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Oral Answers to Questions
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Nicola Blackwood)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends that exercise referral schemes should be provided for people at increased risk of ill health, and it is right that such schemes are developed on a local basis to meet the needs of the population. Our NHS five year forward view strategy prioritises prevention, and the GP physical activity clinical champion programme has taught more than 4,500 healthcare professionals to provide advice on physical activity in routine clinical consultations.
Julie Elliott
In the north-east, only 33% of adults participate in weekly sport, compared with 38% in London. This has a knock-on effect on people’s health throughout their lives. What are the Government doing to address these geographical health inequalities?
Nicola Blackwood
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise this question. Inactivity costs England an estimated £7.4 billion a year, and regular physical activity reduces the risk of developing many health conditions by between 20% and 40%. People who exercise regularly can reduce their risk of developing certain kinds of cancer. We are particularly pleased that, in addition to the GP physical activity clinical champion programme, Public Health England has secured funding from Sport England to pilot an education cascade model involving midwives, physiotherapists and mental health nurses and, with the support of the Burdett Trust for Nursing, will soon be launching a pilot involving 21 clinical nurse champion programmes to embed this knowledge in practising nurses. It will, however, be up to local areas to ensure that they make the best of these programmes by targeting them at their local area.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
On the behaviour part of the question, what can the Minister do to combat what seems to be an emerging picture of over-consumption of painkillers and to enforce NICE guidelines on their use?
Nicola Blackwood
The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue relating to drug and alcohol misuse. We have prioritised this question as one of the local statutory requirements. We have given £16 billion to local health authorities for public health delivery, and we will expect them to prioritise this issue.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
Lack of physical activity contributes to obesity. With today’s Health questions falling on World Obesity Day, as I am sure the Minister is aware, it is vital that we recommit our efforts to reversing rising obesity levels in the UK. An opportune moment would have been the childhood obesity strategy—sorry, the plan—that was published over the summer, but sadly it did not go far enough. Therefore, will the Minister commit today to ensuring that the plan is fully realised as a preventive strategy to change behaviours and help to make the next generation healthier than the last?
Nicola Blackwood
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her appointment. I am particularly pleased to see her in her place. She has played an important role in the all-party parliamentary group on breast cancer. We are very proud of the childhood obesity plan. It is based on the best available evidence, and it will make a real difference to obesity rates in this country. The Government are also consulting on the soft drinks industry levy, and we have launched a broad sugar reduction strategy. She is absolutely right to say that we must now work hard to ensure that we deliver on that with the NHS, local authorities and other partners as we move into the delivery phase of the plan. We are proud that it is a world-leading plan.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
Plymouth has gone further and faster in integrating health and social care than many parts of the country have done. The integrated fund that it has set up covers housing and leisure as well as health and care. I would be delighted to visit Plymouth and to learn more about how the fund is working in practice.
Johnny Mercer
As my hon. Friend points out, Plymouth has taken innovative steps to try to address some of the funding inequalities at play within the Northern, Eastern and Western Devon clinical commissioning group. However, between the calculated spend and the actual spend, there is a funding shortfall of £30 million. Will he agree to work with local MPs, stakeholders and those involved in the wider Devon sustainability and transformation plan to develop a written agreement to address these inequalities?
David Mowat
My hon. Friend refers to the time lag that can exist between target and actual funding. When I visit, I will be delighted to meet stakeholders not only to understand the allocation issues to which he refers but to congratulate the health and social care leadership on the progress they have made with their fund and on the above-average satisfaction ratings that have been achieved in Plymouth.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
David Mowat
Yes, I am happy to meet in that context. The right hon. Gentleman is right that the Success regime is about a transfer of resources from the community hospitals to care at home and domiciliary care. That is not necessarily the wrong thing to do, but it must be done right, and I am happy to meet.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I welcome greater integration, but the Minister will be aware that there are grave concerns about the effect of cuts to social care on the NHS. More and more patients are spending greater time in more expensive settings in hospital when they could be better looked after in their own homes or in the community, but cuts to social care make that impossible. Will the Minister set out what appraisal the Government are making of the effect and the damage to the NHS of cuts to social care?
David Mowat
My hon. Friend is right: social care funding is tight. It is also true to say that those parts of the country that do the best in this regard—there are some that do considerably better than others—have integrated social care and health most effectively. On the budget itself, there is some disparity among different local authorities. About a quarter of local authorities have increased their adult social care budget by 5% or more this year.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Ind)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Nicola Blackwood)
The scientific evidence for the UK chief medical officer’s low-risk alcohol guidelines is available on the gov.uk website. The guidelines were published in August, following testing through public consultation to ensure that the advice is as clear and usable as possible. We received 1,019 responses to the consultation.
Simon Danczuk
There is an overwhelming scientific evidence base that shows the health benefits of moderate drinking—something to which I can attest. Does the Minister not agree that the chief medical officer should highlight those benefits more?
Nicola Blackwood
For many people, drinking alcohol is part of their normal social lives, and we are perfectly clear that these guidelines are advisory. They are in place to help people make informed decisions about how they drink and decide whether they want to take fewer risks with their drinking. They are not designed to label everyone who drinks as a problem drinker or to prevent everyone who wants to drink from drinking, but I point out to the hon. Gentleman that Rochdale has more than double the number of admissions to hospital where alcohol is a factor than the best authorities in England.
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
Following on from that answer, will the Minister reassure the House that public health guidance given to consumers of alcohol is realistic and will not undermine responsible drinking campaigns, penalise responsible drinkers or damage the vital role that pubs play in our communities?
Nicola Blackwood
As I have said, these guidelines are simply intended to be advisory. They are intended to give the best possible information and advice and to put all the evidence in one place so that people can make the best possible decisions with their drinking.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Campaigners on alcohol abuse have acknowledged the importance of the pub, which is a controlled sociable environment in which to enjoy a drink compared with the unrestricted supermarkets. Will the Minister have a word with her colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government who continue to preside over a system in which profitable wanted pubs are demolished and in which supermarkets are built on the site against the wishes of local communities?
Nicola Blackwood
The hon. Gentleman plays a very important role as chair of the all-party save the pub group and has been a dogged campaigner for the pub. We are very clear that social drinking is not the target of these low-risk guidelines. I am happy to meet and discuss this issue with my DCLG colleagues.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Sadly, very few people are aware of the link between alcohol consumption and obesity and of the long-term impacts of life-limiting diseases—not just cirrhosis. To ensure that the impact of obesity is integral to the alcohol consumption guidelines, will the Minister, on World Obesity Day, put tackling both adult and childhood obesity even higher up the Department’s agenda?
Nicola Blackwood
The hon. Lady is right to raise the hidden risks of alcohol consumption, which is exactly why a widespread analysis of the evidence was conducted through this guideline exercise. She is right to say that obesity should be a top priority for the Government. We will analyse her question and look into it.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)
Between 1997 and 2010, 103 NHS hospital PFI schemes reached financial close, creating liabilities for the NHS of £77 billion. Three legacy PFI schemes have been signed since 2010 on stricter terms, with liabilities of £1.7 billion, and one scheme has been signed under the new PF2 model, worth £340 million. In nearly all cases, except for a few of the early schemes, ownership of the hospital reverts to the NHS at the end of the PFI contract. But even in those schemes, the NHS always has the first option on whether to end or continue with the contract.
Rob Marris
Effectively, those figures will mean even more debt for the next generation. Will the Minister commit the Government to abandoning all PFI? It always was an idiotic scheme. No more PFI, no more PF2, etc—just abandon it, Minister.
Mr Dunne
The hon. Gentleman has a consistent track record in opposing PFI, even when the vast majority of the schemes were put under contract by the Government of which he was a member—so I will not take any lectures from him about how to deal with PFI. We will continue to use the new stricter terms as and when appropriate.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)
The National Audit Office concluded that the PFI contract for the Norfolk and Norwich hospital was a bad deal for the taxpayer and for the NHS, yet last year Octagon Healthcare made a record profit as the Norfolk and Norwich’s finances sank ever further into the red. Will the Minister consider making a formal approach to Octagon Healthcare to ask it to forgo part of its profit to help confront the enormous financial black hole that the trust faces?
Mr Dunne
We have provided access for seven of the worst affected trusts with obligations under PFI to a support fund of some £1.5 billion to help them with those obligations. I am not sure whether Norfolk is one of them; I suspect that it is not. I would be happy to talk to the right hon. Gentleman about this, but rather than raising his hopes inappropriately I have to say to him that many of the schemes are too costly to divert resource to pay them off completely.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
The “Five Year Forward View” will be delivered through sustainability and transformation plans which are currently being developed by clinical commissioning groups in collaboration with local authorities and providers. NHS England expects that all STPs will be published, although in some areas discussions are already taking place.
Mr Baker
I am led to understand that in Wycombe we should expect no dramatic changes and possibly no publication of a strategic plan. Does my hon. Friend agree that public confidence would be much enhanced by the clear articulation in public of a strategy for meeting the “Five Year Forward View”?
David Mowat
I agree with my hon. Friend, and I will try to give a clear answer. NHS England is determined that all 44 areas will publish their plans shortly. For those that have not already done so, publication will take place after the formal checkpoint review at the end of October. Areas are working to different timescales, but the plans will all be published by the end of November. For the avoidance of doubt, that includes the STP for Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
The NHS “Five Year Forward View” called for a radical upgrade in prevention and public health. How does the Minister square that with the Government’s subsequent cuts to public health, including £200 million in-year cuts and further cuts expected by 2020?
David Mowat
The STP process is an attempt to upgrade our public health and mental health provision and cancer outcomes. Every STP will be expected to provide an assessment of local public health priorities and the timetable for progress towards that.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
Wantage community hospital in my constituency has recently closed because of the threat of Legionnaires’ disease, and it will not reopen until we have finally concluded consultation on the sustainability and transformation plan—if it reopens at all. This consultation has been delayed, and that naturally worries my constituents. Will the Minister join me in urging Oxfordshire to get on with consulting on this very important plan, so that we can have a reasonable discussion?
David Mowat
I will join my right hon. Friend in doing that. I am not familiar with the specifics of the Wantage case, but it does not sound right that it is an ongoing thing that is not fixed quickly.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
May I congratulate the Minister on his appointment to the Front Bench, as well as the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), on hers? I am sure that they will do a terrific job in their posts.
As a type 2 diabetic, I am very concerned about the fact that local clinical commissioning groups are just not providing information on preventive work against diabetes. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that diabetes will be referred to once these plans have been published?
David Mowat
I will confirm that. There is a national diabetes plan, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware. Diabetes is one of a number of long-term conditions in which these plans are charged to deliver improvements, and it would not be acceptable for a plan to be signed off or completed unless progress on diabetes had been made.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
When the Minister looks at new treatment options in the forward view, will he consider the example of Velindre NHS Trust in south-east Wales, which treats 1.5 million cancer patients every year and is now using reflexology, reiki healing, aromatherapy, and breathing and relaxation techniques to alleviate anxiety, pain, side effects and symptoms? If that was more widely spread over the health service in England, cost savings and patient satisfaction would increase.
David Mowat
The STP process is locally led, not led from the centre, but I would expect clinical judgments of the type mentioned to be made if they could be confirmed on the basis of scientific and trial-based evidence.
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
Central to the aim of the five year forward plan for the NHS is a sustainable health service in which all patients receive the right care at the right time in the right place. With that in mind, can the Minister tell me what action he is taking to address the problem of delayed hospital discharges, which have risen by 20% so far this year? That amounts to an additional 926 people every day condemned to stay in hospital longer than is medically necessary.
David Mowat
First, may I welcome the hon. Lady to her post and wish her luck in the new job? There has been an increase in delayed discharges in England over the past year. Only a part of that increase is due to difficulties in the integration between social care and the NHS—a large part of it comes from within the NHS itself—but it is not uniform across local authorities. Indeed, many local authorities are improving in this regard. What is very clear is that those making the most progress the most quickly are those that have gone furthest in integrating social care and healthcare.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
The Department of Health has commissioned three separate reviews on the diagnosis, treatment and transmission of Lyme disease. The work will be carried out by the epicentre of University College and be clinically driven and evidence-based, and it will be published in late 2017.
Michelle Donelan
Although I am delighted that the Government are looking into this serious and important disease, as the reviews progress thousands of people contract Lyme disease each year, particularly in areas such as Wiltshire, and they can receive inadequate treatment, so will the Minister look into speeding up these reviews?
David Mowat
It is fair challenge that this work is high priority, and we need to go as fast as possible, but we are working with research teams. The work will be trial-based and needs to be as definitive as possible. In the meantime, early diagnosis is the key way to make progress. Public Health England continues to work with GPs and the public on it.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
My mother recently died of motor neurone disease. In some areas of my constituency, there are 13 sufferers per 10,000 people, whereas the UK average is two per 100,000. Will the Minister please agree to meet me and representatives of the Motor Neurone Disease Association to discuss how the UK Government could lend their weight to combating this awful and debilitating disease?
David Mowat
Yes, I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that subject.
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his response on that matter.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Bearing in mind that cases of Lyme disease have quadrupled in the past 12 years, and that some of those cases have been in my constituency of Strangford in Northern Ireland, what has been done with the devolved Assemblies in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to ensure that a UK-wide strategy is put in place to address this trend and to provide effective diagnosis and treatment?
David Mowat
The principal thing that we need to do with Lyme disease is to make progress on diagnosis, treatment and transmission through a definitive approach. When the results of the study that I mentioned are published, of course they will be available across all parts of the United Kingdom.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)
I agree with my hon. Friend that this is an important area. In his report earlier this year, Lord Carter identified potential annual savings of £700 million from reducing the variation in procurement performance between providers. We have announced a first tranche of 12 standardised products for all NHS providers to use; this will boost procurement volumes and bring about economies of scale, securing lower prices. These initial products, including commodity items such as gloves and needles, cover £100 million of trust spending. We expect this to result in savings of up to 25%.
Andrew Bridgen
Innovative private sector suppliers have successfully partnered with the NHS since its inception, and it is quite right to say that for that relationship to be sustainable, those suppliers must make a profit. However, does the Minister agree that rogue companies that exploit the NHS’s lack of commercial expertise could be named and shamed, because they are making a lot of money at taxpayers’ expense?
Mr Dunne
We believe that the right approach to securing procurement savings is to take advantage of the immense amount of data available across the NHS. That is why we have set up the purchasing price index benchmarking tool. Data on more than £8 billion of expenditure, covering over 30 million separate procurement transactions, has been collated and will be analysed. We will use that information judiciously to save the taxpayer money. We think that that is the right way to start, rather than naming and shaming.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
I urge the Minister, when thinking about national procurement and national commissioning, to look at the national strategies that can underpin them—for example, at why we need to renew the national stroke strategy. Some 100,000 people a year suffer a stroke, and nearly 1 million people in this country have had a stroke. They care very much about rehabilitation and other services.
Mr Speaker
The Minister’s challenge is to relate that very important matter to the equally important issue that happens to be the subject of the question: procurement.
Mr Dunne
I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for drawing the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that the topic is procurement. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the fact that we have looked at an acute heart treatment strategy. We are creating centres of excellence across the country to ensure that if people suffer from an acute heart incident or a stroke, they are treated by the specialists who will give them the best prospects for recovery.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
In the last four years, 29 trusts have been put into special measures; that is more than one in 10 of all NHS trusts. Of those, 12 have now come out, having demonstrated sustainable improvements in safety and quality of care. There are nearly 1,300 more doctors and 4,200 nurses working in trusts that have been put into special measures.
Sir Henry Bellingham
The Secretary of State will be aware because he visited it last year, that the Queen Elizabeth hospital in my constituency has come out of special measures. It has made excellent progress, not least by introducing Saturday lists for in-patients and putting in place numerous measures to transform the out-patients department. Will he join me in paying tribute to all staff of the hospital, particularly the chief executive, Dorothy Hosein, and the chairman, Edward Libbey, for the excellent progress that they have made?
Mr Hunt
I am very happy to do that, and I very much enjoyed my visit to the QE with my hon. Friend a couple of years ago. This is a very good example of how trusts can be transformed when they go into special measures. Since coming out of special measures, the QE has opened a state-of-the-art laparoscopic theatre, got a dedicated breast unit, and expanded its A&E. It has got 72 more nurses over the past few years. It is a good example to many other trusts in special measures, and it shows that that really can be a turning point, bringing about benefits for patients and staff.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
The problem is that many trusts are still in a financial mess and have a deficit. If hospitals and the wider health service are to solve that, they need more funding, and councils, too, need funding for care. What is the Secretary of State doing to fight for more funding for his Department to ensure that we deal with those problems properly?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that in last year’s spending review the NHS got the biggest funding increase of any Government Department. We have committed to the NHS’s own plan, which asks for £10 billion more a year during the course of this Parliament in real terms. However, I do not disagree that there are still very real financial pressures in the NHS and particularly in the social care system. The trusts that are delivering the highest standards of care are those with the lowest deficits. Delivering unsafe care is one of the most expensive things people can do, which is why this is an important agenda.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State will know that in my own area of Calderdale and Huddersfield there is a dreadful situation for the trust that has been caused by the behaviour of the clinical commissioning group and the way in which it procures. He has received a large petition from thousands of people in the Huddersfield area about the closure of the A&E. Will he look at that seriously and intervene, because the competence of local CCGs is not up to the mark?
Mr Hunt
I am well aware of that issue and have received a number of representations from hon. Members on both sides of the House. There is a mechanism by which these issues end up on my desk—they have to be referred by a local council’s overview and scrutiny committee and then I get an independent recommendation—but I will look at this carefully if that process is followed.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
To cope with rapid population increases in my constituency, Basingstoke has advanced plans to build a critical treatment hospital and cancer centre, with the support of more than three quarters of the population. Does my right hon. Friend expect sustainability and transformation plans to provide clear, timely direction on plans for this new model of care in the community?
Mr Hunt
I can absolutely reassure my right hon. Friend on that. One of the main purposes of STPs is to make sure that we deliver our cancer plan, which will introduce a maximum four-week wait between GP referral and ultimate diagnosis. If we get it right, that might result in around 30,000 lives a year being saved, so this is a big priority for every STP.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)
I join the Secretary of State in welcoming the dedication and commitment of everyone who works in the NHS. We are taking active steps to encourage more people to become doctors, nurses and support staff. Only last week, my right hon. Friend announced a commitment to recruit an additional 25% of doctors to train in the NHS, which is 1,500 more doctors on top of the 6,000 currently trained every year.
Imran Hussain
Net temporary and agency staff expenditure has risen by 40% since 2013. It accounted for 8% of total staff expenditure in 2015-16, which equates to £4.13 billion. Does the Minister agree that rising agency costs point to a recruitment crisis, and will he make a statement to the House outlining his plans to address that crisis?
Mr Dunne
We recognise, absolutely, that bills for agency staff have become unsustainable, which is why we have taken deliberate action, including by introducing price caps on hourly rates last November, which has had a significant impact on reducing agency costs. In the year to date, agency costs are some £550 million less than they were last year.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I welcome last week’s announcement about the increase in the number of medical school places. What plans does the Department have to ensure that there are sufficient clinical training places for those medical students?
Mr Dunne
I can reassure my hon. Friend that there is considerable excess demand from UK-based students to train to become a clinician in this country—only half of those who apply to train in medical school are accepted at present—so we are confident that there will be plenty of take-up for those extra places. With regard to clinical placements, we are in discussions with universities, colleges and teaching hospitals to ensure that there are adequate numbers of places.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I welcome the 25% expansion in medical student places, but I reject tying that to the elimination of 25% of overseas doctors who currently work in our NHS. With 10% of posts unfilled and ever-rising patient demand, the Secretary of State must know that we will always need international graduates in the future. Does he not recognise that he is creating unrealistic expectations and conflict with this idea of a British-only medical service?
Mr Dunne
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to set the record straight and stop this scaremongering, which is undoubtedly unsettling many of the very valuable doctors, nurses and other foreign nationals who are currently providing vital services to the NHS. Last week’s announcement was about adding more doctors to be trained who are UK-based. We are not changing any of the present arrangements for international students being trained here, or doctors and nurses working here.
Dr Whitford
The Government might not be changing their position right now, but with one in 10 posts currently unfilled, and given the rhetoric used last week, how does the Minister expect us even to retain foreign doctors, let alone attract them to fill those posts?
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Staff shortages this summer led United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust to introduce a temporary closure of Grantham A&E, causing huge concern to my constituents. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me and Jody Clark, the founder of a local campaign group, to discuss how we can resolve this unacceptable situation?
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
The Minister says that no rhetoric or scaremongering was used last week. Can he explain to the House what the Prime Minister meant when she said:
“there will be staff here from overseas in the interim period until the further numbers of British doctors are trained and come on board in terms of being able to work in our hospitals”?
What did that mean? What should we expect next—ambulances plastered with “Go home” slogans?
Mr Dunne
That is exactly the kind of ill-judged remark I have been talking about, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has used it in his first appearance in his new post. By the way, I congratulate him on that new post, but I very much hope that he will use more measured language in the future, rather than spreading that kind of inappropriate rumour. The interim period referred to is the period during which doctors will be trained. We will not get new doctors coming in under the increased allocation until 2023, and during that time we will clearly need to use all measures to ensure that we fill the spaces that I acknowledge we have across several of our hospitals.
Jonathan Ashworth
I appreciate the Minister’s warm welcome, and I can tell him that I am very much looking forward to shadowing the Secretary of State, but his comments on ill-judged remarks should be directed at the Prime Minister, not me. We have seen 8,000 fewer nurses, student nurse bursaries are set to be cut, there is a reliance on agency staff and a failure to train enough doctors, and now, after six years in office, the Government are talking about self-sufficiency. Given the concerns that these plans do not go far enough, will the Minister tell us what steps he will take to ensure that no staff from the EU lose their jobs, and will the NHS still be able to recruit from the EU if necessary post Brexit?
Mr Dunne
Health Ministers have been very clear about reassuring all the 53,000 EU citizens working in our NHS that their roles are secure. Regarding clinicians, I remind the hon. Gentleman that, although we have some vacancy rates, which are acknowledged, we now have 7,800 more consultants employed in the NHS than in May 2010, 8,500 more doctors than in May 2010, and over 10,500 more nurses working on our wards. We have gone through a very consistent policy of recruiting more people to work in the NHS under this Government.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
The independent cancer taskforce highlighted the report “Saving lives, averting costs”, which identified cost savings resulting from earlier diagnosis, in particular for colon, rectal and ovary cancers. We have committed to a further £300 million for earlier diagnosis, one major product of which will be the 28-day diagnosis standard to which the Secretary of State referred earlier.
Mr Baron
In welcoming the Minister to his post, may I highlight evidence to show that early diagnosis, in addition to making for better survival rates, offers substantial cost savings? Colon cancer costs £3,000 per patient per year to treat at stage 1, compared with over £12,000 if it is diagnosed and treated at stage 4. We have a shortage of health economists in the NHS, so will the Minister go further and actually commission a study to look at this issue on behalf of the taxpayer, because it requires further detail?
David Mowat
We agree that early diagnosis saves lives and can lead to cost savings. Just as an example, we know that GP referrals are up by 91% since 2010—an additional 800,000 people are getting early diagnosis—and we are beginning to see the results of that coming through in the one-year survival figures. On my hon. Friend’s specific point about further study, Public Health England and Macmillan have commissioned recent studies on modelling, one part of which will be on the cost impact of earlier diagnosis, and we look forward to seeing the results of those studies.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
GPs play a central role in the early diagnosis of cancer. In the 1990s, Sunderland was one of the most under-resourced areas in England in terms of the GP workforce, and we now face a similar and growing problem, even though action was taken then. Will the Minister set out how he intends to make sure not only that we train more family doctors, but that they are encouraged to work in areas where there is an acute shortage?
David Mowat
We are training 3,250 extra GPs every year, and we have a target of 5,000 additional doctors working in general practice by 2020. However, as well as new GPs, we must do much better with retention. That means keeping the GP population that we have, and there are a number of steps that the Government are taking to do that. On the specific point about Sunderland, there is a bursary scheme that is aimed at attracting GPs to areas where they may not necessarily have wished to work previously.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)
In 2010 a target was set by NHS leaders to make £20 billion of efficiency savings by 2015 in order to make more funds available for treating patients and to allow the NHS to respond to changing demand and new technology. Under my right hon. Friend’s inspirational leadership as a Health Minister, the NHS broadly delivered on this original challenge, reporting savings of £19.4 billion over this period. All these savings have been reinvested into front-line NHS services.
Sir Simon Burns
As Members would imagine, I warmly welcome that answer from the Minister. Would he confirm that those savings were achieved through greater efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of care and by cutting waste in the NHS that occurred between 2002 and 2007? Can he confirm that the benefit of that achievement to the NHS is that not a single penny of those savings goes to the Treasury, but is reinvested in the NHS and front-line services?
Mr Dunne
My right hon. Friend managed to include several questions in his impressive supplementary. I can confirm that much of the waste that took place in the years he cited—2002 to 2007—related to projects of the previous Labour Government that they themselves then cancelled, such as the IT project. I can also confirm that savings generated in the NHS are kept in the NHS. Lord Carter, whose report I referred to earlier, has identified £5 billion of efficiency savings, which we hope to deliver during this Parliament.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
There is a distinction to be drawn between realistic efficiency targets and systematic underfunding. Only last month, Simon Stevens told the Public Accounts Committee that for three of the next five years
“we did not get what we originally asked for”.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, also said last month that
“we’ve got a huge gap coming… it’s the chairs and chief executives on the front line…who are saying they cannot make this add up any longer.”
On funding, the Government keep saying that the NHS is getting all that it has asked for; those actually running the NHS say something quite different. Who is right?
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Tragically, suicide is now the biggest single cause of death in men under 50. There are 13 suicides every day, of which three quarters are men. I am currently reviewing our suicide strategy to make sure we leave no stone unturned in trying to reduce the totally unacceptable level of these tragedies.
Colleen Fletcher
Yesterday marked the launch of the mental health awareness and suicide prevention campaign called “It takes balls to talk” across Coventry and Warwickshire. The campaign is a public information programme targeted at male-dominated sporting venues, which aims to direct men to help and support when they need it to promote positive mental health and reduce the incidence of male suicide. With suicide being the single most common cause of death in men under 45, will the Secretary of State take the opportunity to welcome and support this important new campaign?
Mr Hunt
I am happy to do just that. I would like to thank the hon. Lady for bringing up this very important and difficult issue. We are making progress in reducing suicide rates, but we can do an awful lot better. The thing that troubles me most is that nearly three quarters of people who kill themselves have had no contact with specialist NHS mental health services in the previous year, even though in many cases we actually know who they are because, sadly, most of them have tried before. I am very happy to commend the “It takes balls to talk” campaign. She may want to put the campaign in touch with the national sport mental health charter, which is another scheme designed to use sport to try to boost the psychological wellbeing of men.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
A recent survey showed that one in four members of the emergency services experienced mental health problems, and that a number of them experienced suicidal thoughts. What is the Secretary of State doing to protect our vital paramedics and other ambulance staff, and to ensure that they get the support they need in dealing with absolutely appalling situations?
Mr Hunt
Again, I thank the hon. Lady for raising that. She will be pleased to know that the NHS has introduced a scheme, backed with funding, to encourage NHS trusts to look after the mental wellbeing of their own staff. I particularly want to pay tribute to the courage of people who work in the air ambulance service, because they see—day in, day out—some of the most difficult and distressing cases. They have to cope with the pressure of that when they take it home every day, and we all salute them.
Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
Every patient discharged from hospital into a care home should have a care plan or discharge assessment. This should include a clear assessment of their needs, covering transport, carers, GP notification, medication and, where necessary, clothing requirements.
Oliver Dowden
I have been approached by a number of constituents concerned about cases of elderly and vulnerable people who have been discharged from hospital straight into care homes, often without any basic personal effects or clothing because their family cannot or are not willing to supply them. Does the Minister recognise this, and what can the Government do to tackle it?
David Mowat
As I said earlier, there is a national process in the form of the care plan. Where the family is not able to or will not provide support, typically the voluntary sector is asked to do so. If that does not work, local authorities can increase the personal expenses allowance to provide clothing. I am interested to hear about the cases that my hon. Friend mentions in his constituency, and I am very happy to talk to him to understand better why the process has failed there.
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Last week, I announced plans to make the NHS self-sufficient in the supply of newly qualified doctors by the end of the next Parliament. We recognise the brilliant work that is done by the many outstanding overseas doctors who work in the NHS and have made it clear that, whether or not they are from the EU, we wish that work to continue post-Brexit. However, as the fifth largest economy in the world, Britain should be training all the doctors it needs. While there will always be beneficial exchanges of doctors and researchers between countries, we have a global obligation to train enough doctors for our own needs, otherwise the inevitable consequence will be to denude poorer countries of doctors whose skills are desperately needed.
Luke Hall
Thornbury health centre is crying out for redevelopment to cater for the growing local population. Will my right hon. Friend meet me, representatives of the health centre and NHS Property Services to see how we can take a co-ordinated approach that will move the health centre forward?
Mr Hunt
I can do better than that, because I have said that I am prepared to go to the health centre. I remember a very good visit to Thornbury community hospital during the general election campaign. I understand what those at the health centre are trying to do and they are absolutely right to be thinking about how they can improve out-of-hospital services.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State look into the creation of a sideways move for a chief executive of a trust that was criticised for failing to investigate patient deaths? Six weeks after the special recruitment exercise by Southern Health, Katrina Percy has resigned from her advisory role, with a substantial 12-month salary payoff that has been signed off by the Department of Health and the Treasury. The campaign group, Justice for LB, has called that “utterly disgraceful” and I agree. Will the Secretary of State investigate?
Mr Hunt
I agree with the hon. Lady that the way this case was handled was by no means satisfactory. The truth is that it took some time to establish precisely what had gone wrong at Southern Health. As this House knows, because we made a statement at the time—I think it was an urgent question, actually—there was a failure to investigate unexplained deaths. I do not think the NHS handled the matter as well as it should, but we now have much more transparency and we do not have a situation where people go on and get other jobs in the NHS, which happened so often in the past.
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that the London ambulance service is in special measures and has been for some time. I visited it this summer and am pleased to confirm that some £63 million of additional funding has been provided to the ambulance service since April 2015. The service is starting to make significant inroads in increasing the number of paramedics who are available on call, with some 250 more being added over the last couple of years.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
It is clearly unacceptable if the situation that the hon. Lady sets out is the case. I am happy to meet her and work with her to take the action that is needed to make things better.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I am very happy to do that. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that the provision of mental health services to children is one of the biggest weak spots in NHS provision today. It is an area that we are putting a big focus on. I would be happy to talk to her about the situation in her constituency.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
David Mowat
I have made it clear that we should all be working together to defeat cancer. We know that the best way of doing so is early diagnosis. We have made a lot of progress on that in England over the past few years but have a lot further to go. We are of course willing to talk to the devolved Administration about what they can learn from us—and perhaps vice versa.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
David Mowat
This is a very difficult area, but decisions on priority are clinically driven and must continue to be based on peer-reviewed data. The most recent review determined that less than one third of second transplants would result in survival after five years; that is why they were not funded. There will, however, be a further review next April, and to the extent that the data have changed there will be a new evaluation at that time.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Mr Jeremy Hunt
The Conservative candidate in the Witney by-election will be saying very clearly that because of the extra funding from this Government we are aiming to have 5,000 more doctors working in general practice by the end of this Parliament, something that would not have been possible with the increase of less than half that amount promised by the Labour party.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Mr Dunne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising baby loss awareness week. I am sure that, along with other hon. Members, she will be participating in the Backbench Business debate on that later this week. In February the independent maternity review, Better Births, made a number of recommendations, including on neonatal critical care. We are studying those recommendations and are due to report initial findings from our work in December.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
I listened very closely to the Secretary of State’s comments earlier on mental health. On 9 December he stood at that Dispatch Box and said that
“CCGs are committed to increasing the proportion of their funding that goes into mental health.”—[Official Report, 9 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 1012.]
However, my research shows that 57% of clinical commissioning groups are reducing the proportion they spend on mental health—yet another broken promise. When will we have real equality from this Government for mental health?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I will tell the hon. Lady what this Government have done. We have legislated for parity of esteem for mental health. We are treating 1,400 more people every single day for mental health conditions compared with six years ago. We have a new plan that will see 1 million more people treated every year by 2020, including a transformation of child and adolescent mental health services. That is possible because we are putting into the NHS extra money that her party refused to commit to.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I find it extraordinary that the Labour party said that our plan to train more doctors was “nonsense”. We currently have 800 doctors in the NHS from Sri Lanka, 600 from Nigeria, 400 from Sudan and 200 from Myanmar. They are doing a brilliant job and I want them to continue doing that job, but we have to ask ourselves whether it is ethical for us to continue to recruit doctors from much poorer countries that really need their skills.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
I was alarmed to read at the weekend that NHS chiefs are warning that hospitals in England are on the brink of collapse. Is it the Government’s intention to cut the public supply of healthcare in order to create demand for a private healthcare system, or will they give the NHS the additional funds it needs?
Mr Hunt
Let me remind the hon. Lady that the party that introduced the most outsourcing to the private sector was her Labour Government under the previous Health Secretary, Alan Milburn. Our view is that we should be completely neutral as to whether local doctors decide to commission their care from the public sector or private sector. We want the best care for patients.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
I welcomed last week’s NHS Improvement report which states that there are now sufficient staff for Chorley and South Ribble hospital’s A&E department to reopen, but I am dismayed that the trust is delaying the reopening until January next year. Will the Minister reassure me that he will work with me and other stakeholders to oblige the trust to open as soon as possible?
Mr Dunne
My hon. Friend has been a doughty champion of Chorley, in combination with another Member of the House and local campaigners, who visited the Houses of Parliament yesterday to meet local MPs. While welcoming the reopening of the A&E from January, I am happy to continue to work with my hon. Friend to see whether it can be brought forward.
Mr Speaker
The other doughty champion of the hospital is of course the right hon. Member for Chorley (Mr Hoyle), who regularly deputises for me in this Chair. I am sure the House will want to acknowledge that important fact.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I heard the Minister’s response earlier. He was of course right that sustainability and transformation plans are led locally, but he failed to acknowledge that the Government have given a mandate to make cuts attached to STPs. Without consultation, my local hospital has been downgraded. What on earth will the Secretary of State say to my constituents who may lose loved ones because they have had to travel miles further to another hospital?
David Mowat
If I may, I will give a quote:
“To reshape services over the next 10 years, the NHS will need the freedom to collaborate, integrate and merge across organisational divides.”
That comes from the 2015 Labour manifesto. The STP process is designed to bring about better care and health, and better productivity. We should be critical friends of the process because we all want a better national health service.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
Local health commissioners have concluded that Telford’s brand new women and children’s centre, which serves some of the most deprived populations in the country, should be closed and moved to a more affluent area where health is better than the national average. The commissioning process has lost the confidence of local people. Will the Secretary of State intervene and ensure that local health commissioners fulfil their legal duty to reduce health inequalities?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I thank my hon. Friend for standing up for her constituents—it is absolutely right that she should do so. She would agree that that has to be a local matter led by commissioners locally, but she can be reassured that we are always watching what is happening to ensure that people follow due process, and that the results of any changes proposed benefit patients as intended. I will therefore watch very carefully what is happening in Telford and in Shropshire more broadly.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
About half a dozen times in the last hour, the Secretary of State has bragged about the extra money he is putting in to the national health service, so why is Bolsover hospital, like many others that have been referred to in the past half hour, due to close? Why are neighbouring hospitals in countless constituencies in Derbyshire closing? Why does he not use some of that money to save the Derbyshire hospitals?
Mr Hunt
The extra money we are putting in to the NHS is going to better cancer care, better mental health care and better GP provision—it is going to all the things that Members on both sides of the House know matter. It will also mean that we can support our hospitals better. With our ageing population, we will continue to have great demand for hospital care, but the best way to relieve pressure on those hospitals is to invest in better out-of-hospital care, which has not been done for many years.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Kettering general hospital is treating a record number of patients with increasingly world-class treatments, yet despite being located in an area of rapid population growth, due to an historic anomaly, the funding for the local clinical commissioning groups is among the worst in the country in relative terms. What can Her Majesty’s Government do to correct that?
Mr Hunt
I am happy to look at that particular funding issue for my hon. Friend. I know that Kettering hospital is under a great deal of pressure. The one thing that it could do to relieve its financial pressures is to look at the number of agency and locum staff that it employs. As with many hospitals, there are big savings to be made in that respect in ways that improve rather than decrease the quality of clinical care.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware that the Public Accounts Committee has questioned both the Department of Health and NHS England on the parlous state of NHS accounts this year, following the comments by the Comptroller and Auditor General. It is clear that STPs are the only plan on the table. Will the Secretary of State make clear his support to the NHS to deliver the STPs in the teeth of opposition from his own Back Benchers? If he will not, what is plan B?
Mr Hunt
I do not recognise the picture the hon. Lady paints about opposition to STPs. We need to ensure we have good plans that will deliver better care for NHS patients by bringing together and integrating the health and social care system, and improving the quality of out-of-hospital plans. While we are in a period where those plans have not been published there will obviously be a degree of uncertainty, which we will do everything we can to alleviate, but she is right to say that these plans are very important for the future of the NHS. The process has our full support.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware of the concern in my constituency about the future of Paignton hospital, which prompted hundreds to turn up to a recent meeting. Does he agree with me that it is vital the clinical commissioning group, in publishing its plans, does not just publish what it will remove but the details of what it will replace them with?
Mr Dunne
Considerable efforts are going into sorting out some of the historical challenges in the provision of both acute and community care in Devon. I hosted a meeting for a number of colleagues who are concerned about this and I am happy to continue to engage with colleagues across the county.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Two years ago, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS trust privatised support services, including cleaning, handing them over to Carillion in an effort to save money. Since then there have been shortages of equipment, shortages of staff and an appalling decline in standards of cleanliness. Will the Secretary of State condemn Carillion for putting patients at risk? When will he ensure that hospital services in Nottingham are properly funded?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
The decision on whether to outsource services must be a matter for local hospitals. I know that that hospital has been struggling with its deficit. I have been to visit the hospital myself and I know it has been trying very hard to improve clinical care. If the contract is not working and the quality is not right, I would expect the hospital to change it, but it must be its decision.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I am sorry, but, rather as in the health service under any Government, demand has exceeded supply and we must move on.
Mr Speaker
I was keeping the hon. Lady waiting for only a moment, so that there was a due sense of anticipation in the House. That sense now definitely exists.
Implementation of the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I am grateful for the chance tonight to present petitions calling for fair transitional arrangements for 1950s-born women affected by changes to the state pension age. That group of women is bearing an unfair burden. When the Pensions Act 2011 was debated, Government Ministers promised transitional arrangements to ease that burden, but those have not materialised, leaving women in my constituency and many others across the UK facing hardship, stress and worry.
I will read out the full text of the petition but, as you have said, Mr Speaker, other Members need not do so. In addition to presenting a petition on behalf of constituents in Worsley and Eccles South, I am presenting petitions from the following constituencies: Ashford; Basildon and Billericay; Basingstoke; Beverley and Holderness; Bexhill and Battle; Birmingham, Hall Green; Birmingham, Perry Barr; Blackley and Broughton; Blackpool North and Cleveleys; Blackpool South; Boston and Skegness; Bosworth; Bournemouth East; Bournemouth West; Brecon and Radnorshire; Brentwood and Ongar; Bridgwater and West Somerset; Broadland; Bury South; Bury St Edmunds; Canterbury; Central Suffolk and North Ipswich; Chichester; Chippenham; Dartford; Daventry; Derbyshire Dales; Dover; Dudley North; Ealing North; East Devon; Exeter; Folkestone and Hythe; Gainsborough; Grantham and Stamford; Gravesham; Great Yarmouth; Halesowen and Rowley Regis; Hastings and Rye; Hemsworth; Hereford and South Herefordshire; High Peak; Huntingdon; Ipswich; Kenilworth and Southam; Lincoln; Louth and Horncastle; Ludlow; Medway; Rutland and Melton; Meon Valley; Mid Dorset and North Poole; Mid Sussex; Monmouth; Newark; Newbury; Newport West; Newton Abbot; North Cornwall; North Devon; North Dorset; North East Derbyshire; North East Hampshire; North Somerset; Plymouth, Moor View; Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport; Poole; Rushcliffe; Scarborough and Whitby; Sevenoaks; Shrewsbury and Atcham; Somerton and Frome; South East Cornwall; South West Devon; South West Hertfordshire; South West Norfolk; South Ribble; South Staffordshire; South Suffolk; Spelthorne; Stourbridge; Stroud; North Swindon; Taunton Deane; North Thanet; The Cotswolds; The Wrekin; Tiverton and Honiton; Torbay; Torridge and West Devon; Totnes; Truro and Falmouth; West Dorset; Wycombe; Wyre and Preston North; Wyre Forest; and Yeovil.
May I thank all those who have signed this petition across the country, and may I thank the Journal Office for all its work in registering the petitions?
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Worsley and Eccles South,
Declares that as a result of the way in which the 1995 Pension Act and the 2011 Pension Act were implemented, women born in the 1950s (on or after 6 April 1951) have unfairly borne the burden of the increase to the State Pension Age; further that hundreds of thousands of women have had significant changes imposed on them with little or no personal notice; further that implementation took place faster than promised; further that this gave no time to make alternative pension plans; and further that retirement plans have been shattered with devastating consequences.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to make fair transitional arrangements for all women born in the 1950s (on or after 6 April 1951) who have unfairly borne the burden of the increase to the State Pension Age.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P001709]
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of 485 residents of Delyn constituency, in north Wales, in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. I have had nothing but support for the petition and for justice for the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign.
The Petition of the residents of Delyn.
[P001710]
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of North Ayrshire and Arran in the same terms. I present today 2,534 signatures on behalf of my constituents, who are deeply concerned about this social justice issue and wish to make their voices heard.
The Petition of the residents of North Ayrshire and Arran.
[P001711]
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of hundreds of concerned residents of Wigan in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Wigan.
[P001712]
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of 350 of my constituents in Lewes in the same terms as that presented by the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Lewes.
[P001713]
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of many hundreds of residents of Scunthorpe constituency in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Scunthorpe.
[P001715]
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition in the same terms on behalf of the constituents of Inverclyde. It received 460 signatures.
The Petition of the residents of Inverclyde.
[P001716]
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of residents of Cardiff Central in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. In addition, I am presenting a petition from the constituency of Wansbeck.
The Petition of the residents of Cardiff Central.
[P001714]
The Petition of residents of Wansbeck.
[P001942]
Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition containing 2,156 signatures on behalf of the residents of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.
[P001717]
Corri Wilson (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock.
[P001718]
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
I rise to present 647 signatures on behalf of the residents of Berwick-upon-Tweed and Hexham constituencies in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
[P001719]
The Petition of the residents of Hexham.
[P001943]
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of the constituency of Stroud in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Stroud.
[P001720]
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of 276 residents of Falkirk in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Falkirk.
[P001722]
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of more than 400 residents of the constituency of Stretford and Urmston in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Stretford and Urmston.
[P001721]
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Argyll and Bute in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Helensburgh.
[P001730]
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition of 4,122 of my constituents in Kingston upon Hull North in the same terms as that presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. I also present a petition on behalf of the constituency of Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford.
The petition of residents of Hull North.
[P001727]
The petition of residents of Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford.
[P001825]
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Linlithgow and East Falkirk in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Linlithgow and Falkirk East.
[P001729]
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
I rise to present a petition in the same terms on behalf of 565 of my Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituents, who are rightly disgusted by this injustice and are calling for fair transitional arrangements to be put in place by the Government.
The petition of residents of Rutherglen and Hamilton West.
[P001726]
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Heywood and Middleton in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Heywood and Middleton Constituency.
[P001728]
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of residents of Glasgow North in the same terms as those of my hon. Friends.
The petition of residents of Glasgow North.
[P001724]
Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of St Helens South and Whiston in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of St Helens South and Whiston.
[P001725]
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition, which was signed by more than 1,000 of the constituents of the beautiful city of Dundee, in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Dundee West.
[P001723]
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to present this petition, with 373 signatures, on behalf of the people of Barrow and Furness in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Barrow and Furness.
[P001731]
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of hundreds of residents of Coventry South in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Coventry South.
[P001732]
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of the residents of Colne Valley in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, signed by highly concerned residents in my constituency in support of fair transitional pension arrangements for women born in the 1950s.
The petition of residents of Colne Valley.
[P001733]
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of the residents of Paisley and Renfrewshire North in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, in the interests of fairness, equality and natural justice.
The petition of residents of Paisley and Renfrewshire North.
[P001737]
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of hundreds of residents of East Lothian in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. Let justice prevail.
The petition of residents of East Lothian.
[P001735]
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Makerfield in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South, which 780 highly concerned residents have signed in support of the WASPI women.
The petition of residents of Makerfield.
[P001734]
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition signed by hundreds of my constituents in Denton and Reddish, and also a petition of the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. The 1950s women have spoken—it is time for justice.
The petition of residents of Denton and Reddish.
[P001736]
The petition of the residents of Redcar.
[P001930]
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Ellesmere Port and Neston in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Ellesmere Port and Neston.
[P001738]
Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of 760 of the residents of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk.
[P001739]
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of the residents of St Austell and Newquay in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. The petition calls on the Government to make fair transitional arrangements for all women born in the 1950s, who are most impacted by the increase in the state pension age.
The petition of St Austell and Newquay.
[P001740]
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of hundreds of residents of the Glasgow South West constituency in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Glasgow South West.
[P001741]
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of York Central in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South, on behalf of all WASPI women.
The petition of residents of York Central.
[P001742]
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
Similarly, I rise to present a petition on behalf of the constituents of the Glasgow South borough constituency in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Glasgow South.
[P001743]
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of the residents of the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey—the concerned residents who have signed in support of the WASPI women—in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The petition of residents of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
[P001744]
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
I rise to present petitions on behalf of the residents of North Cornwall and of Camborne and Redruth in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, and on behalf of our Cornish WASPI women.
The Petition of residents of North Cornwall.
[P001746]
The Petition of residents of Camborne and Redruth.
[P001747]
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Kilmarnock and Loudoun in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. It is signed by 160 people, but supported by many more due to the unfairness of the situation.
The Petition of residents of Kilmarnock and Loudoun.
[P001748]
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of the Chippenham constituency in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. It has been signed by 1,656 of my constituents, reflecting the level of local discontent on the issue.
The Petition of residents of Chippenham.
[P001750]
Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of 982 residents of Wrexham in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South—thank you to her.
The Petition of residents of Wrexham.
[P001749]
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition in the same terms as all the others, and add the voices of the ladies of Dundee East to the campaign for pension fairness.
The Petition of residents of Dundee East.
[P001756]
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of 473 of my constituents in the Vale of Clwyd in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Vale of Clwyd.
[P001755]
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Clwyd South in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Clwyd South.
[P001754]
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of 2,249 residents of the Waveney constituency in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Waveney.
[P001753]
Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West) (Ind)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the many residents of Edinburgh West in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Edinburgh West.
[P001757]
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Paisley and Renfrewshire South in the same terms, and urge the Government to correct this appalling injustice.
The Petition of residents of Paisley and Renfrewshire South.
[P001752]
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of hundreds of residents of Great Grimsby in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of the UK.
[P001751]
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I rise to present these stylishly presented petitions on behalf of residents of the Banff and Buchan constituency and the Gordon constituency in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, with 568 and 123 signatories respectively.
The Petition of residents of Banff and Buchan.
[P001759]
The Petition of residents of Gordon.
[P001758]
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the wonderful WASPI campaigners and 455 residents of Durham city on the same basis as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. I have been advised that I need to declare an interest because I fall into the relevant age group.
The Petition of residents of Durham.
[P001761]
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of more than 700 residents in Eastbourne and Willingdon in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Eastbourne and Willingdon.
[P001760]
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I present this petition on behalf of hundreds of residents of Southampton, the WASPI women of Southampton and the constituents of Southampton, Test in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Southampton Test.
[P001762]
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of the residents of Ynys Môn in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. The good people of Anglesey and north Wales want fair transitional arrangements and for the Government to act now.
The Petition of residents of Anglesey, North Wales.
[P001766]
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Swansea East and the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Swansea East.
[P001767]
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Lanark and Hamilton East in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. On behalf of the thousands of WASPI women, and in the spirit of true equality, I call on the Government to hear their voices and take action now.
The Petition of residents of Lanark and Hamilton East.
[P001768]
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of 316 residents of Thanet South in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Thanet South.
[P001769]
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Castle Point in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Castle Point.
[P001770]
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney.
[P001771]
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Lancaster and Fleetwood in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Lancaster and Fleetwood.
[P001956]
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of many residents of Gedling, Nottingham East, Nottingham North, Sherwood, Rushcliffe, Ashfield, Mansfield and Derby South, in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Rushcliffe.
[P001877]
The Petition of residents of Nottingham North.
[P001886]
The Petition of residents of Ashfield.
[P001894]
The Petition of residents of Gedling.
[P001911]
The Petition of residents of Mansfield.
[P001914]
The Petition of residents of Nottingham East.
[P001916]
The Petition of residents of Sherwood.
[P001917]
The Petition of residents of Derby South.
[P001918]
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition from the residents of Midlothian in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, on behalf of the many hundreds of residents who have signed.
The Petition of residents of Midlothian.
[P001781]
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition, signed by 1,160 people, on behalf of the residents of Moray in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Moray.
[P001776]
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I rise to present the petition on behalf of the residents of Birmingham, Yardley in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South, which 587 concerned residents have signed. I thank the Yardley WASPI women for their hard work in collecting the signatures.
The Petition of residents of Birmingham Yardley.
[P001810]
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I rise to present this beautifully bound petition on behalf of 1,146 residents of Chesterfield in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Chesterfield.
[P001875]
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Nottingham South in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. I congratulate the magnificent WASPI women of Nottinghamshire.
The Petition of residents of Nottingham South.
[P001876]
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South on behalf of 227 of my constituents in Newcastle upon Tyne North—only a small proportion of the 4,000 women in my constituency affected by the 2011 changes alone—and also on behalf the residents of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham). They are asking the Government to right this injustice.
The Petition of residents of Newcastle North.
[P001858]
The Petition of residents of Stockton North.
[P001940]
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of hundreds of residents of East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow, to address justice and pensions inequality, in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of East Kilbride.
[P001813]
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of hundreds of residents of Wirral South in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South—the brilliant Member for that constituency—with sincere thanks to the WASPI women of Merseyside.
The Petition of residents of Wirral South.
[P001817]
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
I rise on behalf of the residents of Livingston to present this petition of 530 signatures in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. May this Government listen to the WASPI women across this country, and do them justice.
The Petition of residents of Livingston.
[P001819]
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I am Spartacus, and I too rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of East Worthing and Shoreham in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, with hundreds of signatures collected in just two hours at Shoreham farmers’ market last Saturday morning.
The Petition of residents of East Worthing and Shoreham.
[P001821]
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
I rise on behalf of the people of Yeovil to present this petition in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Yeovil Constituency.
[P001822]
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
When it comes to fighting for their rights, the women of Leigh are the WASPIest of them all. That is why I rise to present one of the biggest petitions of them all, with well over 1,000 names. The message they have asked me to convey tonight is, “Prime Minister, we won’t go away until we have justice.”
The Petition of residents of Leigh.
[P001850]
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
It is my privilege on behalf of the residents of Glenrothes and central Fife, and of the neighbouring constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins)—my good friend—to present this petition in the same terms as those that have already been presented this evening.
The Petition of residents of Glenrothes.
[P001824]
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of hundreds of residents of Ogmore in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Ogmore.
[P001823]
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of 415 residents of Washington and Sunderland West in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. I hope that these petitions will finally make the Government rethink their strategy and the unnecessary suffering caused to these WASPI women.
The Petition of residents of Washington and Sunderland West.
[P001826]
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of the South Shields constituency in the same terms as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of South Shields.
[P001773]
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of the Eastleigh constituency, including Botley, Hedge End, West End, Bursledon, and of other areas, including the Southampton, Itchen and Southampton, Test constituencies, in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South; 92 signatures are enclosed.
The petition of residents of Eastleigh.
[P001827]
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
I rise to present petitions on behalf of the residents of Manchester, Withington, in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the Residents of Manchester, Withington.
[P001774]
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Ditto, Mr Speaker. I rise to present a petition for fairness from concerned residents of the Foyle constituency in the same reasonable terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Foyle.
[P001830]
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition from the residents of the Swinton and Silverwood wards in my constituency, who are among more than 50,000 south Yorkshire women hit by these unfair pension age changes, in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of the residents of Wentworth and Dearne.
[P001833]
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I know this will come as a shock, Mr Speaker, but I rise to present a petition in the same terms as those of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South on behalf of very many residents of the constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham.
The Petition of the residents of Sleaford and North Hykeham.
[P001831]
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of 680 residents of Amber Valley in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Amber Valley.
[P001772]
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
In the same terms, I salute the hundreds of WASPI ladies in Stoke-on-Trent South.
The Petition of residents of Stoke-on-Trent South.
[P001787]
Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
I, too, out of solidarity, wish to declare an interest. I rise to present a petition on behalf of the constituents of Meriden, but also of the Burton WASPI group, in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Meriden.
[P001837]
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Ross, Skye and Lochaber in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. It is gratifying to see so many women signing the petition and so many Members in the House today. Let us hope that the Government listen, do the right thing and use the surplus in the national insurance fund to bring forward mitigation.
The Petition of residents of Ross, Skye and Lochaber.
[P001848]
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
I rise to present a petition in the same terms as that of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South on behalf of the ladies of Braintree, and also, with permission, on behalf of the ladies of Saffron Walden.
The Petition of residents of Braintree.
[P001834]
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I declare an interest, having been born on 7 December 1956. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me, on behalf of my constituents of Broxtowe, to present this petition in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South.
The Petition of residents of Broxtowe.
[P001939]
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Cheltenham in the same terms as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. I thank the Cheltenham WASPI women for their dogged and dignified campaign.
The Petition of residents of Cheltenham.
[P001745]
Mr Speaker
That was all very efficiently completed by my colleagues in under half an hour. Thank you very much indeed for your co-operation. We come now to the Adjournment. May I appeal to Members who are leaving the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly, so that the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) can present her case and be heard?
Point of Order
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is rather frustrating to hear Ministers and some Back Benchers continually referring to the Government having invested, or intending to invest, £10 billion into our NHS over the course of this Parliament. You may be aware, Mr Speaker, that I sit on the Health Committee. I would like to read you the following extract from a report:
“Last year’s Spending Review announced that the NHS would receive an additional £8.4 billion above inflation by 2020-21. But whilst previous spending reviews define health spending as the whole of the Department of Health's budget, the 2015 Spending Review defines it in terms of NHS England’s budget, which excludes, for example, spending on public health”—
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady. She is nothing if not persistent and she has put that thought on the record. I say to her in all courtesy, however, that she is not the first person to do this—I probably did it myself in the very distant past—and I do not suppose she will be the last. It is a very interesting point, but it is a continuation of debate. There is no matter for the Chair here. For that reason, and that reason alone, I must ask her to desist at this stage, but I have a feeling she will find ingenious ways of returning to her point on other occasions.
Perhaps we can leave it there, because we are short of time and I want to proceed. Unless there are further points of order—I am not exactly looking for them—then we will come on to the ten-minute rule motion. I call Conor McGinn.
Unlawful Killing (Recovery of Remains)
Tuesday 11th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Unlawful Killing (Recovery of Remains) Bill 2016-17 View all Unlawful Killing (Recovery of Remains) Bill 2016-17 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a presumption against eligibility for parole in cases where a person, convicted of unlawfully killing another person, has not provided relevant knowledge in their possession for the purposes of facilitating the location and recovery of the remains of the victim; to create a separate offence of withholding such information; to make provision about the available sentences for such an offence; and for connected purposes.
For a parent to suffer the anguish of losing a child is beyond words, but the horror of having such a loved one murdered is surely too awful even to contemplate, so it is harder still, if even possible, to imagine the pain of being denied the chance to hold a proper funeral and lay that loved one to rest. My constituent Marie McCourt does not need to imagine it, because for 28 years she has been forced to endure what she describes as the special kind of torture of knowing she could die without ever discovering where her daughter’s body is or being able to lay her daughter to rest with the dignity she deserves.
Marie’s daughter Helen was murdered at the age of just 22 by Ian Simms in February 1988, as she travelled home from work in the village of Billinge in my constituency. In a landmark conviction, he was found guilty of murder based on overwhelming DNA evidence, even though Helen’s body was not found. For almost three decades, Marie has been tormented because he refuses to reveal what happened to her daughter’s body. Despite this brutal act of callousness and lack of remorse, he could soon be released from jail. This is not the justice that Marie and her family deserve. Killers who inflict this kind of suffering on their victims’ families should not be released on parole. That goes to the heart of the Bill I am bringing forward today.
Before I continue, I want to say something about Marie. She had Helen taken from her in the cruellest circumstances, only to be denied the sacred right to bury her daughter. Few could have found the strength to carry on, let alone mount such a formidable campaign to have the law changed so that others do not suffer in the way she has suffered. Her quiet dignity and powerful determination are an example to us all.
Our campaign for Helen’s law, led by Marie, calls on the Government to introduce a “no body, no parole” policy for murderers. The online petition has already attracted the support of over 340,000 signatures, and in February I was honoured to accompany Marie to No. 10 Downing Street to present the petition. The Government responded to the overwhelming public support for the campaign by asking the Parole Board to review the guidelines around convicted murderers. We await the outcome of that review, which is at least welcome progress, but as Marie has so eloquently and repeatedly said, this campaign is not just about her or Helen; it is about ensuring that others who find themselves in such horrific circumstances do not have such added pain visited on them.
Just yesterday, the Home Office revealed to me that since 2007 alone there have been 30 murders in England and Wales where no body has been recovered, but as it currently stands the English legal system does not require a convicted murderer, at the end of their determined tariff, to admit guilt or reveal the location of a victim’s remains before being released. Marie believes that if parole is granted to Helen’s killer, her hopes of finding her daughter will never be realised. As I have said, she is also determined that no other family should have to live that ordeal.
My Bill seeks to acknowledge, and in some cases mitigate, the pain and distress caused to the families of missing murder victims. There are three main elements to it: first, denying parole to murderers for as long as they refuse to disclose the whereabouts of their victim’s remains; secondly, passing a full-life tariff, denying parole or release, until the murderer discloses the location and enables the recovery of their victim’s remains; and thirdly, applying the rarely used common-law offences in murder trials without a body of preventing the burial of a corpse and conspiracy to prevent the burial of a corpse, disposing of a corpse or obstructing a coroner. In essence, the proposals are simple: if a convicted killer refuses to give information to reveal the location of a victim’s body, they should not be considered eligible for parole and they should stay in prison. The proposals would effectively mean a whole-life tariff for murderers who refuse to disclose the location of their victims and enable their remains to be recovered to give families a chance to pay their last respects.
Let me be clear: the modern system of parole is widely understood to involve a prisoner earning their conditional release through good behaviour. I believe in and support the rehabilitative purpose of our penal system, but while the current tariff system for the most serious crimes reflects the consensus that the majority will at some point be able to rejoin society, one is bound to ask in what sense a murderer who is content to torment the family of their victims in such a way could ever have earnt their freedom.
In recent years, Parliament and the legal profession have begun to take the rights of victims more seriously, and I believe that this Bill would be a further step towards ensuring that victims are at the heart of our criminal justice system—where they should always be.
Let me make it clear that the proposals in the Bill would not affect any individual’s fundamental right to maintain their innocence. The law changes I propose would not impinge in any way on the rights of convicted killers to retain full access and full recourse to the appeals process. It is worth noting, however, that in the case of Helen McCourt’s killer, his guilt has only been further confirmed at every single appeals stage because of enhanced DNA evidence against him.
Let me also say that my Bill will have no impact on the work of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains in respect of those referred to as “the disappeared”; nor would it impact on arrangements set out in relation to sentencing for offences committed during the troubles or indeed any future arrangements on addressing the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland. I want to acknowledge, however, that the pain and anguish felt by the families of the disappeared are the same as for any family who has lost a loved one in such awful circumstances.
We are not alone in this country in seeking to find a workable legal solution. In Australia, “no body, no parole” laws have already been passed at state level and are being examined at federal level. Quite simply, the introduction of Helen’s law is the only chance that the McCourts and other families like them have of securing some peace and the justice they deserve.
I want to acknowledge some of the families who are visiting Parliament today to attend this debate. Sheila Dolton and her daughter Nina are here. Their son and brother, Jonathan, was murdered in 2004. The family has continually written to his killer, begging for information about the son’s body, but has received no reply. Sam Gillingham was just 16 when her mum, Carole Packman, disappeared from the family home in Bournemouth in 1985, while Tracy Richardson’s mum, Michelle Gunshon, vanished in December 2004 while working at the NEC in Birmingham. Sadly, this Bill comes too late for Winnie Johnson who went to her grave never knowing where Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley buried her 12-year-old son, Keith Bennett. But there is still time for Marie McCourt and other grieving mothers such as Joan Morson and Jean Taylor who also saw their children’s killers go to jail without revealing where their victims’ bodies lay. Denying a final resting place is perhaps the last heinous act by killers who have no place in a civilised society. The agony and torment caused to those who cannot lay a murdered loved one to rest is incalculable.
The families of victims quite rightly expect the law to act in their favour, instead of seeing the justice system rewarding with parole killers who decide to remain silent. For those who have had to face the loss of a loved one at the hands of a callous murderer, there is nothing we can do to make up for their loss, but if there is a way to help them receive the justice they deserve, we must take it. If there is a way to compel those who have committed the most awful crimes to assist in this task, we must do it. Most importantly of all, if there is a way to ensure that no family has to endure the suffering that Marie McCourt and so many others have, we—in this of all places—have a duty to act.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Conor McGinn, Tom Tugendhat, Mr George Howarth, Siobhain McDonagh, Tom Elliott, Vernon Coaker, Marie Rimmer, Nusrat Ghani, Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson, Carol Monaghan, Diana Johnson and Mr Alan Campbell present the Bill.
Conor McGinn accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 3 February 2017, and to be printed (Bill 73).
Aleppo and Syria
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo and more widely across Syria.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this emergency debate on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo and more widely across Syria. Although it was I who moved the motion applying for the debate under Standing Order No. 24, it has the strong support of the all-party parliamentary group for Friends of Syria, particularly my co-chairman, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), and my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I am most grateful to them for the work that they do in the all-party group.
I am particularly pleased to see that the Foreign Secretary is present. The whole House will be grateful for the importance that he attaches to the debate. He has written and spoken about Syria, and I know that it is a subject on which he feels strongly. We are very pleased that the House is to hear from him this afternoon on what I think will be his first debate as Foreign Secretary
Yesterday, Mr Speaker, you had a choice between a Standing Order No. 24 application for a debate on Brexit and another for a debate on Syria. Everyone in the House will know that you made the right decision, and you explained your reasons, but I now submit that the effects of the crisis in Syria on our children and our grandchildren will be every bit as great as the effects of Brexit. Today’s debate will be watched by many people: civil society across much of the world will take an interest in the tone and the view that the House of Commons adopts this afternoon, and that is a very good thing.
At about 10 o’clock this morning there was a series of further air raids on civilian areas in Aleppo, and there are already reports of yet further casualties, maimings and deaths. As we look back at the Syrian crisis over recent years, we see that, at every turn, progress towards a solution has, alas, eluded us. First, at a relatively early stage, there was the plan put forward by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations Secretary-General, who stated specifically that as Assad was part of the problem he would by definition be part of the solution. Kofi Annan believed that Assad should be part of the negotiations, but that was vetoed by the Americans, and indeed—alas—by the British Government. Now, many years later, we understand how important it is that Assad should at least be present at the initial negotiations. He is not going to be beaten militarily, in my view, and it is clearly right for him to be there for the early part of the negotiations, as the Syrian opposition accept. However, more time has been lost.
Secondly, there was Obama’s failure to stand by the red lines that he had clearly asserted on the use of chemical weapons. That was a disastrous decision, and one from which we will suffer in the future.
Thirdly, there was the failure to provide safe havens. Much of civil society believed in the importance of providing refuge for the—now—more than 5 million Syrian men, women and children who are on the move in Syria, having been driven out of their homes. Those safe havens could, with political will, have been set up in both Idlib, which is in the north of Syria, and Daraa, which is near the Jordanian border in the south. We could, as many people have advocated, have set up no-bombing zones, but we have not done so. Today, 5 million people in Syria and 6 million outside are on the move, often unprotected, unfed and unhoused. That is the reality: nearly half the country’s population of 22 million are on the move, either inside Syria or beyond its borders.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that, militarily, there is no reason why we could not enforce a no-fly zone when so many people are being affected? The helicopters that are dropping barrel bombs could easily be brought down by rockets based in Turkey or Lebanon, or, indeed, by our own type 45s in the Mediterranean.
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend knows far more about such military matters than I do. That is my understanding of the position: that a no-fly zone—and I will say more about this later—is perfectly feasible. It is a question of whether the international community has the political will to face down the Russians and the Syrian helicopters by setting one up.
Fourthly, there was the failure to secure unfettered access for the United Nations. It is unprecedented in recent years for those bent solely on looking after their fellow citizens to be unable to gain unfettered access to very dangerous zones. This gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of those who work in the humanitarian world, doing nothing other than try to assist their fellow human beings and bring them sustenance, help, medicine and support.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
What roles does the right hon. Gentleman envisage for Syria’s near neighbours and for the west, including Britain, in the protection of people in the safe havens to which he referred earlier?
Mr Mitchell
That is an extremely good point, and I shall come to it shortly.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Is not the tragedy of Syria that none of us can imagine a future Syrian Government who would have both the power to take charge and the wisdom to govern in a peaceful and unifying way?
Mr Mitchell
I shall come to that point as well, but let me say now that the whole purpose of the efforts of the International Syria Support Group—and those of other elements, under Staffan de Mistura—is to answer the question that my right hon. Friend has so eloquently posed.
The fifth failure lies in the surrounding countries, particularly Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Although they have acted heroically in dealing with the extraordinary number of people who have fled across the borders, often under gunfire, there has been a lack of support from the international community for countries whose populations have ballooned, given that one in three of the people in Jordan and Lebanon has fled from Syria. Britain has undoubtedly done her stuff. I am pleased to see that the Secretary of State for International Development is present; she can be extremely proud of the Department that she has inherited for the outstanding work that Britain has done in helping refugees in the surrounding countries—more, I might add, than has been done by the whole of the rest of the European Union.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
My right hon. Friend may well be aware that, in a fairly short space of time, far more Syrian than Lebanese children will be being educated in Lebanese state schools. Does that not speak volumes for the hospitality of the Lebanese?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend has made his point with great eloquence.
We are not using the opportunity—if I may put it in that way—to provide an education for the children in the camps, given that they at least constitute a captive audience. Every child in a camp in one of the surrounding countries should be receiving an education. There should be education and training, and, indeed, there should be opportunities for the countries that are receiving all the refugees to have free access to the European Union for their goods and services. That is not happening. Moreover, because some countries have failed to pay their dues to the United Nations in some of the camps, the children and adults there are receiving only half the rations that they should be receiving, and they are down to starvation rations at that.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I recently received a parliamentary answer from the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), on the subject of air drops. He stated:
“The use of air drops to deliver aid is high risk and should only be considered as a last resort when all other means have failed”.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would seem that “all other means” have indeed failed?
Mr Mitchell
Not in respect of the camp. On the basis of my knowledge of these matters, I think that my hon. Friend the Minister of State was right to say that air drops should be used only as a last resort, but clearly they should be used if we reach that point.
The sixth and final barrier to progress has, of course, been the reception of refugees in Europe, where there has not been proper processing. Many of these people have cast themselves into the hands of the modern-day equivalent of the slave trader in the hope of reaching a more prosperous and safer shore. I think that Europe as a whole—which, admittedly, has its inward-facing problems—has failed to address this problem adequately, and to show proper solidarity with Greece and Italy as they tackle a very severe problem.
There are only two ways in which this can end: a military victory by one side or the other, or through negotiation. I submit that there is no way in which a military victory will be secured by any side in Syria. We must therefore hope that the fighting stops as soon as possible in order to create the space in which negotiations for the future can take place. We have all seen the heroic work that has been done by Staffan de Mistura, and the backing provided to him and the International Syria Support Group is essential. I will say more about that in a moment. To bring about a cessation in fighting we need the influence of the United Nations, of the great powers and of the countries in the region who have influence over some of the protagonists, in particular Iran and the Saudis. Where a country is able to exercise influence to stop the fighting and create the space for politicians to engage, in Geneva and elsewhere, it is absolutely essential that it should do so.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for securing this debate. Does he agree that the Russian military has a deep history with the Syrian military, and that it is in Russia’s gift to deliver a peace process? When we visited Russia as part of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Russian politicians kept reminding us they wanted to be taken seriously by the whole world and that they were a serious power. In order to be taken seriously, however, they really should be following the rule of law and international law. They should not be aiding and abetting war criminals such as Assad.
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point.
The extraordinary misfortune of timing that I mentioned is being exacerbated by international attention being elsewhere. In Europe, Brexit, the issues with the euro, Greece, the German banks and the focus on migration have all meant that the focus has been on the symptoms rather than the causes of this conflict. In the United States, politicians have turned in on themselves as the election approaches, and Obama has underwritten an isolationist approach. However, there are people such as Senator Lindsey Graham and Secretary Kerry who are seized of the importance of this moment in tackling what Russia is doing. Then of course there is Russia, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) has alluded. It is behaving like a rogue elephant, shredding international humanitarian law and abusing its veto powers in the UN Security Council. It is using the veto to protect itself from its own war crimes.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The right hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly compelling case. The situation in Aleppo is beyond appalling. Does he agree that our own Government should follow the example of the French in supporting a referral of Russia to the International Criminal Court? Also, I completely understand the case that he is making for a no-fly zone, but does he recognise the risks involved in establishing such a zone? How would he best protect against the risk of an expansion of the mission if it were not initially successful?
Mr Mitchell
I shall come on to the hon. Lady’s second point in a moment. On her first point, I agree with her. The UN Secretary general called for such a referral only yesterday.
The attack on the convoy marked a new low, with 18 humanitarian workers killed, food and medicines destroyed and warehouses and medical facilities seriously damaged. We should be clear about what is happening in Aleppo. The Russians are not attacking military formations. They are not engaging with militias and fighters. They are attacking hospitals and a terrified population, which is now down from 2 million to under 250,000. People are hiding in the cellars and the rubble that is Aleppo today. Last week, the M10 underground hospital was attacked by bunker-busting bombs to break through its roof and by cluster bombs aimed specifically at harming and injuring individual people. The location of that hospital was known to every combatant. There is no doubt that attacking that hospital was an international war crime.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly strong case. When it comes to Russia, are we not living in some kind of parallel universe? On the one hand, we see the Russians dropping bunker bombs on hospitals. On the other, we are allowing them to come and trade in our country as though nothing was going on. Do we not need a general review of our relationship with Russia?
Mr Mitchell
The Russians are doing to the United Nations precisely what Italy and Germany did to the League of Nations in the 1930s, and they are doing to Aleppo precisely what the Nazis did to Guernica during the Spanish civil war.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I join my right hon. Friend in supporting no-bombing zones, as well as aid drops in memory of our former colleague and my Yorkshire neighbour, Jo Cox. On the issue of no-fly zones, I served in the Royal Air Force on the no-fly zone over northern Iraq. Does he agree that one message we could send out from this House today would be that, using our E-3 Sentry AWACS reconnaissance aircraft, any war crimes perpetrated by air forces would be identified and logged, and that the perpetrators would feel the full force of the law as a result?
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Guernica. In the 1930s, there was united condemnation of what the Nazis and their air force were doing in Spain in support of the fascist regime. Is it not time that we had a united, unambiguous, explicit, direct condemnation of what Putin is doing in support of Assad in Aleppo at this moment, not just from the Government but from the Opposition Benches unanimously?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman is on to an extremely good point. What is needed is a concerted effort by the international community uniting to make Russia feel the cost of its support of and participation in the barbaric bombardment of Aleppo.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. His comparison with the actions of the Nazi regime and the League of Nations is very powerful. Is this not a warning to the United Nations that unless it fulfils its duties and faces up to the atrocities that Russia is perpetrating, it might well go the same way as the League of Nations did?
Mr Mitchell
That is the very point I was making.
We should single Russia out as a pariah. Like any bully, the Kremlin craves relevance, and it is winning as long as no one stands up to it. Russia must be confronted for its attacks on innocent civilians, both diplomatically and using hard power including sanctions and economic measures. We must seek to build support for multilateral military action to discharge our responsibility to protect. This is not about attacking Russia. It is about defending innocent civilians. It is about basic humanitarian decency and protection from the kind of barbarism and tyranny we hoped we had consigned to the last century.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
I completely concur with the right hon. Gentleman’s words about Russia and the atrocities that it is committing against the people of Syria, but should we not also look at this in the context of Russia’s previous actions in Ukraine and Crimea? Ought we not to remember that Russia as a state is increasingly out of control? It is not playing by the rules, and we absolutely have to confront its behaviour internationally.
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady makes an extremely powerful point. We cannot do this alone. We must use Britain’s outstanding connections, not least through our diplomatic reach, our membership of NATO, our relationship with America and our centrality in the European firmament—Brexit notwithstanding.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, not only for securing this debate but for allowing so many interventions. Would it not be appropriate for the Government to bring forward a debate asking this House to put forward its views on Russia’s behaviour not only in Aleppo but in previous situations? We need the Government to lead on such a debate, so that the House can send out the very clear message that we are watching what Russia is doing and will not forget what it is doing, and that, when it comes to it, we will see those responsible answering for their war crimes.
Mr Mitchell
I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that, by having this three-hour debate today, we are moving some way in that direction.
I have a number of specific questions for the Foreign Secretary to address when he answers this debate. First, he has said that the UK is taking the lead on sanctions on Russia. Will he tell the House what steps the Foreign Office has taken towards increasing bilateral or EU sanctions on Russia itself? Secondly, there are plans for a new addition to the Nord Stream gas pipeline running from Russia to western Europe—Nord Stream 2—allowing Russia to bypass transit countries and, therefore, transit costs in eastern Europe. Will the Foreign Office be working with our east European allies to block the new pipeline?
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I presume that we are talking about the gas pipeline that runs from Kurdistan through Turkey and the Black sea and bypasses Ukraine and the eastern provinces. The signing of that deal was agreed yesterday between Erdogan and Putin. A relationship seems to be building up between those two. Does the right hon. Gentleman have any view on that, because that movement of Turkey towards Russia is concerning?
Mr Mitchell
The Foreign Secretary has recently been in Turkey. I am sure that the House will be interested in his comments.
My third question for the Foreign Secretary is, what work has been done to catalogue and record human rights abuses—both individual and collective—in Syria? Will he update the House on the work of the Foreign Office, which was started and commissioned by the National Security Council in 2011, to collect evidence that can be used in the future to hold human rights abusers to account no matter how long it takes?
Fourthly, what steps has the Foreign Secretary taken with his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to explore the feasibility of imposing and enforcing a no-fly zone over specific areas in Syria? Does he agree that, with the use of naval and air assets in the eastern Mediterranean, it is entirely possible both to monitor and enforce a no-fly zone with our allies? What steps will he take to make it clear to the international community that a no-fly zone is a matter of will and not of practicality?
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I have operated under a no-fly zone. It is practical and it can work, but it is quite difficult at a low level. That requires us to have seriously good surveillance over the target areas. If we have that, we can deal with it. We cannot have just a no-fly zone; we need good surveillance as well.
Mr Mitchell
I have no doubt that the Foreign Secretary will want to comment on those remarks, to which my hon. Friend brings his expert knowledge and understanding.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
As one of the four Opposition Members who did not oppose military action on that fateful day in August 2013, I fully support any measure to impose a no-fly zone. I assure the Government that, if they were to bring forward such a proposal, I will vote with them, and I guess quite a lot of my colleagues will do so as well.
Mr Mitchell
That is extremely welcome news both inside the House and outside.
I have one final point on the no-fly zone. Will my right hon. Friend make a specific point of meeting the former Prime Minister John Major to explore his experiences in imposing a no-fly zone and a safe haven in northern Iraq during the 1990s?
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and I congratulate him on securing this debate. Given the discussion that there is over a no-fly zone, does he share my concern that Russia has moved very advanced surface-to-air missile systems into Syria when clearly Daesh or the al-Nusra front do not have a fast-jet capability. At whom might those missiles be targeted?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend makes a good point, but those S-300 missiles do not affect the viability of imposing a no-fly zone.
My final question for the Foreign Secretary is, what steps are he and his Department taking to support and enhance the work of the International Syria Support Group? Staffan de Mistura has said that the suspension of bilateral negotiations between the two chairs, US and Russia, “should not and will not” affect the existence of the group. What steps is Britain taking to provide financial, diplomatic and political support to the International Syria Support Group? This group includes all of the five permanent members, Italy, Turkey, Japan, Iran, and the key Arab countries. It represents the UN, the EU and the Arab League. It needs to be greatly expanded. There should be an office, for example, working with and adjacent to the Geneva talks. It should carry out work on the key ingredients for a peace whenever that may come, and we should give very strong support to it.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
May I add a question to the ones that the right hon. Gentleman has posed to the Foreign Secretary? He has spoken very powerfully. Members of the House have described Russia as a pariah. He has compared it with the Nazi regime of the 1930s. Is it not utterly ludicrous that, in two years’ time, the greatest sporting spectacle on earth—the World cup—will be held in Russia, but not a single country is pulling out of it? If we are really serious about sending a message to Putin that is heard on the ground, should we not be questioning whether the World cup should take place in Russia?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. I hope that when he is considering sanctions, both economic and otherwise, the Foreign Secretary will have a view on that.
The international community faces a choice. Are we so cowed and so poleaxed by recent history in Iraq and Afghanistan that we are incapable now of taking action? Was all the international handwringing after Rwanda, Bosnia and Srebrenica when we said “never again” just hot air? Is all the work on the responsibility to protect—RtoP—which was unanimously adopted by the United Nations Security Council and agreed by the entire international community just so many words? Let us at least be clear here among ourselves. We have a choice: we can turn away from the misery and suffering of children and humanity in Aleppo; we can once again, on our watch, appease today’s international law breaker, Russia, and continue to find eloquent excuses for inaction; or we can be seen to take a lead to explore the situation energetically and with determination with our allies in NATO, Europe, America, and the United Nations and refuse to take no for an answer. We can look at every possible way of ending this barbarism and this tyranny, which is threatening the international rules-based system, destroying international order and engulfing the Syrian people.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
May I start by welcoming the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) to her new position? I also welcome to his post the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), whom I have not seen in this place until today. I hope that they will both find their new roles fulfilling.
I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for securing this debate, and for the eloquent and passionate way in which he has spoken up for the people of Aleppo. He spoke up for them throughout his time as International Development Secretary. He stood on the side of the poor and oppressed throughout the world, and he has done so again today. He also understood how much the commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on helping those most in need mattered, which is something from which his successors could learn. He agrees with me that Britain’s work in international development reveals the better part of ourselves and is something about which we should be inordinately proud.
The situation for innocent civilians in Aleppo is truly a hell on earth. They are trapped, impoverished and desperately in need of food, clean water and medical care. That would be bad in any circumstances, but they are also living in daily fear of death coming from the skies—from airstrikes in the east of Aleppo and from mortar bombs in the west. The scale of suffering is beyond our comprehension. We should be in no doubt that the parties responsible for that—whether it is the Russian forces and the Assad regime on one side, or the jihadists of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, otherwise known as the al-Nusra Front or al-Qaeda—stand equally condemned in the eyes of public opinion and are equally guilty of crimes against humanity. In time, there must be a reckoning for those crimes. That is why we support the efforts of France to enforce a tougher approach at the Security Council to the violations of international humanitarian law. Will the Foreign Secretary be supporting the French Government in those efforts?
Equally, the effort to hold the Russian forces and others to account for their actions, and the anger that people rightly feel here, must not prevent us, difficult as it is, from seeking to work with the Russian Government to restore the Kerry-Lavrov peace process. That means securing and maintaining a ceasefire, isolating the jihadi extremists, opening safe—
Emily Thornberry
Absolutely there is not a ceasefire now; that is what I am moving on to. Of course there is no ceasefire, and there needs to be an initiative. In the end, we all know that we can move forward only by way of negotiations, and that no negotiations will happen without a ceasefire.
Angela Smith
Can my hon. Friend present us with the evidence that she clearly has that it is realistic to believe that the Russians will seriously engage in further ceasefire negotiations? Does she think for a minute that they will stop bombing Aleppo while they are doing that?
Emily Thornberry
I have thought about this a great deal and spoken to a number of experts about it, and I have some suggestions that I wish to make to the House and to put before the Secretary of State. We want to be helpful. If she will give me a moment, I will explain.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
If the peace that we all want is not achievable, will the hon. Lady support the application of military force, if it is needed?
Emily Thornberry
I am not a pacifist, personally. I believe in using military force when it can be effective, if we can achieve the ends that we have identified, and if we know what we want to achieve. I believe that in a multi-layered, multifaceted civil war such as that in Syria, the last thing that we need is more parties bombing. We need a ceasefire and for people to draw back.
Tom Tugendhat
While we all look for peace, does the hon. Lady agree that sometimes backing down, looking weak and hiding one’s head achieves quite the reverse? It encourages violence, treachery and the brutality that we are seeing today.
Emily Thornberry
Yes, I agree, but let us be strong about this and let us put forward a plan that might work. If the hon. Gentleman will give me a moment, I will explain what I am suggesting.
I was recommending that, despite the difficulties and the anger that many parties feel, we work with the Russian Government to restore the Kerry-Lavrov peace process. That means securing and maintaining a ceasefire, isolating the jihadis and opening safe channels for humanitarian aid—we should make that the basis to negotiate a lasting peace. Looking at the situation today, we accept that that could not look further away or seem more difficult, but we need to have that goal in mind. It is the only conceivable solution and the only way to bring relief to the people of Aleppo, so how do we do it?
Mr Bradshaw
We had a ceasefire; it was brutally blown apart by Russian and Syrian air power. I still have not heard from my hon. Friend a clear and unequivocal condemnation of Russia’s and Assad’s action. I have not heard her call it out as it is—a war crime.
Emily Thornberry
I apologise to my right hon. Friend. I thought that that was exactly what I said. For the avoidance of any doubt—obviously, it is now in Hansard—of course the actions of the Russians can well be seen as war crimes. A number of war crimes have been committed during this terrible war, and as I said at the outset, there are the war crimes of Assad and Russia, and the war crimes of the jihadis. In time, we will expect those war crimes to come before the international courts, and those people should and must be held to account. It was for that reason—perhaps my right hon. Friend did not hear me—that I urged the Government to support French efforts to ensure that more initiatives are taken to bring the parties to international justice.
Mr Speaker, many people are getting impatient that I have not yet put forward my plan, so perhaps I will not take any more interventions at the moment so that I can actually do that.
What is the only conceivable way of bringing relief to the people of Aleppo? I believe that it will require strong statesmanship on all sides and not more brinkmanship. We need to talk to experts in the field. Their concern is not just how we stop the conflict as it stands, but how we avoid it escalating further. Yesterday, one expert said to me:
“On the ground, we are just one bad decision away…from Russian and American forces ending up in armed conflict.”
Facing that chilling prospect, we must all work for the alternative, and we need to start by looking carefully at the plan put forward by the UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield has already referred to it, and I respectfully agree with him. Staffan de Mistura has bravely promised that if the jihadi forces of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham agree to leave the city of Aleppo, he will personally escort them from the siege to Idlib, or wherever they wish to go. Such a move would isolate the jihadi fighters from the moderate rebels inside Aleppo and remove from the Russians and the Syrian forces their current pretext for the bombardment of east Aleppo. That process could—I stress it only could—provide the basis to restore talks on a ceasefire and on opening up the humanitarian channels that we all wish to see.
There is a precedent for such a step in the way the Jabhat fighters were escorted out of Homs and other towns in Syria. While we must treat the Russian assurances with caution, it is an approach that Sergei Lavrov has said they are ready to support and can persuade the Assad regime to agree to, so will the Government lend their support to the plan put forward by the United Nations? The Government have yet to respond to the initiative at all. I believe that it is a serious initiative with some prospect of hope in it, and that it should not be ignored. Will they persuade their French and US counterparts to do likewise and seek to use this pragmatic proposal as the basis to restart talks?
While we are rightly focused on Syria today, we know that many other countries in the world will listen to what we say about Syria, look at the values that we claim to uphold and ask whether we are true to those values when it comes to other countries and conflicts. Today we will hear Members from all parties rightly condemn Russia and Assad for the airstrikes against civilian targets. We will hear calls for independent UN investigations into breaches of international humanitarian law. We will hear calls to take further action against Russia to oblige it to cease the bombardment. While that is all correct, if we say those things about Russia and Aleppo, we must be prepared for what is said about Saudi Arabia and Yemen. We cannot condemn one and continue selling arms to the other. We cannot call for investigations into one and say that we are happy for the other to investigate themselves. We cannot pour scorn on the assurances of one that they have not hit civilian targets while blithely accepting the assurances of the other. Most of all, we cannot cry for the people of Aleppo and the suffering that they face while turning a blind eye to the 1 million children in Yemen facing starvation today. So I ask the Foreign Secretary to tell the House how the actions that the Government propose in Syria compare with the actions that they are taking in Yemen.
The suffering of Aleppo has gone on for too long. Every day that it continues, we must redouble our efforts to end it. We suggest a four-point plan to the Government. We suggest that we begin with more statesmanship and less brinkmanship. Secondly, we must adopt the UN plan to escort the jihadis from Aleppo. Thirdly, the Kerry-Lavrov plan needs to be revived and we must work together towards a lasting peace. Fourthly, we must de-escalate overseas military involvement in the conflict from all 14 other nations involved, including ourselves. That is how we will create safe corridors for aid, stop the destruction of Aleppo by Christmas and end the suffering of its people.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Before we proceed further, I have seen how many people wish to contribute. I do not want to impose a time limit on Back-Bench speeches at this stage, but if, by voluntary co-operation, we can achieve the objective, that would be better. If each Back Bencher spoke for no more than seven minutes, everybody would get in, and there should be general contentment. There is never universal contentment, but I would settle for general contentment. We will be led in this mission by no less a figure than Mr Alistair Burt.
Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on initiating the debate and on opening it in such an extraordinary fashion. His deep personal commitment, which he has exhibited over a number of years, to those in the Syrian National Coalition and the High Negotiations Committee and others has been evident in what he has said. He has long championed their needs, and that was evident today.
I thank the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who spoke for the Opposition, for proposing a difficult case in trying to find an answer. There are no easy answers, but I hope that a little bit of background will help further.
I pay tribute to those in the Syrian National Coalition and those who have worked for peace in Syria over a lengthy period. I met members of the Syrian National Coalition. I met them in Gaziantep. I met them in Jordan. I met them Paris. I met them in London. I met Riad Hijab. Part of the background is to recognise that what has happened in Syria today did not just spring out of events in 2011—the Syrian regime has long been repressive, and the roots go back a long time and are very deep—but not to recognise the extraordinary courage of people in Syria to make a political case for change, which has been the cause of so many deaths in Syria over many decades, is to miss something. They have consistently proposed a plan for a democratic Syria, with the engagement of all elements of the community, and they have done so for several years. Again, any future for Syria must recognise that the SNC and the High Negotiations Committee have had a plan for a long time, and I wish they had been listened to even earlier.
While in Gaziantep in Turkey I met members of the White Helmets. At that time, the Foreign Office was working to support its members and give them training in their work, and they have done an extraordinary job in the chaos and disaster that is Syria. The work of the White Helmets has been quite extraordinary. Again, we need to pay tribute to the White Helmets, as we do to those such as David Nott, the surgeon who has worked in the extraordinary circumstances of the hospitals in Syria and who writes so eloquently on the subject.
The United Kingdom has to look at many parts of this issue in terms of what has been achieved. We have played a part in trying to alleviate some of the suffering. There is little need, I am sure, to elaborate further on the degree of suffering. We have seen it on the television. We have seen the brave films produced by BBC “Panorama”, giving cameras to people. There has been what our excellent ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft, described only last week as “an onslaught of cruelty” in Aleppo, which he said could not possibly be the work of the Syrian forces on their own.
The tragedy of Aleppo and Syria is that it is an entirely human construct devoid of any natural disaster component. It has happened in front of our eyes—eyes that have witnessed in my time as a Member Rwanda and Srebrenica too. It has happened with so many other memories of previous conflicts in our minds. It has happened because of, as much as despite of, international mechanisms such as the UN and the International Criminal Court—mechanisms that we have all hidden behind, to a certain extent, believing that they could find the answer, as we watched them being stripped of their authority, week by week, action by action in Syria, and actually reduced to ridicule. If international mechanisms cannot prevent an Aleppo, what actually can they now prevent?
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who was one of the best Ministers in the Foreign Office over a long period, for bringing great knowledge to the House from what he did in the Foreign Office. Many Syrians in my constituency—I meet them regularly—say that they just want people to give them some help. He mentions some international organisations, but does he think that the UN is doing enough? If it is not doing enough, do we need to consider reforming that organisation, so that it can help in such crises?
Alistair Burt
The point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield and myself, and the point of the hon. Gentleman’s question, is that Syria demonstrates the failure of these international mechanisms now. If a veto is continually used on the UN Security Council, what can we do? My right hon. Friend rightly argued—this was recognised on both sides of the House—that the League of Nations was damaged by the stripping of its authority. That is the point that we have reached, and if we cannot rely on these mechanisms, what are we now going to do?
Alistair Burt
I shall give way very briefly, but I am being fair to Mr Speaker by trying to keep the intervention short.
Bob Stewart
The veto in the Security Council by Russia will kill any plan stone dead. Perhaps this is a chance for the General Assembly to get some power and do something about it.
Alistair Burt
There may be international mechanisms that involve talk, but perhaps there are other things that we can do, and I think that that will be the mood of the House.
A little bit of history will provide a pointer forward; we need not review it all. Assad knew exactly what he was doing when the revolt started in 2011. Syria was not beset by radical Islam, but he released prisoners from his prisons to join radical Islamic bands because he wanted to create the narrative of his providing stability against terrorism. The narrative has succeeded. It gave him the excuse to attack his own people. That reached a nadir in 2013, with chemical weapons attack on his people. That was a fundamental point. I am not going to rehearse what was said in the House—there are reasons for colleagues to make the decisions that they did—but by stepping back at that moment, the moment not to destroy Assad but to get him back to the negotiating table by convincing him that something would stand in his way was lost.
Nadhim Zahawi
Inaction has consequences, and the consequences of inaction in 2013 are seen in Aleppo today.
Alistair Burt
They are; we learned that intervention has consequences, but so does non-intervention. We talk about non-intervention, but Syria has had intervention from Russia, from Hezbollah and from the Iranians. I remember briefings in the House, talking to colleagues and saying that, if the ultimate answer to Syria is a victory for Assad, for Russia, for Iran and for Hezbollah, and if we think that that will be in the United Kingdom’s best interests, I think we ought to think again. So we move on, and it is all very well to hear the history.
The involvement of Russia, which the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury bravely mentioned, is a crucial part. Russia needs to understand that savagery stokes terrorism; it does not end it. Russia is rightly concerned about the possibility of radicalism in Chechnya and all that, but its efforts to deal with it are failing. Part of this discussion is being very clear that what is happening and what Russia is doing will fuel the terrorism of the future and will do nothing to prevent it.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the reasons why some of us are so concerned about the Government’s approach to Russia is the evidence in Syria that Russia is not targeting ISIS? The number of air strikes by the Russian forces against ISIS has decreased by 10% in the past year alone, so it is clear that they have another agenda, and they should be called out on that, and rightly so, as soon as possible.
Alistair Burt
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Anyone who thought that Russia had any other agenda was fooling themselves. Russia’s agenda in the area is very mixed. First, it is to provide a bulwark against radical Islam in its own country. Secondly, it is to demonstrate to people in the region that it is now a power, as it has seen the United States retreat. Thirdly, it is to consolidate its own interests, which do indeed go very deep. But that vacuum is now being seized, so what do we do?
I turn to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield said towards the end of his remarks. This is about an effort of will. The fundamental failure in Syria in the past couple of years has been to give an impression that no one would stand up against the attacks on people in Syria because we have lost the will, not to advance an ideological agenda, but to defend and protect people. That is what R2P is about. The calculation is whether trying to enforce a no-fly zone, trying to protect the people on the ground, would be challenged by the powers of Syria and Russia, or whether that would be the point at which they would say, “No more killing,” and proceed on the way of negotiation and peace. That is actually the point that we have now reached.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he agree that the reason why we have not managed to secure no-fly zones is that people are understandably concerned that they would escalate tensions, and even conflict with Russia? However, the proposal is that the answer to any air attacks against civilians in no-fly zones would be carefully targeted strikes against the Assad regime’s military assets only. That could provide a real answer that would protect Syrian civilians and hopefully get the peace process back on track.
Alistair Burt
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, because what she says is exactly right. Those who are killing civilians in Aleppo are relying on the fact that we fear escalation and we worry. People therefore do nothing. We did not know what the consequences of 2013 would be, and we worried about intervention. However, we know now, and accordingly, we know what will happen in Aleppo over the next few months if nothing is done. That is the point that we have reached. Ultimately, we are talking about an act of will. If a force determined to do the unspeakable is met with moral argument but little else, the determined force will win. We have reached the stage at which we have to declare—I look forward to the Foreign Secretary making this clear—that that is a point beyond which we are no longer prepared to go.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) made a succinct speech from the Front Bench; that is the length of speech that I know the Scottish National party spokesperson will seek to imitate.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am aware that a lot of colleagues want to get in. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing the debate, and thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the House leave to hold it. It is an emergency debate in every sense of the word; it is urgent and necessary for us to have the debate, because the situation in Aleppo and across Syria has dramatically worsened from the already nearly catastrophic state that the conflict has brought about.
As others have said, the turning point in recent weeks seems to have been the bombing of the UN aid convoy on 19 September. If that and other atrocities are called out as being war crimes, they should be investigated, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice. That event ended the tentative ceasefire; hostilities, particularly by Russia, have increased since then. Some 275,000 people in eastern Aleppo, over 100,000 of whom are children, face daily bombing. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, described the situation as “worse than a slaughterhouse”, and others, including rebel groups inside the city, effectively see the enactment of a scorched earth policy by the Assad regime. Over 1 million people have been killed since the conflict began in 2011, so we should not be surprised at the comparisons with Rwanda and Srebrenica. It was absolutely right to make time for today’s debate.
I want to consider briefly responses so far from across the UK and the world, and the options available to the UK Government and the world community. The Scottish National party has consistently been opposed to military action, and has consistently called for a negotiated settlement and significant humanitarian intervention. When this House debated whether to join the bombing campaign, we warned that becoming a party to the conflict would reduce the UK’s ability to be an arbiter in any resolution, and so it has proved. We welcome the response, led by the Department for International Development, in terms of humanitarian support, but there is further to go. We have consistently said that what people in Syria need is bread, not bombs. If we have the technology to drop bombs, surely we have the technology to drop or deliver bread and aid.
The Scottish Government, with their limited power and resources in this area, have played as active a role as they could. In March 2013, they donated £100,000 to the Disasters Emergency Committee, and they later doubled that to £200,000. Earlier this year, the First Minister accepted an invitation from the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, to host an international women’s summit in Edinburgh, focused on supporting Syrian women, so that they can engage in communication, negotiation, and post-conflict planning, and become a key part of the peace process.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I am sure that all of us want a negotiated end to the problems in Syria, but does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the timid approach of America and other allied forces has led to the encouragement of the Russians, who have escalated their military involvement and its brutality?
Patrick Grady
I will come on to the geopolitics and relations between the United States and Russia, but the answer has clearly not been for the UK to dive in and continue to add to the chaos and bombing.
The Scottish Government have continued to try to play a role. They announced in August 2015 that they would contribute up to £300,000 to the 1325 Fellowship programme facilitated by Beyond Borders Scotland—another initiative that trains women in prevention and resolution of conflict. It was set up in response to UN resolution 1325, which reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts. We in Scotland and the Scottish Government have been keen to make a positive contribution wherever possible. Of course, many people across the country have joined in the efforts to welcome refugees, especially from Syria, who have come here seeking stability and peace.
Peace in Syria seems as far away as it was at the start of the conflict. Russia and the United States have completely different aims for the region, particularly as regards President Assad’s role, or otherwise, in the country’s future. There is a worrying risk of the situation becoming a proxy for broader tensions between the two countries, and indeed of further backsliding in international relations more generally. That is why the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield is right to question the stalemate’s impact on the role of the United Nations. It has never been more necessary for the UN to play a role, yet in this area at least, it seems that the impasse has never been more difficult to breach.
There have rightly been calls for the General Assembly to be more outspoken where the Security Council cannot reach agreement; that would be a start, but the GA still lacks the teeth of the Security Council. The UK’s seat on the Security Council is supposed to be one of the great defining assets of the Union, putting the great into Great Britain. While I welcome the strong words of the UK representative at recent meetings, strong words are increasingly not enough. It is for the United Nations and the International Syria Support Group to facilitate a peaceful settlement, and the United Kingdom Government should seek to make sure that the UN has the mandate and the support that it needs.
In the meantime, there must be more that the Government can do, either independently or with allies. I have already said that if we have the technology to drop bombs, surely we have the technology to drop aid, but we also need the ability, stability and permission to provide aid, especially to areas controlled by the Assad regime. Negotiating a safe space for that ought to be part of the UK’s diplomatic efforts. If that means that a no-fly zone could help, then that should be explored, but it needs to be properly enforced.
Getting aid—medical, food and non-food relief—into the country, and into Aleppo in particular, should be the No. 1 priority for humanitarian agencies in the country. If the big and multilateral agencies are having difficulty with that, more support should be given to local actors, especially those coming from faith-based or community-based organisations. I join in the tributes paid to the White Helmets, who are thoroughly deserving of their Nobel prize nomination. If there are practical ways that the UK Government, through partners, can support that work on the ground, they should be acted on.
Support also has to be provided in the refugee camps, both in Syria and in the surrounding areas. I was visited last week by a former constituent, Tony Collins, who now lives in Lebanon, where he assists the aid effort on the ground—in the camps. He describes the situation as no longer an emergency, but endemic, and as having a major impact, as we have heard from Members, on the future of Lebanon. UK humanitarian support has to provide emergency relief, but also look at long-term economic development, and the impact that these profound movements of people are having.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) is still here; the Secretary of State for International Development has left. I sound notes of caution about DFID’s role and response. I have said many times that while conflating some aspects of security and aid spending may be permitted under OECD rules, it is not what people expect to happen when the Government say that they are meeting the target of giving 2% of gross national income to NATO and the 0.7% target for aid spending. These targets should be met and accounted for separately; the situation in Syria in particular shows why that is necessary.
DFID also needs to think about the longer-term impacts of its policies, and consequential effects that might not be seen at the time. The withdrawal of programme partnership arrangement funding from many organisations is leading them to withdraw from areas, or wind up altogether, and that has a long-term impact that might not be seen at present, yet need is vastly increasing. Of course, support for refugees here needs to increase as well. The UK is committed to taking 20,000 over five years, but that is nowhere near our fair share.
Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
While the UK Government are right to focus their efforts on providing aid in the region, the refugees we have agreed to take, particularly under the community sponsorship scheme, include only 2% of Christian refugees from Syria, despite the fact that religious minorities constitute up to 12% of the Syrian population. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to make more effort to reach out to frightened religious minorities in Syria?
Patrick Grady
Yes, absolutely, I agree that persecuted minorities need to be given special attention. The House as a whole has given the Government a mandate to act on the genocide of the Yazidi community. The support provided for refugees needs to go beyond simply meeting physical requirements. I have constituents who are traumatised by their experiences in Syria and elsewhere, and mental health support will be increasingly important.
I am conscious of time. The Government say that they are leading the humanitarian response, but that does not mean that they cannot go further. They must rethink their military objectives. We were told in December last year that UK air strikes would cut off the head of the snake, but the chaos has only increased, and the people of Aleppo are paying the price. The UK urgently needs to rethink its military strategy, and it needs to commit to working across borders and interests to find a sustainable and lasting peace. While that goes on, the aid effort must be stepped up for the sake of people in Aleppo, Syria, the region and, indeed, around the world.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady). I shall keep my speech brief, but I want to begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing the debate and commending him for the way in which he made the case yesterday and brought the matter to the attention of the House. It was a powerful, passionate speech that was also practical, and I trust that Ministers listened to every word and will consider the recommendations and suggestions he made. He was exactly right yesterday to describe the situation in Aleppo as an “unfolding humanitarian catastrophe”.
I share the deep, deep concern that my right hon. Friend expressed, and I believe that the House should send the strongest possible signal at this time, both to our own Government and to other Governments, that the present suffering of innocent civilians in Aleppo is unacceptable; that the criminal acts of the Syrian and Russian forces are unacceptable, not least the bombing of hospitals, schools and humanitarian supplies; and that the seeming impotence of the international community in the face of such acts must not, and cannot, be allowed to continue.
As the debate on the statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union demonstrated, the attention of the House in the coming months will be consumed, overwhelmingly and necessarily, by issues relating to our withdrawal from the European Union. We will debate and argue about how best we protect our national interest in the Brexit process and how we give our nation the best chance of future prosperity to protect the quality of our lives and those of our children. We will even have debates about debates.
Today’s debate, however, demonstrates that the House remembers its duty to look outwards and have regard for that part of humanity that does not live within our borders. With you in the Chair, Mr Speaker, I am confident that the House will always make time available for us to speak with clarity and unity when confronted with suffering on the scale that we have witnessed in Syria in recent days. We should not underestimate the interest of the outside world in what is said in the House. A number of us have received emails today from groups within Syria who are watching the debate, and who want that clarity and unity expressed by hon. Members.
I pay tribute to the clarity of voice that our Foreign Secretary has brought to bear on the international stage on the subject of the Syrian conflict. He was one of the very first to describe the attacks on the Red Crescent aid convoy three weeks ago as a war crime—that was exactly what they were—and directly to implicate Russian forces. However, in commending the Foreign Secretary may I ask him to update the House on his most recent discussions with Foreign Minister Lavrov about the events in Aleppo and what further representations he plans to make? Will he leave us in no doubt whatsoever of his determination to ensure that the Russians know that we will keep up the pressure in the wake of their illegal acts in Syria, and that as the days slip by our anger and disgust at the acts for which they are responsible will not subside?
As has been said, President Hollande of France has stated in the past 24 hours that there should be a role for the International Criminal Court in holding Moscow to account for its actions. What consideration has my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary given to that suggestion and any other processes, including at the UN, for upholding international law on Syria?
Bob Stewart
On the International Criminal Court, I am worried that any action would be hamstrung by Russia in the Security Council, which in some way controls the ICC. I speak as someone who has given evidence in five trials there.
Stephen Crabb
My hon. Friend is right to express those concerns. The ICC has not proved itself effective in many respects in upholding international law, but we have a new opportunity. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) said, a lot of this boils down to an effort of will on the part of the international community. I shall come on to address that point.
Emily Thornberry
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that one problem with the ICC is that not enough countries, including some influential ones, are members. Perhaps an international lead from some of our larger friends would be of great assistance.
Stephen Crabb
The Opposition spokeswoman makes an important point. Far too many countries have not signed up to the ICC, and a job for our diplomacy in the months and years ahead is to encourage buy-in to the court. Will my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary update us on any discussions that he has had with his French counterpart before the scheduled visit by President Putin to France next week, and on the need to ensure that there is a united stance by international allies when discussing the latest events in Syria?
I welcome the business-like tone struck by the Prime Minister when she met President Putin at the beginning of September at the G20. It is right that our initial posture should be one of reaching out and seeking improved relations with Moscow, but one can be forgiven for thinking that Putin is taking the west, including us, for fools, in the belief that the distraction of a US presidential election and Brexit means that there is neither international interest nor resolve to try to stop the brutal and so far effective power play that he has undertaken in Syria.
Aleppo is a litmus test of whether Russia wants to play a constructive role in the region and whether it is willing to work in collaboration with the international coalition to bring peace to Syria, acknowledging that its interests may be different in key respects. Unfortunately, the events of recent weeks demonstrate that it has failed that test and that its behaviour is not consistent with that of a responsible actor. It behaves instead like a thuggish gangster regime flouting international law at will.
We can be business-like in our relations with Russia, but that does not mean business as usual when Russia behaves shamelessly in attacks on innocent civilians in Aleppo and then defeating attempts at the UN to secure some respite from the hostilities. The bombing campaign in Aleppo amounts to a war against children. Almost half of the casualties since the current attack began have been children, as bombs and mortars have landed on hospitals and broken through underground bunkers that sometimes also serve as schools. Last week, newspapers carried photographs of children playing in water-filled craters in the ground created by bombs and mortars—images, I suppose, of innocence amidst the conflict. The images that we should hold before us are others that we have seen in the past fortnight: the lifeless, dusty, broken-limbed bodies of children being removed—exhumed—from bombed-out buildings and piles of rubble. This is indeed a war against children.
In conclusion, the point has been made several times this afternoon that there are no easy solutions. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield described in some detail the complexity of the challenge before us. My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire made a really powerful point when he discussed the effort of will needed from the international community, with leadership from us, to show that there is a resolve to make progress and to hold Russia in particular to account for its actions, given its responsibilities as the key player at this moment in time in achieving respite from the bombings to secure an enforced ceasefire, including safe passage for humanitarian supplies while allowing room for a diplomatic process that might possibly stand a chance of achieving some lasting peace.
We have heard practical suggestions this afternoon, such as having a no-fly zone and discussion of economic sanctions as a way of bringing more pressure to bear on Russia. I will be particularly interested to hear the Foreign Secretary’s response to those two suggestions, and on what more the Government can do to show leadership and increase the international resolve and will.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
Much has been written about Syria and Aleppo in recent months. Parliament has not been sitting, so some of us have been left to tweet our continuing concern about the events unfolding in that country day after day. One of the best articles on Syria that I have read recently was in The Guardian on Saturday, under the headline “We are watching the destruction of Aleppo. Where is the rage?” It was written by Natalie Nougayrède. It was very poignant, and I suggest that other Members look at it.
That is the question: where is the rage? Where are the demonstrations that we have seen on so many previous occasions—I have taken part in them myself—for example on Iraq, East Timor and Cambodia. Where are those demonstrations now? I want to see—I challenge the people listening to this debate—2 million, 3 million or 4 million people outside the Russian embassy day after day. Let us show them what we think of their actions in Syria and their refusal to bring peace to that country. Russia used carpet bombing tactics in Grozny, and we all know what happened there. The west cannot stay silent, because we know how this could end.
The current UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is an old friend of mine; in the past we worked together on Iraq. He has warned that rebel-held eastern Aleppo could face total destruction by Christmas and that thousands of Syrian civilians—not terrorists—could die if the current assault on the city by Russian and Syrian forces is not stopped. He has called for the shelling of the city to stop immediately and for the UN to be allowed to take aid supplies into rebel-held areas. Eastern Aleppo has received no humanitarian assistance for the past three months, and food and medical supplies are running at dangerously low levels.
Staffan de Mistura has also offered to go to the besieged area of the city and personally escort al-Qaeda-linked fighters out of the city, in an appeal to stop the current bombing campaign. At least 250,000 people are thought to be trapped in eastern Aleppo, where rebel supply lines were cut off by President Bashar al-Assad’s troops in July. According to the UN, a renewed aerial and ground campaign to retake opposition-held areas has left hundreds of civilians dead and damaged hospitals, water plants and bakeries. Médecins sans Frontières has reported 23 attacks on medical facilities in eastern Aleppo since July, and all of us have seen on “Newsnight” and other programmes the bravery of the doctors and nurses in those hospitals—there is probably only one hospital remaining—saving lives by video link. We are particularly grateful to the British doctor who has been doing that.
A psychologist on the ground has said that 75% of children in Aleppo have post-traumatic stress disorder, and that 50% of those between the ages of nine and 13 are incontinent as a result. More than 100 children were killed only last week. The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has said that the bombing campaign is a targeted strategy to terrorise civilians and kill anybody and everybody who is in the way of Syrian and Russian military objectives. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has called eastern Aleppo “worse than a slaughterhouse”. Syria, backed by Russia, says that it is targeting militants in the city who use civilians as human shields. However, as Staffan de Mistura has pointed out, the presence of about 900 former or current Jabhat al-Nusra—it now calls itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham—fighters cannot justify the destruction wrought on the city in the past two weeks, following the collapse of a US-Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Staffan de Mistura has also said:
“There is only one thing we are not ready to do: be passive, resign ourselves to another Srebrenica, another Rwanda, which we are sadly ready to recognise written on that wall in front of us, unless something takes place.”
He warned that history would judge decision makers in Damascus and Moscow for the misery imposed on eastern Aleppo citizens through the fighting. Our own Foreign Secretary—he is sitting on the Front Bench—along with the US Secretary of State, has accused Russia of war crimes and said that the country should be held accountable for allegedly bombing aid convoys in Syria.
We do not have to wait for the International Criminal Court. Indict, an organisation that I chaired, collected evidence on Iraqi war crimes years before they were heard. That can be done again, for example through the Foreign Office. The testimony that we collected from hundreds of people about Saddam’s regime was subsequently used in the trials in Baghdad. I sat there myself to hear some of the people accused of those dreadful war crimes being judged, so it can be done.
US attempts to establish a long-lasting ceasefire and further talks have been thwarted, with the US finally breaking off talks with Russia, citing Moscow’s unacceptable backing of Assad’s Aleppo campaign. An attempt made only this weekend to pass a Franco-Spanish-sponsored UN Security Council resolution, which called for an end to the bombing of the city by Syrian and Russian jets, was vetoed by Russia, which argued that the distorted resolution would provide cover to terrorists. During heated exchanges in the Security Council on Saturday, the UK ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft—I also worked with him on Iraq over a period of time—said:
“This council cannot stand by while such misery is meted out on the people of Aleppo. And yet, thanks to you, Mr President,”—
the Russian President—
“that is exactly what we are doing. Thanks to your actions today, Syrians will continue to lose their lives in Aleppo and beyond to Russian and Syrian bombing. Please stop now.”
What is the international community going to do? We have heard several suggestions this morning. How are we going to prevent another Rwanda? If Russia will not end its military aggression in Syria in support of President Assad, and there is no sign that it will do so any time soon, with the Russian Parliament having voted recently to give Putin authority to keep war planes in Syria indefinitely—and with the Russian military obliquely warning that it would use anti-aircraft missiles to attack any US jet that tried to strike the Syrian regime—are we doomed to watch this unfolding tragedy, this genocide in the making? Will we continue to feel utterly impotent?
I would like quickly to suggest a few things that have been advanced from a number of quarters today. We must better protect civilians now and in future, because in the middle of this appalling conflict civilian protection has to be prioritised. First, we have to get assistance to Syrian civilians in eastern Aleppo and other besieged areas fast. It is now over four months since the International Syria Support Group set a deadline of 1 June for airdrops and airlifts to communities under siege—a proposal the UK took credit for. In those four months, there has not been one single airdrop or airlift to territory under siege by the Assad regime. As of 5 October, there have been 131 UN airdrops to regime-held Deir Ezzor, which is under siege by ISIS, and 104 airlifts to the regime-held al-Qamishli airport. There have also been airdrops by regime aircraft to the besieged regime towns of Foua and Kefraya. However, despite the large number of UN airdrops and airlifts to regime-held territory, the Assad regime will not grant the UN permission to drop aid to the areas the regime is besieging. As well as alleviating human suffering in the short term, airdrops to those areas could play an important part in alleviating human suffering in the longer term by breaking the Assad regime’s stranglehold over aid.
The UK Government should therefore now ensure that their own proposal can be implemented. The UK has the experience and the capacity to airdrop food and medical aid to besieged communities from its bases in Cyprus. It has the military might to deter attacks on its aircraft. Suitable partners on the ground are available—through local councils, medical care and relief organisations, and others—to co-ordinate drop zones and aid distribution. Putin is already carrying out airdrops every day to help those he protects. The UK military and its allies delivering airdrops and airlifts should be understood not as a logistical second-best option for delivering aid but as a means of pressing for proper ground access for humanitarian organisations.
Secondly, the international community should and could institute a no-fly zone for Syrian helicopters. It is Syrian helicopters that drop the illegal barrel bombs full of napalm, chemical weapons and high explosives. It is estimated that such a no-fly zone could reduce civilian deaths by roughly 90%. In that respect, I shall always be grateful to John Major. When I was shadow International Development Secretary, I went to Kurdistan. People there asked me whether I could ask the Prime Minister to institute no-fly zones. He asked to see me, and I went to see him. Within a week, those no-fly zones were in place. It can be done—it has been done, and it could be done again.
Thirdly, we must ensure that Russians and Syrians responsible for this cruel and constant bombing are ultimately held to account. The UK and others should track Russian and Assad regime aircraft and publish regular timely reports on which aircraft, from which base, are responsible for each potential war crime. The UK has military assets in the region that could make the difference. An aircraft-tracking system that named and shamed Russian and Syrian aircraft bombing hospitals might encourage Putin to stop this slaughter. UK AWACS aircraft and Type 45 destroyers already based just off the coast of Syria could monitor and police such a system. That would establish that evidence was being collected for future prosecutions and that all those responsible in the chain of command risked being implicated. Although Russia would be able to use its Security Council veto to block any attempt to refer it or the Bashar al-Assad regime to the International Criminal Court, other avenues to obtain justice should be explored. Earlier this week, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights called for countries to be stripped of their veto powers if they blocked war crimes investigations. The vast majority of countries around the world support the idea of denying the possibility of a veto in situations of mass atrocities.
Finally, in the light of the UN Security Council’s current intransigence, the UN General Assembly should hold an emergency meeting, demand an end to unlawful attacks on civilians in Aleppo, and explore avenues for accountability. We have to make it crystal clear to the Syrian and Russian Governments that their actions are deplorable. We need to speak up for and on behalf of our common humanity. I therefore call once again on everyone who cares about the plight of Syrian civilians to picket the Russian embassy in London and its embassies in capitals around the world from today. Two million, 3 million, 4 million people—it can be done, and it has been done in the past. That should carry on until the bombing campaign stops and all the relevant players are forced to get around the table to end this horrible war.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who has been such a powerful, consistent and long-standing voice on these issues in the House. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) for securing this important debate.
The situation in Syria is truly horrendous, and I want to focus on the humanitarian catastrophe. In Aleppo and the Idlib governorate, 2 million people are living without water or electricity, and there are attacks on health facilities. Across Syria as a whole, there are 470,000 people who have lost their lives, 8 million people who are internally displaced and more than 4 million refugees.
We can rightly be proud of our role in providing aid in the region, and I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for International Development to his place. We have seen £1.35 billion in UK aid to the region since 2012—money well spent. However, concern has been raised by a range of humanitarian, civil society and human rights organisations that the Assad regime is controlling deliveries of aid to the detriment of rebel-held areas. That raises serious questions for the United Nations—questions I would like the Government to raise with it.
May I echo what the right hon. Gentleman said about the heroic efforts of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey in coping with the massive numbers of refugees coming to their countries? The International Development Committee recognised that in its report in January on the Syrian refugee crisis. We also said in that report that we would welcome a decision by the Government to resettle 3,000 unaccompanied children. I would like an update today from the Government on what progress they are making on the former Prime Minister’s pledge to take 20,000 vulnerable people through a resettlement scheme, on the pledge to take 3,000 vulnerable children from the region and on the pledge to take children from Greece, Italy and France. I raised that yesterday with the Home Secretary, who said that around 50 children have been accepted so far. I would like to see that accelerated, because we have a duty to act here, in the same way that we have a duty to act there.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an extraordinarily powerful point. However, the resettlement programme is absolutely stuck in the mud. In Greater Manchester, agreement cannot be reached between the city authorities and the Government because the Government refuse to pay the money that is required to get these children and other Syrian refugees to Manchester, where we are willing to accept them. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Stephen Twigg
I do agree with my hon. Friend. The people of Liverpool have made a similar pledge, as have the city council and the mayor of Liverpool. The National Audit Office published a report last month on this very issue, in which it praised the progress made by local government in the last year but pointed to some of the issues my hon. Friend has highlighted—not least that it is not clear what funding will be available to support local authorities beyond the first-year costs.
Will the Foreign Secretary address another aspect of the current crisis? Some 70,000 Syrian refugees are currently in what is known as the “berm”, which is a demilitarised zone between Syria and Jordan. Those 70,000 people are, effectively, being prevented from going to the safe space of Jordan. Our former colleague, Stephen O’Brien, who is now the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, has described conditions at the berm as truly dire. My understanding is that a plan to deal with the crisis has been agreed by the United Nations but not yet by Jordan. Will the Foreign Secretary use his good offices to pursue this as a matter of urgency with the Jordanian Government?
Earlier this year the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield and another former International Development Secretary, Clare Short, brought to the International Development Committee’s attention the issue of the unintended consequences of counter-terrorism legislation for the delivery of aid. Several non-governmental organisations have been in touch with the Committee in recent weeks to raise that question and, in particular, two areas that require action from the Government.
The first area is the need to ease the concerns of banks. My understanding is that even when NGOs are fully compliant with counter-terrorism legislation, banks are sometimes nervous about lending, leading to delays in processing payments and the aid not getting delivered. The second is the need to use our good offices with Turkey. My understanding is that it is not always easy for NGOs to function on the Turkish side of the border region between Syria and Turkey. For example, Syria Relief UK has told us that it has been waiting for its application to establish an office in southern Turkey to be processed, and that the Turkish authorities can be overly restrictive about the means by which they allow funds to be transferred to Syria. I realise these are rather technical points, but they are about how aid can most effectively be delivered, and I would be grateful to Ministers if they addressed those points during this debate.
The scale of the challenge is truly enormous. The heartbreaking scenes mentioned by colleagues on both sides of the House, particularly those in Aleppo, touch us all. They touch our constituents and they touch people in all parts of this country. I am pleased that several speakers have reaffirmed the important principle of the responsibility to protect, which arose from what happened in the 1990s in Rwanda and the Balkans. In the meantime, we need urgent action to secure the safe delivery of aid to all parts of Syria.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
There have been suggestions that the International Development Secretary is disinclined to allow officials to shovel money out of the door towards the year end to meet a 0.7% target if those projects are not up to scratch. She is quite right to say so, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that, given the state of need, there is no shortage of very effective ways of spending that money?
Stephen Twigg
I entirely echo what the right hon. Gentleman the former Minister says. I entirely agree. The scale of need in Syria, but also, frankly in other parts of the world, including Africa, should mean that we can both deliver the 0.7% target and do so with true efficiency and value for money.
The safe delivery of aid is clearly urgent, but as others have said, we need to move forward to some kind of political process, with a return to the ceasefire. We need to explore every option: no-fly and no-bombing zones; airdrops; and we need to look at the role that Russia is playing.
Stella Creasy
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case for helping the people in the region. Ultimately, however, what will help them is to end the civil war in Syria. Some are saying we should wait until the presidential elections are over, but we know that the people in Aleppo do not have the luxury of waiting. Does he agree that there is absolutely a role for sanctions to get Russia back to the table and to start the process again?
Stephen Twigg
I absolutely concur with what my hon. Friend says about sanctions against Russia. I support the description of Russia’s role given by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield in his opening speech. The Russians should hang their heads in shame for the role they are playing in Syria, and we should use every available means we have, including further sanctions, to put pressure on President Putin. This is a colossal failure of the international system. It is a stain on our humanity, and all of us must do all we can to redouble our efforts to bring peace to the people of Syria.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting time for this debate. Until today, we had not debated the atrocities in Syria substantively since June, so it is thanks to the work of brave journalists at “Channel 4 News” and elsewhere, and to fearless humanitarians in Syria, that the killing and maiming of Syrian people has not passed unseen in this country despite our recess. In this House, we can make sure that the call for help from the Syrian people does not go unanswered.
Let me thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). I am privileged to work with him as the co-chair of the all-party friends of Syria group. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) and the other officers and members of the all-party group for their work. I was a member of the International Development Committee when the right hon. Gentleman was the Secretary of State, and I am not ashamed to say that I took pleasure in trying to find questions he could not answer. However, today I stand united with him. He is a relentless champion for human rights and international law, and I pay tribute to him. I also thank the Foreign Secretary for attending today’s debate, alongside the International Development Secretary, who was in the Chamber earlier.
Just a few weeks ago, the fragile ceasefire in Syria was shattered in a disgraceful attack on a UN aid convoy carrying desperately needed humanitarian aid to the people of Aleppo. The brave drivers and volunteers in that convoy risked everything to help the people who need it most, and they represent the best of humanity. It is an outrage that they have paid for their decency with their lives. The peace in Syria had lasted barely a week. At the time, the ceasefire was very welcome, arising shortly after the publication of a transition plan from the opposition Syrian high negotiations committee just a few weeks earlier in London. However, through the callous targeting of civilian aid—let us be very clear that that is a war crime if it is shown to be deliberate—the Syrian regime has shown it is interested not in peace, but only in suffering. This is not the only war crime committed by Bashar al-Assad and his allies.
These are the facts. More than 400,000 people are dead. Millions have fled for their lives. Hospitals, which are supposedly protected by international law, are now attacked as a matter of routine. Some 600,000 people are still besieged in eastern Aleppo, under constant bombardment from the regime and the Russians. As we have heard, Aleppo, which is under bombardment today, is just one of about 17 besieged cities, and many neighbourhoods and entire towns have been razed to the ground. One report suggests that three quarters of children in Aleppo now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Anas, a little boy there, spelled out what it is like to grow up in Syria today:
“All the days are similar to each other; the only new thing is what time the shelling comes…the shelling is the thing which scares us a lot and it is not possible to get used to it.”
No child should have to live like that.
It is a fact, as a recent report from Human Rights Watch revealed, that incendiary weapons similar to napalm have been dropped on civilians in the opposition-held areas of Aleppo and Idlib. Napalm, a weapon all of us might once have thought had been consigned to the worst chapters of history, is being dropped on civilians in the 21st century.
It is also a fact, as established by the UN joint investigative mechanism in August, that the regime is using chlorine gas as a weapon by dropping barrels of it on densely populated civilian areas. This gas, when dropped in barrels from helicopters, disperses quickly and fills the lungs of people who inhale it with fluid until they choke. Such gas attacks are taking us back to the worst times of the first world war. As a result, experts are warning of the risk of normalising chemical weapons after decades of sustained international effort to keep them beyond the pale. Meanwhile, Syrians on the ground talk of hearing the sound of helicopters and praying that they are carrying just explosives and nothing worse.
It is important to be clear not just about what is happening in Syria, but about who is to blame. Clarity is necessary because confusion results in equivocation, indecision and inaction. When the Serbs were slaughtering thousands in Bosnia, international action was delayed by false claims that Bosnian Government forces had staged attacks against civilians to try to provoke an international response against Karadzic. The result was that the Major Government—to their shame, I am afraid—opposed arms sales to the Bosnians and at first resisted a no-fly zone.
The same campaign of misinformation and propaganda is being waged today. We have seen the denials and the lies about what is happening and who is to blame before, and they cannot stand. The truth is that British airstrikes are targeted at Daesh and are hundreds of miles from Aleppo, where the worst suffering is occurring. The truth is that the vast and overwhelming majority of civilian casualties in Syria are the victims of Assad’s aggression against his own people, sparked by the democratic uprising of the Arab spring.
I recognise the concerns of many about how we must think through the consequences of our actions. However, as others have said, let us be clear that it is not just when we choose to act that the consequences of our action must be accounted for, but when we have the capacity to act and choose not to. When we choose to look away, that has consequences, too.
Of course, it is natural to feel powerless in the face of such horror, but our knowledge of horror must drive us to action, not transfix us with despair. So what can be done? First, with bombs raining down on the people of eastern Aleppo as we speak, it is urgent that the ceasefire be salvaged, if at all possible. If it is not possible, there are still actions that the UK can take. We should volunteer to take the lead in tracking aircraft over Syria, using our assets based in the region. There must be absolute clarity about who is responsible for these crimes, not just in the hope that the aggressors will change their tactics, but to keep alive the possibility of prosecutions. We have Type 45 destroyers and monitoring aircraft off the coast that could do that job and make a difference.
Speaking of accountability, I hope that there is now consensus in this House that we can support the French initiative to send Syria and Russia to the International Criminal Court, and the strongest possible sanctions against Russia to show that there are consequences for what it is doing. The Foreign Secretary has said this before and I agree with him: we have to be at the forefront of applying sanctions.
In the longer term, the protection of civilians from aerial bombardment, along with the destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles, must be the aim. There is a legal precedent in Kosovo for the establishment of a no-fly zone without Security Council backing. My view is that that must not be off the table if it can be shown to be the most effective way of protecting civilians.
Sir Desmond Swayne
We must be absolutely clear as a House precisely what we mean by this demand for a no-fly zone. The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) pointed out how that worked in Iraq, where we had to take down Iraqi planes. This would require the will to take down Russian planes. Perhaps that is the right answer, but we must be aware of what we are contemplating.
Alison McGovern
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He anticipates the very point I am about to make.
Given that barrel bombs and chemical weapons are mainly delivered by helicopter, experts have calculated that a no-fly zone just for helicopters could reduce civilian casualties by up to 90%. Even failing that, there are things that we could do. We can push for bigger windows to get humanitarian aid into the worst-hit areas and look at using other assets to drop aid into besieged areas. We can also get more support to the heroic White Helmets, the Syrian volunteers who risk their lives to save as many people as they can from the death raining down on them. Many people will have seen the White Helmets in the news in recent weeks because of their nomination for the Nobel peace prize. These heroes risk it all every day to save lives, often running towards the sound of the shelling and risking being caught in second strikes. They need our support. Even if the only result of this debate is that all those people watching make a donation, it will have been worth it.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend be clear about what support she is seeking for the White Helmets? Are we talking about greater access to technical help and advice from doctors over the internet during surgery, increased donations or sending medical equipment—I am unclear?
Emily Thornberry
I just want to make sure that the record is absolutely accurate. The difficulty with taking Syria or Russia to the ICC, as things stand, is that they are not members. The French initiative is to try to get an International Criminal Court prosecutor to set up a way of prosecuting. That we certainly support.
Alison McGovern
I thank my Front-Bench colleague for that clarity.
Finally, we can certainly offer support to the credible, inclusive plans the Syrian opposition are putting forward.
I cannot help noting that, in serving as co-chair of the friends of Syria group, I am taking up the role of my friend, Jo Cox. She would have been here and she would have known what was needed. Most of all, I think she would have said that we should help refugees fleeing Syria—not just 20,000 by 2020, but many more and much more quickly.
On London’s south bank, there is a memorial dedicated to the international brigades—those who fought for democracy in the Spanish civil war. On one side of the sculpture, there is an inscription that reads:
“They went because their open eyes could see no other way”.
In Syria today, the world is confronted by unspeakable evil and unimaginable suffering. Some of us might have hoped that the advent of social media and new means of technology would have opened eyes even more so than in the 1930s, but the pictures we see make us want to close our eyes and turn away from the horror. But we cannot unsee what we have seen and we must not turn our backs on the greatest crime of our century. The people of Syria are suffering; let us do everything we can to bring them relief.
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for her speech. There have been some exceptionally powerful speeches in the debate already.
As I am keen to accommodate everybody and for everybody to have the chance to make a decent length speech, and in anticipation of us all wanting to hear the Foreign Secretary respond comprehensively to others’ speeches, I appeal to colleagues to try to stick to seven minutes each. I call Mr Gavin Robinson.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
You caught me slightly unawares, Mr Speaker, but I appreciate being called at this juncture.
It was right that the comments of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) moved towards geopolitics and the constraints we have in finding a positive resolution, and also the willingness to do so. Although he, like many other Members, has not had as much time as he would have liked to focus on the compassionate reasons why he is motivated by this case, those reasons are well grounded. In paying tribute to him and all colleagues who serve on the friends of Syria APPG, it is important that we always remember the rationale for engaging in this discussion and those people who are suffering continually in Aleppo and beyond.
I have been encouraged by a great number of the contributions that have been made this afternoon, save one. When I listened to the shadow Foreign Secretary, I despaired. I despaired for the people of Syria and I despaired of the paucity of positive policy proposals she had to make. I am glad that that has not been reflected by Back-Bench Members. What we heard can be summed up like this: more statesmanship and less brinkmanship—platitudes. Withdrawal was mentioned—withdrawal from every other country that we associate ourselves with and that we are allied with to do a good job, leaving the Syrian people by themselves. It is appeasement: allowing the jihadists safe passage out of Aleppo in the hope that—these were her words—we will get “lasting peace” by December. That would let the jihadists live to fight another day—to be parasitical and go and find another host community in which they can do their evil deeds. I think it is appalling.
