House of Commons
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Prayers
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Oral Answers to Questions
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)
The Crown Prosecution Service has this very month published guidelines on crimes involving social media, and it will publish a broader cybercrime strategy and guidance for prosecutors this autumn. All CPS prosecutors already have access to training on how to deal with cybercrime.
Chi Onwurah
Last week’s internet of things bot attack, which brought down Twitter and Spotify, among other sites, was the result of tens of millions of household devices, such as baby monitors and televisions, being hijacked by cyber-criminals. This Government have been perilously slow to recognise the real harm that online scams and viruses do to our constituents. What is the Solicitor General doing to ensure that the CPS can respond to internet of things attacks?
The Solicitor General
The hon. Lady will know that the Government have in place many measures to deal with prevention; she is quite right to talk about the internet of things. When it comes to prosecution, I am confident that the CPS understands the international nature of this crime, particularly the exploitation by organised crime groups of cybercrime across the world and the need for co-operation with other jurisdictions to deal with it. Our cybercrime strategy will address a lot of the concerns she has expressed.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Do we not rely too much on prosecution guidance when it comes to cybercrimes, such as online abuse, when there is no substitute for clear primary legislation? Will my hon. and learned Friend carefully consider the proposals of the Law Commission’s 13th programme of law reform, which looks at offensive online communications, and will he advise our right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor that this should be a top priority?
The Solicitor General
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the work she has done and continues to do to tighten up the law on offences such as revenge pornography. I believe it is incumbent on the police and on prosecutors to use the existing law more thoroughly, but if there is a case for further reform, the Government will of course look at it very carefully.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Has the Solicitor General seen that over 100 Members of Parliament have now signed a letter to President Obama on the case of Lauri Love, who is going to be extradited to the United States to face trial for hacking into government files? Does he realise that this young man is on the autism spectrum, has severe mental health challenges and may not survive such a journey?
The Solicitor General
I am very conscious of that case, as I have a strong interest in autism issues. I have to emphasise that it is of course a matter for the courts—there has been a court procedure relating to this issue—so I am loth to make direct comment on the case, but I am certainly following it very carefully.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
There is little doubt that there has been a huge increase in cybercrime of all sorts over the past few years. Does the Attorney General think we have the specialist knowledge we need within all our law enforcement agencies to tackle the problem?
The Solicitor General
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. It is vital that the investigatory and prosecutorial authorities understand the global nature of cybercrime. I am confident that the new strategy, to be published very shortly, will address the very concerns that he has raised.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)
Vulnerable victims and witnesses can already give evidence from behind a screen or via a video link. In addition, having piloted pre-trial cross examination, which allows vulnerable witnesses to pre-record all their evidence ahead of the trial, we will be rolling it out nationally.
Fiona Bruce
I thank the Minister for that reply. What special arrangements are there to support vulnerable children and under-age witnesses, in particular in cases of abuse or of a sexual nature?
The Attorney General
My hon. Friend is right that those witnesses are of particular concern. I am sure she will be pleased to learn that those kind of witnesses will particularly benefit from pre-recorded cross examination; where it has been trialled—we have trialled it in three court centres so far—about three quarters of the cases have been cases of a sexual nature, and most of the witnesses have been children.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the Attorney General agree that we have to address the issue of having to go to court for initial proceedings, where victims may come face to face with the accused at a very early stage? Victims feel fear when facing the accused. Will he outline what will be in place to help them?
The Attorney General
The hon. Gentleman is right that that is a serious concern for many of those involved in these kinds of cases. That is precisely why the measures I have described are of benefit. If all of a witness’s evidence is pre-recorded, they will not come face to face with the defendant at all. That is a huge benefit.
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
With the rise of social media, victims and, in particular, witnesses fear intimidation from the online community. Will my right hon. and learned Friend take into consideration protections in the digital space as well as the physical courtroom?
The Attorney General
Yes, indeed—my hon. Friend makes an important point. We have to deal with a context that is very different from anything we have experienced before. It is important for people to understand that social media is not ungoverned space. The law applies there as it does elsewhere. If those using social media engage in behaviour that would otherwise be criminal, they will find it is criminal there, too.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
I thank the Attorney General for outlining protection for vulnerable victims in the criminal courts. What progress has been made in providing special protection measures for vulnerable victims within family courts?
The Attorney General
We need to look carefully at how we might read across some of the things that are clearly working well in the criminal courts to other types of court. The hon. Lady is right to highlight that. There is huge scope for us to understand more about how people can give their best evidence. That, after all, is what court systems of all kinds should be looking for.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)
The Crown Prosecution Service and the Serious Fraud Office regularly engage with Scotland’s prosecution service and the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland. The Government recognise the importance of retaining good co-operation with European countries on prosecutions, and will continue to engage with the devolved Administrations to seek the best arrangements possible on leaving the EU.
George Kerevan
Post Brexit, will the Government seek to continue to use the European arrest warrant? If not, what will they put in its place?
The Attorney General
As the hon. Gentleman will anticipate, I am not going to prejudge the outcome of the negotiations and discussions we will have. It is of course right that the European arrest warrant and other measures like it are of huge benefit not just to this country but to our European partners as well. For that reason I am optimistic that we will be able to put in place measures that benefit both sides.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Once we are freed from the freedom of movement rules, will the Crown Prosecution Service seek to prosecute EU nationals who commit crimes in this country and to ban them from returning to this country, which we are not able to do at the moment?
The Attorney General
My hon. Friend will know that at the moment the CPS does indeed prosecute European nationals who commit crimes in this country. Some of the measures I have just described are of assistance not just in returning those individuals to be tried in this country but in gaining the evidence necessary to secure their conviction. As for the measures taken thereafter, sentencing decisions are of course for the courts. We will look carefully at what other measures might become available to the courts once we have left the European Union.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)
The number of sentences considered by my office under the unduly lenient sentence scheme has increased by over 108% since 2010, from 342 to 713 requests in 2015. Of those, 136 were referred to the Court of Appeal as potentially unduly lenient, with the court agreeing to increase the original sentence for 102 offenders.
The Attorney General
My hon. Friend will know that as a party we have a manifesto commitment to extend the unduly lenient sentence scheme. A number of offences are surprisingly not included in the scheme at the moment. We need to look carefully at the whole range of criminal offences to decide what should be inside and what should be outside the scheme, but he certainly makes a good case for the types of offences we might consider including in the future.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Given that the need for an unduly lenient sentence scheme has been conceded, the public are very confused as to why some offences are covered and some are not. Would it not be simpler to have a scheme that covered all offences?
The Attorney General
My hon. Friend makes a tempting proposition to give my office a good deal more work. There is no doubt that one of the advantages of the unduly lenient sentence scheme is that it is available to the public. It does not require the intervention of lawyers and it is, I hope, easy for the public to access. It should also be easy for the public to understand, and I am therefore in favour of drawing the line between cases within the scheme and those outside in a logical and easily understandable place. I would also say that it is important to bear it in mind that, even with an extended version of the scheme, we are talking about a very small minority of cases where judges err in this way. As I said, last year 102 cases were considered under the scheme to be unduly lenient. That is out of about 80,000 sentences passed in the Crown courts that year.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)
We are leaving the European Union, but co-operation with our European and global allies will remain important. My office will continue to engage internationally to promote the rule of law, a shared understanding of international law and global co-operation on criminal justice.
Alan Brown
I thank the Attorney General for that answer, but is not the stark reality that Europol’s director stated that the UK will be demoted to second-tier membership? Will that not undermine the UK Government’s plans to tackle and prosecute money laundering crimes?
The Attorney General
Again, I do not think we should pre-empt the outcome of any discussions that will follow, but, as I said earlier, I think there is an understanding, not just in the United Kingdom but in the rest of the European Union, that the sort of co-operation on crime and security that we have now benefits both sides and will need to continue in order to make sure that we are all safer and more secure, and that we can successfully capture and prosecute the sorts of offenders he describes.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Is it not fallacious for the remoaners to always say that once we have left the European Union, we will not have access to European institutions? Is it not the case that Europol, the Erasmus programme and the Eurovision song contest all have members who are not members of the European Union?
The Attorney General
I do not think that by grouping them together my hon. Friend is describing Eurovision as a criminal enterprise—although there are those who may say so. It is important, as he says, to recognise that leaving the European Union is not the same as leaving Europe, and it is certainly not the same as being unprepared to co-operate. We will be co-operating with a whole range of partners, because, as I have said, it will be in our mutual interest.
Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)
Given the warnings from Rob Wainwright and given the Attorney General’s duty to the legal profession, will the Attorney General confirm that he will be making the case on Europol, the European arrest warrant—and, indeed, the Eurovision song contest—in the Brexit Tory Cabinet?
The Attorney General
I am unwilling to commit to making the case for the Eurovision song contest, but it is very important that all in this House understand that the Government are committed to continuing our internationalist perspective and to keeping this nation and its citizens safe. I do not think the hon. Gentleman will hear, from any member of the Government, the view that we can do so without co-operating internationally. We will seek to do that just as successfully and just as fully as we have done in the past, inside or outside the European Union.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
How is my right hon. and learned Friend interacting with the Government of Romania? He will know that the Heritage Foundation has recently issued a report saying that the courts in Romania are subject to chronic corruption and political influence.
The Attorney General
I am not going to comment on the status of other court systems. What I will say is that part of the engagement that this country has abroad on the rule of law, in a variety of different countries, is designed to ensure that the long experience that this country has in running effective, efficient and fair court systems is transmitted to others where they ask for our help, and I am sure we will continue in that enterprise.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)
I regularly meet the Director of Public Prosecutions to discuss this and other topics. The Crown Prosecution Service continues to prioritise rape and serious sexual offending and has taken steps to ensure that prosecutors are able to prosecute these cases effectively. Those steps include increasing the number of specialist staff in its rape and serious sexual offences units, providing specialist training for prosecutors and developing closer working arrangements with the police.
Vicky Foxcroft
A constituent of mine is a victim of rape. A complete lack of communication and action from the police has left her unable to move on and recover from the horrific ordeal. After a year and a half, the case—which the superintendent deemed “a professional embarrassment”—has finally been brought to the CPS. However, this might not be the end of my constituent’s torment. Does the Attorney General agree that communication with victims is vital in effectively prosecuting offenders and that the Director of Public Prosecutions should ensure that every victim is kept updated, that their views are taken into account on key decisions and that a high level of communication is upheld?
The Attorney General
Yes I do agree, and what the hon. Lady describes clearly does not sound acceptable or in line with the standards we would all expect. There are two things that I think are important. The first is that the prosecutors should be involved as early as possible, so that advice can be given to the police about the development of an investigation with a view to prosecution. The second is to ensure that when a case comes to court, we continue the communication that we should have had up to that point with victims and witnesses and that people are given to understand what is going on around them. Courts can be very confusing places, and we only add to the distress if we do not take the trouble to explain the process to those who are, through no fault of their own, suddenly involved in it. That is one of the things we will look to do better.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
I welcome the increased number of prosecutions for rape, but will the Attorney General outline what more can be done to improve the consistency across different areas and also the prosecution rate?
The Attorney General
My hon. Friend is right that although we should welcome the increased volume of prosecutions that are taking place, there is still a divergence in the way in which this is done across the country. For that reason, the CPS has set up a national delivery board and is looking at ways in which we can understand why those differences exist and is attempting to resolve them. As my hon. Friend says, this is also a matter of making sure that prosecutors are properly trained, as they are, and have the resources they need to do the job well.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
As this is my first question in this role, I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the fact that I am a non-practising door tenant at Civitas Law in Cardiff.
The Attorney General will be aware of the grave recent concern about the admissibility of a complainant’s previous sexual history in rape trials. Does he agree that single, high-profile cases can give rise to wider perceptions about the law, partly because of the level of coverage they receive, and will he undertake to tackle those wider perceptions?
The Attorney General
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new responsibilities. It is good to see him across the Dispatch Box. He will be pleased to learn that this is probably the only part of Parliament where he does not have to apologise for being a lawyer.
There is concern about the subject that the hon. Gentleman has raised, and we need to accept that that concern is sensible and deal with it. We need to look at a number of things. We need to understand more about the decision in this particular case. We need to understand whether a change in the law is appropriate and, if not, whether it is sensible to look at the guidance that is given to judges about when such evidence is admissible and at the guidance that judges give to juries about how that evidence should be used. We need to do all those things before we are in a position to understand what, if any, changes are needed.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am grateful to the Attorney General for his welcome and I look forward to debating with him and, indeed, my fellow Welsh lawyer, the Solicitor General, across the Dispatch Box.
Prosecution lawyers will, of course, deal with these applications for the admissibility of a complainant’s sexual history before the courts. I am glad to hear that the Attorney General has committed to looking at the guidance given to judges and at what judges say to juries. In addition, will he look at the guidance given by the Crown Prosecution Service to the lawyers who appear before the courts and regularly deal with these applications?
