government Benches. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) got to the heart of the matter: the interaction between neighbourhood plans and local plans, and particularly the issue of the five-year land supply. We will want to return to that issue as the Bill goes through Parliament.
We should be honest that there is a tension here. On the one hand, clearly we cannot expect our constituents to put a huge amount of work into neighbourhood plans if they do not hold weight in certain situations. On the other hand, if there is a local authority that either does not have a plan, or that has a wholly deficient plan that does not meet housing need in its area, any Member of this House who cares as passionately as we do about building the homes this country needs cannot allow such a situation to persist for years and years. That is a difficult issue, and I think that the suggestion of a mix of carrots and sticks is probably the right way to address it.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Does my hon. Friend think that there is at least a potential for the NPPF to be used as the reference point under those circumstances?
Gavin Barwell
I certainly do, and I think that there are ways we could look at addressing the issue, either through the Bill or through policy changes. I am very conscious of what the problem is, and I am sure that we can work together to find a solution as the Bill goes through.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers) spoke passionately about the green spaces in her constituency. She also sought reassurance on pre-commencement conditions, which I can provide. The consultation paper states:
“This measure will not restrict the ability of local planning authority to propose pre-commencement conditions that may be necessary—for example, conditions in relation to archaeological investigations or wildlife surveys.”
So there is protection there.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) spoke with his customary passion about the importance of custom build. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) asked about support for groups producing neighbourhood plans. We have made £22.5 million available between 2015 and 2018. I can reassure him that that money will go directly to the groups doing the relevant work.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) said that the view of his constituents was, “Enough housing, infrastructure required.” I half agree with them; it is absolutely right that we must get a much better linkage between the provision of infrastructure in return for taking more housing, but I cannot agree that we have enough housing in this country. We need more housing, but the infrastructure must go with it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who is such a fantastic advocate for his constituency, spoke with passion about the difficulties it is facing. It is certainly the case that neighbourhood plans must be consistent with the relevant local plan, but he tested the issues in relation to the green belt. If he will forgive me, I cannot talk about the particular plan, because it may well cross my desk at some point, but if I can talk in the generality, we would expect inspectors to test the figure for objectively assessed need and to test whether the circumstances in which an authority seeks to change green-belt boundaries meet the test in the NPPF, which is that they should be exceptional circumstances.
Dr Huq
The Minister mentioned green-belt de-designation, and I just wondered whether he had any thoughts on metropolitan open land. Twyford C of E High School in my constituency, which I mentioned, has identified a new site—a disused Barclays sports ground—but the school is tied up in knots because of the land’s status.
Gavin Barwell
Metropolitan open land is a status that is specific to Greater London, but it holds the same weight, effectively, in Greater London as green belt. If the hon. Lady were to consult the London plan, similar circumstances should apply in terms of its de-designation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) showed his huge experience in this area in his contribution. He made a number of constructive suggestions, which we will certainly look at.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) raised issues around the calculation of assessed need and in particular in relation to migration. The population projection figures do assume a fall in migration. While migration is clearly a factor, about a third of household growth nationally is due to net migration, so even if there were no migration into the country, there would still be significant pressure for more housing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) made two very powerful points. The first was about build-out rates. As a Government, we want to listen to developers and to address evidenced concerns about things that are slowing up development, be it pre-commencement conditions, the time it takes to agree section 106 agreements or concerns about utilities. However, if we do all those things, I think we have a right to turn to the development industry and ask what it is going to do to raise its game in terms of the speed with which it builds out. My hon. Friend also made another critical point, which is that, when we talk about affordable housing, yes, council and housing association housing are a part of that, but what most of our constituents want is a home that is affordable to buy, and he was absolutely right to stress that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg) made the powerful point that this problem is going to take time to solve. There is no quick switch that anyone can throw to deal with it. He rightly wanted to hear more about what we can do to focus development on brownfield land. The Act that received Royal Assent earlier this year set up the principle of brownfield registers, where local authorities will set out clearly the brownfield land that is available in their areas and suitable for housing development.
My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), and Opposition Members as well, referred to resourcing for planning departments, and that is something the Government have consulted on. As part of the White Paper, we will want to come forward with a response to that consultation.
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
Are we going to intervene in the case of indolent councils that claim they have the right resources but continually fail to provide a local or a neighbourhood plan, which we will certainly not see until the end of next year at the earliest? Can we bring in a planning inspector sooner?
Gavin Barwell
The Government have signalled that we will intervene early in 2017, potentially, on councils that do not have local plans in place. The Secretary of State talked about that issue and about our determination to take it forward.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) raised the critical issue of broadband, and I hope I can provide him with some reassurance on it. We have legislated through the building regulations to require that, from January 2017, all new buildings, including homes and major renovations, include in-building physical infrastructure. We are also legislating to introduce a new broadband universal service obligation to ensure people can request an affordable connection at a minimum speed from a designated provider. There are therefore measures in place, and I am happy to discuss them with him and to check that they reassure him on that vital issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) talked about the importance of incentivising communities by seeing a proportion of the uplift in land value going back to the community. I do not know whether her council has adopted the community infrastructure levy, but if it has, there is a proportion—15%—that goes to the local area, and that increases to 25% if the relevant local community has a neighbourhood plan.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) made an absolutely vital point about the importance of small sites. If we want to get small builders involved in greater numbers, it is about not just financing but releasing small sites.
Finally on the Government side of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) made the absolutely critical point that this is about quality as well quantity, and that if we build beautiful buildings, it will encourage communities to go for growth.
Turning very briefly to the Opposition, there is no doubting the passion of Labour Members in addressing our housing problems, but several things were said that show their policy prescriptions sometimes do not match such ambition. I entirely understand concerns about permitted developments, but it is worth putting on the record that we have had over 11,000 permitted development applications. We do not know the number of homes involved—we want to collect data on that—but reform of permitted developments has made a significant contribution to increasing the housing supply.
We have also heard concerns about the duty to co-operate. I know that that is difficult, but for a core urban area that cannot meet all its housing need, it is vital that surrounding areas play their part. Getting rid of the duty to co-operate might mean not providing the housing we need in such areas.
Finally, concerns were raised about planning conditions. The shadow Secretary of State asked for data, and I have had time to dig some out. A survey of small and medium-sized builders carried out by the National House Building Council reported that 34% of them were concerned about the time to clear conditions and 29% of them were concerned about the extent of those conditions, so there is real evidence of concern on that issue.
In conclusion, last week the Secretary of State set out the first step in our plan to get this country building the homes it desperately needs. This Bill is the second step. We entirely accept that it is not on its own a solution to the problem and, later in the autumn, we will publish a White Paper. However, the fact is that for years and years we have not built enough homes in this country. The consequences for the ability of young people to get on to the housing ladder have been dramatic: 50% of 45-years-old owned their own home by the time they were 30, but only 35% of 35-years-old owned their own home by the time they were 30 and the projection is that only 26% of 25-years-old will own their own home by the time they are 30. This Government are determined to build a country that works for everyone, and critical to that will be creating a housing market that works for everyone. The Bill is an important step in a wider plan to deliver that critical ambition for the future of this country.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Neighbourhood Planning Bill:
Committal
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on 1 November 2016.
(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
Proceedings on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading
(4) Proceedings on Consideration and any proceedings in legislative grand committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which proceedings on Consideration are commenced.
(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.—(Heather Wheeler.)
Question agreed to.
Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Money)
Queen’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:
(a) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by a Minister of the Crown, a person holding office under Her Majesty or a government department, and
(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Heather Wheeler.)
Question agreed to.
Business without Debate
School Admissions Code
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for selecting me to speak on this matter this evening, some 13 months after I first raised it. Although the issues I intend to raise affect only a relatively small number of children, if they were resolved positively or we heard a positive response from the Minister tonight, it would undoubtedly improve the life chances of thousands of children in this country every year.
The definition of a summer-born child is one who is born between 1 April and 31 August. The key point at issue is that children must enter education on the September after their fifth birthday. Although many children are ready to do so, some are not. While no two summer-born or premature children have exactly the same needs, they face many common challenges: shortened attention span, delayed motor development, underdeveloped emotional maturity, smaller physical stature and ongoing medical issues. A wealth of academic research shows that summer-born children as a group lag significantly behind their older peers. Empirically and instinctively, it is easy to see why that is the case. With a gap of almost a year between the youngest and the oldest in a school year, it is unsurprising that the development of the youngest can be held back significantly.
The Minister will know that in 2014, his Department produced a study that showed that at the end of the first year in school, two thirds of summer-born children failed to meet the minimum standards in reading, writing, speaking, maths and other developmental skills. That compares with less than a third of those born between September and December.
Children who are the youngest in the year are disproportionately likely to report bullying and lower levels of self-confidence, and their overall satisfaction at school is significantly reduced. There has also been a higher incidence of diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism among summer-born children. Most of the experts I have met believe that most of those diagnoses are the result of the child struggling from being placed in school too soon, being comparatively immature and struggling developmentally, rather than their suffering from the condition.
Almost exactly a year ago, but somewhat later at night, I was lucky enough to hold a debate on exactly the same subject, which I know the Minister will remember. I made three requests of him with regard to the admissions code. First, although I accept that there is no statutory barrier to a child being admitted outside their normal cohort, there is, as he knows, no right for the parents to insist or appeal. Secondly, several local authorities were insisting that although a child’s entry could be delayed, they would have to join year 1 and miss reception. Equally, some authorities said that although a child could delay entry by a year throughout their primary education, at secondary school level they would force the child to join their non-delayed cohort. The child would therefore start secondary education having missed a year of education. Finally, he will remember that I brought up the issue of prematurity in the context of summer-born children.
Most local authorities now allow summer-born children to start school a year later. However, many still demand a very high level of expert evidence for doing so. That is a barrier that many parents simply cannot pass. Most summer-born children are three and a half when their parents have to start applying for schools and decide when they should enter. That does not give much time for the experts, however skilled, to gauge a child’s strengths and needs. At that stage, the parents, who have assessed the child from birth, are probably in a better position to assess and make a decision about what is best for their child. At that early stage of a child’s life, parents have a real understanding of the abilities of their child and can judge whether they need extra time to develop.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a strong case, which I firmly support. The Minister announced last year his intention to amend the school admissions code. Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that nothing has happened since? I have had various constituents chasing me, and I chased the Minister by writing to him on 6 July. Only last week I received a reply from Lord Nash, stating that the Department is giving the matter careful consideration and will announce its plans shortly. Is it not just taking too long? Another year of children starting school in September has been missed.
Stephen Hammond
I had hoped that progress might have been better, but it would be unfair on my hon. Friend the Minister to say that nothing has happened. He has met me on several occasions and pushed the case.
My hon. Friend could almost have been reading my speech, because I was about to remind the Minister of the issues that I raised last year, which I wish to raise with him again this evening. First, following that debate, he wrote a helpful letter to local authorities. The only problem is that a postcode lottery has developed. Some local authorities have been receptive to his letter, have taken the point that there is going to be a consultation, and have therefore looked to apply flexibility to when a child should enter school. That has been very good news for a number of parents. Unfortunately, many other authorities have said, “Well, that is just a letter from the Minister, and a consultation may happen at some stage in the future,” but have taken absolutely no notice. In the past two days I have had emails flooding in from people across the country sharing radically different experiences.
Secondly, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, we need the timetable for the changes to the code. That would lead to the end of the postcode lottery, but more importantly it would allow parents some certainty in planning their child’s future.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman brought this subject to Westminster Hall a short time ago, and I supported him then and do so again tonight. We are all concerned about the angst of parents and pupils, and the educationalists—the teachers themselves—want to do away with the rigidity in the system and bring flexibility. Is that not what the Minister should do after tonight—bring about flexibility for everyone?
Stephen Hammond
I was grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking part in the debate this time last year, and I am grateful to him for being here again this evening. What he describes is indeed what I want, and I think it is what the Minister wants. We are here to gently push the Minister slightly further in the right direction, slightly faster.
My third point is that, as the Minister will know, one real problem is that when local authorities agree to a child’s entry being delayed, they do not all allow that child to remain with the same cohort through their whole educational life.
Finally, I want to make the case once more that in the consultation the Minister should consider using a premature child’s due date for admissions rather than the date on which they were born. That would be a simple change but would change many children’s lives.
Following last year’s debate, the Minister helpfully wrote to local authorities up and down the country setting out the Government’s intention to amend the school admissions code to provide some more flexibility, which we would all like to see. Following that letter, a number of authorities, including Wandsworth, Cumbria, Liverpool, Yorkshire, Devon and even my own local authority of Merton, have been much more generous in allowing parents to choose when their child should start school. That has been a huge relief for parents and made a difference to a number of children, and I thank the Minister on their behalf. A parent from Hertfordshire wrote to me explaining that their local authority had made some quick and simple changes to admissions, which had allowed their premature child to start a year later.
I know from emails sent to me over the past month, however, that parents up and down the country are still experiencing a problem, as many local authorities are reluctant to change their policy until they are forced to do so by the Minister and the Department, and we see the change to the code. That is leading to the postcode lottery I described earlier, whereby whether someone’s child has the opportunity to reach their full potential depends on where someone lives—
Stephen Hammond
I have heard examples of councils refusing to change their policy, or of children being allowed to start a year later but then being forced to skip year 7 in secondary school. I have seen local authorities still continue to place a huge burden of proof on parents in order to authorise their child starting a year later. As the Minister will know, academies operate their own admissions policy; although many have bought into the spirit of his letter, many also operate a policy that contributes to that postcode lottery.
Inevitably, the choice of school and of whether to delay entry are stressful for parents, especially those who see the problem of developmental delay for their children and wish to do the best for them. I urge the Minister to act as quickly as possible to provide some certainty to parents of summer-born children, particularly as many people will be about to make applications for next year. Those parents are weighing up whether to enter their children for reception now or to wait. That is a very difficult decision for parents, so I ask the Government to look at bringing forward the consultation rather more quickly.
The Minister will know that many local authorities will not give certainty to a child’s education even if they agree to a delay. It is absolutely key that he provides that certainty, particularly as some local authorities grant a delay but then force a child to enter year 1 rather than reception, or to go to year 8 at the end of year 6, rather than year 7. Again, if he could indicate that he intends to bring forward consultation on the code, that would be very helpful.
Finally, it is clear to me—I have made this case before—that a premature child’s due date should be used for admissions, rather than their birth date. Since my last Adjournment debate on this topic, a team at the University of Bristol has published research that looked at school exam and test results for children born prematurely, from key stage 1 all the way through to GCSEs. The team found that prematurity impacts on educational performance, and the effect is most dramatic in the early years. For those who are born extremely prematurely and fall into the wrong year group the gaps in attainment are even more pronounced.
Many premature children and their parents face challenges and difficulties throughout their lives. The simple change I am asking for could make a massive difference to those children’s educational attainment. The Minister will know that that change is fully supported by Bliss, a fantastic charity that has been working on this issue for a while. I thank Bliss for its campaign, and I hope the Minister will listen to Bliss tonight.
This is the second time that I have been grateful for the opportunity to raise these matters in the House. I think the problems are similar to those I raised last year. I am grateful for the letter the Minister wrote, but am hopeful that he will be able now to confirm the timetable, and say that the consultation will start soon and that he is prepared to accept these changes to the admissions code. I urge him to spell out how, in the interim, he intends to make sure that the postcode lottery resulting from his first letter can be done away with, so that parents making decisions now will have some certainty.
If we are successful tonight and these changes go ahead, we will improve the lives of thousands of children. They will be happier, more confident, more academically successful and more likely to reach their full potential.
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Nick Gibb)
Thank you, Mr Bercow—Mr Speaker, rather; I beg your pardon. I am still recovering from Question Time earlier today.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) on securing this debate on the admission of summer-born children, and pay tribute to him for leading the campaign to ensure that summer-born children and those born prematurely have the best and most appropriate start to their education. Yet again, he made a compelling case. I welcome this opportunity to explain the Government’s position, and to provide an update on next steps. I share his concerns about this issue, and would like to reassure him that we have been considering how we can take forward the changes announced last year to summer-born children’s entry to school.
As my hon. Friend is aware, admission authorities must provide for the admission of all children in the September following their fourth birthday. We know that most parents are happy for their children to go to school at this point, confident that they are ready for the classroom. Parents are, however, not obliged to send their child to school until they reach compulsory school age, which is the start of the term after their fifth birthday or, to be precise, the prescribed day after they turn five. Where parents feel their child is not ready to start school before compulsory school age, there are flexibilities in the system that enable them to defer the date on which their child is admitted to school until later in the reception year, or to arrange for them to attend on a part-time basis until they reach compulsory school age.
Where parents of a summer-born child want their child to start school at the age of five, as the law enables them to, their child will start school at the point when other children in their age group are moving up from the reception class to year 1. Like my hon. Friend, many parents have concerns, which I share, that starting formal schooling in year 1 and missing the essential teaching that takes place in the reception class may not be right for their child. Where parents would like their child to start school in the reception class at the age of five, they must currently make a request for them to be admitted out of their normal year group. The admissions code requires the admission authority to make decisions on such requests based on the circumstances of the case.
We have already made improvements to support summer-born children. In December 2014, the Government strengthened the code to make it clear that all decisions must be made in the child’s best interests. In making that decision, the admission authority is required to take into account the views of the headteacher of the school concerned, as they are best placed to advise on which age group at their school the child is best suited to. The code also makes it clear that admission authorities must take into account the wishes of parents, alongside other information relating to the child’s development—any relevant medical history and, in the case of premature children, whether they would have fallen into the lower age group if born at the expected time.
The Government amended the code and revised the non-statutory guidance on the admission of summer-born children to ensure transparency for parents and the best outcomes for children. The new code and guidance provide more information for both admission authorities and parents on how the process should work, emphasising that decisions should be made in the best interests of the child.
Unfortunately, in spite of that change to the code, parents and admission authorities still occasionally fail to agree on what is in the best interest of the child. I have been concerned for some time about the number of cases in which it appears that children are still being admitted to year 1 against the wishes of their parents. As a consequence, these pupils are missing out on the essential early teaching of reading and arithmetic that takes place in the reception class. There are also concerns that some children who are admitted outside their normal year group are later expected to miss a year and move up, against their parents’ wishes, to join the other children of the same age range, as my hon. Friend pointed out.
Another issue, which my hon. Friend raised this time last year, is the admission of children who were born prematurely in the summer term. I agree that the potential problems that may be experienced by some summer-born children would probably be more likely for a premature child, born in the summer, whose expected date of birth was September or later. As my hon. Friend is aware, last September we announced our intention of making a further amendment to the admissions code to ensure that summer-born children could be admitted to reception at the age of five, if that was what their parents wished, and to ensure that those children were able to remain with that cohort as they progressed through school.
We made this announcement last year so that schools and local authorities were aware of the policy direction when making decisions on the cases before them. It is very welcome that some local authorities have now changed their policies on deferring entry to school and have become more flexible in agreeing to parental requests, in line with the policy intention explicitly set out in my open letter of 8 September last year to parents and local authorities. Nevertheless, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the admission of summer-born children continues to be a problem in some parts of the country. We need to do more to help parents, particularly those with genuine concerns about their child’s readiness for school.
Since our announcement last year, I know many parents throughout the country have been waiting for the change to come into force. I understand that it is frustrating, but it is important that we take the time to consider carefully how best to implement the change, and how the new arrangements will be put in place. We will support summer children in the best way we can, but it is important that we also consider the wider impact of any policy changes. It would clearly not be right for every summer-born child to delay starting school until they are five, as many will be ready to take on the challenges of formal schooling earlier. In developing this policy, we want to make sure that parents have the information that they need to make informed decisions about their child’s education. We also need to ensure that parents do not use the flexibilities as a mechanism by which to gain an unfair advantage in the admissions system by applying for a place in the reception class of their preferred school for when their child is four, and again for when their child is five. Furthermore, while we want to provide admissions flexibility where it is most needed, we also want to ensure that we do not create unintended consequences for the early years sector.
We have been considering all these issues carefully as we develop the policy. In particular, we have carried out work on the likely cost of full implementation. First indications show that the costs are high. These are, however, based on a limited amount of information on why parents might choose to defer their summer-born child’s admission to school. This is why we are starting to collect more information and data before making a decision on how to roll out any changes. I know my hon. Friend has a particular concern about the problems faced by some premature children and their readiness for school. I hope I can provide some reassurance that we will also be considering how best to support those children in any future changes.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important issue today. I hope he is reassured to know that we have been driving this policy forward and ensuring the detailed work is being carried out on the arrangements we might put in place to support parents of summer-born children.
Stephen Hammond
Much of what the Minister has said is very helpful in adding detail. I am particularly interested in the cost analysis. My understanding is that headteachers think that while there would be a cost for movement between years, the overall cost would not be particularly excessive. I shall look at the analysis with interest. He says he is driving the policy forward. Can he give some indication of when he expects to either have the consultation or change the code?
Mr Gibb
We want to make sure that we have done all the research necessary to determine the extent to which parents will take advantage of new flexibilities. Some local authorities have looked seriously at the letter I sent them and are being very flexible in their approach to the parents of summer-born children. We will look to see what comes out of that experience in determining the likely take-up of those flexibilities by parents of summer-born children, which will then drive the analysis of the costs. The costs may well be neutral to a school, but may not necessarily be neutral to the system as a whole, if children stay in early years provision for longer than they would otherwise have done and therefore spend an extra year in the education system.
We are carefully considering the issues and collecting data on them, which will drive how we determine this policy. I hope that my hon. Friend is reassured that we are driving policy forward and ensuring that the detailed work is being carried out on the arrangements that we might put in place to support parents of summer-born children and to ensure that they do not feel pressured to send their children to school before they are ready.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Transport
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
This Government are making the biggest investment in our railways since the Victorian era, enabling more trains and longer trains to operate on many of our busiest routes. More than 563 new carriages are planned to enter service by the end of 2020.
[Official Report, 15 September 2016, Vol. 614, c. 1028.]
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
The service on Southern is officially the worst in the country, and passengers have endured appalling overcrowding for far too long. Removing hundreds of services a day has served only to exacerbate overcrowding on the services that survive. When will the Secretary of State bring to an end the misery of long-suffering passengers and intervene, or does he agree with the former Rail Minister, who effectively said that there are no circumstances that would warrant Govia Thameslink Railway being stripped of this franchise?
Paul Maynard
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that more than two thirds of the services that were taken out of the timetable have now been put back in again. Our focus is on restoring normality to the service and putting the interests of passengers first. The service is improving on a regular basis, with more services returning to the full timetable, and I will focus on that to make sure that we get back to the full timetable.
[Official Report, 15 September 2016, Vol. 614, c. 1029.]
Letter of correction from Paul Maynard:
Errors have been identified in the responses I gave to the hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) during Questions to the Secretary of State for Transport.
The correct response should have been:
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
This Government are making the biggest investment in our railways since the Victorian era, enabling more trains and longer trains to operate on many of our busiest routes. Since 2010, more than 563 new carriages have been brought into service in England and Wales, and a further 5,032 are planned to enter service by the end of 2020.
The correct response should have been:
Paul Maynard
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that one third of the services that were taken out of the timetable have now been put back in again. Our focus is on restoring normality to the service and putting the interests of passengers first. The service is improving on a regular basis, with more services returning to the full timetable, and I will focus on that to make sure that we get back to the full timetable.
Implementation of the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts
Closure of Lancashire's Libraries and Museums
Restoration of the Wellington Monument in Taunton Deane
Welsh Assembly Oath or Affirmation
Written Statements
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Overseas Electors
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)
I am pleased to publish the Government’s plans setting out how we will deliver on our manifesto pledge to remove the current 15 year time limit on British citizens who live abroad registering as overseas electors.
Our proposals will give all British citizens who have lived in the UK a lifelong right to vote in parliamentary elections. They will ensure that all eligible overseas electors are able to register to vote and renew their registration in a convenient and timely fashion while maintaining the integrity of the electoral register and guarding against fraud. The policy will allow British citizens previously resident in the UK but who were not previously registered to vote, or had registered more than 15 years ago, to register as an overseas elector.
The publication of the policy will allow the expatriate community and those with technical electoral expertise to comment. Our aim is to have implemented the policy ahead of the next scheduled parliamentary elections.
The costs of implementing the policy are well within my Department’s spending review bid and funding will in due course be available for local authorities in line with the Government’s new burdens doctrine.
This is one of a number of proposals to make sure our democracy works for everyone. The Government are also encouraging registration in under-registered areas, equalising constituencies, and looking at what can be done to improve access to anonymous registration for those escaping domestic violence.
I am placing a copy of the policy statement in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS166]
CERT-UK: Transfer of Functions
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Ben Gummer)
Further to the Government’s statement of March 2016, the transfer of CERT-UK (the Computer Emergency Response Team, UK) functions and staff to the new National Cyber Security Centre has now completed. CERT-UK has ceased operating and will be closed. The new centre, which will open publicly over the coming months, is part of GCHQ and will be the UK’s authority on cyber security. More information on the National Cyber Security Centre will be set out in the Government’s National Cyber Security Strategy which will be published later this year.
[HCWS167]
Lloyds Banking Group: Government Shares
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)
Further to the statement provided to the House on 4 December 2015, today I can inform the House that the trading plan to sell the Government’s shares in Lloyds Banking Group has been re-started. This is a further step in the Government’s plan to return Lloyds to the private sector.
I received advice from UK Financial Investments (UKFI) that selling shares through the trading plan represents good value for money for the taxpayer. This sales method has been very successful previously, achieving over £9 billion of sales between December 2014 and June 2016. In total, we have recovered over £16.9 billion for the taxpayer from Lloyds through sales and dividend payments.
The trading plan commenced on 7 October 2016 and will run for a year. Shares will not be sold below a floor price that HMT has determined delivers value for money for the taxpayer and ensures that the Government will get back all of the £20.3 billion that taxpayers injected into Lloyds during the financial crisis. The actual number of shares sold under the trading plan will depend on market conditions.
I can also announce the withdrawal of the Lloyds retail offer. At the current share price, the retail offer would be extremely unlikely to recoup all the money the taxpayers put into the bank. Our plan will get back all the cash taxpayers invested in Lloyds during the financial crisis and leave the bank in a better place to continue the crucial role it plays in supporting individuals, families and businesses up and down the UK.
I will update Parliament with further details at the end of the trading plan.
[HCWS170]
International Monetary Fund: Bilateral Loan
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
Today, the UK completed the signing of a new bilateral loan commitment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), valued at 9,178.2 million SDRs, equivalent to £10.278 million using exchange rates on 7 October 2016. This bilateral loan replaces one of the same value, which came into effect in February 2016 (HCWS542). UK lending to the IMF remains within the limit set by the International Monetary Fund (Limit on Lending) Order 2010, which came into force on 22 July 2010.
The new loan is part of a global initiative to ensure that the IMF is well-resourced. It is vital at this time that we have an IMF equipped to strengthen the resilience of the global economy against risks and uncertainty. The UK is one of the first countries to sign a new bilateral loan with the IMF, maintaining its leading role within international institutions and in the world economy.
The SDR is the unit of account used by the IMF. Its value is calculated daily as a weighted average of the US dollar, euro, renminbi, yen, and pound sterling.
[HCWS173]
Military Operations: European Convention on Human Rights Derogation
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Michael Fallon)
Over the past decade a series of court judgments have extended the reach of the European convention on human rights to combat zones. This extra-territorial jurisdiction was never envisaged by the convention’s authors.
While the courts have been seeking to reconcile the convention with the long established law of armed conflict (or international humanitarian law), our military personnel have been engaged in operations overseas in support of the international community. They have had to do so in the face of growing legal uncertainty and an unprecedented level of litigation, much of it fuelled by a small number of law firms. In addition to the millions of pounds this litigation has been costing the taxpayer, the resulting uncertainties have been distressing to many current personnel and veterans, and military advice is that there is a risk of seriously undermining the operational effectiveness of the armed forces.
It is for these reasons that the Government through a range of measures are implementing the manifesto commitment to ensure our armed forces overseas are not subject to persistent legal claims that undermine their ability to do their job.
I am today informing the House that before embarking on significant future military operations, this Government intend derogating from the European convention on human rights, where this is appropriate in the precise circumstances of the operation in question. Any derogation would need to be justified and could only be made from certain articles of the convention.
In the event of such a derogation, our armed forces will continue to operate to the highest standards and be subject to the rule of law. They remain at all times subject to UK Service Law, which incorporates the criminal law of England and Wales, and international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict including the Geneva conventions) wherever in the world they are serving. Therefore any credible allegations of criminal wrongdoing by members of the armed forces will continue to be investigated, and prosecuted within the service justice system.
Meanwhile the Government will continue to work tirelessly to uphold international humanitarian law in armed conflicts and to ensure that the appropriate, time-honoured balance between military necessity and humanitarian concerns—as enshrined in the Geneva conventions—continues to govern armed conflicts throughout the world.
This announcement is an important part of our plan to deliver our manifesto pledge including limiting the length of time that claims can be brought against the Government; strengthening the penalties for firms who engage in vexatious practices; and to reducing the financial incentive for law firms to pursue spurious claims.
[HCWS168]
Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees: Triennial Review
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
The Ministry of Defence is required to review their non-departmental public bodies at least once every three years to ensure that they have regular independent challenge.
I am today announcing the outcome of the Triennial review of the Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees (VAPCs). The review examined whether there is a continuing need for the function provided by the VAPCs and concluded in two stages. The first stage examined the key functions of the VAPCs and the second stage ensured that the body is operating in line with the recognised principles of good corporate governance.
The review concluded that the VAPCs continue to provide valuable impartial advice to both myself and Veterans UK, part of Defence Business Services. In addition, the VAPCs continue to play an important role in furthering the interests and needs of veterans, not least of which is the result of the establishment of forums under the armed forces and community covenants, which continue to generate significant contribution from the public sector, local authorities and military units. Thus the VAPCs are able to sustain clear and relevant value for a range of stakeholders.
[HCWS172]
General Affairs Council: 20 September 2016
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Jones)
The General Affairs Council on 20 September was chaired by the Slovak presidency and held in Brussels.
General Affairs Council
The General Affairs Council on 20 September discussed the October European Council; follow up to the June European Council; mid-term review of the multiannual financial framework; and the European Commission’s annual work programme 2017.
A provisional report of the meeting and the conclusions adopted can be found at:
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/gac/2016/09/20/.
Preparation of the European Council (20-21 October)
The Council was presented with the agenda for the October European Council. It is due to discuss migration, trade, and external relations with Russia. The Government made clear that while we remained a member state of the EU, the UK would continue to contribute fully in the preparation of the European Council and advance positions in line with our national interest.
Follow-up to the June European Council
The Council also discussed the conclusions of the June European Council, focusing on migration, jobs, growth and investment, and external relations. Member states called for more practical ways to implement European Council conclusions.
Mid-Term Review / Revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework
The Commission presented its proposal for the mid-term review of the multiannual financial framework 2014-20. The proposal is intended to increase flexibility in the EU budget, focusing on the economy, security and migration. The presidency confirmed this will be a standing item on the General Affairs Council agenda until agreement is reached.
Commission Annual Work Programme 2017
The Commission presented the 2017 letter of intent. During an exchange of views the UK stated that the Commission should prioritise the single market, the digital single market and migration. We also made clear any proposals on defence issues would need careful scrutiny and should not duplicate NATO. The presidency stated its intention to present the Commission with a letter outlining the overall views of member states for it to consider when finalising the 2017 Commission work programme.
Sir Julian King’s appointment
Sir Julian King has been appointed as European Commissioner for the Security Union. He secured the European Parliament’s endorsement when it voted in favour of his appointment on Thursday 15 September. The Council of the European Union gave its approval at the General Affairs Council on Tuesday 20 September. Sir Julian replaces Lord Hill following his resignation in July this year.
[HCWS169]
Contingencies Fund Advance
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
The Home Office requires an advance to start recruitment of the director general of the Office for Police Conduct. This advance is to cover recruitment costs only, as the successful candidate will take up their post following Royal Assent of the Policing and Crime Bill.
Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £15,000 for this new service will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Home Office. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £15,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
[HCWS171]
Employment and Support Allowance
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Damian Green)
I would like to update hon. Members on the main item of business undertaken by my Department since the House rose for conference recess.
When people claim Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and/or Universal Credit (UC) due to a health condition or disability they are required to take part in Work Capability Assessments (WCA) on an ongoing basis to confirm their eligibility. This includes people with the most severe health conditions or disabilities, even though we already know from their initial WCA, and from healthcare professionals, that, short of medical advances, their condition is unlikely to improve.
On 1 October, I announced that that we will stop reassessing people with the most severe health conditions and disabilities. This change will apply to people who have already been placed in the ESA support group or UC limited capability for work and work related activity categories following a WCA and who have the most severe health conditions and disabilities (defined as claimants with severe, lifelong, often progressive and incurable conditions, with minimally fluctuating care needs, who are unlikely to ever be able to move closer to the labour market and into work). The IT changes needed are expected to be completed by the end of 2017. In the meantime, we will be working to ensure these people are not reassessed unnecessarily.
Over the coming months we will work with key stakeholders, including disabled people, disability charities, our health assessment provider, the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, medical professionals and others to develop a set of criteria, set out in guidance, to switch off reassessments for those that are eligible.
[HCWS174]
House of Lords
Death of a Member: Lord Borrie
The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)
My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the death of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, on 30 September. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Lord’s family and friends.
Investigatory Powers Bill: Trade Union and Political Activities
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to strengthen provisions in the Investigatory Powers Bill to increase the protection of data relating to trade union and political activities.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, the Government have already strengthened the provisions in the Investigatory Powers Bill by accepting a Labour amendment to add protections for trade unions. It is already illegal for the security and intelligence agencies to further the interests of any political party. The Bill goes further by putting the Wilson doctrine on to a statutory footing, requiring the Prime Minister’s approval for the targeting of parliamentarians’ communications in addition to Secretary of State and judicial commissioner authorisation.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I thank the noble Earl for his Answer. He has opened up all sorts of trapdoors that I would like to go down, but has he met organisations such as the Blacklist Support Group, the NUJ and Liberty, which have documented evidence of police and security service wrongdoing and illegal activities, so that we can be sure that the safeguards are strong enough?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I have had round-table meetings with a number of organisations, including those representing the journalist profession and freedom of information bodies. The adherence of any public authority to existing legislation is an issue for the commissioners and the relevant courts or regulators, and any complaints can be followed up through those channels. The Bill we are debating provides for a whole range of safeguards in addition to those that currently exist: statutory oversight of the use of investigatory powers and greater powers for the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to carry out investigations. In addition, we are creating a number of offences. I hope the noble Baroness will see that we have done our best to strengthen the safeguards that exist under current legislation.
High-Cost Credit and Debt Management
Lord Sharkey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the harm to consumers caused by unsolicited real-time promotion of high-cost credit and of debt management solutions.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, the Government have transferred responsibility for the regulation of high-cost credit and debt management firms to the Financial Conduct Authority. This more robust regime is helping to protect consumers better. The Financial Conduct Authority is currently reviewing its consumer credit rules in relation to cold calling, particularly to high-cost credit and debt management, and expects to publish the outcome of the review by the end of the year.
Lord Sharkey (LD)
Cold calling is a huge problem. The FCA acknowledges that many of the 30 million cold calls selling fee-paying debt management services were misleading and damaging, and affect the most financially disadvantaged in our society. As the Minister said, the Government promised that the FCA’s review of cold calling will be published before the end of the year. Will the review look at why cold calling for mortgages has long been banned but not for high-cost credit or fee-paying debt management services?
Lord Young of Cookham
The answer to the last part of the noble Lord’s question is in relation to what happened with the introduction of the right to buy, back in the 1980s. There was some mis-selling by mortgage brokers, targeting council house tenants who had the benefit of a huge discount. They were not really interested in the creditworthiness of those people as mortgage borrowers and that is why that measure was introduced. On cold calling, the Government will introduce legislation through the Digital Economy Bill which will place, via the Information Commissioner, a statutory obligation on a code for cold calling. In this year’s Budget, additional provision was made to protect particularly vulnerable people from cold calling.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, should not the Government take action now to put a finite figure on what credit organisations can charge? Normally, the poorest people in the community pay the highest rates of interest.
Lord Young of Cookham
The noble Lord is quite right. That is why we introduced a cap of 0.8% on payday loans. That means if you borrow £100 for a day, the maximum amount that can be paid in interest is 80p.