Emily Thornberry
Has the hon. Gentleman seen what happened in Homs when it was being besieged? The proposed action I have put before the House today in relation to Aleppo worked in Homs, and lives were saved as a result. Does he not think that we should look at that?
Gavin Robinson
Where did those people go and what did they do? I will take no lectures from Labour Front Benchers about the appeasement of terrorists, whether it is in Northern Ireland or Aleppo. I am glad that what has been shared from the Labour Front Bench has not been reflected in what has been said by the honest, decent and caring individuals who sit behind it. We recognise how serious this matter is.
The Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary have a big job to do in considering how we, as a country, can appropriately and responsibly deal with Russia. It is an age-old saying that, “Mine enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Here, that is turned on its head, because in the case of Russia, mine enemy’s enemy is my enemy. It is as stark as that. Russia is moving nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad. It has sorties day after day, whether in the Baltic sea, the Black sea or the North sea, in contravention of NATO. Having shot down a Russian jet a number of months ago, Turkey, a NATO ally, signed a deal with Russia just yesterday. What is the NATO view of that? How will Turkey’s future engagement be affected when our ally is signing a trade deal for gas and a deal for military intelligence with Russia?
Those are huge questions, yet the immediate consideration must be the people of Aleppo. The ICC has been mentioned, and there is concern about whether Russia is a member. My understanding is that Russia has signed, but has not ratified membership of the ICC. I am keen to hear from the Foreign Secretary whether that is an impediment to progress. Last night the BBC was suggesting that, given the nature of previous prosecutions focused on African states, there is the ability to pursue the French option to pursue the Russian state, but there is no will to do so.
Sammy Wilson
Given that Russia is a key part of this conflict and the problems faced by the people in Aleppo, it has been suggested today that we impose trade sanctions, take people to the ICC and impose no-fly zones. Does my hon. Friend accept that that will need huge political will, as we will be taking action against a country that thinks that it can do what it wants?
Gavin Robinson
I do entirely—it will. Reports at the weekend have suggested that Russia is succeeding in the electromagnetic war. It is succeeding in jamming signals and removing the cover and support for Syrian rebel fighters, meaning that it can attack them. It is succeeding in drone strikes, and is operating those strikes in a way that we do not. Russia is succeeding comprehensively. Is a no-fly zone an easy option? No, it is not, but if it is the right option for the people of Syria and the wider region, this party will not be found wanting; it never has been when it comes to support for the security of the Province and this country, or internationally.
I hope that the Foreign Secretary can give us some reassurances. The task ahead is not an easy one, but I hope he understands from the tenor of debate in this Chamber and from all the positive contributions he has heard that the resolve is there, that there is the will to do the right thing and that, as a country and as individual representatives, we need to be counted.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
It has been a privilege to be in the House today for some of the best—although I also have to say some of the worst—traditions of where our democracy is at the moment. I will say briefly that there is no one better to seek to step into the shoes of our dearly missed friend, Jo Cox, than my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). We will all do our best.
I want to dwell for a little longer on what happened on 19 September. It is no mean feat to put together a cross-line convoy. Some 31 lorries had been assembled by various nations under the clear banner of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. I will read from a couple of eye witnesses. One said:
“The bombardment was continuous, continuous.”
Someone else said:
“I saw the bodies of men on the ground…I was told they were truck drivers and volunteers who had been unloading...medicine, food and other desperately needed items”—
desperately needed by the people of Aleppo.
That bombing went on for more than two hours. It came from helicopters and land forces, and started immediately after a Russian drone that had been directly overhead disappeared. There is no doubt as to who was the perpetrator of this grotesque war crime. It was President Putin of Russia. He was sticking two fingers up to the United Nations and the international community of which he still has the audacity to claim he is a working part.
I have to say this: shame on anyone, from the UN official report to Members of this House to members of my party, who fails to acknowledge that grotesque war crime. I hear the platitudes about bread, not bombs, but the bombs are destroying the bread, and when the people who are making the platitudes are obstructing the possibility of any peace in the region I say that they are directly complicit in what is happening. It is time for us to choose—as individuals in this Parliament and as a country—which side we are on. Do we want to act or to stand by?
Last week I was in Istanbul, where I met the leadership of the Syrian opposition coalition in its headquarters. Those people are of course exiled from their country, where they still have families. Members of their communities live in fear of their lives there and their lives are taken every day. I met the president and the secretary-general, a man called Abdulelah Fahed. He does not speak English, so spoke to me through an interpreter. He looked at me with cold and cynical fury in his eyes, and said, “We are grateful for the sugar that is sent to us from the international community and is bombed by the Russians. We hope you send more sugar that will be bombed. But actually this is not primarily a problem of a lack of aid being sent. It is that the aid is being bombed by the regime and by Russia, and until you help us with tackling that at source no amount of goodwill and humanitarian handwringing is going to help to solve this situation.”
There are different interpretations of what a no-fly zone or a no-bombing zone would mean. I recognise the grave danger of escalation in saying that we would be prepared to shoot down a Russian plane. I will say two things. My sense—and I would like to hear the Foreign Secretary’s initial views on this—is that a no-bombing zone could work. We could say that every time the Assad regime and Russia committed one of these atrocities in the full of view of the international community, the coalition that is currently fighting Daesh would respond, primarily with naval assets, by targeting part of the regime’s infrastructure. No one would be bombing Russia or taking down Russian planes, but we would target that infrastructure every time they committed an atrocity. Each time they killed civilians we would respond, targeting only the military.
The Foreign Secretary knows his history. We could also say that he knows a thing or two about bullies. President Putin is a classic bully. Over the past few years, and in fact beyond that, the international community has cowered every time he has advanced. When you do that with bullies, they go further and further. I say to the people who say every time that we must not do something because we will enrage Russia and we do not want another world war, that their cowardice is making conflict more likely—both the continuation of conflict in Syria and the possibility of further conflict in Europe. The only thing to do with bullies is stand up to them.
We are going to have to do that, sooner or later. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). The people of Syria do not have three months to see how the presidential handover goes and what the new president is like; they are being killed in their hundreds every single day.
John Woodcock
Okay, really quickly—we are getting frowned at by Mr Speaker.
Angela Smith
I will be very quick. Does my hon. Friend agree that the suggestion from the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson that we go through a different process, which involves engaging with the Syrians at various levels, will not work, because we have no time whatever, as Aleppo will have disappeared by Christmas?
John Woodcock
Who are we kidding? There is no process, because no one is standing up to the Russian regime’s bombs. People understand that, but they do not want to get involved. The question is ultimately for the Foreign Secretary and the Government, because my party is making itself more and more of an irrelevance with every pronouncement from the Front Bench. Are we prepared, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said at the beginning, to oversee another Guernica or a collapse of the UN, like the League of Nations before it? Are we going to be a latter-day generation of Neville Chamberlains, or are we going to take courage and act in the manner of the great Winston Churchill, which the Foreign Secretary knows very well from his time as his biographer?
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I, too, commend the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for securing the debate. May I appeal to Members to bear in mind the subject under discussion, and the subject on which you have agreed to a debate, Mr Speaker? The debate is about a humanitarian catastrophe. It has been caused by the breakdown of political processes, crimes against humanity, acts of terrorism and lots of things, but first and foremost we are talking about an imminent mortal threat to 100,000 children. Every one of those children lives every second of their life not knowing whether they will see the next second. Surely that must be a priority. Establishing a peaceful, democratic and legitimate Government in Syria is important, as is stopping the Russian war machine and neutralising forever the threat from Daesh. All of those things are important, but right now, 100,000 children—our brothers and sisters—are in immediate danger of death. Addressing that must be the top priority.
I sometimes think that it is like four different fire engines turning up to a fire and spending time arguing about whose fault the fire is, while in the building the children are screaming for somebody, anybody, for God’s sake to put out the fire. When the emergency services turn out to a suspicious fire, the priorities are to get people out, extinguish the fire and then investigate whether it was caused by a criminal act, and then, if necessary and appropriate, to take action against those responsible. A lot of matters that have been raised in the debate are important, but we can never lose sight of the fact that, if we spend another three weeks looking for a negotiated settlement, it will be another three weeks of children being killed in the raids, starving to death or dying from basic simple illnesses because they cannot get the treatment they so desperately need and absolutely deserve.
There are probably 35 doctors left in Aleppo. They cannot possibly cope with the demands being placed on them. Each and every one of them risks their life every day. We know they are being targeted. I cannot imagine a situation where being a doctor or a nurse meant risking life every day to go to work. That is what those people are doing—heroes each and every one of them. We know that the largest hospital in the city was hit seven times in a single morning. That was not an accident or a navigational error; it was a deliberate war crime. When the time comes, it should be treated as such. Just to make the point, they went back and bombed it again the next day. It is a deliberate tactic by the Syrians and the Russians to attack civilian targets on one day, wait for the emergency services to respond, and then go in and target them again.
We also need to re-evaluate the part the UK is playing. We need to go back to the reasons why the United Kingdom got involved in military action and reassess whether it is still appropriate. The former Prime Minister, in arguing in favour of military action, described the Brimstone missile as a “unique” asset
“that no other coalition ally can contribute”.—[Official Report, 26 September 2016; Vol. 585, c. 1262.]
That unique asset was deployed by the United Kingdom nine times in the seven months between February and August. It was used more than that in January and December last year, but it does not seem to me like a compelling argument for continued military action.
We were also told that there were likely to be 70,000 moderate troops ready to join in the struggle against Daesh—one requirement for a just war is a reasonable chance of success. I hope the Foreign Secretary can tell us where those 70,000 moderate troops are and whether they still exist. If they do not, how many are there?
The former Prime Minister expected and hoped that, if we supported military action, we would have a transitional Government in Syria in about six months. Those six months passed in June. Will the Foreign Secretary tell us how far away we are now? Are we within six months or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said, are we further from a peaceful solution than we have ever been? We must face up to those difficult questions. On this occasion, I am asking not because I want to trip up those on the Government Benches. I am asking from the heart. Please can we look to ensure that the part we are playing, whether through military action or anything else, contributes to the solution rather than makes the problem so much more worse?
Can any of us really imagine what 12 million refugees look like? A great many are refugees in their own country, and millions of them are scattered across the globe. I for one would welcome many more if only we were allowed to do so. Nine million of those refugees are women and children who have played no part in any war or any crime. They are utterly innocent. Thirteen thousand children have lost their lives. Are we going to allow that to get to 14,000, 15,000 and 16,000, or are we going to accept, ultimately, that the first priority is to save the lives of those who are left to prevent those appalling statistics from getting any worse?
I am a great fan of the Scots-Australian singer-songwriter Eric Bogle. I did not get his permission to quote his song, but I hope he will not mind the breach of copyright. Many years ago, in response to another conflict, he wrote:
“And have you seen the madmen who strut the world’s stage
Threatening our destruction as they prance and preen and rage?
Rattling nuclear sabres as humanity holds its breath
Feeding on fear and bigotry as the children starve to death”.
The children are starving to death today. Our first priority must be to feed the children by whatever means needed, and then we can deal with the rest of the mess that the Russians, the Syrians and Daesh have created.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Perhaps I am one of those men who prance and preen in the way the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) described, but I regret strongly the fact that when the House had the opportunity three years ago to leave open the option of military action it chose not to do so. I felt that leaving the option open was the appropriate thing to do at the time, but a majority of Members of the House felt that it was not.
I am pleased that we have the debate today—I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing it—because it enables the Government to give us the quarterly update on Syria. Notwithstanding what is happening on the other side of the channel with Brexit, the House wants regular updates from the Government on progress in Syria. I look forward therefore to the Foreign Secretary giving greater clarity on what discussions the UK Government have had with the other players in the peace process, and on what role we have been playing to try to promote peace in Syria.
I welcome the role the UK Government have played in sanctions on Russia and hope that it will continue when the UK leaves the EU—the UK has played a prominent role in the EU in relation to Ukraine. In passing, I hope the Government look more carefully at sanctions in relation to Magnitsky and the Russians’ responsibility for that.
The Foreign Secretary drew attention to his view that the Russians may have committed war crimes and spoke specifically of the double tap manoeuvre, which I understand to mean that a strike takes place, there is a gap to allow the emergency services to turn up, and the site is hit again. I hope he sets out precisely what evidence he has for that, because it is clearly a very serious allegation. I want to draw his attention to the fact that, in Yemen, the Saudis are alleged to have used the same double tap manoeuvre. If rightly he expresses concerns about war crimes committed by Russia in Syria, I hope he will consider whether the Saudis’ use of that manoeuvre in Yemen also amounts to a war crime.
A lot of Members have contributed positively on the issue of recording information about where Russian planes and Assad’s helicopters have been active. I hope that that information is being recorded, because we will want evidence if there are war crimes prosecutions at some point in the future. I hope that when the Foreign Secretary responds he will be able to say something about whether the UK is considering using our universal jurisdiction to bring the Russians to account if there are no other means for doing so. Given that the Russians are engaging in a propaganda war—we have seen the activities of some of its news outlets here in the UK—I wonder whether there is no military reason why we could not put online 24/7 the flight paths of every Russian plane, with an identifier on it, so that people can go online and make a clear connection between that flight and a bomb. I put that suggestion to him and I hope the Government will consider it.
We are in favour of transparency. The Foreign Secretary will be aware of the joint policy for the military coalition to investigate civilian casualties. I do not think that that has yet reported. I hope it will come forward, so we can see that we are dealing effectively with any casualties that might have been caused by the coalition.
On air drops, I quoted the parliamentary answer from the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), and I will do so again:
“The use of air drops to deliver aid is high risk and should only be considered as a last resort when all other means have failed”.
It seems to me that all other means have failed. The first half of that has been satisfied. The second half is that airdrops require certain conditions to be met for a successful delivery. It may be on that basis that that is being rejected, but the possibility of air drops must be actively pursued by the Government.
On the reporting of what is happening in Syria, I draw Members’ attention to the case of Zaina Erhaim, an award-winning Syrian journalist who had her passport removed by the British Government when she arrived in the UK. Apparently, the Syrians reported that her passport had been stolen. Given that we think Syria is a pariah state committing crimes against humanity, the fact that we would act on a request from it to seize someone’s passport is bizarre. I hope the Foreign Secretary can explain why that action was taken.
The international community and the UK Parliament failed Syria three years ago. Today, we must give the Government the strongest steer possible that they must act to stop the murderous activities of Russia and Syria. If we are back here in three years debating Syria again, it will be to pick over the skeleton of a country destroyed, flattened and obliterated, with its people scattered to all four corners of the world.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing this important debate. My party, Plaid Cymru, like others believes that the perpetrators of repeated attacks—the bombing of civilians, hospitals and the aid convoy on 19 September—should be brought before the International Criminal Court. I will be brief and limit my remarks to this one specific point. In his response, I ask the Foreign Secretary to inform the House of the Government’s stance on this matter.
Others have been quite clear. On Sunday, the Socialist President of France, François Hollande, said that
“these...are the victims of war crimes. Those that commit these acts will have to face up to their responsibility, including in the ICC”.
On Monday, France’s Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, called on the International Criminal Court to investigate Russia for possible war crimes in Syria. He told French radio:
“France intends to get in touch with the prosecutor to find out how the probe can be launched.”
That was referred to earlier in this debate. This followed calls on Friday by the US Secretary of State John Kerry for Russia and Syria to face a war crimes investigation for their attacks on civilians. The case against them is clear and is backed up by firm evidence. I do not need to elaborate on that today.
My party opposed the bombing of Syria by the UK. We were told that such bombing would be carefully controlled to exclude danger to civilians. Russia and Assad’s Syrian regime take no such precautions. Indeed, the evidence is that they target civilians. They should answer for that before the International Criminal Court. I realise that there are substantial difficulties. The Rome Statute, which established the Court, has been ratified by 123 countries. The United States, Russia and Syria have not done so. I understand, however, that a case could be made to the ICC through a UN referral. I think that that is what the French Government have in mind.
The Security Council has been deadlocked over Syria. Russia vetoed a French resolution in May 2014 to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC. On Saturday, Russia again vetoed a UN resolution, drafted by France, demanding an immediate end to the bombing campaign. A rival measure put forward by Russia, which called for a ceasefire, made no mention of a halt to airstrikes. This was also rejected, blocked by the United Kingdom and the United States.
The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, had said prior to the meeting of the UN Security Council that if urgent action is not taken to address the situation, thousands of Syrians would be killed and towns, such as eastern Aleppo, could be totally destroyed by the end of the year. The need for action, therefore, is pressing and the UK has the power and the influence to act. We believe the Government should use that power and influence ever more effectively, as others do, to put even more pressure on Russia in particular. It was confirmed this morning that President Putin will not visit Paris next week, after declining to meet François Hollande for talks on Syria.
I do not need to say that the situation is desperate, but both the Assad regime and Russia are accused, rightly, of perpetrating war crimes. We uphold international law. There are mechanisms for bringing perpetrators of war crimes before the ICC. On what possible basis might we not do this? Rather, we should do as our European partners do as well as fulfilling our duties as a permanent member of the Security Council. We believe that bringing such a case before the ICC would only increase its credibility. The ICC has been seen as weak, and strong countries are not signed up to it. It has been criticised, particularly by the African Union, for its focus on Africa—it has brought charges only against black Africans. We believe the ICC’s credibility can only be enhanced by such a case.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I apologise to the House for my lateness in attending the debate; I was chairing the Environmental Audit Committee.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on her passionate and heartfelt speech. I echo her sentiments about how much we miss the good sense and the good will of our lost friend, the late Member for Batley and Spen.
I visited Lebanon last September as Labour’s shadow International Development Secretary and saw at first-hand the scale of the appalling humanitarian crisis spilling out from Syria and across the middle east. I stood in a sandstorm on the Beka’a valley on the road to Damascus, just 12 miles from Assad’s presidential palace. I certainly felt very close to everything that was happening. A charity worker from Islamic Relief said to me that just six miles away there were Jihadi fighters. I had been live tweeting a lot of photos from the camps and at that point I thought it best to turn off the geo-location from the Twitter account and not do any tweeting until we got back to our safe haven of Beirut. I must admit that I felt like a bit of a coward doing that.
What we know about Syria is that 400,000 people have been killed in this humanitarian catastrophe, 5 million Syrian refugees have fled their country and 8 million more are displaced within its own borders. They are fleeing the terror of Assad, ISIL and now Russia. I met a woman called Hadia who told me how her husband was killed in Homs while working as a Red Cross volunteer. The UN had offered to take her and her children to Germany, but she declined because her mother was unable to accompany them. Four of her adult children are still trapped in Homs. Cases like Hadia’s demonstrate the terrible choices refugees face: you lose your husband, you bring your mother with you and then you are forced to leave your mother behind in order to seek safety for your children.
I also met a man who had a pacemaker fitted in Damascus and who, upon his return to Lebanon, was deregistered as a refugee because he had left freely and returned. This left him and his wife destitute. He was 65 years old and unable to work. He was destitute, lying on his back in a camp.
The vulnerability of those refugees in the Beka’a valley and elsewhere in Lebanon is growing, as we heard in the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). Their food allocation has been cut. They are on pretty much starvation rations, capped at five family members. I met 10-year-old girls labouring for seven hours a day in the fields, earning $4 a day and working one hour a day just to pay the rent for their family to pitch a little ragged tent on a disused onion factory. Those children’s childhoods have been stolen. Eight million people have been displaced internally in Syria, having suffered attacks from cluster munitions and chemical weapons, and the collective punishment of siege warfare.
At the last meeting of the all-party group on Syria that I attended with the then hon. Member for Batley and Spen, Jo Cox, we heard about 60,000 people disappearing and their families paying extortionate sums of money for news of their loved ones or just to receive their bodies for burial. We are seeing Assad carry out the extermination of his people. He has destroyed his country. He has destroyed one of the oldest civilisations in the world. He has destroyed the economy and destroyed all good will in that country. It is now a wartime economy, based on looting, corruption, arms and people smuggling. People are living under siege, their access to basic services denied. Eleven per cent of Syria’s population—2 million people—have been wounded or injured, and we have seen the terrible suffering of Syria’s children.
In August 2013, this House voted against military action in Syria. I shared the regret of many on our side of the House and of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) at our cowardice on that occasion. We are now living with the consequences of that inaction. That vote was prompted by a sarin gas attack on civilians in eastern Damascus that killed 1,400 people, 426 of whom were children. The UN doctrine of the responsibility to protect allows military intervention to protect civilians from genocide and war crimes by their state and provides a valid legal basis for intervention. That responsibility to protect weighs upon us as heavily today as it did on that August day in 2013, when, after the vote, we went home, turned on our televisions and saw that Assad had carried out a napalm attack on a school. Using chemical weapons on sleeping children is a war crime. We know all the reasons for that vote, but we now know that we have to protect civilians from Assad and, now, from Russian intervention as well.
Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree that what the Russians are doing now to Aleppo is exactly what they did to Grozny? We need to learn the lessons from that.
Mary Creagh
Absolutely. The Russian war crimes in Grozny were bravely documented by Anna Politkovskaya and another woman journalist whose name escapes me, both of whom were assassinated by the Russian regime. Of course, truth is the first casualty of war, but we do not have the fog of war to hide behind in this case. People in Aleppo are tweeting their situation and their circumstances.
We heard from the Secretary of State for Defence yesterday about how Daesh have used the conflict in Syria to recruit jihadi fighters from all over the world and to spread their terror across to Iraq. We know that the airstrikes that we are carrying out against them in Iraq and Syria, backed by a coalition of 67 countries, are slowly pushing them back in Iraq, but they will never be defeated in Syria until this conflict is sorted.
Tom Tugendhat
The hon. Lady is making some very powerful points. This is a fight not only for the people and the children of Aleppo—a point made so powerfully by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell)—but very much for ourselves: the international order we all rely on, the migrant crisis we all see and the expansion of Russia we all feel. NATO, the west and the UK demand action.
Mary Creagh
I agree totally with the hon. Gentleman. Russia’s positioning of nuclear-capable warheads in Kaliningrad is another example of its aggression towards NATO countries.
A war that we wished was none of our business is our business. Syrian children have drowned in our seas and millions of Syrians have turned up in our continent seeking shelter. I am pleased that Wakefield has offered to take 100 Syrian refugees. We are a city of sanctuary and we look forward to welcoming them among us. These are people like us. They had cars, apartments, solar panels and satellite TV, but were forced to flee bombs, napalm, sarin gas and cluster munitions from a Government who target schools and hospitals—a Government who are aided and abetted by Russia, whose sole aim is to preserve access to the Mediterranean through its port at Tartus in Syria. Russia attacked the first humanitarian aid convoy to enter Aleppo for weeks, destroying lorries filled with baby milk and anti-lice medication.
I want to hear more from the Foreign Secretary about what plans he has for further sanctions against Russia, but we cannot claim ignorance or hide behind the fog of war. Washing our hands like Pontius Pilate and choosing not to act is no strategy at all. I was too scared to tweet from the Syrian border, but brave people in Syria are tweeting their lives and filming the deaths of others as they happen. Omar Ibrahim is a neurosurgeon, removing bomb fragments from the brains of children on the floor of a destroyed hospital, and one of 30 doctors left in eastern Aleppo. Bana Alabed, a seven-year-old girl from eastern Aleppo, tweeted last week. She wanted to live like the children of London: “No bombing!” It is not too late for us to save Omar and Bana. They are relying on us. We need to do what we should have done in 2013. We need a no-fly zone over the city of Aleppo and the skies of Syria. Omar and Bana are watching. We must not let them down again.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the time for the debate this afternoon? May I also join colleagues from across the House in congratulating the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing today’s debate?
There is, as we have heard, an unimaginable humanitarian disaster happening right now across Syria, and nowhere more than in the largest city, Aleppo. As we have heard, 400,000 people have already been killed, 15,000 of them children, with in excess of 1 million people wounded since the onset of the war in 2011. As a result of the war, 5 million Syrians have been displaced and have had to flee the country. Five million people is equivalent to the entire population of Scotland, displaced, homeless and impoverished.
If I may, I would like to pay tribute to the people of my constituency of Argyll and Bute, who, with the full support of Argyll and Bute Council, the Scottish Government and the Argyll community housing association, have responded magnificently and have warmly welcomed 15 Syrian families to the gorgeous island of Bute, with more scheduled to arrive in the not-too-distant future. I have met the Syrian families and enjoyed their kind hospitality. I am delighted to report that they are settling in well and are being supported by a thoughtful and generous local community. I am sure this House would like to put on record its appreciation for the welcome shown by the people of Bute to the innocent men, women and children of Syria in their hour of greatest need.
Like the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), Bute has shown what we can do. I sincerely hope that we in the United Kingdom can accommodate far more Syrian families—not just in Argyll and Bute or in Scotland, but across the UK. However, those few families on Bute are the very lucky ones, because they managed to escape the hell on earth that their country has become. Although many of the people I met were born and bred in Aleppo, I doubt very much whether they would recognise it today, as just last week the UN envoy to Syria said that he feared that the eastern part of the city could be totally destroyed within two months.
This claim follows on from the bombing of Syria’s largest hospital, which was hit by seven airstrikes on the morning of 1 October. Then, as the repairs started, it was hit again the following day. As we have heard, in a shocking attack—undoubtedly a war crime—a UN aid convoy was deliberately targeted, killing 20 people. The World Health Organisation said that in the week to 30 September, at least 338 Aleppo residents, including 106 children, were killed.
There is overwhelming evidence that the Assad regime and his Russian allies are now deliberately targeting civilians, hospitals and the emergency medical teams and first responders. As the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) said, the regime, with its allies, stands accused of using a method known as two-tap strikes, in which they bomb an area, circle round, giving sufficient time for medical responders to attend, and then return to bomb the rescuers. If that is true, it is a despicably cynical tactic that, even amid the horror of this conflict, leaves one speechless at its depravity.
Today, in eastern Aleppo, a city officially under siege, there are only 35 doctors to care for a quarter of a million residents. It is the biggest besieged area by far. People still ask, “What can we do, when there is so much chaos on the ground and in the skies above Syria?”. I would say to the Government that, as protagonists in the conflict, it is absolutely incumbent on the United Kingdom to be part of the solution. The Government must produce a coherent plan and a sensible strategy immediately to halt the airstrike campaign in which the UK is involved. The Foreign Secretary said on 19 August:
“It is only when the fighting and bombing stops that we can hope to deliver the political solution”.
I say to the Foreign Secretary that that means everyone’s bombs, including our own.
Andy Baker of Oxfam has said:
“It’s not only Russia, it is other nations, too, Britain among them, that have fuelled the fire of this conflict, continuing to support one side or another and failing to deliver peace.”
The Foreign Secretary and Oxfam are right: adding UK jets and bombs to this prolonged and agonising war has not and will not bring about a lasting peace.
Sammy Wilson
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the UK should unilaterally stop its actions in Syria? If so, how does he think Russia and Assad would react to such a withdrawal?
Brendan O'Hara
The United Kingdom unilaterally joined this fight in December last year, promising that it would be a pivotal turning-point in the campaign. It has singularly failed to do so, so we have to take a different tack. We must have the bravery and the courage to stand up and say that we were wrong to do what we did last year. As I say, we have to take a different tack.
Almost exactly a year ago, we asked the Government a series of questions, none of which was answered in the headlong rush to join this conflict, so I ask again: how, when more than a dozen different countries are engaged in military action, have UK airstrikes brought peace and stability closer to Syria? Where is the UK Government’s detailed plan for winning and securing the peace? Where is the money for the reconstruction of Syria going to come from when the bombing ends?
We need to act, and act decisively with our allies and friends. As the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said last week,
“If we don’t do something, Aleppo will soon just be in ruins and will remain in history as a town in which the inhabitants were abandoned to their executioners.”
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
I, too, thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for bringing forward this debate, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting it. As I rise to speak today, I am mindful that it is little under a year since the vote on whether the UK should join the US-led coalition airstrikes against Daesh in Syria. SNP Members did not support the military action, and any case for airstrikes that the Government believed to exist has now completely fallen apart.
There is a very clear need for a revised military strategy. It is needed urgently, and it must not ignore the extreme humanitarian situation in the country. When the former Prime Minister addressed the House on 26 November last year, he said:
“All these elements—counter-terrorism, political and diplomatic, military and humanitarian—need to happen together to achieve a long-term solution in Syria”—[Official Report, 26 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1492.]
Regrettably, it very much appears that these words have not been followed up with any coherent strategy that would have them realised. The humanitarian element is seemingly discarded when at the expense of a military agenda. I know that the response from the Government will be to inform us of how many billions of pounds have been spent, and will be spent on rebuilding Syria after the war. The great problem is that these words are presently meaningless to Syria’s suffering civilians.
According to the Syria Campaign, more than 100,000 children are being bombed in Aleppo, while figures from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights place the total number of children killed in the conflict at over 13,000. Since the ceasefire collapsed fewer than three weeks ago, more than 100 children have been killed out of a total of around 600 civilians. Please stop to think about that—it is the equivalent of a primary school class being slaughtered every five days.
The humanitarian crisis in Syria just continues to get worse. More than 400,000 people have already been killed since 2011. The UN estimates that more than half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million is in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Millions of people have been displaced: 4 million are living as refugees outside Syria, and at least 8 million more are displaced inside the country. Amnesty International estimates that for every hour of the conflict, 50 families have been uprooted from their homes in Syria. Humanitarian aid is being blocked by the Assad regime from getting to those who need it. Hospitals are being systematically targeted by Assad and Russia, while an estimated 382 medical facilities have been destroyed.
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)
The hon. Lady is understandably painting a heart-rending picture of what is happening in Syria. It seems to me, having listened to two speeches, that the SNP’s position is to equate our military intervention with that of Vladimir Putin, and to argue that we should step aside from this carnage and hope that a unilateral act of disarmament on our part will somehow instil in Bashar al-Assad a spirit of generosity towards his own people that he has not yet shown. Does the hon. Lady not realise how absurd the SNP’s position is? Does she not recognise that it is only through both military engagement and humanitarian work that we will be able to bring relief to the suffering people of that country?
Margaret Ferrier
The right hon. Gentleman misses the fact that we are not denying that the brutality inflicted by Assad and Russian forces is beyond comprehension. However, the role that we can and should play is a humanitarian and diplomatic one. That, I believe, should be our role.
In an utterly shocking attack—one that possibly amounts to a war crime—a UN aid convoy was struck in an airstrike, which killed at least 20 people. The reality is that there is utter chaos on the ground and in the skies over Syria. Just last month, the MOD confirmed that the UK was involved in airstrikes that killed at least 62 Syrian Government troops. We have become part of the chaos.
Other Members have mentioned the work of the White Helmets, which I want to mention, too. They have saved thousands of lives, and continue to do so on a daily basis. They were recently nominated for the Nobel peace prize. As the bombs rain down, the White Helmets do not stop. They rush in to save civilians. They are the heroes in this conflict.
The UK Government need immediately to halt their airstrikes in Syria, and present Parliament with an alternative coherent plan. We need a sensible strategy—one that actually ensures that the humanitarian situation is not cast aside. We can make a difference in this conflict. We can play some part, no matter how small, in minimising the human suffering in this horrific war. However, it is time for the Government to admit that doing so will require a complete change of strategy.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing this valuable debate and commend him for the power of his speech. I also thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the debate. We have heard speeches or interventions from 43 right hon. and hon. Members, and I think that every one has made clear the horror of the House at the suffering being endured by the people of Aleppo, where rebel-held districts have come under furious attack from the Assad regime and from Russia, with the help of Iranian-backed militias.
Let me spell out some of the consequences. At this moment, the 275,000 inhabitants of eastern Aleppo are under siege. They are isolated from the outside world, subjected to constant bombardment, and prevented from receiving humanitarian aid. Their power and water supplies have been cut off in what has become a signature tactic of the Assad killing machine: the besieging of civilian populations. What we are now seeing in eastern Aleppo is the biggest and, potentially, the deadliest siege since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war more than five years ago.
Last week the United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, warned that eastern Aleppo might be “totally destroyed” by the end of the year. In the past two weeks, at least 376 people—half of them children—have been killed, and another 1,266 have been injured. Every hospital in eastern Aleppo is believed to have been bombed, some more than once, and several have been put out of action. Hospitals have been targeted with such frequency and precision that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this must be deliberate policy. As the House will know, intentionally attacking a hospital amounts to a war crime.
It is time, I think, for all these incidents to be properly and fully investigated with a view to assembling the necessary evidence and ensuring that justice is done—and, yes, I say in answer to questions that have been raised by several Members today that we do think that there could be advantage in the procedures of the International Criminal Court. I remind the House that in recent history, war criminals have been successfully prosecuted decades after their offences.
Sir Nicholas Soames
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this catastrophe represents a terrible failure of the security order that protects our very civilisation, and that if these prosecutions are not made, a terrible, terrible failure will be laid at our door?
Boris Johnson
I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend that we are all judged in the House by our actions and our resolve. I think it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield who spoke of the will of the House. I am afraid that that was absent three years ago when, as several Members pointed out, we took an historic decision not to intervene. I hope that we will show a different measure of resolve this afternoon. Those who are conducting this bombing and who are, in my view, culpable of these crimes should realise that the mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind small.
The same penalties should apply to those involved in deliberate attacks on humanitarian convoys. As many Members have pointed out, on 19 September a UN aid convoy was destroyed near Aleppo and at least 20 people were killed. The vehicles were clearly marked, and the convoy had official permission from the Assad regime to deliver those desperately needed supplies. Satellite photographs that are in the public domain leave no doubt that the convoy was struck from the air. The incident took place after dark; by Russia’s own account, the war planes of Syria’s regime cannot strike targets after dark, and—also by Russia's own account—its aircraft were in the vicinity at the time. All the available evidence therefore points to Russian responsibility for the atrocity.
I trust that the UN board of inquiry will establish exactly what happened, and we in the United Kingdom Government stand ready to help. I emphasise that it is the UK which, week after week, is taking the lead—together with our allies in America and France, and all like-minded nations—in highlighting what is happening in Syria to a world in which, I fear, the wells of outrage are becoming exhausted.
I listened to the passionate speeches from the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), the co-chair of the all-party friends of Syria group, who is carrying on the tradition of Jo Cox, whom we mourn. I listened to all the speeches that made the point that there is no commensurate horror among some of the anti-war protest groups, and I agree with the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley: I would certainly like to see demonstrations outside the Russian embassy. Where is the Stop the War coalition at the moment?
It is up to us in the Government to show a lead, and week after week in the UN we are indeed doing what we can to point out what the Russians are up to and to build an international understanding of what is going on in Syria. I believe that we are having some effect. As Members have pointed out, the Russians have now been driven to mount a veto in the Security Council to protect their own position five times. This is not some anti-Russian campaign; we are not doing this out of any particular hostility towards Russia. Indeed, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, did his utmost to negotiate an agreement with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that would at least have reduced the killing. Anyone who has studied the Lavrov-Kerry talks will know that John Kerry threw himself into that task in a Herculean way. However, on 3 October, he was driven to abandon his efforts by the attack on the aid convoy and the pounding of Aleppo, which destroyed all hopes of a ceasefire. The US Secretary of State has concluded, I think rightly, that Russia was determined to help Assad’s onslaught against the women, children and families of Aleppo regardless of any agreement.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Will the Foreign Secretary take this opportunity to tell the House whether he supports the French proposal that, in the case of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council should voluntarily undertake to give up their veto in order to enable the Security Council to take action when these heinous crimes are being committed, as is clearly the case in Aleppo at the moment?
Boris Johnson
We are in constant touch with our French colleagues about this proposal. As I said earlier, I am personally very attracted to the idea of holding these people to account before the International Criminal Court, so that is certainly something that I would like to pursue.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Does the Foreign Secretary not think that more weight would be attached to the strength of his words about the International Criminal Court if the regime of President al-Bashir of Sudan—who has also been bombing his people from the air, who has recently been seen to be using chemical weapons against them, and who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity—was not now being embraced by the UK Government through the UK-Sudan strategic dialogue as a partner in countering terrorism and managing migration?
Boris Johnson
I take that point very sincerely, but it is vital that we concentrate our efforts and our censure on the Russians and on the Assad regime, who are primarily responsible for what is going on in Syria now. We can get lost endlessly in all sorts of moral equivalences, and I heard a few earlier from the Scottish National party, but it is vital that we focus on what is happening in Syria. That is the question before us this afternoon.
I must say bluntly to the House that if Russia continues on its current path, that great country is in danger of becoming a pariah nation. If President Putin’s strategy is to restore the greatness and glory of Russia, I believe that he risks seeing his ambition turn to ashes in the face of international contempt for what is happening in Syria. Russia tries to justify its onslaught on Aleppo by saying that its sole aim is to drive out Jabhat al-Nusra, or Fatah al-Sham as it now calls itself, which is the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. No one questions that these people are terrorists, but their presence in that city cannot justify an assault on 275,000 innocent people, still less the imposition of a siege, which is, by its very nature, a wholly indiscriminate tactic. I agree with the phrase of Staffan de Mistura who said that the Russians should not be able to use the presence of Jabhat al-Nusra as an alibi.
Emily Thornberry
The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. I wonder whether he will go further in relation to Staffan de Mistura. Is he in a position to say today that the British Government will support Staffan de Mistura’s initiative to escort the jihadi fighters out of eastern Aleppo so that the Russians no longer have an excuse to bomb that section of the city?
Boris Johnson
I will come to the way forward for Aleppo in a minute. Let me remind the House of all the ways in which the UK is trying to be of use and trying to salve the situation. Like other Members, I pay tribute to the White Helmets, who rescue men, women and children from the rubble of bomb sites. Many Members have met them. Funded partly by the UK Government, they are doing an heroic job. Of the 3,000 volunteers, 142 have been killed in the line of duty and 400 have been wounded.
Britain is at the forefront of this humanitarian response to the Syrian crisis. We have pledged £2.3 billion—our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis—which makes us the second largest donor after the US. We can be proud in this country of the help that we are giving to hundreds of thousands of people. Britain has done a huge amount to mobilise the international community. I pay tribute to my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Front Bench for their work in that regard. In February, we co-hosted a conference and secured pledges of more than $12 billion, which is the largest amount ever raised in a one-day conference.
Let me answer the question about whether we are taking enough refugees asked by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). Yes, of course we should take our share, and we are doing so, but Members will agree that the overwhelming priority is to help those nearest the centres of conflict in the berm and elsewhere and to keep them as near to their communities as we can.
Let me turn to the questions that were raised by the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and repeatedly by other Members. Many have expressed the view strongly that they want this country to go further. Others have spoken about no-fly zones, or no-bombing zones. I have every sympathy with those ideas and the motives behind them. We must work through all those types of options with our allies, especially as this House is not committed to putting boots on the ground. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) said, we cannot commit to a no-fly zone unless we are prepared to shoot down planes or helicopters that violate that zone. We need to think very carefully about the consequences.
Boris Johnson
I am really sorry, but I must make some progress.
We must consult on this as widely as possible, and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield suggested, I will certainly be talking to everybody involved in the 1991 effort to provide no-fly zones over northern Iraq. We must ensure that we have innovative ways of getting aid into Aleppo and, as several Members have said, we must step up the pressure on Assad’s regime and on the Russians through sanctions. I listened carefully to what was said. The House will accept that there is a certain friability in the European resolve to impose sanctions on Russia, given the large dependency of many European countries on Russian gas. It is vital that our country remains at the forefront of keeping that resolve from crumbling, which is what we are doing.
In the long term—to get to the point made by the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury—the only realistic solution is to persuade both sides to agree to a ceasefire and then to work towards a political solution. It is of course true that that process has been stopped since April, when the ceasefire was destroyed. That does not mean that the process is dead, and it must not mean that the process is dead. On the contrary, this country and this Government have worked to keep that flame of hope alive and have worked for a settlement. On 7 September we hosted a session in London with the high negotiations committee of the Syrian opposition, which set out a detailed and progressive vision for how to achieve a transition in Syria towards a democratic, pluralist administration in which the rights of all communities in that country would be respected, but would also preserve the stability and institutions of the Syrian state while getting rid of the Assad regime.
Emily Thornberry
Before we run out of time, may I refocus the right hon. Gentleman on the question that I asked about getting rid of the jihadi fighters from eastern Aleppo?
Boris Johnson
As the hon. Lady will understand, one cannot get rid of the jihadi fighters from eastern Aleppo as long as the population of Aleppo is being bombed in a ruthless aerial bombardment that is driving people into a position in which they will do anything to fight and resist the Assad regime. Our best hope is to persuade the Russians that it is profoundly in their interests to take the initiative, to win the acclaim of the international community, to do the right thing in Syria, to call off their puppets in the Assad regime, to stop the bombing, to bring peace to Aleppo and to have a genuine ceasefire. That is the way; that is the prelude. I am perfectly prepared to look at Staffan de Mistura’s proposals for leading out al-Nusra and all the rest of it, and perhaps to bring in a UN contingent—that all sounds eminently sensible—but a ceasefire and the end of the Russian bombardment has to come first, and I hope that the hon. Lady agrees.
I think that millions of people in Syria are yearning for that outcome and for a return to talks. I hope that they will hear the passion of this afternoon’s debate. They will recognise that, of course, there are no easy solutions and no pat answers to this. They also know that this House and our constituents are disgusted by the behaviour of Assad and his regime. I hope that in Moscow and Damascus they will hear the message from British MPs that we are willing to consider anything honestly and practically that can be done to bring peace and hope back to Syria. I am grateful to all Members who have spoken so passionately this afternoon.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo and more widely across Syria.
Mr Speaker
May I thank colleagues for taking part in the debate and for the succinct and comprehensive way in which they have addressed this important issue?
Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill
Tuesday 11th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Act 2017 View all Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
If colleagues who are leaving, unaccountably, could do so quickly and quietly, that would be greatly appreciated.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I obviously welcome the number of colleagues who have remained in the Chamber after the important debate that has just happened. I am sure that they will contribute to the debate on this important and, I hope, uncontroversial topic, as we set out to give further support to our fantastic charity sector. Although the Bill proposes relatively minor changes, they are really important none the less, because they can further the practical support that we give to our outstanding charities sector in this country, and the childcare payments provisions will help families with childcare. I shall take both aspects in turn and start with the measures to help the UK’s charity sector.
I am sure that I speak for everyone in the House when I say that I am enormously proud of the fantastic work done by charitable organisations in this country. Obviously, as the Member for Battersea, I might be forgiven for pausing to make special mention of just one of those charities: the fantastic animal charity, the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home—one of the most famous animal charities in the world, let alone in this country, which finds new homes for more than 8,000 animals every year. Indeed, the Treasury has been a beneficiary of its efforts recently, with the appointment of the new chief mouser, Gladstone the cat, which managed to make me only the second new arrival from Battersea to the Treasury over the summer.
Right across this country and our constituencies, we see charities of all shapes and sizes right at the heart of our communities, whether large charities working here in the UK and across the world, researching cures for diseases or running relief efforts for those who suffer from conflict or crisis—obviously, Haiti is in our minds at the moment, and the House has just debated Syria, where so many charities are doing such brave and important work—or the smaller, more specialised charities run by just a handful of dedicated volunteers. We want to give them all the support that they deserve.
Last year alone, we provided more than £5 billion to help our charities to do more of that brilliant work. Of course, one of the biggest ways that we give them that additional revenue is through gift aid, which was worth about £1.3 billion last year. We want as many charities as possible to benefit from that, but as things stand, it is not always practical or feasible for charities to claim it. If people are out there, collecting money with a bucket, for example, they can hardly ask someone to fill in a gift aid declaration form, alongside giving a handful of small change. That is why, as many colleagues who were here during the last Parliament will remember, we introduced the gift aid small donations scheme in 2013, to allow charities and community amateur sports clubs to claim a gift aid-style top-up payment on donations received in circumstances where it is difficult or burdensome to obtain a gift aid declaration.
It is important to point out that that scheme is not a replacement for gift aid. Where charities can obtain a gift aid declaration, they should do so. Unlike gift aid, which is a tax relief linked to donors’ tax contributions, the gift aid small donations scheme is a public spending measure, under which the Government pay a top-up of 25p for every pound of eligible donations received, regardless of the donor’s tax status. This scheme was designed to complement gift aid. When we introduced the scheme, we promised that we would review how it was working after three years, and we have done so. It is therefore a pleasure, as a result of that review, to introduce three measures in the Bill that will make further improvements to the scheme.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way before going into more detail. I fully appreciate the need for extra simplicity. Would not a bold step be to assume that all charitable donations are subject to tax relief overall? I appreciate that that cannot be done straightaway because enormous sums are involved, but could that be the trajectory that the Government take ultimately to make the tax treatment of charities incredibly simple indeed?
Jane Ellison
My hon. Friend is right to suggest that we are seeking as much simplicity as we can get, but I will perhaps come on to and tease out during the debate why we want to ensure that that simplicity and light touch goes alongside a degree of assurance. Finding that balance is perhaps one of the areas where a range of views will be expressed. We are keen to have a degree of assurance about the claims made and the public money given to charities.
On the consultation that took place, it might help colleagues to know that John Low, the chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, has said:
“The inclusion of a Small Charitable Donations Bill could be good news for charities, particularly for smaller organisations which have often struggled to unlock the benefits of Gift Aid. This provides a real opportunity to simplify the scheme”—
that is the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge)—
“and make it fit for the 21st century”.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
Small charities in my constituency include the Leasowes walled garden project, which is part of the Halesowen Abbey Trust—a small organisation dependent on small donations. What plans does the Minister have to communicate to those small charities the benefits of the scheme that she is outlining?
Jane Ellison
My hon. Friend might be interested to know that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has a team that goes out promoting these schemes. I was really impressed to read that since 2014 it had given more than 600 presentations to charities of all sorts of sizes, up and down the country, but he is right to say that we can always do more. I really hope that as a result of the Bill and this debate, colleagues will feel that they, too, can play an important role in telling charities in their area the good news that the scheme just got easier. Obviously, we all have a lot of contact with smaller charities in particular, and we get to know them over the years in which we represent them.
The changes are the result of months of consultation and constructive discussion with the charity sector. I thank the hundreds of charities, representative bodies and other organisations that worked with HMRC to make this review work.
Let me turn to the first of our proposed changes. The Bill will make an important change to the criteria for eligibility for the gift aid small donations scheme. Currently, to be eligible, a charity must have been registered for at least two full tax years, and have claimed gift aid in at least two of the previous four tax years, without a gap of longer than a year; obviously, that is around the assurance process. The Bill removes both those criteria, allowing newer and smaller charities to access the scheme sooner. As we all know, for a charity, those early years are important. The change will provide a welcome financial boost when it is most needed. This is a substantial simplification of the scheme; the only remaining eligibility criterion that charities and community amateur sports clubs will need to meet is the gift aid matching requirement, under which charities must claim £1 of full gift aid for every £10 claimed under the small donations scheme.
There are two reasons why we feel it is necessary to retain this rule. The first is to incentivise charities to engage with the full gift aid scheme, which will provide them with even greater income over the longer term. The second is to protect from fraud the small donations scheme, which has substantially fewer record-keeping requirements than gift aid—an important factor that was looked at when the scheme was first designed back in 2012. It is by retaining the rule that donations under the scheme must be matched with gift aid donations that we can best do that. We are simplifying the rules on eligibility as far as possible to allow as many charities as we can to benefit, while protecting the integrity of the scheme.
James Duddridge
While I fully support the point that the Minister makes, I can conceive of a time when it is decided in a review that that link is not the correct one. Will the Minister consider adding a clause in Committee that would allow us to take out that requirement without going through the cumbersome primary legislative process in this House again? That would effectively allow her successors to make a slightly different decision in future, without having to come back to the House.
Jane Ellison
Clearly, all the points that colleagues make on Second Reading will be carefully considered and debated again in Committee. I understand my hon. Friend’s direction of thinking, but perhaps that will be discussed further in Committee.
The second important change enabled by the Bill is the future proofing of the small donations scheme to ensure that charities that use modern, innovative ways to collect money such as contactless donations will still be able to benefit. The small donations scheme was never intended to cover other methods of donation such as direct debit, online and text messaging, for which well-established and well-used processes for claiming gift aid exist. That remains the case, but we recognise that cash transactions have declined as new, innovative payment technologies have become more prevalent. We believe that the gift aid small donations scheme should keep pace with these amazing modern techniques.
Contactless donations collected using dedicated charity collection terminals share many of the same practical problems as bucket collections. Transactions are instant, and there is little opportunity for fundraisers to engage with donors to solicit a gift aid declaration. The Bill will therefore extend the scheme so that donations made using contactless technology will be eligible for top-up payments.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
I welcome that decision by the Government. I should say, as I tabled an amendment to the original Bill to suggest exactly that future proofing, that I am glad that the Government have got there, perhaps a few years later than they might have done. However, is it really fair to end up with a different treatment if I swipe my phone cleverly at some terminal rather than if I happen to text the number that comes up on my screen? My sense is that I would not be willing to give details of my address through my mobile phone provider, so can we not be a little more generous and allow text donations in that situation?
Jane Ellison
Text messages can, as my hon. Friend knows, be gift aided, so we do not expect problems in that regard, but the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), will seek to respond more fully on those points at the end of the debate.
The final change proposed in the Bill is simplifying the rules on the top-ups that charities can receive on donations that they receive in their community buildings. Those rules were designed to ensure fairness and parity of treatment for charities structured in different ways. Without those rules, some charities are entitled to hundreds of thousands of pounds more than others simply because of differences in their historical structures. The gift aid small donations scheme is particularly well used by local churches. That was made clear by the Archbishops Council, which recently noted that in 2014 parishes could claim record levels of gift aid, with a significant part of the increase arising from the use of the gift aid small donations scheme. We want churches to continue to benefit from the valuable extra income provided by the small donations scheme, but it is important that the scheme continues to deliver the policy intention of providing fair and equal outcomes regardless of structure. The Bill will therefore address an anomaly in the original legislation.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I support the Bill, and I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation, but does she accept that the majority of charities, especially in my constituency, are small and rely solely for governance on volunteers? There has been a reduction in volunteer numbers across the United Kingdom. For many the Bill does not go far enough in promoting equal access to fundraising opportunities for charities that do not rely on staff.
Jane Ellison
Perhaps that is something that we can look at in more detail in Committee.
These are important simplifications. Throughout the consultation, we received supportive comments from charities, as demonstrated in the quote I gave earlier. There are always additional asks, and we would all want to be open to ideas about how we can further support charities. However, we think that the measures that we have introduced in the Bill are important next steps to make it easier for charities of all sizes.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
There is a lot of merit in the Bill, which reaches out to ensure that smaller charities benefit from the scheme. Does my hon. Friend recognise that many smaller charities do not even know that the scheme exists, so part of the challenge that we face is communicating with them properly so that they know that the scheme will be a lot less complex and that they can benefit from it? What measures will she put in place to ensure that that happens?
Jane Ellison
I have already mentioned HMRC’s outreach work, which I will certainly be encouraging. More promotional opportunities are planned, and I know that the Minister for Civil Society will say more about that at the end of the debate. It is a fair point and we want to make it easier, but obviously there are people who just do not know about this and still perceive barriers, so everything we can do to challenge that is welcome. We are extremely keen to hear thoughts from across the House on how we can do that, so we are always listening. I am very happy to put those suggestions to HMRC, and I know that my ministerial colleague will be happy to consider that in his Department as well.
Let me clarify the anomaly and how we are addressing it. The anomaly in the original legislation allows some charities to claim more than others, based only on how they are structured. The Government welcome the supportive and constructive approach adopted by the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups during the recent consultation on the change.
The Bill also considerably relaxes the rules on where charities can receive donations that are still eligible for the gift aid small donations scheme. Currently, the scheme’s so-called community buildings rules mean that charities can claim top-up payments only on donations received during charitable activities that take place within the community building. However, we know that many local charities, although based in community buildings, carry out most of their activities in the local community, away from the building itself, which means they are unable to benefit fully from the small donations scheme. The Bill therefore relaxes the rules to allow charities based in community buildings to claim top-up payments on donations received outside the building but within the local community area. Colleagues will be delighted to know that, among the many small, local civil society groups, the scouts and guides, the air and sea cadets and other local uniformed groups, in particular, will benefit significantly from this change and will be able to receive the support they deserve for the vital work they carry out in our communities.
Taken together, this package of reforms has the potential to provide a real boost to many charities, particularly the up to 9,000 new charities that apply for recognition by HMRC each year. Based on provisional estimates, these changes are expected to benefit charities by £15 million a year, a significant increase that underlines the Government’s commitment to supporting a greater number of charities and a greater number of donations. The final figures will be certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility as part of this year’s autumn statement.
So far I have talked about the changes that will further support our charities. Let me turn briefly to the tax-free childcare aspects of the Bill, which will help us ensure that it is easier for hard-pressed parents to receive the support they need. In the previous Parliament we legislated to introduce tax-free childcare. That will provide up to £2,000 of Government support for childcare costs per child a year, which parents can use with any childcare provider they choose. The idea is that they can simply apply online to open an account for each child, and that for every £8 a parent pays in, we will pay in an additional £2. The system will be trialled later this year and then gradually rolled out to parents from early next year.
During our user testing of the system to date, we have found a couple of minor technical issues that we need to resolve in order to make it as straightforward as possible for parents. The Bill therefore makes two minor technical amendments to ensure that the scheme operates as intended. The first technical change relates to the duty of parents to confirm that they remain eligible to receive tax-free childcare each quarter. The Bill will allow greater flexibility over when parents are asked to make this confirmation. It will mean that once a quarter parents can confirm their eligibility for all their children at the same time, rather than having to do it separately for each child if they registered them at different times.
The second technical change will mean that parents can use a standard online form if they want to query a decision. That will make the process much more straightforward and convenient. We still want to ensure that everyone can ask for a review, so anyone who would struggle to get online will still be able to raise their queries in other ways.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Can the Minister confirm that what she has said is that credits will be available for each child, and that there will not be a two-child limit, as is proposed for working families tax credits? Can she compare the regime that will be offered under this Bill, which has shown great consideration to parents, with what would be the case for families on working families tax credits?
Jane Ellison
I might have to come back to the hon. Gentleman on the latter point about the comparison, because it is not really within the scope of the Bill. I can confirm that we are proposing only two changes—everything else is unchanged from the original legislation, and we are not proposing that there should be any other changes in the Bill.
As I said at the outset, the changes made through the Bill are relatively minor and technical, but they are important, whether they are making it easier for more of our charities to claim extra funding to support the fantastic work they do up and down the land in our constituencies, or whether they are making sure that hard-working parents can access tax-free childcare in the most simple and efficient way possible when it is introduced. The Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill delivers against both those objectives, and I therefore commend it to the House.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to debate opposite the Minister today, as always.
The Bill primarily makes changes to the gift aid small donations scheme and some technical changes to the tax-free childcare scheme. The Opposition are broadly supportive of the specific measures in this nine-clause Bill, but we have a few concerns, which I will briefly outline.
The gift aid small donations scheme was established, as many are probably aware, in 2012 with cross-party support. The idea behind it was that, in situations where it is impractical to get a gift aid declaration in the usual way, such as through collection boxes or church plates, a charity can claim a gift aid-style top-up payment from the Government. A charity can claim 25% on cash donations of £20 or less, up to a yearly total that is now at £8,000.
Since April 2016, a charity has been able to claim £2,000 in a tax year from the Government under the scheme. However, that is subject to a number of qualifying criteria, which must be met if a charity is to access the scheme in the first instance. The Bill removes a number of those qualifying rules to make it easier for smaller charities to access the scheme. I will run through those changes only briefly, as the Minister has already given a fantastic overview of them.
The scheme currently includes a requirement to have been registered as a charity for at least two full tax years—the two-year eligibility rule. The charity must also have made a successful gift aid claim in at least two of the previous four tax years, with no more than two years’ gap between claims—the two-in-four-years claims rule. Clause 1 removes those two rules entirely and makes consequential amendments to the Small Charitable Donations Act 2012 and the secondary legislation that provides for the administration of the scheme.
Clause 2 amends the definition of a small payment to include donations via contactless payments, as we have heard. Clauses 3 and 4 widen the community buildings rules. Clause 3 would essentially allow a charity to claim £8,000 for small donations raised anywhere or up to £8,000 for donations collected from each community building it has. In the latter case, donations would include those
“made in person in the local authority area in which the community building is situated”.
Clause 4 would make a series of amendments to the rules for connected charities making claims, where one or more of the charities runs charitable activities in a community building. A group of charities would then be entitled to make a claim of up to £8,000 for small donations made in the local authority area in which each community building is located. Alternatively, it would be able to make a claim of up to £8,000 for small donations made anywhere in the UK.
When the gift aid small donations scheme was implemented, Labour was generally supportive of the initiative, as the Minister is aware, but we raised concerns at the time that it was quite complex and could create barriers for small charities that could be eligible to claim the top-up payment. Indeed, the Opposition spokesperson at the time said:
“The Bill will make a difference to charities and perhaps changes will be made after the three-year review.”—[Official Report, 26 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 110.]
The complexity has since been confirmed by the charity sector in practice, and I am pleased that, in this Bill and the consultation preceding it, the Government have acknowledged that there is a problem. However, I am aware that the charity sector has expressed disappointment that the Government have not gone further, a little of which has been reflected in the interventions made so far. The Charity Finance Group, for instance, has said the changes were a missed opportunity for widespread reform of the scheme and that the Government were “locking in future failure”.
In particular, some charities have been calling for changes to the matching requirement, which stipulates that to make a claim under the small donations scheme the charity needs to receive gift aid donations in the same tax year. The total of eligible donations on which the charity can claim a top-up payment is restricted to an amount equal to 10 times the amount of the net donations on which gift aid is claimed for that year. Charity organisations have made representations arguing that changing the matching requirement would remove a significant barrier, particularly for small charities. Indeed, a survey carried out by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations found that 50% of respondents with an income under £10,000 want the matching requirement to be removed or reduced. Will the Minister take the opportunity when summing up to explain in more detail why the Government have not addressed the charity sector’s main concern about the matching requirement?
When discussing eligibility criteria for any kind of Government grant, the issue of fraud must be considered. The Opposition have several concerns about how loosening the eligibility criteria could have an impact on that risk. It is widely known that some charities have been abused in the past, being used as a vehicle to avoid tax and indeed to launder money. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were some high profile cases involving large companies, such as Metal Box and Imperial Tobacco, which used supposed charities to provide education for the children of the UK, but actually spent the money solely to pay the school fees of their directors’ children. That may seem a long time ago, but I am trying to make the point that there is always scope for abuse in such schemes. I hope that the Government will look carefully at any potential loopholes. We must make sure that any loosening of the rules for access to Government grants or tax reliefs does not provide a further incentive for tax avoiders, albeit a small minority, to set up a charity.
I will turn briefly to the elements of the Bill relating to tax-free childcare. Clause 5 will make three minor technical amendments to the tax-free childcare scheme. As the explanatory notes to the Bill explain, under the tax-free childcare scheme, parents will receive top-up payments quarterly and will have to reconfirm at the end of each quarter that they still meet the eligibility criteria. This entitlement period is currently three months, but can be varied by no more than one month by secondary legislation. Clause 5 changes that period to two months, which simply allows for the alignment of eligibility periods for additional children. The other minor change is to the way in which applications for a review of a decision by HMRC can be made. The Bill will allow secondary legislation to be introduced to enable such applications to be made digitally.
Although I appreciate that the Bill makes only minor changes to the tax-free childcare scheme, I believe it is within the scope of a Second Reading debate to discuss the wider policy background. As the Minister will be all too aware, the Opposition have some concerns about tax-free childcare. In particular, the policy is hugely regressive. For instance, the saving is capped at £2,000 per child, as an additional 20p from the Government on top of every 80p spent by the parent, so to get the maximum benefit people would need to spend £10,000 a year on childcare. That is not an option for many working families, and it is not therefore the most efficient way of providing Government support to cover the cost of childcare.
Families certainly need help with childcare costs, which have soared in the past six years of Tory Government. Parents now spend £1,600 more each year than they did in 2010, according to Labour party analysis. According to new data taken from freedom of information requests, costs in some local areas have risen by more than 200%. Labour has established a childcare taskforce, led by the shadow Secretary of State for Education, to bring forward proposals for a comprehensive system of universal, affordable and good quality childcare.
James Duddridge
Quite often in these debates, we hear the House of Commons Library quoted, but very rarely do we hear the words “Labour party research”. In order that we can look at those figures in a little more detail, would she be prepared to put that work and the workings that underlie her assertion in the House of Commons Library, so that we can all probe them and reassure ourselves that they are correct and valid figures?
Rebecca Long Bailey
I certainly would. If the hon. Gentleman contacts my office directly, I shall be happy to have a chat or to provide him with details directly so that he can peruse them at his leisure.
I want to point the Minister in the direction of the findings of Labour’s childcare taskforce when they become available. I hope the Government can glean some good ideas from it, because they have a bit of form for borrowing ideas, shall we say, of late. I am pleased that the Chancellor has gleaned some good ideas from the Opposition, especially in respect of investing in our economy. However, I am digressing slightly, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I confirm that the Opposition are broadly supportive of the Bill and the steps within it that will make the gift aid small donations scheme more accessible to smaller charities. That said, we do have some concerns, which I have outlined, and I hope the Minister will address them when he sums up.
Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
I have to declare an interest, as I am sure will many Members who are present, as a Member of Parliament who has set up a charity. In fact, I have set up two. The fact that, 20 years on, only one still exists shows part of the experience of people who set up charities for good causes, because it is often hard to sustain the funding. The first is a charity that supports people who suffer from substance abuse and it is flourishing, but with the second, which was set up to support the victims of domestic violence, I found it hard to continue to secure funds. That is the nature of charitable work and it will not stop any of us from setting up new charities. Hopefully, the Bill will encourage more of us and our constituents to take such opportunities.
Speaking on behalf of the Church of England, I welcome the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill because it contains important provisions to ensure that gift aid donations are effective and benefit as many charities as possible. The Lloyds Bank Foundation and the NCVO, to which the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) referred, have found that donation income has been falling for small charities and that the scheme that was put in place in 2013 has not fulfilled the potential for which it was invented. We are here today to improve that situation.
Conversely and encouragingly, parish churches across the country raised a record sum of £953 million in 2013. That is why the Minister referred to the fact that the Church received record levels of gift aid in 2014—the two things go hand in hand. That figure represents a combined increase of £24 million on the previous year, and that happened despite the economic challenges parishioners face in the post-2008 world.
In addition to supporting the work of the Church at parish, diocese and national level, parishes continue to give more than £46 million to other organisations working around the world, from food banks and local children’s charities to international aid appeals—the range is huge. Contrary to the general trend of reducing donations to small charities, church congregations have clearly been giving sacrificially. I am sure that they would give more still if we made it easier, simpler and more compelling to do so. That is what I believe the Bill will achieve.
The changes the Government are proposing should produce a simpler and more equitable system. Some churches and charities found the previous system complex. Technically, they were eligible to claim up to £8,000 for donations received during charitable activities and to use the so-called top-up elements for donations collected in home communions and wall safes, but not those collected in services.
It is clear just from my trying to explain it to Members that that is quite a complex distinction, and it proved difficult for record keeping. I am sure all of us have had the experience, during our constituency duties, of sitting in a civic service, conscientiously filling out the little envelope in the pew in front of us—of course while paying absolute attention to the sermon being preached. Every time I have done that, I have thought to myself that I do not envy the church treasurer’s task in trying to decipher my writing. I cannot help but feel that the innovative suggestions of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) could be applied to a better way of doing that in future —one feels there just must be a better way.
More than 100 parishes and dioceses responded to a call for evidence from HMRC and the Treasury. The Government have clearly listened to their concerns about the perceived imbalance between the two elements of the original scheme. The greater simplicity of the revised gift aid and small donations scheme should bring greater equity and greater compliance, especially for small churches. I do have a few questions for the Minister, however.
I want to ask about the progression towards contactless payment, provision for which is made in the Bill. How does that sit with the responses that the National Council for Voluntary Organisations received from 340 charities that showed that cheques were the most favoured method for inclusion, and that more than two thirds of respondents wished cheques to be added to the scheme? Two thirds of charities also wanted one-off online donations to be included. Events give rise to occasions when people want to give a donation on a one-off basis. Will the Minister look at that?
Perversely, only 36% of respondents wanted contactless donations included, yet those are in the Bill. Now, far be it from me to look backwards in time to the way in which things have always been done; we must of course look forwards, and make contactless giving the way of the future, especially so as to embrace the next generation. But we should acknowledge that many older donors are among the most generous. There is no question but that for them the trusty old cheque book is one way of making sure, for their own records, that they know how they are managing their money and where they are giving money. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure me that there will be no demographic discrimination as a result of the Bill.
Our society has a strong tradition of philanthropy, reflecting its Judaeo-Christian origins, in which we are enjoined to help those less fortunate than ourselves. With so many good causes, and challenges facing us every day, surely we should be doing all we can to promote that tradition of digging deep and giving as much as we possibly can to those who need it. We need to make sure that more charities are able to benefit, and I am pleased that the Bill will assist new charities. Hardly a day goes by without the need for a new charity to be born, even perhaps at the hands of a Member of Parliament acting as its midwife. I hope that the Bill will reinforce the tradition—a hallmark of British society—of being willing to give to others in need.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I am a fairly new Member of Parliament and was not here when the Small Charitable Donations Act 2012 was passed, so it is interesting to hear some of the history of how the small donations scheme started and how it has got to where it is just now. It was also interesting to hear about some of the changes being made as a result of looking back, three years in, and thinking about how the scheme has worked. I am pleased that the Government have taken on board some of the suggestions charities have made, to ensure that the scheme works as well as possible for those charities using it and for the Government, who have to administer it.
Some of the measures in the Bill are welcome. The SNP welcomes the removal of the eligibility criteria for new charities. That is a sensible way to go—it is sensible to make changes particularly in respect of the two-in-four-year criteria. The inclusion of contactless payment is to be welcomed. There was an interesting comment about text donations. I am not entirely sure how they fit in, but I would be keen for text donations to be included in the small donations part of gift aid and not just in the general part of gift aid, because so many people nowadays give by text message—it is a very easy way for people to give—but do not follow up with a text about their address. I have done the same thing.
I could be wrong, but from my reading of the Library briefing, I understand that the UK Government have the ability to change the matching requirement without the need for further primary legislation, as introduced in the Small Charitable Donations Act 2012.
Like the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), we have concerns about the 10:1 ratio. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) mentioned charities that are run solely by volunteers. Some of those charities do not do gift aid because the paperwork is far too cumbersome. Doing general gift aid and gift aid small donations claims paperwork would be doubly cumbersome, particularly for those that do not have staff. Those are among our smallest charities. In some cases, they never get donations of more than £20. They work in our most deprived communities and therefore are most in need of those donations—they get £3 here and there but it is just too complicated for them to jump through the hoops of any of those schemes. They believe that they are unable to deal with the small donations scheme because of the requirement additionally to take part in the matching for the gift aid scheme.
It would therefore be good for the Government to consider the impact on small charities. As was mentioned, for those small charities, it will not involve huge sums of money and people spending thousands of pounds sending their children to private schools. For example, a local organisation in my constituency buys shovels so that people can clean the pavements in the winter time—they are smaller-use pavements that the council does not get to. It receives a very small amount of money, but is most in need of access to those schemes and is being excluded because it does not have the staff and the ability to fill in the paperwork. If the Government could consider that and the matching requirement, it could have an impact on small charities.
Dr Poulter
The hon. Lady is making a thoughtful and constructive speech and highlights some of the challenges for smaller charities that are mostly comprised of volunteers, who do not always have the understanding of and expertise in complex legislation when they are in post. That will clearly be the challenge of this and other legislation in the field. In that respect, is she saying—there may be merit if she is—that some of the anti-fraud measures are too restrictive and add complexity in respect of the funding requirements? Given the other anti-fraud measures in charities legislation, is there an argument for scrapping some of those measures altogether?
Kirsty Blackman
I would worry about the unintended consequences for anti-fraud legislation—I would not want to scrap those measures for very large charities that deal with large sums of money. We need to consider how very small charities, which cannot defraud the Government out of thousands of pounds in gift aid claims because they get donations of only £500 in total in a whole year—they will not break the bank—will access both the gift aid small donations scheme and the gift aid scheme in general. That is the majority of what I wanted to say on the gift aid small donations scheme.
On tax-free childcare, I cannot declare an interest in having set up a charity. As the parent of a five-year-old and a three-year-old, however, I can declare an interest in the current childcare voucher scheme and I am likely to be a beneficiary of tax-free childcare from next year when it is introduced. The childcare voucher scheme has been useful but limited, so I welcome some of the changes that will come in through the tax-free childcare scheme. These schemes will be easier to access for parents from less traditional employment backgrounds. That is a positive benefit, as is the uplift in the amount of money they will be able to claim. However, the UK Government’s proposals do not go far enough.
The Bill’s proposals on flexibility of dates and the ability to make requests digitally are hugely positive. The childcare voucher scheme has sometimes fallen down because of the inability to make some changes digitally. I know parents who have not changed the amount they claim when they needed to because it takes 15 days or so to make a change, and it involves a lot of printing out, posting and so on. The three-month rule is much clearer.
The UK Government’s proposals on childcare and inequality are not universal enough. The Scottish Government pledged in their manifesto to almost double the free early learning and childcare to 30 hours a week. Both my children have benefited from the uplift in free childcare and nursery places, and that has been hugely positive. Nursery places are now for three hours and 10 minutes a day. That is a length of time one can do something with, whereas two-and-a-half hours is not. By the time you get home and make a cup of tea, your morning has gone, whereas you can pop out and do a full shop in three hours and 10 minutes. Having those extra few minutes makes the biggest difference. The additional changes will make even more of a difference, with full days for two, three and four-year-olds. It is important that the changes are not just for three and four-year-olds, but some two-year-olds too. The changes mean that some three and four-year-olds will receive free school meals. Primary and one, two and three-year-old children in Scotland already receive free school meals. Again, that is a huge benefit. Again, I declare an interest as someone whose child receives free school meals—they are absolutely brilliant and he loves them. Nursery children will now also receive these meals.
The benefits that families in Scotland receive are universal, not means-tested. There is not a complicated means-testing system to decide which families receive them. There is no requirement for both parents to be working. Children across the board receive the benefits, which benefit both children and families. All children, whatever their demographic or socioeconomic background, are benefiting from high-quality free childcare.
We are also introducing baby boxes, again on a universal basis. They are an import from Finland and they have been hugely successful. The issues with the tax-free childcare scheme relate to it not being universal and not being provided to enough families. Some of the families most in need will not benefit from access to free childcare, particularly if they are going through the process of job seeking or anything like that. They are the ones who would benefit most from free childcare, which would enable them to access appointments, interviews and interview preparation, so the lack of universality is a concern.
We are largely supportive of the specific proposals in the Bill. We have concerns about gift matching and we will likely return to that next week, but I appreciate the opportunity to speak today.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; it is great to catch your eye. It has been a while since I spoke from the Back Benches, and I have certainly never before spoken after the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman).
This place is at its best when we can use real-life examples and be a lot more passionate than when we are simply reading from a briefing document. Whether we are talking about the two-and-a-half hours, or however long it takes to make a cup of tea, about charities shovelling snow, which we do not have in Southend—I suspect we do not have the snow, which is something my children would very much like—I share with the hon. Lady some understanding of the credits. My youngest is five, so I greatly sympathise with her. In particular, I thank her for pulling me up and correcting my intervention about whether it was possible under the existing legislation to change the 1:10 ratio, although I would like to return to that in a lot more detail later in my speech.
This is the first time I have spoken from the Back Benches in some time and it is a particular pleasure to do so on the subject of charities. My constituents are an awful lot more interested in charities and what we can do for them in Southend than they are in some of the very good work that I did overseas. Important as that work was, charity begins at home, and in this case it begins in Southend.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not agree that there are some tremendous small charities founded in our communities that seek to help communities abroad, whether by helping orphanages or schools? Does he agree that we need to support them as much as our charities at home?
James Duddridge
I thank my hon. Friend for pulling me up. In fact, round the corner from my office is a charity that supports people in Uganda, which was within the geographic patch that I was responsible for. It is indeed a Southend charity and it would receive some of the benefits of this legislation.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), mentioned the great value of churches in the community. Like perhaps other Members, I want to pepper my speech with examples from my constituency. I want to pay particular credit to the Southend Association of Voluntary Services, which pulls together charities and best practice and allows charities to be given the expertise to utilise the types of benefits that the Government are introducing.
It seems like only a hop, skip and a jump since 2006, when I remember throwing two lever-arch folders into my bin in Portcullis House, in the knowledge that I would never again have to look at charities legislation. I should have kept those two Bills, but I went back and looked at the Charities Act 2006. It was a much bigger Bill, with 78 clauses, rather than the nine clauses we are considering today. There are a lot of things that are still relevant today: the debate about whether schools should be charities, and whether education is in itself a charitable good or whether charities need to go out and prove themselves over and above. A lot has changed. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) was speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, and there was also a gentleman from Doncaster North—a junior Cabinet Minister with great, or maybe not so great, things ahead of him—who did a good job on that Bill.
One charities issue that was raised during the passage of the 2006 Act was “chugging”, or charities mugging. I notice that the short title of this short, nine-clause Bill is quite wide, so there are perhaps opportunities to insert a few more clauses, whether proposed by Her Majesty’s official Opposition or enthusiastic young Members of Parliament such as myself, or—[Laughter.] It does not say “Pause for laughter” in my notes; that was not a joke. Maybe the Minister will bring forward a review of charities mugging. Even now we get harassed at tube stations, and it is a distraction from the passion for charitable giving that, really, everyone wants to engage in.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Rob Wilson)
It would probably help my hon. Friend to know that we have reformed the self-regulation of charities. There is a single regulator that is now responsible for those activities, rather than the three that there were before, so we are in a much better position to deal with complaints from the public.
James Duddridge
I thank my hon. Friend for that; perhaps he will take this as a complaint from a humble member of the public. If he joined me in trying to get from Fenchurch Street station to Tower Hill in the morning, on the way to the House of Commons, he would see not only the appalling works and the way people are funnelled through, but that the number of charities operating there creates a physical boundary between the two stations, which is a real problem for commuters who otherwise would donate. There are quite a few instances when I have felt less positive about charities, which I am naturally passionate about. I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the work. Perhaps I could review what has been done while I was looking at other things since 2006, and also perhaps invite him for a cup of coffee on the corner of Fenchurch Street to meet some of my constituents coming into London and encountering the problem.
We are debating the “Small Charitable Donations” Bill, but I am not quite sure what “small” is. A Southend charity set up by Charles Latham and Howard Briggs has looked to provide a capital amount that could be used to provide small loans to micro-opportunities—non-charities but, in some cases, registered charities as well. That developed from a level of £60,000 or £80,000 to become a £1 million or £2 million fund. Even at that level, it considers itself small and has to do all its fund management via the Essex fund. My constituency predecessor, Sir Teddy Taylor, is involved in that fund. It deals with small charities, but I am not sure that it would be helped by the definition of small charities in the Bill.
I am generally a believer in small being beautiful—my wife is very petite—and in relation to charities, the closer the charity stays to an individual cause, the better. The shovels example is, I think, great. Southend’s charity that wants to do some something for targeted HIV/AIDS patients within a certain age category is another fabulous example. There are, however, some bigger charities—I am not going to name them; they do good work—that have somewhat lost their way. These are the ones that we see on the back pages of The Guardian, in case any of my hon. Friends sully themselves with such things—they are very good for the fireplace. We can often find a job with such a charity paying significantly more than an MP’s salary—shock, horror. This could be running a charity, or doing a junior, second-tier director job, but, as I say, small is beautiful and the more we can help small charities with the sort of provisions in the Bill, the better. At the moment, there is a flight for merging charities, meaning that charities get much bigger. When they do, I fear they move too far away from their communities. We should encourage those charities to stay small but numerous.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an amusing but serious point. If I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, I, too, will mention some charities in my constituency. When it comes to small charities, does my hon. Friend agree that many of them are struggling at the moment, and that the measures in the Bill will give them boost, especially if we help to publicise them?
James Duddridge
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that some charities are struggling and that there is a constant shift in funding. I remind Southend charities not to believe all the doom and gloom that was talked pre-Brexit. We are still growing strongly; we are the strongest-growing economy in the G7. Rather than squirreling away money for the rainy day that might come, we should encourage people to spend, enjoy and donate some of that money to charities. The Bill’s measures should allow more of such money to come back to charities.
In common with previous speakers, I should like to mention a charity with which I was involved, although I did not start it up. I was appointed by a charity known as the Bulldog Trust, which is based just down the road from here. Its website said that it was a philanthropy organisation. I thought that it was no good for me because I do not have any significant cash to give to it—it would certainly be a £20 donation from me rather than a £20 million donation—but what this charity does is to link up people who have a skill and want to use it within a charitable organisation. That sent me to the Grow Movement, which at that time was a charity operating in Uganda, Rwanda and Malawi.
I mention that example because I am a little unclear about what happens when a charity such as the Grow Movement is UK based but international. Of the trustees, I think I was the only one domiciled in the UK; it has an international virtual board. We need to make sure that small sums, wherever they might come from, can go to such organisations. At one time it was inconceivable that someone would send a few quid from France or the United States, but now, because of the way the internet is set up, when we purchase something we are quite often asked to “click here” to enable an extra £2 to go to a charity. I urge the Minister to review the position and ensure that charities like the Grow Movement can benefit from this and future legislation.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a series of good points about the impact that the Bill could have on small charities. He has mentioned several in Southend, and I suspect that all of us could mention others in our own constituencies. Is he aware that the inability to reclaim through texts is a possible issue for some of those charities, and does he think that the Minister should reflect on that when winding up the debate? May I also ask what he thinks might be the impact on charities such as scouts groups that sometimes, for example, raise funds using buckets outside supermarkets. Under the new provisions, I think that they will be able to—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I know that the hon. Gentleman is doing a Whip’s job, and I do not mind that, but what we cannot have is the making of speeches rather than interventions. I want to try to help everyone, but I cannot allow myself and the Chamber to be tested by a speech rather than an intervention.
James Duddridge
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, My hon. Friend suffers from having far too many ideas, and I look forward to—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. It might help if we heard them over a period rather than all in one go. That would help the hon. Gentleman, and it would help me.
James Duddridge
I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. I in no way meant to challenge your ruling, but I did want to deal with the issue of SMS messages. I have absolute confidence in these two excellent Ministers, and I look forward to what will be said today. I shall go into a fair amount of detail about different payment methods later, but at this juncture, suffice it to say that SMS messages are absolutely right for this purpose. As many people have pointed out, people do not necessarily want to give all their details. There is also a demographic issue. My mother-in-law would be very happy to text a £5 donation, but if you ask her to use a smart phone or contactless payments, she thinks you are speaking a different language. It is discriminatory not to enable her to donate by text.
As for the point about the scouting movement—my eldest is going up to the scouts, and they collect—I understand that it will be included, but I hope that the specialists on the Front Bench will clarify the position. Earlier in the debate the changes involving buildings were welcomed. It will still be possible to collect money outside a building rather than inside.
Jane Ellison
I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend and, indeed, the whole House that this is a very positive measure for bob-a-job schemes up and down the country. I am sure that scouts and other uniformed youth groups will welcome it.
James Duddridge
The Minister takes me back to my own bob-a-job days in the Scouts. There was the Whip thinking that bob-a-job was something that one did on the Back Benches in order to progress in the future.
Richard Graham
Contrary to what has been suggested, Mr Deputy Speaker, this is not a bob-a-job contribution. Does my hon. Friend agree that this could also be incredibly helpful to armed forces cadets and other charities? I am thinking particularly of those who help people to pack items that they have bought in shops. Small amounts of money will often be collected in buckets to go to small causes, and the Minister has just confirmed that that will be covered.
James Duddridge
Another point is that charitable giving then begins to be inculcated in young people in particular. Their small donations, to both small and big charities, bring them into the system. Certainly, when I see someone under the age of 16 collecting for poppies or Help for Heroes, I feel that the future of the country is in safe hands.
I intervened on the Minister to ask about deeming all donations tax-free. I am sympathetic to Her Majesty’s Opposition’s points about complexity. The points have been made well today, just as they were three years ago, as Opposition Front-Bench Members pointed out. The sooner we can get through all this complexity and decide that the basic rate of tax should come back from all moneys en bloc that are given to charities in small amounts, the better. I will say more about how we define “small amounts” later.
I shall turn now to the specifics of the Bill. Clause 2 deals with the meaning of the term “small donation”, and subsection (3) refers to the United Kingdom. However, clause 6, which deals with the extent of the Bill, refers to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Forgive me if I am being stupid, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I think that they amount to the same thing. I would be grateful if that provision could be amended, if only as a tidying-up exercise, or if the difference could be explained.
Michael Tomlinson
Before my hon. Friend moves on from the question of cash amounts, does he agree that £20 is a sensible figure? Opting for a larger amount could involve a risk of fraud or misuse, but £20 is still a substantial enough amount to make a significant difference.
James Duddridge
I do not know how to say this gently—no, I do not think that that is a sensible amount. I understand what my hon. Friend is saying, but I think that that is an arbitrary amount. Why not choose £10 or £25? Is it because we have £20 notes but not £25 notes? I worry when I see legislation that cites numbers but makes no provision whatever to take account of inflation. Would such an amount be uprated annually? If that is the case, we would end up with odd numbers in subsequent years. Alternatively, should we let things drift and conduct a review every five years, and then put the amount up by 25%? I would like the figure to be set an awful lot higher.
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for being patient about this point. Can he not see that the amount could be reviewed over a number of years? In fact, it has been reviewed in that way in the past, and there will doubtless be opportunities for it to be reviewed again in the future, if not by this place, perhaps through an order to be dealt with by the Minister. Would that not be a sensible approach?
James Duddridge
To review is sensible, but I think that the process should be carried out periodically to take account of inflation, instead of wasting a Minister’s time every three years. I would not want to have to come back here to review this Bill in another three years. We should be much more permissive about what we allow Ministers to do. On my hon. Friend’s underlying point, yes there could be fraud, but there can be fraud in any system. Do I think that the good people who are involved in charities would commit fraud for such a small sum of money? I do not.
I have a large number of points that I would like to make. I hope that I will be able to make them in the Public Bill Committee, if I am selected to serve on it in the coming days and weeks.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge). I think it was four years ago that we served on the Committee considering the original Bill, which later put in place the gift aid small donations scheme. I think that the hon. Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) were also members of the Committee. At the time, we were all quite enthused about the programme; indeed, we still are. We recognise the importance of giving gift aid-style relief on small donations, especially in a way that will help small charities.
Some real improvements to the Bill have been suggested today. The introduction of contactless payments is good, although I fully agreed with what the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) said about the lack of provision for cheques. I want to dangle a little carrot in front of Government Members by saying that when the original Bill was discussed in Committee, it was discovered that—shock, horror—it was not only £5, £10 and £20 notes that would be eligible for gift aid-style relief, and that even if someone dropped in a few euro notes, they would be eligible as well. If one can have relief for euros and other currencies, there is no reason why it is not possible with cheques. That would be a welcome improvement along with contactless payments and a look at text donations as well. The increase in the upper limit is very welcome, and it shows how this scheme has developed and how it has the potential to help small charities. We need to realise that this Bill is all about helping small charities, because it is those charities and community groups for which this Bill was created.
In the Committee that considered the Charitable Donations Act 2012, we quibbled away at the long-forbearing Ministers about the ratio between gift aid eligibility and donations. At the time, in the original draft of the Bill, we were talking about a ratio of 3:1, 4:1 or 5:1. We asked persistently why it was one ratio and not another. The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East just asked why there should be any link at all with gift aid. The survey from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Charity Finance Group, the Institute of Fundraising and the Small Charities Coalition sets out much the same view. Even if it was felt that, for reasons of fraud, we needed that link with gift aid, why is the 10:1 ratio on a tablet of stone?
We discovered in that earlier Bill Committee that ratios of 3:1, 4:1 and 5:1 were pretty expendable. Why, if a charity is registered and has about £10 in gift aid, is that not enough in terms of fraud detection? Furthermore, I am not 100% convinced of the link with fraud. When we had that previous debate, I remember someone raising the issue of the Cup Trust, which was—I will try to put this diplomatically—involved with various fraudulent practices. We innocently asked whether it was registered for gift aid. Well of course it was, which does not suggest that there is much link between fraud and gift aid. If that is something that the Government genuinely believe is a problem, I really cannot see for the life of me why the ratio has to be 10:1; it just does not make sense.
On balance, this is a good Bill. We welcome it, but I urge the Minister, the Government and all members of the Committee to look again at the whole matching requirement, how it is constituted, and why oh why the ratio has to be 10:1.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) who made some very sensible points about euros. I also welcome her positivity about the Bill in general. We have had some fascinating insights into the charities in our constituencies. It is very heartening to hear how interesting and fascinating they are and also what a charitable lot people are on the whole. That must be welcomed.
Like many Members, I have been at the end of the supermarket check-out shaking my bucket. I have helped to pack people’s groceries into bags in the hope that they will put some money into my box. I usually put on my environmental hat as well and check that they have a recycled bag. I have often been there supporting charities with my children, my friends and my family, and I know that so many other people in my constituency do that on a regular basis for so many deserving causes. For example, there is the Young Farmers Club, the West Hatch scouts, and village school fundraisers.
The SURE cancer charity in my constituency earns most of its money from small collections such as the bucket collections I have referred to. They are essential. Many of our amateur sports clubs have to collect money in that way. I have collected money with the Blackbrook tennis club, Taunton Vale hockey club and many more besides. Usually small sums of money are collected, but they are so useful. The charities really do rely on such collections.
I applaud the people who go out day in, day out collecting for small charities in my constituency, gathering money to do good work that really needs to be done—often to protect vulnerable people.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is fantastic that the changes in the Bill also include community amateur sports clubs? I know that that will be particularly welcome to groups such as bowls clubs and various other clubs in Wiltshire and up and down the country, which will help us to tackle obesity and champion healthy lifestyles.
Rebecca Pow
I welcome that intervention. I will come on to sports clubs. I know that my hon. Friend is sporty herself, as am I. Everything that we can do to help sporting charities is welcome. She raises an important point about the connection between health and wellbeing. Anything that we can do to help such clubs should be encouraged, and the Bill will definitely help.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Rebecca Pow
Of course I will give way to another hon. Friend from the west country.
Mr Rees-Mogg
While my hon. Friend is on about sport, may the Bill not help Somerset win the county championship for the first time ever, after coming second this year? Would that not be a real triumph after Yorkshire and Middlesex stitched it up?
Rebecca Pow
I know that my hon. Friend was down at the county ground not very long ago, because I had so many comments about the fact that he had been there. I am sorry that I missed him, because I was down there every day of that championship. I am not sure that Somerset is allowed to collect on the streets with buckets, but smaller sporting charities would be very much helped by the new enabling measures in the Bill.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
This is not just about fantastic sporting charities. I am sure that colleagues will be able to list the events going on in their constituencies, because this also concerns sporting activities. People put a great deal of effort and determination into training perhaps for a marathon, and that is a wonderful source of fundraising for local causes.
Rebecca Pow
I agree with my hon. Friend. I will come on to a bit in my speech about that because I want to mention a number of these issues. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
Rebecca Pow
Would my hon. Friend mind if I ploughed on just for a minute? I will lose my train of thought. Would he intervene in a minute?
Whenever I visit charities in my constituency, which I do as often as I can, I ask what I can do in Westminster to help them. So often they say that they want access to gift aid. One of their biggest issues is raising funds and then being able to get the right benefits and aids. Another colleague said that often small charities do not even know what they can or cannot claim. So anything that can be done to ease that will help, and I think the Bill will do so.
Whatever we can do to help small charities retain the money that they have worked so hard to collect would be beneficial. If it could be increased with top-ups and things, that would be welcome. While the current system has many good points, it has been criticised for being complex and inaccessible especially for small and newer charities. That is why I am pleased that the Government are listening. I was pleased to hear the Minister speaking earlier, and I am sure that the Bill will help to make life simpler in terms of funds collected and the submissions that small charities are required to make for gift aid.
I welcome the proposed simplifications through this gift aid small donations scheme. I was also pleased that so many stakeholders took part in the consultation and so many charities fed in, and that the Government are listening and taking on board lots of their views. The scheme will definitely help those charities for which it is not practical to obtain an individual gift aid declaration for every small donation made. That is where we come back to bucket collections, the bob-a-job collections that my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) referred to, and even sponsored events. I am sure that Mr Deputy Speaker has done some himself, such as a sponsored bike ride. I did a mini-triathlon to raise money for charity. People give their support, but only with small amounts, and gathering all the intimate details that charities are required to input is often too much for them, so they do not go to the effort of claiming back what they could claim and get the benefit. We would definitely like to help all those charities, and the Bill will do so.
I welcome the reforms that will allow charities to benefit from the top-up system that has been worked into the Bill, so I will now come on to community amateur sports clubs. I am pleased that the Minister particularly addressed areas for them, especially the point that they had to be in one building to raise their money. I am pleased that that slightly ludicrous little piece of the legislation will be relaxed.
I am an ardent advocate of the benefit of sport in our communities, cricket included. We have marvellous cricket facilities in Somerset, many of which operate from the county town, Taunton, working from entry level at school right the way up to the county ground, where my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) often goes. I particularly work with a number of sporting charities. I have helped to bring forward a water sports centre, which is being completed on the river in Taunton, with the charity, COACH—the Centre for Outdoor Activity and Community Hub. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) mentioned bowling. I have helped to attract funds for the bowling club in Wellington, and it is now winning major trophies right across the region. It was in the Wellington Weekly News only this week. Amateur sporting charities, such as Taunton football club, all need to raise funds, and the small change that we will make in relation to the venues where money is raised will really help them to retain more of their own money and make more of it. I welcome all that.
I will make a small nod to the eminently sensible provisions on childcare payments. A simple extension of the timescale for parents to input their children’s details to claim the correct tax free childcare bonus will make life much easier for many families, particularly those families whose circumstances have changed. For example, when two families join together, which happens quite frequently now, and people end up with their own children and some stepchildren, opening and expanding the window for people to input all the data will help all the children under one roof. I very much welcome that and hope that it will all make progress.
All the things in the Bill are really helpful. They will help individual families with childcare payments, and very many charities, particularly smaller and newer ones, will be helped by the new provisions on donations. The Bill certainly shows that the Government are listening. They have listened to all those stakeholders and charities. That is what we should be doing in government—it is absolutely right—as well as working towards making life run much more smoothly, particularly for those who really need it.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who rightly says that there are practical and positive measures in the Bill that we should welcome. However, I believe that the Bill could have gone forward and been even more practical and positive and offered even more flexibility.
As the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said earlier, she and I served on the Committee that considered the Small Charitable Donations Bill back in 2012. Indeed, the point about euros emerged as a reassurance to me, as I represent a border constituency in Northern Ireland. I pointed out that when a number of charities in my constituency raise money, whether with bucket collections or other ways such as church events, they find euros in their collections, and I asked whether they would have to sift them out or whether they could honestly declare them. In fairness, the then Minister, now the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, came forward with the clarification that that money could certainly all be counted.
The hon. Member for Clwyd South is right to say in that context that, when the 2012 Bill was being considered, the refusal to allow donations in the form of cheques or contactless or various other foreseeable electronic payments was odd. I wonder whether even now the Minister will consider allowing, in Committee, an enabling clause giving Ministers the power to permit payment by cheques and so on in future, so that these measures would not have to come back before the House. As the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) said, he made that point in the Committee on the 2012 Bill.
In the Small Charitable Donations Act 2012, the Treasury was given significant powers to change things by order; it was given the power to change the connected charities amount, the community buildings amount, the remaining amount, and the capped total. It could amend the gift aid matching rule, abolish it, and reinstate it, if previously abolished, with or without amendment; it could even, by order, amend the meaning of “eligible charity”, and the limit on the value of individual donations. Sensibly, the Treasury was given the power to make significant working changes to the scheme by order. It seems strange that in this further bit of primary legislation there is not similar flexibility around, say, the use of cheques. That flexibility could be introduced in Committee.
I had the unusual experience of arriving in the 2012 Bill Committee to find that the Government had tabled an amendment to take up a point that I made on Second Reading. The penalty provisions stipulated that a charity that had suffered a penalty from HMRC would be barred from the scheme for a period, but there was no provision for an appeal against or possible overturn of the penalty, and where the penalty had been imposed but subsequently reviewed and set aside there was no provision to say that the period of barring would no longer apply. Sensibly, the Government listened. That proved to me that sometimes, when it comes to small Bills, the Government have a flexible ear and will listen to points made on Second Reading; in the case of small Bills, they can handily concede points, and indeed take the initiative and leapfrog Committee Members in making sensible amendments.
The Minister was right to say that some sensible working adjustments are made in the Bill, but they are all ones that were advocated by members of the 2012 Public Bill Committee—not just by members of the Opposition, or by me, but in many cases by Conservative members of the Committee. Members were teasing out the implications with practical ideas. Many of us were concerned that the Small Charitable Donations Bill was in danger of tilting into becoming the petty conditions Bill, given the number of different traditions, trips and traps that people could get into. I still wonder whether the Government could be a bit more generous or expansive in how they take the Bill forward. After all, it is clear that the whole matching requirement issue still causes charities problems. We should listen to charities as we take the Bill forward.
Susan Elan Jones
Does my hon. Friend remember that among the examples of charities that the small charitable donations scheme could help were small ones such as talking newspapers? We were very aware that if their admin staff were overburdened, they might not be able to claim what they should rightly claim.
Mark Durkan
Yes, the hon. Lady is exactly right. Members in all parts of the Committee raised many pertinent, practical examples of charities that we would want to be ready beneficiaries of the scheme, but that would be prohibited from taking part in it.
At the time, perhaps because this was a first move in this direction, the Minister took a narrow and highly precautionary approach, but smaller charities have not claimed the amount of small donations relief under the 2012 Act that the then Chancellor said they would; when he announced the scheme, he said that it would be £100 million. The indications to date are £25 million a year with an uplift of perhaps £15 million, going by what the Minister has said about the Bill, but we are still talking about something well short of what was promised to the charitable sector when the concept was introduced. Our challenge is how to get closer to the £100 million. We have to look at the things that are standing in the way. I acknowledge that the Government, in the consultation and in the Bill, have moved to address some of the difficulties on community buildings, but there are still some issues on the question of connected charities. The matching requirement, however, is still there, and I wonder whether the Minister can tell us whether or not are examples of fraud in the gift aid small donations scheme in the past three years. Are there any indications of whether matching requirements would have prevented fraud, or simply prevented access to the scheme?
We want to know why the ministerial team are content with arriving at an amount that is only half the amount of support originally intended—in fact, it is less than half. I therefore hope that Ministers are prepared to continue to listen to hon. Members who serve on the Bill Committee and to the charitable sector so that we can improve the scheme and make it much more effective for all the causes and examples that hon. Members have discussed, including that and so on.
As well as amending the Small Charitable Donations Act 2012 the Bill amends the Childcare Payments Act 2014. In an intervention I said that the Minister rightly presented the childcare payments scheme under the Bill—with the original Act as the source—as applying to each child. However, the Government are inconsistent, because the childcare element of universal credit is restricted to two children. Working tax credit rules apply to two children, but childcare payments under the 2014 Act are not restricted to two children. What is the reason for the Government’s cognitive dissonance? Why are there different rules on support for different families? The Minister explained how the provisions in the Bill ensure that changes can be met more responsibly by the system, but will Ministers consider the difference in experience and bureaucratic contact for parents accessing childcare payments under the Bill and the original Act and for parents who apply for the childcare element of universal credit? Under the childcare payments scheme, it is a bankable allowance, but it is not a bankable allowance for people on universal credit. They have to spend the money first, then claim it back within a short time. There is an unfair difference in treatment. Some parents are treated more generously and supportively in the way in which the system relates to them and engages with them than others, which is wrong. As legislators, we should try to ensure a more consistent approach to the principle of childcare in all the important and positive forms that it takes.
That is not to say that the childcare payments provided for are not positive and practical; I just wish that the universal credit childcare element could be made more comparable and, similarly, that if the Government see fit not to visit a two-child rule on the childcare payments system, they will abandon the idea of having such a rule for working family tax credit as well.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). He and I often have many common concerns at heart, and I echo a number of the points he has made today. I hope that Ministers will note that similar points are being made across the House today. Before saying anything more, I will follow the proper example set by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) by declaring my interests. Not only am I patron of a number of charities, but I am still the senior partner in a law firm that for over 25 years has had charity law as one of its specialisms.
Like many other Members who have spoken, I served on the Committee that scrutinised the Small Charitable Donations Bill in 2012, so I welcome the amendments set out in this Bill to make the donations scheme more effective and flexible for small charities, particularly new charities, and also to make it simpler. One reason I particularly welcome anything that makes running a charity simpler is that over the years I have had many clients in my law firm who have a brilliant idea for setting up a small charity but find it increasingly difficult to recruit people as officers, and particularly for the role of treasurer. I very much welcome anything that makes being the treasurer of a small charity easier.
The term “small charities” is something of a misnomer, because often it is those charities that pack the biggest punches. For example, there are a number of charities in my constituency who work to improve the local environment, and the extent of their contribution to local people’s enjoyment of that environment is staggering. I think of the Sandbach Woodland and Wildlife Group and Dane Valley Woods. Those two groups alone have improved acres of local countryside, public footpaths and areas for local people to enjoy. I also think of the friends of a number of railway stations in my constituency, such as Alsager station, Congleton station, Sandbach station and Goostrey station. Those groups are often the unsung heroes of our communities, yet they add so much to the enjoyment of our environment.
I also welcome the inclusion of community amateur sports clubs in the Bill, because their contribution to our communities can be substantial. They of course contribute to health and wellbeing, but they also strengthen community ties and foster a sense of belonging, particularly for children. I want to pay tribute to three clubs in my constituency, Triton hockey club, AFC Alsager and Alsager cricket club. They have been at the forefront of a successful campaign over several years to ensure that the former site of Manchester Metropolitan University in Alsager is reopened for use as a community sports facility. It is their dedication over many years, combined with their understanding of the community’s sporting needs and their contribution to encouraging literally thousands of young people to take up sport that has ensured the recent success of that campaign. I pay particular tribute to those groups this evening.
I welcome the Bill because, according to the Government’s figures, the take-up of the scheme we debated and then brought forward under the Small Charitable Donations Act in 2012 has been regrettably low—far beneath hoped-for levels, as has been said. In 2014-15, the Government budgeted £84 million for the scheme, but the actual spend was £21 million, which was a clear shortfall. The number of charities accessing the scheme was just under 20,000, far fewer than the 65,000 we would have expected if the £84 million spend had been achieved. I therefore very much welcome the Bill’s intention to increase take-up by simplifying the eligibility criteria, but I ask the Government to ensure that there is some real and effective promotion of the scheme once the Bill is passed, as I hope it will be.
I echo other Members’ requests that the Government look again at simply dropping the matching criteria—again, a most effective method of increasing uptake. As has been said, the eligibility requirements could be simplified to make them the same as those for gift aid, so that if the charity knows it is eligible for gift aid, it will be eligible to gain access to funds from the scheme. I understand that there have been concerns about fraud, which the Minister has expressed, but, again, I concur with other Members and ask what evidence there is of that. I am told by charities that there is actually little, if any, evidence that fraud has been a problem with the scheme or that the matching criteria have been effective at highlighting those intent on making fraudulent claims. Will Ministers review the issue, and provide any evidence in Committee? Alternatively, will they look at whether fraud is in reality a barrier to consideration of dropping the matching criteria altogether?
I draw the attention of the House to a joint survey by a number of groups. The Association of Independent Museums, the Charity Finance Group, the Institute of Fundraising, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Small Charities Coalition surveyed more than 340 charities across a range of sizes, from those with fewer than 10 employees to those with more than 500. They found that the take-up of the current scheme in percentage terms was, as we would expect, and as Members have indicated, far higher in very large organisations than in very small ones; in fact, it was 71% in large organisations, compared with 41% in smaller ones. While the sample was small, there is a clear indication that organisations at the smaller end of the spectrum use the scheme less frequently, so anything that can be done to assist them to access it is to be welcomed.
The charities were also polled on accessing information about the scheme. Some 22% of medium-sized organisations said they found it difficult to access information, and 26% of small organisations found it difficult or very difficult, but 41% of very small charities found it difficult or very difficult. That goes to show how important it is that the Government focus on the promotion of the scheme. Many survey respondents were still unaware of the scheme or that they could be eligible. It would be a far simpler message to charities if we simply said, “If you are registered for gift aid, you are eligible for the scheme.”
Let me touch on the issue of cheques. I concur with other Members and ask that the Government consider making small cheque donations, as well as contactless payments and cash donations, eligible for the scheme. I welcome the contactless payment proposal, but many donors—particularly elderly ones—still write cheques for £10 or £20. The logic behind allowing cheques to be included in the scheme is very similar to that for allowing contactless or small cash donations—namely, that it can be administratively burdensome to get declarations from cheque donors, particularly if those donations are irregular and small charities do not have the resources to chase up donors. Making such a change will arguably help small charities even more than allowing contactless payments to be included, because contactless technology is expensive. Small and local charities, perhaps set up by someone who has retired, may not possess the technical capability to process contactless payments, while they might very well receive a good number of cheques.
In conclusion, I suspect that most of my points are not novel—many have been raised this evening, or were raised with the Government during their consultation—but I hope it will be helpful for the House, and indeed for the thousands of charities in the country, if further reflection on such issues is conducted as the Bill travels through the House.
David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)
It is a pleasure to support a Bill that, although pretty straightforward and simple in outlook, as we have heard, is likely to have a significant impact on the small groups and charities that need it most.
In my constituency in Somerset, the uniquely spectacular levels of community spirit and the astonishing energy with which people are keen to help those around them mean that there is a huge number of such smaller charities, all inevitably fighting for survival. For them, not only every penny, but every second counts. Their time is also very precious. They do not have the capability or reach to spend hours sifting through accounts to satisfy various complex financial rules and regulations; they just want to get on with the job.
The simplification and easing of access to the benefits of the gift aid small donation scheme, as well as the more sensitive approach of the tax-free childcare scheme, are really to be welcomed—it sounds as though they are —on both sides of the House. I am pleased that the extensive consultation that, as I understand it, went into putting the Bill together has resulted in a broadly positive reaction to the proposed changes from charities.
Of course, any step in any direction is only one step, and there may well be subsequent steps to take—there may well be more to add to the process—but we are taking a firm leap in the right direction for innumerable small organisations, and certainly for those fabulous and uniquely special organisations in my constituency.
The scrapping of the two-year rule and of the two-in-four requirement will make the environment far simpler and fairer for those charities—and not just for them, but of course for their workers and volunteers. It is worth mentioning that charitable giving, especially at this level, is often a very spontaneous gesture, and such spontaneity ought to be reflected in the gift aid scheme. That is exactly what the Bill sets out to achieve.
HMRC’s financial assessment of the reform suggests that 71,000 charities will benefit, which is a huge number, and that its receipts will decrease by some £15 million a year. We all of course feel great sadness for HMRC’s loss, but it is very nice when a decrease in revenues is used as a measure of success. That is not perhaps a principle to be applied more widely.
We have a Bill that makes the original intentions of the gift aid small donation scheme—its first aspirations—far closer to being realised. It is the Government’s duty to narrow the gap between what I have described as the astonishing and spectacular altruism up and down the country, but most particularly in Somerset, and the way in which that impulse is realised and felt by the charities and organisations in most need. The Bill will certainly go some way towards achieving that, and I therefore warmly welcome it.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
It gives me great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton), who made important points on how charities will be supported by the Bill. I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) for saying that it is not just charities but churches that need our support, because churches, like charities, support communities across this country. It is good to support those who support others, and that is why I rise in support of the Bill.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) said to the British people in his Budget at the start of the last Parliament,
“Do the right thing for a charity, and the Government will do the right thing for you. It is a big help for the big society.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 962.]
I shall speak about how the Government could do even more to join up policy and deliver those objectives.
First, I should declare an interest as a member of the parochial church council in my village. I spoke to the gift aid administrator of the PCC, who said that the changes that the Government have introduced are most welcome and that things are working very well. That said, there is always more that can be done. These initiatives demonstrate that the Government are listening and that they want to help smaller organisations that often raise money through loose change. It is therefore important that the Bill makes progress and is implemented. The current rules do not always deliver the policy intention; the Bill will certainly help to redress the balance for those charities that get lower allowances than others.
I should declare another interest, given my former employment at Lloyds Bank, because small donations by contactless payment will qualify from April 2017. Such modern fundraising is most welcome. That said, I cannot quite see sidesmen going up the aisle in my local church with contactless card machines or presenting such machines at the altar.
It is therefore important that the Government support cheques and do not repeal or adversely amend the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, as amended by subsequent Acts such as the Cheques Act 1957. It is important that cheques are retained as a method of payment. The Payments Council—the institution set up by the banks—must be under no illusion about the Government’s intention to protect cheques as a way for people to give money. We should surely be in favour of people giving money to charities, churches and worthy organisations however they wish to do so. It is an honourable intention and something that the Government should support.
Turning to tax-free childcare, it is good that we are making childcare more affordable. Tax-free childcare was legislated for in the Childcare Payments Act 2014 in the last Parliament. It is good that we are enabling people who wish to work or to take up more work to do so. That said, I have two suggestions for the Government. The first relates to the marriage allowance, which the previous Government also introduced. Just as the Government top up £2 for every £8 in this initiative, I suggest that they should do more to support families where, out of choice or necessity, only one spouse wants to work or can work, or where one spouse is not in work for any other reason.
Quality childcare is important, but so is strengthening the family, whether a parent is working or not. A comprehensive review of academic research on the impact of divorce and separation shows that the children of separated parents are at increased risk of growing up in households with lower incomes, living in poorer housing, having behavioural problems, performing less well in schools, gaining fewer qualifications, needing more medical treatment—the list goes on. That is why it is important that quality childcare and the strengthening of families remain at the heart of what the Government are trying to achieve.
I believe that the marriage allowance that was introduced in the last Parliament, alongside tax-free childcare, exemplifies the principles of social justice, bringing families into the heart of Government and building a country that works for everyone.
As the former Prime Minister said:
“Families are the bedrock of our society. It’s families who raise our children, look after our old and keep our country going.”
I would therefore suggest that there is room to improve the marriage allowance. It should go further. After all, married couples do not share only 10% of their lives and responsibilities, but 100%. They share 100% of the work behind caring and providing for their children. They share 100% of their financial responsibilities, and those responsibilities can be strained if only one person can work. Tax-free childcare is most welcome, but we should make sure that we do not discriminate against those households where only one person is in work. I fully support more childcare through the tax system, but I urge the Government, either in this Bill or in future legislation, to consider extending the marriage allowance so that families can better look after themselves and their children.
As families need to pay for childcare, I urge the Government to look at an area of childcare policy allied to this one—the 30 hours of free nursery care. Whether paid or free, nursery care must be of the highest quality. My concern is that, whether or not people take advantage of the tax-free childcare available, the national average cost intended for the 30 hours of free childcare is less than £5 an hour. That is not sufficient in rural areas with small nurseries, given the high cost of rent and so on.
I urge the Government to think about these policies in the round. The intentions are all admirable. Should the scheme progress as planned, perhaps the tax-free childcare provision could help to top up the 30 hours. That is not currently allowed. At present, if a nursery’s costs exceed the amount it will get from the taxpayer it has to bear those costs itself. Allowing people who have contributed, and have been supported through the tax system to pay for more childcare, to top up—whether because of a high-cost nursery, because they want more hours, or for some other reason—would be a very helpful initiative. I suggest that introducing further flexibility into the system is the way to go.
That said, I fully support the Bill’s intentions. I look forward to its progress through the House and hope that the Minister will deal with some of the points I have raised in due course.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), who made some excellent points with his customary eloquence. I agree with what he said.
Today’s debate gives me an opportunity to showcase one or two examples of charitable works in Dorset that go particularly well. I will start by mentioning Wimborne rotary club and its yearly Great Santa fun run. Picture, Madam Deputy Speaker, 100 men, women and children running around the local point-to-point course dressed up as Father Christmas the week before Christmas. It sounds fun and of course it is. Gone are the heady days when we aimed to win the competition—merely completing the course is a prize in itself these days. Each year, the run raises several thousand pounds for charities and good causes.
Back in 2013, when the Small Charitable Donations Act came into force, my wife was the parish church treasurer and gift aid administrator, so I know how welcome were the changes that simplified and reduced bureaucracy, as people no longer had to fill out complicated forms to secure gift aid on gifts of £20 or less.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech. Does he agree that the key point to remember is that churches are not just places of worship on a Sunday but living, breathing parts of the community? For example, the Living Room initiative at St Mary Magdalene church in my constituency provides tea, coffee and bacon sandwiches for many people who have nowhere else to go.
Michael Tomlinson
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, who makes an excellent point. The Bill will help all groups—not just church groups, but many others—in reclaiming gift aid and slimming down bureaucracy. I warmly welcome the Bill’s aim of further reducing bureaucracy by, for example, getting rid of the two-year rule. That will help new charities enormously and will encourage those thinking of setting up charities to do so.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes an important point about cutting bureaucracy and time. Often, small charities rely on volunteers, whose time is far better spent out there promoting the charity rather than dealing with paperwork and red tape. The Bill will be very welcome in his constituency, as I am sure he will explain.
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s timely intervention and will come to exactly that point in one or two moments.
My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) mentioned sport. As a keen sportsman, I warmly welcome the fact that the policy will be open and available for amateur sports clubs. That is very much a step in the right direction.
I want to mention one charity in my constituency, Waggy Tails Rescue. It does not rival the Minister’s Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, but it does play an important part in the constituency of Mid Dorset and North Poole as a dog rescue charity that re-homes dogs in east Dorset and west Hampshire. I had the pleasure of visiting it in the recent past and it explained the difficulties of being a small charity and facing the bureaucracy that can be involved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) mentioned, such charities have few if any professional staff, and therefore the more time they can spend undertaking charitable works rather than carrying out bureaucratic office functions, the better.
One concern or criticism is whether enough awareness has been raised. I suspect that each of us as Members of Parliament can play our own part in raising the profile and awareness of the scheme.
I warmly welcome the childcare payments measure. This has not been mentioned during the debate, but the Bill will open the scheme up to parents who are self-employed. As someone who was self-employed, I often felt left out of tax schemes in the past. The measure will be warmly welcomed by those in the community who are self-employed, but perhaps I could invite the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), to say how he will raise awareness so that all families who are eligible can take up that excellent scheme.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow so many fantastic contributions from Members on both sides of the House, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who relayed his personal experience.
I am pleased that the Bill seeks to simplify and increase access to the gift aid small donations scheme, which has been criticised by some charity bodies for being too difficult for small charities to access. By scrapping the 2012 requirement that charities must have made successful gift aid claims in at least two of the previous four years, the Bill will enable newly formed charities to access the gift aid scheme. That will be especially helpful for volunteers working for charities when they have less administrative experience and smaller charitable organisations.
I am pleased that broadening the scheme will allow charities to make an additional claim in respect of donations raised as part of charitable activities in community buildings.
Michelle Donelan
Does my hon. Friend agree that the scrapping of the two-year rule will prove invaluable for new charities, because it is in their first few years that they either succeed or fall? I am the trustee of a charity in Chippenham called Helping Victims of Domestic Violence. It is flourishing but overcame a number of problems in its first few years and would have benefited invaluably from the measure.
Chris Green
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. In that sense, charities are a little bit like small businesses. The most challenging time for both is at the beginning.
The Bill gives freedom of movement for charities such as churches, meaning that donations do not necessarily have to be made on the site of the church for the gift aid scheme to apply.
Like many constituencies, mine boasts many charitable organisations that do fantastic work for the community. I should take this opportunity to thank them all for their work. I have always appreciated the various different charities in and around my constituency but it was only when I became a Member of Parliament did I appreciate how much work is done. The Horwich Community Working Together event, which involved 50 different charitable organisations coming together to share ideas and best practice, was such an eye-opener. Westhoughton Community Network is another fantastic organisation that works to bring together different charitable organisations to share that experience and knowledge, and to stand in solidarity with one another.
Maggie Throup
When my hon. Friend goes to different events across his constituency, does he find that the same people represent a number of different charities? The Bill will make it easier for them to give even more back to their communities. I come across constituents who are members of the Canal & River Trust as well as the Rotary—it goes on and on. Does he agree that groups of charities in his constituency will benefit in the same way?
Chris Green
Absolutely; I agree entirely. I was just thinking about the fantastic work done, often in hazardous conditions, by the Bolton Mountain Rescue Team. It is not just the team itself that raises money. Rotary clubs and other organisations raise a lot money for them, too. Civic society is so important. We ought not always rely on central or local government to do everything for us. We ought to look to civic society for many important things in our daily lives. By celebrating, recognising and communicating that as widely as possible, we provide the opportunity for more people to hear about such work and get involved in these organisations. Recently, I worked a shift in the local Bolton Hospice Macmillan Cancer Support shop. Little did I realise how much time and effort goes into running the small charity shops on our high streets. A fantastic amount of effort and organisation goes into them. The relationship between the volunteers and professionals is also fantastic. Professionals in charities are able to provide continuity and a political edge.
Kevin Foster
My hon. Friend talks about how charities are supported by volunteers and professionals working together. The Torbay Community Development Trust supports a number of small charities by providing an administration hub. The Bill will reduce administration, but there will still be a need for this kind of support so that volunteers can get on with the job that they want to do.
Chris Green
I agree entirely. That support network is often vital and it really sustains people. People who run charities can think they are in a uniquely difficult place, so it makes it so much easier if they can share ideas and overcome problems. Colleagues have talked about the importance of communication and awareness. Local media have a key role in communicating these changes. I am looking forward to a “Wearing it Pink” event for breast cancer awareness, which will take place on a week on Friday. I have been assured that there will be a pink buffet with pink marshmallows and pink drinks. I just haven’t decided what to wear. If hon. Members have any ideas, please let me know. I am sure the whole House would like to wish them well.
The Bill will allow charities to claim gift aid from contactless payments of £20 or less. This respects the modern way in which people now pay and donate to charities. The scheme is not a replacement for gift aid itself. It is important that gifts are made in person to retain the local link, as required by the scheme. It is important, too, to recognise that £20 is a reasonable amount of money. It is not excessive. I think that for most people £20 will be seen as a reasonable small donation. Keeping in mind the sense of a country that works for everyone, I am more than happy to support the Bill.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
May I begin by thanking all hon. Members who have made such valuable contributions to today’s debate? There were 11, alongside interventions, starting with the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), who talked about her involvement in the setting up of charities and the challenge she had in worshipping at the same time as filling out an envelope. She also talked about the demographic discrimination in relation to cheques and the need for them to be included in these proposals.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) welcomed the measures, but again raised the plurality of methods of giving and the challenges faced by smaller charities, which these proposals do not assist with. The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) managed to get his wife, his mother-in-law and a shovel into his speech, which was an achievement, but importantly he also raised the issues of cheques, SMS messages and people’s ability to get their money into the charitable system through a plurality of methods of giving.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) talked about the importance of supporting charities and the improvements that the Bill may bring and, again, raised the question of cheques as a way forward. The hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who is not in the Chamber, referred to the bucket shaking that she does regularly and applauded those who go out collecting for various charities. She also welcomed the simplification introduced by these proposals.
The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) also talked about the flexibility of methods of giving that are not in the Bill. He, too, pushed that issue. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) also talked about the need for cheques and the ability of older people to participate by giving cheques. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton), worshiping in his church, welcomed the simplification and the spontaneity in giving, as did the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), who again had a challenge: could the church get a contactless machine up the aisle at the same time as worshiping? That seems to have been a theme today. The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) talked about the Great Santa fun run raising thousands of pounds and, touching everyone’s heart, the Waggy Tails Rescue dog re-homing charity.
We on the Labour Benches want to thank the charitable sector for all the remarkable work it does for all the communities we represent. Without its valuable role, many services in our communities would simply not exist, so the Opposition are broadly supportive of the content of the Bill. As such, I will keep my closing comments fairly brief. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) has already made reference to our concern that loosening the eligibility criteria could increase the risk of fraud. That is important. The fact that a charity would not need to be registered for two years raises the question of whether just about anyone could set up a charity and relatively easily receive £2,000 of taxpayers’ money. That is an important point, so does the Minister have any figures on the amount of fraud that has taken place in the gift aid small donations scheme thus far?
The question of the risk of fraud is extremely important, given the inadequacy of the regulation of charity taxation. We hear about Government funds being mismanaged in elements of the charity sector or about charities being set up merely for the purpose of tax avoidance.
Kevin Foster
Does the shadow Minister agree that the call should be to ensure that the appropriate due diligence must be undertaken in new charity registrations, in particular by the Charity Commission, before a charity registration number is issued? I take on board his point about potential fraud via this scheme, but of course any charity being registered can start collecting and we need the public to have that confidence.
Peter Dowd
I completely understand that. At the end of the day, the process has to be sufficiently robust to ensure that fraud does not exist.
In that regard, the Charity Commission has identified the estimated levels of abuse, mismanagement, fraud and money laundering in charities today, in a succession of reports entitled “Tackling abuse and mismanagement”. It has identified an increase in the incidence of fraud in relation to charities, and a range of cases in which the commission gave evidence in criminal prosecutions, including against trustees who stole £350,000 from a charity for the relief of the people of Afghanistan, which is shocking. The number of compliance cases brought by the commission almost quadrupled between 2012 and 2013, demonstrating both that the commission needs our support and that we ought not be complacent. In that light, when proposed legislative changes come before the House, it is incumbent on us all to be vigilant. I do not want to rain on the party, but we need to be vigilant.
The problem is not just straightforward crime. There is something worrying in our corporate and tax-avoidance cultures that see charities as a means of making money. In recent years, a prime example is the Cup Trust, about which the Public Accounts Committee produced a damning report in 2013, while there was a judgment in the High Court earlier this year about the same issue. The report summarised:
“Despite its declared charitable aims, it is clear that the Trust was set up as a tax avoidance scheme by people known to be in the business of tax avoidance.”
In the meantime, the Cup Trust has claimed gift aid of £46 million. Regrettably, such tax-avoidance schemes are not isolated. As Professor Alastair Hudson, an expert on these matters, put it:
“There is something about the ‘goodness’ associated with charities, which made people reluctant to investigate or to criticise them.”
It is worth noting that when Northern Rock collapsed in 2007, it came to light for the first time that the bank had created a corporate structure known as “Granite”. This included what has been explained by academic commentators as a discretionary trust involving a small charity in South Shields among its beneficiaries. It appears that the charity was named without its knowledge. Moreover, it appears that the only purpose of this structure was to be “tax-efficient”. The presence of the charity in the structure appears to have been unconnected to working “for the public benefit”. We cannot be complacent about the law on charities, while that sort of activity is considered to be an ordinary part of corporate life. While tax avoidance is legal, it is, as Lord Denning said, “not yet a virtue.”
Of the 164,000 charities in the UK, a large number still do not lodge accounts with the regulators. It is difficult to know whether they are moribund, carrying on work “for the public benefit”, or being used for other less charitable purposes, so to speak. That does charities no good at all—and we need to protect them. Even the highest-profile charities such as Kids Company can be sources of mismanagement and bad financial practice.
Notwithstanding the best intentions of these proposals —namely, the loosening of eligibility criteria—it is vital that sufficient safeguards are in place to prevent fraud when Government funding or tax breaks are provided, as in this case, to the charity sector. I think that sentiment would get cross-party support.
That said, and as I indicated earlier, we are broadly supportive of the measures contained in the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill and we will not oppose it on Second Reading. We will, however, seek to improve the Bill in Committee next week, and I hope that the Government will support us in that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Rob Wilson)
I think you will agree, Mr Speaker, that this has been an entertaining and enlightening debate. Speaking as the Minister with responsibility for civil society, it is always encouraging to hear right hon. and hon. Members share examples of the excellent work they see being done by charities throughout the country.
I would like to thank those who spoke in the debate: my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton West (Chris Green), for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) and for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson); the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones); my hon. Friends the Members for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce); the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan); my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). I am also grateful for the Front-Bench contributions. We can be extraordinarily proud of our strong and diverse charity sector. That is why building an environment in which a modern and resilient charity sector can thrive remains a priority for this Government.
The Government already provide significant support to our charity sector. They do so through generous tax reliefs and grants to support good causes, but also through contracts and payments for services. Indeed, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations reports that in 2013-14 the charity sector received £15 billion from Government bodies, with 81% coming from contracts and fees.
The Government have developed the world’s leading social investment market to support charities and social enterprises. We have established Big Society Capital, and are in the process of providing it with £600 million of start-up capital in partnership with the UK’s banks. We have set up the Access Foundation with more than £50 million to allow access to the social investment market, and we have introduced social investment tax relief, which is set to unlock nearly half a billion pounds’ worth of investment over the next five years.
As my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said in her opening speech, the Government support charities and donors through a substantial package of tax reliefs, worth more than £5 billion last year. Almost £1.8 billion of that comes in the form of business rate relief on charities’ premises. A further £300 million is provided in VAT relief, and £280 million is received from relief on stamp duty land tax. In addition, donors are encouraged to give more to good causes through tax relief on gifts and bequests, and that is worth nearly £1.5 billion every year.
Kevin Foster
The Minister mentions the benefit to charities of what are effectively business rate exemptions. Has he had a chance to look into the possible impact on the figure he mentions of the revaluation that has just been announced, which will take effect on 1 April next year?
Mr Wilson
I have not had a chance to look into it myself, but I am sure that the Financial Secretary will be happy to speak to my hon. Friend after the debate.
After business rates relief, gift aid is the most highly valued tax relief available to the sector. Since its introduction in 1990, it has grown substantially. It is now worth £1.3 billion a year to the sector, and robust and well-used processes have been developed to facilitate gift aid claims on most forms of donation. That includes text message, online and direct debit donations, and even the donation of goods to charity shops. The gift aid small donations scheme is a natural complement to gift aid, covering circumstances in which it is not feasible to obtain a gift aid declaration. I am particularly proud that the importance of the scheme to the charity sector has been acknowledged, and that the principles of the Bill have been welcomed throughout the House.
The changes in the Bill will make the gift aid small donations scheme significantly more flexible and generous. HMRC’s provisional estimates suggest that the reforms could benefit charities by up to £15 million a year, given that the 9,000 new charities that apply for recognition by HMRC each year are now entitled to claim top-up payments much sooner. Those figures will be certified by the Office for Budget Responsibility as part of the autumn statement.
Questions have been asked today about poor take-up and a lack of awareness of the small donations scheme. I can tell the House that 21,300 charities took advantage of the scheme last year, claiming a total of £26 million of Government support. We recognise that that is less than was forecast, but we want as many charities as possible to benefit from the scheme. That is why we are removing a number of the eligibility requirements and relaxing the community building rules, which will make it much simpler and easier for smaller charities to claim.
Kirsty Blackman
The changes in the eligibility criteria will make things easier for the charities that already claim, but I think that things will become more difficult for the established charities that have no staff support and must rely on volunteers. I do not think that they will benefit from the changes.
Mr Wilson
I think that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We constantly keep these matters under review.
As my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said earlier, an outreach team in the Treasury is working on face-to-face presentations. So far, 650 charities have taken up that opportunity, and it has increased take-up. The feedback from the sector has been extremely positive, but we will continue to work on awareness and take-up with representative bodies in the charity sector. We are also launching a local charities day, which we hope will take place in December. That will provide a good opportunity to profile what local charities are contributing, and to ensure that awareness of the small donations scheme is at the forefront of their minds.
The Bill is a culmination of months of consultation and constructive discussion with the charity sector, and I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hundreds of charities, umbrella bodies and others that took the time to engage with the Government during the development of the Bill. Our engagement with the sector will not end with the conclusion of this review, however. A number of charities told us that a lack of understanding can contribute to unclaimed gift aid. We will therefore continue to work closely with charities and sector representatives to raise awareness of both gift aid and the small donations scheme, to maximise the relief claimed on eligible donations.
A number of hon. Members raised the matching rule, and I would like to take the time to go through that in a little more detail. I know that the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) was particularly exercised by the proposed changes. This tax relief rightly benefits charities established and run by honest, committed people who are motivated to do good and who work hard for their beneficiaries. Unfortunately, the generous nature of these tax reliefs also attracts a dishonest minority who seek to exploit charitable status for criminal purposes. HMRC works closely with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator to protect our charity sector from those unscrupulous individuals. In 2015, more than 275 suspicious activity referrals were passed between HMRC and the charity regulators for further investigation.
Unlike gift aid, the gift aid small donations scheme does not provide a full audit trail to allow HMRC to link donations back to a specific named donor. The gift aid small donations scheme is therefore much more vulnerable than gift aid to fraud. That is why it is necessary to operate gift aid alongside the small donations scheme, so that we can best protect the scheme against fraud and exploitation by ensuring that funds are used only to support the important work done by bona fide charities. Public trust in charities has already declined due to poor fundraising practices. We really must ensure that, with the small donations scheme, we do not leave the door open to any future scandal and its consequent impact on public trust and confidence. I am sure that all hon. Members across the House will agree with me on that.
Kirsty Blackman
On the point about charities acting fraudulently, does the Minister not see that the charities that could benefit the most from the change to the matching rule are those that earn very small amounts of money, such as £500 or £1,000 a year? That is not going to cost the Treasury a massive amount of money, and there would not be a risk of massive financial fraud.
Mr Wilson
I want to stay on the subject of fraud, because we must guard carefully against it in the legislation. It might sound as though we are opening up quite small pockets of money, but when we put them all together, they add up to a much bigger total. The figures relating to the gift aid small donation scheme are not available in isolation. However, it is an unfortunate fact that unscrupulous individuals seek to exploit charitable status for criminal purposes. In May this year, three individuals were jailed for a total of 22 years for defrauding HMRC of £5 million in fictitious gift aid claims. In April this year, three individuals were jailed for a total of 11 years for submitting fraudulent gift aid claims totalling £340,000. In January this year, two individuals were jailed for a total of five years for attempting fraudulently to claim £500,000 in gift aid from HMRC. That is a really important point to make. We must make sure that this small donations scheme is not open to fraudulent activities.
The Bill removes two of the existing eligibility criteria that help HMRC to assess compliance with the wider gift aid scheme—the two-year registration requirement and the gift aid history requirement. The Government initially consulted on relaxing the gift aid history requirement to only one year rather than two. However, after listening to the views of the sector we have taken the decision to remove that requirement entirely, which is a significant simplification for charities. It is therefore necessary to retain the match-funding rule as a means of protecting the integrity of the scheme. As the Financial Secretary said in her opening comments, the scheme was always intended to be linked with the wider gift aid scheme, and the Government made that clear in 2012 and that remains the case today.
It is important to be clear that the gift aid matching requirement is not intended to disadvantage smaller charities. That is why the rule is progressive and is set at a modest ratio of 10:1. This means that a charity needs only to claim gift aid on donations of £10 to gain a small donations scheme allowance of £100. To benefit from the maximum small donations allowance, a charity must collect gift aid donations of just £800. Most would see that as a reasonable position to take. Requiring charities to match a proportion of their small donations with a small amount of gift aid donations incentivises charities to maximise their gift aid claims.
Unlike the small donations scheme, gift aid relief is not capped, relief can be claimed on donations of any size and it is not limited to small cash donations. Furthermore, the process of obtaining a gift aid declaration allows charities to develop ongoing relationships with their donors and can lead to a more resilient funding stream in the longer term. In terms of awareness for charities as well, the Government have funded the small charities fundraising training programme, which is worth more than £100,000. The Government appointed the Foundation for Social Improvement in partnership with the Small Charities Coalition and GlobalGiving UK as training providers to help charities with an annual income of up to £1 million to fundraise much more effectively than they have done in the past.
The hon. Member for Clwyd South asked why the matching ratio was set at 10:1. During the passage of the Bill in 2012, the matching rule was originally set at 1:1, but that was reduced to 10:1 after listening to representatives from the sector.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden asked about gift aid and SMS donations. SMS text giving is a really easy way for donors to give to charity. Donors simply send a short code to a six-digit number to donate a set amount via their phone bill. There is an established process for donors’ gift aid SMS donations. Following the initial message, a reply is sent to the donor thanking them for their donations and asking for their name, house number, postcode and confirmation that they are a UK taxpayer. If the donor replies with that information, gift aid is added to the donation.
We also had a question about why cheques were not allowed. The aim of the gift aid small donations scheme is to allow charities and community amateur sports clubs to claim a gift aid style payment on cash donations received in circumstances where it is difficult or impractical to collect donors’ details. Giving by cheque means that the donor is giving their details to the charity and the extra amount of information needed to make a gift aid declaration is therefore relatively small. If it is practical for a donor to write a cheque, it seems reasonable to assume that it is practical for a donor to make a gift aid declaration.