The Attorney General
Yes, I will. He will know that in the case he raises the Crown Prosecution did indeed oppose the admission of this evidence at the Court of Appeal stage. It is certainly worth looking at all the guidance and indeed at the whole picture. This provision is, as far as I am aware, not routinely used, but we must be confident that the message sent to those who are willing but currently worried about reporting these sorts of offences is not that they are not encouraged to do so—quite the reverse; they are. We need to ensure that those messages are clear.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening)
We want to provide all young people with a curriculum that prepares them to succeed in modern Britain. That is why I want to make sure that sex and relationship education really is fit for the world that children live in today. I agree that we need to look again at how schools deliver high-quality and age-appropriate sex and relationship education. We are carefully considering all the options, including updating our guidance, and I shall provide an update shortly.
Vicky Foxcroft
The Women and Equalities Committee has recommended that the Government amend the “Keeping children safe in education” guidance to include the issue of sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools. When do the Government plan to release the updated guidance, and will they consult the specialists working in the field of sexual harassment and violence against women and girls?
Justine Greening
I agree that we need look at ensuring how this guidance is brought up to date. From my perspective, the key is making sure that our young people have the right information and get the right advice, and that through this guidance and the quality of teaching in schools we produce the right attitudes for the young generation growing up in our country. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the need to get that done effectively; that is precisely what I intend to do.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The Select Committee report to which the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) referred uncovered a shocking truth—that most girls in secondary education have experienced physical or verbal sexual abuse. Four Select Committees are now calling for sex and relationship education to be made compulsory. What more evidence is the Minister looking for?
Justine Greening
I do not disagree with my right hon. Friend’s point. The Women and Equalities Committee report was an excellent one, to which we shall shortly respond. I have spoken about the nature of what we need to look at, and there are also questions such as what sex and relationship education comprises and how it can be taught at a high quality. As my right hon. Friend suggests, where it is taught and the breadth of schools in which we expect it to be taught are also relevant questions. About nine out of 10 secondary school teachers say that they have seen children bullied on sexual harassment grounds, which is totally unacceptable. We need to make sure that we take the next steps forward through a thoughtful and measured approach that responds to today’s world.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I would like to thank all the women, parliamentarians and campaigners who come before us to get equality and justice in this country. I am sure that we all want to take that forward.
Sarah Champion
Good. The Minister for Women and Equalities has an admirable record of supporting sex and relationship education, and I welcome her comments today. Giving all children good-quality education in respect of themselves and others and encouraging healthy friendships is the cornerstone of preventing abuse, hate crime, intolerance and relationship violence. This approach is supported by five Select Committees and all the leading charities. When will the Minister introduce sex and relationship education for all children from key stage 1—regardless of where they are educated?
Justine Greening
I welcome the hon. Lady to her new role, particularly as she is the MP who represents my home town of Rotherham. The different ages at which children need to start understanding relationships means that what we teach in schools must be age-appropriate. Of course, SRE is mandatory in all secondary schools. Primary schools have more flexibility, but the hon. Lady is right to emphasise that if we want to get this right, we need to start at an early age so that children can understand relationships with one another.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
Some women might be forgiven for thinking that every day is International Men’s Day, but this year it falls on 19 November. The theme will be “Making a Difference for Men and Boys”, and there will be a focus on the very important issue of male suicide. As with International Women’s Day, it will be up to Back Benchers to bid for parliamentary time for a debate on the subject, and I encourage them to do so. Of course, I welcome any initiatives that support gender equality and its meaning in people’s lives.
Philip Davies
So the answer is that the Minister has no plans. Perhaps her Department ought to take International Men’s Day as seriously as the Prime Minister has. She has said:
“I recognise the important issues that this event seeks to highlight, including men’s health, male suicide rates and the under-performance of boys in schools. These are serious issues that must be addressed in a considered way.”
Why is International Men’s Day not as important to this Minister as it is to the Prime Minister?
Caroline Dinenage
Let me gently say that I think that my hon. Friend is being a little unfair. The role of the Government Equalities Office is to tackle inequality wherever we find it. All parents of sons throughout the country, including me, will be conscious of and concerned about the issues that the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, the Prime Minister have mentioned. However, I am also aware that there are parts of the world where girls are routinely subjected to genital mutilation, forced marriage and sexual violence. For me, equality is not a zero sum game.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that International Men’s Day will give fathers of daughters an opportunity to ask, for instance, why those daughters may have to wait another 30 years for equal pay, and will give men a platform on which to ask why there continues to be a problem of violence against women and girls? Does she agree that it will give men an opportunity to express concern about those subjects?
Caroline Dinenage
International Men’s Day in the United Kingdom takes a very gender-inclusive approach, which is why issues affecting women and girls are also involved. The hon. Gentleman made an important point about the gender pay gap. We welcomed reports this week that it has been reduced again, and is now narrower than it has ever been. However, he was also right to point out that, while focusing on the very important issues that International Men’s Day raises, we must never forget all the women around the world who are suffering every single day.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
No doubt, in seeking ways of celebrating International Women’s Day, the Minister has looked around the world to find out which countries do it best. Which countries best celebrate International Men’s Day, and will she note the example that they provide?
Caroline Dinenage
I know that 60 countries celebrate International Men’s Day in various ways, focusing on men’s health and wellbeing, discrimination against men and any inequalities that they face, improving gender relations, and promoting gender equality. That creates a safer world for everyone, and is always to be commended.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
The aim of International Men’s Day is to promote gender equality and highlight positive male role models. In the United Kingdom, two women are killed by a partner or ex-partner every week. Action is urgently needed to tackle deeply ingrained and damaging inequality. Does the Minister agree that we should support campaigns to tackle misogyny and sexist attitudes, and that men have a crucial role to play in that?
Caroline Dinenage
I could not have put it better myself. The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the fact that last year 81 women were killed by violent partners or ex-partners. In fact, 19 men were killed by violent partners or ex-partners as well. The Government are absolutely committed to tackling violence against women and girls—it is of the utmost importance, which is why we have put more money into it than ever before—and we will not rest until that happens.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The Government will make no further changes in the pension age or provide financial redress in lieu of pension. A total of £1.1 billion has already been committed to lessen the impact of the changes on those who will be most affected, so that no one will experience a change of more than 18 months.
Jeff Smith
It is clear that the members of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign and their many supporters around the country think that the Government have not done enough. Will the Minister commit herself to publishing all assessments of the impact of the 2011 changes, and any analysis that has been undertaken of possible transitional arrangements at the time of the Pensions Act 2011 and in the period since then?
Caroline Nokes
The Government have made available £1.1 billion for transitional arrangements because of these changes. This is about undoing an historical unfairness by equalising the state pension age, which both men and women should welcome.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
The Scottish National party commissioned independent research by Landman Economics that found the inequalities facing many of the WASPI women can be rectified if the UK Government implement the report’s recommendations for the sum of £8 billion, rather than the previously cited £30 billion. Will the Minister urge her Treasury colleagues to prioritise this issue ahead of the autumn statement?
Caroline Nokes
A range of potential options have been proposed by a number of different campaigns, but nothing that is specifically aimed at those most disadvantaged by the state pension age increases, and none of them has proposed something significantly better or, indeed, affordable and at an acceptable cost to the taxpayer.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening)
We have said we will issue a public consultation on how best to provide legal protection against caste discrimination later this year. My hon. Friend takes this issue very seriously and represents his local communities views and concerns in respect of it.
Bob Blackman
I thank my right hon. Friend for her answer. In excess of 85% of British Hindus consider having caste as a protected characteristic in equality legislation unnecessary, ill-considered and divisive. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that in the forthcoming consultation she will look at all measures, including the abolition of caste as a protected characteristic in the legislation?
Justine Greening
This will be an open consultation. We know and understand how sensitive and emotive this subject is, and that there are very strong opinions on both sides of it. We need to look at the best and necessary level of legal protection against caste discrimination, and the findings of that consultation will help inform us on what to do to provide the appropriate legal protection.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In the consultation process, will the Minister outline what steps have been taken by diplomats, ambassadors and embassies to combat caste discrimination, and is there an estimate of the success of these steps?
Justine Greening
My old Department, the Department for International Development, working hand in hand with the Foreign Office does huge work not only to advocate but to take action on the ground to help groups fighting for equality, including fighting against caste discrimination. We do that in the countries where it is most prevalent. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, these are generational issues that take time steadily to shift, but we believe we need to keep pushing on them to move things forward.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
A diverse boardroom that reflects its customers and wider society is likely to perform better and make better decisions. The Government are very supportive of the private-led diversity initiative chaired by Sir John Parker, who is currently considering how to increase ethnic diversity in FTSE 100 companies, and we expect the group to report on its findings next month.
Rehman Chishti
I thank the Minister for that answer. I am chair of the all-party group on communities engagement, and fewer than 4% of directors in the 150 largest FTSE companies have ethnic minority backgrounds. Will the Government support a target of increasing the percentage of board members or directors with black and minority ethnic backgrounds to 10% by 2021?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend rightly points out this unsettling statistic, but, as with the fantastic work to get more women on boards, we support the principles of increasing the ethnic diversity of the boards of the FTSE largest companies through a business-led voluntary approach because we believe there is a strong business case for better board diversity. We need to tackle the root cause, which is why we have established the Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith review looking at the obstacles faced by businesses in developing BME talent across the board, from recruitment right through to executive level.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
It is a little disappointing that the Government have not put as much resource into developing issues around the Parker review as women on boards, and there has been a significant drop in diversity on boards since the Government established the review, which will report in November. Many organisations, including the Executive Leadership Council, have board-ready visible minorities ready to hit the road running. Will the Minister work with me to reverse the trend?
Caroline Dinenage
We are very happy to work with anybody who wants to see greater board diversity and, indeed, greater diversity in business all through the pipeline. The Government are clear that we want absolutely everybody to reach their full potential in life, regardless of their background, gender or race. Valuing diversity in the workplace is not just the right thing to do; our economy cannot afford to waste the talent of a single individual.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
Increasing the number of women in STEM industries is not only vital for our economic growth but part of how we can support our ambition to eliminate the gender pay gap. We are supporting girls to choose STEM subjects and careers by improving the quality of teaching in STEM subjects and increasing the proportion of girls’ A-level entries in maths and science. We are also raising awareness of just how exciting and valuable STEM careers can be for our young people through STEM ambassadors and through publishing online guidance called “Your Daughter’s Future”.
Peter Aldous
I am most grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer. The east coast energy internship is a new scheme supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Ogden Trust. As a result of undertaking one of the internships, Felicity Levett, a student at Lowestoft sixth-form college, is now pursuing a career in offshore renewables. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such schemes should be promoted more widely so that everyone, regardless of gender or background, can realise their career ambitions?
Justine Greening
I strongly support what my hon. Friend has just said. I am well aware of all the work that has been going on in his local community to encourage girls to get into STEM. His constituent is a shining example of the great steps that girls can take once they follow this path, and we will be promoting a whole range of fantastic opportunities to encourage more young people, particularly young girls, to follow her example.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
Men continue to dominate apprenticeships in the fields with the best earning potential. In 2013, nearly 13,000 men started engineering apprenticeships, but only 400 women did so. Will the Minister commit to ensuring 50:50 recruitment in STEM-focused apprenticeships?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady makes a really important point. At the moment, we are seeing success in getting girls to take STEM subjects at GCSE, where the rates for girls and boys are broadly comparable. It is when we get to A-levels that we see more boys than girls doing maths, for example, although the rate for girls has risen. We need to ensure that we improve those statistics and strengthen the careers advice that can encourage girls to follow these paths.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
The UK is recognised as a world leader in disabled rights and equality, and the Government continue to spend about £50 billion a year to support sick and disabled people. That is about 2.5% of GDP. According to OECD figures, that is more than is spent by other countries including Germany, France and the United States of America.
Chris Law
But we still have not seen the publication of the long-awaited Green Paper to map out what employment support will be made available for those with disabilities. Can the Minister provide an explanation for the continued delay? Does she agree that this does not look like the action of a Government who want to provide “an economy that works for everyone”?
Caroline Nokes
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we will soon publish a Green Paper that will explore a whole range of options for long-term reform across different sectors. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), is working incredibly hard to ensure that that happens soon. We are going to target the factors that contribute to the disability employment gap and engage with disabled people, their representative organisations and a wide range of other stakeholders. There will be an opportunity for hon. Members to feed into that consultation process, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to do so.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as a result of their condition, and the situation has been made worse by this Government’s £28 billion social security cuts, which have affected 3.7 million disabled people since 2012. Sick and disabled people are also more likely to be hit by social security sanctions and forced to use food banks, as the film “I, Daniel Blake” so poignantly showed. Today’s report by Oxford University proves the link between the Government’s punitive sanctions and the rise in food bank use. What action are the Minister and her DWP colleagues taking to tackle these injustices, as the Prime Minister calls them?