Lord Naseby (Con)
This review being undertaken by the regulator, the FCA, is very welcome. Nevertheless, it is not just cold calling, is it? Advertising is allegedly controlled but I watched an advertisement last night on television that was highly questionable. Is it not a matter of bringing together all the authorities—the Advertising Standards Authority, the FCA and other direct selling bodies—to have not just a review but an action plan to sort this out? Many elderly people are being duped out of thousands of pounds. Is it not time we really took action on this issue?
Lord Young of Cookham
I understand the strong feelings held by many noble Lords on this subject. As I said, in this year’s Budget, a large sum of money was identified to help vulnerable people and enable them to stop these sorts of calls being made. On cold calling by debt management companies and credit companies, there is a code they must abide by. If they break the code they can be fined. Last month, one payday loan company had to repay £34 million in redress because it broke those guidelines.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
My Lords, I declare an interest as patron of Christians Against Poverty, a voluntary organisation based in Bradford dealing with debt management. Does the Minister agree that debt management is an area where there is very significant participation by the not-for-profit voluntary sector? Will he undertake to draw the attention of the FCA and other authorities to the participation of this sector so that it may be listened to and its role receive the recognition that will help people in these problems?
Lord Young of Cookham
I pay tribute to the initiative taken by the most reverend Primate in his setting up of LifeSavers, a joint project by the Church and credit unions which the Government helped to finance. That is helping children develop good financial habits at a young age by setting up saving clubs in primary schools, in partnership with credit unions. I also welcome the initiative of the Church of England in establishing the Just Finance Foundation to develop and implement the most reverend Primate’s vision of creating a fairer and more just financial system. Of course I will take on board the suggestions he made in his question.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, do the Government agree that part of the problem is that we have so many different regulators involved with different products—whether it is the Information Commissioner, trading standards or the FCA—that there is complete chaos and no one quite knows where they are protected with which product or who to contact when there is a problem? Is the Minister indicating that in the legislation the Government will bring forward, there will be one responsible individual across the board to co-ordinate that, or is the role he proposes for the Information Commissioner a very narrow one?
Lord Young of Cookham
Of course, the Information Commissioner covers a wide variety of cold callers, whereas this Question is about high-cost credit and debt management solutions. The FCA is currently going through a process of authorising debt management firms and high-cost credit companies, and if they do not meet the high standards of the FCA, they simply will not be allowed to go on carrying out their business. It is not a complete shambles, which I think was what the noble Baroness said. We transferred responsibility from the OFT to the FCA simply because it has a more robust regime for dealing with any misuse of cold calling.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, what measures have the Government been able to take in relation to the calls that come from overseas, which I understand are now the majority?
Lord Young of Cookham
If the calls come from overseas, obviously the response that we can take in this country is limited. But if they are calling on behalf of companies based in this country, we can take action because a high-cost credit or debt management company that takes information from a telephone company based overseas has a responsibility to make sure that that overseas company acted in accordance with the code in this country. So we can get at them through the companies based here.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, how soon does the Minister expect that the change to the FCA will produce action? This problem has been with us and with large numbers of our fellow citizens for a very long time and the Government are saying, “We need a code”. We know exactly what these companies are doing wrong. It is effective identification and then punishment that are required.
Lord Young of Cookham
The FCA has brought right to the front of the queue the process of authorising the firms that the noble Lord referred to. It is going through that process as we speak and hopes to complete it relatively soon, depending on progress. As I said, if those firms do not meet the high standards set by the FCA, they will not be allowed to continue trading.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, vulnerable and disadvantaged people want, need and desire credit as much as the rest of us do. The problem is, they cannot afford cheap credit because their credit status is not high enough, and I very much welcome the comments of the most reverend Primate. Will the Minister take back two queries to the DWP? First, given that so many people are spending up to 25% of their income on debt repayment—that is coming out of benefit income—can we ensure that jobcentres, benefit offices and other outlets promote the credit union initiative? Secondly, will he ask his colleagues in the DWP to look again at the ending of the Social Fund, which provided regulated, cheap and safe credit for essentials for people, which is no longer available to them?
Lord Young of Cookham
I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness said about promoting credit unions. We want a sustainable financial services sector, and that is why we have invested £38 million in credit unions through the Department for Work and Pensions credit union expansion project. We are also providing half a million pounds to help Armed Forces personnel access credit union services where they want so to do. There are other initiatives we are taking to support the credit union sector, and I will pursue with colleagues at the DWP the suggestion she made about the fund.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
Will the Minister confirm that the FCA will ensure that the companies it looks at do not participate in any of the forwarding on of contact details of vulnerable people who comprise the “suckers’ lists” that have been exposed, which deliberately target people who are very vulnerable, often with a degree of impaired mental capacity, who are entrapped because of their situation? Many of these people have failed to untick the box saying that their details can be handed on and therefore inadvertently have complied with the compiling of such lists.
Lord Young of Cookham
The noble Baroness has put her finger on the problem: many of these so-called cold calls are not cold calls at all. They are called warm calls in that, perhaps inadvertently, people have ticked a box on a website which has enabled that site to contact them at a later date or, even worse, to share their details with other providers. I hope that the FCA can pick up on this as it goes through the authorisation process. As I said in response to the initial Question, the FCA is reviewing the consumer credit rules in relation to cold calling at the moment and I will ensure that it takes on the very valid point that the noble Baroness has just made.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to hear that the Government are reviewing cold calling. I would be grateful if my noble friend could confirm that that review will also consider banning cold calling for pensions, in light of the recently introduced freedoms.
Lord Young of Cookham
I take this opportunity to thank my noble friend for her services at the Department for Work and Pensions up to last July—services which are missed by nobody more than myself as I now have to do some of her work. So far as cold calling for pensions is concerned, I note that my noble friend has taken this up since people have been able to switch their pot out of their providers and into something else. I cannot say whether this will be swept up in the review of high-cost credit and debt management but I will certainly see that the point is taken on board elsewhere.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)
My Lords, many of the calls that people receive are clearly mendacious. They say, “We are representing a British bank” and then something about compensation, which is just not the case. Will the credibility of any code not depend on the industry itself having a financial responsibility for recompense?
Lord Young of Cookham
I am sure that the noble Lord is correct in what he said but I did not quite catch his question. Perhaps he could repeat it.
Lord Lea of Crondall
Will the credibility of any code, to which reference has been made, not depend on the industry accepting financial responsibility for compensating the people who have been in some sense the losers from the mendacity of the original caller?
Lord Young of Cookham
That is exactly why the FCA has been instituting these fines. As I said, last month it ordered a payday loan firm to repay £34 million to 97,000 customers for unfair practices. Another firm which acquired customer bank details in an underhand way has agreed to a £20 million redress scheme. There is built into this scheme the necessity of those who break the rules compensating those who have been hard done by.
Calais Camp: Lone Children
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Hussein-Ece
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many lone children in Calais with family links in the United Kingdom have been allowed into the United Kingdom in the past 12 months.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, under the Dublin regulation more than 80 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been accepted for transfer from France into the UK this year, most of whom have arrived in the UK. More arrive each week and we continue to work closely with France to consider and implement transfers.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
That is a very disappointing figure. Does the Minister not recognise that what was an urgent issue is now a child protection crisis? According to the Red Cross, which contributed a report over the weekend, it is taking up to 11 months to process a single child to come to this country. With hundreds of children who have family links and legal rights to come here, why is it taking so long and why has the will of this House—the Dubs amendment was passed on 9 May with support from all sides of this House—not been properly implemented? Even the Daily Mail is championing this cause; why are the Government not?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the Government are working very closely with the French Government to ensure that transfers are as speedy as possible. In fact, the Home Secretary is meeting today with Bernard Cazeneuve. In terms of children who meet the criteria under the Immigration Act, 50 of them have been accepted for transfer and 30 have arrived. We now have a dedicated team in the Home Office Dublin unit and we are working with the UNHCR, UNICEF and NGOs, together with Italy and Greece as well as France, to speed up the process.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the majority of the children under Dublin III have been identified not by Home Office officials but by British NGOs? Is it not a sad comment that we have to keep on, as it were, complaining to the Government that nothing is happening when they gave an undertaking that they would accept the letter and spirit of the amendment? They are neither doing that nor dealing with children who have long had a right to be here.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I slightly dispute that. We are all working together in the best interests of these children to transfer those who meet the criteria under the Immigration Act as quickly as possible. That process has speeded up in recent weeks and we hope to speed it up further still.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich
My Lords, given the Prime Minister’s welcome reminder last week of the good that government can do, does the Minister not agree that at the top of the list for doing good should be traumatised children in Calais who are young and unaccompanied, who often have family already in the UK and who are increasingly endangered by criminal gangs as the demolition of the Calais camp draws near?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I totally agree with the right reverend Prelate; children are at the top of our agenda. It is not just the Prime Minister who thinks that; I think that we all agree that children, especially vulnerable children, are our top priority. That is why we are working together, by putting additional funding into this, speeding up the process and engaging with officials in the French Government on a daily basis.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, we are told that the French authorities are proposing to close the Calais Jungle camp some time in the next month or two, so the question of the children is extremely urgent. I fail to understand what is holding it up now. If there is a dedicated team and everybody else, who on earth is not pulling their finger out?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble and learned Baroness asks a very pertinent question. As we have heard, the camp closure will begin soon. We have put in place various processes—as I have just said, we are speeding up transfers. We are working with NGOs and others to make sure that the process is speeded up. No unaccompanied child—or any other child—should be in the Calais camp. That is why we are redoubling our efforts, together with the French, to get those children to safety.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey (Con)
While not wishing to dispute what my noble friend has just said in answer to another good friend on the Cross Benches, there is a need for the Home Office and other departments to put more staff on to this and not to leave it until there are complaints from Members of this House or another place, or from NGOs. I can envisage just how difficult this is, but you need the numbers to work through the papers as fast as possible—and I say that with a little experience.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I pay tribute to my noble friend’s experience; she has an awful lot in this area. We are putting more staff capacity into this. We are seconding a second asylum expert to France and we now have a dedicated team in the Home Office Dublin unit.
Baroness Jowell (Lab)
My Lords, I register my interest as patron of Help Refugees, an organisation working on the ground in Calais with these children. There is a dispute about the number of children who have arrived in this country. There is urgency about processing their cases before the Calais camp is closed. Last time, when part of the camp was destroyed, 129 children disappeared. Will the Minister undertake to provide the House with a list, with identities suitably concealed, of children who have been given entry to this country and placed under Dublin III, as opposed to those children whose cases are being processed under the Dubs amendment—the Dubs children, in honour of my noble friend?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, as I said earlier, since the beginning of 2016, 140 children have been accepted for transfer, 80 of whom are from France. Since the Immigration Act, I understand that 50 children have been accepted for transfer, 35 of whom have arrived. I will double-check that the figures are correct, as the noble Baroness seems to think they may not be, but, as I understand it, the figures are correct to date.
France: Dublin Regulation
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they are making to the government of France on the application of the Dublin Regulation in that country.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the application of the EU’s Dublin regulation on French territory is a matter for the French Government and the European Commission. However, we continue to work closely with France to ensure the effective application of the regulation in cases which engage the UK’s obligations, including through regular, official-level contact and ministerial meetings.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that reply but does she not agree that, as a matter of European law, the Dublin convention, as amended by the regulations, should be applied as it was intended, which is that the asylum claim be made at the point of entry? If that had applied from the outset in France, the Calais camps would never have arisen. Will she use her good offices to ensure that when the Calais camps are disbanded, claims are made at the point of entry, in France and in every other country that applies the Dublin regulation as it stands?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend makes the very good point that under the Dublin regulation, asylum claims should be made in the first country in which the claimant arrives. I will certainly follow that up on behalf of my noble friend.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister talked about an official being sent over to Calais. Is that just a single official? In the damning report that was mentioned earlier, the Red Cross said that one key way of speeding things up would be for officials—plural—to be sent to Calais as a matter of urgency.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the noble Baroness asks a good question. One asylum expert is already seconded to France and another is being seconded. France and the UK have of course established a senior-level standing committee, and there is regular contact on Dublin and transferring children, including ministerial and senior-official contact, and daily contact between officials. In addition, as I said in answering the previous Question, we have a dedicated team in the Home Office Dublin unit.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that what we are seeing today—the largest mass movement of people in Europe since the Second World War—is a scenario that the Dublin III convention is unable to deal with? We have to deal with the reality of the situation. What representations have the Government made to the UNHCR to organise and co-ordinate action in the camp, including setting up a proper centre to assess and process claims, so that maybe we can get some progress on moving people to places where they really ought to be?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Baroness is right—the situation is absolutely terrible. As I said earlier, we are working with the UNHCR, UNICEF, NGOs and the Government to ensure that the process is speeded up. As I said, the Home Secretary is today meeting with Bernard Cazeneuve.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, do not the Answers to both this Question and the last one indicate that it is time the Home Office had as its motto “Action this day”, not “Festina lente”?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, that is what I have, I hope, been explaining that the Home Office is in fact doing.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister says that there are now going to be two officials in Calais looking into these crises for children. I find that unacceptable, as I think the whole House will. I hope she will take back to the Home Office the fact that we do not think two officials working in Calais is enough. There may be a special unit in the Home Office, which is very welcome, but we need more people on the ground processing these children’s applications.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, there are not just two officials working on this: there is an asylum expert seconded to France, and another one will be following. There are a number of people, both in France and in this country, working on a number of areas, as I hope I have outlined in answering these two Questions, and funding is going in—for example, to the FDTA—to identify people who are vulnerable to exploitation. There are not just two people working on this; myriad people, both in France and in this country, are working to get children and vulnerable people in particular to places of safety within France.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, some people will remember well that 50 years ago this week, there was a great disaster in Aberfan: 116 children and 28 adults were killed when slurry fell on the school. Would it not be a wonderful commemoration of and tribute to those children if we could say that this week, just before the demolition of the Calais camps, we had this movement now—action this day? Or perhaps members of the Conservative Party agree with the Prime Minister that they are no longer “citizens of the world”, with all that that means, and that they are a very narrow, “Little Englander” party—
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
I will repeat that: be citizens of the world and accept these children. Insist that they are brought over now.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I certainly pay tribute—it is a very good week to be remembering the Aberfan disaster of some 50 years ago. We do not forget these children but we have obligations and processes that we must follow, relating to other laws and child safeguarding, in order to place those children in the appropriate situation for their safety and their future.
Investigatory Powers Bill
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Earl Howe
That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 7, Schedule 1, Clauses 8 to 12, Schedule 2, Clauses 13 to 53, Schedule 3, Clauses 54 to 57, Clauses 94 to 101, Schedule 6, Clauses 102 to 127, Clauses 58 to 67, Schedule 4, Clauses 68 to 80, Schedule 5, Clauses 81 to 93, Clauses 205 to 219, Schedule 7, Clauses 220 to 223, Clauses 128 to 204, Clause 224, Schedule 8, Clauses 225 to 245, Schedule 9, Clause 246, Schedule 10, Clause 247, Title.
Wales Bill
Monday 10th October 2016
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Wales Act 2017 View all Wales Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 12 September 2016 - (12 Sep 2016)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to be here today to open this important debate on the Wales Bill. It is an open question when Wales began its devolution journey. Some would begin with the creation of the post of Secretary of State for Wales in 1964 and the establishment of the Welsh Office in 1965, but for many Welsh devolution began in earnest with the referendum in 1997. Parliament has legislated on Welsh devolution three times since then, in 1998, 2006 and 2014, with each Act seeing an incremental change to the Welsh devolution settlement.
I think it is fair to conclude that Welsh devolution has never achieved a settled state. On the one hand this dynamism is positive, and has encouraged an ongoing and open debate about Welsh devolution and Wales’s place in the wider United Kingdom. On the other, the fluidity of Welsh devolution has distracted from focusing on the issues that really matter to people—the economy, jobs and public services in particular.
Back in 2011, the coalition Government established a process to develop a stable devolution settlement for Wales for the longer term. They set up the independent Silk commission, led by Sir Paul Silk, to review the financial and constitutional arrangements in Wales. For me personally, this Bill represents at least in part the culmination of those three years of work that began at the time the Silk commission started in 2011, when I was a member, at the request of the then Secretary of State for Wales, my right honourable friend Cheryl Gillan. Many of the recommendations in the commission’s second report are being implemented in the Bill.
After the commission concluded its work, the former Secretary of State for Wales established the St David’s Day process to identify those recommendations in the second Silk report which commanded a consensus across the parties in Wales. The outcome of that process, the Saint David’s Day agreement, published in February 2015, forms the blueprint for the Bill.
At this point, I thank both my right honourable friend Stephen Crabb, the then Secretary of State for Wales, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who played a significant part in framing the work that has gone into the Bill and taking it forward.
The Bill delivers a clearer and stronger Welsh devolution settlement and an Assembly and Welsh Government more accountable to the people they serve. Welsh devolution will be clearer by implementing a new reserved powers model, providing a well-defined boundary between what is reserved and what is devolved. It will be stronger by devolving further powers to the Assembly and Welsh Ministers in areas such as elections, the Assembly’s internal processes, transport, energy and the environment. The Bill makes the Assembly and Welsh Government accountable for raising more of the money they spend by paving the way for the introduction of Welsh rates of income tax without the need for a referendum.
The Assembly and Welsh Government have come of age. They are now mature institutions and part of the fabric of Welsh political life. The Bill recognises this new maturity in some key ways. First, the Assembly and Welsh Government are recognised as permanent parts of the United Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements, not to be abolished unless the people of Wales decide in a referendum in favour of doing so. This statement recognises what we all know to be true: that the Assembly and Welsh Government are part of the United Kingdom’s constitutional fabric and are here to stay.
Secondly, the Bill gives important recognition to the body of Welsh law made by the Assembly and Welsh Ministers, forming part of the law of England and Wales. Thirdly, it puts the convention on legislative consent on a statutory footing, as is already the case for Scotland, making clear that Parliament will not normally legislate on devolved matters without the Assembly’s consent.
The constitutional debates of recent years demonstrate the need to reset the devolution settlement for Wales. We all want an end to the incessant squabbles over powers between Cardiff and Westminster and to see Welsh devolution set on a firmer foundation, enabling the Welsh Government to focus on the things that really matter to people—improving the Welsh economy, securing more Welsh jobs and improving devolved public services.
We need to move to a new way of thinking about Welsh devolution based on a reserved powers model. By implementing this new model, the Bill provides for a clearer and more stable settlement that will last for the longer term. Anything not reserved to the UK Government is devolved, and the Assembly will be able to legislate on it.
The new reserved powers model of Welsh devolution has been the subject of a great deal of public debate over the last year since the Government published the Wales Bill in draft. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales, his predecessor, the right honourable Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire, and I have discussed the Bill’s provisions with many who have an interest in the future of Welsh devolution. We listened to the concerns expressed during that debate about aspects of the draft Bill, and we have acted on them.
The Bill before us today is significantly improved from the one we published in draft. It includes a list of reservations that is shorter, with more precisely drawn boundaries. It contains fewer tests for legislative competence, and it gives the Assembly more discretion to enforce its legislation by being able to modify the private law and criminal law for devolved purposes.
A key part of delivering a clear devolution boundary is defining which public authorities are devolved and which are reserved. The Bill defines those public authorities that are devolved public authorities accountable to the Assembly or Welsh Ministers. It describes those authorities as “Wales Public Authorities” and lists them at Schedule 3 to the Bill. All other public authorities are reserved authorities, accountable to Parliament or United Kingdom Ministers. The Assembly can legislate on reserved authorities only with the consent of United Kingdom Government Ministers. It is surely right that the consent of United Kingdom Ministers is sought in order for the Assembly to modify the functions of a body accountable to UK Ministers.
The Bill, and accompanying secondary legislation, will also provide clarity on how so-called pre-commencement Minister of the Crown functions are to be exercised in future. For those noble Lords unfamiliar with this term, let me explain that “pre-commencement” functions are functions exercised in devolved areas by Ministers of the Crown before the Assembly assumed full law-making powers following the 2011 referendum. We want to be clear how such functions are to be exercised under the new reserved powers model.
Last week, I wrote to noble Lords with an indicative list of those functions we intend to transfer by order. Most functions not subject to transfer will be exercised concurrently or jointly by Ministers of the Crown and Welsh Ministers. The Bill lists those functions at Schedule 4. There remain a handful of functions which Ministers of the Crown will exercise alone. Those are listed at paragraph 11 of Schedule 2.
I shall now say something about the single legal jurisdiction of England and Wales, which was an important part of the debate around the draft Bill. There were some who questioned whether a reserved powers model for Wales could work within the shared jurisdiction of England and Wales. There was a great deal of debate about whether Wales would be better served by a separate legal jurisdiction. Some favoured a distinct jurisdiction with largely autonomous arrangements for Wales, although common agreement on what is a distinct jurisdiction proved elusive.
The Government listened carefully to the concerns raised, but we have been clear and resolute throughout that the single legal jurisdiction of England and Wales has served both nations well for centuries and continues to do so. We do not intend to modify that. The single jurisdiction can readily accommodate a growing body of Welsh law without the need for separation, and there are many reasons why separation would be detrimental to Wales.
Of course, Wales has a distinctive legal identity. I think we would all recognise that. It has two legislatures and a growing body of law made by the Assembly and Welsh Ministers—a fact that this Bill recognises formally for the first time. This recognition is important, but let me assure the House that it is set firmly in the context of maintaining the single legal jurisdiction of England and Wales. The Bill enables the Assembly to modify the private law and criminal law for devolved purposes, enabling the Assembly to create offences to help enforce its legislation, as it does now. The Assembly will not be able to modify a small number of the gravest offences, such as homicide offences and sexual offences, ensuring consistency across the England and Wales single legal jurisdiction.
Of course we need to adapt to the growing body of Welsh law created in the Assembly and by the Welsh Ministers. That is why the Government have established a working group of officials to examine how administrative arrangements for justice in Wales can be improved. I look forward to informing the House of the group’s findings later in the autumn. I should also say that I have written to both the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Education, encouraging action to ensure that law schools throughout England and Wales take account of the growing body of Welsh law and that that devolved element is taught as part of law courses and is carried forward into professional courses as well, such as those for the Bar, solicitors, legal executives, and so forth.
The Bill delivers more accountable, devolved government for Wales. With the coming of age that I have already talked about comes renewed responsibility and a need for the Assembly and Welsh Government to become truly accountable. A key element of this is removing the need for a referendum to introduce Welsh rates of income tax, which will mean that the Welsh Government can take on more responsibility for how they raise money as well as how that money is spent. It gives the Government an interest in ensuring that the economy in Wales is performing well. The reward for that will redound to the Welsh Government, who are being given this power to exercise for a purpose consistent with the mandate of a particular Welsh Government.
Tax-raising powers are a key part of the Assembly truly becoming a Parliament. The Wales Act 2014 devolves stamp duty and landfill tax; we took forward the full devolution of business rates in April last year. The devolution of Welsh rates of income tax—not all income tax, of course, just 10p—will complete the process of fiscal devolution for Wales as set out in the 2014 Act, delivering truly accountably devolved government for the first time.
The Bill makes Welsh devolution stronger by devolving a significant package of new powers to the Assembly and Welsh Ministers. These are powers for a purpose, giving the Assembly and Welsh Ministers the tools to improve the day-to-day lives of people in Wales. The Assembly and Welsh Ministers will have strengthened powers over transport in Wales, including speed limits and traffic signs on Welsh roads; the registration of bus services; and the regulation of taxis and private hire vehicles. We are devolving policy over ports in Wales, apart from Milford Haven, which is of strategic importance to the UK state. Welsh Ministers will decide, too, whether energy projects in Wales up to 350 megawatts generating capacity should be built. Decisions on whether fracking takes place in Wales will in future be made in Wales. We have already devolved all onshore wind consents in the Energy Act—that is without limit. Noble Lords will recall that I took that through this House earlier this year.
On the environment, the Bill will devolve new powers over marine licensing and marine conservation zones, as the Silk commission recommended, and we are continuing to consider the outcomes of the work between the UK Government and the Welsh Government, looking at the devolution boundary for water and sewerage, with a view to taking that forward.
Finally, but significantly, the Bill also gives the Assembly control over its own affairs—something that, arguably, should have happened some time ago—including elections to the Assembly itself, the franchise, and the electoral system for Assembly elections and the number of Assembly Members. Importantly, the Assembly will be able to decide what it should be called. If the Assembly wishes to rename itself the Welsh Parliament, for example, as many would consider appropriate, it will be able to do so. That reflects the maturity of the Assembly, which I spoke about earlier. It is only right that the Assembly should be responsible for these issues in Wales, just as the Scottish Parliament now is in Scotland. These new powers deliver a powerful legislature for Wales, irrespective of what it decides to be called. Welsh Ministers will have new levers to improve the economy and public services in Wales, and important new responsibilities over natural resources and the environment.
I know that many here today will want to speak, and I look forward to hearing an interesting and stimulating debate from people who know a great deal on the subject of devolution in Wales. I will conclude by saying that the Bill sets the course for a stable and lasting devolution settlement for Wales. It builds a new Welsh devolution settlement on the solid foundations of a reserved powers model. It is much improved on the draft of a year ago. I commend it to the House.
Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, I am a little overwhelmed and daunted by the fact that I am speaking on the Wales Bill from the Front Bench with no fewer than five former Secretaries of State going to participate today, on top of other Welsh constitutional experts who have been involved in Welsh politics since before I was born.
I am also aware that the Minister leading for the Government was the principal architect in ensuring that the Conservative Party dropped its opposition to devolution in Wales and engaged constructively in the process, and for this he deserves to be commended. In addition to this, he made a distinguished and valuable contribution to the Silk reports, which of course were supposed to have served as the basis for this Wales Bill. Because of my great respect for the Minister, I will make every effort to resist the temptation to ask him why he has changed his mind on so many issues since his transformation from being a key member of the Silk committee to becoming a Welsh Minister.
I declare my interest in this Bill as an elected Member of the National Assembly for Wales. I will start by being kind: the Minister is correct that this Bill is a considerable improvement on the draft Bill introduced in October 2015, which was so fundamentally flawed that the Government had to withdraw it in the face of almost unanimous criticism of its viability. The necessity test in relation to private and criminal law has now been removed, there has been a reduction in the number of reserved areas and there is improvement in the system for Minister of the Crown consents. We welcome the fact that the National Assembly for Wales will be permanent, and that it will now have power to determine its own electoral processes, its size and the electoral system for National Assembly elections. We welcome the fact that, among other things that the Minister outlined, the Assembly will have enhanced powers in energy projects, including fracking, and new transport responsibilities. We are also pleased that the changes were made in response to scrutiny of the draft Bill, and I am particularly pleased that social care regulation and inspection will be under the control of the Assembly, following my call for the establishment of a national care service for Wales last week.
But—and this is a huge but—the Bill in its current form is complex, inaccessible, unclear and will not settle the devolution issue for Wales as was the intention. There has been a failure to incorporate any fundamental or firm constitutional principles within the Bill, such as clarity, stability, legitimacy and subsidiarity. It is poorly drafted and ill conceived. The opportunity to introduce a consolidated Bill, which would have meant that there would no longer be a need constantly to refer to previous Government of Wales Acts, has been missed. The lack of clarity means that there are some significant points where there will still be a need to refer to the Supreme Court to seek clarity on where power should lie—a costly and unnecessary exercise.
We believe that the Bill has been rushed, to no clear purpose, and goes against the spirit, expressed in the Bill, of “collaborative working”. It also fails in its aspirations, which were set out in the St David’s Day proclamation, for a durable and lasting settlement. The unwillingness of the UK Government and Whitehall departments to deliver a settlement that matches the clarity and accessibility of other devolution settlements, in Scotland and Northern Ireland, is also disappointing. I am sure that the Minister will have taken note of the severe criticism of the Bill published by the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, most notably, perhaps, its assertion that for the first time ever there is a rollback of current powers vested in the National Assembly.
We are living in extremely turbulent political times. The EU referendum has thrown the whole legislative framework of this country into turmoil. The pressures on the unity of the union will be tested severely in the next few years as we extract ourselves from the European Union. This constant piecemeal approach to constitutional developments in Wales is disrespectful, and the Government need to call a constitutional convention to prepare a route map in order to keep our United Kingdom together. This constant nibbling away at the constitution will ultimately erode the unity of the United Kingdom and will create divisions more emphatic than the ones which we have just witnessed with the EU referendum.
Integral to the Bill is a recognition that Bills proposed by the UK Government which will impact on National Assembly legislative competence will no longer be allowed to pass in both Houses of Parliament unless they receive the consent of the Assembly by means of a legislative consent Motion. Let me be as clear as I can be: the Government absolutely must respect the view of the National Assembly in relation to this Bill, and in particular the outcome of the legislative consent Motion. We know that central to this will be the need to come to a definitive position on the fiscal framework for Wales. This fiscal framework will need to give an absolute reassurance, not just to Assembly Members but to the public in Wales, that the country will not be worse off financially, now or in the future, if we were to adopt some of the measures suggested in the Bill. This is particularly true in relation to the devolution of income tax. We need an assurance that we can borrow significantly against any income tax devolved, and that we would not get a worse deal than Scotland. It would give us a great deal of reassurance if the Minister could today assure us that the opinion of the National Assembly will be respected in relation to this Bill.
Some parts of the Bill require additional work. There is no point in the Assembly being able to make laws if it then has difficulty enforcing them. It would be useful to have greater clarity on the scope of the Assembly’s ancillary powers to enable it to make laws which are effective and enforceable. Areas in the Bill where unnecessary potential interference is suggested simply seem heavy-handed. This will require intensive intergovernmental working with additional bureaucracy and administration, which contrasts with the Government’s own commitment, and that of the Silk commission and the Richard commission, to the need to cut constitutional red tape. There is an urgent need to strengthen intergovernmental and interparliamentary relations, as has been suggested on more than one occasion.
It is a shame that the Bill has not aligned legislative and executive competence more closely, and that there continues to be reliance on transfer of functions orders. We cannot understand this, and we look forward to the Minister justifying why all functions currently exercisable by a Minister of the Crown within devolved areas cannot be devolved and transferred to Welsh Ministers.
I am aware that there is real disquiet on our Benches about the introduction of income tax powers without the need for a referendum. I know that many noble Lords will want to pursue this issue with vigour.
As the Minister suggested, England and Wales share the same legal jurisdiction. Since 2011, however, a body of Welsh law has already been built which is distinct from that of England and Wales. Given the very low number of Welsh-only laws, we believe that currently it is unnecessary to establish a separate legal system. However, we believe that in time complexities relating to the training of judges and lawyers will need to be considered. The accessibility of the law to ordinary citizens is also paramount. We believe, therefore, that it is necessary to insert a clause requiring the UK Government and the Welsh Government to keep the situation under review.
The move to a reserved powers model is something which in principle we welcome. We had hoped, however, that this would deliver the “clarity, coherence and stability” which the Government had announced was the intention of the settlement. While I believe that we have to accept that there are some areas where introducing a reserved powers model would smooth out the creases of the current devolution settlement and give clear lines, the system is more difficult to accept if the consequence is the rolling back of the powers of the Welsh Government in areas which have hitherto been “silent” areas, where the Welsh Government have consequently been able to act.
One of the worrying aspects of the move to the reserved powers model is that, if a matter “relates to” a reserved matter, it is not within the Assembly’s power to legislate. The question of how a provision will be assessed when deciding whether it “relates to” a reserved matter will be determined using a “purpose test”—in other words, whether the purpose of the provision is devolved or not. We will seek a great deal more clarity on the issue of the purpose test in Committee.
As I suggested, while in principle we agree with the move to a reserved powers model, the next question is, inevitably: do we agree and accept all the areas where the UK Government have insisted on retaining power to themselves? We accept and welcome that the list has been reduced since the draft Bill, but we have noted some attempts to reduce the list by lumping some subjects together which were previously counted individually. For example, architects, auditors and health professionals were previously three categories; now all three are included in one category.
We were promised a more comprehensive rationale and justification for why certain areas were reserved, and we do not believe that the Explanatory Notes currently provide the reasoning that we seek. I will do what I can to stop Members on the Labour Benches from putting amendments down on every reservation so that the Government will have to justify each one on the Floor of the House. However, noble Lords might have noticed that I have some pretty heavy hitters on my side, and I may not be able to stop them. Therefore, if the Minister can come up with better justifications for those reservations prior to Committee, we will be grateful.
It is also worth emphasising that it is not simply a matter of reducing the number of reservations on the list in new Schedule 7A; we should like to see some of the reservations redrafted or exceptions added so that the breadth of the reservations is limited, creating more legislative space for the Assembly in which to act. At this stage I will give just a few examples of where we have some concerns: employment matters with regard to devolved public services; licensing and the sale of alcohol; the community infrastructure levy; railway franchises; and water, which I need not emphasise the sensitivity of since the construction of the reservoir at Tryweryn.
In its current form, the Wales Bill is wholly unsatisfactory. We are disappointed that it has been rushed, both in drafting and in the depth of scrutiny, and in some instances we are seeing powers being taken away from Wales. The people and the businesses of Wales have the right to know and to understand the constitutional and legal framework under which they live and work. In these uncertain and unstable political and economic times, now, more than ever, people need a clear understanding of where responsibility lies. The Bill does not give us that clarity. It is a real shame that the democratic will of the people of Wales, as expressed in particular in the 2011 referendum, has been missed, that the opportunity to produce an aspirational settlement has been missed, and that the chance to produce a vision for the future direction of Wales has been missed.
Despite this, I reassure the Minister that we are well disposed to working with him during the passage of the Bill, and we hope that he will accept our interventions in the spirit of ensuring that we produce the best possible Bill for the people of Wales.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, we welcome the arrival of the Bill, which is in much better shape than the original draft Bill presented last year.
To those of us closely associated with the devolution process the journey towards an effective settlement—towards my party’s aim of home rule for Wales—is achingly slow. I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan; there has not been enough rush over devolution. We are certainly not yet in a situation where we can say that we have a firm, decisive devolution settlement, but we are shuffling steadily down the road towards it. Therefore noble Lords will forgive me for becoming somewhat impatient with what I regard as a slow process. However, I acknowledge that in the big scheme of history, the 17 years since the establishment of the Assembly are just the blink of an eye, and therefore as ever I am pragmatic. Any step forward must be welcomed and built upon.
However, I am disappointed that the Bill still does not provide the clarity, coherence, stability, workability and sustainability set out by the previous Secretary of State for Wales, the right honourable Stephen Crabb. Looking back over the last 17 years, the Assembly that I was elected to in 1999, along with my noble friends Lady Humphreys and Lord German, is almost unrecognisable in comparison with today’s institution. The Minister is well aware of this because of his history in that place and his part in the Silk commission.
I am proud that my party, the Liberal Democrats, has played a fundamental role in the transformation of those powers. In the first Assembly, I was a Minister in the partnership Government formed between my party and the Labour Party. As part of our agreement, the Liberal Democrats insisted on the establishment of the commission led by the noble Lord, Lord Richard. It put forward some bold and imaginative proposals, but several of those remain to be implemented to this day. Sadly, it took far longer than it should have done to implement the recommendation for full legislative powers, which now exist, due to the indignity and bureaucratic nightmare of the legislative competence order system imposed on Parliament and the Assembly. I welcome the indication from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, that the Labour Party as a whole is now much more convinced about the importance of devolution than appeared to be when it was in government.
When the Liberal Democrats came to form a coalition here with the Conservatives in 2010, we again made constitutional progress in Wales a priority. The Silk commission was born and many aspects of this Bill owe their origin to the Silk reports. By that time, I was seeing the story from the other side of the fence. As a Minister in the Wales Office it was obvious to me how easy it was to kick reports, such as the Silk reports, around Whitehall and to make frustratingly little progress. No Whitehall department and few Ministers are willing and happy to surrender power, however small and inconsequential that power may be.
However, the ship of devolution in Wales was then blown along in the slipstream of the Scottish independence referendum, and I was confident that we were poised for a big stride forward by St David’s Day 2015. The St David’s Day declaration, on which I worked with the then Secretary of State, was bold, clear and ambitious, and I pay tribute to his sterling efforts to create a cross-party consensus on many aspects of devolution. Of course, there was not 100% agreement—indeed, my own party wanted to go further on some aspects such as devolving powers over policing—but there was a firm basis for agreement.