I will briefly cover contactless debit and credit cards, because those donations face the same fundamental problem—a lack of opportunity for charities to stop and engage with their donors. Anyone who has passed through a tube station ticket barrier at rush hour will be able to attest to the speed of contactless technology, allowing individuals to tap their card to pay and walk through without breaking their stride.
I am very grateful to representatives of Cancer Research UK who took the time during the Government’s recent consultation to demonstrate a prototype contactless donation terminal currently being piloted by a number of large UK charities. These terminals, which are set to fixed donation amounts, allow individuals to donate quickly and easily in a similar way to donating cash. Extending the small donations scheme to include these types of donation will future-proof the scheme, allowing more charities to benefit as the technology becomes widely available.
We had a fairly lively discussion about the cost of child care and the importance of Government support for hard-working families. I hope that we can all agree that the amendments within the Bill are positive, making it easy for parents to access help with the cost of child care. I also hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends from all parties in the House can join me in welcoming the imminent introduction of tax-free child care. This new scheme will provide much-needed support with child care costs for the first time to working parents who are self-employed as well as those who are employed.
The Bill will make the gift aid small donations scheme more flexible and generous so that it can benefit a greater number of charities and donations. It will also make it easier for parents to access tax free child care. It is good news for civil society and good news for working parents, and I hope that all hon. Members will join me in supporting it. It is a Bill to make life simpler and easier for charities and working parents, and I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill:
Committal
The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 18 October 2016.
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
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.
Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading.
Other proceedings
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.—(Jane Ellison.)
Question agreed to.
Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments 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 Small Charitable Donations and Childcare Payments Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Jane Ellison.)
Question agreed to.
Standing Orders and Select Committees
(8 years, 1 month 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, with effect from 17 October 2016, the following amendments and related provisions be made in respect of Standing Orders:
A: Select Committees Related to Government Departments
(1) That Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments) be amended in the Table in paragraph (2), in item 1, by leaving out “Innovation and Skills” in each place it occurs and inserting “Energy and Industrial Strategy”.
B: Related Provisions
(2) That all proceedings of the House and of its select committees in this Parliament relating to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee shall be read and have effect as if they had been done in relation to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, including for the purposes of calculating any period under Standing Order No. 122A (Term limits for chairs of select committees).
C: Liaison Committee
(3) That the Resolution of the House of 10 September 2015 (Liaison Committee (Membership)) be amended, in paragraph (2), by leaving out “Innovation and Skills” and inserting “Energy and Industrial Strategy”.
D. European Committees
(4) That the Table in paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 119 (European Committees) be amended in respect of European Committee C, by leaving out “Innovation and Skills” and inserting “Energy and Industrial Strategy”.
It might be for the convenience of the House if, in speaking briefly to motion 6, I say a little about the other motions, since they all relate to each other. Motions 6 to 11 seek to change the arrangements in the Standing Orders of the House for Select Committees, following the recent changes to the machinery of government. First, they change the name of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. Secondly, they remove references in Standing Orders to the Energy and Climate Change Committee. Thirdly, they introduce two new Select Committees for International Trade and on Exiting the European Union. The motions also allocate the Chair of the EU Exit Committee to Labour and the Chair of the International Trade Committee to the Scottish National party.
The changes allow for the usual notice periods applying to elections of Select Committee Chairs to be disapplied, and they enable you, Mr Speaker, to announce a date for an election of Chairs before 20 October, since the House has already been without effective Select Committees in these areas for quite a long time.
Question put and agreed to.
Standing Orders Etc. (Machinery of Government Changes) (Energy and Climate Change)
Resolved,
That, with effect from 17 October 2016, the following amendments and related provisions be made in respect of Standing Orders:
A: Select Committees Related to Government Departments
(1) That Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments) be amended in the Table in paragraph (2) by leaving out item 6.
B: Liaison Committee
(2) That the Resolution of the House of 10 September 2015 (Liaison Committee (Membership)) be amended, in paragraph (2), by leaving out “Energy and Climate Change,”.
C: European Committees
(3) That the Table in paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 119 (European Committees) be amended in respect of European Committee A, by leaving out “Energy and Climate Change”.
D: Planning: National Policy Statements
(4) That paragraph (7)(a)(i) of Standing Order No. 145 (Liaison Committee) be amended by leaving out “Energy and Climate Change”.
(5) That paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 152H (Planning: national policy statements) be amended by leaving out “Energy and Climate Change”.—(Mr Lidington.)
Standing Orders Etc. (Machinery of Government Changes) (Exiting the European Union)
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, with effect from 17 October 2016 and for the remainder of this Parliament, the following changes be made to Standing Orders; and that such changes shall cease to have effect upon the lapse or repeal of the temporary Standing Order on the Committee on Exiting the European Union:
A: Committee on Exiting the European Union
(1) There shall be a select committee, to be called the Committee on Exiting the European Union, to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Exiting the European Union and related matters falling within the responsibilities of associated public bodies.
(2) The committee shall consist of no more than twenty-one Members including:
(a) the chair; and
(b) no more than twenty other Members who shall be nominated upon a motion made on behalf of the Committee of Selection as set out in Standing Order No. 121 (Nomination of select committees); and the provisions of Standing Order No. 121(2) shall apply to motions for the nomination and discharge of Members to and from the committee as if it were a committee not established under a temporary standing order.
(3) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.
(4) The committee shall have the power to appoint a sub-committee.
(5) The committee and any sub-committee appointed by it shall have the assistance of the Counsel to the Speaker.
(6) The committee and any sub-committee appointed by it shall have power to appoint legal advisers, and specialist advisers either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee’s order of reference.
(7) The committee and any sub-committee appointed by it shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place and to report from time to time the evidence taken before them.
(8) The quorum of the committee shall be six and the quorum of any sub-committee appointed by it shall be three.
(9) The committee shall have power to report from time to time, and any sub-committee appointed by it shall have power to report to the committee from time to time.
B: Election of Select Committee Chairs
(10) That Standing Order No. 122B (Election of select committee chairs) be amended in paragraph (1), by inserting, in the appropriate place, “the Committee on Exiting the European Union”.
C: Liaison Committee
(11) That the Resolution of the House of 10 September 2015 (Liaison Committee (Membership)) be amended, in paragraph (2), by inserting, in the appropriate place, “Exiting the European Union”.
D:European Committees
(12) That Standing Order No. 119 (European Committees) be amended as follows:
(a) in paragraph (4) by inserting after “departments)” the words “, or the Committee on Exiting the European Union”; and
(b) in the Table in paragraph (7), in respect of European Committee B, by inserting, in the appropriate place, “Exiting the European Union”.
E: European Scrutiny Committee
(13) That paragraph (12) of Standing Order No. 143 (European Scrutiny Committee) be amended by inserting, in the appropriate place, “the Committee on Exiting the European Union”.
F: Public Bodies: Draft Orders
(14) That Standing Order No. 152K (Public bodies: draft orders) be amended as follows:
(a) after sub-paragraph (b) to paragraph (1) to insert
“(c) in respect of a draft order laid by a Minister in the Department for Exiting the European Union, the Committee on Exiting the European Union”; and
(b) in paragraph (2) by inserting after “departments)” the words “, or the Committee on Exiting the European Union”.
G: Positions for which Additional Salaries are Payable for the Purposes of Section 4a(2) of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009
(15) That the Order of the House of 19 March 2013 (Positions for which additional salaries are payable for the purposes of section 4A(2) of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009) be amended, in paragraph (1)(a), by inserting, in the appropriate place, “the Committee on Exiting the European Union”.— (Mr Lidington.)
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
The Leader of the House has just told us that we have been without Select Committees to oversee international trade and Brexit. As Chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, I take some mild exception to that remark, because the Foreign Affairs Committee, along with a number of other Select Committees, has been working on Brexit. Indeed, on 26 April, we produced a unanimous report on the implications of whether the United Kingdom chose to stay or leave the European Union. With a Committee split down the middle, that was a remarkable piece of work, and I hope that it served to give Members a definitively unbiased account to present to their constituents before the referendum. Subsequent to the referendum, we produced a further report, in which we were particularly critical of the Government’s failure—indeed, their instruction to Departments to do no contingency planning at all in the event that the country voted to leave the EU.
I wrote to the Government Chief Whip on 30 August and copied the letter to the Leader of the House, the Clerk of the House and the Clerk of Committees to make clear my unease about the discussion then going on about the formation of a Select Committee to oversee the Department for Exiting the European Union. I would like to take this opportunity to put my concerns on the record, as I suspect that such a Committee is likely to be set up, given the arrangements that have been made. I want what I might call the gypsy’s warning about how the Committee might work to be on the record.
Our departure from the EU will generate unprecedented constitutional, political and economic challenges that will affect every Department and almost all aspects of Government policy. Effective scrutiny of this process and the new Department tasked with managing it should require a made-to-measure response from the House. That response should have been to prioritise flexibility, adaptability and cost-effectiveness. I believe that what we are presented with this evening is a mistake in setting up a classic departmental Select Committee to oversee what is in a sense a project that is being organised through a Department of State but that is in the end a time-limited project that will almost certainly come to a conclusion by the end of March 2019.
The Department for Exiting the European Union is unlike any other Department. It will not originate or develop any discrete domestic policy area, and as I said, its task is time-limited. Overseeing it with a discrete Select Committee will ensure that the House is probably about six months behind the Department. No doubt, the Committee will produce reports on the Department after it has ceased to exist. The Department’s website says that it will be
“responsible for policy work to support United Kingdom negotiations”,
but in practice, existing Departments will have key roles in setting policy aims for when we leave the EU and be involved in the planning of how we achieve them.
The role of the Department for Exiting the European Union will be to oversee those negotiations and to ensure consistency and coherence across the Government. We already have existing Select Committees that have the understanding and expertise needed to hold Departments to account for their progress in preparing for Brexit. Several Committees have already launched Brexit-based inquiries, building on work conducted in advance of the referendum. Scrutiny of the Department’s oversight and cross-Government co-ordination role would in these circumstances fall rather more naturally to the Liaison Committee and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. Select Committees could also, of course, work alongside one another, pooling resources and expertise.
There are also the resources available through the European Scrutiny Committee, which could adapt its role to go beyond simply examining European Union documents, but the House will badly need its expertise when examining the future regulatory framework beyond Brexit; that will present significant opportunities for Parliament, given the inevitable lack of clarity on what will apply in advance of the negotiations.
The Foreign Affairs Committee already oversees the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and its budget and programme, but given the very close relationship between the FCO and the people staffing the Department for Exiting the European Union, there is no reason why the Foreign Affairs Committee could not also oversee that Department’s budget and resources. Indeed, it is almost certain that when the Department for Exiting the European Union ends, most of its people will be reunited with the Department that they came from: the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Given the likely impact, in the short and long term, on the FCO, it would make perfect sense for the Foreign Affairs Committee to take this work.
Of course, prior to the referendum, my Committee proved itself to be balanced in its assessment of the United Kingdom’s options. Any new Committee that we set up is likely to be highly partisan on the subject of Brexit, and whether this will lend itself to effective scrutiny, rather than conflict with the Government’s stated policy on Brexit, is frankly open to doubt. Setting up a special Select Committee with 21 members, rather than the normal 11, with the costs that involves, in terms of staff and member time, also disturbs the balance in the allocation of Committee chairmanships between the parties. I am aware that the resources available to my Committee are likely to be significantly reduced in order to service this new Select Committee.
The fundamental question that the House ought to address is whether the new Committee will improve our scrutiny, or instead duplicate the work of existing Committees, as was suggested by a senior figure at the Institute for Government. The new Committee will impose an extra layer of demands on the already hard-pressed Ministers in the Department for Exiting the European Union and their officials. My view, shared by the European Union Committee in the other place in its first report of this Session, is that the existing structures of the House would serve us best.
As I acknowledged at the beginning of my remarks, I suspect that I am in a significant minority, so I do not intend to press this matter, unless I suddenly find that my arguments have surprisingly convinced a majority of those present. I invite my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to explain to me and the House why the concerns that I have expressed will not come to pass, and how we can ensure that this new Select Committee, despite my concerns, will be able to work in a way that does not bring it into automatic conflict with the Government, rather than being an exercise of oversight, or into conflict with existing Select Committees of the House.
Mr Speaker
We are debating this motion separately. If the Leader of the House wants to respond briefly to the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), he is of course welcome to do so.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
I am grateful. May I first say to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) that the Government, in bringing forward this motion, have absolutely no intention of in any way denigrating or downplaying the work that he and the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee and other departmental Select Committees have done, or continue to do, on European affairs? Of course, all those departmental Select Committees will continue to have oversight of the European Union responsibilities exercised by the Departments that they shadow. Indeed, scrutiny of those elements of Departments’ business has always been an integral part of the responsibility of those Select Committees. “International Trade Department for International Trade”. “Energy and Climate Change Scottish National Party” Exiting the European Union Labour International Trade Scottish National Party”.— (Mr Lidington.)
When the Chief Whip and I received the letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate, we considered seriously the proposal that he made. It is true, as he said, that the Government’s intention is that the Department for Exiting the European Union should endure only as long as that work needs to be carried out. In the end, we concluded that there was merit in the long-established principle that each Government Department should have a Select Committee to which Ministers and, through them, the officials in that Department are accountable. I refer my hon. Friend to the wording of the motion, which refers to the Select Committee being responsible for scrutinising
“the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Exiting the European Union”.
Given the breadth of policy areas that the new Department covers there would be a lack of clarity and lines of accountability if we tried to spread not just policy but expenditure and the administration of the Department among a number of departmental Select Committees, each having a finger in the European pie.
I would briefly make two more points. First, it remains the case that Select Committees can carry out joint inquiries. I believe that the report delivered to the Liaison Committee in the last Parliament by our former colleague, Lord Beith, advocated changes to Standing Orders that would make the co-option of a small number of members of a Select Committee to another for a particular inquiry easier to organise. Secondly, I understand what my hon. Friend said about the risks of partisanship, but the history of Select Committees shows that they are most effective when they can deliver a consensual report. It will be for the members of the new Select Committee to decide how they conduct their business, but they will go into this work knowing that their reports will carry greater weight both with the Government and with the wider public if they achieve a consensus, as the best Select Committees, including his own, have been able to do in the past.
My hon. Friend mentioned the size of the Select Committee. Yes, it is larger than normal, but that is because we wanted to make sure that for this question of Britain’s departure from the European Union all parts of the United Kingdom, including all three devolved parts of the United Kingdom, had proper representation, and that all the main political parties represented in the House have representation on the Committee. I accept that we will not reach complete agreement, but I hope that my hon. Friend at least understands the Government’s reasons for introducing the motion. We considered his case carefully, but we stand by the motion.
Question put and agreed to.
Standing Orders Etc. (Machinery of Government Changes) (International Trade)
Resolved,
That, with effect from 17 October 2016, the following amendments and related provisions be made in respect of Standing Orders:
A: Select Committees Related to Government Departments
(1) That Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments) be amended in the Table in paragraph (2) as follows—
(a) insert, in the appropriate place, the following item:
B: Liaison Committee
(2) That the Resolution of the House of 10 September 2015 (Liaison Committee (Membership)) be amended, in paragraph (2), by inserting, in the appropriate place, “International Trade”.
C: European Committees
(3) That the Table in paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 119 (European Committees) be amended in respect of European Committee B, by inserting, in the appropriate place, “International Trade”.—(Heather Wheeler.)
Select Committees (Allocation of Chairs)
Resolved,
That, with effect from 17 October 2016, the allocation of chairs to select committees set out in the Order of the House of 3 June 2015, pursuant to Standing Order No. 122B, be amended as follows:
(a) by leaving out:
(b) by inserting:
Election of Select Committee Chairs (Notice of Election)
Resolved,
That, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order Nos. 122B(7) and 122C(1), the Speaker may announce a date for an election of chairs of select committees before 20 October 2016 in respect of which the requirement of notice is not met. —(Mr Lidington.)
Mr Speaker
I will now announce arrangements for electing Chairs for the Select Committees on Culture, Media and Sport, Exiting the European Union, Home Affairs, International Trade, and Science and Technology. Nominations should be submitted in the Table Office by 12 noon on Tuesday 18 October. If a post has more than one candidate the ballot will take place on Wednesday 19 October from 10 am to 1.30 pm in Committee Room 16. Briefing notes with more details about the election will be made available to Members and published on the intranet.
Petitions
Mr Speaker
There are a large number of petitions to be presented, and I hope that it will be of assistance to the House if I set out how we shall proceed. Once the first petition relating to implementation of the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts has been read to the House, with its prayer, subsequent petitions on the same topic should not be read out in full—not that anybody would wish to do so, of course. Members should give a brief description—I emphasise “brief description”—of the number and location of the petitioners, and state that the petition is “in the same terms.” Members presenting more than one petition should of course present them together.
When Barbara Keeley has presented her petitions, she should proceed to the Table and hand her first petition to the Clerk, who will read out the title in the usual way. For subsequent petitions—what a wonderful script this is—I will call the Member to present the petition briefly and then the Member should proceed directly to the petitions bag at the back of the Chair. I will call the next Member immediately after the previous Member has finished speaking.
Members who have been in the House for a while might recall that a precedent was set—although it is not obliged in any sense to be repeated—for a half-hour limit on the presentation of petitions—[Interruption.] No, not half an hour for each petition. Far be it for me instinctively to want didactically to adopt that approach at this stage. I do not wish to do so and I am quite happy to keep it more open. However, there are a very large number of petitions and it will in no way be acceptable for Members to speak to their petition for even one minute. I am asking colleagues to speak for around 10 seconds so that we can make timely progress. I hope that is clear and that colleagues will wish to co-operate, in the interests of efficiency and of the prospect of reaching the Adjournment debate secured by the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on police officer safety. To present her petition, I call Barbara Keeley.
Police Officer Safety
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
May I say how pleased I am to have the opportunity to raise in the Chamber the issue of police officer safety? I thank all those colleagues who have stayed for the debate. That is appreciated not just by me, but by the hard-working and dedicated police officers who we represent up and down the country. I also take this opportunity to thank all MPs who showed their support for the campaign at the drop-in session earlier today.
On Friday 5 August during the summer recess, I joined West Yorkshire police for a 2 pm till 10 pm shift to get the front-line experience, and to see just how the demands on local policing are changing. I spent the afternoon with neighbourhood policing officer PC Kim McCloskey, visiting community projects and seeing some of the great work going on at the grassroots Ovenden Phoenix football club, before spending the evening with response officers reacting to 999 calls. West Yorkshire Police Federation chair, Chief Inspector Nick Smart, had only recently been to see me to raise concerns about an increase in assaults on police officers, and to outline how depleted numbers are impacting on front-line capabilities.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
My hon. Friend rightly talks about an increase in those incidents, but does she agree that one of the most important things we need to do is collect more accurate data so that we can see precisely what is going on in that respect?
Holly Lynch
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, and will come to that in more detail later.
With those concerns in mind, I was keen to see for myself just how well police officers on the front line are coping with cuts of £160 million over five years, resulting in the loss of 1,200 police officers—a reduction of 20% of the force. As an MP, I already work closely with local neighbourhood policing teams. Headed up by Inspector Colin Skeath, there is some outstanding work going on to address the underlying causes of crime, to tackle antisocial behaviour, and really to build trust and engagement across communities. I am always amazed that neighbourhood police officers seem to know the name of every kid in their patch. I pay tribute to the invaluable work they do. Long may it continue.
It was into the evening, when I moved over to response policing, that I joined PC Craig Gallant reacting to 999 calls. That was where I could really see the strain on the service. I had already discussed with the Police Federation and senior officers my concerns that, due to a combination of reduced numbers and the ever expanding responsibilities of the police, officers are now regularly being asked to respond to emergency calls on their own. Only days before my shift, a female police officer responded to a domestic call in my district. Disgracefully, she was head-butted by an offender, knocking out her teeth and leaving her with a broken eye socket.
It was not long into my time with PC Gallant that we attempted to stop a vehicle to speak to the driver. Having turned on the blue lights, the car initially sped away. However, after a short chase the driver eventually thought better of it and pulled over. PC Gallant asked the driver to get out of the vehicle, but he refused. As he continued to instruct the driver to get out the car, a crowd began to gather, with some onlookers becoming increasingly hostile; passing vehicles also began to take an interest. A second vehicle then pulled up at speed. As the passenger from the first car got out to get into the second, the situation very quickly escalated. PC Gallant found himself surrounded, dealing with an aggressive crowd from all directions. When he was forced to draw his baton while instructing the crowd to move back, I was so concerned for his safety that I rang 999 myself, believing it was the fastest way to make contact with the control room and stress just how urgently he needed back-up. Thankfully, other officers arrived at the scene shortly afterwards to help to manage the situation. Amazingly, no injuries were sustained on that occasion, but I saw for myself just how quickly situations can escalate and how vulnerable officers are when they are out on their own.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and for bringing this very important issue to the Chamber for consideration. The hon. Lady will be aware that in Northern Ireland police officers carry personal weapons both on duty and at home because of the threat to them. I spoke to her about this issue today and she may have a different opinion, but does she feel that it is important that we protect police officers at home and at work, and that one way of doing that is to give them a personal weapon that they can access at any time? That provides safety for them and their families.
Holly Lynch
The circumstances in Northern Ireland are very serious and really quite different from some of the circumstances in the rest of the country. I am asking the Minister today to consider all available options to provide the safety and resources that police officers need on the streets. That is certainly one option that could be considered, with the specifics of Northern Ireland policing.
Returning to the incident on the streets of Halifax, it gives me great pleasure to welcome PC Gallant to Westminster to join us for this debate. I think it is fair to say that he remained much calmer than I did throughout the incident.
An assault on a police officer is an assault on society. It is totally unacceptable that public servants, working in their communities to protect people and help the vulnerable, are subject to assaults as they go about their jobs. Make no mistake, these are tough jobs, and while most officers will tell you that they understand there are risks, being a punching bag should never be part and parcel of the job. In West Yorkshire alone, there were 991 recorded assaults on police officers last year, with an estimated 23,000 across the country. In addition, many attacks are going unreported or are being side-lined in the pursuit of other charges, making it extremely difficult to understand the true scale of the problem.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
In Cleveland, a police officer has had their jaw broken twice in the past 12 months. That follows on from the fact that in the past six years, Cleveland has seen a 25% cut in the number of front-line police officers. Does my hon. Friend think that that is a factor? The amount of single staffing patrols has now increased to such a level that officers are exposed to increased danger.
Holly Lynch
There are no two ways about it. I will come on to that in more detail in my speech. That is a very serious incident. Sending officers out on their own just is not working.
When I asked the House of Commons Library for statistics, by police force, of assaults on officers, it responded by saying that there is a lack of official statistics in this area. A recent Home Office report cites that assaults on officers and police community support officers are not collected as national statistics. Instead, the figures are estimates based on two limited data sources. To be fair to the Home Office, I very much welcome the recent efforts it has made to improve the system for recording assaults on officers, but there is still a long way to go.
Last year the Home Office asked forces to provide data on assaults on a voluntary basis. However, it recognised that there were flaws to that approach, concluding that
“the figures…are not directly comparable at police force area level”,
and that
“the estimates are relatively crude, and should be interpreted with caution.”
As the data are not collected, we simply cannot answer some of the bigger questions. Is the number of assaults going up? Are some forces failing to protect their officers? Have cuts to police budgets made policing more dangerous?
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her campaign. I and other Members of the House attended the police bravery awards this year, where we saw the incredible work being done by our police forces all over the country. One of the issues that has been raised for several years is that cuts in the psychiatric service have resulted in police officers having to deal with mental health issues in the custody suite. Does she agree that that needs to be addressed? This is really not what police officers should be doing.
Holly Lynch
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We see police forces having to pick up the slack where there have been cuts to other agencies—agencies that should be taking a lead in dealing with some of these quite difficult social problems. I will come to how many vulnerable people were missing when I did my shift with West Yorkshire police and the impact that had on how many officers were available to respond to 999 calls.
To return to the statistics, I am asking the Home Office to work with police forces to standardise the process of collecting that information. Quite simply, if an officer is assaulted, in any force at any time, let us record it. Assaults on officers must be the subject of robust investigations. While officers need to play their part in that and follow up by reporting instances where they have been the victim of an assault, I also appreciate that they will not report injuries unless they have the confidence that those involved will be investigated and prosecuted appropriately.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this issue on behalf of West Yorkshire police, our local force. Will she join me in welcoming the recruitment of an extra 300 officers in West Yorkshire? Does she also agree that we need some exemplary sentences as a deterrent, so that the police can have the assurance of knowing that anyone who perpetrates violence against a police officer or PCSO will receive a harsher sentence?
Holly Lynch
Of course, sentencing plays a big part in deterring those contemplating assault on a police officer. I very much welcome that recruitment drive, but we have seen the loss of 1,200 officers in West Yorkshire, so the faster those new boots are on the ground, the better.
I welcome the work of the Police Federation’s John Apter in Hampshire, which has been an effective means of establishing best practice. I would encourage all forces to consider rolling out similar schemes for recording and investigating assaults on officers. Police officers who are assaulted deserve the full backing of the justice system, as the hon. Gentleman has just said. Since my shift with West Yorkshire police, I have become aware of at least five more assaults on officers in my constituency in the days that followed and have been made aware of some absolutely horrific incidents reported to me by serving officers all over the country—indeed, we have already heard many more today. What has shocked me, and what thoroughly depresses police officers, is that sentences handed down to offenders for assaulting the police often fail to reflect the seriousness of the crime or, more crucially, serve as a deterrent.
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. After 32 years of policing in London, I can tell her that I was involved in several scuffles, with only the protection of a small piece of wood in a side pocket and a radio that was only good for throwing at decamping suspects. Does she agree that poor sentencing reduces the seriousness of assaults on police and has the effect of lowering morale and, above all, respect for law enforcement?
Holly Lynch
The hon. Gentleman he is absolutely right. Morale is essential in the police force. We have to get this right or we will start to lose good officers as a result.
To reiterate, we make the law here, but we ask the police to uphold and enforce it out there. To assault a police officer is to show a complete disregard for law and order, our shared values and democracy itself. That must be reflected in sentencing, particularly for repeat offenders. To give hon. Members just a couple of examples, a man who assaulted four officers in the south of England earlier this year, causing serious injury to one officer in particular by gouging their eyes, was ordered to pay compensation and received a two-month suspended sentence.
One of the most harrowing attacks on officers brought to my attention was on the front page of the Scottish Daily Mail in September. A man set upon two officers, one male and one female, subjecting them to an onslaught of blows after initially seeming to comply with a body search. Footage of the incident, which was widely shared on social media, shows onlookers beginning to film the assault on their smart phones, while the officers struggle to defend themselves. In court, the offender was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, pay compensation to the officers and placed under supervision for 18 months.
I could go on—and I really could go on—because since securing this debate, I have been sent examples from officers all over the country, most of whom have themselves been on the receiving end of violent attacks, and who feel thoroughly let down by the system.
Having looked into sentencing in more detail, I referred to the “Assault Definitive Guideline” publication, produced by the Sentencing Council in 2011. The guidelines assist all members of the judiciary who deal with sentencing. They list the measures of both harm and culpability to assess whether an assault on an officer is a category 1, 2 or 3 offence. They then state the starting point for an appropriate sentence in each of the categories, with the factors that may be taken into consideration in arriving at a final sentencing decision.
The starting point for sentencing following a category 1 assault on a police officer, which represents the greatest harm and the highest culpability, is a 12-week custodial sentence. However, the guidelines then go on to say:
“When sentencing category 1 offences, the court should also consider if the custody threshold has been passed? If so, is it unavoidable that a custodial sentence be imposed and can that sentence be suspended?”
I really struggle with the notion of a suspended sentence. It feels as though the custodial element of the sentence itself does reflect the seriousness of the crime, but its suspended nature means that victims often leave court feeling that it will have zero practical impact on the offender.
I appreciate that the Minister will most likely stress the independent nature of the Sentencing Council, which I understand, but when sentencing has the potential to be such a significant part of the package of measures used to deter those from using violence against police officers, as the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) said, I am asking the Minister to consider any and all means available to him to work with his colleagues in the Department for Justice to ensure that we use sentencing as a means of offering the police all the protection we can. In addition, there are no two ways about it, and as we have already heard, the cuts have had consequences. The danger of assault is heightened when officers are on the front line with diminished support due to pressures on officer numbers.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for the fantastic work she has done in campaigning on this very important issue. I spoke to a West Yorkshire police officer recently, who told me that there are nowadays only double crews at night. He explained that the risk was present throughout the day and that the risk did not discriminate between different times of the day. Does my hon. Friend agree that this represents a very significant risk to the safety of our police officers?
Holly Lynch
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have seen an increase in the complexity of the crime that needs to be addressed at the same time as staggering cuts to the number of officers available to do that work, which does impact on the safety of officers as they go about their business.
Certainly in West Yorkshire—I know this is reflected in the forces across the country—the police have had to weather staggering cuts at a time when their case load is becoming increasingly complicated. I have seen the thin blue line stretched desperately thin, as the demands on officers continue to grow. The pressures of terrorism, safeguarding and cybercrime are all serious, but tackling these problems requires the appropriate resourcing. Increased awareness of exploitation in all its ugly forms, from child sexual exploitation to human trafficking, means that, quite rightly, priorities have changed to reflect that. Any officer will tell us that one of the biggest challenges putting additional pressure on the police is the changing nature of dealing with vulnerable young people and adults, particularly those with complex mental health challenges.
In the 24 hours leading up to my time on duty, Calderdale police had safely recovered nine vulnerable missing people and were involved in looking for an additional seven the following day. The weekly average for missing people in Calderdale is 43, with 416 a week going missing across the force. Some 114 of those are deemed to be high-risk individuals.
As MPs, as we have heard, we see it all the time—people with often complex vulnerabilities struggling to get the support they need in a climate where local authority budgets have been slashed and NHS funding has been squeezed. It is becoming a massive social problem, which is increasingly falling to the police to deal with, due to the inability of other agencies to take a lead or to take responsibility.
During my time with West Yorkshire police, I was able to see the difficulties stemming from having constantly to divert police crews into locating missing people, which undermines neighbourhood policing work and eats into the number of response officers available for 999 calls. We have a responsibility to keep the most vulnerable people away from harm and exploitation. Yet the police cannot be the catch-all for all problems. With reduced numbers, it is simply not sustainable and, let us be honest, nor are the police the most appropriate agency to be doing that work. We have to look at ways of empowering other agencies to take the lead. Not having the right answers to these questions means that the police are stretched as never before. As a result, lone officers—single crews—are regularly asked to attend emergencies and potentially dangerous incidents on their own, or with fewer officers than are required to manage such situations safely.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important issue to our attention. I must declare an interest, as I am proud to say that a member of my family is a serving police officer. I worry about his safety and the safety of his colleagues, given that they are so often required to go out on their own. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as a system of monitoring assaults on police officers, there should be a system of monitoring the number of occasions on which they are required to attend incidents on their own?
Holly Lynch
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. A police officer who is deployed to deal with a dangerous situation alone is very vulnerable. That seems to be a significant contributing factor. When I went out with a police officer who had been deployed on his own, I saw for myself how quickly situations could escalate.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. When I talk to members of the Greater Manchester police force, they mention the large number of incidents involving people with mental health issues. As a result of cuts in mental health services, we in Greater Manchester have lost more than 1,850 police officers since 2010. That is a cut of 23%. I think my hon. Friend mentioned a 25% cut, and such a level of cuts is not unusual. Does she agree that it is inevitable that officers will be stretched and, as a result, put in danger?
Holly Lynch
We have heard from Members on both sides of the House about the increased complexity surrounding crime, and the different types of crime with which the police are having to deal while also weathering truly staggering cuts. As a result, they are naturally more vulnerable when doing their work on the streets of all our constituencies.
When officers are deployed on their own, are they really equipped to deal with an incident when they arrive? The use of Tasers is probably a debate for another day, but, again, I ask the Minister to think about the package of measures that is needed to give officers every opportunity to manage the risks to which they are exposed on the front line. The provision of more widely available Taser units, with the training to accompany that responsibility, could be one of those measures.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The extent of the problem is indeed startling. I have obtained some statistics, because we take measurements in Northern Ireland. Between 2014 and 2016, a quarter of all police officers serving there—1,631—were assaulted, and nearly 500 have been assaulted in the current year. Those are atrocious figures. The Government must tell the Northern Ireland Administration, and chief constables throughout the United Kingdom, that they need to recruit more officers, and judges must impose stiff sentences on people who are caught and found guilty of such crimes.
Holly Lynch
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that staggering and depressing intervention. We have seen what he has described far too often, and the statistics are very serious. I hope that the Minister will respond with what could be easy and effective ways of dealing with sentencing to ensure that the greatest possible deterrents exist. We quite often see repeat offenders, and that cannot be allowed to continue. We must give police officers every protection that we can possibly provide.
What additional protections might officers need? Perhaps controversially, I want to refer to spit hoods. I am all for informed debate about the issue, but the truth is that if people are politically uncomfortable about spit hoods, I can promise them that somewhere, right now, there is a police officer who is being spat at and who is even more uncomfortable. As well as being thoroughly unpleasant, spitting blood and saliva at another human being can pose a real risk of transmission of a range of infectious diseases, some with life-changing or even lethal consequences. We have a duty of care to protect officers from that, whenever possible.
The Centre for Public Safety has published a briefing on the issue, and I thank it for the work that it has done in this regard. The briefing cited a recent occasion on which the Metropolitan police were called to a disturbance and arrested a 20-year-old woman on suspicion of a public order offence. The woman, who had hepatitis B, then bit her own lip and spat blood at three officers who had to be taken to hospital for anti-viral treatment. Anti-viral treatments are not guaranteed to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases, and an officer may have to endure a wait of over six months to find out whether the treatment has been successful.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, who has been very generous in giving way, but she might wish to be aware that if she would like a reply from the Minister, he has only until 7.42 to give her that reply.
Holly Lynch
I am getting there, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you for that reminder.
As I was saying, I am open to a debate on spit hoods, but they might not be so necessary if sentencing was more effective and offered a tougher deterrent. However, the Sentencing Council’s 2011 guidelines removed spitting as a factor increasing seriousness. In the council’s assessment of the guidelines, published in 2015, sentencers attributed a shift towards less severe sentencing to that decision. A district judge went so far as to say that
“a spit in the face can’t be identified as a sustained or repeated assault for greater harm. Yet in my view it is one of the most serious ways of assaulting.”
I am asking the Minister to ensure that the Home Office is collecting accurate data about assaults on police officers—data that will give us a much greater insight into the scale of the problem and empower decision makers to respond accordingly. I am asking him to work with colleagues to explore options for much tougher sentencing. If an officer is the victim of a category 1 assault, I would expect to see a sentence that sends a strong message. Assaulting the police shows contempt for our collectively agreed laws and all those who uphold them, and it will not be tolerated. It worries me that the ever-growing demands on the police are undermining their ability to do some of the basics. I am calling on the Minister to recognise that officers are routinely deployed on their own, that when an officer calls for back-up, only boots on the ground will do, and that numbers matter.
Finally, I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute, on behalf of all of us here, to the brave unarmed West Yorkshire police officers who apprehended the man who took Jo Cox from us on the streets of Batley and Spen earlier this year. Their actions demonstrated that we ask the police to walk towards some of the most dangerous situations, and we have a responsibility to offer them all the protection we can in doing so. We are grateful to them, and their courage is a testament to all our brave policemen and women across the country.
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on securing this debate on such an important subject. It is good to see so many Members here tonight.
Last month, the Home Secretary and others paid their respects at events to mark National Police Memorial Day, a day that not only enables us to pay tribute to fallen officers but serves as a stark reminder of the dangers that the police face daily. The hon. Lady ably outlined examples of those dangers this evening. As she said, this is an issue with which she has been particularly concerned since her experience shadowing members of West Yorkshire police force in her constituency this summer. Many of us spend time with the police in our own constituencies, and I visit forces all around the country. We can see the phenomenal work that members of our police service do daily and the challenges that they face in our communities.
This has been a good debate, with a speech from the hon. Lady and interventions from other right hon. and hon. Members. I think we can all agree that police officers should be able to carry out their duties without fear of assault. Let me be clear that assaulting a police officer is completely unacceptable, and anyone who is found guilty can expect to face the full force of the law.
It is important that we have a good understanding of the scale of the issue, so that chief officers can do everything in their power to keep their officers safe. We have been working for some time to improve the data available. As a first step, it was right that provisional statistics of officer assaults were published in July, despite the limitations of those data. The figures indicated that in 2015-16, there were an estimated 23,000 assaults on officers across all forces. The data also indicated that there were nearly 8,000 assaults involving injury reported by officers, and 270 reported by police community support officers.
We will continue to build on that work, and we need to make it clear that it is completely unacceptable to commit an offence against a police officer. It is not good enough for people to say that such incidents are part of the cost of a police officer going about their business. That is simply not the case, and we need to put a stop to it. We need to ensure that the public understand that a police officer is to be respected and is there to serve the community. They keep us all safe.
I can assure the hon. Lady that sentencing guidelines already provide for an assault on a police officer to be treated more severely in appropriate cases. There are also two offences specific to assaults on police officers where there is little or no physical harm. Assaults resulting in more serious injuries would result in a charge of actual bodily harm or a more serious offence. In those cases, sentencing will largely be guided by the level of harm and offender culpability. In the most serious cases, where an individual is convicted of the murder of a police officer in the course of duty, a whole life order will now be the sentencing starting point, thanks to the work of the previous Home Secretary, as laid out in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. That was a landmark change, and one that the Police Federation had campaigned long and hard for on behalf of their members. It is right, as the hon. Lady outlined, that the courts still have the discretion, through the independence of the judiciary, to take account of all the circumstances of each case in determining the appropriate sentence. It is right for them to have that ability to assess in any given case, based on the facts of the case, what is the most appropriate sentence. She is also quite right to say that the Sentencing Council has a role to play in the sentencing guidelines, and that it is an independent body.
The hon. Lady touched on resources. I remind her that there has been a good deal for policing with direct resource funding to police and crime commissioners, including the precept, being protected this year. Ultimately, all decisions about local policing resources and roles are for chief constables, held to account by their locally accountable PCCs.
Single-crewing falls into the operational duty and decisions of local chief constables. Chiefs and PCCs have a duty to manage and support the police working effectively, ensuring the welfare of all officers and staff.
Holly Lynch
Does the Minister recognise that with the number of 999 calls to a lot of our forces, sometimes it is a choice between sending a lone officer or nobody, because those forces are that stretched?
Brandon Lewis
As we are limited to a few seconds of time, I will have to say that, in another place and at another opportunity, I will go through how the changing police force means that the work they are doing is changing. Having more officers on the frontline with their time focused on working with communities is a good thing. There is also the work with the College of Policing. I know that chief constables will continue to do what they can to ensure that they keep their people safe and enable them to work confidently to tackle the challenges of modern crime. We will continue to support them in this.
There is much more that I and probably other Members would like to say on this issue, but we are time-constrained. I will leave it there, but I look forward to speaking to the hon. Lady and the gentlemen who have come to watch us this evening straight after this debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Culture, Media and Sport
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Karen Bradley
For the first time, we have made it an 11-year charter in order that it does not coincide with the electoral cycle and there cannot be seen to be political influence on the charter renewal. In addition, we want to make sure that this is the longest charter ever.
[Official Report, 15 September 2016, Vol. 614, c. 1058.]
Letter of correction from Karen Bradley:
An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) during my statement on the BBC.
The correct response should have been:
Karen Bradley
For the first time, we have made it an 11-year charter in order that it does not coincide with the electoral cycle and there cannot be seen to be political influence on the charter renewal. In addition, we want to make sure that this is one of the longest charters ever.
The following is an extract from the response given to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) during the statement on the BBC by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on 15 September 2016.
Karen Bradley
As I pointed out to the hon. Lady’s colleague the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), BBC Alba is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BBC, whereas S4C is not.
[Official Report, 15 September 2016, Vol. 614, c. 1064.]
Letter of correction from Karen Bradley:
An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) during my statement on the BBC.
The correct response should have been:
Karen Bradley
As I pointed out to the hon. Lady’s colleague the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), BBC Alba is a BBC service; S4C is not.
Defence
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Christina Rees
Now that Government Departments are mandated to provide information about the proportion of UK steel used in the Crown Commercial Service, will the Minister please tell the House what percentage of UK steel is used in current defence projects and what percentage will be used in future?
Harriett Baldwin
The hon. Lady rightly speaks up for steel production in her constituency. She will be very pleased to know that, for the largest project that the UK Government have ever procured that uses steel—she will be aware that that is the carrier programme currently under construction on the Clyde—the vast majority comes from Tata Steel. I believe it is 94%.
[Official Report, 12 September 2016, Vol. 614, c. 586.]
Letter of correction from Harriett Baldwin:
An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) during Questions to the Secretary of State for Defence.
The correct response should have been:
Harriett Baldwin
The hon. Lady rightly speaks up for steel production in her constituency. She will be very pleased to know that, for the largest project that the UK Government have ever procured that uses steel—she will be aware that that is the carrier programme currently under construction in Rosyth—the vast majority comes from Tata Steel. I believe it is 95,000 tonnes.
Implementation of the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts
Higher Education and Research Bill (Tenth sitting)
Tuesday 11th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Higher Education and Research Act 2017 View all Higher Education and Research Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 October 2016 - (11 Oct 2016)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 10 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 11 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment 233, in schedule 4, page 74, line 32, after “providers” insert “and students”.
See amendment 232.
Amendment 4, in schedule 4, page 74, line 39, at end insert—
“Bodies suitable to perform quality assessment functions: student representatives
4A (1) A body is suitable to perform the quality assessment function under section 23 if, in addition to meeting conditions A to D, at least two of the persons who determine the strategic priorities of the body are currently enrolled on a course at a higher education provider.
(2) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1), ‘course’ means any graduate or postgraduate course.”
This amendment would require the board of any body designated to perform the quality assessment function under section 23 to include at least two student representatives.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hanson. I think the Minister will be relieved to know that I had come to the end of my comments. In great anticipation that he will go away and look at how to improve student representation on the assessment body, I will withdraw the amendment.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hanson. I am sure that people have waited with bated breath over lunch to find out whether I will press amendment 4 to a vote, but it is not my intention to do so at this stage.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments made: 56, in schedule 4, page 75, line 1, after “include” insert “the”.
This amendment clarifies that when the Secretary of State provides a notice all of the reasons for the decision are given.
Amendment 57, in schedule 4, page 75, line 6, leave out “and standards of” and insert
“of, and the standards applied to,”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 46.
Amendment 58, in schedule 4, page 75, line 30, leave out “an assessment function” and insert “the assessment functions”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.
Amendment 59, in schedule 4, page 75, line 33, leave out “designated function” and insert “assessment functions”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 60, in schedule 4, page 75, line 37, leave out “designated function” and insert “assessment functions”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 61, in schedule 4, page 76, line 4, leave out second “designated” and insert “assessment”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 62, in schedule 4, page 76, line 25, at end insert—
“Power of the OfS to give directions
9A (1) The OfS may give the designated body general directions about the performance of any of the assessment functions.
(2) In giving such directions, the OfS must have regard to the need to protect the expertise of the designated body.
(3) Such directions must relate to—
(a) English higher education providers or registered higher education providers generally, or
(b) a description of such providers.
(4) The designated body must comply with any directions given under this paragraph.”
This amendment allows the OfS to give the designated body directions regarding the exercise of the assessment functions. In using this power, the OfS must have regard to the need to protect the expertise of the body.
Amendment 63, in schedule 4, page 76, line 29, leave out “designated function” and insert “assessment functions”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 64, in schedule 4, page 76, line 30, leave out “that function” and insert “those functions”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 65, in schedule 4, page 76, line 40, after “provided” insert “in England”.
This amendment clarifies that in Schedule 4 a “graduate” means a graduate of a higher education course provided in England.
Amendment 66, in schedule 4, page 77, line 1, leave out “an assessment function” and insert “the assessment functions”.—(Joseph Johnson.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.
Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 27
Power of designated body to charge fees
Amendments made: 67, in clause 27, page 16, line 15, leave out subsection (3).
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 68, in clause 27, page 16, line 20, leave out “or (3)”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 69, in clause 27, page 16, line 21, leave out from “provider” to “by reference to” in line 22 and insert “—
(a) may be calculated,”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 70, in clause 27, page 16, line 25, leave out from “functions;” to “may” in line 29 and insert “and
(b) ”
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 71, in clause 27, page 16, line 32, leave out “or (3)”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 72, in clause 27, page 16, line 34, leave out
“in the case of subsection (2)(a),”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 73, in clause 27, page 16, line 37, leave out paragraph (b).—(Joseph Johnson.)
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Clause 27, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 28
Power to approve an access and participation plan
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 200, in clause 28, page 17, line 12, at end insert?
“(1A) The OfS must appoint an independent Director for Fair Access and Participation responsible for approving access and participation plans.”
This amendment would strengthen the powers of the proposed Director for Fair Access and Participation in line with the current powers of the Director and those proposed in the Higher Education Green Paper.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 201, in clause 28, page 17, line 14, leave out “OfS may, if it” and insert
“Director for Fair Access and Participation may, if the Director”.
This amendment and amendment 204 would ensure that decisions on the approval or rejection of participation plans rest with the Director, not the head of the Office for Students.
Amendment 202, in clause 28, page 17, line 14, at end insert—
“(3A) The Director for Fair Access and Participation may make recommendations to the OfS on the matters to which the OfS should include in guidance that the Director will have regard in deciding whether to approve plans.”
This amendment would ensure that the Director can make recommendations to the OfS on the matters to be included in guidance that the Director will have regard in deciding whether to approve plans.
Amendment 203, in clause 28, page 17, line 15, after first “OfS” insert
“having considered any recommendations made by the Director for Fair Access and Participation and having consulted the Director,”.
This amendment would ensure that the OfS considered any recommendations made by the Director for Fair Access and Participation and where a matter was not covered by a recommendation the OfS consulted the Director.
Amendment 204, in clause 28, page 17, line 15, leave out second “OfS” and insert
“the Director for Fair Access and Participation”.
See amendment 201.
Amendment 205, in clause 28, page 17, line 16, at end insert—
“(4A) Where the Director for Fair Access and Participation considers that there is significant risk to widening participation or that access targets will not be achieved, the Director may issue to a provider or class of providers, which have similar and identifiable characteristics affecting the satisfying of an access and participation plan condition—
(a) guidance setting out additional matters to have regard to in connection to approving the plan; and
(b) a warning.”
This amendment would ensure that the Director could issue formal guidance and warnings to certain providers that are not widening access or meeting access targets.
Amendment 206, in clause 28, page 17, line 19, leave out “OfS” and insert
“Director for Fair Access and Participation”.
This amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State’s regulation-making powers specifying the matters to be taken into account in determining whether or not a plan is to be approved apply to the Director for Fair Access and Participation not the head of the Office for Students.
Gordon Marsden
I hope that you had a restorative recess, Mr Hanson. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I rise to speak to this group of amendments, which are in my name and that of my colleague, the shadow Secretary of State, and are all about the Office for Fair Access. Hon. Members will be relieved to hear that I will speak not to each amendment but to the broad thrust of them all.
We have discussed OFFA previously, but these amendments focus specifically on the powers to approve an access and participation plan. We will hear more about access and participation plans later this afternoon when we debate further amendments, but as far as we are concerned, at the heart of such plans is what the Office for Fair Access was set up for and what the director of fair access is tasked with doing. I know that the Minister and I have a high opinion of the current holder of that office, and nothing that I will say refers to a particular individual. As I have said previously, we are legislating for a period of up to 15 or 20 years, so we have to consider the evolution of the office for students and the nature of the different individuals who might occupy that office. I therefore think it reasonable to try to bring the relationships involving the director for fair access and participation in line with the current powers and those proposed in the higher education Green Paper.
The Minister clearly thinks that has been done, and he has perfectly reasonably prayed in aid various comments from the current director. But there is a continuing nagging concern—not just with us, but with many people in the HE sector—that under these reforms the director could be seen as subordinate to the head of the office for students. That body will have significant funding from universities—we wait to hear further how much that will be, although some figures have already been put out—which might make the OFS less inclined to challenge institutions on access. Even if it does not, the Minister will be familiar with the phrase, “Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion.” I am not correlating Les Ebdon with Caesar’s wife, but the Minister will understand my point: there is a danger, if that is the position institutionally, in what people might think.
The report that lays out the business case for the office for students states that
“day to day responsibility for operations and decisions relating to the OfS’ Access and Participation functions”
should sit with the director, but that is not currently underpinned in the Bill. The Sutton Trust and various other organisations have concerns about that point, as does the director of fair access himself, as I believe he said when he gave evidence to the Committee.
It is crucial that the director for fair access and participation has the independence to challenge universities robustly, so that universities that dislike access rulings designed to help able young people from low-income homes are not able to appeal to the head of the OFS. That is why we believe that the Bill should be amended—so that it is clear that the director has a direct line into the Secretary of State and is not simply reporting to the members of the OFS board and the OFS chief executive, although he may want to consult them quite substantially.
In various responses to the White Paper, the director of fair access identified at least two possible areas where the Bill could be strengthened, one of which was this one. He was told that the power to approve access and participation plans will sit with the OFS corporately, not with the new director. Nothing in the Bill requires the OFS to exercise those powers through the director, although that would be sensible in the light of schedule 1. Paragraph 3 of schedule 1 merely requires the director to report on the exercise of functions, which is a narrative exercise. He or she is not even accountable for the exercise of those functions. The director will fulfil that obligation by delivering an accurate report, and whether that report describes a good or bad situation will not be his or her concern under the provisions in the Bill. At present, whether the director will have the functions required will depend on the scheme of delegation adopted by the OFS.
The purpose of the amendments is to put flesh on the bones of those intentions. Those bones include the power to negotiate with institutions and ultimately to approve or refuse an access and participation plan. The amendments would both strengthen that position and ensure that the director had the ability to do so.
In case people think that these issues are hypothetical, dry or technical, it might be worth reflecting on what happened during the 2016-17 access agreements, which were a positive thing for both the Government and the director. The director’s negotiations led to improved targets at 94 institutions, and 28 of those increased their predicted spend. That secured an estimated additional £11.4 million for fair access and participation.
If the director for fair access and participation could be bypassed or overruled by the OFS chief executive or the board, that could undermine his or her ability to negotiate directly with vice-chancellors and to offer robust challenge. That in turn would be likely to lead to a significant scaling down of ambition by some institutions. We need the powers in question to be clearly stated on the face of the Bill. I accept that the Minister might say that they will be intrinsic guidance, but this is what one Minister can say in 2016, and we do not know what another Minister might say in 2021 or 2022. That is why we need the amendments.
We know already that the portfolio of skills that a director of the Office for Fair Access needs to possess is complex. They need to be able to get on with Government, and they need to be well positioned to make nuanced judgements about what is reasonable and achievable in setting up access agreements. Above all, as in any negotiations, they need to have flexibility—if I can put it this way, they need to have a few other cards up their sleeve. Far from being a distraction or causing problems within the OFS, making those points clear in the framework set out in the Bill would improve and settle the relationship—that is not to say that it would bad in the first place—between the office for students, its members, its board and the director. The issue would not have to be teased out over a period of what might be creative tension over various issues. I have sat in enough Select Committee meetings to know that problems in one particular area can throw up conceptual difficulties in relationships between offices, and that the amendments are therefore advisable. If the director does not have responsibility for access agreements, it risks sending a message to the sector that fair access and participation have been deprioritised.
The Government are keen to meet their goal of doubling the rate of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds entering higher education by 2020. In order for them to do that—this is not a criticism, just an observation—there will need to be some acceleration of progress. If the director does not retain the authority to approve or refuse an access and participation plan, or if that power can be delegated to others and decisions can be overturned, that could a significant period of to-ing and fro-ing within the OFS in which the Secretary of State or the Minister would have to intervene. That would not help anybody, and there is a real risk that the position of the director would be seen as being weakened. That could send a message that fair access had been deprioritised and would likely lead to a scaling down of ambition by institutions. Such a message could also be seen as contrary to the Government’s fair life chances and social mobility agenda. All of us in the House, whatever position we take on a particular aspect of the Bill, fervently want to see that social mobility. I again urge the Minister to think hard about some of the nuances I have talked about. Let us see what he has to say.
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair once again, Mr Hanson, although we have not made as much progress in your absence as you might have hoped. It is also a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Blackpool South in his place on time to start the proceedings. I am glad that he did not have to scapegoat Network Rail for his late arrival.
Gordon Marsden
I know that the hon. Gentleman wishes to defend the Government in all shapes and forms, but that does not necessarily involve defending Network Rail. If he carries on in that vein I might have to examine his record of interests to see whether he has shares in the company.
The Chair
Order. Members will have to fill me in on that at a later time. In the meantime, I call the Minister.
Joseph Johnson
If the hon. Gentleman wants to lodge his time of arrival at Victoria, we can verify his claim with the operator and get to the bottom of his late arrival.
I am grateful to hon. Members for tabling the amendments. They touch on points that we discussed extensively at an earlier stage in our proceedings, and they are intended to clarify the role and responsibilities of the director for fair access and participation in relation to access and participation plans.
We are giving amendment 200 careful thought. There is obviously agreement on both sides of the House that social mobility is a huge priority, and all the more so now for the current Government. Widening access and participation in higher education is one of the key drivers of that. The OFS will have a duty to consider the quality of opportunity in connection with access to and participation in higher education across all its functions, so widening access for and participation of students from disadvantaged backgrounds will be at its very core. It will be the responsibility of the OFS to ensure that it is fulfilling that function. As I have said before, it continues to be our clear intention that the OFS will give the DFAP responsibility for activities in that area. We envisage that, in practice, that will mean that the other OFS members will agree a broad remit with the DFAP, and that the DFAP will report back to them on those activities. As such, the DFAP will have responsibility for the important access and participation activities in question, including agreeing access and participation plans on a day-to-day basis.
We do not accept that the reforms will undermine the ability for stretching access plans to be agreed and strengthened. Indeed, the OFS as a whole will have responsibility for promoting equality of opportunity, which, as I have said, means that it will have access to the full suite of OFS sanctions. I will come on to describe what those could be.
Amendment 205 is intended to ensure that the DFAP can issue guidance and warnings when a provider does not meet their targets. In future, we expect that the OFS will continue to monitor a provider’s progress against its plan and agree targets with it, as the director of fair access does now. Concerns about progress would be raised directly with the provider. That has proved to be an effective system, with the current director of fair access’s interventions having led to an improvement in targets at 94 institutions and increased expenditure at 37 for 2017-18. Where it was considered appropriate, a range of OFS sanctions would be available, including the power to refuse an access and participation plan. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I welcome what the Minister has said, which is consonant with what he has said on previous occasions. I repeat our view that it would be beneficial to make the amendments, for the reasons that I have given, but I accept the Minister’s assurance that he is giving them careful thought. There will be a number of opportunities to develop them at other stages of the Bill’s passage, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I beg to move amendment 179, in clause 28, page 17, line 16, at end insert—
‘( ) The OfS must, in deciding whether to approve a plan, have regard to whether the governing body of an institution has consulted with relevant student representatives in producing its plan.
( ) In this section “relevant student representatives” means representatives who may be deemed to represent students on higher education courses provided by the institution including, but not limited to, persons or bodies as described by Part 2 of the Education Act 1994.”
This amendment would ensure that when higher education providers produce an Access and Participation Plan, they must consult with students and student representatives, including – but not limited to – the students’ union at that higher education provider.
This amendment would add a new subsection to clause 28, to ensure that before a participation and access plan is approved, the institution in question can demonstrate that students have been consulted in the drawing up of that plan. It is a positive step forward that, through measures in the Bill, institutions will be required to produce participation and access plans. I know that a number of organisations, including the National Union of Students, welcome and support those provisions. However, as the Minister will be aware, much of the excellent access and outreach work at universities is done by students, often co-ordinated by their students unions. The amendment would therefore recognise the work of students and ensure that they are involved when their university produces the access and participation plan. The amendment would give student representatives the chance to discuss their views on their university’s plan and ensure that it reflects the interest of current and future students.
We had a long discussion in this morning’s session about student representation, but I hope that the Minister can be a bit more forthcoming about student involvement in the plan. Frankly, it is hard to envisage how a plan for widening access and participation could be drawn up without speaking to current students and involving them in what that plan ultimately looks like. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
Joseph Johnson
The hon. Lady has again raised the important issue of student representation and involvement, this time in the development of access and participation plans. I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to set out how students are already involved in the development and monitoring of access agreements, including through students unions or associations.
The Office for Fair Access expects providers to include a detailed statement on how they have involved and consulted students in the development of their plan. For example, providers are encouraged to set out where students have been involved in the design and implementation of financial support packages. Some students unions run information, advice and guidance sessions to explain the support packages, to ensure maximum take-up from eligible students. That approach, which has been in place for over a decade, has been successful. All providers produce statements on consultations with their students, and the director of fair access has had regard to those when deciding whether to approve a plan. Over time, the quality of engagement with students has improved. Some providers include text written by their student representatives as part of their access agreements, and some student groups send in their own separate submissions. Although that approach has worked well, we will reflect on the hon. Lady’s comments and consider how best to ensure that students can continue to be engaged in this area in the future. On that basis, I ask her to withdraw the amendment.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I suggest to the Minister that it is one thing to encourage institutions to involve students in the drawing up of their plans and quite another to insist that they do it. We are saying that best practice suggests that they really must do that. I have heard what the Minister has said and will and look at the matter again, to see whether it can be dealt with more effectively, perhaps somewhere in regulations. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 29 and 30 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 31
Content of a plan: equality of opportunity
Wes Streeting
I beg to move amendment 16, in clause 31, page 18, line 22, at end insert—
‘(1A) The regulations made under sub-section (1)(a) shall include goals for ensuring fair access and widening participation, to which a provider will be considered in agreement to achieving once a plan has been approved under section 28.”
This amendment would require an access and participation plan to include specific goals for ensuring fair access and wider participation.
The Chair
With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 17, in clause 31, page 18, line 25, leave out “subsection (1)” and insert “subsections (1) and (1A)”.
This amendment is consequential to amendment 16.
Amendment 18, in clause 32, page 19, line 12, at end insert—
‘( ) The regulations may include a designation of power to the Director of Fair Access and Participation to set specific targets for a higher education provider where the Secretary of State is of the view that the provider is failing to meet the fair access and widening participation goals under section 31(1A).
( ) Where such powers are exercised, the specific targets for a provider set by the Director of Fair Access and Participation shall be considered a general provision of the plan for the purposes of section 21 (refusal to renew an access and participation plan).”
This amendment would enable the Secretary of State to give power to the Director of Fair Access and Participation to set specific targets when it has been deemed that the institution is failing to meet the goals relating to fair access and wider participation set out in its access and participation plan (see amendment 16). The second subsection would enable the OfS to refuse to renew a plan if a provider fails to meet the targets set by the Director of Fair Access and Participation.”
Wes Streeting
Thank you, Mr Hanson, for calling me to speak, and I am glad that we are moving at a slightly faster pace this afternoon than we did this morning.
Further to the discussion that we have just had, these amendments seek to require access and participation plans to include specific goals for ensuring fair access to and wider participation in higher education. The reason for setting that out is that—further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South, the shadow Minister, and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham—the role of the director of fair access has been, by and large, successful since its inception. However, in light of the wider changes that are being made to the Office for Fair Access itself and by its inclusion as part of the office for students, it is important to make sure that the director for fair access and participation has the necessary powers to ensure that institutions include specific goals in their access and participation plans as well as the power to set specific targets, when it is deemed that an institution is failing to meet the goals relating to fair access and wider participation that it has set out in its access and participation plans. Amendment 18 would ensure that the OFS has the power to refuse to renew a plan if a provider fails to meet the target set out by the director for fair access and participation.
All these amendments seek to do is to make sure that the director for fair access and participation has the teeth, or the muscle, or whichever euphemism people wish to use to describe the director’s powers. However, the danger with the way that the director of fair access is being treated in the rest of the Bill is that they will lack sufficient independence and power to hold institutions to account.
That goes back to the point I made at the outset of the discussion of the Bill, on Second Reading. In the higher education sector, there are still too many institutions that are socially elitist rather than simply academically elite, and there are too many institutions that proclaim to be success stories in widening participation while presiding over retention rates and graduate destination data that ought to make their vice-chancellors blush.
In that context, it is right and proper to have an independent voice and an independent role that can hold institutions to account if they fall short of the expectations set by Parliament and the Secretary of State and, of course, the expectations of students who enrol on courses. These amendments would give the director for fair access and participation beefed-up powers, within the auspices of the OFS, which would give the public and students assurance that we take these issues seriously and that institutions will be held to account if they fail in this regard.
I commend these amendments to the Minister and I look forward to hearing his reply.
Joseph Johnson
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important matter.
Currently, the director of fair access agrees targets proposed by providers as part of their access agreements. The DFA’s powers do not enable him or her to impose targets at present. This approach was founded on the desire to protect an institution’s autonomy over admissions and its academic freedom. Those are fundamental principles, on which our higher education system is based and on which it has flourished. This group of amendments seeks to change that approach to agreeing access and participation plans and introduce greater prescription in this area.
We asked for views on this precise question in our Green Paper consultation, including whether the OFS should have a power to set targets, should an institution fail to make progress. Importantly, OFFA did not agree and said that the OFS should not have a power to set targets. Its response highlighted the importance of providers owning their targets. If targets are set externally, they can become both resource-intensive and a blunt instrument. This can make it difficult to hold institutions to account when progress is slow. Effort becomes focused on the process rather than broader improvements in access and participation. That is why we did not take these proposals forward.
The Bill includes arrangements to call providers to account where they are considered to be failing to meet their access and participation plans. Where it is considered appropriate, there would be access to a range of OFS sanctions. As I said in answer to an earlier amendment, these include the power to refuse an access and participation plan, to impose monetary penalties and, in extreme cases, to suspend or even de-register providers.
I hope I have therefore reassured the hon. Member that the Bill contains sufficient safeguards to tackle under- performance and I ask him to withdraw Amendment 16.
Wes Streeting
I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and for outlining the range of sanctions that apply within the scope of the legislation. I think that is in part reassuring. My point is more a message for institutions rather than for the Minister per se, and it is that institutional autonomy is often used as a convenient cover to avoid and escape accountability. Institutions have largely gone along with the direction of travel of higher education policy, both for funding arrangements and the regulatory environment. It seems to me they want all the benefits of having a more marketised consumer-led system without the downsides of accountability and responsibility to—in the most crude and reductive sense—consumers. That is not the language I tend to use, but none the less the brave new world of the marketisation of higher education speaks increasingly of consumers.
I think it is unacceptable and harder questions ought to be asked of institutions. It was my intention that these powers would be used only in extreme circumstances, or in cases of particular failure, because it is not desirable to have external targets set, for the reasons outlined by the Office for Fair Access in its submission. I thought the vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge was rather coy in the evidence session before the Committee. The recent example of the University of Cambridge, where it tried to row back from the previous commitment it had made to access and participation targets, was a good example of the Office for Fair Access working, where robust dialogue behind the scenes and a respectful relationship with institutions can lead to the right outcome.
As we travel further down this system, I think we will encounter further difficulties. It is right and proper that there should be powers for the office for students to hold institutions to account. I am grateful to the Minister for outlining the powers in the Bill and I beg to ask leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 207, in clause 31, page 18, line 43, at end insert?
“(g) for details of individual Higher Education providers, their policies for part-time and mature students.”
This amendment would require universities and other higher education providers to include a policy in regard to part-time and mature students in their access and participation plan.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 287, in clause 36, page 20, line 15, at end insert
“to include access to and participation in part-time study”
This amendment requires the OfS to report on access to and participation in part-time study in its report(s) to the Secretary of State.
Gordon Marsden
Amendment 207 picks up on a theme that we discussed earlier, which is the essential need to strengthen the access and participation of part-time and mature students, particularly given the decline in their numbers in recent years.
The amendment requires universities and other higher education providers to include a policy for part-time and mature students in their access and participation plan. It would also require the office for students to consider appointing a director for part-time and mature students to its board. The amendment was suggested by the Sutton Trust, but a large body of opinion in the lifelong learning area believes that it is important—as we have said in relation to other groups—that when the office for students is established, the importance of part-time and mature students is recognised, particularly in access and participation plans.
The discussions that we have had so far have included many references to the Open University. That is not surprising: the Open University is a huge success story for the UK; it is an international institution based in Britain and it has the largest number of adult students and so on. But several other institutions, of greater longevity than the Open University, also have concerns in these areas. For example, Birkbeck College of the University of London has made a couple of points about this. When the Minister was talking about cockney universities, I cannot remember if Birkbeck was one of them, but it is of the same vintage. It was founded in 1823 as the London Mechanics’ Institute with the express remit to open up higher and university education to working people.
Birkbeck has a teaching model with a flexible course structure, allowing students to complete a degree in the same length of time as regular students studying in the daytime at other universities. Some Members here may even have members of their staff who have done exactly that sort of thing at Birkbeck. It is a very broad-based and world class research-intensive institution and has very good statistics in that respect. But Birkbeck is concerned about a number of issues in the Bill, not in terms of commission but of omission. It says:
“The vast majority of our students are aged over 21, most choose evening study because they work full-time or have family commitments during the daytime. Provision for part-time and mature learners is important for social mobility. Part-time study is frequently the route into higher education for most non-traditional and mature students. Part-time study is also, by definition, local. In 2015-16 one in five undergraduate entrants in England from low participation neighbourhoods chose or have no option but to study part-time, while 38% of all undergraduate students from disadvantaged groups are mature. Part-time study also cannot be ignored if we want to see economic growth. In 2011-12, there were nearly half a million people in the UK studying part-time at undergraduate level, but the decision to withdraw funding from universities in England and introduce a student loans system led to the tuition fee increase that we know about and to the very significant and dramatic downturn in part-time student numbers.”
The Minister will no doubt be relieved to know that I do not intend to bash the Government over the head any further on the matter at this point in time, but merely to make the observation that whatever the circumstances, we are where we are with those numbers. The Government have taken a number of relatively modest steps to try to address the issue, but that will not happen overnight. That strengthens the need to include the emphasis on the issue as part of the remit of the OFS on the face of the Bill. That is why Birkbeck and others believe that it is important that the duties of the proposed office for students are expanded explicitly to promote adult, part-time and lifelong learning. They have already said that they would like to see a clearer commitment to part-time provision through a requirement—not a “hope” or a “we’ll see about it”—that the OFS board includes expertise in part-time learning among its members, and to think also about the diversity of the UK student body as a whole.
The Minister will be familiar with this argument because he has employed it himself. If we are to succeed and prosper economically and socially, and if we are to fulfil people’s life chances, we are going to need to focus more and more on mature students, many of whom will be part time. The reasons for that are clear and demographic, and are repeated in the Government’s White Paper. I do not intend to repeat them further today, but they sharpen the focus on why we need this provision in the Bill.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak to my amendment 287 with you in the chair, Mr Hanson. The amendment complements the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South by adding a responsibility on the OFS to report on access to and participation in part-time study.
I echo some of my hon. Friend’s points. One of the many things that distinguishes our great higher education system in this country is the large number of part-time students, which is something like 40% at postgraduate level and 20% at undergraduate level. Many of them are of course studying in the Open University, to which my hon. Friend has rightly drawn attention as a great success story of British higher education.
We need to focus on the issue of part-time students in the context of the Government’s ambition for higher education and for social mobility within higher education. I think the Government’s own vision is that we need to move away from conventional models of higher education, and that is partly behind some of the thinking—that the Opposition do not fully agree with—on some of the new sorts of providers that the Government have in mind.
The vision of a higher education system that moves beyond the conventional route of leave school, go to university, study full time for a number of years, come out with a degree and then leave it behind, is no longer relevant in the challenges that people face in today’s economy. We need to talk confidently about a system of lifelong learning in which part-time study has an increasingly important role, which will not simply be provided for by the new providers that the Minister has spoken of in the past. We should be deeply concerned that, following the introduction of the new fees structure through to 2014, part-time student numbers dropped by 50%. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission described that as
“an astonishing and deeply worrying trend”.
It is one that we should really look to address.
In the case of part-time study, funding is key. The Minister spoke eloquently earlier about the number of students still applying to higher education from disadvantaged backgrounds, despite the funding changes, and I accept those figures, although the changes have had an impact on choice in higher education and work is needed on how some students from disadvantaged backgrounds have limited their choices by going to universities closer to home to keep their costs down. Nevertheless, we know that for part-time students, funding is key and we know that partly because the Labour Government made mistakes on that. The introduction of equivalent or lower qualifications, and limiting options for people to take second and subsequent degrees based on earlier qualifications, led to a significant reduction in part-time students in the past. I welcome the fact that the Government have learned from those lessons and are changing their position on ELQs.
Wes Streeting
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting this important issue. He is right to draw on some of the shortcomings of policy under the last Labour Government on ELQs. Does he also agree with me that aspects of the coalition Government’s student finance reforms should have been beneficial for part-time students, but did not necessarily lead to the increase in participation that was intended? Because of the complexity governing part-time students, and the law of unintended consequences, it is even more important to have a specific focus on part-time students in the report to the Secretary of State from the director of fair access and the OFS.
Paul Blomfield
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right. In fact, the changes in the coalition Government’s proposals that he cites were used by some in the Government to celebrate the progressive nature of those proposals—we would not wholly agree with that. We need to understand, though, the difference between the impact of funding changes on school students, who may well have been—and certainly seem to be—willing to take on debt, compared with those who are in mid-career or later in life.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
We have been doing some work on this in the Women and Equalities Committee. One thing that is clear is the lack of data. Many hypothetical scenarios have been analysed, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is an opportunity here to get to the nitty-gritty of the argument and find out the data behind the reasons why participation levels are falling among part-time students, particularly for older workers? In some instances, it might be the fact that there are other options available to them, such as apprenticeships and all the other Government schemes. In other instances it might be the provision of finance. We need an assurance from the Minister about what proposals he has to create more data, to analyse the subject more.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and, indeed, for the work we do together on the all-party parliamentary group on students. That is a fair point. I was concentrating on some of the funding factors. For older students, the fact that they have mortgages and families, or that they are at albeit modest salary levels that trigger immediate repayment, are apparent disincentives. Matching the introduction of the new funding regime and the cliff-edge drop in the numbers of part-time students would suggest that there is a relationship. He is absolutely right that we should be looking at all the data and doing research properly to understand what is happening. I agree with him, and that is at the heart of my amendment: the OFS should have the responsibility to think deeply about part-time participation and draw up recommendations to address that.
Gordon Marsden
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for his amendment. Does he—and, indeed, the hon. Member for Bath—agree that we do have indications of how the process affects older people in particular, though it is not exactly anecdotal? We have those indications from what has happened with the take-up at 24-plus of advanced learning loans, which are designed for students at level 3 and above. That was presaged, in my mind, by the discussions I had on that process; I talked to many women who said that they would not have progressed if they had had to take out loans at that juncture rather than having grants.
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend makes an important point to which we should pay attention, and he is absolutely right. Earlier, he cited Birkbeck’s important role in creating opportunities for social mobility through modes of part-time learning over many years. He—and, I hope, the Minister—may have seen the Gresham lecture given earlier this year by the long-time Master of Birkbeck, Baroness Blackstone, in which she focused on some of these exact issues with funding and proposed radical solutions, which at least deserve attention. For example, recognising the strategic importance of part-time learning, in the same way as we recognise the strategic importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects, she argued that perhaps we need to look again at the funding model to provide support for the delivery of part-time education, which in many ways is more expensive for universities than conventional learning. For example, she argued that maybe we could look at incentives through adjustments to the national insurance system.
A number of interventions made today deserve serious consideration, but I simply propose my amendment in the spirit of the comments made by the hon. Member for Bath. We need to do much more work on this issue, which should be a central responsibility of the OFS.
Joseph Johnson
I am sympathetic to the aims of the amendments and grateful again for the chance to discuss them. I have always been clear that fair and equal access to HE is vital. Everyone with the potential to benefit from education in every form should be able to do so. Studying part-time and later in life brings enormous benefits for individuals, employers and the economy, so let me reassure the Committee that the Government are acting to support part-time students and part-time provision. Funding, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central said, is obviously important. Over the course of the past few years, the Government and the predecessor coalition Government have taken significant steps to transform the funding available for part-time study. Going back to moves made in 2012-13, we started to offer tuition fee loans for part-time students so that how learners of all ages choose to study does not affect the tuition support available. Looking forward to 2018-19, we will, for the first time ever, provide financial support to part-time students, comparable to the maintenance support we give to full-time students with the introduction of part-time maintenance loans.
As the hon. Gentleman said, other factors are also an important part of the picture of what is happening in part-time provision. He was gracious enough to allude to the Labour party’s introduction of the equivalent and lower qualification restriction, which has undoubtedly also been a contributory factor to the decline in numbers. We have started to lift this restriction, principally by providing financial support from Government for a second degree if people wishing to study retrain part time in a STEM subject from September next year. This will allow more people of all ages to retrain in key STEM subjects.
Amendment 207 relates to providers including part-time and mature students’ provision in access and participation plans. Let me reassure the Committee that we agree that a focus on part-time and mature students in access and participation plans is important. That is why our recent guidance letter to the director of fair access in February this year asked him to provide a renewed focus on part-time study in his guidance to institutions on their access agreements for 2017-18. This should be of particular benefit to mature learners.
I am pleased to be able to tell the Committee that mature learner numbers, which dipped following the change in the fee regime in the middle of the last Parliament, have now recovered significantly and were at record levels at around 83,000 in 2015—compared with the previous high of 81,000 that they touched in 2009 and the 2006 levels of about 56,000 to 57,000—so they are now moving back in the right direction.
The Bill will help further by giving the OFS the flexibility to ask providers to focus on key areas that are important to widening participation and social mobility, in the same way that the Secretary of State’s guidance to the director of fair access currently allows. Clause 31 covers the general provisions that might be required by regulations. These arrangements provide flexibility in access and participation agreements so that they can focus on widening participation for different groups of students. I therefore believe that the Bill already delivers the aim of this amendment.
I turn to the amendment on the OFS’s duty to report on part-time higher education provision. The OFS has a duty requiring it to consider the need to promote greater choice and opportunities for students in the provision of HE in England, and a duty to cover equality of opportunity. It must prepare a report on the performance of its functions during each financial year, which will be laid before Parliament. The Bill also contains powers under clause 36(1)(b) for the Secretary of State to direct the OFS to report specifically on matters relating to equality of opportunity. That could of course include part-time learners.
Paul Blomfield
I welcome the direction of travel of the Minister’s comments. Could he share with the Committee whether he would expect the OFS specifically to look in that work at the issue of part-time students as an early priority?
Joseph Johnson
Yes, that was the purpose of our guidance to the director of fair access back in February, to signal that we wanted to see further progress on institutions making part-time study a core feature of their offer. So, yes, I would imagine that this would be priority focus of the OFS. In conclusion, I do not believe the amendment is necessary. There are sufficient provisions in the Bill to ensure that part-time and mature study are priorities for the OFS and the director of fair access within it. I would therefore ask the hon. Member for Sheffield Central to withdraw his amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I have heard what the Minister has to say. The direction of travel, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central says, is extremely welcome as are, indeed, the figures that the Minister quoted, but I would gently remind him that, for all the demographic reasons that I have spoken about, we need to speed up that expansion of participation. However, I hear what he has to say, will look forward to further discussions on it in this Bill and possibly subsequently and, with that, I am content to withdraw our amendment.
Paul Blomfield
Equally, I welcome the statement made by the Minister, particularly in relation to his expectations of the OFS, and specifically in relation to part-time study and I will not press my amendment to a vote.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment made: 74, in clause 31, page 19, line 7, after “include” insert
“education provided by means of”.—(Joseph Johnson.)
This amendment makes the language used in clause 31(5)(b) (the definition of references to “higher education” in that clause) consistent with that used in the definition of “higher education” in clause 75(1).
Clause 31, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 32 and 33 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 34
Advice on good practice
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 209, in clause 34, page 19, line 31, leave out “may” and insert “should”.
This amendment would require the OfS to identify good practice on the promotion of equality of opportunity and to disseminate advice about good practice.
This is a small but meaningful amendment that relates obviously to the clause on good practice. We could have a pedagogical debate on what good practice is but the Committee will be relieved to know that I do not intend to go down that route, except to observe that “may” is, of course, a word much in vogue with the Conservative party at the moment, but “may” is also a word that is often in vogue in the drafting of Bills when a minimum rather than a maximum of things is expected. In this particular instance, given that the Government are saying, quite rightly, that good practice is key to the promotion of equality of opportunity and that they need to give advice about such practice to registered higher education providers, it would do no harm whatsoever to strengthen that guidance to the OFS. It is not micromanagement, it is strengthening the advice. That is why, Mr Hanson, we have suggested that on this occasion rather than having the word “may”, we should have the word “should”.
Joseph Johnson
We believe that the Bill as drafted delivers the policy intent behind the amendment. Spreading good practice in widening participation is currently a key part of the director of fair access’s role. We want the office for students to continue to undertake this role.
The Office for Fair Access currently undertakes a programme of evaluation, research and analysis. This aims to improve understanding and inform improvements in practice by identifying and disseminating good practice. Universities expect to spend £833.5 million through access agreements in 2017-18 on measures to improve access and success for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is important that this money is used effectively on the basis of evidence of what works best.
Higher education providers use the outcomes of OFFA’s research and good practice so that they can develop their own initiatives and policies, based on the latest evidence. It is important that the office for students continues to build this bank of evidence and best practice on widening participation, so that performance continues to develop and improve.
Through the Bill, the OFS may provide advice on good practice in relation to access and participation, so we are clear that the Bill as drafted enables that to continue in the future. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I will not resile from what I said about people using the word “may” rather than “should”, but I do not intend to dance on the head of a pin over it. I therefore beg to ask leave withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 36
Power of Secretary of State to require a report
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 210, in clause 36, page 20, line 10, leave out
“Secretary of State may, by direction, require the OfS to”
and insert “OfS must”.
This amendment would ensure the OfS must report to the Secretary of State its annual report, or special reports, on matters relating to equality of opportunity.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 211, in clause 36, page 20, line 11, at end insert
“and to the relevant select committee (or committees) of the House of Commons”.
See amendment 212.
Amendment 212, in clause 36, page 20, line 19, at end insert—
“(5) “Relevant select committee” is the departmental select committee (or committees) appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the principal government department or departments and associated public bodies with responsibilities for higher education in England.”
Amendments 211 and 212 would ensure the OfS must report to the relevant select committee(s) its annual report, or special reports, on matters relating to equality of opportunity.
Gordon Marsden
This trio of amendments is designed to strengthen and reinforce our concern that the operation of the OFS, like that of any major new public institution of that nature, should receive adequate and sufficient scrutiny, not simply on the Floor of the House but in various Committees, and certainly in at least one relevant Select Committee. I remain unclear about whether any aspects of the Bill will be covered by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in any shape or form. The Minister himself may still be groping towards some of these answers, so I will not press him on that. That is why the amendment say “committees” rather than “committee”.
The principle is very important. I have spoken previously about the value of pre-legislative scrutiny and my regret that it was not applied in the case of this Bill, which is complex. The other important role that Select Committees can play is monitoring and taking things forward. The Government propose and pass Bills, but Select Committees are, on the whole, relatively non-partisan and relatively positive in the suggestions they make. I think it would be valuable for the various things coming forward from the OFS to be reported fairly crisply and usefully to the relevant Select Committee. That accounts for amendment 211.
It is also important—there are precedents for this in the case of Ofsted and other aspects of education policy—that the OFS has a duty to report to the relevant Select Committees with its annual report or special reports, particularly on matters relating to equality of opportunity. Again, I am not suggesting that there would be any innate reluctance on the part of the OFS to do that, but we do not know who the board and chief executives will be. When we set up new bodies, rather than do as we have sometimes done in the past—engage in a tussle between the Executive and the legislature, which often generates a lot of heat, but not much light—I think it is important that we ensure the OFS has a responsibility to examine expenditure, administration and policy in that respect. That is the reason for amendment 212.
Finally, to say that the OFS must report to the Secretary of State in its annual report or in special reports on matters relating to equality of opportunity is of paramount importance, not least for all the reasons that my hon. Friend and I have discussed under previous amendments. Again, that simply strengthens the argument we made in relation to amendment 209.
Joseph Johnson
We believe that the Bill as drafted will deliver the policy intent that the hon. Gentleman wants. The OFS will be required by schedule 1 to provide an annual report covering all its functions. Reporting on access and participation matters will sit with the OFS, which will also have a new duty requiring it to consider equality of opportunity in connection with access and participation plans across all its functions. The OFS’s work on access and participation should be reported to Parliament as part of its overall accountability requirements. It would not be consistent with integrating the role into the OFS for the DFAP to report separately.
Clause 36 supplements the requirement for an annual report and allows the Secretary of State to direct the OFS to report on widening participation issues—either in its annual report or in a special report. That replicates an existing provision, in place since 2004, which has never been used. We agree this is important and have retained the requirement, so that if there are specific concerns about access and participation at a particular time there is a mechanism for the Secretary of State to request action. The Bill requires that the OFS annual report and any special reports on access and participation be laid in Parliament. As that will ensure that any such reports are publicly available, open to scrutiny and accessible to all appropriate House of Commons Committees, we do not think it necessary to specify the requirement in greater detail in legislation, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
Obviously the Minister has a slightly more expansive view of what the Bill allows or expects to do than perhaps we do, but we hear what he has to say. He has put the importance of these issues and conditions straightforwardly on the record and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Paul Blomfield
I beg to move amendment 288, in clause 36, page 20, line 18, at end insert—
‘(3A) The Secretary of State may require a report under subsection (1) on the establishment of a national credit rating and transfer service as a means of improving access to and participation in higher education.”
This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to require the OfS to look into establishing a national credit rating and transfer service for recognition of prior learning to encourage student mobility.
The amendment may deal with another matter on which we are very much on the same page as the Government: using the opportunity to develop more innovative approaches to both study and routes through higher education through the development of more effective systems of credit accumulation and transfer. Those in higher education have talked about doing this for many years. I remember a period about 20 years ago when many universities were restructuring the way they delivered their courses, moving away from an October to June programme to look at semesterised and modularised structures. The underlying objective of that restructuring was to facilitate more effective credit accumulation and transfer, but the development did not progress, often because of resistance on the part of some universities to recognising properly the value of taught modules in other institutions. If we are to move forward, we need a more effective strategy driven by Government.
I recognise, as I am sure the Minister is about to remind me, that the Government launched a consultation earlier this year that concluded in July. The objectives of that consultation were described in the summary:
“We’re interested in how switching university or degree course can be made easier”.
That is precisely what the amendment is about. I appreciate that the Government have not had the opportunity to consider the results of the consultation, or perhaps the Minister will surprise us by sharing some thoughts that have come out of it.
Such a system would be important at different levels. First, it would give us an opportunity to move beyond a conventional approach to pursuing a course in university. It would enable people to build up in different ways a programme of study leading to a degree. Crucially, it would give people the opportunity, which I am sure the Minister would welcome, to switch between workplace-based learning and institution-based learning and to consider a range of higher education opportunities in accumulating a degree.
The Minister cited earlier the report published last year by the Higher Education Policy Institute and the Higher Education Academy, which said—he will correct me if I have got the number wrong—that something like 30% of students currently on courses in universities would have opted for a different programme of study if they had known then what they know now. That is a hugely significant statistic. Currently, our system of higher education militates against students being able to fulfil their ambitions. A properly developed system of credit accumulation and transfer would enable them, at the point when they think, “Perhaps my study is heading in the wrong direction,” to realign it, put together a different programme of modules and move between universities.
A second reason that we ought to look at this system relates to market failure, as we discussed previously. If the Government move in the direction they wish to with the Bill, it is important to look at how we protect students from market failure. Financial compensation is only one part of that. Students who have invested time and energy and accumulated credits through study at an institution can have the rug pulled from under their feet. If we had a properly developed system of credit accumulation and transfer, it would be possible for people to use the learning they have already achieved to move to another institution—not in the way that has sometimes happened in the past, where the Government or the Higher Education Funding Council for England have had to step in to barter and negotiate between institutions, but in a recognised way. Students could then say, “I have these credits. I want to progress my learning in this way at this different institution.” There may be a way of linking that with student protection plans.
This is a probing amendment, to see where the Government are moving on this issue and to see if we cannot use the opportunity of the Bill to kick-start attempts made in the past to create a more innovative approach to people’s learning programmes through a properly recognised and organised system of credit accumulation and transfer.
Gordon Marsden
It is a great pleasure to speak in support of my hon. Friend’s amendment. In his speech, he has encapsulated one of the most important and exciting developments in 21st-century learning that the Bill could achieve.
My hon. Friend referred to market failure and he was right to do so. It is interesting that about a week ago the Jisc parliamentary briefing for the Bill specifically talks about this in terms of the Government’s proposals to deregulate parts of the higher education market. I understand that Jisc is sponsored as the UK’s expert body for digital technology by the Department. It says that there needs to be a mechanism for recognising and communicating the credits students have gained for modules already studied. It is essential that well managed credit accumulation and transfer scheme arrangements are in place to support students who are affected by market exit. Jisc also talks about the need for a mechanism for recognising and securely storing the credits students have gained for modules already studied, so that these credits can then be transferred to a student’s next institution. It makes the obvious point that disorderly wind-down or abrupt closure where the data are lost would have serious implications for affected students and potentially for the reputation of the sector. I think that reinforces my hon. Friend’s argument.
I also want to make the point that credit transfer is very important for people who want to move from one institution to another, not least in the circumstances that have been described, but it is also vital in terms of the new flexibilities that the work, life and study balance will require in the 21st century. I will not repeat what I have said on a number of occasions and in a number of places about this, except to emphasise the very strong belief that I and many others hold that the world of further education, higher education and online learning are morphing into each other, sometimes much more rapidly than conventional universities or even conventional policy makers realise, and that process will continue. The question for us in this country is not whether it will happen or not. It will happen. The question is whether it will be our institutions—those higher education and lifelong learning institutions for which we are famous—that take the advantage of this, or whether we will be colonised, if I can use that word, from outside. I think those are really important issues for the Minister to consider, not least in the context of the response to the call for evidence from May.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central has said that these ideas have been floating around for years. Of course, I am duty bound both to him and to Sir Bernard Crick, who is no longer with us, to praise the initiative of my noble Friend Lord Blunkett, who published “The Learning Age” in 1999 with Bernard Crick, which put forward some very innovative ideas in that area. We know what the problems were at the time with individual learning accounts. I was one of the people who sat on the Select Committee that looked at that. There were obviously difficulties, but the principle of having accounts that enabled a credit-based system and banking of credits is a very important one. We are unlikely to achieve huge success unless we take a fundamental look at some of the broader issues of funding, but that is for another day and another time and certainly does not fall within the relatively narrow scope of the amendment. I only make the point because I think the two things have to be considered in tandem.
The truth of the matter is that we have systems in the UK at the moment which recognise previous learning. In Scotland there is the Scottish credit qualifications framework, which integrates work-based and lifelong learning. We could learn a lot of things from lots of different places. If the Government are really keen to make progress and to support the sort of ideas that I, my hon. Friend and many other people have discussed, they could do far worse than go back to the major work produced in 2009 for the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education by Tom Schuller and David Watson, “Learning through Life”, which has some very innovative and important things to say in that area.
This is an area where there is still fruitful work going on. The Learning and Work Institute has produced ideas for a new citizen skills entitlement, which merits further consideration. Ofsted has talked about how well providers prepare learners for successful life in modern Britain. Ruth Spellman, the chief executive officer of the Workers’ Educational Association, said when its report on this matter was launched just before the recess:
“An Education Savings Account...would enable individuals to save for their future Education... This could also encourage and attract employer contributions, particularly if government were to allow tax relief...this would create longer-term and more stable funding streams”.
That is on the funding side; the other part of the equation is the credit accumulation.
As the Minister knows, I spent nearly 20 years as an Open University course tutor. What I learnt from that process, apart from the immense sacrifices and dedication of the students, is that the ability to engage in study programmes that coped with things that happened in life—perhaps students had to care for an elderly relative, or had family issues, or were simply ill—and the ability to take years out but not to lose all of that credit are absolutely key to where we need to go in the 21st century.
This is a probing amendment, but it is a pointed probe in the sense that the Government have an opportunity to do significant things in this area that would attract a lot of support. We want them to do those things. They are overdue.
Joseph Johnson
I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield Central for tabling the amendment. It touches on a subject to which we are giving much careful thought, as I indicated when we discussed it briefly earlier in our proceedings.
Supporting students who wish to switch to another higher education institution or degree is an important part of our reforms. It is vital that we make faster progress in this area, and I share the general sentiment expressed by the hon. Gentleman. It is disappointing that we have not managed to put in place an effective mechanism of the sort proposed up until this point. The sector can do more to offer flexible study options to meet students’ diverse needs, and it can do more to support social mobility by doing so.
There is an obvious link between withdrawal rates and students not being able to transfer between providers. The amendment refers to a credit rating service. Although we want to enable credit transfer, we want to do so in a context of institutional autonomy, which is crucial to the reputation and vibrancy of UK higher education. We want to avoid a universal approach that undermines that by inadvertently homogenising or standardising provision, which would risk the loss of the great diversity that is one of the key strengths of our sector.
As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, the Government called for evidence on credit transfer and accelerated degrees. We were pleased to receive more than 4,500 responses and we are in the process of analysing all of those carefully. There are a number of issues that we need to consider before moving forward, including the extent of student demand and awareness of the issue, the funding implications that the hon. Gentleman touched on, and external regulatory requirements. We expect to come forward by the end of the year with our response to the results of the call for evidence that we have conducted.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I can see another issue if we use student retention as one of the metrics of the teaching excellence framework. If students change institutions, will that be taken into account? Will leeway be given to institutions that allow students to transfer credit?
Joseph Johnson
That is an important point that the TEF panel assessors will take into account. It has been factored into the development of the teaching excellence framework metric, but that is obviously an important point to bear in mind.
Although I understand the reason for the amendment, there are powers already in the Bill that allow the Secretary of State to require the office for students to report on matters relating to equality of opportunity in either its annual report or the special report that I mentioned before, and any such report would have to be laid before Parliament, so there is no need explicitly to require reporting on the establishment of a national credit rating and transfer service as a means of improving access to and participation in higher education. The measures in the Bill support our ambitions on widening participation in general. As I said, we are giving the call for evidence responses very careful thought. In the meantime, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the Minister for his remarks. I think we share a similar ambition. Although I understand it, I am a little anxious about his caution about what he described as homogenising. I do not think anyone wants that. People celebrate the diversity of the sector and would not want in any way to undermine it, but we need to find some way in which universities that may be reluctant to embrace a system such as the one we are discussing are enabled and encouraged to do so more actively than they have been in the past. The enormous energy that went into modularising and semesterising programmes, with the objective of encouraging CATS, failed precisely because of that issue. I hope that when the Minister has had the opportunity to look at the impressive number of responses to the consultation, he will be willing to think radically about how we can embed that sort of system within our higher education terrain. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 36 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 37
Financial support for registered higher education providers
Amendment made: 241, in clause 37, page 21, line 7, at end insert—
“but also includes a 16 to 19 Academy (as defined in section 1B(3) of the Academies Act 2010).”—(Joseph Johnson.)
This amendment ensures that the definition of “school” used in clause 37 of the Bill includes 16 to 19 Academies.
Clause 37, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 38 and 39 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 40
Authorisation to grant degrees etc
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 213, in clause 40, page 22, line 4, leave out “or research awards or both”
See amendment 214.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 214, in clause 40, page 22, line 6, at end insert—
‘(1A) The OfS may by order in conjunction with UKRI authorise a registered higher education provider to grant research awards.”
Amendments 213 and 214 would give the OfS the power to authorise higher education providers to grant both taught and research degrees but the OfS should be required to do this in conjunction with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Amendment 235, in clause 40, page 23, line 21, at end insert—
‘(13) The OfS must consult with UKRI, including Research England, and the appropriate National Academies and learned societies before authorising any provider to grant research awards.”
This amendment ensures that OfS consults UKRI, including Research England, before issuing authorisation to grant research awards.
Gordon Marsden
I am pleased to move this amendment and to support the similar amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham. The amendments reflect not only our concern but that of a large number of organisations and HE providers about what the relationship will be between the OFS and the new UK Research and Innovation body. Obviously, we will have far more discussion about that in the context of part 3 of the Bill. At this stage, we want to flag up the strong concerns that there should be right from the beginning, not exactly a symbiotic relationship, but a very close relationship between the OFS and UKRI. These probing amendments intend to tease out some of that discussion.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I shall continue in the same vein as my hon. Friend. Amendment 235 queries whether the OFS should have the sole power and control over who can grant research awards. Giving the OFS the sole power would mean that it would not have to work with any research funding bodies, or indeed any other relevant agencies, in coming to a decision about whether to grant an institution research degree-awarding powers. There are two significant problems with that. First, the OFS granting research degree-awarding powers without reference to other bodies diminishes the level of expertise going into the decision-making process about whether a specific institution should have those degree-awarding powers. In addition, given that UKRI, Research England and the national academies and learned societies also have responsibilities for providing research funding, it seems to be a major error not to consider what role they would have in the granting of research degree awarding powers. Apart from anything else, it could affect funding decisions that those bodies make.
Consulting UKRI and Research England, among others, on whether to grant research degree-awarding powers would allow for a variety of opinions to be aired and would ensure that the OFS is not acting in isolation. It is really important that the Minister looks at that. He helpfully produced a paper, which we got a couple of days ago—I am not sure when it was produced—which talks about how UKRI should work in partnership with other bodies. Unless I have missed it, though, we do not seem to have had a similar exercise on who the OFS needs to work with.
Particularly with regard to research degree-awarding powers, it would be helpful if the Minister gave some thought to the full range of institutions that need to be involved, not least because this is the second really important point. As the system stands and is described in the Bill, it lacks oversight and checks and balances from the research sector. There is nothing to be gained from the OFS working alone, but a lot to be gained from it working in collaboration. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Joseph Johnson
I am grateful that hon. Members have raised the role of UKRI in the authorisation of the granting of degrees. Our reforms are designed as a single, integrated system that reduces complexity, eliminates barriers to close working and delivers clear responsibilities, especially for the protection of the interests of students. To deliver that integration and close co-operation, it is vital that the OFS and UKRI are empowered to work together. For that reason, clause 103 makes provision to ensure that they do that in a way that enables them to carry out their functions effectively and efficiently.
One key area in which the OFS and UKRI should work in close co-operation is the assessment of applications for research degree-awarding powers, and the provisions in clause 103 will facilitate that. I am satisfied that the provision for co-operation between the OFS and UKRI will address the concern that the hon. Gentleman rightly touches on in his amendment.
The Secretary of State will have powers to require that co-operation to take place if it does not do so of its own accord. We intend to make it explicit in the Government guidance on degree-awarding powers, which we plan to publish, that we expect the OFS to work with UKRI in that way. On that basis, it is not necessary to capture that point in clause 40 as well, so I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
The Minister will understand that I can speak only to the Labour Front Benchers’ two amendments. It is encouraging to hear that he has made provision for co-operation between UKRI and the OFS. He mentioned clause 103, so no doubt we will have another opportunity to discuss the issue when we examine that part of the Bill. On that basis, I will be content to withdraw the amendment.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am afraid that I am not quite so easily repleted—[Laughter.] Clause 103 states:
“The OfS and UKRI may cooperate with one another”.
I accept that subsection (2) gives the Secretary of State an ability to make them co-operate, but the clause does not really capture what we are trying to achieve with our amendments, which is to ensure that the research community is included when research degree-awarding powers are given. The provision might include UKRI, but it does not include the national academies and other learned societies.
I am sure that, having heard my point again, the Minister will want to go away and look into it. Perhaps he will give us an indication of what might be in the guidance or regulations that would assist the OFS in coming to its decisions on research degree awarding powers.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 219, in clause 40, page 22, line 6, after “grant” insert “taught awards and”.
This amendment would make clear that qualifying further education providers will have access to taught awards and foundation degrees and also be able to provide degrees, diplomas, certificates or other appropriate courses of study, as defined by the bill.
The amendment is designed to deal with a particular situation in respect of further education colleges that offer higher education courses. Hon. Members will be aware that at a number of points during the passage of the Bill—on Second Reading and in Committee—I have commented on the importance of higher education delivered by the further education sector, and on the need for the Government to focus significantly on that. The amendment deals with some practical problems that do occur. Without mentioning individuals, I can say that at least a couple of cases have been brought to my constituency advice surgery, and other hon. Members may have faced similar issues.
About 250 colleges offer higher education. Twenty of them, including my local college, Blackpool and the Fylde College, have more than 1,000 HE students, and 186 have fewer than 500. The vast majority of college HE courses have been priced at under £6,000, although there has been an increase in those charging above the threshold since the trebling of the tuition fee ceiling in 2012.
The purpose of the amendment is to change the situation whereby colleges that offer foundation degrees are unable also to provide a certificate of higher education, to provide a flexible qualification option for students. Colleges with foundation degree-awarding powers can issue only one award and can consequently issue only a 240-credit foundation degree. A certificate of higher education is 120 credits; the AOC believes, and we agree, that colleges should be able to deliver that as well. Employers often want only a 120-credit certificate of higher education, rather than the full 240-credit foundation degree, because many roles require only level 4. For example, many technician jobs in manufacturing, engineering, construction and accountancy do not require degree-level entry. In addition, many higher apprenticeships include the higher national certificate, which, again, is below degree level.
If I can say so without going outwith clause 40, this issue is highly relevant to what we have said more broadly about the Government’s skills plan. The Sainsbury review particularly singled out the importance of boosting our technical skills, and the Minister and other Ministers concurred with its conclusions. The amendment offers a practical way of assisting that process.
In some cases, a one-year course is an exit destination in its own right. The Bill provides a timely opportunity to address that. The recent OECD report “Skills beyond School”, which echoes the Sainsbury review, states:
“Nearly two-thirds of overall employment growth in the European Union…is forecast to be in the ‘technicians and associate professionals’ category”.
In a 2014 report, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills—which, sadly, the Government have now withdrawn support from, but which has nevertheless produced valuable reports for the Government—found that
“questions remain about the UK’s intermediate skills base. This remains smaller than in many other advanced economies.”
It stated that
“skills shortages are acute, and persistent, in middle-skill skilled trades—declining in number, but demanding to recruit”.
Allowing colleges to offer certificates of higher education would mean that they could meet local labour market needs better, because nationally developed qualifications are often too generic. It would allow colleges to develop learning modules locally to meet specific industry and business needs. It would also prevent time loss, because the college would not have to go to a university to develop such a qualification; it would be able to work immediately with an employer to deliver the necessary training. I say to the Minister in passing that moving in that direction seems entirely appropriate and in accordance with what the Government have already done in the Bill to simplify and improve further education colleges’ ability to award their own separate degrees. Giving colleges the ability to accredit individuals with a certificate of higher education would also be a big step in the right direction towards the much-needed national higher education system that we have been discussing.
The amendment also underlines the point that, in this area at least, further education and higher education are facing and addressing the same sorts of issues. It would promote part-time learning and could allow students to reduce debt more sensibly. Given the recommendations in the skills plan, a certificate of higher education issued by colleges could help to bridge credit-bearing programmes introduced to facilitate transfer or progression between academic and technical routes.
I appreciate that there is a lot of what I might describe as “techie business” in what I have just said, and I do not necessarily expect the Minister to sign up to the amendment, but I ask him and his officials to go away and look carefully at the points I have made. They are not partisan points; the amendment would actually facilitate some of the work the Government are doing in the Bill. Also, in the context of devolution, which we have not talked about much in relation to the Bill, it would make it much easier for some of the new combined authorities, and indeed some of the mayors taking on skills powers, to deliver flexibly some of the improvements that are not just desirable but necessary if we are to boost our productivity and achieve the targets that we will need to achieve in the 2020s.
Joseph Johnson
I am glad to have the opportunity to discuss FE institutions, many of which are colleges, and degree-awarding powers. Institutions in the FE sector can currently apply for and obtain taught degree-awarding powers so long as they provide higher education and meet the relevant criteria. Indeed, in June of this year, Newcastle College Group became the first FE college to be granted taught degree-awarding powers, and other colleges are in the process of applying.
Any institutions that obtain taught degree-awarding powers, including FE Colleges, are already authorised to grant certificates and other awards as well as degrees. Institutions in the FE sector will continue to be able to apply for and obtain taught degree-awarding powers under the reforms in the Bill. The proviso is that they must be a registered higher education provider and, like other registered higher education providers, meet the relevant criteria. We intend to consult on the detailed criteria following Royal Assent and before the new regulatory framework takes effect. There is therefore no intention to prevent FE colleges from accessing taught degree-awarding powers through the Bill.
As happens now, institutions in the FE sector will also be able to apply for foundation degree-awarding powers only—with the proviso that, in addition to being registered and meeting other criteria, they provide a satisfactory statement of progression setting out what the provider intends to do to enable students to progress on to courses of more advanced study. Again, that is in line with the current arrangements for FE colleges that wish to apply for foundation degree-awarding powers. I therefore believe that the amendment is unnecessary.
Gordon Marsden
Whether the amendment is unnecessary or not—obviously guidance has been given that means we might want to discuss the matter further—does the Minister agree that the ability for colleges to accredit individuals with a certificate for higher education would be a big step in the right direction? That is essentially what the Association of Colleges is asking for.
Joseph Johnson
We will obviously look very carefully at the submission from the Association of Colleges, and officials have heard the hon. Gentleman’s comments. We will go away, have a further look at the issue and reassure ourselves that the approach that we are taking is the correct one, but for the time being, we believe that the Bill covers his intentions, and I ask him to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I thank the Minister for that reply. We look forward to the further rumination, if I can put it that way, on the particulars of the issue, and on that basis I am content to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 216, in clause 40, page 22, line 28, at end insert
“(c) the provider operates in the interest of students and the public.”
This amendment would ensure any new provider must be operating with the public and student interests as a priority.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 217, in clause 40, page 22, line 28, at end insert
“(d) the provider shows evidence of satisfactory and consistent higher education delivery for a minimum of three years, which period may be extended, as part of a partnership with a validating provider.”
This amendment would ensure a further education provider can demonstrate that it can meet the requirements to exercise degree-awarding powers.
Amendment 218, in clause 40, page 22, line 28, at end insert
“(e) there is reasonable assurance that a provider is able to maintain the required standards for the duration of whatever authorisation period is set by the OfS.”
This amendment would ensure that any provider authorised to grant degrees must be able meet the required standards set for the full period of time they are authorised for.
Amendment 234, in clause 40, page 22, line 28, at end insert—
“(c) the OfS is assured that the provider is able to maintain the required standards of a UK degree for the duration of the authorisation; and
(d) the OfS is assured that the provider operates in students’ and the public interests.”
This amendment requires the OfS to be assured about the maintenance of standards and about students’ and the public interest before issuing authorisation to grant degrees.
Amendment 220, in clause 40, page 23, line 9, at end insert
“(9A) In making any orders under this section, and sections 41, 42 and 43, the OfS must have due regard to the need to maintain confidence in the higher education sector, and in the awards which they collectively grant, among students, employers, and the wider public.”
This amendment would ensure that the granting and removal of degree awarding powers would be linked to a need to maintain confidence in the sector, and with a view to preserving its excellent reputation.
New clause 9—Automatic review of authorisation—
“(1) The OfS must review an authorisation given by a previous order under section 40(1) if—
(a) the ownership of the registered provider is transferred to another legal person; or
(b) the owner of the registered provider has had restrictions placed on its degree-awarding powers in another jurisdiction, or
(c) for any other reason it would be in the student or public interest to do so.
(2) In this section “review” means consider whether to vary or revoke authorisation within the meaning of section 42.”
This new Clause would ensure that a review of a provider’s degree awarding power would be triggered if the ownership of a provider changes, if the owner of the registered provider faces restrictions to its degree awarding powers in another jurisdiction or if the OfS deems a review necessary to protect students or the wider public interest.
Gordon Marsden
We come to one of the most significant and contentious elements of the Bill—the Government’s proposals to enable new providers. Clearly, the amendments cover a wide area of subjects. Often on these occasions it is difficult to know whether one is delivering a clause stand part speech as opposed to a speech on each amendment or group of amendments, but I will do my best to do the latter.
The Chair
If the hon. Gentleman wishes to refer to any or all of the amendments in the context of the clause, I will be happy to accept that. We can determine later whether we have a clause stand part debate, depending on the level of discussion at this time.
Gordon Marsden
That is very helpful, Mr Hanson. I am grateful for your guidance.
For the convenience of the Committee, I will make clear the context in which we tabled the amendments. Amendment 216 would ensure that providers operate in the interest of students and the public, which we believe is very important. It is not simply a question of competitiveness. Amendment 217 is about providers showing evidence of satisfactory and consistent higher education delivery. I will talk more specifically about the rationale for that timeframe. Amendment 218 states that any provider authorised to grant degrees should be able to meet the required standards set for the full period of time they are authorised for. Amendment 220 states that the OFS must have due regard to the need to maintain confidence in the higher education sector and the awards they collectively grant among students, employers and the wider public.
The amendments deal with specific parts of the process of authorising the granting of degrees proposed by the Government. However, they appear in the context of our grave concerns about the mechanisms and the process that the Government are preparing to take forward. It is not only our grave concerns; most, if not all of the large university and HE provider organisations, including Universities UK and the University and College Union, have the same concerns.
We said on Second Reading that we were concerned about where the rapid expansion of what the Government call challenger institutions is taking us. I said I was concerned that giving providers the option from day one to build up that process would potentially be very dangerous, with students in effect taking a gamble on probationary degrees from probationary providers. I asked, rhetorically, who would pick up all the pieces if those things went wrong.
The amendments are designed to mitigate—I am afraid they would not entirely obliterate—the problems that might arise from the way the framework has been put forward. I want to repeat, to avoid any doubt, that we do not in principle oppose the expansion of the sector, competition in the sector or new providers. However, we believe strongly that without a strong regulatory framework that makes viable easier access for new providers to the higher education sector, we could have major crises, difficulties and scandals that would affect not only the institutions and the students—who are crucial—but this country’s whole reputation for delivering higher education provision.
If the Minister is in any doubt about that, he need only look at the some of the questions raised in the United States about the activities of private providers; at some of the criticisms that Baroness Wolf has levelled at a similar process in Australia; or, as I said on Second Reading, at the issues involving BPP and the Apollo Group some three to four years ago, which caused his predecessor to take a deep breath and pause on these areas. I am not suggesting to him that these things should be set in stone just because the Government got it wrong four years ago and were forced to retreat; I am suggesting that, as I have said previously, the rather gung-ho and raw free-market rhetoric of the White Paper should be tested against some very specific issues and safeguards, which is what we are trying to do with these amendments.
I repeat what has been said by the UCU, which
“acknowledges that private colleges and universities have been a feature of our HE system for a long time. However we are strongly of the opinion that higher education providers should be not-for-profit bodies because these pose a far lower risk to the sector. Accelerating the rate at which for-profit organisations can award degrees or become universities exposes the sector to greater risk from those motivated to move into the market predominantly for financial gain.”
The UCU also expressed concern about the issues surrounding university title, which we will address in due course.
When we consider new clause 6—this will also come up when we consider amendment 221 to clause 43—it might be worth noting that existing universities have grave concerns about the right to revoke degree-awarding powers by order. All the people who would be affected by the failure of a new provider, such as the people who clean, who maintain the buildings or who cook the food—all the people who keep higher education providers going—deserve a say and protection in this area, as well as the students and the academics who will teach at these new institutions, which is why Unison has expressed its strong concerns about the proposal.
The risks of market exit were discussed in the detailed impact assessment produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which assumed that volatility and the risk to students of course or institution closure could be managed with protection plans. Those assumptions, which I have looked at two or three times, still seem to be extremely cavalier. The impact assessment states that there is a
“risk to students attending HEPs that fall outside the scope... Internal BIS forecasts estimate that the number of providers operating outside of the system…will decrease from 655 to 460 by 2027/28.”
There will still be people outside the system.
MillionPlus has expressed similar concerns, and I will put this squarely in the Brexit context. As I said earlier, the eyes of the world will be focused on us, for good or ill, over the next two to three years. I would be surprised if anyone who has been abroad anywhere in the past couple of months has not been asked, “What do you think about Brexit?” For good or ill, that is what loads of people now think about the UK, and it shines a light on the importance of ensuring that the obvious ups and downs of the Brexit process do not cause irrevocable damage to one of this country’s most precious worldwide brands, the UK higher education brand. If we enter a process that does not have sufficient guarantees and protections, apart from the things that we should be doing on a social and a citizen basis to protect the people who work in such areas—this is a pragmatic point—we will commit an act of great folly from which, as I said this morning, we will find it difficult to recover.
Our proposals are designed to mitigate that process. Research Fortnight argued in May that
“the title of university needs to be seen as a privilege…not an automatic entitlement”.
I agree with that. One of my concerns about the Government’s approach—I said this right at the beginning, and others have said the same—is the way in which they have not rowed back on the proposal that, from almost the first day of operation, these applicant providers will have the ability to operate and recruit people for degree processes.
Gordon Marsden
Martin Wolf said:
“The reform of Britain’s universities is a betrayal”—
Gordon Marsden
No I will not. I am just about to finish the quote. Then the Minister can intervene.
“The reform of Britain’s universities is a betrayal of Conservative principles”.
So there we have concerns across the sector, even in the Minister’s own party.
Joseph Johnson
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that Martin Wolf is an aspiring Conservative member, as he put it?
Gordon Marsden
No. I said that Martin Wolf was not about to cross the Floor to join the Labour party and that is exactly the case. [Interruption.] If Mr Wolf wanted to put things on record I am sure he could do so, but that is the point I am making. The Bill is causing concern among the Conservative party’s own traditional supporters and representatives, and elsewhere. That is the important issue to be addressed here.
The Bill, as the Council for the Defence of British Universities has said,
“is designed to give encouragement to ‘new providers’ but has few safeguards to protect students from for-profit organisations… Experience in this country, and particularly in the US, suggests extreme caution is needed to protect the reputation of British universities”.
Those are some of the issues that we have tried to mitigate in our amendments. I have asked the Minister a range of specific questions regarding the TEF paper, and I invite him to respond to them.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Given the gung-ho attitude that the Minister has displayed in wanting to open up the sector to alternative providers, I am not sure I will get anywhere with amendment 234, but I will try, because as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South has outlined, there is considerable concern across the higher education sector that not enough regulation and requirement is being put on to new institutions before they are allowed to have degree-awarding powers.
The amendment would put a few additional requirements into clause 40(4). The OFS would have to assure itself that the provider was able to maintain the required standards of a UK degree for a period of perhaps three to five years—the length of time we would expect a degree to last—to ensure that it was properly bedded in. The reason for that, as my hon. Friend outlined clearly, is to prevent students from undertaking courses and degrees with new providers that have not been adequately tested and where there are not enough safeguards in place. If a course falls, students have to transfer or be compensated in some way, so the amendment is an attempt to put a few more safeguards in the system.
The amendment asks that
“the provider operates in the interest of students and the public.”
That is important because, as my hon. Friend said, we are all genuinely worried that some providers could operate simply in the interests of their shareholders, without sufficient regard to the needs of students.
We have rehearsed a whole set of arguments, which I will not go through again, about the way in which institutions should demonstrate a public interest. They should have a civic role and be judged in exactly the same way as all other universities. The Minister has not really given us an adequate explanation as to why he has adopted a gung-ho approach with so little regulation and requirements being placed on alternative providers, and he has not mentioned what he will do if students end up losing out. The Committee has not sufficiently added requirements to the Bill to ensure that students’ interests, and indeed the public interest, are safeguarded.
Paul Blomfield
I rise to speak to new clause 9, fairly briefly. I do not want to repeat the concerns that have been ably outlined by my hon. Friends, but I want discuss one particular problem. The Minister is deeply conscious of the risks presented by some potential new providers. We have discussed those risks outside of the Committee, and he recognises the importance of having a robust regulatory framework.
New clause 9 would deal with a specific problem of which the Minister will be aware in relation to some private providers in this country and, in particular, in the United States, where the terrain is similar to the one that he is, arguably, trying to create through the Bill. One problem in the United States—this is also true in Australia to a significant degree, as the Minister knows, because he has looked at the system there—is that a business model has developed for some avaricious companies that see the opportunity to milk the public funds that are available to support students through loans.
Those companies are less concerned than others with the quality of the offer they make, and they have no long-term commitment to students. Theirs is a model in which companies offer a product, and students are then attracted by aggressive marketing, draw down a loan, are let down by the quality of provision, end up with a degree with questionable value, and face enormous debts to repay. It is a model that neither I nor the Minister want, but it has been encouraged, in some cases, by the transfer of ownership once degree-awarding powers have been given. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South mentioned BPP and Apollo, but the Minister is also aware of the problem in the United States.
The new clause would ensure that the regulatory portal for entry to degree-awarding powers will be triggered if an institution changes ownership, because the culture, commitment and quality of provision can change substantially when that happens. Likewise, if restrictions have been imposed in another jurisdiction on the owner of an institution with degree-awarding powers—we know that many companies in the sector operate across countries—that should be a sufficient signal to us to be worried and to review any decision on degree-awarding powers for that owner in our jurisdiction. In those two respects, the new clause would simply provide a trigger to re-open the decision to give degree-awarding powers, which I would have thought the Minister would agree with. I hope he will either support the amendment or reassure me about how he intends to address the issue.
Joseph Johnson
I am still reeling from the hilarious image that the hon. Member for Blackpool South conjured up of Martin Wolf as an aspiring Conservative Member of Parliament. I worked with Martin for 13 years at the Financial Times and I have no doubt that that characterisation of his career plans is very wide of the mark. Judging by some of his contributions to the debate over the future of HE in this country, he might be more likely to seek to become master of an Oxford college. But a Conservative MP? I think not.
The Chair
Order. He is also not on the face of the Bill, so stick to the argument—or lack of it.
Joseph Johnson
We are justifiably proud of our HE sector, and our country is renowned as the home of many world-class institutions, but that does not mean that we should be satisfied with the status quo. As I have said before, the current system is too heavily weighted in favour of existing incumbents, which is stifling innovation in the sector. As Emran Mian, director of the Social Market Foundation, has said:
“Higher education is too much like a club where the rules are made for the benefit of universities. These reforms will begin to change that.
Students will have access to more information when they’re making application choices; and universities will be under more pressure to improve the quality of teaching.”
Under the current regime, new and innovative providers have to wait until they have developed a track record that lasts several years before they can operate as degree-awarding bodies in their own right, no matter how good their offer or how much academic expertise they bring to bear. To develop that track record, they typically have to rely on other institutions to validate their provision in some way, which can be a huge obstacle. The onus is on the new entrant to find a willing incumbent and to negotiate a validation agreement. Such agreements can be one-sided and in some cases prohibitively expensive, as we heard in evidence given to the Committee.
Our reforms will ensure that students can choose from a wider range of high-quality institutions and will remove any impression that, as John Gill, the esteemed editor of Times Higher Education, put it, existing universities can
“act like bouncers, deciding who should and should not be let in.”
If a higher education institute can demonstrate its ability to deliver high-quality provision, we want to make it easier for it to start awarding its own degrees—not harder, as the hon. Member for Blackpool South would like—rather than needing to have its courses awarded by a competing incumbent. Earlier in this sitting, the hon. Gentleman said that the whole point was that it should be difficult. We fundamentally disagree. If there are high-quality providers out there that want to come in and provide high-quality education, we want to make that easier for them, not more difficult.
Gordon Marsden
Again, the Minister is trying to set up a straw man. “Difficult” does not mean “impossible”. It means that, because literally hundreds and in the future possibly thousands of people will be relying on the decision that is made, there should be due process—a significant process. The trouble with what the Minister suggests is that he is not just making it easier, he is making it far too easy.
Joseph Johnson
I ask the hon. Gentleman to look back at the transcript of our earlier discussions and reread his comments. He said that the whole point was that it should be difficult. That is a fundamental point of difference between us. We believe it should be easy for high-quality providers to get into the system and offer high-value-for-money higher education.
We know how important universities can be to their local economies. Recent research by the London School of Economics has demonstrated the strong link between universities opening and significantly increased economic growth. Doubling the number of universities per capita is associated with more than 4% higher GDP per capita. However, the sector has built up over time to be serving only parts of the country. It is not providing employers with enough of the right graduates, especially STEM graduates. It can do more, as we discussed earlier, to offer flexible study options to meet students’ diverse needs, and it can do far more to support social mobility. Most OECD competitor countries have a higher proportion of the population entering higher education than the UK. We have about a 51% first-time entry rate, compared with an OECD average of about 60%.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Would the Minister accept that, if the Government are serious about wanting more people to have an experience of higher education, that can be done through expanding the current institutions or in a more measured way of bringing alternative providers into the system? My anxiety has grown over the afternoon, because making it easy for alternative providers will not necessarily guarantee sufficient safeguards for students or the public.
Joseph Johnson
Of course we want high-quality provision to expand, whether through the entry of new institutions or the expansion of existing institutions that do well in the quality assurance frameworks that we have in our system—the research excellence framework and the TEF that we are introducing for teaching. They will get more resources and will be able to expand high-quality research and teaching activities. That is how we see the market developing in this country.
The system needs to have informed student choice and competition among high-quality institutions at its heart. Competition between providers in higher education—indeed, in any market—incentivises them to raise their game, offering consumers a greater choice of more innovative and better-quality products and services. The Competition and Markets Authority concluded in its recent report on competition in the HE sector that aspects of the current system could be holding back competition among providers, which needed to be addressed. That is what we are doing with the provisions in this and later clauses, including those covering validation.
Paul Blomfield
I would be grateful if the Minister could share with us the work that the Department has done on comparing the impact of private providers in other countries with developed higher education systems. My understanding is that there is very limited evidence to suggest that increased competition has contributed to innovation, higher quality or lower prices within the countries that the Department has looked at. Could he share the evidence?
Joseph Johnson
First, I would encourage the hon. Gentleman not to try to compare apples and pears by talking about the US experience. Many of the parallels that he is attempting to draw with the so-called private sector in the US are not really relevant to our environment here in the UK. US private providers are subject to little state control. We have a strong, and increasingly strong, regulatory framework in place to ensure appropriate oversight. I again encourage Opposition Members not to disparage institutions that they describe as for-profit or private providers. Let us remember first that all higher education institutions are private to begin with—every single one of them. Let us try to get that straight in our minds right away.
Joseph Johnson
No, I am going to make this point, because the hon. Gentleman has already intervened. Let us also remember that there are exceptionally good providers in the sector delivering high-quality education sector, for example Norland College, the University of Law or BPP University. For-profit providers have among the highest levels of student satisfaction in the system, demonstrated for example by the University of Law coming joint first in overall satisfaction in the most recent national students’ survey. I find it sad and disappointing that the hon. Member for Blackpool South wants to disparage such institutions and those who choose to study at them.
Gordon Marsden
I am not disparaging those institutions. They have reached that position precisely through the rigorous system that we currently have, which the Minister is proposing to dismantle. He has failed to address some of the questions I put to him. For example, does he seriously believe that the introduction of single-subject DAPs is a good thing for students?
Joseph Johnson
I will shortly come on to the single-subject degree-awarding powers measures that we are proposing, and yes, I obviously believe that specialist provision is to the advantage of the higher-education system, because it will help us address many of the skills shortages that the country faces. We can point, for example, to the New Model in Technology and Engineering institution in Hereford, which will be a specialist STEM provider in an HE cold spot. That is precisely the kind of new entry that we want to encourage into the system.
Competition expands the market and widens choice to the benefit of students. That is generally, although not universally, accepted. It is certainly accepted by the sector itself.
Joseph Johnson
I am going to make some progress, because I have got a fair amount to get through.
Universities UK, the representative body, has said it welcomes the Government’s intention to allow new providers in the system to secure greater choice for students and to ensure appropriate competition in the higher education sector. Paul Kirkham pointed out in a speech earlier this year that
“there are many reputable APs out there, providing specialist, bespoke education and training to students who, lest we forget, consciously choose such an alternative.”
The story of those new entrants and of diversity and provision has been one of widening participation. We want them to be able to compete on a level playing field.
As we discussed earlier, the world is changing fast, and the higher education sector needs to change too if it is to meet the needs of 21st-century learners, yet in a 2015 survey of vice-chancellors and university leavers 70% of respondents said that they expected higher education to look the same in 2030 as it does now—largely focused around the full-time three-year degree. The risk is that, given their position, that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We know, for example, that the share of undergraduate students in English higher education institutions studying full-time first-year degrees—the traditional model—has increased from 65% in 2010-11 to 78% in 2014-15. Allowing the vested interests of incumbents to continue to protect what is effectively a one-product system that promotes only the three-year, full-time, on-campus undergraduate university course as the gold standard comes with considerable risk. It is a high-cost and inflexible approach, and given that in excess of 50% of the population wish to engage in higher education, it cannot be the only solution. That system of validation is curbing innovation and entrenching the same model of higher education.
As Paul Kirkham said in evidence to the Committee:
“There are significant risks to student and taxpayer of a very static, non-changing universe of providers and way too much emphasis on the three-year, on-campus degree.”––[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2016; c. 13, Q15.]
As Roxanne Stockwell, the principal of Pearson College, said in her submission:
“It is clear that the dominance of the one-size-fits-all model of university education is over. Fee rises have transformed students into more critical consumers and the government is right to recognise this in their reform package. Students are calling out for pioneering institutions offering alternative education models and an increased focus on skills that will prepare them for the careers of the future—with the mind-set and agility to fulfil roles that may not even exist yet.”
We must not be constrained by our historical successes.
Carol Monaghan
I do not recognise the picture of higher education that the Minister is painting. It has changed greatly, even in the past 10 to 20 years. There is a massive focus on skills, and students are now leaving university with much greater abilities, and the problem-solving, business and employability skills that are required. I simply do not recognise the picture of traditional HE that the Minister paints.
Joseph Johnson
I urge the hon. Lady to recognise that huge value has been added to the sector by the arrival of new entrants. New providers have tapped into unmet demand, and that is why they are springing up. They are surviving the test of the marketplace and meeting a need that is not presently being met. That is why they are coming into existence; they are providing value and succeeding and thriving in the marketplace. We should welcome what they bring rather than denigrate it.
As a report on international experience by the Centre for Global Higher Education found, private providers can
“swiftly provide courses to meet unmet demand, and deliver them in convenient ways, such as online or in the evening and over the weekend.”
We also know that they offer greater flexibility to potential students by having different course start dates throughout the year. Alternative providers are already supporting greater diversity in the sector, which we should all welcome. Some 56% of students at alternative providers are aged 25-plus—I know that the hon. Member for Blackpool South cares greatly about mature students—compared with only 23% of students at publicly funded institutions. They have higher numbers of black and minority ethnic students, with 59% of undergraduate students at alternative providers coming from BME ethnic groups compared with 21% at higher education institutions overall.
Gordon Marsden
All the statistics that the Minister has just reeled off, which we recognise, underline precisely why we need rigorous—not blocking—regulation. The sorts of people who are going to the providers he talks about are those who will suffer most greatly if those providers go belly up. That is why we need rigour in that area, and that is why the best alternative providers have succeeded and are coming through at the moment. He is constantly setting up straw men.
Joseph Johnson
We are in agreement. There will be robust quality gateways, financial management tests and governance tests in the system.
Joseph Johnson
They are as robust as they need to be, and they will ensure that only high-quality, well managed, stable institutions that deliver high-quality higher education enter our system.
As I have set out, current would-be new entrants typically rely on competitors for a foothold in the sector. It is hard to think of another sector—including those involving major once-in-a-lifetime decisions, such as mortgage or pension providers—where one provider is beholden to another for market entry in that manner.
Inevitably, the nature of our validation requirements has a moulding effect on entry into the system. New providers may feel forced to adopt practices, habits and mentalities of incumbents in a way that can stifle innovation or even cede some of the new entrants’ competitive advantage. For example, we can read in the evidence provided by Le Cordon Bleu how that can happen. It chose not to offer a UK degree via the validation process, as it felt it would be required to hand over its recipes, techniques and individual culinary style to another institution in order to have its courses validated.
Joseph Johnson
I will make some progress, if the hon. Lady will let me.
In the case of Le Cordon Bleu, the intellectual property of its course would be free for the validating institution to redistribute as it saw fit. We have heard a fair amount from Opposition Members about for-profit providers, and the idea that for-profit institutions would not act in the interests of students. That is simply not true.
The Chair
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman refrain from heckling? He has the opportunity to speak, and he can respond in due course.
Joseph Johnson
The insinuation that followed the persistent tropes denigrating private providers, new providers or alternative providers was very clear: the hon. Gentleman sees for-profit providers as fly-by-night operators out to exploit naive students at the expense of taxpayers. The whole riff he has been developing over weeks before this Committee is unmistakeable, and it is simply not true.
We need a diverse, competitive higher education sector that can offer different types of higher education, giving students the ability to choose between a wide range of providers. We must not constrain entrepreneurial activity and stifle innovative provision at students’ expense. New ventures are driven by a range of motives, not just by wealth creation, such as the desire to innovate and create new products, the desire to prove themselves better and smarter and a desire to create a personal legacy. It also seems strange that on the one hand making a profit is deemed distasteful, whereas on the other hand to fail to make a profit would be judged as a sign of financial unsustainability. There is an inherent contradiction in the hon. Gentleman’s approach to this question.
Turning to the specifics of amendments 216, 217, 218, 220 and 234, I hope—although I may not be successful—that I can still assure hon. Members that the reforms we are proposing will ensure that both the interests of students and the wider public are well served. In recognising the need for the changes that I have just set out, we also recognise the great importance of sustaining and improving quality and standards. Our plans are designed to ensure that quality is maintained, and that only those providers that can prove they can meet the high standards associated with the values and reputation of the English HE system can obtain degree-awarding powers. We intend that the assessment of whether a provider meets the criteria to hold degree-awarding powers would rest with the designated quality body; this mirrors current arrangements.
In order to become eligible for degree-awarding powers, providers will have to register with the OFS. We expect them to register in either the approved or approved fee cap categories. This would ensure that applicants for degree-awarding powers meet high market entry and ongoing registration conditions, which we expect to include quality and financial sustainability, management and governance criteria. As now, degree-awarding powers will either be granted on a time-limited or an indefinite basis. Degree-awarding powers being awarded on a time-limited and renewable basis in this way is critically not new: alternative providers and further education providers are already granted these powers on a six-yearly renewable basis. We intend to level up the playing field and raise the quality threshold so degree-awarding powers are granted on a time-limited basis to all in the first instance, with the opportunity for all to progress to indefinite degree-awarding powers subject to satisfactory performance.
What we do intend to do is change the requirement that new high-quality providers have to build up a track record and be reliant on incumbent institutions to validate their provision. However, as we set out in the factsheet on market entry and quality assurance that we published and sent to the Committee, we plan that in order to be able to access time-limited probationary degree-awarding powers, providers will also need to pass a new and specific test for probationary degree-awarding powers. Under this test, we expect applicants to be required to demonstrate that they have the potential to meet the full degree-awarding powers criteria by the end of the three-year probationary period and we fully expect probationary degree-awarding powers to be subject to appropriate restrictions and strict oversight by the OFS in order to safeguard quality. We expect this oversight to be similar to the support of a validating body, except that new providers will not need to ask a competitor to do this.
Gordon Marsden
The Minister is now beginning to address the specific points I made, although he has still not commented on the rationale for allowing single-subject DAPs. That is not the same as STEM ones, Minister, because those cover a much broader range of things. May I ask the Minister specifically whether he considers the inclusion of self-evaluation as a key element in deciding whether people should have these degree-awarding powers sufficient and adequate?
Joseph Johnson
As he has pressed on this first, let me come to the hon. Gentleman’s point about single-subject degree-awarding powers. We want the scope of degree-awarding powers to be more flexible, so that both probationary and full degree-awarding power holders would be able to offer degrees in specific subjects or with greater choice of levels. This would enable them to start awarding degrees while developing their provision and capacity, to assume increased levels of powers and enable the removal of restrictions over time. Holders of single-subject DAPs will, if granted validation powers, be able to validate in that subject only, and we intend that they will be eligible for university title. There are many specialist providers that I believe would benefit from this. For example, Norland College has been delivering specialist education since the 1860s and could be one of the providers that seeks to benefit from these provisions. It has a solid reputation for the quality of its provision.
Turning to the hon. Gentleman’s more recent point about self-evaluation, we intend self-evaluation to be only one part of a thorough and robust process to assess readiness for probationary degree-awarding powers. Understanding what it means to uphold academic standards is essential for any provider and should be tested, and we intend to consult on detailed criteria that we plan to publish in guidance.