Caroline Nokes
This Government are committed to providing support to the people who need it, which is reflected in the fact that spending to support disabled people and people with health conditions will be higher than in 2010 in real terms in every year until 2020.
The hon. Lady mentions “I, Daniel Blake”. I have seen the film. My first visit as a Department for Work and Pensions Minister was to a jobcentre in Newcastle, and I can tell her that the front-line DWP workers whom I met do not recognise their portrayal in the film. The film raises important issues, which we shall debate, but we must remember that it is a dramatic interpretation. I also recognise none of its portrayals of DWP staff.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening)
This Government have been clear that we want to build a country that works for everyone, which is why we are so determined to close the gender pay gap. I am therefore pleased that the Office for National Statistics recently released figures showing that the gap has narrowed significantly from 19.3% to 18.2%, reflecting the hard work of so many, not least the business community. That also reminds us that if we are to keep closing the gap, and close it completely, we must keep driving progress forward. That is why we extended the right to request flexible working and introduced a new system of flexible parental leave. We are also introducing mandatory gender pay gap reporting for large employers from April next year.
Philip Davies
Baroness Cox has long campaigned in the other place for the abolition of sharia councils, largely because of the unfair way in which they treat many women. Will the Government support Baroness Cox’s private Member’s Bill on the issue and ensure that Muslim women enjoy the same protections under the law as everyone else and do not feel pressured into having their cases determined by a sharia council rather than a British court?
Justine Greening
I assure my hon. Friend that that issue is of utmost importance. We know of concerns about sharia councils, including those raised in Baroness Cox’s Bill, and take them extremely seriously. The Government will respond to the Bill on Second Reading and will continue to consider the issue in the light of the findings of the independent sharia review, which was launched in May by the previous Home Secretary, now Prime Minister.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Justine Greening
As constituency MPs, we all see such issues locally, and the House is holding a worthwhile Backbench Business debate later on the broader topic of young people and mental health. This country has a long way to go to deliver on our ambition to ensure that mental health provision is on a par with the rest of our healthcare provision. As the hon. Lady highlights, that should include understanding the different levels of mental health challenges faced by different parts of our community, of which women and girls make up 50%.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
I am so pleased that my hon. Friend mentions Clover Lewis Swimwear. I have met Clover Lewis, who does outstanding work creating swimwear for women who have undergone mastectomy surgery. We are absolutely committed to supporting women to start and grow their own businesses, and I am proud that Britain has been named as one of the best places in Europe for female entrepreneurs. My hon. Friend will be as pleased as I am that 40% of the loans given out by the Government’s StartUp loans company since it was established have gone to women, providing funding to more than 15,500 women and totalling £87 million.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Justine Greening
We had a question earlier about STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—and the importance of ensuring that girls are taking those. It is important not just for those wishing to pursue a career in engineering, for example; these subjects, and maths in particular, open up all sorts of doors for our young girls. That is why it is so important that the kinds of initiatives the hon. Gentleman has just talked about are in place to help deliver on those aspirations.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right to say that business needs to work hand in hand with the Government on this, and the Women’s Business Council has been enhanced by this Government to now include representatives of and membership from the science, engineering and construction industries. That is very much linked in with not only my Department, but the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. We have particularly welcomed initiatives such as Athena SWAN, which are doing so much to move this agenda steadily and progressively forward.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Gypsies and Travellers suffer particularly poor outcomes across a range of measures, but too many Government Departments and agencies are still not recognising them as distinct ethnic groups in accordance with the 2011 census categorisation. What can the Secretary of State do to encourage the use of that categorisation right across government—national and local?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady is right to raise this important issue. The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has recently announced that it will be examining it, and I know it will do so with its customary rigour and intensity. We look forward very much to hearing what the Committee comes up with.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is something that all parents worry about, and social media platforms must take some responsibility for it. This year, we invested almost half a million pounds in the Safer Internet Centre to provide advice on how to keep children safe, and we are developing guidance on cyber-bullying for schools, which will be published shortly.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
The Secretary of State may be aware of the closure of the only UK lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender charity, Broken Rainbow, in August. Sadly, this very much mirrored what happened to Kids Company, with the closure being reported by Patrick Strudwick of BuzzFeed. Will she work with me, him and others who are interested in this to put pressure on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Charity Commission to have a full review of this and make sure that LGBT people in this country have access to domestic abuse support?
Justine Greening
I am happy to talk to the hon. Lady further about the specific issue she has just raised, which is of concern. Only last night, I was at the PinkNews awards, which celebrates a huge amount of the work that is happening on the ground to push forward on LGBT rights. It is important that this work can continue.
James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
Caroline Dinenage
I am delighted to agree with my hon. Friend, as we cannot overestimate the value of role models at every level and in every sector, inspiring girls and other women to follow them. We now have more women on boards than ever before. There are now no all-male boards in the FTSE 100. Women in key roles, such as the ones my hon. Friend mentioned, provide massive inspiration to girls and other women, as indeed does having a female Prime Minister.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
I come back to the issue of STEM subjects. We do fantastic work in west Cumbria in encouraging women into the nuclear industry, and it would be great if the Minister could recognise that and look at how we can work it. However, often when I go to meetings at a senior level I find that I am the only woman in the room or, if I am not, that there are only one or two of us. What can we do to encourage women to come right the way up through to the senior level?
Justine Greening
It is about building the ladder at all levels. We have talked about the importance of STEM subjects, and there will be a national college that will focus on skills for the nuclear industry, which is the next stage. As the hon. Lady says, many of us have been to meetings where we are the only woman at the table, and we need to play our part as role models to encourage the next generation to aim high.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
I have had no such discussions to date, but while we are a member of the European Union, our obligations remain in place, as does the scrutiny reserve resolution, so the scrutiny Committees will be able to examine and interrogate EU dossiers in the usual way.
Helen Goodman
Does the Leader of the House agree with the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that the document to trigger article 50 is one that the European Scrutiny Committee would recommend for debate and possible vote in the main Chamber? If he does, would that be before or after the Prime Minister has served the notification?
Mr Lidington
As the hon. Lady knows, the Government take the view that the triggering of article 50 is a matter for the Executive to determine. This, as the House knows, is an issue that is being contested in the courts at the moment, and we are currently awaiting a judgment.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I applaud the initiatives that the Leader of the House is taking to ensure maximum debate about Brexit and the establishment of the Select Committees. Will he ensure that there are no procedures of this House that could block the will of the British people to leave the European Union?
Mr Lidington
The Government’s intention, whatever side of the referendum debate individual Ministers took, is that the will of the British people has been clearly expressed in a referendum with a very high turnout, and that the House voted by an overwhelming majority to enact the European Union Referendum Bill and hand that decision to the British people. That mandate from the British people now needs to be respected.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
Standing Orders undergo frequent revision. The Procedure Committee, the Clerks and the Government monitor their use to ensure that our Standing Orders reflect how business in the House is conducted in practice.
Ian Blackford
Yesterday, the Leader of the House announced a review of last year’s change to Standing Orders, which implemented the absurd English votes for English laws process, which disfranchises non-English MPs. Will he restore equality for MPs by removing the over-convoluted and shamefully partisan EVEL procedure from Standing Orders, and make sure that all MPs in this House are equal?
Mr Lidington
I shall take that as a first contribution to the consultation that the Government have initiated. I am disappointed that Members from the Scottish National party seem unable to comprehend that it is a matter of justice that legislation affecting only England should command the support of a majority of Members of Parliament from England.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Do the Standing Orders not need to be changed to reflect what goes on today? Despite your valiant efforts, Mr Speaker, we have far too many subjects to cover today, which prevented me from railing against the madness that prevents gay men from donating blood unless they say they have been celibate for 12 months.
Mr Lidington
As I think my hon. Friend has demonstrated, an ingenious Member of Parliament is able to find numerous ways in which to place the points about which he is concerned on the record.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) is a notable practitioner of what I call the shoehorning technique, which is to shoehorn the matter of concern to oneself into any question whether it naturally fits or not.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
My hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) is absolutely right that EVEL has been a bureaucratic, cumbersome and misunderstood nightmare, which has divided this House on the basis of nationality and geography. Given that the Government have a majority in both England and the rest of the United Kingdom, what difference has this useless apparatus made to any legislative outcome that we have considered in the past year?
Mr Lidington
The changes are a demonstration of the Government’s commitment to ensuring justice is done to Members from all parts of the United Kingdom. The EVEL arrangements apply only in respect of legislation, amendments or statutory instruments that cover matters that are devolved in Scotland, over which this House has no say and no jurisdiction, but which are a matter for this House to determine in respect of England, and it is only right that English Members should exercise the veto that these arrangements provide.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
Mr Speaker, I attended a meeting of your Committee for IPSA on 18 October, and the agenda included discussions on IPSA’s current consultation exercise.
Sir Henry Bellingham
Has the Leader of the House had a chance to examine IPSA’s proposed changes to zone 3 accommodation funding limits? May I make it clear that they do not affect me, because I do not claim any London rent from IPSA? However, does he agree that they could have a damaging effect on MPs with young children? Does IPSA not understand that, apart from on Monday, when we sit late, on virtually every other evening many MPs are kept here until well after the House rises?
Mr Lidington
The points my hon. Friend makes about the pressures of parliamentary life on Members’ families are true, and I think they are true of Members right across the House. As we all know, IPSA is an independent body, and it will, I am sure, consider carefully the representations from hon. Members and others, and then come to a decision at the end of its consultation.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Leader of the House, and all Members of the House, will remember so clearly the dreadful killing of Jo Cox only in June. Since that time, has he had any intelligent communication and conversation with IPSA about how Members are better protected here, in their constituencies and on their travels between them?
Mr Lidington
As I hope all Members of the House know, Members’ security was the subject of very urgent consideration following the shocking murder of our late colleague. Under the leadership of the Chairman of Ways and Means, a new package of security measures has been made available to all right hon. and hon. Members, with a fast track for delivering those security improvements, where they are needed.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
As I confirmed to the House on Tuesday, and to the Procedure Committee last week, the Government are currently considering the Procedure Committee’s report, and will respond in detail within the normal two-month timeframe.
Patrick Grady
Before Christmas, there will be important private Members’ Bills on the minimum wage, disability equality, awards for valour, and violence against women. To save us all a repeat of last Friday’s farce, can the Government just tell us now which ones they plan to talk out?
Mr Lidington
If the promoters and sponsors of any of those Bills command widespread support across the House, they should ensure that their supporters turn up on the day and vote, whether on procedural motions or on the substance.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
While the Leader of the House is right on that point, there are reforms to private Members’ Bills that are important, and we need the House to look at them. We need the Government to bring forward a package of proposals, which we could then amend and vote on in the House. We need to have a debate and a vote on this. Could he please arrange that?
Mr Lidington
As my hon. Friend knows, the Procedure Committee has, indeed, proposed such a package. The Government will want to consider the Committee’s recommendations carefully, including its recommendation that the decision on this be placed before the House. We will, as I said earlier, respond to the Committee in detail in due course.
Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)
Mr Lidington
No; as I said on Tuesday, there was no argument last Friday that any hon. Member on any side of the argument was engaged in filibustering. When 2.30 pm came, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), as the Minister responsible, had spoken for only one minute more than the Bill’s promoter and for a shorter time than one of the Bill’s main supporters. He sought to respond in detail to the many questions raised, and he gave way seven times to interventions. It seems to me that he behaved in a thoroughly reasonable manner.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
In order to guarantee the fairness that the Leader of the House spoke about earlier, is it not time that English votes for English laws was extended to private Members’ Bills?
Mr Lidington
That sounds to me like a further interesting submission to the Government’s consultation.
Change of use of Abberley Hotel
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council should not approve the planning application to change the use of the Abberley Hotel to a 32-bed house in multiple occupation (HMOs); further that there are too many HMOs in Walsall; further that Walsall Council’s Housing Standards objects to this application; and further that 194 individuals have signed a local petition on the same subject.
The petitioners therefore request the House of Commons to urge Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council to reject planning application 15/1266.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P001968]
Implementation of the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of the Women Against State Pension Inequality, who are now better known to us all as the WASPI women. I know that this is not the time to make a great long speech, and I do not propose to do so, but I will, if I may, pay tribute to the women who have contacted me during this campaign. They are the most decent, the most honourable and the most well-mannered campaigners I have ever had the pleasure, or not, to come into contact with. They have been fabulous. For completeness, I will read out the petition, which I am afraid is rather long.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Southampton Itchen,
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.
[P001969]
Business of the House
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
The business for next week will be as follows:
Monday 31 October—Second Reading of the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 1 November—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Investigatory Powers Bill.
Wednesday 2 November—Opposition day (11th allotted day). There will be debates on Opposition motions, including one relating to community pharmacies.