This Bill fulfils some of the criteria needed to establish the sustainable settlement envisaged in that agreement. The move to a reserved powers model is obviously fundamental but it has not proved to be the easy step that so many imagined. The complex and vague Welsh devolution settlement of 1999, based on conferred powers, has been translated into a less vague but still complex set of reserved powers. I believe that they are still unnecessarily complex and many of them are illogical as well. So, as the Bill goes through the House, I will examine the list of reserved powers and test out why some of those powers are there.
On the issue of the distinct and separate jurisdiction, I do not believe we have come to the point where a separate jurisdiction is desirable or needed. However, we need it to be distinct, and so I am interested in the progress made in the joint working group and what commitments there are on taking forward the outcomes of its deliberations. I am anxious that it will not be used to simply distract us from the main issue. It has to have concrete outcomes that are implemented.
The elephant in the room whenever we discuss Welsh devolution is the issue of fair funding and the Barnett formula. This has been the case ever since the Assembly was established in 1999. I look forward to hearing details of progress on this issue because significant progress is key to the effectiveness of the Bill.
I welcome the additional powers set out in the Bill, but there are more powers that we would like to see. I have already mentioned policing because, after all, the cost of policing is more or less shared equally between the Home Office, the Welsh Government and local government in Wales. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to expect the powers over policing to be devolved. There is no constitutional reason why air passenger duty should not be devolved. If Scotland and Northern Ireland can handle it, it is unjust to say that Wales cannot have that power simply because Bristol airport has run an effective lobbying campaign. We cannot see, for example, why Milford Haven is excluded from the list of devolved ports. I know it is a trust port—that is the technical aspect of it—but I cannot see why it is the exception among all Welsh ports.
We believe that the Assembly’s powers over energy will still be too limited. The 350 megawatts limit is an artificial one. It is based on a Silk commission recommendation, but nevertheless it has possibly been overtaken by events. The figure was picked because it was based on the size of the Swansea tidal lagoon, which I regret to say this Government seem to have abandoned anyway.
There is much to support in the Bill such as the permanence of the Assembly, giving it powers over its own affairs and elections, its size, its name and so on, thus treating it as a grown-up body. I welcome strongly the powers to vary income tax without the need for a referendum, behind which it was clear that the Welsh Government were going to hide. Having worked within the UK Government, I understand some of the caveats. However, I also understand that some of those caveats can be misused and need to be tested in this House.
This Bill is the product of a previous, pro-devolution Government. I do not believe the same can be said of the current Government, with the exception of the noble Lord the Minister sitting opposite. As a pragmatist, I am keen to support the Bill and to push devolution as far as possible, because, after all, this is all we are going to get for a while at least. It brings via the reserved powers model greater clarity. However, it does not bring greater simplicity to the Assembly and Welsh Government’s powers, and it does not widen their powers to the extent that we as Liberal Democrats would wish.
Lord Crickhowell (Con)
My Lords, I begin with some general thoughts, some of which have been touched on by both noble Baronesses who have spoken. The Constitution Committee of this House, in its report The Union and Devolution, drew attention to the way in which power has been devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in a piecemeal fashion, without proper consideration of the cumulative impact of devolution on the integrity of the United Kingdom. The committee concluded:
“The Government needs fundamentally to reassess how it approaches issues relating to devolution. What affects one constituent part of the UK affects both the Union and the other nations within the UK … The new mindset will require abandoning a ‘devolve and forget’ attitude. Instead the … Government should engage with the devolved institutions across the whole breadth of government policy, co-operating and collaborating where possible. In particular, the Joint Ministerial Committee should be reformed to promote co-operation and collaboration, rather than grandstanding and gesture politics”.
That was the view of the Select Committee. It commented that,
“to perpetuate the use of the Barnett Formula, which takes no account of relative need, makes a mockery of the Government’s duty to ensure a fair distribution of resources across the UK”.
In an earlier report, Inter-governmental Relations in the United Kingdom, produced when I was a member, the committee expressed the hope that,
“the increasing complexity of the devolution settlements will spur greater parliamentary scrutiny of inter-governmental relations, aided by a more transparent JMC and improved departmental reporting”.
The Select Committee on Economic Affairs, in its report A Fracturing Union? The Implications of Financial Devolution to Scotland, agreed with the Constitution Committee that,
“retention of the Barnett Formula is the wrong decision”.
It said:
“In future, HM Treasury needs to be much more transparent about how funding is allocated to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and an independent body such as the Office for Budget Responsibility should scrutinise this and the operation of the fiscal framework. There is also too little Parliamentary scrutiny of the funding arrangements. The UK and devolved legislatures should co-operate to remedy this”.
The committee suggested that,
“a decision to devolve nearly all revenue, uniquely amongst countries in a similar position to the United Kingdom, has been adopted with undue haste and little assessment of the economic and political consequences. It may not be clear to people in Scotland”—
I add, “or in Wales”—
“how they fund reserved services and which Government is accountable for them”.
All these conclusions and recommendations form a useful starting point for our consideration of the Bill, along with the thought that almost all modern Acts of Parliament are too long and complex and therefore do not provide clarity where it is needed. However, at this point I pay tribute, as my noble friend Lord Bourne has already, to the former Secretary of State for Wales Stephen Crabb for the role he played in the preparation of this Bill and for the manner in which he consulted and took account of the suggestions and criticisms made in its preparation—a process that has been continued by the present Ministers. We have had the Wales Act 2014, the report of the Silk commission Part 2, the St David’s Day process, the publication of a draft Bill, and pre-legislative scrutiny by the Welsh Select Committee in another place and other interested parties, as well as the passage of the Bill through the Commons, albeit with a somewhat hasty Committee stage. All this represents a great improvement on some of the earlier steps along the devolution trail.
I will refer only to a few matters to which we seem certain to return later. Employment and industrial relations policy has not been devolved. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who is to speak immediately after me, is likely to table an amendment to remove devolved public services in Wales from the reservation. I will support the Government if they resist that amendment.
The joint government review of the Silk recommendation that legislative competence for water be aligned with the national border was completed in the summer, and the Government have still to present their decisions. Based on my experience as chairman of the National Rivers Authority, I have considerable doubts about the good sense of the proposal, but I will reserve judgment until I know the conclusions of the review and the decisions taken by government.
The Minister has already made it clear that the maintenance of the single legal jurisdiction of England and Wales remains a red line for the Government. They will have my total support for that position, but the working group of officials, including those from the Lord Chief Justice’s office and the Welsh Government, is considering the implication of diverging Welsh laws within the justice system and the need for distinctive arrangements to reflect the emerging body of law made by the Welsh Government. Once again, I will reserve my final judgement on the detailed arrangements—which, we have been told, will be presented to us later in the autumn.
Another government red line concerns crime, public order and policing. While I understand and am sympathetic to the general principle underlying the Government’s stance, I hope that Ministers will be able to explain why they appear to be giving powers over policing to some English city regions while not granting them to the Welsh Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Rowe-Beddoe, a particularly good friend of mine, may not be pleased when I say that I am also with the Government in their opposition to the devolution of air passenger duty. I suppose that I should declare an interest as I fly more frequently from Bristol than I do from Cardiff—but it would be wrong to distort competition between two airports that are in such close proximity.
The Government say that discussions between HM Treasury and the Welsh Government on the fiscal framework are ongoing and that it would not be appropriate to place block grant adjustments on a statutory basis. I have already referred to the need for openness and parliamentary scrutiny. I hope that we will be given a great deal more information about the fiscal framework before we take the Bill much further.
It is all too clear from what has been said that in Committee and on Report there will be a great deal of vigorous argument about the reservations. We have moved to the reserved powers model, but the number of reservations is still lengthy. Although Stephen Crabb reduced the original list very considerably, I wonder whether we cannot do still more. We have been told that a “roll back” of the Assembly’s legislative competence may have taken place. The National Assembly’s research brief raises legitimate questions that deserve a response. In a letter to the Secretary of State in June, the First Minister wrote:
“You need to press Whitehall Departments to focus on the issues that really do need to be dealt with on an England and Wales or UK level; this requires a laser-like focus rather than a blunderbuss”.
All this takes us back to the general points that I made at the beginning of my speech about the need for simplicity and a new mindset. The Wales Office has done stalwart work, but Ministers must ensure that every government department is equally committed to the process. It will be greatly to the credit of the Government if in the Lords we are able to clarify, simplify and improve the Bill even more than it has been improved already.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, I agree with a great deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said, especially on transparency over the proposed fiscal framework. That is a critical issue.
Although I welcome parts of the Bill, and although, as the Minister said, the Government responded to very strong objections to the draft Bill, it still feels that the way in which the reserved powers have been drafted repatriates powers back to the United Kingdom, for there are around 190 exceptions to the reserved powers to be granted to Wales. For instance the Assembly’s Agricultural Sector (Wages) Act 2014 would not be permitted under this Bill. Yet the Assembly not only passed it but also overcame a challenge from the UK Government when the Supreme Court found in their favour, enabling it to be placed in statute. How can this be progress towards empowering the Assembly? It seems more like a Whitehall grab-back of powers, as indeed the Welsh Assembly’s Constitutional Affairs Committee argued last week and as, among others, my noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely and the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, recently argued publicly.
However, I wish to focus upon my two main objections at this stage to the Bill—objections I raised with the Minister during the courteous briefing that I thank him for providing before the conference recess. First, there is the question that I and my noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely discussed in detail in this House during the passage of the Trade Union Bill: the undermining of the fundamental workings of the devolution settlement by dictating the manner in which industrial relations within devolved public services in Wales are configured. This Bill reinforces that and it is a matter of dispute with the Welsh Government because the Assembly will shortly have before them a Bill which exempts devolved public services from the Trade Union Act. Since that has been supported by Labour, Liberal and Plaid Cymru Assembly Members it will likely be carried by a large majority. I will return to this matter.
Meanwhile, my other major objection is that Clause 17 of this Bill removes sections of the Wales Act 2014—just two years ago—that retain the requirement which has existed since 1997 that a referendum will be required to implement the powers to vary income tax under that Act. That is constitutionally unacceptable, even outrageous. In September 1997, as a Welsh Office Minister I helped to lead the Government’s campaign to win the referendum to establish the Welsh Assembly. With due respect, I do not recognise the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that Labour has been a back-marker on devolution; we introduced the Welsh Assembly and empowered it in the 2006 Act.
There was only one question before voters in 1997: did they want an Assembly or not? There was no second question on whether they wanted income tax devolved, as was specifically and importantly the case in the referendum on a Scottish Parliament. Ministers at the time took the view that to have such a second question in Wales would be to lose the referendum. Given how narrowly it was won, with just 0.2%, how wise that turned out to be. Leading politicians of all parties, including Conservatives, have been crystal clear in the past: to devolve income tax powers to Wales would therefore need another referendum like Scotland had on income tax. Indeed, just last year the 2015 Conservative Party general election manifesto committed to a referendum before income tax powers were raised. If your Lordships’ House were to amend the Bill to reinstate the referendum requirement, we would be doing so in line with the Salisbury convention on a government election manifesto commitment.
The current Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns, was a Government Whip and voted for the 2014 Act which put into statute the necessity for a referendum just two years ago. He argued for that, as did all his Conservative MP colleagues at the time. So why have he and the Government done a U-turn after such a short time, thereby breaking their own manifesto commitment of just last year? There has been no clear explanation by Ministers. Could it be that they are frightened that, if invited to vote, a majority in Wales—perhaps a large one—would turn down the powers? I suspect so; otherwise, why be afraid of trusting the voters?
Could it be that the Government wish to ram income tax devolution through without addressing the irrefutable evidence that the way the Barnett formula has operated has short-changed Wales—by at least £600 million annually—in contrast to Scotland? Without a new “Barnett floor”, which the First Minister has insisted upon, and without the fiscal framework he wants, it would be pure folly for Wales to have income tax devolved. I note the point made very powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, that there should be full transparency on the fiscal framework before Parliament enacts this legislation, amended or otherwise.
Could it be that the Conservative Government have an ideological objective to shrink the Whitehall state, offloading as much responsibility as possible on to individual citizens to fend for themselves, outsourcing to private providers and sub-contracting tax and spending to devolved legislatures? Having strenuously opposed political devolution in the past, the Conservatives now see the virtues of economic devolution in neoliberal terms. In that respect at least, the outcomes, if not the ideologies, of nationalism and neoliberalism can converge, because under both the redistributive power of the United Kingdom state is either severed or stunted.
The incontrovertible advantage of modern Britain is its 20th-century innovation: the pooling and sharing of risks and resources across the whole United Kingdom to ensure common welfare and decent standards of life for all citizens, regardless of nationality or where they live. At the heart of that pooling and sharing of resources has been a set of path-breaking decisions throughout the 20th century: common welfare standards first introduced by Liberal Governments and subsequently consolidated by Labour Governments up until 2010, ensuring common economic and social standards; common UK-wide old-age pensions; common UK social insurance—sick pay, health insurance, unemployment insurance and labour exchanges; common UK child and family benefits; a common UK national minimum wage; and a UK system of equalising resources so that everybody, irrespective of where they live, has the same political, social and economic rights, not just equal civil and political rights.
Pooling and sharing the UK’s resources has also enabled redistribution from richer to poorer parts of the UK, whether constituent parts of a nation such as the coalfield communities of the south Wales valleys or regions of England such as the north-east. Although the Holtham commission, in its case for devolving limited tax-varying and borrowing powers to Wales, set out complex compensating arrangements which attempted to ensure that Wales did not fall behind richer parts of the UK, it could not guarantee that the Treasury would always deliver this. We wait to see whether the First Minister has been able to secure that in his negotiations with the Government on a fiscal framework.
With around 40% of UK GDP concentrated in London and the south-east of England, I have seen no answer—whether from Ministers or, indeed, in this respect at least, separatists—to what is at the heart of the case for maintaining the integrity of the UK: redistributing resources from better-off to less well-off parts; and guaranteeing equal opportunity and security for all UK citizens regardless of nationality, race, geography, gender, sexuality, age, disability or faith. That has meant, as former Prime Minister Gordon Brown showed in his book My Scotland, Our Britain, that while inside the European Union the average income of the typical citizen of the poorest country is just 20% of that of the richest country, and in the USA the income of the poorest state is 55% of that of the richest, the average income of the typical Scot is 96% of the average income of an English citizen; for Wales, the figure is 87%.
In a post-World War II settlement subsequently maintained by the Conservatives, at least until recent times, Labour created a set of universal rights: free healthcare across the UK in the 1940s; and in the 1990s a UK-wide minimum wage and a tax credits system which discouraged the regions and nations from undercutting each other in a race to the bottom. A cornerstone of our social rights is the common UK welfare system, which transfers resources between individuals, dependent on their circumstances, right across the union. Pooling and sharing of resources at UK nation-state level must be sufficiently strong so as to continue to guarantee free healthcare, the rights to a pension when elderly, help when unemployed, sick or disabled, a decent family income and universal education, as well as defence and security. There is an implicit UK government guarantee that nobody in the union—whether in Wales, Scotland or elsewhere in the UK—can be prevented from accessing those common social and economic rights, and the services that flow from them, by reason of a shortage of resources.
That is why it is right that all UK taxpayers—English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish citizens together—contribute their taxes at a UK level to fund these common rights and services, thereby guaranteeing that the UK Government and, where appropriate, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, have the capacity to deliver them. With England constituting 84% of UK population and 87% of UK GDP, it would be mad for Wales to cut itself off from that, just as it would be mad for the north-east of England, with its similar GDP per head and demographic, to cut its income off from the rest of England—especially the south-east, which, as I pointed out earlier, contributes something short of half the UK’s wealth. This is especially serious for Wales, which has a huge net fiscal deficit involving a massive annual subsidy from the UK Treasury, estimated by the Library at £14.7 billion in 2014-15. That total, by the way, is similar to the entire Welsh Government block grant. I believe that this Government are encouraging an offloading of the centre’s responsibility to all its citizens—English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish—and, by design or default, encouraging separatism. For if the UK does not offer common rights and resources to enable universal access for each citizen, why should they offer their loyalty to the UK in return?
In making this argument, I remind your Lordships that I have been a consistent devolutionist all my political life. As the author of the Government of Wales Act 2006, I was proud to deliver the full law-making powers that the Welsh Assembly has enjoyed for some five years now, to the great benefit of its citizens. Therefore my objection to Clause 17 repealing the Government’s very own clause of just two years ago, committing to a referendum, is on two grounds. The first is constitutional and democratic. Surely it is not acceptable to move the goalposts from a referendum vote in 1997 by denying Wales the chance to have a vote on income tax, like the Scots did. Why should Welsh voters be treated as second class compared with Scots voters? The second is that, in any case, we step at great peril down the road of income tax devolution, the destination of which could be impoverishment in less prosperous parts of the UK, Wales included. Just in passing, while I certainly do not wish to put any ideas into the Conservatives’ minds, what about VAT if we leave the European Union? Membership of the EU means that it cannot be devolved: what does Brexit mean?
Let me turn to the manner in which the Bill will enable one important part of devolved public services in Wales to be dictated from Whitehall, namely industrial relations. I ask the Government to reconsider the manner in which the Bill reserves all employment law to the UK level in respect of devolved Welsh public services alone—not the private sector but just devolved public services. In doing so, and this may address the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, let me be clear that I am not asking for employment law as a whole—including strikes, unfair dismissal, health and safety, maternity and paternity rights and so on—to be devolved. I agree that the core issues of employment law should be a reserved matter, not least to prevent businesses or devolved governments competing to undermine basic conditions of work in a race to the bottom.
However, what right does a UK Secretary of State have to impose upon Wales such matters as trade union facility time, training arrangements, arrangements to deduct trade union subscriptions by payroll, the political levy and other industrial relations issues to do with what the Welsh Government, in exercising their statutory powers, deem the best way to deliver effective and efficient public services on the basis of social partnership, which they do? I shall be supporting an amendment to empower the Assembly and the Welsh Government to achieve that, and I ask the Minister to do the same. Otherwise there will be a direct clash with the Welsh Government and the Assembly which will surely undermine the Conservative Party’s new-found and welcome conversion to the cause of devolution. In short, this Bill is fundamentally flawed and could badly short-change Wales. I ask the Government urgently to think again on the matters that I and others have raised.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My Lords, I begin by wholeheartedly endorsing what has been said by way of tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and the very constructive role he has played for a couple of years now in Welsh devolution. Whatever the Bill’s defects might be—and I believe them to be myriad—he is not responsible for them, and I would not wish him to think that anything I say by way of criticism of the Bill is in any way directed at him.
I shall concentrate my remarks on what might be described as the main constitutional timbers of the Bill. As has already been said, this is the fourth time within the short span of less than 20 years that a major piece of legislation has been introduced in relation to Wales. What distinguishes this Bill and differentiates it from the other three attempts is that, whereas they added to the constitutional powers that Wales had as a land and nation, it turns in the opposite direction. Whereas they were progressive, this Bill is regressive.
I have no doubt that we would not be discussing these matters in the context of this Bill were it not for the decision by the Supreme Court in July 2014. That is the fons et origo of the whole matter. It is not an incandescence of enthusiasm on the part of the Government for Welsh devolution that brings these matters to the fore, but the realisation that a crisis was created by that epoch-making decision.
The House will broadly remember the facts of the case. The Cardiff Assembly was proposing a measure to standardise and define agricultural wages in Wales. There was an immediate objection by the Attorney-General, who seized on this matter like a hungry piranha and said that it was something Wales must not touch. Why was that? It was because it was a matter not of agriculture but of employment. If the Attorney-General’s logic had been correct, that would have been the end of the matter, but the Supreme Court respectfully disagreed with him in a 5-0 decision. Whereas the impression had been carried for a long time that if there had been a transfer of a limited nature within any one of the 20 fields of devolution to Wales, that was it, the Supreme Court said that where there has been a substantial transfer of functions and there are other allied matters that reasonably go with them, unless they have been specifically exempted, they are transferred. In other words, there is a silent transfer mechanism, and that is what caused the whole problem.
Given the situation that confronted Wales the day that judgment was published, it is right that we should consider how the Bill compares with that template. My submission is that the powers that Wales has under the Bill are vastly diminished compared with the decision reached by the Supreme Court. That is the reality. This matter has been touched upon already by one or two noble Lords, and I have no doubt that they are absolutely correct: the gap is very considerable. Yes, the decision to transfer to a reserved powers model has achieved something—certitude, of a certain nature—but it is a certitude for which a high price is paid: the diminution of the constitutional status of Wales. That is the effect of the main parts of the Bill.
The Government reacted fairly swiftly to that decision of 2014 and decided that they would move to a reserved powers model, which was introduced by the St David’s Day agreement of last year. A draft Bill was published, which was scrutinised by a number of distinguished bodies, and following that we have today the legislation proposed in the House of Commons in June of this year. I believe that the Bill is flawed, first in that it does not achieve the purpose that it genuinely should have sought to achieve. Secondly, it is a Bill that is unworthy of the people of Wales. We have a far lower level of devolution now than that which was spelled out by the Supreme Court in July 2014. The consequence is that we are moving backwards when we could have been moving forwards.
The worst part of the Bill is not what is mechanically set out in the reservations—of which there are far too many; more than 190, as we have heard—but the mentality that lies behind them. It is a mentality of monumental negativism. Look at the reservations: the control of axes and knives; the control of charitable funds and philanthropic institutions; and the control of the sale of alcohol, which Wales had devolved to it in the 19th century. I see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who well appreciates the history of this matter, nodding. There are many other instances where one could say that these are simple, basic, minor matters, taken against the bundle of responsibilities a nation has. The question I ask the House to consider is this: had such matters as these been raised 50 years ago by the Colonial Office in relation to a colony belonging to Britain, either in the Caribbean or in Africa, would they have dared bring about such reservations? The answer must surely be no. We are placed in a neocolonial situation by this Bill.
My appeal is not so much for a change in the mechanics, but for a change in mentality. I can remember being shocked as a schoolboy—which was many years ago, believe you me—when reading of a decision made by Mr Attlee’s Government in relation to Wales. Herbert Morrison, the then Home Secretary, announced it in these terms: “We have considered the future of Wales very carefully. We have taken advice, broadly, from people who are in a position to give that advice, and we have come to the conclusion that the very best that we can do in relation to Wales is to have a nominated council”. Do your Lordships think that Mr Herbert Morrison and his Government would have suggested a nominated council for a British colony 50 years ago? Most certainly not. To my mind, such neocolonialism shows that the dead hand of Westminster still lies upon Wales.
My appeal is not just for a new mechanism but for a new mentality altogether: a change in the attitude of the mandarins of Whitehall—the Sir Humphreys, Sir Williams and Sir Rogers—who say, “Nothing shall come from my table at all”, and likewise in the dog-in-the-manger attitude of Ministers towards their own powers. There should be a spirit of partnership and mutual respect between Cardiff and Westminster.
The Welsh people should think big in this matter. A distinguished English poet of the 19th century wrote:
“a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?”.
We as a nation have been grasping for small things, but we must think big about the role we can constructively play within the UK. I believe that dominion status is a principle sufficiently supple and mobile to allow Wales, under the 1931 Act of Westminster, to play the most major and constructive part imaginable in the life of the UK. That is the opportunity we now have. Many matters in the field of government are in a state of flux. Wales must react positively to that, as this chance may not come again.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is the greatest honour to speak for the first time as a Member of your Lordships’ House. I do so with humility and indeed nervousness, this being only the third working day since my introduction—which means, of course, that for the moment I have a 100% attendance record. I am also proud to speak now as part of the Welsh diaspora; it appears that there are very few of us on this side of the House.
I pay tribute to all the staff, officers and Members of the House on all sides who have made me so very welcome. I also thank my mentor, my noble friend Lady Seccombe, whose kindness and wisdom justifies her being held in such enormous affection by all in this place. I also thank my noble friend Lord Attlee, who will help to further my education in the ways of this House.
It was a particular privilege to be introduced by my noble friends Lord Strathclyde and Lord Chadlington. Both have given me enormous support and encouragement in my various roles within the party in London and the Wantage constituency. My noble friend Lord Chadlington and I also share a profound love and appreciation of our Welsh heritage, perhaps at its most evident when we attend the Millennium Stadium. Although not a native Welsh speaker, dw i’n dysgu cwmraeg—I am at least a Welsh learner—so it is a great honour to be making my maiden speech in the context of a subject so close to my heart.
The Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 was intended to settle the Government of Wales once and for all following the execution of Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Prince of Gwynedd. Over 700 years later, and almost 20 years after devolution, this Bill continues the process of allowing Wales to determine its future priorities through an historic transfer of powers. We value our enormous good fortune to live in a democracy that allows for that evolution.
I was born and brought up in South Wales, and received my most formative years of education at Atlantic College in Llantwit Major. Its strong ethos of community service and international understanding has stayed with me all my adult life. Indeed, it was the resonance of the big society and social action that encouraged me into the political world in support of a party that believes in individual responsibility and the power of communities to help themselves—something to which I have also devoted much of my own time, setting up and supporting a number of charities providing opportunities for local residents as varied as young offenders, cancer sufferers and bored teenagers.
My mother served as a magistrate for more than 30 years in Barry and I, too, spent a number of years on the Bench both in rural Oxfordshire and at Horseferry Road in London. It is heartening to see that the Bill seeks to ensure the maintenance of the single legal jurisdiction of England and Wales, which has served both countries so well for centuries.
Prior to my time in CCHQ, I had worked in both shipping finance and then executive search for many years, so it was natural for me to return to the commercial world after the 2010 general election. I formed a team working towards the delivery of green energy from Iceland to the UK through a 1,500 kilometre seabed cable—a project that I hope will receive the full backing of the Icelandic Government after Iceland’s general election later this month.
This brought to my life full circle, for it was at Atlantic College that I wrote my dissertation on the generation of tidal power in the Severn estuary. I hope that the Swansea tidal lagoon scheme mentioned so recently in my noble friend Lady Finn’s maiden speech will be allowed the chance both to prove the energy-generating potential of our enormous tidal difference and to help in the regeneration of that important industrial heartland.
I hope also that the new powers devolved will make a real difference to people’s lives, allowing Wales to determine its particular needs and spending priorities. I am profoundly grateful for the social care in the community that my elderly parents and parents-in-law have received in Wales, enabling them to continue living at home. I have nothing but admiration both for those who provide such care and for those who have facilitated this choice.
Wales and its singular culture and heritage are to be cherished, and I hope that the provisions of the Bill will empower the Assembly to allow the unique and defining character and capabilities of Wales to flourish.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, the pleasure falls to me to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist, on her eloquent and delightful maiden speech. The fact that she has chosen the Wales Bill for her first speech to the House intrigued me, until I did some homework and discovered that not only has she recently been on a course in Wales to learn Welsh, to which she referred, but she has also obtained a distinction on her first grade on the harp. I understand that this was part of a fundraising endeavour in support of the London Music Masters, which promotes diversity and excellence in music to inspire positive social change, so well done.
I also noted the noble Baroness’s comments about the diaspora. It has always been an ambition of mine to harness the Welsh diaspora much more effectively, and this is an excellent example of the benefits that can come from such an approach. I have no doubt that her education at Atlantic College enabled her to appreciate the place of Wales in an international context—that college most certainly does that. We wish her well for her fundraising—to the extent that it focuses on worthy cultural causes rather than political ones—we welcome her active interest in politics and we wish her well in her career in this Chamber and look forward to her future contributions to our debates.
This is the fourth piece of primary legislation on Wales which various Governments have introduced since 1998. Such a continuous sequence of amendment reflects two things: yes, a view that devolution is a process and therefore will develop over time; but also a widely held feeling that the original legislation was inadequate and needed amendment to make it work in a transparent, effective and democratically answerable fashion.
Along with several other Members in this Chamber, I have had experience as an elected Member of the Assembly. We are fortunate to have here today a former Presiding Officer, my colleague and noble friend Lord Elis-Thomas, and the newly elected Assembly Member, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, both of whom are up to speed with current thinking across party politics in the Assembly as to how its powers should be augmented or modified to make it a more effective body able to hold the Government of Wales to account, while enabling that Government, whatever their complexion, to work effectively for the benefit of Wales.
We have here two former Ministers in the Welsh Government on the Liberal Democrat Benches: the noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. We have former Secretaries of State for Wales—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, and the noble Lords, Lord Hunt, Lord Hain and Lord Murphy—who over many years have had a deep involvement in several Wales Bills, as have many other noble Lords.
I should also say how glad I am to see the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, participating in this debate. We have not always seen eye to eye on matters relating to devolution, but I know that in accepting our National Assembly as an essential part of Welsh governance, he will want to see it made more effective, transparent and answerable. We noted his wish to see the two Governments at each end of the M4 working together more constructively and his trenchant comments on the Barnett formula.
We have here the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, Wales’s most eminent historian on the period from 1868 onwards when questions of greater Welsh autonomy were emerging and, of course, my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan, a long-standing advocate of greater Welsh autonomy and of dominion status. We are also fortunate that the Minister taking this Bill forward, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, was a very effective leader of the Conservatives in the two Assembly terms in which he served and was a key member of the Silk commission, which wrote the second report which forms the background to this Bill.
In other words, we have significant experience in this Chamber, whatever its democratic shortcomings, and it would be short-sighted of the Government not to take on board the issues that will be flagged up today, and at Committee and Report stages, which may not have had adequate coverage in another place. Colleagues have already referred to some of these and I shall touch on one or two others.
In doing so, I do not in any way resile from Plaid Cymru’s ambition for Wales to be a member state of the European Union in its own right. We accept that change comes but gradually and sometimes painfully slowly. Questions relating to the interface between Wales and the EU today appear to be in a somewhat different light. The constitutional future of these islands will partly depend on how Northern Ireland and Scotland are allowed to relate to the EU. To that extent, some aspects of this Bill are already dated, and the Bill’s existence reminds us that the United Kingdom Government still pursue separate constitutional proposals for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and for England, and give little thought to securing a balanced UK-wide settlement that might stand the test of time.
First, I remind the House that this Bill emanates from the Silk commission, which was set up by a Conservative-led Government in 2011. That commission included members of all four parties which then had seats in the Assembly. My friends in the SNP in Scotland have often been criticised at Westminster for not being willing to participate in similar commissions in Scotland—the Calman commission, for example. Plaid Cymru took a full role in the Silk commission’s work, with Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym playing an outstanding part, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, would immediately acknowledge. Sir Paul Silk worked hard to secure a unanimous report, supported by all four party representatives. That took a good deal of work and compromise all round.
I must say that I think we had every right to expect the Government, unless there were fundamental reasons to the contrary, to accept the report in its entirety and not to cherry pick those items that fitted in with the Conservative agenda and discard others that were deemed to be inconvenient. I have party colleagues in Plaid Cymru who will be reluctant to participate and compromise in this way, given that the Silk recommendations have been diluted and re-engineered to meet prejudices in Westminster and the convenience of Whitehall departments, rather than the agreed needs of Wales.
So as not to be unnecessarily divisive, let me first identify some matters covered by the Bill that I welcome. These include the permanence of the National Assembly, the acceptance of the principle of a reserved powers model, giving the Assembly power over elections to the Assembly, including the electoral system and franchise, and control of fracking in Wales. I certainly welcome all of those.
However, I must also flag up some unsatisfactory aspects of the Bill, which I shall want to pursue at a later stage. I expect that my noble friend Lord Elis-Thomas will refer to the key issue of how to implement the central plank of Silk, namely the need for the powers of the Assembly to be based on the principle of reserved powers rather than the conferred powers model enshrined in the 1998 and 2006 Acts. The version which the Government have brought forward is regarded in Cardiff Bay as inadequate. In fact, it still contains as many as 200 reserved matters. Indeed, in some ways, it makes the position worse in that it actually takes back powers from the Assembly and the Welsh Government.
Furthermore, while the Secretary for Wales, Alun Cairns MP, has been apparently willing to explain his proposals, he has been reluctant in this respect to negotiate an outcome which might meet the needs of both Wales and Westminster. That smacks of government by diktat.
The Report on the UK Government’s Wales Bill, published last Thursday by the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, of which I have a copy here, states in paragraph 11 that the Bill,
“is a complex and inaccessible piece of constitutional law that will not deliver the lasting, durable settlement that people in Wales had expected”.
Paragraph 14 adds that,
“in our view, significant improvements needed to be made to the Bill … to reflect authoritative criticism … Regrettably, necessary improvements were largely not accepted by the UK Government”.
It is the unanimous view of the committee that the arguments put forward by the UK Government in opposing a more ambitious Bill, “are not convincing”. Paragraph 22 of the report says:
“The Bill we are left with provides a restrictive settlement that over-complicates rather than simplifies and fails to fully empower the National Assembly as a modern legislature”.
The report describes the Bill as,
“the first piece of devolution legislation that takes backwards steps and that is a matter of considerable concern”.
These views were endorsed by all four parties represented on that committee, including the Conservative former Deputy Presiding Officer of the Assembly, David Melding AM, and if the UK Government now state that they will ride roughshod over their representations, it shows how misleading are the assurances given by the new Prime Minister that the wishes of Wales will be taken into account by her Government. Incidentally, I am somewhat surprised that the report is not available in the Vote Office for noble Lords to access.
If I may give a specific example, it might help noble Lords to appreciate the shortcomings of the Bill. I take the issue of compulsory purchase. Under the 2006 Act, it has not been specifically devolved, but neither is it retained. Therefore, legally, the National Assembly could legislate in this matter, provided that it was “incidental”, and not “central” to that piece of legislation. It is an example of what has been referred to as a “silent subject”. In the Bill, compulsory purchase is deemed as a retained matter, so the Welsh Government would in future be unable to legislate as it could under the 2006 Act. This is a clear example of how this Bill is withdrawing powers from the National Assembly, despite claims by Ministers to the contrary.
I refer to some other matters which are not included in this Bill, although they were part of the Silk recommendations, concerning which I hope to table amendments in Committee. These include: the devolution of policing, supported by all four newly elected police commissioners in Wales; provision for the emergence of a distinct Welsh legal jurisdiction, the absence of which has caused much of the complexity for which this Bill has been rightly criticised; powers relating to the youth justice system; and powers concerning the Wales and Borders rail franchise.
I shall also seek to propose amendments that deal with greater Assembly powers relating to energy, to remove veto powers enjoyed by the Secretary of State and to clarify the Welsh Government’s authority in dealing with trade matters relating to the single market of the European Union, in the unfortunate circumstances that the UK Government fail to negotiate unfettered rights for manufactured goods and agricultural produce, free from tariff and technical barriers. I shall also raise questions relating to the repatriation from Brussels to Westminster of matters that are already devolved, so that they can be transferred immediately to the National Assembly if they impinge on devolved functions.
I also flag up my intention to bring forward an amendment in Committee to give the National Assembly full powers to decide on any new proposals for extracting water from Wales. Specifically, this must include the power of veto over any intention of drowning valleys to create new reservoirs, which must be subject to authorisation by the National Assembly, which should have the powers to impose whatever conditions it deems fit on such projects. Sixty years on from when Liverpool Corporation resolved to drown the Tryweryn Valley, against the united opposition of all Welsh MPs bar one, this issue still causes rancour and bitterness. If there was one single step that the Government could take that would recognise Welsh sentiment on this issue, it would be to empower the Assembly to decide on such matters. I have no doubt that every party in Wales would welcome such a step with delight. Associated policy issues, such as land use, flooding, agriculture, the development of natural resources, environmental policy, industrial development, tourism and recreation are already overwhelmingly devolved to the Assembly. I ask the Minister if he will, even at this late stage, take up with his fellow Ministers the possibility of righting a long-standing wrong, and bring forward at least an enabling clause at a later stage that could facilitate such a move.
At a time of great constitutional uncertainty, when the UK Government put so much emphasis on the validity of identity and “taking back control”, and on enabling communities to do much more to help themselves, this Wales Bill should be a beacon that demonstrates how such thinking now applies to Wales. It should project how the principle of bringing power closer to the people is not just a tug of war between London and Brussels; it is equally valid in enabling Wales to decide for itself those matters which—because of cultural diversity, differences in social aspiration and community values, or of geographic or administrative convenience—can best be decided in Wales.