Gordon Marsden
I listened carefully to the Minister, as I have throughout our proceedings. At least he is now addressing some of the meat of the issues, rather than going off and misrepresenting Labour’s position, which I warned him not to do at the beginning because we have made our position clear.
The Minister attempts to smear the Opposition by saying that we are not in favour of for-profit institutions. We did not say that. We said that for for-profit institutions to be absorbing significant amounts of public money and support—the implication of his proposals—we need rigorous inspection and process. I do not believe that he has demonstrated that today by offering a system of, “We’ll do it this way and that way with guidance.”
Where is the evidence? The Minister has produced no evidence for the so-called stifling of all the private institutions that are just springing up. We heard evidence from private sector alternative providers, including Condé Nast. Those providers were not—dare I say—typical of the sort of providers that we will get during this great revolution that the Minister is talking about. If he looked beyond his obsession and besottedness with his competition gurus to the possible implications if his proposals went wrong, he will see that we are not crying about things that will not happen. These are real risks and it is incumbent on us as policy makers and Members of Parliament to look not just to the utopian view but to a realistic view. Public money going into this expansion needs guarantees for the students and for the people who work in the institutions. If they do not get those guarantees, not only will a great deal of public money be lost but the public reputation of our higher education system will be at risk.
It is clear that the Minister is not going to move on these amendments. We will not press the amendments to a vote at this point and will make a decision on clause 40 when we have completed the further deliberations on the clause.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I want to say briefly to the Minister that I do not think that it should be easy to get degree-awarding powers in this country. If we are really serious about upholding the quality and excellence of higher education, there should be a rigorous system and, because of the Minister’s remarks and the lack of safeguards for students and the public, I wish to press amendment 234 to a vote.
Paul Blomfield
I am sorry that the Minister sought to characterise our concerns in the way that he did. There are good examples in many countries across a diverse range of higher education providers, but he will also recognise that there are examples of unscrupulous operators who have caused real problems, not just in the United States—also in Australia. In the US, it has led the federal authorities to take legal action on behalf of students against some of the providers. All we are seeking to do is to ensure that a robust framework is in place to protect us from that situation in this country.
On new clause 9, I was reassured to some degree by the Minister’s comments on change of ownership, but I would welcome clarification on whether the review process that he would expect would be as robust as the initial regulatory entry. He did not address my concerns on the restrictions being imposed on providers in other jurisdictions, which is the second part of new clause 9, and whether that would also trigger the sort of review I am seeking through the new clause.
Joseph Johnson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his reasoned approach. The approach that the OFS would take would depend on the circumstances of any transfer of ownership. The whole philosophy of the OFS is that it is a risk-based regulator that seeks to act in a proportionate, reasonable way. Given that core approach to the way that it will regulate the sector, we would not expect it to have a one-size-fits-all policy response to every particular circumstance that might arise. I think the answer is that the OFS would evaluate the situation in light of all its duties and take a decision on how to proceed on that basis. That would include circumstances such as those covered by the other part of the new clause relating to other jurisdictions and legal environments outside this country. The OFS would evaluate it and take a view.
Paul Blomfield
I will not press the new clause to a vote at this stage but I will seek future assurances, particularly in relation to that second part about action in other jurisdictions. Does the Minister not agree that if we are considering circumstances in which providers are known to have transgressed in other countries we would expect a significant review of their operation in this country?
Gordon Marsden
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 234, in clause 40, page 22, line 28, at end insert—
“(c) the OfS is assured that the provider is able to maintain the required standards of a UK degree for the duration of the authorisation; and
(d) the OfS is assured that the provider operates in students’ and the public interests.”—(Dr Blackman-Woods.)
This amendment requires the OfS to be assured about the maintenance of standards and about students’ and the public interest before issuing authorisation to grant degrees.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 215, in clause 40, page 23, line 11, after “instrument” insert
“approved and made by the Privy Council as an Order in Council”.
This amendment would ensure scrutiny by the Privy Council of the power to grant awards.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 224, in clause 51, page 30, line 15, leave out “(instead of the Privy Council)” and insert “and the Privy Council”.
This amendment would ensure the Privy Council retained the right of oversight for the award and revocation of university title.
Amendment 225, in clause 52, page 31, line 7, leave out “Office for Students” and insert “Privy Council”.
This amendment would ensure the Privy Council retained the right of oversight for the award and revocation of university title.
Amendment 226, in clause 52, page 31, line 18, leave out lines 18 to 21.
This amendment would ensure the Privy Council retained the right of oversight for the award and revocation of university title.
Amendment 227, in clause 52, page 31, line 22, leave out lines 22 to 25.
This amendment would ensure the Privy Council retained the right of oversight for the award and revocation of university title.
Amendment 228, in clause 52, page 31, line 26, leave out “Office for Students” and insert
“the Office for Students and the Privy Council”.
This amendment would ensure the Privy Council retained the right of oversight for the award and revocation of university title.
Amendment 229, in clause 53, page 32, line 5, leave out “OfS” and insert
“the Office for Students and the Privy Council”.
This amendment would ensure the Privy Council retained the right of oversight for the award and revocation of university title.
Gordon Marsden
The group of amendments was tabled not in the expectation that there would be problems with the development of the office for students but in response to the concerns of a number of organisations, including universities, that there should be an existing backstop to the process. It is curious, perhaps, that we should propose to preserve an institution that the Government propose to destroy, but that is what the effect of the changes would be, with the Privy Council being removed from the entire process.
I do not want to speak in great depth or detail, except to repeat what I have said previously, which is that we are entering a period of great difficulty in how our higher education might be perceived overseas. I will not repeat the arguments I made this morning about UK plc and Brexit, but I think they are extremely valid. There is the old saying, of course: if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The Minister, full of his competition zeal for all the poor providers that have been blocked out for years and years by the Privy Council and all the other archaic institutions, wants to remove them from the process. We do not suggest that the Privy Council remain the prime mover in the process. However, particularly in the first few years, when the office for students is setting itself up and finding its feet, there should be circumstances in which the powers that the Privy Council currently exercises in the oversight of the award and revocation of university title should be there as a backstop.
Joseph Johnson
In our reforms, we have deliberately taken out the function of the Privy Council in the granting of degree-awarding powers and university title in order to streamline the processes and transfer responsibility for those functions to the office for students. At the moment, as the hon. Gentleman knows, for degree-awarding powers the QAA advises HEFCE. HEFCE advises the Department, and the Department then advises the Privy Council. There is a similar process for university title. That is unduly complex and time-consuming to little or no additional advantage.
On the whole, there was no opposition to these changes in the responses we had to the Green Paper. This response to our Green Paper consultation from a provider that has only recently gone through this process illustrates the point:
“Removing the role of the Privy Council in making decisions about DAPs and University Title seems prudent. Our experience of the process suggests that this stage does not have added value and merely extends the time taken to complete the process.”
In fact, we checked back through recent history and there were no examples of the Privy Council not following the Department’s advice on granting degree-awarding powers and university title—not one.
Under our new system, the office for students, as the independent sector regulator, will be best placed to take decisions on degree-awarding powers and university title. That will cut out some of the process and lead to a more streamlined system. I know the hon. Member for Blackpool South wants to make things more difficult for providers, but we want to make things simpler. This is one of the ways in which we envisage reducing the bureaucracy and burdens that prevent high-quality new providers from entering the sector.
Joseph Johnson
I am going to make some progress.
In its evidence to the Committee, Independent Higher Education supported this view:
“The transfer of this authority to the OfS, a modern regulator, away from the outwardly archaic and opaque mechanism of approval by the Privy Council, will be more appropriate for a dynamic and diverse sector which includes industry-led provision and overseas providers bringing their extensive experience to the UK”.
However, I recognise that the amendments are probably born of a desire to ensure proper independent decision making, with a view to protecting the quality and prestige of these awards, as well as students in the system. Let me therefore be clear that I fully agree with that intention and have designed a system that will do just that.
Let me explain how the future processes will work. With regards to degree-awarding powers, we have every intention of keeping the processes, which have worked well to date, broadly as they are. We expect the process to remain broadly peer review-based and we envisage that the OFS will seek information from the quality body, with involvement from an appropriately independent committee. On university title, again, we are not planning to change the independent decision making and scrutiny. For both areas, we want decisions to continue to be made by an arm’s length body, based on departmental guidance that has been subject to consultation as and when appropriate. That also applies to variation and revocation of degree-awarding powers and revocation of university title. Additionally, those processes will be supported by a right of appeal, as set out in clauses 45 and 55.
Although I thank Opposition Members for giving me the opportunity to talk about these important matters, we have designed the new system with the right safeguards in place. Reinserting a role for the Privy Council would therefore add nothing except unnecessary process, so I ask the hon. Member for Blackpool South to withdraw his amendment.
Gordon Marsden
Well, I am reassured that the Minister thinks he has managed to produce a brand-new system that is going to work absolutely perfectly; that is what people always say when they produce brand-new systems. For the avoidance of doubt, we were not suggesting retaining the Privy Council in its existing position, and nor were the people who supported our proposal. It was a backstop, and I hope the Minister understands that—I have tried to make it as clear as possible.
The Minister has given various assurances today; we will see how they pan out in practice. I maintain that it is a risk to create a new brand on the international HE stage without a backstop, when we are going to be in such difficult circumstances over the next two or three years. However, we are not going to agree, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 6—Committee on Degree Awarding Powers and University Title—
“(1) The OfS must establish a committee called the ‘Committee on Degree Awarding Powers and University Title’.
(2) The function of the Committee is to provide advice to the OfS on—
(a) the general exercise of its functions under sections 40, 42, 43 and 53 of this Act, and section 77 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992;
(b) particular uses of its powers under section 40(1) of this Act; and
(c) particular uses of its powers under section 77 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.
(3) The OfS must seek the advice of the Committee before—
(a) authorising a registered higher education provider or qualifying further education provider to grant taught awards, research awards or foundation degrees under section 40(1) of this Act;
(b) varying any authorisation made under section 40(1) of this Act so as to authorise a registered higher education provider or qualifying further education provider to grant a category of award or degree that, prior to the variation of the authorisation, it was not authorised to grant; and
(c) providing consent under section 77 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 for an education institution or body corporate to change its names so as to include the word “university” in the name of the institution or body corporate.
(4) The OfS must also seek the advice of UKRI before authorising a registered higher education provider or qualifying further education provider to grant research awards under section 40(1) of this Act.
(5) The OfS does not need to seek the advice of the Committee before—
(a) revoking an authorisation to grant taught awards, research awards or foundation degrees; or
(b) varying any authorisation to grant taught awards, research awards, or foundation degrees so as to revoke the authorisation of a registered higher education provider or qualifying further education provider to grant a category of award that, prior to the variation of the authorisation, it was authorised to grant.
(6) Subsection (4) applies whether the authorisation being revoked or varied was given—
(a) by an order made under section 40(1) of this Act;
(b) by or under any Act of Parliament, other than under section 40(1) of this Act; or
(c) by Royal Charter.
(7) In providing its advice to the OfS, the Committee must in particular consider the need for students, employers and the public to have confidence in the higher education system and the awards which are granted by it.
(8) The OfS must have regard to the advice given to it by the Committee on both the general exercise of its functions referred to in subsection 2 and any particular uses of its powers referred to in subsection 3.
(9) The majority of the members of the Committee must be individuals who appear to the OfS to have experience of providing higher education on behalf of an English higher education provider or being responsible for the provision of higher education by such a provider.
(10) In appointing members of the Committee who meet these criteria, the OfS must have regard to the desirability of their being currently engaged at the time of their appointment in the provision of higher education or in being responsible for such provision.
(11) The majority of the members of the Committee must be individuals who are not members of the OfS.
(12) Schedule 1 applies to the Committee on Degree Awarding Powers and University Title as it applies to committees established under paragraph 8 of that Schedule.”
This new clause would create a committee of the OfS which fulfils much the same functions as the current Advisory Committee on Degree Awarding Powers.
Gordon Marsden
In the interest of time, I will try to be concise. Perhaps because we are coming to the end of the afternoon, the Minister was more constructive in his last comments than he had been previously. He talked about outside inspection and I hope that is a harbinger of his looking favourably on new clause 6.
New clause 6 attempts to answer the famous question posed by Cicero, which always bedevils any Government or organisation: “Who governs the governors?” I will not quote it in Latin; I will leave that to the Minister’s brother.
Gordon Marsden
Indeed. Give that man a gold star.
Before we get into ridiculous territory, the serious point is that if we are to have confidence in the system that the Minister is proposing, it is important to have a body that can advise. That is the intention behind the new clause. The idea was put to us by MillionPlus but the view is shared by a large number of other organisations, including UUK, which the Minister quoted earlier.
MillionPlus believes that
“strong safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that any body that is awarded degree awarding powers or university title has met the criteria to do so, and will not put student interest at risk, or potentially damage the hard earned reputation of the entire higher education sector in the UK.”
Those are all things that we have been praying in aid this afternoon.
The new clause would go a long way to meeting that requirement. Subsection (2)(a) would provide for a committee to advise the OFS in general as to how it is fulfilling its functions. Subsections (2)(b) and (c) would allow for that committee to advise the OFS on the particular uses of its power to grant degree-awarding powers or university title.
The new clause allows the OFS to revoke degree-awarding powers or university title without consulting the committee, which means that any argument against it on the grounds that it might create problematic delays if urgent action were required would be mitigated. In fulfilling its role, we would expect the committee to seek advice from the designated quality body.
The current arrangements—and the Minister has made great play of praying in aid the current arrangements—for conferring degree-awarding powers and university title on an institution require, in England, the Higher Education Funding Council for England to seek the advice of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. That is not required in the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, but it clearly sets a precedent where appropriate expertise is sought prior to any decision making. It is therefore vital that the OFS continue to seek advice from the designated quality body prior to any conferring of degree-awarding powers and/or university title—[Interruption.] I hope the Minister is listening. There is, therefore, a strong argument for introducing the new clause further to reflect that obligation.
Joseph Johnson
We have debated clause 40 extensively, so I will turn straight to new clause 6. I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the important issue of safeguarding quality and ensuring that only high-quality providers can access degree-awarding powers and university title. We are taking that very seriously. I hope that that came through adequately in the technical note that we published a few weeks ago before the party conference recess.
I am interested that hon. Members have proposed the establishment of a committee with similar responsibilities to the current Advisory Committee on Degree Awarding Powers. I assure this Committee that we have every intention of keeping the processes around the scrutiny of applications for degree-awarding powers, which have worked well—including those around scrutiny of applications for university title—broadly as they are. That includes retaining an element of independent peer review, most likely in the form of a committee of independent members. As now, we would expect that committee to play a vital role in the scrutiny of applications, bringing to bear its unique and expert perspective on the process, and enabling the OFS to draw on its expertise in coming to a decision.
Gordon Marsden
I too will be brief on the substance of clause 40. I welcome what the Minister said about new clause 6. Again, the devil is in the detail and we wait to see that detail in due course, but he has outlined a reasonable process. Unfortunately, however, given the detail of the argument that has been put on clause 40, and in particular the response to our modest and reasonable amendments to mitigate the substantial dangers that we believe are posed by the way in which the Government are proceeding, we do not feel that the Minister has convinced us. We therefore wish to vote against clause 40.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 221, in clause 43, page 24, line 32, leave out subsection (3) and insert?
“(5) No order shall be made under subsection (1) unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.”
This amendment would ensure the OfS’ power to vary or revoke authorisation given to an English Higher Education provider, or an English further education provider, must be scrutinised and approved by both Houses of Parliament.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 222, in clause 44, page 25, line 14, after “provider” insert “and other relevant organisation”.
This amendment would ensure full representations and be made to, and considered by, the OfS before steps are taken to revoke authorisation.
Gordon Marsden
The amendment reflects the concerns we have discussed about the revoking of powers. It also reflects the concerns of a number of bodies, not least Cambridge University, which has expressed real concern about that being done simply by statutory instrument. Cambridge University said in its evidence:
“The Bill must include measures to guarantee appropriate parliamentary scrutiny over the OfS’s discharge of its enforcement powers and imposition of penalties, including the revocation of Degree Awarding Powers and University Title. This is to ensure that any decision that may impinge on institutional autonomy is properly considered and good reason for doing so needs to be established.”
In this case, that means provisions must be scrutinised and approved by both Houses of Parliament. We accept that these occasions are likely to be rare, which is precisely why we think the matter should be reserved for both Houses of Parliament.
Joseph Johnson
The amendments relate to the power to revoke or vary degree-awarding powers, which is one part of the suite of tools available to the OFS under the new regulatory framework. We have long recognised that in order for the sector to be regulated effectively, refined and express powers to vary or remove degree-awarding powers in serious cases are vital. That makes it clear to providers what is at stake if quality drops to unacceptable levels. It does not mean we are interfering with the autonomy of providers.
We intend that the OFS and the new quality body will work with providers to address any emerging problems early on. The OFS would use the power to revoke degree-awarding powers only when other interventions had failed to produce the necessary results. However, I recognise the significance of these refined, express powers and the need to put the right safeguards in place. That is what clauses 44 and 45 are designed to do.
On amendment 222, I hope I can provide some reassurance. I fully agree that when making a decision on whether to vary or revoke a provider’s degree-awarding powers, the OFS should be able to draw on all relevant information. That may include information provided by other organisations such as students unions, other providers or the local community. Of course, we also plan for the OFS to make decisions having received information from the designated quality body and UKRI. The provisions in clause 58 already enable the OFS to co-operate and share information with other bodies in order to perform its functions. We expect the detail of how that should work to be set out in departmental guidance, and we plan to consult on the detail of the guidance prior to publication.
I turn to amendment 221 and the actual process of variation and revocation. Clauses 44 and 45 set out in detail what that process will look like, and we intend them to be supported by more detailed guidance. A significant safeguard in the right to appeal to the first-tier tribunal is contained in clause 45. Having a structured appeals process is vital to ensuring that providers have a clear voice and that the system can hold the trust of students and taxpayers and maintain the world-class reputation of the sector. That is a very strong protection in the Bill and means that the powers of the OFS can be checked by the judiciary.
A decision by the OFS cannot take effect before the routes of appeal are exhausted, and any order by the OFS to vary or revoke degree-awarding powers would be a statutory instrument. That would mean it could be published, thus ensuring appropriate transparency. Together, those are strong safeguards, and the amendments are therefore unnecessary. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I thank the Minister for his response and particularly for his assurance in respect of amendment 222 that there will be consultation with other organisations. I must ask the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University and various others whether they will be content with this simply being a matter for statutory instrument. We will see how the process works out, but I am content with the Minister’s assurances. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 43 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 44 and 45 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 46
Validation by authorised providers
Joseph Johnson
I beg to move amendment 75, in clause 46, page 26, line 5, leave out
“authorised taught awards and foundation degrees”
and insert
“taught awards and foundation degrees that the provider is authorised to grant”.
This amendment is technical and is needed because clause 46(5) defines “authorised” by reference to a registered higher education provider rather than a taught award or foundation degree.
The clause enables the OFS to commission registered degree-awarding bodies to extend their validation services to other registered providers, if, for example, there is a mismatch between supply and demand. The OFS can commission providers to extend their validation services only if that is allowed by the provider’s degree-awarding powers. The OFS cannot bestow new powers on degree-awarding bodies via the commissioning ability. However, the current language in this clause, which refers to
“authorised taught awards and foundation degrees”,
is a little unclear. The amendment seeks to clarify what we mean by an “authorised” award by using clearer, simpler language. It puts it beyond doubt that the OFS can commission a provider to validate only the taught awards and foundation degrees that the provider is authorised to grant. This is a technical amendment and does not change the scope, purpose or effect of the clause.
Amendment 75 agreed to.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I beg to move amendment 236, in clause 46, page 26, line 9, at end insert—
“(2A) Such commissioning arrangements shall include commissioning the Open University as a validator of last resort.”.
This amendment ensures that the Open University rather than the OfS itself is the validator of last resort.
This is a probing amendment to test the Minister’s easy-going, laissez-faire attitude about which courses can be validated and by whom. It is far from clear in clauses 46 and 47 what sort of institution the Minister has in mind for the OFS to use as a validator and, in particular, a validator of last resort. The Opposition are a little bit worried that new providers—or indeed existing providers—could be touting their degrees around different institutions just waiting for one that will validate them, and that the OFS will support that. [Interruption.]
The Chair
Order. I had a strange situation there. I had the hon. Lady speaking, the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman trying to speak to the Minister, the Minister trying to speak to the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman and the Whip trying to speak to me. I am listening intently to the hon. Member for City of Durham, who is the most important person speaking, because she has the floor at the moment. If she would continue, I can refocus.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I was saying to the Minister, who is now talking to the Whip—[Laughter.]
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (David Evennett)
We need a cup of tea!
Dr Blackman-Woods
We absolutely do. I will try to be brief.
It is far from clear who the Minister expects the OFS to have in mind as the validator of last resort. The amendment refers to the Open University as it is well known to be a high-quality validator, but that does not mean that the OFS would have to use the Open University. We hope that the Minister will reassure us that the validator of last resort would be an institution that is as highly valued and respected as the Open University, and not just whoever the OFS thinks will validate a particular course in mind so that an institution is able to run something that perhaps should not be run if proper arrangements were put in place.
Joseph Johnson
It is essential that along with the direct entry route to the market, which we discussed earlier in relation to clause 40, new providers should be able to choose to access first-class validation services if they feel that would be the right choice for them. We know from the Green Paper consultation responses that validation arrangements can be mutually beneficial for new providers and incumbents alike. They can enable new providers to draw on the knowledge, skills and expertise of more well established providers in the design and delivery of their awards, while building up their own track record of performance. For incumbent providers, validation can serve as an additional revenue stream and enable them to offer complementary HE provision to their own students. However, validation arrangements can also be one-sided, as the power to enter into, and charge for, a validation agreement lies with the validating body. In the extreme, as we have heard, that could lead to incumbent providers essentially locking new providers out of the system indefinitely, or making it prohibitively or unreasonably expensive.
I welcome the opportunity to acknowledge the important role that the Open University already plays in providing validation services, and I also welcome its general support for the need for the provisions in the clause. Furthermore, I thank the Open University for the way it is already engaging with the QAA and Independent HE to consider how to improve validation services and remove some of the barriers that new providers currently experience. However, I do not think it is right or necessary to include a role for the OU in legislation, as the amendment would have us do.
I would expect the OFS to need to adopt a purely voluntary, open, fair and transparent approach to any commissioning arrangements, so that all providers understand how they can get involved and what would be expected of them. The OFS must be able to set out the terms of the commissioning arrangements and choose the most appropriate registered higher education provider at the time, to ensure that it can continue to stimulate the development and reach of good-quality validation services. If the OU wanted to enter into commissioning arrangements to offer validation services with the OFS, the Bill would not prevent that from happening, but it would not be appropriate to prescribe a role for one registered higher education provider over another in legislation.
Turning to the intent underlying the amendment, we of course expect the parties with which the OFS enters into validating arrangements to be of similar stature to the Open University and to offer the same kind of high-quality provision. I therefore ask the hon. Member for City of Durham to withdraw the amendment.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I think it would help us if the Minister provided some further clarity on the guidance or regulations that will underpin commissioning arrangements, so that we can be absolutely certain that a high-quality provider will ultimately be commissioned as the validator of last resort. Will the Minister reflect on that and bring some further reassurances back to us? I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 46, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 47
Validation by the OfS
Joseph Johnson
I beg to move amendment 76, in clause 47, page 26, line 42, after “authorise” insert “authorised”.
This amendment and amendment 77 limit the power of the Secretary of State to make regulations allowing the OfS to authorise registered higher education providers to enter into validation arrangements on its behalf. The providers are required to be “authorised” (defined in the new subsection (6A) added by amendment 78), both to grant the taught awards or foundation degrees to which the arrangements relate, and to enter into the validation arrangements to which the arrangements relate.
Joseph Johnson
The Government’s higher education reforms will allow providers to choose which model of HE provision best suits their needs, removing any unnecessary barriers to market entry for high-quality providers and promoting institutional competition and student choice. To achieve that, it is essential that along with a direct entry route to market, HE providers that can meet relevant quality thresholds and have a degree they want to introduce into the higher education market should be able to access first-class validation services, if they feel that would be the right choice for them.
Clause 47 enables the Secretary of State to authorise the OFS to act as a validator of last resort if he or she deems it necessary or expedient. It also states that the powers set out in regulations may allow the OFS to authorise registered HE providers to validate taught awards and foundation degrees on its behalf. We intend to give the OFS the ability to validate only if there are serious circumstances that warrant it, for example if serious or intractable validation failures exist. It is vital, though, that we set the right parameters for use, which is why it will be for the Secretary of State to authorise the OFS to act as a validator of last resort should he or she deem it necessary or expedient, having taken the OFS’s advice.
The Secretary of State would then need to lay secondary regulations before Parliament, which I would expect to set out the terms and conditions of any OFS validation activity. They would provide Parliament with the opportunity to see those conditions, and Parliament would retain the power of veto. In addition, the OFS should authorise only HE providers that have the necessary degree-awarding powers to validate taught and foundation degrees on its behalf. The clause does not make that explicit, so my amendments ensure that the Secretary of State’s powers are explicitly limited in that way. That important limitation safeguards academic standards and quality, to protect student interests, and I therefore ask hon. Members to allow the amendments to be made.
Amendment 76 agreed to.
Amendments made: 77, in clause 47, page 27, line 2, at end insert—
“(4A) But regulations under subsection (1) may not include power for the OfS to authorise a provider to enter on its behalf into validation arrangements which are—
(a) arrangements in respect of taught awards or foundation degrees that the provider is not authorised to grant, or
(b) arrangements that the provider is not authorised to enter into.”
See the explanatory statement for amendment 76.
Amendment 78, in clause 47, page 27, line 11, at end insert—
“(6A) In this section, ‘authorised’, in relation to a registered higher education provider, means authorised to grant taught awards or foundation degrees, and to enter into validation arrangements, by—
(a) an authorisation given—
(i) under section40(1),
(ii) by or under any other provision of an Act of Parliament, or
(iii) by Royal Charter, or
(b) an authorisation varied under section43(1).”—(Joseph Johnson.)
This amendment defines “authorised” for the purposes of clause 47, using the same definition as is used in clause 46.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Gordon Marsden
Because of the lateness of the hour I will try to be as brief as possible, even though the Opposition believe that it is fundamentally important that the clause be deleted. I have listened to the Minister and I appreciate the modifications made by his amendments—that is why we did not oppose them—but the fact remains that there is something very strange indeed about setting out powers that could ultimately make the OFS both the regulator of the market and a participant in it. I am rather surprised to hear the Minister, with his emphasis on competitive zeal, proposing a closed shop, which is what it would be. It is not just we who think that; UUK, most of the existing groups and other contributors have said the same.
If the Government want people to trust the OFS to represent student interests properly and protect the quality of HE, it must have a vested interest in those things and in nothing else. For the Government to be producing legislation that could eventually allow the OFS to compete with other providers to validate degrees—it might one day have to be judge and jury—risks tainting the reputation of the OFS from the start, and at the very least placing it in an invidious position. That is why UUK has said that it has grave concerns about the powers in the clause. It says:
“We cannot foresee any circumstances which would justify the creation of such a clear conflict of interest in the position of the OfS, and therefore do not think the bill should grant the OfS this power regardless of any protections through parliamentary scrutiny or governmental oversight. We recommend that clause 47 is removed from the bill.”
We agree with UUK, for the reasons I have just explained, and we will oppose clause 47 standing part of the Bill.
Joseph Johnson
It is essential that along with a direct entry route into the market, new providers can choose to access first-class validation services if they feel that would be right choice for them. We need to consider how these arrangements would work in the context of the new single regulatory framework and market entry reforms, rather than the existing system. For new providers without their own degree-awarding powers that do not want to choose the direct route to market entry, their ability to find a validating partner and to negotiate a good value-for-money validation agreement with them is vital in order to become degree-level providers and to generate good-quality, innovative provision.
We only need to look at recent events at Teesside University. Following a change of leadership, Teesside University said in March this year that it would be ending its validation of higher education programmes in the wider college network outside the Tees valley in 2017—a decision that will affect 10 FE colleges. Teesside admitted that the decision was made
“purely on the university’s strategic direction of travel and not as a reflection on the quality of the provision”
it had been validating. Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said that the announcement had come as a “very unwelcome surprise” to colleges, and that it would create
“significant problems and additional work and cost”
for them as they try to seek new validating partners.
Ensuring that new high-quality providers are not locked out of the market via their preferred entry route is essential to ensuring that students are able to access the right type of higher education for them. I therefore want to ensure that the OFS has all the necessary tools at its disposal and is properly empowered to recognise and reward good practice or to quickly intervene and correct any serious systemic failures that might occur. If the OFS finds that there are insufficient providers with the capacity or appetite to enter into direct validation agreements with other providers or into commissioning arrangements with the OFS, or if those fail to correct the problem, the OFS will need to find another way to promote competition and choice.
Without these further powers, the OFS could be forced to stand by and watch while good-quality providers that do not want to seek their own degree-awarding powers remain locked out of degree-level provision indefinitely. That would be especially problematic if severe or stubborn intractable validation failures emerge. Jonathan Simons, head of education at the Policy Exchange think-tank, said that the Teesside case was a good example of why institutions should not be forced to rely on incumbents to validate their degrees. As he put it,
“Being dependent on a university for validation puts colleges in a subservient position and at the mercy of universities making decisions about withdrawing partnerships, not least when universities and colleges are competing for the same students…This is exactly why either colleges should be able to have awarding powers themselves, or there should be some sort of degree awarding council.”
Clause 47 enables the Secretary of State to authorise the OFS to act as a validator of last resort should he or she deem that necessary or expedient, having taken OFS advice. We expect the OFS board to have experience of providing HE, so its members will be well placed to understand if there is a systematic problem with validation services across the sector. I also expect OFS advice to be informed by consultation with the sector, so that it has a better understanding of the root causes of any problems and how providers and stakeholders think those can be best fixed. I envisage that the consultation would culminate in the OFS presenting the Secretary of State with a compelling, evidence-based argument that clearly demonstrates the scale, nature and severity of the validation problem and why giving it powers to validate through secondary regulation is the right solution to address that.
Such a power would also allow the OFS to delegate this role to other registered providers that can be authorised to validate awards on its behalf, as we have discussed. For example, I envisage that the OFS could choose to contract in people with the right skills and practical experience of higher education so that the validation service has access to the cohesive academic community it needs to perform this function effectively. In doing so, I expect the OFS to assure itself of the quality of any potential contracting partners, including by obtaining information from the designated quality body.
I am aware that some providers and stakeholders have raised concerns about the potential for the clause to create a conflict of interest—in other words, if the OFS is operating in the market it is regulating, as the hon. Member for Blackpool South put it. I would like to provide reassurance that that option is intended to be used only in extreme circumstances, after other measures have been tried and failed. As I have already said, regulations giving the OFS that power will be put before Parliament. If made, that secondary regulation would essentially allow the OFS to unblock any unnecessary and intractable barriers to degree-level market entry, essentially fixing a market failure.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Would not the Minister question why no other validating body is validating those courses? There is not a body of evidence out there—even at the moment—of lots of high-quality courses not being able to be validated, so I struggle to envisage a set of circumstances in which a course had gone to lots of validating panels and had not been validated and the OFS would think, “Oh yes, it’s great: I’ve got to commission something just to validate this course.” In what circumstances?
Joseph Johnson
We see this power as coherent with our overall vision for the sector of encouraging a competitive market. We see it as a backstop power that will address effectively what would be a market failure in the absence of providers able to validate high-quality provision in a certain area or subject. I urge the hon. Lady to reread the evidence the Committee was given from parties who had had difficulty securing validation agreements or who could attest to the difficulty that others had had in securing validation agreements. They are high-quality providers who had needlessly been made to run an obstacle course in pursuit of validation arrangements.
As I said, I want to provide reassurance that this option is intended to be used only in extreme circumstances after other measures have been tried and failed. It will come before Parliament in the form of secondary regulations. If made, it will allow the OFS to unblock any unnecessary and intractable barriers to degree-level market entry, enable new providers to introduce a more diverse range of innovative degree programmes to students and enable students to achieve an OFS-validated degree award.
I would expect the OFS, as the regulator of HE quality and standards and champion of student interests, to be best in class in demonstrating that its validation services abide by best practice validation principles and deliver to the highest standards. I would also expect the OFS to put in place appropriate governance arrangements that ensure that an appropriate level of independent scrutiny is applied to the validating arm of the organisation and safeguards to protect student interests.
Question put, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Joseph Johnson
I beg to move amendment 79, in clause 49, page 28, line 18, at end insert—
“( ) In subsection (10)(a)—
(a) for “means” substitute “—
(i) means”, and
(b) after “outside the United Kingdom” insert “, and
(ii) includes the Office for Students”.”
This amendment extends the definition of “United Kingdom institution” in section 214 of the Education Reform Act 1988 to include the OfS and so ensures that the offence in that section relating to offering unrecognised awards granted by such an institution also covers awards granted by the OfS.
Joseph Johnson
The amendments will make some clarifications to clauses 49 and 50, which amend the unrecognised degree provisions in the Education Reform Act 1988.
Amendment 79 will ensure that we take a consistent approach to the offence of providing unrecognised degrees. Degree awards made by the OFS and by persons wrongly purporting to be the OFS will also fall within the scope of the provisions concerning unrecognised degrees.
Amendments 80 to 83 and 85 to 87 will ensure that when an English body is included in a recognised body order, it will not be presumed able to grant any or all degrees if its powers have been granted under the Bill. To see what degrees it can grant, it will be necessary to refer to the order that gives or varies its powers to grant degrees. Such orders and regulations will be statutory instruments and should be published accordingly. These provisions are part of the steps that we are taking to ensure, for example, that an English provider that is given only the power to grant bachelor degrees can be caught by the unrecognised degree offence if it grants a masters degree.
Amendment 84 is corrective in nature. It reflects that providers with degree-awarding powers that enable them to validate are free to enter into validating agreements with other bodies without needing further authorisation under the Bill to approve a course. Any validation agreements whereby courses are approved will still need to be in accordance with that body’s academic governance arrangements.
Amendment 88 makes it clear that existing orders relating to degree-awarding bodies remain valid. The status of providers listed on those orders will only be affected if the OFS subsequently varies or revokes their degree-awarding powers.
Amendment 79 agreed to.
Clause 49, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 50
Unrecognised degrees: supplementary
Amendments made: 80, in clause 50, page 28, line 36, at end insert—
“( ) For subsection (1) substitute—
(1) The appropriate authority may by order designate each body which appears to the authority to be a recognised body within subsection (4)(a), (b) or (c).
(1A) For the purposes of sections 214 and 215, any body for the time being designated by an order under subsection (1) as a recognised body within subsection (4)(c) is conclusively presumed to be such a body.”.
This amendment and amendment 86 amend the power of the OfS, the Welsh Ministers and the Scottish Ministers under section 216(1) of the Education Reform Act 1988 to designate those bodies which appear to them to be authorised to grant degrees or other awards. In the case of bodies authorised under the Bill to grant awards (i.e. English higher or further education providers or the OfS) or bodies permitted to act on behalf of such bodies to grant awards, designation does not result in a conclusive presumption that they have power to do so. Whether an award granted by such a designated body is a “recognised award” and so exempt from the offence under section 214 of the 1988 Act will depend upon whether the body is authorised to grant the award in question.
Amendment 81, in clause 50, page 28, line 37, leave out “subsections (1) and” and insert “subsection”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 80.
Amendment 82, in clause 50, page 29, line 13, leave out
“falling within paragraph (za) or (zb) of section 214(2)”
and insert
“within subsection (4)(a) or (b)”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 80.
Amendment 83, in clause 50, page 29, line 16, leave out “that paragraph” and insert “subsection (4)(a)”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 80.
Amendment 84, in clause 50, page 29, line 18, leave out from “body” to end of line 19.
This amendment amends one of the new requirements which clause 50 adds to section 216(3) of the Education Reform Act 1988 for being a body listed under subsection (2) of that section. The new requirement enables a body to be listed where it provides a course in preparation for a degree to be granted by a recognised body with degree awarding powers under the Bill. The course must be approved by the recognised body. The amendment removes the requirement that the approval has to be authorised by the recognised body’s degree awarding powers.
Amendment 85, in clause 50, page 29, line 20, leave out
“falling within paragraph (a) or (b) of section 214(2)”
and insert “within subsection (4)(c)”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 80.
Amendment 86, in clause 50, page 29, line 22, leave out from “subsection (4),” to the end and insert
“after ‘means’ insert
‘—(a) a body which is authorised to grant awards by—
(i) an authorisation given under section40(1) of the Higher Education and Research Act 2016 (“the 2016 Act”),
(ii) an authorisation varied under section43(1) of the 2016 Act, or
(iii) regulations under section47(1) of the 2016 Act,
(b) a body for the time being permitted by a body within paragraph (a) to act on its behalf in the granting of awards where the grant of the awards by that other body on its behalf is authorised by the authorisation or regulations mentioned in paragraph (a), or
(c) ’.”
See the explanatory statement for amendment 80.
Amendment 87, in clause 50, page 29, line 22, at end insert—
“( ) In the heading, after ‘awards’ insert ‘etc’.”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 80.
Amendment 88, in clause 50, page 29, line 33, leave out
“by the Secretary of State”.—(Joseph Johnson.)
This amendment is consequential on amendment 80 and makes clear that no orders made under section 216 of the Education Reform Act 1988, whether by the Secretary of State, the Welsh Ministers or the Scottish Ministers, before the coming into force of clause 50 are affected by the amendments made by that clause.
Clause 50, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 51
Use of “university” in title of institution
Dr Blackman-Woods
I beg to move amendment 237, in clause 51, page 30, line 16, at end insert—
“(2A) The power may be exercised as to include the word university in the name of the institution only when it can demonstrate that—
(a) it offers access to a range of cultural activities including, but not restricted to, the opportunity to undertake sport and recreation and access to a range of student societies and organisations;
(b) it provides students support and wellbeing services including specialist learning support;
(c) it provides opportunities for volunteering;
(d) it provides the opportunity to join a students’ union; and
(e) it plays a positive civic role.”
This amendment ensures that a broad range of activities and opportunities are available to students before allowing a higher education institute to use the title of ‘university’.
The Committee has already gone round the houses on this issue, but the amendment specifically addresses what sort of institution can use “university” in its title. We previously discussed whether something that was not a university could be called one. The amendment would ensure that if something has “university” in its title, it is actually a university, not an institution that is delivering either a single subject—as appeared to be the case in the Minister’s earlier example—or a range of subjects but with nothing else that would enable any of us to recognise it as a university.
Our universities have an excellent reputation not only for providing high-quality education but for delivering all sorts of other things alongside it, such as access to a range of cultural activities, sporting and other recreational activities, good-quality student support, access to health and wellbeing services, specialist support where necessary, opportunities for volunteering and the opportunity to join a student union. The institution itself plays a positive civic role. From clause 51, it appears that absolutely none of that will be necessary in the future for an institution to be called a university. If that is not massively dumbing down our university system, I do not know what is.
I see no justification for allowing an institution to use university in its title when it is clearly not a university and does not provide the range of services associated with a university. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say to assure us that he will uphold the quality and excellence of our higher education sector and ensure that all students get not only a chance to have those higher level skills, but an opportunity for personal development and sporting development in a place where their specialist educational needs are supported by the institution.
Joseph Johnson
We return to the criteria that we expect providers to meet in order to obtain a university title, which we discussed quite extensively at an earlier stage in the proceedings. As I have said before, we only want providers with full degree-awarding powers to be eligible for a university title. That process tests, among other things, academic standards and whether there is a cohesive academic community. It is a high bar that only high-quality providers will be able to meet. We are clear that we want to maintain that high bar in the future.
The amendment highlights the breadth of opportunities offered by participation in a higher education course. I welcome the idea behind it, but I do not believe such a prescription is desirable in legislation. There are many examples of extracurricular activities and experiences offered by higher education institutions, such as sporting groups, the arts, associations and exchange opportunities, and many providers play an important role in their local communities in that respect. I agree that in many cases these activities contribute greatly to a student’s learning and personal and professional development and can be as much a part of their education as traditional lectures. When a student is deciding where to study, they are making a decision based on many factors, for example, the qualification they will receive, the cultural and social opportunities, the student organisations they could join and what support is available to them. One size does not fit all and student populations vary hugely in their requirements, as we discussed before. As independent and autonomous organisations, higher education institutions are themselves best placed to decide what experiences they may offer to students and what relationships they have with other local organisations, without prescription from central Government.
Paul Blomfield
In response to an earlier remark I made, the Minister said that he expected all universities to provide services to support students’ mental health. Does he stand by that remark in this context?
Joseph Johnson
That is their duty under the Equality Act 2010—they have to ensure that students are not discriminated against if they have mental health issues and so on—and also their duty of care. That is an important part of what universities do in supporting students, who they have autonomously admitted, through their studies. Having taken that decision, it is important that universities make sure that those students have the academic and the counselling support to enable them to get through their courses of study.
As now, we intend to set out in guidance the detailed criteria and processes for gaining university title, and we plan to consult on the detail before publication. The OFS will then make decisions having regard to that guidance. I therefore ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I have listened carefully to the Minister’s comments. Allowing the possibility of university title being granted to a single-course institution with no supporting services or extracurricular activity is not setting a high bar; it is setting an extremely low bar. The reality of clause 51 is that an institution—a single-course institution—could become a university with no additional services or offers whatever to students.
I heard what the Minister said about guidance and I assume that that guidance will address the specific concerns that I raised previously in Committee and this afternoon. On the basis of the fact that the Minister will produce guidance and, presumably, will let us have some idea of what is going to be in that guidance before we finish our deliberations on the Bill, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 51 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 52 to 55 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(David Evennett.)
Higher Education and Research Bill (Ninth sitting)
Tuesday 11th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Higher Education and Research Act 2017 View all Higher Education and Research Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 October 2016 - (11 Oct 2016)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 11 / Noes: 5 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 199, in clause 25, page 15, line 17, at end insert?
‘(3) No arrangements for a scheme shall be made under subsection (1) unless a draft of the scheme has been laid before and approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.”
This amendment and amendment 198 would ensure TEF measures were subject to scrutiny by, and approval of, both Houses of Parliament.
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope—unexpectedly, as you take the place of Sir Edward and the other standing Chair of the Committee. I thank hon. Members for tabling this amendment. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Blackpool South was not here to move it, but his colleague did so superbly and briefly, which is the sort of taciturn approach to moving amendments that we welcome and would like to see followed throughout the rest of today’s proceedings. I do not, however, believe that the amendment is necessary to achieve its objectives or, indeed, proportionate, given the protections we have put in the Bill. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
My apologies for my lateness; Members will not be surprised to hear that it was a result of Network Rail.
I do not believe that the Government’s record so far in saying there are sufficient safeguards gives us a great deal of confidence. The truth of the matter is that there are still major issues with the teaching excellence framework that cannot simply be resolved down the Committee corridor at some point. They need proper and full scrutiny on the Floor of the House of Commons, which is why we tabled these amendments. In a spirit of good will, and because my colleague moved the amendment in my place, I will not detain the Committee further. I do, however, note that we view the whole way in which the TEF is being handled in administrative and governmental terms as very fishy. We will continue to probe the Minister on it, so his hopes of a swift finish to the day might be dashed.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
I would like to say a few words about the TEF, rather than the amendments as such. I want to put on record my concern about the way in which people are being swept along, believing that the TEF is particularly meaningful. I had a discussion a few days ago with Professor Jack Dowie, who, as some Members may know, is considered somewhat of a world expert in judgment and decision making. As he put it to me,
“Some instruments measure something that exists independently, like a tumour, and the items in the instrument, like symptoms and signs, are used to reflect the construct”,
which is doing something meaningful.
“However, some instruments claim to measure something that does not exist independently, and university quality is one such thing.”
Two Middlesex University lecturers, Dr Maeve Hosier and Ashley Hoolash, have kindly sent me for review an academic article that has not yet been published. They have just completed a study of the six major league table ranking systems, which are based on different instruments of assessment, and have quite understandably found that they all come up with completely different rankings of universities dependent upon the instruments used. This is just a caution that people should not read too much into how meaningful these types of system actually are.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Joseph Johnson
I beg to move amendment 37, in clause 25, page 15, line 14, after “ratings” insert “—
(a) ”.
This amendment is linked to amendment 40.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 40, 41, 108, 109, 112 and 113.
Joseph Johnson
I am delighted to move these amendments. One of the strengths of our higher education sector is the way it operates across the whole UK. Though education is devolved, that has not stopped us working together for the benefit of all. This is no different for the TEF. My officials and I are working closely with our counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and we have set out in our White Paper that that has led to higher education providers across the whole UK being able to participate in the first year of the TEF. We have had positive discussions with the HE sectors themselves to ensure that year 2 of the TEF takes account of the different approaches in each nation and ensures that every provider is assessed on a level playing field. I am delighted that all three of the devolved Administrations have now confirmed that their providers will be allowed to take part in year 2 of the TEF if they so wish.
As Alastair Sim of Universities Scotland said, when giving evidence to the Committee,
“the engagement with the Department for Education has been constructive and creative about how the metrics of the TEF might be configured in ways that take account of Scottish interests.” —[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2016; c. 67, Q103.]
These amendments allow that kind of collaboration to continue so the OFS can, subject to the consent of the relevant devolved Government, receive applications for TEF assessments from providers across the UK. Amendments 37, 40, 112 and 113 will enable Ministers in the devolved Governments to decide whether to opt in or out of the TEF scheme. Even if a devolved Minister gives their consent, participation in TEF will remain voluntary for individual providers, as it is in England.
I am keen to address the points made in the evidence sessions about the need for the TEF to recognise the distinctive approaches to higher education across the UK, and we have ensured that the devolved nations are fully represented in the governance structure for the TEF going forward. Amendments 41 and 108 ensure we are using the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish definitions of “higher education course” for the purposes of the TEF. Amendment 109 amends clause 80 so that, where Welsh Ministers exercise their existing powers to set maximum fee loans in Wales, they can do so by reference to matters outside of regulations. That could be the list of providers and their relevant tuition fee limits, based on their TEF ratings, which will be published by the OFS.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I will raise some of the issues and concerns that Scottish institutions have with the TEF. The Minister has rightly said that Scottish institutions now have the ability to participate in the TEF, but Scottish institutions already have their own quality assurance under the enhancement-led institutional review. That is a collaborative quality assessment that looks at improving standards across the board, whereas the metrics within the TEF at the moment seem to lower standards somewhat. The problem that Scottish institutes have if they do not participate in the TEF is that when they compete in the international market students can look at somewhere with a high TEF rating and compare it with Scottish universities that might not have participated. If some do and some do not, there is a two-tier process.
We would look for some benchmarking of Scotland’s quality assurance against the TEF, so that institutions that choose to participate in the TEF do not disadvantage others or do not have to undergo a double level of quality assurance. We ask that the enhancement-led institutional review should be recognised as meeting the requirements of TEF year 1, to avoid any detriment to Scottish higher education.
Joseph Johnson
Let me reiterate that these amendments provide enabling powers for the OFS to run a TEF scheme that includes higher education providers across the UK subject, as I said, to the consent of Ministers in those Administrations. I am delighted that my devolved counterparts have agreed that they are content to allow their providers to participate in TEF in year 2. We welcome the commitment of Scottish Ministers to allow their universities—their higher education institutions—to participate if they wish to do so. We certainly take on board all the points made by the hon. Lady.
Amendment 37 agreed to.
Joseph Johnson
I beg to move amendment 38, in clause 25, page 15, line 15, after “and” insert “the”.
This amendment ensures that the OfS can assess all of the standards that apply to the higher education provided by a provider and ensures consistency with the language in clause 23(1).
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 39, 44, 46 to 48, 51, 54 to 58, 65 and 66.
Joseph Johnson
I turn now to a relatively large group of minor and technical amendments, which will provide consistency of language and drafting across the Bill as well as additional clarity on specific points.
I do not wish to spend a lot of the Committee’s time on these, as they are purely technical amendments that do not change the core policy. All of them, except for amendments 56 and 65, ensure the language is consistent across clauses 23, 25, 26 and schedule 4.
Amendment 56 clarifies that when the Secretary of State removes a quality body’s designation, she must set out all of the reasons for the decision. Amendment 65 clarifies that “graduate”, for the purposes of schedule 4, means a graduate of a higher education course provided in England. As the designated body will be undertaking functions only in England, it was important to clarify that we were talking only about graduates of a course provided in England.
Amendment 38 agreed to.
Amendments made: 39, in clause 25, page 15, line 15, leave out second “the”.
This amendment ensures that the language of clause 25 is consistent with clause 23 and clarifies that a scheme can cover some or all of the education provided by a provider.
Amendment 40, in clause 25, page 15, line 16, after “rating” insert “, and
(a) to higher education providers in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, in respect of whom the appropriate consent is given, regarding the quality of, and the standards applied to, higher education that they provide where they apply for such a rating.
‘(1A) “The appropriate consent” means—
(a) in the case of a higher education provider in Wales, the consent of the Welsh Ministers to the application of subsection (1) to the provider;
(b) in the case of a higher education provider in Scotland, the consent of the Scottish Ministers to the application of subsection (1) to the provider;
(c) in the case of a higher education provider in Northern Ireland, the consent of the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland to the application of subsection (1) to the provider.
(1B) Such consent—
(a) may be given either generally in respect of all providers or in respect of providers of a particular description or named providers,
(b) is given by notifying the Chair of the OfS, and
(c) is valid until it is revoked by notifying the Chair.
(1C) For the purposes of applying the definition of “higher education provider” in section 75(1) to subsections (1)(b) and (1A), the reference to “higher education” in that definition—
(a) in the case of an institution in Wales, has the meaning given in section 75(1);
(b) in the case of an institution in Scotland, has the same meaning as in section 38 of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 1992;
(c) in the case of an institution in Northern Ireland, has the same meaning as in Article 2(2) of the Further Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 (S.I. 1997/1772 (N.I. 15));
and the reference to “higher education” in subsection (1)(b) is to be read accordingly.”
This amendment and amendment 41 extend the power of the OfS to make arrangements under clause 25 for a scheme for giving ratings to English higher education providers regarding the quality of, and the standards applied to, higher education that they provide so as to also include Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish higher education providers where the relevant devolved administration consents and the provider applies for a rating. Amendments 108, 112 and 113 are related amendments.
Amendment 41, in clause 25, page 15, line 17, at end insert—
‘(3) For the purposes of applying that definition of “standards” to subsection (1)(b), the reference to a “higher education course” in that definition—
(a) in the case of an institution in Wales, has the meaning given in section75(1);
(b) in the case of an institution in Scotland, means a course falling within section 38 of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 1992;
(c) in the case of an institution in Northern Ireland, means a course of any description mentioned in Schedule 1 to the Further Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 (S.I. 1997/1772 (N.I. 15)).”—(Joseph Johnson.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 40.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 286, in clause 25, page 15, line 17, at end insert—
‘(3) In making arrangements under subsection (1), the OfS must, after a period of consultation, make—
(a) an assessment of the evidence that any proposed metric for assessing teaching quality is in fact linked to teaching quality; and
(b) an assessment of potential unintended consequences which could arise from an institution seeking to optimise its score on each metric, with proposals on how these risks can best be mitigated.
(4) The assessment under subsection (3) must be made public.”
This amendment would require an assessment of the evidence of the reliability of the TEF metrics to be made and for the assessment to be published.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I hope this is a proposal on which we can find agreement across the Committee. With this amendment, I am seeking to reflect the recommendation made unanimously by the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, when we looked at teaching quality in our recent report. There were some areas where we robustly did not agree, but this is a matter on which we did, and I am sure that if I deviate from that consensus, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase will pick me up on it. Although we fully endorsed the Government’s focus on teaching excellence, in the light of evidence we heard we were concerned about getting the arrangements right. The metrics being proposed were not, as the Government recognised, measures of teaching quality; they were rough proxies.
The three key metrics are employment, retention and the national student survey. We discussed employment briefly under earlier clauses. In all the evidence we received, and certainly across the Committee, it was recognised that employment destination, although important, is not a satisfactory measure of teaching quality. That is an important point, and it is an issue that the Government are concerned about in relation to their work on social mobility and creating opportunities, on which the Prime Minister has put great emphasis. If someone comes from the right school and the right family and goes to the right Oxbridge college, it does not matter how well they are taught; they will probably end up in a good job; that is widely recognised. Employment destination is not a measure of teaching quality. The Select Committee were concerned that that is a flawed metric for measuring teaching excellence. That is not controversial; it is something on which we find cross-party agreement.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Even allowing for benchmarking, universities experience very different local labour markets that students can easily move into. Does he agree that that has not been sufficiently taken on board by the Minister?
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend highlights a point made to our Select Committee: a simple, crude focus on people’s salary and employment outcomes fails to recognise the enormous difference between regions. As someone who represents a Sheffield constituency and both Sheffield universities, I am very conscious of that, and it is a point that has been made powerfully to me. We felt as a Select Committee that the employment metric was flawed.
On the retention metric, although the Committee celebrated the Government’s intention to focus on retention, in the work on access and widening participation the focus should be not simply on getting people to university, but on ensuring that they succeed there and have good outcomes after graduation. The focus on retention is welcome, but we were not convinced that it was right as a metric for measuring teaching quality. We have seen in school league tables and how we measure schools’ performance that such a focus can lead to unintended and perverse outcomes. The easiest way to up a retention score would be to ensure that the intake of students did not include too many people who would struggle to succeed. That clearly is not what the Government want, and it is not what any of us want.
Dr Blackman-Woods
That runs completely counter to what the Government say their social mobility agenda is, because it will make universities less likely to take people who they think are higher risk—mature students, perhaps, or students who have a range of problems. That would be a really unfortunate consequence of the way the legislation is drafted.
Paul Blomfield
Our Select Committee was very focused on the Government’s welcome and ambitious targets to improve the representation of those from less advantaged backgrounds in higher education, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that this metric could lead to exactly those unintended and perverse outcomes.
Carol Monaghan
The hon. Gentleman is making a lot of sense. There is also a danger that university courses that are tougher or potentially tougher could be dropped because they would have student leakage. I am talking particularly about science, technology engineering and maths subjects, such as physics, where there are great shortages. We should be protecting against anything that causes losses in those areas.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the hon. Lady for raising another dimension of precisely the problem that we were concerned about: that although well intentioned, the retention metric could lead to gaming, unintended consequences, and outcomes that run counter to the Government’s own objectives.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
We discussed this issue at great length in the Select Committee. The hon. Gentleman is going through each of the metrics individually, but actually they make up a basket of metrics and they need to be looked at as such. Does he agree that one thing that came out of the Select Committee was that we have these quantitative metrics, but there are also the qualitative metrics? We will be looking at things more in the round. Although there are the metrics that the hon. Gentleman is going through individually, they need to be looked at as a basket and as ones that will be developing over time. Learning gain was another metric that we considered. The sector should be engaging in this process.
Paul Blomfield
The hon. Lady knows that I completely agree that the metrics should be developed over time. We have heard on many occasions the teaching excellence framework compared with the research excellence framework. Getting the REF right has taken several years. My concern—shared by the Select Committee, I think—is that we should not blunder into a scheme that will measure universities inaccurately when it is such an important flagship for the Government’s policies. I also agree that there is a basket of metrics, but the Government’s focus in all their publications and all the commentary has been on just three. I was simply highlighting the concerns that I think she will agree the Select Committee had about those three, which are at the heart of the basket.
The third metric, of course, is the national student survey. I will say at the outset that I think the NSS has been an extremely positive tool to engage universities in focusing on teaching quality, and I think it is fine to build on it in many ways. For example, universities’ consistently poor rating for assessment and feedback in the NSS has led to real change in the relationship between teachers and students. The NSS itself is quite positive, but in the Committee we heard clearly that there is, as I think everyone in the room would recognise, a difference between measuring general satisfaction and measuring teaching quality. There is a difference between the satisfaction of students and knowing confidently that they are well taught.
Carol Monaghan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. As a former teacher, I know well that what comes back in such surveys can often be personality driven and has no bearing on the quality of teaching. We have to look at student satisfaction with a degree of caution.
Paul Blomfield
The hon. Lady is right. As we all know from our university days and school days, there can be a huge difference between enjoying a class—having a great time with a particular teacher and liking that person enormously—and being well taught.
Roger Mullin
To give one example, when I was teaching at Stirling University about 30 years ago, my feedback from one student said “Nice eyes and a gorgeous bum.” [Laughter.]
Paul Blomfield
Even from my position sitting in this Committee Room, I would not wish to assess that evaluation, but I understand why the hon. Gentleman might want to share that with the Committee. It highlights in a particularly graphic way how we know the NSS does not provide a satisfactory metric in that respect. However, as the Government said, these are proxies.
The amendment would ensure, as the Select Committee recommended, that the office for students has a responsibility, in overseeing the metrics, to ensure that they can confidently and accurately measure teaching quality and nothing else—not the personal features of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, not employment outcomes based on family background and school connections, but teaching quality. On that we are all agreed, and I therefore hope the Government will feel able to accept the amendment.
Joseph Johnson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling the amendment on a subject that he and I have discussed on many occasions over the last year or so. I am sure we will continue to do so for some time to come.
The summary of our position is that excellent teaching can occur in many forms. There is no one-size-fits-all definition of teaching excellence, but great teaching, defined broadly, increases the likelihood of good outcomes, and metrics are crucial to measuring those outcomes. Chris Husbands, the TEF chair and vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam, has noted that the TEF’s approach is realistic about the difficulty of assessing teaching quality. He wrote:
“It does not pretend to be a direct audit of the quality of teaching. Instead, it uses a range of evidence to construct a framework within which to make an assessment—looking at a range of data on teaching quality, learning environments and student outcomes.”
In developing the metrics, we and the Higher Education Funding Council for England have listened carefully to the consultation feedback. We have used a set of criteria to decide which metrics to use: that they must be robust, valid, comprehensive, credible and current. We wanted to use tried and tested data sets that are already widely established in the sector, not least to avoid the need to collect new data and impose a burden on institutions. There is currently a limited set of metrics that meet those criteria, but those metrics do allow for differentiation across providers. For example, on retention and student outcomes, many providers are well above or below the current sector-accepted benchmark. Quality teaching clearly makes a difference. To quote Chris Husbands again, his
“sense is that as the system matures, the metrics will also mature, but it is difficult to argue that teaching quality, learning environment and student outcomes are not the right places to look to make an assessment.”
We consulted extensively on the metrics as part of the year 2 technical consultation and made further improvements to the way the metrics were handled. The sector has welcomed our changes. For example, on the publication of the TEF year 2 documentation, Maddalaine Ansell, the chief executive of University Alliance, said:
“There are decisions here that we strongly welcome, such as a broader approach to benchmarking…and a more granular system for looking at performance differences… We remain confident that we can work with government to shape the TEF so it works well as it develops.”
Let me turn to some of the specific points that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central and other hon. Members made on the metrics proposed and on widening participation. Essentially, the question was, “Won’t the TEF metrics and the TEF process itself encourage providers not to take people from disadvantaged groups?” The answer to that question is clearly no. Providers will be required to demonstrate their commitment to widening participation as a precondition of taking part in the TEF. Assessors will consider how the provider performs across all modes of delivery and its effectiveness at meeting the needs of students from different backgrounds. The assessment process will, however, explicitly look at the extent to which the provider achieves positive outcomes for disadvantaged groups, and the metrics will be benchmarked to prevent the TEF being gamed and to ensure that no institution is penalised for having a large cohort of disadvantaged students.
It is worthwhile reflecting on what a current vice-chancellor says about this aspect of the TEF in relation to widening participation. Edward Peck, the vice-chancellor of Nottingham Trent, recently wrote:
“Emphasising widening access, selecting these metrics, and connecting TEF and fee flexibility will prompt, if pursued rigorously, ever more serious consideration within universities of the ways in which young people from poorer backgrounds get in, are supported in staying, and get decent jobs when they leave. These are just the conversations that we ought to be having in universities more often and with greater results.”
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am sure it is always possible to find one vice-chancellor who might agree with the Government’s approach, but the Minister must have had representations from a range of universities, including the Open University, that are really concerned about the weight that is being attached to things like retention. I know they have raised that with Committee members; I would be astonished if they had not raised it with the Minister.
Joseph Johnson
I think the hon. Lady is trying to present the TEF metric as being in conflict with widening participation. It is not; it is supportive of it. It is a precondition of participating in the TEF that institutions need an access agreement, and that sets an increasingly high bar for their commitment to widening participation. Research by the Social Market Foundation, for example, has found that there is no link between increased widening participation and worsening continuation rates. The hon. Lady and her colleague are setting up an Aunt Sally or a straw man; there is no evidence of the link that they are asking the Committee to consider.
While non-continuation rates are higher among the most disadvantaged students, some institutions are clearly successful at keeping those low as well. This cannot just be because some institutions are selective and have enrolled the most qualified and motivated students from disadvantaged groups. The Social Market Foundation research points to a number of institutions, with different profiles, that are making a success of the student experience. They include City University, St Mary’s Twickenham, Aston, Bishop Grosseteste, Lincoln and Kingston, which have among the highest retention rates of all institutions for the most disadvantaged students.
It is also worth hon. Members listening to what Les Ebdon, the director of fair access, had to say on this matter, because he probably knows more about it than anybody in the business. To quote his response to the TEF year 2 publication:
“The minister has made it clear that he sees fair access as being integral to the TEF, and I welcome the publication of the year 2 specification. The links to fair access have been further strengthened, following clear support from the sector in their consultation responses. It is especially pleasing to see specific measures on positive outcomes for disadvantaged students, and clear instructions to TEF panellists that they should consider disadvantaged students at every stage.”
Paul Blomfield
I want to raise a slightly different point on retention. The Minister will be aware of the recent publication by the Higher Education Policy Institute of a report produced by Poppy Brown that discusses the crisis in mental health in our universities, the growing concern across the sector and the investment of some institutions in, and different responses to, the challenge. What are his thoughts on the effect that growing crisis in mental health might have on achieving successful outcomes in retention and what support universities might need in doing that?
Joseph Johnson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that subject. I commend the vice-chancellor of Buckingham University, Anthony Seldon, for leading a campaign to raise awareness of this important issue across the HE sector. It is vital that universities take full responsibility for the wellbeing of their students, towards whom they have a duty of care. Ensuring that students are supported throughout their studies, including during difficult periods relating to mental health or other issues that cause them to need counselling services, is an important part of a university’s overall pastoral role.
The hon. Member for City of Durham asked about regional employment variations across the system and how they will be taken into consideration in the TEF. That is an important point to which the Department has been giving considerable thought in developing the TEF. The TEF assessors will be able to take local employment into account when they assess providers’ qualitative submissions. If providers believe it is relevant to provide regional employment maps alongside their data on outcomes through the destination of leavers from higher education survey, the panel of assessors will be ready to take any such points into consideration. Of course, it is worth bearing in mind that students are mobile to a great extent and that we live in a national labour market. Regional employment maps will not be the only factor that assessors take into account, but they will take them into account in making their broad, rounded assessment of a university’s contribution to good outcomes.
In our consultation on the TEF metrics we received strong support for our proposals, with more than 70% of respondents welcoming our approach to contextualising data and the provider submissions. We will continue to review the metrics in use, and where there is a strong case to do so, we will add new metrics to future rounds of the TEF. We have taken and will continue to take a reasoned approach to the metrics. We have thought carefully, consulted widely and commissioned expert advice. Given the co-regulatory approach I have described, we expect the OFS to take a similar approach in future. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Sheffield Central to withdraw his amendment.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the Minister for his remarks. He is right to say that we have discussed this issue at length on many occasions, and no doubt we will continue to do so. I have also discussed it at length with Chris Husbands, whom the Minister cites extensively.
I do not want to take up the Committee’s time by critiquing the Minister’s remarks. He said much with which I agree, although I disagree with some points. I simply ask that we focus on what the amendment says, because I do not think it contradicts anything that he has just said. It simply says that
“the OfS must, after a period of consultation, make…an assessment of the evidence that any proposed metric for assessing teaching quality is in fact linked to teaching quality”.
If he would like to say where he disagrees with the idea that metrics on teaching quality should demonstrate teaching quality, I would be happy to take an intervention. In the absence of that, I feel that I should press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Gordon Marsden
I begin by apologising for not having said earlier that it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I needed to get my breath back. Perhaps I need to get my breath back even more now, given the breathtaking complacency the Minister has just demonstrated towards my colleague’s amendment.
That amendment, blocked by the full weight of the silent Government Back Benchers, would have done nothing but put into effect what the Government claim they wish to do with the TEF. Let me take the Committee to the wording of the clause, because words matter and the way in which clauses are drafted matters. It is remarkable that the teaching excellence framework clause is literally the clause that dare not speak its name. It states:
“The OfS may make arrangements”—
it might just think about it when it is at it, sometime—
“for a scheme to give ratings to English higher education providers regarding the quality of, and standards applied to, the higher education that they provide where they apply for such a rating”.
The Government are signalling right in the middle of the clause that they do not want debate on the Floor of the House or in any meaningful measure about the nature of the teaching excellence framework. Persistently, in the Bill and in their comments, the Government have made that very clear.
During the recess, on 29 September, the Government published their ratings plans for year 2. You were not in the Chair, Mr Chope, but before the conference recess, Opposition Members complained that documents that should have been made available to the Committee were not made available proactively, but simply put on the Government’s website. The Minister responded very positively on that occasion and various papers have been submitted to the Committee, and we have had papers for part 3. However, I have checked with my colleagues and I have to say that their ability to get hold of the information depended on going to the website and reading the papers from that day, because this was brought out during the recess.
If I sound sceptical and sometimes rather cynical about the Minister’s assurances, it is because at every stage and every turn so far, the Government have done their best to hide the TEF’s merits under a bushel, as far as parliamentary process and scrutiny are concerned. The wording that has been chosen is interesting because it is almost as if the Minister and the people who drafted the clause know that they are trying to dodge the scrutiny of Parliament and therefore the words that dare not be spoken—teaching excellence framework—are not included in the clause.
We are not going to make a formal complaint that the paper was not circulated to all members of the Committee, but I hope the Minister will bear in mind his good intentions before the conference recess and ensure that, in the limited time left to us, when new documents are published that are germane to the Committee, they are circulated to all members of the Committee and not simply put on an obscure part of the website where people have to look for them.
I think it is fair to say that the announcement on 29 September essentially gave universities and higher education providers an extra year to try to get their situation right before the details of the TEF came into effect in terms of properly analysing and judging the merits or demerits of universities. I do not want the Minister to stand up and say, “Oh, Labour don’t believe in the TEF,” as he did before the conference recess. I emphasise that we do believe in the importance of teaching excellence; we do believe in the importance of teaching excellence framework. What we are concerned about is that the merits of that teaching excellence framework need to be properly and fully explored before it becomes tainted by being regarded simply as an automatic mechanism to increase fees year on year.
This is highly germane, Mr Chope, to the approach the Government have chosen to adopt. They responded to various providers’ comments on the initial draft that the intended wording was not sensible. The Government came up with a new formula: in year 2, HE providers would be judged according to three categories—bronze, silver and gold. Perhaps, as one or two commentators said, the heady achievements of our Olympic and Paralympic teams in Rio swayed some bored official in an office who was trying to think up new phrases to describe this thing that had been comprehensively criticised for its terminology by the university sector. I am not particularly opposed to the idea of gold, silver and bronze in its own right, but the fact of the matter is, as a number of commentators have noted, it is selling a pig in a poke.
I refer the Minister to an interesting article that appeared on the Wonkhe website, which I am sure he is familiar with as he has appeared on it from time to time. The article went into some detail—probably more detail, Mr Chope, than you or I would necessarily want to do other than for the purposes of scrutinising the Bill—about the associated papers that went with the Bill. I will quote from the article because it is relevant to the way in which the Government are getting the whole process of the TEF wrong. In the article by Mr Bagshaw, he writes:
“In the government’s response to the consultation it is rightly noted that the original judgements”—
the original judgments were “meet expectations”, “excellence” and “outstanding”—
“were hopelessly indistinguishable…. Perhaps this is a case of grade deflation… Passing one’s QAA review was supposed to be something of a ‘gold standard’ in international higher education. Yet just meeting that gold standard will now only merit a lowly Bronze award, which virtually everyone will receive by default—at least.
The medal system might satisfy an ‘all must have prizes’ mentality, but it risks forcing what is actually a fine-grained judgement into three uneasy buckets: will the sector really bear the idea that…half of its ‘excellence’ is merely Silver? That’s the anticipated distribution, with 20% Bronze, 50-60% Silver and 20-30% Gold.”
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (David Evennett)
An expert!
Gordon Marsden
Not necessarily an expert, but someone who might have actually read all the details of what has come about. If the Government Whip wants to do his usual noises off, I will refer him to a number of other people that he might have heard of.
That is one element of what has been said. Despite what the Minister has tried to make out, it is not the case that all universities are throwing their hats up in the air at what has been arranged for TEF year 2. Vice-chancellor and chair of MillionPlus Dave Phoenix said in the context of the announcement about part 2:
“The decision to include additional benchmarking criteria such as socio-economic background and disability is a step in the right direction.”
However, we remain concerned about the timetable for implementation and the link with fees. The chief executive of the University Alliance mission group said that
“the merits of a highly skilled employment metric and the medal-style ratings system will need to be tested. The trial year will be vital to getting this right.”
However, while they are getting it right—or otherwise—in the second year, they will all be allowed to increase their tuition fees by the rate of inflation or whatever mechanism the Government decide they need to employ at that time. I thought that one of the principles of the Olympics was to go “higher, faster and stronger” but it seems to me that the result of the way in which the Government has shoehorned this TEF and linked it in is that the fees are the only thing that will be going higher.
Knowing what is going on in the financial markets today and given Mervyn King’s remarks about rises in the rate of inflation, it is a reasonable guesstimate that fees may well be 3.5% or even 4.5% higher by the time year 2 starts. Nobody knows—not me, not the Minister—but the Government are cheerfully imposing this linkage without any extra demonstration of quality of the sort that they say is essential to the process of the teaching excellence framework. How is that a good recommendation for the TEF? To the criticisms that were levelled when the announcement was made, the Government spokesperson replied:
“Universities will not be able to increase their fees unless they pass rigorous quality standards.”
I have already made the point that these are not going to be “rigorous quality standards” in year 2; at best, they will be a move in that direction. They are certainly not going to be quality standards if a provider can achieve a bronze standard and apparently be regarded as not entirely satisfactory, and still be able to apply for the full whack. If the Minister has evidence to the contrary, I look forward to hearing it.
That will do nothing at all to satisfy the concerns of institutions, the concerns and fears of students who are already laden with huge debt, or the wishes and concerns of all those in this place who believe that essential issues about the fee increases and their linkage to the TEF should be properly debated in this House. If the Minister follows the form he took before the summer recess—if he is still in place—the announcement will be smuggled out with about 20 others at the end of term, when it could have been discussed two days earlier, during the Bill’s consideration. That is one reason why we are so sceptical about how the Minister and the Government are proceeding.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is keen on quoting certain people, so let me quote someone who is an expert on quality assurance and see what he thinks. The chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, who I consider to be an expert in the area, has said:
“The government has struck a balance between encouraging competition and rigorous protection of UK higher education’s world-class reputation”.
There is clear evidence that the Bill produces high-quality, rigorous quality assurance. What I hear from the hon. Gentleman is completely contrary to what the experts say. Listen to the experts.
Gordon Marsden
The hon. Gentleman no doubt considers himself a bit of an expert, given his co-vice-chairmanship of the all-party group on students, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central chairs. I hear what the gentleman from the QAA said. Of course, the QAA, as well as the Higher Education Funding Council for England and various other organisations, will be under the sword of Damocles over the next two to three years as the Bill goes through, so perhaps it is not surprising that there might be some circumspection about commenting on the situation. The fact of the matter is that no one knows. No one knows because the detailed basis on which the TEF will eventually be implemented is still not there. I will come on later to why the Government seem to be missing several tricks in not moving further down that road at the moment, but that is the case right now.
What we know is that the evidence is piling up about year-on-year tuition fee increases that are not based on merit. There might be arguments for increasing tuition fees, but the Government are setting out an automatic mechanism for a two-year period that will significantly and substantially increase fees with no impact assessments and no reference to the quality of the university degrees that are being graded, in a rather trivial PR fashion, as gold, silver and bronze. That is the reality, and the Minister cannot escape from it.
On some of the tuition fee issues and on how the Bill would set in stone that the fee increases will be linked to the TEF, allowing all the work to be done in the OFS away from the daily scrutiny of Parliament, documents such as “Does Cost Matter?”, produced by the National Education Opportunities Network, found that if fees increased, young people who were eligible for free school meals would be the most likely to reconsider going to university, followed by non-white young people.
We have a lot of evidence and a lot of suggestions that that sort of process will have a double-whammy effect. First, it will do nothing for the reputation of the universities in those two years. They will not be able to demonstrate their reputation over and above that which is already there because the metrics for the TEF in the two years are so crude. What it will do is empower them to increase their fees, and we know how various universities chose to interpret what the Minister did in the summer by increasing fees for current students, as well as for future students. That will be a serious and difficult issue.
I am sorry to tell the Chief Whip that I cannot name the next person I wish to quote because he wishes to write anonymously—[Laughter.] That is because he is a young academic who is too financially insecure to risk rocking the boat over the TEF structure. Not the Chief Whip—I promoted him—but the Government Whip will perhaps store his guffaws and allow me to quote from a piece about the TEF in The Guardian on 23 September.
“There was—at least in my mind—huge potential for the Tef to recognise the valuable job that teaching-intensive universities do, and encourage sound pedagogical practice… Rather than doing any of these things, the Tef will be based on three crude metrics: student retention and progression; the number of students in paid employment after graduation; and scores on selected items of the National Student Survey… Methodologically, the Tef is flawed. For instance, students’ assessments of individual teachers show persistent gender bias, and the item on assessment and feedback hardly ever changes, whatever the context. It’s also flawed conceptually: ‘satisfaction’ is not the same as ‘learning’, as any psychology text will tell you.”
That was something the hon. Member for Cannock Chase’s colleague amusingly commented on earlier. The writer continues:
“The Tef isn’t concerned with the art and practice of teaching. It does not set out to capture and promote those practices… I don’t believe that universities have to resign themselves to the Tef structure… But I can’t speak out: as a young academic, I’m far too financially insecure to risk rocking the boat.”
Let me quote somebody who is prepared and able to put her head above the parapet: a senior professor of psychology at Oxford, Dorothy Bishop.
“The report shows that while the costs of TEF to the higher education sector…are estimated at £20 million, the direct benefits will come to £1,146 million, giving a net benefit of £1,126 million.”
She shows clearly that crucial data from statistical modelling show that the
“TEF generates money for institutions that get a good rating because it allows them to increase tuition fees in line with inflation. Institutions that don’t participate in the TEF or those that fail to get a good enough rating will not be able to exceed the current £9,000 a year fee, and so in real terms their income will decline over time.”
Joseph Johnson
Will the hon. Gentleman state clearly whether he opposes allowing universities to increase their fees in line with inflation? Does he want a real-terms reduction in universities’ revenues from tuition fees? Currently, the £9,000 is worth £8,500 in the money of 2012; it will be worth £8,000 by the end of this Parliament. Does he want to starve our universities of resources?
Gordon Marsden
I point out respectfully to the Minister that he is the person making the decisions. What I am pointing out is that the TEF is being undermined as a concept by the cynical linking of fees on an “as you were” basis over a two-year period. That is the issue. There are all sorts of other issues relating to the merits and demerits of increasing tuition fees that we could discuss, but they are not within the broadest scope of clause 25 and I want to get back to the TEF. If the Minister wants on another occasion to have a lengthy debate about what his Government have done over the past four years for part-time and mature learners by trebling their tuition fees, for example, I would be interested to have that.
Joseph Johnson
Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that, since 2009-10, someone from a disadvantaged background is now 36% more likely to go to a university than they were when we came to power? That demonstrates that there is no inherent contradiction between the fee model we have put in place and continuing to make progress on widening participation.
Gordon Marsden
I acknowledge any improvements, however they have come, for people from disadvantaged backgrounds, but there is also the counter-evidence of the figures that I have given. The Minister knows, because he will have been lobbied very hard by the Open University, Birkbeck and others, that there is great concern out there about the whole process. The Government have become complacent. Coming from a relatively low level of increase, the assumption is that they can continue to load debt on to young people. I come back to what I said. If they do that in the context of the teaching excellence framework, they are not helping students, not helping universities and not helping the social mobility that the Minister and I desperately want to see in this country.
In terms of the teaching excellence framework and the proposal as to how the ratings work and how the tuition fee will be linked to it, we should think about the people who advise those who might apply to universities. It was interesting to see the comments of the spokesperson for the large independent schools talking about this in the TES at the end of August. He said:
“What does this tell us about the way the HE sector views itself? Is it becoming fundamentally more commercialised? Are universities simply in a fight for survival”—
he is talking about the rise in fees—
“Or are they just realistically pointing to the cost of what is still, let’s not forget, a world-class sector?”
The Committee will have to excuse my French, as it were, but this is what he says:
“Perhaps, once the python has swallowed the pig, £9,250 has been accepted with a shrug of the shoulders and once-a-year rises are the norm throughout our big HE sector, this little storm will seem irrelevant. But I doubt it. Prospective students…need more than ever to consider their options carefully. For many, a strong UK university degree will still be absolutely the right thing…For others, a free…degree apprenticeship will be a better option.”
He also said others may look abroad and that
“as we take transition from school to university more seriously, it will be interesting to know how many of our graduates decide their degree was not worth the money paid.”
The Minister will have had representations, and rightly so, from the Campaign for British Universities and others on the alternative white paper, which suggests that the Bill should include
“A major opportunity…to review and reduce the burden of red tape facing all UK institutions. Yet this bill proposes additional and wasteful bureaucracy.”
It also makes the point that
“the TEF’s costs will be borne by universities themselves, which will be forced to pass on these costs to students and their families. And, since even the highest TEF scores will only allow fee increases equal to inflation”
that will be a problem. It continues:
“The TEF is also entirely wasteful because there is simply no solid evidence that UK university teaching is of such poor quality that additional regulation is needed.”
I do not entirely share that perspective, but I do share the concerns of those people who are worried that the calibre of their teaching and what they are doing will be significantly affected by the way in which the Government are linking the TEF with increased tuition fees.
The TEF process really ought to have more debate on the Floor of the House. If the Opposition had greater confidence that the Minister and his team were looking at that broader element, we might be less severe in our criticisms. However, it is not just us saying such things. In the Royal Academy of Engineering’s submitted evidence, HERB 41, it welcomed the principle of the TEF and said it has
“long argued for improvements in the balance of teaching”.
However, it also talked about the importance of the
“use of benchmarks for comparison between universities on aspects such as ethnicity and socio-economic deprivation.”
Indeed, those are issues that my hon. Friends have already talked about. It continued:
“The Academy would like to see the TEF move towards a discipline based measure as soon as possible, as a TEF score for an entire university will not provide any meaningful data”.
Therein lies the nub of it. That is an issue on which the Minister has been questioned on several occasions in diverse places and on which, thus far, we have no answers.
It is not unreasonable for people to be concerned about where that is going. It is not unreasonable for us to ask questions, and it is certainly not unreasonable for us to ask them when, yet again, we see the Government trying to shoehorn through a measure without proper scrutiny in the House, linking it in a way that will not be valuable and successful for our students or for our universities.
I remind the Minister that the two-year period the Bill proposes we now commence, of an “as you were” situation that will allow universities to increase their tuition fees to a yet unknown amount, will coincide with a period of huge political uncertainty as we manage to negotiate—or not, given the Government’s current record—a satisfactory outcome to the referendum. We see today in the foreign exchange figures and all sorts of other figures how uncertain that process will be. We know already of the blockages and concerns in terms of research that HE institutions in this country say they will face as a result of Brexit, and we will no doubt return to those issues in part 3 of the Bill. In that situation, maintaining the quality of our universities and the understanding of the quality of UK plc internationally will be crucial.
We only get one chance with these things. If the Government ruin the potential of a teaching excellence framework by linking it inappropriately, by not addressing some of the major issues I have talked about and by producing a situation where students and universities feel unsatisfied and the rest of the outside world wonders what on earth is going on, they will inflict damage on the HE sector in this country—unwantedly—that would take decades to recover from. It is an act of complete and supreme folly at this time to use party political games to avoid having to make decisions about inflation-based rises in tuition fees and to shoehorn that into a framework that was never designed for that process. That is why we are profoundly concerned by clause 25 and the way in which the Minister has responded, and we shall oppose clause stand part.
Joseph Johnson
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman got the chance to make his big speech, having missed the first opportunity at the start of today’s proceedings. He said he was late in arriving due to Network Rail. I pause on that for a second, because on coming into the House of Commons this morning, I overtook him on Great Smith Street. The Committee might be interested to know that he was looking at his mobile phone and walking rather slowly. I was making my way purposefully in order to be here on time, so that I could hear his great speech, and I have finally now got it.
Gordon Marsden
Before we degenerate into discussion of the speed at which the Minister and I proceeded towards Parliament, he might like to note that I came into Victoria station, where the tube station was closed, and therefore was walking not at an unreasonably slow pace but at a reasonable pace. If he would like to return to the issues, instead of trying to score silly points, he might do better.
Joseph Johnson
I think I have made my point. Network Rail is running well under this Government and will continue to do so.
As hon. Members will know, the quality of our higher education system is something we are rightly proud of, but teaching is not always given the recognition it deserves. Teaching quality is of paramount importance. It frames the experience that students have while in higher education and determines their future opportunities and experiences in the workplace. Governments of both parties have recognised that we need to do more to drive up the quality of teaching in our institutions.
Information on teaching quality is not always available or clear to prospective students. According to the Higher Education Policy Institute, just 18% of students feel they have enough information on how their fees are spent, and one third would have chosen a different course if they had known what they do on completing. This information will shape their future, but prospective students are effectively making decisions blind. The teaching excellence framework, which was a Conservative party manifesto commitment, addresses that by setting a scheme for the impartial assessment of different aspects of teaching, including student experience and the job prospects of graduates.
The framework puts teaching on a par with our country’s world-leading research, so that we not only get more students into higher education but ensure it is worth while for them when they get there. I am delighted that the devolved Administrations have confirmed they will allow their providers to take part in the TEF in year 2, meaning that we have one system that operates across the whole UK. The TEF will reward providers that deliver high-quality teaching for all. It will support the propagation of good practice across the sector, and it will address the information gap, giving prospective students more information about the teaching they will receive and the outcomes they are likely to obtain.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am very interested in what the Minister is saying. A lot of the information underpinning the metrics in the TEF has already been collected. Did the Department do any modelling of what the outcome would be, particularly for the gold-silver-bronze regime? Was there any attempt to measure the reputational damage that could be done to the sector if universities somehow slip inadvertently into the bronze category? Higher education in the UK has an excellent national and international reputation, which could be seriously impeded if the Government are not careful. Has any modelling been carried out?
Joseph Johnson
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. HEFCE has been developing the TEF on behalf of the Department and will have undertaken considerable analysis of how it will operate across the system. We are clear that the ratings are the reflection of the tough quality standards that we expect of our providers. We have a world-class HE system. The ratings will provide recognition on top of the tough quality standards that are imposed on all providers in return for securing entry into the system. I would not agree with any assessment that a bronze rating would be lowly; it would be a significant achievement.
Paul Blomfield
The relationship between the TEF and the financial sustainability of the sector is important, so I want to press the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham. The Minister will agree with me on the importance of international students as a source of revenue, and I am sure we were both disappointed by the Home Secretary’s comments last week. What consideration has been given to the impact of the TEF on international student recruitment? If it was part of an international move, that would be fine, but if we are unilaterally choosing to grade our universities and say that some are not as good as others, does the Minister not recognise that that is potentially a significant disincentive, at a time when we are already losing market share?
Joseph Johnson
The TEF, and its link to the inflationary uplift in fees on a conditional basis for those universities demonstrating high-quality teaching, will be important for the financial sustainability of the sector.
Let us start with the financial sustainability of the sector, which was the opening part of the hon. Gentleman’s question. The TEF puts in place conditions that allow us to enable institutions to raise their fees in line with inflation. If we do not do that, as I said earlier in answer to the hon. Member for Blackpool South, the value of fees in real terms will decline to £8,000 per year by the end of this Parliament. That is unsustainable. As we have heard from many people who gave evidence to the Committee, we cannot come back here in 10, 15 or 20 years’ time with fees still pegged at £9,000 when prices in the rest of the economy will have risen substantially. This is a responsible step to put the funding of our institutions on a sustainable footing.
I now turn to the other issue raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central about international students. We welcome international students and the contribution they make to our world-class university sector. That is why I was delighted this morning to announce that EU students applying to our universities for entry in the 2017-18 academic year will be eligible for the Student Finance England range of loans and grants, as they are now, for the full duration of their course of study, in the normal way. That demonstrates that this Government continue to welcome international students: they make a big contribution to our system.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I welcome the announcement the Minister has made this morning. The concern the Opposition has outlined is that the TEF is being used as a Trojan horse for the increase in fees. It may be pegged to inflation now, but what is to stop a different approach in the future, once the principle is established? On that point, given the Home Secretary’s speech at the Conservative Party conference, is the Minister not concerned that the bronze-silver-gold rating system could be linked to the international student visa system, with greater preference given to gold institutions, compared with silver or bronze?
Joseph Johnson
Before I respond, let me first touch on the issues raised by the hon. Members for the City of Durham and for Sheffield Central about the TEF and the reputation of the sector as it might be perceived by international students. We strongly believe that the TEF will enhance the overall reputation of the sector. We would be the first country to introduce such a system of assessing teaching excellence and students will have a better idea of what they can expect from their time of study here in England and in other parts of the country that choose to participate in it than they will anywhere else in the world. Providers with high levels of the TEF will have been through an extraordinary process of scrutiny that will help them market themselves more effectively around the world.
Let me turn to the other points on migration made by the hon. Member for Ilford North. As he will imagine, I am working closely—as are other members of the Government—with the Home Office on various options regarding student migration and, in particular, whether our student immigration rules should be tailored to the quality of course and educational institution. No decisions have been made on the best way to do that. The Home Office has indicated that it will be consulting in the autumn on a number of measures to remove opportunities for abuse, while still ensuring that the UK can attract genuine students from around the world. I reiterate, for the hon. Member’s benefit, that we will not be looking to cap the number of genuine students from outside the EU who can come to study in the UK. I hope that that provides him with reassurance.
Gordon Marsden
On that point, in relation to the broader point of reputational damage, the Minister is making great play of the fact that this will be a game-changer for us internationally, and so on; but the truth remains that, for good or bad reasons, students internationally do not know what the TEF will ultimately be based on. The Minister knows that there has been huge discussion about the inadequacy of merely giving one TEF rating to an individual HE provider, as opposed to schools or courses. How on earth can international students, or any students, have confidence in a system as a gold standard measurement when we have no further clarity on whether the TEF will be done on an institutional basis or on a school or disciplinary one?
Joseph Johnson
The UK, through the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, has long been at the forefront of quality assessment processes around the world, and its expertise is sought after in a number of countries. We expect that the TEF will likewise have a pioneering effect around the world.
Joseph Johnson
No, I am not giving way, thank you very much. We believe that the TEF has the potential to enhance the reputation of UK higher education.
Carol Monaghan
Does the Minister understand the difficulty faced by HE providers in the devolved Administrations? They are now in a difficult situation whereby if they participate in the TEF, they have to go through two different systems of quality assurance, but if they do not participate in the TEF, they have no badge so they will be disadvantaged in the international market. They have been placed in a difficult position.
Joseph Johnson
I thank the hon. Lady for giving me the chance to speak exactly to her points about how the TEF will work in Scotland and in the other devolved Administrations. It is right that HE providers across the whole UK have access to the TEF and the benefits that it will bring. I am delighted that my devolved Administration counterparts have confirmed that they will allow their providers to participate in TEF should they wish to.
I appreciate that how the sectors operate in the devolved Administrations differs from how the sector operates in England. It is crucial that the TEF takes into account those differences so as to recognise excellence in teaching in whatever form it takes. To that end, officials in the Department for Education have been working closely with officials in the Scottish Government and the other devolved Administrations. Our officials met with representatives of the Scottish HE sector in June and August.
I remind the hon. Lady of what Alastair Sim said in his evidence to the Committee a few weeks ago, when he noted that
“engagement with the Department for Education has been constructive and creative about how the metrics of the TEF might be configured in ways that take account of Scottish interests.”––[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2016; c. 67, Q103.]
The TEF framework for year 2, which was published on 29 September, was been adjusted to ensure that it can fairly assess the distinctive nature of HE provision in each of the four nations of the UK. That will allow the TEF to operate fairly across the UK, something the whole sector was keen to see.
I feel I have addressed the substance of the points raised, and I therefore ask the Committee to support the clause.
Question put, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Joseph Johnson
I beg to move amendment 42, in clause 26, page 15, line 21, leave out “either or both of”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 43, 45, 49, 50, 52, 53, 59 to 64, and 67 to 73.
Joseph Johnson
These amendments bring the Bill into line with the policy stated in the White Paper. All the amendments except for amendment 62 remove the power for the Secretary of State to designate a body to undertake the functions in clause 25 and therefore operate the TEF. The TEF, as we have been discussing, is central to the improvement of the student experience, which is of core interest to students, and as per our policy intent in the White Paper, I believe that responsibility for the operation of the TEF should be held by the office for students.
Our intention has always been for the OFS to operate the TEF and we do not envisage a need to require another body to undertake these functions. In the absence of a compelling case, I believe it is simpler, clearer and, from a legislative perspective, more proportionate to remove the power to designate a body to run the TEF functions. I reassure the Committee, however, that removing this power does not prevent the OFS from working with others on the delivery of the TEF, which I recognise might be desirable at some point in the future. The OFS could, for instance, contract a body to support its work on the TEF, just as HEFCE is working with the QAA on delivery of year 2 of the TEF.
Gordon Marsden
The Minister talks about working with other people on the structure of the TEF. I press this not in a combative way, but merely in the sense of wanting to have some information. Can he provide any indication as to when or from whom he expects the delineations to how the TEF is to be delivered—whether by institution or by discipline or by school? When are we likely to know about that?
Joseph Johnson
I urge the hon. Gentleman to read our consultation response to the TEF year 2 proposals, which we published on 29 September. This provides significant detail about how the TEF will develop in years to come.
Turning to amendment 62, our policy intent is to ensure a co-regulatory approach to quality assessment. Clause 26 allows Ministers to establish a clear role for a quality body, administratively and visibly separate from Government and the OFS, as recommended by the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills earlier this year. Amendment 62 provides a new power for the OFS to give general directions to a designated quality body on how it should carry out the assessment functions. The OFS can give only general directions and must have regard to protecting the expertise of the designated body when giving those directions.
This is not about dictating how the designated body should do its job or about giving the OFS the power to intervene in or dictate the outcome of individual cases. This change is solely to deliver on what our White Paper said, which is that the designated quality body would design and operate the quality assessment system, reporting to and within parameters set by the OFS.
Amendment 42 agreed to.
Amendments made: 43, in clause 26, page 15, line 26, leave out paragraph (b).
This amendment removes the ability to designate the functions in clause 25 (rating the quality of, and standards applied to, higher education) to be performed by the designated body and ensures that only the functions in clause 23 (assessing the quality of, and standards applied to, higher education) can be designated. Amendments 45, 49, 50, 52, 53, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 and 73 are consequential on this amendment.
Amendment 44, in clause 26, page 15, line 27, leave out
“an assessment function, the function does”
and insert
“the assessment functions, the functions do”.—(Joseph Johnson.)
This amendment and amendments 47, 48, 54, 55, 58 and 66 ensure consistency of language with paragraph 1 of Schedule 4.
Clause 26, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 4
Assessing higher education: designated body
Amendments made: 45, in schedule 4, page 73, line 7, leave out “either or both of”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 46, in schedule 4, page 73, line 10, leave out “and standards of” and insert
“of, and the standards applied to”.
This amendment and amendments 51 and 57 ensure that the language used in relation to standards in Schedule 4 is consistent with clauses 23 and 25.
Amendment 47, in schedule 4, page 73, line 15, leave out
“be designated under this Schedule”
and insert
“perform the assessment functions”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.
Amendment 48, in schedule 4, page 73, line 17, leave out
“be designated under this Schedule”
and insert
“perform the assessment functions”.—(Joseph Johnson.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 230, in schedule 4, page 73, line 29, at end insert
“(ca) a number of persons that, taken together, appear to the OfS to represent, or promote the interests of, higher education staff”.
See amendment 231.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 231, in Schedule 4, page 75, line 20, at end insert
“(da) a number of persons that, taken together, appear to the OfS to represent, or promote the interests of, higher education staff”.
This amendment and amendment 230 would ensure that before recommending the designation of a body to perform assessment functions the OfS consults with bodies representing higher education staff.
Gordon Marsden
In moving these two amendments, we wish to pick up a theme that we have previously expressed on several occasions: the office for students needs to be an office not just for students. So far, as regards the membership of its bodies, the Government have been relatively reluctant to do that. The OFS needs to address and promote the interests of higher education staff. This is a really serious issue. The Minister will have heard the concerns expressed by a wide range of higher education staff about this Bill and about issues to do with the TEF. There is also a general sense that the Government sometimes seem to think that all they need to do is to round up a certain number of vice-chancellors to say a certain number of things on a particular occasion and they will have the approval of the whole higher education sector, but that of course is not the case. For the higher education sector to succeed and flourish, it needs the co-operation, collaboration and involvement of all its members, so, again, the amendments are designed to take us down that road.
The first amendment, 230, would straightforwardly insert into schedule 4 the appropriate phrase:
“a number of persons that, taken together, appear to the OfS to represent, or promote the interests of, higher education staff”.
The second amendment, 231, says the same thing. The purpose of both amendments—Opposition Members have touched on this issue previously—is to ensure that before recommending the designation of a body to perform assessment functions, the OFS consults bodies and, indeed, individual groups of higher education staff. If the Government want people at every level in the sector to buy into these reforms, as they regard them, and to buy into this new settlement with the OFS, it is crucial that the OFS has the broadest base of support and general enthusiasm across the sector. These modest amendments are designed to assist the Government in that process, and I hope that the Minister will feel able to be positive about them.
Joseph Johnson
I welcome the discussion, recognising the importance of a diverse range of views and interests across HE in ensuring that a suitable body is designated to manage the assessment of quality on behalf of the OFS. As the amendments and this brief debate have highlighted, the staff of our HE providers are of course an important part of what drives quality. That is clearly recognised in current practice. The views of HE staff and their representatives are sought by Government, HEFCE and others in consultations on decisions that introduce changes to the HE system. They are already represented on the advisory groups and committees of bodies such as the QAA and HEFCE. However, the amendments would introduce an additional level of prescription for the OFS that I do not believe is desirable. By providing a more prescriptive list of required consultees, we would run the risk that the OFS did not feel able to use the discretion provided under the schedule to consult such persons as it considered appropriate. The prescribed list should be limited to those who are fundamentally essential to taking a decision on whether a quality body is suitable and can deliver on the co-regulatory approach. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Blackpool South to withdraw the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I will withdraw the amendment, but I am sad, yet again, that the Minister thinks that the only thing that matters is the people who sign the cheques or who press the buttons or take the decisions. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but that is the way it will be seen outside the massed ranks of the Government by many in the sector: this is an opportunity missed, as it has been missed so far on the Bill with students, to put them in the frame for a brand-new structure. That is what people will be concerned about. I will withdraw the amendment on behalf of the Opposition, but the Government should think very carefully about the way in which they are alienating so many people in the sector. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments made: 49, in schedule 4, page 73, line 39, leave out “either or both of”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 50, in schedule 4, page 74, line 1, leave out “recommended function or functions” and insert “assessment functions”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 51, in schedule 4, page 74, line 4, leave out “and standards of” and insert
“of, and the standards applied to,”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 46.
Amendment 52, in schedule 4, page 74, line 6, leave out sub-paragraphs (3) and (4).
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 53, in schedule 4, page 74, line 19, leave out from beginning to “and”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.
Amendment 54, in schedule 4, page 74, line 24, leave out “an assessment function” and insert “the assessment functions”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.
Amendment 55, in schedule 4, page 74, line 27, leave out “function” and insert “functions”.—(Joseph Johnson.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I beg to move amendment 232, in schedule 4, page 74, line 30, at end insert “and students”.
This amendment and amendment 233 would ensure that the OfS consults students before body suitable to carry out assessment functions is designated.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 233, in schedule 4, page 74, line 32, after “providers” insert “and students”.
See amendment 232.
Amendment 4, in schedule 4, page 74, line 39, at end insert—
“Bodies suitable to perform quality assessment functions: student representatives
4A (1) A body is suitable to perform the quality assessment function under section 23 if, in addition to meeting conditions A to D, at least two of the persons who determine the strategic priorities of the body are currently enrolled on a course at a higher education provider.
(2) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1), “course” means any graduate or postgraduate course.”
This amendment would require the board of any body designated to perform the quality assessment function under section 23 to include at least two student representatives.
Dr Blackman-Woods
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope.
The Minister says that the TEF or teaching quality assessment is a core interest for students. It therefore seems really odd that the body that might be deemed suitable to perform assessment functions does not have to pay any attention whatsoever to the student voice. If the amendments to paragraph 4 of schedule 4 were made, a body would be deemed
“suitable to perform an assessment function”
only if it represents
“a broad range of registered higher education providers”
and students, and if it
“commands the confidence of registered higher education providers”
and students. It seems to us a little perverse that the Government would want to establish a framework that allowed a body to assess teaching quality when it did not have the confidence of the student body and would not even seek to assess whether the student body had any confidence in it. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on these two modest but important amendments, because they would ensure that a body chosen by the OFS was deemed appropriate only when students and the student voice were represented and when the OFS was absolutely sure that the body also commanded the confidence of students.
I will finish by quoting the evidence given to the Committee by Sorana Vieru, vice-president of the NUS:
“We cannot talk about working for the benefit of students without involving students themselves.” —[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 8 September 2016; c. 97, Q163.]
The Minister will know that it is already best practice throughout the sector to involve students in the quality assurance process. Why not put that in the Bill to ensure it happens?
Wes Streeting
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. In speaking on amendment 4, which stands in my name, I return to my familiar hobby-horse of student representation in the Bill, in the futile hope that the Government have seen sense and taken into account the importance of including students in a Bill that is allegedly about them.
When I reviewed the record of yesterday’s debates in the Chamber, I thought for a moment that when I came into this Committee Room I might receive some good news from the Minister. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) asked the Secretary of State for Education:
“If she will offer students places on the board of the Office for Students.”
The Secretary of State replied:
“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.”
“Hallelujah!” I thought. “We’ve had a breakthrough. The Secretary of State has clearly been reading the Committee’s debates and been so persuaded by our arguments that she has made an exciting announcement.” However, in the next column I read the Secretary of State’s response to the hon. Member for Bath, who represents a significant number of students at Bath University and Bath Spa University. He said:
“Adding students to the board of the Office for Students would put at risk representation and engagement with students”—
quite how he reached that conclusion I am not sure. The Secretary of State then said, toeing the Minister’s line, that
“we do not want to be over-prescriptive”. —[Official Report, 10 October 2016; Vol. 615, c. 1-2.]
Sadly, I was not in the Chamber at the time, so I do not know whether the Minister leant across to have a word in the Secretary of State’s ear to get her back on message, but it was very disappointing.
So here I am, trying to make the case that students should be represented on the board of a designated quality provider. We use that language because, for reasons that also escape me, the QAA is not automatically the designated quality provider. Instead, we have to go through a ludicrous and wasteful tendering process to reach the obvious conclusion that the Quality Assurance Agency should be the designated quality provider. In that context, I want to ensure that whichever body is designated to perform the quality assessment function under section 23 should have at least two student representatives on its board.
This is actually existing practice: the board of the QAA currently has among its membership the vice-president for higher education of the National Union of Students and, for this year at least, the education officer of Cambridge University Students’ Union. There are two student voices, one directly connected with an institution and the other representing students on a national level, although currently on a break from a PhD. It seems to me that the QAA has already reached the right conclusion and we should make sure that the future designated quality providers also reach that conclusion.
Carol Monaghan
Of course the team that carries out the reviews in Scotland—the enhancement-led approach—is a team of six reviewers, including one international reviewer, three senior UK-based academics, one co-ordinating reviewer and one student. Should we be looking to Scotland here?
Wes Streeting
I have long admired the quality enhancement approach of the Scottish higher education system and think the Scottish higher education sector has often led the way on student engagement in the quality enhancement process. The committee for QAA Scotland includes the head of Student Partnerships in Quality Scotland, the organisation that brings the sector together with student representatives to look at quality enhancement, and it does address the concern.
I have heard in some quarters—this comes to the point the hon. Member for Bath was trying to make in the Chamber yesterday—the argument that if there are students on the board of an institution, that somehow diminishes the need to engage students elsewhere within the institution. In the Quality Assurance Agency, there are two student representatives on the board, there are students represented elsewhere on committees in it, there is a whole committee dedicated to student engagement, and there are students involved in quality assessment as part of institutional review teams—not just in Scotland but in England as well, following the Scottish lead. That is a great model because the QAA has recognised, both in principle and through the benefit of experience, that involving students in a meaningful way in the quality assurance process has benefits for everyone. The student voice has to be involved and engaged. It is critical for helping to measure quality and making sure students get what they are promised.
Ben Howlett
If the hon. Gentleman had not tweeted earlier the fact he was going to ask this question, I would have had to come up with this on the spot. His point regarding the QAA is interesting. I agree that there should be student engagement throughout the entire system, but the point the QAA was making in oral evidence and in writing was that we should not have student representation on boards, even though it does at the moment, but that we should making sure we engage with students throughout the entire process. If we think about what it is saying, this is not working, so we have to look at a much more holistic approach to student engagement throughout the system.
Wes Streeting
If that were the case, the QAA would need to come back and explain why it chooses to have students on its board. The hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting what the QAA said. What it has said, quite rightly, is that it is important to engage students at every level and to have meaningful engagement and dialogue with students beyond simply putting them on the board of an institution. I have not heard anyone from the QAA say—but I am happy to see the evidence printed in black and white in the record or written evidence—that institutions should not have students on the board of higher education institutions, and I have not heard anyone say that the office for students should not have student representatives on the board. If that were the case, they would be arguing against their own student representation on the board of the QAA, which I think they value because it has been there for some time and continues to be present.
I do not agree with the false dichotomy that the hon. Member for Bath has put forward. I do not think it is either/or. I agree with him: we do not just want students represented on the board and we need meaningful engagement throughout the system, but that is not a choice; both are necessary for the benefit of everyone involved in higher education.
Having made these arguments, I hope the Minister is inclined to follow existing practice at least, by making sure that whichever organisation is appointed as the designated quality provider follows the QAA’s practice of having at least two student representatives on the board. We are now nearing the end of this Committee stage. I hope that the Minister appreciates that the continued resistance to having guaranteed student representation is making the Government’s words on student engagement and the centrality of students to the Bill ring rather hollow.
Joseph Johnson
Again, we have had a good debate on the importance of student involvement in the HE sector and its systems and structures. I certainly agree that the quality body will need to represent the diverse interests across the HE sector, including those of students.
Hon. Members will be pleased to note that that there is already good practice established by the QAA of building student representation into the quality system. To summarise, the QAA includes two student representatives on its board of directors, has established a student advisory board to provide support, and includes students in its review and scrutiny processes for degree-awarding powers. Crucially, however, this is not set in legislation. It happens because it is considered to be an effective way of making an informed assessment of quality—an approach I hope will continue. The arrangements for the two student board members are set out in the QAA’s articles of association, and this is a more appropriate level for such stipulations to be made than in legislation itself.
The conditions set out in paragraph 4 of schedule 4 are there to ensure that we can establish an effective co-regulatory approach with the sector, as recommended by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. It is not designed to prescribe specific interests, but instead to make clear that the quality body should represent and have the confidence of a broad cross-section of the sector. I am keen that paragraph 4 remains flexible and not prescriptive, to guard against the risk that at some point in the future a suitable and well qualified body could be disbarred from designation on a technicality. This does not, however, prevent a designated quality body from involving student representation as an effective way to carry out its quality assessment functions.
Even without legislation, when future Secretaries of State come to a view on whether a body is capable of performing the assessment functions in an effective manner, I would imagine that they would look at a range of matters. These may include whether the student interest was represented within the organisation and whether that representation or lack thereof would have an impact on its capability. However, I recognise that hon. Members are making clear the importance of continuing this level of student engagement within the quality body. I also appreciate the strategic level on which amendment 232 in particular asks for this to be considered, rather than over-specifying the membership of the independent quality body itself. However, I remain confident that any designated quality body would include such representation without the law having to specify it. I therefore hope that the hon. Lady is reassured, and ask that she withdraws her amendment.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I have to say to the Minister that I really do not follow his logic at all. What is being argued is that the reason we are going through the whole assessment of quality is so that students get information that will help them to understand more about the quality of teaching in an institution. Yet somehow the student voice is not being put in the Bill as a group of people who must have confidence in the body that is being set up. That seems to me to be absolutely extraordinary. It does not make any sense at all.
Joseph Johnson
Part 2 of schedule 4 states that the OFS must consult with people representing a broad range of students before recommending a suitable quality body, so we will be consulting students. The OFS itself, as we have discussed previously, will include on its board people who must have experience of representing the student interest.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I have heard what the Minister says, but unfortunately because of the way in which paragraph 4 is constructed it is very clear about the body representing a broad range of higher education providers and having the confidence of the higher education providers. We are not saying that that is unimportant, but it is equally important that students have confidence in the body and are represented on the body. I do not think that we are going to resolve this issue at the moment, but I ask the Minister to take this issue away, look at it again, and see if he can come up with a form of words that would keep everybody happy. I will be happy to withdraw the amendment—
The Chair
We have to adjourn. The hon. Lady will need to withdraw her amendment after we return at Two o’clock.
Digital Economy Bill (First sitting)
Tuesday 11th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Digital Economy Act 2017 View all Digital Economy Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 October 2016 - (11 Oct 2016)
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a few preliminary points. Please switch electronic devices to silent. Tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings. Today, we will consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence sessions, and a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication. In view of the time available, I hope we can take those matters formally, without debate.
Ordered,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25am on Tuesday 11 October) meet—
(a) at 2.00pm on Tuesday 11 October;
(b) at 11.30am on Thursday 13 October;
(c) at 9.25am and 2.00pm on Tuesday 18 October;
(d) at 11.30am and 2.00pm on Thursday 20 October;
(e) at 9.25am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 25 October;
(f) at 11.30am and 2.00pm on Thursday 27 October;
(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:
Date | Time | Witness |
|---|---|---|
Tuesday 11 October | Until no later than 10.00am | BT/EE TalkTalk Three |
Tuesday 11 October | Until no later than 10.30am | Sky Virgin Vodafone |
Tuesday 11 October | Until no later than 11.00am | Which? Countryside Alliance |
Tuesday 11 October | Until no later than 11.25am | Open Data Institute The Co-operative Group |
Tuesday 11 October | Until no later than 2.45pm | The British Board of Film Classification NSPCC |
Tuesday 11 October | Until no later than 3.00pm | Dr Edgar Whitley, London School of Economics Wireless Infrastructure Group |
Tuesday 11 October | Until no later than 4.00pm | Big Brother Watch Open Rights Group |
Tuesday 11 October | Until no later than 4.30pm | ProjectsbyIF Open Corporates TUC |
Tuesday 11 October | Until no later than 5.00pm | Professor Sir Charles Bean, London School of Economics The Royal Statistical Society |
Thursday 131 October | Until no later than 12.00pm | StepChange Citizens Advice Dr Jerry Fishenden |
Thursday 131 October | Until no later than 12.30pm | OFCOM |
Thursday 131 October | Until no later than 1.00pm | The Information Commissioner’s Office |
(3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 4; Schedules 1 to 3; Clauses 5 to 84; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00pm on Thursday 27 October. —(Matt Hancock.)
The Chair
On the basis of the motion, the deadline for amendments to be considered at the first line-by-line sitting of the Committee on 18 October is the rise of the House on Thursday 13 October.
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Matt Hancock.)
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Matt Hancock.)
The Chair
Copies of the written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room. We will now go into private session to discuss lines of questioning.
The Chair
Welcome to the Digital Economy Bill Committee. We will now hear evidence from BT/EE, TalkTalk and Three. Before calling the first person to ask a question, I should like to remind all Committee members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill and that we must stick to the timings in the programme motion that the Committee has agreed. We have until 10 am for this session, so I ask Members and witnesses to be as concise and to the point as they can be.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
Mr Stringer, may I put on the record and bring the Committee’s attention to my declaration of interest? I am a director of two telecommunications companies and a shareholder in both; my wife is a shareholder in those companies as well.
The Chair
Q That is now on the record. Does anyone else wish to declare an interest? No. Could the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?
David Dyson: David Dyson. I am the CEO of Three UK.
Baroness Harding: Dido Harding, chief executive of TalkTalk.
Sean Williams: Sean Williams, chief strategy officer at BT Group.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Q Thank you for coming to give evidence today. May I start with you, Sean? First, do you think that 2020 and 10 megabits per second are sufficiently ambitious targets for the universal service obligation?
Sean Williams: Yes, I do. We have made clear our willingness to deliver 10 megabits to every premises in the country by the end of 2020 without any further public funding and without even really progressing the USO regulations. On the way to doing that, we will be building on the fact that by the end of next year we should have fibre broadband coverage to 95% of the country.
As we get towards 2020, we will be building further fibre networks, so we expect to be getting more than 24 megabits to 97% or 98% of the country, and then fixed broadband of 10 megabits to 99%. We think that the last 1% needs to be done by 4G and satellite. Although we think about the issue as getting 10 megabits by 2020, in our view the vast majority will actually be getting a lot more than 10 megabits by then.
Louise Haigh
Q Baroness Harding, should the USO not have been an open tender process? If it had been, would it not have been right for it to have gone to more than one contractor, given the differences between the problems in inner city areas and those in rural areas?
Baroness Harding: Yes, maybe. I presume that you refer to the BDUK process that has taken place. I am actually very supportive of a universal service obligation. I do not agree with Sean Williams that 10 megabits will be sufficient as we look forward; it is very dangerous to try to set that number through primary legislation because technology is moving so fast. I fear that the rural communities who are furious that they do not have 10 meg today will be furious that they do not have 1 gigabit in three or four years’ time. I think you should be more ambitious, otherwise the political problem will never go away.
In terms of how then to get value for money for any form of Government subsidy, taxpayers’ money or levy going towards the final few per cent., I agree with the premise of your question. The more competition there is, the better, and it is a huge shame that there was none in the last process. To be fair to the Government of the time, I do not think that was because of how it was designed. The good news is that the market has changed quite a lot since then, and there are now a number of quite small providers building proper fibre-to-the-premises 1 gig services in rural areas, such as Gigaclear. I would be much more hopeful that, looking forward, it will be possible to design a process that is not reliant on one large incumbent.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
Q As you know, I represent a very rural constituency. I support what has happened; it is clearly far better than it was five years ago. However, what happens if no USO provider is willing to come forward to deal with the last 500 houses in the Devizes constituency? What should happen then?
The Chair
The acoustics in the room are terrible. If Members and witnesses could really speak up, that would be very helpful.
Sean Williams: To answer from our perspective, we are willing to enter into a binding legal commitment that we will deliver at least 10 megabit broadband to 100% of premises by the end of 2020. Our objective with this is really to give the Government and Ofcom comfort that we can get on and do this.
I would emphasise that I think that there is a lot of competition, as the Baroness just mentioned. We have Virgin expanding their network, we have Gigaclear and Hyperoptic expanding their network and we have the mobile operators expanding networks that can deliver 10 megabit broadband by 4G. There is a lot of competition to deliver this. For our part, we are willing to undertake to make sure that every single premises can get 10 megabits by the end of 2020.
Baroness Harding: The MP for Devizes raised a very good question. I am a firm believer that competition will do the majority of this, and we should try our damnedest to make the private sector fund most of this through competition, but I think there is a fair chance that in three or four years’ time a number of your constituents will not have broadband that they think is good enough.
I promise that I will not take up the whole session on this, but I think that the solution is to separate Openreach completely and put a universal service obligation on an independent Openreach. Once you have an infrastructure entity that is not owned by one of the retail providers, that takes away a lot of the industry issues with the public subsidy in some shape or form needed to get proper fibre for that final few per cent.
Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (SNP)
Q Given that broadband speeds have doubled in the past three years, and that the pace of demand is accelerating, I find it staggering that we should say to rural constituents, “You are second-class digital citizens and must accept 10 megabits.” How do we bring forward a scheme that ensures that, in areas where they want to go further to ensure that they keep up or even get ahead, the universal service obligation does not peg them at a low speed? How could we design a flexible, regional USO model? Has that been considered by anyone on the panel?
Sean Williams: I do not want to occupy a disproportionate amount of air time here. We think that, by the end of 2020, we will be able to deliver fibre broadband speeds to probably 97% or 98% of households across the whole country, and at least 10 megabits to everybody by then, unilaterally and without any public funding or a USO. That will continue to go on after that as we continue to innovate networks.
We also have a commitment to deliver ultrafast broadband—more than 100 megabits—to 10 million premises, and fibre-to-the-premises deployment to another 2 million premises by 2020. There is going to be an awful lot of network investment, which, by the way, can only happen in an integrated, end-to-end business case.
Calum Kerr
Q Mr Williams, do you think that a tactical, on-demand USO only provided by BT can really provide the strategic outcome—a direction toward “gigabit Britain”—that I think we all agree is a matter of when and not if? If we continue to do this in a piecemeal fashion surely all we are going to do is cement the digital divide, rather than close it.
Sean Williams: To get these networks out to as many premises as possible, by as many providers as possible, through competition and commercial market action is exactly the right solution. To get good networks out to everybody, both mobile as well as fixed, it is important that everybody has an incentive to invest. Through competition and commercial investment, we will get to the answer.
The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)
Q I welcome the commitment from BT to reach 100% of premises by 2020, but I ask for a point of clarification on language. Mr Williams, you referred in the percentages to “fibre” and, separately, to “fibre to the premises”. Can you confirm that by “fibre” you mean a combination of fibre and copper and that by “fibre to the premises” you mean pure fibre? The use of the term “fibre” reflects statistics that I understand mean fibre to the cabinet, so I find confusing the offer to households being “fibre plus copper”. I would be grateful if you clarified that.
Sean Williams: I am happy to. When I use the term “fibre broadband”, I mean fibre to the cabinet, which is a combination of rolling out fibre further into the network but with copper into the end premises. When I use the term “fibre into the premises” I mean fibre all the way into the building. I apologise for being unclear.
When I say we will deliver fibre broadband, it will largely be, in my view, through a combination of fibre and copper, but we are also very positive about fibre to the premises and typically deploy fibre to the premises in all new building sites and in lots of Broadband Delivery UK areas. We are developing fibre to the premises solutions that are particularly targeted at small and medium-sized enterprises. We have made a commitment that we will get ultrafast broadband speeds, which is both fibre and copper, and also fibre-to-the-premises solutions to 1 million SMEs by 2020. We have heard the prioritisation that the Government have put on getting very good broadband speeds to small and medium-sized enterprises and we have made a commitment we will get that to 1 million of them by 2020 as well.
Claire Perry
Q I am conscious of what Baroness Harding said about perhaps not setting a quantum, but do you think there should be a separate quantum for SMEs? One of the challenges we have is that there is not enough. We do not have separate legislation or, indeed, powers for cabling to new business parks. If I may ask a supplementary question, in my experience the issue with the USO is often with the broadband speeds in the household; it is not just a question of getting the cable to the front door or the bricks. What could the process be for dealing with those claims and helping householders realise that that might be a problem?
One final question: we would like the USO to be an average speed, rather than being achieved 15% of the time, or whatever the current average regulations are. What are your views on that? Are you prepared to commit to our offering an average USO of 10 megabits per second?
Baroness Harding: At the risk of being dangerously technical, I think we all try to summarise in the form of speed, but actually consumers and businesses would say that reliability and consistency are every bit as important as speed. The small businesses that are customers of TalkTalk would say, “It’s not the headline speed I need. I need it to work every single second when my customers are using the chip and pin machine in my small corner shop”, for example. So while speed is a useful proxy, it is not perfect.
The Minister gets to the nub of the issue: when you have a proper fibre network that goes all the way to the premises, you have upgrade potential. You just change the card in the rack of computers back at the exchange and you can go from 1G to 100G. You also have a much, much more reliable network. When it rains, water does not get into the copper and it does not stop working.
The small businesses that we talk to are very cross that the fibre-to-the-premises roll-out has missed out a lot of business parks—not necessarily because they want speed, but because they want a reliable service where they can upload as much as they can download and customers can always buy things from them.
I would therefore support being clearer in the detailed regulations that I presume Ofcom would set in specifying the service requirements for small businesses as opposed to consumers.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Q What flexibility would you like to see within the legislation for either the Government or perhaps Ofcom to be able to deem the level of the USO in the manner that Baroness Harding described as technology increases?
David Dyson: I have a couple of points. Covering some of the previous questions, it is impossible to predict what will be the right speed in five years’ time. There are two elements to delivering that. One is effective competition. On the second, I agree with Baroness Harding that in those harder-to-reach less economic areas, the separation of Openreach is the only way that you will get assurance that those customers will get the right speed.
Fundamentally, Ofcom needs to have more powers to make the right decisions that effectively create the right competitive environment in the UK—an environment where it is not constantly worried about being litigated. At that point, you have a stronger regulator that will make the right decisions for the right reasons and a lot of these discussions will take care of themselves.
Baroness Harding: You can see from my nodding head that I agree with David. A lot of the provisions in the Bill are very good, pro-consumer, and I would encourage the Committee to look very favourably towards them. David has just alluded to one of them, which is to make sure that you have a stronger regulator that can get decisions taken faster without using up nearly 50% of the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s time.
Sean Williams: On the specific question about flexibility, as long as it is stable enough for network investors to deploy a certain investment in order to get to the target and then recover some of their investment money, it can be flexible after that. If it is too flexible, you never quite know what you are supposed to be investing in, so I think it needs to be definitive for a period and then it can move on progressively as society and the economy moves on.
I agree with Baroness Harding on the subject of reliability. Reliability is a very important metric, but SMEs are not typically the most demanding broadband customers. A big household streaming lots of HD videos is a very demanding broadband supplier. SMEs and large households have different kinds of requirements and we need to work with Ofcom to establish exactly what those standards should be.
It is true that some of the problems happen within the home or within the business premises. It is important to make sure that all the retailers—TalkTalk and all the others—are able to support their customers in the business or home. Making sure those networks and wi-fi work well is also very important, to answer Mr Perry’s earlier remarks.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Q Sean, do you recognise the figure that improving wayleave rights under the ECC will reduce costs for providers by 40%? Would you like to tell us whether any surplus from that will be used to invest in local communities or will it be going to your profit margins?
Sean Williams: I do not recognise the particular figure, to be honest, but I would not necessarily dispute it.
Kevin Brennan
Q Is it in the right ball park? Is that what you are saying?
Sean Williams: It is 40% of what? I do not know exactly where that figure comes from, to be perfectly honest with you, but what I would say is that on the EE network we have a commitment to get to 99%-plus of premises getting 4G, and 95% of the geographical area of the country, by 2020, getting 4G services. Also, that requires us to roll out new masts and new services, and every cost reduction in that vein will support the agenda of rolling out 4G networks everywhere as far as we can.
Kevin Brennan
Q So all that will be reinvested into the—
Sean Williams: I think it is all supportive of delivering more roll-out by all the mobile networks, yes.
Kevin Brennan
Q Can I ask you, how will we have competition in next generation access? Will certain areas of the country be limited to 10 megabits in the future?
Sean Williams: As I say, I think we are getting lots of competition already. Virgin is rolling out. Hyperoptic, Gigaclear and others, all the 4G networks, Three, EE, Vodafone, O2 are all rolling out competitive networks, so I think the large majority of the country will have availability of choice of provider.
Kevin Brennan
Q Will certain areas be limited, do you think, in reaching the 10 megabits?
Baroness Harding: I think the way that you ensure that there is sufficient competition to drive investment and create choice is by having a very strong regulator that does not believe any of us, actually, when we say “Trust us, we will be okay; we will do it for you.” If you live in any of the rural constituencies in the country, you do not have Virgin as an alternative. There is only one fixed line network provider. There are only two mast joint ventures for mobile networks, so I would argue that the telecoms market is not competitive enough at all and that the best way Government can ensure that all constituents across the country benefit is by having a much stronger regulator that forces competition. I think you should be very worried when you hear large incumbents saying, “Set up a universal service obligation but don’t let it get too far ahead of what we’ve got in our business case.” That is not what business should be doing. Businesses will invest more if they are scared their customers will go elsewhere, not because they have been given a promise by Government.
David Dyson: But also you should be very worried when you hear statements about how BT is planning to take profits from the duct access and reinvest in that, and in cross-subsidising mobile access. That is just fundamentally wrong, and is not supportive of competition.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Q Far fewer people switch broadband and phone providers than gas or electricity, for example. Do you support the Government’s published principles of switching, which will make it easier for consumers to switch?
Baroness Harding: Yes, completely. I think it is extremely confusing for consumers, because how you switch depends on which network you are with today, and which one you are going to. It is not a level playing field among competitors, so, for example, someone leaving TalkTalk who takes mobile phone, broadband and TV—a proper quadplay customer—does not have to speak to TalkTalk at all, as they should not. They head off to whomever they want to go to, and the switching process will work its way through. On the other hand, someone leaving Virgin and going to BT, or leaving Sky TV and coming to TalkTalk, has to speak to Virgin or Sky respectively. We and, I think, Three as well have been campaigning for simpler switching for eight years. Finally we have a Bill that is very much on the consumer side, that will make switching easier and competition stronger. I think it is a great thing.
Sean Williams: And BT completely supports the position.
David Dyson: Three has campaigned for more than a decade on this issue. It is a complete joke that it has taken so long, and it fundamentally goes back to the point that Ofcom needs more powers to make decisions that are in the consumer interest. We are the bottom of the class from a global perspective, in terms of switching. I think Papua New Guinea ranks alongside us as the only country that still has donor-led porting. It is a joke. Ofcom tried to legislate on that five years ago, and Vodafone litigated on a technicality and won. Since then it has been kicked into the long grass. It is a major issue, but the more fundamental issue is that Ofcom does not have the power, right now, to make decisions that are fully in the interests of consumers and competition.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Baroness Harding, you mentioned that this is a consumer-friendly Bill in various degrees. Mr Dyson and Mr Williams, are there any other elements of the Bill that you see as consumer friendly that would benefit my constituents, for example?
David Dyson: Absolutely. The electronic communications code reform is critical in being able to roll out more coverage, more capacity and better quality from a mobile perspective. That is a really important step. We hear a lot about coverage, capacity and quality. Ofcom recognises that there is a major issue in consistency of access not just for operators across the country, but for different technologies. That will certainly help, but for me the most important element of the Bill is effectively to give Ofcom the powers to create competition in this market.
Fundamentally for us, the most important decision that Ofcom needs to take in mobile in the next five years is going to happen before the Bill comes through in that spectrum. The UK is bottom of the class not only in mobile number portability, but in spectrum distribution in this market. It is the most fundamental input in terms of a level competitive playing field and Ofcom is about to take that decision in the context that it is always worried about being litigated. The facts speak for themselves. We have a terrible position in the UK right now and I am worried that it will not get any better unless Ofcom has more powers.
Christian Matheson
Q I am hearing mixed messages about this industry and its ability to achieve a USO. On one hand, we hear that market forces will achieve it and, on the other hand, we hear that Ofcom does not have enough power and that there is a fear of litigation. Should this Bill be giving greater powers to Ofcom? For example, in areas such as Devizes, which Claire Perry talked about, where there are broadband not spots, should Ofcom deem a provider to provide for that area?
Baroness Harding: The key thing in the Bill is to reform the appeals regime. As David Dyson has just alluded to, between 2008 and 2013, which are the most up to date stats I could get last night, Ofcom accounted for just under 50% of all cases in the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Our industry is important, but it is not that important compared with the whole of the rest of competition issues because the standard of appeal is much lower in telecoms than in any other regulated sector. That means there is a very cautious regulator.
BT has managed to raise $45 million from private equity funds to fund its litigation pot. Ofcom spent £10 million in the last two years on litigation. That is awful use of taxpayers’ money. It means you have an industry that is used to appealing every single decision the regulator takes, so the regulator is too cautious. That is why we are saying, “Give them the powers and competition will do the job for you.”
Sean Williams: I am sorry, but I completely disagree with that point. First, it is not true to say that everything gets appealed. BT did not appeal a charge control this very year that took a billion pounds of profitability out of BT—in fact out of Openreach—over a three-year period. We did not appeal the previous charge control, which did a similar thing and we did not appeal the one before either.
Ofcom is an extremely powerful regulator that is accountable to nobody but the Competition Appeal Tribunal. No one in the Government can tell it what to do. It has extremely wide discretion. You will not get better decisions out of Ofcom if you reduce the standard of appeal to judicial appeal standard. Is it reasonable, is it fair, is it just that Ofcom can take £3 billion of shareholders’ equity value away from them on a judicial review standard? It is not. It is thoroughly unjust.
To keep Ofcom accountable, to keep its decisions high quality and to comply with the regulatory scheme, it is of the utmost importance to require an appeal on its merits. It is required across the communications sector across the whole of the European Union. It is not by any means unique. Ofcom makes many very impactful decisions and that is why it gets many of its decisions appealed to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, very often by the small players in the industry. The organisation that is appealing Ofcom’s most recent charge control is CityFibre Holdings, which thinks that Ofcom’s decision to drive down Openreach prices will kill off its business plan, not just Openreach’s. It is not BT that is appealing that decision. It is very important that the one piece of this that really needs to come out is the change to the appeal regime.
It is also true to say that the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, only about two years ago, was absolutely clear that the scheme provides for an appeal on the merits.
David Dyson: There are two important points on this. First, Three is 100% supportive of the changes in the Bill in this regard. Secondly, it is really important to note that all the Bill proposes to do is raise the standard of appeal that Ofcom has to the same level as regulators in other industries, which does not feel excessive to me.
Sean Williams: Except that Ofcom has many more powers than any other regulator, including a dispute resolution power that is not available to any other sectoral regulator. That is the cause of many of the disputes and appeals that happen.
The Chair
Order. I am afraid that that brings us to the end of the time allotted. I thank our witnesses on behalf of the Committee.
Examination of Witnesses
Daniel Butler, Paul Morris and David Wheeldon gave evidence.
The Chair
Welcome to this session of the Digital Economy Bill Committee. We will now hear oral evidence from Sky, Virgin Media and Vodafone. We will finish this session at 10.30 am. The time is very tight. May I ask the witnesses to identify themselves?
Paul Morris: I am Paul Morris, head of government affairs and sustainability at Vodafone.
Daniel Butler: I am Dan Butler, head of public affairs and policy at Virgin Media.
David Wheeldon: I am David Wheeldon, group director of policy and public affairs at Sky.
Louise Haigh
Q I will start with the question that I asked the last panel. Do you think that 10 megabits per second by 2020 is ambitious enough?
David Wheeldon: That is a very hard question to answer. The flexibility within the Bill for the universal service obligation threshold to change makes sense, in order to address the likely customer needs. Our view—we have said it very publicly—is that we have to be much more ambitious in terms of connectivity in this country.
We would like to see ubiquitous fibre to the premise, and we believe ultimately that the economy is going to depend on that. The USO will be a useful interim measure until we can get there, but one might hope that, over time, a USO will not be necessary if we have full connectivity across the country.
Louise Haigh
Q Are you saying fibre to 100% of premises?
David Wheeldon: Eventually, that is the ambition we should aim for.
Louise Haigh
Q How would that be achievable?
David Wheeldon: We believe there is an opportunity to create the right market structure to bring a lot more investment into the industry. We are being held back at the moment by relying on the copper network. There is an argument we have made, as you know, about Ofcom’s communications review with regard to the structure of Openreach. That is not directly relevant to this Bill, but ultimately, as far as the USO is concerned, it makes a lot of sense to be able to set a threshold that you may want to vary over time.
Daniel Butler: Virgin Media’s starting point is to ask what the purpose of a USO is and what it is designed to achieve. The definition is quite clear: it is to underpin a series of activities that produce some economic and social externalities that are to the broader benefit of society. Ofcom defines those as email, web browsing, maybe a little bit of video streaming and maybe some IP voice. Its use case for a four-person household is that 10 megabits is sufficient to enable all those activities to happen simultaneously.