Thursday 3 November—General debate on the effect of the UK leaving the European Union on financial and other professional services, followed by debate on a motion on living wage week and the implementation of the national living wage, these subjects having been determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 4 November—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the following week will include:
Monday 7 November—General debate on exiting the EU and workers’ rights.
Tuesday 8 November—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the forthcoming business.
I am sure that the Leader of the House, and you, Mr Speaker, will join me in paying tribute to Jimmy Perry, who sadly died last week. He is one of the great Britons who brought fun into our lives. He was the writer and creator of “Dad’s Army”, and he also won an award for the theme song. I am sure, Mr Speaker, that we are a similar sort of age; I grew up watching this brilliantly written and acted series. The BBC, when left alone to be creative, fulfils its Reithian mandate to educate, entertain and inform.
You will recall, Mr Speaker, that the programme had some memorable catchphrases, and it struck me that we could hear those catchphrases ringing around No. 10. We could hear the cry of, “Don’t panic, don’t panic!” or, as the Prime Minister slaps down her recalcitrant and wayward colleagues, we could hear her muttering, “Stupid boys.” When we ask the Government’s position on Brexit, we hear the infamous, “Don’t tell them, Pike.”
May we have a debate on the great repeal Bill? Will it have just one clause or a series of clauses? Will it enact the whole of EU law into UK law? Will there be no enactment of EU law, with each item brought in through secondary legislation? The Prime Minister says that she wants us to be a fully independent sovereign nation. I thought that we were, because we passed the bedroom tax, reorganised the national health service and gave taxpayers’ money to free schools—all that was done over here, not in Europe, in the past six years.
Labour Members respect the result of the referendum, but we want to do what is in the best interests of the British people, including keeping them safe, because organised crime and terrorism know no boundaries. The Prime Minister said on Monday that she wants co-operation on our shared security interests with Europe. May we therefore have a debate in Government time—the European Scrutiny Committee has also asked for this—on whether we opt into or out of the new Europol regulations? The Government will need to make a decision shortly, so we need to debate this before they do so.
I want to raise a fairly parochial matter: the closure of the New Art Gallery and libraries in Walsall. I invite the Leader of the House to visit the gallery—and you, Mr Speaker: perhaps on one of your outreach visits you can see what an incredible space it is, with art and culture free for everybody, of all nationalities. I plead with the Leader of the House to make representations to the Chancellor, who has recently signalled a change in his austerity policies, on providing a proper settlement for local authorities so that Walsall and others can fulfil their statutory duty under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service. Sixteen thousand children in Walsall live in poverty, and many of them cannot afford books or the internet. We want to give them opportunities and aspiration.
Next week could see a strike at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, under a female Prime Minister and against the background of a report from the World Economic Forum that puts the UK in 20th position on the gender equality gap. Bizarrely, the commission has created 22 posts at deputy director level or above, and two additional executive directors have been appointed at a cost of £250,000 or more. Consultants who were brought in to implement the restructure cost the commission £240,000 last year alone, yet lower-paid staff face compulsory redundancies, and a 25% cut is planned to the commission’s budget. We need an urgent debate on why that body, which looks at discrimination and is so vital at this time, is cutting staff when, according to the World Economic Forum report, it will take 170 years to close the gender pay gap if we carry on at the current rate.
The Prime Minister says that she wants to remove the European Communities Act 1972 from the statute book, but I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could tell her that she cannot do that—all that she can do is repeal it. In any event, the Act is printed on vellum, so it will last 5,000 years. On that issue, will the Leader of the House meet me to discuss how a vote won in the House in 1999 and earlier this year can be overturned by a Committee of the House? This is not a Wallonian moment; it is about respecting the democracy and sovereignty of this House.
Mr Lidington
I will try to touch on the subjects that the hon. Lady has raised. As she knows, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has operated, under Governments of all parties, at arm’s length from direct control by Ministers, for good reasons. However, I will certainly ensure that her comments are drawn to the attention of the relevant Minister, and I am sure that they will have been noted by the chief executive and the directors of the commission.
I thought that in the hon. Lady’s comments about poverty and the gender pay gap, she might at least have acknowledged that it is this Conservative Government who are insisting that large employers publish details of the gender pay gap. We had 13 years of a Labour Government in which that issue was not tackled at all. I was disappointed, too, that in her comments about poverty, whether in Walsall or elsewhere, she omitted to mention that yesterday’s figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, last year, the pay increase for people on the lowest wages in our society was, thanks to the national living wage, significantly greater than that for any other group, and well over twice the rate of the pay increase for the wealthiest in society. I hope that Walsall Council can preserve its museum and arts centre, and I hope to have the pleasure of visiting one day. Local authorities, just like central Government Departments, have to take rigorous decisions about priorities when setting their budgets for any particular year.
I note what the hon. Lady says about the Europol regulation. As the Prime Minister has said repeatedly, and as she demonstrated throughout her six years as Home Secretary, she and the entire Government are committed to continuing very close working relationships between the United Kingdom and other members of the European Union—and, indeed, European countries outside the EU—on police and justice matters. It is in our common interest to maintain those relationships as we prepare to leave the European Union. The hon. Lady will have to wait until the Queen’s Speech to see details of the EU exit Bill, and I doubt that she would have expected to hear anything different at this stage.
I am happy to talk to the hon. Lady about vellum, although it has come to a pretty pass when the chief subject chosen by the Opposition Front-Bench team for their attack on the Government is the use of calf or goatskin for the enrolment of the official copies of parliamentary statutes.
I am happy to join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to the late Jimmy Perry. It was a wonderful gesture when, during the changing of the guard ceremony outside Buckingham Palace earlier this week, the military band played the theme tune to “Dad’s Army” as a tribute to Mr Perry. When I look at the faces of Labour Members, especially during Prime Minister’s questions, the phrase that comes to my mind is, “They don’t like it up ’em!”
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House allow us time to talk about the value of allotments? Healthy fruit and veg are important, but in areas that are not protected by a town council, or by neighbourhood or local plans, people are building on allotments, and we do not want to see any more of that.
Mr Lidington
I think that the principle of support for and recognition of the value of allotments is shared by many Members on both sides of the House. I endorse what my hon. Friend says. The commitment is such that the majority of Labour Members keep urging their party leader to spend many more hours on his allotment.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week. May I also pay tribute to Jimmy Perry? I would hate to say, “We’re all doomed!”, but perhaps we are under this Government.
We are always looking for things to commemorate at business questions, and they do not come any bigger than congratulating Candice on winning “The Great British Bake Off”. May I also congratulate the first hon. Member who will table an early-day motion on that subject?
Last week I suggested a couple of definitions of Brexit. I thought that the words “soggy” and “crispy” might be useful; of course, there has been no end of other suggestions. The shadow Chancellor has referred to a bankers’ Brexit, but I like the idea of a flexible Brexit, as announced by the First Minister of Scotland—a flex-Brex, if you like—where the nations of the UK take their own distinct approach. We are starting to see some useful debates about Brexit, so how about a debate that allows the nations of the UK to determine what we require from leaving the European Union?
It has come to my attention that a petition is kicking around to ask the House to hold a debate on, and organise a process for, kicking Scotland out of the Union. What could possibly go wrong with such a petition? Imagine the prospect of it getting into the hands of somebody who wanted to make mischief. What would happen if it got 100,000 signatures and one of my hon. Friends managed to secure a debate on it? Will the Leader of the House join me in appealing to the good people of this nation, “Do not sign this petition!” to ensure that that disaster does not come to pass?
We have been waiting a long time for the Government to introduce a Green Paper or Bill on their work and health programme. That important proposal will plug the gap in disability, so is the Leader of the House in a position to tell us whether we will see it soon?
Mr Lidington
On the hon. Gentleman’s last point, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions regards that Green Paper as a very high priority. It will bring together a number of approaches proposed by the Government which, I hope and believe, will command a lot of cross-party support. We certainly hope that it will be published in the near future.
On our departure from the European Union, as the plenary session of the Joint Ministerial Committee demonstrated earlier this week, the Prime Minister and the Government remain committed to the full involvement of the three devolved Administrations in the preparation of our negotiating position, and we want to maintain that engagement in the months ahead. There will be opportunities in the debate that I have announced today, and in subsequent general debates about various aspects of our EU membership, for Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to make all the points that they wish to make about the interests of the nations that they represent and particularly of their constituents.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
May we have a debate on making better use of natural resources? Is the Leader of the House aware that, in the next few days, we will go through the ridiculous ritual of putting our clocks back, thereby plunging the nation into darkness and misery by mid-afternoon? Can we look again at the benefits of using summer time in winter, which would reduce road accidents and boost tourism?
Mr Lidington
For many years, my right hon. Friend has been a strong advocate of changes to the arrangements for summer time. As he knows, there was no agreement between different parts of the UK on the way forward. On such a subject, the unity of the UK, and respecting the interests of all parts of the UK, are important. The Government have no plans at the moment to bring forward changes in legislation.
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
Last week, I met primary headteachers and parents in my constituency who were very concerned about the fiasco over the content and administration of SATs last year. May we have a full debate on the whole issue to avoid such chaos and upset in future years?
Mr Lidington
Last year, some quite far-reaching changes to SATs were introduced. The Government’s belief is that the changes will drive an improvement in overall standards among our school children, which we very much need. However, in recognition of the disruption that was caused to the lives of teachers and headteachers, the Government have agreed that any further changes should be paused. That explains why, for example, we have decided not to proceed with the proposal that children should be retested at the end of their time at primary school.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
May we have a debate on the importance of protecting our green belt and on the requirement for local authorities to maintain an adequate brownfield register to prioritise development? In my region recently, the Greater Manchester spatial framework has called for the development of large swathes of the green belt, with my constituency of Cheadle set to lose much of its natural landscape.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is a formidable champion of the green belt and of the interests of her constituents in particular. I am sure that she will be ensuring that their voice is heard loudly at all stages of the consultation on and public examination of the proposals that she describes.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
As someone who resides in and represents a constituency 55° north of the equator, I can say that British summer time works for us, so I hope that there is no plan to change that.
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business. May I point out that we have an application on the stocks—he will have heard the exchanges during Women and Equalities questions—for a debate on Thursday 17 November on International Men’s Day? If that could be accommodated, the Backbench Business Committee would be grateful.
Could we have a debate in Government time—this issue affects many of my constituents—on the way in which the Department for Work and Pensions is administering universal credit and the claims from our constituents? There are catch 22-style hoops to jump through and almost Kafkaesque rules that are designed to disallow and to delay legitimate claims from constituents. May we have a debate in Government time about that? The number of people who are going many weeks without any means of supporting themselves is a scandal.
Mr Lidington
I will do my best to accommodate the hon. Gentleman’s Committee in respect of the business on 17 November, although he will appreciate that I cannot give a firm promise today.
On the hon. Gentleman’s point about universal credit, it is being phased in precisely to try to identify any potential flaws and to minimise the risk of teething troubles. I will report his concern to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, but we have to remember that universal credit not only is a much simpler method of administering a complex and old system of welfare support for people in need, but has so far demonstrated that it is pretty effective in helping to get people who are able to work back to work, and in providing support for people who need it.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
May we have a debate on the use to which these premises are put, following reports that, outrageously, a Member of the House of Lords presided over an event at which Israel was compared to the Islamic State and the Jews were even blamed for their own genocide? May we discuss that and whether we should issue an apology for these outrageous comments to the Israeli Government and the Jewish people?
Mr Lidington
I read the newspaper reports of the event in question, and I confess that I was genuinely horrified by the speech that was reported. I do not want to treat every newspaper article as gospel, but I think we should all be very concerned about what happened. Since this event appears to have been organised by a leading member of the Liberal Democrats, I hope that the leader of the party launches an immediate and thorough investigation, so that we can get to the truth and any appropriate disciplinary action can be taken.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Does the Leader of the House recognise that the acute financial crisis in Walsall, which has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), cries out for ministerial action? This crisis has arisen because, for the past six years, the amount of central Government money going to the borough has been reduced by over 60%. Libraries, essential services and the New Art Gallery, which was opened by the Queen at the beginning of the century, are now all in danger of being closed or slashed to the bone. It is totally unacceptable. What are the Government going to do to save the situation, given that the crisis now occurring is entirely due to the way in which they have treated this borough during the past six years?
Mr Lidington
I will certainly draw the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about his borough to the attention of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, but I must put it to him that very difficult decisions about spending have to be addressed by both central and local government as a consequence of the irresponsible borrowing policies pursued by the Government whom he supported for 13 wasted years.
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
Mr McGonagle from my constituency has contacted me about being issued with a parking ticket by UK Car Park Management, despite the fact that the car was not his. I have attempted to contact the company five times to resolve the matter, but I have not even received the courtesy of an acknowledgment. Will the Leader of the House allow us to debate the regulation of private parking companies?