We are united that we need new legislation that enables Wales to do more to help itself in a transparent and effective manner and that overcomes the shortcomings of the tangled mishmash of existing law. We need legislation which has the confidence of Wales’s elected representatives and which the Government of Wales herald as a positive step to overcome current deficiencies in our constitutional settlement. As a number of noble Lords have already indicated, I fear that this Bill falls short of those ambitions. Depending on how the Government respond to proposals from across this Chamber to improve its provisions at later stages, a question must remain as to whether we are better with, or without, the Wales Bill as currently drafted. I support its Second Reading, so that it can be amended at a later stage to enable it to achieve the purpose for which it was meant.
Calais Jungle
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement delivered in the other place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary.
“Mr Speaker, today I met with my counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve. We agreed that we have a moral duty to safeguard the welfare of unaccompanied refugee children, and we both take our humanitarian responsibilities seriously. The UK Government have made clear their commitment to resettle vulnerable children under the Immigration Act and to ensure that those with links to the UK are brought here using the Dublin regulation.
The primary responsibility for unaccompanied children in France, including those in the Calais camp, lies with the French authorities; the UK Government have no jurisdiction to operate on French territory and the UK can contribute only in ways agreed with the French authorities and in compliance with French and EU law. The UK has made significant progress in speeding up the Dublin process. We have established a permanent official level contact group and we have seconded UK experts to the French Government. Part of the role is to assist co-ordinating efforts on the ground to identify children. Since the beginning of 2016, more than 80 unaccompanied children have been accepted for transfer to the UK from France under the Dublin regulation, nearly all of whom have now arrived in the UK.
Within these very real constraints, we continue to work with the French Government and partner organisations to speed up mechanisms to identify, assess and transfer unaccompanied refugee children to the UK, where this is in their best interests. While the decision on the dismantling of the Calais camp and the timing of this operation is a matter for the French Government, I have made it crystal clear to the French Interior Minister on numerous occasions, including at our meeting today, that our priority must be to ensure the safety and security of children during any camp clearances. We have made good progress today, but there is much more work to do. To this end, I emphasised to Monsieur Cazeneuve that we should transfer as many minors as possible from the camp, eligible under the Dublin regulation, before clearance commences, with the remainder coming over within the next few days of the operation.
I also outlined my views that those children eligible under the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act 2016 must be looked after in safe facilities where their best interests are properly considered. The UK Government stand ready to help fund such facilities and provide the resourcing to aid the decision-making.
I made clear in my meeting today with Monsieur Cazeneuve that we should particularly prioritise those under the age of 12 because they are the most vulnerable. The UK remains committed to upholding our humanitarian responsibilities on protecting minors and those most vulnerable”.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer to the Urgent Question in the other place. Many people, including in this House, just do not believe that the evidence shows that the Government have been doing as much as they should to bring unaccompanied refugee children in Calais with family links in the United Kingdom over here as quickly as possible, yet alone act on the terms of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Dubs to the Immigration Act. The Government have referred to what they are doing now, much of it only very recently, which simply has the effect of highlighting how little they have been doing up to now. How many unaccompanied children who have a relative in the UK are still in Calais? We must surely have established the answer to that question by now.
A recent British Red Cross report stated that on average it takes up to 11 months to bring a child to the UK under the procedures for reuniting families when there appears to be no reason why the process should take that long. Do the Government accept that the figure of 11 months is correct, or broadly correct, in relation to the process to date? Will the Government now undertake to ensure that all unaccompanied children with families in the UK will be brought over here before the unofficial refugee camps in Calais are shortly demolished? If the Government refuse to give that commitment, what action will they take to ensure that those remaining children are protected and not dispersed?
I do not doubt that responsibility for the delays can also be laid at the door of the French authorities, but it does not appear that we have acted on this matter with the urgency required in terms of resources and applying pressure on behalf of vulnerable unaccompanied children who are eligible to come to this country, some of whom have disappeared in the meantime.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, we know that there are approximately 1,000 unaccompanied children in the camps in Calais. The number of children who may come over here is of course yet to be determined. However, we have been assured by the French that they are working on a list and that it will be provided in the next few days before the camps start to be cleared. The noble Lord asked about the average time being 11 months. Most of the children have been transferred relatively quickly. I appreciate the House’s concern but this can be a very complex process. Certainly, we have been very keen to get the list from the French. They are now keen to speed up the process of giving us that list, and as I say we hope to get it in the next few days. This Government have spent literally tens of millions of pounds and dedicated our time to speeding up the process. We have a team in place in the Home Office Dublin unit to ensure that the process is speeded up. We have also established a senior-level standing committee between ourselves and France. We have regular contact on Dublin issues and transferring the children, including ministerial, senior official and daily contact between officials. We are very keen to get those children here as quickly as possible. Today’s conversation proves that there is now a renewed commitment from France to ensure that that happens.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
I have spent much time in the camp in Calais over the course of both this year and last year, and I returned from my most recent visit just this weekend. There is very good reason to believe that the camp will start to be demolished on Monday 17 October. In a meeting with camp associations last week, the police said that when the demolitions start they will be, in their words, swift and violent. Therefore, I am sorry that in responding to the Urgent Question, the Minister did not say that she made strong representations to her French counterpart that the demolition planned for Monday 17 October be delayed to make more time available to remove children to safety so that they do not disappear, as they did last time. Will she ask the Home Secretary to take heed of the joint statement issued by the Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, and her French counterpart, expressing their extreme disquiet at the lack of planning and provision for the children in the face of the impending demolition of the Jungle camp?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, as I have said a couple of times today, those children remain everyone’s concern. Certainly, as the camp is demolished, that concern increases. As regards the date, I have not had one, but certainly it sounds like it is imminent. Previous statements from the French have said that the camps will be demolished by Christmas. On the children’s care, today the Home Secretary made it quite clear that children must be looked after in safe facilities, where their best interests are properly considered. She also reiterated that the UK Government stand ready to help fund such facilities and to provide resources to aid the decision-making.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, has the noble Baroness had the chance to view the sobering insight of a recently broadcast ITV documentary called “The Forgotten Children”? In contrast with the 80 children whom the noble Baroness said the United Kingdom has taken, that programme highlighted the 88,000 children who are without parents in Europe, 10,000 of whom it said had gone missing, their whereabouts no longer known. The same documentary highlighted the plight of a brother and sister aged 13 and 12, who had escaped from Aleppo and who are now living in a tent in a derelict petrol station. How do we square that with the idea that we are providing protection for vulnerable children? How on earth can we sleep easily in our own beds at night when we know that these things are happening? Why are we not doing more to ensure a realistic and European-wide response to the magnitude of this crisis?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord makes an important point that we are not the only country in Europe. Today’s discussions have highlighted that each country in Europe has an obligation to the people who arrive in those countries. The news that the camp clearance is imminent has helped to focus the minds of not just France but Italy, Greece and other countries which may have received people and families who require asylum.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister clarify one point? It is good that we are, though all too slowly getting the Dublin III children to come to this country. What about the Immigration Act children, who were the specific subject of a vote that was passed in this House? Can the Minister give some assurance that it is just as urgent to get those over here to safety as the Dublin III children?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord is absolutely right. We consider these children to be children, whether they are Dublin III or Dubs Immigration Act children. We now know that under the Dubs amendment 50 have been accepted for transfer and 35 are here. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right; it is vital to get children from either category over here as soon as we can.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
My Lords, some years ago I was asked to chair a government inquiry into services for disabled people. We produced 30 recommendations and I was amazed at how difficult it was to change anything in this country and move things along. As I listened to the debate about the problems in Calais I began to wonder just how many obstructions we have to overcome, so I went round your Lordships’ House asking various people who I thought might know how many obstructions—forms, regulations, French and English laws—there are. No one could tell me. We ought to have some idea of exactly what the obstructions are before we are too critical of the Minister. Can she therefore tell us, not necessarily now but perhaps in writing, just how many forms, regulations, and French and English laws have to be overcome to get the children over? That would be helpful.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank my noble friend for that question. Certainly a large number of hoops have to be gone through in placing these children in the appropriate country of safety, and I will try to get a full list, with precise details, of the bureaucracy that has to be overcome. I hope that in the coming weeks some of that bureaucracy will be simplified so that we can expedite these cases. However, we have to abide by the laws of the countries that the children are coming from and we also have to be very mindful of the safeguarding arrangements in place in those countries. It is incredibly important that we verify that the children go to the right place to meet their needs but also that we verify that they are who we think they are. We have to avoid any awful unintended consequences of trying to rush things rather than doing them properly.
Next Steps in Leaving the European Union
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made in the other place earlier today by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I will now make a Statement on the next steps in leaving the European Union.
The mandate for Britain to leave the European Union is clear, overwhelming and unarguable. As the Prime Minister has said more than once, we will make a success of Brexit, and no one should seek to find ways to thwart the settled will of the people, expressed in the referendum of 23 June. It is now incumbent on the Government to deliver an exit in the most orderly and smooth way possible, delivering maximum certainty for businesses and workers. I want today to update the House on how the Government plan to reflect UK withdrawal from the EU on the statute book while delivering that certainty and stability.
We will start by bringing forward a great repeal Bill that will mean the European Communities Act ceasing to apply on the day we leave the EU. It was this Act which put EU law above UK law, so it is right, given the clear instruction for exit given to us by the people in the referendum, that we end the authority of EU law. We will return sovereignty to the sovereign institutions of this United Kingdom. That is what people voted for on 23 June—for Britain to take control of its own destiny, and for all decisions about taxpayers’ money, borders and laws to be taken here, in Britain.
The referendum was backed by six to one in this House, and on all sides of the argument—leave and remain—we have a duty to respect and carry out the people’s instruction. As I have said, the mandate for exit is clear, and we will reject any attempt to undo the referendum result, any attempt to hold up the process unduly and any attempt to keep Britain in the EU by the back door by those who did not like the answer they were given on 23 June.
We are consulting widely with business and Parliament, and we want to hear and take account of all views and opinions. The Prime Minister has been clear: we will not be giving a running commentary—that is not the way to get the right deal for Britain—but we are committed to providing clarity where we can as part of this consultative approach.
Naturally, I want this House to be properly engaged throughout, and we will observe the constitutional and legal precedents that apply to any new treaty on a new relationship with the EU. Indeed, my whole approach is about empowering this place. The great repeal Act will convert existing EU law into domestic law, wherever practical. That will provide for a calm and orderly exit and give as much certainty as possible to employers, investors, consumers and workers. We have been clear: UK employment law already goes further than EU law in many areas, and this Government will do nothing to undermine those rights in the workplace.
There is over 40 years of EU law in UK law to consider in all, and some of it simply will not work on exit. We must act to ensure there is no black hole in our statute book. Then, it will be for this House to consider the changes to our domestic legislation to reflect the outcome of our negotiation and our exit, subject to international agreements and treaties with other countries and the EU on matters such as trade.
The European Communities Act has meant that if there is a clash between an Act of the UK Parliament and EU law, it is EU law that prevails. As a result, we have had to abide by judgments delivered by the ECJ in its interpretation of EU law. The great repeal Bill will change that.
Legislation resulting from the UK’s exit must work for the whole of the United Kingdom. To that end, while no one part of the United Kingdom can have a veto over our exit, the Government will consult with the devolved Administrations. I have already held initial conversations with the leaders of the devolved Governments about our plans, and I will make sure that the devolved Administrations have every opportunity to work closely with us.
Let me be absolutely clear: this Bill is a separate issue to when Article 50 is triggered. The great repeal Bill is not what will take us out of the EU but what will ensure the UK statute book is fit for purpose after we have left—and put the elected politicians in this country fully in control of determining the laws that affect its people’s lives.
In order to leave the EU, we will follow the process set out in Article 50 of the EU treaty. The Prime Minister will invoke Article 50 no later than the end of March next year. That gives us the space required to do the necessary work to shape our negotiating strategy. The House will understand this is a very extensive and detailed programme of work, which will take some time.
The clarity on the timing of our proposed exit also gives the European Union the time to prepare its position for the negotiation. The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said the Prime Minister had brought welcome certainty to the timing of Brexit talks.
We will, as Britain always should, abide by our treaty obligations—not tearing up EU law unilaterally, as some have suggested, but ensuring stability and certainty as Britain takes control on the day of exit and not before.
People have asked what our plan is for exit: this is the first stage. To be prepared for an orderly exit, there is a need to move forward on domestic legislation in parallel with our European negotiation so that we are ready for the day of our withdrawal, when the process set out under Article 50 concludes. Therefore I can tell the House that we intend to introduce the great repeal Bill in the next parliamentary Session. It demonstrates the Government’s determination to deliver the will of the British people, expressed in the EU referendum result, that Britain should once again make its own laws for its own people.
It is nations that are outward looking, enterprising and agile that will prosper in an age of globalisation. I believe that when we have left the European Union, when we are once again truly in control of our own affairs, we will be in an even stronger position to confront the challenges of the future. This Government will build a global Britain that will trade around the world, build new alliances with other countries and deliver prosperity for its people”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and I welcome the chance for the House to hear formally, rather than through the press, the decision to trigger Article 50 by the end of March and the plans for the great repeal Bill—a decision which otherwise, of course, we heard about on television. We trust that this is just the first of a number of regular attendances at the Dispatch Box to brief the House on the approach being taken and on progress being made. The decisions that the Government take over the coming months and years, regarding how we exit the EU and our new relations with both the remaining EU and the rest of the world, carry huge implications for us and for future generations.
I am old enough to remember, 44 years ago this month, that it took 69 Labour MPs to defy a three-line whip to take the UK into the Common Market, contributing to the Government’s 112 majority. Without those 69—which included the noble Lords, Lord Maclennan, Lord Owen and Lord Rodgers, Lord Hattersley, Lady Williams and Lord Sheldon, and our late colleagues Lord Barnett, Lord Roper and others—Ted Heath would have been defeated. We know the implication of that vote for my party, but all of us also know it was a parliamentary vote: a key, much-discussed, vital, and, for some of those involved, very brave vote that took us into Europe.
How, therefore, can the Government now say that the trigger—the starting gun from which there is no going back—can be fired without a vote in Parliament? The Minister spoke of returning sovereignty to the UK, yet the Government want to exclude Parliament from this process, not simply on triggering Article 50 but also in debating the negotiating terms or the evolving agreements. That is not making Parliament sovereign; it is sidelining Parliament.
Will the Minister explain why the Government will not reconsider their decision to rule out a vote on the basic terms they propose before Article 50 is triggered? We understand the Government were caught short, having had no plans for Brexit in their 2015 manifesto—indeed, they were committed to,
“safeguard British interests in the Single Market”.
They then forbade Whitehall from making plans for a leave vote. But that is no excuse for not being ready by early next year to articulate their approach. If the Government proceed to an exit deal without a vote in Parliament, their specific plans will never have the approval of the public or of Parliament. We therefore ask the Minister: when do the Government propose that Parliament should vote on their negotiating objectives?
We nevertheless accept—for some of us, with much sadness—the outcome of the referendum, but that result does not give the Government a blank cheque to negotiate away vital protections for workers, consumers, the environment or, indeed, the interests of business. Throughout these coming years and the complicated negotiations, the national interest—not just the Conservatives’ interests—must come first. Aside from defence and national security, and our continuing membership of Europol, the economy and jobs are central to the national interest. Yet, it appears from the Prime Minister’s statement to the Conservative conference that Brexit means hard Brexit and that continued access to the single market is at risk, with huge risks for the economy, jobs, business and working people. Will the Minister assure the House that the Government will seek continued access to the single market on the best possible terms? Can he rule out a default position of falling back on to the WTO terms?
For my generation—perhaps for me in particular, having been born in a war-torn Germany in the late 1940s, growing up in a divided Europe, but then able to witness the blossoming of a free, open and prosperous Europe, built on free trade in a single market—the next two and a half years will be utterly demanding as we seek a new relationship with our continental allies. It is the defining issue of this Parliament and a major task for the House. Perhaps the Minister could tell us: when is the next parliamentary Session, when the great repeal Bill will arrive? Will he confirm that he will take the House with him every step of the way?
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I also thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I start, though, by querying the claim that the mandate of 23 June was “overwhelming”. Compared with the overwhelming mandate of the 1975 referendum, which was a 2:1 vote, this was a narrow majority, sending a rather unclear message that the Government are overinterpreting. While it may have been a narrow decision to leave on 23 June, it was not the decision to trigger Article 50, which first requires a great deal more knowledge of the destination.
The Government’s conduct of the Brexit process needs to meet at least four criteria. First, given the enhancement of parliamentary sovereignty and supremacy promised by the Secretary of State in his Statement of 5 September, the pledge in the Conservative manifesto of 2010 to reform the use of prerogative powers, and the claim in today’s Statement that the,
“whole approach is about empowering this place”,
I am surprised by the Prime Minister’s refusal of a parliamentary vote. The claim is that sovereignty is being returned to the institutions of the UK. That must mean Parliament, but it is not being done. I would like the Minister to explain why.
The Constitution Committee of this House said in its report last month:
“It would be constitutionally inappropriate, not to mention setting a disturbing precedent, for the Executive to act on an advisory referendum without explicit parliamentary approval—particularly one with such significant long-term consequences”.
I think that many in this House would agree with that. Indeed, Professor Mark Elliott, who is the legal adviser to that committee, has said in a blog that the Government’s “grounds of resistance” in the current litigation concede that permission is required from Parliament. They then say that permission was given by the referendum Act, which many of us would dispute, but they have conceded in that court case that Parliament’s permission is needed.
The second criterion, referred to by the noble Baroness, would be fulfilment of the 2015 Conservative manifesto pledge to stay in the single market. That is supported by the point stressed by the leave campaign that people voted in the 1975 referendum for the common market. Many people agreed with that, so, by implication, most people are happy to stay in the common market. Why are the Government not aiming to stay in the single market?
Thirdly, we need good governance. I perfectly agree that it is,
“now incumbent on the Government”,
as the Statement puts it, to deliver as orderly and smooth an exit as possible, providing maximum certainty for businesses and workers. Well, with business up in arms about the current uncertainty and the pound dropping like a stone, that is going well, isn’t it? The Government owe us all some certainty.
Fourthly, the Chancellor remarked that the British people did not vote to become poorer. That is on the cards, with import prices set to rise heavily in the new year, affecting everybody’s pocket and wallet.
Finally, the Government say that they want to move forward on a repeal Bill in parallel with the Brexit negotiations. Whatever the timing of such legislation, for which the implementation will fall due in 2019 at the earliest, it should not distract from the overwhelming need for this Parliament to be in the driving seat for the negotiations, and to not be a left-behind passenger.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I thank both noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Ludford, for their remarks. I am sorry that we are starting on a note of some discord and not harmony. I am sorry to sound a little like a cracked record, too, but the Government’s position on Article 50 is very clear and has remained so right from the moment of the referendum result: that the Government will exercise this measure under royal prerogative. As your Lordships will know, this matter is now before the courts; we are defending our position rigorously. We see a great difference between exercising this power under the royal prerogative and the whole act of withdrawing from the European Union and replacing powers in this House, which is to restore powers to this House overall. These two things are totally separate.
We will not exclude Parliament from this process. This is the second Statement that I have made—I am appearing before a number of your Lordships’ committees, as are my colleagues in the other place—and the point of it is to make clear the procedure by which this House and the other place will be involved in the process. It is clear that there will be extensive debate over the ECA Bill and, as I have said previously at this Dispatch Box, the Government will respect the legal and constitutional procedures and precedents that govern treaties and their ratification. On top of all that, there are other mechanisms for this House and the other place to hold the Government to account, one of which is the opposition day debate, which I believe will be held on Wednesday, so there is all manner of means of accountability.
On the means by which the Government are to be held to account before we even begin negotiations, again I ask noble Lords to just stop and think for a moment. Is it wise for the Government to set out their entire negotiating position in advance and then be bound by it? I ask noble Lords to pause and reflect on that. We obviously need to proceed in the national interest. That means ensuring we have enough room to manoeuvre, while keeping this House properly up to speed. That is our intent.
Secondly, on what we will negotiate, I can understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked me about ruling out various options such as WTO. Again, I am not in a position at the Dispatch Box now or at any other moment in the next few weeks—dare I say months—to start ruling out this, that or the other. That would be exactly what those on the other side of the negotiating table would wish us to do and is why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made it very clear we will not provide a running commentary. We have and will continue to set out our overarching aims. One of those aims is obviously to ensure that British firms and businesses continue to enjoy the maximum possible access to trade within Europe. That is that and I will not go further into it now.
Finally, on the economy, I understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said about what is happening currently on the currency markets but I will not speculate on that. However, under the stewardship of this Government and the previous one the economy is in robust health. It is doing very well and we continue to enjoy some very good economic statistics. I am sure that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have more to say about that in the Autumn Statement to ensure that we protect and strengthen our position.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s Statement. He is quite right to emphasise how absurd it is for the Opposition to advocate that the actual aims of the negotiation should be paraded in public. When the Minister hears the Opposition preaching the merits of membership of—not access to—the single market, will he perhaps remind Members opposite that there are some disadvantages to such membership? These include the facts that we cannot make our own trade deals, that we must accept regulation applying not just those to firms that export to Europe but to the whole of the economy, and that we must make a significant financial contribution equal to 0.5% of GDP. These are significant things that cannot be wished away.
Lord Bridges of Headley
My noble friend makes some very wise points, coming from the position that I know he does. It is absolutely critical that as we go on we are very clear and precise in the terms we use. As he rightly said, there is a great difference between membership and access. In the debate over the last few weeks, people have become rather confused on this. I agree that it is critical that we are clear what we are talking about. On where we are going, as I said, I am not in a position at the Dispatch Box to go further in defining the Government’s course of action other than to say that clearly we are considering a whole range of options, but equally clearly it is in our interests to ensure that we get the maximum freedom for business to trade with and within the single market.
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
Would the Minister just clarify the timing? The Prime Minister has decided to go ahead with pressing the button for Article 50 by the end of March next year. Yet I heard from a very senior level of the Government at the time the referendum was declared last summer, “Why did you rush into this?”. We rushed into it because the Europeans told us, “Get it out of the way before the French and German elections”. Now we are rushing into it with the French and German elections, and we have two years in which to negotiate when their minds will be on their elections. Could the timing be explained?
On the prerogative, why is it that when a Prime Minister has a prerogative to go to war, every time—whether it is Iraq or Syria—they come to Parliament to approve it, yet in a situation like this, one of the most important decisions in 40 years, Parliament does not have a say? How can the Government say it was a definitive decision? It was 52:48. It was not 70:30 or 60:40 but 52:48. The instruction of the public was to leave—but on what basis? No immigration or reduced immigration? No contribution to the EU or reduced contribution to the EU? If it is not definite, why can we not have a say in helping the country to, in the words of the Statement, deliver prosperity for its people?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I say politely to the noble Lord as regards his second point: we are not going to have backsliding over the result of the referendum. The result was absolutely clear and we intend to deliver on it. As I said, there will be ample opportunity to hold me and my ministerial colleagues to account at this Dispatch Box and in the other place for the reasons I set out. As regards timing, I hear what the noble Lord says about the French and German elections and other events but I have to say to him: on the other side of the argument are those who say, quite rightly, that we need to have some certainty and some deliberate speed in getting on with this, and that we cannot be seen to be dragging our feet. That is why the Prime Minister has set out what I see as a very timely and measured approach to executing the instruction we have received.
Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)
Can the Minister reassure the House that nothing will appear in the great repeal Bill that will undermine the improvements in civil and political society in Northern Ireland and Ireland? That reassurance is needed soon and must guarantee that the beneficial border arrangements on the island of Ireland will not be removed.
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. We already have had extensive discussions with the Irish Government and in Northern Ireland. We are all absolutely determined that we will not see a return to the past or to the hard border. As regards the repeal of the ECA, I entirely take his point on that. I would be happy to meet him to discuss any specific points he has on that. I think we are all aware of the sensitivities surrounding the situation in Northern Ireland and the Republic, so thoughts from the noble Lord and others on how best to proceed would be greatly appreciated.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that the two-year time period for Article 50 is an extremely short period, as most experts think, in which to negotiate a comprehensive free-trade agreement with the EU? Therefore, the key question becomes: what interim arrangement will the Government put forward? Will he assure the House that the Government have not ruled out as the interim arrangement full membership of the single market?
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Lord makes an interesting and very valid point. A week may be a long time in politics—God knows what two years is, therefore. Two years is a considerable amount of time, but he makes an important point. The matter of transitional arrangements, as has been widely reported, has been raised with the Government by businesses and business organisations, along with a number of other issues, concerns and thoughts that they have. We are considering them all. I am not going to start ruling in or out any of these points at the Dispatch Box now, but I assure him that his point has been noted.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, the question about Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is really a practical, immediate matter. It is my understanding that to avoid the reinstatement of the hard border, which would be very dangerous, we are proposing to have migration controls at Republic of Ireland ports of entry from other parts of the European Union. Can the Minister comment on that?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I think that my noble friend is referring to a story that appeared in one of the newspapers this morning. There is an existing high level of collaboration between the United Kingdom and Ireland to strengthen the external Common Travel Area. A whole range of processes is already under way. As I said a moment ago, we are in close discussion with our counterparts in the Republic and, obviously, in Northern Ireland itself to look at what else we might do, depending on the options we come up with. I am sorry to say that I cannot go further at this point.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, perhaps the Minister could give a little detail about the parliamentary scrutiny arrangements that will follow on from the repeal of the European Communities Act. The Statement spoke of putting elected politicians fully in control. Can he tell the House exactly how that will work with regard to the huge volume of legislation that is envisaged following the great repeal Act? Can he assure us that there will be full parliamentary scrutiny and that the great repeal Act will not be one great Henry VIII clause?
Lord Bridges of Headley
The noble Baroness makes an extremely valid point. I assure her and all your Lordships that we will give ample opportunity to this House to discuss the Bill and to look at the mechanisms that might be required to go into it to ensure that we have an orderly and smooth Brexit. As we speak, departments across Whitehall are looking at what might be required to be done to ensure that when we transpose EU law into UK law it is done in an orderly way, and to identify the amount of work that is required. I am already in conversations with a number of your Lordships about how the delegated powers that might need to be taken on might be exercised. I am completely aware that this matter will be of great interest to your Lordships and I fully intend to engage as closely as possible with as many noble Lords as possible beforehand.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, does the Minister believe that if we move Article 50 by March, as he indicates, we would have a right in circumstances where the negotiations were totally unsatisfactory to withdraw that application or is the situation that once we have moved it, we are stuck with it whatever the consequences?
Lord Bridges of Headley
All I will say is that we are intent on making a success out of this, and, once we have moved Article 50 and begun this process, to ensure that it is seen through successfully and smoothly.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, I hope that the Minister will not take it amiss if I say that we are no wiser, and certainly no better informed, as a result of this Statement. I again declare my interest as chancellor of the University of St Andrews. Where in the Statement, or in anything said by way of ministerial statements in Birmingham last week, is there any comfort for the universities of Great Britain as a consequence of our removal from the European Union if, as appears likely to be the case, we embark upon leaving it whatever the terms and conditions may be?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I have had conversations with a number of representatives from the university sector. We discussed the concerns that they might have and my right honourable friend the Chancellor has addressed a number of those concerns as regards funding. They also spoke of issues such as migration and access to talent. I draw the noble Lord’s attention to what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in Birmingham last week. He made it perfectly clear that we are determined to ensure that, post-Brexit, this country has continued access to the talent that it requires to succeed, be that in any sector of the economy including the university sector. I have spoken personally to a number of university representatives to ensure that they come up with ideas as to how we might best do that.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, why does the Minister say that Parliament should remain in control after Brexit, quite rightly, but not before Brexit? This is not a question of seeking to overturn the referendum result nor of parading your negotiating credentials in public beforehand. It is about asserting Parliament’s fundamental right, including this House’s right, to approve the terms of Brexit because those were never spelt out by the leave campaign. People voted against remaining in Europe but not for anything. Surely Parliament should have the chance not just to scrutinise but to amend any proposal put to it on the terms of Brexit so that it is in the United Kingdom’s interest, in the view of Parliament.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I am very sorry to say that I disagree with the noble Lord on this. This Government have been given an instruction to deliver on Brexit and that is what we intend to do. I am loath to use the phrase “Don’t bind my hands” in relation to Europe but that would be the consequence of what he is attempting to do. We need to be able to negotiate in the nation’s interests: that means having the ability to negotiate the best deal for Britain.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My Lords, I invite the Minister to assist the House with regard to one particular aspect of Article 50. That aspect is paragraph 2, which the Minister will recollect says something of this order: that once notice has been given under Article 50, triggering the whole process, it is incumbent upon the European Commission and the leaving state to discuss matters with a view to coming to various agreements. It does not define the parameter of those agreements, which can be illimitable with regard to timing and to any other content. This is not a question of spelling out our specific position but, with regard to the choice or headings of matters to be negotiated, will the voice be heard at any stage of this mother of Parliaments, as enunciated through both Houses of Parliament?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I am sorry to repeat what I have said but the voice of this House and the other House will certainly be heard in the process, as I have already set out. As we go through the negotiating process, I am sure that there will be ample opportunity to question me and my colleagues in the other place about how the negotiations are proceeding.
Lord Higgins (Con)
My Lords, is there not always a danger with referendums that they become the dictatorship of the majority and do not take into account minority interests, even when the minority is as large as 48%? Does my noble friend agree that we have a representative parliamentary system of democracy which defends minority interests, and that we therefore ought to play a full role in deciding exactly what was meant by the result in the referendum? The other point which ought to be made is that there is some danger of the negotiations becoming a kind of trade-off where you go for either the single market or free movement of people. As far as British industry and finance are concerned, it is entirely in their interests to secure satisfactory arrangements on both. We ought not to be making a trade-off between one and the other.
Lord Bridges of Headley
On the first point, I fear that I have little more to add. As regards financial services, my noble friend makes a very good second point. Again, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, my other ministerial colleagues and I have been meeting representatives of the financial sector. They have addressed their need for access to talent and access to markets, which brings us on to the issues of passporting and equivalence, and all those points. We are now considering all those matters and noting carefully the points that they are raising.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, the sentence in the Statement saying that the Government will convert legislation into UK law “wherever practical” gives little comfort to those of us who believe that workers’, consumers’ and environmental rights are best protected by membership of the European Union. I also go back to what the noble Lord on the Lib Dem Benches talked about in relation to universities. I declare my interest from the University of Bath, where I know that several people have already withdrawn their candidature from various posts because they are worried about not having a future in the university. Can the Minister say whether all those EU staff who are currently employed in British universities will be able to stay?
Lord Bridges of Headley
On the first point of “wherever practical”, I am more than happy to discuss with the noble Baroness any specific points that she might have. This is one of the reasons why we have made this announcement when we have: we need to take a long, hard look at what needs to be done to achieve our aim and to ensure that, when it comes to the day that we leave the EU, everyone knows exactly where they stand, mindful of our wishes to ensure that we have certainty and to protect workers’ rights, for example. If the noble Baroness wishes to raise specific points, I am more than happy to meet her. On her second point about universities and university staff withdrawing, I am obviously disappointed and saddened to hear that. The Government’s position on EU citizens and UK citizens overseas is clear. We very much hope to come to an agreement with the EU on the rights of UK citizens overseas and therefore of EU citizens here, and we see no reason why we should not be able to do so.
Lord Kilclooney (CB)
My Lords, as one living on the border between the United Kingdom and the Republic, I am very relaxed that both Governments—that of the United Kingdom and that in Dublin—want to retain the common travel area in the island of Ireland. We have no problem there. I am afraid that some people in London are exaggerating the issue. The border towns are booming not with bombs, I am glad to say, but with thousands of southern Irish shoppers coming into Northern Ireland every day to do their shopping following the depreciation of the pound. We are benefiting from the referendum decision. But what worries us is the situation in the Republic, which will be the worst hit EU country following Brexit because it is one of our main trading partners. Mushroom producers’ units are being closed and meat plants are in trouble. I therefore hope that in the forthcoming negotiations, the United Kingdom will be concerned about the economy in the Republic of Ireland because a bad economy there is not good for Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I thank the noble Lord for his comments, especially given his extensive experience on this. Of course we are very conscious of all aspects regarding the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland when we enter these negotiations. I totally heed the point he makes.
I think there is a bit of a myth about the common travel area. Some say that the CTA ceased to exist when the UK and Ireland joined the EU. This is untrue. The CTA is specifically recognised in the 1997 treaty of Amsterdam and continues to be recognised in Protocol (No 20) on the application of certain aspects of Article 26. The protocol recognises,
“the existence for many years of special travel arrangements between the United Kingdom and Ireland”.
This is a point that we will obviously need to return to, but it is important to note.
Lord Robathan (Con)
What does the Minister think would be the reaction of the British people were the unelected Members of this House to attempt to thwart the clearly decided vote in the referendum in June?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I do not like to think of that very much. I suggest to those who wish to do so that they should humbly think again about what they might be embarking upon.
Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)
The Minister described the trading paradise that we are going to have when we leave the EU. Will he remind us of all those trips Prime Ministers, Chancellors, Secretaries of State for Business and other Ministers have made to further our trading interest in India, China and around the world? What is going to change? What are the Government going to do as a result of this removal from the European Union that is going to bring this trading Valhalla to us that has not been brought about in the past?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I am sorry to say that I beg to differ. The opportunities now before us will be quite considerable. Just because we may have had some difficulties in the past does not mean we will have difficulties in future.
Wales Bill
Monday 10th October 2016
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Wales Act 2017 View all Wales Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 12 September 2016 - (12 Sep 2016)
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, this Bill should not have been placed before Parliament in the state it is in. For all the work of the Silk commission, of which the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, was a distinguished member, three successive Secretaries of State, pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft Bill and then scrutiny of this Bill by the House of Commons, it is a mess. It is confused and opaque. The opacity is not just because this legislation is not consolidated, although it is very unhelpful that that is the case. The Bill is based on no discernible constitutional principles. It expresses no clear or convinced vision for Wales or for the United Kingdom or for the relationship between the two. With the fractures exposed by the EU referendum, such a vision has never been more needed.
The Bill is not the product of a concordat between the Governments of Wales and of the United Kingdom. It will not fulfil the aspirations of the people of Wales for full law-making powers vested in the National Assembly as expressed in the referendum of 2011. It will not,
“put Welsh devolution on a stable footing for the long term”,—[Official Report, Commons, 14/6/16; col. 1644.]
which at Second Reading the Secretary of State described as the ambition of Ministers. There is a lack of ambition here for Wales. Rather than seeking to provide for Wales devolutionary parity, or near-parity, with Scotland and Northern Ireland, Ministers have tried to get away with the minimum they can. Power, instead of being shared generously between England and Wales, is being grudgingly contested in a zero-sum game.
My noble friend Lord Hain famously said that devolution is a process, not an event. The process to which this Bill will consign us will be one of frustration for Wales, legal uncertainty and continuing friction. Yet another round of legislation—a fifth go—will soon be needed. That phrase, “a new constitutional settlement”, which the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, used in his peroration—is peculiarly inapplicable to this measure.
The Secretary of State insists that his underpinning principles in preparing the Bill have been clarity and accountability. Whatever accountability there may be for the Welsh Government if they should avail themselves of the new power to vary rates of income tax, there will be no clarity in the absence of a commitment by the Government of the United Kingdom to extend the minimum funding pledge beyond this Parliament and to compensate for the loss of European payments to Wales following Brexit. Without that commitment the Government of Wales are being offered a pig in a poke. Why would they impose an income tax increase on the hard-pressed people of Wales when the Chancellor’s response may be to cut the grant to Wales? I think we should reflect very carefully on the thoughtful speech in this regard about the fiscal framework by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. This Government, like their predecessors, are too scared of Scottish voters to reform the Barnett formula, so they are leaving Wales disadvantaged while giving a meaningless new power to the Welsh Government. They are also scared of Welsh voters and are reneging on their manifesto promise of a referendum in Wales on devolution of powers to raise income tax.
While providing extensions to the legislative powers of the National Assembly, the Bill does not concede a distinct legal jurisdiction for Wales. The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, set his face emphatically against that in his speech. Here I part company with the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, whose maiden speech I enormously enjoyed and admired. After more than 15 years of devolution there is now, as the Bill recognises, a substantial body of Welsh law that has been created within Wales. That body of Welsh law will grow with use of the powers to be newly devolved. Already there are practical problems, with English counsel and judges being insufficiently versed in the parallel corpus of Welsh law. The Ministry of Justice and the courts in England are more than hard pressed to deal with the challenges they face in England alone. It is not sustainable to have two legislatures making law in one jurisdiction. The time has come at least to legislate to provide the ability to accord to Wales the respect and dignity of having its own jurisdiction.
My noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely was generous in her assessment of important aspects of the Bill. She described it as a considerable improvement on the provision for devolution that has so far been in place. Of course we should be grateful for the small mercies that the Bill does provide: powers to develop small ports and small energy projects, and control over aspects of transport and environmental policy as well as over equalities policy and arrangements for elections. While I welcome the Government’s conversion to the reserved powers model of devolution, the version offered in this Bill is, frankly, absurd and insulting to Wales. A studied vagueness in the drafting makes it impossible to be sure of the precise number, but the new Schedule 7A contains 190 or 200 reserved powers—different noble Lords have totted up different totals. Whatever the total may be, it is vastly more than the powers reserved in relation to Scotland. The imprecision of the schedule makes it inevitable that the two Governments will again have to resort to the courts to rule on what precisely is devolved. After the agricultural wages saga, that is what sensible people want to avoid.
It appears that the Wales Office ignored the advice of the Welsh Affairs Committee that it should issue guidance to other Whitehall departments as to the principles and considerations that they should apply in deciding what powers they wished to reserve, and instead has accommodated a dog-in-the-manger stance department by department. The Secretary of State claims that there is a clear rationale for each of the reservations, but what constitutional principle causes the Government to refuse to devolve to an experienced and—as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, acknowledged—mature Welsh Assembly powers over crime, public order and policing, including specifically such matters as anti-social behaviour, knives, drugs and prostitution? If the Home Office thinks it has a monopoly of wisdom, nobody else does. These are responsibilities devolved to Scotland and to be devolved to city regions in England. Why not to Wales? There is no principled basis for this reservation; it is simply a case of the Home Office saying, “What we have, we hold”.
If the Welsh Government should wish to improve access to justice—fundamental to a liberal society—by reversing some of the UK Government’s disgraceful cuts to legal aid, why are they forbidden to do so? On what principle is Wales not to be allowed competence in the licensing of entertainment or the sale and supply of alcohol, or for betting and gaming? Why should Wales not take responsibility for its own sins? If Wales wishes to be virtuous, why is it not entitled to take that decision? What about advertising, charities or adoption services? Do we need uniform policies on such matters across England and Wales? Are Welsh legislators unfit to determine them for Wales? If Wales can take charge of its planning policy, for what good reason will it not be allowed to determine its own policy on the community infrastructure levy? How can it make sense to separate competence for the two? Why on earth is policy on industrial development in Wales reserved to Whitehall and Westminster? The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, spoke of the responsibility of the Government of Wales to ensure that the Welsh economy performs well.
If the National Assembly is to determine electoral law for Welsh elections, why is it to be precluded from exercising powers in relation to the funding of political parties—an issue which, lamentably, for many years politicians at Westminster have failed to grasp? Since, pace the Secretary of State, the rationale for these and large numbers of other reservations is not clear, we may have to table amendments to delete each reservation individually, so that in the debate on each one the Minister can explain the reason. My noble friend Lady Morgan may or may not seek to strong-arm me to prevent me doing that, but she will have a good wrestle.
It is not just that Whitehall begrudges reasonable freedoms for Wales. Even as the Government are slashing parliamentary representation of Wales at Westminster, they are taking powers from the Welsh Assembly. Bizarrely, in a measure paraded as taking devolution a stage further, Whitehall is actually retracting devolved powers. This is partly because so-called silent areas, where hitherto powers were not specified or were specified ambiguously, and Wales exercised them de facto, are now included in reservations. Of course what the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, had to say about the judgment in the Supreme Court in 2014 is highly pertinent here. It is also partly because the vague drafting of reservations, by reference for example to the “subject matter” of large amounts of preceding legislation, enlarges the scope for reservation. With better, more precise drafting, the reserved powers model could have been introduced with no diminution of Assembly competence. As it is, Assembly competence is reduced in regard to, for example, aspects of employment rights and criminal offences against young people, as well as through the tests of competence in new Schedule 7B on modifying the law on reserved matters and Minister of the Crown consents. All this is helpfully discussed in the excellent report of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee of the Assembly, on which the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, served. The Bill gives with one hand while it takes away with the other. It gives new meaning to the phrase “take back control”. The Minister should at least tell the House which powers the Government are deliberately removing from Wales and why, and which powers they are removing inadvertently.
Brexit is a new ghost at this devolutionary feast. We now have before us a huge agenda of repatriation of European Union law to the United Kingdom, and then of examination and modification of its components. It will not be enough for the Government and Parliament in London to handle all this on behalf of Wales. The Government of Wales must be a champion for Wales, and the Assembly must play its part in legislation for Wales. The Bill began its passage through Parliament before 23 June, and Clause 19 on implementation of EU law does not appear to meet the point. How will the Government reframe their devolution policy to take account of Brexit?
I have been severe about the Bill because bad law will make good government in Wales more difficult. We must seek, in consultation with the Assembly, and as far as possible consensually in this House, to improve the Bill.
Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)
My Lords, perhaps I may put on record my appreciation of the way the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, who takes his title from my home town, has done so much to mould opinion among his colleagues. The Assembly, as he stated earlier, is now a permanent feature of our national life in Wales.
The Bill is another step in the granting of democratic control to the people of Wales, sitting as an elected body in Cardiff. When I introduced a Wales Bill as far back as the 1970s, I got a great deal of flak for using the word “Senedd”, meaning senate; it was a bridge too far for many of my nervous colleagues. How we have moved on since then. This Bill is an improvement on the last offering of the Wales Office, but it still fails to grasp the fundamental point that every opportunity should be taken on the face of legislation to avoid litigation, first by limiting the number of opportunities and secondly by ensuring there is clear water in the demarcation of what Cardiff can legally do and what must be reserved to Westminster. There are, as has been mentioned, more than 20 pages of specific reservations—something of the order of nearly 200, if my arithmetic is correct. This in itself makes the Bill deserving of rejection. The Government should go back to the drawing board and think again.
The reservations have all the fingerprints of every department in Whitehall’s objections, solemnly paraded in statutory form. We had similar problems in the 1970s. The difficulty is that today’s Wales Office has a minuscule staff and very limited statutory drafting experience. Our remedy was to bring in Cabinet Office nominees to knock heads together, which is what Sir John Garlick and Sir Michael Quinlan—both to become outstanding civil servants—did. That is how we eventually got the Bill off the drawing board. As night follows day, this Bill will be the precursor of more Wales Bills and is an unnecessary exercise in constitutional navel-gazing, when the public’s concern is over the quality of government in Wales on the issues that affected my constituents for more than 41 years—health, education, social services and jobs.
The ethos of devolution is that such issues are decided in Cardiff, but we should not be blinded to the successes and alleged shortcomings of the Welsh Government. A wise Government might consider, now that so many years have passed, having some form of independent assessment—a sort of Welsh mini-royal commission—to give a considered view of their record and to suggest possible improvements. I suggest this not as a critic but as a friend of the First Minister and of the Assembly, who are to be congratulated on what they have achieved so far. My personal experience after what could have been a near-fatal motor accident a year ago was, regrettably, questionable so far as hospital care was concerned, which left a lot to be desired when it came to the availability of different forms of treatment and indeed of a ward where one could sleep night after night undisturbed. I have been pursuing my former constituents’ interests ever since and am I grateful for the co-operation of the senior staff at Carmarthen.
The health service in England, too, as we all know, has many problems. It is the provision of comparable health treatment, social services, education, and success in inward investment, that we should be talking about, particularly after the dismantling of some of the machinery that I set up—the WDA, the Land Authority and the DBRW. Our Civil Service, good as it is, can always do with the infusion of expertise from business and trade unions, which are closer to the coalface. With grown-up Governments in Scotland and Wales, do we really need Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales? They seem to be, at best, claimers of credit for the achievements of other departments—and, at worst, state-paid propagandists for their parties at Westminster. Surely the time has come for more intergovernment negotiations without intermediaries.
I confess to having created a role for the Attorney-General to march up and down Offa’s Dyke to ensure that the Welsh Government did not exceed their powers. It was intended as a nuclear deterrent—a weapon of last resort, not an opportunity for a trigger-happy Attorney-General to rush to court time after time. We know of intergovernment disagreements only when they are aired in court. How much time is spent by a busy Civil Service on those issues that do not come to the public eye? The Bill may give even more opportunities for litigation unless the Attorney-General’s chambers have learned lessons from burning their fingers too many times.
Historically, there are two important milestones in my party’s commitment to devolution. The first was the invitation by Jim Griffiths, MP for Llanelli and deputy leader of the party, to Lord Prys-Davies, whom we miss, to put his thoughts about an elected all-Wales democratic institution on paper, in 1952-53. My party had nothing at the time in writing. He published his pamphlet, An Elected Body for Wales. In the main it dealt with local government powers, but it was a national body that he envisaged. I had no responsibility for that, but I would return home from Cambridge and from the Army in Germany for long and earnest discussions with him on Wales’s future. I had been planning to study the Stormont Government as part of my master’s degree at Cambridge, but there was no other model at the time.
The second milestone was the setting up of the Royal Commission on the Constitution by Harold Wilson—first under Lord Crowther and then, when he died, under Lord Kilbrandon—in 1968-69. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, used his substantial influence to persuade his boss, Jim Callaghan, who was then Home Secretary. The commission and its assistant commissioner for each country comprised persons of exceptional intellectual ability and experience in the affairs of state. It may have been the last royal commission; it is not easy to get such eminent persons together. Regrettably, its conclusions were very divided; each one was hammered out and intellectually well-argued, but the sheer variety gave you room to choose whatever solution you wanted.
Totally unexpectedly, I was appointed Welsh Secretary in 1974—to my amazement and indeed the amazement of Wales. I will never forget the PM’s words to me in the Cabinet Room: “You are a devolutionist and I would be interested in your proposals”. I was given a blank sheet of paper. Despite the absence of its mention in the first draft of the Queen’s Speech—this is not very well known—we became committed to flagship legislation. Given other priorities, the big question was: could there be devolution Bills for both Scotland and Wales in the first Session of Parliament? Could Wales be shunted to the end, as a “tail-end Charlie” option?
I opted for the least radical of the Kilbrandon proposals, hoping to persuade most of my colleagues. There is a rich reward for political students if they read my noble friend Lord Donoughue’s diaries from the ringside at the many all-day away meetings of the full Cabinet at Chequers. There was a different set of objections at each meeting to any form of devolution. In my noble friend’s words, they were “quarrelling like monkeys”. Only the PM’s determination kept the ship afloat. I assure the House that a reserved powers Bill for Wales was not remotely on the cards at that time. That was the realpolitik of our long and exhausting summer days at Chequers. The rest is history.
Because the Scottish Secretary and I had our hands full in running our own countries, John Smith MP was brought in and, after Second Reading, brilliantly piloted the Bill through. I had the able and exceptionally industrious assistance of no more than two Parliamentary Secretaries at any one time—my noble friends Lord Jones and Lord Rowlands, and the late Mr Alec Jones. I particularly record my gratitude to them. I make the point because, according to the Library, there are now 12 Ministers in the Welsh Government—certainly there were on 27 May. Their tasks are of course different from ours, but I would be interested in a comparison of the ministerial costs. When the issue is considered of creating and increasing the number of Back-Bench Assembly Members to scrutinise the Government—and there is a problem of scrutiny—I hope the possibility of reducing and redeploying some of the Ministers is taken into account.
After an 18-year gap, it was a privilege for me as Attorney-General to be a member of the Cabinet committee considering Mr Blair’s Wales Bill, not as a policymaker but as the Government’s principal legal adviser, and to see the Bill through its course. Indeed, it was an unexpected pleasure as Attorney-General to be invited by Mr Alun Michael and his colleagues to the opening of the first session of the Welsh Assembly and to present to Her Majesty a dummy Bill in both languages for her signature.
I hope that some day we will see an end to this parade of Welsh legislation and have a proper reserved powers Bill and—who knows?—a constitutional convention to consider the future constitutions of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, too. That is a path I have been treading since 1953.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the Wales Bill, which brings a new era of devolution for Wales by delivering a clearer and stronger devolution settlement. It is a particular honour to speak after the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon. I knew him as a child growing up in Swansea; he was a great friend of my step-grandfather, Sir Alun Talfan Davies. He will recall that Sir Alun sat as a member of the Royal Commission on the Constitution, which informed the blueprint for Welsh devolution in the 1979 referendum.
It is also an enormous pleasure to speak after the excellent and assured maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist. I have known her as a friend and colleague for a number of years, and share her love of our Welsh heritage and culture. She will bring her considerable experience as well as her formidable energy and enthusiasm to this House. I am also delighted by her support for the Swansea tidal lagoon; I hope to recruit ever more support for this excellent and innovative project.
The key purpose of the Bill is to provide clarity over powers and accountability of those powers. The reserved powers model addresses the patent deficiencies in the current settlement. It establishes a clear line between those subjects that are devolved to the Assembly and those that are the responsibility of the UK Parliament. Too much time has been wasted arguing in the Supreme Court over where powers lie, and the Bill draws a line under those disputes. There is now commendable clarity over who should be held to account for the decisions taken on the public services on which the Welsh people depend.
I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to maintaining the single legal jurisdiction that has served Wales so well for many hundreds of years. The body of Assembly legislation can be accommodated, for now, within the single jurisdiction of England and Wales. A separate jurisdiction would impose significant upheaval and unnecessary costs on the people of Wales. The time and money would be far better spent on front-line services. So much has already been done administratively—for example, moving the Court of Appeal, and it would be excellent progress if more cases were actually heard in Wales.
Devolution has greatly benefited Welsh national life, and the Bill grants an important new power to the Welsh Government: namely, the ability to vary income tax. The devolution of some tax-raising powers will make the Welsh Government more accountable for the public services they provide. There was considerable debate in the other place about whether there was a need for a referendum on the subject. As a general principle, I am not in favour of referendums, and I fully appreciate that, after June, we are all suffering from referendum fatigue. However, although I support the Bill in its entirety, I had some personal disappointment that a referendum will not be on offer for the Welsh people as it was for the people of Scotland. If we expect the people of Wales potentially to pay more tax, we should put the question to them and allow their voice to be heard. I would be grateful if the Minister would consider this position and explain what has changed.
Employment and industrial relations will not be devolved to the Welsh Government. This is consistent with the position in Scotland, and the Government were clear that that would be the case with Wales during the passage of the Trade Union Act earlier this year. If the noble Lord, Lord Hain, tables his amendment to disapply this reservation from devolved public services in Wales, I will join forces with my noble friend Lord Crickhowell to support the Government in opposing that amendment. It would lead to an unwelcome reduction in clarity over employment and industrial relations powers— something that the Bill is designed to avoid.
The Bill devolves further powers to enable the Welsh Government to decide on issues that concern the people of Wales. These include putting Wales’s natural resources in the hands of the people of Wales. The Assembly will, for example, be able to decide on the planning regime for major strategic energy projects, such as whether fracking should take place and, if so, how it should be regulated. As such, decision-making on the use of those resources will rightly rest with the people of Wales, who are best placed to make such decisions. The Labour Party announced at its conference plans to outlaw fracking and reopen coal mines. It would be a shame to ignore the economic benefits of fracking. Shale gas has the potential to power economic growth, support the creation of jobs and provide a new domestic energy source. This in turn will make us less reliant on imports. We should not turn our back on innovation, and I urge the Welsh Government not to do so.
The Wales Bill is rich in opportunity for Wales, and allows us to channel collective effort into delivering a bolder, brighter future for the people of Wales. In my maiden speech, I spoke of my strong support for the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon project. Last week, members of the Government spoke of their resolve to embrace new ideas and industries and to be bold and decisive about our national infrastructure. We are an island nation; we have a safe natural resource in the power of our tides; we can harness that power and, by so doing, nurture a transformative new industry for Wales and the wider UK. As the review undertaken by the right honourable Charles Hendry draws to a close, I urge policymakers at both ends of the M4 to join forces so that Swansea Bay can be the pioneer of this exciting and inherently Welsh industrial opportunity.
The Wales Bill devolves a historic package of powers to the National Assembly. It delivers on its two underpinning principles of clarity and accountability. The new reserved powers model makes clear what is devolved and what is reserved so the people in Wales know who is responsible for what. As such, it enables the Welsh Government to get on with their important task of improving both the economy and devolved public services. It is a welcome settlement for Wales and the people of Wales.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, on her very fine maiden speech, which we all enjoyed. As an addition to the Welsh Members of the House of Lords, she is indeed most welcome. I also pay tribute to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, who I know is deeply committed to the business of Wales and its prosperity. He has enormous experience in the National Assembly for Wales and as a member of the Silk commission, which provided the basis for the Bill.
I welcome the Bill: it is better—a lot better—than the draft Bill that preceded it. As several noble Lords said, it is the fourth devolution Bill to come to Parliament in two decades. I have been involved in one way or another with all of them. It reminds me of a phrase by a previous Secretary of State for Wales, no longer in the House of Commons, who referred to devolution being a process, not an event. I was not sure at the time that I agreed with that idea, but when I look at my chequered relationship with devolution over the past 30 to 40 years, I understand it. My noble and learned friend Lord Morris gave a very interesting account of the birth of devolution in the Labour Government of the 1970s. I was a rather small but prickly thorn in both his flesh and that of the Labour Government as the treasurer of the Labour No Assembly campaign in the 1978-79 referendum, in which Wales of course overwhelmingly rejected devolution all those years ago.
I began to change my mind for a variety of reasons over the following 18 years and, by the time I became a Minister in Tony Blair’s Government and served on the same committee on devolution as my noble and learned friend Lord Morris, I had become a devo-sceptic—I had been a devo-hostile before. By the time I had finished my course as Secretary of State, I had become a devo-realist. Now I suppose I am a devo-enthusiast, to such an extent that I campaigned vigorously for the extension of the Assembly’s powers in the referendum in 2011.
Incidentally, I see nothing wrong in having this gradualist approach to dealing with devolution, whether it is here or in Northern Ireland or Scotland. There is no rule that you suddenly have to have a great Bill—like the great repeal Bill—which is all that has to be said or done about devolution. Of course, it does not work like that. We have asymmetric devolution in the United Kingdom, which means that it develops differently in different parts of our country. That applies to Wales as it does to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Does the Bill do the trick? On reserved powers, it probably does—certainly in principle, but whether it does in practice needs to be seen. In Committee and on Report on the Bill, there is plenty of opportunity to examine that aspect of the Government’s commitment to the Silk commission’s report. I think that 200 reservations are too many, even after they have been trimmed down from the previous draft, but I quite understand how they got there.
My experience of Whitehall as Welsh Secretary on two separate occasions is that when Whitehall departments are faced, as they are here, with representations from the Welsh Office, Wales Office or Assembly about different powers and responsibilities, they react grudgingly and with great sulkiness, and I suspect that this has happened here. Government departments have been asked, “What do you want to keep? What do you want to give away?”. They rarely want to give anything away and there needs to be a central power with the Welsh Secretary, but with the help of the Prime Minister, to ensure that those grudging Whitehall departments are, frankly, told what to do. That is what lies at the basis of the inadequate nature of the devolved powers. There are some which have come to Wales which are welcome—for example, those dealing with oil and gas extraction and ports, except for Milford Haven. However, I am bewildered by the air passenger duty decision. If Northern Ireland and Scotland can have air passenger duty, why cannot Wales? If it is simply because of Bristol, that is not a good enough answer and we should have another look at that.
The entrenchment, as far as we can in our constitution, of the Assembly in law and the provision about electoral law for the Assembly and local government are welcome, but, like my noble friend Lord Hain, I have doubts about two issues. One, touched on by the previous speaker, is the question of employment law. I fully understand that, generally speaking, employment law should not be devolved; it should be a reserved matter for the United Kingdom Parliament and Government. But when it touches on policies and services run by the devolved Administrations, that is different. If the Assembly and local government in Wales are, for instance, to be able to deduct trade union subscriptions from wages, why on earth cannot they do that? The world would not fall in on the other side of Offa’s Dyke if that were to happen. It is not about strikes or general issues of employment legislation; it is about practicality and realising that the Assembly and the Welsh Government have a right to deal with those issues that are devolved.
It seems to me ironic that, because of the reserved powers situation, powers that the Welsh Government and Assembly currently have could go back to Whitehall. That cannot be right. I sincerely hope the Minister will have another look at those issues as well.
My noble friend Lord Hain and others also raised the question of the referendum on income tax powers. It depended, of course, not simply on a referendum but on the Assembly agreeing to income tax powers coming to the Assembly in Cardiff. I certainly would not go to the barricades about having a referendum but I remind noble Lords that in 1997, when the people of Wales voted on the whole issue of devolution, they were not asked, as in Scotland, whether they wanted tax-raising powers. I know that it is different if it is a separate referendum, and it is not likely to be very popular, but there is an issue of legitimacy there that needs to be addressed. Certainly the Assembly should give its approval before it decides to take up the issue of income tax powers.
Another vital issue, and something that we saw here in your Lordships’ House during the passage of the Scotland Bill some months ago, is that we cannot really deal with a Bill that, in this case, deals with a referendum on income tax without looking at the fiscal framework. I do not think that it is right for Members of this House to deal with the remainder of this Bill in Committee or on Report until some progress has been made with the fiscal and financial agreement between the Welsh Government and the United Kingdom Government. That is difficult at the moment, I know, because Barnett and the whole issue of the block grant needs to be addressed.
I am rather sceptical about devolving income tax powers, not because income tax on its own is a bad thing, or that the argument about accountability is bad—it is not. However, if all it does is plug the gap in a reduced block grant, that is not right. It should be over and above it. The reason for that is that with Brexit and the loss of European funding for Wales, and with the loss of Objective 1 funding—with which I had a great deal to do all those years ago, and which has benefited Wales enormously—the Assembly needs to be able to borrow money to deal with the great infrastructure projects. The way that it could do that is to have an income stream from income tax and also from other areas, including air passenger duty. I ask the Minister to look very carefully at the progress of these discussions and to keep the House informed on them. I hope that when we come to the Committee and Report stages we can deal with these matters with greater perspective.
I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, when he talked about joint ministerial committees and interministerial conferences, and about the British-Irish Council, which acts as a means by which the different devolved institutions and the Republic can get together. I do not think that we have used those properly over the last number of years. In my view there would have been no need for the Supreme Court to do what it did if there had been proper discussions at ministerial level and it had been sorted out between Ministers of both the UK and Welsh Governments. The machinery is there, it has been set up for some years now, but it should not simply be a grandstanding or a great gesture. There should be working committees between the devolved institutions and the United Kingdom Government.
This is an opportunity. I think that this Bill should go through but that it needs serious amendment. I hope that, in Committee and on Report, noble Lords will have the opportunity to go into greater detail on some of the issues that I and other Members of the House have raised this evening.
Lord Elis-Thomas (PC)
My Lords, it is a particular pleasure for me to be sandwiched between two Secretaries of State to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude. I worked with the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, twice, when he returned as Secretary of State in my period as Presiding Officer of the National Assembly in Cardiff. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who is to follow—I am merely a warm-up act for him—gave me my first public appointment, without which I would probably not be standing here today. He stands guilty as charged.
This has not just been reminiscence therapy for former Secretaries of State. All the contributions we have had from all noble Lords who have spoken have been a relevant contribution to today’s discussion. Those contributions show up the inadequacy of where we are now compared with where we were when we started. The lack of progress in the last 20 years and more, during my political life in the Assembly and in other places, is something that distresses me about this Bill.
I am not one of those “capital N” nationalists, as my colleagues often find to their chagrin. I used to call myself a Welsh European devolutionist autonomist but I am not sure whether one can use the adjective “European” any more in this House. The constitutional development of Wales is something that I have always sought to promote and to work for, often with great difficulty. Sometimes the context was not there and the politics were not right. However, I think that we should have got further than we have at this stage. It is for that reason that my latest contribution as an Assembly Member and a Member of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee of the National Assembly at the end half of the previous Assembly, and at the moment, has been an attempt to influence the debate in a new way.
We are not supposed to call ourselves noble friends across the House, but the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, who was a great friend of mine when I worked with him in the National Assembly and who is still a great friend, knows that what we have developed in the Assembly is a legislative body of competence and the ability to scrutinise in the same way that Parliament does. The Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee will meet later this week with a committee of this House to discuss these issues.
We have gone on at quite some length in this debate but I want to speak briefly about the constitutional principles that concern me and about where we are and why we have not been able to do better at this stage of our devolution pilgrimage, if I can say that, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan.
The Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee has Bills referred to it by the Business Committee of the Assembly. We operate in a similar way to other Assemblies and Parliaments. When we got this latest Bill we had already done work on the previous draft Bill. We took serious evidence. We opened a public consultation in June of this year and completed it in September and took serious evidence from the most learned legal opinion we could gather together on the constitution in Wales. All this evidence is in the committee’s report. I know that some noble Lords have already read it. My noble friend was complaining that it was not a parliamentary paper. I am not sure whether the Assembly Commission, although I am no longer in charge of it, has the resources to provide all its papers free and in print form. We are, of course, a paperless, digital Assembly, so all Members who do not have a copy can see me later and I will tell them how to print it off the Assembly website. I see that the noble Lord has already done so, and I am grateful to him for that.
We held the consultation, took evidence and had a stakeholder event in which practitioners were involved. The online Loomio platform is still there. That was an attempt to consult in the widest possible way, and we produced this report. I signed up to the report with sadness, because I thought that we should have done better.
We will come back to these issues in Committee and on Report, and there will be amendments. The early clauses of the Bill talk about the permanence of the National Assembly, but I want to know what the legal force of that is. What is the legal force of saying that an institution is permanent? We are here in transient times—we have the great 1662 prayer book, and Prayers at the beginning of our day. We know that we are transient, so what does it mean to legislate for permanence? Even more conflicting and difficult for me is the further clause recognising Welsh law. I am proud to have studied medieval Welsh law at the University of Bangor. I was taught by various scholars, so I know that there is such a thing as Welsh law, because I studied it. Suddenly, we are legislating in Parliament assembled to recognise such a thing as Welsh law. Professor Richard Rawlings is one of the most distinguished constitutional lawyers and persons who has studied devolution, and he told our committee that the clause was a “shocker”. It demonstrates the problem of trying to do something symbolic when you do not really want to do anything at all. I am not saying that that is the Government’s intention, but that is how it has been interpreted by the academic lawyers that we consulted.
I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Murphy for referring us back to the Wales Act 1978, which became the basis, in a reformed way, of the 1998 Act. That Act was an attempt to legislate in a way that did not recognise the clear difference between a legislature and a Government, although we did not use those words in those days. But now we have the reserved powers model, which has been much heralded to be the solution of devolution in perpetuity—yet we have reserved powers plus reservations or exemptions, which is exactly where we were before. For 12 years, which was probably too long, I worked as Presiding Officer, deciding the competence of legislation; it was all about ensuring that it was in the competence, which meant that we had to take decisions about where the boundaries were of the devolution settlement. Clearly, conferred powers with exemptions take us to the same place as reserved powers with further exemptions. So where are we 200 exemptions further down the road? There is no clarity and no constitutional intelligibility here. In particular, where is the intelligibility for the citizen and the electorate? This is what this is about—it is about writing the law of Wales in such a clear way that the people of Wales, in taking decisions about their political life from day to day, will understand what it means. We are nowhere near that.
Having spent all these years trying to legislate in this place and Cardiff, I stand here knowing that I have failed to deliver a reasonable constitutional system for the country that I sought to represent. That is not my fault and not the fault of the present Minister, nor the fault of the parties here. We have been labouring in this vineyard for many years—but there is a failure to realise that Wales deserves better than the present treatment within the family of nations of the United Kingdom. If we are a home nation, it is time that we came home.
Lord Morgan (Lab)
My Lords, the history of Welsh devolution has been a very tortuous one. Since 1999, it has not been a straight run down the piste but a series of slaloms—but we are making progress erratically, and this Bill takes us further. It has a good deal of cross-party support, although that might not have been apparent from what we have heard in the past few hours. As other noble Lords have said, progress owes a great deal to the Minister, a man I have always regarded as a,
“good deed in a naughty world”,
to quote the Bard, perhaps because he was trained in Aberystwyth, although it was slightly before my time there.
Most of the discussion has been around the two main features of the Bill—the reserved powers aspect and the provisions over income tax. I shall deal with those fairly briskly, as so many of the points have already been made. It is profoundly right and long overdue that the Parliament—or, to quote my noble friend, the Senedd—should have reserved powers and not conferred powers. A very strong case for that was made by the Silk report, on the grounds of clarity. It is also important to give greater authority to the Welsh Assembly comparable to Scotland and Northern Ireland. I have never understood why the Welsh Assembly and Government did not have reserved powers from the beginning. We have now got them, although, as noble Lords have said, with a number of limitations.
The Bill has been criticised for its complexity and contradictions. As other noble Lords have done, I welcome many of its features. It is very good to remove the notorious necessity test, which caused a great deal of lack of clarity. I welcome the greater powers and welcome very much the extension of devolution to energy and transport and the running of elections. On the other hand, as noble Lords have said, there are all these many restrictions. As a historian I find it slightly ironic that a measure designed to extend devolution in so many ways goes back on our history. I see that one of the reserved powers is the supply, distribution and sale of liquor. As I tried to explain in a book of mine that appeared—oh dear—52 years ago, and which is still on sale in Aberystwyth in all good bookshops, the principle was admitted in 1880 of the Welsh Sunday closing Act. That is to say, there was a legislative principle accepted for Wales and, accorded through that, the pubs could or should close on Sunday. All these many years later, that is reversed, which is very ironic.
As many noble Lords have said, a lot of progress needs to be made in Committee in that regard. It just shows that over the decades the constitutional and political status of Wales has been unequal. That is what an asymmetrical devolution means—it means that Wales is unequal, and does not have the status in its Assembly or its political authority that the other Celtic nations have.
There has been a lot of discussion about levying income tax. I am all in favour of Wales having the power to levy its own income tax, as Silk recommended. It seems to me, to reverse the famous phrase, you cannot have representation without taxation.
It is unsatisfactory to have your funding based on money that comes from somewhere else that you grumble about, in this case Whitehall and the Treasury. The Labour Party and the Government in Cardiff—and I entirely understand this—have been very critical of many features of this, particularly the fact that it will be yoked to the Barnett formula. They would like to see that removed before Wales has its own income tax: they will have to wait a very long time. The formula was a temporary stop-gap by our dear friend the late Lord Barnett in 1978. There is nothing more permanent than a temporary stop-gap and so it has been with the Barnett formula. I do not particularly like the idea of another referendum. As we have seen with Brexit, the last thing you have with a debate of that kind is a sensible discussion of constitutional and financial principles. There would be lots of wrangling in the press about whether income tax would go up or down and that is all you would have: it would be intellectually worthless. However, the Welsh Government and the Constitution Committee have expressed concerns, so I hope the Minister can give assurances that the overall funding will not suffer and that, in particular, the Welsh Government will have the power to extend their borrowing powers in due course.
I want to talk mainly about three other things. First, it is very important that Wales should have its own legal judicature. It has legislative powers but not a legislative system. We have a growing corpus of Welsh powers coming into being, but we have no structure. There should be a distinct Welsh legal jurisdiction to, among other things, avoid institutional conflict. Again, it is ironic how we have gone back on history. We did rather better under Henry VIII, God rest his soul, than we do now. His Act of Union, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, will know, created Welsh courts—the Courts of Great Session, which disappeared in 1830. Otherwise, Wales suffers badly in this. We have no designated Supreme Court judge to pay attention to Welsh matters as there is for Scotland. There is an administrative court in Wales, but that is all. Otherwise, the Welsh legal system is administered through London. Therefore we find that Welsh law made in Wales and the wider English and Welsh law administered through the judicial system in London are applied to precisely the same areas of policy. At some stage this is bound to reach confusion and conflict. If you do not take my word for it, there is rather more powerful evidence from, for example, the late Lord Bingham, who spoke very positively in favour of this principle. We have also had very supportive remarks from the Lord Chief Justice. Since his name is Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, that may explain his particular way of looking at things.
We do not want a separate Welsh legal system. We are not talking about independence for Wales but devolution: a different political complexion. A separate system would be anomalous and very expensive, but we should and could have a distinct jurisdiction as they do in Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. Why not Wales? Why should Wales not have a system which would enable Welsh citizens to feel close to their law and which reflected their deeply felt identity as a nation?
I have two final points. I agreed very much with the peroration of the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell: the union. I declare an interest as a member—like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—of the Constitution Committee. Our report, which the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, kindly quoted, was about the union and devolution. This is again an example of piecemeal devolution. I am not criticising the Government particularly on this. It has been happening repeatedly since 1999. Where is the overarching statement of principle about the result of a change of this kind in relation to the union? We reported on this and, as I said previously, a virtue has been made of asymmetry. I do not think it has virtue: it is a way of demeaning Wales. I hope that the Minister, in his response, or the Government, when we look at the Bill at a later stage, can explain the organic relationship of this measure within the overarching union which we wish all these devolution measures to reinforce, not undermine.
My very short final point is that it would be very important to clear up all these issues before we have Brexit. Brexit will have a major impact on Wales in almost every aspect: in agriculture, education, industry, and almost every feature you can think of. It is crucial to have constitutional clarity within the United Kingdom and between all its governmental institutions before the iron curtain comes down.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, in declaring my interests as set out in the register, I reflect on a fascinating and interesting debate with some outstandingly good speeches. I pay tribute to the eminent historian, the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, who joins me in thanking my noble friend Lord Crickhowell for quoting from our committee’s report on this very important subject. Like many other noble Lords who have spoken, I am delighted to give my wholehearted support to the principles of this enabling Bill, changing the basis of the legislative competence of the Assembly, moving from a conferred powers model to a reserved powers model.
The obvious principle behind the Bill is one of which Winston Churchill would certainly have approved—namely, bringing power to the people. It delights me that the modern-day Conservative Party so readily and comprehensively embraces that principle, that philosophy, that policy. Another guiding principle underlying this Bill is to deliver, so far as possible, constitutional certainty. As many noble Lords have outlined, devolution to date has been a journey—always bracing, never dull—but now a destination is in sight. In a world full of uncertainty, that truly is most welcome, to businesses and citizens alike.
The St David’s Day agreement was a magnificent achievement on the part of the political leaders of Wales, which I gladly and warmly celebrate. It took devolution, at last, completely out of the cauldron of inter-party debate and created the prospect of a once-and-for-all settlement. A question which has long divided us, not just between parties but within parties too, setting colleague against colleague, is now being settled with a very considerable degree of agreement across the political spectrum. Let us work hard to retain that agreement as we proceed in the debates on the Bill.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, who, between 1979 and 1987, did so much to initiate a programme of major urban renewal, as set out in his book, Westminster, Wales and Water, which I commend to this House. After 1987, Peter Walker carried forward that ambitious regeneration programme. Then, after three years, I took up the baton from him.
Like my noble friend Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist, who made one of the best maiden speeches I have ever heard in this House, I am proud of my Welsh heritage, not just as a schoolboy singing the Welsh national anthem in Welsh—which gave me real advantage in later life—but also to have served as Secretary of State for Wales between 1990 and 1993, and then again in 1995, under both Margaret Thatcher and John Major. After that lengthy period initiated by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, Wales came to be seen as a force in its own right, standing alongside other European “motor regions”. One day I will explain to the House how I managed to persuade the Foreign Secretary that I should be allowed to sign treaties on behalf of Wales, which I did with Baden-Württemberg, Lombardy, Catalonia and Rhône-Alpes.
Inward investment became the driving force of the modern Welsh economy. It still is, and must be. The environment was transformed, too. I am pleased to see in his place the noble Lord, Lord Rowe-Beddoe. I was proud to have secured his appointment as chair of the Welsh Development Agency—not that he took much persuasion. The WDA was reclaiming the equivalent of a football pitch of formerly derelict land every working day. I pay tribute to all that hard work. Yes, we did good work, but there was, in the end, no disguising the democratic deficit that was emerging.