We view 10 megabits as appropriate for that definition of a universal service obligation. We think that more bandwidth-intensive activities, such as HD streaming and real-time gaming, have a looser connection to the underlying principles of a universal service obligation, because the benefits of those types of activity are primarily to the individual, not to society as a whole, so why should they be subsidised?
I will make one final point, which is that the debate around future-proofing the USO lacks one crucial bit of analysis. Bandwidth requirements might increase over time, but so too does the sophistication of networks in processing higher bandwidth applications. Video streaming is a case in point. When video streaming became ubiquitous, companies started investing in better video compression, and as a result video compression rates have halved every seven years. Networks are getting better at dealing with higher bandwidth applications.
Louise Haigh
Q Why should we be limiting ourselves to something that is barely sufficient now? What changes could we see in the Bill that would give us anything like the connectivity that Mr Wheeldon just mentioned?
Paul Morris: You have to make sure that the USO does not get in the way of future ambition. We have to think about how we move from what we have today, which is largely a copper and fibre mix, with the exception of Virgin. We still have telephone lines running broadband, essentially; as David says, we have to move on and be more ambitious. The point is to make sure that the USO does not get in the way of that ambition to do better and to use fibre for homes and businesses. We should make sure that the smaller networks have an option to be involved in the USO, and, if they have the ambition, that they know that a USO provider is not going to over-build them.
There is lots to be done outside the legislation, and clearly we do not need to repeat the mistakes of BDUK. We need to know where the assets are, who can do the work and where the green cabinets are. It needs to make sense and we need to have some kind of register. We need a practical approach and money needs to follow results—not the other way round, which was the other issue with BDUK. We can learn from some issues from the past, and we need to make sure that this USO does not get in the way of what we need to do next, which is to have much more fibre in the ground across the whole country.
Claire Perry
Q I represent a fairly rural constituency and I was interested to know what would happen if no USO provider came forward to do the right thing. What should happen in that case? How will the Government be able to mandate that provision?
Daniel Butler: We are not convinced that that situation will arise. What Mr Williams from BT just outlined was that BT was willing to enter into a legal obligation in which it would be the national provider for a universal service obligation. That is how it works today under the fixed telephony USO. Up to a relatively high cost threshold, BT is not allowed to pick and choose which areas and premises it connects and which it does not; it has a legal obligation to fulfil. The model does not need to radically change as we move to a broadband USO.
Paul Morris: Basically, you have to remember that most of these premises will have a telephone line—although not all, I grant you. That is a good start. It is about how we use what is already there well, and how we upgrade it.
Claire Perry
Q Exactly, but as I know from personal experience, having a copper line does not guarantee anything like the advertised speeds today. My previous question related to small businesses. Some of the most frustrated people in my constituency are small businesses in business parks, who could benefit hugely from an upgrade. Do you think the Government should be setting a separate USO for a small business, versus a household?
Daniel Butler: The evidence suggests that 10 megabits is sufficient for the average small business. An extensive study conducted by Communications Chambers for the Broadband Stakeholder Group found that in 2015, the average bandwidth requirement for a small business was 5 megabits per second. That was likely to increase to about 8 megabits per second by 2025.
As Mr Williams pointed out in the previous session, the bandwidth requirement of the average small business is likely to be less bandwidth-intense than the average household. The heavy-bandwidth applications that place the most pressure on a household connection— simultaneous usage and HD video—are less pronounced in a small business environment, where the majority of usage involves accessing Government websites, accessing websites more generally, sending emails and so on.
Claire Perry
Q That rather depends on the sort of small business. While that might be true for a farmer, for example, what I want in my constituency is the ability to have the sort of businesses that would locate to silicon roundabout come to a beautiful part of the country where property is much cheaper. I would be cautious about writing off rural areas as only ever being able to access Government websites and check their emails one at a time. I think we should be doing something much more ambitious with obligations—particularly for small business parks, so you have clusters of fibre around those.
David Wheeldon: We would probably part company with Virgin Media here, in as much as we do not think you should be constraining by type of usage in quite that way. All the history and evidence of the data that goes across our networks means we are seeing a continued exponential increase in data usage. Going back to what Daniel said earlier, it is hard to say that specific usages are worthy of a USO intervention and others are not. Those things will change over time, including small businesses—their use cases will change over time.
In the case of businesses and business parks, it is extraordinary that there are business parks, not just in rural areas but in city areas, that do not have sufficient fibre connections. Very often that is to do with the distortions in the market where it is to the benefit of the network operator to be selling expensive leased lines to businesses rather than investing in fibre to all premises.
When we come down to it, this is a problem based around the quality of the infrastructure we have at the moment and the incentives to continue to invest. As Paul Morris said, it is important that we get the USO right, but it must not stand in the way of the massive further investment we believe is required of the nation’s network.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Q I am a little shocked to hear Mr Butler say that 10 megabits is okay for the average small business. In my constituency, high-tech industries and digital creative industries need something much more reliable, much more secure and a lot greater than 10 megabits. They are not just uploading the odd film; they are making the films. Can I push you on that? They need secure, reliable, consistent bandwidth. What on earth has blocked the roll-out of that so far in city centres as well as rural areas? What else could the Bill do to push business, provide the infrastructure or give Ofcom the teeth—whatever is needed—to help the high-tech and creative industries grow?
Daniel Butler: This is one part of the market where Paul’s concerns about market distortion are particularly pronounced, because the market for small business connectivity is evolving at a rapid pace. Broadband providers are beginning to target the types of use cases you outlined there: high-tech but small business where, realistically, a leased line is not an affordable solution. Virgin Media has been at the vanguard of product innovations to make symmetric business broadband connections available to high-tech businesses in London, but also outside of London, at more affordable, residential-type price points. This is one example where the market is evolving at a very rapid pace.
Business connectivity is starting to address the challenges you have identified. The use requirements I outline are what the evidence suggests is the typical requirement of a small business. Obviously, there will be outliers where the market is the right mechanism to deliver for those companies.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q I am not just talking about outliers, Mr Butler. You talked about providing to London and some areas outside London. London is overheating, with great respect to my London colleagues. A lot of these industries are looking to other cities and if they cannot get what they need they are going to stay put in London—and that is not good for the economy, both rural and urban. What else can be done by business or what else do you need in the Bill for this to be put right?
Paul Morris: As you will know, telecoms has got a lot going on at the moment. There are other things going on: we have an Ofcom strategic review, which is looking, in part, at how the relationship between Openreach works with the rest of the industry. There are a number of moving parts, not necessarily in the Bill, that need to be thought about.
I suggest we need to think about what we do next—that is, post-BDUK. I do not necessarily mean Government programme support, but what the ambition of the country is when it comes to traditional infrastructure. We have probably looked at other traditional infrastructure first; now it is time to look more at digital. That is beyond the Bill but it is something that needs to be done, certainly within this Parliament. We also need to start thinking about delivery because, frankly, that will take 10-plus years to do.
We need to look at the strategic review, including the relationship with Openreach. At least two of us here have that as businesses; frankly, that can be a bit more ambitious, deliver a better service, and be in control of its own investment, board and everything. Openreach needs to be independent. If that cannot work, then we have made the case to say that Openreach needs to be separate from BT. That is something that Ofcom needs to look at.
Within the Bill, the universal service obligation—you have both identified an issue. If you look at the Ofcom figures, small businesses are disadvantaged probably more than consumer households because you are not on the traditional phone network, effectively, if you are in a business park. So you have got the right point.
I would suggest that, with the USO the way it is today, we make a small step in the right direction with this idea of how we do more. I think Dan is right: there are connectivity options coming in as well. So it is a mixed picture, but I do agree—I do not think that 10 megabits is enough for most small businesses, unless of course they are one-person bands doing stuff for which they need the phone more than the computer. Again, it all comes down to a mixture of things going on that are in and around the legislation. There are a number of things going on.
Daniel Butler: I add one final point on provisions in the Bill that would help. There are provisions in the Bill that will reduce the cost of network expansion in the UK—an exercise that Virgin Media is currently undertaking with our £3 billion network expansion. That network expansion is benefiting business parks and small stay-at-home businesses. Last month, we announced 90 new business parks that we were connecting under Project Lightning. The specific way in which the Bill can support that is through reform of the electronic communications code that will lower the cost of and time taken to achieve a wayleave agreement. The measures in the Bill take us part of the way towards that reform, but could be more ambitious.
The Chair
Can I remind Members and witnesses to be as brief as possible? I call the Minister.
Matt Hancock
Q No—I was going to ask for more details on which bits of the Bill could help.
Kevin Brennan
Q I remember one of your predecessors in a predecessor company, Mr Butler, explaining to me why they were digging my street up in the 1990s. They basically said, “We are installing a straw to suck money out of people’s houses”, which I think is the best explanation I ever received of what was involved. On the electronic communications code, how can you assure us that its reform will actually benefit consumers principally and not just allow you to keep more of the money that you suck out of people’s houses?
Daniel Butler: The reforms that are envisaged will transform the economics of roll-out. The figures discussed in the previous session were a 40% reduction in the cost of roll-out. The primary way in which that benefits consumers is that that allows us to build to more premises on a commercial basis.
Virgin Media currently plans to build to 4 million premises by 2020. Wayleaves are a considerable line item on the balance sheet for that investment, and also it takes a lot of time to get agreement, so anything we can do to reduce the cost and improve the efficiency of getting those will have the consumer benefit of allowing us to connect up more premises. I mentioned that Government could be more ambitious in this regard. In effect, the Government’s reforms will deal with the worst abuses of the systems—that is communications providers’ exposure to ransom rents—but Ministers and the Secretary of State increasingly talk about broadband being equivalent to a utility and the reforms do not quite go that far. Water companies have the most advantageous wayleave regimes under their statutes. They do not pay what is called in the valuation jargon “consideration” and, as are result, they pay 60% less—these are Government’s figures—than communications providers.
Matt Hancock
I think the explanations coming from the witnesses are excellent. I did not have any other questions.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Are the switching proposals in the Bill, which make it easier for customers to switch and give them more power and information, a step in the right direction?
David Wheeldon: They clarify Ofcom’s existing powers, so to that extent they are a welcome clarification. We have some concerns about the direction of travel that Ofcom is going in, not least because we see and operate in a market where there is already extensive switching and all the customer satisfaction surveys suggest that the vast majority of customers are happy with it.
What we are worried about is that Ofcom might go down a direction that tries to mandate a certain type of switching between networks that do not have any obvious need or reason to engage with each other. It is one thing in telecoms where you have to exchange customer information and data, but in TV, where you do not have any need to speak to a different TV network or operator, the idea of putting in place a new system where we are required to talk to each other could end up being quite burdensome and bureaucratic.
I hope that, as we engage with Ofcom, we avoid doing that. In the end we want to make this as easy as possible for customers, because that is in all our interests. We compete pretty ferociously with each other on a day-to-day basis, so a system that works for customers is in all our interests. The provisions in the Bill that clarify Ofcom’s role are fine.
Matt Hancock
Q Could you remind me what proportion of the market Sky has?
David Wheeldon: In the overall broadband market we are below 40%, I believe. In TV, it is 60%—I am not sure quite what the breakdown between us and other pay TV providers is. We compete not just with Virgin and BT and others but increasingly with Netflix and free-to-air. Many of our customers will go to take a free-to-air package from us. So the market is pretty dynamic and I think that at the moment it seems to be working pretty well for customers.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Q I want to go back to the average speed, which we were talking about earlier. When you provide businesses with average services, and you give them average speed—give them the minimum they need to be average—you are locking them into being average businesses; you are not giving them the opportunity to be more ambitious. How do you square that with a programme of ambition for the 21st century, taking people forward? What do you do to encourage devolved Administrations such as the Scottish Government, and councils, where they want to go further and have faster speeds?
Paul Morris: We have got to figure out a way, and this is going to be a combination of things. We talked about the code earlier; that is part of it. How do you build the network? How do we make that easier? How do we focus on support that, frankly, has been there for more traditional infrastructure? We have talked about some of the other areas, such as how we ensure that Openreach serves its customer base better and has more ambition. That would get you to a point.
As you know, the Scottish Government have been thoughtful in this area. What do we do after that? I know you have got the 100% ambition, and there I think it is a case of a mixture of things. A better Openreach that is more independent, serves its customers better and is more ambitious gets you to a point. You then have either USO or some kind of intervention potentially in some areas where the industry can look at support and how that works across technologies.
So I think it is a combination of commercial roll-out, see how far we get—we will not know that until we reform the market—and then look at what is left and see where we go from there. I agree with you. I note that there is not a speed limit in the Bill and I think we do need to be more ambitious. Of course, we cannot solve this tomorrow, but we need to recognise that the data usage trajectory is upwards and we need to think in those terms. We do not build a little bit of a better railway; we build a much better railway. We need to think like that.
David Wheeldon: I absolutely concur with that. We look at this as a national service provider. We want to sell our TV services to every customer in the country if we can. We are agnostic about the kind of technology that we use, but increasingly using broadband services to do that is the way we are going. Therefore, if we are going to be ambitious, to enable companies like ours to continue to grow, invest and innovate, we need a national solution, and a national solution will depend upon the national network owner, which is Openreach. In the end, all these roads lead back to Openreach. That is why the structure of the industry does matter; the ability to get capital into the industry to invest in the kinds of future networks we need is critical. That is why we have made such a big noise about the structure of the industry and the Ofcom review. We really believe that it matters, not so much as a broadband provider, but as a user of the network. We want to be able to have a national solution.
Drew Hendry
Q Given that Openreach is pinning its position on getting 95% coverage by 4G by 2020, that surely leaves 5% in areas where they will be forced to use satellite. That is a group of consumers that cannot switch and cannot go across. What do you do for those people who find themselves in those geographically disadvantaged areas, where they are not going to be reached by that plan? How can you get that sense of ambition going for those people?
Daniel Butler: The first objective is to minimise the extent to which a backstop intervention, as you characterise it, is required. To our mind, Ofcom said a few things over the summer—it did not just talk about structural separation; it also talked about what the 10-year strategic direction for our sector should be and what conditions would best deliver for investment and for the consumer. It was unambiguous in saying that network competition, having multiple network operators in the ground and available to consumers, is the best driver of investment incentives, the best driver of superfast broadband penetration and the best driver of consumer outcomes.
To tie your two questions together, the Scottish Government have the opportunity to create the best possible environment for the deployment of new infrastructure using the devolved planning powers that they have at their disposal. Virgin Media is in the process of quite an extensive roll-out of our network in Scotland and I think there is an opportunity there to minimise the gap that is required for a universal service obligation to apply.
Nigel Adams
Q Returning to broadcast, I have a question for Daniel which may not come as a surprise, since I alluded to it on Second Reading. If you take out line rental and broadband charges, what is the cheapest way that someone can access a public service broadcasted channel, and how much does it cost on your platform?
Daniel Butler: Sorry, Nigel, if you debundle—?
Nigel Adams
The cost of the line rental and broadband charges, what would the charge be?
Daniel Butler: Our basic TV tier does not have a premium. If, as a customer, you get a triple-play bundle with a freeview-like TV service, it is effectively free; there is no added charge for the TV element. We do not sell TV as an individual product, if that is what you are asking.
Nigel Adams
Q Yes; it is all bundled in that cost. The reason I allude to it is that, clearly, there is currently no payment made to, effectively, the rights holders. A fair proportion—I would think maybe half—of your content is potentially driven through PSBs. I just wonder why you think that that is a reasonably fair position.
Daniel Butler: We think it is a fair outcome because there are flows of value in both directions—for the pay-TV operators in this market and the PSBs. As part of entering into the public service bargain, the public service broadcasters get a series of regulated benefits. The biggest of those are gifted spectrum and EPG prominence on our platform. EPG prominence guarantees them viewership, which translates into advertising revenue. From them, we get access to content, which is very valuable to our customers—it is much-loved content. That is the UK’s PSB bargain. Ofcom assesses that to be a balanced bargain, it does not think that either side is losing out as a result of that bargain, and the fact that PSBs continue to enter into that bargain reinforces the fact that they see it as sufficiently valuable too.
The Chair
I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. I thank the witnesses very much on behalf of the Committee for the evidence they have given.
Examination of Witnesses
Pete Moorey and James Legge gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Which? and the Countryside Alliance. We have until 11 am for this session. Would the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?
James Legge: I am James Legge, and I am head of political at the Countryside Alliance.
Pete Moorey: I am Pete Moorey, and I am head of campaigns at Which?
Louise Haigh
Q Should this Bill not contain a USO for mobile coverage?
James Legge: Yes, we think that it should.
Louise Haigh
Q What should that USO be?
James Legge: I think that a minimum at the moment should probably be about 3G but, a little like the USO for broadband, we need to be a bit more ambitious. We also have to realise that there is a big infrastructure problem for about 50% of rural premises. The infrastructure is not there to carry more than 10 megabits per second, and for one in five premises it will not carry more than 5 megabits. So there is not only the level at which the USO is set to begin with, but also the issue of upgrading infrastructure.
Louise Haigh
Q Do you think that there is potential for the USO to actually limit the investment for infrastructure in the future?
James Legge: It is important that it is seen in addition to the Government’s ambition to deliver superfast broadband at—at the moment—a speed of 24 megabits to 90% to 95% of premises. In my opinion it should really be seen as a safety net, as opposed to a situation in which we say, “Well, we’ve reached 10 megabits, we can leave it there.” If you take into consideration that universal access in the EU is being set at 30 megabits by 2020, and Sweden is looking at 100 megabits in the same timeframe, where we are is good but we have a way to go yet.
Pete Moorey: There is clearly a big issue in terms of mobile coverage. You may have seen the research we did with OpenSignal last week which pointed to the fact that in many parts of the country you can get access to a 4G signal only 50% of the time, while in London it is 70% of the time. Obviously, that is way behind countries such as the US and Canada where it is 80% of the time, and countries such as South Korea and Japan where it is 90% of the time. We have not specifically taken a position on a USO for mobile, but it is definitely something that needs consideration.
The other issue here is around what mobile operators themselves are doing with customers when they are in the phone shop and choosing a package. This includes the information that operators are providing to customers about the signal that they can expect, and indeed the opportunity that customers have to be able to get out of the contract when they are unable to get a signal.
Louise Haigh
Q What could the Bill do to achieve the level of investment in infrastructure that is necessary? Is separation of BT from Openreach absolutely vital for this?
Pete Moorey: We are satisfied with the position that Ofcom is taking on Openreach at this stage. One area where we are more concerned is around the way that Ofcom is seeking to regulate the standards for Openreach. We think there is a danger that actually regulators are not often well placed to do that and, as they set very prescriptive rules that operators have to achieve, operators are driven by those rules rather than good consumer outcomes. We would like to see Ofcom flip the way that they are looking at the new standards for Openreach and ensure that they are much more focused around consumer outcomes. That would drive the business to achieve against those measures rather than a set of prescriptive standards, which Openreach or others can say that they have achieved but actually has not resulted in a better service for customers.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
Q On a slightly different point, I have a question for Which? around data sharing. Clearly, there are mixed views as to whether it is a good or a bad thing. I would like to understand what you think that the benefits would be, particularly to vulnerable groups, of the Government having access to this data?
Pete Moorey: In broad terms, we support the measures in the Bill and we see this from two perspectives. There is the work that we have done in our campaigning, particularly on areas such as energy, where we know that year after year the energy suppliers have said that they would like to be able to better target energy efficiency schemes at the most vulnerable households, and that they have struggled to do that. We think a lot of good steps could be taken as a result of that.
The other side is around the role we play in providing products and services for consumers. We run a number of excellent websites—Which? University, Which? Birth Choice, and Which? Elderly Care—which provide people with all the information they need to enable them to make a choice when they come to that decision. We have been hamstrung on occasion in being able to provide the richness of information that people would want when trying to make that decision where local authority data or other public service data have not been available. Taking steps in this direction would help not only Which? to do that better, but a lot of the other service providers in that space.
Kevin Brennan
Q On the point about coverage of broadband and mobile, where would we come in the European champions league of coverage? Will the Bill push us up the league at all, in your opinion?
James Legge: I cannot give you a precise figure. I am afraid I do not know the answer to where we lie in the overall league table of Europe.
Kevin Brennan
What do you think?
James Legge: I do not know. Our ambition certainly seems to be less than what the European Union intends to see delivered. I think there is scope for saying 10 is great, but we should be looking at more. We should also make sure that the USO moves up—I think the Bill makes provision for this—because there is no point in leaving it at 10 when we have 300.
Kevin Brennan
Q You listed a lot of countries that do better than us when you gave your answer earlier. If the Bill potentially brings some progress, are we running fast enough to keep up with our colleagues on the continent?
Pete Moorey: I think it was me who gave the list of countries. We can come back to you on that with the data we have on 3G and 4G and also on broadband.
Kevin Brennan
Q It would be very helpful if you could do that before we meet next week.
Pete Moorey: On the 10 megabit point, clearly for a lot of consumers it will not be enough; for others, it will be a godsend. Ofcom has done a pretty decent piece of work in understanding average consumer use at the moment. It has developed a speed that is probably appropriate to start, but will have to be addressed in time. The really important issue is how it does that and how it involves consumers in the process. There is a real danger that we get into an arbitrary point of view and say, “Well, it should be 15 or 20 megabits” rather than setting the speed with consumers themselves.
Claire Perry
Q I want to focus questions directly on Mr Legge. I represent a very rural constituency. We are very anxious about home building. We now have effective neighbourhood plans that rather than mandating giant developments plonked down wherever anybody wants them, require developers—often small developers—to work with communities. The preamble is to ask you whether you think the new law coming in next year to require automatic superfast broadband connection for sites of more than 100 homes is suitable for rural areas, or whether we ought to be going further and effectively making it a utility provision for all home builders.
James Legge: My view is very much that it should be seen as a utility provision. The whole way in which we have looked at the housing problem in rural areas has transformed over the last 10 years from the idea of plonking mini-towns on the edge of existing communities. We have realised that if you try to do that, all you do is create massive local opposition and nothing gets built. What you want is small-scale development that is sensitive and local to the community, provides local housing, and is affordable, often affordable in perpetuity.
The idea that you will only get broadband provision when you build 100 premises on the edge of a village or in a rural area is undesirable, simply on the grounds that where new properties are going in and we are putting in an infrastructure, it seems absurd not to take the opportunity. We would not say we are not going to put in electricity, water or, ideally, gas as well, although we do not have mains gas everywhere, to be fair. I think broadband is too important.
It is also important to realise that the population trend at the moment is a move from towns to rural areas. There is enormous potential. If you take a population of 10,000, there are more start-up businesses in rural areas. I think London and some of the major urban city centres exceed. The countryside is a largely missed opportunity, but all the signs are there that if it gets broadband it is ready to fire and go further; so the figure of 100 is too urban-centric in thinking.
Christian Matheson
Q Mr Legge, you talk about the need for a fair system of site rents for country landowners in terms of wayleaves and access.
James Legge: I do not think that I did—
Christian Matheson
There needs to be,
“clarity over the new system of valuation for site rents that is fair and equitable as well as a robust Code of Practice to ensure landowners, infrastructure providers and mobile phone operators are clear”.
Is there not a danger of conflict between looking after the needs of large landowners to get fair wayleave agreements on their properties and potentially preventing the roll-out of broadband and infrastructure services to other rural residents because we are keeping costs higher to benefit the landowners?
James Legge: I think we recognise that the new communications code must reduce the cost of putting in the infrastructure, both on public and private land, and must also encourage the sharing of masts and access to infrastructure. There is a difference between saying that we will do it and, say, paying a private landowner nothing, and paying them something that is reasonable and fair, taking account of the way in which we treat other utilities. I know that our view differs slightly, though, from some of the other landowning organisations that are focused on land ownership. We are very much focused on delivery to the consumer, but we think it should be fair, equitable and clear.
Matt Hancock
Q May I clarify that? You said that the new communication code must do those things. Did you mean by that, that it does do those things and that that is right, or that you do not think it fits what you set out? What you set out is entirely concurrent with the Bill.
James Legge: Yes, and we are supportive of that. We support the fact that we have got to start seeing broadband on the same par as a utility, as opposed to something where there is a premium cost to the provider, which limits provision—
Matt Hancock
Q I was seeking clarification on whether you are looking for something more than is in the Bill. You were saying that that is what is in the Bill and it is right that that goes through.
James Legge: Not at this stage.
Nigel Adams
Q I suspect that the Bill is not going to be subject to the most detailed discussion around the country. However, as a question to both of you, having had an opportunity to analyse the Bill, if we were all pitching this to our constituents across the country, what do you see as the key benefits for consumers?
Pete Moorey: The telecoms sector needs to catch up with where consumers are. That is part of what the Bill is trying to do: we need to recognise that people increasingly see their mobile phones and broadband as essential items. Yet we know that customer satisfaction is very low and that people are increasingly frustrated about their inability to get a signal or to get the broadband speed they are paying for.
There are critical things in the Bill that will start to bring the telecoms sector kicking and screaming into the 21st century. For me, those elements include switching—I think it is incredible that we do not have provider-led switching in the telecoms sector. Automatic compensation is very important. With water, electricity and gas, if we lose a connection we get a compensation payment, but that is not the case in telecoms. The appeals process, which we have heard a lot about this morning, has had a chilling effect on the regulator’s ability to introduce measures that would both improve competition in the sector and better protect consumers.
The final area, for us, is nuisance calls, which we know are some of the biggest bugbears that people face—they are sick to death with receiving annoying calls and texts. To put the ICO guidance on nuisance calls into statute is another step towards tackling that everyday menace.
James Legge: Yes, I think that switching and compensation are important: it is important to hold the feet of the telecoms companies to the fire. But there is possibly an opportunity in the legislation to empower the consumer. At the moment, we have a sort of opaqueness around data and provision. We do not have address-level data. If I want to decide where I am going to get my mobile or broadband from, I cannot just put in my address and find out that the company that provides the best service is x. I have to sign up to someone. Then I can test the level of my service through their internet connection as a customer.
If there was more transparency, and if people had the information to hand, they would be able to make better choices. The market would also be more competitive for mobile or broadband providers, because if they do not provide the coverage, they will lose customers. It is no good waiting for someone to sign up and then find out that switching is jolly difficult, so customers say, “Well, I’ll just put up with this and complain”. We do that terribly well.
We should be able to say, “No, sorry. You didn’t tell me this. I didn’t have the data. Your service is appalling. I’m switching, and it is easy.” The level of switching at the moment is extremely low. A previous witness suggested that there was general contentment, which is not my experience.
Calum Kerr
Q There has been a lot of discussion in this session about fixing mobile coverage. Do you think that the Bill will achieve that? It comes down to licence obligations. If we want to do it, we need to set the right licence obligations. I accept that you are going to get less money.
On the electronic communications code changes, if we want the measures to be about driving more coverage, should we actually just exclude existing sites—you will have a lot of landowners and we will have local government bodies that will lose a lot of money—and say, “Access will change but, in terms of valuations, let’s exclude existing sites; this is about you going to new sites and doing them more cheaply”?
James Legge: I had thought—if I have understood the question correctly—that the Minister indicated previously to the House that it was not going to be retrospective.
Calum Kerr
Q It is not retrospective, so you will not revisit deals. Essentially, when a site comes up for renewal, the valuation of that land will be treated differently, so costs will drop dramatically. My suggestion is that they should be excluded from a valuation perspective, and the old rules apply for valuation.
James Legge: So you keep the old rules at the renewal point for old sites.
Calum Kerr
So you will still see some price erosion, but not as much.
James Legge: I would have thought that anything that brings the cost down for the providers when it comes to rolling out and upgrading infrastructure—
Calum Kerr
Q This is existing infrastructure.
James Legge: But a lot of it needs upgrading.
Calum Kerr
Q They will be allowed to do it, but the rental cost of that land would go down.
James Legge: Well, we would agree with that. If the rental goes down and it costs less to upgrade the infrastructure, that is a good thing from our point of view. Presumably that would be under the newer system, not the older one. My understanding—and this may be wrong—is that the new code values land and access in a slightly different way, and the cost should be less to the person putting the infrastructure in. I had a discussion with the Local Government Association about that issue. The LGA said that it would potentially get slightly less money on public land, but that there are savings at the other end. If, for example, you have more efficient provision of digital government—“digital by default”—there could be savings at the other end. The LGA has a slightly mixed view. Yes, it might lose some income but, ditto, landowners will—
Calum Kerr
Okay. I do not think you understood my question, but I will leave it there.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)
Q Mr Moorey, let us return to your comments about Which? being hamstrung by a lack of data sharing. Could you give a fuller explanation of that? Will you put on record the views of Which? about the public services delivery power, and the potential benefits that it might bring, particularly to the most vulnerable in society?
Pete Moorey: As I said, we are broadly supportive of the measures in the Bill. We are hamstrung from two perspectives. The first is a service delivery perspective. When we are delivering something such as our Which? elderly care website, we want to have the richest possible data available to help people make decisions. Yet on occasions when we have gone to certain local authority providers or certain care home providers, we have had an inability to gather that data and provide it in a comparable way. There is also the need to get that information in a clear and comparable format so that organisations like us can do that much better. It is something we have worked on a lot over the past few years with regard to universities. We are starting to see some of the data coming through at the kind of level that students want when they are making those choices. Clearly, having such legislation would better allow us to do that.
Chris Skidmore
Q Any comments on, particularly, the public services power, and how that might affect it?
Pete Moorey: No, no specific other comments on the Bill itself.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q I particularly direct this question at Mr Moorey, because I noticed you mentioned unsolicited calls and the problem of people receiving them despite registering with the Telephone Preference Service. I can declare that I am one of those. I am particularly concerned about the example of a constituent in a neighbouring constituency to mine, Olive Cook, who was one of Britain’s longest-serving poppy sellers, having started in 1938. She fell to her death after being plagued by nuisance callers, particularly from charities. My experience has been that there are also private companies making them. Who is it? Who makes nuisance calls? How are they being dealt with? Does the Bill go far enough to ensure that those companies are held responsible—the directors, if necessary? Should they be made more accountable? Can you tell me some more, please?
Pete Moorey: We have made a lot of progress, I think, on nuisance calls over the last three or four years. That is thanks to an awful lot of people around this table. The Government have made progress with the action plan that we have had, and then in setting up the taskforce, which Which? chaired. We have seen changes to the powers of the Information Commissioner’s Office, and it is now much better able to take action against nuisance callers, and hit them with bigger fines. Caller line identification has been introduced. However, you are right that there is still an awfully long way to go.
Nuisance calls come from a range of places, all over the place. Frequently they come from claims management companies and lead generators. Sometimes they come from reputable businesses. Sadly, too often they also come from scammers and fraudsters. The important measure in the Bill is putting the Information Commissioner’s code into statute, which I think will give it more clout. However, we agree that more could be done about director-level accountability. We recognise that many MPs support that, as do the Scottish Government. Indeed, the Information Commissioner herself, who I believe you are seeing this afternoon, has made supportive noises about it.
We would like director-level accountability to be introduced. It is important, because while in recent years the ICO has used its powers to fine companies, it has collected only four out of the 22 fines it has imposed in the past year. We are concerned that some of the more disreputable firms simply abolish themselves once they are fined—and they are phoenixing. Directors pop up elsewhere and continue the behaviour of making nuisance calls and sending texts. That behaviour needs to be stopped. We need to ensure that those directors are struck off, and that they cannot do the same thing again.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q Is the Telephone Preference Service system now completely pointless? My constituents say to me that they feel completely unprotected by it. Could the Bill do more to strengthen it?
Pete Moorey: It is not pointless. Our research shows that if people sign up to the TPS they usually have a reduction in calls. The problem is that there are too many firms out there that either just abuse the Telephone Preference Service and call people who are on the list, or indeed have consumers’ consent to call them, because, sadly, the customers have incorrectly ticked a box at some point, and thought they were not giving consent when they were giving it. More needs to be done about the data consent issue. I know that the Information Commissioner’s Office is doing more about it.
Kevin Brennan
Q So just to be clear, you would welcome amendments to the Bill that would strengthen action, including direct action against directors to avoid the shutting down of shell companies. Is there a case for some kind of aggravated offence where people are on the Telephone Preference Service, or where older people are specifically targeted in such a way?
Pete Moorey: I know there is a local police commissioner who is looking at the issue at the moment—particularly around making scam calls a hate crime. That is an interesting development. There is more that could be looked at in that area. I think a good start in the Bill would be the introduction of director-level accountability.
Kevin Brennan
I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on this in 2003, so it is depressing that it is still a problem.
Kevin Brennan
It is according to the Government that there has been much progress.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)
Q Mr Moorey, to elaborate on what you said about the provisions in the Bill to reform the appeals process, I think you described the current set-up as having a chilling effect on competition and pro-consumer impacts. It would be great if you would elaborate on what the Bill will do to improve that situation.
Pete Moorey: I think it has. I think the reason why we do not have things like a gain in provider-led switching and automatic compensation in the sector is in part due to the fact that the regulator has not felt able to move ahead with those things without appeal. Indeed, the speed at which the regulator acts is also a result of the appeals mechanism. We see proposals coming from Ofcom, particularly around things like switching, where it seems to go through a process of repeated consultation really out of a fear of being appealed by the companies. So I think it has had a chilling impact, and those are a couple of examples.
As other panel members have said, moving to a system that every other economic regulator in the country uses, which means that you are able to challenge on the process rather than the merits, would therefore be a significant change. I simply do not see the case for the telecoms sector being any different from energy or any other economically regulated sector.
Nigel Huddleston
Q A great frustration in rural areas in particular is being promised mobile coverage or broadband speed that is not delivered. What in the Bill can ensure that those speeds are delivered and that coverage is acceptable?
Pete Moorey: The automatic compensation element is an important part of that. If you are not receiving the speed or signal required, there could be a case for compensation. Clearly, a big issue that we want to see addressed that is not in the Bill is around the Advertising Standards Authority code and the fact that companies can advertise that you will get a certain speed when actually only 10% of their customers get that. I know that the ASA and its committees are looking at that, but I think that needs to move forward much quicker. That is clearly not something for the Bill, but it is something we would support.
Nigel Huddleston
Q What about terminating contracts?
Pete Moorey: Ofcom has taken a lot of steps in recent years to allow people to terminate contracts when they are not getting the speed they want. I think that is an area that needs to be looked at with regard to mobiles as well. Vodafone has introduced a new rule that means that you can get out of a contract within 30 days if you are not getting the signal you expected. Again, I do not think that is necessarily something for the Bill, but it is certainly something the regulator should be looking at.
Claire Perry
Q I wanted to confirm with Mr Legge that he was aware that there are provisions in the Bill to report broadband speed by household. That is something I welcome, and I hope he does too. I suppose that, like me, he is concerned about Mr Huddleston’s point about the provision of service speed to many households in rural areas. I hope that, as a representative of a large chunk of the country, he will welcome that as a positive step for many rural households.
James Legge: Yes, we absolutely think the Bill is very much a step in the right direction, but it is like everything: one can always ask for more and hope for more. Certainly, from our point of view, increasing competition and empowering the consumer is one of the most important aspects of the Bill. Otherwise, people are not in a position to make choices and then take action when the companies do not deliver. As I said, it is important that that is seen as a first step and not as, “We have got 10 megabits—then what?”
Calum Kerr
Q Have you considered whether automatic compensation should be not just for download speed but for upload speed? On the USO, have you put forward proposals on other, more granular levels, such as cost and latency as well as upload and download?
Pete Moorey: Our general view on compensation is that it really should be down to the regulator to set the specific areas that are covered. It needs to do that with consumers, and it needs to be based on consumer expectations. We need to look hard at what the consumer expectations in this world are. If you look at things like water and energy, actually a lot of those compensation levels and what they cover have not been reviewed for some time. We would not want a situation in telecoms where an arbitrary figure of £30 or £40 was set for particular things and then over time that was not addressed.
Calum Kerr
Q They are on or off-type services, though, which, to go your point, should do what it says on the tin. There should be a more granular—
Pete Moorey: Absolutely, and it should meet customers’ expectations for that service.
The Chair
I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. On behalf of the whole Committee, I thank the witnesses for their evidence. Thank you very much.
Examination of Witnesses
Jeni Tennison and Mike Bracken gave evidence.
The Chair
Q We will now hear oral evidence from the Open Data Institute and the Co-op Group. We have until 11.25 am for this session. Will the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?
Jeni Tennison: My name is Jeni Tennison. I am the CEO at the Open Data Institute.
Mike Bracken: My name is Mike Bracken. I am the Chief Digital Officer at the Co-operative Group.
Louise Haigh
Q Mike, to what extent do you think the Government have achieved their stated objective of open policy making by default?
Mike Bracken: I do not have a strong opinion on that. You would have to ask the person responsible overall for policy in Government or the Minister responsible.
Louise Haigh
Q Do the proposals on Government data sharing give you assurance that the Government have sufficiently considered safeguards on privacy, personal data and criteria for data sharing and time limitations?
Mike Bracken: In short, no. The sentiment behind many aspects of the Bill is to be applauded. The Co-op is a big supporter of open data and we see it as the catalyst of a digital economy. There are many complicated issues in this space, privacy and security being highest among them. While we applaud the sentiments of the Bill, there is much detail in the operational management of how data can and should be shared around Government Departments.
While we, of course, are looking for our members’ interests in accessing open sets of public data, it is not yet clear that the current sharing agreements of data within Government are appropriate and it would appear that the move away from open registers of data may hamper the appropriate levels of sharing data in Government. It also may be the case that the friction that our members and members of society feel in dealing with duplicate sets of data, inconsistent sets of data and so on, which lead to substantial problems in accessing Government and their services, may not be improved by the current sharing policies as set out.
Louise Haigh
Q Do you think it is a backward step in public trust in Government data handling?
Mike Bracken: We think the Bill is a positive forward step in terms of the sentiment behind it—
Louise Haigh
Q But in terms of public trust in Government data handling?
Mike Bracken: I could not comment on that. The sentiment of the Bill overall is a positive one, but there is not enough detail on the sharing arrangements within Government and within Government Departments.
Louise Haigh
Q Jeni, my first two questions to you, please.
Jeni Tennison: I agree with much of what Mike has said. The important thing for securing public trust in the measures in the Bill is to have them clearly communicated to the public. Currently, the way they are written is quite complicated and it is quite hard to understand what they really mean.
It is also hard to understand the measures in the Bill in the context of the existing data-sharing agreements in the public sector. We would like to see a lot more transparency around what existing measures there are within Government for data sharing and how the Bill fits with those existing measures so that people can really get to grips with the way in which data are flowing through Government.
Mike Bracken: May I add to that? I completely support what Jeni has said. The issue is that, while we agree that making services and data better and easier to access—the current sharing arrangements are opaque at best—we question the sentiment behind widening those sharing arrangements when they are currently not fully understood. It would appear that that sentiment is driven more by the operational structures of Whitehall and Government agencies than by the needs of users accessing that data.
Rishi Sunak
Q Jeni, do you mind giving us some specific examples that I can explain to my constituents about where increased use of data sharing can help their lives, and where public services can be improved, especially for those who are more vulnerable and benefit from public services? Where will data sharing help them to get the right policies to them?
Jeni Tennison: I tend to work in the open data area rather than around data sharing so many of the examples I tend to use are around data that are openly available for anyone to access using Share. The example I tend to use, which helps people to get to grips with it, is Citymapper, which makes data available to us to enable us to navigate around cities very easily.
When you look at the public sector and the kind of decisions it needs to make, such as planning decisions about where to place schools or transport links, where to put more infrastructure, such as physical infrastructure like mobile masts, for example, you can see that having better access to data about people’s needs—who they are and what their requirements are—might enable it to make better decisions about where those facilities are needed.
Q Thangam Debbonaire: This is for Jeni Tennison about the evidence in the Open Rights Group’s submission. In points 37 and 38 in your objections to the definition of pornographic material, you objected to the inclusion of all 18 materials.
Thangam Debbonaire
I am sorry. I mixed you up with someone else. I withdraw my question.
Chris Skidmore
Q Mr Bracken, you were responsible for launching the Government’s data programme when you were head of the Government Digital Service, so I think that some of the measures in the Bill are very much trying to build on your fantastic work when you were setting a vision for transforming the management and use of data within the Government and driving the use of data as a tool when making decisions in Government. Do you have thoughts about your work in GDS and how the Bill is now building on that work? How do you feel that the powers in the Bill will try to unlock some of the opportunities for better use of data?
Mike Bracken: Obviously, I am here as a member of the Co-op, so I am not going to give a review of my time in Government.
Chris Skidmore
You were closely integrated into this approach.
Mike Bracken: Of course. The first thing is to recognise the positive sentiment in the Bill. There is much in it to admire and applaud and I believe it builds on some of the sentiment for providing better public services that certainly ran through my time in Government, pressed by various Ministers in the Cabinet Office, one of whom is sitting next to you now.
As I said earlier, I think the concern is not the sentiment and support, but in the lack of detail and the operational change that goes with that. Much of the work done previously, to date, has centred around things like single, canonical sets of data, so that there are accurate datasets about individuals, about place, about location, and that they are used within Government. That sentiment too often flies in the face of Whitehall’s demand to own its own data, or what it perceives to be its own data, in every piece of Government. That leads to the current sharing agreements around Whitehall, which are opaque at best and create friction for our members, friction for members of society and friction for business. It is harder to find accurate data, it adds an economic downside to people dealing with Government. The Bill currently seems to move away from the sentiment of sorting that problem out. It seems to reinforce the primacy of Whitehall’s willingness to share more data in ways that it has been sharing data over time. So while the sentiment of the Bill overall is positive, this area of how data are shared does not seem to be looking at the sort of open registers, those single approaches, that we started to look at in the latter part of the previous Parliament.
Matt Hancock
Q Do you agree that those areas in addition that you are looking for are essentially administrative rather than legal changes? That is to say, the Government need to move in that direction, I would argue that they are moving in the direction that you set out, but you would not put that in a Bill; you need to make it happen.
Mike Bracken: Yes. Absolutely, Minister. Too often, there was an assumption that those things would need regulatory or Bill backing. My experience was pretty much 100% that that was not the case; these are largely about administrative and operational management of data across Whitehall and across Departments. Clearly, there are some areas, security being an obvious one, where you need more legal oversight, but primarily it is not so much about a Bill.
Kevin Brennan
Q First, I agree with what Jeni said about Citymapper; it has changed my life, it is absolutely fantastic—I actually use the bus now. However, either witness, will the Bill in any way help to avoid another care.data type of scandal?
Jeni Tennison: I will go back to what I was saying around transparency and public trust. For me, the important part of any dealing with private, personal data has to be that we drive towards trust by being open about what is being done with those data, by being transparent about how they are being used, what decisions are being made with them, whom they are being shared with and under what circumstances. Those principles of having openness around the handling of personal data are what will drive public trust in their use. We are in a very difficult space here between trying to balance the right to privacy of an individual with the public good we can get from the use of data. It is a fuzzy and difficult one, one we are going to be working through for many years, but having transparency and openness about it enables us to have an informed debate about where we are making that balance.
Kevin Brennan
Q Will the Bill make a care.data scandal in the future less likely, more likely or make no difference?
Jeni Tennison: For me, it does not go far enough in the need for transparency around where the sharing is going on, which is what I think would be necessary in order to avoid that.
Kevin Brennan
Q Finally, should the Bill be strengthened in some way in order to achieve that, and could that be done by an amendment to it, either of you?
Jeni Tennison: I think it could be strengthened by adding some provisions around openness and transparency, putting that at the heart of what you need to do whenever there is a data-sharing arrangement.
Claire Perry
Q I appreciate that point, but does either of you agree that there is a real asymmetry of concern between data which an individual may share with a public body and data which individuals share with a corporate body? One thing I am fascinated by, and it relates to so many provisions in the Bill, is that we knowingly or unknowingly give away rights to all kinds of information with every keystroke we make on the internet. We give huge chunks of personal information to corporate bodies which do not have the definition, as per clause 31, of improving the welfare of the individual, but are simply in it for profit. How would either of you help us to address that? Perhaps the Government—rightly, as an elected organisation—are being scrutinised about this, but my constituents are willy-nilly giving away vast chunks of their data, and in some cases giving away private data to very insecure storage facilities, almost without knowing it. It is frustrating for a Government who are trying to do the right thing to make digital government far more effective—as you did, Mike, during your time—to constantly be facing concerns and criticisms that ought properly to be applied to corporate bodies, but never are.
Mike Bracken: I completely understand your point about asymmetry and I agree with that. I would suggest that in corporate, public and private life it is a fair assumption that many people in the country are waking up to how their data have been used, how they have released that data and, increasingly, the repercussions of that, whether on social media, transactional data with a private company or, indeed, the public sector. There is a general awareness of and unease about some of the practices in all three of those sectors.
Having said that, the Government are held to a different account. Our members—we are a member-based organisation—hold the Co-op to a different account. We are the custodian of their data, and we are owned by our members. Many of the services we provide or help to provide to our members, such as wills, probate and funeral care, are deeply emotive at a certain time of life. These services often depend on Government data being in very good shape about place, location and identity. It is a fair correlation to draw that there should be a symmetry between how an organisation like us should be governed and managed, and the rules that should apply to public sector data. That is not to say that all the data regulations which apply to all corporations and trading organisations need to be exactly the same as those for the Government. That would be a political issue far beyond my position to comment on. The Co-op would look to see that the Government uphold the highest possible standards, so that our members can get the best possible use of that public data.
Jeni Tennison: Perhaps I can add a couple of things. Mike has made the point well that the Government need to act as a model for how to do data sharing well, and how to be open and transparent about handling people’s personal data. The Government are in a position of authority there. However, the other thing to bring up is that we have a mixed economy for the delivery of public services, including the private sector, charities and social enterprises. There should be some scrutiny over the way in which those organisations are handling personal data in the context of delivering those public services.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Do you believe that there is a lot of work to do in terms of clarity, in order to allay some of the fears about which data are being used here? I have had emails from constituents, and there is a perception that Excel spreadsheets will be floating around universities with personal financial data and personal health records. It is nothing like that, is it? It is aggregated and anonymised. What can we do, what can Government do and what can you do to help clarify the opportunity, move the debate on to those opportunities and allay some of those fears about data protection?
Jeni Tennison: I completely agree that there needs to be greater clarity about which data are being shared with whom, and why and how. You say that we are talking here about the transfer of aggregate and anonymised data, but that is not necessarily the case for some of the pieces of data sharing that are in the Bill. Some of it is the sharing of individual-level data, but it is not clear whether those are bulk Excel spreadsheets or through APIs. Those are the kinds of details that actually make a difference to how anybody might think about this trade-off between privacy and the public good.
Mike Bracken: Perhaps another way of thinking about that would be to question whether there needs to be sharing at all. As Jeni said, the sharing of data in Government has many different forms. Hopefully, many of those are secure and anonymised. I have doubts about our overall data-sharing operations, simply because Government is so distributed and there are so much data. Adding more sharing, without a clear landscape under which that is happening, seems to add more risk of privacy violation and more risk to security. Perhaps a way to think about it is access rather than sharing. Many Government Departments, and many organisations, are able to provide individual data points at point of request to people who they trust. You can query a dataset using an application programming interface rather than sharing an entire dataset with Departments. I suspect it is that willingness to share very large sets of data in different ways for the convenience of Government Departments and agencies that is the root cause of the unease around the data sharing part of the Bill.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Forgive me, but is that not the point? I said let us focus on the opportunities but already we have gone on to the negatives and the concerns. It is often commented that by sharing health records we could cure cancer in 10 years. If I asked my constituents if they would share their health information with a university, 99 out of 100 people would say yes. We have to be more ambitious on the communication of the opportunities as well, have we not?
Mike Bracken: The opportunities are great and we are very supportive of that, but I suspect you did not ask each individual constituent if we should share everybody’s health data. That is the point. When we ask for data sharing it is down to an individual’s point of view. The Government use bulk data too often when what is actually required is only a small amount of data by another Government Department. There are different mechanisms that can do that more safely.
Chris Skidmore
Q The research power for data sharing, as presented, has been welcomed by many academics and civil society groups as a means of unlocking data for research for public benefit. Looking particularly at that data sharing with non-public bodies, do you recognise the benefits of that power? In terms of your point about communicating the value of the Bill, we have the research power and other things. Looking at vulnerable groups, such as troubled families, we have other powers that are there for public benefit. How do you feel we should express that public benefit?
Jeni Tennison: The benefits of each of the individual pieces of the Bill are different kinds of benefits to different kinds of people. I think they need to be separated out in some ways and not be muddled up together. That is one of the challenges with the Bill.
Matt Hancock
Q Can you set out what some of those might be?
Jeni Tennison: The benefits?
Matt Hancock
Yes.
Jeni Tennison: The research power enables us to provide data to researchers and academics who can then draw broad conclusions about, for example, the state of our economy, or who can give more accurate and up-to-date information about the way in which we are functioning as a society in general. Having those is of great benefit to society. The pieces around fuel poverty and so on are more specific benefits to both individuals who would be touched by that and to the efficiency of the public sector.
Matt Hancock
Q And in terms of the data measures to tackle fraud?
Jeni Tennison: I have not looked at the detail of the individual measures for those kinds of benefits.
Louise Haigh
Q Is the point not that these benefits cannot be achieved unless the risks are tackled head-on, which is exactly what happened with the care.data issue in the last Parliament? That health data could not be shared because the public did not trust the Government or insurers with that risk. I worked in insurance at the time and that came as quite a blow. Is the point not that the Government need to take on the issues around transparency and trust in this Committee? Mike, on your point about data access, do you think Government are currently geared up to allow that, rather than bulk data sharing?
Mike Bracken: “Government” is a very broad organisation. There are promising moves around registers of data and around reinstating an address register. I do not know quite where that is now. There was a promising move but that now seems to be a little on the backburner—I am not sure. The point is that that question needs to be asked to 20-plus Government Departments and more than 300 agencies and non-departmental public bodies, each of which has a different answer. It is hard to summarise where “government” is at any one point without any open standards between those and without any clear framework under which Government data are already being shared.
The Chair
Order. That brings us to the end of the time allotted to the Committee to ask questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses for their evidence.
Digital Economy Bill (Second sitting)
Tuesday 11th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Digital Economy Act 2017 View all Digital Economy Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 October 2016 - (11 Oct 2016)
The Chair
Colleagues and members of the public, welcome to our second evidence session on the Digital Economy Bill. Before we get under way and introduce our first set of witnesses, a number of colleagues wish to declare an interest.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
I do not have any direct interests, but for full transparency I draw the Committee’s attention to my share ownership in Teclan Ltd, which is in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Again for full transparency, prior to becoming an MP I worked for Google, in which I have a small share interest at the moment.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
As I stated in the earlier session, I am a director and shareholder of two telecommunications businesses, and I believe my wife is also a director and shareholder.
Examination of Witnesses
David Austin and Alan Wardle gave evidence.
The Chair
Q 83 For this session we have until 2.45 pm. Will the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?
David Austin: My name is David Austin. I am the chief executive of the British Board of Film Classification.
Alan Wardle: I am Alan Wardle, head of policy and public affairs at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Q David, am I right in interpreting the amendments that the Government tabled last night as meaning that you are intended to be the age verification regulator?
David Austin: That is correct. We reached heads of agreement with the Government last week to take on stages 1 to 3 of the regulation.
Louise Haigh
Q Are you sufficiently resourced to take on that role?
David Austin: We will be, yes. We have plenty of time to gear up, and we will have sufficient resource.
Louise Haigh
Q Will it involve a levy on the porn industry?
David Austin: It will involve the Government paying us the money to do the job on our usual not-for-profit basis.
Louise Haigh
Q What risks do you envisage in people handing over their personal data to the pornographic industry?
David Austin: Privacy is one of the most important things to get right in relation to this regime. As a regulator, we are not interested in identity at all. The only thing that we are interested in is age, and the only thing that a porn website should be interested in is age. The simple question that should be returned to the pornographic website or app is, “Is this person 18 or over?” The answer should be either yes or no. No other personal details are necessary.
We should bear in mind that this is not a new system. Age verification already exists, and we have experience of it in our work with the mobile network operators, where it works quite effectively—you can age verify your mobile phone, for example. It is also worth bearing in mind that an entire industry is developing around improving age verification. Research conducted by a UK adult company in relation to age verification on their online content shows that the public is becoming much more accepting of age verification.
Back in July 2015, for example, this company found that more than 50% of users were deterred when they were asked to age verify. As of September, so just a few weeks ago, that figure had gone down to 2.3%. It is established technology, it is getting better and people are getting used to it, but you are absolutely right that privacy is paramount.
Louise Haigh
Q Are you suggesting that it will literally just be a question—“Is the user aged 18?”—and their ticking a box to say yes or no? How else could you disaggregate identity from age verification?
David Austin: There are a number of third-party organisations. I have experience with mobile phones. When you take out a mobile phone contract, the adult filters are automatically turned on and the BBFC’s role is to regulate what content goes in front of or behind the adult filters. If you want to access adult content—and it is not just pornography; it could be depictions of self-harm or the promotion of other things that are inappropriate for children—you can go to your operator, such as EE, O2 or Vodafone, with proof that you are 18 or over. It is then on the record that that phone is age verified. That phone can then be used in other contexts to access content.
Louise Haigh
Q But how can that be disaggregated from identity? That person’s personal data is associated with that phone and is still going to be part of the contract.
David Austin: It is known by the mobile network operator, but beyond that it does not need to be known at all.
Louise Haigh
Q And is that the only form of age verification that you have so far looked into?
David Austin: The only form of age verification that we, as the BBFC, have experience of is age verification on mobile phones, but there are other methods and there are new methods coming on line. The Digital Policy Alliance, which I believe had a meeting here yesterday to demonstrate new types of age verification, is working on a number of initiatives.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
Q May I say what great comfort it is to know that the BBFC will be involved in the regulatory role? It suggests that this will move in the right direction. We all feel very strongly that the Bill is a brilliant step in the right direction: things that were considered inconceivable four or five years ago can now be debated and legislated for.
The fundamental question for me comes down to enforcement. We know that it is difficult to enforce anything against offshore content providers; that is why in the original campaign we went for internet service providers that were British companies, for whom enforcement could work. What reassurance can you give us that enforcement, if you have the role of enforcement, could be carried out against foreign entities? Would it not be more appropriate to have a mandatory take-down regime if we found that a company was breaking British law by not asking for age verification, as defined in the Bill?
David Austin: The BBFC heads of agreement with the Government does not cover enforcement. We made clear that we would not be prepared to enforce the legislation in clauses 20 and 21 as they currently stand. Our role is focused much more on notification; we think we can use the notification process and get some quite significant results.
We would notify any commercially-operated pornographic website or app if we found them acting in contravention of the law and ask them to comply. We believe that some will and some, probably, will not, so as a second backstop we would then be able to contact and notify payment providers and ancillary service providers and request that they withdraw services from those pornographic websites. So it is a two-tier process.
We have indications from some major players in the adult industry that they want to comply—PornHub, for instance, is on record on the BBC News as having said that it is prepared to comply. But you are quite right that there will still be gaps in the regime, I imagine, after we have been through the notification process, no matter how much we can achieve that way, so the power to fine is essentially the only real power the regulator will have, whoever the regulator is for stage 4.
For UK-based websites and apps, that is fine, but it would be extremely challenging for any UK regulator to pursue foreign-based websites or apps through a foreign jurisdiction to uphold a UK law. So we suggested, in our submission of evidence to the consultation back in the spring, that ISP blocking ought to be part of the regulator’s arsenal. We think that that would be effective.
Claire Perry
Q Am I right in thinking that, for sites that are providing illegally copyrighted material, there is currently a take-down and blocking regime that does operate in the UK, regardless of their jurisdiction?
David Austin: Yes; ISPs do block website content that is pirated. There was research published earlier this year in the US that found that it drove traffic to pirated websites down by about 90%. Another tool that has been used in relation to IP protection is de-indexing, whereby a search engine removes the infringing website from any search results. We also see that as a potential way forward.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Q First, can I verify that you both support adding in the power to require ISPs to block non-compliant sites?
David Austin: Yes.
Alan Wardle: Yes, we support that.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q Good. That was quick. I just wanted to make sure that was there. What are your comments on widening the scope, so that age verification could be enforced for matters other than pornography, such as violent films or other content that we would not allow in the offline world? I am talking about things such as pro-anorexia websites. We know that this is possible to do in certain formats, because it is done for other things, such as copyright infringement. What are your views on widening the scope and the sanctions applying to that?
Alan Wardle: We would support that. We think the Bill is a really great step forward, although some things, such as enforcement, need to be strengthened. We think this is an opportunity to see how you can give children parity of protection in the online and the offline worlds.
It is very good, from our perspective, that the BBFC is doing this, because they have got that expertise. Pornography is not the only form of harm that children see online. We know from our research at the NSPCC that there are things like graphic violence. You mentioned some of the pro-anorexia and pro-suicide sites, and they are the kind of things that ought to be dealt with. We are supporting developing a code of practice with industry to work out what those harms are—and that is very much a staged approach.
We take it for granted that when, for instance, a child goes to a youth group or something like that, we make sure there are protections there, and that the staff are CRB checked. Somehow it seems that for children going on to the internet it is a bit like the wild west. There are very few protections. Some of the content really is upsetting and distressing to children. This is not about adults being blocked from seeing adult content. That is absolutely fine; we have no problem with that at all. But it is about protecting children from seeing content that is inappropriate for them. We would certainly support that widening, but obviously doing it in a staged way so that the regulator does not take on too much at once. We would certainly support that.
David Austin: I would echo what Alan says. We see this Bill as a significant step forward in terms of child protection. We absolutely agree with the principle of protecting children from a wider range of content—indeed, that is what we do in other areas: for example, with the mobile network operators and their adult filters. Like Alan, I think we see it in terms of more of a staged approach. The BBFC taking on this role is a significant new area of work—quite a challenge to take on board. I think there is a potential risk of overloading the Bill if we try to put too much on it, so I would very much support the NSPCC’s phased approach.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q Is there anything further that you think needs to be added to the Bill to make the sanctions regime work? I am also thinking—at the risk of going against what you just said, Mr Austin—about whether or not we should be considering sites that are not designed for commercial purposes but where pornography or other harmful material is available on a non-commercial basis; or things not designed for porn at all, such as Twitter timelines or Tumblr and other social media, where the main purpose may not be pornography or other harmful material, but it is available. Do you think the Bill has enough sanctions in it to cope with all of that, or should that be added? Is there anything else you would like to add?
David Austin: There were a few questions. I will try to answer them all, but if I miss any of them please come back to me. In terms of sanctions, I have talked about ISP blocking and de-indexing. We think those could be potentially effective steps. In terms of commercial pornography, we have been working on devising a test of what that is. The Bill states explicitly that the pornography could be free and still provided on a commercial basis. I do not think it is narrowing the scope of the regulation an awful lot by specifying commercial pornography. If there are adverts, if the owner is a corporate entity, if there are other aspects—if the site is exploiting data, for example: there are all sorts of indications that a site is operating on a commercial basis. So I do not see that as a real problem.
In relation to Twitter, which you mentioned, what the Bill says the regulator should do is define what it sees as ancillary service providers. Those are organisations whose work facilitates and enables the pornography to be distributed. There is certainly a case to argue that social media such as Twitter are ancillary service providers. There are Twitter account holders who provide pornography on Twitter so I think you could definitely argue that.
I would argue that Twitter is an ancillary service provider, as are search engines and ISPs. One of the things that we plan to do in the next weeks and months would be to engage with everyone that we think is an ancillary service provider, and see what we can achieve together, to try and achieve the maximum protection we can through the notification regime that we are taking on as part 3 of the Bill.
The Chair
Just before we move on, shall we see if Mr Wardle also wants to contribute to things that should be in the Bill?
Alan Wardle: On that point, I think it is important for us that there is clarification—and I would agree with David about this—in terms of ensuring that sites that may for instance be commercial but that are not profiting from pornography are covered. Again, Twitter is an example. We know that there are porn stars with Twitter accounts who have lots of people following them and lots of content, so it is important that that is covered.
It is important that the legislation is future-proofed. We are seeing at the NSPCC through Childline that sexual content or pornography are increasingly live-streamed through social media sites, and there is self-generated content, too. It is important that that is covered, as well as the traditional—what you might call commercial—porn. We know from our research at the NSPCC that children often stumble across pornography, or it is sent to them. We think that streamed feeds for over-18s and under-18s should be possible so that sort of content is not available to children. It can still be there for adults, but not for children.
Nigel Adams
Q Can you give us your perspective on the scale of the problem of under-18s’ access to this sort of inappropriate content? I guess it is difficult to do a study into it but, through the schools network and education departments, do you have any idea of the scale of the issue?
Alan Wardle: We did research earlier this year with the University of Middlesex into this issue. We asked young people—under 18s—whether they had seen pornography and when. Between the ages of 11 and 18, about half of them had seen pornography. Obviously, when you get to older children—16 and 17-year-old-boys in particular—it was much higher. Some 90% of those 11 to 18-year-olds had seen it by the age of 14. It was striking—I had not expected this—that, of the children who had seen it, about half had searched for it but the other half had stumbled across it through pop-ups or by being sent stuff on social media that they did not want to see.
It is a prevalent problem. If a determined 17-year-old boy wants to see pornography, undoubtedly he will find a way of doing it, but of particular concern to us is when you have got eight, nine or 10-year-old children stumbling across this stuff and being sent things that they find distressing. Through Childline, we are getting an increasing number of calls from children who have seen pornographic content that has upset them.
Nigel Adams
Q Has there been any follow-on, in terms of assaults perpetrated by youngsters as a result of being exposed to this?
Alan Wardle: It is interesting to note that there has been an exponential rise in the number of reports of sexual assaults against children in the past three or four years. I think it has gone up by about 84% in the past three years.
Nigel Adams
Q By children?
Alan Wardle: Against children. Part of that, we think, is what you might call the Savile effect—since the Savile scandal there has been a much greater awareness of child abuse and children are more likely to come forward, which we think is a good thing. But Chief Constable Simon Bailey, who is the national lead on child protection, believes that a significant proportion of that is due to the internet. Predators are able to cast their net very widely through social networking sites and gaming sites, fishing for vulnerable children to groom and abuse.
We believe that, in developing the code of practice that I talked about earlier, that sort thing needs to be built in to ensure that children are protected from that sort of behaviour in such spaces. The internet is a great thing but, as with everything, it can be used for darker purposes. We think there is increasing evidence—Simon Bailey has said this, and more research needs to be done into the scale of it—that children, as well as seeing adult content, are increasingly being groomed for sex online.
Nigel Adams
Q Mr Austin, what constructive conversations and meetings have you had with ISPs thus far, in terms of the potential for blocking those sites—especially the sites generated abroad?
David Austin: We have not had any conversations yet, because we signed the exchange of letters with the Government only last Thursday and it was made public only today that we are taking on this role. We have relationships with ISPs—particularly the mobile network operators, with which we have been working for a number of years to bring forward child protection on mobile devices.
Our plan is to engage with ISPs, search engines, social media—the range of people we think are ancillary service providers under the Bill—over the next few weeks and months to see what we can achieve together. We will also be talking to the adult industry. As we have been regulating pornography in the offline space and, to an extent, in the online space for a number of years, we have good contacts with the adult industry so we will engage with them.
Many companies in the adult industry are prepared to work with us. Playboy, for instance, works with us on a purely voluntary basis online. There is no law obliging it to work with us, but it wants to ensure that all the pornography it provides is fully legal and compliant with British Board of Film Classification standards, and is provided to adults only. We are already working in this space with a number of players.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Obviously, the BBFC is very experienced at classifying films according to certain classifications and categories. I am sure it is no easy task, but it is possible to use an objective set of criteria to define what is pornographic or disturbing, or is it subjective? How do you get that balance?
David Austin: The test of whether something is pornographic is a test that we apply every single day, and have done since the 1980s when we first started regulating that content under the Video Recordings Act 1984. The test is whether the primary purpose of the work is to arouse sexually. If it is, it is pornography. We are familiar with that test and use it all the time.
Nigel Huddleston
Q In terms of skills and resources, are you confident you will be able to get the right people in to do the job properly? I am sure that it is quite a disturbing job in some cases.
David Austin: Yes. We already have people who have been viewing pornographic content for a number of years. We may well need to recruit one or two extra people, but we certainly have the expertise and we are pretty confident that we already have the resources. We have time between now and the measures in the Bill coming into force to ensure that we have a fully effective system up and running.
The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)
Q I just want to put on the record that we are delighted that the BBFC has signed the heads of agreement to regulate this area. I cannot think of a better organisation with the expertise and the experience to make it work. What proportion of viewed material do you think will be readily covered by the proposed mechanism in the Bill that you will be regulating the decision over but not the enforcement of?
David Austin: I am not sure that I understand the question.
Matt Hancock
Q I am thinking about the scale of the problem—the number of views by under-18s of material that you deem to be pornographic. What proportion of the problem do you think the Bill, with your work, will fix?
David Austin: So we are talking about the amount of pornography that is online?
Matt Hancock
Q And what is accessed.
David Austin: Okay. As you all know, there is masses of pornography online. There are 1.5 million new pornographic URLs coming on stream every year. However, the way in which people access pornography in this country is quite limited. Some 70% of users go to the 50 most popular websites. With children, that percentage is even greater; the data evidence suggests that they focus on a relatively small number of sites.
We would devise a proportionality test and work out what the targets are in order to achieve the greatest possible level of child protection. We would focus on the most popular websites and apps accessed by children—those data do exist. We would have the greatest possible impact by going after those big ones to start with and then moving down the list.
Matt Hancock
Q So you would be confident of being able to deal with the vast majority of the problem.
David Austin: Yes. We would be confident in dealing with the sites and apps that most people access. Have I answered the question?
Matt Hancock
Q Yes. Given that there is a big problem that is hard to tackle and complicated, I was just trying to get a feel for how much of the problem you think, with your expertise and the Bill, we can fix.
David Austin: We can fix a great deal of the problem. We cannot fix everything. The Bill is not a panacea but it can achieve a great deal, and we believe we can achieve a great deal working as the regulator for stages 1 to 3.
Louise Haigh
Q My question follows on neatly from that. While I am sure that the regulation will tackle those top 50 sites, it obviously comes nowhere near tackling the problems that Mr Wardle outlined, and the crimes, such as grooming, that can flow from those problems. There was a lot of discussion on Second Reading about peer-to-peer and social media sites that you have called “ancillary”. No regulation in the world is going to stop that. Surely, the most important way to tackle that is compulsory sex education at school.
Alan Wardle: Yes. In terms of online safety, a whole range of things are needed and a whole lot of players. This will help the problem. We would agree and want to work with BBFC about a proportionality test and identifying where the biggest risks are to children, and for that to be developing. That is not the only solution.
Yes, we believe that statutory personal, social and health education and sexual relationships education is an important part of that. Giving parents the skills and understanding of how to keep their children safe is also really important. But there is a role for industry. Any time I have a conversation with an MP or parliamentarian about this and they have a child in their lives—whether their own, or nieces or nephews—we quickly come to the point that it is a bit of a nightmare. They say, “We try our best to keep our children safe but there is so much, we don’t know who they are speaking to” and all the rest of it.
How do we ensure that when children are online they are as safe as they are when offline? Of course, things happen in the real world as well and no solution is going to be perfect. Just as, in terms of content, we would not let a seven-year-old walk into the multiplex and say, “Here is ‘Finding Nemo’ over here and here is hard core porn—off you go.”
We need to build those protections in online so we know what children are seeing and to whom they speaking and also skilling up children themselves through school and helping parents. But we believe the industry has an important part to play in Government, in terms of regulating and ensuring that spaces where children are online are as safe as they can be.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Q To follow on from the Minister’s question, you feel you are able to tackle roughly the top 50 most visited sites. Is there a danger that you then replace those with the next top 50 that are perhaps less regulated and less co-operative? How might we deal with that particular problem, if it exists?
David Austin: When I said “the top 50”, I was talking in terms of the statistics showing that 70% of people go to the top 50. We would start with the top 50 and work our way through those, but we would not stop there. We would look to get new data every quarter, for example. As you say, sites will come in and out of popularity. We will keep up to date and focus on those most popular sites for children.
We would also create something that we have, again, done with the mobile operators. We would create an ability for members of the public—a parent, for example—to contact us about a particular website if that is concerning them. If an organisation such as the NSPCC is getting information about a particular website or app that is causing problems in terms of under-age access, we would take a look at that as well. In creating this proportionality test what we must not do is be as explicit as to say that we will look only at the top 50.
First, that is not what we would do. Secondly, we do not want anyone to think, “Okay, we don’t need to worry about the regulator because we are not on their radar screen.” It is very important to keep up to date with what are the most popular sites and, therefore, the most effective in dealing with under-age regulation, dealing with complaints from members of the public and organisations such as the NSPCC.
Alan Wardle: I think that is why the enforcement part is so important as well, so that people know that if they do not put these mechanisms in place there will be fines and enforcement notices, the flow of money will be stopped and, crucially, there is that backstop power to block if they do not operate as we think they should in this country. The enforcement mechanisms are really important to ensure that the BBFC can do their job properly and people are not just slipping from one place to the next.
Claire Perry
Q Of those top 50 sites, do we know how many are UK-based?
David Austin: I would guess, none of them. I do not know for sure, but that would be my understanding.
Claire Perry
Q Secondly, I want to turn briefly to the issue of the UK’s video on demand content. My reading around clause 15 suggests that, although foreign-made videos on demand will be captured by the new provisions, UK-based will continue to be caught by Communications Act 2003 provisions. Do you think that is adequate?
David Austin: That is my understanding as well. We work very closely with Ofcom. Ofcom regulates UK on demand programme services as the Authority for Television On Demand, but it applies our standards in doing so. That is a partnership that works pretty effectively and Ofcom has done an effective job in dealing with that type of content. That is one bit that is carved out from the Bill and already dealt with by Ofcom.
The Chair
We have given the witnesses a good half-hour grilling, so if no one is seeking to catch my eye—yes, Calum?
Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (SNP)
May I move on to intellectual property?
Calum Kerr
Q Thank you. There are some welcome measures in the Bill relating to making the protection of intellectual property online as same as it is offline. I note, though, that there is some concern about search engines and how intellectual property would be policed. What is your view on how that will work? Do there need to be additional powers?
David Austin: To be honest, we do not deal with intellectual property. Our core work is the protection of children, and intellectual property is another issue. We do work with an industry for which the protection of intellectual property is very important, but I am afraid I am not the person to ask.
Alan Wardle: I am not an expert on intellectual property, regrettably.
The Chair
Colleagues, are there any other questions for these excellent witnesses? No. In that case, thank you very much indeed, David and Alan, for your evidence. We appreciate it.
Examination of witnesses
Dr Edgar Whitley and Mr Scott Coates gave evidence.
The Chair
Q We have roughly 45 minutes for this group of witnesses, if necessary. Will the witnesses please introduce themselves?
Dr Whitley: My name is Dr Edgar Whitley. I am an academic at the London School of Economics. Of particular importance for this session is the fact that I am the co-chair of the privacy and consumer advisory group of the Government Digital Service.
Scott Coates: Good afternoon. My name is Scott Coates and I am the CEO of the Wireless Infrastructure Group, an independent British wireless infrastructure company that builds and operates communication towers and fibre networks.
Louise Haigh
Q In your written evidence, Mr Coates, you talked about the need for greater diversity in the ownership of mobile infrastructure. Does the Bill go far enough on that?
Scott Coates: We welcome the measures in the Bill to improve the speed at which infrastructure can be deployed and to improve the economics of deploying the infrastructure. It is critical to understand that there are different ways of deploying infrastructure. There are different ownership models, for which the Bill could have different impacts. When I say “infrastructure”, I mean the kind of mobile and fixed infrastructure that you see in the field, whether that is cables, ducts, cabinets or communication tower facilities.
There are two different types of owners of those types of infrastructure. First, the vertically integrated players are effectively building and operating that infrastructure for their own networks, primarily, and their business case is based on their economic use of that infrastructure. Secondly, you have a growing pool of independent infrastructure companies, of which we are one. We are very different from the traditional, vertically integrated players in that we are investing in infrastructure not for our own network, but to provide access, on a shared basis, to all other networks.
Louise Haigh
Q What are the current proportions for ownership?
Scott Coates: If I talk about mobile infrastructure, around a third of the UK’s communications towers—of which we think there are around 27,000 in the UK—are independently operated. It is really interesting that, globally, there has been a very firm shift over the past decade towards more independent operation of such upstream digital infrastructure.
Currently, more than 60% of all communication towers globally are held in an entity separate from the networks that use them. In countries such as India or the US, that figure is somewhere between 80% and 90%. There are real benefits that flow from the independent ownership of infrastructure. We are trying to do more in the UK, but the UK currently lags behind in the global statistics I mentioned.
Louise Haigh
Q Does the Bill do anything to address that?
Scott Coates: One of the things that we acknowledge and welcome in the Bill is that it is very clear about maintaining investment incentives—not just for the vertically integrated players, but for the independent infrastructure players such as ourselves—
Louise Haigh
Q It will not do anything to address the proportion, will it? It will only entrench the division already there.
Scott Coates: I do not think that the Bill does anything to encourage more independent infrastructure. The Government’s policy position at the moment is very clear: they want to maintain investment incentives for independent infrastructure. To achieve clarity on this requires that the Bill is worded very carefully.
When we deploy our tariff facilities and infrastructure on or adjacent to land, as things are now one of the definitions of UK land often covers things that sit on that land. One of the potential risks is that if the activities we engage in and the facilities that we deploy are not carefully carved out, they risk being treated as land. Under the new valuations principles in the communications code, that potentially risks giving them no value or low value, which would obviously be devastating to investment appetite. The consequence of that would be further concentration of infrastructure ownership in the hands of the larger, vertically integrated players who have different incentives from us when they approach this.
Louise Haigh
Q So there is potential for this to get worse, but what could be done to actually encourage more independently owned infrastructure?
Scott Coates: We would like to see a carve-out that is as clear as possible for the activities that we are engaged in. We would like to see it made absolutely clear that the communications code, which is a compulsory purchase tool to bring land into the telecoms sector, does not drift beyond that focus and risk entering into what is really Ofcom’s territory, which is to govern the relationships between telecoms companies.
Louise Haigh
Q Dr Whitley, if I may jump to part 5 of the Bill, we heard earlier that there were concerns that the Government have not taken sufficiently into account safeguards around privacy and personal data. Do you think that this strikes the right balance between open policy-making and privacy?
Dr Whitley: My main concern with part 5 is that the detail is just not there. The codes of practice that one would expect to have there, which would give the details about how privacy might be protected, are not present. We have been involved with the privacy and consumer advisory group. As far as I can tell, we had our first meeting with the team who were developing these proposals back in July 2013. We said from the very beginning that we want detail, because when we have specific details we can give advice and suggestions and review it, but we have never had that level of specific detail.
Louise Haigh
Q So the proposals do not reflect at all the three years of consultation that have taken place?
Dr Whitley: Obviously, that is reflected in some parts of the proposals, but we asked for more details specifically on how privacy will be protected regarding the data-sharing proposals, and that is still not there.
Louise Haigh
Q Should that detail be in primary legislation?
Dr Whitley: Whether it is in primary legislation or in codes of practice, my personal view is that you need a certain level of detail to be able to make an informed decision. Otherwise there will be some vague position of, “We will share some data with other people within Government. Trust us, because we are going to develop some codes of practice that will be consulted on and will then be put in front of Parliament. There will be protections and it will all be fine”. We are saying that there are lots of different ways of doing that. The earlier you give us at least a first attempt at those details, the better we can improve it.
Louise Haigh
Q In that period of consultation, was the detail around transparency never discussed?
Dr Whitley: It depends. There has been talk along the lines of there being codes of practice and liaison with the Information Commissioner’s Office, so at a very high level there has obviously been some discussion. But at the very specific level—for example, the civil registration clauses talk both about allowing a yes/no check around whether there is a birth certificate associated with a family, while on the other hand there will be bulk data sharing within Government so that different Departments can know stuff and possibly make things better for society.
One half of that seems to be quite specific, and you can see how it could well be designed as a simple “Does a birth certificate exist for this person?” and the answer is yes or no. The privacy protections around that are reasonably well known and not very much data is being shared. Then the other illustration just says, “we will share these data with other bits of Government” and there is nothing there about what kind of privacy protections might be put in place. There are many different ways in which that can be done, but until we have some specific details, we cannot give you sensible reviews as to whether that is a good or not so good way of doing it.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Mr Coates, what role should wireless technologies play in achieving the universal service obligation?
Scott Coates: There is no doubt that for the last 5%, maybe a greater proportion than that, wireless technologies have a significant role to play. Six of the seven trials run by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport earlier this year were of a wireless-based structure. I think there is a role for it. It is also interesting, as you look beyond 10 megabits to the future when universal service means something far more substantial than that, that a new disruptive technology is coming.
Everyone is talking about 5G; it does not really exist at this stage, but we know it is going to be ultra-high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, with the potential to be a disruptive technology and replace fixed line to the home. Some countries around the world that have not had the wave of fixed line technology roll-out will be moving straight to wireless as their domestic broadband service.
Nigel Huddleston
Q What kind of timescales were you thinking about for the achievement of 5G?
Scott Coates: With 5G, it is really hot and talked about now, but it is still some way off. Mobile operators will market it strongly and talk about it strongly, but there was something last week from France Telecom admitting it does not know what it is yet, and that is the substance of the matter.
As we come in to the early 2020s, at the beginning of the next decade, we will start to see something. Interestingly, the infrastructure that is going to enable it is starting to go down now, so particularly in urban areas; as the concentration of cell sizes needs to get smaller and smaller, the infrastructure needed to power faster 4G services will ultimately be the infrastructure used to power 5G.
Coming back to the structure of the industry, it is critical that there is a competitive infrastructure market for 5G. As a new technology that is a combination of wireless and fibre, it has the opportunity to have multiple infrastructure parties competing. It also carries the risk of being a monopolised infrastructure.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Is this roll-out likely through purely commercial models or do you see a role for some kind of Government support here?
Scott Coates: In terms of using wireless to achieve USO, mobile as a technology has a very clean and efficient way of pushing out coverage to rural parts of the population, and that is through the licences. There is another major round of licensing, with something called 2.3 and 2.4, which is coming soon.
There is also 700 MHz, which is a really powerful frequency for delivering coverage into rural areas and which has already been licensed in many European countries. It is not licensed here yet, but the rules of those licences create an opportunity to get coverage out to the most rural parts of the country. You could do things like in Germany, where they said rural areas have to be covered before urban areas. That is the most efficient way of unlocking coverage from a wireless perspective in rural areas.
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
Q One of the biggest challenges facing coastal and rural communities like mine is the problems with undulating coastlines and areas of outstanding natural beauty. I am interested in your thoughts on how we can strengthen the Bill to make sure we get out to some of the rural areas left behind in the past.
Scott Coates: I refer you back to the last question. The most efficient way to deal with that is through the licences. There is licensing coming up that will create an opportunity. Unfortunately, it is going to be a few years before the airwaves that deliver that are available for deployment.
There is a lot of activity happening in the sector at the moment. The mobile operators are very busy investing in their networks and we are working hand in hand with them to help them deliver that. I know we are building new towers in coastal areas right now; I do not know if we are building one in your constituency. So it is getting better. Bear in mind that the Government struck a deal with the mobile operators 18 months ago and the operators are busy investing on the back of that. In the last 4G licence, when the 800 MHz got auctioned, one of the licence lots, bought by Telefónica, required it to cover more of the country, so Telefónica is investing on the back of that as well.
Claire Perry
Q I want to push Dr Whitley on the privacy question. I think that what you are asking for, a code of conduct and some clarity, is reasonable, but equally, we cannot know what the demands and the questions might be going forward, or the data requirements. I look back on where Government do share data, querying the national insurance database, or, indeed, the Government ID project, where DVLA records were queried as a measure of identity, it all appeared to be fine, there were no issues of privacy or data loss, to my knowledge. In a way, should we not be taking on trust—I know that trust is a word people never like to use with Government, whereas we trust corporates all the time with all kinds of data—that we have not had a problem and that the right rules and procedures and the spirit of privacy will be protected?
Dr Whitley: You have highlighted a very privacy-friendly way of checking data that says, somebody has a database and you look it up and you say, “This particular person, or this particular attribute, is it true, yes or no?” Referring to the previous evidence session and the question, “Is this person over 18 and therefore able to access?”, yes/no seems a perfectly reasonable way of doing that and that is the kind of thing that we have been encouraging Government to do. As you say, the Verify programme uses exactly those kinds of checks. The problem is that, without that level of detail, it is not at all clear that that is going to be proposed for all parts of the data sharing. Again, with the civil registration data, they say explicitly, “We want to do bulk sharing” and that is, by definition, not a yes/no check. That is, “Here is a set of data that we have that we think will be useful for your Department to match against and thereby tailor particular services.”
As the National Audit Office reported a few weeks ago, there were 9,000 data incidents within Government in 2014-15. If you start just moving the data around, you really run the risk of data incidents of varying levels of severity, and if you do not have that detail you have to rely on trust. Is it not better to have that detail, so you can say, “This is what we want to do, this is the way we are thinking of doing it”, and ask experts, not only in PCAG but in general, “Do you have any issues or concerns about that and, if you do, what alternative ways might there be for addressing those?”?
Claire Perry
Q Do large corporate families do that? Nobody ever reads the Ts and Cs, but if they do, do you give explicit permission for your data to be handled around the Facebook family, for example, in the way that you suggest Government should specify? That is just a question from ignorance.
Dr Whitley: I do not know exactly how Facebook would handle it, but even if you are not worried about the data breach and data loss issue there is just a simple efficiency thing: it is a lot easier to have small pieces of data—yes/no, they are interested in this form of cat food, they are interested in those kinds of holidays, therefore target adverts based on that—than sending huge swathes of data to other parts of the system for duplication and therefore increasing the risk of data loss.
Claire Perry
Q It is an operational concern as well as a privacy concern?
Dr Whitley: Yes. From my perspective you start with a privacy concern that says, minimise the data that you are handling, do not have it in duplicate locations all over, but a consequence of starting with that privacy concern is that you also have very clear operational efficiencies; that you are not duplicating data and you are not having large amounts of data in your system, because the more data you hold, the more likely it is that there will be a breach, an attack, an accidental loss or whatever.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)
Q Mr Coates, will you expand a little on your experience, internationally, of licence requirements in broadening coverage to rural areas? What is the specific benefit of independently owned infrastructure for rural communities, in bringing access to places which struggle with mobile signal today?
Scott Coates: I am going to pick on two countries that we have looked at making investments into. Germany, which I mentioned earlier, has an outside-in policy, so you have to cover their rural areas with your new batch of spectrum before you are allowed to deploy it into urban areas. France has got a very interesting model, in which they have compartmentalised the whole country. At the moment the Ofcom licences ensure that Scotland, England and Wales have their own targets, but if you break it down even further, the demands become higher on those targets. We have seen some targets in France where, by compartment, we are looking at 99.6% coverage by 2027. They have given the industry a long time to reach that target, but it is very bold. If people knew it was going to get better, maybe it would become a bit more understandable. This is not like changing a lightbulb; this is infrastructure that needs to be built.
I think there are three benefits of independent infrastructure. First, there is clear evidence that it enables better connectivity. Because our infrastructure is operated independently of a network, we do not have any of the conflicts of interest that normally exist in the vertically integrated model, in which the infrastructure owner is forced to provide access to their competitor. Because we focus only on infrastructure—it is our core business model—we tend to build better infrastructure, and we share it with more networks. There is evidence out there. Ernst and Young looked at this last year and studied independent communication tower ownership across north America and Europe. They compared it with communication towers that are owned as part of mobile networks. They found that there are twice as many networks using the independent infrastructure, compared with the vertically integrated owned infrastructure. That is twice the productivity coming off a piece of infrastructure, which is transformational, when it comes to enabling connectivity, particularly in rural areas.
The second benefit is around investment. At the end of the day, solving these problems comes down to investment. Independent infrastructure opens up a whole new channel of investor and brings a different type of investor into our industry: long-term, low-cost-to-capital infrastructure investors who are targeting infrastructure only. They do not want to invest in the retail operations or in buying premiership football rights; they want to invest purely in infrastructure. We can be a conduit to bring in that capital to invest in infrastructure. Earlier this year, after 10 years of various rounds of financing, our business announced a major fundraising transaction with a UK blue chip infrastructure investor—3i Infrastructure plc—and a north American investor that invests on behalf of state pension plans. That is exactly the kind of capital you want—long-term, patient capital—fuelling the growth of infrastructure.
The final benefit is in and around competition. We create competition at the infrastructure level. On the fixed-line side of the market, you can see some of the challenges from a lack of competition. But we also enable competition at a retail level, because our infrastructure is open for everyone to use. Mobile operators are the biggest users of our infrastructure, but well over 100 different network use our infrastructure in rural areas. Sometimes that can mean a local wireless broadband company that simply cannot afford to build its own infrastructure and would find it very difficult to get access to a mobile operator on a piece of infrastructure. On average, every one of our towers in the UK supports a non-mobile operator network running over it. Those are the three benefits of independent infrastructure.
Calum Kerr
There was a Coates who played for Liverpool. He was from Uruguay, so they called him Co-ah-tez.
Scott Coates: He played against England once.
Calum Kerr
Q He will again.
I would like to ask you about the USO, and then I would like to come on to the mobile environment. I have a problem with the USO not just because of the lack of ambition and what 10 megabits means for people living in those areas, but because the tactical low-speed USO will not push fibre a lot further. The lines between wired and wireless are blurring all the time, so would a more ambitious USO with faster speeds help you, in terms of pushing fibre further and putting other infrastructure out there?
Scott Coates: I think it comes down to the cost element. The further out you go with fibre, the more expensive it becomes. Our infrastructure in rural areas tends to be bigger pieces of infrastructure, so quite often there is fibre coming through it or it links to a site that has fibre, and that creates more bandwidth to power the wireless services coming over it. More generally, I would say that the USO is a start. No one is going to be happy with 10 megabits in a few years, but I would say that you need to start somewhere and it needs to be manageable from a cost point of view.
Calum Kerr
Q I will not ask you, then, whether the Scottish Government’s policy to have 30 megabits everywhere is more appropriate. I think that everyone is in agreement that the electronic communications code needed to be reformed, and there are some welcome measures in there, but as an independent infrastructure provider, do you honestly think that that will lead to more coverage by mobile providers, or will it simply give them a better bottom line?
Scott Coates: There are certainly measures that will make it easier to get rid of the bottlenecks and faster to resolve disputes. Running cables to connect up mobile sites has been a real challenge, so being able to fix those problems—that is not really about economics; it is about having faster resolution. Some of the pricing elements I do not think will have a material impact in rural areas when the commercial case to invest is not really there for the mobile operators anyway. The only way you can deal with that is through the licences. The new code will help to remove some of the ransom costs that we see in the industry and certainly give us a much more powerful weapon against those, but on a day-to-day basis, we do not expect to be moving towards compulsory-based conversations with our customers. The industry needs to work on a voluntary basis. That is absolutely essential; it is how it works everywhere else in the world. We have busy infrastructure facilities. We are there on average every 12 days. We need to have a good partnership with our land providers. The code is a really helpful and powerful new tool of last resort, but our whole industry needs to maintain a voluntary basis of engaging as our MO for dealing with landowners.
Calum Kerr
Q Thank you very much. Mr Coates, I thought you gave a great overview of why independent infrastructure is really important. You obviously feel a concern, so is there specific wording that you would like to see in the Bill that we could discuss at the next stage to ensure that you are protected and the value of your assets is not lost?
Scott Coates: Thank you for that question. We have had a really engaging journey with the Minister’s officials. They have been very diligent and transparent in engaging with us all the way through this fairly long process on the communications code. Our concern generally is that there is a fine line between the technical drafting that says that what we do on land is not covered by the communications code, and the risk of a legal challenge that it might be and might have nil or low value. What we have really asked for is as much clarity as can be provided. That will help to enhance the investability of our business. We are in a different place from the mobile operators and some other network providers, because we do not get any economic benefit from our own infrastructure; it is built for other people to use, so we are not a net user of infrastructure.
Calum Kerr
Q So that is a, “Yes, if possible, please.” It is okay; do not answer that. You have already answered. My final quick question is this. Although this is not retrospective, is there any case for excluding existing sites, if this is really about building out more network, in terms of the valuation element, given that a lot of those sites are actually on publicly owned land?
Scott Coates: There is certainly a difference in the substance of a transaction when you are approaching a farmer, a sports club, a university or whatever and asking for access to build a new piece of infrastructure where there is new coverage, and you are having that negotiation in the context of a new communications code that has tighter reference points on pricing. You will have more leverage for that conversation. You will still end up, I believe, paying them a rate way in excess of what zero value would be because that is just how you have those conversations, but it will be less than what is paid today, that is for sure, because you have got this new reference point. The substance of that is very different from the substance of a voluntary agreement you entered into with a firm six or seven years ago and that comes up for renewal in two to three years and the infrastructure is already there.
I think it is important that we have a robust set of tools as an industry but, as I mentioned earlier, it is equally if not more important that the industry acts responsibly and avoids behaviour such as forcing situations where they need a new compulsory purchase tool, even though they have already got access today. There is definitely a way of engaging on existing sites that should be a bit different from new sites, as part of a package of trying to maintain the voluntary support of the land and property sector for our industry.
Matt Hancock
Q Could you set out in more detail—you have already gone into this a bit—about what you mean when you say that the code should include land owned by the infrastructure providers but not the apparatus, and the distinction there in the written evidence?
Scott Coates: It comes back to this. Under UK property law, anything that affixes to land could be considered land. At the moment, the code effectively is to regulate land coming into the telecom sector, not to regulate the relationships between telecoms companies. It carves out from land the apparatus.
I am advised that there is a risk of ambiguity. That is probably the best way I could describe it. It may be challenged down the line. This is an evolving and dynamic industry where we don’t exactly know the physical things we are going to be deploying in future. There is a risk that some of the things we do might receive a challenge that it is land not apparatus. I do not know.
Is a new runway at Heathrow infrastructure or land because it sits on top of land? Is the national grid transmission network an infrastructure asset or land because it sits on land? It is a fairly technical point. Like all these things, once the lawyers are running around looking at them, they will find concerns.
All we are saying is that we invest over 20 to 30-year horizons. The more clarity that can be provided is helpful. We acknowledge and clearly appreciate the intent behind Government policy to protect investment and passive infrastructure but more clarity around that will only help the investability of what we do.
Matt Hancock
Q Thanks. I am also grateful for what you said about the team at DCMS, who will have picked up on your kind words I am sure. I wanted to follow up on 5G. You talked earlier about the 5G roll-out. This is a bigger-picture question. What do think the Government need to be doing now to ensure that we are in the lead when it comes to the roll-out of 5G?
Scott Coates: People must be exhausted with hearing about the challenges with Openreach and what can be done there. The key thing is to help facilitate our competitive market for infrastructure. So 5G has the ability to be driven by the mobile operators, by the fibre players, by independent infrastructure companies. If you look at the US, half the small cells that power 4G and 5G are actually going in by independent infrastructure players; mobile operators as well as fibre players are in there, too.
It comes down to helping to facilitate as competitive a market as possible. We have started deploying infrastructure in at least one city in the UK: 4G initially, but it will lead to 5G. We would love to be able to get a competitive basis of access, or any access, to BT ducts. We cannot do that, despite the fact that they can access every single piece of our infrastructure.
That is one thing. The other thing is around the planning permissions for affixing equipment to lampposts. We are working in Aberdeen and I have to say that we have had a fantastically positive experience with the local council, which has been amazing and very supportive in everything we have been trying to do there. That experience is not shared across other councils in the UK.
Matt Hancock
Q Thanks very much. Dr Whitely, would you say that, done right and should the codes come out right, the clauses in the Bill have the potential to improve public services through better use of data?
Dr Whitley: Absolutely. You could have a side question about whether, for example, focusing on subsidies from energy providers is the best way to deal with fuel poverty, but in terms of that specific focus—if it is done right—then, absolutely. Our concern is that we just do not have the detail as to whether or not it is going to be done right. That has been the frustration over the last three years.
Drew Hendry
Q I want to talk about the spectrum licensing issue. We spent a lot of time in earlier sessions talking about the minimum average speed, particularly for SMEs, as being 10 megabits per second and whether or not that was ambitious for the future.
You talked about the outside-in licensing regime that could be possible—and is possible in other countries since it is being deployed, particularly for new tech and for the 700Mhz and the 5G licensing that will come. If that approach is adopted by the UK Government in terms of licensing, is it your belief that it would make that inequality almost go away and that it would deliver much greater equality across the pace of speeds for people to access business and other methods that they need?
Scott Coates: If a policy objective is to ensure that rural areas get a high quality mobile signal, then forcing the industry to invest in rural areas—and effectively funding that by allowing them to pay less money for the licences that they acquire—is the most efficient way to deliver that. It would have positive outcomes, for sure.
Drew Hendry
Q So it would achieve that aim, in your view, and it would to a great extent future-proof the need to go to that level of where you are going from 10 megabits per second to a higher level, and then a higher level again. Is that correct?
Scott Coates: Yes. The industry invests in order to stay competitive in areas where the market is working, and—where the licences oblige them—to invest in areas where the market is not working. The infrastructure needed to support some of these new services needs to be high bandwidth to support that, which will then support the uplift into the future in quality and speed of service.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Dr Whitley, are you excited by the potential opportunities of the use of big data by Government?
Dr Whitley: This is not about big data but data-sharing, but there are opportunities there for big data to be used. There are questions about how you manage it and about how you handle it.
One of the other things that I am involved with is a steering group for the Administrative Data Research Network, which is where administrative data can be used by researchers in very strictly controlled environments to answer interesting research questions, generate hypotheses and explore those hypotheses by matching data from various different Government datasets. But that is done in a very locked down, secure environment with no mobile phones and no taking out of data and so on. So there absolutely are opportunities, but doing it right is what I particularly care about.
Nigel Huddleston
Q We are one of the most sophisticated digital economies on the planet and we have some of the brightest brains on the planet. Surely we can work this out.
Dr Whitley: Yes. The process has been going on for three years and we still do not have codes of practice. That is the bit that puzzles me. If we have all these brilliant brains can they not put together even a draft code of practice, so that we can know what we are talking about?
For example, in the consultation around fuel poverty, it talked about gathering data and matching up potential houses and individuals who might benefit or be at risk, and it says that they will inform the licensed energy suppliers as to which of their customers should receive assistance. That, to me, sounds like a push: “Here is a big set of customers that may or may not belong to your company. Check through that list to see whether or not any of them are your customers and give them a fuel discount.”
But then a couple of paragraphs further on—this is the consultation relating to the proposals—the Government would simply have an eligibility flag along with customers’ names or addresses for doing that. Even in the consultation, it does not seem that these brilliant minds have been applied as well as they could be.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Once we work that out, which I am confident we will, where are the opportunities? Where is the up side? Where is the positive stuff coming out of this? How can Government be better as a result of this? I am always an optimist.
Dr Whitley: Done right, there are fantastic opportunities. Government is digitising. The GDS has got lots of experience about how to manage and handle and do attributes checking, which is what most of this is. There are definitely opportunities and the skills, but somehow something has gone wrong with regard to these proposals.
It is not as if the proposals have been rushed through in the past few minutes. We have been looking at these and asking for more details since July 2013 and we are still here without even a resemblance of a code of practice. Part 5 has six codes of practice that need to be developed and none of them is here. Yes, please, but some detail. I am academic; I want to see the detail.
Louise Haigh
Q As you say, it is an enormous shift in terms of data sharing within Government. Clause 29 would allow personal data on citizens to be shared if there is a
“contribution made by them to society”
or wellbeing to be gained. That basically covers anything, doesn’t it? Why have the Government not produced even a draft code of practice at this stage? How can we possibly be expected to vote on this while plainly placing blind faith in the Government?
Dr Whitley: You are basically saying what I was going to say. If you compare the comprehensive replies that Mr Coates has been able to give, talking about very specific details, with the vague “we don’t know anything” comments that I have made, you see that it is a real problem and also an issue for more general scrutiny of technological issues. If you do not have details about the different mobile phone frequencies that you are talking about, you cannot make detailed policy. Yet when it comes to data sharing, there is a sense that it will all work out in the end because we have the right people to do it.
Louise Haigh
Q How would you advise the Government to achieve that code of practice?
Dr Whitley: We have consistently said—the Privacy and Consumer Advisory Group particularly, because we have this existing relationship with Government, but civil society and experts more generally—that we are more than happy to engage. We have repeatedly said, “Give us some detail. Don’t just come and talk about high-level stuff. Give us the detail and we will give you detailed comments to improve the process.”
That has worked very well in relation to the Verify scheme; that is privacy friendly and has a lot of support from the kinds of people who are very concerned about privacy. So the expertise is there and the working relationships are there. Give us an opportunity to help; we want to. It is just that we need something to work on.
The Chair
Thank you very much to Mr Coates and Dr Whitley for some excellent evidence. We are very grateful. We will now move on to our next set of witnesses.
Examination of Witnesses
Jim Killock and Renate Samson gave evidence.
The Chair
Thank you to our next two witnesses for being here promptly. We will now hear evidence from Big Brother Watch and the Open Rights Group. For this session we again have broadly half an hour to 45 minutes. Will the witnesses please read their names into the record?
Jim Killock: I am Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group.
Renate Samson: I am Renate Samson, chief executive of Big Brother Watch. We were also a member of the open policy making group and the Privacy and Consumer Advisory Group, to which Dr Whitley referred earlier.
Louise Haigh
Q I will pick up where we left off, if that is okay. You were both involved in the consultation process for part 5 of the Bill. Did the proposals come as a surprise to you? Do they make sense to you as data experts?
Renate Samson: No, they do not make very much sense, if I am honest. As I said, we were a member of the open policy making process and we also submitted to the consultation. I am genuinely surprised that after a two-year process, all of a sudden it felt very rushed. There were conversations and meetings happening right up to the Queen’s Speech; there was still a general lack of clarity, particularly on safeguards, and many questions were still being asked, such as how, why, when and so on. The next thing we knew, it was in the Queen’s Speech and the Bill was published.
Reading through part 5—and I have read through it a lot and scratched my head a great deal, mainly for the reasons given in evidence earlier today—you see that the codes of practice, which would explain an awful lot of what we imagine is meant or may not be meant, just have not been published. I have repeatedly asked for them and been given various expected dates, and we are sitting here today without them but with the Bill already having been laid before Parliament.
We have also done a lot of work on the Investigatory Powers Bill, for which the codes of practice were there right from the start. There was clarity as to what was intended and what was going to be legislated for, straight up. So, I am profoundly disappointed, because data sharing and digital government are hugely important and we seem to be very far away after a very long process.
Jim Killock: It is worth considering why the open policy making process was put in place. Data sharing is known to be potentially controversial. It was knocked out of at least one previous Bill a few years back when proposed by Labour because of the lack of privacy safeguards. Everyone understood that something more solid was needed. Then the Cabinet Office was very keen to ensure it did not raise hackles, that it got the privacy and the safeguards right, that trust was in place. It was therefore a surprise, after that intense process, to get something back that lacked the safeguards everybody had been saying were needed.
We are particularly concerned not only about the lack of codes of practice, but the fact that a lot of these things should be in the Bill. Codes of practice are going to develop over years. We need to know about things like sunsetting, for instance—that these things are brought to a close, that you do not just have zombie data sharing arrangements in place, where everyone has half-forgotten about them and then suddenly they are revived. You need to have Parliament involved in the specifics.
As we have heard, data sharing has a huge range of possibilities, starting with the benign and the relatively uncontroversial: statistics and understanding what is happening to society and Government policy, where privacy is relatively easy to protect. You use the data once, you do the research and that is it. It ranges from that through to the very intrusive: profiling families for particular policy goals might be legitimate, but it also might be highly discriminatory. Getting to the specifics is important.
You need the safeguards in place to say, “These are the kinds of things we will be bringing back; these are the purposes that we may or may not share data for.” That way, you know there is a process in place. At the moment, it feels like once this has passed, the gate is opened and it is not necessarily for Parliament to scrutinise further.
Louise Haigh
Q We talked earlier about the bulk transfer and bulk sharing of data, and an earlier witness talked about providing data access, rather than data sharing. Should the Government not be pursuing trials on that basis, rather than these enormous powers without any kind of assurances to the public or parliamentarians about how they will be using them?
Renate Samson: It was very specific at the end of the open policy making process that, for example—put the bulk to one side for a moment—but regarding the fraud and debt aspect of the Bill, it had been agreed that three-year pilot projects would take place with subsequent review and scrutiny potentially by the OPM or by another group. They are in the Bill as a piece of legislation with the Minister deciding whether or not it is okay and potentially asking other groups, which are not defined. That is half an answer to half your question. Pilots are an excellent idea if they are pilots, not immediate legislation.
With regards to the bulk powers in the Bill, civil registration documents were a late addition. We are still not clear as to their purpose. The purpose given in the consultation to the OPM process, but also in the background documents relating to the Bill, is a whole mix of different reasons, none of which, I would argue, are clear and compelling or, indeed, necessary and proportionate. But again, as you have heard a lot today, without detail, how can we properly answer your question?
Jim Killock: I have a quick observation on this. We currently have a data protection framework. The European Union is revising its data protection laws; they are somewhat tougher, which is quite a good thing, but we do not know what the future of data protection legislation is in the UK. It might be the same or it might be entirely different in a few years’ time.
That is a very good reason for ensuring that privacy safeguards are quite specific and quite high in some of these sensitive areas, because we do not know whether the more general rules can be relied on and whether they are going to be the same. That is not to say that we do not need higher safeguards in any case here, because you are not dealing with a consent regime. People have to use Government and Government have to look at the data, so it is not a mutual agreement between people; you have to have higher safeguards around that.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q My questions are directed at Mr Killock and relate to paragraphs 37 and 38 of your submission, “Definition of pornographic material”. We heard earlier that both the NSPCC and the British Board of Film Classification support a provision to require ISPs to block websites that are non-compliant. There was also discussion of widening the scope to apply the restrictions to other harmful material that we would not allow children access to in the offline world. Here, you seem to be questioning the value of that:
“This extension of the definition…also raises questions as to why violent—but not sexual—materials rated as 18 should then be accessible online.”
I also question this consistency but the solution, to me, seems to be that we should include other material, such as violent material and pro-anorexic websites, as we talked about earlier. Will you tell us a bit more about what your objection is to creating a framework to keep children as safe online as they are offline?
Jim Killock: We have no objection; it is a laudable aim and something we should all be trying to do. The question is, what is effective and what will work and not impinge on people’s general rights? As soon as you look a little beyond pornography, you are talking about much more clear speech issues.
There will be a need to look at any given website and make a judgment about whether it should or should not be legally accessed by various people. That starts needing things like legal processes to be valid. Some of the things you are talking about are things that might not be viewed by anybody, potentially. The problem with all these systems is that they just do not work like that. They are working on bulk numbers of websites, potentially tens of thousands, all automatically identified, as a general rule, when people are trying to restrict this information. That poses a lot of problems.
I also query what is the measure of success here. Because I feel, I suspect, that the number of teenagers accessing pornography will probably not be greatly affected by these measures. There is more of an argument that small numbers of children who are, perhaps, under 12 may be less likely to stumble on pornographic material, but I doubt that the number of teenage boys, for instance, accessing pornographic material will be materially changed. If that is the case, what is the measure of success here? What harm is really being reduced? I just feel that, probably, these are rather expensive and difficult policies which are likely to have impacts on adults. People are saying it is not likely to affect them, but I rather suspect it might, and for what gain?
Thangam Debbonaire
Q You have mentioned your feelings and your suspicions but, actually, the British Board of Film Classification already has a system for identifying for instance pro-anorexic, pro-suicide and violent websites. It already has a system for use on mobile networks.
Jim Killock: No, it does not.
Thangam Debbonaire
Yes, it does. They sat right here this afternoon.
Jim Killock: No it does not. The mobile providers have a system that the BBFC—
Q Thangam Debbonaire: So a system exists?
Jim Killock: They have a system, which is not wildly accurate that people choose to use. To the extent that they are choosing to use it, there is some legitimacy around that. People choose to have websites blocked and they understand that a certain number of them may be incorrectly blocked, that is OK.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q Are you saying that that sort of system does not exist, because we were told that it did earlier?
Jim Killock: This is what they are currently doing: they are blocking websites, which are sometimes the right websites, sometimes not; sometimes the right websites are not blocked. It is essentially automated decision making that comes with the problem that you can only really do this by things like keyword search. There are not enough humans available at the right price to do the review, so all kinds of things get blocked for essentially no real reason. For instance, we have had a widget manufacturer—
Thangam Debbonaire
Q Forgive me for interrupting Mr Killock, but there is a good reason. You asked about successful outcomes—and if you are going to ask a question, I am going to answer it—the successful outcome is that children are protected in the online world in the same way as they are protected in the offline world. I have to reiterate this to you: I do not understand why you think it is a risk worth taking that some adults may or may not have their own personal preferences infringed, balanced against the harm which we know is done to children. On teenage boys, just saying that because teenage boys may or may not continue to watch pornography there is no point, that seems to be a very sad conclusion to come to.
Jim Killock: The point is that you can help children to be protected, the questions is, what is the best way? For instance, I agree with the NSPCC’s calls for the compulsory education of children. Of course that should be happening and it is not. Similarly, Claire Perry’s initiative to have filters available has its merits. Where I have a problem is where adults are forced into that situation, where they are having websites blocked and where there is little redress around that. I caution you around large-scale blocking of websites because we know from our own evidence that a very large number of websites get blocked incorrectly and it has impacts on those people too. The question is, what is effective? I am not sure that age verification will be effective in its own terms in protecting children.
Claire Perry
Mr Killock, it is nice to hear you finally supporting the initiative. Indeed, all of the shroud waving about false blocking was brought out with vigour many times over the past five years—
Jim Killock: We stand by that.
Claire Perry
Q My point is that it is sad that the campaign once again from your organisation is that the perfect must be the enemy of the good. I am afraid I would also question this issue of false blocking, and I would appreciate written evidence if you have it. It is a tiny fraction. It has never reached anything like the levels your organisation has claimed, and the processes for notification and unblocking have massively improved over the last five years. My question to you is: at what point does your organisation stop dealing with this world where it is, “Hands off our internet” and start accepting that content provision via the internet, which is just another form of provider, should have exactly the same safeguards as exist in the offline world?
Renate, your points around this are also quite disturbing because you are holding up for a perfect world—
Renate Samson: What points?
Q Claire Perry: Around privacy and data recognition. At what point do we accept that what is proposed in this Bill is actually a good step forward? While it may not be perfect, it is a massive step-change improvement on what we have today.
Jim Killock: The first question is: “What is the impact on everyone?”
Claire Perry
Q No, the question is: will you provide us with written evidence of this issue of false blocking, in detail, because I happen to think it is completely untrue, your words on this?
Jim Killock: Yes, we can.
Claire Perry
Q We would appreciate written evidence by next week. Thank you.
Jim Killock: We have literally hundreds.
Claire Perry
Q Hundreds? Of the 1.5 billion websites that are out there?
Jim Killock: The error rate does not appear so large; but when you multiply that by the number of providers that have different blocking systems it becomes quite significant.
The Chair
Do not interrupt the questions, or the answers.
Jim Killock: On the wider question, what is effective, the question is how are children protected, versus what is the impact on adults. At the moment we do not know, because the system is not in place, what that effect on adults will be; but we have to be concerned that adults should feel free to access legal material, no matter what it is. They should not feel like they are being snooped on or having their privacy or anonymity removed.
I was encouraged by some of things that were said earlier, but I have to say that when we sent some technical observers to hear about the systems that are likely to be put in place—the sort of things that vendors want to do—we heard a rather different story. The sorts of things they want to do include harvesting user data, maybe using Facebook and other platforms, to pull in their data to verify people’s age by inference. These things were not privacy friendly. Let us assume that the BBFC has a job, as apparently it does. It would be good if it had clear duties around privacy and anonymity, to make sure that it has to put those things first and foremost when it is choosing and thinking about age verification systems.
Claire Perry
Q As a supplementary, does your organisation campaign against age verification on gambling sites on the internet?
Jim Killock: No, we do not.
Claire Perry
Q Even though exactly the same issues of privacy could apply?
Jim Killock: I think they are rather different, are not they?
Claire Perry
Q Why? They are legal.
Jim Killock: The first thing is that gambling sites are dealing with money. They have to know a little bit about their customers. They need to do that for fraud purposes, for instance. The second thing is, I think, it is much harder to argue that there is a free expression impact for gambling, compared with accessing legal material, whether it is pornographic or not.
Claire Perry
Q So your interest is not about legality. It is about your interpretation of legal and illegal material.
Jim Killock: It ultimately is about what the courts think is the boundary around free expression, and what sort of things are impacting on people’s free expression and privacy. That is our standpoint. What we are asking for, the same as you, is the same standards online as offline. One of those standards is human rights and what we are entitled to do.
The Chair
Let us hear from Ms Samson; and then we are moving on.
Renate Samson: Just to be clear, we submitted evidence and we have concerns about part 5 of the Bill. The questions you have been asking Mr Killock—I am unclear; are you asking me about the same issues you are asking him?
Claire Perry
No, specifically about the part 5 questions.
Renate Samson: Okay. We have not, in our evidence and our concerns, asked for a perfect Bill, although I do not believe there is any harm in trying to make the best piece of legislation we can. The work that we do with the Privacy and Consumer Advisory Group and as part of the open policy making process is about having engagement, to ensure that we are the leading light in data sharing, but also data protection. As Mr Killock has mentioned, we are currently looking at the Data Protection Act 1998. That will probably expire in May 2018, and we will get the general data protection regulation. Right now the measure in question does not even refer to that, or, indeed, to the Investigatory Powers Bill. It refers to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and the DPA. Also, it will probably fail on a number of the key points of the GDPR, in relation to potential profiling, consent of the individual, and putting the citizen at the heart of data sharing and data protection.
I am not looking for “perfect”, but I think “perfect” is a good place to head towards.
Nigel Adams
Q My question is for Mr Killock, with regard to what the Bill is seeking to do in terms of equalisation of copyright offence penalties. I just wondered why your organisation was not in favour of rights holders—the tens of thousands of content creators. Why is your organisation not keen on the idea in the Bill?
Jim Killock: That would be a misrepresentation. We are quite clear in our response. We are worried about the impact of this on people who should not be criminalised and who we thought the Government were not trying to criminalise in this case. Our position is that if the Government are going to extend the sentence and have the same sentence online as offline for criminal copyright infringement—that is to say, 10 years—then they need to be very careful about how the lines are drawn, because the offences are quite different. Offline, in the real world, criminal copyright infringement covers a number of acts. It is all about copying and duplication. Essentially, it is about criminal gangs duplicating DVDs and the like. Online, making that separation is harder, because everything looks like the same act—that is to say, publication. You put something on the internet, it is a publication. So how do you tell who is the criminal and who is the slightly idiotic teenager, or whatever it happens to be? How do you make sure that people who should not be threatened with copyright criminal sentences are not given those threats?
We particularly draw attention to the phenomenon of copyright trolling. For instance, there is a company called Golden Eye International, a pornographer which specialises in sending bulk letters to Sky customers, BT customers and so on, saying, “Please pay us £300 because you downloaded a film that is under copyright.” These are obviously pornographic films and they then wait for people to pay up. They have no specific knowledge that these people are actually the people doing the downloading, all they know is that somebody appears to have downloaded.
Nigel Adams
Q Sorry to interrupt, but the idea of the Bill is not to go after people who are downloading content, it is purely for those who are uploading content for commercial gain. That is the whole purpose.
Jim Killock: Unfortunately, that is not how the language of the offence reads. The test in the offence is that somebody is “causing a loss”, which is defined as not paying a licence fee, or is “causing the risk of loss”, about which your guess is as good as mine, but it is essentially the same as making available, because if you have made something available and somebody else can then make a copy, and then infringe copyright further and avoid further licence fees, basically that is a criminal act. So file sharers, whether they are small or large, all appear to be criminal copyright thieves. Similarly, people who are publishing things on websites without licence are also potentially criminalised. Those things can be dealt with much better and more simply through civil courts and civil copyright action. What we are calling for is either to get rid of those things which are attacking individuals and wrongly bringing individuals into scope, or to put thresholds of seriousness around the risk of loss and/or causing loss. Something like, “Serious risk of causing significant loss” would be the way to deal with this. Similarly, “Causing serious loss”.
Nigel Adams
Q But if you are knowingly uploading creative content online for commercial gain, to my mind it does not matter whether it is 50 quid or 50,000 quid, you are knowingly stealing someone’s content.
Jim Killock: The commercial gain is not part of this offence. That is what I am saying. The offence is purely to cause loss—in other words, to not pay a licence fee—or to cause risk of loss. There is no “commercial” in it. So you have to put the threshold somewhere. You have an offence for the commercial activities and, separately, individuals who cause risk of loss or fail to pay a licence fee.
Nigel Adams
Q What do you think is a reasonable limit? Where would you set the limit?
Jim Killock: In terms of taking someone to court, there is no particular limit. If I cause £20 of damage to somebody where I should have paid it, the small claims court should be available and I should be able to either prosecute someone or be prosecuted in a civil court in the normal way. The question of how much is “serious” is, in all likelihood, something we should probably leave to the discretion of judges. It will not be very easy to fix a particular amount, but I think “serious” is usually the word used.
Nigel Huddleston
Q As you have already recognised, this part of the Bill has already been subject to a consultation. There were 282 responses to that consultation, with the majority of them being broadly supportive. You have raised quite a few perfectly valid concerns, but do you accept that there is broad public support for the sharing of data when there is a clear social upside?
Jim Killock: I think we are all clear that data sharing should be enabled. The question is how you do that without it being a completely wide open process. The principle is not something that anyone has ever objected to.
Renate Samson: On the consultation that you referred to, you just told me that there were 282 submissions and that most of them were broadly supportive, but the Government response did not indicate who was supportive and who was not, and I have not seen the submissions on the website to be able to see for myself who was broadly supportive and who was not.
Having been part of the open policy making process, I would say that several people in that room had a large number of concerns. They were not concerns to prevent data sharing, but concerns to ensure that data sharing could happen in the safest way possible, and not just in terms of privacy. That way, not only can Government benefit from it and clear processes can be established in Government, but the citizen can understand why their data are being shared and can then be supportive of it and can trust that their data are going to be looked after. It is about the citizen being able to feel as though their personal data, which are now part of the air we breathe in a connected, digital society—we cannot function without our data—are safe and secure. It is about not only data being private, because there are varying degrees of privacy, particularly when you are sharing, but the Government understanding that.
Nigel Huddleston
Q I am not sure whether we got a clear answer there. The Commons Library published a briefing, which includes statistics from an Ipsos MORI survey that you have probably seen before. The things that get public support are things such as:
“Creating a DNA database of cancer patients…Using data from electronic travel cards…to improve the scheduling of buses or trains…Using police and crime data to predict and plan for crimes that might take place in future”.
There is a clear public upside for some of the most vulnerable and hurt people in society; are we ever going to reach a point where you are satisfied with the use of data?
Renate Samson: You took evidence this morning from two witnesses whom you asked a very similar question, and I support the answers that they gave. People are happy to share data if they understand why and are asked. I believe that the answer you were given earlier referred to the individual. If you ask me whether I am happy to share my data to cure cancer, I go away and I make the decision about whether or not I am happy to do that. As you have pointed out, the majority of people are probably going to say, “Yes, of course.” Big Brother Watch has no desire to restrict that. We are asking for information that we feel is lacking from part 5 of the Bill. We are asking for information for the individual so that they can give their consent based on proper guidance. That is going to be a key part of data protection law going forward.
This is about the way the questions are being asked. Similar questions have been asked throughout the day. We are not trying to say no. We have never said no. We are just trying to say, “Please present us with as much information as possible, so that we can see how.”
Jim Killock: It is really in the interests of Government to get this right, because in the long term it is a matter of trust. We know that accidents happen. If at least the safeguards are in place and as many accidents are avoided as possible, and if people are not left embarrassed at either data leaks or programmes that turn out to be intrusive or prejudicial against people, then you have won. That really was the purpose of the open policy process: to ensure that the risks were understood so that the Government could legislate on the basis of dealing with the complex risks rather than heading straight into a situation where they got a huge backlash and/or stored up problems for the future.
Renate Samson: May I add something quickly? The first line of Big Brother Watch’s submission says that we support data sharing across Government. I want to be very clear on that.
My second point is about individuals doing well out of this. The Bill, well, the factsheets accompanying the Bill, refer to wellbeing. I direct you all to the Supreme Court’s review of the named persons scheme in Scotland, where it was deemed that wellbeing was not a high enough bar—it did not meet the bar of “vital”, which the Data Protection Act requires. We want to do this properly so that people can benefit, but let us ensure that it is proper—that is not perfect, but the best it can possibly be.
Matt Hancock
Q A couple of questions. Would you be happy to share your blood type data to help cure cancer?
Renate Samson: I do not even know what my blood type is. To answer your question, I don’t know. I would have to give it serious consideration, just as I would seriously consider whether I would be prepared to donate organs after I die. It is not something to which I can give you a snap answer.
Matt Hancock
Q Okay. You referred to the open policy-making process, which was a big process with lots of people involved, and the large majority are content with that process. Have you read all the individual responses to the consultation?
Renate Samson: No, because I do not know where they are published. I looked for them but I could not find them.
Matt Hancock
Q They are on the internet, so you are very welcome to have a look at them.
Renate Samson: My understanding is that I would have to go into every single organisation’s website separately to look at them. They are not collated on the consultation’s website itself.
Matt Hancock
Q No, they are all published online.
Renate Samson: On the consultation’s website itself?
Matt Hancock
Q They are all published online. In an earlier exchange, you talked about the broad purposes of the Bill and the problem with parliamentary scrutiny of those purposes. I would just like to understand a bit more about what you meant.
Renate Samson: Sorry. Could you repeat that?
Matt Hancock
Q In an earlier exchange with Louise, you talked about the broad purposes of the Bill and how they are defined. You said that those purposes are very broad, and I think you said something like, “and therefore it can mean whatever the Government wants it to mean”. I do not understand that, because any sharing of data must be for purposes very specifically set out, for instance supporting troubled families and supporting families in fuel poverty. I think it would be very hard to be against those goals.
Renate Samson: Forgive me, I do not recall that being quite as you have said; I know that Dr Whitley said something very similar to what you just said. Our concern is that I cannot give an answer, because I do not feel as though the Bill has defined clearly what data sharing is or what are personal data. I cannot give an answer without being able to understand what the Government intend to do with regards to data sharing. Troubled families and the retuning of televisions are not included in the Bill, they are referred to in the factsheet accompanying the Bill.
Matt Hancock
Q They are referred to in secondary legislation, which will be scrutinised by Parliament.
Renate Samson: I feel—I can only say how I and Big Brother Watch feel—that having looked through the Bill in great detail, we have more questions than answers. If the codes of practice had been published, it might not have been necessary for me to be sitting here, because I would probably know exactly what is the intention. However, based on what has been published so far, I do not feel that it is clear.
Jim Killock: Future secondary legislation is quite a weak way of Parliament safeguarding a process like this, because essentially you then need to ensure that civil society, Parliament and everyone make sure that all the relevant safeguards are included in each statutory instrument.
Matt Hancock
Q No, the safeguards are in the Bill. It is the purposes that are in the statutory instruments. It is interesting—
Jim Killock: I do not think that the safeguards are in the Bill.
Renate Samson: Could you explain where they are and what they look like? I cannot see them other than the reference to the misuse of data, and we absolutely support the proposal that those guilty of that could be subject to a prison sentence.
Matt Hancock
Q Okay. I want to refer to another point that I did not understand. You said that the problem with the Bill was that it referred to RIPA and the Data Protection Act 1998.
Renate Samson: Because that is current legislation.
Matt Hancock
Q But what exactly would you propose?
Renate Samson: My concern, and this is not a telling off, is that a large chunk of RIPA will no longer be applicable by the end of year when the Investigatory Powers Bill comes in, and the Data Protection Act is about to be replaced with the general data protection regulations. Of course it cannot say that on the face of the Bill and none of the supporting documentation even refers to those two pieces of legislation.
Matt Hancock
Q It just seems a totally odd point, because the Investigatory Powers Bill is not yet law and, as you can see from the screen, it is being debated in the Lords today. GDPR is not in domestic law yet.
Renate Samson: We were trying to be “assistive”—if that is a word—in that there are elements of the Bill about which not just Big Brother Watch but other individuals and organisations are concerned that if it passes, when the general data protection regulations come in, it will not adhere to that law. It was merely a note of what is coming down the line so we have legislation that has longevity.
Matt Hancock
Q I do not think it is possible to legislate on the basis of other legislation that has not yet passed.
Jim Killock: GDPR is passed; it is just not implemented.
The Chair
Thank you to our two witnesses. Thanks very much indeed for your evidence. We release you.
Examination of Witnesses
Sarah Gold, Chris Taggart and Paul Nowak gave evidence.
The Chair
Q We will now hear oral evidence from Projects by IF, OpenCorporates and the TUC. We have three witnesses, so, colleagues, could we have more concise questions and I am sure concise and expert answers? Could the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?
Chris Taggart: My name is Chris Taggart. I am the CEO and co-founder of OpenCorporates, which is the largest open database of companies in the world.
Paul Nowak: My name is Paul Nowak I am the deputy general secretary of the TUC. We represent 52 affiliated unions who in turn represent about 5.7 million workers.
Sarah Gold: I am Sarah Gold, director and founder of Projects by IF: a design studio that helps companies understand privacy and security by making products and services that empower people.
Matt Hancock
Thank you very much for coming. I want to put on the record something relating to what happened at the end of the last session. For anyone who is interested and has not yet had the chance to find the responses to the consultation on data sharing, they are available on gov.uk/government/consultations/better-use-of-data-in-government. All the responses to the consultation are there.
Louise Haigh
Q Paul, the Government have delayed by a year outlining their digital strategy. Could you give the Ministers a hand here? What would you like to see in a digital industrial strategy?
Paul Nowak: There are a number of points in the Bill where we think there are positive steps forward: things like the universal service obligation. I am happy to talk about some of those points. The missed opportunity for us is really getting a handle on what the emerging digital economy means for working people. Tomorrow, we will have the outcome of the court decision on Uber. That is just one example of where changing technology potentially affects working people’s lives. We believe there should be a proper framework and employment law should properly reflect the change in the world of work. The point was made by a number of MPs on Second Reading that the Bill missed a trick in terms of that new framework of rights and responsibilities for people who work.
Louise Haigh
Q What would that framework look like?
Paul Nowak: It would tackle issues around, for example, employment status. We have this curious interface between the new, emerging digital economy and what I would characterise as some old-fashioned exploitative employment practices. It is great that we can all order new goods and services online via eBay, but often the person who delivers that package will be working so-called to an app and they will be so-called self-employed, driving their own vehicle and with no rights to paid holidays, maternity or paternity leave and so on.
So a framework of laws that is fit for the digital age. It is welcome that the Government have announced that Matthew Taylor will be looking at some of these issues, but I would have thought that for a Digital Economy Bill there is a gap in the Bill itself.
Louise Haigh
Q Has the TUC been consulted on that by the Government?
Paul Nowak: We have had no engagement in terms of the process I described with Matthew Taylor and, as far as I am aware, we have had no input in terms of the Bill and the thinking around what a decent framework of employment rights will look like to respond to that emerging digital economy.
Louise Haigh
Q What about the digital skills gap—where could the Bill go further there?
Paul Nowak: That is not something that we have looked at particularly, but I think it goes without saying that the need for digital skills will go well beyond those core digital industries. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We are pleased that the Government are now talking about industrial strategy, and we think that the digital economy should play a key role at the heart of that industrial strategy. It is not just about digital industries themselves; it is about how those digital industries can support jobs in our manufacturing, engineering and creative industries, but you need to make sure that people have the skills—not just at one moment in time, but ongoing skills throughout their working lives—to enable them to adapt to the changing world of work. For example, one of the things that we have pushed heavily through our Unionlearn arm is equipping people with those skills, but making the case that people should have access to careers advice and guidance all the way through their working lives rather than just at the point at which they leave school, college or university.
Louise Haigh
Q Sarah and Chris, I do not know whether you were here for the earlier sessions, but we have heard quite a few concerns about the data-sharing proposals in part 5 of the Bill. Do you share the concerns about the lack of privacy safeguards in those proposals?
Sarah Gold: I do. There are quite a few pieces of information missing that I would like to see in the Bill to protect individuals’ privacy. I think I heard Jeni Tennison talk earlier about openness and transparency, and I agree with her that one of the major pieces that is missing from the Bill is transparency about how people’s information will be used.
For me, this is also a missed opportunity to talk about consent, which is increasingly becoming a design issue, not necessarily just one of policy. That means making sure that there are steps in place to ensure that people understand how their data will be used, by whom, for how long and for what purpose. That is really important, because currently, the only models of consent we seem to default to are terms and conditions, and I have to ask the Committee: when was the last time any of you read or understood a set of terms and conditions?
Louise Haigh
Q Claire Perry brought up the poor standards in the private sector earlier. Presumably you agree that the Bill misses an opportunity to deal with consent for the private sector’s use of data as well.
Sarah Gold: It does, because I think the Government should set best standards on this. There is a real opportunity to do that, and I cannot see that on the face of the Bill.
Chris Taggart: I broadly agree. There was a comment in one of the submissions that despite this being a Digital Economy Bill, it felt like it was from almost 10 years ago. We have the ability to treat data in a much more granular way—dealing with permissions, rights and so on; having things selectively anonymised; having things almost time-boxed, and so on. It struck me that it felt like the Bill was using the broad brush of how we used to exchange data 10 years ago. That seemed like a missed opportunity, particularly given that what we are talking about here is Government to Government. While it is very difficult for the private sector—or even between the Government and the private sector—to come up with some of those solutions, when you are talking essentially about one organisation, particularly one where there is the ability to legislate that everything should happen in the right way, it seems to be a missed opportunity.
I was asked a couple of years ago to be on the Tax Transparency Sector Board, which talked about opening up some of the tax data. Of course, pretty much no data were actually opened up, but some of the discussions were interesting. For example, the Bill talks a lot about individuals, which is absolutely right—I believe that we have innate human rights—but from a tax point of view, individuals and companies are exactly the same thing. There is no difference. HMRC was saying, “Hey, look, whatever we think and whatever we would like to do, we have no ability to treat individuals and companies as the same.” The idea of allowing companies to tick a box and say, “Yes, we’d like our tax to be reported and to be open about it,” or saying, “These offenders will be treated differently if they are corporate offenders,” for example—many countries do report tax offences by companies—was not even possible because of the underlying legislation. There is a sense that that sort of attitude slightly pervades some of this. Again, I am extremely in favour of the Government being more effective and efficient and using information sharing for that, but I would like the Bill to be as good as it possibly can be.
Finally, there are little things—I used to be a journalist but now I am a full-time geek—such as what is being reported? What things have been shared? How are those organisations being identified? The Government do not even have a coherent way of identifying Government Departments or non-departmental public bodies. Those sorts of things. There is a lot more that could be done to make this a genuinely effective Bill.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q Mr Taggart, you mentioned something about its feeling like it is 10 years out of date. I want to bring us bang up to date by chucking in a Brexit question. Is there anything that the three of you could very quickly add to the discussion about what might need to be in the Bill given that we are now in Brexit? Brexit has implications for the digital economy, about which I am sure you know more than me.
Chris Taggart: I will try to be brief. One is to do with policy aspects of what happens. I believe you are hearing from the Information Commissioner later. What happens to data protection in a post-EU UK? From our perspective, the UK has generally taken a slightly different perspective on data protection from the information commissioners in some other countries and is generally taking things like public interest into account and treating paid-for and free information the same, which we welcome. We have some concerns about the general data protection regulations because of that sort of stuff and some of the stuff that is coming from the EU. There are some potential benefits, but there are also some downsides about whether people’s rights will be defended. I think the digital economy becomes much, much more important, and my position here is as an advocate of open data and the potential for open data in driving a thriving digital economy. As a digital entrepreneur, I think we are missing some significant opportunities for that. If you were to sit down today and do a digital economy Bill with the knowledge that in a couple of years we perhaps would not be part of the EU, I think we would be doing something quite different.
Paul Nowak: May I pick up the point about post-Brexit? I think there is growing political consensus that one of the implications of the decision on 23 June is that we need to think seriously about how we invest in our national infrastructure. For the TUC that goes beyond Heathrow, Hinkley, High Speed Rail. It talks to issues around, for example, high-speed broadband. It is about thinking about how this Bill would interface with, for example, announcements that might come in the autumn statement about investment in high-speed broadband. I note that the Chair of the Committee talked about the interface between rail and high-speed broadband, which is something that should be borne in mind. Again, valid points were made on Second Reading about requirements for developers to incorporate high-speed broadband into new housing developments, which is absolutely essential. I reiterate the point I made earlier about seeing this in the context of the wider approach to industrial strategy and how the digital economy can support other parts of the economy that are going to be even more important as we move forward post-Brexit.