Mr Lidington
I note what my hon. Friend has said. He has obviously put this case on the record today. He may want to apply to you, Mr Speaker, for an Adjournment debate on it.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
May we have a debate entitled “Project Fear” so that the Leader of the House, and the former Chancellor in particular, can reflect on the wisdom of presenting the case against leaving the European Union as a short-term apocalyptic, emergency-budgeted disaster, as opposed to concentrating on the medium-term damage that will certainly be done to this country through withdrawal from the European single marketplace? Given that the Leader of the House was up to his neck in “Project Fear”, will he give the House an assurance that never again will there be such a blatant abuse of Treasury statistics and forecasts in any future referendum that may come along?
Mr Lidington
I must say to the right hon. Gentleman—this probably embarrasses him now—that he and I were on the same side in the referendum campaign. To be honest, there is little point in our conducting post mortems on the referendum campaign. Whatever the reasons that led people to vote the way they did, the turnout was at or above general election levels and the outcome, although the margin was narrow, was decisive and clear, and is respected not just by parties in this House, but by the other 27 Governments in the European Union. We now have to get on with the task of negotiating the best possible deal for British citizens and for British business in these new circumstances.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
At this time of year postal volume starts to increase. It is therefore high time we had a debate on the future of the sorting office in Bacup. If that were to close at Christmas, my constituents would have a 15-mile round trip to collect parcels, which is completely unacceptable.
Mr Lidington
I know that my hon. Friend will be vigilant in defending services available to his constituents. On Tuesday 8 November we have oral questions to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He may be able to pursue the matter further then.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
The crisis in adult social care continues to grow, as highlighted by the Care Quality Commission a couple of weeks ago. May I again ask the Leader of the House whether we can have an urgent debate or a statement from the Government, so that they can outline their plans to address that crisis, in particular with regard to local government funding?
Mr Lidington
It is certainly a priority of my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary to ensure that we plan a future in which health and social care are closely integrated, to ensure the best possible service to all our constituents. Average lengths of stay in hospital have fallen since this Government first came to office. Although there are difficulties and challenges—I do not pretend otherwise—that suggests that the local health and social services managers are responding to the challenge well. Since the hon. Gentleman mentioned the CQC, I note that it has said that more than 70% of adult social services should be rated as good or outstanding.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House provide me with some guidance as to the best way that my constituents can get value for money from their local council? It was reported this week that that council had spent £750 million on traffic consultants in four months; on top of that, it has wasted a lot of money on a very expensive bus lane that lasted for only 21 days, painted double yellow lines across the middle of a road and spelled “school” incorrectly on a sign. Will he let me know what I can do about this dysfunctional council?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is doing a service to her constituents in highlighting those examples of wasteful expenditure. They demonstrate the fact that this is a question not just of central Government grants to local authorities but of local authorities’ getting things right and not making mistakes or getting their priorities wrong in the way that she has described. In the medium term, the answer to her constituents is to secure change by voting for a Conservative-majority council.
Mr Speaker
Order. We have had an enjoyable Cook’s tour of South East Cornwall, but I am not quite sure it constituted a business question. Nevertheless, it is permanently on the record, and colleagues can study it in the long winter evenings that lie ahead.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
Earlier this year, Greenwich clinical commissioning group awarded a contract for the provision of musculoskeletal services to CircleHealth without adequate public consultation and seemingly without an impact assessment by either the CCG or NHS England. May we have a debate about the adequacy of the procedures that Greenwich CCG followed in awarding that contract and about patient involvement in the commissioning process more generally?
Mr Lidington
If the hon. Gentleman has evidence that the proper procedures were not followed in this case, and would like to send me that information, I will be happy to pass it on to Health Ministers. My general point would be that although it is of course important that there is adequate public consultation and all proper process is followed, it is right that clinical commissioning groups should be free to decide whether they go to voluntary sector providers, charitable sector providers or, in some cases, private sector providers, on the basis of what will give the best quality free treatment to the patients they serve.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Two years ago, there was a tragic accident at a fireworks depot in Stafford in which people lost their lives. Surrounding businesses were greatly disturbed and had to close for some time. I understand, however, that even now it is not a requirement for anyone who is applying for a licence to hold fireworks to show that they have business insurance policies that protect against these sorts of occurrences. May we have a debate on that, and on what kind of support is given to both people and businesses affected by such tragic events?
Mr Lidington
In view of the fact that we are approaching 5 November, my hon. Friend might want to seek an Adjournment debate on this subject. I will draw his concerns to the attention of the appropriate Ministers. I think we are all aware, from our constituency experience, of cases where people have suffered the most horrific injuries as a result of either abuse of fireworks by hooligans or a ghastly accident. All sensible safety precautions ought to be taken so that people can avoid such a risk.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, you talked of the long winter evenings that lie ahead. Long winter days also lie ahead. May we have a debate on how we ensure protection for our security, police and doorkeeper staff as they stand, looking after us and protecting us, in the many draughty places in this building in the freezing cold? I am particularly concerned about the police officer who has to stand at the entrance to the underground station, the exit from the colonnade and the exit from Portcullis House. This is a particularly cold and draughty place, and standing stationary for a few hours is pretty cold. Can we look at that?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Lady’s question reminds us all of the debt we owe to all staff, including contracted staff, in the House of Commons, especially those responsible for our safety and security. I am sure you, as Chair of the House of Commons Commission, Mr Speaker, will take a look at the particular problem identified by the hon. Lady.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Yesterday, our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister emphasised the importance of building local consensus around local government reorganisation. May we have an early debate on this matter, so the Government can indicate how they will facilitate this process, for example by insisting that any consultation should be honest, open and transparent, which is certainly not what the consultation in Dorset has been so far?
Mr Lidington
I heard my hon. Friend’s question to the Prime Minister yesterday, and her answer. He spoke fiercely in support of his own local authorities and I am sure he will persist in that campaign. I think that an Adjournment debate, either in this Chamber or in Westminster Hall, might be the right way in which to pursue that particular course.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am not so sure about “Dad’s Army”, but one of the other shows was “Hi-de-Hi!”. I am not quite sure who to cast the Leader of the House as, whether Gladys Pugh or Peggy Ollerenshaw—or maybe just the camp host.
I want to ask the Leader of the House about the proceedings in the House of Lords last night. As he will know, the Government’s answer to everything at the moment, in relation to last Friday and to Leveson part 2, is to put it in the Bill in the House of Lords. The Minister in the House of Lords last night was unable to say whether we are going to have Leveson part 2, which has been guaranteed many times in this House. Will the Leader of the House make sure that this does now happen?
Mr Lidington
The key point about Leveson 2 is that the Government have been consistent in saying that we would not announce a decision on that until the completion of all criminal proceedings arising out of the phone tapping allegations. We have not yet come to the end of those proceedings, so it would not be right at the moment for the Government to come forward with the decision.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
A further 25 right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. I am keen to try to conclude proceedings on this statement by 11.30 am, so there is a premium on brevity from both Back Benchers and Front Benchers.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Yesterday we celebrated the accession of Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, to India. On the subject of light, over this weekend we celebrate Diwali. Will my right hon. Friend join me in wishing Hindus, Sikhs and Jains everywhere a very happy Deepavali and a happy, peaceful and prosperous, but above all else healthy, new year?
Mr Lidington
I wholeheartedly endorse my hon. Friend’s call for Diwali greetings to go to all people in this country of Indian heritage who will be celebrating that great feast. As he mentioned Kashmir, I think there would perhaps be no better way to mark the festival of Diwali than to see progress towards the much yearned for settlement in Kashmir that would finally bring about peace and an end to the tension and conflict that has beset that beautiful part of the world for far too long.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
May we have a great debate on how this Government seem to enjoy spending lots of money in the south of England and to dislike spending any money in the north of England? This is holding back infrastructure projects that would boost the northern economy, such as the M65 link between east Lancashire and the north-east and Scotch Corner, which would transform parts of the northern economy. When are we going to have a serious debate about this?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman ought to go and talk to some of the Labour council leaders in the north of England who have worked closely with the Government to champion the northern powerhouse project, which includes many important infrastructure projects. I note, too, that leaders in the north of this country have broadly speaking welcomed warmly the Government’s announcement about airports this week.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Last Thursday I thoroughly enjoyed attending the Corby sports awards, an annual event when we all come together and celebrate sporting achievement in our town. May we have a debate next week on grassroots sport and the vital role that volunteering plays in it, not just in my constituency but across the country?
Mr Speaker
Especially the hon. Gentleman, who is grassroots sports parliamentarian of the year, which he is too modest to mention, although I can do so on his behalf.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is renowned for his modesty on these matters. I am happy to add my congratulations to yours, Mr Speaker, and I suspect that most of us are somewhat in awe of the YouTube video of the Sports Minister demonstrating her footballing skills, which appeared online in the past 24 hours. There will be an opportunity on Thursday 3 November for questions to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. That will give my hon. Friend the opportunity he seeks.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
May we have a debate on the Government’s policy on light rail schemes? We do not know what the policy is. In Leeds, we have a crazy situation whereby the Government made the brave decision to say that Leeds could keep £173.5 million and not waste it on the trolley bus scheme, but now seem to be allowing Leeds to fritter the money away in another way, when what we really need is light rail, so may we have a debate on this important issue?
Mr Lidington
I cannot offer the hon. Gentleman a debate in Government time in the near future. He may have other opportunities through the Adjournment debate procedure, but I will ask the relevant Minister to write to him about the Leeds scheme.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
May we have a debate on school crossing patrols, and will the Leader of the House join me in praising the wonderful road safety role that lollipop ladies, and indeed lollipop men, play in our communities come rain or shine?
Mr Lidington
While I cannot offer a debate, I am happy to endorse my hon. Friend’s tribute to lollipop men and ladies. Many of us over the years have had children of our own who have benefited from the additional safety that they provide to children in going to school and crossing busy roads.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
May I join others in impressing on the Leader of the House that we should have a debate or statement in Government time on the cuts to the Equality and Human Rights Commission? Given that the industrial action involves the lowest-paid staff under threat of compulsory redundancy, surely it is time to have a debate.
Mr Lidington
I direct the hon. Gentleman to the possibility of an Adjournment debate or perhaps, if there is sufficient support in the House, to a Backbench Business Committee debate on the subject. As I said in reply to the shadow Leader of the House, the commission is rightly at arm’s length from Government decisions—we do not as Ministers interfere in its day-to-day operations—but I hope the commission will always have regard to the need to provide value for money for the taxpayer and to work to try to improve morale among its own staff.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
May we have a debate on the ability of local authorities to introduce blanket traffic regulation orders to stop the problems that often occur in many residential and urban areas of parking on grass verges and other examples of inconsiderate parking?
Mr Lidington
I will draw that issue to the attention of Transport Ministers. Part of the problem is that, as suggested by our own constituency experience, different constituents who argue on opposite sides about any particular location. I shall ask the Minister with responsibility for parking to write to my hon. Friend.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
One disturbing aspect of the Panama papers revelations was that more than half of the companies for whom Mossack Fonseca acted were in British-linked tax havens. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has commenced negotiations on new treaties with Crown dependencies, but no provision has yet been made for this House to consider the outcome. In the interests of transparency, can we have a debate here to ensure that these tax treaties are properly scrutinised and thoroughly understood before they are ratified?
Mr Lidington
There are opportunities, particularly through the Select Committee system, to pursue those issues in much greater detail and to question Ministers about arrangements with all the relevant British overseas territories. I hope that the hon. Gentleman would, however, acknowledge that this Government have taken more determined and effective action than any of their predecessors to improve the standards of transparency and reporting on behalf of our overseas territories, and to pioneer international agreements to try to stamp out tax evasion and limit tax avoidance.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
May we have a debate—it may need to be a long one—on how out of touch the BBC is with the general public in the United Kingdom? A freedom of information request that I have just had returned confirms once again that over the last year the BBC bought more copies of The Guardian than any other national newspaper, despite it being only the eighth most popular daily with the British public. In fact, the BBC bought 75,000 copies of The Guardian last year—it seems to be single-handedly keeping that newspaper afloat. Does this not show how out of touch the BBC is with the general public across the country? Should we not expect the national state broadcaster in this country to be more in tune with, and to represent, the people it is supposed to represent?
Mr Lidington
There will be a chance at next Thursday’s Culture, Media and Sport questions to pursue concerns about the BBC. It is for the BBC itself to answer questions about its newspaper subscriptions. I do think, however, that evidence suggests that most people in this country value the programmes that the BBC produces on both television and radio, and that although we should certainly be on the lookout for any examples of wasteful spending or abuse of the sort my hon. Friend has described, we should not neglect the reality that the BBC is a formidable soft power asset for the influence of the United Kingdom globally.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
I am amazed that the Government have not so far produced a statement on the British Steel pension scheme. It would be warmly welcomed if that could be rectified. This week, we saw the deficit written down from £700 million to £50 million. This scheme is an integral part of the British steel industry for the future. What are Ministers doing about arranging talks, and what support will they give to the BSPS in the future?