I pay tribute also to the titan of Conservative politics in Wales, whom we miss so much—my friend and colleague, Wyn Roberts, later Lord Roberts of Conwy. Known to friends and opponents—for he had no foes—as the “Bardic Steamroller”, Wyn was a redoubtable fighter for the people of Wales, their culture and their economic and social development. He was responsible for re-establishing the Welsh language at the heart of Welsh life. Throughout my time at the Welsh Office, he was an ever-present source of timeless wisdom, good humour and sound practical advice. As has already been mentioned, Wyn inspired me to make one of the best decisions I ever made—to appoint the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, as chairman of the Welsh Language Board. I am sure Wyn would feel very proud of all that has happened, were he able to be with us today. As a former political reporter, he had a natural and healthy lifelong scepticism about politicians. As a proud Welshman to his core, he well understood the philosophical arguments for devolution. He always greatly regretted the partisan nature of the debate and also warned, charmingly but firmly, against an endless proliferation of the political class.
Looking back, devolution seemed to be a never-ending matter for debate, a continuing process, even an interminable conversation in its own right—a kind of elevated and ever more abstruse academic seminar, not a concrete reality for the people of Wales. I do not believe this is well known, but in 2008 Wyn produced a report for the then leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, setting out the basis for a long-term settlement, transforming self-government for Wales from that debilitating discussion into a solid, entrenched system that would stand the test of time. That report marked a fundamental shift in my party’s thinking. It is a testament to Wyn Roberts and to David Cameron that here today we are discussing a very similar set of proposals, now with cross-party support.
I join other speakers who have paid tribute to my noble friend Lord Bourne for the leading role he has played in creating this new, more collegiate climate. He has been both visionary and practical, both a diplomat and a politician. As a party, I strongly believe we have to sense that devolution—perhaps even what used to be termed subsidiarity—is the best possible way of bringing decisions closer to the people. My noble friend grasped that from the outset. I believe that we now have a historic opportunity.
There are still one or two loose ends. I wish that so many of them had not featured in this debate, but we have to recognise that they exist. I know that noble Lords have a range of views on matters of varying moment, from the possible emergence of a distinct and distinctive legal system in Wales to the police. If tempted, I may refer in Committee to an agreement I reached with the then Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, about the transfer to Wales of powers over the police, but perhaps I should not delve too deeply into that because it was stopped by the bureaucracy of Whitehall. Both Ken and I have several times realised that we face quite a difficult task in taking this further forward and getting it on to the statute book. There are also cross-border train franchises and the allocation of air passenger duty, but let us not get too diverted. We should concentrate on the broad degree of consensus which ought to sustain us through the passage of this Bill.
There was a time when I feared that devolution would be the first step to the break-up of the United Kingdom. The world has moved on, however, and I have moved on, too. I believe that this legislation not only takes forward straightforward decentralisation, bringing power closer to the people, but also draws a line under a long and fractious debate, which has sometimes overshadowed us all and threatened to supplant positive action with hot air.
I look forward to the debates we shall have in Committee and on Report and to the positive and creative atmosphere in which we will have those debates, so different and preferable to the rancorous discussions that I recall only too well, and which I very much hope we have consigned permanently to the dustbin of history.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, on an excellent maiden speech. I was delighted to hear of her interest in green energy and that she is a supporter of the Swansea lagoon. But, more importantly, she is a harpist. I thought that I was the only harpist in this assembly. Having learned the instrument for some years, I hope that we can twang from the same legislative hymn-sheet over a number of years.
Fifty years ago, in the autumn of 1966, in a Wales rocked by the Aberfan disaster, I sat down and drafted the Parliament of Wales Bill, which Emlyn Hooson presented in the House of Commons on 1 March 1967. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, will be delighted to know that I decided to call that Parliament a Senedd. It was to have 88 members, be elected by proportional representation, of course, and have powers to legislate,
“for the peace, order and good government of Wales”,
with powers to raise taxes, other than income tax and certain other taxes. The Bill reserved to the Westminster Parliament defence, foreign affairs, currency, international trade, law and order and social security.
I have been looking through the Bill before us in the course of this debate to try to work out how many of the 200 reservations in it could come under those much more simple headings that I put in my Bill. By Clause 9(5) I provided for elected members to be paid £2,250 a year. It happened to be £250 more than I earned at the time as a law lecturer, and I thought that that would suffice. It promoted a ministerial system of government.
The political context of 1966 was that Harold Wilson had won the election and the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, had turfed the Liberals out in Ceredigion. I was a bit miffed about that, because I had voted for him in 1964, when he was the Plaid Cymru candidate in Wrexham. In July 1966, Gwynfor Evans won the Carmarthen by-election on a platform which called for Commonwealth status for Wales. How delightful it was to hear dominion status being argued again—Saunders Lewis wanted that when he first set up Plaid Cymru in the 1930s.
Lord Thomas of Gresford
I thank the noble Lord. I did not realise that it had such a long history. At the same time, a small group of us, led by Emlyn Hooson, formed the Welsh Liberal Party, and the first president was Sir Alun Talfan Davies, so I was delighted to hear the reference made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, to her relationship with my old friend and colleague. If she belongs to the Talfan Davies family, it is as though she were born into the crachach. Our first task, we thought, was to clarify the Welsh Liberal approach to devolution. That was the purpose of my Bill, and I gave evidence about it to the Kilbrandon commission in 1968, which was mentioned earlier.
Gwynfor was a supporter of our Bill, as was SO Davies from the Labour Benches. However, when in June it was listed for Second Reading, it was objected to by the Labour Government and the Conservatives and it fell. When introduced into the Lords by Lord Ogmore in January 1968, Labour and Tory Peers blocked it in the usual way, by an amendment that it should be heard six months hence. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, was obviously born into that tradition. It will be no surprise, therefore, that we on these Benches support the reserved powers model contained in the Bill, although the principle could be much more easily expressed. Fifty years on, it is comforting if not a little frustrating, to find that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee of the Welsh Assembly, with Labour, Conservative and Plaid representation but no Liberal, have concluded in paragraphs 83 and 84 of its report that the words,
“make laws for the peace, order and good government of Wales”,
would indeed confer plenary law-making authority on the National Assembly. I agree. But in one area I disagree with the CLA committee: that of a single jurisdiction, which your Lordships have debated today.
Because I was a purist in 1966, Clause 19 of my Bill set up a separate Court of Appeal and revived the Court of Great Sessions, to which the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, referred, with its own judges and its own Attorney-General, and a single legal profession. This would obviously have involved the creation of a separate Welsh jurisdiction. I topped it with a Chief Justice of Wales, and to tell the truth, I rather fancied the position myself—it was something to work for. As the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, said, the Court of Great Sessions in Wales was set up in 1542 and lasted until 1830. It had full King’s Bench and Chancery civil jurisdiction and full criminal jurisdiction. My Bill proposed the abolition of the assizes, which at that time took High Court judges around Wales, and the creation in Wales of six permanent courts. That in fact happened in any event in the reforms of the court system in 1972.
However, since those halcyon days I have had practical experience of separate jurisdictions. I practised in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Caribbean, which have inherited the common law and the judicial system of the United Kingdom from their colonial past, and it works. Two or three years ago, I was anxious to appear pro bono in a Scottish court on behalf of neighbours in Scotland who were being sued in an intellectual property dispute. I discovered that admission to the Scottish Bar would be at the discretion of the Dean of Faculty and that I would have to pass an aptitude test, which involved—this is two years ago—a written examination paper in the Scots legal system, constitutional and administrative law, written examinations in two of three special subjects, and oral examinations in the criminal law and either contract or delict. Fortunately, the case was withdrawn, with the costs payable to my friends.
In Northern Ireland, the system is that temporary membership may be granted by the Northern Ireland Bar Council committee for a specific case but will be granted for a maximum of three occasions. A glance at the regulations governing the Irish Bar indicate that a European lawyer may have rights of audience before a court in Ireland but only if he appears in conjunction with a full member of the Irish Bar. Therefore the pattern of all these is that despite the EU lawyers establishment directive 1998, which attempted to make legal qualifications interchangeable across Europe, each jurisdiction in these islands is jealously guarded. The creation of a separate jurisdiction for Wales implies not just separate courts but separate qualifications and separate rights of audience. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, referred to that. If they can, lawyers lose no opportunity to create an exclusive world. At some future point a zealot might even perhaps call for a qualification in the Welsh language for all lawyers licensed to practice in Wales. After all, there is a right to use the Welsh language in every Welsh court.
In my early years, the Wales and Chester circuit included the Birkenhead courts, because Cheshire then extended to Birkenhead. As a result, we charged any members of the Liverpool Bar who had the temerity to cross the Mersey £5 a case. With that money we built up a fine circuit wine cellar for the Chester Bar mess, which served us very well for years—and, of course, an enduring enmity with the barristers from Liverpool.
There is of course a distinctive body of Welsh law, not only the legislation passed by the Assembly but the inheritance of the common law and of existing acts which relate to areas of policy which are not reserved to Westminster. Current laws in those areas will continue to apply as at present in Wales, even though Westminster amends, updates, repeals or changes them. But there is no need for procedural change in the justice system. The principles of statutory interpretation will remain the same and, unlike Scotland, the language of the law will be the same. There will be nothing to confuse any lawyer qualified in the usual way.
Furthermore, as has been pointed out, there is already an administrative court to deal with judicial review and similar applications involving the interpretation of the legislation of the Assembly. The Lord Chief Justice and Mr Justice Wyn Williams are today sitting on an appeal against Welsh Ministers in Swansea Crown Court in the Administrative Court for Wales. No doubt a number of specialists in this limited type of work will emerge, but that is a very far cry from a wide, separate jurisdiction. Noble Lords should beware of lawyers and academics who might call for just such a jurisdiction simply to corner the market.
I would deplore any extension of legislative powers in criminal law and private law in a way that would create significant disparities with the law across the border. I am sure we will examine where the Assembly has a role to create offences or civil remedies to enforce breaches of regulations in areas which are devolved and not reserved, but it must be limited.
No doubt we will discuss the specific reservations of powers. I was interested in the discussion about the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881. I recall emerging from my Welsh chapel Sunday school at an early age to see queues forming at the bus stop in Wrexham high street. Where were they going? They were going to the pubs in Farndon on the English side of the border. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, “Well, if Wales wishes to be virtuous, so be it”. I have never knowingly relinquished my membership of the Band of Hope, so I will fight for the right of the Assembly to turn Wales dry again if that is what the people of Wales want.
The powers relating to water affect me very much. A member of my family comes from Tryweryn. The village was drowned, along with a nearby farm. Lord Hooson and I appeared for the local people when there was an attempt to drown the Dulas Valley. Lord Cledwyn announced at the end of that inquiry that no Welsh valley would again be drowned in order to provide water for England. So I am with anybody who wants to have the powers relating to water devolved to Wales.
I have always believed in, and campaigned for, a Parliament for Wales but we must keep a sense of proportion. We must resist the temptation, for the sake of purity, to grasp and grasp, and grasp again, for a quasi-independent state. This Bill should be about the practicalities of good government. I join in the tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, to Stephen Crabb and to my noble friend Lady Randerson for all the work that they did in bringing about the St David’s Day agreement. There will never be an end to the process unless we finally sort out the fiscal framework for Wales, and I hope that before the Bill is finished we will hear more about that from the noble Lord at the Dispatch Box.
Baroness Gale (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak in this debate on behalf of the Opposition. I thank the Minister for opening the debate and for his clear explanation of what the Bill is all about as we take yet another step on the journey of devolving more power to the Welsh people and giving them a direct say in what happens in Wales through the Welsh Assembly.
Many noble Lords who have spoken today have been on that journey for a very long time and they have great experience, as we heard from their speeches. As my noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely and other noble Lords have said, we have had five former Secretaries of State for Wales speaking in this debate, bringing to it a wide range of experience. Some, like the noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell and Lord Hunt of Wirral, and my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon, were Secretaries of State before devolution. My noble and learned friend mentioned the word “senedd”, which was highly political in his day. I can tell him that even in the late 1990s it was still a very political word and most people tried to avoid using it, although today we do so quite freely.
My noble friend Lord Murphy spoke about his journey through devolution, which I witnessed. Now, he is a fully paid-up member of the devolution club. He and my noble friend Lord Hain were Secretaries of State after devolution, as well as in the run-up to it, and they played their part in the second referendum campaign. But all our former Secretaries of State for Wales played a big role, whichever side they were on, and all have made a great contribution to Welsh life.
I was very pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, make her maiden speech. It is so good to have another Welsh Baroness in your Lordships’ House and I congratulate her. As she is learning Welsh, I can say llongyfarchiadau—congratulations—on her excellent contribution to the debate. Like me, she is a south Walian, and she attended Atlantic College, as did my noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely. Like, I am sure, all other noble Lords, I look forward to her making further contributions on all matters Welsh.
In the 17 years of devolution a number of Acts beneficial to the people of Wales have been passed. One example was the legislation to bring about the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, believed to be the first in the world and designed to improve the lives of older people in Wales. The Children’s Commissioner for Wales was the first to be introduced in the United Kingdom, aimed at improving the lives of children in Wales. The Human Transplantation (Wales) Act 2013 was the first measure in the UK to give people the chance of a longer and better life. Other legislation, in 2011, introduced a charge on plastic bags, thus making a contribution to improving the environment. It has cut down the use of plastic bags by up to 90% and has raised money for charity at the same time. The Welsh Assembly was the first legislature in the United Kingdom to introduce such a measure, and it is good to see that the other three countries in the UK have since followed. The ban on smoking in public places in Wales has contributed to better health, and the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 was regarded as ground-breaking legislation.
Those measures would not have happened without devolution, proving that, where the Assembly has powers, it acts on them for the benefit of the Welsh people. They are responsible measures, responding to needs of the people of Wales.
The Bill before us gives greater powers and more devolution to Wales but, as many noble Lords have said, it is still flawed. I believe that everyone is aware that much work needs to be done on it. Indeed, Guto Bebb MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales, said at Second Reading in another place:
“It is fair to say that this is a complex and difficult Bill”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/6/16; col. 1726].
I think he is right, and I am sure that many noble Lords agree.
The report of the Welsh Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee on the Wales Bill, published in the last few days, says that its,
“overall assessment of the Bill is that it is a complex and inaccessible piece of constitutional law that will not deliver the lasting, durable settlement that people in Wales”,
hope for, but there are elements that the committee does welcome. However, again in contrast, Alun Cairns MP, the Secretary of State for Wales, said at Second Reading in another place that the Bill is one of clarity and accountability. He said,
“the new reserved powers model of devolution draws a well-defined boundary between what is reserved and what is devolved, clarifying who is responsible for what. It is also a major step in extending powers. It will end the squabbles over powers between Cardiff Bay and Westminster, enabling the Welsh Government to get on with the job of improving the economy, securing jobs and improving devolved public services”.
He went on to speak about accountability:
“The second principle is accountability. The Bill paves the way to introduce Welsh rates of income tax. It will make the Welsh Government accountable to people in Wales for raising more of the money they spend. This, again, is a major step in the assembly’s maturity”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/6/16; col. 1645.]
On the devolution of income tax, during the referendum campaign in 1997, Labour went to the polls with one question on the ballot paper, not two as in Scotland. We made a commitment to the people of Wales that there would be no tax-raising powers unless there was a referendum. Now the Government are proposing that tax-raising powers should be given to Wales without a referendum. We need to be much clearer on what this means, as my noble friend Lord Hain has pointed out in detail, because it is such a change in government thinking from only two years ago in the Wales Act 2014. Other noble Lords have said the same. I have no doubt that we will come back to this point in Committee.
On the reserved powers, many noble Lords have outlined what they are and the concerns around them. We are not sure of the figure but it is around the 200 mark. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said that this was unworthy of the people of Wales and that we are moving backwards. Others have spoken in a similar vein. I am sure the Minister will agree that there is much work to be done on the reserved powers. I know he is always in listening mode and is prepared for discussions and to listen to what noble Lords have to say. I am sure he will carry on in that way.
Many noble Lords have mentioned the air passenger duty. There is disagreement on this matter in your Lordships’ House, with the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, being against giving air passenger duty to Wales and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, saying that Wales should have it. The argument the Government are putting forward on this matter is not a strong one and we will have to have more discussions on it.
On elections, which a few noble Lords have mentioned, we welcome the devolution to the Welsh Assembly of local government elections, the number of members, the age at which people have the right to vote in Welsh elections, the number of Assembly Members and constituencies and the name of the Assembly. We called for this when the Wales Act 2014 was being debated but the Government did not agree then. It is good that they have had a change of heart on this matter and now agree that it is a sensible measure to allow these decisions to be made in Wales. If only we could have had that in 2014.
I am sure the Minister will agree that there will be great scrutiny after listening to what noble Lords have had to say today. We will scrutinise and discuss the Bill during its passage through your Lordships’ House and raise amendments, certainly in Committee. As I mentioned earlier, I am sure the Minister will listen to all Members of your Lordships’ House and that we can arrive in the end on a Bill on which we all agree. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, this has been a debate of rare quality. As has been said, we have had contributions from five former Secretaries of State—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, and the noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell, Lord Hain, Lord Hunt and Lord Murphy—all, obviously, with vast experience of this area. We have also had a contribution of rare quality as a maiden speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. It was truly excellent and I am sure we all look forward to many contributions from her in the future, not only on Wales but focusing very much on it. We have also benefited greatly from the contributions of former Assembly Members, party leaders and former Ministers, from the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, to the noble Lords, Lord Wigley, Lord Howarth and Lord Elis-Thomas, who also brought their great experience to bear.
I will try to deal with key points that have been made during the course of the debate. Obviously I look forward to engaging in Committee and thereafter on some of the detail. There is a genuine feeling that we want to move forward in a consensual way, as far as possible, and obviously many areas of the Bill have been welcomed pretty much universally—not least in the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, on some of the internal workings, elections and so on, which we both agree should have been matters for the Assembly from a much earlier date—probably well preceding 2014.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely, for her kind words in opening. We go back a long way together on devolution matters and I know that she is now adding her wisdom to the counsels of the Assembly. I thank her for what she said and look forward to engaging on some of the issues that she quite fairly set out.
Let me look at some of the key ones. First, on taxation, I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hain, that there is no neoliberal assault on the part of the Government. This is a pragmatic approach to an issue that it is high time that the Welsh Assembly—who knows, henceforward perhaps the Welsh Parliament—were able to deal with. It is appropriate that a body of such maturity has the tax powers we are talking about.
It is not, of course, a wholesale tax package. Listening to one or two noble Lords, it sounded as if we were devolving the whole of income tax powers to Wales. That is not the case. We are devolving 10p and there is an ability for the Government of Wales—which is currently the Labour Party, with a Liberal Democrat Minister—to set that at current rates. There is no obligation to vary it. They have to set a rate but they are quite at liberty to set it at the existing rate if that is what they want to do. We have taken away the condition that they are obliged to vary all the rates together. The lock-step has gone, which means that they can be varied quite separately.
That is appropriate now, devolution having come so far. It is nearly 20 years since there was the issue of whether a separate question being put in Scotland should be put in Wales, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. We would not be doing Wales any great service by holding things back and saying that there has got to be a referendum on the issue. There is no assault on the state. Listening to the present Prime Minister, it is quite clear that she realises that the state has a powerful role to play. That seems to strike a chord with the electorate because that is where the electorate is, too. That is important. I disagree on this issue with my noble friend Lady Finn. It is appropriate that we move forward on this without greater delay because, in my view, it would hold back Wales.
Moving on to look at that in the wider context of the fiscal framework and the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, put to me initially about whether we should wait until we have got the legislative consent Motion, I can assure her that I think that that is absolutely appropriate. Although legally we could move this legislation forward without the LCM, that would not be the appropriate thing to do. We are looking for progress from the Welsh Assembly and, as I understand it, discussions between my right honourable friend David Gauke, the Chief Secretary, and Minister Mark Drakeford are going well. I hope that progress continues and that I will be able to give more details to noble Lords as matters progress. That is certainly our intention.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I anticipate that it will be, but it does not have to be. Obviously we will want to make sure that steady progress is being made before Report. As things progress it is anticipated that we could have agreement on these issues before Christmas, but I will ensure that the House is updated on this. As I said, I certainly anticipate we will not go to Third Reading without it and probably we will not go to Report—but I will want to make sure we are making the progress to which I referred before we commit to taking it to Report.
I move to the question of the single jurisdiction. I think there was broad support for saying that, certainly at this stage, there is no desire to move away from a single jurisdiction. I have spoken to representatives of every single law school in Wales and that is pretty much their feeling. It is also the feeling of many practitioners in Wales. We would not be doing Wales any great favours by differentiating the Welsh jurisdiction from the English jurisdiction. It is quite possible, even at this stage, to accentuate and overemphasise the differences that exist. Historically, they are not great. It is very different from the position in Scotland, where the Scottish jurisdiction historically has been very different. So parallels there are not appropriate.
There is a body that is looking at the legal arrangements. As I have indicated, I will update noble Lords on how that body is getting on, because there is an appropriate interest in making sure we have Welsh judges—when I say “Welsh judges” I mean judges not necessarily of Welsh nationality but with Welsh experience—deciding issues that are steeped in Welsh law. That is quite appropriate and what the administrative arrangements we are looking at should take hold of.
I move on to look at reservations—another key area which overlaps to some extent with the Welsh jurisdiction issues around the separate position on alcohol. I well remember as a student at Aberystwyth that the time I felt most thirsty and in need of a drink was on a Sunday. Inevitably, the only place you could get a drink on a Sunday in Aberystwyth was the student union because it was membership only. Of course, the queue was about a mile long to get there. The alternative in those days was getting a bus into Montgomeryshire, which was a popular thing to do. So I can understand the strong feelings that exist on that issue.
Some of the points made on reservations were somewhat wrongheaded. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned the position on knives in relation to the position on devolution to cities. Of course, cities will not have legislative powers in relation to knife crime, so I do not think it is a perfect analogy—but no doubt we can look at this as things develop in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, said that adopting a reserved model is not a solution to all ills. Hear, hear to that. I never thought it would be. Obviously, the discussion on this will be about what is and what is not reserved. I am sure that we will take different views on some of that, but I look forward to discussing it when we come to Committee.
It is great to see the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, in his place, firing on all cylinders as always. I thank him for his kind comments. I do not agree with his position on dominion status. I do not hear that as a great clarion call for something that the people of Wales want, but I understand that he has some material points to discuss in relation to reservations and I look forward to hearing them as we move forward.
The conferred model was silent about many issues that nobody would ever anticipate, as opposed to reserved issues such as defence, immigration, the Crown and foreign affairs. Sensibly, nobody was suggesting that therefore these were matters the Welsh Assembly could deal with. It is quite a difficult manoeuvre to go from conferred to reserved. I am very grateful that noble Lords have recognised that we have made progress on this. I look forward to hearing from noble Lords on some of the remaining issues of concern.
I will touch on one or two other aspects raised by noble Lords that are worthy of further investigation. One, brought forward by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell and echoed by the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Morgan, was the importance of working with existing institutions—perhaps getting the physics right, not just the chemistry, of the relationship between different Ministers to make sure we have some underpinning for when it is necessary for decisions, policies or interactions to be discussed between Cardiff and Westminster. That is a very good point that I will take away and look at to see what we can do on it.
Without getting into the purely philosophical, another issue that the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, mentioned was the permanence of the Assembly and the strength of the new clause that says the Assembly is permanent. That was something pushed for very hard by the Plaid Cymru representative on the Silk commission—but, on that issue, just as the India Act could in theory be repealed by the Westminster Parliament, I would not overlook the symbolic importance of including the clause that states that the Assembly is permanent because it perhaps underlines the way it is regarded politically. It is a matter of political realities. I am not suggesting that we can alter the Kelsen Grundnorm of the fundamental basis of the constitution, but it is something that has been widely welcomed.
As I said, this has been a debate of rare quality. I thank noble Lords for engaging constructively and I look forward to that constructive approach continuing. Lastly, air passenger duty is not just an issue of the potential unfairness to Bristol, which clearly was and, in the interim, remains an issue relating to the state aid position. It is also a question of fairness within the United Kingdom and in Wales. There is a great danger that we see this as just a tax, the variation of which can help Cardiff Airport. People in north Wales would not consider using Cardiff Airport; they use airports in England. Likewise, in central mid-Wales they would use Birmingham. It is a much broader issue of whether we do something about air passenger duty—as a Treasury issue, that is well beyond my pay grade—across the whole of the United Kingdom, which remains a possibility.
Once again, I thank noble Lords very much for the constructive way they have engaged. I look forward to Committee and continuing to provide information as it becomes available on the way that discussions are proceeding between the Treasury and Cardiff Bay. I beg to move.
Sexual Violence in Conflict (Select Committee Report)
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne
That this House takes note of the Report from the Sexual Violence in Conflict Committee (Session 2015–16, HL Paper 123).
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)
My Lords, my first and most pleasant duty is to thank the committee for its amazing work. This is a report of substance and with considerable recommendations in it. We have already had the Government’s response, for which we thank the Minister. In my remarks I will also comment on potential next steps, but first I thank the committee and say what a pleasure it was to work with each and every one of them. I am grateful for that opportunity, and for the large number of the committee members able to be in their seats this evening.
Of course, the report came about because of the hard work of our clerks as well. I thank seriously and significantly Aaron Speer, Cathryn Auplish and Thomas Cheminais for their enormous diligence and exceptional hard work. They were supported by Professor Chinkin, who is the director of the Centre for Women Peace and Security at the London School of Economics, as well as being emeritus professor of international law at that university, and by Owen Williams, who deals with House of Lords media and supported us with the launch of the committee’s work, the launch of our report, and on this debate. We thank you all. We believe our work shows our gratitude for everything you have done.
Our topic, the prevention of sexual violence in conflict, was exceedingly familiar to us through its identification by the former Foreign Secretary, my noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond, who placed PSVI as a new pillar of UK foreign policy, in which he was supported by my noble friend Lady Helic. I pay warm tribute to them both. Without that clear leadership, Britain would have had no capacity to focus internationally on this most important topic. Their Lordships drew in Angelina Jolie Pitt, the famous actress and UNHCR ambassador. DfID came in strongly under the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, to whom we are most grateful, with the important departmental policy on women and girls. A key focus of the committee was on men and boys—this is a crime against the whole human family, not just against one aspect of it.
Magnificent Foreign and Commonwealth Office work brought us the global conference on PSVI in London in June 2014. I was glad to be present; I did not make a contribution. It was a magnificent conference. It led directly to the selection of the topic as a suitable one for an ad hoc Select Committee. We on the committee began our work in mid-summer of 2015—we are debating our findings now—and we have not stopped: we have set up an all-party parliamentary group to continue this vital work.
However, your Lordships may be aware that while those lofty aspirations were being discussed, refined and honed, and support sought and gathered by national leaders and the United Nations, ISIL/Daesh was planting its evil flag in both Syria and Iraq. While we were discussing at the far end of London these great ideals, on the ground a new round of sexual violence in conflict was taking place.
The importance of this topic can be given to us only by the victims themselves. I quote: “How could you do this to me? I am young enough to be your granddaughter”. Another victim related the following exchange: “‘Are you scared?’ I said yes. He laughed and said it wasn’t his problem. He burnt me then with cigarettes on my shoulder, my stomach and my legs. I didn’t even have the strength to speak after that”. Another girl said, “A man came in and said he wanted to marry me. But I told him I wouldn’t marry him even if he killed me. Then he raped me. He was 60 years old. I was just 15. They raped girls as young as 12. They kept a room full of girls younger than 11 with underdeveloped breasts and they felt them every few days to see whether their chests were developed enough to make it worth while raping them”. Another victim said, “One of my friends killed herself. She went to the bathroom and slit her wrists. Then they started raping us. We were screaming and crying. When I saw they were raping girls every day, I decided to try to kill myself as well. I didn’t succeed. They brought me back to the room, still alive, and as my punishment they locked me for 12 hours in the room with six armed guards who raped me in every orifice of my body right throughout that time. I was in agony. I bled so much”.
That is why we gave such incredible attention to this most miserable of topics. I met those three Yazidi girls who gave us their stories in Baghdad in April 2015. They begged me to have their voices heard. Where better could I take them than our committee? With FCO backing and Home Office support, I brought them to London and to the committee. I pay tribute here to the Prevent programme, whose advice, guidance and help were magnificent. They made a small film of the girls, covering their faces. That went round every single British school. We visited Birmingham and the “Trojan horse” schools and had a massive impact on those young people. I chair the AMAR Foundation, which provided medical cover and administrative support, but the British Government were amazing.
We heard in the committee from other victims, too. A very brave young woman from Uganda, who had been kidnapped and kept in the bush, told us her story. She had been there for years. When she came out, she told us all about victims not being accepted again into their families, which gave us a lot to think about. Three members of your Lordships’ committee visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We met there other victims. I recall a girl on a hospital bed who had just arrived—there were only two hospitals in DRC that she could go to; it had taken her two weeks to arrive with her mother. She was 14 and speechless. She had been raped by a gang who were supposedly peacekeepers. She needed surgery. The doctor, who had trained in Glasgow, told me that when these girls are pregnant, their wombs will burst, because they are not just raped by other bodies but raped with bits of armaments, wood and nails, so inside their bodies are destroyed. The same goes on for men and boys as well. Physical health and mental trauma are necessary to address.
Our investigations opened a Pandora’s box of horrors—Dürer’s descent into hell was as nothing to what we heard. Our committee took oral and written evidence from many people; many sessions went on. We understand that we steadily compiled the largest single body of work on PSVI to have been collected. We hope that it will help the various universities, which are showing enormous interest in this work. I was given the opportunity by the committee to go to the recent World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May this year, exactly a year after the committee started its work. Keen interest was shown there, too.
This is an important topic, and our overwhelming view as we compiled our report was that the British Government were right to highlight this crime against humanity; that it was a crime that has been in the shadows but one of massive proportions; and that the British Government should not give up and that what they have started they must carry on. We also concluded that this needed a whole-society approach; it cannot be done by government alone. That is because this crime against humanity is no single episode, nor does it cease when the rapist leaves. The destruction of the victim’s personality has been achieved; their core strengths have been demolished; their belief in their own integrity has gone; their trust in others has disappeared. Like torture victims, they are supplicants pleading for life and safety. In that condition, they become victims again. Many go into camps; they become trafficked, forcibly married or squatters. They live from hand to mouth. Frequently, they are not accepted by their families or their villages. Sometimes, we heard that their physical condition is so appalling that the stench is too great for others to go near them. A whole-healing approach is needed, for body, mind and spirit, for individuals, families, communities and regions.
I pay warm tribute to the Minister, who has travelled and spoken tirelessly in affected countries—country after country. Only two weeks ago, she pleaded the case for PSVI in the United Nations. I give tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby who joined me at an important four-day conference that we held in Windsor Castle with LDS Charities and the AMAR Foundation, with the backing of Westminster Abbey and Cumberland Lodge. We focused on religious persecution as a driver for forced migration, which must also be taken into account and not just looked at from a humanitarian aspect. That is because most people want to go home and to have a safe future. Very often, religion is used as a cover for theft of property and lives. We have to address these things as well as the humanitarian angle on its own.
Sexual violence in conflict is a moral issue. It destroys the family, which is the basic unit of society. Its impact on the development of peace and security is appalling, and the attacks on the right to worship make it a political as well as a religious issue. It is undoubtedly a legal issue. I believe, as does I think the committee, that if we are the largest aid donor in the world and as the banner-bearer of human rights everywhere with our Modern Slavery Act, Bribery Act and our strong justice and rule of law, it is a British issue. As we reconfigure our international relationships today, we will be even better placed to be the lodestar for the world.
The special rapporteur for the departing Secretary-General for the United Nations is Zainab Bangura. She comments on PSVI that this violence,
“casts a long shadow over our collective humanity”.
We in the UK can lift that shadow. To do so, we now need a robust strategic interdepartmental plan supported and implemented by all aspects of British society, with full transparency and common sharing of achievements—a plan and outcomes. That is the way in which the suffering of millions of victims over the years that we have heard and found out about can be not assuaged because it happened but prevented in future. I beg to move.
Lord Hague of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as visiting professor in practice at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics. I thank the committee and in particular its chairman, my noble friend Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne, for their excellent work, their great commitment to this subject and the depth of knowledge they show in what I hope will be a widely read and thoroughly implemented report. I agree with all their recommendations and have a few thoughts to add of my own.
I echo the tribute to our noble friend Lady Anelay on the Front Bench, who took over from me as the Prime Minister’s special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict. She has shown great enthusiasm and persistence in doing so. We all must help her in her work.
The reason I founded the preventing sexual violence initiative, with Angelina Jolie, to whom I also pay tribute, was the people I met around the world over the previous years. There were the women I met in refugee camps in Darfur who were at risk of violence and rape whenever they left the camp to look for firewood, even in camps organised by western aid agencies. They had no protection. The use of rape was clearly a means of instilling terror into the population. I met people in Bosnia who had suffered terribly from organised sexual violence in the conflict there in the 1990s. Tens of thousands of people did so and had never seen justice for these crimes. In fact, it is common in many societies for the victims to live a life of stigma and shame rather than the perpetrators of these crimes.
In Syria, in the conflict that began while I was Foreign Secretary, it soon became apparent that the Assad regime would use all means of violence, including sexual violence, against women and men. That has been followed, as my noble friend Lady Nicholson explained, by the rise of ISIL or Daesh, with the clear objective of enslaving women, actually promising to recruits the opportunity to carry out sexual violence. It is impossible to go around the world with your eyes open without being revolted by these events and sights, and without thinking that someone must do something to prevent such crimes occurring with such impunity. I found in my experience with this initiative that there are really three obstacles for us to overcome in making that effort successful.
The first obstacle is the belief in some quarters that this is not really part of foreign policy. It may be a worthwhile subject but it is in a different box somewhere, an add-on luxury to foreign policy. Certainly I found when I first raised this at the G8 Foreign Ministers meeting in 2013 a certain amount of cynicism, at least from the Russian Foreign Minister, about the need to address this as part of foreign policy. But what is the point of foreign policy if it does not have among its objectives improving the condition of humanity? In any case, it is part of our constant objective in foreign policy to minimise the crises in the world, to maintain peace and security. If mass rape is brought about to make it harder to achieve peace in certain conflicts, which it is, to make it harder for communities to work together, to increase flows of refugees—it is deliberately designed to do that—and to perpetuate conflict, how can anyone say that dealing with it is not a crucial part of foreign policy? Of course it is part of addressing global peace and security. It is indivisible from that objective.
The second obstacle we must overcome is the thinking that it is again a separate issue—a women’s issue. It is something that women have campaigned on but male political leaders have not previously troubled themselves to do so. However, these are crimes committed exclusively by men and they must be challenged by men. That they happened while the whole world did nothing should shame all men. We men have an important role to play alongside women campaigners in dealing with such impunity.
The third obstacle to overcome is the idea that nothing can really be achieved. I have lost count of the number of people who said to me over the last four years, “These are worthy objectives, but it is very hard to do anything about it, is it not? This is as old the hills. It has always happened in warfare”. Is the world so hopeless that we can witness acts that destroy lives, families and communities on a vast scale and then shrug our shoulders and say “Nothing can be done”? In any case, it is not true that nothing can be done. On so many terrible, enormous issues in international affairs, international agreement has been established: on the treatment of prisoners of war, on not using chemical weapons—until the Syria conflict, of course—and on agreements about nuclear arsenals. The world is used to the idea of laws and agreements about what is acceptable in war, and of punishing as war crimes acts that go beyond those established limits. These crimes are war crimes and should be treated as such.
It also shows that we can make ground on this that we have made some small, limited progress. There are now prosecutions in Bosnia, and there have been at the International Criminal Court—although not enough. Military training has been changed in some countries. A large number of small actions can add up to major progress. At the summit that we held here in London in 2014, anyone who witnessed the outpouring of hope, passion, expertise and commitment on this issue from thousands of people, from NGOs and activists who have campaigned on this and worked with the survivors for so many years, knows that things can be done. We must make a success of this initiative and it is additionally related to part of a wider objective, which I always state as being the great strategic prize of the 21st century: the full political, social and economic empowerment of women to play an equal part in every society, Government, walk of life and peace process. It is impossible to achieve such an objective in a world where mass rape as a weapon of war goes unchallenged.