Sarah Gold: For me, particularly looking at privacy, security and personal data, it is about the age of some of the language used in the Bill. Even talking about data sharing feels to me like the wrong language. We should be talking about data access. Data sharing suggests duplication of databases, with data being slopped around different Departments, whereas data access suggests accessing minimum data via APIs or by using the canonical Government registers, which is an excellent project that is not mentioned in the Bill but should be.
Nigel Huddleston
Q There is a lot in this Bill, everything from BBC regulation to child protection, the universal service obligation and making switching easier. Can each of you say what are the top two or three positive features of the Bill that you believe will be of benefit to your members, clients or, indeed, the general public?
Chris Taggart: Yes. First of all, I agree that what I would like to see is that the Government—
Nigel Huddleston
I do not think that was the question. I asked what you like about the Bill that would be of benefit to your clients or customers. It is quite long.
Chris Taggart: To be perfectly honest, we operate in the new economy in places like Canary Wharf. We are a growing company and so on. I do not think there is anything in there that is going to benefit us as a growing, innovative digital company, to be honest.
Nigel Huddleston
Q The universal service obligation? Easier switching? None of that?
Chris Taggart: No.
Nigel Huddleston
Q You do not think that is a benefit?
Chris Taggart: Not to us. If you are talking about whether there are benefits to the wider world and to the UK as a whole, yes, I do not have an argument, but you asked whether it is of any direct benefit to us and I said no. There are plenty of things I could put into the Bill that would be of benefit and would be very simple to implement and so on, but in terms of measures in the Bill that would be a direct benefit to us and to the thousands of innovative digital companies in the UK that are making a difference to things like open data and financial services and solving real world problems and so on? Maybe it was not the intention for it to do that, and it does not.
The Chair
A clear answer.
Paul Nowak: If I could start on a positive and then give you a couple of areas where I think the Bill could be strengthened, the universal service obligation is something we would support. I note the discussion on Second Reading that 10 megabits per second is just a starting point. If you want a digital economy that is fit for the future you need to go well beyond that, but the universal service obligation is welcome. Some of the points in clause 4 are important, in terms of protections for musicians and other creative performers. Useful suggestions were made on Second Reading about how some of those provisions could be strengthened, such as ensuring online providers are accountable for any illegal pirated materials that they host and making sure the Government are prepared to step in if voluntary approaches to those sorts of issues fail. That would be a positive set of issues.
I have concerns about the interface between the Bill and the BBC. I know that the NUJ—which is one of our affiliates—is particularly concerned about the role of Ofcom as a potential regulator of the BBC. I am particularly concerned about the BBC taking on responsibility for TV licences for over-75s, not just in terms of the budgetary implications for the BBC but in terms of the BBC effectively taking responsibility for a key part of our social security system.
There are some positives, and the one I would draw out first and foremost is the universal service obligation. No matter what job someone does or where they live, having access to decent high-speed broadband is increasingly essential.
Sarah Gold: I agree with the overall sentiment of the Bill—that having better access to data and to the right infrastructure can lead to better services and a more open society. One of the details I think is good is the significant consequences for individuals should they be part of data misuse. That is really necessary and I see that as a positive step.
Drew Hendry
Q Sarah Gold has given us a really good example of how we could approach terms and conditions in a different way. As somebody who actually went through the Apple iPad terms and conditions three days ago I can tell you it is a mind-numbing experience, so I have great sympathy with that view. What examples can we take into account from other countries that are dealing with these issues as the Bill goes forward? My question for Paul Nowak is what is required to protect workers’ rights with the onset of new, disruptive technologies?
Sarah Gold: In terms of other countries, that is not something I am an expert in. I know that Estonia’s e-citizenship cards can be used as a form of identity across many services, which is certainly helpful. There is an emerging question about what forms of identity individuals, particularly those who are less affluent, will be able to access. That is increasingly becoming a design problem. My work and work at projects by IF is more focused at the moment on UK-based companies and how they approach different forms of consent. We are thinking about privacy through a design lens. We are thinking about the minimum viable data that a service needs to operate and how we can display information in a simple, readable way so people can understand what they are giving away and why, and also get back shared insights. I can speak about some of the emerging trends in technology, such as general transparency and certificate of transparency, which I think have very interesting applications, and about how we can begin to see better forms of consent and permissions across the services. Unfortunately, I am not an expert on other countries.
The Chair
Thank you. Mr Nowak is an expert, I am sure.
Paul Nowak: I have maybe three things to say. First, going back to the point I made before, we should absolutely clarify some of the issues about employment status. I do not think it is acceptable that a multinational corporation can hide behind an app or say, “You’re employed by an algorithm.” It needs to be recognised that it does not matter whether you are getting your work via an app; you are still an employee. If you were a small building contractor, you could not get away with claiming that the person who works for you day in and day out is an independent contractor. HMRC would be down on you like a ton of bricks. I think you need to tackle those issues.
There is a set of issues about what I call sectoral approaches. We know that these new disruptive technologies have an impact across whole sectors. I mentioned parcels delivery. It is no longer the default that the man or woman who delivers your parcel is directly employed by Royal Mail and drives a Royal Mail vehicle. They could be “self-employed” and driving their own vehicle. They may be doing two or three different jobs. There is an argument that we should be thinking about how we bring together players right across a sector at the sectoral level, involving employers, new entrants, trade unions, the Government and others, to think about issues to do with not just employment regulation but skills.
I think it flags up a set of interesting issues about having an employee voice at every level. It is very welcome that the Prime Minister has raised the issue of workers on boards. I think that the value of having an employee voice from the shop floor all the way up is important. I note that, on Second Reading, Huw Merriman made the point that the BBC is a good place to start—the new BBC board can have employee representation. Ensuring that there is an effective employee voice, by whatever means somebody is employed, is important. Crucially, that is about social partnership and dialogue, and engaging workers and unions in thinking about what the best form of that employee voice is and how we ensure that people are not exploited in a particular sector.
Chris Taggart: To pick up on something that Sarah said, the truth is that we live in a data world these days. We cannot move from one side of the street to the other without interacting with data. Everything we do—every phone call we make, every website we visit, every time we use a smartphone—is about interacting with data. Unfortunately, individual citizens are increasingly the products—the data—so we really need to be thinking about what citizens’ rights look like in a data-centric world in which the data could be held anywhere.
It is about not just the legal rights, but the effective rights. One of the things that companies such as Google are doing is disintermediating. Sometimes you may have local monopolies, but you may end up with one global monopoly. Who owns the information from smart meters, and so on? The person who pays the electricity bill, the electricity company, the Government or some third party that can see when you turned on the lights, when you went to bed and those sorts of thing? We really need to be thinking about what rights, abilities and agency comes with being a citizen in the modern world. I think that means having access to the data we need—official registers—and licences that actually work for us, and having a critical eye on some of the emerging global power structures of data.
Paul Nowak: That point about data throws up some profound questions for the employer-employee relationship. For example, it is entirely reasonable for TfL to want to know where their buses are at any given moment of the day or night, but it is less reasonable for an employer to access information about whether or not I turn on my phone at seven o’clock or eight o’clock, or about where I might happen to be outside normal working hours. That speaks to the need for the Government to think about how you facilitate and encourage employers and employees to reach reasonable agreement about the use of data. What is the line? It is going to be different in different sectors and different jobs, but the important thing is that there is a shared understanding of what data are collected, what they are used for and how they might be used. I suspect that in a lot of workplaces that is just not a live conversation.
Sarah Gold: Also, who in the workplace has permission to access that information? That is certainly not clear on the face of the Bill, which suggests that any sharing between civil servants would be okay. That really makes me feel quite scared.
The Chair
Thank you. We have two more questioners: Nigel Adams followed by Louise Haigh.
Nigel Adams
Q Mr Nowak, you alluded earlier to the element of the Bill that you support and referred to musicians. The Bill is trying to bring in measures that would equalise the measures for copyright theft. That is a really good thing to try, and the Musicians Union is very supportive of that measure. Is there anything else that you think would strengthen the Bill in terms of protecting rights holders? We have a huge problem in this country of content creators—rights holders—not getting rewarded because their work is put online illegally. There is quite a bit of work that the tech companies could be doing, but how do you think we could strengthen this area to protect many of your members?
Paul Nowak: I reiterate the points that I made before, but perhaps I can also make an offer. That is certainly an issue on which our Federation of Entertainment Unions—including the Musicians’ Union, the National Union of Journalists, the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union and Equity—would welcome the opportunity for further engagement with the Committee, and we could certainly provide more written information.
First of all, though, we should ensure that online providers are held accountable for any material outside of copyright that they host online. The second point that I made before is that if there is no voluntary, agreed way forward, the Government should be prepared to introduce a code of practice. If you are a musician, the online world and the emerging digital economy clearly throws up all sorts of opportunities, but there is also a real risk. It is not about the creation of a piece of work over three or four minutes; the hours, the days, the weeks that went into the creation of that piece of work could quite easily be dissipated and lost, and somebody else is profiting from the input you have made. It is not an area in which I am an expert, but our entertainment unions would certainly wish to give more evidence.
Nigel Adams
Q That is useful. It is not only about musicians; there are also the people who create content, such as authors, artists and writers.
Paul Nowak: For your information, the latest TUC affiliate is the Artists’ Union England, which represents visual artists. We represent people right across the creative industries, including the musicians, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Equity, which represents actors, and, as I say, visual artists. We would be happy to feed in more information directly from those unions.
Louise Haigh
Q Thinking about algorithms beyond the workplace, we know that Uber, for example, will charge more if your battery is low. Having worked for an insurer before I was elected, I know that the amount of data that is available to insurers to set prices would make your hair curl. How much transparency should there be around the algorithms that companies use to set prices, while protecting the intellectual property of those algorithms?
Chris Taggart: That is a fantastic question, and it comes to the heart of our ability to understand our world and influence it. I take quite strong, almost like democratic first principles with this: you need to be able to understand the world and have the ability to understand the world, and then to be able to influence it. That is what democracy is about. If we do not understand the world—if we do not understand that we are being given this particular news story in this particular way; that we are being given this particular price; that we are being influenced to walk down this street rather than that street in order to do this—then we really do not have that possibility. A question that is not asked often enough but that is starting to be asked more in academic circles is: what are the algorithms on which our lives depend? If we do not understand that we are being driven by algorithms, still less what those algorithms are, how do we have agency? How do we have free will, if you like? I think it is a really important question.
I think that increasingly we will see that we need transparency around that, and that with transparency there is always the ability for there to be negative downsides. You could argue that, by having courts open, people can just walk in off the street and see that this person over there is being prosecuted; some neighbour, or whatever. But if we are not starting to ask those sorts of questions and staring to come up with some informed answers, we will be in a world where we have lost the ability to ask those sorts of questions.
Paul Nowak: I am not particularly well versed in this area, but I suppose that it is a little bit like the terms and conditions question. You could provide so much transparency that it would give the illusion of people being informed, and I think what you want to do is to allow people to understand what are the potential implications of those algorithms. So, if you are using Uber you know that if there is a spike in demand or a lack of supply, you are likely to pay more, and what the implications of that might be, and what the parameters of that are. I do not think that means that Uber needs to make all of its software open source—frankly, that would mean nothing to me—but I want to know when I get in what the fair contractual exchange is between me and the company that is providing the service.
Sarah Gold: I am very well versed in this area but I have very little time to talk about it, which is very frustrating. However, I think that looking at how individuals can question algorithms is very important; I agree with both of your comments. Particularly in GDPR, there is a clear piece that is about people being able to question automated decisions that are made about them.
As a design problem, that is really fascinating. For instance, if you think about when you buy flights on browsers, I think that everyone has probably seen that when you go back to book the flight again, your IP address has been tracked, you are a cookie, and so you see the same flight booked for—it costs you more. So you go into kind of incognito mode to check that.
What I am quite interested in at the moment is that sort of incognito testing of algorithms, so that you can see how your inputs might change an output. In the context of Uber and insurance, I am very interested in this emergence of insurance for, say, a single day of driving or for a particular route, and being insured—say, it costs you far more to go down the M1 than just the A1. And you should be able to understand why that decision has been made about you, because it has a significant consequence for your life.
However, that comes down to the quality of the training data, too, and that comes back to some of the terms of the Bill—we should be working towards greater data minimisation, I think, and also the ability for people to be able to audit not only those data, to correct those when they go wrong, but to provide an audit of data access. While it may not mean everything to all of us, because not all of us are developers, I think that for those individuals who are able to scrutinise the code and check for digital rights management or security vulnerabilities, or biases in data sets, that information is really crucial, because it is those individuals who are our greatest defence against data misuse or fraud.
The Chair
Thank you very much indeed; that is a high note on which to conclude. I thank our three witnesses for your evidence. We may now release you and we will call our final two witnesses for the afternoon to come forward.
Examination of Witnesses
Professor Sir Charles Bean and Hetan Shah gave evidence.
The Chair
Welcome to our two final witnesses today; I am sure you will keep us on our toes in our final session. Could you please introduce yourselves for the record?
Hetan Shah: I am Hetan Shah, Executive Director of the Royal Statistical Society.
Professor Sir Charles Bean: Charlie Bean, London School of Economics and soon to be Office for Budget Responsibility.
Louise Haigh
Q We have heard from witnesses today about a lot of the negatives and potential pitfalls of data sharing across Government. I have nothing against the Government’s intentions here, but do you share the concerns of previous witnesses about the lack of safeguards for privacy in part 5 of the Bill?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: You will have to excuse me; since I was not here for your earlier discussions, I am obviously not aware of what earlier witnesses have said and what their reservations are. My interest obviously is in the use of the information for statistical purposes. It is important that there is a clear and well understood framework that governs that, and there clearly need to be limitations around it.
I have to say that I think the current version of the Bill strikes a reasonably sensible balance, but there are bits that will clearly need to be filled in. The Office for National Statistics will need to spell out a set of principles that govern the way it will access administrative data, and so forth.
Louise Haigh
Q Do you think there is any framework in part 5 around the sharing of data?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: Sorry—
Louise Haigh
You said you are satisfied that it strikes the right balance. Do you believe there is any framework in terms of the principles for data sharing in part 5?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: By “appropriate balance”, I mean in terms of the statistical authority having in-principle access to the administrative data that it needs to do its work, subject to certain limitations.
Louise Haigh
Q Do you believe there should be transparency for—
Professor Sir Charles Bean: I certainly believe in transparency. I am a big fan of transparency. Anyone who has worked at the Bank of England would like transparency.
Hetan Shah: May I come in and build on this? Privacy is absolutely critical to maintaining public trust, and in a sense we think the Bill has missed a trick here. On the research side, the framework is embedded on the face of the Bill. In our view, the ONS has a very good track record—it has maintained 200 years of census data, it has the best transparency, it publishes all the usage of the data and it has already criminalised the proceedings of misuse of data—but that has not been put on the face of the Bill. A tremendous amount could be done to reassure by taking what is already good practice and putting it on the face of the Bill, and I think that will answer the issue for the statistics and research purposes.
Louise Haigh
Q My full question was not, “Do you believe in transparency?” It was going to be: do you believe in transparency in terms of how citizens’ data will be shared with the Government and between Government agencies? That principle, as you say, is not only not on the face of the Bill but not anywhere in the Bill. We have been asked by the Government to rely on codes of practice that have not even been drafted yet.
Professor Sir Charles Bean: I agree that transparency about the principles that will govern sharing of information makes a lot of sense.
Louise Haigh
Q As you say, Mr Shah, for Government data sharing to work requires public trust, and digital government and the use of your statistics absolutely requires trust that the Government will handle data with due purpose and cause.
Hetan Shah: Another thing is that the UK Statistics Authority is directly accountable to Parliament, not the Government. That actually makes the statistics and research strand more accountable compared with other parts of the Bill. I remind you of that, which is very important.
Matt Hancock
Q I would be interested if you could explain and put on the record some of the consequences you see of having this Bill and the underlying secondary legislation on the statute book. What impact will that have on the areas in which you are experts?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: The key thing is that it greatly improves the gateways that enable the Office for National Statistics to use administrative data—tax data and the like—in the construction of official economic statistics. We are well off the pace compared with many other countries. Scandinavian countries, Canada, the Irish and the Dutch make very heavy reliance on administrative data and only use surveys to fill in the gaps. Here, the Office for National Statistics is essentially an organisation that turns the handle, sending out 1.5 million paper forms a year and processing those. Essentially, you are acquiring the same information again that you have already got in some other part of the public sector, where the information is being collected for other purposes.
The key gains here I see as twofold. First, because you access something close to the universe of the sample population rather than just a subset, which would normally be the case with a survey, you potentially get more accurate information. It is potentially also more timely, which for economic policy purposes is important.
The other side of the coin is that by enabling you to cut back on the number of surveys you do, there is a cost gain, which I should say would probably not mainly be a gain to the ONS, because they have to do the processing of the administrative data, but a gain to the businesses and households who are currently spending time filling in forms that they would not need to do if more use was made of administrative data.
Matt Hancock
Q Mr Shah, what do you see as the impact of the data sharing clauses?
Hetan Shah: I completely agree with Charlie Bean that we are really in danger of being left behind compared with where other countries are on this agenda. The European statistics peer review, which happened last year, said that this was the key weakness in our statistical system. If you look at bodies like New Zealand, Finland and Canada, they all have this ability to access, so we have got to have it. We are spending £500 million on the census and you have got a lot of that data that you could be using through administrative data.
Similarly, on inflation, which is a critical economic indicator, at the moment we send out people with clipboards to take price points of 100,000 items in 140 locations around the country every month, but there is scanner data that tells you the price that people paid. This could really revolutionise. It is not statistics for statistics’ sake; it is to answer the questions that parliamentarians and policy makers have on issues about social mobility and productivity. For all these questions you are asking yourselves, we need the data. And if we are criticising the ONS about not being quick enough, we need to give them the powers to be quicker.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)
Q In terms of the provisions in the Bill on sharing data for research purposes, could you shed a bit more light on how that will benefit the wider research community? I was also wondering what the immediate priorities will need to be for the UK Statistics Authority as the accrediting body for the infrastructure provided by the research powers in the Bill.
Hetan Shah: The Bill creates a permissive power and it really streamlines what at the moment is quite a complex legal environment for researchers accessing Government data. This makes it much clearer that if a researcher meets a set of conditions—the research is in the public interest, the researcher is accredited and it will use the research in a safe haven, as it were, and so on—they are able to access that Government data.
We gave some case studies in our evidence of research that is obvious, such as what affects winter mortality and understanding the productivity gap. Those are questions that researchers want to investigate, but they cannot get hold of the data from Government Departments. To be fair to the Government, there is concern from their side about handing over data when the legal framework is not clear enough. I think this process will really streamline that.
One caveat is that it is slightly odd that health data are out of scope. Most of the biggest concerns that researchers have are in trying to build the relationship between survey data and, often, the health outcomes in certain areas. I understand the reasoning behind this: because of care.data there were some concerns. Health is very important. Our view is that the Bill should build in the scope for health data and then allow for future legislation to say how that will be dealt with, in particular once Fiona Caldicott, the national data guardian, has consulted on her framework, which is happening right now.
Professor Sir Charles Bean: I would endorse a lot of that. I should say that in Canada, where I spent some time talking to Statistics Canada in the course of doing my review, they have exactly this model. There are clearly defined criteria under which researchers can get access, with a sort of prescribed laboratory where they can use it. I think there is something like 30 requests a year to use information, so it is quite heavily used.
Certainly when I was talking to people here during the statistics review, the issue was raised during the consultation process by people such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who wanted access to the microdata to be able to study the impact of tax structure on decisions and so forth. The difficulty of getting that microdata inhibited good research. I am sure the demand is there.
Chris Skidmore
Q Several witnesses have expressed various degrees of concern about issues of privacy, whether merited or not. In terms of what is taking place in Canada, have you seen any data leaks or anything that would raise concerns about what we are pursuing?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: I am certainly not aware of any leaks or anything. They are clearly very concerned about making sure that personal information is not divulged. It is very important that the information made available is not only anonymised but cannot be reverse engineered to find out who the agent concerned might be.
If you are looking at information on companies, there may well be, if you are not very careful, information that might be reverse engineered to find out that the name of the company is probably such and such. It is very important that you have good processes to make sure that the information that is provided to researchers is sufficiently anonymised but, as I say, the Canadian experience suggests that you can do that quite happily.
Scott Mann
Q One of the biggest contributing factors for people moving house is having access to a decent broadband signal. Have you done any statistical or economic modelling of population densities and movement away from cities to rural areas? Is that a piece of work that you would be prepared to do to find out the economic benefits to rural areas as part of the USO?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: That is not really my territory.
Hetan Shah: Ditto. I am here to talk about the stats and research clauses. I do not know about the other bits, I am afraid.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q You have both talked about other European countries and Canada. Forgive me for not knowing whether this is the correct term, but are we talking here about big data? Is that the term I hear bandied about? Either way, could you tell me a bit more about the benefits and outcomes in terms of policy information? Give us a bit more information about what these other countries are doing better and how their politicians are better equipped as a result.
Professor Sir Charles Bean: I think most people use the term “administrative data” to refer to large information held within the public sector that accrues as a by-product of whatever the public authority is doing. Tax information is a classic example, and it is something that is obviously potentially of use to the Office for National Statistics in constructing economic statistics. Big data is a wider concept that embraces the vast range of information that is generated by various sorts of private sector organisations, which includes the scanner data that Hetan mentioned. It is the sort of information that is generated by the likes of Google and phone companies. Big data is much broader.
There is a question about the extent to which you can use big data in the construction of official statistics. I think there are two obvious areas that you might want to exploit. One is scanner data for constructive price indices, which Hetan has already mentioned. The other area where I could see private sector big data being of considerable use is on payment information—information from payments processors and payments providers.
Of course, there is a vast amount of other information that is generated by the private sector. Some of that information might be useful for shedding light on new puzzles or new phenomena in the economy. One might want to be a little bit wary about relying on them to build the regular official statistics because you cannot be sure they are always going to be there, whereas you will probably have a reasonable presumption that the payments information and scanner data will continue to be available, and the Office for National Statistics could therefore use them on a regular basis.
Hetan Shah: I can give a couple of examples or case studies. One is pensions. In this country we have made quite a lot of changes in recent years around pensions policy, but it is very hard to track the impact of that. The Bill will allow for the ONS to bring together the benefits and pensions data, which are held by the DWP, the HMRC data, and also to go out to companies or to either regulatory bodies or federated bodies and get their data and bring those together so that we can see what auto-enrolment has actually meant, in terms of the amount people are putting into their pensions, and you can actually start tracking policy.
Another example is international student migrants, which is clearly a hot topic at the moment. At the moment there are Home Office data in one place, the Higher Education Statistics Agency holding useful data in another place and there are labour market data held in a third place. You could bring all those things together to actually track the impact and the numbers and so on, which at the moment we just do not have a good handle on. Those are the sorts of things that are possible if you give your statistical office access to the aggregate data from other Departments and also some access to private sector data.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q Is that the sort of data other countries are using in that way?
Hetan Shah: Yes, that is right. Other countries have different set-ups, as it were, but these are the sorts of puzzles they can solve because they can bring those data together in different ways.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Mr Shah, you have partly answered my question, so I will turn to Professor Sir Charles Bean first. What kind of Government data would you personally like to get access to; what would you do with it; and how would the public benefit from your having it?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: You do not mean me personally? Presumably you mean the Office for National Statistics and the UK Statistics Authority?
Nigel Huddleston
Absolutely.
Professor Sir Charles Bean: First and foremost, I would say the tax data that HMRC holds—value-added tax, income tax and corporation tax. Value-added tax is particularly useful because it tells you something about inputs and outputs of businesses. It is potentially quite good, up-to-date, timely information on activity in the economy. I should say, when I was on the Monetary Policy Committee, we used to get informal briefings each month from the Treasury representative on what they knew about the tax receipts coming in that month, but having more detailed information about what was going on would be potentially very useful. In principle you can envisage building the national income accounts almost entirely on that sort of information if you have access to it, and you can make sure that the income-outcome expenditure sides are all balanced. That, as far as I am concerned, is by far and away the most significant thing.
I think it would be quite useful to bring in another dimension here about why administrative data are useful. There is obviously a lot of interest in regional issues. As it is at the moment, most regional information is collected to align with administrative areas of one sort of another, but those are not always the most natural units to be looking at for studying a phenomenon. If you think of Wales, north Wales is not actually trading with south Wales, it is trading across with Manchester and Liverpool, while south Wales is trading across with Bristol and so forth. If you want to think about the regional economics, you need things that allow you to look at those nexuses, rather than the information you might be given on the Welsh economy. If you have administrative data, with regional, locational identifiers, you can in principle aggregate the information in whatever way is best suited to the particular issue that you want to look at.
In terms of thinking about statistics for the 21st century, we need to be thinking about a framework that is actually quite fluid and flexible, rather than one in which everything is pushed into a set of standard definitions for GDP and stuff like that, and standard regional definitions and so forth. When you have access to the underlying micro information, providing you have appropriate identifiers that you can manipulate and link, you have open to you all sorts of possibilities that we do not currently have.
Nigel Huddleston
Q Mr Shah, do you have anything to add to that?
Hetan Shah: I have just a couple of examples. One is systemic financial risk. Post 2008, I think there was a recognition that we had focused too much on the risk for individual financial institutions and not looked at risk at a systems level. There is a possibility of doing that. The Prime Minister has indicated an interest in how the labour market is changing with the rise of zero-hours contracts and so on. Using a mixture of administrative and private sector data would allow us to start to get a handle on how the economy is changing.
Louise Haigh
Q Mr Shah, you keep mentioning access to data, but the problem we heard earlier is that the Bill talks not about access to data but about data sharing, which implies duplication. We should really be moving towards data minimisation. Do you think that the language of the Bill should reflect access to data, rather than data sharing?
Hetan Shah: My view is that for the clauses on statistics and research the Bill is pretty clear that it is about data access.
Louise Haigh
Q It discusses the transfer of data. It does not talk about your accessing data. It does not mention the technology through which you would do it. There are no codes of practice alongside how it would happen. It is very broad and explicitly talks about data sharing in certain areas.
Hetan Shah: I think I said this earlier, but in case I was not clear I shall repeat it. For statistical and research purposes, statisticians and researchers are interested only in aggregates; they are not interested in us as individuals. It is a key point that the relevant clauses are quite different from some of the other parts of the Bill. Others have indicated in their evidence that this area should be seen as slightly different.
It is also worth noting that there are safeguards that have been tried and tested over many years. There is the security surrounding the data—the ONS will not even let me into the vault where they hold the data. You need to be accredited and to sign something saying that you will not misuse the data. If you do, you will go to jail. The trick that has been missed has been not saying all that, because it is almost assumed that that is how the ONS works. My suggestion is that if you want to strengthen that part of the Bill, you should just lay out the safeguards that are already common practice in the ONS.
Claire Perry
Q Thank you both for setting out some very factual and helpful arguments as to why the provisions are a good thing, particularly when it comes to aggregate statistics. I was struck by a quote in your report published in March, Professor Sir Charles. You mentioned the
“cumbersome nature of the present legal framework”,
which the Bill will clearly help to solve, and you also said that there was a
“cultural reluctance on the part of some departments and officials to data sharing”
and, in many ways, to working together, as we know from experience. How do we solve that problem and get Departments to realise how helpful some of these datasets might be?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: A key thing about the Bill is that it shifts the onus of presumption. There is a presumption of access unless there is a good reason not to comply or explain, if you like, as opposed to the current arrangement, which is that the data owner has the data and you say, “Can you please let us have a look at it?” There is civil service caution. I was a civil servant very early on in my career, so I am aware of how civil servants think. Inevitably, you are always worried about something going wrong or being misused or whatever. That plays into this, as well.
In the review I said there are really three elements and I think they are mutually reinforcing. There is the current legal framework, which is not as conducive as it could be; there is this innate caution on the part of some civil service Departments, or even perhaps on the part of their Ministers on occasion; and then the ONS has not been as pushy as it might have been. It is partly that if you know it is very difficult to get in—people are not very co-operative at the other end and the legal frameworks are very cumbersome—you are less inclined to put the effort in, and you think, “Oh, well, let’s just use the surveys, as we’ve always done.” So I think you need to act on the three things together, but they are potentially mutually reinforcing if you get the change right.
Hetan Shah: This is one area where I think the Bill could be strengthened. At the moment, the ONS has the right to request data; similarly, the researchers have the right to request data. The Department can still say, “No”, and in a sense the only comeback is that there is a sort of name-and-shame element of, “Parliament will note this”, as it were. My worry, given the cultural problems that have been seen in the past, is that that may not be enough. So why do we not do what Canada does? It just says, “The ONS requests”, and the Department gives.
Claire Perry
Q It is a presumption in favour of sharing?
Hetan Shah: Yes, precisely. Similarly, with research you could have the same situation where, as long as the researcher meets the code of practice this required, the presumption would be in favour.
Chris Skidmore
Q Professor Bean, in terms of the current legal framework and the problems with it as it exists, am I right in saying that there is an issue with legislation that was passed in the previous Government, under Gordon Brown’s premiership, that caps the use of data and research material, and which needs to be addressed quite urgently?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: Yes, I think it does need to be addressed. The existing Act was introduced with the intention of trying to improve the ability to share data, but it just has not operated in the way that people maybe hoped it would. In practice, having talked to the ONS and other Departments, it sounds like an extremely cumbersome process. So I think this is a case where the original legislation may have been well intentioned, but—
Chris Skidmore
Q Will there be a problem even with accessing some datasets after a certain point in time—?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: There is a point after 2007, yes. You have to specifically write into the legislation that, in principle, the information can be shared, yes, whereas these information-sharing orders—
Chris Skidmore
Q So that is creating a real problem in the infrastructure that needs to be addressed?
Professor Sir Charles Bean: Yes.
The Chair
Thank you, colleagues. Thank you very much indeed to our final two witnesses; you gave very clear and expert answers. Thank you; it is much appreciated.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Graham Stuart.)
Westminster Hall
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Forced Organ Removal: China
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered forced organ removal in China.
This is a very difficult subject to talk about, but there are those of us who have followed this issue in China and listened to people who have come to the House to present petitions and speak to us about it. We have watched the film on the issue and had a briefing in the House as well. Many Members of the House have been vociferous and outspoken on the issue. I commend the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for the hard work that she has done on it in the House. We admire her courage, tenacity and commitment to the issue. The rest of us will add our contribution. I know that her contribution will be as important as everyone else’s. I thank every hon. Member who has come today to participate. The abstract nature of the debate may have precluded many from attending. I am grateful to those who are here for acknowledging that the issue is worthy of time and attention from Members of the House.
My boys like to watch crime dramas, as many of us do. Some of them are so far-fetched that I scoff along with them. However, others are too chillingly real. The idea of someone having organs cut out of them and waking up in a bath of ice has long been an urban legend. However, today’s debate is not based on a horror story as we approach Halloween; it is not make-believe. It is a horror that is all too real in China. As it has been brought to our attention, I feel that we have a role to play in returning this scenario to the realms of urban legend. That is why the debate is so important.
This story, which is almost too dreadful to believe, was first revealed in March 2006, when a woman stated that as many as 4,000 Falun Gong had been killed for their organs at the hospital in which she had worked. I had the privilege of meeting some of the families of those people in this House, and a charitable organisation was also involved, so we know some of the stories at first hand. That lady said that her husband, a surgeon at the same hospital outside the north-eastern city of Shenyang, had disclosed to her that he had removed corneas from the living bodies of 2,000 Falun Gong adherents. A week later, a Chinese military doctor not only corroborated the woman’s account but claimed that such atrocities were taking place in 36 different concentration camps throughout the country. He said that he had also witnessed Falun Gong being transported in massive numbers across the country in cattle trains, at night and under the cover of tight security. People may think that that is something from the history of the second world war, but the transportation of people in cattle trains is all too real. As I said, it happens at night and under the cover of tight security.
In 2006, two prominent Canadians—David Kilgour, a former MP, and David Matas, a human rights lawyer—published a report for the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China, in which they gave credibility to claims that the Chinese authorities were harvesting organs from executed members of the group. Victims were held in concentration camps prior to dissection, after which the remains were immediately cremated, as if the authorities could get rid of the evidence of their ill deeds by cremating them so quickly.
It was in July 2006 that Kilgour and Matas published their 140-page report. It drew
“the regrettable conclusion that these allegations are true.”
The investigation uncovered the on-demand nature of organ transplants in China; there is an abundance of organs despite the lack of a functional donation system. Ten years later, on 22 June 2016, they published an update to their report. It shows the continued expansion of transplantation capacity—organ harvesting first came to light in 2006—the driving factors behind the industry’s growth, and the role of the ruling party, Government agencies and individual officials in implementing and perpetuating the systematic killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs. We are talking about those of the Falun Gong belief, those of Christian beliefs, who have been persecuted, people serving time in jail and those from other ethnic groups.
The harvesting is done on an industrial scale, as some of the figures illustrate very well. Although Chinese officials typically say that China transplants about 10,000 organs a year, the update to the report shows that that figure is surpassed by just a few hospitals alone. We can say, based on Government-imposed minimum capacity requirements for transplant centres, that the total system-wide capacity since 2000 would have easily reached more than 1 million transplants. Given that the vast majority of those hospitals far exceed the minimum requirements, the number of transplants performed in China is staggering. As I said, it is on an industrial scale.
The Conservative Party Human Rights Commission heard from at least two witnesses on the harrowing practice of forced organ harvesting. Notably, it heard from Ethan Gutmann, who has spent several years investigating this appalling practice—the forced removal of internal organs from live individuals for transplant. It also notes the information provided on behalf of UK Falun Gong practitioners in the written submission. Ms Lin stated:
“There have been persistent allegations that large numbers of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience have been killed to supply China’s lucrative trade in vital organs. Uyghurs and other prisoners of conscience may have been victimised in a similar way.”
Former Falun Gong prisoners report being subjected to targeted medical examinations and blood tests in custody that appear designed to assess the health and compatibility for potential transplant of their organs, Ms Lin claimed. She told the commission:
“Concern stems in part from the significant discrepancy between the number of organ transplants performed and the known sources of organs: even when we include death row inmates, the number of transplants performed in China is far too high. The short wait times achieved by transplant hospitals suggest that people are killed on demand for their organs.”
That is the horror of what is taking place in China. The House must today illustrate the issues clearly and ensure that we speak on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves—those with no voice.
Ethan Gutmann has stated, based on meticulous research into individual hospital accommodations for transplant recipients, occupancy rates and a full accounting of the overall number of hospitals in China carrying out organ transplants, that the claims by the Chinese of performing 10,000 organ transplants a year are intentionally low; they are keeping them low on purpose. The new report estimates that a minimum of 56,000 and perhaps as many as 110,000 organ transplants are being conducted a year, leading to an estimated overall total of 1.8 million organ transplants since 2001. Previous speculation that approximately 40,000 to 65,000 organs were extracted from prisoners of conscience is now seen as a serious underestimate, particularly as the number of Chinese hospitals that have informally confirmed the use of Falun Gong prisoners as a primary organ source continues to grow.
I am very concerned and I have tabled questions in the House, as other hon. Members have, on the issue. Organ tourism to China takes place. People in western countries find out about an organ that may be available in China at short notice. Given how quickly these things happen, there has to be an organised, established method of harvesting the organs so that those who come from the west can come across and get the transplant that they need so much. I urge the Government to take action on that issue as well. I know that that is not exactly in the portfolio of the Minister who is here to respond, but I am very pleased to see him. I know that all hon. Members will get a positive response from him.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on putting the case and raising this important issue in so eloquent a manner. Does he agree that nations should not allow their citizens to travel to China for organs until we know that China meets the World Health Organisation guiding principles on transplantation and ethical standards?
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and for wisely putting the thoughts of everyone in this Chamber today on record. I totally agree with her—I think we all do—and that is one of the things we hope the Minister will respond to, because those going to China cannot close their eyes or ears to what is happening and to the question of whom the organ is coming from. The recipient cannot say, “I don’t know, but I need the organ transplant.” I am not taking away from the fact that they need the organ transplant, but there must be rules in place and China must be part of that.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, congratulate him on securing this debate and apologise that I cannot stay for the whole thing. Many of the issues he has raised are of concern to lots of our constituents; a number have contacted me about the issue and I have also lodged questions on the back of contact from constituents. Does he share my disappointment at the Government’s slight lack of engagement on the issue? We understand they have to engage positively and sensitively with the Chinese Government, but an issue of concern to so many constituents ought to be taken seriously.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for clearly stating what we feel. I am going to comment on questions other people have tabled and the response from Government until now. Perhaps, until now, we have seen inaction; today we are hoping for action that will clearly take this issue on, and we implore our Minister and the Department to respond positively.
In 2014 the Chinese medical establishment pledged that it would stop all organ harvesting from prisoners, yet the velocity of China’s organ harvesting industry does not suggest a retraction. Indeed it suggests the opposite; it suggests further acceleration of the practice. According to Ethan Gutmann, in a testimony to the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China on 18 September 2015—just over a year ago—the practice began in 1994 when
“the first live organ harvests of death-row prisoners were performed on the execution grounds of Xinjiang”.
In 1997, Uyghur political prisoners were the target for organs to be forcefully donated to high-ranking Chinese Communist party officials. This disgusting and disgraceful forced organ transplantation goes to the very highest level of Chinese government and those involved need to be accountable for their actions. By 2001, Chinese military hospitals were
“unambiguously targeting select Falun Gong prisoners for harvesting”,
and by 2003 the first Tibetans were being targeted as well. There is systematic forced organ transplantation taking place of Falun Gong followers, of Christians and other ethnic groups and of those who are in prison, sometimes for minor charges. Then China goes to Tibet, where it has some control, and it targets people there as well; its horrific targeting for forced organ transplantation goes far beyond China.
Gutmann’s testimony continues:
“By the end of 2005, China’s transplant apparatus had increased so dramatically that a tissue-matched organ”—
the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) will be listening to this—
“could be located within two weeks for any foreign organ tourist with cash.”
If a person has cash, they have got the organs. There is something morally wrong with that, there is something physically and emotionally wrong with that, and action has to be taken to stop it.
At this stage I must admit I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am not someone who excels in piecing together facts to create theories, but I can clearly see that the figures do not add up. There is something horrifically wrong in the system and it needs to be addressed by the international community and our Government, who we look to for leadership at this time. Those two Canadians began the process. The US Congressional-Executive Commission on China conducted investigations, and now we are raising it in this place. We have a duty to do all that is in our power to apply diplomatically any pressure that we can to say the practice must stop. For moral decency and human rights, it cannot continue in any way, shape or form.
We have to put this into perspective and I understand the pain of those who wait for transplants every year. My own nephew, Peter, had a kidney transplant when he was just a teenager as he was so unwell. Only after he had been given the transplant did he progress and start to grow and live the life he could. I well remember the stress of the family as we waited for the call to hear that help was on the way for the child. I understand the pain that so many people face waiting for an organ transplant. In Northern Ireland the transplant list is long as well; we had a waiting list last year of 177 people waiting for an organ transplant, and 135 transplants were available. We have a shortfall, so we need to address that issue. These are not just numbers; these are people waiting on life and death changes, which is why I urge people to ensure they carry a donor card—I have done so for many years and we have a very progressive donor donation and transplant system in Northern Ireland, which we believe we should take forward—and let their families know of their preferences should anything happen to them, so that they can save a life in their own death.
However, to take blood tests and to kill for the purpose of organ removal is murder and nothing less—it could be nothing else. Those carrying out that practice must be made to understand that it can never be acceptable, no matter what the circumstances may be. I have two granddaughters and should their lives depend on an organ transplant, I, or anyone in the close family, would very quickly give one of our organs to them for a transplant. I do not say that boastfully in any way; I say that honestly as a grandfather who loves his children and grandchildren. However, I could never take an organ from someone else by murder, and that is what is happening here. For the Chinese Government to claim that they only take from those convicts who give consent can be nothing other than an exaggeration of epic proportions, and it must be addressed by all political means possible.
It is no good burying our heads in the sand. We have the information, evidence and knowledge—we have two inquiries from Canada and the United States—and they all indicate that rightness dictates we do something with that information. My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) raised the issue in 2013 with the then Minister, only to be told that this was being phased out by the Chinese Government. Well, it has not been phased out. Three years later it is still going strong and it is getting larger and stronger each time, so that is blatantly not the case. In July this year I asked what the plans were to discuss how to deal with the issue with the UN. I was told, just this year:
“The Government has no plans to make representations to the UN on organ harvesting in China. We pay close attention to the human rights situation in China, including allegations of organ harvesting and encourage China to implement its public commitment to stop the use of organs from prisoners.”
Words are not enough, Mr Gapes.
“Our current assessment of the human rights situation in China can be found in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy.”
We need to do more. We need to implore our Government and the western world to take this matter on board and to act quickly.
Today, Minister, I am asking for more. I am asking that direct and effective steps are taken. Today, I am asking that meetings are arranged at international level to ensure that, rather than washing our hands of the matter, we do all we can to address it. Today, I am asking this House to stand and to say that the forced removal of organs from any person in any place in the world can never be acceptable, and that this Government will be known as one that speaks out for those with no voice—many of whom, in this case, are imprisoned owing to their religion. I speak out for religious freedom—it is something I am interested in and I am known for doing so. Again, I ask this House and this Government to take action and to do all in their power to see the end of this horror story practice taking place in our so-called modern age. The forced organ transplantation on an industrial scale is unabated and uncontrolled, and we in this House must take a stand today. I believe that we will and that this House is clearly united to make sure that it stops.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this debate and on his powerful speech.
Let us be clear about what we are speaking of here, because if what we are discussing is indeed the case it virtually defies credibility. But increasingly research and evidence is pointing towards what is being alleged, which is that the Chinese Government actively condone—indeed, are involved in—the murder of potentially thousands of their own citizens every year for the purpose of forcibly extracting vital organs including livers, kidneys, hearts and corneas, sometimes while those people are still alive, and without anaesthetic. Many of those people are in prison, mainly—we are told—for their beliefs or ethnicity. Often their families are told that they have died. They are young people in reasonable health, and their families are simply handed an urn of ashes.
Credible research findings strongly suggest that many thousands of people are being killed for their organs, particularly people in minority groups, most notably practitioners of Falun Gong—a peaceful, meditative practice—although Tibetans, Uighurs and, potentially, house Christians have also been targeted for political reasons.
The allegations that Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans and Uyghurs have been victims of that horrific practice are well documented and strong, as I shall recount. The suggestion that house church Christians may be affected requires further research. Either way, all the allegations of which we are now aware are sufficiently strong to require investigation by the international community.
It is of the highest necessity that the UK raises the issue with the Chinese directly, and calls for an international inquiry into the matter, ideally led by the United Nations. Even if the UN will not conduct a commission of inquiry, our Government should investigate the allegations and look at alternative mechanisms to bring to account those involved in those horrific alleged practices. If Britain as a nation is to maintain its status as a people concerned about grievous violations of human rights, it is imperative that the issue is addressed loudly and fearlessly, in co-operation with the other international organisations and leading parliamentarians across the world who are increasingly expressing concerns about the issue.
The Conservative party human rights commission, which I am privileged to chair, has recently conducted an inquiry into forced organ harvesting in China. During the course of the inquiry, I have been privileged to hear, in this House, first-hand testimony of those who have conducted research into the nature of the crime, and first-hand testimony by way of a powerful statement from a former Chinese doctor, Dr Enver Tohti, who has been required to perform an organ operation on an executed prisoner—for transplant, he believes.
The House has been privileged to host the UK premiere of the film “The Bleeding Edge”, a fictional film based on the testimony of witnesses to illegal organ harvesting. It was harrowing. I am deeply grateful to Mr Speaker for hosting the film, and to the actress, Anastasia Lin, who starred in the film and gave evidence at one of the hearings of the Conservative party human rights commission. I am aware of other films on the subject, notably “Human Harvest” and “Hard to Believe”.
As I speak, the Conservative party human rights commission is releasing a report of the inquiry, which can be found on the website www.conservativehumanrights.com. It contains more information than I can relay in this debate, but I will refer to some evidence received by the inquiry. The report was written by the vice-chair of the commission, Ben Rogers, who is an expert on human rights in China and elsewhere. I pay tribute to him for his dedicated work in this field and to the work of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, the organisation for which he works.
Written evidence submitted to the inquiry included a statement from a former prisoner, Yu Xinhui, who wrote:
“Everyone in the prison knows about this”—
by which he means the removal of prisoners for organ harvesting.
“Usually in the prison, regardless of whether the person is deceased, if he is sent to the prison hospital, he faces the reality of having his organs removed at any moment. Everyone in prison knows that there exists a list of names. People…taken away, and no one will return.”
That list of names includes blood types and the health of patients’ organs so that the information is ready and available if a transplant request is made.
Yu Xinhui continued:
“I once asked a prison doctor, because this particular doctor was very sympathetic to us Falun Gong practitioners. He was especially sympathetic towards me, because we were from the same hometown. Once he told me secretly, saying, ‘Don’t go against the Communist Party. Don’t resist them. Whatever they tell you to do, just do it. Don’t go against them forcefully. If you do, then when the time comes, you won’t even know how you will have died. When it happens, where your heart, liver, spleen, and lungs will be taken, you won’t even know either.’”
Yu Xinhui had three physical examinations while in prison, the last of which was in March 2005. Many former prisoners of conscience have testified to having been subjected to physical examinations while in prison that went beyond normal medical check-ups and were clearly aimed at assessing the health of their organs.
The timing of this debate is apt, given new evidence that the scale of organ harvesting in China may now be far higher than previously estimated. The evidence has built to a point where ignoring it is not an option. There is now strong, academically well-researched information that between 50,000 to 90,000 organ transplants may occur in China every year and are, effectively, concealed by the Government. That is in a country where there is no tradition of organ donation. Indeed, Chinese official figures put the number of voluntary donations at a total of 120 for the entire 30-year period between 1980 and 2009.
Let me quote further from the Conservative party human rights commission’s report:
“Although there are a variety of sources of evidence, there are three key reports which provide detailed research into the practice of forced organ harvesting in China”—
the hon. Member for Strangford referred to those reports. Our report continues:
“The first, published on the Internet in 2006 and in print in 2009, was a report researched and written by the former Canadian Member of Parliament and former Government Minister David Kilgour and a respected human rights lawyer, David Matas, called Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for their organs. The second was Ethan Gutmann’s book The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to its Dissident Problem, published in 2014.”
Both David Matas and Ethan Gutmann have given evidence to our commission. The third report, which was published this year, runs to 700 pages. It updates forensically those two pieces of research, is co-authored by David Kilgour, David Matas and Ethan Gutmann, and is entitled, “Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: An Update.” I have heard Ethan Gutmann publicly invite from anyone, particularly from the Chinese, any evidence or comments that contradict the research in the report, but as of September 2016 none has been received.
The most important point made by the report, and indeed by David Matas and Ethan Gutmann in their evidence to the Conservative party human rights commission, is that the scale of forced organ harvesting in China is significantly underestimated. Their new research is forensic—they have inquired into the public records of no fewer than 712 hospitals in China that carry out liver and kidney transplants. Their detailed research leads them to conclude that potentially between 60,000 and 100,000 organs are transplanted each year in Chinese hospitals, which almost defies credibility. If those figures are correct, organs are being transplanted on an industrial scale, as the hon. Member for Strangford said. One hospital alone, the Orient organ transplant centre at the Tianjin first central hospital, is performing thousands of transplants a year according to its own bed occupancy data. Chinese official claims state that 10,000 organ transplants are carried out each year, but the authors of the report contend that that is
“easily surpassed by just a few hospitals.”
By way of background, according to Ethan the practice of forced organ harvesting began in China as long ago as 1994, when the first live organs were removed from death row prisoners on the execution grounds of Xinjiang. Dr Enver Tohti came to London to give evidence to us, and he told us about the process. He was a cancer surgeon in Ürümqi, Xinjiang province. In 1995, while he was simply doing his job, he was instructed by two of his hospital’s chief surgeons to prepare mobile surgery equipment—in other words, an ambulance—and to wait for them the next day at a hospital gate with the ambulance, the equipment and three other assistants. The following morning, at 9 am, the two chief surgeons arrived in a car and he was told to follow them. He did not know where he was going but, about half an hour later, they arrived at Western Mountain—Xishan—an execution ground where prisoners were taken to be executed. He described what happened:
“We had been told to wait behind a hill, and come into the field as soon as we’d hear the gun shot. So we waited. A moment later there were gun shots. Not one, but many. We rushed into the field. An armed police officer approached us and told me where to go. He led us closer, then pointed to a corpse saying ‘this is the one’.”
A few prisoners had been executed. He continued:
“By then our chief surgeon appeared from nowhere and told me to remove the liver and two kidneys. He urged me to hurry up, so we took the body into the van and removed his liver and kidneys…our chief surgeons put those organs in a special box, and got into the car. They told me to take my team back to the hospital and left. I have no idea where they went… That was the end of that. Nobody has ever talked about what we did that day. It is something I wish hadn’t happened.”
Not only is the scale of the numbers a concern; the speed at which Chinese hospitals can obtain organs is also highly suspect. Doctors will tell us that the time they have to get an organ from a donor to a recipient varies but that it is very short for sensitive vital organs. A heart or a liver cannot simply be saved in a freezer until it is needed, which is why the NHS states that in this country the average wait for a suitable transplant for an adult is 145 days—of course, we are in a country with a tradition of donation. Compare that with the many statements in Chinese medical publications that they can find an emergency liver donor within 24 hours. I understand there is even a medical journal that boasts of taking only four hours to find a donor. I am informed that the Chinese Government claim that the organs come from death row prisoners who have been executed locally to the hospital that is providing the transplant, but the coincidence of that number of prisoners happening to have, say, a healthy liver, happening to match the blood type of the recipient and happening to have been executed locally is simply too much for credibility given the numbers involved. An alternative interpretation, and sadly the one that is more credible, is that people are being killed on demand to supply their organs.
In the other place, Lord Alton has been assured by the Government that the issue has been raised with the Chinese Government as part of the annual UK-China human rights dialogue and will be raised again, for which I thank the Government. However, evidence suggests that the Chinese Government have repeatedly committed themselves to denial, obfuscation and misdirection on this issue. It is therefore appropriate that we increase our activity in light of the new evidence I have highlighted. Indeed, there is growing international pressure on this matter.
The UN special rapporteurs on torture and on freedom of religion or belief have both requested that the Chinese Government explain the sources of these organs and that they allow them to investigate. There has been no response. The European Parliament adopted a written declaration in July 2016 on stopping organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China that, among other clauses, states:
“There have been persistent credible reports on systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China, primarily from practitioners of Falun Gong peaceful meditation and exercises but also from Uighurs, Tibetans and Christians.
The international community has strongly condemned organ harvesting in China and actions should be taken to end it.
Owing to the severity of underlying abuse there is a clear need to organise without delay an independent investigation into ongoing organ harvesting in the People’s Republic of China.”
Similarly, the United States Congress unanimously passed a resolution in June 2016 condemning the practice of state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting in the People’s Republic of China. The resolution calls for visas to be denied to those involved in coerced organ or tissue transplantation. It expresses
“concern regarding persistent and credible reports of systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China, including from large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners and members of other religious and ethnic minority groups.”
The concerns in America are coming from leading Congressmen and Senators. I was privileged to meet Congressman Chris Smith in Washington DC last week. He is the fourth longest-serving member of Congress and is a remarkable campaigner for human rights across the world. He spoke at a joint sub-committee of the US committee on foreign affairs on 21 June. I will quote him at more length at the end of my speech if I have time, but he told the House of Representatives:
“Twenty years ago, I chaired a human rights hearing in my subcommittee with a Chinese security official who testified that he and his other security agents were executing prisoners—with doctors…there and ambulances—in order to steal their organs for transplant. Since then, this horrific practice has skyrocketed.”
The US Congressional-Executive Commission on China published its annual report less than two weeks ago; I was privileged to meet the group of young people who work for the commission and who produced the report. The commission’s chairman said:
“The Chinese government’s human rights record is utterly deplorable, continuing a downward trend over the past three years.”
That, of course, includes organ harvesting.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and for setting the scene. Clearly the world is awakening to what is happening in China; she is as aware of that as I am. Will the awakening that we seem to see in Canada, in the States and now in the United Kingdom precipitate a need for our Government to contact the Chinese authorities to ensure that they can respond now to stop this practice? The weight of evidence is growing every day.
Fiona Bruce
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The growing international concern about organ harvesting means it is vital that this country joins in and does not lag behind the international community in condemning these practices and challenging the Chinese Government accordingly.
I have two more things to say. First, as well as politicians acting, the international medical community must do detailed analysis of the claims made by these respected researchers. It is helpful to note that the president of the Transplantation Society, Dr Philip O’Connell, said at the society’s international conference in Hong Kong this year, addressing his comments to China, that
“there remains, in many sectors, a deep sense of mistrust of your transplant programs…It is important that you understand that the global community”—
I believe he was referring to the global medical community—
“is appalled by the practices”.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes several important points. Does she agree that it would be helpful if the Minister confirmed, first, whether there is a date for the next annual human rights dialogue, and if so when it is; secondly, when the next UK Government report on human rights to the UN in Geneva is due; and thirdly whether there has been any response to the request by the Foreign Office Minister in the Lords for more information from the Chinese authorities about their response to the various accusations?
Fiona Bruce
I am grateful for that intervention, particularly as it comes from the chair of the all-party group on China, whose views are very much respected in this House. His questions to the Minister today are very well placed.
Yesterday evening I tabled early-day motion 502, “Forced organ harvesting in China”. I ask colleagues to be good enough to sign and support the motion. I shall read it out in full for the record, because it contains my request to the Minister today:
“That this House notes with grave concern allegations of forced organ harvesting in China; further notes that victims said to be targeted for forced organ extraction are prisoners of conscience; acknowledges evidence detailed in Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: An Update, by former Canadian Member of Parliament David Kilgour, lawyer David Matas and researcher Ethan Gutmann, along with other reports; notes the recent United States House of Representatives resolution 343 on forced organ harvesting in China and European Parliament written declaration 2016/WD48; calls on China to immediately end any forced organ harvesting; urges the Government to condemn forced organ harvesting and to seek a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate this practice, or conduct an inquiry through other international mechanisms, to ensure accountability and to assess whether this practice could amount to a crime against humanity; further urges the Government to release statistics on the numbers of UK citizens travelling to China for organ transplants and prohibit British citizens from travelling to China for the purpose of receiving organ transplants; urges the Government to introduce a travel ban prohibiting medical personnel and officials who may be engaged in forced organ harvesting from travelling to the UK; and calls on the Government to give urgent consideration to other measures it could take to hold China to account for this practice and demand an end to it.”
I will finish by quoting the senior US Congressman Chris Smith:
“What adjectives do we use to describe what Chinese doctors and hospitals have been doing these past decades? Ordinary words like concerned, disturbed or shocking just seem inadequate. We tend to reserve words like ‘barbaric’ for truly horrible crimes—and…we must call organ harvesting…barbaric.”
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. It is a privilege to be able to speak in this serious and important debate. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing it; he is a committed human rights activist in this place, and I thank him for giving us the opportunity to consider forced organ removal in China.
I hope it goes without saying that I condemn this reported practice in the strongest possible terms. I am certainly not the first Scottish National party politician to do so; my party colleague Bob Doris MSP is a long-standing campaigner on the issue. He has done a great deal to raise awareness, both over the previous parliamentary term and since the influx of new Members of the Scottish Parliament. Bob’s work has ensured that the Scottish Government continue to raise these human rights concerns when engaging with China. I put on record my gratitude to him for that. He is one of a number of politicians from all parties who have worked to raise awareness and encourage action. Many in this place, including the hon. Member for Strangford and the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), also deserve recognition for their work.
The European Parliament and the US House of Representatives have both passed resolutions expressing concern over
“persistent and credible reports of systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience”.
Those concerns are echoed by organisations such as Amnesty International and Tibet Truth. The conclusions reached in the report “Bloody Harvest”, updated and republished in June this year, make it clear why they deserve to be treated with the utmost seriousness. The report found:
“Organ transplantation volume in China is far larger than official Chinese government statistics indicate…The source for most of the massive volume of organs for transplants is the killing of innocents: Uyghurs, Tibetans, House Christians and”—
as we have heard today—
“primarily Falun Gong”.
It also called on all nations not to
“allow their citizens to go to China for organs until China has allowed a full investigation into organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience, both past and present.”
In a written answer to a parliamentary question recently tabled by the hon. Member for Strangford, the Foreign Office acknowledged that, although few British people are thought to travel overseas for such transplants,
“it is very difficult to prevent UK citizens travelling to less well-regulated countries”
to do so. When the Minister responds to the debate, perhaps he would care to elaborate on that, as well as on the various difficulties faced. What assessment has been made of any potential methods to restrict travel of that kind? I am sure he will also explain the diplomatic efforts to end the practice of forced organ removal in China. I would like to hear today an undertaking that such efforts will be stepped up. There are signs that the matter has fallen off the radar at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
I am pleased that this debate is taking place. It is not only interesting but informative. I pay tribute not only to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), but to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for her fantastic report, which I have read.
Does the hon. Lady agree that the UK Government’s policy of speaking to the Chinese behind closed doors—or behind their hands, so to speak—has not worked? We now need to speak publicly about the human rights abuses that are occurring in China to make them seek to change how they treat their citizens.
Margaret Ferrier
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is interesting that we hear about conversations going on behind closed doors not only with China but with other countries, because of certain difficulties. We have to be careful how we deal with countries such as China. We do a lot of trade with China and with some countries in the middle east that unfortunately have poor human rights records. If talking behind closed doors is not working, it is time to bring things into the public domain. I hope the Minister will take that on board.
Although the FCO’s 2014 corporate report into human rights in China noted that the country
“announced in December that it would cease harvesting organs from executed prisoners by 1 January 2015”,
there is simply no mention whatever of the practice in the 2016 report. Will the Minister commit to taking action to demonstrate the Government’s ongoing commitment to tackling organ harvesting? Will he give an undertaking that the UK will make representations to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on efforts to investigate forced organ removal in China?
As we have heard, thousands of religious prisoners in China have had their livers, kidneys and corneas ripped out while they were still alive. It is absolutely horrific to think of that. Will the UK use its position to push at EU level for high-level European action to address the practice? Forced organ donation is abhorrent. It is a practice that makes a mockery of even the most fundamental and basic universal human rights. As journalist Ethan Gutmann stated:
“We acknowledge a terrible atrocity only after it’s over.”
We have to change that and always speak out against what we know in our hearts is fundamentally wrong.
In closing, I shall quote Dr Martin Luther King, who said:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Dr King’s words ring as true today as when first spoken. If human rights are truly universal, we must uphold them everywhere, and challenge violations wherever they occur.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing such an interesting and informative debate. We may not have heard from many speakers, but the quality of information that has been imparted has been superb. The hon. Gentleman said two things that I will repeat, because they sum up the entirety of the debate for me. He said that what is happening in China is “almost too dreadful to believe”, and he underlined the stark reality that the message that has to go out is that people are being killed on demand for their organs.
I must admit that, prior to the conference recess, I was one of those people who saw this issue as almost an urban myth. My research for this debate made me incredibly uncomfortable, but it brought home clearly the horror of forced organ removal. I found a number of well researched documentaries and reports, which only magnified the horror by showing the enormity of the scale of the practice. Unlike the hon. Member for Strangford, I am not going to use the term “industrial”, because I think it dehumanises the experience, but it is hard to come up with an expression that quantifies the sheer scale of this practice.
The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) made one of the most informed speeches I have heard on this subject, after all the research I have done. She summarised wonderfully some horrific cases that really bring the message home. I commend her for the work she has done on the issue and for highlighting it clearly and succinctly. I spent hours over the conference recess watching documentaries and trying to read the 2016 report by David Matas and David Kilgour, and the best way I can describe it is “spine-chilling”. I started by watching their documentary; I probably should not have done so, because every time I read the documents it brought back some of the images I saw. We are discussing definitely some of world’s worst crimes against humanity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) highlighted her own condemnation of the practice and that of our Scottish National party colleagues. I reiterate that point: we totally condemn the practice of forced organ donation—although “donation” is probably not the best term to use. My hon. Friend also highlighted the good cross-party work done by our colleague in the Scottish Parliament, Bob Doris. I am pleased to say that the Scottish Parliament made organ trafficking illegal in Scotland through the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006. That legislation is based on the principle of people freely indicating their wish to donate organs after their death. It prohibits the trafficking of organs and provides for severe penalties for anyone found guilty of doing so. That is an example of good practice from the Scottish Parliament.
The SNP calls on the UK Government to step up their diplomatic efforts to end this practice in China. Forced organ donation, or removal, is absolutely abhorrent, and it flies in the face of basic human rights. I know that successive UK Governments have expressed concerns about claims of organ harvesting, often in the context of the ongoing UK-China human rights dialogue and the UK-China strategic dialogue. The issue is not mentioned in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s latest human rights update on China, published in July, which is part of its annual human rights and democracy report. However, it was mentioned in the 2014 report, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West said, stated:
“In a positive development, China announced in December that it would cease harvesting organs from executed prisoners by 1 January 2015.”
The updated report from earlier this year proves that, woefully, that is not the case. With 60,000 to 100,000 organs being forcibly transplanted each year, we need to take drastic action.
We call on the UK Government to step up their diplomatic efforts to end this practice in China. The UK should make representations to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on efforts to investigate forced organ removal and use its position in the EU to push for high-level European action to address the practice. Let me be clear: I am not suggesting that we should isolate China, but we should engage in a constructive dialogue and deepen relationships in order to get a result.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this important debate. He is right to say that this is an increasingly worrying international issue, so well done to him for bringing it to our attention.
The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that this matter is not new to the House of Commons. A number of parliamentary questions have been asked about it. I read through the questions that Ministers have answered over the years, and there appears to be a contradiction: although the Chinese Government sometimes give assurances that organs from executed prisoners will be used for transplantation only with their consent, on other occasions there is a complete, flat denial that any of this is going on. There seem to be two levels of dialogue, which are curious when read all at once as a sort of transcript from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. When the Minister responds, will he clarify whether he believes that that is an issue? If so, what are the Government doing about it?
I want to highlight some of the excellent points that have been made in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) commented, correctly, on the demand side of the problem and on the fact that many foreign people are travelling to China for what is called in the literature “transplant tourism”. She was right to ask what the Government are doing to educate people who may wish to travel from this country to China to receive medical treatment. I would be grateful if the Minister could let me know whether, for example, the NHS has any background information about patients who may be particularly tempted to consider having this kind of operation. Also, can he say what cross-referencing there is between the NHS and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in that regard?
The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) is well known for her concern about human rights across the globe. She made some important points today. She was right to say that the United Nations should be carrying out a full investigation and that our Government should play a crucial role in that. She was also correct to say that Mr Speaker held an excellent event, the screening of “The Bleeding Edge” film, to highlight the issue of the forced removal of organs in China. Sadly, owing to pressures on my diary in the summer, I was not able to attend, but I believe that the film is compelling and I will certainly put it on my list to watch at Christmas.
Fiona Bruce
I just inform the hon. Lady and other Members that so much interest has been expressed in that film that our commission is proposing to put on a further screening in this place shortly. I hope that she will be able to attend that.
Catherine West
I thank the hon. Lady for that information. I will indeed try to attend the second screening of “The Bleeding Edge”.
Jim Shannon
May I recommend to those people who have not seen that film that they do so? However, if anyone does come to watch it, they should come prepared for some horrific viewing; many people seeing the film have felt unable to continue watching it and have had to close their eyes. It is a very effective film but it is also very hard to watch. I urge those who have not seen it to go and see it, but they should prepare themselves.
Catherine West
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I think it was the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) who suggested that this issue is just so horrific to think about. We are talking about it in the cold light of day now, but I think that people will need quite a strong constitution to watch the film.
The hon. Member for Congleton talked about Dr Enver Tohti’s time working as a surgeon in China. I will be interested to follow up on his personal testimonies about the executions and subsequent organ harvesting. I am sure that the Foreign Office is looking carefully at those reports in order to come to a judgment on how to substantiate those claims and on what action to take as a result. Any suggestion of “on-demand killing” for organs is too terrible even to contemplate.
I press the Minister on the issue of a travel ban. Does he believe that that strategy could work? Furthermore, the hon. Member for Congleton talked, in the light of the allegations, about the increased activity in recent years. I note that in the briefing prepared for today’s debate there is quite a lot of fresh information from 2015 and 2016. We do not feel reassured that this activity is being reduced. We need to ask further questions.
I will briefly put on the record my appreciation of the comments by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and of his forensic questioning about exactly where we are in relation to the human rights dialogue. He is right to remind the House that we already have a vehicle in place to examine human rights in all countries about which we have concerns, particularly in relation to the groups that are highlighted in the reports.
In the context of the alleged organ harvesting, the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, the House Christians and Falun Gong tend to be the groups that come up again and again in the human rights legislation, in the recordings and in other evidence. Therefore, could the Minister respond to the questions put by the hon. Member for Gloucester—what is the existing framework and what are the dates for ongoing dialogue and challenge? Also, can he explain why there is no mention of this issue, which is clearly of concern to so many people, in the July 2016 FCO report?
I thank all Members for being here today and for putting on the record their concerns and questions. May I press the Minister on the question of an independent investigation by the British Government and of the Government working closely with the UN on the issue? What are the levers we can use around some of our relationships in the wider sense? We meet regularly to talk about trade. We meet regularly to talk about ongoing concerns and ongoing positive elements of our relationship. How can we develop the balance that we so desperately need in relation to countries that are so important to us in the post-Brexit climate? The European Union has, I think, taken a lot of responsibility for human rights work over the years. How can we again make that part of a more balanced approach to relationships with China?
Can the Minister clarify the question of allowing citizens to go to China for organs? How can we look at whether there are practical ways to establish a travel ban until we are absolutely sure that this is not happening? Also, can he explain how we can monitor any ongoing allegations, so that we can be absolutely sure that we are dealing with the facts?
The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)
Thank you, Mr Gapes, for calling me to speak; I am very pleased to respond to this important debate. Of course, normally it would be the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), who would reply, but he is in Indonesia. So I am very pleased to take his place, in order to respond to the concerns about this issue that have been so graphically expressed in this debate.
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing the debate, and let us be very clear from the outset that any form of involuntary organ removal violates established medical and legal principles. However, the concerns that Members have expressed today relate to the most disturbing form of involuntary organ removal— “organ harvesting”. Organ harvesting is the notion that members of minority groups and religious groups in China are held in detention, are unable to communicate with the outside world, and are killed specifically for their organs, virtually “to order”. To hon. Members—and indeed the citizens of this country—the notion of organs being “harvested” and used for transplant, virtually “to order”, is particularly abhorrent. There is also the separate ethical and moral question of involuntary organ removal from executed prisoners, with or without their alleged consent.
As we have heard, recent publications, including some that have been referred to in this debate today, have brought the issue of alleged “organ harvesting” into the spotlight. The authors of such reports believe that this practice is happening in China today and that the victims are mostly innocent people who just wish to practice their religion peacefully.
My officials consider the Kilgour, Gutmann and Matas report to be a very important source of information about China’s organ transplant system. It highlights how difficult it is to verify the number of organ transplants conducted in China each year, and states that it is almost impossible to identify the source of those organs.
The report rightly questions the lack of transparency in China’s organ transplant system. However, the authors of that report make it clear that they have no definitive evidence to justify their allegations. They are necessarily forced to rely on assumptions, and sometimes on research techniques that are less than rigorous. Although I do not doubt the need to maintain close scrutiny of organ transplant practices in China, we believe that the evidence base is not sufficiently strong to substantiate claims about the systematic harvesting of organs from minority groups. Indeed, based on all the evidence available to us, we cannot conclude that this practice of “organ harvesting” is definitely happening in China.
Jim Shannon
The information coming from the US congressional commission is that it has such evidence in its possession. Also, I understand that the Canadian Government have initiated some evidence taking, which shows that there is what they refer to as systematic forced organ transplantation. If that is the case, and the evidence exists—I believe that it clearly does—will the Minister look at that evidence, that information, and on the back of it take the action we all wish him to take?
Sir Alan Duncan
My understanding of the congressional report is that although it is broadly very critical of human rights in China, the report mentions organ harvesting only once. However, I will undertake to ask officials to write to the hon. Gentleman and expand further on the exact details of that point, in the hope that such comments will satisfy him about what I am saying.
Fiona Bruce
By necessity, there are no witnesses to the removal of the organs—the people involved are dead—but does the Minister not agree that, although we have talked about huge numbers, even one transgression of human rights caused by the involuntary removal of an organ is grossly wrong? Despite the fact that the authors of the report have challenged—indeed asked—the Chinese Government to reject their assertions, to come out and say that they are incorrect, there has been complete silence. There has been no rejection of the research or the information, or indeed of the authors’ conclusions.
Sir Alan Duncan
At the outset, I stated the principles by which we ought to look at the entire issue, and in that sense I totally agree with my hon. Friend. She is right to say that the difficulty of the issue is that, by its very nature, if it goes on it is hidden. Therefore, to establish the evidence is a very difficult exercise, but in respect of engagement with the Chinese Government I hope that in a moment I will be able to offer my hon. Friend a bit of reassurance about some progress we have been making.
The Government have serious concerns about restrictions on the freedom of religion or belief in China, including for Falun Gong practitioners. The freedom to practise, change or share one’s faith or belief without discrimination or violent opposition is a fundamental right that all people should enjoy, yet we have solid evidence, from multiple sources, of the persecution of religious minorities. Christians, Muslims and Buddhists, as well as Falun Gong practitioners, are persecuted through different means, with reports of their being detained incommunicado, being tortured and receiving inhuman treatment, and also being subjected to interference in their places of worship and in their religious teaching and customs. Everyone should be free to practise their religion according to their beliefs, in accordance with the international frameworks to which both the UK and China are party.
I assure the House that the Government pay close attention to the human rights situation in China. Indeed, no fewer than three British Ministers have raised individual cases with their Chinese counterparts in the past few months. As the former Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), stated to the House on 12 July, we have raised concerns about reports of organ harvesting, as well as of the torture and mistreatment of detainees, during our annual human rights dialogue with China, and I can let my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) know that the next such exchange will be on 27 and 28 October, here in London. At that exchange, we will raise our human rights concerns, including the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners and the lack of transparency in China’s organ transplant system. So the debate is timely, and I will ensure that hon. Members’ concerns are raised at that dialogue.
The use of the death penalty in China is also a subject of great concern, with the number of prisoners being executed a closely guarded secret and, therefore, difficult to estimate. We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and campaign actively worldwide for its abolition. In the past, organs were taken from executed prisoners without prior consent. China committed to end the practice of involuntary organ removal from January 2015. Although that was an important and positive step, the degree to which it has been implemented is not clear. There are also complex ethical questions about the ability of condemned prisoners to give free and valid consent.
Following representations to the Chinese authorities, we received information on their organ donation policy yesterday. Although we have only just received the information—officials are scrutinising it—I would like to share it with the House. The information states that all organ donations in China are handled within a clear legal framework that meets international standards, including those of the World Health Organisation. There is a registration centre for managing information about the origins of organs used for donations, and statistics are shared with the WHO. The Chinese authorities provided statistics for 2015, which stated that 7,785 organs were donated from 2,766 donors. We intend to contact the WHO to try to validate that information. We have, however, received no detailed information about the treatment of prisoners’ organs. We therefore believe that, based on the evidence we have, it is likely that executed prisoners remain a key source of organs for transplant in China.
The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who is no longer in her seat, and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), raised the issue of people travelling to China for medical treatment, including what might be described as organ tourism. We do not collect data on that, but we believe that few people in the UK choose to travel to China for that purpose. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green asked if we would ban such travel, but the British Government cannot prevent individuals from travelling. We can, however, flag the risks and ensure that individuals are aware that other countries might have poorer medical and ethical safeguards than the UK does. Travelling abroad for any treatment, including organ transplant, carries risks. Medical staff have a responsibility to inform patients who are considering that route of the risks and of the fact that organs might not have been donated freely.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) mentioned the Conservative party human rights commission report. Although the Government were not asked to give evidence to the commission, and as such the report does not entirely reflect Government policy, there is much in it with which we agree. We are already pursuing an approach that is consistent with many of the report’s recommendations but parts of the report require further investigation to substantiate some of the claims made. Officials have offered to meet the authors, and as there is—I think—a plan to produce a separate report on organ harvesting, they have tried, but so far without success, to engage with the process of compiling that report.
Fiona Bruce
With respect, I believe that the Minister is referring to the wider report on human rights in China, which was produced by the commission some three months ago. Indeed, the commission said that it would produce a supplementary report on organ harvesting, and it is that report, published today, to which I referred and at which I hope officials will look. The commissioners, Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords would, I know, welcome the opportunity to meet Foreign Office officials to discuss both reports further.
Sir Alan Duncan
In the spirit in which my hon. Friend is entering into this, I can confirm that we would be pleased for her to come and speak to officials to discuss all the details and the evidence to see whether we can share information in order to understand exactly what the facts are, and therefore what the policy should be.
There was also a reference to a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in September. We vigorously raise all human rights concerns on such occasions, although on this occasion not specifically organ harvesting.
Jim Shannon
I just want to recap on the organ tourism issue that the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) talked about. Have the Government had an opportunity to raise the subject with other western countries? For instance, are the Government aware of what other countries do about it? Is there a chance we could work together to address the issues of organ tourism and those who go abroad specifically to get an organ? It is forced organ transplantation, so we have concerns. It would be better if the western countries could work together on that. Is there an opportunity to do that?
Sir Alan Duncan
It is probably true to say that there has not been much discussion with other countries on this particular issue. The hon. Gentleman, of course, has a point: when countries work together they can be more effective. Again, I will ask officials to write to him about such an initiative.
Fiona Bruce
Will the officials ascertain which countries have already banned travel for organ tourism? I believe that Israel and possibly others have done so.
Sir Alan Duncan
It may not be practical to police it, but I can assure the House that the UK works with like-minded partners to strengthen the rules surrounding organ transplantation worldwide. This includes the development of the World Health Organisation guiding principles to ensure that organ removal for transplant takes place only according to agreed guidelines. We also support the declaration of Istanbul, which encourages all countries to draw up legal and professional frameworks to govern organ donation and transplantation activities. In the past eight years, more than 100 countries, including China, have endorsed the principles of the declaration and subsequently strengthened their laws against the commercial organ trade.
Contrary to some reports, our trading relationship with China does not prevent us from having frank discussions with the Chinese authorities on issues of concern such as this. We will continue to engage with them on the full range of issues, including organ transplants and the wider human rights agenda. We will continue to promote the universal values of freedom and respect for human rights and the importance of international co-operation.
Jim Shannon
I thank everyone who came along to support and participate in the debate and who made valuable contributions. I thank everyone who made speeches, particularly the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who has worked hard on this issue. I did not say this earlier, but I will say it now. Some children of those of the Falun Gong religious belief came to a presentation in the House, and Becky James took part in a Ride to Freedom event to highlight the issue. The children were able to portray clearly what the issues were. I urge the Government to work hard to internationalise the issue to bring us all together to ensure that we can effectively persuade China to stop forced organ transplantation. If we can do that, this House will be working in unison with those in the rest of the world who want to see this disgraceful and awful transplant of organs stopped.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered forced organ removal in China.
Coventry City Football Club
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of Coventry Football Club.
We have known each other a very long time, Mr Gapes, but I think this is probably the first time that I have taken part in a debate that you have chaired—if I am wrong, I am not far off being right. I take this opportunity to thank Mr Speaker, who, over the years, has been very good in granting a number of debates on the future of Coventry City football club. The people of Coventry and the fans very much appreciate that he has been able to do that.
I welcome the Minister to her place. I have known her for quite a long time, too, but this is the first time that we have participated in a debate together. I hope that at the end of the debate she will have some constructive comments to make. Some weeks ago, I wrote to her about the problems at Coventry City football club, and in her response she gave us a little bit of hope, as she said she hoped to have something positive to tell us at the end of this debate.
Coventry City football club faces an uncertain future, and the ongoing saga has spanned many years. I have met Ministers in the past, along with my Coventry colleague from past Parliaments, Bob Ainsworth, and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson). I have asked questions in the House and tabled early-day motions. I recognise that there are differing views about what has happened to Coventry City football club, but at the end of the day the club is ultimately responsible for its own future.
Hon. Members will remember the recent damaging rent dispute between the football club’s owners, Sisu, and Arena Coventry Ltd, which operates the Ricoh arena. That dispute led to the football club playing its home games in Northampton, more than 30 miles away, which was, to say the least, expensive and inconvenient for the fans. Since then, the Ricoh arena has been sold to Wasps rugby club, and amidst all that, Sisu continues to take legal action. I do not propose to discuss that legal action today, as it is sub judice and a different matter, but it has helped neither the situation nor the relationship between the fans and the club—so much so that dialogue now seems impossible.
Big questions remain. The deal that sees Coventry City play at the Ricoh arena expires at the end of the 2017-18 season, and talks to reach a new agreement have broken down. A long-term solution for home matches remains far away, and the threat of the club once again moving out of the city remains. The football club’s academy is under threat. The club has approved a proposal for the training centre to be redeveloped for housing. We have to ask ourselves what Sisu’s future intentions for Coventry City football club are. What possible plan could Sisu have for the club’s future?
At the heart of the issue lies the question of how a football club should be run, and for whom. This season has seen disappointment on the field—just a single win in the first 11 league games—and the manager has recently quit. Off the field, there is further unrest. The man in charge of resolving the future use of the Ricoh arena by the club, the managing director, has stepped down. A petition started by the Coventry Telegraph calling for Sisu to sell up has amassed nearly 20,000 signatories. That petition has my support and that of my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) and for Coventry North West. Just imagine if the club was succeeding and that number of fans attended home games.
I believe that every football club should work for the community that it represents, the community whose name it bears—in this case, Coventry City. That is the name on the shirt. The community is so tied to the club that the council recently renamed a road after the famous Jimmy Hill. A football club should not be viewed as a way to make a quick buck by faceless and unaccountable owners. The club, the community asset, has been mismanaged by a select few for their own benefit. Decisions have been made in the interests of the parent company, and the football club has been sidelined and relegated to second place behind the business interests of a hedge fund. The Football Association and the Football League must explain how such a company can pass the fit and proper person test and then proceed to run a club into the ground. It has no stadium, no manager and its academy is under threat. By every conceivable measure, the club is heading backwards. The existing regulations have clearly failed.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising this issue, on which we strongly agree. He makes a really powerful point. One of the tragedies of Coventry City is that it demonstrates the weakness of the owners and directors test—the fit and proper person test—and the weakness of the FA or the league in making any sort of proper intervention in such a club. Does he agree that that shows the need for proper transparency of ownership and a greater number of independent directors on the boards of clubs, who could represent the city and the fans?
Mr Cunningham
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and pay tribute to him, because over the years he and I have done quite a bit of work in this area. I particularly thank him for the support he has given to the Coventry football supporters. The FA and the Football League have been highly critical of FIFA, but they should start by putting their own house in order—I fully agree with him about that. As I have the opportunity, I will mention that I hope he might also consider that the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, on which he sits, might want to have a look at this issue.
Damian Collins
To give a plug, the Committee will be interviewing the chairman and the director of governance of the FA on Monday next week.
Mr Cunningham
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I am sure he will raise the issue of Coventry.
There are potential solutions that would make the club work for the community again. Other clubs have shown us that giving fans an increased say can work. AFC Wimbledon is owned by the fans and the team was promoted last season, and Portsmouth is owned by its fans and is now turning a profit. I am not saying that is the only model to follow, but workable community solutions that put the fans first exist and should be considered. However, any solution is closed off unless Sisu decides to engage in a dialogue in good faith.
This morning I met representatives of the fans, who gave me a document that could form a basis for bringing both sides together to try and resolve the dispute—the Minister might want to look at it. They note in the document that the supporters expect a number of things from the owners of the club, which include a commitment to the football club, decent investment on and off the pitch, honest communication and engagement with the fans, fans being given a stake in the club, respect for the club’s traditions, a good relationship with the wider community and an offer of a quality matchday experience for all the fans. Those are reasonable requests and are in line with some of the points I have made this morning, but such solutions are closed off unless Sisu decides either to engage in a dialogue in good faith or to sell up, move on and leave its toxic legacy behind.
The future of the football club hangs in the balance. Having watched the club together on the terraces for decades, we now stand to see it fall away—to see it all lost—because of the poor choices of a hedge fund. It was all completely avoidable. At the end of the day, it is the fans and the community that lose out and suffer. Look at other clubs across the UK: when a club succeeds, the city and the area surrounding it succeed too. Football can provide a sense of identity, community and pride.
Will the Minister update me on any discussions that have taken place between her, Sisu and the FA? Will she intervene where appropriate? If she feels it is unacceptable for her to intervene herself, will she appoint somebody of repute to bring both sides together to try to resolve the dispute? Pressure must be put on Sisu to engage with other parties and the wider community, including the fans, with the Minister arbitrating if necessary. She should also consider appointing somebody of good repute—it could be a judge—to arbitrate.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He knows of my personal involvement in this issue over the past few years. He will obviously agree that Sisu’s record and the position that the club finds itself in are absolutely lamentable. Does he agree that clubs need to be seen to be representatives of communities, not franchises that can be bought and moved about by owners? That is why it is key that we intervene strongly when a club finds itself in a lamentable position like that of Coventry City.
Mr Cunningham
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who for years before coming to the House played a role in trying to bring both sides together. I think the Minister can play a significant part if the will is there. I do not want to criticise the current Minister, because she is fairly new in her job, but previous Ministers have done the “Grand Old Duke of York” routine: we had meetings with them and got to the top of the hill, but we all ended up back down it again—in fact, we rolled back down.
I ask that the Football League reviews the appropriateness of its fit and proper test. As a minimum, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee should look at the regulations that are in place—I have already said that to its Chairman—so this can never happen again. Lastly, I ask that Sisu ends its involvement with Coventry City football club so the damage it has caused can begin to be undone, unless it is prepared to talk reasonably with the fans and use the charter as a basis for an agreement to resolve the dispute.
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing this debate. He has been involved in this issue for many years, as was my constituency predecessor.
In the short time available to me, I want to make two points and echo all that my hon. Friend said. First, the Football League allowed Sisu—the owners of the Sky Blues—to move the club away from Coventry in 2013 temporarily, having been assured by Sisu that it would build a new stadium in the city. Since then, there have been numerous stories about its plans for a long-term stadium solution in or around the city of Coventry, the latest of which—apparently its preferred option—is a new stadium and ground-share agreement at the Butts stadium.
However, nobody who knows the local area and understands the issues involved has ever believed that any of Sisu’s plans are feasible or anything other than a smokescreen. There has never been any evidence of serious intent to build a new stadium. In reality, the only viable option to secure the club’s long-term future in Coventry is an extension of the agreement to play home games at the Ricoh arena, which is due to expire in 2018. The club’s owners know that, whether they admit it or not. They must now do everything within their power to ensure that the agreement is extended. If they are incapable of achieving that, they should sell up and go, as the Coventry Telegraph has called on them to do.
Secondly, the Football League claims to be a genuine regulatory body, not just a representative organisation acting in the interest of club owners and its own narrow self-interest. If the Football League is indeed the effective and responsible regulatory body it claims to be, it will surely have sought and received clear evidence from Sisu to show that it has a plan to secure a long-term stadium solution in Coventry. Similarly, it will have monitored the situation to ensure that real progress is made to achieve that ambition, and it will wish to take appropriate and robust action, including the removal of the golden share from Sisu, should the situation remain unresolved. I urge the Minister to ask the Football League for sight of that evidence. I intend to do the same during a meeting I have with it later this week, but I fear that it does not hold such evidence because it simply does not exist. If I am right, that demonstrates the inadequacy of its role in the Coventry City saga and its inability—or, worse, its unwillingness—to properly regulate the game of football. For the sake of the thousands of loyal Coventry City fans, we need to find a resolution to this situation, which has gone on for far too long.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tracey Crouch)
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) for securing this debate. We have been friends across the Chamber for many years, and he is extremely passionate about this issue. There has not been a moment in our friendship when Coventry City has not come up as a topic of conversation. With his knowledge and passion, he made some incredibly insightful contributions, as did other hon. Members.
As the hon. Gentleman said, football clubs up and down the country remain a matter of great importance. They are valuable parts of our local communities, and every care should be taken by their owners and stakeholders to protect their long-term future. The preservation of Coventry City football club in particular is not a new issue. As the hon. Gentleman said, my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), debated the subject in the House in September 2014 and October 2013. I am sure I was not alone in welcoming the club’s return to the Ricoh arena in late 2014, so it is with regret that two years on we are once again talking about our concerns about the club’s ownership and the uncertainty surrounding where the team will be playing its football in the foreseeable future.
There is a great deal of focus on the amount of money at the top end of professional football, but we must remember that the majority of clubs compete in the lower divisions and operate on a considerably different scale. Such clubs cannot rely on huge sums of money from broadcasters or sponsors. They need the continuous support of local businesses, local councils and, of course, the club’s supporters. That applies to Coventry City. I am aware of its illustrious past—as the hon. Gentleman knows, the first time I ever cried at a football match was when Coventry beat Tottenham at Wembley in 1987. Despite that, I have great sympathy with the fans of Coventry City, as I have with the supporters of any club that is suffering as a consequence of either poor performance on the pitch or financial struggles off the pitch.
The financial state of clubs in this country is better now than at any time over the past 20 years. The football authorities have made progress over recent years to introduce new ownership and financial rules, including a means and abilities test, which requires proof of funds from prospective new owners, transfer embargoes to help to curb club spending and the financial fair play principles across the 92 professional clubs. Financial fair play, in particular, has led to more responsible spending by clubs and, as a result, fewer incidents of club insolvencies. I think I am right in saying that Coventry City’s owners have in recent years reduced the debt the club once carried, and the return to the Ricoh arena has improved the club’s financial position. However, I hear what both the hon. Member for Coventry South and my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) said, and I can reassure them that the test will always remain under review.
Ensuring the long-term financial sustainability of clubs must be the primary responsibility of the football authorities and of all owners. That said, I also believe that supporters have every right to protest against the way they see their club being run if they believe that the plans or methods the owners are deploying are not working, so long as those protests are carried out in a non-threatening manner. It is clear from the ongoing protests at Coventry City that genuine concerns remain about the owners’ ability to take the club forward and to resolve the matter of where the first team and its academy will train and play. Those would be real concerns for any club. Although I am not privy to the owners’ thought process or the discussions that have taken place among the relevant parties about residency, it is clear that there remains a distinct lack of clarity on all those fronts. I call on all those interested parties to come forward and to provide the clarity that is needed, for the good of the club and its loyal supporters.
Damian Collins
The Minister said that the owners and directors test is kept under review. Does she share my concern that, as it is defined at the moment, it is a fairly narrow test of whether someone has unspent convictions that make them incapable of being a director? It gives little discretionary power to the league or the FA to come to an opinion, based on a range of factors that are part of the experience of that director, about whether that director is fit to hold that role.
Tracey Crouch
We always keep all such things under review, and I am looking forward to seeing the outcome of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s meeting next week with the FA. It is important that we have healthy football clubs and owners who care for and respect those football clubs and the communities in which they sit. There is a gamut of reasons for that, including more than just financial conduct and criminal activity. It is important that we keep such things under review, but I am looking forward to seeing the outcome of the Select Committee’s meeting next week with the FA.
I return to the need to ensure that all interested parties come forward and provide clarity. It is important that the club’s owners and Coventry City Council sit down and try to resolve the ongoing row between them, which began with rent disputes and resulted in the football team temporarily relocating to Northampton, and continues to cast a shadow over the new and progressive measures that are needed to take the club forward. I am aware of the ongoing legal dispute and I do not want to prejudice it or take sides. It is for the two parties and Wasps Rugby to decide how best to resolve that dispute and set about finding ways to work together, for the sake of the local community.
The club’s owners or senior executives should make arrangements to meet a representative group of Coventry supporters as soon as possible. There needs to be much greater open dialogue on the matters of strategic importance to the club, including what plans there are for its future home.
Mr Jim Cunningham
I come back to something that I said in my speech: we need someone eminent to get both sides together. We can call for people to do that, but we have to get someone of eminence who can actually bring both sides together. That is key if the Minister herself cannot do that.
Tracey Crouch
I am flattered that the hon. Gentleman thinks that I am that eminent person.
Tracey Crouch
I am grateful for that clarification. Now I am hurt that he does not think that I am that eminent person. One of the most frustrating things about the Sports Minister brief is that a lot of things happen in football that should have nothing to do with the Government. I am regularly contacted by supporters of various football clubs—Coventry City is one—who wish the Government to intervene and the Minister personally to get involved. That is incredibly difficult to do, because at the end of the day it is not for the Government to intervene in such things. However, I completely hear what he says about trying to ensure that someone mediates between the parties. If the situation has got to the point where the relationship is so broken that the parties cannot come together and come to an agreement, I will take that point away and consider it in detail. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe may wish to think about whether there is a role for him as a passionate supporter and believer in such things or whether there is someone outside the political arena who could perform that role, but I hear what the hon. Member for Coventry South says. Ultimately, this is an issue for the football authorities, and they need to come together to try to sort it out. I will return shortly to the point that the hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) made about the Football League.
Mr Jim Cunningham
I thought Pontius Pilate died 2,000 years ago, but it is obvious that he has not died. I understand that Ministers cannot or do not want to get involved, but they have the authority to appoint someone of some standing to bring both sides together. I think that the fans, who, as I indicated, have been constructive, would welcome that. I accept that Ministers get lots of demands from lots of football fans and all that goes with that, but this situation is far too serious; it has gone on for five or six years and something really has to be done about it.
Tracey Crouch
The hon. Gentleman is picking up on a theme that I was getting to: the importance of supporters and of clubs listening to supporters. He will be aware that structured dialogue between club owners and their supporter groups was a key recommendation in the report of the expert working group on football supporter ownership and engagement. That report is the culmination of the work that the Government have done over several years, in partnership with the football authorities and supporter representative groups, to find ways to improve supporter engagement beyond the customer relationship and to recognise supporters as integral to clubs’ success. The leagues have codified that structured dialogue requirement in their rulebooks, and those structured meetings will begin this season. The football authorities are currently working on guidance to clubs on how those meetings should be structured. If that is not happening at Coventry, please let me know, because it is important that those recommendations are implemented at all levels of football. I believe that those meetings will lead the way in ensuring that fans are better informed about and consulted on clubs’ activities, including their financial standing, the identity of their owners and other matters of real importance.
Damian Collins
Going back to a point that the Minister made earlier, does she accept that one of the reasons that such cases—be it Coventry, Leeds, Portsmouth or whatever—come back to the Minister’s door time after time is that the football authorities are powerless to do anything when they see a club being run badly? As long as owners are keeping within the narrow confines of the rules, they can run a football club into the ground and the FA will not lift a finger.
Tracey Crouch
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I will discuss with officials later today. There is perhaps a gap there, and that is perhaps something that we need to look at. I am sure that that issue will be raised by him or other members of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee at its meeting next week with the FA.
I will turn briefly to the comments made by the hon. Member for Coventry North East on the Football League. Following all the discussions and the temporary relocation, the league confirmed:
“Any application to move…to a stadium outside the city would need to be considered by”
the league’s board.
“In doing so, the Board would require the club to demonstrate that it had a clear plan for returning to Coventry within a prescribed timeframe.”
I sincerely hope that history does not repeat itself and that the club does not find itself playing outside its city again. However, it is important that supporters know exactly what the rules are, so after this debate I will ask the league to confirm its position. Furthermore, there should be a proposal forthcoming for the league or the FA to ensure that fans are properly consulted.
To conclude, it is right that the Government do not involve themselves in the regulation of football or the business and commercial affairs of any club. Football clubs must be run as businesses, but they also need social consciences; they must consider the impacts of their actions on supporters and the local community. It is important that those who have a direct say or influence over the future of Coventry City stand up and provide the clarity that is needed. It is of paramount importance that the city of Coventry has a football club.
For my part, I will meet the football authorities in the coming months to discuss several relevant matters in the game and will ask them specifically for an update on the progress with Coventry City. In the meantime, I wish the Sky Blues the best of luck against Charlton on Saturday and hope that we can resolve this situation collectively for the hon. Member for Coventry South and the people of Coventry.
Question put and agreed to.
Royal Yacht Britannia: International Trade
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the reintroduction of the Royal Yacht Britannia for the purpose of international trade.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope, for what I think is the first time, in this important debate. We have to ask ourselves what sort of Britain we want to live in and what we in this Parliament can do to try to make Britain great again. On 23 June, the British public said that they wanted to take back control, be independent of the European Union, stand tall in the world again and project our power and influence around the globe as an independent nation.
The Government’s interpretation of that has been put forward as “Brexit means Brexit.” I believe that if Brexit is to mean successful Brexit, it should also mean the return of our royal yacht. Today, I want to set out the case for the renewal of the royal yacht, which is both economic and patriotic and, crucially, would be at low cost, if not no cost, to the taxpayer.
Since I launched the campaign, I have been supported by Ministers past and present, 100 colleagues on the Government Benches, The Sun, the Daily Mail, The Times, the Sunday Express and, most vociferously of all, Christopher Hope of The Daily Telegraph. That support is welcome and has been crucial in making today’s debate a success. However, the most moving and compelling arguments have been made not by newspapers or colleagues but by the hundreds of members of the public who have written or emailed me comments and suggestions of support. Some have gone as far as sending me cheques, and some have even offered to give up their winter fuel allowance this year to pay for a new royal yacht. Those hundreds of selfless acts and offers of help from the public are a demonstration of a proud nation, eager to support our royal family; a nation with hope and pride for our future. The British public have realised—perhaps before politicians—that a royal yacht is not some sepia-tinted look back to the 1950s, but about the Britain that their children, and indeed their grandchildren, will inhabit.
It will not surprise colleagues to hear that not all of the correspondence has been positive or supportive. I want to deal here and now, at the start of the debate, with those who seek to rubbish the idea of a new royal yacht and the contribution that our royal family can make to Great Britain and her future.
Our head of state is an inspirational leader who can represent our United Kingdom in a way that no other global leader can match. Over 60 years, she has met 4 million people in person, equivalent to the population of New Zealand. She is Queen of 16 countries and has travelled more widely than any other head of state in history. One of her greatest achievements has been to build our Commonwealth from eight members in 1952 to the 54 of today.
The Commonwealth represents a unique family of nations spanning every continent and global religion and covering nearly a third of the world’s population. Our Commonwealth is rightly the envy of the world, and in the years ahead this international body will be of growing importance and influence to the UK and its economy as we grow and succeed outside the European Union. A royal yacht is crucial to the leader of our Commonwealth. When launching Britannia on the Clyde in 1953, she said:
“My father felt most strongly, as I do, that a yacht was a necessity, and not a luxury for the head of the British Commonwealth, between whose countries the sea is no barrier, but the natural highway.”
Britain has the fifth largest economy in the world and remains the third largest maritime power. We as a nation have a unique history in connection with the sea. As an island race, our relationship with the sea is written into our DNA. The relationship has been represented on behalf of our nation, both symbolically and in actuality, by a history of royal yachts stretching back to the restoration of the monarchy with Charles II. We are foolish to have turned our back on the sea and all that it represents for our nation through our failure to renew the royal yacht Britannia in 1997.
I believe that Britain as a nation is partly blind to the perception around the globe of all that she represents. Our country, and in particular our royal family, have an unmatchable global reach. President Barack Obama, speaking at the funeral of President Shimon Peres recently, described our Queen as one of the
“giants of the 20th century that I have had the honour to meet”.
In a post-Brexit Britain, we need our head of state now more than ever. She can uniquely portray a positive role for our nation around the globe, and a new royal yacht is vital in her doing that.
A royal yacht, unlike our recently acquired state plane, is a small piece of Britain that can move from international port to international port, showing the soft power and prestige of our nation. It is a floating royal palace that can be used to host meetings as a platform for our humanitarian mission around the globe, and a showcase for the best of British industry. No other country, if presented with such an opportunity, would have squandered it away in the court of public opinion and envy, as happened in 1997 with the decommissioning of the royal yacht Britannia.
It is true that the role of the royal yacht changed since its introduction with Charles II. I would like to concentrate on the contribution that Britannia made to trade at the end of her service. Britannia was decommissioned in 1997 after more than 40 years in service. She conducted 968 official visits and clocked up more than a million miles at sea. In her later years—between 1991 and 1995—she is estimated to have brought £3 billion of commercial trade deals to our country. In 1993, on one trip to India alone, £1.3 billion of trade deals were signed. It is acknowledged that those deals would have been signed in any event, but the presence of Britannia sped up the negotiations from years to days. To put that into the context of the renewal and running of a royal yacht, the deal signed on that one trip would have paid for a royal yacht in its entirety and its annual running costs for 100 years.
During those commercially profitable years, Britannia hosted business figures from across the globe on what were called sea days, on which opportunities were discussed and trade agreements struck. Sea days took place around the coast of Britain and abroad, and were always organised to coincide with an official visit by Britannia. The prestige associated with Britannia attracted prominent figures from commerce and industry to attend the sea days. Invitations were sent in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, with key decision makers in global companies targeted. On occasion, a member of the royal family would also attend. A royal invitation to conduct business on the most exclusive yacht in the world was impossible for even the most successful businesspeople to resist. It is my view that a renewed royal yacht could be used in just that way today.
Hon. Members do not have to take my word for that—they can take the word of Henry Catto, who was the US ambassador to the Court of St James’s between 1989 and 1991. He found himself in the lucky position of being chief of protocol in 1976 when Her Majesty the Queen visited America. He wrote in his book:
“I was literally besieged with people wanting invitations to the various functions on board. Corporate moguls would devise the most outlandish reasons as to why they should be invited; society matrons would throw themselves at me”—
Members are listening now.
“In short, that ship was a superb tool for British industry and the British nation and to let her go and not replace her would be a great pity”.
Compare that with Barack Obama’s comments that the UK would be at the back of the queue in any trade deal with the United States. That shows the huge contribution a new royal yacht could make: we could go from the back of the queue to the front, just by using the power, prestige and global influence of our royal family.
Until now, the European Commission has been responsible for negotiating international trade deals on behalf of EU member states, meaning that the United Kingdom has not had a dedicated team of trade negotiators since 1973. The Minister, who is new in his Department, will acknowledge that negotiating British trade abroad is a huge task, but it would be made significantly easier, in my view, by the royal yacht and by the presence of our royal family.
I hope that I have made the case for the return of the royal yacht for the purposes of trade and explained the role it can play for Britain, but I also want to talk about what I believe a future royal yacht should look like and, crucially, how it should be funded. There are some basic rules we must follow. It must belong to the state, it must fly the white ensign and it must have a strong connection with our royal family. It has to belong to the state so it has the benefit of diplomatic immunity when it visits international harbours around the globe; it has to fly the white ensign, because it is crucial that it is crewed by our Royal Navy; and it has to have a strong connection with our royal family, as that is the unique quality that will make its service to our nation succeed.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Is it correct that the old royal yacht Britannia was actually a hospital ship that was used during the course of conflict, and that it was able to make a major contribution in helping our sick and injured servicemen and women?
Jake Berry
That is absolutely correct. I propose that any new royal yacht would again offer a multitude of services, whether as a trade envoy, a hospital ship or a research and development vessel for our science and industry.
There are several proposals for what type of ship we should build, as well as proposals to recommission the existing royal yacht Britannia, which stands proudly in Leith docks. They should all be explored, but I will talk about my personal preference, which is to build a new royal yacht along the lines of the proposals put to the Government in the 1990s. The future royal yacht project envisaged a new ship that would be slightly smaller than Britannia but similar in design. Crucially, it would have an increased range and a much-reduced crewing requirement and would be much cheaper to run. It has been estimated that the ship would cost about £100 million to construct and could be funded either through private donations—for example, by giving industry naming rights for certain decks and rooms—through a private finance initiative model or through public fundraising.
The final idea of the future royal yacht commission was that the Bibby shipping line would construct a new royal yacht, with the Government putting no money whatever toward its construction. The Government would then use it on a bareboat charter basis for 12 years at an estimated cost of £7 million a year. After the initial 12 years’ use had expired, the yacht would become the property of our nation. While those charter figures are historical and may be out of date, I believe that the different ideas out there about how the yacht could be funded show that there are many ways in which we could commission a royal yacht with no up-front cost to the taxpayer.
The reason why I believe a new royal yacht is preferable to recommissioning the existing royal yacht Britannia is that such a vessel is about our country’s future, not its past. It should be a shop window for what is best about British shipbuilding. I imagine the engines might be provided by Rolls-Royce or Perkins, while the hull would be constructed using British steel in a British shipyard. The IT and communications system would be the best that Silicon roundabout in London could offer. It would be a thoroughly modern ship, reflecting a modern nation and a modern monarchy that is willing and able to serve Britain across the globe.
Today’s debate is an opportunity to show that a new royal yacht commands significant public support. British industry is already calling for the opportunity to showcase its world-beating ingenuity and engineering talent across the globe. Financial backers have come forward with ideas about how the royal yacht could be paid for, and more than 100 Members have signed a letter, published in The Daily Telegraph, calling on the Government to set up a commission to look at what service a royal yacht could provide our nation.
The people backing the campaign are not self-interested or driven by preferment. They want to make the dream of a new royal yacht a reality, and they offer their service to our nation without hesitation. That is why I hope the Minister will agree to set up a Government commission to carry out a full cost-benefit analysis of the contribution that a new royal yacht could make to our nation. That commission would act as a rallying point for all those who are interested in the project. It would be a place for people to offer their help and expertise and a place for those who are willing to make a significant financial contribution to try to make this happen.
In the long history of the Government’s involvement with the renewal of the royal yacht, offers of help have all too often gone unanswered. Expertise has been lost and opportunity upon opportunity has been missed. Brexit is a new chapter in our nation’s story, and I hope that the Government will be able to match the hope and optimism demonstrated by its people.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend on his campaign, which I and more than 100 of my colleagues wholeheartedly support. He has mentioned the Government’s relationship with the royal yacht. In view of the clear advantages that a new royal yacht could provide in fostering trade and international relations, does he agree that it might be appropriate if a number of Government Departments were to share the running costs—not least the Department for International Development, which has a rising budget?
Jake Berry
I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. Friend. It is interesting that some of the countries to which we have recently given, and continue to give, international aid have their own state yacht. India has a state yacht, and it was a recipient of international aid from this country until recently. The Philippines has a state yacht. Turkey has a state yacht. Here in Britain—the fifth largest economy in the world, as I said earlier—we feel it is something we cannot afford. Personally, I think that is a national disgrace.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I very much support my hon. Friend’s campaign and am one of the 100 signatories. Whichever model we choose, can we ensure that it is tasteful and not a gin palace or a Philip Green-type vessel?
My serious and substantive point is that in choosing the Government Departments that may chip in, we must ensure that the Royal Navy does not pick up all of the tab, since the Royal Navy does other things. While it is right that the yacht is badged with the white ensign, will my hon. Friend give some thought to how we can ensure that the Navy in particular does not pick up the tab in the way that it used to? That was the main bone of contention when I was serving, and it really rankled. We must ensure that the cost is spread more logically, preferably from the private sector, but certainly not by damaging defence. He will know that the yacht will present one whopping great target and will require frigates and destroyers to protect it, and that clearly comes with a cost.
Jake Berry
I agree wholeheartedly that the cost should be spread over many Departments. The benefit of setting up a commission is that we could also look at spreading the cost across the Commonwealth. There is no reason why the Canadian navy, the New Zealand navy and navies from other Commonwealth countries could not be involved in crewing or contributing to the royal yacht. In fact, in the most recent proposals for a royal yacht, which were in 2012—it was called the jubilee yacht and was discussed widely in the newspapers at the time—a significant donation of some £10 million was offered by a Canadian financier. He is not British and does not live in the United Kingdom, but he acknowledged the huge opportunity that a royal yacht could bring to the Commonwealth, not just to the United Kingdom. The cost should be shared among Departments, but the commission could also look at the opportunity of sharing the cost among other members of our Commonwealth.
Today’s debate has shown there is real appetite to explore this issue. The Government should match the optimism of their own people. I want to be part of a Government who are brave enough to say that a new royal yacht should play its part in making Britain the leading free trade economy in the world. Her Majesty the Queen does not bend to the will of newspapers; she is constant. Our Government should not bend to the will of newspapers. They should do what is in our national interest, and I believe that commissioning a new royal yacht is in this nation’s interest.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
May I congratulate the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on introducing such an excellent motion so well? I am very pleased to have the chance to speak today, especially as I missed the chance to sign the letter—I wish I had been able to be part of it.
A few years ago, before the royal yacht was decommissioned, it came to the north coast of Northern Ireland. There was immense pride. It was in all our newspapers, and it lifted everybody. During the royal visit, the yacht invited on board and celebrated the charities and the businessmen we have in Northern Ireland, and did everything that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. When we think about how fantastic a new royal yacht and its work in the Commonwealth could be, another factor is how well the royal family has gone down in Ireland, and all the work Ireland and Northern Ireland have to do together. Whether Prince Charles’s visit last year or the Queen’s momentous visit to Dublin, they illustrate what a new royal yacht could do for us, not only in Europe but in the whole world.
I was interested to hear the suggestions for how we would finance the royal yacht. One of my greatest concerns when I looked at this was how we could finance it—could PFIs work? Could donors help? Could the Commonwealth get involved? Today we have had presented to us an excellent idea of how that could be achievable. I want to see the best of industry involved. We want the new royal yacht to be an example of what is best—not a gaudy gin palace, as has been said, but the mark of everything that is best about the United Kingdom. We must set that target in place and all work together. This is a fantastic idea, and I am glad to be here to support it.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
I too am delighted to serve under your leadership, Mr Chope, and wish to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on this initiative and on an excellent speech. I was involved in this campaign when I was at the Ministry of Defence about five years ago. I believe profoundly in this cause, so I am delighted that my hon. Friend has taken it up. One of the darker moments of my political life was the picture of Her Majesty the Queen standing on the dockside with something of a tear in her eye as the royal yacht Britannia was finally decommissioned. It was a great disservice to Her Majesty. Let us hope therefore that we can now put that error right.
As my hon. Friend said, Brexit makes the building of a new royal yacht not a luxury but a must-have. As we embrace the new world, reigniting the unrivalled historic relationships Britain has enjoyed around the world and forging new trade links, a new royal yacht would be a brilliant addition to our national trade promotion toolkit. Sadly, however sleek and dignified the lines of Britannia remain, I am advised by experienced naval personnel that refurbishing the existing royal yacht is simply not a starter. In any case, this presents us with a magnificent opportunity to celebrate the latest skills to be found in our national dockyards across the country, from Appledore to the Clyde and, of course, Northern Ireland.
We have the opportunity to construct a brand new, potent symbol of our newly reasserted national sovereignty through a ship whose presence in every port across the globe will make a statement of our national intent. Whether hosting an export drive, carrying the Prime Minister to important international events or, of course, bearing the sovereign on a state visit, the new royal yacht would be a symbol of our country in which the entire nation could once again take pride. As my hon. Friend so rightly said, it would enable us to stand tall in the world. I pay tribute not only to my hon. Friend, who has picked up this ball and run with it, but to The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, The Times and The Sun. We had better name-check Quentin Letts, because we cannot let Christopher Hope get away with the only mention here—a favourable reference please, Mr Letts.
I would like to make an important point. Too often, our media have dismissed such ventures as luxuries the nation cannot afford, translating the cost into x number of hospital beds or y number of teachers. The coalition Government finally overcame the criticisms of what was dubbed “Blair Force One” in respect of the very modest £10 million VIP module for the Royal Air Force’s new A300 Voyager transport aircraft. At last, the Queen and the Prime Minister can fly around the world in a modern RAF jet instead of the ignominy of watching on our televisions as our Prime Minister turns up to be greeted at some foreign venue—I remember in particular when it happened with President Obama—in a third-world chartered commercial airliner. I felt very embarrassed, and I think many other people shared that sense of embarrassment.
There is a serious value in projects such as this, because they tell the world something about how we see ourselves. We are neither a third-world nor a second-rate power; we are a world leader and we should not be ashamed of proclaiming the same. I know the difference it made when I was a Defence Minister. If I pitched up at some international gathering in a Royal Air Force aeroplane, with Royal Air Force roundels on it, I would be treated with greater respect than had I turned up in the alternative desired by some media—an easyJet flight. There would not have been a string of cars with blue lights waiting to greet a British Minister; it would have been some minor official. This is very important to the dignity of our country. It is not a luxury, as I had the privilege of experiencing, and we need to ensure that people understand that.
Dr Murrison
I succeeded my hon. Friend in ministerial office. He will remember, as I do, the effectiveness of running trade missions from the back of destroyers and frigates, not only for defence and security but a range of British export possibilities. How much more effective does he think this yacht will be, going around the world projecting what is best in British export, than those very effective trade missions in which he and I were involved?
Sir Gerald Howarth
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I recall signing a treaty with the Brazilians aboard HMS Ocean. It was very instructive because of what the Brazilian Defence Minister said to me at our first meeting. Apropos of nothing, he stretched out his hand and said, “There is only one Navy in the world, Minister.” He paused and said, “It is true the United States has a Navy, but there is only one Navy: the Royal Navy.” Why should a Brazilian say that? Because of Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane. There is not a child in Brazil or Chile who has not heard of him. Sadly, thanks to our education system, there is not a child in the United Kingdom who has heard of him. He was once the Member of Parliament for Westminster and the amazing liberator of Brazil and Chile from foreign rule. We are respected around the world and a new royal yacht would add to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen has made the case for trade, so I will not repeat it.
I also agree that the new ship must fly under the white ensign in the name of the Royal Navy. That will of course add to the cost, and we all know about the enormous pressure on naval personnel and on the MOD budget more generally, so, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) suggested, the cost of acquisition should be split between four Government Departments: the MOD, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Foreign Office and, of course, the rich as Croesus Department for International Development. We have to find something good to come out of its money.
Finally, I do not think anything exemplified the enormous respect and affection that the British people have for Her Majesty the Queen as much as the diamond jubilee. What struck people was the extraordinary selfless service that she has given to our nation. We as a nation ought to reflect the profound thanks that our people have for her leadership of our country over 60 years by procuring a new royal yacht, in her name and on her behalf, to serve the purposes set out in this debate, as that would be an enduring way of marking the most astonishing period of leadership by our sovereign, Her Majesty the Queen. So I say, “Rule, Britannia”.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I declare an interest of sorts: Britannia is moored in my constituency. It is not going anywhere, partly because one of its propellers has been melted down and is now in the form of a statue of a yottie, or royal yachtsman, and partly because it is owned privately by a trust; it is not in public hands.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
The hon. Lady might show true respect to the royal yacht Britannia if she described it not as “it” but as “she”.
Deidre Brock
That semantic point is appreciated.
The yacht is promoted as the museum piece that she is, harking back to a time that cannot be recaptured: a piece from the days of steamships, polished and gleaming from bow to stern, beautifully cared for as a floating curiosity, but not a working ship, so recommissioning is out of the question. I assume Members have had a look at the YouGov poll and seen that the building of a new royal yacht is not supported. In fact, only among Conservative voters, by 41% to 39%, are there more people in favour of building it than not, and when we ask about whether the money to build and run a new ship could be justified, even Conservative voters turn against it.
It is notable, too, that Scotland has a more solid opposition to the idea than anywhere else: 60% against recommissioning, 66% against buying a new one and 68% think the costs cannot be justified. The costs, which are important at a time when working families have joined benefit claimants in the queues at food banks, are simply unjustifiable. We have heard there are lots of ways in which the yacht could be funded, but we have heard no firm proposals. As usual, the burden would fall on the long-suffering taxpayer. Like PFI and PPP and every other cunning plan that Governments come up with, it would cost the public purse, not private finance.
As has been mentioned, the old yacht had a crew of 250 and 21 officers drawn from the Navy. On royal duty it had a platoon of marines on board and warships accompanying it. I am guessing the Navy’s top brass do not have a new royal yacht as their dearest ambition, given the current state of their resources. Then we get to the capital costs. Are they to come from a defence budget already groaning under the pressure of carrying Trident, or are they to come from another part of the public purse? Given what we hear repeatedly about the shortages of equipment that armed forces personnel face, can anyone justify adding another capital spend to that burden?
Jake Berry
I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution to the debate. I think she is arguing that the public should not pay for the royal yacht, but would she support a royal yacht if it was funded privately?
Deidre Brock
The public say they are not supportive of the recommissioning of the yacht. That does not take into the account the running costs, which it has been suggested will come from several Departments, including the Department for International Trade. If the intent is to take the capital spend and running costs from elsewhere in the public purse, where will that blow fall? Given the austerity fetish that the former Chancellor inflicted on all of us and the reported comments of the current Chancellor that he intends to deliver on all of the already planned cuts, where exactly is the spare cash to come from? And how exactly does anyone square the fact that benefit sanctions mean that the poorest, weakest and most disadvantaged people are left to go cold and hungry, but we will all be paying for what must seem to them a new pleasure cruiser for the royal family? This is just a wistful throwback to the days of the Raj, a pleading with history to run backwards and ignore the dodgy bits on the way. This is a rosy-tinted fiction of a time that never was, a fond imagining that empire was a good thing and that fine gentlemen rise to the occasion upon demand.
It is reminiscent of John Major’s thoughts when he said,
“Fifty years from now Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and—as George Orwell said—‘old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist’ and if we get our way—Shakespeare still read even in school. Britain will survive unamendable in all essentials.”
He was actually talking about why the UK should remain in the European Union. The current fantasy is a fairy story from the imagination of Brexiteers who imagine the UK has only to denounce the EU to rise again to great heights.
The sad and sorry Britannia plan sounds like the regrets of someone who has missed their chance drawing the tattered remnants of their dreams around them for whatever warmth they can offer while the world rushes by uncaringly. Flash-boat democracy has no place in the modern world, which has changed utterly from the day in 1997 that Britannia was decommissioned. We have emails, electronic trading, smartphones with more computing power than the moon landing craft, and entire businesses that exist only online. This is a different world from the world in which the yacht was decommissioned, never mind the world in which it was commissioned in the first place.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
The hon. Lady is obviously having a lot of fun with her caricature. She may have noticed that both Mr Letts and Mr Hope are scribbling down furiously everything she says. None the less, did she not hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) said about the possibilities of the new royal yacht for creating more business opportunities, more revenue, ultimately more tax revenue and therefore more money for the Government for nurses and teachers?
Deidre Brock
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I also heard that Blair Force One is still current. I cannot see why that is not being used, as apparently it should be, for trade throughout the world.
Several hon. Members rose—
Deidre Brock
I am almost finished. I do not see why we need to commission another yacht at a cost of £60 million in 1997, allegedly £100 million now, and then running costs unknown. The running costs were £66 million between 1990 and 1997. What are those costs today? We have no idea.
As I said, this is a different world. If Members want economic revival they should ask for austerity to be eased, and spending resumed. If they really want international trade to improve, they will petition for UK embassies to be retooled as permanent trade missions. If they want to get on their feet and build an economy they should dump the daft ideas and get on with the serious hard work that is needed. It is what their constituents deserve. They can hang a new bauble on the jacket of the UK as it shuffles down the road, but that does nothing to feed a hungry child, support a struggling industry or boost a flagging economy. Dump the bauble. Get wise about what we have to do now.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
I had thought that there was a parliamentary convention that we did not refer to the royal family, but I imagine it has been waived for this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on obtaining the debate and notifying me about it. I look forward to hearing from the Minister, who will I understand be making his maiden ministerial speech, if there is such a thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen drew our attention to the fact that many national newspapers support the campaign; that is a very good start. There can surely not be a better year in which to consider the issue than when Her Majesty the Queen is 90 years old. My hon. Friend has already referred to the outstanding service that she has given the country.
I visited Britannia when she was in service. I remember that really there were two ships—the front run by the Navy and the rear an amazing platform for entertaining and persuading people to our interests. I think, from memory, that the dining room table would seat 50. It was a splendid boat. Interestingly, Her Majesty’s quarters were unbelievably spartan, so there was nothing for the Green camp to look at there. It was very rough and ready accommodation.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that what is different about having a new royal yacht now is that we are sailing into a brave new world, and that we will do, and need to do, many more trade deals across the world? There is a great opportunity not only to support the royal family, but to support the nation in getting those trade deals.
David Tredinnick
I agree, and I like my hon. Friend’s metaphor about sailing out into a brave new world. We are certainly in a brave new world.
I was, like you, Mr Chope, in the House in 1997 during both the Major Government and the Labour Government, when they took over. I remember the debate on the royal yacht as a complete shambles. The proposition that there should be a new royal yacht was introduced at the end of the Parliament. The failure to secure Labour support was lamentable, and the then Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, Sir Edward Heath, described it as an extraordinary mistake. It was perhaps no surprise that when Labour took power Gordon Brown knocked the project on the head. I still think that, if there had been all-party negotiations at the time, earlier in the Parliament, we would not be having this debate, because the decision would have been carried, but it was too close to a general election and it was too difficult for Labour after the general election.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen has admitted that trade deals that happened on the royal yacht might have happened anyway, but I note the £3 billion of deals that he said were made, and the extraordinary amount of business done on one visit to India. The yacht was always going to provide a tipping point for major deals. I think that that is one of the crucial aspects of the recommissioning of the yacht—the lady, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) would probably like her to be considered.
A new royal yacht that does not earn its keep will not, I think, have public support. I thought that we had already disposed of the point about its being a charge on the public purse. The idea is that it should not be. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) was saying that the cost would be split between four Departments and that we are not talking about a new vessel paid for by some kind of non-governmental subscription, which would be paid back by virtue of the fact that the vessel was the royal yacht and that possibly it would have another role when not being used by Her Majesty.
Incidentally, the royal yacht would of course have to fly the white ensign for security and docking purposes, but it would also fly a totally different set of flags for Her Majesty, one of which would be the flag of a Lord High Admiral, which, from memory, is a deep red colour with an anchor on it. So there would be no dispute about who was on board at any time.
The point made by other hon. Members about Brexit is also relevant. This is a fantastic time for us to build this new flagship of the nation.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as he has just mentioned, this is a perfect time to recommission a royal yacht? I have no doubt that we will make trade deals with it, and that in due course it will fund itself and help with diplomacy; but it will send out a massive signal to the world, once we unshackle ourselves from the dead hand of Brussels, that the British are back—confident, proud and outward-looking.
David Tredinnick
I thank my hon. Friend; there could not possibly be a better time. We need statements of confidence at a time when our currency is fluctuating and there is a degree of uncertainty. It is about our nations coming up to the plate and saying, “Yes, we believe in ourselves.”
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who is a former Defence Minister, touched on the fact that the royal yacht is always accompanied by a warship, usually a frigate. It is also worth making the point that it would be a very secure vessel for Her Majesty and whoever else was present for trade reasons. At a time of cyber-attacks and all kinds of other attacks it is probably better to be in a secure space, as was the case for Her Majesty on her royal visits.
One of the ideas that was mooted was a royal commission. The metaphor for royal commissions is grass so dark and long that one can never see through it. Their history shows that they take for ever. Why on earth do we need a royal commission when surely the simple approach would be to get good people with good money around a table, and come to some agreement with the palace and, no doubt, with my hon. Friend the Minister?
Jake Berry
The commission would not necessarily be a royal commission, but a commission with Government support. Having met several leading naval architects who would like to volunteer their services for free, and major engine manufacturers who would like to put engines in the new royal yacht for free, I would say that the difference between warm words of support and their actually coming forward and saying, “Yes, let’s make this happen,” is some form of Government support. They want to support a royal yacht that will serve our nations for decades to come. The best way to ensure that that happens is for the Government to have, even if they do not pay for it, some form of ownership. Until we get that Government hat-tip, as it were, to the idea, I do not think that anyone will come forward with substantive support rather than words.
David Tredinnick
I hear what my hon. Friend says. I do not think that in my midlands constituency there is support for a new royal yacht that is not paid for by some form of subscription. I do not think that people want it to be a charge on the taxpayer. The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), who made a flamboyant and exciting speech, would certainly be in that camp.
We would not be having this debate in the first place if the matter had been dealt with properly in 1997. The case for a new royal yacht is overwhelming, provided that the money to fund it comes from the private and not the public sector.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
I invite Ian Paisley to follow the example of his colleague from the other part of Antrim, so that we have the opportunity also to hear the hon. Members from Plymouth and Portsmouth who wish to participate, before the winding-up speeches start at half-past 3.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Thank you, Mr Chope, for calling me in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on bringing this important matter to the House. I will be brief, as you have requested, Mr Chope. In fact, I feel like bursting into song and singing, “Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves! Many, many jobs she intends to save!” I hope that we can get to that point. I hope that the Minister will get on with it, commission the report, commission the work and ensure that we soon have on the high seas this floating advertisement for all that is wonderful about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The question has been posed as to who will build the ship. Well, if the Scots Nats do not want to build it, we have a shipyard in Ulster. The Ulstermen will happily rise to the opportunity to rivet those steel joints together and make that boat for Ulster and for the United Kingdom.
The question is not only who should build the ship, but what will be on board. I hope that it is an advertisement for all that is great—the great foods that we produce and the great products that we have. Perhaps there will even be room enough for a great bus, built in County Antrim, that we can advertise around the world. We will be able to show the many trading opportunities that we have to other parts of the world. We may even have whisky on board—I hope that we will have the whiskey with an e, which is made in Bushmills. Mr Chope, do you know why it has an e? Because it is excellent; that is why it is there.
Where will this ship go? I hope that it goes everywhere on the high seas. From no port should it be turned away. Nowhere shall it be said that the British will not have the opportunity to sell their wares in, yes, this new opportunity to promote trade deals and to promote the United Kingdom post-Brexit.
However, the most important question, which has been posed by the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen, is of course who should pay for the ship. That does deserve rigorous and serious challenge, because at this point we do not require the taxpayer to fork out for everything. There will be perfect harmony in the opportunity for the public, private and charitable sectors to work together to bring about this idea and to ensure that we finally deliver on it and get the ship on to our seas. Therefore, I commend it. I wave the opportunity Godspeed and I hope that the Minister will not torpedo it but support it.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on securing this interesting debate.
Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia was based in Portsmouth dockyard and for decades was a familiar sight to my constituents and visitors. She was based at South Railway jetty, the traditional dock for royalty and distinguished visitors travelling by sea. From there she could be seen by every ship coming and going from Portsmouth when she was alongside. There was therefore considerable sadness when Britannia was removed from service without the prospect of a replacement. Portsmouth expects, should Britannia be replaced, that we will be her home again.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that actually the only true home for the new royal yacht Britannia should be the country’s only royal harbour—Ramsgate, in my constituency?
Mrs Drummond
That might be one of the cinque ports, but I still think that Portsmouth will be the best place.
There is an excellent case for renewing the role of Britannia as a floating base for UK diplomacy. The royal family are a formidable and hard-working element of the UK’s soft power mission, and a ship equipped with conferencing and hospitality facilities offers them a great base. However, Britannia was not just a floating hotel, but a symbol in her own right of the prestige and reputation of the UK. Many of the deals done by UK exporters aboard Britannia were won without the presence of the royal family, but with the aura of “Great Britain” very much present. It is worth noting that our competitors recognise the usefulness of ships employed in that way, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen said. Many nations operate training ships that actually serve to promote their national interests. The Chinese Government, for instance, have just commissioned a new one.
The motion refers to reintroducing the Britannia but, like other hon. Members, I hope that we will be looking to build a modern replacement for her. Whether this is done by reactivation or replacement, there are some basic principles that the Government should adhere to. First, her home, like Britannia’s, should be Portsmouth. Secondly, as a vessel operated and supported by the Royal Navy, she must not be an excessive burden in terms of either manpower or budget. A good argument for replacing Britannia is that her systems are somewhat outdated and labour-intensive compared with those of modern vessels. She is a steam-age ship in a digital world, with a relatively short range compared with equivalent modern vessels. She could showcase outstanding products from the UK marine sector in her design and build. If the ship exists partly to promote British trade, it follows that not all the burden of paying for her should fall on the MOD budget or, indeed, the taxpayer. Thirdly, her operational use must be as wide as possible. By all means title her a “royal yacht”, but she should be capable of adapting as need requires.
Britannia was designed to operate as a hospital ship in times of crisis, but that happened only once, during a humanitarian crisis in Aden. Alternatively, this ship could be used more intensively than Britannia was, as a mobile educational facility around the UK. We are a country dependent on the sea for our past security and future prosperity, yet we are increasingly “sea-blind”. Air travel is the long-distance mode of transport that dominates our everyday thoughts, but it is not actually the most important: 80% of all world trade is seaborne and more than 90% of Britain’s trade, by volume and value, travels by sea; we still rely on sea trade for much of our food.
In Portsmouth, the museums and ships in our historic dockyard are a permanent reminder of the importance of the Royal Navy and the seas to our national story. Britannia could be a mobile showcase for the importance of the maritime industry to people around the UK. The overwhelming majority of space in our dockyard is engaged in maintaining a Royal Navy that is at the leading edge of technology and is supported by a defence sector that drives a great deal of innovation in the civil as well as the naval and military fields.
The sea-blindness that I referred to is hard to understand, given the importance of the sea and the maritime sector to our lives. We know from the maritime growth study, published a year ago, that the maritime industries sector contributes more than £11 billion a year to our economy. It is bigger than aerospace and on a par with our world-leading pharmaceutical sector. It may represent only 5% of our employment base, but it is a vital part of our manufacturing and service sectors.
A revived Britannia could tell that story and promote the skills and technology of the sea at home as well as abroad. I hope that the Government will look carefully at the options for renewing the capability that Britannia provided, by whatever means, and will recognise that it could give us a competitive edge in world trade and diplomacy.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
It is a delight and a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. You and I have known each other for more than 30 years and, if I may say so, it is always a pleasure and a delight to serve under you.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on securing the debate. Post-Brexit, it is clear that we have to put our best foot forward by going out and getting as much trade as we possibly can. That will be absolutely vital. Needless to say, I would like the new ship to be built in Plymouth, either by Princess Yachts, which is one of our great luxury yacht producers, or by Babcock, which is responsible for managing and running the oldest naval dockyard in the country.
In 2020, Plymouth will commemorate the Mayflower leaving Plymouth to go and found the American colonies. That gives us a unique opportunity to have a fantastic trade exhibition down in the south-west. The country needs to grab that opportunity with both hands, in no uncertain terms. By building Britannia down in Plymouth, the Government could stimulate and create a tourist attraction. If we are successful, we could also have a fleet review, or even a review of the NATO fleet. That would encourage tourists to come to our wonderful part of the south-west. Britain needs to encourage American tourists to come here.
It is absolutely brilliant that the Minister who will be responding to the debate is the former commodore of the House of Commons yacht club. My final point to him is that the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, is the High Steward of Plymouth, and we should send him a clear message that we support having the ship rebuilt and relocated to Plymouth.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) for securing this entertaining and interesting debate. The enthusiasm of Conservative Members and the sparsity of Labour Members in the Chamber will be spotted by those elsewhere.
I like the fact that the UK is looking up and wants to catch up with the great powers of the world: Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Saudi Arabia—places with royal yachts. It is great to the see the UK having such ambition to catch those countries, and good luck to it in doing that. Perhaps the royal yacht will be the answer, but I do not think it will.
I am very familiar with the former royal yacht Britannia. As a child, I used to see it often behind the island of Vatersay, from Castlebay. Its three masts were seen every August as the Queen went on a cruise around Scotland to the castle of Mey. I am delighted that it is now tied up at harbour in Leith, and that there are no designs today on that ship that now belongs to Leith. The designs today are based on pomp and circumstance, and I can see no circumstance at all for this pomp. In fact, we nearly had civil war between Ramsgate and Portsmouth at one stage—
Mr MacNeil
And Plymouth, sorry.
It was pointed out that Her Majesty is Queen of 16 realms, and that perhaps Commonwealth countries could contribute to the yacht, which might mean that they would want it themselves for rambling trade expeditions across the world. Who knows? I think they would be reluctant to call it Britannia in that case; they might want to call it The Commonwealth. Otherwise it might fuel awful sentiments, such as republicanism in Australia, if people were paying their taxes to contribute to a yacht for a far-off country.
That brings me to the name: Britannia. I thought some hon. Members might have looked at the opportunity of having the yacht for the 100th anniversary of the UK, which will fall in December 2022 when the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland becomes 100 years old. That opportunity was missed—perhaps there is some nervousness that Britannia as currently constituted might find itself being two states before that date, with the boat perhaps needing to be called Scotia.