Mr Lidington
The future for the British Steel pension scheme is linked to decisions that Tata Steel needs to take about the future of its steel-making operations in the United Kingdom. Last May, the Government consulted on options to make changes to the pension scheme. We got more than 4,500 responses, and we continue not only to consider those, but to speak to all interested parties about the sale of the steel business, the implications for the pension scheme and the wider implications for the pension industry. These are delicate and sensitive talks. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the fate of many jobs hinges on them. We will respond in due course, but we think that it would be premature to make such a statement now. Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy questions are coming up, so the hon. Gentleman might be able to raise the point again then.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
In the light of the proposed restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster, may we have a full debate on the need to optimise the commercial and operational benefits of a “decant”? I have some 20 years’ commercial experience in this sector. May I ask what we are doing to harness sector skills, including specialist apprenticeships—I see that the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills is present—given the scale of the project and given the availability?
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend has made a very good point. We will certainly have a debate, and, if a Division is called, a vote, to decide whether we wish to approve the approach set out in the Joint Committee’s report. It will take place as soon as possible, but I am not in a position to announce a date today.
My hon. Friend also made a good point in drawing attention to the fact that the Committee’s report itself said that the project would, if approved, provide huge opportunities for British industry—both manufacturing and service industries—as well as an opportunity to develop specialist skills and involve apprentices in the way that she has described.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
Royal Bank of Scotland allowed someone to withdraw £500 from the account of my constituent Calum Cheshire, at a branch which he had never visited and which was far from his home, because that person was able to reproduce his signature from a long-lost driving licence, and apparently their eyes looked similar. No bank card or PIN was required, and the bank will not give Calum his money back. May we have a debate on the duty of banks to refund customers’ money that they give away in error, and the lack of protection offered to customers by the financial ombudsman?
Mr Lidington
Obviously it is difficult for me to respond in detail without knowing the specifics of the case, but if the hon. Lady would care to write to me, I will pass the correspondence to the responsible Minister and ask for a reply to be sent directly to her.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
May we please have a debate on the operation of the Child Maintenance Service? Notwithstanding the change of name, the problems that beset the Child Support Agency have been replaced with a new set of genuine complaints. For instance, fathers are being assessed on the basis of their gross earnings of two and three years ago, although they have provided the CMS with evidence that they are now on a lower wage.
Mr Lidington
I will flag my hon. Friend’s concerns to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. It is in all our interests for the Child Maintenance Service to work efficiently and fairly in ensuring that children receive the support to which they are entitled. Let us never forget that the children should be at the heart of child maintenance policy. However, I agree with my hon. Friend that it is also important for the CMS to get its calculations right so that people do not end up being saddled with bills that they are not actually supposed to be paying.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
The chairman of Network Rail has said that there is a funding gap which could mean that the Swansea to London electrification project will not be completed. May we have a statement on the delivery of this important large-scale project? So far, we have had four years of probably expensive procrastination on the Swansea to Cardiff section. Wales deserves better, and the impasse needs to be resolved.
Mr Lidington
My right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary is currently considering the priorities that he wants to set for transport infrastructure in the years to come. Meanwhile, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is preparing his autumn statement, which will address some infrastructure issues. I hope that we shall be able to provide greater clarity, not just for the hon. Gentleman but for the whole House, before very much longer.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Following the results of a BBC Radio 5 Live survey in which 8% of football fans said that they would stop following their teams if they signed a gay player, and the unfortunate comments of the chairman of the Football Association, who has advised people against coming out as gay at the moment, may we have a debate on homophobia in football and in male team sports more generally?
Mr Lidington
I think that if the hon. Gentleman has an opportunity to raise his concern during the forthcoming session of questions to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, he will find that Ministers wholeheartedly endorse his call for homophobia, and, in particular, the expression of some pretty vile homophobic sentiments and slogans, to be driven out of sport altogether. It has no place in sport.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
In many parts of the country the number of women accepting invitations for cervical and breast-screening tests is at the lowest level for 18 years, and the all-party group on women’s health heard there are significant barriers to accessing these tests, particularly for black, Asian and minority ethnic women, women with mental health problems and learning difficulties and working women. May we have a debate in Government time to understand how Parliament can ensure women are given every opportunity to attend these life-saving tests?
Mr Lidington
I will certainly draw the Health Secretary’s attention to the hon. Lady’s concern. As her question suggests, for some of those hard-to-reach groups it is not simply a matter of having screening services available; it is also about making sure the women know about, and feel confident enough to use them, and sometimes there are cultural or other reasons why people may feel unwilling to do so. So I agree we need to work through all the relevant agencies to give women that confidence to come forward.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
When we come back from a recess on a day that is not a Monday we sit on Monday hours, from 2.30 pm to 10.30 pm. Should a similar principle not apply when we rise for a recess, and may we on Tuesday 8 November sit on Thursday hours, from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm?
Mr Lidington
I will give some rapid thought to that question, but at the moment the plan is to continue with the hours we normally sit that day.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Did the Leader of the House hear a senior American military commentator this morning say President Putin is delighted about the British Brexit decision and likes to see Europe feckless and weak? If that is the case may we have an early debate on the growing aggression from Russia and the fact that Russia is clearly trying to intervene in American politics at present, and did the Russians intervene in the Brexit vote in June?
Mr Lidington
I agree completely with the hon. Gentleman about the aggressive approach taken by the Russian Government at present, which we have seen demonstrated both in the cyber-attacks he describes and on the ground in Ukraine and through the stationing of missiles in the Kaliningrad Oblast. I hope it will be some reassurance to the hon. Gentleman to know that yesterday NATO announced details of the rapid deployment forces to be stationed in the Baltic states and Poland, and that the UK will be the lead nation in Estonia and a supporting nation in the Polish contingent. That demonstrates this country’s continuing commitment to European defence and security, which will continue even as we prepare to leave the EU and afterwards.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
My constituent Kerrie Hamilton told me how she suffered a traumatic experience at the hands of her Atlantis Group landlord, with men barging into her Stockton home and bullying her, while Mrs Olwyn Murdoch, in her 70s, told me how Atlantis staff are hounding her for money even though she no longer lives in their property. Both have long tales of woe including welcome local council interventions and a recorded conversation in which the wife of the owner, John Sykes, tells Mrs Hamilton no one could prove bullying because he is so powerful and runs a charity. May we have a debate on rogue landlords and how we can better protect tenants from such behaviour?
Mr Lidington
There are various legal rules that landlords have to follow if they are seeking lawfully to evict a tenant, and in my experience the courts do test the arguments landlords put forward. In this case it may be that the tenant felt so intimidated that they were unable to avail themselves of those remedies. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me about his constituency case, I will draw it to the attention of the housing Minister.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It was Mother Teresa who said:
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
In northern Iraq, Yazidis are living in tents rather than in the trailer units that are provided for others. They are not receiving rations of basic food or support. There are many Yazidis and Christians living in extremely poor conditions outside the UNHCR camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Will the Leader of the House arrange a statement or a debate on this important issue?
Mr Lidington
The Government are giving assistance to people in need in northern Iraq through our international development and aid programme. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the reason that those people are in such dire circumstances is that they have fled the terrorist genocidal regime of Daesh in parts of the north of that country. The sooner the Iraqi and peshmerga forces are able to re-establish control over Iraqi territory, the sooner we will be able to bring hope and the restoration of normal life to those people.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
London has HS1, HS2, Crossrail 1, Crossrail 2 and a new runway at Heathrow, and of course the £30 million of Government money that is being wasted on a garden bridge. Meanwhile, the M56 is jammed every day and we have had no commitment on an HS2 hub at Chester. May I add my calls to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) for a proper debate about why the Government’s priorities seem to be focused on the south-east while we in the north and the north-west lose out?
Mr Lidington
I do not blame the hon. Gentleman for wanting to get more spending for his own constituency. That is a perfectly proper thing for him to seek here. However, he needs to acknowledge the Government’s commitment to the northern powerhouse, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) initiated and which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has recently confirmed. I hope that, when the autumn statement is made, the hon. Gentleman will find ample demonstration in it of our continuing commitment to the prosperity and growth of our great northern cities.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The Government are proposing to close down the Dungavel immigration and removal centre, not to improve immigration policy but as part of a flawed value-for-money exercise. Half the workforce live in my constituency, and they feel that they have been left high and dry. May we have a debate in Government time on how the Government have conducted this matter, on their wider estate rationalisation and on how they engage—or do not engage—with the workforce and the unions?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman might wish to seek an Adjournment debate on the constituency implications of that decision, but as I think he knows, the Government’s intention is that Dungavel will be replaced by a new centre located close to Glasgow airport, which will be much more convenient for ensuring that those people who are in this country illegally and who have been properly served with deportation or removal notices can be removed to their country of origin.
Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)
I attended the launch of the Thin Red Line appeal on Monday. It is an initiative to raise funds for the refurbishment of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders regimental museum at Stirling Castle. What opportunities exist to debate and draw attention to this fine cause, which seeks to properly honour and commemorate that renowned Scottish regiment?
Mr Lidington
I should like to salute the proud record of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s tribute will receive unanimous support from Members representing all political parties in the House. He has seized this opportunity today, and there might be another opportunity to discuss the matter, either in a forthcoming Adjournment debate, at Culture, Media and Sport questions or perhaps in questions to the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Points of Order
Thursday 27th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Technical and Further Education Act 2017 View all Technical and Further Education Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you give me any advice in my capacity as Chair of the Defence Committee? Both my Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee have been extremely worried about the forthcoming major cuts to BBC Monitoring and the potential closure of Caversham Park, the centre where BBC Monitoring and Open Source Enterprise, an American organisation, exist side by side to the great advantage of many Government Departments. The Foreign Affairs Committee’s inquiry had to conclude without getting a responsible Minister to give evidence. My Committee has been trying in our inquiry since 14 October to get a responsible Minister, whom we gather should be from the Foreign Office or possibly the Cabinet Office, to come to us. This is a serious matter that is worrying a great many people in the military and intelligence communities. We look to your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, as to what we can do to compel a Minister to do his job and come before us for scrutiny, which we must do in order to do our job.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for advance notice of his point of order. As he knows, the Chair is unable to compel Ministers to appear before Select Committees, but he has chosen the timing of his point of order well—the Leader of the House, who is very attentive, is here and will no doubt take those concerns to the Government.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. At questions to the Leader of the House before business questions, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson) the Leader of the House—in all sobriety and apparently without any hint of irony—presented the behaviour of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), last week in talking out a private Member’s Bill as nothing more than answering questions from Members in the normal course of a debate. Every Member present knows that the reality—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. This is a continuation of a debate rather than a point of order. The hon. Gentleman will have to use other avenues to pursue his grievance.
Bill Presented
Technical and Further Education Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary Justine Greening, supported by Secretary Greg Clark, Secretary Damian Green, Ben Gummer, Damian Hinds, Robert Halfon, Mr Nick Gibb, Edward Timpson, Caroline Dinenage and Joseph Johnson, presented a Bill to make provision about technical and further education, and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 82) with explanatory notes (Bill 82-EN).
Privileges
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
I inform the House that the Speaker has not selected the amendments on the Order Paper.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Lidington)
I beg to move,
That this House—
(i) approves the First Report from the Committee of Privileges (HC 662);
(ii) having regard to the conclusions of the Committee in respect of Mr Colin Myler, considers that Mr Myler misled the Culture, Media and Sport Committee by answering questions falsely about his knowledge of evidence that other News of the World employees had been involved in phone-hacking and other wrongdoing, and therefore formally admonishes him for his conduct; and
(iii) having regard to the conclusions of the Committee in respect of Mr Tom Crone, considers that Mr Crone misled the Culture, Media and Sport Committee by giving a counter-impression of the significance of confidentiality in the Gordon Taylor settlement and by answering questions falsely about his knowledge of evidence that other News of the World employees had been involved in phone-hacking and other wrongdoing, and therefore formally admonishes him for his conduct.
That the matter of the exercise and enforcement of the powers of the House in relation to select committees and contempts be referred to the Committee of Privileges.
This case was referred to the Privileges Committee by the House on 22 May 2012. The Committee was tasked to investigate the conclusions in chapter eight of the 11th report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Session 2010-2012, on “News International and Phone-Hacking”. The Committee found that Mr Colin Myler and Mr Tom Crone misled the Culture, Media and Sport Committee by each answering
“questions falsely about… knowledge of evidence that other News of the World employees had been involved in phone-hacking and other wrongdoing”
and made a finding of contempt in relation to each of them. The Committee also made a finding of contempt in relation to Mr Tom Crone being found to have
“misled the CMS Committee in 2009 by giving a counter-impression of the significance of confidentiality in the Gordon Taylor settlement. He was involved in the settlement negotiations and knew that NGN’s desire for confidentiality had increased the settlement amount.”