What is to be done next? The committee set out some important and clear recommendations. In the view of time and so many noble Lords wishing to speak, I will not go through all the recommendations I would like to draw attention to, but I will mention a couple. Particularly, there is recommendation 4, to recognise the value of this work to DfID, the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office and other departments. That requires support across government. I am very pleased that the Ministry of Defence—including the Defence Secretary, who recently led a major international conference at Lancaster House on the behaviour of peacekeepers—has become so committed to this. Recommendation 24 draws attention to the importance of,
“ending sexual violence against men and boys”,
which is an important point. Recommendation 61 draws attention to the situation in Syria and calls for,
“a plan to respond to those who have suffered sexual violence during the conflict”.
This should be part of our humanitarian response—it often is—and our political response to communicate to the world what ISIL really is and to show a clear alternative to it.
The report also calls for further summits on preventing sexual violence in conflict to be held at regular intervals. I would go a little further and say that if no other country is holding it, the United Kingdom should hold it again, so that people can come to that summit and ask what has been achieved and show what has been achieved, so that the momentum we built up in the 2014 summit is maintained. The tools are there, such as the protocol we devised, which is now being translated into many languages to make sure that it is possible to record and detect the evidence of crimes of sexual violence, and the commitments made by many Governments of the world. Now we have to make sure that they are used.
I will end with the main lesson that I learned from all this, which is that it is only when a major Government in the world put their full weight behind this subject that we make real progress in changing the attitudes of the rest of the world. It is only then that you get the resolutions at the Security Council and 155 nations signing up to a declaration. So I hope that the Foreign Secretary, as well as my noble friend, will make this one of his personal objectives for the future. I hope that the next President of the United States will do so, although that may require a particular outcome. I hope that we will all be able to maintain our emphatic support for this initiative and the splendid work the committee has done.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the members of this extremely productive committee, and I express particular gratitude to the clerks and advisers, who provided a great deal of very welcome assistance with every aspect of our work.
Our committee’s report is comprehensive and, I think, constructive. The positive response from specialist NGOs and other campaigners testifies to those qualities. However, I am sure I am not alone in believing that we still have a lot more to do. The huge extent and enduring atrocity of sexual violence against women in conflict is a humanitarian crisis of our times. It means that our committee report must be regarded as a spur to giving much greater emphasis to increased efforts to ensure that women can be guaranteed protection and justice.
Obviously, armed conflict of any kind is a terrible offence against women. The terror of bombardment and marauding troops, the desperate fear for their children, the destruction of homes, and the agonies of fleeing and plunging into the unknown—of becoming refugees—are combined cruelties. Those crimes against humanity are intensified by the monstrous injustice that typically women are non-combatants who pose no threat. They are innocents who neither cause nor continue warfare.
For instance, we know that in South Sudan, Syria and the Central African Republic, women are routinely experiencing specific and devastating sexual violence and transmitted infections. They are stigmatised and ostracised, and when rape results in pregnancy the social rejection, as I have frequently seen, is appalling and often lifelong. That is why the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law say that when rape is used as a weapon of war, women have an absolute right to safe, non-discriminatory care—crucially, that includes access to safe termination of pregnancy caused by rape.
Nothing could be clearer. But that right urgently needs strict and universal enforcement, particularly when authorities in so many countries have been pitifully unwilling to fulfil those obligations. Despite co-ordinated efforts since 2002 to combat sexual violence during armed conflict, rape and other forms of sexual violence persist and are used as a part of a military strategy. Recognising that, all providers of humanitarian services, including the United Kingdom, must register strong concern that abortion continues to be refused as an option for girls and women who have been raped in armed conflict because, we are told, termination is illegal in the country involved.
Surely, if it is to be credible, international humanitarian law must supersede domestic law. Will the Minister therefore give the House a clear policy statement on the abortion rights of victims of rape in war, including reference to the impact of US abortion restrictions on DfID-funded aid? In theory, as she will know, UK action and spending are not directly affected by the US’s “no abortion” foreign aid restriction. In practice, however, because funds are not segregated, the ban is applied across the board. This means that women and girls suffer additional trauma because they have to carry to term pregnancies resulting from rape. Does the Minister agree that the specific and absolute legal and medical rights of women raped in war should be incorporated into DfID policies and observed as fully as the rights to medical treatment of other war victims?
As our committee evidence shows, women have a profound personal interest in building peace and reconciliation, and that is not properly used. As I have seen many times in several conflict-torn developing countries, women frequently have the wisdom and judgment to contribute convincingly to peacemaking, but they are still customarily ignored, marginalised and excluded from the international peace and security discourse. That is why we must work for women to be included in all peace processes and, following on from our Select Committee deliberations, we must continue to press for an end to the neglect of women’s needs, concerns and opinions. The struggle for their rights has to include urgent investment in health systems, agriculture and, of course, girls’ education. It also means that the groundwork for post-conflict equality and reconstruction has to include the full participation of women as a high priority.
Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,
“Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution … or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity”
are recognised as both crimes against humanity and war crimes. In concluding, therefore, I put three questions to the Minister. First, since all forms of violence against women and girls clearly increase in conflict, how are efforts to prevent sexual violence in conflict being integrated into DfID’s ongoing work to combat such violence? Secondly, our committee identified the absence of any mechanism for reporting on and collating prevention of sexual violence initiatives. Will Her Majesty’s Government therefore fully integrate those initiatives into the forthcoming national action plan? Thirdly, the funding attached to preventing sexual violence in conflict is currently short-term but, obviously, combating that crime is a long-term task that we must undertake. Will the Government therefore commit themselves to long-term funding and support for the organisations that have impressive records of work in this area? Constructive responses to these questions will give positive proof that the Government are implementing good intentions by taking substantive actions. That, I am certain, is what the whole House is seeking.
Baroness Young of Hornsey (CB)
My Lords, coming together to focus on this difficult and complex task under the tireless leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne, and with the assistance of our excellent clerks and advisers, we somehow managed to maintain focus throughout the process of examining hundreds of pages of written evidence and personal submissions. Reading of and hearing directly the details recounted by those who had suffered violent sexual assaults during conflicts and their subsequent physical and psychological damage, such as those cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, is absolutely shocking. Hearing how other people have experienced those things is a very uncomfortable process and very distressing. We owe all those who have suffered a commitment to spread knowledge about these appalling acts, especially on behalf of those unable to do so themselves, and to harry those with the power to effect change to do so swiftly.
The report made it clear that there is a critical and urgent need to address the current problem of extreme, brutalising sexual violence, which is explicitly a part of the ideological armoury of perpetrators in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. Sadly, sexual violence, predominantly but not exclusively against women, takes place in too many countries for too much of the time to name them all in our report. Fragile states with weak governance structures and failing, corrupt and biased judiciaries where violence against girls and women goes unpunished—in some instances, as the noble Lord, Lord Hague, said, it is the female victims themselves who are punished—are precisely the places where conflict is most likely to arise. The casual disregard shown for females in some of those societies is exacerbated if sectarian, intertribal or civil or international war erupts. This practice of using sexual assault as a weapon of war is widespread; it is transcultural and transhistorical. I take some comfort from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hague, who has been told many times that this kind of violence will always be with us in times of conflict. I am sure that I do not need to tell him that people said the same to Wilberforce, Sharp, Equiano and others about the struggle to end the transatlantic slave trade.
In their response to our report, the UK Government note that they have pursued or supported PSVI activity in a wide range of countries, including Colombia. Unfortunately, our schedule did not allow us the time to address in detail the impact of the long-standing conflict in that country, and I want to address my remarks to that area now. I thank Louise Winstanley, the programme and advocacy manager for ABColombia, for an up-to-date briefing on the situation there. As noble Lords will be aware, there have been some recent developments. The Colombian Government and FARC, the largest guerrilla group operating in that country, signed a peace accord on 26 September. As a result of his efforts to secure peace, Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian President, was named last week as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner. The war between various paramilitary factions and Governments has been going on for over 50 years. All sides have committed human rights violations including murder, torture, forced displacements, and of course sexual violence. The peace accord was put to a referendum on 2 October and rejected by a very narrow margin. In spite of this, both FARC and the Government made an immediate declaration that they would continue to uphold the bilateral ceasefire and try to find a way to move forward and achieve peace.
Colombia has seen conflict violence diminishing as the peace talks, which started in 2012, have progressed. In the case of human rights defenders, however, the violence has increased year on year. In March 2016, women defenders, who have been very active in the peace negotiations, were the victims in 49% of all attacks against human rights defenders in the country. Women activists have organised several delegations of women to Havana, as well as being consulted as experts, particularly but not solely on gender-based conflict violence. This is something we strongly support in the report, as the full and active representation of women in discussions and negotiations for peace is essential, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, said.
Another message from our report was that there should be no amnesties for conflict-related sexual violence. The Colombian women’s delegation made this point and have achieved the objective of having it written into the agreement. The transitional justice chapter of the peace accord clearly states that conflict sexual violence crimes will not be subject to an amnesty. The creation of a special investigative team for cases of sexual violence in conflict in the investigation and prosecution unit of the special tribunal for peace is another major achievement. Women’s human rights organisations and social movements have also been successful in reaching an agreement with the authorities to establish a separate historical truth commission, mandated to collect evidence of sexual violence against women and girls during the conflict.
In Colombia, neo-paramilitary groups continue to perpetrate sexual and other forms of violence against women. Unfortunately, the signing of the agreement does not signify the end of the brutality. As we heard from several witnesses during our inquiry, supporting those organisations that provide psychosocial, legal and support services to women suffering conflict sexual violence, wherever it takes place, has to be a priority.
Colombian women achieved a global milestone with the agreements reached in Havana, but with the referendum rejecting the peace accord, women’s NGOs are concerned that these hard-won and important achievements for women, especially the pledge around no amnesties for conflict sexual violence, could be lost. There is that fear, so I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to some of the following questions. Will she agree to facilitate a meeting with President Santos, involving UK NGOs working on Colombia, human rights and conflict sexual violence, during his state visit in November? What will the UK Government do to ensure that women’s NGOs are supported to continue to engage in peace dialogues? How might the UK Government encourage and support Colombian women’s organisations to share their experiences of engagement in the peace process and how they achieved the agreements in the peace accord signed on 26 September? Sharing this learning nationally and internationally will be invaluable, even though the accords are currently being challenged.
On another subject, the idea that those who are sent to protect you in a crisis situation abuse and exploit your vulnerability is unthinkable, and yet there are numerous documented incidences of UN peacekeepers’ participation in acts of sexual abuse and exploitation. Will the Minister undertake to take advantage of the recent appointment of Antonio Guterres as the new UN Secretary-General by drawing the committee’s report to his attention and by pressing him to pursue prosecutions and to make accountability for sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers a high priority?
Finally, I pay tribute to all the witnesses who came before the committee, either in person or via video links, or who spoke to small groups of us in private meetings or who wrote to us. Their generosity with their time and their sharing of very personal, harrowing experiences was a crucial contribution to the making of this report.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I, too, thank the chairman and the members of the committee for their thorough and excellent report. I welcome the acknowledgment of how much has been achieved since the preventing sexual violence initiative was started. It is now an integral part of the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence. It has secured the support of more than 150 countries. We have seen ground-breaking instruments adopted, such as the international protocol, and steps forward by countries such as Colombia, Bosnia, the DRC and Somalia. Where it used to be taboo, the subject is now openly discussed and addressed. I congratulate the Minister as well as the Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff for their unfaltering commitment to PSVI over the past 16 months. I hope that our new Prime Minister, who has shown such leadership against human trafficking, and our new Foreign Secretary will both give their determined backing to this policy.
Eradicating sexual violence in conflict is crucial to our objective of a more peaceful, stable and prosperous world. It is also central to our moral standing as a nation. What would it say about us as people if we were simply to turn away from this crime? I could talk about the huge trauma and damage from organised sexual violence in Bosnia, a country that is still to heal 25 years after the war, but there are more pressing situations today, including South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Iraq and Syria. Indeed, as the committee notes, there are at least 19 countries where sexual violence in conflict is being committed today, directly contributing to international instability—including, I would argue, to the global refugee crisis.
Like others in this House, I have met refugees, both women and men, who specifically fled from rape or the threat of rape. Last month, I met Iraqi refugees in Jordan who fell into the hands of Daesh. One of them was seven months pregnant when she was attacked repeatedly in the presence of her young son. Her sister suffered the same fate, along with countless other women. Rape is a silent weapon of choice for terrorising, humiliating, stigmatising and destroying individuals, families and communities. It has affected millions of people across the world in conflicts in our lifetimes. Our national interest and our moral responsibility will, I hope, keep us focused on the work needed to be done to address this scourge. This has to be a long-term objective, because we are only at the beginning. PSVI should not be an initiative for one Parliament, one party, one Government, or even one government department. It is the work of generations to change attitudes as well as laws and the conduct of militaries.
I know it is the Government’s intention to build on the PSVI. I welcome the Minister’s plans to focus on tackling stigma in the next stage of the initiative, and I admire the dedication, compassion and commitment she brings to her role. In that spirit, I would like to raise four issues arising from the committee’s recommendations. First, a major reason this crime occurs with impunity during conflict is because it is often treated as a lesser crime after the conflict and is often swept under the carpet in forging peace agreements. Can the Minister assure the House that, as part of changing this trend once and for all, the Government will live up to their commitment not be party to any peace agreement that does not include accountability for crimes of sexual violence? Can she give that guarantee in relation to the Syria conflict?
Secondly, a barrier to prosecutions for rape everywhere in the world is the difficulty in obtaining and preserving evidence. I urge the Government to work with other countries and the United Nations significantly to expand the work of the PSVI team of experts in relation to Syria in particular. Can the Minister say more about what accountability mechanisms the UK will put forward to enable the prosecution of these crimes—not just those committed by Daesh but those committed by all parties involved in the conflict?
Thirdly, if the United Nations commitment to include women negotiators in peace processes is ever to become a reality, it has to begin now. Can the Minister reaffirm that it is the Government’s policy to ensure the formal inclusion of women in all peace processes to which our country is party or that we support through our UN Security Council role? Can she give that assurance in relation to Syria? What practical steps will the Government take to ensure that women are included in a future peace settlement?
Finally, violence against women does not take place only in faraway countries. It occurs in our communities and neighbourhoods. It blights the lives of our neighbours and friends and sometimes of our colleagues. Countless women suffer at the hands of their partner each day. They live in shame. They do not speak. They are often blamed and isolated. Domestic violence thrives when we are silent. We need to tackle it with all means at our disposal.
I therefore find it discouraging that, four years after signing the Istanbul convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the UK has still not ratified it. I know that our country already complies with most of the provisions of the convention and I welcome that, but how can we exercise our international leadership in combating sexual violence abroad without ratifying the convention at home? Can the Minister give some indication of when she expects the ratification process to begin? I hope that together we can break through the bureaucratic barricades and finally conclude this process.
I conclude by paying tribute to the co-founders of PSVI, my noble friend Lord Hague and the UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie, for their vision and commitment. I also pay tribute to the men and women of the Foreign Office who combined diplomatic skills and moral conviction to pursue PSVI to such international effect. I hope that the Government will heed my noble friend’s call for a follow-up PSVI summit, to build momentum and hold other countries to the commitments they have made.
As the committee notes, there is much more to do. Future progress is not guaranteed. But, having begun this work, there is no scenario where it could be in our national interest, or compatible with our global responsibilities, to turn away from the effort to eradicate rape as a weapon of war. I believe that this is the Government’s intention, and I hope that they will have the wholehearted support of the House.
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, I, too, served on the committee, and it was a great privilege to be part of it. I pay tribute to the expert chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson. We were, to put it mildly, a diverse group, but she held us together, and we produced a report that will be significant as a foundation, as other noble Lords have said. I also offer my congratulations to the Minister, who leads by great example, as seen not just at the recent meeting at the UN in September but in all kinds of ways. She has been an encouragement and a force for the right direction within government, and I am very grateful for that contribution. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hague, for his PSV initiative. I had the privilege of being present at the summit in 2014, which has created a momentum that we need to learn from and develop. I will pick up the theme mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hague, of the significance of important Governments making a public stand. In doing that, I will also speak as a faith community leader.
There has been a great deal of high-level response since 2014, with resolutions at the UN and with our own Government taking a lead. But of course our report shows that on the ground the situation remains horrific. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, said, a deep culture perpetuates this crime, whatever kind of high-level political resolutions we pass. As just one perspective on the sheer complexity of the challenge beneath the level of resolutions, our own Black Rod gave evidence to the committee from his time in Bosnia. He explained very graphically that this crime happens in a context of sheer chaos. Very interestingly, recently it has been pointed out that in eastern Congo, a third of all attacks were carried out by non-military personnel—non-combatants. It is very often deep in the cultural context that this suddenly explodes when there is a space and chaos. That is what we have to grasp on the ground.
First, I will look at the significance of a major Government such as ours taking the lead that the noble Lord, Lord Hague, pointed to. The Government have a key role, but the Minister will perhaps be pleased to know that it is a limited role—we cannot land everything on the Government or expect them to solve this great issue alone. The Government have a role in two areas: first, in creating structures for debate and the right kind of practices and, secondly, in talking up and highlighting standards. I look to the Government for structures and standards.
Let us just think about structures. In our report, we say it would be sensible to have the structure of a five-year plan: let us get the ducks lined up so everybody can see what we are trying to do. I hope the Minister might comment on that proposal. There is the suggestion that the Government make an annual report just to show that the momentum is being maintained, that structures are fit for purpose, that criticism is listened to and that things that are going on can be developed. There is the suggestion in our report that there should be regular global consultations, and I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hague, say that if other Governments will not do them we should do another one. We need to take a lead in the international scene in setting up structures where people are challenged to come and take this seriously and be seen to sign up to advancing it.
The last thing that we mentioned about structures, which other noble Lords have mentioned, is that we need to join up the efforts made, for example, by DfID and the MoD. We need to evaluate them and see how we can add value, efficiency and effectiveness by bringing our efforts together in a coherent way. So the Government have a key role in creating the structures to show their seriousness and what can be achieved—how to develop, learn and keep forward momentum. They also have a key role in setting standards. I recall meeting one survivor who had been abducted into the bush, repeatedly raped and kept as a sex slave. When the so-called peace came and everyone had gone back to their communities, she was living in a community where the people who had been raping her were regular members of the community too. That is a horrific situation, and of course in that kind of culture there is stigma attached to the woman as well.
On the kind of standards that the Government can pick up from our report, there needs to be some emphasis on rehabilitation and compensation—a really clear message that you cannot just pretend this did not happen. The report is also clear that we need to bring men and boys into the picture significantly, because too often they are ignored.
The Government need to develop standards regarding the collection and preservation of evidence. Currently that is woeful, which is why there are so few convictions. How can we as a nation learn, and help other nations to learn, about the collection and preservation of evidence? We need to use our good offices across the world—perhaps using the Foreign Office; I am not an expert on how government works—to help different jurisdictions to develop the right kind of legislation and training for judiciaries to be proactive in this field, not paralysed. Our Government, with others, need to use their efforts to ensure that the international system of justice is robust, strong and fit for purpose, which it is not yet; noble Lords will need to read the report to see why. I implore the Government to think about setting standards and creating structures.
Lastly, I want to come back to the recognition in the report of a subject that was raised at the London PSVI event in 2014: the importance of faith groups. I am not talking about this simply because I am a faith person. Actually, we are talking about the need for deep cultural engagement, under the banner of faith, in all kinds of places where women and girls are abused and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, said, excluded; along with the terrorisation of men and boys in these situations, that is just accepted too easily. In all these contexts, faith groups need to be challenged to work on four areas. The first is values. Faith tries to give values to people, so if faiths are giving values that are allowing this to happen, that needs to change. Secondly, faith tries to deal with the trickiest issue, forgiveness. Faiths need to be challenged a lot more to look at what forgiveness is and how it works. We can learn a lot from Rwanda and South Africa about how faith groups can wrestle with the reality of the knotty problem of forgiveness. Thirdly, faiths all claim to do something that in our jargon we call “community cohesion”. Clearly, though, that is not working in the case of the girl I met who went back to live in her community with the perpetrators. What does community cohesion really look like, and how should faiths be challenged to look at our title deeds, our teaching and our doctrines to put that right? Lastly, faiths set a tone about cultural norms. Whether on the treatment of women and girls or the treatment of LGBTI people, faiths set a kind of context for those values.
I hope that, besides my point about the importance of the Government showing leadership over structures and standards, a powerful Government like ours could perhaps take a lead to convene faith leaders into a space where such questions as values, forgiveness, community cohesion and cultural norms could be tackled. Sadly, the faiths do not seem to be stepping into that space on our own so we may need a challenge. The convening power of a Government such as the British Government is huge, as the noble Lord, Lord Hague, showed with the event in 2014. Mine is a small suggestion but one that I think could have an enormous impact beyond the realms of the technicalities of government.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I, too, was a member of the Select Committee—the first I have served on in the House—and it was a privilege to serve under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Nicholson. As the right reverend Prelate said, we began as a group with some fairly disparate views, and it is a tribute to her chairmanship that we managed to come to agreement in the report. I also thank my fellow members. We heard a huge body of evidence from many people, so I also thank the clerks, who did such excellent work reading, digesting and synthesising the enormous volume of evidence submitted to the committee. I also thank Professor Christine Chinkin for all her wise advice to us.
The field trip to the DRC that I undertook with my noble friend Lady Nicholson and the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, during which, in Goma, we met some of the survivors of brutal sexual assaults, brought home to us with stark clarity why this is such an important issue. I pay enormous tribute to my noble friend Lord Hague for launching the initiative on preventing sexual violence in conflict with UNHCR Special Representative Angelina Jolie. It was politically very courageous as, although UN Resolutions 1820 and 1888 had raised the subject previously, they had made little global impact. As my noble friend said, many people said that it was just too difficult to address, but the initiative, through getting buy-in at the G8 and through the UN General Assembly declaration, which I believe 155 countries signed up to, made the world acknowledge that this is a terrible war crime and that those who perpetrate it should be punished.
I also recognise the enormous contribution that my noble friend Lady Helic has made, and the Minister for leading the work in her capacity as the Prime Minister’s special representative for preventing sexual violence in conflict. I also acknowledge the outstanding work of the team at the Foreign Office under the lead first of Emma Hopkins and latterly of Tom Woodroffe. All of us who attended the global summit in London in 2014 on preventing sexual violence in conflict will remember it as an unforgettable event.
Besides the Foreign Office, other departments have played their part, too, particularly DfID and the MoD, and I congratulate General Messenger on the remarkable leadership that he has shown on the women, peace and security agenda. It was so heartening to attend the session on women, peace and security at the UN peacekeeping ministerial in London last month, where the case was laid out so clearly. I hope that the MoD will encourage the military in other countries to have a champion like General Messenger. I also commend the outstanding work of Major Grimes in the DRC, which showed the benefit of the military engaging with local populations. It is often the military who first come across survivors of sexual violence and who need to protect the local population. The UK is now including PSVI in some of its training for the military overseas.
As we have already heard, levels of sexual violence have been rising to epidemic proportions in conflict today, destroying people, families and communities—not only physically maiming and killing but creating psychological damage that can trickle down the generations. The devastating effects of sexual violence in conflict are long-lasting and permeate societies even after the actual fighting has stopped.
I was horrified when I visited Liberia a few years ago to discover many 12 year-old girls there were raped and that the elders in society did not really view this as a crime. Even some of the girls at the university told me that they were asked to exchange sex for grades. Because there is such stigma about sexual violence, it often goes unreported, and I suspect that the level of sexual violence affecting men is very hidden. I recall a visit some years ago to a young man in Rwanda. He was a victim of sexual violence, had contracted HIV and lived in abject poverty on the edge of a village, shunned by the community. It was heart-breaking. The present focus on stigma is important and will help to shift the shame from the survivors of the perpetrators.
However, although much progress on PSVI has been made, this initiative is still work in progress. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Change will come about only through sustained, long-term work: we need to keep going.
I will pick a few areas where I think attention is particularly needed. Current conflict, as we have already heard, disproportionately affects women. Security needs to be tailored to the most vulnerable. The impact of conflict on women was recognised 16 years ago with the adoption of UN Resolution 1325, with its four pillars of protection, prevention, participation and relief and recovery. Yet women in war-torn countries remain mostly ignored, despite research showing that where women are included the likelihood of achieving peace is much higher. One only has to look at the Syrian peace process where, in spite of women demanding to be included, they are sidelined. Until women are allowed around the table as equals it will be impossible to achieve peace and security for all.
Secondly, since 2006, under UN Resolution 1325 the UK has had a national action plan on women, peace and security in which it outlines its commitments. PSVI remains a major part of the UK’s women, peace and security commitments. Commitments made as part of PSVI should sit within the UK NAP on women, peace and security. The new NAP will be developed over the coming year and I very much hope that the plans for PSVI for the coming three to five years will be comprehensively outlined in it, along with the Government’s other women, peace and security commitments. This will support PSVI in becoming a sustainable long-term programme of work.
Thirdly, in some countries there is a taboo about women talking to men outside their families, which makes it impossible for male soldiers to communicate directly with them. Yet speaking to women in communities is vital if they are to be protected properly. Thus, any peacekeeping force must contain women, and to achieve this the UN must have concrete targets on including women in peacekeeping operations and must create a formal mechanism that ensures female peacekeepers are deployed to engage with local communities. The UK holds the lead on women, peace and security at the UN, so I very much hope that it will do all it can to influence this.
The PSVI is a shining example of where Britain is giving inspiring leadership in the world, and I am of course delighted with the Government’s response that they are keeping the initiative at the top of the internal political agenda. Recent reports of mounting atrocities in South Sudan and of UN peacekeepers standing by while government and non-government troops rape and kill illustrates all too clearly that there is still much work to do to ensure that—hopefully in the not too distant future—sexual violence in conflict will become as unacceptable as slavery, torture and genocide are today.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as in the Register of Lords’ Interests. As it is late, I shall take just one or two parts of the committee’s report, as my colleagues who have spoken before me quite rightly mentioned them.
First, I thank the House for having agreed to have a Select Committee into sexual violence in conflict. Although the issues and what we listened to from witnesses and saw in videos and other means were difficult, I enjoyed being on the committee with all my colleagues and clerks, and the great advice we received from Professor Chinkin and her colleagues at the LSE.
I want to talk about the Institute for Women, Peace and Security at Georgetown and the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the LSE. The reason why those two institutions are so important, along with the work and the report of the committee, is that it is right to have women at every peace table on these issues. At present, we are told that no women are trained and that they cannot find local women. We can always find them. At Georgetown and the LSE women come to speak to tell us and the students who are learning to be peacekeepers what it is like. The women are there. We in this Chamber could give lists of them.
I have one big ask for the Minister—I know she has been asked for a number of things from others, whom I agree with—that the Government will not agree to any peacekeeping talks without local women and other women being at the peace table. We know in Angola and other places that the first thing peacekeepers did was forgave the men, and there were no proper dealings on the peace. What happens? The peace is broken. Statistics show that when the women are at the peace table, as in Northern Ireland or Chile, peace has been kept and things have continued.
Why do we need women at the peace table? First, it is about the long-term medical support for men, women and children. Then it is about education—and not just basic education. To keep peace, we have to have higher education. Part of the peacekeeping has to reach outside higher education, if it is not possible to have universities opened. If we do not educate boys and girls we will have a period of terrorism because of greed and because people do not know what to do. Also it is about rebuilding communities. We have to get investment from outside as we were able to do with the Good Friday peace agreement, which I hope will be able to be continued, and with other peacekeeping agreements. That is why women ask for this. Women do not wish their boys and girls to be terrorists any longer—and that is what happens. If we do not have proper peacekeeping arrangements around the table, in writing, we are not going to get the peace. At the moment, we have more displaced people than at any other time in the world, and there are more so-called peace agreements being made—but they are not really being made. I am not attacking anybody, but I refer to the whole question of Syria. It is just disgraceful that we cannot bring the two sides together. We know that if the right people were there, that could happen. It is important that we have women at the peace table.
I hope that we can get an undertaking tonight from the Minister, who gave an undertaking in her evidence, that the Government will not participate in and will challenge any peace-table arrangements that do not have women. As we saw happen around Bosnia—and we had evidence—the peacekeeping and the peace table was done too quickly. There was not enough time to live with those who have to live with what is made up. People are people, and they have to live with whatever agreements are made about them, which is why we have to have women there—both from outside and local women. It is important.
The whole question of mass rape applies not only to women but to boys and men. I hope very much that DfID will continue with its investment over the next X years to look at why this happens and what it does to men and boys. We heard evidence that it is bad enough for us as women, but for men and boys it has a terrible effect. I hope that the money in DfID that has been pledged will continue to be there, and we have to watch that that happens, and that the DfID programmes, working with the Ministry of Defence, continue and are joined up with the Foreign Office. Can the Minister tell us tonight that they will continue? We have been reading and hearing from civil servants that there could be major changes with the DfID budget, and we do not want to lose that budget. The work that we are asking them to do can be measured—we know that nothing is without measurement—but time has to be given for measurements. Can the Minister speak to those departments, to help them to understand that this is vital to world peace, that we are the leaders in this field and that the Government will continue with this? If not, it will be very difficult. We have buy-in across the political divide on this issue, which is why we can continue with this work. We have to be the world leader. We have started to be the world leader. The Minister is now leading this on our behalf. We have to take other countries with us. I hope that Australia might come forward. Canada is another country that could. It is really important that we bring other countries to the table besides the United States.
Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the chairman and the members of the committee on the breadth of this report. I also congratulate the Government, who have responded to the problem in such a positive way, especially since the conference called by the noble Lord, Lord Hague, that was attended by Angelina Jolie two years ago. What was remarkable about that conference was that the general public were allowed in—and it was mobbed. I have never experienced anything like it; to see great queues snaking along, waiting to go into a booth where a junior Minister was talking about something was quite unprecedented. It made me think that we ought to have something like that every year, to get the public in and involved in these issues. It was tremendous and I congratulate the noble Lord.
On a personal note, I was disappointed not to be a member of this committee. After 30 years working in the National Health Service as a doctor in sexual and reproductive health; as a parliamentarian working in international development for 20 years now; and as chair of the All-Party Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health for many years I was, to put it mildly, a bit miffed. I was told by the then Chairman of Committees, Lord Sewel, that this was because I do not belong to a formal political group in this House. So there is the reason: rules is rules and one must obey. However, I am delighted to have this opportunity to make a few points of my own.
The committee’s report mentioned that it was looking forward to the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul last May. I attended that conference and noted that the commitments to action at the end stated that we must: prevent and end conflict; uphold norms that safeguard humanity; leave no one behind; change people’s lives; manage risks and crises differently; invest in humanity and in particular women and girls. They got there in the end. Investing in women and girls is so important, even though it was last on the list.
From the same conference we learned that, of the 125 million people in need of humanitarian assistance worldwide, over 75% are women and children. Globally, 35% of women have suffered from gender-based violence and this increases significantly during conflict. In my experience, it is difficult to collect figures. Whatever the policy and legal framework discussed in chapter 2 of the report, we ultimately rely on women reporting the violence in the first place and many are reluctant to do this, for cultural and family reasons. However, there is no doubt. I have listened in confidence to women in many places, including Rwanda, South Sudan, Colombia, Kosovo and the Middle East and heard of the horrific crimes committed, which the chairman told the House about. It is the prevention of these crimes and dealing with the consequences, as dealt with in chapter 3, which I want to dwell upon.
Rape in conflict situations is a first step in genocide—impregnate the enemy’s women with your seed and that will dilute the enemy’s genes. Way back in 1998-99, when I was first in the Commons, Tess Kingham, MP for Gloucester, and I argued this and were ridiculed. At that time it was thought a bit of a joke and we were going too far. Rape is not always straightforward sexual intercourse either. As we have heard from the chairman, rifle butts and broken bottles can be deployed and cause the most terrible injuries. The question of how soldiers, when ordered to rape captive women, actually manage to do it to order has always slightly puzzled me. I have heard claims from NGOs and other people who have worked in this field that soldiers in some groups are forced to take mood-enhancing drugs and also, more recently, Viagra, before going on to systematic rape of captive women. I would have hoped that the committee could have looked into this too. Maybe we can in the future, because it must surely be against some rule of war or other for this to be allowed.
As has been mentioned, refugee camps are terrifying places for women, often because toilet facilities are poor or shared, making women vulnerable to attack on their way there and back. In the camps in Jordan which I visited, I heard of child marriage getting younger and younger, often to total strangers, in the girls families’ efforts to protect their daughters from rape in the camps. Too early marriage also causes its own horrific injuries, so it is to be deplored. Women and girls are in desperate need of healthcare as a result of all these horrors. I was a little disappointed that the recommendations in chapter 4 of the report did not emphasise this more as it is a passion of mine.
Treatment for infections and injury, of course, combined with immediate access to post-coital contraception and abortion are of paramount importance. Paragraph 57 in the recommendations in chapter 5 is to be commended for its support for abortion after rape in conflict, which is a recognised human right. The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, went into that in great detail. I thank her for that. The committee also recognised that the Helms amendment by the United States Administration is contrary to international human rights law. This causes great confusion in the field because some NGOs are not allowed to provide abortion to victims because of the USA rulings. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, said, funds are often pooled to provide this service, and therefore the service is prevented in some peculiar way because of the USA contribution. We really must look at this. Will the Minister please tell us what steps the Government are taking with the United States Administration to get them to remove this obstruction to simple humanity? Perhaps after the presidential elections things may change, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Hague, mentioned—we must keep our fingers crossed.
I commend the report for its recommendations on stigma attached to these crimes, in paragraph 63 onwards, not forgetting men and boys but also not forgetting the LGBTI groups in this, who have not been mentioned before. People with disabilities and those from different ethnic groups are also mentioned. There needs to be massive education of boys and girls in many communities. I suppose that education generally is ultimately the answer.
Recommendation 73 points out that the United Nations does not have responsibility for internally displaced people, of whom there are many at the moment, particularly in the Middle East. I ask the Minister when our Government will approach the United Nations on this problem.
Finally, and most importantly for me, I ask the Minister to confirm that funding for women and girls will continue as it is now, including for NGOs such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International and the United Nations Population Fund—funding which was so welcome at the family planning summit in 2014. I am afraid that the new Secretary of State has been making rather worrying noises about changing the method, and even the amount, of funding in this area. That, for me, is very worrying indeed, as it is for all of us working in this field. NGOs like these provide vital services for women who have been violated in conflict situations. The need for sexual and reproductive health services is increasing all the time worldwide. They have been shown to provide such benefits to women and the economies of the countries where they live. Therefore, it would be a tragedy if this brilliant initiative taken originally by the coalition Government were weakened in any way.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, it was a great honour to serve on the Select Committee, whose task was to shine a light on an issue of huge global importance, but which was for far too long almost a secret swept under the carpet until the PSVI changed all that. I join others in paying tribute to the leadership of my noble friend Lady Nicholson, who, as we have heard, guided the committee through a vast array of information, sources, witnesses and locations with huge dexterity and skill. We owe her a great deal for that, as indeed we do to the indefatigable secretariat which serviced the committee with energy, dedication and attention to detail. This is an enormous subject, and a very difficult one, and between them, the chair, the advisers and the officials helped to bring order to it and make it accessible. I believe that our report, and the testimony of the excellent witnesses we heard from, will prove a powerful contribution to debate not just here but, I hope, across the globe. I draw attention to my interests in the subject listed in the annex to the report and declare them accordingly.
The major issue I would like to highlight from the report is the spotlight it shines on sexual violence against men and boys—for although the clear majority of sexual violence in conflict is perpetrated against women and girls, these crimes are indiscriminate and men and boys are greatly affected too, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out. Indeed, sexual violence against men and boys has been recorded in 25 armed conflicts over the last decade. We know that the problem is significant and pervasive, but little comprehensive data exist. Indeed, our report makes clear the importance of finding out much more about the numbers of men and boys affected by these crimes. In many ways they have been the forgotten victims of this heinous crime, and we need to change that.
One of the key objectives of PSVI since its launch, as my noble friend Lord Hague made clear, has been to raise awareness of men and boys as victims as well as perpetrators. That has been a ground-breaking initiative which I strongly applaud. However, the evidence we heard shows that there is more to be done, and although DfID, as the report makes clear, has done admirable work to combat violence against women and girls, ending sexual violence against men and boys must be a priority too. We noted, for instance, that it was regrettable that DfID did not do more to raise the status of this issue in its approach to the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May.