The answer to the calamity facing the UK is not a yacht, which I think a number of hon. Members, in the backs of their minds, really do feel. The answer is not the superstitious notion that all future trade success depends on having a royal yacht. The idea that getting to the front of the queue is based on having a royal yacht belongs on the back of a fag packet. It is not the back of a yacht that gets nations to the front of the queue; it is the professionalism of being a good trading nation and having negotiators—the UK currently has twelve, but it needs about 200. There is a real danger that the UK could be mugged at international negotiations because it does not have the experience of small places like the Faroe Islands or Iceland, which have 50,000 and 300,000 people respectively. Those are the issues that should be bothering the UK.
Top trading nations do not have a royal yacht. China does not have a royal yacht, the USA does not have a royal yacht, Germany does not have a royal yacht. Nor do South Korea, France, Hong Kong or Italy, and all those nations are ahead of the UK.
Oliver Colvile
The countries the hon. Gentleman has just talked about do not have a royal family; we do.
Mr MacNeil
I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman is making, because they are ahead of us in trading. As a monarchist myself, I do not particularly like the republican sentiments he is leaning towards by indicating that we might be better off in trading if we were a republic. I do not find that at all appealing.
If the UK were able to build a ship, could it not be doing so now? The idea that the Conservatives have suddenly become Keynesians and are looking for a fiscal stimulus to ignite industry across the country rings hollow, particularly when we have seen the fetish of austerity, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said.
The hostility to the gin market today has surprised me—I would have thought that people could have supported the gin industry, but no. Hon. Members have shown some hostility towards it this afternoon, although happily the whisky industry, in which Scotland excels, was not included in that.
The hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) made a serious point about a royal yacht being a very big target. A lot of royal naval assets would be tied up in ensuring its safety. In the world we are in at the moment, it would be a sitting duck, and it would cost an awful lot of money to make sure it was safe. In fact, although the costs were put at £7 million a year to finance the boat back on charter from her owners, the crew of about 250, which the royal yacht had, would cost about £7.5 million to £12 million in wages, and the officers would cost a further £1.2 million. That is not including the cost of defending the yacht, which was the important point that the hon. Gentleman made.
Reality came crashing into the debate in the fantastic speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, which some of the hon. Gentlemen present greeted with, indeed, great honour and gentlemanliness. She made a great point about food banks and cuts to social services. To add to that, with the pound crashing, the current projections of costs for the royal yacht may go further north. She correctly made a point about the shortage of armed forces equipment. It is a rose-tinted fiction that we will have a royal yacht, and then all will be well with the situation the UK has found itself in.
This debate has shown that the UK has found itself in some sort of trouble, but I say to colleagues that the answer is not the comfort blanket of a royal yacht. In fact, to the outside world the idea will look bizarre. I cannot wait to see “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah; the previous presenter Jon Stewart had great fun a few years ago with the UK’s fetish for shipping on the Thames, but this will be seen as high comedy across the world. The idea is that a royal yacht will make Britain great again—I cannot remember which hon. Member said Britain was not great. He did not exactly say that, but he implied that Britain was not great by saying that the yacht would make Britain great again. Another hon. Member said that Britain would stand tall in the world, indicating that Britain does not stand tall in the world at the moment. Indeed, it does not, because of Brexit. It is a laughing stock from Reykjavik to Buenos Aires—that is the reality, and building a royal yacht would only add to that. I am sorry to say that to hon. Members, and I wish them well in what they are trying to do, but the idea of having the comfort blanket of a royal yacht is barking up the wrong tree.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Captain Chope, I pay tribute to your skill in charting this debate away from the rocks and along its voyage. I note the gentlemen of the press waiting, acid pens poised to keelhaul anyone bold enough to disagree with the proposition we are debating today. I defy them; all I can say is, let us hope I am not walking the plank into troubled waters.
I stand second to none in my admiration for the dedicated service of Her Majesty the Queen, and there is little I would begrudge her personally—even what the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) described as a floating palace. So it is with some trepidation that I find myself debating the idea that has been floated by the hon. Gentleman and some 99 of his Back-Bench colleagues. Given how often Conservative Members have attempted to relaunch this idea of a new or refitted royal yacht, it should really come as no surprise that it has surfaced once again. It is not a new idea; indeed, in my time in the House, this is no less than the third time the matter has been dredged up, Mary Celeste-like, to the surface.
The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) referred to Sir Thomas Cochrane. Of course, Sir Thomas was an admirable seaman in a great many ways, but I trust the hon. Gentleman recalls that during his service on the Barfleur in 1798 the Sea Wolf, as he was known, was court-martialled for showing disrespect. He was actually dismissed from the Royal Navy in 1814 after being convicted for fraud on the stock exchange.
Sir Gerald Howarth
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for referring to Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane. It is indeed true that there was a trumped up charge against him, which forced him to leave the country, and the beneficiaries were Brazil and Chile. Of course, he upset the Admiralty because he believed that there was a better way to protect ships—by using tar—and he was against the widespread corruption in the Admiralty in those days.
Barry Gardiner
If nothing else, the hon. Gentleman and I are agreed on our admiration for Sir Thomas Cochrane. Of course, he was not readmitted to the Royal Navy until 1832 and, in 1806—he later admitted—he bribed the electors of Honiton by paying each 10 guineas so that he could enter this place, so perhaps he was not always a model that we should aspire to follow.
Here we are once again debating the recommissioning of a yacht that was launched some 63 years ago, as if it were the missing part of the Government’s international trade plan. Unfortunately, it is not. What is most troubling is that it seems to be, if not the only part, certainly one of the more credible parts. When it comes to international trade negotiations, the Government are not very able seamen, who have found themselves drifting rudderless into uncharted waters. A decommissioned boat, however, is not the ideal vessel to pilot their way out.
The recent EU referendum has presented significant challenges about what our future trading relations will look like and how we can go about ensuring that Britain and the British people can benefit. British businesses have relied on access to the single market since it came into force in 1993. Before that, they relied on the reduced tariffs of the customs union that preceded it. Few British businesses, and even fewer British business leaders, will recall just what difficulties were encountered when attempting international trade before that.
Furthermore, our participation in the European project and our membership of the customs union and the subsequent single market made the UK an extremely attractive destination for foreign investment. I do not doubt that that was enhanced by our strong international network, our respect for the rule of law and the dominance of English as an international language, but it is equally foolish to identify our success as having stemmed exclusively from our attributes and not from the access that we enjoy to the world’s largest consumer market. Our trading capacity is a manifestation of our attributes combined with our access to and capacity to influence the regulations of that wider market. Chance and good fortune also played their part, because our capacity to engage in and lead international trade is greatly magnified by virtue of our geography, location and time zone.
A combination of those elements has enabled us to play a leading role in international affairs and trade throughout history, and is why we have been able to continue to attract business investment and promote British exports overseas. It takes time to develop markets, and requires thorough analysis. It take confidence on the part of investors and trust on the part of trading partners.
Today, I am wearing the tie of Polska Zegluga Morska, the Polish steamship company. I put it on quite deliberately this morning, not because the royal yacht was built as a steamship, but because in 1989, before the Berlin wall came down, I began my first trade mission to Poland. Over the next five years, I took delegations from Maritime London, and put on conferences and trade missions in Poland, Ukraine and Russia to open up the market for our marine services industry—our lawyers, insurance brokers, protection and indemnity clubs, engineers and marine surveyors. I know what it is to export into new markets, and I inform the House that it is not about a flash yacht. It comes through diligent market research, understanding the regulatory structures and identifying the gaps that a team or product can fill. That is not doom-mongering or “Project Fear”; it is a reasoned assessment of the factors that feed into successful exports.
The Brexit vote threatens our trading capacity because it makes the questions about regulatory structures and market gaps impossible to answer. Businesses have no idea at the moment which markets they will be able to do business in, nor at what cost. They have no idea about the regulatory framework they will face or which non-tariff barriers they will encounter. They do not know whether they will be able to retain foreign staff or fill recruitment gaps from overseas if they need to.
Investors now see the decision to invoke article 50 as soon as possible as prejudicing the very possibility of a stable transition whereby the answers to those questions can be methodically worked through. We cannot know the extent of the investment decisions that are being suspended or cancelled.
Barry Gardiner
Because of the time, I will not.
Certain things are literally incalculable, but that does not make them less certain. Such investment decisions are being made, and they will have a long-tail liability—a liability that might only crystallise over years to come.
The idea that we could relaunch an ancient yacht as a beacon of British innovation and enterprise is entirely symptomatic of the nostalgic nonsense that has infected the Government’s approach to the new trading relationship that we must develop in a post-referendum world once the UK leaves the EU. We face the biggest constitutional and commercial challenge of our lifetimes, and we are here today to discuss relaunching a long-retired yacht. The Germans and the French must be quaking—not in their boots, but with laughter. The Chinese and the Americans, who are looking on in astonishment, must be wondering why we are incapable of seeing the gravity of our own situation.
It greatly concerns me that this debate sends a signal to the rest of the world that we still see the best of Britain as being behind us. We are a world leader in financial and legal services, the automotive and engineering sectors, pharmaceuticals, biosciences, business, energy, construction, fashion, art and music. But at this precise moment—when the fashion and textiles industry is asking where it will get linkers from in a post-Brexit world, when Nissan and Jaguar Land Rover are suspending future investment decisions until they have clarity on market access, and when the pharmaceutical sector is at its wits’ end over losing the European Medicines Agency from the UK—the best that this Government can come up with, as they studiously avoid giving us a running commentary, is to bring us here today to debate the recommissioning of Her Majesty’s yacht Britannia.
Government is not about playing with toy boats as virility symbols. The Government should be engaging with British business and setting out strategic proposals on an industry-by-industry basis, to promote Britain and our exports overseas. They need to tell the financial services industry—our biggest export sector—how they propose to protect the passporting regime that has allowed British financial institutions to transact business across the EU. That facility has been material to our capacity to attract foreign banks to establish their European operations throughout the UK. Those banks are now openly discussing and actively investigating relocations to Dublin, Paris, Frankfurt or Luxembourg.
Given how many trade missions the royal yacht Britannia undertook on behalf of the British Invisible Exports Council, perhaps the Back Benchers who signed the letter supporting the motion might better spend their time exploring the threats to the financial services industry in the UK. How much would it cost to refit a yacht of that size and bring it up to modern technological standards? How much would it cost to crew and maintain the vessel? How many Royal Navy staff would be taken away from active service elsewhere to crew the yacht? What security and counter-terrorism measures would need to be undertaken to ensure that the yacht would not be a sitting duck terrorist target?
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. The convention is that Front Benchers have 10 minutes to wind up. The hon. Gentleman has already been speaking for 11 minutes. It would be helpful if the Minister had time to respond and the proposer of the motion was able to have the last word.
Barry Gardiner
Captain Chope, I apologise. I had not realised that the time had gone so fast. I will conclude my remarks there.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mark Garnier)
It is a great pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade with his surfeit of maritime metaphors and his admiration for Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on securing the debate. The topic is clearly a subject of great passion for many people across the House. I, for one, have always been a great fan of the royal yacht, which has been involved in many totemic events in our history, not least on 1 July 1997, when it slipped its moorings at HMS Tamar, rounded Hong Kong island and set off into the South China sea as the Union flag was lowered for the final time on the crown colony of Hong Kong.
I will pick up on a couple of points raised in the debate. The first is the recommissioning of the royal yacht in support of trade promotion. It is pretty clear that this Chamber is not in favour of that at all, which is right. In 1997 it was calculated that buying an extra five years for the former royal yacht would have cost £17 million and an extra 20 years would have cost £20 million. The former royal yacht is clearly well past its active life.
The second proposal is the potential commissioning of a new royal yacht in support of trade promotion, and I will take this opportunity to provide some context for the role and purpose of the Department for International Trade. The new Department has overall responsibility for promoting British trade across the world under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). We will bang the drum for Britain across the world and pull out all the stops in boosting our trade, working with our overseas diplomatic missions to promote the UK as a place to do business and to trade with, driving inward investment and, in time, negotiating trade agreements. The Department will be the key player in selling the UK through exports and trade promotion, negotiating trade deals and attracting foreign direct investment into the UK. The Department will use any and all resources and assets at its disposal to secure those agreements and to boost our trade.
The royal yacht Britannia was, and is, an iconic symbol of Great Britain. As the second royal yacht to bear the name Britannia, and the 83rd such royal vessel, she was for more than 40 years an instantly recognisable feature on the seas as a representation of the United Kingdom, our royal family and our diplomatic service, and as a platform to showcase the best of the United Kingdom. Britannia’s primary role, at which she excelled, was to provide a base for the royal family’s national and international engagements, for which she sailed more than 1 million miles, undertaking just under 8,000 engagements—272 of those engagements were within British waters.
Britannia was the first ocean-going royal yacht, and her primary role was to provide a base for the royal family when going overseas. Before the royal yacht was built, the royal family used to—“hijack” is the wrong word—take control of an ocean liner or a royal naval warship and use it as their base, but the yacht’s secondary role was to provide a base from which the UK could engage with other Governments through diplomacy to secure trade and investment opportunities. Thirdly, of course, HMY Britannia had a reserve role as a potential medical facility in the event of conflict, a role for which she was fortunately never required but, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), she was used for the evacuation of Aden in 1986, when she evacuated 1,000 people of 44 different nationalities.
The royal yacht’s multifunctional role made it unique and special, projecting the United Kingdom’s diplomatic influence and reflecting the United Kingdom’s proud heritage as a seafaring trading nation. We are determined to make a success of our global role in the world, but recommissioning the royal yacht Britannia is not something the Government are considering at all. We will listen to the cases being proposed, but there are clear issues on feasibility and cost. The existing ship is a popular tourist attraction in Edinburgh.
Although there is no doubt that Britannia presents an impressive backdrop to the signing of trade and investment deals, there was and is much more to negotiations, which involve discussion, engagement and hard graft behind the scenes away from the pomp and splendour of the signing table—my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen said that although £3 billion-worth of trade deals were done, there is no conclusive evidence that the deals would not have been signed were it not for the royal yacht. Such hard work is central to the Department for International Trade’s responsibility to successfully negotiate trade agreements when we leave the EU in order to secure the UK’s economic future.
Today’s debate proposes the reintroduction of the royal yacht, which is currently moored in Scotland as a popular visitor attraction. Twenty years ago, the then Government proposed a replacement for Britannia, which was then more than 40 years old and in need of overhaul or replacement. Of course, as we know, the decision was taken to retire her without replacement. More recently, the royal yacht has been moored at the port of Leith and receives hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. The cost of reintroduction, including major overhaul to the engines, has not been explored but, as I mentioned earlier, even in 1997 it would have been very expensive. I also have no doubt that making moves to commandeer Britannia from her current home in Scotland would be strongly resisted—that point has been made vociferously.
As we have heard, there are also proposals to commission a new royal yacht, which many Members and organisations would support. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) said, I was once commodore of the House of Commons yacht club—I am not entirely certain that I do not still hold that position—and as such I am a natural ally of all things offshore, but hard facts stand in the way of a new yacht, not least the need for significant levels of funding to commission, build, fit out and maintain the vessel. We have heard that a vessel could be funded from outside sources, but a new yacht would require the latest design and technology, which the United Kingdom is best placed to provide. That would come at a cost, and we have yet to find out exactly how the yacht would be funded.
Media coverage over the past fortnight has included an alleged proposal for a replacement yacht from almost 20 years ago. Although it was not an official proposal, the figure of £60 million to build the new yacht would now likely be double that. There is also the additional cost to the taxpayer of operation and maintenance, which would need to be factored in.
Sir Gerald Howarth
I welcome the Minister to his role but, for goodness’ sake, let us place this in context. We spend £12 billion a year on overseas aid and, although it may not be possible to itemise exactly how much the royal yacht Britannia delivered in trade deals, the sentiment in this Chamber today is explicit that a new royal yacht at a modest £120 million would deliver for the British people a statement of our intent post-Brexit and would deliver a return on investment to the British economy.
Mark Garnier
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, and I know he is passionate about this subject and Sir Thomas Cochrane, but we have not seen a business proposal or a cost-benefit analysis, so this debate is slightly hypothetical. The international development budget is separate from this discussion. We are talking about trade, not international development, which is slightly different. I think we would all be keen to see my hon. Friend make a business proposal, and no one is trying to stop him.
The former royal yacht was crewed by the Royal Navy and, as we have heard, there are three particular factors that need to be taken into account. A new royal yacht would fly the white ensign, would be state owned and would function as a floating royal palace, which means that the royal yacht would have to be manned by the Royal Navy. That would put pressure on the senior service. Even once those financial challenges were potentially overcome through private sponsors and donations, it would not negate the ongoing liability for 10, 20 or 40 years.
I also wonder whether a new yacht would provide the best return on investment. From 1989 to 1996, Britannia undertook 37 visits in support of UK exports and investment, which is not a huge number when we consider that in some years it cost as much as £12 million to run—it was expensive. Of those visits, more than a quarter were around the United Kingdom. We have new routes in emerging markets, and we have stronger ties and partnerships than ever before that have helped to secure our position as an open, outward-facing trading nation. It is also worth bearing in mind that we have 270 posts and missions across the world where we are flying the flag for Britain and going out to promote our country, which is important.
The Department was set up with the purpose of ensuring that we seize every opportunity that leaving the EU presents to forge a new way in the world and to make Britain a global leader in free trade. I am acutely aware that people in this room are firmly behind the proposal, but I make it clear that the Government have no plans, and have had no plans, to commission a new royal yacht. As such, it is very unlikely indeed that we would use taxpayers’ money to fund either a royal commission or an investigation into whether we could commission a new royal yacht.
Jake Berry
I thank all colleagues who have attended and supported today’s debate. I also thank you, Mr Chope, for being such an excellent Chairman. I was a remainer in the EU referendum, and I have tried not to become a “remoaner,” which is what we heard from the Labour and Scottish National party spokespeople. Our proposal is simple: no public funds should be committed to the building of a new royal yacht. The will of the House is clear today that people do not have an appetite to recommission the existing royal yacht Britannia, but if we can find a way to privately fund a new royal yacht, it is something that the Government should seriously consider. I am encouraged that the Minister said that the Government would consider a cost-benefit analysis and that their minds are not closed.
The old royal yacht, which is in Leith docks, is something in which our nation can still take huge pride. It is the most popular tourist attraction in Scotland, and we have heard today that it should remain as a beacon for Edinburgh and Leith around the globe. This debate has received international attention, and I have been overwhelmed by requests for interviews from the German media. We need to understand that in Britain we do not appreciate the contribution that a royal yacht can make in a way that other countries would appreciate—they seem keen to see a new royal yacht rule the waves.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
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Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered immigration policy and the disability employment gap after the EU referendum.
Members who have looked at the title of this debate may not immediately understand what I am driving at. I raise the subject of immigration and disability employment not just because I have been both Immigration Minister and Minister for Disabled People, but because I think we have a very good opportunity, post-Brexit, to look at getting more disabled people into work. I am pleased to see the Minister for Immigration in his place; I am also pleased to see the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work here today, because that demonstrates that the Government are joined up on these matters and that Ministers in different Departments work closely together.
A number of issues came out of the referendum. First, the British people want us to have control of immigration, both from within and from without the European Union. I think that will mean ending the free movement of people and applying the same rules to those coming from inside the EU and to those coming from outside the EU, in one consistent immigration system. It flows from that—and from the fact that the Conservative party has twice committed, in our 2010 and 2015 manifestos, to reducing net migration—that we should use that extra control to reduce net migration to the United Kingdom. If we are to have a dynamic, fast-growing economy that continues to generate lots of jobs, as we have done consistently over the last six years—indeed, businesses have created more jobs in Britain, using the conditions created by the coalition Government and by this Conservative Government, than the whole of the rest of the European Union put together—we need to increase the ability for businesses to use the talents of those British citizens who are not yet in the labour market.
The referendum has also given the Government the opportunity to deliver another manifesto commitment, which is to halve the disability employment gap—the gap between the proportion of people who are disabled who are in work and the proportion of the working-age population as a whole. We can use Brexit as an opportunity to challenge businesses to use some imagination and effort to look harder at employing people with a disability, whether that is a mental health problem, a learning disability or a physical disability. Those are the messages that arise and that I will elaborate on a little further in my speech, before my hon. Friend the Minister responds—positively, I hope—on behalf of the Government.
Having caught the end of the previous debate, I want to lay my cards on the table. I come at this issue as someone who supported the remain campaign but, as I mentioned, I have also been Immigration Minister, so I understand the complexities and challenges facing the Minister as he grapples with the subject. The Prime Minister, who as a former Home Secretary knows how challenging this area is, has said that there is no single policy that can be introduced to control immigration; getting a handle on it requires detailed, relentless work over time. As soon as the Government close one loophole, people get around it. The world changes and the needs of the economy change. If we are to have an immigration system that delivers for the economy and the British people, that relentless, detailed work needs to continue.
When I was Immigration Minister, I found it very frustrating not to be able to control EU migration. We could control it a little—we could crack down on overt abuse—but it was largely outside the control of Ministers and of Parliament. That was very frustrating, and Brexit is an opportunity to get it right. It seemed to me in the referendum campaign that one of the important issues, although not the only one, that led to the vote to leave the European Union was that the British people were frustrated that free movement within the EU did not give their elected Government and their elected representatives the ability to control immigration and to choose who came to our country in the way they thought we should. I do not think that was the only issue, but it was clear from the general election campaign and from the referendum campaign that it is important and we need to address it.
As I said, the Conservative party made a clear commitment in both our last two manifestos to reduce net migration to sustainable levels, which is defined as reducing it from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. That ambition has been reconfirmed, post-referendum, by the Prime Minister. She has been realistic that it will take time to deliver—we are not likely to leave the European Union for another two years after article 50 has been triggered, and it will take time for the implementation of policies to take effect after that—but we can get on a path to delivering that target. That would be welcome, and I know the Minister would be keen to achieve it.
It is worth saying that this is not just about our manifesto commitment. The reason for reducing net migration is that, certainly at the lower end of the labour market, there is evidence that high levels of migration can have an impact on wage levels. That was one of the issues reflected in the British people’s decision to leave the European Union. Particularly in areas that have large numbers of new migrants, there can be significant pressures on public services, which we also heard about from the public: pressures on accessing doctors, other healthcare services, schools and housing. All those pressures would be alleviated if we controlled migration more effectively.
If no British citizens at all were out of work, clearly it would make sense to import workers from overseas to fill the skill gaps and the gaps in the labour market. However, although unemployment is very low—less than 5%, which is a success both of Government policy and of the work done over the years of the coalition Government, particularly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), to make the benefits system more flexible and to encourage people to get into work, with changes such as universal credit—a significant number of British people who are capable of working and would like to work have some sort of barrier or difficulty that makes it harder to get a job.
I do not particularly want to fire statistics at the Minister, but it is worth looking at the number of people who claim employment and support allowance and are in the work-related activity group, which means they have a condition that will allow them to work at some point in the future. There are nearly half a million people in that category, half of whom are people with mental health conditions, for example, who would be able to work if they were given the opportunity to do so and their employer made reasonable adjustments. There are more than 1.5 million people in the support group; again, with reasonable adjustments, some of those people would be able to enter the workplace. I remind the Minister that many of those people would like to work. They want the opportunity to work, but they do not currently get it.
There are also significant numbers of people with a learning disability who would be capable of working and would love the opportunity to work but do not currently get it. It is worth mentioning some information that Mencap has provided for this debate. It points out that there are 1.4 million people in the United Kingdom with a learning disability. Mencap exists to support those people and their families. It estimates that around eight in every 10 of those 1.4 million people with a learning disability could do work, with the right support, but also that only two in every 10 of them are currently in employment. That means that, according to Mencap staff, who are experts on such matters, six in every 10 people with a learning disability—840,000 people—could do some sort of work but are not currently given the opportunity.
Mencap says that the majority of people with a learning disability can work and want to work. The figures are stark: the national employment percentage is in the high 70s, but the overall disability employment rate is just below 50%. Mencap makes the point that there is a large pool of people who are capable of working and would like the opportunity to work, but who are not currently given the opportunity to do so.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I was very much in the out camp and was pleased that the referendum went the way it did. My constituents asked me whether they would continue to be protected by disabilities legislation, as they are while we are in the EU. Is it the right hon. Gentleman’s intention that that legislative protection would still be given outside the EU? I understand the Government committed to that, so I am keen to hear whether that is the case. If it is, the existing protection in legislation will continue.
Mr Harper
I welcome that intervention because, although I am sure that the Minister will respond to that point, it gives me the opportunity to remind the House that it was a Conservative Government who in 1995 brought in the first Disability Discrimination Act, which was taken through the Commons by Lord Hague of Richmond, who was then simply William Hague and a Minister in the Department that became the Department for Work and Pensions. That was trailblazing legislation in this country, informed by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which Lord Hague had studied carefully. He had the full support of the then Prime Minister, John Major, in taking it through the House.
That legislation is largely domestic and was introduced by a Conservative Government. When the last Labour Government introduced the Equality Act 2010, which consolidated a lot of legislation in one place, we supported that. I was the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman at the time, and I would not anticipate any change—certainly no diminution—in the legislative protection for disabled people when we leave the European Union. I am sure that the Minister will confirm that.
Some people might be thinking, “Well, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made that point at a timely moment. All this legislative protection is in place, so what difference will leaving the European Union make?” I received a briefing note from the Papworth Trust, which is another excellent organisation that helps disabled people to get into work. I suggest businesses need to put more effort and imagination into hiring people. The Papworth Trust says:
“A major barrier for our customers”
—the disabled people whom it helps—
“is that employers often seek ‘ready-made’ employees who are proficient in their role with minimum training, support or cost to the employer.”
The trust also highlights the fact that there are many good employers that go that extra mile.
My argument is that, post-Brexit, we can say to employers, “You’re not going to have the ability to hire people who are ready to drop straight into your company off the shelf. You are going to have to look harder at people who might require extra training or assistance. The Government should stand ready to help you, perhaps by dealing with the extra costs of hiring some of those disabled people, but you should look at them and give them the opportunity. They will repay you by being productive, valued and valuable employees.” The Government can challenge employers on their attitudes. As I said, there are already some very good employers. The Government’s Disability Confident scheme helps to share best practice and gives employers the confidence to hire more disabled people. It is a very good example.
I have several asks to make of the Minister. First, he should continue the work that the Government are already doing in the Department for Work and Pensions, which is working closely with the Home Office on this matter. As I highlighted at the start of the debate, the fact that Ministers from both Departments are present and listening to the debate is excellent. I have had conversations with both the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Home Secretary on this matter. They are both keen to make progress in this area.
Secondly, we need to identify the sectors of the economy in which we are currently very dependent on migration from the European Union. For both entry-level and skilled jobs, we should find out where people with a disability could provide a contribution to employers.
Thirdly, the Government need to work in partnership with employers, but also to utilise the third and charitable sectors. I have already mentioned several organisations, but Mind is a prominent mental health charity that encourages employers to employ people with a mental health problem. Scope and Mencap are both excellent organisations that continue to work in partnership with the Government and employers.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I cannot agree with everything he has said about immigration but, on the disability employment gap, I have to concur with a lot of what he said. Will he encourage his colleagues in the Government to bring forward the Green Paper on the health and work programme so that some of the issues we are discussing can be teased out further?
Mr Harper
Part of the reason why I started to have some of the conversations I have been having and secured this debate was to inform the wider debate. I think the Government are planning to publish the Green Paper in the autumn. Part of the point of discussing these subjects is to feed into the strands of thinking that will go into the Green Paper, which is of course a consultation document. As the Government listen to responses from employers, Members of Parliament and the charitable sector, they can include this debate as one thing they think about as they formulate the specific plans that will be published in a White Paper and perhaps, if required, in legislation.
The final thing I want to say to the Minister is that he should look at some of the help that the Government could provide to employers and at some of the help that is already in place, to see whether, if we were successful in getting a significant number of disabled people into work, it would be sufficiently flexible and scalable. I would like my hon. Friend to look specifically at the Access to Work programme, which is an excellent scheme, but not as well known as we would hope. One of my concerns is that, were we as successful as I hope we can be, we would run into a problem, because Access to Work is currently funded by the departmental expenditure of the Department for Work and Pensions. Were a lot more people to want to use Access to Work to help to fund the reasonable adjustments that employers might need to make, we would run up against a funding barrier. Scope has proposed that Access to Work should be funded from annually managed expenditure so that it can be scaled as necessary in response to demand.
In summary, the Minister should work closely with other Departments across Government, which is already happening but must continue; he should look at the Green Paper that the Government are going to publish and the feedback from it, and build in the ideas I have outlined; and he should look at the help that the Government already provide to employers to check that it is going to deliver in the new environment. If we do that and get that imagination and effort from employers, with support from Government, one thing that will flow from Brexit will be further opportunities for disabled people to get into work. To use the phrase of the moment, we can then truly build a country that works for everyone.
The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) on securing the debate, on his eloquent contribution and on his article on this very subject in today’s Times newspaper. As both a former Minister for Disabled People and a former distinguished holder of the post that I now occupy, he brings unique knowledge and experience to the debate. Indeed, there was very little in what he said with which I could disagree. I welcome the fact that the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work was present for my right hon. Friend’s contribution, which shows that we work across Government on such matters.
One issue that my right hon. Friend raised was the help and support that can be given to employers on the hiring of people with disabilities. I would also like to talk about people with abilities; we have talked a lot about disability, but the abilities that people have are a tremendous resource, although in many ways it goes untapped. Our small employer offer now gives advice and financial support to small and medium-sized enterprises, and further ideas will be explored in the forthcoming work and health Green Paper, which he referred to.
I will discuss my current area of responsibility shortly, but first I will mention the real advances that this Government have made in employment and disability employment. In the past six years, we have overseen huge increases in the number of 16 to 64-year-olds in employment. Since May 2010, employment has risen by 2.3 million, with 74.5% of people of working age now in employment. That is a testament to our record of helping nearly a million new businesses to set up and grow, and of creating nearly 3 million new apprenticeships. We have also taken the lowest-paid workers out of income tax and introduced a new national living wage to help sustain the labour market. In addition, during the past three years the number of disabled people in work has increased by almost half a million. A total of 3.4 million disabled people are now in the workforce.
However, there is much more to do. The labour force survey from 2015 tells us that 11% of disabled people of working age have never worked, compared with 8% of non-disabled people. There are also important differences in the highest educational qualifications of working- age disabled and non-disabled people, which may affect the employment opportunities and income of each group. Also, while the rate of employment for those of working age is at 74.5% overall, it is at 47.9% for disabled people.
We recognise that the gap between the employment rates of disabled people and non-disabled people remains too large, which is why we are committed to halving it. This Government are ambitious for disabled people and people with health conditions, and we want to remove the barriers that prevent them from working. We want every individual to have the opportunity to share in the economic and health benefits that work brings.
The Government’s ambition to halve the disability employment gap has been widely recognised as being bold and challenging. The gap has persisted over time, under successive Governments, and is the result of a complex blend of factors. We plan to publish the Green Paper that I have referred to shortly. It will explore a range of ways to improve the prospects and transform the lives of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. We want to remove the barriers that prevent them from working, and help to ensure that they are able to obtain work and remain in it.
Neil Gray
We look forward to the publication of the Green Paper, but will the Government commit to putting forward any extra resources? A number of the areas that the Green Paper would seek to address, including helping people with learning disabilities or mental health conditions, would require a bespoke intervention and a bespoke service, which is obviously expensive. Is it possible for the Government to commit more funding to what will be proposed in the Green Paper?
Mr Goodwill
Of course, a review of resourcing will be part of the review, but let us not forget that getting people into work means that they will be less reliant on benefits and more able to contribute, not only to their own lives but to the economy through the tax they will pay.
By the end of this Parliament, we want to have shown that there are interventions that can meaningfully address the pay gap, and to be on the way to securing success. Addressing the gap is partly about ensuring that employers do all they can to fill jobs with people in the resident labour market, including disabled people.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I apologise for arriving late for the debate, Mr Owen. Does the Minister agree that we should actually be quite optimistic, given that employers report above average levels of commitment and loyalty from their existing disabled workers? That is a good story to get over to employers.
Mr Goodwill
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. This process is about sharing the experiences of employers who have managed to deliver on this issue, to show that it is not something that employers should be frightened of. Rather, it is a real opportunity for their business that they should grasp with both hands.
Although nine out of 10 people employed here are UK nationals, we want to reduce the reliance on international workers, as part of our manifesto commitment to reduce net migration to sustainable levels, which means in the tens of thousands and not the hundreds of thousands. Working with colleagues across Government, I am determined to deliver on that commitment.
We have legislated twice to stop illegal migrants from operating under the radar, but there is no doubt that there is still far more that we can do. In March, we announced a package of measures to reform the routes for skilled workers, to ensure that only those who can make a real economic contribution can come to the UK. We are setting higher salary thresholds and introducing an immigration skills charge of £1,000 per worker per year, to boost funding for the training of UK workers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean referred to the pressure on wage rates from immigration, and that change will help to address that problem. Nevertheless, there is more we can do to ensure that we continue to attract the brightest and best, while also ensuring that we clamp down on abuse and create opportunities for resident workers and disabled people.
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced last week, we will shortly consult on potential reform to our work and study migration systems. We will look very carefully at the work routes, including examining whether we should tighten up the test that companies have to take before recruiting from abroad.
We will do all we can to encourage employers to offer jobs to resident labour, including, of course, disabled people. We will consult on plans to ask any company seeking to sponsor a visa to bring in a non-EU worker to provide details of the proportion of work visa holders in their workforce, alongside other information used to support the visa application process. That already happens in the United States and is one of several proposals that we will consult on as part of our work to ensure that companies take reasonable steps to recruit at home before looking to bring in workers from abroad.
As with other information used in the visa process, that work would not involve, and was never intended to involve, the publication of the ratio of resident workers to foreign workers, nor the creation of lists or names of workers. We are considering adding other conditions that must be met before a company can recruit from abroad—for example, considering what steps they have taken to train up a local workforce. We are committed to reducing non-EU migration across all visa routes, to bring net migration down to sustainable levels as soon as possible.
British businesses have driven the economic recovery in this country, with employment now at record levels. However, we still need to do more, so that all British people, including disabled people, get the right opportunities they need to get on in life. What is happening now is not fair on the companies doing the right thing, so I will consider again whether our immigration system provides the right incentives for businesses to invest in resident workers.
I turn to the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean spoke in some detail. Like him, I was on the remain side of the argument, but I accept the wishes of the British people as expressed at the ballot box. As the Prime Minister has made clear, Brexit means Brexit, and we will make a success of it. The Prime Minister has announced that we will trigger article 50 by next March. Beyond that, however, she has rightly been clear that we should not provide a running commentary on events, and it would not be right for me to set out the terms of our negotiations here, even if I was aware of all of them. What I will say is that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean suggested, leaving the European Union presents us with an opportunity to look afresh at all the issues around free movement.
Currently, nationals from countries in the European economic area have the right in EU law to enter the UK for any purpose for up to three months, and to stay indefinitely to work. They can access services and employment on the basis of their EU passport or identity card. Free movement rights are exercised at the discretion of the EEA national, rather than with the permission of the destination member state. Since 2004, free movement from the A8—the eight accession countries—and from the A2 countries, Bulgaria and Romania, has provided employers with a readily available pool of cheap labour. That has had a significant impact on employment practices, so any restrictions would clearly have an impact.
EU nationals, excluding Irish nationals, account for almost 6% of total UK employment, but they are over-represented in sectors such as hospitality, manufacturing, agriculture, transport and storage. It is in that context that we can look again at prioritising employment for the resident labour market, including disabled people. We should look at where disabled people are able to provide a contribution, while ensuring that the right safeguards are put in place, particularly if they do not have an advocate to work in their best interests. That will require close working across Government, but I assure my right hon. Friend that in order to address these issues I will work closely with my counterparts in his other former Department, the Department for Work and Pensions; with the voluntary sector, where appropriate; and, of course, with employers.
I assure my right hon. Friend that the position of the disabled is, and will remain, a priority for this Government in the months and years ahead. We will seize every opportunity to ensure that, wherever possible, those with disabilities are helped into the workforce.
Question put and agreed to.
HS2: North-west of England
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
We now move to the next debate. From the outset, I want to make it clear that it is an hour-long debate and that I will call the three Front-Bench spokespersons, including the Minister, within half an hour. A number of Members are down to speak and I ask them to be concise. I am sure that the Member moving the motion will take interventions, if necessary, during his opening remarks.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered HS2 in the North West of England.
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the question of High Speed 2 in the north-west of England, and it is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Owen.
Infrastructure investment should be a good thing for the economy, and in principle I am all in favour of HS2, and HS3, HS4, and HS5. But as things stand, and until assurances are given by the Government, I remain ambivalent that HS2 will truly bring the promised benefits to all of the UK. Indeed, if rumours, press stories and anonymous briefings are to be believed, it will simply be a fast link between the major centres of London, Birmingham and Manchester that will help to expand those three big cities while further squeezing out growth in the areas outside those metropolises. Therefore, the consideration must be about not just the physical layout of the line and its track works, but the services on it, and the line design must flow from the service level required, rather than the other way around.
I sound that element of caution because, as we have seen with HS2 phase one, once the project gets passed over to the Treasury, finance often becomes the only—and a short-term—consideration. For example, the HS2 spur to Heathrow Airport is lost, with warnings of further cuts. Indeed, we are still waiting for formal confirmation that HS2 will go ahead at all, which is one reason I always called for the whole project to be built from the north to the south, to ensure that it did not simply become yet another major infrastructure programme focused solely on London and the south-east. Worse than that would be the opportunity missed if the wrong strategy for HS2 in the north-west was adopted. The Government’s own vision for HS2 in its consultation envisaged that only two trains per hour would stop at Crewe, with the majority of trains going into a tunnel just south of Crewe and bypassing the station, and therefore the region—my sub-region—completely.
In making my case, I am pleased to call in support two principal backers: Sir David Higgins, with his report “HS2 Plus”, and the board of the Cheshire and Warrington local enterprise partnership. Our LEP’s economic strategy is based very clearly on the vision of Sir David Higgins of a hub at Crewe, interlinked with local lines and distributing the growth benefits across our sub-region. Sir David’s report demonstrates that Crewe sits at the very centre of the north-west rail system, and states very clearly that Crewe should therefore become a regional transport hub, with HS2 fully integrated into plans for revitalising the northern economy as a whole. Rail lines from Crewe radiate towards Manchester and Liverpool, Stoke and Derby, and Warrington, and on to Lancashire and Scotland, Shrewsbury and mid-Wales, and many of the smaller towns in Cheshire, as well as Chester and north Wales and the Wirral. A proper regional rail hub at Crewe would allow all of those places to enjoy the benefits of the huge investment that the nation is making in the new line.
From the work undertaken by my LEP, the main conclusion is clear: a proper regional hub at Crewe could extend the benefits of HS2 to 1.5 million people across the north-west and north Wales, reducing travel time to London by an hour. Those figures come from modelling work done by Mott MacDonald, commissioned by the LEP. The firm was asked to assume that five trains per hour from London stop at Crewe, with up to four trains an hour then running from Crewe on all the lines that radiate out from there. In some cases, perhaps because there are single track sections on the line, that would not be possible, so the LEP asked Mott MacDonald to limit the number of additional trains to what the current infrastructure can accommodate.
My own local authority, Cheshire West and Chester, working with neighbouring authorities in the Mersey Dee Alliance area, which includes councils across the border in north Wales, has also identified the importance of rail infrastructure as central to the economic growth of our region. “Growth Track 360”, a report published by that alliance of businesses and political and public sector leaders, led by Samantha Dixon, the leader of Cheshire West and Chester council, has set out a programme of rail improvements that will transform the economies of Cheshire and north Wales by providing better links between places in Cheshire and the Wirral and into north Wales. By linking such improvements into the services radiating out from a proper rail hub at Crewe, we can offer even more people in Cheshire, north Wales and Merseyside the benefits of the journey time improvements that HS2 provides.
“Growth Track 360” also calls for developments at Crewe to be future-proofed, to ensure that in the long term HS2 trains have the ability to “turn left at Crewe”, as we say, towards Chester and on to north Wales. If that does not happen, 1.5 million people will be on a branch line and the full benefits of HS2 will be lost. Surely those areas also have a right to benefit from public investment in HS2? But, just as importantly, they have the right not to suffer from—to coin a phrase used on the railways—the wrong type of HS2.
I am clear that if we do not get the Higgins vision of a rail hub, investment and growth will be sucked out of and away from Cheshire and other parts of the north-west in favour of the already big cities. I do not want Cheshire’s growth to depend on crumbs from the table of Manchester. Employers in my area already tell me that they lose skilled workers to Manchester because the local rail links to Manchester and the local and regional motorway network—yes, I am talking about the M56—are insufficient. If the strategic rail network also fails to serve the entire region, the negative effects could be catastrophic and long term.
My LEP has drawn some interesting and valuable comparisons with the effect of high-speed rail connectivity in similar circumstances elsewhere. Lyon was the first city to be connected to the TGV network in France. It now handles more than 100,000 passengers a day more than when it was opened, and it has led to the creation of 40,000 new jobs in the area around the station. Lille is a city about the same size as Warrington. In the eight years after its TGV station was opened, employment in the city and the surrounding region grew by nearly 120,000. Key to that success was the creation of a strong local network of trains, trams and buses linking to the TGV network at Lille station, much like the regional rail hub Sir David Higgins proposed for Crewe. Kakegawa is a similar-sized city to Chester. It was originally bypassed by the Japanese high-speed rail network. It finally got a new station in 1988, leading directly to an almost 40% increase in industrial output in the town in just four years.
So, in the debate and more generally, we now await the Government’s proposals for HS2 phase two. I am grateful for the Transport Minister’s attendance today and even more grateful that it is he and not one of his colleagues from the Treasury who will respond. Clearly, one of the big concerns of HS2 is cost, and we cannot write blank cheques, but if we can consider HS2 as an investment that will benefit the whole country, hopefully we can arrive at a solution that spreads its wealth across the whole country too. Central to that is the Higgins hub at Crewe with its five or six trains an hour, and through services connecting HS2 to all the major towns and cities in the north-west and on to Birmingham and London.
In conclusion, we have a choice: we can take Harry Beck’s plan of the London underground, draw a short line above Chesham and Amersham showing Birmingham and Manchester, and consider HS2 to be just another part of London’s transport network, or we can recognise that a truly national project should have truly national benefits. I suggest to the Minister that now would be a great time for the Government to confirm that their intention is the latter.
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
I have just sought clarification about the wind-ups. The Labour and Scottish National parties have five minutes each, not 10, to wind up, and the Minister has 10 minutes to respond to the debate.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. I agree with much of what the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) said. HS2 has the potential to bring huge benefits to my constituency if the appropriate system of hub and spoke is in place. Winsford in particular could benefit from that development, as it is on the line that runs to Chester. However, I urge caution to the Minister on routing through my constituency.
Eddisbury is geologically unique. It has a salt mine that provides 60% of the salt that keeps our roads clear and the neighbouring constituency has underground gas storage for the UK’s gas reserves. The whole area is riddled with wild and mined brine extraction with large areas of wet rockhead, where water causes the salt to dissolve, which results in subsidence problems and continuously shifting ground.
If the money is to be spent, it needs to be spent properly and needs to ensure those five or six trains to Crewe and a link to Manchester airport in order to deliver for the region. The Minister will shortly receive further information in the form of an expert report, which will highlight some of the engineering issues that will be faced on the route currently proposed through Eddisbury. At present, HS2 has no baseline figures in terms of subsidence. It is not undertaking ground movement assessments in the area using the most up-to-date InSAR satellite imaging technology. If the Government are not to incur vastly increased costs, it is vital that a baseline is established and that ongoing ground movement monitoring is carried out in order to understand the seismicity of the area and its vulnerabilities.
In terms of supporting the line itself, 100-metre-deep pilings might be needed, running through salt. That would be a unique engineering project for Eddisbury’s particular geology. I would urge the Minister to cost that section of the route carefully and examine, with the very strict Treasury criteria, whether value could be achieved by aligning the route elsewhere, which might deliver a better outcome for Cheshire as a whole as well as deliver the kind of economic benefits that the local enterprise partnership has talked about.
I know time is short and I want to move on to compensation for my residents. At the moment, the announcement on phase 2b of HS2 has been considerably delayed. That has substantially disadvantaged residents, who are currently able only to access compensation through the exceptional hardship scheme, rather than the need-to-sell scheme. The need-to-sell scheme only requires applicants to show unreasonable burden. It is not fair for residents on phase 2b to have a less fair scheme when it is no fault of their own that the route announcement has been delayed. Is the Minister prepared to say today that the need-to-sell scheme could be extended to those residents of Eddisbury affected by the route issues?
HS2 could bring huge benefits, but it has to bring those benefits in a way that includes a proper cost-benefit analysis. Where the evidence shows that the routing may not be appropriate and accurate, the arguments made by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) for appropriate stops locally at Crewe, and the establishment of the hub-and-spoke system and proper investment for the station, can only be done if consideration is given to where savings can be made on the route on the Treasury costings. In the meantime, some of my residents are affected by blight. Bearing in mind that those residents are relatively small in number at present, I would ask that the Government consider extending the need-to-sell scheme to them immediately. There is much more I could say, but I shall write to the Minister to outline my further arguments.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I have always been a supporter of greater investment in our railway network and, as someone who was on the HS2 Bill Committee, examining the Bill line-by-line, I remain convinced that bringing high-speed rail to the UK is essential. Therefore, it is a pleasure to be in this debate under your chairmanship today, Mr Owen.
We have got to secure greater capacity on our railway network—it really is as simple as that. Demand on our railways has exploded over recent years. Total passenger journeys have more than doubled—from 735 million in 1995 to 1.5 billion journeys in 2013. By 2026, peak demand is projected to hit 250% of capacity at Euston, 200% of capacity at Birmingham New Street and 175% of capacity at Manchester Piccadilly. The west coast main line will be full by 2024. During morning peak-time services, around 3,000 passengers arrive standing into London Euston or Birmingham each day, unable to get a seat despite paying the full fare. These are journeys not of 10 or 20 minutes but of up to two hours or more from Manchester. My wife once had to sit on the floor outside the toilet from London to Manchester when she was eight months pregnant, with a small toddler in tow—
Jonathan Reynolds
I believe many people have experienced similar problems on the network. This is not what should be offered by a 21st century rail service in the fifth richest country in the world.
The increase in capacity offered by HS2 is warmly welcomed. I recognise that we should be open to conversations about how we might change the design, and different parts of the country will need to put their case for how they see or want to see the benefits manifest themselves in their areas. I myself wanted HS2 to begin construction in the north, from Manchester heading down. Many colleagues have made that case. A compelling case was made by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on how it could be altered to improve the service for his area. It is important to say that the phase 1 plans in the hybrid Bill will be quite transformative, because separating out long-distance passenger traffic from freight and local services will allow more services across the board. When we talk about HS2, that should always be borne in mind—the benefits are not just from the new capacity of the HS2 line, but also from the additional benefits that come from freeing up the existing capacity and infrastructure.
I find the two most common complaints I hear about HS2 to be without foundation. The first is that HS2 will simply be a rich man’s railway. That is incoherent. The laws of supply and demand tell us that, if we do not build more capacity, prices will have to rise as an ever greater number of people chase a limited number of seats on the trains. I see HS2 being built as a way to keep fares down.
The second criticism that we often hear is that the new line should be built not with high-speed technology but with standard technology. Again, that does not add up. A new rail line built to traditional speeds would still incur about 90% of the costs of HS2 but offer only a fraction of the capacity that HS2 would provide. I believe this is the right project.
If we really want to make real the Government’s former rhetoric—I do not know whether it is still the policy—about the northern powerhouse and devolution, infrastructure and investment outside of London has got to come with it. We cannot attract the global companies and the long-term investment into the north-west and Yorkshire that we all want to see unless we can give people some certainty that we will address the chronic underinvestment in infrastructure in the regions outside London. I see HS2 as integral to that. It is about jobs, growth and connectivity, about better wages, better career paths and better homes. It is about bringing London and Manchester closer together and giving hard-pressed Londoners a chance to spend more time in the UK’s greatest city. The HS2 stations at Manchester airport and Manchester city centre are about making Greater Manchester a nexus for domestic, European and global travel, and I like the look of that a great deal.
Jason McCartney
I rise as a Yorkshire Member. This is relevant. I thank the hon. Gentleman for talking about capacity. It is not about speed. Does he agree that, at a time when the Government are making big infrastructure decisions on Hinkley, Crossrail and airport expansion, it is really important that we win the hearts and minds in the north of England, by showing that this will not only benefit Leeds and Manchester? It will also benefit our towns—Chester, Stalybridge, Huddersfield, Halifax and Burnley—and it will create quality jobs and apprenticeships in the north of our nation.
Jonathan Reynolds
I endorse that wholeheartedly, and not just because we share a train line between our constituencies, allowing easy access between the two. This is about how the economy works outside of London and where the investment goes. It is about job opportunities, career paths and the lives that can radiate from that kind of investment.
We have never got this right as a country before. We never thought as we needed to about what to do when we saw the de-industrialisation of the ’80s and the changes in the way that people live and work in the areas those of us here represent. It needs this kind of ambition. People talk about the costs of these projects, but they always will be expensive in a country with our land values and distribution of population. It will be difficult, in cost terms, to deliver, but it is the right thing to do.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the north of England has suffered because 90% of capital expenditure on transport has gone to the south-east? To put his point very bluntly, should we not ensure that HS2 all the way to Leeds and Manchester is not behind Crossrail 2 in the queue for capital investment?
Jonathan Reynolds
Unsurprisingly, I entirely endorse that message. This has to be the priority for the country, because it is a national project. Other very useful transport infrastructure projects do not have the same benefits for the whole of the country. When talking about projects of this kind, we, and the Front Benchers in particular, have got to scrutinise the costs. We have got to ensure that the powers and resources to deliver the projects are proportionate and that the people who are affected by the building of the line are taken into consideration. Above all, we have to be unequivocal that this country needs to make this kind of investment if we are to make our economy work better and improve our constituents’ lives and career paths. I welcome every opportunity to debate this project, but we must always talk about improving it and about the rightness of making this kind of infrastructure investment, because that is what our constituencies need and our constituents want.
Several hon. Members rose—
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
Order. Three Members have indicated that they want to speak. If they take five minutes each, that would be great.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) for securing this excellent and timely debate. I believe that this project has cross-party support from those of us from the north-west and the north generally. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) made an excellent speech, and I agree with every word of it. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) made the point that 90% of infrastructure investment in the UK goes to London and the south-east. Collectively, we have to ensure that the north, and the north-west in particular, gets its fair share. He is a man from the north-east. If I were from the north-east, I would be jumping up and down, because it gets a tiny percentage of investment in all infrastructure, not just rail infrastructure.
Since I was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2010, most of us have agreed with High Speed 2, but we still have to fight for it. We have only to look at the media in the south-east. I always find it interesting that the London news—the 6 o’clock news and the 10 o’clock news—calls high-speed rail a white elephant for some reason, but Crossrail 2, which costs £17 billion, does not seem to be an issue. Various infrastructure projects are going on in the south-east, but there seems to be an issue with infrastructure investment elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
If high-speed rail is a white elephant—if it does not provide value for money and if the costs are escalating—it should not go ahead, as I do not agree with wasting taxpayers’ money, but I do not believe it is. I believe it is exactly the right thing to do for the country, for the north-west, for greater Cheshire and for the constituents of Weaver Vale, which is, as hon. Members know, the gateway to the northern powerhouse. It is a vital infrastructure project.
The volume of traffic in all areas has increased beyond recognition in the past few decades. Some 317 billion miles were travelled on the roads in 2015-16, and 62 billion miles were travelled by rail passengers. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde talked about his wife sitting on the floor on a Pendolino. Those of us who travel from this place of an evening—even on a Wednesday evening, but particularly on Thursdays and Fridays—are very familiar with standing room only on the west coast main line trains from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly.
In terms of people served, the west coast main line is the most important rail network in Britain. Some 40% of all freight trains use it at some point in their journey. Demand on the line from both freight and passenger traffic is expected to grow substantially. High Speed 2 would release that capacity and enable freight to get off the roads. It is no surprise that the Victorian rail infrastructure that serves much of the north-west is incompatible with the growing demand. The antiquated trains on the railway infrastructure of the mid-Cheshire line from Chester into Stockport and Manchester are trundling along at the same speed that they did when the Victorians built the line more than 150 years ago.
The hon. Member for City of Chester said that it is very hard for business in Chester to recruit quality staff from elsewhere in the region because the commute takes too long. That is a barrier to growth in Chester.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend endorse the North Wales and Mersey Dee Rail Task Force growth track 360 campaign, which seeks to ensure journey times of under one hour within the north Wales, Cheshire and Wirral region, as well as faster links to London, to counteract the economic underperformance of the region by connecting people to jobs and business to customers, and reducing our overdependence on a congested road network?
Graham Evans
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend raises an important point. High Speed 2 is not just about Cheshire and the north-west region. It is about another country and the north Wales economy. He is exactly right. The Mersey Dee Alliance is a good alliance, and I am very pleased, as he is, to be part of it. It is about looking at this together, because enterprise zones do not recognise borders, and those of us representing Cheshire will benefit from the cross-border activity. It is very important that the rail infrastructure travels along north Wales and Anglesey to the markets of Ireland.
It would be a mistake to look at High Speed 2 as a stand-alone project. Over the next five years, three times the amount that is spent on High Speed 2 will be spent on roads, railways and other forms of transport. It is really important to ensure that High Speed 2 and the expenditure on other transport in the north-west complement each other so the connectivity that High Speed 2 brings is enhanced throughout the north-west, spreading the benefits. Trying to get from Northwich to Widnes and Runcorn is a nightmare. It is virtually impossible. Passengers trundle into Stockport, and then trundle along over to Widnes and into Liverpool. Increasing capacity on rail networks will potentially remove an estimated 10 million vehicles from UK roads, significantly relieving the pressure on busy sections of roads, such as the M56 in my constituency, which the hon. Member for City of Chester could not resist mentioning. We are all as one on the M56’s issues.
We have only to look at another French town, Lille, whose economy has flourished as a result of the connectivity of high-speed rail and the connection to the HS1 line, to see the potential that High Speed 2 can bring to north-west hubs such as Crewe. Those areas of France have been transformed. Around the station in Lille, investment has increased significantly, and new offices, hotels, a retail centre and a conference centre are all being developed. The Euralille complex, situated between the two Lille stations, has emerged as the third largest business centre in France. That highlights the real opportunity for Cheshire and its towns. Lille highlights how forward vision and connectivity together can be a radical catalyst for growth in any modern city.
Connectivity between our cities is vital for the development of the northern powerhouse and the rebalancing of our economy. North-west businesses will have better access to specialised services, a larger workforce and greater opportunities to offer their services to the capital. Likewise, shorter journey times are vital for business-related journeys, and connections with London alone could bring £4 billion of benefits to the north-west. Over the next few decades, High Speed 2 will play a fundamental role in reshaping our economy. Some 70% of jobs created by High Speed 2 are forecast to be outside London. I am sure all hon. Members will agree that we want those jobs in the north of England and Scotland.
We must look at High Speed 2 not in isolation but as part of an overall strategy for improving connectivity throughout the north-west. We must take steps to ensure that spending on other areas of transport infrastructure is, as much as possible, complementary to the High Speed 2 network so we can replicate Lille’s success at hubs such as Crewe in the north-west of England.
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
I hope that the trains are more on time than the hon. Gentleman’s five-minute speech.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I praise my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) for securing this timely debate. I have the most visited constituency in the north-west of England—in fact, 25 million people have visited it in the past 12 months. Hon. Members have probably guessed that Manchester airport is on my southern boundary, but that makes the issue very relevant to us.
Daniel Adamson, a Mancunian entrepreneur and engineer, coined the term “northern powerhouse” in 1860 when he built the Manchester ship canal. He wanted to create a continuous economic region from the estuary of the Mersey to the banks of the Humber estuary. We are focusing on HS2 and its impact—an impact like the ship canal had more than a century ago.
HS2 will drive growth in the north, as other Members have said, and help free up capacity, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) said. The west coast main line will be full by 2024. We need the extra capacity, but we also need a station at Manchester airport. That will be critical to ensuring that the benefits of the project are felt beyond Manchester as a whole, in the wider catchment areas. Any measures that help to reduce journey times and free up capacity on the existing network, enabling more places across the north to be connected to Manchester airport, will be most welcome.
One of the most important features of HS2 and a station at Manchester airport is the potential for wider rail network improvements. A connected network would potentially deliver truly transformational benefits for the north. Connectivity to and from Manchester airport is a key factor for airlines when they think about introducing new long-haul routes. With the current rail access, 3.5 million people are within a two-hour catchment area of Manchester airport using public transport, compared with 11 million and 12 million for Gatwick and Heathrow respectively. Currently, the only city that can be reached by rail from Manchester airport in 30 minutes is Manchester. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) alluded to, that situation exists following decades of Governments of both parties spending 90% of infrastructure investment on the south and the south-east.
I mentioned the transformational nature of a connected network. The current journey time from Manchester airport to Euston is two hours and 24 minutes. That will be revolutionised; it will come down to 59 minutes. If we do this right, it will open up whole new markets, from Hull to Liverpool, Chester and north Wales.
Let us look at the growth of comparator European airports and cities. Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport has a smaller immediate population than Greater Manchester, yet successfully draws a higher proportion of its passengers from further afield. That is supported by rail journeys around 30% quicker than those between Manchester and the likes of Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield. From Manchester airport, it currently takes 65 minutes to get to Liverpool and 73 minutes to get to Sheffield. If we introduced HS2 and HS3, those journeys would be reduced to 30 minutes. To get from Manchester airport to Leeds, it would take 10 minutes to get to Manchester city centre and another 30 minutes to get to Leeds—40 minutes in total. We would be linking three major airport hubs at Speke, Manchester and Leeds-Bradford, all for the cost of one Crossrail project—it would be the same length—and creating unheard-of runway capacity across the north.
We estimate that with the right rail improvements that opened up the catchment area and gave airlines access to more passenger demand, 20 to 30 new long-haul routes from Manchester airport would be made viable. I would like the Minister to respond to those points, and possibly pledge to follow through and ensure that the design and delivery of the HS2 works goes hand in hand with the delivery of a true east-west link as part of wider rail network improvements, and that both schemes are delivered at the earliest possible opportunity so that we can derive maximum benefit and close the north-south productivity gap as soon as possible. We are focused on Heathrow—we will be for weeks, months and years ahead—but we will get more bang for our buck in GDP as a country and an economy by investing in our northern infrastructure than we ever will by investing in runway 3 at Heathrow.
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
Order. I call Mary Robinson to conclude the Back-Bench contributions. I will call the Scottish National party spokesman at 10 past 5 at the latest.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen, and to see Members from both sides of the Chamber present for this important debate about HS2. I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on securing it.
I am conscious of time, but I rise to speak about how this ambitious project will bring prosperity and jobs to my region, Greater Manchester. High Speed 2 will sweep into the north, with phase 2a to Crewe scheduled to open in 2027 and the delivery of phase 2b marked for completion in 2033. HS2 is the UK’s largest infrastructure project. It is critical to genuinely transforming connectivity across the region and rebalancing the UK economy. Now more than ever, I believe that it is vital that we modernise our railways.
I was pleased that the Minister was able to attend the debate that I secured in the previous Session on transport infrastructure in south Manchester. Although I was unable to dedicate as much time in that debate to high-speed rail as it was due, I welcomed the fact that he noted the importance of a regional hub at Manchester airport. The HS2 station at Manchester airport will reach close to my constituency of Cheadle and offer substantial further scope for jobs and productivity growth. It will maximise the airport’s potential and recognise its capacity to grow and handle up to 55 million passengers per annum. Manchester airport employs 20,000 people, many of whom live in my constituency, and contributes £1.8 billion annually to the economy. The £1 billion transformation plan to develop the airport through the airport city enterprise zone promises more jobs and wealth creation. That hub is vital to supporting development and key to regional prosperity and delivering the northern powerhouse.
One of the most important features of HS2, with a station at Manchester airport, is the potential for it to form part of a wider northern powerhouse rail network, as the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) mentioned. Such a connected network has the potential to deliver truly transformational benefits for the north. With the current rail access to Manchester airport, the population within a two-hour catchment area using public transport stands at only around 3.5 million, compared with 11 million and 12 million at Gatwick and Heathrow respectively. Manchester is the only city that can be reached by rail in 30 minutes. It is critical that we get the Manchester airport hub and that the design and delivery of HS2 works hand in hand with the design and delivery of a true east-west link across the north as part of the wider NPR network. Both schemes should be delivered at the earliest opportunity, so that we can derive the maximum benefit and close the north-south productivity gap.
I look forward to the legislation for phase 1 being brought forward later this year. Although I appreciate that delivery timetables have been extended to allow time for the petitions process, I urge the Government to take steps to prevent further delays to the opening of the first step of HS2. We need to talk not about whether HS2 will bring economic benefits, but about how great those benefits will be and how that investment can be spread across the north-west so that the benefits of a transformed rail network can be shared by everyone.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on securing the debate. My job of summing up for the SNP may have been slightly easier if the motion did not say “north-west of England” but stopped at just “north-west”. I noted that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) said that he agreed with every word that the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) had said. That may be a first, and it says a lot about the quality of the debate.
I agree that HS2 should be not just about connecting London, Birmingham and Manchester. It must be much more strategic than that. We have heard about east-west connectivity, and the hon. Member for City of Chester mentioned connectivity onwards north to Scotland, which must happen. There has been a bit of a theme among all the contributions: the economic benefits that arise from the expenditure on this big project, not just the cost burden, must be spread across the whole of the UK.
The call for a hub at Crewe makes absolute sense. That seems critical to connectivity between the regions and nations of the UK. I also agree that the project must be future-proof. I am concerned that under the current HS2 arrangements the classic compatible trains that will be purchased to run on the network will actually run slower on the west coast main line north of Crewe than trains do at present. People will get to Crewe having had a quicker journey time, but then the service north of there will be diminished. That is not acceptable, so I ask the Minister to think about that in the long run.
To pick up on some of the other contributions, the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) almost seemed to make the case against the project, which I found quite surprising, talking about the costs and engineering difficulties. I think there was a wee bit of “not in my back yard” and “we’ll take the benefits, but please build the railway somewhere else.”
Like the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, I was on the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Committee, and I agree with him that HS2 is about capacity. The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) said in an intervention that it is about not speed but capacity, but in my opinion it is about both. If we do not have the right speed, the attraction for passengers will not be there, especially when we look at extending the network north to Scotland. We have aspirations of a three-hour journey time from London, which would really compete with the budget airlines.
I have already said that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale agreed with every word said by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, which was good. The hon. Members for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) and for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) made clear the need for Manchester to be properly connected, with the benefits that it will bring, and the need for the east-west spur.
I apologise for repeating myself, but HS2 must be strategic and connect the entire country. Plans must be taken forward to bring the high-speed network north to Scotland. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said he hoped that the project would start in the north, and he used Manchester as his example of the north. Actually, “north” is further north than Manchester. However, I agree with the sentiment: it would be great to start construction in the north—north of Manchester, perhaps in Glasgow, and bring it right down from there, with the economic benefits being shared by all.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) for securing the debate. He passionately put forward his case on how HS2 can serve the interests of his constituents and the wider north-west. I echo his sentiment that HS2 has Labour’s backing. We welcome infrastructure investment, but part of the case for HS2 that convinced so many was that it was not simply another project designed for the benefit of the south-east but that it would benefit regions across the country.
Crewe is already a gateway station for the north-west, with regional and long-distance connections to the wider north-west, the east midlands and Wales, but there are significant capacity constraints that have an impact on reliability, which has been below industry targets, and there are bottlenecks at Colwich junction and around Stafford. This is also a problem for national freight operators, with much freight traffic on the west coast main line routed through Basford Hall yard, south of Crewe, and 43% of rail freight journeys using the west coast main line at some point.
The phase 2a link will help provide much needed additional capacity for freight and will improve reliability for commuter services, so it should be welcomed that the Government have brought forward the opening of the phase 2a link to 2027 as that will provide benefits to the north-west and beyond. However, it would be disappointing if a Crewe hub were not developed, as the fact that it is already a regional hub provides a springboard for further developing and improving connectivity with conventional rail. The benefits of stopping more trains at Crewe are clear, as expressed in David Higgins’s “HS2 Plus” report.
We welcomed the Government’s decision to accelerate the section of route from the west midlands to Crewe so that it opens six years earlier than planned in 2027, bringing benefits to the north sooner than initially thought, but the primary concerns are the rumours that phases 2a and 2b might be downgraded or delayed as the project increasingly comes under budgetary strain.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)
indicated dissent.
Andy McDonald
I see the Minister shaking his head—he can give me that assurance, then. In the words of the Public Accounts Committee report,
“the cost estimates for phase 2 are still volatile”.
There was a cost estimate from the Department for Transport that was £7 billion over the agreed £28.5 billion funding, and then £9 billion of potential savings were subsequently identified. We know that much of the savings are a result of more detailed and accurate estimates being applied, but the worry is that without a confirmed route and a firm cost estimate, and with budgetary pressures, the planned savings on phase 2 will be delivered by adversely affecting the expected benefits of the programme to the north, including the north-west.
I know the Minister will wish to reassure the House that he intends to preserve the integrity of HS2 to the north, because that will tackle the lack of capacity south of Birmingham and the poor connectivity not just between the region and London but within the north. It is crucial that we ensure that HS2 remains an infrastructure project that delivers for the whole country.
We have seen the uncertainty surrounding the proposed route changes in south Yorkshire. We do not want to see the same uncertainty on the western leg. It has been rumoured that if costs for the existing scheme cannot be brought down, one option under consideration is to delay or abandon altogether the section to Manchester and build the line only as far as Crewe, or to delay the line—an HS2 spokesperson said that the Treasury is taking the position that that nothing is ruled out.
I echo the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester and stress the importance of delivering a hub station at Crewe, which will benefit the sub-region, the north-west and the country as a whole, and of phase 2b, which ought to transform connectivity in the north and through the country. It would be disastrous for the north-west and make a mockery of the so-called northern powerhouse if phase 2 were to be downgraded.
We eagerly await the Government’s proposals for HS2 phase 2, but whatever the forthcoming route proposals, they must ensure that HS2 is an infrastructure project that delivers for the whole country. I hope the Minister can provide reassurances to that effect.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on securing this debate on HS2 connectivity in the north-west. He represents a beautiful city—one of the many places in the north-west that really stands to benefit from HS2. It has been great to hear the appetite for the scheme from across the Chamber.
HS2 will become the backbone of our national rail network. It will be a key part of building a transport system and economy that works for all. It will increase rail capacity and improve connectivity, and people will not need to travel on HS2 to benefit from it. By providing new fast lines for inter-city services, HS2 will free up space on our existing railway network for new commuter, regional and freight services. We are already starting to see the benefits of the scheme in the form of jobs and skills, which are being created now.
HS2 is working with businesses across the UK, including many small and medium-sized firms, to ensure that they are well prepared to bid for contracts and reap its benefits. Construction alone will generate about 25,000 jobs and 2,000 apprenticeships. A supplier roadshow has travelled the UK, highlighting the range of commercial opportunities that the construction schemes will present, encouraging companies from all over the UK to consider tendering for some of the work. I attended the last one, which was up in Aberdeen, which highlighted to the engineering businesses in the area who have perhaps developed great skills through the oil sector that HS2 presents opportunities for them.
HS2 is not just about serving a few destinations—that phrase was heard across the House. It is not just that; HS2 services will also run on to the existing network, serving destinations in the north-west and indeed those going as far as Scotland. Interchange with conventional rail will also be key in allowing places far beyond the network to benefit. Last year we decided to take the HS2 route via Crewe and to open the route to Crewe in 2027. The journey time between Crewe and London will be just 55 minutes—that is 35 minutes faster than today. Passengers interchanging at Crewe, for example from Chester or north Wales, will also be able to take advantage.
Sir David Higgins recognised the opportunity that Crewe presents for the region. He recommended a north-west hub at Crewe to integrate regional and high-speed rail. It is a sensible idea; Crewe already is a hub. It has rail services to London, Birmingham, Shrewsbury, south Wales, Stoke, Derby, Manchester, Liverpool, Scotland and, of course, north Wales and Chester. It is also well connected to major A roads and the M6.
The Government are developing options for Crewe and we expect to provide an update on the scheme later this year as part of our planned announcement on phase 2b. I will talk a little bit more about the timing later. The hon. Member for City of Chester has clearly put across the local ambition for high-frequency HS2 services at Crewe and for the increased frequency of conventional services between Crewe and Chester. I understand that local ambition. I have made the case for my own constituency as well, as indeed have many hon. Members. We are already investing in connectivity in the region, and we only have to look at the working taking place at the Halton curve to see that. We are looking at what HS2 connectivity could be provided at Crewe to benefit the whole region.
I have to say that it is too early to lock down the service proposition at this stage. We need to understand what is possible and what benefits could be delivered, but options need to be left open so that services meet the demands and priorities of the 2020s and beyond. I also have to say that we have to think about affordability. We have incredibly ambitious rail investment programmes and there are priorities for investment across the network.
Christian Matheson
Does the Minister accept that the opportunities for the 2020s and beyond will actually be created by getting the service level for HS2 right?
Andrew Jones
I have absolutely no doubt that when we consider those services we are all thinking ahead. I entirely buy the argument that transport investment is a driver of economic growth and, indeed, social progress—whichever mode of transport we are talking about. The Government are not buying trains because we like trains; we are buying them because they facilitate economic growth. That is the same with buses and social progress.
Taking HS2 to Crewe will play an important part in turning the town around. It is already a hub and it is also a town that is in need of investment, but HS2 is not a silver bullet in itself. We need to ensure that HS2 drives regeneration, not only in the places that it serves directly but far more widely. For the economic growth benefits of HS2 to be realised and to spread, local partners have an important role to play.
It is fantastic to see the north-west making such excellent progress in its plans for the region. The northern gateway partnership is already developing its growth strategy. That work, which is aiming to deliver around 100,000 homes and 120,000 jobs, will ensure the regeneration benefits of HS2 are felt right across the region. I have met with the combined authority, Transport for Greater Manchester, on a number of occasions, and I have done the same with the west midlands. It has been fantastic to see the ambition that those areas have for regeneration, recognising that, when HS2 arrives, it will present them with significant opportunities.
Andy McDonald
The Minister said it is too early to “lock down” the level of service, but he will undoubtedly appreciate that, if we cannot establish a bare minimum level of service, this becomes a rather pointless and redundant exercise. If he is not able to do that now, will he give some indication of when he will be able to give a little bit more detail about the basic minimum level of service we have been discussing this afternoon?
Andrew Jones
I will come on to timing a little later on. I turn to the matter of the north Wales main line and the work that is being carried out by the North Wales and Mersey Dee rail task force. I welcome its establishment and it is doing a good job of making the case for rail modernisation in north Wales and of developing wider growth plans for the region. This is an opportunity for north Wales to make the best case for investment in rail infrastructure and services. It is vital that a shared local vision is brought together with a defined set of prioritised outcomes based on economic growth, journey times, connectivity and modal shift. We will continue to work closely with that taskforce and with the Welsh Government to provide advice and assistance and to consider what can be jointly accomplished. We want the taskforce to advise us effectively on options for enhancements, including electrification, to address the regional economic needs and, of course, on the value of those options.
Many hon. Members have commented today. I will first respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), who has raised concerns with me previously regarding the route north of Crewe, given the ground instability problems associated with the route crossing the Cheshire saltfield. I have been down that salt mine as part of looking at the winter preparations for the road network last year. I have to say it was a very interesting place to visit. I am aware of the scale of this enormous undertaking and I reassure my hon. Friend and other hon. Members that we are not ignoring that risk. HS2 Ltd has carried out surveys to better understand the geological issues in Cheshire and has commissioned further studies from third-party organisations. We are looking at a range of options in that area.
At this stage, I cannot provide any further information about where that part of the route will run. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will make an announcement on that during the autumn. My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury also made a further point about blight for residents affected by the potential routes. I will look at those cases with every sympathy, and I know she will write to me so I will look out for her letter.
I thoroughly agree with the points made by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) on transport being a driver of economic growth, on how capacity is necessary and on how, looking not too far ahead, we will have a rail network that is full, which is something we have discussed previously. He will not be surprised that we are in further agreement. To my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), I say this is not a white elephant: it is a scheme that is a fundamental and critical part of our national infrastructure and it will happen.
To my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson), I say yes, the debate really has moved on; it is not if but when this happens. The debate we should be having is on how we maximise the benefits that will flow from HS2 when it arrives. To the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), I say that I completely recognise that Manchester airport is thoroughly important, not just for Manchester but for the whole of the north of England with its power to connect it. I can also confirm that we are developing plans for HS3 alongside HS2; they are not separate schemes being developed in isolation. We are looking at integration of the two.
I can confirm that we have had absolutely no loss of ambition. I will run through some timing: on phase 1, we hope the Bill will complete its passage through the Lords very soon and we hope to start the build in the spring. The necessary work to prepare the Bill for phase 2a is underway and we intend for it to start its parliamentary journey next year. On phase 2b, the Government will announce our proposed route from Crewe to Manchester and from Birmingham to Leeds, south Yorkshire and the east midlands later this year. That will be an important moment and will begin to make the project far more tangible.
This is a project that is from the UK and for the UK. It is all about national benefits, including extra capacity on the network and developing skills, and companies from right across the UK will be able to benefit from the significant amount of work required. We view this as a critical part of our national infrastructure and of building a transport network and an economy that works for all. We have had a positive debate today. Though it has been focused on the north-west—and it is clearly right that this presents a huge opportunity for the north-west, for the city of Chester and for the whole region—it is a national project and we have to view it in that way.
Jason McCartney
Will the Minister confirm that in November the Secretary of State for Transport will confirm the phase 2b route, from Birmingham to Crewe, up to Manchester and also the Yorkshire leg?
Andrew Jones
I can confirm that we will announce the Yorkshire leg. I do not know when the Secretary of State will announce it, but I can confirm that we will be announcing the full “Y” route—that is the Yorkshire leg and the Manchester leg.
Andrew Jones
This autumn; that is exactly right. This is a major undertaking for our country but it is an essential one. I emphasise one further point with my last comment: this project is one that central and local Government, and both the public and private sectors, have to come together to deliver. If we all come together to deliver this project we will maximise the benefits, both in transport and regeneration, and our whole country will benefit from that.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered HS2 in the North West of England.
Written Statements
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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ECOFIN: 9-10 September 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)
An informal meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council was held in Bratislava on 9-10 September 2016. The Government are committed to leaving the European Union; in the interim, they continue to participate fully in ECOFIN meetings. EU Finance Ministers discussed the following items:
Future economic policies in the EU
Ministers discussed the EU’s current economic policy framework and whether further systemic reforms are needed. Presentations were provided by former Italian Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mario Monti and former Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg.
Deepening Economic Monetary Union (EMU)—fiscal pillar
An orientation discussion was held on proposals for a euro area fiscal capacity, assisted by Guntram Wolff of Bruegel, Vitor Gasper of the IMF, and Danial Gros of the Centre for European Policy Studies.
Taxation—current issues: improving tax certainty and fighting BEPS, tax crime and terrorism
Ministers exchanged views on measures to address tax avoidance, tax evasion and tax crime and counter-terrorist financing. Presentations were given by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria and State Secretary of the Slovak Finance Ministry Dana Meager.
Investment plan for Europe
The Council discussed the progress of the first two pillars of the investment plan for Europe; the European fund for strategic investment (EFSI) and European investment and advisory Hub. EIB President Werner Hoyer and EFSI managing director Wilhelm Molterer reported on the first year’s functioning of EFSI and the Hub.
[HCWS176]
ECOFIN: 11 October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
A meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) will be held in Luxembourg on 11 October 2016. The Government are committed to leaving the European Union; in the interim, they continue to participate fully in ECOFIN meetings. EU Finance Ministers are due to discuss the following items:
Opening session
Ministers will be briefed on outcomes of the 10 October meeting of the Eurogroup and the Commission will present an update on the current economic situation. Ministers will also discuss issues relating to the improvement and implementation of the stability and growth pact (SGP), hold an exchange of views on proposals for a European fund for sustainable development (EFSD), and hear a presentation from the European systemic risk board (ESRB) on the residential real estate sector.
Current financial services legislative proposals
The Council presidency will provide an update on current legislative proposals in the field of financial services.
Fight against fraud
The Council presidency and Commission will provide information on VAT-related aspects of the draft directive on the fight against fraud affecting the Union’s financial interests by means of criminal law—PIF directive.
Banking union
Ministers are to discuss the current state of play on the implementation of banking union within the eurozone.
G20 and IMF meetings
Council will follow up on the G20 and IMF meetings which took place in Washington on 6-9 October 2016. The presidency and Commission will provide information on the outcomes.
Climate finance
Ministers will discuss preparations for the 22nd conference of parties to the United Nations framework convention on climate change—UNFCCC—in Marrakesh, 7-18 November 2016, including adoption of draft European Council conclusions.
European semester 2016—lessons learnt
Ministers will exchange views on key challenges and lessons learnt and the way forward for the European semester.
Joint report on health systems and fiscal sustainability
A presentation will be given by the Commission on the joint Commission-EPC report of the health systems and fiscal sustainability. This will be followed by an exchange of views.
Other business—the Basel Committee’s banking reform agenda
The Commission will provide an update on the state of play in ongoing Basel negotiations.
[HCWS177]
Long Service and Good Conduct Medal
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Sir Michael Fallon)
I am today announcing that with effect from 29 July 2014, the long service and good conduct medal will be made available to officers who have served 15 years clear of any disciplinary entry on their service record. This meets the intention set out in a written statement which was tabled in the House of Lords at the conclusion of Sir John Holmes’ review of military medals by The Lord Privy Seal (Official Record:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ ld201415/ldhansard/text/140729-wms0001.htm#14072935000018).
The extension of the long service and good conduct medal to officers means that all currently serving members of the regular armed forces, who have 15 years’ service clear of any disciplinary entries on their service record will have that service recognised.
I am also announcing that the clasp to the medal will be awarded for every further period of 10 years served, again where their service records is clear of any disciplinary entries.
Finally, I am announcing that there will no longer be a permanent bar to anyone receiving the medal. This will ensure that everyone who commits themselves to our armed forces for a significant period will have that commitment recognised.
Tracing its history back to 1830, the long service and good conduct medal is the oldest medal still being awarded to our service personnel. It is therefore right to make these changes and to be able more fully to recognise those who commit themselves to a career serving our country in the armed forces.
[HCWS175]
House of Lords
Introduction: Baroness Sugg
Introduction: Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice
Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people still serving sentences of imprisonment for public protection have been detained for longer than the maximum term of imprisonment otherwise statutorily prescribed for their offence, and what plans they have for the release of those people.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
The required detailed data are not routinely collected. However, an exercise to estimate the number of current prisoners sentenced to an IPP who have served beyond the maximum term available for their offence indicates that there are around 200 such prisoners. The independent Parole Board directs the release of a prisoner serving an IPP sentence who has completed his tariff only when it is no longer necessary on the grounds of public protection for the prisoner to be detained.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
I am grateful to the Minister for that somewhat sobering Answer. Given that statistic, given that the whole IPP scheme was abolished four years ago in 2012 as being inherently unjust, given that there are 600 to 700 prisoners serving years beyond their tariff terms—sometimes eight to 10 times as long—given that more than half of IPP prisoners self-harm, and given the recent excoriation of the system by an ex-Lord Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke, in a radio programme as being a “stain” on the system and its condemnation by the three last Lord Chief Justices, does the Minister agree that it is high time that steps were taken to bring this continuing scandal to an end?
Lord Keen of Elie
Steps are being taken to reduce the population of IPP prisoners. Indeed, in the last year the largest number did in fact qualify for release. The parole service carries out independent examinations for this purpose, and where IPP prisoners fail to respond at these parole hearings the National Offender Management Service has now brought in psychologists and policy experts to undertake a central case review of those IPP prisoners, in the hope that they can complete their tariffs and then progress to open conditions.
Lord Trefgarne (Con)
My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware that concern about this matter is not confined to noble and learned Lords? A number of us feel as strongly as the retired judges and others do on this matter. I hope he can do better next time.
Lord Keen of Elie
I am obliged to my noble friend. The significant majority of IPP prisoners will actually never reach the point of serving more than the statutory maximum penalty because the very large majority have already been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Baroness Corston (Lab)
The Minister referred to a number of prisoners who qualified for release. How many of them have been released?
Lord Keen of Elie
In the past year, 512 have been released into open conditions.
Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, as the Minister who saw the abolition of IPPs through this House, can I assure the Minister that it was the wish of Parliament at that time to see an end to IPPs? His replies today show the same immobility which so frustrated me as a Minister. There will be IPP prisoners well into the next decade unless Ministers and the Parole Board take advice from those informed with a welter of information. With his reputation, I ask the Minister to take a close look at some of the facts he has given to the House today, because he will find that they mask the fact that many thousands of prisoners will remain under these schemes long after Parliament intended them to end. The reason why so many distinguished lawyers now call for this to end is that it is not only an injustice to the individual but is now doing real, serious damage to our criminal justice system.
Lord Keen of Elie
The facts are the facts. There is mobility and we are moving in the right direction. There is an increasing reduction in the number of IPP prisoners who are held. Let us remember that the test is whether these prisoners will represent a high or very high risk of serious harm to others when they leave prison. There is a necessary balancing act between the interests of society as a whole and the very great problem which these dangerous prisoners present. We are conscious of that and have provided further resources to the Parole Board. In light of the Osborn decision in the Supreme Court, we have taken forward the requirement for oral hearings, and we are doing everything in our power to ensure that this prison population is reduced. Let me add one further point. In 2012, when the IPP sentence was abolished, there were put in its place some seriously increased sentences for dangerous offenders, including the extended determinate sentence. If those sentences had been applied to this present cohort, it is not easy to say that they would be released in the foreseeable future.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for the Question and to the Minister for his responses so far. May I ground it in the particular case of a prisoner I met in HMP Onley a few months ago? A young man who had engaged fully with prison training programmes preparing him for release was on the way to a qualification through a well-known cycle and auto repair business, which runs a workshop in that prison, yet there was no assurance as to when or indeed whether he would be released. It is important that such prisoners have the incentive to engage with programmes like that young man had—I commended him for that. Is the Minister able to offer hope to such a prisoner?
Lord Keen of Elie
I am obliged to the right reverend Prelate. There is hope for such prisoners. Indeed, the very prisoners who engage in that sort of programme and work their way towards a successful hearing before the Parole Board often have only one such hearing before they are able to move to open conditions.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, as the Home Secretary who introduced the Criminal Justice Act 2003, I am painfully aware of the flaws in the original implementation of IPP, although it has to be said that judges provided the sentences, not Ministers. This issue needs dealing with, but it is not confined to IPP prisoners. David McCauliffe, who has been in prison for 26 years, was sentenced to an eight-year term. He remains in jail because the Parole Board feels that releasing him is inappropriate and would be dangerous. However, the emotional and therapeutic requirements and the necessary courses to put things right are crucial here, not just whether we got it wrong 13 years ago.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
We entirely endorse the idea that now we have this cohort of prisoners within the prison population, it is necessary to develop programmes that take them closer to the opportunity of open conditions and ultimate release. But we have to bear in mind that these sentences were imposed on those who have been convicted of serious violent or sexual offences, and the safety of society has to be paramount in our minds.
Airports: London
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Spicer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will publish their decision about additional runways for London airports.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are absolutely committed to delivering the infrastructure projects the country needs, including delivering runway capacity on the timetable set out by the Airports Commission. It is vitally important we get the decision right. As noble Lords will know, the Government commissioned extra work looking at the three options shortlisted by the commission. Ministers are carefully considering all the evidence, and will be in a position to announce a preferred scheme shortly.
Lord Spicer (Con)
It sounds as though we are getting closer. Would it not be wonderful if this were the last time I asked the same Question about a third runway at Heathrow? Would it not be even more wonderful if it were the last time I got the same answer?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I agree with the sentiments my noble friend expresses.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, last time I asked my noble friend this question he said that “shortly” would be “soon”. Is it any sooner?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I suspected this question might come up, so I have been thumbing through my thesaurus, which is quite well read. All I can say is that perhaps “shortly” will also mean “imminently”.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, what is the current status of the Conservative Party pledge in 2009: no ifs, no buts, no third runway at Heathrow?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As the noble Lord is aware, the previous Prime Minister made that statement when he was looking at a very different proposition. Since then, as the noble Lord is also aware, the commission has reported and presented three viable options. The Government will be looking to make a call on south-east capacity shortly.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister give consideration, apart from all this metropolitan stuff, to the interests of regional airports in this country, particularly Birmingham, which, when we have HS2, will be as close to London as is Heathrow or Gatwick? This is the sort of thing that is stalking up and it is likely to be ready before the runaway at Heathrow.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Lord raises an important issue about regional connectivity and regional airports. I had the opportunity to visit Birmingham last week and I saw its plans. The noble Lord is quite right that, once HS2 has been built, it will take 30-odd minutes to go from London Euston to Birmingham. That underlines the importance of ensuring that our national infrastructure supports the general infrastructure of aviation. The regional connectivity of airports will be in my review of the airport policy framework.
Lord Clinton-Davis (Lab)
How long have the Government and others had to make up their minds about London’s additional runways? Does the Minister believe that it is possible for some sort of decision to be advanced rather than, as I fear it will be, regarded as something that can be withdrawn?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Lord raises the important issue that a decision needs to be made. I assure your Lordships’ House that the Government are looking to make that decision. They also fully appreciate and understand the importance of making a decision in this respect to ensuring the continuing viability and growth of the British economy.
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, would the Minister confirm whether, in making this decision, the Government will consider the possibility of one of the two Heathrow options and Gatwick? We probably need both of them as, if one of the Heathrow options is chosen, the legal objections might drag on, and at least we would be able to get on with one airport in the meantime. Could the Minister also confirm the rumours that the current Foreign Secretary is going to go back on his promise to lie in front of the bulldozers if Heathrow is chosen and spare damage to the bulldozers?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My right honourable friend has a very important job as Foreign Secretary and is doing a sterling job in that respect. As far as expansion is concerned, the commission reported back on the need to increase capacity by 2030 with the addition of one runway in the south-east, and that is where the Government’s decision is focused.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, HS2 notwithstanding, is the Minister aware that it is currently possible to get from London to London Luton Airport in less than half an hour?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am fully aware of that fact, and the noble Lord will be pleased to learn that I shall be visiting London Luton Airport in the next two weeks, as my next visit since my appointment as the Aviation Minister.
Lord Mawhinney (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend tell us whether, when the Government make their decision shortly, they will take into account the likelihood of legal challenge?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The important issue is that, once the Government have taken a decision, there is a set process to follow for the proposal which is given the green light. A formal process will then be initiated, and we have already agreed that there will be a national development framework through which this will be presented. After that, there will be a development consent order by those who have successfully got the green light for this. During that process, if there are legal challenges to any decision or any element of that, the Government and those who are putting forward the proposal will deal with them according to the planning process which has been determined.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that British industry has almost completed two airports in Rosyth naval base, which will enable people to go around the world and which have been built in less time than the various debates about this runway at Heathrow have taken. Does the Minister not agree that perhaps some more orders to British shipbuilding would be appropriate, considering how well they have done in doing this in such a short time?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I have always been a strong advocate for British shipbuilding, and I will continue to be.
County Court Judgments
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Altmann
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many county court judgments were issued against people who did not put in a defence, and what plans they have to take steps to reduce that number.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
In the financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16, just over 1.48 million county court judgments were issued as default judgments because the defendant had failed to file a defence or to acknowledge the claim. The Ministry of Justice is investigating the number of default judgments made because the defendant did not receive the claim and whether any steps should be taken to reduce that number.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend for his Answer and certainly hope for urgent action. Thousands of people every day have their credit records damaged by county court judgments without a chance to defend themselves and without even knowing anything about it, often by firms operating in NHS hospital car parks or utility companies. Will the Government consider asking courts to require proof that all reasonable efforts have been made to use correct addresses and ensure that any legal action is against the right person before issuing a judgment? Will the Minister also consider imposing penalties on those businesses which repeatedly fail to do so?
Lord Keen of Elie
The rules regarding money claims in the county courts seeks to strike a balance between the rights of creditors quickly to claim and receive money that is owed to them and the right of defendants to be informed of a claim against them. Since the last Labour Government amended the rules in respect of these matters in 2008, the rules have required claimants to take reasonable steps to ascertain the defendant’s current address. Claimants must sign a statement of truth confirming that the details in their claim are true, and this includes the address of the defendant. Anyone deliberately providing false information to the court faces prosecution.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness’s Question raises an issue about so-called enhanced court fees. Claim fees are 5% of the sum claimed up to a fee of £10,000, even on uncontested debts, whatever the prospects of recovery, so it is the creditor who takes the risk of insolvency. Does the Minister accept that these very high claim fees deter creditors from claiming genuine debts and encourage debtors to avoid payment?
Lord Keen of Elie
In light of the fact that there have been 1.48 million county court default judgments in the past two years, it does not appear that claimants are being deterred by court fees, which have to be managed in order that the court estate can somehow remain solvent. At the end of the day, court fees are a recoverable element.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My Lords, I invite the Minister to consider another, equally important aspect of this matter: where no defence has been filed in a situation where a judge would otherwise have had ample scope either to dismiss the claim altogether or to rewrite the matter in a more equitable way, many people who are under severe financial strain are unable to have their side of things put in court. How can that circle be squared, if at all?
Lord Keen of Elie
It can be squared by defendants entering an appearance into the court process and putting forward, in any appropriate manner, the defence that they have to the claim. In these circumstances, it would appear that the system works equitably. I point out again the need to balance the interests of claimants, many of which are small and medium-sized enterprises that suffer serious problems of cash flow due to debtors, and the interests of defendants.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, is the alarming picture reflected in the noble Baroness’s Question not another symptom of what is increasingly a failing civil justice system? Will the Government look at their support for Citizens Advice and other advice agencies as well as—building on the Minister’s last remarks—perhaps publicising the need for people to respond to any such claims and to seek advice where it is available?
Lord Keen of Elie
It has to be made clear that resort to the court is the last step in the process of debt recovery, and that those responsible for debts are given notice of their indebtedness and are required to pay. It is only when they fail or refuse to respond to these entreaties that any application is made to the court. In these circumstances, defendants are given ample opportunity and notice to defend their interests.
Mental Health: Young People
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Farmer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to amend the 2012 national suicide prevention strategy to take account of the mental health challenges faced by young people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
My Lords, we will publish later this month the next annual progress report of the national suicide prevention strategy, which will set out details of how we are strengthening the strategy in key areas, including to target specific groups such as children and young people. The national strategy recognises children and young people as a group with specific mental health challenges that require a tailored approach to meet those needs.
Lord Farmer (Con)
I thank the Minister for that informative Answer. Front-line clinicians and local authorities are very aware of the role that family dysfunction and relationship breakdown frequently play in the onset of pronounced mental illness in adolescents. What steps are the Government taking to prevent mental health problems from developing, particularly where family breakdown is a root cause?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, in his recent national confidential inquiry, Louis Appleby reported that in 36% of all suicides of people aged under 20, family breakdown or family circumstances were part of the cause. My noble friend is absolutely right that families are critically important. That is very much part of the strategy in our Future in Mind paper. I was horrified by the figure that 43% of all people who took their own lives under the age of 20 had had no prior contact with any agency—no contact with GPs, no contact with CAMH units, no contact with schools—about their condition. Nearly half the people who took their own lives were completely below the radar. That is a shocking figure.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I ask the Minister about young people with mental health problems in the criminal justice system, where they are particularly vulnerable to self-harm and suicide attempts. Recent draft NICE guidelines recommend that all staff working in the criminal justice receive training to recognise and respond to mental health problems. Although the NHS is not responsible for the physical or mental health of those in custody, the guidelines recommend co-operation between healthcare and the criminal justice system on mental health, so how will his department respond to them, and who will fund the training?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I do not think I can answer the question about who will fund the training; I will write to the noble Baroness to answer it. She is absolutely right that a huge proportion of people who are in the criminal justice system, in prison, also suffer from mental health problems. Tackling the mental health problems of people in prison is just as important as tackling them outside. If I may, I shall write to the noble Baroness on this matter.
Lord Watts (Lab)
I must tell the Minister that there is very little sign of any investment in mental health services taking place in Merseyside. Will he investigate what is happening to that investment strategy and why Merseyside is failing our children and failing to invest in this vital service?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, I am obviously disappointed to hear what the noble Lord says about Merseyside; I cannot answer specifically on Merseyside today. We have the Future in Mind strategy, which pledged £1.4 billion of extra spending over the lifetime of this Parliament for children and young people. If it is not reaching the front line in Merseyside, we should look at that.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
Can the Government provide assurance that the phenomenon of suicide contagion is now being recognised? That is contagion both from personal contact with somebody who has attempted or committed suicide and through media reporting, where the higher the profile in the media, the more likely there is to be suicide contagion. That appears to be a linear relationship. Do the Government recognise that the best way to deal with the complex problem of suicide contagion among children and adolescents at school is to provide suicide screening within schools—for the precise reason that the Minister outlined, which is that many of these people are below what you might call the healthcare radar?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, the issue of suicide clusters and contagion is serious and real. By 2017, as recommended by the Five-Year Forward View on Mental Health prepared by Paul Farmer, every authority will have a multiagency plan addressing that issue. I agree with the noble Baroness that we need to do a lot more in schools. Interestingly, 255 schools are now part of a pilot scheme where there is a single point of contact within the school, so that when a child is feeling suicidal or has mental health problems, it is at least clear who they should go to to seek advice.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it is clearly not just an issue of funding, but you cannot escape the issue of funding. Yesterday, police chiefs said that they were being forced to act as emergency mental health services because of the inadequacy of provision up and down the country. Recently, an FoI request showed that two-thirds of CCGs which responded are spending less as a proportion of their budget on mental health this year, rather than more, as Ministers required them to do. The Minister mentioned the review to come out later this month, which will reflect on this distressing issue. The question is how one can have confidence in what the Government are saying, because they clearly are having such little impact on what the NHS does locally.
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, this is a difficult issue. As the noble Lord will know, a key part of the five-year forward view is to take resources out of acute physical care, out of acute hospitals, so that there is more available for mental health care, community care and primary care. It is very difficult to do that. As the noble Lord will know, we have been trying to do this since 2000 but all that has happened is that more and more of the available resource has been sucked into the big acute hospitals. Getting that resource out and into the community and into mental health is extremely difficult. The STP process is going on at the moment. We are committed to seeing more money going into mental health, but I acknowledge the difficulties.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm that last year we saw the highest level of teenage suicides in 17 years? Welcome though the review of the 2012 strategy is, will the noble Lord say that, as well as looking at issues such as family breakdown, he will look at issues such as cyberbullying? Did he see the case only last week of an 11 year-old boy who committed suicide? His mother said that he had been subjected to cruel and overwhelming social-media and cyber bullying. Will the review examine these links with breakdowns in mental health and teenage suicide, and the very poor state of mental health provision inside the National Health Service for young people?
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s last point, the very poor state of mental health provision in the NHS has been with us since 1948, if not earlier. We are trying to address this problem but there is a huge way to go. I acknowledge absolutely the difficulties to which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, also alluded. Professor Appleby, in his report which came out in May of this year, cites cyberbullying as one of a number of factors. They tend to be multifactorial. When someone takes their own life it is normally the end result of often years of misery and a whole range of things. It could have to do with sexuality, bullying, family breakdown or bereavement. This is not an easy situation to solve. Last year, 145 people under the age of 20 took their own lives. This is a tragedy for them and, of course, for their families as well.
The Lord Bishop of Peterborough
My Lords, may I draw to the Minister’s attention the specific needs of children and young people from refugee and recent immigrant families? In many cases, they have been through dreadful trauma in other countries and find themselves dislocated and here, sometimes, without their families. There is a need for proactive mental health care as well as for reactive and responsive care, both of which seem to be in short supply.
Lord Prior of Brampton
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate makes a very important point. The life history of some of these children and young people in refugee camps who have fled from desperate parts of the world is truly shocking. I can only completely agree with the sentiments to which he has drawn our attention.
National Citizen Service Bill [HL]
Tuesday 11th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate National Citizen Service Act 2017 View all National Citizen Service Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text
Investigatory Powers Bill
Tuesday 11th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 62-I(Rev)(a) Amendment for Report, supplementary to the revised marshalled list (PDF, 51KB) - (11 Oct 2016)
16:46 - Division on Amendment 15 - Ayes: 282 / Noes: 180 - Amendment 15 agreed.
Lord Janvrin
“( ) This Act sets out the extent to which certain investigatory powers may be used to interfere with privacy.”
Lord Janvrin (CB)
My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to Amendment 1, tabled in my name. I declare an interest as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. When the ISC reported on the draft Bill, we recommended that privacy protection should form the backbone of the legislation, around which the exceptional, intrusive powers would then be built. This recommendation was to underline at the very outset of the Bill that a delicate balance must be struck between an individual’s right to privacy and the exceptional powers needed by the intelligence agencies to ensure our safety and security.
The Bill has seen substantial changes in the other place and at earlier stages in this House, and those changes have introduced significant improvements in the protection afforded to privacy. Very important in this process was the introduction by the Government at the overview of the Bill of the clause on general duties in relation to privacy. This amendment seeks simply to reinforce the Government’s approach. The Intelligence and Security Committee still feels that there is merit in placing a simple statement right at the forefront of the legislation to provide additional clarity that there should be no doubt that privacy protection remains a fundamental priority. I hope that, on this occasion, the Minister may feel able to support this very brief amendment, and I look forward to hearing his response. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I hesitated because I thought the Minister might wish to introduce the government amendments before I spoke to mine, as I think one of mine may be an amendment to one of his. We on these Benches support the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, on Amendment 1. It would provide a very clear statement of purpose for the Bill, and one which would be very useful. The Lord Advocate said in Committee that an amendment similar to this would not add value. On the contrary, it would add value by giving that statement of purpose. The first clause is badged as an overview of the Act. In fact, what it does is to list the different parts of the Act and give an overview of each of them. The clause does not give an overview of the Act; the noble Lord’s amendment would do so, and the clause would live up to its name.
We have Amendments 8, 9 and 12 in this group. Amendment 8 would provide that the powers should not be used if the objectives could be achieved by other, less intrusive means. This, too, was an amendment that we debated in Committee. The Bill provides that regard must be had to the possibility of achievement by other, less intrusive means. My noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill apologises that he cannot be here today—although I am not sure whether one should apologise for an illness. He has kept me up to date with his position. He talked about the “rubbery” quality of the term “have regard to”. This amendment would make the obligation an absolute one—but not an unreasonable one, because the term “reasonably”, as in,
“could reasonably be achieved by other less intrusive means”,
is included. My noble friend Lord Lester referred to this as,
“classic principle of proportionality language”.—[Official Report, 11/7/16; col. 53.]
I was pleased that, on that occasion, we had the support of my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew, who said that the wording,
“would be more useful and more certain”,
than that with which he was comparing it, and that, above all, it would,
“avoid unnecessary disputes about the meaning of and compliance with Article 8”—
that is, Article 8 of the convention—
“in the courts”.—[Official Report, 11/7/16; col. 54.]
My noble friend Lord Lester had painted a rather gloomy picture of the problems that could arise if the legislation was not absolutely clear.
The noble Earl agreed to consider the proposition. He referred to the use of the wording in codes of practice. My noble friend Lord Carlile, who was more polite than I was about problems with codes of practice, said that he supported the amendment because it would be preferable to have the words in the Bill,
“rather than face the inevitable consequences of legal discussions in the courts as to the role of codes of practice and their enforceability? Putting the words in the Bill at least provides certainty”.—[Official Report, 11/7/16; col. 56.]
Both my noble friends have very considerable experience of arguing the case—no doubt both ways—in the courts. I am not sure whether the Government’s Amendments 10 and 11 are intended to address the point that we were debating. I am sure I will be told.
Our other amendment, which I will have to speak to now because we are on Report, is an amendment to government Amendment 11. I welcome government Amendments 10 and 11, but I am a bit uneasy about intrusiveness being gauged against the sensitivity of the information. My point is a wider one: everyone in every case should expect the least intrusive means to be tried first. Amendment 12 to government Amendment 11 is tabled to understand whether everything in Amendment 11 falls within Amendment 10. We have wording in Amendment 10 about the “particular sensitivity” of information. Amendment 11 gives examples of “sensitive” information. Are there, therefore, two hurdles to be crossed: “sensitive” and “particular sensitivity”? Amendment 12 seeks to understand how the two amendments relate to one another.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, has again spoken persuasively on the importance of making clear that privacy is at the heart of the Bill. The amendment tabled in his name, on behalf of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, serves to reinforce that point and provide greater clarity. He will be pleased to know that, on that basis, I am happy to support it.
Included in this group are a number of government amendments. Clause 2 brings together in one place at the front of the Bill the considerations a public authority must have regard to, and the duties that apply, when exercising a power provided by this Bill.
Amendments 2 through to 7 are technical amendments to ensure that the obligations under Clause 2 continue to “bite” in relation to the roles of judicial commissioners under the Bill as amended in this House. Some of these could be seen as consequential to amendments that we shall discuss in the coming days. If the House will allow, I do not believe that it would be helpful to expand on them here, save to say that the Government propose to introduce greater protections in respect of the retention of communications data and the treatment of sensitive professions under the Bill. Where those protections create a role for judicial commissioners, the amendments will again ensure that the duties imposed by Clause 2 continue to apply in respect of the commissioners’ expanded remit.
“(ga) to approve the use of criteria under section 144, 180 or (Additional safeguards for items subject to legal privilege: examination),”
“(gb) to give an authorisation under section 200(3)(b),(gc) to approve a decision to give such an authorisation,”
“(aa) whether the level of protection to be applied in relation to any obtaining of information by virtue of the warrant, authorisation or notice is higher because of the particular sensitivity of that information,”
“( ) For the purposes of subsection (2)(aa), examples of sensitive information include—(a) items subject to legal privilege,(b) any information identifying or confirming a source of journalistic information, and(c) relevant confidential information within the meaning given by paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 7 (certain information held in confidence and consisting of personal records, journalistic material or communications between Members of Parliament and their constituents).”
Lord Paddick
“Investigatory powers: civil liberties board
(1) An independent body, to be known as the investigatory powers: civil liberties board (referred to in this section as “the Board”), shall be established.(2) The Board’s primary purpose shall be to—(a) ensure that civil liberties are considered in the development and implementation of policy, legislation and executive action related to investigatory powers, and(b) analyse and review actions taken or proposed to be taken by the Government which relate to the use of investigatory powers, having regard to the need for such actions to be balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties and the duties set out in section 2.(3) The Board shall be composed of a full-time chairman and four additional members who shall be appointed by the Secretary of State in consultation with the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.(4) Members of the Board shall be selected on the basis of professional qualifications, achievements, public stature, expertise in civil liberties and privacy, and relevant experience, and without regard to political affiliation, and in no event shall more than three members of the Board be members of the same political party.(5) The Board—(a) shall have access to all relevant material (including classified information) held by any government department or agency;(b) may interview and take statements from personnel of any department and agency related to their functions;(c) may request information or assistance from any Government department or agency.(6) The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision for—(a) the payment of expenses and allowances to members;(b) the circumstances in which a person ceases to be a member;(c) the appointment of staff, their terms and conditions of employment and their pensions, allowances or gratuities.(7) The Board shall report to Parliament at least once annually on—(a) its activities and any recommendations; and(b) any other matters it considers appropriate.”
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 13 is also in the name of my noble friend Lord Strasburger. In Committee, we moved an amendment that would have triggered implementation of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board that the Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government insisted was part of the package of measures included in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. We withdrew that amendment but the Government have failed to give us any hope that it will be accepted. At this stage we are introducing a new amendment to establish an alternative Privacy and Civil Liberties Board based more closely on the well-regarded American model.
In the United States the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is an independent, bipartisan agency within the executive branch. It comprises four part-time members and a full-time chairman, and the board is vested with two fundamental authorities: first, to review and analyse actions the executive branch takes to protect the nation from terrorism, ensuring that the need for such actions is balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties; and secondly, to ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered in the development and implementation of laws, regulations and policies related to efforts to protect the nation against terrorism. We want a similar body in the UK, and we are not the only ones who do. The Prime Minister, when Home Secretary, committed the Government to,
“ensure we have more transparency from Government”,
which we are doing through this Bill. She continued:
“We will also reduce the number of bodies that are able to have access to the communications data”,
which, again, we are doing through this Bill, and,
“establish a privacy and civil liberties board based on the US model”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/07/14; col. 472.]
It is only the latter commitment that this Government have failed to fulfil and which this amendment seeks to address. Noble Lords will see that the wording of the amendment seeks to reflect as accurately as possible the American model, which is widely seen as a world-class example of its kind.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
Is the noble Lord therefore saying that the American approach to this matter is totally protective of civil liberties?
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I am saying that the American model provides significant safeguards, in that somebody represents the side of privacy and civil liberties in the argument; it is not simply a case of the security agencies’ side being put, as perhaps some might see in this country.
Unlike the previous amendment, this amendment does not seek to replace the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. On the contrary, noble Lords will see that the independent reviewer must be consulted on the appointment of members of the board. This is complementary to, not a replacement for, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. The current reviewer, Mr David Anderson, has previously argued that the post of independent reviewer is under-resourced and that it does not cover a wide enough range of laws. He said:
“If appropriately staffed and directed by the Independent Reviewer, the proposed new body could sharpen that investigative function and increase its scope”.
I accept that Mr Anderson also has concerns, and no doubt my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew, his predecessor, will tell us that he too has concerns. However, it continues to be the view of the Liberal Democrats—
Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)
My noble friend tempts me to rise at this stage because there should be no misunderstandings. Does he accept that David Anderson has made it absolutely clear that he is opposed to this provision?
Lord Paddick
My Lords, Mr Anderson has made statements in the past in which he has supported the idea, but I accept that he also has serious concerns about it.
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I do not understand this amendment. Can he explain the point of having this board when we will already have the commissioner?
Lord Paddick
My Lords, at the moment we have an Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, whose job it is to look at the operation of the current legislation, as far as I understand it. This is a wider panel, whose emphasis is on looking at the civil liberties and privacy aspects. There is a subtle difference in where the independent reviewer and the panel are coming from, providing a better balance between the arguments put forward by the security agencies and an advocate for those who argue to protect civil liberties and privacy.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
Will the civil liberties to which this proposed board is to have regard and consider include—as one would hope—the civil liberties of those who are at risk if there is a terrorist outrage, or will it look at only one side of the civil liberties picture?
Lord Paddick
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that intervention. Of course they must look at civil liberties in the round when addressing this issue.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
I just wonder whether the noble Lord has considered the possibility that the security and intelligence agencies may also have an interest in civil liberties. It is not one side against the other. In deciding what you go for, that is a key part of the provision.
Lord Paddick
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. Yes, of course I understand that for the security agencies, at every point when they are deciding to apply for warrants or to carry out intrusive activities, civil liberties are at the forefront of their minds within the framework provided to them by the law.
I come back to the point that a form of this privacy and civil liberties board has been agreed by all sides and put into legislation, but the Government have not enacted it. This is a variation on what is already on the statute book, and something that all sides have previously considered and agreed to.
Throughout the debates on the Bill, the Government have maintained that it is world-leading legislation. I believe that it can be regarded as such only if the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board is a part of it. I beg to move.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
My Lords, I wonder whether we might first get what might be called “private grief” out of the way—that is, the difference between my view on this matter and that of my party’s Front Bench. If I run the risk of being accused of consistency on this, I am proud of it.
Let us start with the point that my noble friend made about the United States of America. Yes, the United States of America has the body he has described, but how effective is it? I wonder whether my noble friend has examined the Patriot Act and its consequences. It is a set of provisions that allows the American authorities to do what is unimaginable here; for example, at their own whim, to look up the credit card transactions of any citizen throughout the United States for any given period. I do not want to replicate that.
I want also to pick up on a point made very briefly but eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller. This amendment, in my judgment, betrays a lack of confidence in the security services that is completely unjustified. Anyone who has ever looked properly at the way in which the security services have been managed, at least in recent times, or anyone who, like myself, has examined the behaviour of the security services in very difficult circumstances in Northern Ireland in recent times, will know that the management is extremely rigorous and does not need the help of an expensive and ill-conceived quango to ensure that its staff behave properly.
The risks to national security from the sloppy drafting of subsection (5) of the amendment are manifest. There is no provision here for the members of the board to be directly vetted. That means that whoever the members of the board were, they would be entitled under subsection (5)(a) of the amendment to have access to,
“all relevant material (including classified information) held by any government department or agency”.
Presumably it would be their opinion as to what was relevant. Indeed, they would be able to call as witnesses or take statements from,
“personnel of any department and agency”.
That is a provision completely unparalleled in our history.
Furthermore, this proposal usurps the powers of the Intelligence and Security Committee. There is nothing provided by the amendment that the Intelligence and Security Committee cannot at least reasonably do. The amendment clearly envisages that this will be a political board, but outside the control of Parliament, because it says that no more than three members should come from any single political party. It is a sort of freeloading, undisciplined version of the Intelligence and Security Committee, without the control of either the Executive or Parliament.
Also, it looks like a very expensive board, compared, at least, with the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. Neither David Anderson, nor I as his predecessor, ever complained about our remuneration as independent reviewer, but it pales into insignificance by at least two noughts on the end compared with this unnecessary board.
Furthermore, such a board would duplicate not just the Intelligence and Security Committee, but all the additional provisions, some contained in welcome government amendments, that have been added to the Bill. I have been watching every detail of the Bill over its very long period of gestation. More information was given when the Bill was first tabled than on any other Bill I have ever known, including more information about the security services than we have ever seen in parliamentary papers. We will now have an independent reviewer, commissioners, judges—a whole panoply of people applying sound management and good judicial principles to the considerations that the board would vaguely look at. It is not even a civil liberties board: it is not what it says on the tin, because civil liberties are not merely connected with investigatory powers.
This proposal is a fudge and it is misleading. I apologise to my noble friends for saying so, but as I have said, I have been completely consistent about this. It is one of the worst proposals I have seen on national security that has ever been proposed to your Lordships’ House. I shall not support it, I hope that others among my noble friends will not support it, and I urge the House to reject it.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, all I can say in response so far is thank heavens we do not have the coalition Government in power. I support entirely what we have just heard from the noble Lord, the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.
I will choose my words carefully. One of the things that is worth thinking about with legislation like this is that we have the Government today, but we are legislating; we are Parliament. How would the Opposition use this? When I look at my friends in opposition, frankly, I will support the Government to vote this down. I am not prepared to abstain on such a barmy and dangerous amendment, as the noble Lord just said.
I will not go through the amendment. In fact, the noble Lord who moved it did not go through it. He did not explain what it meant by “professional qualifications, achievements” and “public stature” for the appointments. It is preposterous and a nosy parker’s charter into investigatory powers because it does not talk about looking at things; it demands access to all material from an agency and requests information from any agency or government department. There is nothing about the staff of the body. Forget the fact it is envisaged that three out of five members of the board will be of the same political party—it is envisaged to be party political—there is nothing about the security aspects of the staff, let alone the vetting of the people.
It is not, as the amendment says, just about civil liberties. It is in many ways trying to second-guess the powers of the commissioners. It is trying to second-guess the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the parliamentary security committee. We should have nothing to do with it. I hope the noble Lord will think twice if he is thinking about calling a Division on this. They will be laughed out of court.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I fully support what the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Rooker, have said. The amendment would create a security nightmare and be a recipe for obfuscation, muddle and confusion. Indeed, it is a dangerous proposal and I am amazed that it has been put forward. If the House divided, I would vote against it. Accepting it would be a grave error, and I am surprised and shocked to see such an amendment.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I wonder whether I might be helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in his quest in some way to emulate the American model. I was recently at a conference in Vienna as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, where we discussed the issue of financing global terrorism. I had the pleasure of meeting two distinguished members of the American civil liberties board. They spoke at great length; they were eloquent, distinguished and had great expertise. I asked them the question: do their Government have to listen to them? The answer was no—there was no point.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, I, too, have the misfortune to disagree with my noble friend Lord Paddick, although perhaps in not quite such trenchant terms as my noble friend Lord Carlile. I want to make two points.
First, the original proposal, now contained in this amendment, was made against a wholly different framework and its necessity must be considered against the background of the statutory framework which the Bill now encompasses. On that basis, the fact that the proposal may have been considered previously—by the way, I am much more favourably disposed to the coalition Government than the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—is no argument for its inclusion in the Bill now.
My second point draws not least on my experience as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee and is about the attitude of the security services. Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause simply rehearses existing law and adds nothing to the obligations already incumbent on the security services.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
As I understand the situation, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC, was consulted by the Government on whether it would assist him in his role if he had the support of a privacy and civil liberties oversight board. The outcome was that the independent reviewer is now supported instead by the provision of specialist legal assistance, as David Anderson himself recommended in his 2014 annual report.
David Anderson announced the appointment of three specialist advisers, whom he had personally selected, earlier this year and to the best of my knowledge the independent reviewer has welcomed that approach. Given the measures in this Bill, including provision for the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and his or her role in protecting civil liberties, and the changes made as a result of recommendations of the different independent committees which looked at the Bill as originally worded—including a Joint Committee of both Houses—and the further changes and commitments made both during the Bill’s passage through the Commons, which led to us voting for it at Third Reading, and in this House, it is not clear what an additional board would positively contribute. We cannot support the amendment.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
My Lords, it may appear that there is little I can add, but I have my brief.
Considerable praise has been expressed throughout the passage of this Bill for the work of David Anderson QC, whose report, A Question of Trust, provides the backdrop to this legislation and whose subsequent review of the operational case for bulk powers has informed our scrutiny of Parts 6 and 7. There can be no doubt about the importance of Mr Anderson’s office, that of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.
Following the passage of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which has been alluded to, the Government undertook a consultation on whether David Anderson would benefit in his role from the support of a privacy and civil liberties oversight board. Having been informed by a public consultation on the board’s establishment, by David Anderson’s own recommendations on this matter and by the need to ensure the best value for public money, the Government decided that they could most effectively support the reviewer in discharging his statutory functions by instead providing him with specialist legal assistance in the form that he himself recommended—as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I am very grateful to those who contributed to this debate. As far as my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew is concerned, I am not familiar with the Patriot Act but I know that the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has made a significant difference in redressing the balance of some laws in the United States. Even though the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, spoke to members of that board and asked whether the Government must listen to it, the fact is that the Government in America did listen and acted on some of the board’s recommendations.
Clearly, these people would need to be security vetted. They will be appointed by the Secretary of State, who could impose whatever conditions she thought fit on those people.
On sloppy drafting, I am afraid it is that no more than three members of the board should be of the same political party rather than that three members should not be of any political party, which is what I think my noble friend suggested.
Lord Harris of Haringey
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again, but could he clarify what that phrase is intended to mean? The way I, and I think my noble friend, read it is that, of a board of five, three can be of the same political party. Is the noble Lord saying that it is in the interests of civil liberties and all these other things to have a board of which three members are from the same political party—presumably the government party? Will that really then be an independent board?
Lord Paddick
The fact is that it is up to the Secretary of State to appoint those members to the board. One would hope that the Secretary of State would use the freedom provided by this amendment to ensure that the board is balanced. As with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, I also have my brief. However, on this occasion it would be disrespectful to the House to press this amendment to a vote. Despite my brief, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, this will be, I hope, short and uncontentious. The amendment was suggested to us by the Law Society of Scotland. It seeks clarification and, of course, an amendment if one is required to achieve the point.
Clause 7 introduces Schedule 1 to the Bill and provides for “Monetary penalties for certain unlawful interceptions”. Under paragraph 4(4) of Schedule 1, a person who is the subject of a penalty notice may,
“request an oral hearing before the Commissioner in order to make representations”.
Our amendment would provide that such a person may have legal representation to assist with those representations.
The Law Society of Scotland says that,
“given the nature of the Bill and from an equality of arms perspective, legal representation should be available as a right”.
I would say that legal representation should generally be available, whatever the Bill, whether it is 10 pages or 250-plus pages and complicated. It is an important point to clarify. There is no provision which says there may not be legal representation, so it may be that this can be dealt with outside the Bill; certainly, there should be no block on it. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to the point. I beg to move.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I trust I can deal with this amendment with a degree of brevity equal to that employed by the noble Baroness. I reassure her that the amendment is not necessary. It is already the case that a person on whom a monetary penalty notice has been served who requests an oral hearing before the commissioner can be legally represented at the hearing. There is nothing in the Bill that would preclude such representation, and of course it will be up to the person on whom the notice is served to choose whether or not they wish to be so represented. Therefore, what is intended by the amendment is already provided for. Accordingly, I hope the noble Baroness will feel comfortable in withdrawing the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
I am grateful for that assurance. The point is that it is not provided against, rather than that it is provided for. I dare say somebody will be writing rules about these hearings at some point, so I am glad to have that assurance on the record. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hollins
Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to all the amendments in my name in this group. The main one, Amendment 18, which inserts a new clause, is slightly revised from the version that was debated in Committee on 11 July. The feeling of the House then was that this should be brought back on Report and it was clear that I would seek to test the opinion of the House if there had been no progress by this stage. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me and other noble Lords, including some of those engaged in 2013 with the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, the Defamation Bill and the Crime and Courts Bill, to discuss this matter,
The amendments have two functions. First, Amendments 15 to 17 amend the statutory tort in Clause 8 for interception of communications previously available under Section 1(3) of RIPA by making it applicable for use by victims of phone hacking or email hacking undertaken by third parties such as newspapers. The primary purpose of Amendment 18 is to provide costs protection in court cases for claimants as well as for Leveson-regulated news publishers with respect to these claims. The protection intended is equivalent to that which would exist for such claims had the Government commenced Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. There has been no explanation to Parliament as to why the former Culture Secretary announced last October at a meeting of newspaper editors that he was not minded to commence Section 40. That represents a change of government policy, which both breaks the cross-party agreement and betrays promises made to both Houses and to press abuse victims.
As very brief background, I remind noble Lords that after the Leveson inquiry, to which my family and I gave evidence, Sir Brian Leveson recommended that any new regulator set up by the press should be accredited as independent and effective by an independent recognition panel, which would be wholly separate from Parliament and the industry. This panel was to be set up by royal charter rather than by statute, essentially as a concession to the press. His recommendations also dealt with how to provide incentives for newspapers to join an accredited self-regulator, since it was clear that press owners would not volunteer for effective and independent regulation, and how to provide access to the courts for press victims facing a deep-pocketed defendant. The Government accepted those recommendations but have failed to implement them.
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act would deliver those incentives and that access to justice. It should have been commenced before the exemplary damages sections, which were commenced automatically a year ago. The intention of the signatories to this amendment is to persuade the Government to commence Section 40 of the 2013 Act and to do so without delay. Naturally, if the Minister can reassure the House that Section 40 will be commenced before Third Reading, the amendment will not be pressed. I beg to move.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)
My Lords, earlier this afternoon in Amendment 10, the House accepted the principle of protection for journalistic sources. That seems very important, for reasons which I will not spell out but are well known. My noble friend’s amendments, in particular Amendment 18, propose a modest measure to balance Amendment 10 and I will try to explain why I think some balancing is necessary.
Noble Lords will note, as my noble friend has set out, that Parliament has already agreed a more extensive way of balancing this privilege for journalists with a comparable restriction. It was in Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 but that section—we must remember that the principle has received cross-party support—has not been commenced. I do not comment on the reasons. The amendment cannot entirely remedy that oversight but it can go some way to balance the additional powers and protection given to journalistic activity, in the clause that we agreed earlier this afternoon, by limiting the costs against their misuse—by the media, that is, which refuse to be audited by an approved regulator.
The point is fundamentally simple: protecting journalistic sources is a profoundly important liberal purpose but the misuse of those sources, whether by invention, illegal interception of private communication or forms of blackmail and the like is not a good liberal cause. I believe that we need to balance this additional protection for journalistic sources with additional protection for those who are abused by journalists—or those posing as journalists—and then claim that the source was only invented or misrepresented, or that the information was obtained by criminal means. Those positions need to be not protected but audited. The new clause would achieve most of that purpose. It cannot achieve it all but, like my noble friend, I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister can tell us about progress on the possible implementation of Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, which would render this move redundant.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)
My Lords, I added my name to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve, whose name is also on the amendment. While it is probably not an interest in terms of the register of interests, I declare an interest in that between December 2012 and March 2013 I spent copious hours, along with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, trying to put together the cross-party agreement in the immediate aftermath of the report from Sir Brian Leveson. It took a long, long time. Even beyond 18 March 2013 there was still more work to be done.
I was not present in the early hours of 18 March because of family engagements in Scotland, but I well recall coming back to Westminster during the course of that day and the efforts that were made to ensure that effect was given to the cross-party agreement. Some tweaking was required and agreements had to be made within the usual channels that certain amendments, such as the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, had to be withdrawn. Indeed, I think the record will show that this House delayed consideration of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill to allow the Prime Minister of the day to make a Statement in the House of Commons on the cross-party agreement. Indeed, at a later stage, the Defamation Bill had to be unamended in the House of Commons to take out an amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Fowler, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, which this House had agreed to in response to the Leveson report. In the House of Commons, amendments were made and withdrawn and new government amendments were brought in to the Crime and Courts Bill to give effect to the cross-party agreement. One of the amendments which the Government brought in became Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
Those of us involved in this were never in any doubt that this was a package intended to be delivered in full, and not one from which a Government at a later date could pick and choose which bits to implement and which not. The commitment on commencement was done in the common way. It was for the Secretary of State to bring in the provision, but, again, it was never anticipated that a future Secretary of State would try not to bring into effect that particular provision. I was not present when the agreement was reached, but I am advised that there was a proposal from the Conservative Members in the cross-party talks for a version that would have expressly required that commencement of this costs provision should not take place until after recognition—but that was not agreed cross-party and the final cross-party agreement was that what became Section 40 should be commenced to provide a pre-existing incentive to join a recognition candidate regulator, not one that would bring jam tomorrow.
I hear that it has been suggested that the Government think that it is better to consult further before they commence Section 40 and that somehow or other Parliament has given the Government the discretion on whether to commence Section 40. All I can say is that those of us who were involved never anticipated that. Indeed, what was put to your Lordships’ House did not anticipate that happening. That is why I very much hope that, when he comes to reply, the Minister will indicate that the good will and spirit of that agreement and the undertakings that were made will be honoured. It would be far better for Section 40 to be commenced. This amendment does not go quite that far, but, if it is not commenced, we need to have some way of forcing the Government’s hand on this to ensure that what Parliament understood is given effect.
Lord Henley (Con)
I do not think that I was in my place for the bit of Committee when the precursor to this amendment was discussed. However, I sat on the pre-legislative scrutiny committee on the Bill under the able chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, so I have some status in this matter. I stress to noble Lords—as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and possibly the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, said—that this should really be about what the Minister says when he comes to respond. I do not think that the amendment is appropriate for the Bill at this stage. This is something we want to hear from the Minister on; the amendment should not be pressed at this stage.
The Investigatory Powers Bill itself is crucial legislation to give the police and security services the powers that they need. Noble Lords on all sides of the House who have taken a very constructive approach to the issues in the Bill would find it unfortunate for Parliament to be distracted at this stage by an amendment that, I have to say, seems to be only barely related to the substance of the Bill before us—important though the amendment might be in its own right. I am sure the debate itself will send a clear message to the Government about the importance of this issue, which is why we want to hear from whoever of my noble friends is going to respond to this. But now is not the time for noble Lords to press this amendment on the Bill, because it is not relevant.
Lord Prescott (Lab)
My Lords, I intervene to support the amendment that has been moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. This is an issue of confidence in this place and in government. We are not seeking to change a Bill but to implement what the Government and all parties have agreed: that the Section 40 concept, which has just been discussed, should be included in this Bill. The Government have agreed the law but are not prepared to implement in statute this right to justice and financial support for people who have phone-hacking complaints against the press.
I declare an interest, as I did in relation to the Policing and Crime Bill, in that I am one of those who was hacked—46 times for my phone messages. However, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service denied it, and the Press Complaints Commission sided with the police and the prosecutor. In those circumstances, the only way I could seek any redress was to sue in the civil courts. I could not afford it, even though I have come here to the Lords—I still cannot afford it—but how else could I seek justice? We are talking about people who cannot afford to get justice in cases in which they have been offended against by phone hacking. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, has pointed out, the Government and all parties agreed we should do this. We passed the legislation, but the Government have refused. I wait to hear what the Minister is going to say. I had hoped we were going to hear beforehand, when we met him yesterday, whether the Government’s position had changed and whether they intended to bring that element of justice into statute. I wait to hear what he has to say about that, but it is essential that we have it.
In these circumstances, doubts have constantly grown about the Government’s position. The last Secretary of State for Culture, Mr Whittingdale, actually went to a press dinner and cheered them all up by saying, “I am inclined not to do this”. Is that the Government’s position? We want to hear today whether it is still the same. We have a new Prime Minister, a new Secretary of State and a new Government—are they going to carry out what the previous Government promised in an all-party context? This debate is about the intention of the new Government. The Prime Minister said that she wanted to help weak and poorer people against the big rich ones, and by God, there is an example here. All these people who have told us time and again that they cannot afford an action are looking to us to make the adjustment and to implement the statute so that they can pursue cases.
My main concern is that we have no justice from the police or the prosecutor. They work together. I cannot call it a conspiracy, but they happened to agree that there was no evidence. But as the courts pointed out, when I took the case to them on human rights grounds, I was right: they did have the evidence, but together they conspired to not look at it or to ignore it. That is not acceptable. If that was past history, I could perhaps think that we had at least learned the lessons. But we have not. We are still not implementing this essential part, which would provide money to allow people to secure justice in our court system. If it was only that, okay, but have we not noticed the Times even this week? The press are completely ignoring most of the actual requirements under the editors’ code.
I raised the editors’ code in a previous debate. I thought I would go to the Press Complaints Commission; rather foolishly, I hoped to get some sort of judgment from among the press at least, but I could not get it. After that debate, I got letters from the Associated Press and the judge in charge of the inquiry saying my complaint, that most inquiries dealing with press complaints are dominated by the press, was wrong. However, I have checked it all out. The emphasis in the criteria is different depending on whether journalists are employed by papers and magazines or are working in TV or other areas, where suddenly the balance changes. That was my complaint. I will deal with the industry—I have been invited by the judge to come and talk to him, so I look forward to a cup of tea with him to see what he has to say—but as to whether or not these bodies are independent, including the new body, IPSO, we have to make a judgment. That came out of Leveson.
My main complaint is that part two of Leveson was meant to look at the relationship between the press and the police. There are still offences every day; today’s Daily Mail says:
“How top QC ‘buried evidence of Met bribes’”.
There are a number of such cases, such as Orgreave or the football scandal at Sheffield. There has been co-operation for a long time between the press and the police. What worries me most is another story that appeared in the Telegraph—these are not my favourite papers, as your Lordships have probably guessed—about the new body that is coming in, which is covered partly by the Bill. It says that the investigatory powers that the police will now have will allow them to monitor every phone call and every text. All this information is now going to be brought in, and seven of our police forces have already invested the money to buy it. That means they are going to get even more information.
We are told that this is to deal with terrorists and criminals—I am not going to be against that; I think we all understand that—but I am talking about the victims of their actions. Why are they not considered to deserve some justice? They are the ones who really suffer, but they do not have the money or the power to intervene. Now there is going to be more information about them; I think an earlier debate mentioned credit card information of people in America. A massive amount of information is given to public institutions that we have to have trust in but I am afraid that, given their record at the moment, even since Leveson, I have no reason to believe that the co-operation between the police and the press has stopped. Mass information is going to make the situation even more difficult.
For God’s sake, can the Government tell us what they intend to do? If they are not going to do it, why do they not tell us? Then we would know where we stand. Let the victims know; they have been promised by Prime Minister after Prime Minister, “Don’t worry, we’re going to look after you”. All parties agreed to that and passed the legislation in the other Chamber, where we have done nothing since. It is in our hands to do something. When the Minister comes to reply, I hope he can say something more fruitful than, “We’re thinking about it”. It is three years since we passed the legislation, so thinking about it just means avoiding it. Let us have a statement from the Government for the victims, not for anyone else, acknowledging that they have a right to justice when the press have abused them, whether by phone hacking or otherwise.