The standard of proof employed by the Privileges Committee was whether the allegations contained in the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report were significantly more likely than not to be true. The other allegations made against Tom Crone, Les Hinton and News International did not meet the evidentiary standard set out by the Committee. I thank the Committee for its diligent work, particularly given the necessarily long pause in the inquiry while legal proceedings were under way.
The findings matter because Select Committees play an important role in parliamentary and national political life. Ultimately it is voters who lose out when witnesses fail to provide reliable evidence. Decisions that shape and affect our constituents’ lives are made by the businesses, organisations, and of course Ministers whose work is overseen by Select Committees. Scrutiny happens effectively only because of the powers and privileges afforded to Members of Parliament. Without them, the ability of MPs to serve their constituents properly is undermined. The findings of the Privileges Committee that Parliament has in this instance been knowingly misled are of serious concern. The fact that questions were raised by parties to this inquiry regarding the use of Parliament’s powers and the proper jurisdiction of the House is troubling.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
News International tried to get the shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and me thrown off the Select Committee inquiry into this issue when we were serving on the Committee. These people were lying through their teeth—that is absolutely clear. Does the Leader of the House think the penalties put forward in this motion are commensurate with the systematic lying by people at News International during that inquiry?
Mr Lidington
I am going to deal with the question of penalties a little later in my speech.
I said that the questions raised by parties to the inquiry about parliamentary powers and proper jurisdiction were troubling. In its report, the Committee of Privileges cites submissions from lawyers acting on behalf of the News of the World journalists. Those legal representatives claimed that the House does not have penal powers in respect of contempt of Parliament. It is regrettable that Parliament and its powers have been challenged in such a way. Although Parliament has chosen not to exercise penal powers for many years, there is no doctrine of desuetude in English law or, I believe, in the law of any part of the United Kingdom. It is for Parliament to make a judgment about the best course of action in addressing that challenge, and for that reason the motion refers
“the matter of the exercise and enforcement of the powers of the House in relation to select committees”
to the Committee of Privileges for further consideration. Without such a formal referral from the House as a whole, under our Standing Orders that Committee could not consider the matter further. Of course, in practice there have been relatively few instances where the authority of the House has been challenged—at least in recent years—so the House has had little need to exercise its powers.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Does the Leader of the House accept that as the two men concerned have made it absolutely clear since the Committee’s report was published that they have no respect for the decision of the Committee and for the processes of Parliament, merely admonishing them through a motion, rather than requiring them to appear before the House, will, to all intents and purposes, undermine respect for Parliament, not enhance it?
Mr Lidington
I take very seriously the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised, and he and I have discussed this matter outside the Chamber. I will come on in a little while to explain why I think that to move now towards trying to take the further action that he wishes to see would not be the right approach—certainly not at this time.
One reason why the House has had little need to exercise its penal powers is because refusing to attend Select Committees as a witness or otherwise committing a contempt of Parliament itself causes reputational damage for the perpetrator. We should not underestimate that impact. Being designated as having committed a contempt of Parliament or having even been described as not a “fit and proper” person to hold a particular office or exercise a particular function can cause reputational damage to the individual and can also cause commercial damage to the organisations they represent. We should not lightly underestimate the incentive that that provides to witnesses to give evidence to Select Committees and to speak truthfully when they do so.
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and other Members in this House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), would like to see us go further now: they would like the people found in contempt to be summoned to the Bar of the House. I agree with them that those who hold Parliament in contempt should not escape with their reputations unscathed, but I have concerns that moving in that direction immediately, without further careful consideration by the Committee of Privileges, would itself pose reputational risks to Parliament. The Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege was clear in its 2013 report that an admonishment can
“take the form of a resolution of the House, without any requirement for the contemnor to appear in person.”
Of course the convention in this House has been that the Leader of the House and the Government will normally table and support resolutions brought forward by the Committee of Privileges in order to uphold the authority of that Committee. In this case, it is the Committee that, having examined the evidence in great detail, has chosen to call for the formal admonishment of the two journalists concerned. It has chosen not to recommend to the House that the two journalists be summoned to the Bar of the House to be admonished in person by Mr Speaker.
Chris Bryant
I am sorry, but some of what the Leader of the House has said is inaccurate. This is a matter for the House, not for the Government. Historically, the Committee of Privileges has brought forward a report. It has heard people at the Bar of the House, and then the House has made up its own mind. For instance, in 1947 we decided that the Committee report was right that Mr Heighway should be heard at the Bar of the House. He implicated Mr Allighan, a Member of the House, and both of them were then found guilty of contempt. Mr Allighan was removed from the House for six months. I just say to the Leader of the House that, as a House, we should be free to do what we want, and not be bound by the Committee of Privileges.
Mr Lidington
I do not differ from the hon. Gentleman on that point. The House is free to make whatever decision it wishes, but the fact that he has to cite a case dating back to 1947—I respect the argument that he is bringing forward—suggests that to summon someone to the Bar of the House is not a step that we should rush into today without some pretty careful consideration.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that the last time this House admonished two people—they were Members of this House—they were not called to the Bar of the House, but admonished by a motion on the Floor of the House?
Mr Lidington
The right hon. Gentleman, who is Chair of the Committee of Privileges, is absolutely right in what he says.
The former Clerk to this House, Lord Lisvane, made his view on this matter clear when he sent written evidence to the Liaison Committee. He said that the approach of summoning someone to the Bar of the House would, in his view, risk being a pantomime. The problem that I have in moving today to accept the arguments put forward by the hon. Member for Rhondda, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and others is that we would be testing, without some careful thought and consideration, the House’s power to enforce such a summons at all. The Serjeant at Arms does not have a power in law to take someone by the shoulder and force them to attend the House if they choose not to do so. Indeed, I have seen advice that suggests that, under such circumstances, the Serjeant at Arms or their team would themselves be at risk of criminal proceedings were they to seek to effect the forceful attendance of somebody summoned to the Bar of the House.
I know that there are also some Members who believe that we should go even further than just summoning individuals to the Bar. They would like to take the radical step, which has been taken by some other jurisdictions, of enshrining the penal powers of the House in statute. It is a model that has been adopted to a greater or lesser extent by some other democratic legislatures. The United States Congress claims an inherent power to punish contempts, but it relies on the courts of the United States to enforce it. The information that I have is that the courts consider such requests from Congress, but they do not grant every such request, and they examine and test to their satisfaction the evidence on which a request is based.
In Australia, there is a criminal offence of contempt of the legislature, with powers to deal with such contempt, such as fines or imprisonment; but there are fundamental consequences to legislating and, as a result, risking drawing in the courts in a way that may start to encroach on parliamentary privilege and the principle laid down in the Bill of Rights in 1689 that proceedings in Parliament, whether in this Chamber or in Committees, may not be questioned in any court of law. As the House knows, these are issues that the Government have previously considered—in their 2012 Green Paper on parliamentary privilege and in their response to a 2013 report by the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege.
Now, it is ultimately, as the hon. Member for Rhondda said, for the House to decide how it wishes to deal with contemnors, by directing the Committee of Privileges to look into the issue by virtue of Standing Order No. 148A. However, I think the right way to proceed—and my advice to the House today—would be to ask our Privileges Committee to examine these questions of the exercise of penal powers carefully; to hear representations —from those such as the Members who have intervened on me—to go further; and then to come back with a report and, if the Committee thinks appropriate, recommendations to the House, so that we could take a decision at that point, after serious examination of our traditions and practices, of the law in this country, including human rights law, and of the practice of other democratic jurisdictions.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for his statement, and I agree with him. I also thank the Privileges Committee for its diligent work.
The Committee of Privileges adopted a procedure that met high standards of fairness, while being proportionate and properly parliamentary. The standard of proof applied by the Committee was whether the allegations were significantly more likely than not to be true.
It is always a serious issue when witnesses mislead a Committee, and it undermines the Committee process. It was right that the Culture Committee referred this matter to the Privileges Committee. Members should be able to question witnesses without fear or favour, affection or ill will. It is right that the exercise and enforcement of the powers of the House in relation to Select Committees and contempts be referred to the Committee of Privileges for a detailed, considered inquiry, as it may be necessary to take legal or other advice.
It is normal practice to agree with the Privileges Committee report. Therefore, the Opposition agree with the motion in the name of the Leader of the House.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I wish to say a few words as a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee during the inquiry in the last Parliament into phone hacking at the News of the World.
First, the case against Tom Crone and Colin Myler is compelling. It is based not on one evidence session where there may have been a slip of the tongue or a piece of misleading information given; this was a systematic attempt to mislead Members of the House and members of the Committee over many years—over two parliamentary inquiries—and, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, for which Tom Crone and Colin Myler have shown absolutely no remorse or regret; actually, in many ways, they believe they have done nothing wrong.
Without going through all the incredibly complex work that was done by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee ahead of the Leveson inquiry in looking at the knowledge and extent of phone hacking at the News of the World, one simple thing is really clear, and it shines out in the Privileges Committee’s report as well: the evidence that condemned Colin Myler and Tom Crone—that condemned News International—always existed within the company itself and was always within reach of the executives of that company. In fact, the killer piece of evidence, which the Select Committee requested that News International’s lawyers, Farrer, produce and release, was a memo written by Tom Crone himself and attached to a legal opinion by Michael Silverleaf, QC, which lays out in black and white, extremely clearly, that phone hacking at the News of the World was not restricted to one journalist, but widespread throughout the organisation. There was a cultural problem, they all knew about it and they systematically lied about it over a number of inquiries, with repeated opportunities to give oral and written evidence.
The Leader of the House is right to say that incidents of contempt of Parliament and of people being requested to be brought to the House happen rarely, so we should reflect on this report and on the evidence the House has received. It is clear that this is a serious matter—it went on for a long time—and there should be some sanction. On serious inquiries such as this—the inquiry on phone hacking, which was an issue that affected many people’s lives—it should be a presumption that witnesses, when they appear before the Committee, are telling the truth, and are compelled to tell the truth, and that if they seek to lie, and repeatedly lie, there is some very clear sanction against them.
I am pleased to hear what the Leader of the House has said. It really is time that there was a clear process that the House should follow whereby people face some sanction if they are found to be in contempt of Parliament and to have lied to Parliament. That might, as he suggested, follow the example of the United States Congress, where the matter is referred to the courts for them to decide what further action should be taken. There should be some clear sanction in law. Witnesses should have regard to the fact that when they give evidence to Parliament they are compelled to tell the truth.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I rise briefly to support the Privileges Committee in the report that it has published for the House. The Leader of the House put forward a very compelling case for how we need to look at this to make sure that when issues of contempt of the House emerge, as they have in the course of this inquiry, they are taken seriously and we have a range of sanctions that could be deployed against those who treat this House with contempt and action is then required. I was disappointed that Mr Speaker did not select the amendments, because they would have given us a useful opportunity further to exercise this House’s views on controls and constraints of some sort, and on what has emerged in the course of this inquiry.
The Leader of the House outlined a sensible suggestion to compel the Privileges Committee to come forward with a report so that this House can consider all these issues properly. I support that intention. I hope that when such serious issues of contempt of Parliament arise in future, a range of options is available to this House that can be demonstrated and exercised by Members of Parliament who are doing their duties and carrying out their responsibilities on behalf of their constituents.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I am very conscious of the recommendation in the report that
“it would be wise for those Members of the House who sat on the CMS Committee in 2012 to take no part in the debate on our Report.”
I therefore do not want to talk about the specific cases of Mr Crone and Mr Myler, other than to thank the Committee of Privileges and its Chairman, because they have already had to spend a great deal of time on this matter as a result of the decision of the Committee that I chaired at the time to refer this matter to his Committee.
The Leader of the House talked about the fit and proper person test. He will recall that there was great speculation when the Culture, Media and Sport Committee decided to dispatch the Serjeant at Arms to serve a warrant on Mr Rupert Murdoch requiring him to appear before the Committee, with much excitement in the press about the consequences had he failed to respond. In actual fact, he did come. I do not know what processes he went through in deciding to do so, or his advisers in telling him that he should, but the fact that there is a fit and proper person test for those holding broadcast TV licences may have had some small part to play. The fit and proper person test is a relevant factor. It would be interesting to know whether it might apply beyond the broadcasting licensing requirements, perhaps extending into the general assessment of whether somebody is suitable to hold a position of company director, for instance. Perhaps being admonished by the House is not just the slap on the wrist that some fear it could be.
The other point, which the Leader of the House also mentioned, is the debate about whether this should become a criminal offence. I have reservations about that. If the two individuals who are accused had been prosecuted in a court of law, they would have been entitled to defence counsel, and I can envisage myself being cross-examined about whether it was right that I questioned as I did the people who appeared. That would clearly have profound implications for the powers of Select Committees.