This is particularly important because of the stark and appalling legal situation in which men and boys who are victims of sexual violence find themselves. We heard striking evidence from Dr Chris Dolan, director of the Refugee Law Project in Uganda, about how they face huge barriers to accessing support and justice. Around 70 countries do not recognise male victims, meaning that 90% of men in conflict-affected countries are in situations where the law provides them with absolutely no protection if they become victims of sexual violence. Of those countries affected, 67 actually criminalise men who report abuse against themselves. Apart from the terrible stigma this creates, on which I will say a few words in a moment, it makes provision of healthcare, social support, economic support and access to justice almost impossible.
What can be done? To begin with, men and boys should be covered far more comprehensively in the Government’s research activities, not least because the true scale of such crimes is masked by the legal barriers I spoke of just now. We need much more data to assess the scale of the problem so that measures can be taken effectively to tackle it, particularly so that much more can be done to hold perpetrators accountable and end impunity for sexual violence. Long-term, sustainable research is vital in this area.
Another area where we need a more proactive approach is in access to justice, which is perhaps the most important requirement for the recovery of the victims of these terrible crimes. Sexual violence fractures lives and families. The journey to recovery is a complex one, and as our report makes clear, it,
“depends greatly on the individual victim and survivor’s situation and needs”.
Access to justice will always be the most central part of that. Yet for men and boys, getting justice—and seeing that justice is done—is well-nigh impossible when they incriminate themselves by reporting a crime.
The same is true of access to vital health services. As male victims of sexual violence are in most places omitted from the mainstream narrative on wartime sexual violence, policy responses—and indeed information for victims—consistently fail adequately to address, or most often ignore entirely, the specific needs of male survivors. We heard from leading psychologist Dr Michael Korzinski about a study of 4,000 NGOs across the world that deal with wartime sexual violence, which found that only 3% mentioned men and boys in their information materials. Much more could be done to make sure that these NGOs highlight male victims in their literature and publicity material, with advice specifically tailored to their needs.
Another area where progress can be made is with the team of experts, which is a key mechanism for our efforts on capacity building for national judicial systems. Although its membership is small in number, the work of the ToE is of real importance. However, at the moment it is clear—as we heard in evidence from War Child UK—that members have not received any child safeguarding or protection training, including responding to sexual violence against men and boys. We recommended that such training should be mandatory. In their response to us, the Government said that expertise on men and boys exists within the ToE, but I think that we need to look closely at how that expertise is used and whether it is sufficient, particularly in view of the scale of some of the problems that we have identified.
One of the overriding problems in dealing with sexual violence against men and boys—as with all victims, as we have heard—is stigma. We heard a great deal of distressing evidence on this issue and our report has much to say about it. It is not a matter with which the UK alone can deal but we can show the way. For instance, much more can be done if we seek proactively to help organisations and associations which undertake outreach mechanisms and which, in the words of the Refugee Law Project,
“sensitise communities regarding the existence of male survivors”.
Finally, I want to highlight the particular problems of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities—highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge—in dealing with sexual violence in conflict. LGBT people are, tragically, particularly vulnerable to these hateful crimes. We heard, for instance, from Professor Lisa Davis how “epidemic levels” of sexual violence and murder had been committed against LGBT persons in the Daesh conflict, while Human Rights Watch highlighted these serious threats in Iraq and Syria. These victims face, in effect, a double stigma: being victims and being members of the LGBT community. This is of course compounded by the fact that, in many countries which have been the scenes of conflict and violence, homosexuality is criminalised. These include places such as Angola, Somalia, Liberia, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, South Sudan and Afghanistan, among many others—shamefully, far too many of them in our own back yard of the Commonwealth.
Therefore, for obvious reasons, we have huge gaps in our knowledge of the impact of sexual violence in conflict on LGBT communities. More needs to be done to identify the specific needs of these communities and the best way to address them. We were not able to look into criminalisation but it is a vital aspect of the problems faced by many minority communities. The Government have, to their real credit, done a huge amount in recent years to bring pressure to bear on the countries that criminalise to bring an end to this horror, and the Minister has been at the forefront of those initiatives. I pay a huge tribute to her and to my noble friend Lady Verma for all the work they are doing. Will my noble friend reiterate the Government’s determination to continue that vital work, particularly in the Commonwealth, where criminalisation flouts the terms of the Commonwealth charter, as well as international human rights laws, not least, in this context, because of the impact on so many deeply vulnerable victims of sexual violence?
That is a long-term goal, and indeed a lot of what we covered in our report is also for the long term. However, I emphasise that we should remember that, for many, the long term is too late. As my noble friend Lady Nicholson said, although a great deal of what we were able to look at related to historic crimes—dating back, for instance, to Bosnia-Herzegovina—the horror of sexual violence in conflict is with us right now. These crimes are being perpetrated, even as we debate this evening, in Iraq and Syria, and there is a need for immediate action to alleviate suffering, as well as a long-term strategy for tackling this horror.
This report, I believe, provides ideas and proposals in a wide range of areas which will help us meet those ambitions, and I am very pleased that the Government have been able to welcome much of it. I know that I and all my colleagues on the committee will look forward to working with my noble friend to do what we can to bring this hateful war crime to an end, to gain justice for those who have been affected, and to bring help and support to those still suffering in the midst of horror.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, I was not a member of this Select Committee but I should like to thank all noble Lords who were for such a comprehensive report on an extremely important subject. I was particularly pleased to see that the report included references to Colombia, as I have a particular interest in that part of the world. It is often overlooked, although it has to be said that in the last couple of weeks we have seen a probably unprecedented amount of media coverage of Colombia following the rejection of the peace deal by less than 1% in the referendum there. We are also shortly to receive the Nobel Peace Prize-wining President Santos on a state visit to the UK, so my remarks this evening will focus just on Colombia. I endorse the points made by my noble friend Lady Young of Hornsey and will expand on some of them.
In Colombia, sexual violence has been a hidden, widespread and systematic practice perpetrated by all armed actors in the internal conflict—the guerrilla groups, paramilitary units and the state security forces. Of the cases documented, the worst offenders of conflict sexual violence are the paramilitary groups, followed by the security forces and then the guerrilla groups. FARC policies of forced contraception and forced abortion for their rank-and-file troops were a normalised form of violence. They also forcibly recruited girls as combatants in order to render sexual services and as a payment to protect other members of their family.
The impact of the state security forces’ involvement in sexual violence has had a particularly devastating effect as they are, of course, responsible for protecting the civilian population. When sexual violence is committed by the security forces, civilians are left with no authority to whom they can turn for justice.
As we know, and as my noble friend Lady Young has also mentioned, the Colombian Government have been involved for the past four years in peace talks with the largest of Colombia’s guerrilla groups, the FARC. Colombian women’s organisations and victims’ organisations went to Havana to discuss the issue. Women human rights defenders also went and spoke directly to the negotiators on various occasions to ensure that they understood that women would not accept amnesty for conflict-related sexual violence. This was accepted by the parties and the final agreement excluded conflict-related sexual violence from any amnesty.
As a result, the Colombian Government appointed a special unit in the public prosecutor’s office to investigate the crimes of conflict-related sexual violence. This was a major step forward, but serious concerns are already being expressed by civil society organisations such as ABColombia, to whom I express my sincere thanks for all the background briefing and up-to-the-minute reports it has been sending me. The concern is that the investigators in this unit are focusing only on crimes committed by the FARC, and while this is a positive step in the right direction, there is also a pressing need to ensure that sexual violence by the security forces is also prioritised and scrutinised.
I ask the Minister what discussions Her Majesty’s Government have had with the Colombians about progress on investigating conflict-related sexual violence specifically carried out by the security forces. The building of civil society’s trust in the security forces is clearly essential after any internal conflict, and to leave these crimes in impunity would leave many Colombian women without truth, without justice and without reparation, and would certainly weaken the process of peace-building in Colombia, which is still continuing despite the setback of the referendum.
The progress achieved in the peace agreement on this particular issue was impressive. Following a good deal of pressure, the state, in November 2013, finally appointed two women negotiators. It also established a gender sub-commission which reviewed all aspects of the agreements to ensure that they all contained a gender perspective. The gender sub-commission was made up of women from both sides of the negotiating table, with expert advice from women’s civil society organisations. The core aspect of the agreement was to exclude conflict sexual violence crimes from amnesties. As we know, the peace accord signed in September was then sadly and extremely narrowly rejected in the 2 October referendum. But talks continue and women’s organisations are extremely concerned to ensure that their achievements are not dismantled and that conflict sexual violence is not amnestied in any potential reformulation of the peace agreement.
This is a crucial issue for Colombian women and I ask the Minister to ensure that the British embassy in Bogota supports women’s NGOs in their efforts to ensure that this aspect of the agreement is not weakened. President Santos will be in the UK at the beginning of November on his state visit and I urge the Government to ensure that he meets with NGOs working on human rights in Colombia, and particularly those NGOs working on the issue of conflict sexual violence. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s assurance on this point.
Lord Bates (Con)
My Lords, like many Members who have spoken, I attended the global summit in 2014, convened by my noble friend Lord Hague. I attended a seminar hosted by the charity War Child. There our host, who led the proceedings, was a very impressive, well-spoken, British young lady. She began by sharing the fact she was born on Christmas Day 1992. I could see that people were flicking through the pages of the agenda and checking their emails. I confess I was one of them. She continued, “That was in Sarajevo in Bosnia during the war. My mother had been subjected to repeated sexual violence in a concentration camp. I was the result of this”.
She later went on to explain how her mother said she could not bear to hold her when she cried. “She wanted to strangle me,” she told others later, “so much was the trauma that lived on so long after the violence had passed”. She then explained how she had been adopted by a wonderful couple of British journalists who raised and educated her here in the UK.
As she sat down there was stunned silence. I remember thinking why that was. We had heard that all these things had happened; we had seen the videos and read the reports. That was why we were there: because we wanted to do something about it. Perhaps it was that we felt not just sympathy, but empathy with her, because this was someone who could have been our daughter, our sister, our granddaughter. It seemed to personalise the crime in a way we had not anticipated, but it also showed how sexual violence in war is a different category of crime that reached into future generations to destroy lives.
Moreover, where some victims of conflict—especially those involved in military organisations—may be regarded as heroes when they are injured, with sexual violence there is an insidious stigma and shame that perversely and bewilderingly falls on the victims rather than the perpetrators, as so many have said. Surely the first step to changing behaviour is therefore to ensure the perpetrators are labelled with cowardice and shame for such acts, and that victims and survivors are given the support they need to rebuild their broken lives.
This is why it is so important that this report has been prepared. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Nicholson, to all members of the committee for the thorough work they have done, and to my noble friend Lord Hague for courageously bringing this out of the shadows and shining a light on it to the international community. I also recognise the immense and ongoing work in this area by my noble friend the Minister, who is the Prime Minister’s special representative on preventing sexual violence.
I have just three comments or questions that I hope may add in some way to an outstanding report and to the encouraging response from the Government that we are debating this evening. First, it is very clear from the moving testimony of survivors in chapter 8 of the report the importance they attached to being able to talk openly about their feelings on what had happened to them and to overcoming the misplaced stigma, shame and so-called victim-blaming that often accompanies these crimes. The Department for International Development has done some important work on this, yet paragraph 82 of the Government’s response suggests that such services should be provided on a voluntary basis and only through informed consent. That raises a question as to how people were able to receive information to allow them to make an informed statement about consent and access to such services. I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister could say something on that, not in the winding-up speech, but perhaps in a letter following the debate.
Secondly, there is a need for justice to be done and to be seen to be done. The recent prosecution of the Congolese MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo at the International Criminal Court in March was a major step forward. Interestingly, the committee focused on one particular country—Iraq—to ask the Government to urge it to accede to the Rome statute, which the Government say they will do. But why stop there? What about the three permanent members of the UN Security Council—Russia, China and the United States—which have yet to ratify the Rome statute? What about other major influential states such as Turkey, India and Saudi Arabia? Should not pressure be placed on them, too? The best hope for reducing the level of violence is to have international systems of agreed laws with agreed justice systems to uphold them. It is deeply disappointing that countries are prepared to sign up to UN Security Council Resolutions 1325, 1820, 1888, 2242 and 2272 condemning sexual violence in conflict and then to withhold support from the very institution charged by the UN with investigating and upholding them.
The report sets out for the Government the clear and bold long-term aim of ridding the world of the scourge of sexual violence in conflict, yet surely the best way to stop war crimes is to stop war, under whose dark cover such acts are carried out: to end the scourge of sexual violence in conflict by ending the scourge of violence in conflict itself. Instead of spending our time picking up the pieces of broken lives, we can do more to help keep them intact. The preamble to the Charter of the United Nations, presented to its first General Assembly across the road from us in Methodist Central Hall, sets out the determination,
“to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … and … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women … and … to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations … can be maintained”.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hague, said, we have all the words and the protocols—we even have the institutions—but the question is: do we have the will?
Baroness Verma (Con)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to your Lordships’ House for allowing me to make a short contribution. I failed miserably to put my name down in time for this important debate, so I shall put just two or three succinct points to my noble friend the Minister. However, I want to start by thanking the committee, so ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, for its work in gathering at times harrowing evidence and witness statements for your Lordships’ House. More importantly still, the report highlights the work that needs to be done.
I want also to put on record my gratitude to the Minister, who has demonstrated her personal commitment, as well as that of the Government, to ensuring that this crucial area is seen not as an “add-on”, as my noble friend Lord Hague put it, but as a cross-government initiative to make sure that all departments understand and sign up to the need to tackle this scourge of impunity, as my noble friend Lady Helic said, on behalf of innocent victims. When I was a Minister at the Department for International Development, I spoke to many victims. I can say categorically that peace will come only when we put victims—those people who understand what is needed—at the heart of decision-making.
I want to ask the Minister two questions. First, how are the Government monitoring the safety and security of women and girls, boys and men, in camps that we are helping to support through government funding? It is fine to have canvas tents and food, but for the security of those using washrooms and accessing services is there adequate lighting and proper vetting? Are these things in place to protect people in such camps? In many camps, those people who are supposed to be protecting are actually the perpetrators of these heinous crimes.
Secondly, and as rightly raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, will the Minister reassure us that there will be no reduction in support for programmes which help women and girls in conflict areas access proper legal, medical and psychological support? Can she assure the House that this support will not be sacrificed, with the focus shifted away from humanitarian and development aid, in the context that it has been under the last Government and currently this one before recent changes, or will it suddenly be tied up with just aid for trade? If we are going to make economies stronger, I ask my noble friend the Minister to make sure that they are not sacrificed because of victims who have no voices in these conflicts.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, as another non-member of the committee, I congratulate it on the report. I congratulate all those who have advanced and are advancing work on this issue such as, of course, the Minister and her predecessors concerned in government with it. I knew the word “tireless” would be used. That is perhaps appropriate but actually, if you analyse it, it is a very odd word because I am sure that the people who do this work must get very tired.
I need to declare an interest. One of the committee’s witnesses, already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Black, was Dr Michael Korzinski, a psychologist and psycho-social expert who has been deployed twice to Bosnia as part of a team of experts. He is also co-author of a training module for judges, prosecutors and others on wartime sexual violence, developed with the support of the UK Government. As a friend, I have been aware of his work and talked to his colleagues about it as well. This has of course informed my thinking.
I want to say a word about the PSVI teams of experts. Multidisciplinary teamwork is a productive way of working in most fields and it is often productive to transfer knowledge between fields. Perhaps marginal to this debate but not to the big picture, I wonder how much learning, particularly with regard to support for survivors and witnesses, has been made available within this country to those engaged in work on sexual abuse, including and perhaps particularly trafficking, and vice versa. It is essential in both situations to understand why, for instance, a victim did not struggle or how his or her memory and recall are affected by trauma. That is relevant to how evidence may be gathered and to how a witness presents in court. As all those involved in the criminal justice system need to understand, what a witness says in response to a question may not be what a witness thinks. Indeed, the witness may not know what he or she thinks.
Noble Lords will know how important it is to capture the experience of those who work on the front line. I welcome the Government’s agreement to explore how to strengthen mechanisms for feedback from teams of expert members and to apply this to policy-making and disseminate it. There is a lot of scope for this and I urge the Government to pursue it. It is probably the cheapest and easiest recommendation in the whole report. I also welcome the Government’s encouragement of our embassies and high commissions,
“to think more ambitiously and creatively about how they may use the ToE’s expertise”.
The very nature of trauma requires an integrated approach. I understand from a lawyer recently a member of such a team that the teams currently generally comprise lawyers and gender experts but no trauma experts. An integrated approach and a sustained commitment to those concerns is required. The whole system needs to be attuned to it. I include in this not just victims. I already mentioned the range of people involved in criminal justice systems. They come from the same communities so it is more than a matter of the women or men who are victims knowing their own perpetrators—something to which the right reverend Prelate alluded. Witness support officers need to understand the impact on victims, and their own reactions; so do those working in the so often underresourced but pivotal local organisations. Relentless exposure to the horrors takes its toll. The lawyers need support and training.
Rape in conflict is not new. It was not new when it was widely used in the conflicts of the previous century. If its use is in part because of the concept of women as property, that is hard-wired—as old as the hills, maybe, but that is not to be defeatist; wiring can be changed—but so is the response hard-wired, which is why it is such a powerful tactic. It humiliates, as has been said. It undermines morale, as well as being used as a form of ethnic cleansing. My noble friend Lady Tonge called it a step towards genocide. Stigma and ostracism are not accidental outcomes, and I was struck by the observation of the noble Lord, Lord Bates, that those who are injured in different ways in war are often regarded as heroes.
Of course, support has to be culturally appropriate. If a survivor is to be supported and empowered to give the best evidence and not to be re-victimised or re-traumatised, it is critical to appreciate how his or her culture shapes the presentation. Our understanding of the neurobiology of trauma is also critical. That may sound like cutting-edge understanding, but the application may seem quite homespun. For example, a group of women in Afghanistan could not articulate their experiences and so could not access appropriate medical help—until they focused on something quite different. They sat together knitting, and gradually they began to be able to articulate it and to start the journey to recovery. That work was led by a team which understood trauma.
I have one more story as a proxy for all those who are stigmatised. A woman, who I know is not alone in her experience, was in her home city of Aleppo at a friend’s house when she got news that her home had been hit by a bomb. Distraught, she rushed out, forgetting to cover her head. Because of this “transgression”, she was raped and was then disowned by her husband. She was assaulted by the very people she thought were there to protect her and her children, who witnessed the assault. Long-term support following such experiences is a very real requirement.
I do not for a moment dismiss the experiences of men and boys, but women and girls who have been in such situations, who have lost family through war, who are themselves very vulnerable, and who find themselves bread-winners, need practical support. I will end with something that is part of the support landscape—not the end of the story but one thing that can be done. I was cheered to hear that DfID is engaged in setting up skills training for women refugees in the Middle East. This is support and prevention.
I have deliberately confined my remarks to something rather low-level, perhaps, in a topic which is very broad and deep, as the report and the debate have illustrated, but that says to me that the depth of expertise and determination that is required is also very great.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the chair and all noble Lords who served on the committee for their work in maintaining the public profile of this vital subject. I also express my appreciation for the noble Lord, Lord Hague, whose work as Foreign Secretary was critical in raising the profile of this issue on the international stage. I also pay tribute to the Minister, in her role of special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict, for continuing this vital work. I also welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Bates, who in his period of leave of absence raised £250,000 for UNICEF—so congratulations to him.
The critical issue in this debate flows from the committee’s recommendation: how do we maintain momentum—not a word I like using particularly, but it is important—and ensure that we have the tools, sufficient resource and the political will? That is the key issue arising from the committee’s report. As we have heard in tonight’s debate, we must be tough not only on the crime but on its causes. We must tackle the underlying problem of a lack of empowerment, education and inclusion. The World Bank report found that apart from lack of education and a limited awareness of their rights, the main reason that women do not seek help is a perception that violence is normal and somehow justified. As we have heard, it remains the case that women are often too embarrassed and stigmatised to seek redress.
As the committee’s report identifies, there remain grave problems with impunity in conflict-affected states. This reinforces and reflects the widespread social convention that serves to marginalise women. As we have heard, the UN recently reported evidence of conflict-related sexual violence occurring in 19 countries —clear enough evidence that it is not restricted to a particular place. It is endemic in warfare and needs to be tackled with the utmost vigour. A comprehensive approach is essential, including tackling and targeting the underlying gendered norms and behaviour that cause and perpetuate sexual violence. Just addressing stigma and prosecutions, as the Government are currently doing, will not prevent sexual violence in conflict. We need to address the gendered and social norms that cause such violence, so will the Government commit to a more comprehensive approach that works to genuinely and fully prevent sexual violence in conflict, including addressing the root causes?
In her introduction to the Government’s response to the report, the Minister reminded us that she had visited a number of conflict and post-conflict countries over the last year, promoting PSVI and encouraging greater progress in its implementation. It would be helpful to know from the Minister tonight whether she could identify those countries where she felt that most progress had been made and which factors were influencing that progress.
The noble Lord, Lord Hague, highlighted the words of the Government’s strategic defence and security review of November 2015, which stated:
“The full attainment of political, social and economic rights for women is one of the greatest prizes of the 21st century, and central to greater peace and stability overseas”.
Yet over the past 25 years, as we have heard, only one in 40 peace treaty signatories has been a woman, while between 1990 and 2010 only 12 out of 585 peace accords referred to women’s needs in rehabilitation or reconstruction.
The Government’s stated determination to ensure that in,
“all future UK-hosted peace-building events, we will identify women involved in the conflict and shine a torch on them to make sure their voices are heard”,
is extremely welcome. However, to make real progress, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, highlighted, we need: concrete targets on increasing women in peace operations; a formal mechanism for peacekeepers to connect with NGOs and organisations representing women’s rights; a commitment to resourcing gender analysis among peacekeeping operations to understand what local women are experiencing; and accountability for crimes by peacekeepers.
Your Lordships’ Select Committee’s report identified the lack of a mechanism to record and report on PSVI commitments as a serious concern with the initiative and the resulting work. Does the Minister not accept that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, said, the UK national action plan on women, peace and security is the natural place for these commitments to be recorded and reported on, particularly given the annual report to Parliament and the long-term nature of the national action plan?
The UK will be developing its new national action plan in the coming 12 months. Will the Minister commit to integrating PSVI fully into the new national action plan, including its future work priorities and programmes? The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, spoke on one of the recommendations covering the value of PSVI work across Whitehall departments: DfID, the MoD, the Home Office and other departments. With the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, leaving the Government, will the Minister tell us who is covering the role of ministerial champion across these departments? I know that the Minister is currently undertaking a number of posts, but it would be a good idea to have some indication that there will be a champion who will be committed in the longer term within government across Whitehall departments.
Your Lordships’ committee urged the MoD to publish its military policies on WPS and its incorporation into military doctrine. There was an indication in the Government’s response that MoD officials were working on this and that it would be published in the autumn. I have not been able to trace any publication or publication date. Perhaps the Minister can inform us on this.
As we heard in the debate, sexual violence against men and boys has been reported in 25 armed conflicts over the past decade. I note from their response to the report that ending such sexual violence is a priority for the Government and is encompassed within their wider efforts to tackle sexual and gender-based violence. As the noble Lord, Lord Black, highlighted, the Government understand that tackling the root causes of this violence is key to its prevention. In their response, the Government acknowledge that people who face discrimination on the grounds of gender, age, sexuality, disability, ethnicity or other characteristics can be more vulnerable to sexual violence and may experience its impact differently. That is why, as my noble friend Lady Goudie said, DfID’s funding of a major research programme on sexuality, poverty and law at the IDS is so important and vital. How will the Minister ensure that this work stream feeds into her role in championing the rights of the global LGBTI community? Will she tell us a bit more about progress in promoting decriminalisation, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Black, said, in Commonwealth countries? Has she had an opportunity to discuss this issue with the new Secretary-General? I know that it is a longer-term objective, but we need to understand the Government’s strategy in trying to achieve it. It clearly impacts on the level of sexual violence in conflict.
The final issue I will address is funding. As my noble friend Lady Kinnock said, a short-term approach has never prevented the awful crimes that we have seen committed in conflict. PSVI has been continuously funding short-term projects. Sometimes the implementation period has been less than a year. If we are going to tackle sexual violence, it needs to be with strong, funded organisations, particularly women’s organisations, on the ground. The work and the organisations need to be properly funded: they cannot rely simply on short-term, annual funding. Will the Minister commit to multiyear funding? Will she also commit to ensuring that funding reaches civil society organisations and women’s rights organisations?
I conclude with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson:
“Victory against this dreadful crime … can be achieved, but not without full commitment, a clear strategy and appropriate resources—we must ensure they are delivered”.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)
My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lady Nicholson for her expert chairmanship of the Select Committee and to members of the committee for their report and the opportunity we have to debate it tonight. In opening, my noble friend set out graphically the horrors experienced by those who are victims, but whom we also wish to assist to become survivors, of the appalling assaults upon them.
I am also delighted that my noble friends Lord Hague and Lady Helic have taken part in this debate, since it was they who put the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative on such very firm foundations, gaining international support which endures to this day. I will say more in a moment about the funding and stress the fact that this initiative will endure.
Sexual violence in conflict harms individuals and harms societies. Stigma and impunity prevent survivors from seeking justice and communities from achieving reconciliation. The Government agree with the Select Committee’s view that sexual violence in conflict,
“must not, under any circumstances, be overlooked or condoned … it must be eradicated”.
That is why ending sexual violence in conflict remains an important government priority. It is also a personal priority for me, as the Prime Minister’s special representative on this issue. I make it clear that when the Prime Minister spoke to me on the weekend of 16 and 17 July, she asked me to be her personal representative, as I had been for David Cameron, to take up the cudgels on ending violence against women and girls, and to ensure that there would be no hiatus in that work, including when a new Minister may be appointed full-time to DfID. I gladly gave that commitment.
Since the launch of the PSVI, the UK has committed over £30 million to support projects in Bosnia, Colombia, the DRC, Iraq, Kosovo, Nepal and many other countries. That has delivered real impact. Each department has a different approach to how long projects may have their allocation of funding. One always has to look at what the impact of that funding is; sometimes, one can extend it. Recently in the FCO, we made sure that one particular pot of money—if I can call it that rather broadly—can now provide funding for two years instead of one. We have to be agile in the way that we approach funding.
Funding is not just from the FCO and the different streams there. It also comes from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, where significant funding is now available for PSVI and for eradicating violence against women and girls. Noble Lords concentrated on DfID, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for DfID has made it clear today that she will keep the 0.7% funding which we have already committed to in our manifesto and that she expects all the funding at DfID to be spent. It will be spent well, which is what she is trying to present to the world. We will make sure that the spending DfID commits to, as with that from the FCO and other departments, will go to deliver real results.
I expect the multilateral aid review to be published relatively soon. Although, as one knows with language here, that means I cannot give the exact date, it will give further information about funding. Funding is not only the right thing to do with regard to PSVI, it is the right thing because it provides greater stability. That has been the message from noble Lords today, which is why I hope that any Government would want to continue that funding. It is the impact it has on the stability of governance that is so striking.
In the DRC we will continue to fund counselling for survivors and training for faith leaders. We have already trained over 17,000 military and police personnel on sexual violence issues, including 10,000 troops from the African Union Mission to Somalia and almost 6,000 members of the Peshmerga. We plan to continue to fund that work.
Our team of PSVI experts has been referred to quite a lot this evening, which I am pleased to hear. It has been deployed overseas more than 80 times in places as diverse as the Syrian border, Iraq, the DRC, Libya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mali and Kosovo. The experts have provided and will continue to provide vital training to human rights activists, healthcare professionals, members of the judiciary and the military. The training covers how to document and prosecute crimes of sexual violence, how to support survivors and how to protect civilians from human rights violations. I assure my noble friend Lady Helic and others that we will continue our support for the TOE and develop its use further.
We have launched the first ever international protocol on the documentation and investigation of sexual violence in conflict, which has become the benchmark for best practice in this field. It is the key to ending impunity and ensuring greater accountability. Its accessibility is being expanded now through new translations: it is available in 10 languages including Arabic, Bosnian, Burmese, Kurdish, Serbian and Swahili. We are now revising the protocol to make sure that we have new guidance on male and child survivors and to make it easier to use. I assure my noble friend Lord Black and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that we look very carefully at the needs of men and boys as well as those of women and girls. They are right to point out that those in the LGBTI community, and those who are not but who are assaulted because they are men and boys, sometimes have great difficulty reporting it because of the criminalisation of male sexual activity. That is something that we very much take to heart. The revision process for the protocol is due to be completed by early next year.
Initiatives, projects and protocols are all very well, but the impact of our work can be understood only when, as so many noble Lords have described today, one meets those who have survived sexual violence and hears from them directly how help to them can change their lives. Since my appointment as the Prime Minister’s special representative, I have travelled to many parts of the world afflicted by sexual violence. I have met survivors whose courage is shaming and knows no bounds. In Nigeria I met members of the Bring Back Our Girls group, campaigning for the return of the 276 Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, encouraged us in this House at Question Time, we must never forget them and never give up. Even if those girls are released or escaped, their suffering will not end there, as often they are treated with suspicion. The stigma that they face robs them of the support that they need and steals away their hope for the future. We must do our best to put that right, and through our funding in Nigeria we do just that. In Bosnia and Herzegovina I met women who, 20 years after the abuses took place, still have not been able to talk about them to their husbands, families or friends, yet I found they were prepared to share their stories with me, a complete stranger. It showed me how important it was for their experiences to be heard and their suffering recognised.
Reference has been made on several occasions today to Colombia. It is very much in our minds because of the peace agreement with FARC that has been rejected in a referendum. I know we all wish that country well and hope that peace may yet be formally found but that in the mean time it may be kept by FARC, the Government and paramilitaries.
I assure the House that our embassy in Bogota is helping to amplify the voice of survivors and to help them in their communities across every region of Colombia, because noble Lords are right to point out that it is not merely a matter of the FARC; paramilitaries also carry out violent attacks. Our embassy there is working to address the problem of how the media stereotype the victims of sexual violence. We will continue our support for that work in Colombia, and I undertake to carry forward the suggestion that when President Santos is in the UK in November, he may be able to find time in his very heavy schedule to make contact with NGOs. If not, I undertake to see what we can do on that in Colombia itself. I know that he takes to heart human rights: I have heard him say that in front of me in this House.
In the DRC, to which many noble Lords referred, I met a courageous young woman who told me she had been raped and tortured. When she looked to her family for support, they shunned her because of the stigma of rape. Despite the terrible trauma she had suffered, it was with the support of her local church and other faiths that this young woman went on to become a teacher. I am proud of the support we are able to give to organisations which maximise the co-operation of faith groups—organisations such as Tearfund. I am also grateful to those who provide healthcare, organisations such as HEAL Africa in Goma. More recently, I met Dr Mukwege, and praised him for his work. They not only literally rebuild communities, they rebuild victims’ bodies, but we also need to rebuild their minds because of the trauma they face.
My noble friend Lady Verma and the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, were right to remind us how important it is that we work together to ensure the safety of those who are IDPs or in refugee camps. We do that through some of the programmes we fund which are delivered by both UN agencies and NGOs. I visited one such project on the outskirts of Irbil in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Recently, when I was in Geneva, I was able to discuss the issue of safety of refugees when I met the High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.
Stories of communities turning their backs on survivors are sadly not at all uncommon. The work we can do is vital to remove that stigma, because stigma not only prolongs survivors’ suffering, it can delay reconciliation and threaten stability in an already fragile community. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, and my noble friend Lord Black referred to the importance of looking at the causes of stigma, and considering the decriminalisation of same-sex relations. That is essential worldwide, including in the Commonwealth. I assure the noble Lords that I have been discussing this during the whole of the Summer Recess, when I have been travelling overseas but also here in London, with representatives of countries which still criminalise these activities. We must work towards decriminalisation.
I have been trying to set out why stigma remains one of the greatest barriers that we need to face and why my priority now is to address stigma. I am determined to change the harmful attitudes, the cultural and social norms, which cause stigma—to go to the root cause, as noble Lords have asked. I continue to take our message on stigma to countries affected by sexual violence. Very shortly, I hope to visit Burma and Sri Lanka on these matters.
Understanding the challenges in different countries is the first step. We are indeed continuing to hold workshops in Colombia, the DRC, Iraq, Kosovo and Nepal, and planning others in Somalia and Nigeria. We know that the best way to achieve our goals is by involving as many local groups and organisations as possible, so these workshops will bring together survivors, community leaders, media representatives, legal experts, Governments and others. With the findings of these workshops, together with information shared by civil society and our international partners, we will then draw up an action plan.
An expert-led conference at Wilton Park in late November will take this work forward. The conference will also help to ensure that UK support, such as the PSVI team of experts and project funding, is better targeted and uses our network of 18 PSVI champion countries more effectively. It is essential that we work together and work for the future.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, and one or two others raised the issue of healthcare, and particularly the matter of abortion. Perhaps I can give a little information about DfID policy on this. Due to the time I shall try to be brief. DfID policy is that in countries where abortion is permitted, we can indeed support programmes that make safe abortion more accessible. We can do that, and we do. We can also help make the consequences of unsafe abortion more widely understood and can consider supporting processes of legal and policy reform. I would be very happy to discuss that matter further in more detail because, obviously, it depends on countries and needs.
Baroness Tonge
I thank the Minister for giving way. Before she leaves the subject of abortion could she please address the problem of the USA and the Helms amendment and say whether the Government will put any pressure on perhaps the new Administration there to change this?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I am not going to get drawn into who might win. I will make a decision once we know what the result is and we see what their priorities are. I can say that as a result of the discussions on the sustainable development goals and the inclusion of a goal with regard to women and their safety, it is important around the world that women’s health is put very much at the front of any policy-making with regard to assisting the survivors of violence. Indeed, women’s health is vital anyway. I very much appreciate the words of my noble friend Lord Hague about the empowerment of women. That goes to the heart of it. He got it absolutely right.
I was asked in particular about the Istanbul convention by my noble friend Lady Helic, and I am thinking of the international work that we do. I am raising that matter later this week with the Home Office when I attend the cross-departmental group on violence against women and girls. I understand that there are one or two residual issues on which we need legislation, so I shall be pressing hard and I shall use her voice to help me to do that.
As noble Lords have said tonight, the whole point is that those who survive need to feel that they are seeing justice, however they define that. Survivors define it in so many different ways. They need to know that the perpetrators will be held to account. They need to know that justice has a long memory and a long arm and that one day it will come knocking on their door. I give an undertaking now that not only am I working on that but the Foreign Secretary has made it crystal clear at the United Nations General Assembly that he is determined to do that too. We also need to ensure that, when tackling the perpetrators, we do not exclude members of peacekeeping forces, because they must not exercise sexual exploitation and abuse either. The current UNSG has made it clear that there is zero tolerance. I have not yet managed to speak to Antonio Guterres, who was named as the successor last Friday. He takes over in January. Certainly from his previous utterings, I would expect him to have the same view.
Reference has been made to the training of security personnel and the importance of the role of women in peacekeeping. When we responded to the report we made it clear that in,
“arranging all future UK-hosted peace-building events, we will identify women involved in the conflict and shine a torch on them to make sure their voices are heard. We will promote the active participation of women in such discussions through political and/or financial support”.
We will continue to do that. We will maintain that commitment.
I conclude by again thanking members of the committee for their report, and all those who contributed to the debate. In answer to many points made, this is not just me and not just the Foreign Office—it is a matter of working across all departments in government. We face tremendous challenges, but they are the challenges that need to be faced. We cannot do it alone; we need to do it together, internationally, and this Government must maintain the lead set by my noble friends. We embrace challenging ambitions—but, my goodness, we owe it to the victims and survivors to carry them through. My father always used to say, “There’s no such word as ‘can’t’—it’s ‘won’t’”. I won’t say “won’t”; I will say “I will”.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne
I thank the Minister immensely for her rich and robust reply, which has given us much to work on in partnership. Across your Lordships’ House this evening, there has been a complete singularity of purpose. Therefore, in partnership we can do a whole lot more. The noble Lord, Lord Hague of Richmond, started off by saying, “Let’s do something”. Now, let us do something more—that is the next step. I thank the Minister and everyone who has spoken. I look forward to the next round. We have an APPG meeting next Wednesday, where we will launch a campaign.