The victims need money to go to court, make no mistake, particularly after the Government got rid of legal aid in most areas. They have no chance. Can we in this House think of the victims? I understand that we are extending powers to try to deal with criminals and terrorism; although I have worries about them, I am prepared to accept that. But who is thinking about the victims? That is our job. The Government should get on with the statute now, not just give us, “We’re thinking about it. We’re talking about it”. They should put it in language that the victims understand, as they are the ones who need to be considered here.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I declare a couple of interests, particularly in the light of the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. The first is that I was a senior police officer at Scotland Yard during that time. I was also a party to the noble Lord’s suing of the Metropolitan Police for failing to inform us that we—myself included—were victims of phone hacking, in breach of our human rights and the responsibilities that the police had to protect those rights under the Human Rights Act. As with the noble Lord, the police initially denied that I had been a victim of phone hacking, but it subsequently transpired that I had. On that basis, I should limit my remarks, but I would say to noble Lords that I went with the Dowler family to visit the three leaders of the political parties—the two leaders who were in coalition at the time and the Labour leader. To hear the family’s story about how they were impacted by the press hacking into Milly Dowler’s voicemails was tragic.
The amendment does not weaken the Bill in terms of our nation’s fight against terrorism or trying to keep people safe. It does not directly affect the law enforcement or security services. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, if the amendment was not relevant to or within the scope of the Bill, the clerks would not have allowed it to be tabled. We on these Benches will support the amendment, should the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, divide the House.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, it seems to me that the Government have a responsibility to implement the section in the Act that has been referred to. They have the power to commence that provision, and the reason for such delays is normally to make the necessary provision to enable it to be put into force. On this occasion, it looks as though there may be other reasons. I have to hope that those reasons do not include anything like succumbing to any particular influence that might be contrary to implementing what has been enacted—with the agreement, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, pointed out from his personal experience, of all the political parties at the highest level at the time. I think it is the right thing to do for the Government to implement that provision. I am not at all sure that it is wise to enact some less effective provision in the hope that it will stir the Government up to enact the better one.
I sincerely hope that the new Secretary of State and the new Prime Minister will see the obligation that rests on them to carry out what had been undertaken by their predecessors. Indeed, the Prime Minister was a party to that agreement at the time as the Home Secretary of a Government who consented to the operation.
On the basis that the amendment is different from and less effective than the section in the enacted Bill, it is not particularly wise to put the amendment forward for enactment, but I hope that the new Secretary of State, having had a chance to consider the matter, and the Prime Minister, in her new role, will ensure that the agreement—so fully come to some years ago, after an amendment to another Bill had been passed in this House—will be honoured, and enact that moral obligation without further delay.
Lord Rosser
I will be brief, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Prescott, have set out the case for and reasoning behind the wording of the amendment in very clear terms. Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 was part of the cross-party agreement, which included the royal charter, which was signed by the then leaders of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. As a result, amendments were withdrawn both in the Commons and in this House. Ministers subsequently continued to make explicit commitments in both Houses to bring in Section 40. They have, however, failed to honour that commitment, and have thus not implemented this part of the 2013 Act, in accordance with the wishes of both Houses and indeed, the previously declared intention of the Government. We will support the amendment if the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, having heard the Government’s response, decides that she still needs to test the opinion of the House.
Earl Howe
My Lords, we discussed this issue in Committee when the noble Baroness tabled an amendment seeking to introduce a cause of action which would allow victims of unlawful interception to bring a civil claim. As she is aware, the Investigatory Powers Bill already contains a criminal offence where a person intercepts, without lawful authority, a communication in the course of its transmission via a public or private telecommunications system or a public postal system.
The cause of action, or tort, provided for in Clause 8, is intended to replicate the safeguard which existed in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. This focuses on circumstances where an individual’s communications are intercepted on a private telecommunications system by a person who has the right to control the operation or use of that private telecommunications system. This was a necessary safeguard to protect individuals in very limited circumstances where their employer may unfairly be intercepting communications on a company’s internal computer system, which is not within the scope of the offence of unlawful interception.
This provision was not intended to provide a route for anyone who believed their communications had been unlawfully intercepted to bring a civil case. As we have seen in recent times with the phone hacking cases brought by a number of individuals against media organisations, the appropriate civil routes of redress already exist, for example, for misuse of private information.
I fully understand that many noble Lords here, particularly those who have been victims of press abuse themselves, are frustrated as to what they see as a lack of progress towards implementing the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry report. I want to reassure noble Lords that that is not the case. The Government, as has been said, have implemented the vast majority of Leveson’s recommendations for reforming press regulation. Importantly, they have set up and are funding the Press Recognition Panel, which is currently considering an application for recognition from the self-regulator IMPRESS.
The exemplary damages provisions have been commenced in line with the date set out in the 2013 Act. However, it is important to make clear to the House that no specific date was set for the commencement of the Section 40 costs provisions. Notwithstanding that, the Government continue to look at this issue closely. Indeed, to better understand the issue, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the Minister for Digital and Culture met Hacked Off and victims of press abuse as their first priority. DCMS officials met Hacked Off at official level again only last week. So this is something that the Government are actively considering. I suggest to the House that it is not unreasonable for Ministers who are new in post to take time to understand the issues at play. The position is that, for the time being, Section 40 remains under consideration.
We should also bear in mind that no recognised regulator is yet in place, although I realise that that could change on 25 October when the Press Regulation Panel rule on IMPRESS’s application. Regardless of the panel’s decision, it is true to say that the press landscape has undergone a huge amount of change over the last four years and the Government need to be sensitive to that. A crucial part of Section 40, for example, is around ensuring both sides have access to low-cost arbitration as an alternative to expensive litigation. The arbitration scheme run by IMPRESS is relatively new, while IPSO is currently trialling an arbitration scheme to better understand how it could work effectively. Given the importance of arbitration to making Section 40 operate effectively, it would also be useful to see how both IMPRESS’s arbitration scheme and IPSO’s arbitration pilot work in practice.
I return to the specifics of the amendments which the noble Baroness has tabled.
Lord Prescott
When Secretary of State Whittingdale went to the editors’ conference and told them, “We are minded not to implement this”, was that government policy or his policy—and is the Minister’s policy any different?
Lord Rooker
That being said, can I follow up my noble friend’s question? The Minister listed groups that have asked the Government to implement Section 40. Is there an individual or group that has requested the new Government not to implement it?
Earl Howe
I am not aware of that, but I can seek advice and let the noble Lord know when I have received it.
I do not believe that the amendments that the noble Baroness has tabled will achieve the outcome that she seeks. This clause deals with the interception of private telecommunication systems, such as a company’s internal email or telephone system. That is not, I think, what the noble Baroness is driving at, so I do not believe the amendment would be capable of being used as she intends.
That reflects a broader point that these issues should not really be dealt with in this Bill. I am all too well aware that many people suffered terribly at the hands of unscrupulous members of the media, and I have a great deal of sympathy with the noble Baroness, whose family, I know, suffered unspeakable wrongdoing by people who called themselves journalists. While we all agree that the outcome of Leveson and the proper regulation of the media are clearly important matters, the powers for law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies provided in this Bill are vitally important, too. It is not right to try to deal with serious but largely unrelated matters in a Bill of this vital national interest.
Lord Oates (LD)
Is the Minister aware that very few people in this House think that this is the ideal way in which to deal with the issue? They think that the ideal way in which to deal with it is to implement Section 40. Is he also aware that, when he says that the Government have implemented many of the aspects of Leveson, the implementation of Section 40 was regarded as absolutely critical to the system working? It was not put in the Bill at the Government’s discretion; it was put in and regarded at the time by all the party leaders, who gave solemn undertakings to the victims, as absolutely critical.
Earl Howe
I accept the point that the noble Lord made about the agreement made in 2013 on a cross-party basis. If the noble Baroness chooses to withdraw the amendment, the clear message given out by the debate will not be lost on my right honourable friend the Secretary of State as he considers these matters.
What we have here is an attempt to insert a clause into a Bill that just happens to be passing to force an issue that has no direct bearing on the Bill in question, and I question whether that is an appropriate thing to do. Mechanisms are provided for in both Houses of Parliament to debate subjects of particular interest to parliamentarians, and perhaps that would be a better route by which to raise these matters.
I hope that I can reassure the noble Baroness that the Government continue to look closely at the cost provisions in the Crime and Courts Act, and respectfully urge her to withdraw the amendment and allow the Government to consider the issue thoroughly.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their support and understanding. I am, frankly, unconvinced by the Minister’s words. The Public Bill Office agreed the amendment as within the scope of the Bill. I am not just frustrated at the delay to commence Section 40; I am somewhat dismayed that Ministers are not yet up to speed on this issue. Perhaps I can help by briefly reviewing some of the past assurances and agreements.
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act was part of a package. This agreement was reached in March 2013, to avoid the Government being defeated in both Houses over delays in implementing the Leveson recommendations. We are being asked to consider a further delay. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, reminded us, several other Bills were not then amended. I will not go through them again because I appreciate that time is short in this House. The amendment does nothing to weaken this Bill or affect security measures in any way. All the Government need to do is honour their commitment and commence Section 40. So many times over the past three years we have heard assurances that have come to nothing. It would be an injustice to victims if I passed up this chance to progress the intentions previously enshrined in the Crime and Courts Bill. Peers would not need to use this Bill to do the job if the Government had not used the device of non-commencement.
I assure noble Lords that I strongly support a free press, but freedom comes with responsibilities and claimants have rights, too. I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Hollins
Baroness Hollins
“Interception without lawful authority: award of costs
(1) This section applies where—(a) a claim is made under section 8 (civil liability for certain unlawful interceptions) against a person (“the defendant”),(b) the defendant was a relevant publisher at the material time, and(c) the claim is related to the publication of news-related material.(2) If the defendant was a member of an approved regulator at the time when the claim was commenced (or was unable to be a member at that time for reasons beyond the defendant’s control or it would have been unreasonable in the circumstances for the defendant to have been a member at that time), the court must not award costs against the defendant unless satisfied that—(a) the issues raised by the claim could not have been resolved by using an arbitration scheme of the approved regulator, or(b) it is just and equitable in all the circumstances of the case to award costs against the defendant.(3) If the defendant was not a member of an approved regulator at the time when the claim was commenced (but would have been able to be a member at that time and it would have been reasonable in the circumstances for the defendant to have been a member at that time), the court must award costs against the defendant unless satisfied that—(a) the issues raised by the claim could not have been resolved by using an arbitration scheme of the approved regulator (had the defendant been a member), or(b) it is just and equitable in all the circumstances of the case to make a different award of costs or make no award of costs.(4) This section is not to be read as limiting any power to make rules of court.(5) This section does not apply until such time as a body is first recognised as an approved regulator.(6) Subsections (2) and (3) shall apply to any claim issued after this section comes into force. (7) For the purposes of this section “approved regulator” shall have the same meaning as in section 42 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, and “relevant publisher” shall have the same meaning as in section 41 of that Act.”
Baroness Hamwee
“General public reporting
(1) No offence shall be committed by a person who is subject to a warrant or notice under this Act disclosing by way of publication of a report—(a) the number of warrants received;(b) the number of accounts affected; and(c) the number of warrants complied with,during the period of 180 days prior to the date of the report.(2) Nothing in this section shall restrict the publication of information referred to in this section at a different time, or in a different form or manner agreed by the Secretary of State.”
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, this might be a mouse after the last amendment but it is not unimportant. It is about transparency—and perhaps more than transparency. It is about positively putting information into the public domain and not simply providing information which can be looked through. It is, if you like, a companion to the very welcome privacy clauses in the Bill. It is intended to help the citizen understand what is going on and to enable operators to put into the public domain the warrants and so on with which they have to deal. It provides that they will not commit an offence by disclosing not details but the number of warrants, the number of accounts and the number of warrants complied with, going back only for a limited period of six months. The second limb of the amendment —that they can do more, or more can be done by whoever, if the Secretary of State agrees it—should go almost without saying.
I am told, and would welcome confirmation if the Minister can give it, that the Government are considering regulations to introduce a clear framework for transparency and that provisions such as this might fall within those. To that extent, my amendment is a probing amendment.
User transparency around engagement with law enforcement and government agencies is a key component of accountability to users. It is a prerequisite too, I would say, of redress. Given that the Government are committed to greater transparency than we have had hitherto through this Bill, and to this being a world-leading piece of legislation, I hope that they will be sympathetic to the provisions proposed. The amendment would permit providers to publish statistical data and would complement the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s annual report, looking at the issues through a different lens and from another perspective. I beg to move.
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, it is the Government’s view that a new public reporting clause, as proposed by this amendment, is unnecessary. I will seek to explain why.
Clauses 55 and 125 already provide for the Secretary of State to make regulations that will permit operators to report information in relation to the number of interception and equipment interference warrants they have given effect to. Furthermore, the Government have proposed amendments to these clauses to give more flexibility to permit operators to publish greater statistical information about the warrants they have received. In response to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I can tell the House that it is the Government’s intention that the regulations will permit companies to publish details relating to the number of warrants they have given effect to and the number of customer accounts to which these warrants refer.
However, as was previously discussed in Committee, we need to be very careful about any exemptions to prohibitions on revealing sensitive information and the extent to which they might reveal the capabilities of the agencies. It is already the case that terrorists and criminals change their behaviour and the means they use to communicate to evade detection, and we must not give them further information that would help them to do so.
The Secretary of State must have the ability to protect the technical capabilities deployed by law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies by setting out the way information relating to warrants may be reported—for example, the time period between being served with a warrant and publication of that information, or the bandings to be used for reporting on the numbers of warrants received. It is our view that the level of detail required is appropriate for such conditions to be provided for in regulations, not in the Bill.
The Government will of course continue to work closely with telecommunications operators on their transparency reporting. We have already discussed the proposed content of the draft regulations with them. Indeed, the government amendments to Clauses 55 and 125 reflect our efforts to address issues raised by operators in response to this consultation. Of course, also, the regulations issued under Clauses 55 and 125 will in due course be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
It is therefore our view that the Bill and the Government amendments already provide for what these amendments seek, in in a way that allows companies to be transparent and the Government to protect sensitive capabilities. Accordingly, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that response. What we are really being told is that the fleshing out of transparency provisions that I seek is in train. I of course understand points such as the need to consider exceptions.
I am prompted by this to mention a question that I should perhaps have asked the Government a little while ago, but I think all noble Lords will be interested. I am not expecting the noble and learned Lord to respond to this instantly, but we would all be interested to know the timetable for introducing regulations. We know there is a deadline of the end of this year because of DRIPA coming to the end of its natural life, but I assume the Bill cannot operate without a lot of secondary legislation. I wonder whether there could at some point be an indication of not only how the Government propose to deal with regulations but how the House, which is generally very supportive of the thrust of the legislation, despite one or two bits and pieces, can be helpful without losing its proper role of scrutinising regulations.
I should not perhaps take time on Report to be as pompous as that sounds. It is intended to be both an inquiry and an expression of concern about a matter that is for Parliament, not just the Government. Having said that, and welcoming the information about the work going on on this subject, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) A warrant may be considered necessary on the grounds falling within subsection (2)(b) only where there is a reasonable suspicion that a serious criminal offence has been or is likely to be committed and it is reasonably believed that the communications sought for interception will contain information relevant to the criminal investigation.”
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 20 and 67, because they are very closely linked. They both, in essence, would require a reasonable suspicion of a serious crime. They would need the authorities to demonstrate a reasonable suspicion of a serious crime, and a nexus between the communications sought and the crime suspected, for a targeted surveillance warrant to be authorised. I see absolutely no reason not to make this clear. I hope very much that Government see sense on this.
One of the biggest problems in every single power the Bill gives and sometimes creates is the lack of a reasonable suspicion—lack of a threshold that is absolutely clear for surveillance powers to be authorised for the purpose of preventing and detecting crime. Intrusive powers can be authorised to prevent and detect serious crime, but this general purpose is left wide open to broad interpretation and abuse without requiring the authorising authority to verify the existence of that reasonable suspicion of criminality. A requirement of reasonable suspicion, when the purpose of preventing and detecting serious crime is invoked, would protect people and prevent the abusive surveillance of law-abiding citizens that we have seen in the past, without unduly limiting legitimate use of surveillance powers.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I have sympathy for the concerns held by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, but bearing in mind the double lock that now applies in almost all warrant applications, which would not have applied when abuses of powers happened in the past, can the Minister reassure the House that the new provisions in the Bill for independent oversight of the granting of warrants may be sufficient to obviate the need for the amendments?
Lord Rosser
I, too, have sympathy with many of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. If there were to be a requirement for reasonable suspicion in addition to requiring decisions to be necessary and proportionate, because the two are not the same thing, one could envisage a situation—for example, in a kidnap case—where it could make life rather more difficult. In such a case, it might not be known whether it was a kidnap or simply a person who had gone missing.
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, as indicated by the noble Baroness, the amendments would provide that a targeted interception or equipment interference warrant could be issued in the interests of preventing or detecting serious crime only where there was a reasonable suspicion that a serious criminal offence had been or was likely to be committed.
The amendments are simply not necessary. I assure the House that for a warrant to be issued for the prevention or detection of serious crime, a sufficiently compelling case will always be required. A speculative warrant could never be approved, so these amendments address a concern that is fundamentally misplaced.
The Bill already provides strict and robust safeguards that ensure that a warrant may be issued only where it is necessary and proportionate. That is a well-established test. This decision must be approved by both the Secretary of State and a judicial commissioner. I pick up a point made by the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Rosser: in the case of a warrant for the prevention and detection of serious crime, the test of necessity and proportionality simply could not be met where there was not a reasonable suspicion that a serious crime had been or was likely to be committed. In these circumstances, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
I thank the noble and learned Lord for his answer. I never tire of telling this House that I was targeted by the Met police, monitored by them and put on to a domestic extremist database with, I would argue, absolutely no cause. Noble Lords will forgive me if I do not quite believe that there are enough safeguards. Quite honestly, I wonder if in five or 10 years I will have the opportunity to come to Ministers and say, “I told you so”. However many safeguards are put in, without strengthening them and making them absolutely clear you leave the door open for abuse. We have seen it in the past. We know very well that part of this Bill’s meaning is to cover abuses of previous legislation. I am deeply unconfident about the safeguards proposed, as are other organisations outside the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“and section 23(5) does not apply in relation to the refusal to approve the decision.”
Earl Howe
My Lords, I shall also speak to the other government amendments grouped here. These amendments relate to warrants: their scope, authorisation process and modification. I shall begin by discussing a number of amendments, many of which are minor and technical in nature.
Amendments 32 to 34 provide that a targeted interception warrant, targeted examination warrant or mutual assistance warrant authorising or requiring the interception or selection for examination of secondary data must specify the address, numbers, apparatus or other factors or combination of factors that are to be used for identifying the communications. This will bring the requirements for a warrant authorising the obtaining of secondary data into line with those warrants seeking to obtain communications. By “secondary data” I mean systems data attached to or logically associated with the communication that is capable of being separated from the remainder of the communication and which, if separated, would not reveal the meaning of the communication.
On Amendment 35, Clause 17 states that a warrant may relate to a person, organisation or set of premises, and Clause 29 goes on to set out requirements that must be met by warrants. Clause 29 already caters for the circumstances surrounding warrants intended for communications from or intended for any person, and for communications originating on or intended for transmission to any premises named or described in the warrant. This amendment makes a small change to include communications relating to an organisation within Clause 29.
Amendments 36, 261 and 272 are technical amendments that simply clarify that the communications described in a targeted interception warrant can include communications sent between anything owned, controlled or operated by the person or organisation specified in the warrant, including communications that are not sent by, or intended for, a person. This is nothing new and simply makes explicit the position in existing law. The amendments also clarify that any “premises” described in such a warrant include but are not limited to,
“land, movable structure, vehicle, vessel, aircraft or hovercraft”.
I thought it would assist the House if I gave an example of where such communications are crucial: gathering intelligence on the technical characteristics of military systems. This activity is vital to understanding, reducing and countering the threat to our interests around the world, including threats from foreign weapon systems in operational and strategic theatres, both directly through the understanding of the threat and through longer-term countermeasure development by the Ministry of Defence. It reduces the threat to our deployed and strategic forces—on the ground, at sea and in the air—and it is essential for keeping our Armed Forces safe, ensuring that they can operate effectively, and for providing options to protect our national interests.
As I speak, the RAF is deployed on counter-Daesh operations in the Middle East. Intelligence garnered from such signals or communications has played an important role in getting the RAF there and keeping it safe, in both the short and long term. The specifications that our aircraft and their on-board offensive and defensive systems have been built to were in large part shaped by the historic understanding of adversaries’ weapons capabilities. The long-term analysis of these data allows us to develop understanding of the way our adversaries operate, and assists in training and equipping our Armed Forces. It also informs deployment decisions, including risk assessment, force size and shape, and affordability. The way the world has changed over the past decade makes it more important than ever that we maintain this broad situational awareness so that, if our Armed Forces are required to provide support during a future global crisis, they are prepared and can be protected.
Given the global nature of these communications, the international nature of the arms trade and the inherent unpredictability of global instability, most warrants of this nature will relate to thematic subjects under Clause 17(2) such that relevant systems can be targeted wherever they are in the world. For example, if it is necessary to issue a warrant to obtain data emitted by military ships controlled by states posing a threat to the UK, the warrant must provide for data to be obtained from those ships irrespective of their location. However, as noble Lords will appreciate, the main purpose of this activity is to obtain information from and about systems, such as missile systems, ships, radar and aircraft. It is not about obtaining the private communications of individual people, whether in the UK or overseas. Nevertheless, the obtaining of the data and their subsequent handling, retention, use and destruction would always be subject to all the safeguards required by the Bill, as for any other targeted interception warrant. This includes the double lock of Secretary of State and judicial commissioner approval.
The activity that I have talked about here is crucial to our national security. It is activity that is already undertaken under existing law and it has always been the case that the Bill was intended to cater for it. These amendments simply make it absolutely clear that that is the case.
Amendment 39 is a minor amendment to correct the position whereby a competent authority outside the UK, such as a foreign law enforcement agency operating under a mutual assistance warrant, could make major or minor modifications to a warrant in an urgent case. It is not our intention that a competent authority outside the UK should be able to make major or minor modifications to an urgent mutual assistance warrant. Therefore, this amendment simply removes that ability for a competent authority outside the United Kingdom to make major or minor modifications to a mutual assistance warrant in an urgent case.
Similarly, Amendment 51 is a minor amendment which makes the definition of “interception subject” in Clause 38 simpler and clearer. There is no change in the meaning.
I turn to a series of amendments that seek to amend the clauses that relate to the approval of major modifications made in urgent cases. Amendments 49, 85, 88, 182, 199, 207 and 233 will reduce the time period within which a judicial commissioner must decide whether or not to approve the modification and notify the issuing authority of this decision from five working days to three. We have already debated equivalent amendments to the targeted provisions in the Bill. We heard during our previous debates how important it is for the security and intelligence agencies to have the operational agility to respond at speed to events in their efforts to keep us all safe. These provisions reduce the time available to judicial commissioners to consider whether to approve a major modification in an urgent case, bringing the period into line with that for the approval of urgent warrants in the Bill. These amendments act as a further safeguard in so far as they limit the time that a modification is in force without being subject to the full judicial commissioner double lock, while still allowing them sufficient time to undertake their deliberations.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick and I have three amendments in this group—but, first, I thank the noble Earl for the amendment reducing the five-day period in the case of urgency regarding modifications so that it is in line with the urgent issue of warrants. He referred to agility; three days preserves agility as it requires a judicial commissioner to be slightly more agile. More importantly, it is consistent and sensible. We were puzzled during Committee as to why the very similar arrangements about urgency were not consistent with regard to the time period, so we are glad to have taken that step forward.
Two of our amendments, Amendments 40 and 41, also refer to modifications. Clause 34 refers to modifications using provisions about,
“adding the name or description of a person, organisation or set of premises”.
We would add “or varying” to “adding” because it seems that a variation may be as significant as—and in effect amount to—an addition. I acknowledge that under Clause 32, which defines major modifications, variations of “name or description” are included. But Clause 34, to which our amendments would apply, allows modifications which are “necessary” and “proportionate”. Do we actually have consistency here? I am worried that by not allowing for variations within the regime of major modifications, we might let some additions in through the back door.
Amendment 66 would amend Clause 96, which is about the subject matter of equipment interference warrants. There is no restriction on the use of targeted thematic equipment interference warrants, unlike bulk EI warrants, which can be used to obtain only overseas communications data or information and are available only to the security services. Under the clause, there is no limit to the size of,
“a group of persons who share a common purpose”—
although I accept that “common purpose” contains a natural limit—nor to what is meant by,
“more than one person or organisation”.
That has dictated where we have tabled this amendment, which suggests a limit of 50 persons for a single investigation. It is clearly an arbitrary figure but it is there to try to tease out, a little more than perhaps we were able to in Committee, how this will work and how it could not grow in the application to such an extent as to defeat what we see as the purpose of those provisions. So we are not of course wedded to 50 but we are wedded to finding out a little more about the operation of this.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for speaking to her amendments so clearly, as she always does. Perhaps I may first address Amendments 40 and 41, which relate to Clause 34. I do not believe that these amendments are in fact necessary. I agree that in circumstances where an agency seeks to add something to a warrant, that should be possible only where it is both necessary and proportionate. That is what the Bill provides, and that necessity and proportionality test applies whether a name or description is being added, or where a factor is being added.
However, I do not agree that a necessity and proportionality test is relevant where a name, description or factor is simply being varied. In such a case, the conduct authorised by the Secretary of State and approved by the judicial commissioner is not changing in substance. An example might be where an individual is identified initially by a nickname but their true identity subsequently becomes known. I will give another example, which I hope will reassure the noble Baroness. During Committee noble Lords expressed concern about warrants against premises. If an agency applies for a warrant against a premises at, let us imagine, 25 Acacia Avenue and it turns out that it actually intended to target 125 Acacia Avenue, in that sort of case the original warrant should be cancelled and the error reported to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner —and an entirely new warrant should be sought. So there are two types of variation, if I may put it that way. One, I suggest, should not require the process that the noble Baroness has suggested; the other also should not require the process because it should be subject to an entirely fresh warrant. I hope that that provides her with the necessary reassurance.
Turning now to Amendment 66, as the noble Baroness explained, the amendment seeks to limit the number of persons that a targeted examination warrant issued under Part 5 may relate to. The amendment would clearly mean that any individual targeted examination warrant that relates to multiple persons for the purposes of a single investigation or operation under Clause 96(2)(c) could not relate to more than 50 persons. I believe that inserting such an arbitrary limit would be a mistake—I know the noble Baroness realises that it is an arbitrary figure—and that it would not add to the strong safeguards already provided for in the Bill.
The decision on whether a warrant is necessary and proportionate is rightly one for the issuing authority and the judicial commissioner. There may be circumstances in which the case for examining the material of more than 50 persons is entirely proportionate to what is sought to be gained from that task. For example, if the security and intelligence agencies are investigating UK-based users of websites hosting illegal child pornography, it would be detrimental and dangerous to limit the number of people they could investigate to a particular figure. This could in some cases result in material relating to dangerous subjects of interest escaping entirely appropriate examination simply because they were past the relevant number that would be set out in statute if this amendment or something like it were accepted.
Mandating that a targeted examination warrant must not relate to more than 50 people would mean either that vital operations could not proceed or that the intelligence agencies would on some occasions need to submit multiple applications for warrants relating to a single investigation or operation. That would needlessly increase the bureaucratic burden placed upon the agencies and the issuing authority while also hampering the ability of the issuing authority and the judicial commissioner to consider the operation in full. Such a restriction would add no additional rigour to the already robust double-lock process.
Introducing an arbitrary restriction does nothing to ensure that the principles of necessity and proportionality are upheld, but the role of judicial commissioners, already provided for by the Bill, does. That is why the Bill requires both the issuing authority and the judicial commissioner to consider, on a case-by-case basis, whether the breadth of a warrant is appropriate without the imposition of indiscriminate limits. In summary, the amendment has the potential to be damaging, needlessly bureaucratic or both, and I invite the noble Baroness not to press it.
Lord Keen of Elie
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, the Government have listened carefully to concerns expressed in this House and by the legal profession about the protections in the Bill relating to material which attracts legal privilege, and in response to those concerns the Government propose a number of amendments.
We have already discussed the amendment to the privacy clause which makes it clear that a public authority must consider, when seeking a warrant or authorisation, whether additional protections apply because particularly sensitive material is to be obtained, including that which attracts legal privilege. This sets the context for the additional protections which are set out in subsequent parts of the Bill. It puts beyond doubt the importance of legal privilege. It makes it clear that public authorities must be mindful of the particular sensitivity of material which attracts privilege and must apply the additional protections provided for in the Bill.
The next set of amendments provided for in this group amend Clauses 27 and 107, which set out the protections for items subject to legal privilege in the targeted interception and targeted equipment interference provisions. Amendments 99 and 132 make it clear that it will not be possible to target legally privileged material solely on the grounds that is in the interests of the economic well-being of the UK. Amendments 100 and 133 define the exceptional and compelling test that applies when the intention is to obtain legally privileged material. The Bill is currently silent on this test, and detail as to what it means in practice has been set out in the draft code of practice.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I was wondering whether the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, wanted to speak to his amendment before I came in with my rather more disparate ones. First, I thank the Government very much for the significant amendments which the noble and learned Lord has just introduced. The House will understand that, being members of the legal profession, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill were not leaving it there but were going to try to pin everything down. I have already given the apologies of my noble friend Lord Lester, and I need to give those of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, because of the religious holiday starting just about now. I also thank Tom Hickman of counsel, who drafted the amendments to which I will speak, instructed by the Law Society of England and Wales. As all the dramatis personae seem to come from the same chambers, I did suggest they might have got together over a cup of tea, but that did not happen.
Amendment 27 is an amendment to the amendment expanding the meaning of “exceptional and compelling circumstances”. The government amendment provides that the public interest in obtaining the information must outweigh the public interest in the confidentiality of it. We are of course talking about items subject to legal privilege, and the amendment would provide that it should “clearly” outweigh that second interest. I do not want to get into an argument here, but I suppose a current example would be whether 52 to 48 is a clear difference in the balance of concerns. Where a balance is being struck, it might well be one which is teetering, or where one consideration outweighs the other but barely, so is it not right to say that one public interest in this situation should “clearly” outweigh the other for the provisions to operate?
The next amendments also relate to the use of the intercepted material where the circumstances override privilege. The Bill specifies only such circumstances where a warrant is sought with the express purpose of obtaining legally privileged material or where this is the likely result of the interception. It seems to the Law Society that the principle should apply with equal force when privileged material is obtained as an unintended by-product of interception—for example, in circumstances where a warrant is sought to intercept the telephone of a suspected serious criminal who is not known to have contact with a lawyer but who, after the warrant is obtained, instructs a lawyer and speaks with him or her on his telephone.
The Bill as drafted provides that whenever material is retained, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner must be notified, but the Bill should make it clear that the commissioner should allow use of the material only in exceptional and compelling circumstances, and have express power to direct that the material not be further used, or that it should be destroyed. The amendments to the new clause after Clause 52 and those to the amendments to Clause 144 would address this.
Finally, there are proposals for protection in the Bill for privileged material in the context of communications data. The Government have accepted the principle of such protection but have proposed that it be addressed by the code. The amendment in question seeks to put the provisions into the Bill and not leave the matter to a code, which of course has a different status. It may be a more flexible document, but this issue is so important that a clause closely analogous to that requiring independent authorisation for information which could disclose a journalist’s source, which is in the Bill, should be provided to protect confidential access to legal advice.
I know that the noble and learned Lord has spent a good deal of time considering the detail of these amendments as well as the structure the Government now have, and I am grateful to him for the meeting he held with various legal luminaries and me yesterday. I hope he can accept some or all of these amendments, or help the House with a way forward in capturing in the Bill the points made by them, if not precisely in this form.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, it may be convenient for me to speak about my Amendment 55A, which seeks to amend the new clause proposed in Amendment 55. I approach the Bill on the basis that the security services should get what they require in order to perform their duties adequately for the safety of our country, but the degree to which those powers are given should affect only to a minimum the rights of citizens apart from the Bill. That seems a reasonable approach in looking at these provisions.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, we are all grateful to the Minister for the amount of consideration he has given to this. I am sure that among the luminaries who were at the meeting yesterday, the noble Baroness would be included. I was not there, I am glad to say; I was at a separate meeting of less luminous people this afternoon.
There are two stages of dealing with privileged information. The first is the decision to make the interception. The provisions that have been put in place in that connection have been referred to, and I have no comment on them. There is a second stage, though, when the material produced by the interception is considered. There is room for a closer use of scrutiny in connection with that. Legal privilege extends to an application to a lawyer for advice and the advice given in consequence of that application. It is possible that, intertwined with those two, other material should arise. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, spoke in Committee about a lawyer who was handed a letter by a suspect to deliver, and the result of that was rather damaging to the investigation. I think it is clear that the delivery of a letter and the acceptance of that letter by the lawyer was not part of the application for advice or indeed of the advice given, and therefore it would not be covered by legal professional privilege.
I regard legal professional privilege as a fundamental right in our system, enabling a client to consult his solicitor with perfect freedom in relation to any matter on which he requires legal advice. The privilege applies to the application for advice and the advice given, but it extends no further. Therefore, once the interception has taken place, the material is there for consideration. I consider that however difficult it may be to judge in advance before you get the intercepted material, once you get the intercepted material there is scope for deciding to what extent legal professional privilege covers it. I consider that the Interception Commissioner has a very special position and power in relation to that. I therefore believe it is possible for him or her to separate out from the total material intercepted what is truly covered by legal professional privilege. My amendment is intended to permit that and to require that the matter covered by legal professional privilege should not be further used. That should be the principle that preserves our right to legal professional privilege.
The agencies and the Minister have explained that surrounding that may be factual material that is vital to the investigation. The example given is someone who says, “I’m going to Greece. Could I be extradited from Greece?”. The request for information is, “Could I be extradited from Greece?”, while the factual information is that he is going to Greece. If that is the case, I consider that the information about whether or not he can be extradited from Greece is covered by legal professional privilege but the information that says he is going to Greece is not. Therefore, in an edited version of the material, the Interception Commissioner could take out all that was covered by legal professional privilege and decide what use, if any, the remainder could be put to. That is perfectly in accordance with the doctrine of legal professional privilege.
To refer again to a point that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, made in Committee, it is important that a lawyer should be able to tell his client about the protection. He should be able to tell him that, subject to the iniquity provision, the conference in connection with the request for advice and the giving of that advice is absolutely privileged, but of course it does not cover anything that might be said in addition to that.
It is also possible that the Interception Commissioner might be able, in addition to that kind of separation and editing, to consider whether inferences can be drawn from the way in which the advice was sought. For example, if the client says, without indicating that he is going to Greece, “Can a person be extradited from Greece?”, it could be inferred that he might well be going to Greece and the security services could use that inference as a subject for their investigation, which might help that investigation considerably.
It is therefore possible to use this system at the second stage, the stage at which the material is available to study, to ensure that legal professional privilege is not breached but that the maximum information that is useful to the security services can be extracted from the material that has been intercepted without breaching that principle. That is what I want to achieve with this amendment. I believe it could be better phrased—we had some problem with reception, which I need not go into—but what is required is a power for the commissioner, which could be well expressed by parliamentary counsel, allowing the genuine privilege to apply at the same time as giving to the security services all possible information that they could reasonably use from the material collected. That is the purpose of my Amendment 55A. I am conscious that the draughtsmanship could be improved upon and I would be happy to see that happen, but the principle that I want to achieve is very clear and I think it is well supported by common sense.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
My Lords, I would like to make three points. The first is a general point. I am sure the whole House is grateful to Ministers and all others who have been involved in trying to produce a safe system that provides a public interest exception in relation to legal professional privilege. There was an argument running until a few days ago that there should be no public interest exception, but I do not believe that position is now going to be put forward in this House—certainly not voted upon. Indeed, we can think of examples that may or may not fall within legal professional privilege but could, which would properly be exceptions to which the authority should have regard.
My second point is about Amendment 27 and the proposal that there should be a new standard of proof— new to the criminal law or criminal procedure as far as I know it—containing the phrase “clearly outweighs”. “Clearly outweighs” means no more than the existing civil standard of proof, the balance of probabilities. There is no doubt that those who decide that the balance of probabilities, however expressed, applies will give their reasons in writing. With great respect, because I share the aspiration behind Amendment 27, I think it muddies the waters in an unwelcome way.
I turn with trepidation to Amendment 55A, spoken to with such eloquence by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. Again, I am sympathetic to what he is trying to achieve, which is to narrow the area for removal or breach of legal professional privilege. It is something which we lawyers regard as near sacrosanct as any concept in the law. My concern is with the word “must” in his amendment. I am happy for an attempt to be made to redraft it, as he recognised might be necessary, but I would not be content to see “must” in any redraft for the following reasons.
When the procedure now set out in Amendment 55 is followed by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, he—or she—may direct that the item is destroyed or impose conditions as to disclosure, but in making that decision he will be considering a number of contextual issues. Obviously, he will be considering the context at the time when he is making the immediate judgment, but he may also be considering another context. It may well be that it is envisaged that a criminal trial will ensue later.
The rules of disclosure for criminal trials are founded on the notion that the authorities retain material, except in wholly exceptional circumstances. For example, the material retained may materially undermine the prosecution case when a trial takes place, and it is required that evidence that materially undermines the prosecution case should be disclosed to the defence. At the moment when the interception takes place, it may not appear that that might be the result of the material, but it could happen, and the commissioner may well envisage that.
We should not have a provision in which that disclosure cannot occur. One reason why we have had such difficulty making intercept material admissible in court is because of the problems about disclosure. In the case of intercept, the issue is not destruction but huge volume, which makes the normal English and Welsh—and, I believe, Scottish—law requirements for disclosure very difficult to fulfil. There is a risk that the same might happen if there was compulsion of any kind to destroy material.
Answering, as I said, with great trepidation, what has been said by the noble and learned Lord, I oppose any form of compulsion in such a clause. I hope that the Minister will carefully consider that issue before determining whether or not to accept the advice of someone who I know is one of his most esteemed Scottish colleagues.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
Like other noble Lords, I thank the Minister and the Bill team for the detailed discussions—perhaps negotiations is a better word—that they have had not only with us but with other interested parties. We have sought to balance our strong desire to protect clients’ confidentiality—their ability to speak openly and honestly with their lawyer, safe in the knowledge that information will go no further —with the need to safeguard the security of citizens and free them from the threat of terrorism or other risks to life. It would be wonderful if there were a nice, absolute and clear division between those two objectives but, sadly, in the real world there seldom is.
The Bill as drafted had not got the balance right. It was tipping towards the state’s ability to access or use legally privileged information. Since then, as the Minister outlined, the amendments to Clause 2, an overriding clause which should circumvent all the powers in the Bill, will significantly safeguard privileged material. It is not an absolute, but we acknowledge movement here and in other amendments, such as the public interest test needed before approving a warrant. It would require both the Secretary of State and a judicial commissioner to be satisfied that the public interest in obtaining the information outweighed that long-standing public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of legally privileged communications, but also, importantly, that there were no other reasonable means of obtaining the required information.
Similarly, we welcome Amendment 25, by which, when a warrant is requested to prevent or detect serious crime, the exceptional compelling circumstances have to relate to national security or preventing death or significant injury, and do not, as with some of the other powers, include being in the interests of the UK’s economic well-being. We are also pleased that the commissioner would have to be informed when any privileged material is retained by an agency and note that, as has just been mentioned, it can be ordered to be destroyed or for conditions to be imposed on its disclosure.
We are, however, sympathetic to the desire of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern—I cannot believe he really called himself less luminous—to allow the commissioner to differentiate between advice and, for example, the time when a phone call was made, which could be incredibly important but irrelevant to the content of the phone call. If there is a way to enable the commissioner to differentiate in that way, we hope that the Government will respond to that positively.
Finally, with regard to the so-called inequity exception, we note that any application for a warrant under this provision would have to set out the grounds for believing that communications are being made with the intention of furthering a crime, and we welcome that.
We are mindful that representatives of lawyers—speaking on behalf of their clients, because it is their interests that we are discussing—feel that the Government have not gone far enough to meet their concern. We acknowledge that, on paper, an enormous amount of progress has been made. Our concern is whether the resources, culture and mindset of the IPC will allow for the scrutiny and challenge that the words now on paper will require. I am reassured by the fact that the judicial commissioners are not just lawyers but very experienced and senior ones, so they will have a background of understanding the legal profession’s fears and long-standing views about this matter. Perhaps, when replying, the Minister, in addition to responding to the wider points made, can give an assurance that the commissioner and judicial commissioners will be appointed with a view to guaranteeing their complete independence and with sufficient resources to be able to look at these significant and demanding issues with due care and attention.
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, I am obliged to noble Lords. I begin by looking at Amendments 27 and 88, which seek to insert the word “clearly” in the public interest test. On this point I concur with the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, that there is a danger that this would simply muddy the waters and not clarify.
The test as set out in the government amendment is straightforward. The public interest in obtaining the information sought either outweighs the public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of privilege or it does not. If the word “clearly” were inserted, that certainty would be lost. We would have to try to define what we mean by “clearly”. Logic suggests that it means that one public interest test should outweigh the other by a certain amount, as indicated by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, but it is not apparent what that amount would be. This would undoubtedly lead to confusion and uncertainty. Given that such a warrant can be sought only in exceptional and compelling circumstances, where national security or life and limb are at risk, confusion and uncertainty are one thing that we cannot afford.
The government amendments set out in detail what is intended by “exceptional and compelling”. The test is explicit on the face of the Bill and it is one that works. We are also introducing a requirement for the codes to include additional information about when circumstances are to be considered exceptional and compelling, and requiring the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to keep that language under review. It is in these circumstances that I invite the noble Baroness not to press her amendments.
The second set of amendments in this group—Amendments 56, 57, 192 and 193—seek to change the power of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to determine what happens to legally privileged material when it has been obtained by an agency and the agency wishes to retain it. First, they would provide that the commissioner has the power to impose conditions on the use of the item as well as its disclosure. Secondly, they would also require the commissioner to direct that any privileged material that has been obtained must be destroyed unless there are exceptional and compelling circumstances that justify its retention. These amendments raise important issues in respect of legally privileged material that is inadvertently obtained and where the agency wishes to retain it. I would like to reflect further on our consideration of these points today and to return to this issue at Third Reading.
Amendment 107 deals with communications data and seeks to provide for judicial approval of authorisations for the communications data of a person who is or is likely to be a practising legal professional. It seeks to reflect the protections provided in Part 3 of the Bill for the identity of a journalistic source, but in practice this amendment goes much further by attaching the protections to the profession rather than to the sensitive information they manage. The debates in the House of Commons and at previous stages in this House have been clear that Parliament’s view is that protection should attach to the sensitive communication or to the function being carried out and should not simply apply to the person because they are a member of some profession. For example, there was consensus that protection should apply to the journalist’s communications with a source or the client’s communications with a lawyer. This amendment would go against that consensus by providing protection to a lawyer simply because he is a lawyer.
The Bill takes a reasoned and balanced approach. It applies additional protections where appropriate; provides for judicial authorisation of the most intrusive powers and for the use of less intrusive powers in the most sensitive circumstances; and provides a powerful and robust oversight regime to ensure that powers cannot be misused. The protections provided are specific to each power under the Bill, applying protection which is appropriate to the level of intrusion represented by each power. The draft Communications Data Code of Practice sets out the additional considerations that must be taken into account when any data relate to a member of a profession which routinely holds items subject to legal provision. Indeed, Schedule 7 to the Bill requires that the code shall include such detail. In addition, the current amendment to Clause 2 puts beyond doubt the importance of taking particular care in relation to sensitive information, such as items subject to legal privilege.
Our debate has already shown the importance that the Government place on the protection of legally privileged material, but I would suggest that it is not appropriate to introduce these additional protections within the context of authorisations for communications data. I invite the noble Baroness not to press Amendment 107.
Amendment 55A, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, seeks to amend government Amendment 55. This amendment would require the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to direct that any material obtained that is subject to legal privilege must be destroyed and allow the agency to retain only material that is incidental to that which is privileged.
I have already indicated in response to Amendment 57, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that I am minded to look again at whether there is more we might provide on the face of the Bill regarding the test that the commissioner should apply when making a decision about whether material can be retained. However, I would respectfully suggest that what the noble and learned Lord proposes with this amendment is not appropriate in the circumstances. It is the case that the vital intelligence that an agency may require could intrude not only on incidental material in a legally privileged communication but on the legally privileged communication in general.
I take up the example which the noble and learned Lord gave of the individual communicating with a lawyer and asking, “Can I be extradited from Greece?”. One might say, in a very straightforward fashion, that the relevant intelligence there is Greece, not that he may or may not be extradited. But what if the communication goes like this: “Can I be extradited from Greece or Albania?”, and the answer is, “You can be extradited from Greece but you cannot be extradited from Albania”. Just giving them Greece and Albania will not assist the intelligence services very much. On the other hand, the legally privileged information that he can be extradited from Greece but cannot be extradited from Albania might lead the reasonable intelligence officer to infer that the individual was more likely to be found in Albania than in Greece. It is in those circumstances that I suggest that one cannot easily divide between the two. As I have indicated, we are conscious that in these areas we can look again to see whether we can strengthen these matters. At this stage I would invite the noble and learned Lord not to press his amendment.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, I am extremely happy that the noble and learned Lord should look at this matter further. To take his example on Greece and Albania, I think the correct way to deal with that would be to say that it was an inference from the legal advice that he might be going to Albania and you could separate that out from the advice itself as a matter of edit, allowing for inferences from the nature of the arrangement. I think that a little bit of, shall I say, creative editing would make this possible. I am very keen to conserve the idea that legal professional privilege is absolute—that is the purpose of my amendment. I believe that with a bit of ingenuity the Government could devise a formula that would allow that to happen. In the meantime, I am happy not to press my amendment on the basis that it will be considered by the Government, and if necessary, I can return to it at Third Reading.
Lord Keen of Elie
“( ) In deciding whether to issue the warrant, the person to whom the application is made must have regard to the public interest in the confidentiality of items subject to legal privilege.”
“(3A) But the warrant may not be issued if it is considered necessary only as mentioned in section 20(2)(c).”
Lord Keen of Elie
“( ) For the purposes of subsection (3)(a), there cannot be exceptional and compelling circumstances that make it necessary to authorise or require the interception, or the selection for examination, of items subject to legal privilege unless—(a) the public interest in obtaining the information that would be obtained by the warrant outweighs the public interest in the confidentiality of items subject to legal privilege,(b) there are no other means by which the information may reasonably be obtained, and(c) in the case of a warrant considered necessary as mentioned in section 20(2)(b) or (3) or (as the case may be) 21(4), obtaining the information is necessary for the purpose of preventing death or significant injury.”
“(7A) Subsections (7B) and (7C) apply if—(a) an application is made by or on behalf of an intercepting authority for a warrant under this Chapter,(b) the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is—(i) in the case of a targeted interception warrant or mutual assistance warrant, to authorise or require the interception of communications that, if they were not made with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose, would be items subject to legal privilege, or(ii) in the case of a targeted examination warrant, to authorise the selection of such communications for examination, and (c) the intercepting authority considers that the communications (“the targeted communications”) are likely to be communications made with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose.(7B) The application must—(a) contain a statement that the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is to authorise or require the interception, or (in the case of a targeted examination warrant) the selection for examination, of communications that, if they were not made with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose, would be items subject to legal privilege, and(b) set out the reasons for believing that the targeted communications are likely to be communications made with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose.(7C) The person to whom the application is made may issue the warrant only if the person considers that the targeted communications are likely to be communications made with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose.”
“Confidential journalistic material
(1) This section applies if—(a) an application is made by or on behalf of an intercepting authority for a warrant under this Chapter, and(b) the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is—(i) in the case of a targeted interception warrant or mutual assistance warrant, to authorise or require the interception of communications which the intercepting authority believes will be communications containing confidential journalistic material, or(ii) in the case of a targeted examination warrant, to authorise the selection for examination of journalistic material which the intercepting authority believes is confidential journalistic material.(2) The application must contain a statement that the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is—(a) in the case of a targeted interception warrant or mutual assistance warrant, to authorise or require the interception of communications which the intercepting authority believes will be communications containing confidential journalistic material, or(b) in the case of a targeted examination warrant, to authorise the selection for examination of journalistic material which the intercepting authority believes is confidential journalistic material.(3) The person to whom the application is made may issue the warrant only if the person considers that the arrangements made for the purposes of section 51 or (as the case may be) section 141 (safeguards relating to retention and disclosure of material) include specific arrangements for the handling, retention, use and destruction of communications containing confidential journalistic material.(4) For the meanings of “journalistic material” and “confidential journalistic material”, see section (General definitions: “journalistic material” etc.).”
Earl Howe
My Lords, in moving Amendment 30, I shall speak also to the other government amendments grouped with it. We come to the safeguards associated with confidential journalistic material and sources of journalistic information, which have been the subject of significant debate during the passage of the Bill. This package of amendments protects the fundamental role that journalism plays in a healthy democracy. While it is right that the Bill provides for the investigation of individuals where they are suspected of serious illegality or wrongdoing, whatever their chosen profession, it is also right that particularly sensitive professions are afforded specific additional protections.
In limited circumstances, it may be necessary to use the powers provided in this Bill for the necessary and proportionate investigation of a journalist—for example, where they are suspected of serious illegality or wrongdoing or where there is an immediate threat to life. In such circumstances, the Bill and the associated codes of practice already contain significant protections for journalists and their sources, recognising the strong public interest in protecting a free press and freedom of expression in a democratic society, including the willingness of sources to provide information to journalists anonymously. So it already places into primary legislation for the first time the requirement for all public authorities to obtain judicial approval for an authorisation to acquire communications data to identify or confirm a journalistic source. We responded to concerns raised in the Commons by clearly setting out in the Bill that the judicial commissioner, a current or former High Court judge, must first consider the public interest in protecting a source of journalistic information and then be satisfied that there is another, overriding public interest before approving such an application.
On top of that, we went further and introduced Clause 2, the overarching privacy clause, which makes it explicit that public authorities using any power in the Bill must have regard to a number of matters, including whether what is sought to be achieved by an authorisation may reasonably be achieved by other, less intrusive means and the public interest in the protection of privacy. Public authorities would, of course, also be subject to the requirements of the Human Rights Act and all the relevant rights and freedoms that it provides for. Of course, all applications to acquire material must be authorised by a relevant authority and approved by a judicial commissioner. The accompanying draft codes of practice require the Secretary of State, or law enforcement chief for law enforcement use of equipment interference, to apply particular consideration in cases where the subject of the warrant might reasonably assume a high degree of privacy, or where confidential information is involved.
Finally, statutory oversight of the use of investigatory powers, whether in relation to journalists or not, is provided through the creation of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. Further to this comprehensive oversight regime, the Bill creates a number of offences that apply to the public authorities using the powers to sit alongside existing relevant offences in other legislation. This includes a specific offence of unlawfully obtaining communications data, which will sit alongside the offence of misconduct in a public office in common law, to ensure that, where a public authority knowingly or recklessly acquires communications data without lawful authority, appropriate penalties are available.
My noble and learned friend Lord Keen has already spoken about the government amendment requiring the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to include in his annual report information relating to the operation of particular safeguards, such as those for legally privileged material. I want to make it clear that this requirement also applies to those safeguards protecting confidential journalistic material and sources of journalistic information. It is also important to remember that the Investigatory Powers Commissioner will be able to call on whatever expertise he or she sees fit, and will be provided with sufficient resources to do so. This may be technical or communications expertise or, indeed, professional expertise, such as that of media advisers or lawyers.
We have been clear that the commissioner will lead an outward-facing organisation, and we consider that engagement with professional bodies, such as media representative groups, on how the use of a particular power affects their members is exactly the sort of thing the commissioner and their team should be doing. While we do not think that it would be appropriate to mandate this through legislation, it will form part of the role for the commissioner. These further new amendments will strengthen the safeguards in the Bill even further to ensure that the vital public interest of freedom of expression is protected, while still allowing those who are charged with keeping us safe to continue their vital work.
Amendments 30 and 75 protect the key principle that individuals who provide information to journalists should have an expectation of privacy. The Government accept that it is important that confidential journalistic material is handled with the sensitivity that it deserves. So where a relevant authority applies for a warrant where the purpose, or one of the purposes, is to authorise or require the obtaining of confidential journalistic material, the amendment would require the application to contain a statement confirming that this is the purpose, or one of the purposes.
The same requirement would apply in relation to a targeted examination warrant that seeks to authorise the selection for examination of such confidential journalistic material acquired in bulk. This means that the Secretary of State or law enforcement chief and judicial commissioner will have to be fully aware that they are authorising the obtaining of confidential journalistic material when they come to consider a warrant. The Government are seeking to protect legitimate journalism, while ensuring that those who wish to do us harm cannot hide behind spurious claims of journalism. For this reason, Amendment 268 makes it clear that material acquired or created to further a criminal purpose is not considered journalistic material in the context of the Bill. That seeks to avoid those such as the media wing of Daesh attracting a safeguard intended for legitimate journalists.
In addition to the requirement to clearly state in the application whether the purpose, or one of the purposes, is to obtain confidential journalistic material, the person to whom the warrant application is addressed must also be satisfied that there are specific arrangements in place for the handling, retention, use and destruction of communications containing such confidential journalistic material.
I turn to the amendments which protect sources of journalistic information. A free press cannot operate without journalists, and journalists cannot operate without sources. That is why the Government have focused protections on journalists’ sources and the important public interest in protecting the confidentiality of sources of journalistic information. Amendments 31 and 76 provide further protection by making clear that when a relevant authority seeks a warrant to identify or confirm a source of journalistic information, the application must contain a statement to that effect. This will mean that the Secretary of State or law enforcement chief and judicial commissioner will be fully aware of the intention to identify or confirm a source when they are considering the necessity and proportionality of the warrant. Again, the person to whom the warrant application is addressed must also be satisfied that there are specific arrangements in place for the handling, retention, use and destruction of communications that identify sources of journalistic information.
There are a number of consequential amendments which relate to modification of a warrant. These amendments make it clear that, when modifying a warrant when the purpose is to obtain confidential journalistic material, the same factors must be considered as would be the case in an application to obtain confidential journalistic material.
Amendments 53, 90, 194 and 217 will ensure that, where confidential journalistic material is obtained by a public authority which intends to retain it, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner must be notified as soon as is reasonably practicable. This applies when the material is obtained through interception or equipment interference through a targeted warrant and when it is selected for examination having been collected in bulk. This is an important safeguard. It ensures that the commissioner is fully aware of the confidential material held by the agencies. It assists in his oversight of the particular handling arrangements that must be in place when this type of material is retained by the agencies.
I turn to the amendments in relation to bulk provisions. Amendments 194 and 217 make it clear that, where confidential journalistic material is obtained by a public authority which intends to retain it, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner must be notified as soon as is reasonably practicable. This applies when the material is obtained through interception or equipment interference through a targeted warrant and when it is selected for examination having been collected in bulk. It ensures that the commissioner is fully aware of the confidential material held by the agencies and it assists in his oversight of the particular handling arrangements that must be in place when this type of material is retained by the agencies. There are also a number of consequential amendments on this which provide for the definition of a journalistic source to apply to the Bill as a whole rather than solely to Part 3, as previously drafted.
I hope that what I have said by way of explanation of these amendments demonstrates to the House that the Government have listened to the concerns raised in Committee by a number of your Lordships and to representations from journalists’ organisations and that we have responded in a constructive and helpful way. I beg to move.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing forward this group of amendments, which will go a very long way to protecting the important relationship between the best journalists and their sources. As a journalist, I know how increasingly difficult it is to nurture a relationship with a whistleblower or an anonymous source who is prepared to reveal confidential information in the public interest. The Bill had been in danger of damaging that bond of trust, as I said in my speech at Second Reading. However, Amendment 30 will now place this relationship at the forefront of the judicial commissioners’ minds. During the passage of the Bill there have been questions about the definition of journalism, but these new amendments will give commissioners the powers to decide whether it is in the public interest to protect a particular source of journalism information.
I have also been concerned that targeted interception clauses would have made journalists covering demonstrations greater targets for those wanting to cause harm. The Bill would have opened the journalists to the threat of being seen as agents of the forces of law and order. This would have compromised their independence and ability to report the incident, not to mention putting them in harm’s way. However, Amendment 75 assuages my fear. The noble Earl and the Bill team have gone far to strengthen these safeguards for journalistic material in the various powers considered, but the new codes of practice will strengthen them even further. My only reservation is that the Bill does nothing to allow notifying the lawyers of reputable news organisations to alert them that a warrant to carry out surveillance on their journalists has been issued. This would have given them a chance to explain the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of a source when a warrant was asked for. However, I trust that the changes brought forward in this group of amendments will allow the commissioner to protect those sources of journalism. I know that the noble Earl and the Bill team have worked long and hard to come up with these amendments and I thank them.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as executive director of the Telegraph Media Group and draw attention to my other media interests in the register. Like the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, I am most grateful to the Government, and in particular to my noble friend the Minister—who has, as always, been the soul of patience and emollience—for listening so sympathetically to the arguments put forward in Committee and for engaging in what seemed like countless constructive discussions with media interests on issues which are of acute importance to a free press.
I welcome the amendments that the noble Earl has brought forward today. They mesh together with Amendments 10 and 11, which form the umbrella for the safeguards being introduced. They go a considerable way to meeting the concerns raised by the media. They do not, of course, go as far as some in the media would have liked in an ideal world. In Committee we looked at prior notification, which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, has just mentioned. However, we do not live in an ideal world, and it is very welcome that these amendments recognise in the Bill the significance and special importance of journalistic material. Given the particular difficulties of prior notification, which I fully understand, and the fact that we are at a late stage in the legislative process, this package is a practical way forward to keep the structure of the Bill intact, while providing important safeguards, although perhaps limited in some respects for confidential sources.
Lord Rooker
My Lords, I am not a journalism specialist like the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Lord, Lord Black. Having listened to the debate, I have a couple of points which I hope the Minister will find supportive. The overall package of the Bill that has now been presented on Report is far more liberal than would ever have come forward from the Labour Government of which I was a member for 12 years. We would have been far less willing to give in the way this Government have. What they have brought forward is remarkable. I can almost prove that. I attended the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, where there were hundreds of fringe meetings every day. I scanned the book, dozens of pages of it, because I was there the previous year when the situation with this Bill was slightly different. Not one fringe meeting was advertised in relation to any part of this Bill. There was nothing about journalism, lawyers or investigatory powers; absolutely nothing compared to the previous two years. I find that quite practical and I hope the Government will find it reassuring.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, to add to that, I too am most impressed with the package the Government have come up with. It is really impressive. It shows a great willingness to compromise but does not compromise our security at all. I also pass my good wishes to the noble Earl on the 219th anniversary of his ancestor raising the siege of Gibraltar.
Lord Paddick
I also thank the Minister for this impressive package of amendments. It clearly has to be necessary and proportionate in some circumstances to investigate a journalist. However, I am a little concerned about a law enforcement chief being able to authorise such acquisition through equipment interference, although there is now the reassurance of a judicial commissioner, which did not exist before. I accept what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, said about the concern of the National Union of Journalists that there should be prior notification and the ability to make representations. However, I think it is reasonably clear how difficult it would be to differentiate between the cases to which the measure would and would not apply. In all the circumstances, I think that this is more than the best that we could have hoped for. We are very grateful.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I hope that my noble friend Lord Rooker has not ended the Minister’s political career. However, I think we all can say that when we come here our political careers are behind us. I join the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, the noble Lord, Lord Black, and others in thanking the Ministers and their team for the significant changes that have been made. I will not go through all of them, but the Government’s adding in Amendment 11 a reference to,
“information identifying or confirming a source of journalistic information”,
needing extra protection is very welcome, in addition to the other overriding requirement of there being no other way of getting the information.
As has been mentioned, government Amendments 30 and 31 insert special procedures for journalistic material and, perhaps of even more concern to journalists, journalists’ sources. As has just been said, the NUJ in particular wants other changes to be introduced but the idea of prior notice for covert investigation is in itself a contradiction too far. We are, however, sympathetic to the essence of the journalists’ approach—that is, their desire to protect not simply their members but whistleblowing members of the public through whom misdeeds often come to light. However, there will be occasions when terrorists or others who wish us harm will have been in touch with a journalist and the sole indication of that person’s whereabouts might exist on a journalist’s phone. Unless we are absolutely sure that we would never in any circumstances want those who protect us to be able to access that information, we need the warrants and the powers in the Bill. We hope very much that the safeguards provided will keep those exceptions to a minimum—I think that the word used was “rare”—and we hope that the IPC, in reviewing what happens, will always bear in mind the cost to all of us if fears of retribution deter good whistleblowers from getting misdeeds into the public domain. However, those are in a way fairly small instances. I commend to the House the changes that have been made.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I very much appreciate the noble Lord, Lord West, alerting the House to the achievement of my distinguished ancestor, Admiral Earl Howe, in relieving the siege of Gibraltar, to which he referred for the rest of his life as one of his greatest accomplishments. Glad as I am that this package of amendments has received the approval of so many of your Lordships, I cannot claim that it falls into quite the same bracket as the relief of Gibraltar. I am obviously gratified that it has met with the House’s approval.
For the sake of completeness, I should add that we have also undertaken an extensive update of the section relating to journalists and their sources in the existing draft communications data code of practice, providing additional statutory guidance to police forces about handling requests for communications data relating to journalists. This revised version of the code has been published in time for Report, so I refer noble Lords to it.
“Sources of journalistic information
(1) This section applies if—(a) an application is made by or on behalf of an intercepting authority for a warrant under this Chapter, and(b) the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is to identify or confirm a source of journalistic information.(For the meaning of “source of journalistic information”, see section 239(1).)(2) The application must contain a statement that the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is to identify or confirm a source of journalistic information.(3) The person to whom the application is made may issue the warrant only if the person considers that the arrangements made for the purposes of section 51 or (as the case may be) section 141 (safeguards relating to retention and disclosure of material) include specific arrangements for the handling, retention, use and destruction of communications that identify sources of journalistic information.”
(i) ”
“(ii) secondary data will or may be obtained under the warrant from communications from, or intended for, the person;”
“( ) In this section any reference to communications from, or intended for, a person or organisation includes communications from, or intended for, anything owned, controlled or operated by that person or organisation.”
“( ) Subsections (2)(d) and (e) and (3) do not apply in the case of a mutual assistance warrant addressed to a person falling within section 18(1)(h) (competent authorities of overseas countries or territories).”
“( ) subsection (3) of this section applied for the purposes of subsection (1) of that section as it applies for the purposes of subsection (1) of this section.”
“and, in a case falling within subsection (2) above, section 23(5) does not apply in relation to the refusal to approve the decision.”
Lord Rosser
“( ) If a copy of a warrant served on a person outside the United Kingdom is within the scope of an international mutual assistance agreement, then—(a) the copy of the warrant must be endorsed with a statement that it is served pursuant to the agreement;(b) the intercepting authority must act in accordance with the agreement;(c) without prejudice to section 41(4), a telecommunications operator who takes reasonable steps to cooperate with the intercepting authority, pursuant to the agreement, shall be deemed to have fulfilled the duty imposed by section 41(1).”
Lord Rosser
This amendment is designed to ensure that where a warrant falls within the scope of an international agreement between the United Kingdom and a foreign Government, the requesting agency is bound to notify the receiving provider and follow the terms of the agreement, along with the authorisation, transparency and oversight requirements of the Bill, and thus establish such agreements as the primary route by which UK agencies request data from overseas operators where such agreements exist.
In its present form the Bill appears to provide UK agencies with several options to seek data from overseas providers. These include mutual legal assistance treaties, mutual legal assistance conventions, international agreements of the kind recommended by Sir Nigel Sheinwald in his report, and straightforward service of a UK warrant extraterritorially. The Bill does not direct agencies as to which power to use and under what circumstances.
What is being sought is a direction to agencies on the face of the Bill to prioritise international agreements where they exist so that they become the primary route by which UK agencies request data from overseas providers, and that this will make it more likely that these agreements will become models for other Governments. Achieving this should provide a more predictable approach for both agencies and providers and reduce the likelihood of a situation where a number of Governments claim jurisdiction over data. I beg to move.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, because we on these Benches entirely agree with it. There is a difficulty in the UK asserting unilateral power over other territories in terms of enforceability if nothing else. Clearly, if there is an international agreement, it is far better that that is used as the primary route to achieve the government agencies’ objectives than relying on a slightly dubious assertion of the UK’s power overseas. On that basis, we support the amendment.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to both the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for the way they introduced this amendment. Of course, its context, as the House will be aware, is the position of this country vis-à-vis the United States. I welcome the opportunity to respond to the amendment because it provides me with a chance to update the House on the progress of the proposed bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States on the issue of access to data across jurisdictions.
The UK and United States Governments have been considering a framework under which communications service providers based in one country could disclose data directly to the other for serious criminal and counterterrorism investigations when required to by a valid warrant or order, without facing a conflict of law. We need to address the situation—highlighted by Sir Nigel Sheinwald, David Anderson, and indeed some US-based companies themselves—where the content of communications between UK nationals, in the UK or in third countries, who are planning or committing crime in the UK, or others who pose a direct threat to the UK both here and abroad, can be beyond the reach of UK law enforcement simply because the data that relate to their communications happens to be stored in the United States.
I am pleased to say that in July 2016 the US Government sent a legislative proposal to Congress that, if passed, would pave the way for a bilateral agreement between the UK and US Governments. The legislation and agreement would help ensure that US-based communications service providers were able to respond to lawful orders from the UK by removing any perceived conflict of law that may previously have prevented co-operation. It would include strong safeguards and so maintain rigorous privacy protections while providing a means for UK agencies to make targeted requests for data relating to serious criminality. This type of agreement would be good for business, which requires greater certainty in the face of any conflict of laws; good for the public, because it would increase levels of transparency and oversight, while also ensuring that they are protected from key threats; and good for the internet, because it would avoid the challenges posed by data localisation and the balkanisation of the web.
We hope that such an agreement can be in place as soon as possible. However, any timetable will of course depend on the changes required to the relevant US legislation. We hope that these can be agreed quickly. Clearly, it would not be right to specify something that does not yet exist as a primary route in the Bill. However, I can reassure the House that, in practice, of course the intention is that such an agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States would be the primary route through which UK agencies access data from US-based communications service providers where it is within the scope of the agreement.
We have always sought to work with companies so that they are able to meet their obligations under UK law. This agreement will help to facilitate exactly that co-operation—so the amendment is not necessary. It is worth repeating what the Prime Minister said in March when she was Home Secretary: any company co-operating with its obligations through an international agreement will of course not be subject to enforcement action through the courts. I hope that these remarks are helpful, and for the reasons given I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Rosser
I thank the Minister for his reply and for the update on the discussions that are taking place towards an agreement that I hope will resolve some of the current difficulties. I am quite sure that the Minister’s words and the information he has given will be read with interest, not only within this House but outside it. I thank him for his reply and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) Where—(a) a communication which has been intercepted in accordance with a targeted interception warrant or mutual assistance warrant is retained, following its examination, for purposes other than the destruction of the communication, and(b) it is a communication that contains confidential journalistic material or identifies a source of journalistic information,the person to whom the warrant is addressed must inform the Investigatory Powers Commissioner as soon as is reasonably practicable.”
“Additional safeguards for items subject to legal privilege
(1) This section applies where an item subject to legal privilege which has been intercepted in accordance with a targeted interception warrant or mutual assistance warrant is retained, following its examination, for purposes other than the destruction of the item.(2) The person to whom the warrant is addressed must inform the Investigatory Powers Commissioner of the retention of the item as soon as is reasonably practicable.(3) The Investigatory Powers Commissioner may—(a) direct that the item is destroyed, or(b) impose conditions as to the disclosure or otherwise making available of that item.(4) The Investigatory Powers Commissioner—(a) may require an affected party to make representations about how the Commissioner should exercise any function under subsection (3), and (b) must have regard to any such representations made by an affected party (whether or not as a result of a requirement imposed under paragraph (a)).(5) Each of the following is an “affected party” for the purposes of subsection (4)—(a) the person who decided to issue the warrant;(b) the person to whom the warrant is or was addressed.”
Lord Butler of Brockwell
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, Amendment 58 and others in this group are also in the names of my noble friend Lord Janvrin and the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian. Amendments 58 and 59 are in fact consequential amendments. The substance is in Amendments 195, 203, 217 and 241, the purpose of which is to introduce specific penalties for misuse of powers concerned with bulk collection of data. Amendment 195 introduces penalties for the wrongful examination of material collected under bulk interception; Amendment 203 for the wrongful examination of bulk collection of communications data; Amendment 217 for the wrongful examination of data obtained from bulk equipment interference; and Amendment 241 for the wrongful examination of datasets collected in bulk. I make it clear that I do not believe that these powers are needed to deal with current abuse of powers by the intelligence agencies, nor because I expect the agencies to abuse the powers in the Bill in the future. I know enough of the agencies to know that their standards in these matters are high.
The reason for introducing these clauses is that the Bill gives exceptional powers, and the powers in respect of bulk collection have given rise to the greatest public concern. There are already specific offences for the misuse of other powers in the Bill; for example, targeted interception and access to communications data. Penalties for the misuse of equipment interference are covered by other legislation; for example, the Computer Misuse Act. However, at present there is no specific offence on powers which cause most concern to the public—the powers for bulk collection. For misuse of these powers, reliance would have to be placed on the general purposes in the Data Protection Act, on internal discipline or on the very general offence of misconduct in public office. There is clearly an unevenness here. The misuse of information collected under bulk powers should be subject to specific penalties like the misuse of other powers in the Bill. This matter was raised in Committee and I am glad to say that the Government have listened; we are very grateful for the discussions that have taken place.
I also make clear that it is no part of my intention that members of the intelligence agencies should be inhibited in their legitimate searches by fear that they may accidentally incur these penalties. Amendments 195, 203, 217 and 241 restrict the offence to cases where persons deliberately choose to examine material which they know or believe is not authorised under the Bill, so only deliberate misuse would be caught by these provisions.
I believe that these amendments are justified and that they introduce a proper balance into the Bill. I also believe that they satisfy the intentions of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, which drew attention to this unevenness. I am very grateful to the staff of the ISC and to the government Bill team for their help in formulating the amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I support the amendments for the very reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, has just set out. Bulk powers are exceptional powers and they raise concerns among the public. There are specific offences in other parts of the Bill and in other legislation, and now we are focusing on deliberate abuse. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said about the integrity of the security services, but we believe that these specific offences are necessary for public reassurance, if nothing else.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I was about to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Butler, on his excellent drafting of the amendments but he has slightly given away that it was not all done by his own fair hand. However, if the look on the Minister’s face is indicating that the Government might accept the amendments, we are delighted that the noble Lord’s influence from this House seems to be keeping pace with the influence that he had in his previous occupation. We are very content to support the amendments.
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, we welcome the chance to revisit this important issue, which was debated in Committee.
In putting beyond doubt that deliberate wrongdoing in relation to the bulk powers will be subject to clear, criminal sanction, we accept that these amendments will provide clarity on a crucial issue. We also believe that they have been drafted in such a way that, rightly, they would not criminalise honest, well-intentioned mistakes by the staff of our security and intelligence agencies, who do so much to keep us all safe. As such, we believe they strike the right balance and are to be welcomed. Therefore, we are happy to accept the amendments.
Lord Butler of Brockwell
Lord Keen of Elie
(a) a member of the panel of the inquiry,(b) a person appointed as legal adviser to the inquiry,(c) a person who is a relevant party to the proceedings,(d) a person representing such a person for the purposes of the proceedings, or(e) a person performing functions necessary for the proper functioning of the proceedings.”
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, I shall now introduce a number of government amendments concerning the disclosure of information in relation to warrants.
Amendments 60 and 61 clarify those persons who may be present during restricted proceedings of an inquiry, as provided for under the Inquiries Act 2005, when intercept material is disclosed or examined. The proposed changes make it clear that intercept material can be disclosed in restricted proceedings only if restrictions are in place to prohibit attendance by anyone other than those individuals listed in Amendment 61.
I move on to Amendment 62. Clause 54 imposes a duty not to make unauthorised disclosures in relation to warrants issued under Part 2 of the Bill or Chapter 1 of Part 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Clause 55 sets out the circumstances in which such a disclosure is permitted. This amendment corrects a minor error in relation to Clause 55, which would allow a person to whom a mutual assistance warrant is or was addressed to authorise a disclosure of material in relation to the warrant if it was in accordance with a statutory purpose. The person referred to here would be a competent authority outside the United Kingdom, such as a foreign law enforcement agency. We do not wish to allow for such a disclosure and the amendment simply removes the ability of a person to whom a mutual assistance warrant is or was addressed to authorise a disclosure in relation to that warrant.
Amendments 63 and 93 do not change the meaning of Clauses 55 and 125 but simply clarify the excepted disclosure provisions in the Bill. This minor change makes it clear that a disclosure of information made by a legal adviser in relation to a warrant is not an “excepted disclosure” where the intention is to further a criminal purpose.
Amendments 64 and 94 relate to Clauses 55 and 125, which provide for certain disclosures to be made in relation to warrants. These amendments propose changes to the regulation-making power by which the Secretary of State may provide for permitted disclosures of statistics in relation to warrants.
These changes will permit communications service providers to publish greater statistical detail about the warrants to which they have given effect. The regulations may, for example, permit companies to publish not only data regarding the number of warrants to which they have given effect but details relating to the number of customer accounts that are subject to warrants issued under the Bill. This demonstrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that, in addition to improving the safeguards around the use of investigatory powers, we are also increasing transparency by providing for more information to be made available to the public on the number of times these powers have been used. Accordingly, I invite noble Lords to support these government amendments, technical as they are.
“( ) In this paragraph “relevant party”, in relation to any proceedings of an inquiry, means—(a) any person making a disclosure to the panel of the inquiry, or to a person appointed as legal adviser to the inquiry, in accordance with paragraph 22(1);(b) any person giving evidence to the inquiry in circumstances where, in the absence of sub-paragraph (1), the prohibition imposed by section 53(1) would be breached;(c) any person whose conduct is the interception-related conduct (within the meaning of section 53) to which the disclosure or evidence relates (whether or not that conduct has in fact occurred);(d) any other person to whom the subject-matter of the disclosure or evidence has been lawfully disclosed in accordance with section 55.( ) Any reference in this paragraph to a person appointed as legal adviser to an inquiry is to be read in accordance with paragraph 22(3).”
“( ) But subsection (2)(b) does not apply in the case of a mutual assistance warrant that is or was addressed to a person falling within section 18(1)(h) (competent authorities of overseas countries or territories).”
“(ii) consists of statistical information of a description specified in the regulations;”
“section (General definitions: “journalistic material” etc.) (general definitions: “journalistic material” etc.),”
“and section 103(5) does not apply in relation to the refusal to approve the decision.”
“( ) In deciding whether to issue the warrant, the person to whom the application is made must have regard to the public interest in the confidentiality of items subject to legal privilege.”
“(3A) But the warrant may not be issued if it is considered necessary only as mentioned in section 97(5)(c).”
“( ) For the purposes of subsection (3)(a), there cannot be exceptional and compelling circumstances that make it necessary to authorise or require interference with equipment for the purpose of obtaining, or the selection for examination of, items subject to legal privilege unless—(a) the public interest in obtaining the information that would be obtained by the warrant outweighs the public interest in the confidentiality of items subject to legal privilege,(b) there are no other means by which the information may reasonably be obtained, and(c) in the case of a warrant considered necessary for the purposes of preventing or detecting serious crime or as mentioned in section 101(3)(a), obtaining the information is necessary for the purpose of preventing death or significant injury.”
“(7A) Subsections (7B) and (7C) apply if—(a) an application is made for a warrant under this Part,(b) the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is—(i) in the case of a targeted equipment interference warrant, to authorise or require interference with equipment for the purpose of obtaining communications or other items of information that, if they were not communications made or (as the case may be) other items of information created or held with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose, would be items subject to legal privilege, or(ii) in the case of a targeted examination warrant, to authorise the selection of such communications or other items of information for examination, and (c) the applicant considers that the communications or the other items of information (“the targeted communications or other items of information”) are likely to be communications made or (as the case may be) other items of information created or held with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose.(7B) The application must—(a) contain a statement that the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is—(i) to authorise or require interference with equipment for the purpose of obtaining communications or other items of information that, if they were not communications made or (as the case may be) other items of information created or held with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose, would be items subject to legal privilege, or(ii) (in the case of a targeted examination warrant) to authorise the selection of such communications or other items of information for examination, and(b) set out the reasons for believing that the targeted communications or other items of information are likely to be communications made or (as the case may be) other items of information created or held with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose.(7C) The person to whom the application is made may issue the warrant only if the person considers that the targeted communications or other items of information are likely to be communications made or (as the case may be) other items of information created or held with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose.”
“Confidential journalistic material
(1) This section applies if an application is made for a warrant under this Part and the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant—(a) in the case of a targeted equipment interference warrant, to authorise or require interference with equipment for the purpose of obtaining communications or other items of information which the applicant for the warrant believes will be communications or other items of information containing confidential journalistic material, or(b) in the case of a targeted examination warrant, to authorise the selection for examination of journalistic material which the applicant for the warrant believes is confidential journalistic material.(2) The application must contain a statement that the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is—(a) in the case of a targeted equipment interference warrant, to authorise or require interference with equipment for the purpose of obtaining communications or other items of information which the applicant for the warrant believes will be communications or other items of information containing confidential journalistic material, or(b) in the case of a targeted examination warrant, to authorise the selection for examination of journalistic material which the applicant for the warrant believes is confidential journalistic material.(3) The person to whom the application is made may issue the warrant only if the person considers that the arrangements made for the purposes of section 122 or (as the case may be) section 177 (safeguards relating to retention and disclosure of material) include specific arrangements for the handling, retention, use and destruction of communications or other items of information containing confidential journalistic material.(4) For the meanings of “journalistic material” and “confidential journalistic material”, see section (General definitions: “journalistic material” etc.).”
“Sources of journalistic information
(1) This section applies if an application is made for a warrant under this Part and the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is to identify or confirm a source of journalistic information.(For the meaning of “source of journalistic information”, see section 239(1).)(2) The application must contain a statement that the purpose, or one of the purposes, of the warrant is to identify or confirm a source of journalistic information.(3) The person to whom the application is made may issue the warrant only if the person considers that the arrangements made for the purposes of section 122 or (as the case may be) section 177 (safeguards relating to retention and disclosure of material) include specific arrangements for the handling, retention, use and destruction of communications or other items of information that identify sources of journalistic information.”
“and, in a case falling within subsection (2) above, section 103(5) does not apply in relation to the refusal to approve the decision.”
“and section 103(5) does not apply in relation to the refusal to approve the decision.”
“( ) Where—(a) material obtained under a targeted equipment interference warrant is retained, following its examination, for purposes other than the destruction of the material, and (b) it is material that contains confidential journalistic material or identifies a source of journalistic material,the person to whom the warrant is addressed must inform the Investigatory Powers Commissioner as soon as is reasonably practicable.”
“Additional safeguards for items subject to legal privilege
(1) This section applies where an item subject to legal privilege is retained for purposes other than the destruction of the item following its examination under a warrant issued under this Part.(2) The person to whom the warrant is addressed must inform the Investigatory Powers Commissioner of the retention of the item as soon as is reasonably practicable.(3) The Investigatory Powers Commissioner may—(a) direct that the item is destroyed, or(b) impose conditions as to the disclosure or otherwise making available of that item.(4) The Investigatory Powers Commissioner—(a) may require an affected party to make representations about how the Commissioner should exercise any function under subsection (3), and(b) must have regard to any such representations made by an affected party (whether or not as a result of a requirement imposed under paragraph (a)).(5) Each of the following is an “affected party” for the purposes of subsection (4)—(a) the issuing authority (within the meaning given by section 122(11));(b) the person to whom the warrant is or was addressed.”
“(ii) consists of statistical information of a description specified in the regulations;”
“section (General definitions: “journalistic material” etc.) (general definitions: “journalistic material” etc.),”
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
Because everything has gone so quickly, I beg to move that the House do adjourn during pleasure until 7.30 pm.
Arrangement of Business
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, as the Question for Short Debate is now last business, it will be 90 minutes in length and the Back-Bench speaking time is extended to five minutes.
Housing
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to improve the quality and affordability of housing in the United Kingdom.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I begin by drawing your Lordships’ attention to my entry in the register of interests. I thank all those who are speaking in this short debate and am pleased that so many share my concerns. I look forward to hearing their speeches.
The provision of decent, affordable housing is at crisis point in the country. I share the Government’s ambition to build 1 million new homes. However, current building levels are well below that needed for an efficient and fully functioning housing market. Around 139,000 new homes were built in the year to June, but estimates of the housing need of people across the country indicate that up to 250,000 homes a year are required. Strong leadership and action are essential to solve this crisis, and putting local councils at the heart of it is vital.
Government legislation does not always assist. For example, in Colchester nine units of social housing are due in the next six months, after the ALMO’s housebuilding programme had to be cancelled due to the impact of the cuts in rent and the borrowing cap. The previous year, it built 32 homes and sold 34 homes under the right to buy.
A full range of options for the housing market should be on offer, not just home ownership. We have had many debates in this Chamber where one of the key points made, across the political spectrum, is how essential good-quality, affordable housing is to residents’ ability to make the most of their lives. Even if the country is able to achieve full employment by upskilling 3.5 million people to take higher-level, higher-paid jobs, which the economy is projected to create, analysis suggests that a minimum of 3.98 million people of working age will need access to affordable housing options by 2024.
Central to helping solve the problem is the replacement of homes sold under the right to buy and reinvestment in more genuinely affordable homes, which our cities, towns, villages and communities desperately need. This means the right homes in the right areas, creating healthy and inclusive communities. Would the Minister agree that it is not just younger people who require decent homes? The older population want homes that meet their particular needs, also in the areas of their choice.
Local authorities wish to explore all the options, including discounting the value of existing stock and housing revenue account borrowing from national public debt. This gives them flexibility to borrow to invest in the range of new homes as a key component of local infrastructure. This would allow them to meet a wide range of local needs while generating significant medium and long-term returns for public services.
Homelessness figures are rising sharply. The Government’s announcement in December of £5 million to help the 25 councils with the highest rate of homelessness is to be welcomed, but this has not halted the rise. Nineteen councils have reported a rise, including Birmingham, with a 50% rise in households in temporary accommodation, and Bromley, with a 24% rise. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will know that Southwark has also seen a rise.
Nationally, the biggest single reported reason for homelessness is loss of private rented sector accommodation. This sector has now overtaken the social sector as a tenure. Landlords are able to terminate assured shorthold tenancies for a number of reasons, including being influenced by tenant behaviour, a wish to realise capital value, or a need to accommodate their own family members. Also, the cost of housing benefit has increased as a result of the private rented sector overtaking the social sector as the main source of renting.
Affordability is essential. A recent briefing from the Resolution Foundation entitled Hanging On gives stark statistics of the stresses and strains of families who are only just managing. Annexe A of its report gives figures for the concentration of low to middle-income households for local authority areas with the highest concentration of children living in working families in receipt of tax credits. Given the speeches of my noble friend Lord Greaves over the years, noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that Pendle is at the top of the list with 55%. However, West Somerset, virtually on my doorstep, was second with 53.7%. West Somerset is a deeply rural community, covering part of Exmoor National Park. Here, children from both the market towns and rural areas have little access to leisure activities and services. Jobs are in short supply and often at the lower end of the pay scales. There is much deprivation, which sits uncomfortably with the beautiful surroundings.
Again, the Resolution Foundation gives figures for the average housing cost to income ratio among working age households by tenure type: for private rented it is 29%; for owning with a mortgage, 24%; for social rented, 18%; and for owning outright 4.9%. With a significant move towards the private rented sector, the ratio for low to middle-income families has increased from just over 18% in 1995 to over 24% in 2014-15. This rise in costs since the late 1990s is equivalent to an extra 14p on the basic rate of income tax for a dual-earning low to middle-income couple with children. Higher-income households have also seen a rise in their housing cost to income ratio, but one that is a proportionally smaller share of net income.
The quality of housing for those on low incomes is paramount. Many council and housing association homes have been brought up to the decent homes standards, but not all, and there still remain issues in the private sector. An extract from the housing section of Somerset’s joint strategic needs assessment summary of 2013-14 indicated that,
“District Councils have a responsibility to identify health and safety hazards in both private rented and owned properties, particularly where these impact vulnerable people. The emphasis is on acting to remedy these ‘Category One hazards’ before they result in a life changing event for the occupants … studies have shown that for every £1 spent remedying these hazards, it saves the NHS £3.36”.
As we all know, there is a clear link between poor energy efficiency, fuel poverty and poor health. A relationship exists between low thermal efficiency of housing and excess winter deaths. As winter approaches, I ask the Minister to say what measures the Government propose to implement to remedy this situation.
The Homes and Communities Agency has dropped imposing any standards over and above building regulations, which have now largely caught up with the Code for Sustainable Homes level 3 and now include many of the features of lifetime homes. Using building regulations provides a level playing field across tenures, and incremental adjustments have slowly raised the standard in the private sector, but have effectively lowered standards in the social sector. Government has issued a single set of national space standards but has left it to local planning authorities to adopt them only where they have evidence for doing so. However, British housing is among the smallest in the western world.
All types of local authority are involved with housing provision, including county councils which provide for adults and young people with learning and physical disabilities and elderly residents needing specialist housing. County councils work closely with their partners to maximise housing delivery and face challenges in achieving a strategic approach to provision, as infrastructure functions are split—as we all know—between district and county councils. The County Councils Network supports more strategic planning, which still allows for local input but means that a joined-up approach can be taken to housing, infrastructure and other services across county areas. Metropolitan and unitary authorities also have many of these problems.
Given that all sections of local government have considerable concerns about accommodating aspiring home owners and those wishing to rent, as well as the vulnerable and homeless in their communities, I press the Minister to say exactly what the Government will do to rectify this problem. It needs much more than a sticking plaster to effect a long-term solution.
Lord Patten (Con)
I would add “acceptability” to the key words “quality” and “affordability” in the title of the noble Baroness’s important Question—I listened with particular care because I live not so far away from her in Somerset and understand exactly the issues to which she referred, strongly supporting as I do the Government’s housing policies—because, at a time of unparalleled demand for both homes to rent, whether in the public or private sector, and to buy, an equally key inhibitor to the pace of new building is local resistance to plans for new build, much less generally on brownfield sites than on greenfield land, from those who live nearby.
I do not believe that such feelings can be dismissed as mere nimbyism—that is to be arrogant towards those people who care about their local neighbourhoods and landscapes, even though I strongly believe that we must build more—for, too often, the design of many new homes in privately built areas is poor, if not sometimes downright crummy and ugly. The homes are tiny—the smallest in Europe. Try putting a broom in a cupboard in some newly constructed homes in both the public and private sector and you will find you need the skills of a contortionist to make this possible.
The landscaping at the edges of so much new housing is equally sketchy if not non-existent—the kind of hard edges to a building development which do not help the landscape at all. The pollution of the night sky by over-lighting is often damaging in the extreme, both to the people who live around and those who move into those housing estates. These are not just the despairing cries of architectural or landscape aesthetes. If local authorities and mass housebuilders deal with these issues, they will not necessarily make such new building, particularly on greenfield or edge-of-village sites, welcomed with open arms, but they will make it much more easily accepted in the long term, mitigating in the interim years of protest and probably delay in construction, which neither the Government nor those who want new homes wish.
Local authorities have fewer resources, so they have fewer architects, whether for the built environment or for landscapes. Some big housebuilders seem to have no architects at all. They are staffed mostly by people who turn over the concepts for the houses or flats they wish to build to simple so-called designers, whose job is to cram as much as possible on as little as possible, rather than using architects to raise the quality of the built environment and design and thus to improve not only the acceptability of those new homes I wish to see, but their speed of construction and, in the end, their profitability for companies and shareholders alike. Good design is not expensive; it is just thoughtful design and it is vital in our housing drive. I hope that that is a totally bipartisan or tripartisan—or indeed involving the Bishops—point of view, or whatever other link we have in the Chamber this evening. There is nothing party political about this.
The laying of roads and building of homes is an irreversible step. There is no turning back—land built on is never returned to the plough or woodland—so it is the bounden duty of housebuilders in the public and private sectors to do all they can to improve the sometimes shoddy and gimcrack designs of what they run up, and of the architectural profession to help break down the sometimes iron curtain between them and the mass housebuilders and fulfil the Government’s excellent plans. However, if these issues are not dealt with—I do not wish to see some government gauleiter or design overlord coming in to say that something has to be designed this way or that way—I am fearful that, in the hundreds of thousands of new houses and flats we need to see built in the next five years or so, we may be presiding over the kind of poor and destructive blots on the landscape that none of us wishes to see. I hope that the Government will take these concerns seriously.
Lord Sawyer (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for introducing this debate. I want to draw detailed attention to the impact on people of living in small spaces.
Five years ago, the Royal Institute of British Architects said that family homes being sold by the UK’s eight biggest private housebuilders were on average eight square metres smaller than the minimum housing standard for the UK. Eight square metres is the size of a small bedroom. RIBA said that homes across the UK got smaller and smaller as prices rose higher and higher and waiting lists grew longer and longer.
I want to make three points, based on a recent study of micro-housing tenants. First, small living spaces put extra tasks into a busy working day. If a person cannot go to bed until they have folded away their dining table and unfolded their bed, after a while they may never unfold the dining table. Their living space becomes little more than a bed. This is not uncommon; it happens frequently in the big cities, including London.
Secondly, people who work in busy urban places cope with routine pressures in the form of space and noise. Tiny urban homes mean that this continues after work. People might live with the soundtrack of their neighbour’s favourite TV shows. They might constantly feel that they need to keep their own noise down. Home is not a peaceful place, nor is it a private place—and that is unacceptable.
Thirdly, there are impacts for families living in very small spaces. If children cannot move around and make a noise, their health and concentration suffer. Their family’s well-being suffers, too. We know that all these things cause stress, are detrimental to health and lead to families having a sense of unease, and feeling unsettled and unhappy.
I recognise that our housing crisis has caused small spaces to look like attractive options to some people, particularly if they are affordable and close to work. Some people may use them as a temporary solution; others may need them as long-term homes. Some small homes are thoughtfully designed, with good windows and access to outside spaces, but many of them do not provide these things. In those cases, homes can be hard and restrictive places.
Despite the many other dimensions of our housing crisis that we have heard about before in this Chamber and will no doubt hear about tonight, living spaces across different income brackets have become particularly difficult, especially for people at the bottom of the scale.
I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Patten, about design. This is partly the same problem: it is about rushing up something quickly that does not meet the needs of the medium-term and long-term future, and families suffer because of it. We must come to grips with this. There is a tendency to think, because the housing crisis is so severe, “Oh my goodness, it’s better to have a box than nothing”. I read in the Evening Standard that people are looking at putting up Portakabins, which is better than being homeless. But we cannot afford to let that be the standard. We must lift our eyes and imaginations and try to create the same kind of homes for this generation as we were lucky enough to enjoy when we were younger.
As an urgent step, would the Minister write to me and others in the House with an update on the progress of the nationally described space standard introduced in 2015? What difference has it made so far and what difference can it make? How can it be put into action more effectively in the places where it is most needed? I do not expect that answer tonight but I would very much like to see it in writing at the appropriate time.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I must declare my registered interests, including that of chair of the housing association Housing & Care 21. I will make only two points, a general one and one in relation to retirement housing.
The Government are possibly at a turning point in their approach to housing because of their concerns about the national economy and that they will not achieve the objectives they set themselves. I hope that as the Government develop their plans to boost the amount of housebuilding they will recognise that to get more new homes built they must encourage all sectors of housebuilding, not just the promotion of private ownership. We will never get more than 160,000 or 170,000 homes per year—an absolute maximum—unless we have a much more general approach to housing policy. Private developers will build only houses they think will sell. Frankly, in the current uncertainty of the Brexit climate they will hold back on houses they are building. We must encourage larger developments that are more likely to be pushed out quicker and where there is commitment to mixed development—with private sale housing built alongside private rented and social rented accommodation—as well as encouraging provision for self-build and shared ownership. The plans to regenerate public-sector housing estates in our cities—a vital priority—will be achieved only if we have the same approach of partnership between the private and public sectors.
Secondly, on retirement housing, I think we all accept in this House—it is probably more immediate to our own outlooks on life—that the release of much-needed family housing plus the need to contain costs within the National Health Service mean we must promote much more independent living for retired people through accommodation that is well designed and supported for them and that takes them through into extra-care housing as well. To ensure that happens, I ask the Minister to look again at the Government’s current proposals to limit housing benefit to the local housing living allowance. Currently, that will take no account of the extra property costs for this type of retirement housing. That means that they are proposing, from 2019, to impose on existing retirement residents the need to pay—it will be deducted from housing benefit—the difference between the local housing living allowance and the actual rent. In almost all cases, the cost for these retirement properties will be higher because of the extra facilities they need. If the Government are not careful, they will have a reinvention of the bedroom tax regarding the retired population in this type of accommodation. It will also undermine plans by housing associations to fulfil commitments to their funders to develop more of this type of housing which is urgently needed. The result will be simply less development.
The Government need to look at this again. I know they have been looking at supported housing in general but they need to look at retirement housing quickly. People are already moving into this type of accommodation and will need to be warned of the extra charges that the Government are to impose on them. If they do not do this quickly they will hold up development of this type of housing, just at the time that the economy needs it.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester
My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness for creating this opportunity to air these important matters. I had thought that the time was short so was going to confine myself to a very few points and I will resist the temptation to change my plan.
I just received a first draft of research that I commissioned into population trends and housing growth for the next 30 years in my diocese of west Kent, Medway and parts of south-east London. On the basis of known local authority plans, developer plans and projections, a population of 1.3 million is projected to increase by some 25% in that period. That is a lot of new homes—almost certainly 100,000 or more in a relatively small geographical area.
On affordability, if we are to maintain a healthy and mixed economy with jobs at different stages and levels in the employment world, as well as diverse and cohesive communities, it is crucial for a good proportion of those homes to be seriously affordable. I encourage us not to walk away from the debate about what is “affordable”, particularly in areas of high housing cost. As we already heard, ratios of average house price to average income in many parts of the country, not least the south-east, are extremely alarming.
On quality, my point is not so much about the quality of individual homes—some of that was mentioned by other noble Lords—but rather the question of good-quality living space in the broadest sense; that is, neighbourhood and social infrastructure as well as what might be called physical infrastructure. It is fairly easy to say that this is not the strongest suit of the volume housebuilders. Indeed, it is not their reason for existence. Even local authorities, which have an important continuing interest in these matters, are by and large no longer the direct providers of those things that build community and social infrastructure. Those with long experience in doing this are the community and voluntary sectors, including housing associations, residents’ groups, church and other faith bodies. We have been doing it for a long time.
Personally, I am delighted that in relation to the largest housing development in my area—a pretty big one: Ebbsfleet Garden City—we are already well engaged in conversations with the development corporation, developers and others about these matters of what the voluntary and other sectors can add in terms of community infrastructure. I urge that the capacity of these sectors be recognised, enhanced and ensured, and that, whether in policy documents or other ways, the Government see to it that representatives of these sectors have a place at the various tables where the quality of future housing developments is considered.
Lord Borwick (Con)
My Lords, I first declare my interests as an active property developer with an interest as a director and shareholder in several developments, notably in a development of houses in Bicester and future developments in Sussex and Scotland. All these are noted in the register.
We are asked how to improve affordability in housing, to which the trite answer must be to build more houses. However, the Government could take several actions now to make a difference. I have mentioned before the difficulty of getting planning permission and the slow processing of large applications. One quick win might be to look at the protection of great crested newts as the rules on this awful amphibian are said to be entirely from the EU. This benighted creature is, I am told, endangered on a European scale but not on a British scale. I ask my noble friend the Minister to look at this problem with a post-Brexit eye. The danger is that newts can be, and are, transported to controversial sites by objectors in order to delay property developments that they dislike.
A simple change that can be made is to reduce the taxation level on developers, with a view to encouraging them to build, rather than overburdening them. In addition to normal corporation tax, a developer will provide social housing at a rate of between 30% and 40% of all houses built. Add to that new schools, new roads, new bus services, new playing fields, new community centres, new community art and new books in the local library—all necessary, of course, but all expensive. The simple rule is that if you add more taxes, you get fewer new entrants to a market. I hope I can be understood to be arguing not for less tax on my interests but for more development of the houses we desperately need.
Some time ago, the Government introduced the new homes bonus into the financing structure of local authorities, and many people thought that this would go some way to solving the problem of the shortage of housing. Authorities which could predict a problem, such as the funding of a library or the possible closure of a day centre, could say, “If we grant permission for 100 houses now, the bonus will pay to solve that problem”. But the bonus is structured, subtly, to stop that thinking by paying it over four years, not instantly. That neatly removes the connection between granting permission and getting receipt of the bonus. Bonuses are normally a reward and incentive for desirable behaviour, as we all know, and the Treasury mandarins would presumably be against their own bonuses being paid slowly. Could my noble friend the Minister comment on this?
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, I am a member of your Lordships’ Economic Affairs Select Committee. In July we produced our report on the housing market, Building More Homes. We concluded that the only practical way of increasing the affordability of housing is to increase supply, and that the only practical way of producing decent, secure homes for those who will never be able to buy is to increase the supply of social housing.
The Government have promised 1 million new homes by 2020. Even if this target is met, it will not be nearly enough to make houses more affordable. The Treasury estimates that even if these 1 million houses were built by 2020, house prices would still rise by 5% or 6% every year—way above the rate of wage increases. But even this target of 1 million by 2020 may not be met. The Government have claimed that starter homes will make the largest contribution to new build, with 200,000 starts. But in July, when we published our report, work on starter homes had yet to begin. I ask the Minister: three months on, have any starter homes in fact been started? Is 1 million new homes by 2020 still the Government’s target?
Whether or not that is still the Government’s target, it is unrealistic to rely on the private sector to build significantly more homes when its business model is, entirely understandably, maximisation of margin, not volume. The Treasury says that we need between 250,000 and 300,000 new homes every year simply to keep the house price to earnings ratio constant—constant, that is, at its currently very high level. If we are to do this and if we are not to neglect those who will never be able to afford to buy, we must involve local authorities and housing associations.
However, housing associations are constrained by George Osborne’s cuts to social rent. Local authorities are constrained by their legal inability to borrow to build houses. It is absurd that local authorities are free to borrow to build swimming pools but not to build new homes. Within normal prudential restraints, local authorities must be allowed to borrow to build homes; otherwise, house prices will rise even further out of reach and the supply of good, affordable and secure rented accommodation will not increase. That would be a social and economic disaster.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for introducing this important debate. I find myself echoing some of the points that were well made by the noble Lords, Lord Stoneham and Lord Starkey, in particular.
I welcome very much the Government’s renewed commitment to build 1 million more homes by 2020. But who is going to build these homes and address issues of quality and affordability? We know that the housebuilders will not deliver more than 50% or 60% of the new homes that are so badly needed. This is because they will not accelerate their output, even where they have the land and the planning consents, any faster than they can sell at a good profit. Some councils, as we have heard, are willing to become major housebuilders again, but few are ready and able to do more because of unnecessary public spending rules and the acute financial pressures on all their services. Private landlords have not actually built new homes for decades. I greatly welcome the emerging new sector of build-to-rent developers, funded by institutional investors and offering more security and good management, but I doubt they will produce more than 2% or 3% of the Government’s 1 million home target, and they are bound to concentrate on the more affluent tenant.
This all leads me to conclude that the best bet today to get enough decent homes built is to harness the resources and commitment of the housing associations. These can produce at least a third of all the new homes we so desperately need. Yet many of these bodies are looking less ambitious and less optimistic about increasing their output. First, this is because their income from rents has taken a battering from the welfare cuts that have directly and indirectly reduced their income, while making life harder for tenants. The Department for Work and Pensions must ensure that its measures to reduce housing benefit do not simply reduce supply.
Secondly, the Department for Communities and Local Government needs to adopt a more flexible approach to the tenures and types of new homes it supports. It is not helpful to insist that housebuilders cut out the quota of affordable rented homes that currently they are obliged to build and pass over to housing associations, instead requiring them just to build starter homes for sale. Direct funding for housing associations should not be tied slavishly to shared-ownership accommodation, when there is a desperate need in so many places for affordable rented and, indeed, retirement housing.
There have been encouraging comments on a change of emphasis from the new Housing Minister, Gavin Barwell. Can the Minister confirm that flexibility is indeed the new watchword in housing policy? Only then can there be a significant increase in the number of affordable, decent-quality homes, which the housing associations are ready and willing to provide.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, on securing a debate on this urgent issue and attracting so many contributing speakers.
Chartered Institute of Housing figures show new housing supply continuing to fall behind new household growth. In England, annual supply remains 60,000 short of the break-even point with household growth. Will the Minister explain what the Government have done and are doing to ensure that the housing market delivers for everyone?
Problems of affordability—higher prices—are linked to greater demand. It is the basic law of supply and demand; if demand is greater than supply, prices will go up. The long-term trend towards smaller household size—lower headship rates—and thus larger household numbers is mainly due to older households, greater prosperity and increased divorce and separation. By 2037, the decline in headship rates will account for a third of the total growth in household numbers. We do not want less of the first two factors but reducing our high rates of divorce and separation would significantly dampen demand.
There were 115,696 divorces and civil partnership dissolutions in England and Wales in 2013, and a far less precise number of separating cohabitees, whose relationships are twice as unstable as marriages. Divorces were highest among couples aged 40 to 44, very many of whom have dependent children who will want overnight stays with both their parents. Accommodating this understandable desire requires two family-sized homes. Yes, some separating parents can afford only a single room in a shared house, while re-partnering leads to household rationalisation, but fractured families still place significant pressure on housing stock.
Much of the increasing homelessness among young people and adults is due to family and relationship breakdown. In 2012, Croydon Council reported a 53% rise in homelessness caused by family breakdown. The public understand this link: in a Eurobarometer study, a fifth of British adults stated that break-ups or the loss of a close relative cause homelessness. Housing problems also drive family breakdown. Squalid and unstable housing severely strains relationships—the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, referred to this earlier—but, as already stated, prosperity has also driven smaller household size.
Policy to support family relationships has been consistently neglected by Governments; it requires as much attention as our housing stock. Can my noble friend the Minister inform the House when the promised family stability indicator will be delivered and precisely how it will drive this Government’s support for communities experiencing the highest levels of family instability, and thereby reduce the housing demand that family breakdown brings about?
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, this timely debate focuses on the issues of housing quality and affordability —matters scarcely addressed in the Housing and Planning Act over which this House laboured for four months. Even now, five months after Royal Assent, we await the outcome of consultations on a range of provisions included in what a Conservative Peer described as “this terrible, terrible Bill”—let alone the secondary legislation that will translate its aspirations into practice. As to the latter, it is high time that the Government reported on progress in relation to consultation and the likely timetable for the incoming tide of regulations that will implement the policies embodied in the Act. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us as to that timetable.
Quality was not featured in the Bill, which was essentially designed to run down council and, in effect, social housing to finance and promote owner occupation. Let me be clear: the aspiration of home ownership is absolutely legitimate and should be encouraged, but not at the expense of those whose housing needs cannot be met by that sector. The quality of new-build housing in terms of space standards and energy efficiency, to which some of your Lordships have referred, lags behind that of our continental neighbours—thanks in no small part to the coalition Government’s deliberate weakening of requirements, especially in relation to the latter. When I was first elected a councillor in Newcastle in 1967, houses were built to Parker Morris standards, long since abandoned. As I have mentioned before in this Chamber, in that year Newcastle City Council built 3,000 council houses.
In some ways, the most disturbing feature of government policy has been the weight given to affordability. For social housing tenants this is defined not in relation to their income but as 80% of what private landlords can charge as market rents in a time of acute housing shortage. All too often, this imposes real hardship. Characteristically, the Government seek to buy votes via the right to buy both council and housing association homes, funded in part by the sale of so-called high-value properties. If there are insufficient sales, the Government will impose a levy on councils.
The starter homes programmes will confer large, untaxed capital gains on purchasers, especially at the top end of the new house price range, wholly irrespective of means. First-time buyers from comfortably-off families in London, for example, will enjoy a discount of up to some £90,000 and the no-doubt inevitable rise in value on resale. Meanwhile, social housing provision faces the prospect of not only the loss of accommodation through right to buy but the pernicious effects of the Government’s enforced reduction of rents in the sector—nothing, of course, is being done in that respect in the private sector. This even includes supported housing. Money which would have been invested in maintaining and improving the existing stock of council and housing association properties, and perhaps contributed to the provision of desperately needed new, genuinely affordable homes, will now be used by the Government to reduce the cost of housing benefit—though not, of course, in the private rented sector.
In Newcastle alone, the enforced 1% rent reduction policy will lead to a 12% reduction in rental income by 2020—or £40 million, rising over time to £590 million. On a national scale, we are looking at a loss of investment in council housing running into billions. In addition, the council will in the meantime suffer a levy on high-value properties, as I have said, whether or not they are sold. Again, we will be looking at millions of pounds lost, though in the absence of any clarity from the Government it is impossible at this stage to be precise about the impact. I do not know whether the Minister will be able to give us any estimate of what that is expected to realise.
Finally, there is the impact on housebuilding. The Conservative-led Local Government Association has estimated that 88,000 council homes will be sold by 2020 and predicts that 80,000 of these homes will not be replaced. These figures will no doubt be echoed in relation to housing association homes. The warm words of the Prime Minister, Mrs May, on the steps of 10 Downing Street sounded like a return to relatively benign Conservatism of the kind that Harold Macmillan embodied as Housing Minister in the early 1950s when, among other things, he encouraged the building of council homes. He must be spinning in his grave.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I rise to raise the important issue of supported homes and to ask the Minister what plans the Government have to provide more supported housing for disadvantaged groups of people.
For example, there are very many young people, care leavers in particular, who live in temporary accommodation, stay with friends, stay with relatives or sofa-surf and often end up rough sleeping and open to criminal influences. There are specialist housing associations which provide accommodation for such people, but there are not enough of them. I understand that one of the reasons given for high levels of reoffending by ex-offenders is a lack of suitable supported accommodation to enable them to take responsibility for their own lives. I would like the Government to look into more housing for women suffering from domestic violence. There is some accommodation, but not enough. Very often these people end up rough sleeping on our streets. Problems with getting people off drugs are exacerbated by the fact that often these people have nowhere to go and no support. Very often they end up in areas which are effectively drug supermarkets. We have to look at how better and more appropriate accommodation can be provided for these people.
There is a need for much more social housing. As we have heard, the Government are very keen on home ownership. As everyone says, nobody is against home ownership, but I know very many families in my city who will never be able to afford to own their own home. The number of social housing properties is going down as they are being sold off, and as we are selling off housing association accommodation too, that hits supported housing projects for people who really need it. Will the Minister say what plans the Government have for this kind of specialised accommodation and how more of it might be provided?
I do not believe that we cannot have lots more housing and good design. When I was leader of Bristol City Council, Bristol was the green capital. We visited lots of places in Europe with high-quality, high-density design, not high-rise flats but properly designed communities with infrastructure and schools using sustainable material. If we are looking at a high-quality environment, perhaps we should be looking at that in Europe.
There are three questions there. What is going to happen about more specialised supported housing? How are we going to increase social housing and provide accommodation for all those people who need it in cities with rising waiting lists? What will the Government do to encourage a high-quality environment? Perhaps this is again something on which we should learn from our neighbours in Europe.
Baroness Redfern (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this timely debate regarding future housing growth. We have the largest affordable housing programme since the 1970s, with a £20 billion investment responding to the 86% of people who want to have the opportunity to get on the ladder and buy their own homes. I declare my interest, as set out in the register, as leader of a local authority.
Good local government needs to play a key role in establishing an ambitious vision not only for individual areas but for combined areas, such as Greater Lincolnshire. I shall quickly focus on Greater Lincolnshire Combined Authority’s devolution deal, which recognises the demand. In response, it is committed to support the development of 25,000 new homes by 2021 and 100,000 new homes over the next 20 years. With direct intervention, our combined authorities, working together with the HCA, are committed to invest £100 million of their own resources in the local housing market.
In North Lincolnshire, we propose to go for garden city status. We recognise our part in stimulating our housing areas. One ambitious project—the Lincolnshire Lakes concept—will transform the image and economy of North Lincolnshire. The lakes development is a £1.2 billion project which is dependent on front-loading major new infrastructure. As we know, access and connectivity are important, as is social infrastructure. The project will create a new marina, a business park, leisure attractions, a new Scunthorpe United football stadium and 7,000 new homes in six new villages built around five newly created lakes on eight square miles. It will be three times the size of Venice and very unique. It is about pulling together all the interested parties.
We are making a big push to encourage residents to own their own homes. We are holding drop-in sessions to discuss a variety of home-ownership options, such as custom-built, ISA, right-to-buy shared ownership, discounted market buy et cetera—demonstrating quite clearly that we are committed not only to starter homes, but to a wider range, in conjunction with the Government’s wider ambitions.
Another area we are hoping to focus on is starter-home sites, particularly those closer to the town centre, which will help link, stimulate and support town-centre regeneration, increasing footfall to supply a 24-hour economy. We, like other authorities, have a clear and co-ordinated framework to help shape national, regional and local priorities in a way that brings together economic and spatial strategies, helping to cement an improvement to our towns and rural areas so that people can be proud of where they live and which offers them real choice.
The quality of life, the health and the well-being of residents are heavily influenced by the place in which they live and work. Speed is of the essence, and we certainly need to be in a catch-up mode with our housing programmes, as well as influencing positive design quality to enhance that vision. It is important, too, to have a close working relationship with the HCA, as well as with the private sector, and bring forward stalled sites.
Finally, I stress the importance of partnership working, with one aim, that of supporting new housing areas. We know that brings with it access to job opportunities, so people seeking work have a real choice of where to live, a choice of good schools and, again, a choice of well-designed, quality housing, improving people’s quality of life, for their families, for the long term and particularly for our future generations.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted that the time has been extended and that I am able to speak in the gap. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, on getting this interesting debate, which is so relevant at present. I remind the House that my interest is in the register and on record. I agree with the noble Baroness that quality and affordability are very important issues, and I was also interested that my noble friend Lord Patten used the word “accessibility”, whereas I would use the word “availability”. The little difference between the two is quite interesting, but I bring that word forward because I am very concerned about the dramatic reduction in the number of properties to let in London. Capital cities throughout the world are being badly affected by this craze for holiday lettings, usually carried out illegally, as court decisions have made clear. If your lease says you cannot do a short let, then why should you be able to do it?
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, mentioned last year and the time we spent on the Housing and Planning Bill. Sadly, we are still waiting for the draft regulations. We were assured they would be coming promptly, but nothing has happened. That has been very disappointing, but I was even more disappointed by the Deregulation Act, which threw out council controls of any sort of short-term letting or checks on who is in a property that is meant to be available for long-term letting to residents. Instead, such lets are being converted into full-time holiday and tourist lets, often very much to the detriment of other long-term residents in the blocks. It is more that people are out to make more money, and they can make much more money out of doing short lets. Although we were told that 90 days a year would be restrictive enough, it turns out that if you plan your 90 days around January, you can have 180 continuous days—I think my maths is correct. But people are not even bothering with that: they are letting places the whole year on short-term lets, which are registered mostly with Airbnb or similar organisations. At a time when Paris and New York—it is capital cities that are the worst affected—were proposing regulation, we were deregulating. That was a very unfortunate move, and I am hoping that some control will be brought back and that councils will have a minor role, but at least a role and a right to check on what is happening.
Westminster Council used to have six officers constantly checking who was doing an illegal or legal short let. People used to come to your door and say, “Who are you?”. You were meant to have applied for it—I cannot remember whether it was 10 days before, but it was a fair time. As times have moved on, and people are used to being able to fly somewhere at 24 hours’ notice, that was really not very relevant any more. Instead, the council said it would be willing to introduce a 24-hour registration, but at least it could have gone to someone’s door and said, “Who are you, how many of you are living in this property and how long are you here for?”. The whole concept of this originally was that you should be able to come and live in a room with your host and get a feeling of how people really lived in a country—see life locally, as it was. Instead, that has turned into large and lucrative full-time holiday letting which is affecting hotels adversely and is really quite worrying.
I have a Question next week on this subject, on Wednesday 19 October, and I hope the people who have taken part in the debate today will join in then on aspects that they think are relevant, because it is a serious matter. We cannot afford to lose long-term residential houses. The loss has been very great, and it is definitely to the disadvantage of people wishing to live in London to suddenly find a great shrinkage in the number of properties available. It was very interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Best; I can listen to him on the subject for ever because he knows so much about it. He said that under the build-to-rent scheme, which I had high hopes for, no more than 2% or 3% of the properties that are needed will be produced, and that is a cause for concern as well.
Time is running away now, and although we have plenty of time available for this debate I do not want to take too much of it. However, I will mention in passing that the leader of Camden Council appeared on television a week or so ago deploring the complete loss of residential accommodation to let in that area, and I think that is largely due to these tourist lettings and people out to make a killing.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, this has been a valuable debate. We have heard about the acceptability and availability of housing; design quality; the importance of adequate living spaces and the value of Parker Morris standards; the importance of all sectors working in partnership to maximise the number of new homes; the level of local housing allowance; how we can increase the supply of new homes and the constraints on achieving that; issues around affordability; the importance of local flexibility to maximise the supply of new housing; the impact of family breakdown on the need for more homes; the problems caused by the Housing and Planning Act and the timetable for regulations in connection with that; and the impact of rent reductions on the amount of new housing development that can be secured.
I look forward to the Minister’s reply to those points, partly because I sense a new tone in government announcements about housing and perhaps a new policy approach on its way. One indicator of that is the Prime Minister’s wish to give extra help to those who are “just managing”, although I think that will have to be extended to include the many who are struggling. Another indicator is the Secretary of State’s refreshing admission last week that the Government have a moral duty to tackle the housing crisis, and I welcome that.
One problem that the Government have is that they have wanted to put all their eggs into one basket, owner-occupation, despite constant warnings in this Chamber and elsewhere that more had to be done to support the social rented sector. Another problem is that the Government have been defining homes as “affordable” when to many people they are nothing of the sort. Average house prices are six times earnings now in England and Wales, up from four times earnings in 2002. It is no surprise that there has been a sharp fall in home ownership from 72% of the housing stock in 2003 at its peak, declining by one-third since then across England.
The Government have a housebuilding commitment —I emphasise the word “commitment” as it is not a target; the words were changed in the Queen’s Speech earlier this year—to build 1 million new homes by 2020 at a rate of 200,000 a year. In a recent Question in your Lordships’ House, I reminded the Minister that in August, Shelter forecast that the Government would undershoot their 1 million homes target by some 250,000. That is why social homes for rent have become so important, yet social housing is now at a record low in terms of new building. New homes for social rent funded by the Government fell to fewer than 10,000 last year, while the House of Commons Library produced evidence recently showing that £380 million has been added to the Government’s benefits bill because people unable to secure social rented housing are being forced into the private sector, where rents in very many areas are higher and where the quality, as we have heard, can be poor.
The Government have been propping up the owner-occupied market at the expense of the rented sector. Government support for affordable and social rented properties stands at about £2 billion over the life of this Parliament, yet the support for owner-occupation is many times that. We need a better balance, and the Prime Minister’s concern for the “just managing” confirms that.
My noble friend Lord Sharkey reminded us that local councils—I declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association—have capacity to build more homes. As he pointed out, they can be trusted to borrow prudently under existing prudential borrowing rules. I very much hope that the Government will reconsider, because we have been trying to get them to do this for several years.
The crucial point is this: the private sector will not build enough homes during the next few years. I hope that the Government’s new-found “moral duty”, in the words of the Secretary of State, will deliver measures that use all the levers available to enable all those with the potential to deliver homes to do so.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, first, I refer noble Lords to my declaration of interests and declare that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, on securing this important debate today.
In my brief remarks, I say that housing and the various issues surrounding this whole subject is something to which we will return again and again in this House, and that is to be welcomed. The underlying issue is that we need to build more good-quality homes of a variety of tenures at much greater speed. We can all trade a variety of statistics about who built what and when, but the underlying issue is that we have a serious housing crisis and current levels of housebuilding are nowhere near enough.
I was pleased when I read the comments by the new Housing Minister, Mr Gavin Barwell MP, when he talked about the importance of building homes of every type of tenure, not focusing on one. I vividly recall our debates in this House during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act in the previous Session and never being able to get a straight answer from the Government when they talked about this cohort of people who had to be helped with the starter homes project at the expense of all other tenures. Any move to a more realistic, balanced policy in respect of addressing the housing needs of the country is very much to be welcomed. To make our communities work in both urban and rural areas, we need a mixture of housing types that a variety of people and families can afford to rent or buy, to make where they live sustainable.
For most of my life, with the exception of 15 years in the Midlands, I have lived in south London. I grew up in council housing, first on the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark. When moving to the Midlands on being promoted at work, I lived in the private rented sector, and then I bought my own home. I suspect that that is the sort of journey that many people take when starting out, moving from renting into home ownership; a lot of people aspire to own their own home. Government policy must be to support and create the conditions for communities, families and people to flourish, with good-quality housing in a variety of tenures.
I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, about the average housing cost ratio to household incomes. I am alarmed when I look in estate agent windows where I live in south London to see that, often, rent for properties in my street and neighbouring streets is far in excess of what people pay on their mortgages—£2,000 and £2,500 a month in the private rented sector to rent an ordinary three-bedroom Victorian terraced house. That is a huge sum of money for struggling families to pay.
As I said, I serve as a councillor, and I am a member of the planning committee. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, raised some important points, but as councillors or officers there is often little we can do, because powers to scale things back have been stripped away from planning committees and councillors. He made some very important points about the quality of development we see now.
My noble friend Lord Sawyer spoke about the space standards of properties, and I agree very much with his comments. It is regrettable that the Parker Morris standards for social housing were removed, to which my noble friend Lord Beecham referred.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham of Droxford, was right when he spoke about the need for retirement housing. I serve as a trustee of the United St Saviours Charity in Southwark, founded in 1541. We are building a new almshouse—an almshouse for the 21st century—in Bermondsey and hope to provide good-quality, supported housing to help free up much-needed family accommodation in the borough.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, raised the problem of developers effectively banking land with planning permissions for development and seeking to hold that back and benefit from increased values rather than get on and build the properties we need. I am a councillor in Crofton Park and we have an unsightly plot of land that we can never get developed. We have had numerous planning permissions that are never agreed. A sign goes up saying, “With full planning permission for various developments”, but it never actually gets developed. We need to look at how we can get these sites developed. It is not councils holding them up, but they just sit there with nothing happening, so we need some action from the Government.
My noble friend Lord Beecham pointed out the unaffordability of many of the so-called affordable rents. That is a huge problem in London and in other parts of the country. The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, made some important points regarding family break-ups and pressures on families. I certainly think that the unaffordability of housing is a huge pressure on families, as was the destruction of the Sure Start programme on young families. It is regrettable what the Government did there. These are all very important points that we need to look at.
This has been an excellent debate and I look forward to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, responding to the points raised. We shall come back to this issue again and again.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate and, in doing that, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, on introducing it as fairly and forcefully as she did.
This is a very important area and we have had some excellent contributions. I shall open with some general comments and give an undertaking that anything I do not cover in the time available will be covered in a write-round to noble Lords who have participated, picking up all the points made.
As has been rightly said, on entering Downing Street the Prime Minister set out the Government’s ambition to achieve a country that works for everyone and to help those who are just getting by, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said. In doing that, she sought to ensure that the Government address the housing shortage. Doing all that we can to build more affordable quality homes is at the centre of this ambition.
The extent of the housing shortage in this country needs no introduction. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, fairly said that we have to see how we address this shortage with a range of tenures at some speed. This did not just suddenly happen. All parties have to answer for this as they have been part of Governments over the period when this problem has been growing. A range of noble Lords referred to demographic changes and population growth, which have exacerbated the issue. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester, the noble Lords, Lord Borwick, Lord Sharkey and Lord Farmer, and others referred quite rightly to the fact that the problem has become accentuated because of the demographic changes and population growth we have seen, and indeed continue to see.
The consequences of standing still are clear: 50% of today’s 45 year-olds were homeowners by the time they were 30; for those born 10 years’ later the figure is just 35%; and only 26% of those who are 25 today are projected to be homeowners in five years’ time. I realise that we are talking about not just home ownership but a variety of tenures. That is absolutely right, but nevertheless, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, correctly said, most people aspire to own homes in their lifetime. Most of us here—I suspect all of us—own our own homes. If we keep building at the current rate, by 2025 the house of the average owner-occupier in the south-east will increase in value by £1,000 a week. Obviously that has a read-across to rental values as well.
The problem is clear. Home ownership is in danger of becoming a preserve of the privileged few, and it is a serious challenge for many, by the same token, to be able to afford to rent. There is little doubt of that. The Government are committed to solving the housing crisis by every means possible; the fundamental solution is simple to state, but complex to deliver. We need to build more homes—and it is correct to say with a variety of tenures. At the last spending review, the Government pledged to invest £20 billion in housing over this Parliament—not a small amount—and we will deliver on these plans. I do not think that noble Lords have mentioned this, but I shall do so: last week, we went further, launching a £3 billion home builders fund and a £2 billion investment in accelerated construction to deliver more housing on surplus public sector land. We also announced additional reforms to make our planning system fit for purpose by supporting development in our cities.
Of course, alongside building more homes, we want to do more to ensure that these are quality homes which people want to live in. Many noble Lords have referred to the interaction between design and affordability and having quality homes. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, talked about the prospect of more acceptance for good design—if it is a good design, it is acceptable to communities. I take that point completely; it is central to what we are doing.
The Government want to ensure that everyone has a safe and secure place to live. Our record to date on housebuilding is a strong one: we have delivered over 704,000 additional homes since April 2010 and we have committed to the largest affordable housebuilding programme by any Government since the 1970s. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, made many good points, but he talked about Macmillan spinning in his grave. I think Macmillan would actually be rather pleased with Prime Minister Theresa May’s attitude to the public sector and towards housebuilding; he would probably be much more in tune with her than Clement Attlee would be with the current leader of the Labour Party, for example. I do not see many noble Lords opposite me shaking their heads—in fact, I do not see any.
We have taken steps to help people on the path to home ownership. Our Help to Buy equity loan is helping many people to purchase their own homes. But it is absolutely right that we ensure that there is a variety of tenures available. We are pledging to help with homes to rent—we are talking to the Mayor of London and the London Assembly about how we can assist with housebuilding in London. A particularly important sector for London is the private rented sector.
In the time remaining, I shall try to pick up points made by noble Lords. Those that I am unable or do not have time to address I shall ensure are covered in the write-around. This point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell—we are taking action to tackle rogue landlords. We have a £12 million programme to help local authorities to enforce action against rogue landlords. She referred, as did many noble Lords, to the interaction with poor health and energy efficiency. The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, rightly said that family breakdown was another factor that has to be looked at in relation to this issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, is absolutely right that space standards are central. Building regulations have not been mentioned a lot but they contribute to the quality of homes, as does the National Planning Policy Framework, which has a whole chapter devoted to design—chapter 7—which is important in this context. The Government introduced a national space standard in October 2015, which local authorities can adopt in their local planning policy, subject to establishing need and viability. Now is a good time to see how that is working in practice. We committed to reviewing that standard during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and I am currently considering the terms of reference for that review process. We will make a decision on that in due course, and make it public.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, talked about a turning point on housing for this Government, which he very fairly noted was probably happening. As he said, we need to boost the amount of housebuilding and not just by promoting private ownership—although, of course, we need to recognise that it is a valid aspiration, as noble Lords across the Chamber have said. We should certainly regard it as central, although not exclusively so, in looking at this issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, also referred to how we address the extra cost of supported housing and the retirement housing scheme. He will know that we are addressing supported housing and will consult on how we do it with a new programme in 2019. I will look at the issue of retirement housing, which he quite fairly brought up, and address it in the letter which I will send to noble Lords.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester talked about population growth. I agree with his point about the quality of the neighbourhood. It is not just about housing: it is broader than that. He talked about the importance of community and I am grateful for his assistance and input on what is happening at Ebbsfleet. We are looking at the design of housing there; we regard that, and the importance of community, as central.
My noble friend Lord Borwick asked me what I was doing about great crested newts. When I took on this post I absolutely insisted that I had authority in relation to great crested newts: this is central to what we are doing. In all seriousness, if he has evidence of a conspiracy to abuse public office by introducing these newts to try and slow down housebuilding and passes this on to me, I will ensure that it is addressed in the appropriate way. He rightly talked about the importance of proper incentives for housebuilding and asked about the future of the new homes bonus. As the noble Lord will be aware, the Government have been consulting on the new homes bonus to see how we can sharpen the incentive to ensure that councils are genuinely incentivised to allow more homes in their area. We will provide further information on our next steps on that in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, asked about starter homes. I can confirm that this remains a central part of the Government’s agenda. The noble Lord will be aware that we are consulting on the necessary secondary legislation to deliver starter homes through the planning measures outlined in the Housing and Planning Act, and progress is on track through engagement with builders and other stakeholders in that issue. He also asked if 1 million homes is still a target. I can confirm that it is. The added incentives and finance that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, Sajid Javid, recently announced give us extra tools to approach this issue. I know that it is challenging, but we are making these housing goals central to what we are seeking to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, also talked about 1 million homes by 2020 and how we could take up the slack. He welcomed the Build to Rent project, though he did, admittedly, say that it has not delivered as much as we need. We have interaction with other government departments here. We have to be aware of the impact of any welfare changes and ensure that we have flexibility of approach to tenures. We will do this. I thank noble Lords for what they have said about my honourable friend, the Minister, Gavin Barwell. He is indeed committed to different forms of tenure, as is the whole department and the Government. That is how we will ensure that we address the housing shortage in a pragmatic way.
My noble friend Lord Farmer asked about the action we are taking. I have already mentioned the recently announced additional £3 billion Home Building Fund and £2 billion for surplus public sector land, as well as additional action on brownfield sites. He particularly asked about the family stability indicator. The Prime Minister has been clear that tackling poverty and disadvantage and delivering real social reform will be a priority for this Government. We will set out more detailed policy in due course. Families provide a firm foundation in a child’s early years and are key to ensuring that they develop into a healthy, happy and successful adult. Furthermore, as the noble Lord rightly said, if families are together and not breaking up, that obviously means the demands on the housing sector are very different, so that is an additional bonus, as it were. I thank him very much for his contribution.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked about the timetable for regulations under the Housing and Planning Act 2016. I do not have that to hand but, if I can, I will cover that in detail for him. The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, fairly addressed concerns about issues such as the housing of offenders, which we certainly need to address, and domestic violence. I have been working very closely with Women’s Aid on supported housing and pay tribute to what it is doing under its leader, Polly Neate. As noble Lords will know, it was announced recently that supported accommodation would be protected from the 1% reduction in rents, which was welcomed. We are very conscious of the importance of that sector.
My noble friend Lady Redfern talked about her experience and what her local authority was doing. I am very grateful for her efforts and for some of the ideas she has put forward. I look forward to hearing more about how that authority is helping to stimulate housing, which would be very helpful to us in looking at this area.
My noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes, was, as always, firing on all cylinders. I appreciate very much her welcome for what we are doing. The private rented sector is vital. I mentioned what we are doing with the Mayor of London and the London Assembly to try to help in London. I thank her very much for her trailer for the Question on Wednesday of next week, which means that I will have more and more people bombarding me with these issues. Local authorities already have substantial powers of action where breaches occur, and I encourage them to address that. If breaches of leases occur, it is for landlords to enforce the terms of the leases. Again, I encourage them to do so. However, my noble friend addressed a concern and I look forward to hearing more about that next week.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talked about some of the interacting factors such as family breakdown and correctly addressed the important issue of how we supply more housing. As I say, it is very easy to state that but much more difficult to do, but at least if we identify what we all want to do, we are all kicking in the same direction. The noble Lord talked about my right honourable friend the Secretary of State’s recognition of the moral duty to tackle the housing crisis. He has been very honest about this in saying that successive Governments have not done enough, including the Conservatives. We all share some blame in this and we all must together seek to address it. The noble Lord correctly accentuated the importance of having different tenures.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his very fair summing up of the issues—that we need more homes and a variety of tenures to be provided quicker. That probably sums up how we all feel, and we all need to work together to ensure that we do that. The Government have made this a central concern. The Prime Minister identified herself very clearly with those people who are struggling and having difficulty getting by. One thing she hates is unfairness. This issue will be central to what this Government seek to do, and it is certainly central to what the department seeks to do.
As I said, I will ensure that I write to noble Lords covering all the points that were raised, one of two of which I have no doubt missed.