These are very deep and difficult waters. I conclude by expressing my sympathy for the Chairman of the Privileges Committee, who, having already spent years on this matter, is now being compelled to go back to it and consider even more difficult questions. I look forward to hearing his conclusions.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I, too, am grateful to the Privileges Committee for the diligent work it has done, and I hope that we will hear from its Chair very soon. I am grateful not only to the Committee Chair and its Members, but to the acting Chair, who had to take much of this through over the last few months.
I will not make any comment about the individuals, Mr Myler and Mr Crone, but I think that the Committee did its absolute best to make sure that there was due and fair process, and that the two men were able to put their own case. The very fact that of the three names originally put forward by the Select Committee, two names are before us today—the Committee found that Mr Les Hinton had not misled the House, or certainly that there was not enough evidence to say that—shows that there has been due process.
The right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), whose most important role in the matter was as the former Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, is right to say that we should not underestimate admonishment. The Privileges Committee was right to say that that should be the only punishment. We should not be considering a fine or imprisonment, because I do not think that a political institution such as Parliament should be able to do that. That is one of our fundamental principles of habeas corpus. We should not underestimate admonishment, because it would be the House saying that these two men are liars; that they are not honourable; that they have deliberately misled Parliament; and that they are not reliable witnesses. Anybody who wanted to employ them would obviously want to bear that in mind.
If the same thing had happened in the United States of America, the Leader of the House is absolutely right to say that it would have gone to court rather than being dealt with by Congress. The penalties would have been considerably higher than some words in the Journal of the House of Commons. The last such instance in the United States of America led to somebody being fined $10,000 and imprisoned for six months.
I accept the points that have been made about not wanting to infringe the Bill of Rights, and not wanting the courts to be able to question or impeach proceedings in Parliament. At the same time, there is a real problem if people can, effectively, proceed with impunity. This is a much more serious case than any that we have had before the House for some considerable time, including the cases that have been referred to from 1947 and 1957. I do not think that either of those cases would come anywhere near the House today. Simply telling a journalist off for having published somebody’s telephone number and trying to get people to vote in a particular way—that was, to be honest, the House behaving a bit like a prima donna.
In the case that we are discussing, however, two men lied to Parliament. They chose to lie to Parliament. They made it impossible for the Select Committee to do its work properly, and other forms of justice were not available to those who were involved. I think it is much more serious than any other case since 1879, when two men said that they had bribed Members of Parliament to secure contracts for the building of bridges across the River Thames. Then, we did imprison; it was the last time that we imprisoned. The truth of the matter is that if the same thing happened today, the only thing that would be available to us, according to what we are deciding today, is admonishment. Frankly, I think that that is the kind of situation in which people should be going to prison.
The whole thing is made worse by the fact that the individuals concerned do not accept that they have done anything wrong. On the very day the report was published, they went on the record to say that they did not accept the Committee’s findings, they did not accept the way it had done its work and they did not accept Parliament’s remit. I tabled two amendments simply to say that we should not increase the penalty above that which was agreed by the Privileges Committee—it should still just be admonishment—but that it should be done at the Bar of the House.
I understand the argument that we should not do that. Lord Lisvane has his arguments, although he is too excitable on this matter for my liking, but I think the real problem was adumbrated by the Leader of the House. The reason we are not doing it is that we are frightened that we cannot summon someone to the Bar of the House because the Speaker’s warrant has no effect and the Serjeant at Arms has no power. The problem is that we cannot force somebody to appear as a witness before a Select Committee, which really means that we have become a paper tiger. We have become a lion with no teeth.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
We should insist that we have certain powers, but my concern with bringing someone to the Bar of the House is that it is unduly theatrical and would make the House of Commons look foolish in the public arena, rather than making us look wise and providential.
Chris Bryant
If somebody were brought to the Bar of the House, I would hope that they showed contrition. John Junor certainly did so in 1957, which meant that the House decided immediately thereafter that it would not pursue the line of admonishment but let the matter lie. Perhaps if the two men in question had been brought to the Bar of the House, they would have shown contrition and that is exactly what we would have decided as well.
It is the counsel of despair to say that we cannot use the powers of the House. We need to address the situation urgently, because the number of witnesses who have tried to avoid appearing before Select Committees has grown exponentially in recent years. That was true of the Maxwell brothers, and then there was nobody for about 10 or 15 years. James and Rupert Murdoch tried to refuse to attend, and Rebekah Brooks refused to attend for some time. All sorts of excuses were provided, but they did eventually attend. It is extraordinary that the Murdochs, having been in control of such a large part of this country’s media empire, did not appear for 20 years. Mike Ashley and Philip Green tried not to appear, and we had to stamp our feet to secure their attendance. That eventually happened, but there may come a time when, if we keep saying that we do not have the power to force people to come, they will decide not to, and then we really will have lost. If we cannot summon witnesses and require them to attend, what price our ability to hold the powerful to account?
This is not about those of us who are in this Chamber today. We as individuals come and we will be gone. We pass through here but very briefly and the waters will very soon cover us over, but the role of Parliament endures, because Ministers do not have the sole prerogative rights on the abuse of power. We have to be able to summon witnesses, to force them to attend, to pursue the truth, to hold the lies and half-truths of the great and the good up to the light. I think that people in this country are sick and tired of the extremely powerful and the extremely wealthy being able to lie, scam and brag that they have been able to do so with impunity.
Finally, Rupert Murdoch has tweeted:
“Maybe most Muslims peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible.”
That tweet in itself is an act of incitement and it is despicable, but if we were to apply his logic that all Muslims, including peaceful Muslims, are responsible for jihadism, we would conclude that it must surely be true that Rupert Murdoch is personally responsible for the lies that were told to this House by Mr Myler and Mr Crone.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
The report represents the fulfilment by the Committee of Privileges of the task that it was asked to undertake by the House on 22 May 2012. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) for chairing a number of the hearings in my absence in recent months.
There is not much time for this debate, so I will concentrate on the process rather than the details of the evidence. It is important to be clear about the role of the Committee. It did not set out to find evidence of phone hacking or to make a judgment about the inquiry conducted by the former Culture, Media and Sport Committee or its findings. Our report is not about phone hacking or the alleged cover-up of such activities. It is this country’s legal process that has taken that into account in recent years.
As set out clearly in our Standing Order, the Committee of Privileges is concerned with specific matters relating to privileges. In this case, that meant investigating whether named witnesses and a company gave misleading evidence to the CMS Committee, as set out in chapter 8 of that Committee’s report.
We started our work by determining the process by which we intended to reach our conclusions. We believed that the process should be fair and should offer sufficient opportunities to the inquiry subjects to put their side of the story and to comment on our draft conclusions.
Although we do not accept that article 6 of the European convention on human rights applies to our inquiry, we set out nevertheless to shape a process that would meet its stipulations. We consulted the inquiry subjects in advance and published the process as a resolution so that all could see what would happen at each stage. That was before the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege started its own work in this area, but we were pleased to see that the Joint Committee subsequently described our process as “fair” and used our resolution as the pattern for its own draft standing orders on dealing with contempt.
Our resolution was published in 2012 and it is included as an appendix in our report, but there are two points from it that I would like to stress. The first point is the standard of proof. We adopted the standard used to assess more serious cases involving MPs—that the allegations had to be significantly more likely than not to be true. The second is the provision that we would suspend the inquiry if there were any danger that it might prejudice a criminal proceeding.
It was that provision which led to the inquiry being suspended at least twice and which meant work to complete the inquiry was delayed until December 2015, when the Crown Prosecution Service announced that it would not bring corporate charges against News International. That cleared the way for us to look at all the allegations made by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
To reach our conclusions, my Committee examined the evidence before the CMS Committee up to 2012 and documentary evidence that had emerged since which was relevant to the allegations. We took into account publicly available material such as that given to the Leveson inquiry, and requested further evidence from the inquiry subjects, the CPS, the police and others. Most of those we approached co-operated with us and we are grateful for that. The exception to that was where lawyers for the inquiry subjects seemed determined to raise procedural issues, rather than engage with matters of substance. We have published all the correspondence relating to the inquiry so that anyone with the time or interest can see for themselves how co-operative different parties have been.
At the end of that careful consideration and analysis, we concluded that there was sufficient evidence to support findings that Colin Myler and Tom Crone—the latter on two counts—had misled the CMS Committee and were therefore in contempt of the House. We did not find sufficient evidence to uphold a third allegation against Mr Crone, or any of the allegations made by the CMS Committee against Mr Hinton. Nor did we find sufficient evidence of a breach of parliamentary privilege by News International, and there was some confusion in the CMS Committee report over pinpointing the corporate body that could be accused of misleading the Committee.
I would invite anyone who disagrees with our findings to re-examine the evidence before us and to bear in mind the standard of proof. I repeat that our concern was specific: did these named inquiry subjects give misleading evidence as set out in the allegations of chapter 8 of the CMS Committee report?
We have recommended that Mr Myler and Mr Crone be formally admonished by the House. We believe that that is a significant step. Although individuals may be criticised in motions in the House, as we saw only recently, that is very different from the House directly resolving to admonish witnesses for obstructing the work of a Committee. It shows how seriously the Committee regards these offences that it seeks to involve the House in that way.
I know that some people feel that we have not gone far enough; the amendments that have not been selected today suggest that. Those people are disappointed to be deprived of the theatre of the inquiry subjects being dragged to the Bar of the House, hence the amendments. However, as has rightly been said, that has not happened in modern times—it did not even happen with the two Members of the House in 1992 who were admonished by resolution; they were not brought to the Bar of the House. We should be conscious of how we treat one another, as opposed to how we treat people outside. In fact, 1957 was the last time the process was used against an individual, when it was described in the House as a “medieval pantomime.” That was objected to. The Speaker of the day, Speaker Morrison, accepted that it was wrong to describe the proceedings as a medieval pantomime, but he accepted “medieval drama”.
The former Clerk of the House, Sir Malcolm Jack, in written evidence to the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege in 2013, considered that
“the possibility of hauling people to the bar of the House and admonishing them would provide a theatre of the absurd”.
I think that he was right. The more recent precedent, set in 1992, is, as I have said, for Members to be reprimanded by resolution only. My Committee considered which form of admonishment was appropriate and decided firmly against summoning Mr Myler and Mr Crone to the Bar. That would risk moving the focus from the facts of the case, which are published with our report in great detail, to the punishment and making the process effectively a show trial, for want of a better expression. It seemed to me and the Committee that that would not be good for the House or for anyone else, even if those powers were available. We should remember that in 1957 the proceedings of the House were not broadcast and there was no such thing as social media. We recognise now that everything we do is much more public. I am sure that Mr Crone and Mr Myler will not regard today’s events as a light matter, and nor should they, given the findings of the Committee and the evidence that is in its report for all to see.
I could say much more on the subject of the House’s powers and how they are enforced, but I will be able to return to that matter if the House agrees to the proposal from the Leader of the House that the Committee of Privileges should examine the
“exercise and enforcement of the powers of the House in relation to select committees and contempts”.
As my Committee points out in our report, that matter has been left unresolved for too long and it is right that we should go away, look at it and come back with some workable recommendations. I believe that it is better that that be done away from any current privileges report or any current inquiry.
I hope that the Leader of the House can reassure us that, unlike in the past, time will be found for the House to debate and to come to an agreement on whatever recommendations we make in our report. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that we have to get the power that this place has into the context of the 21st century, not the centuries before. That is important. If the proposal is agreed today, and agreed by the Privileges Committee, all Members, and I am sure others, will have the opportunity to give evidence to the Committee about the powers we have and how we should exercise them.
The inquiry took a long time and my Committee has done its best to reach a fair verdict following a fair process. I think that we have done that and I ask the House to support the motion before it today.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
My initial reaction on the day of the report’s publication was that I was pleased that the Privileges Committee had agreed with our 2012 report saying that Colin Myler and Tom Crone had misled us and were in contempt. I made those comments, which are on my website, following a statement by Les Hinton, the former executive chairman of News International that led to claims that he had been exonerated. Clearly, this Privileges Committee report provides no substance for that statement, and nor does it provide any substance for Mr Hinton’s claims that the CMS Committee reached false findings in 2012. In my comments, I also said that I found the second half of the report more disappointing and I want to explain why. I also have questions about an aspect of the Privileges Committee’s methodology.
I join the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) in expressing my sympathy for the Committee. During its long, interrupted inquiry, it clearly received only grudging, and certainly not full, co-operation from three of the subjects: Colin Myler, Les Hinton and News International, and their solicitors. That was an all-too-familiar experience through all our reports into phone hacking.
I turn to chapter 6 of the report and Les Hinton. Mr Hinton, often described as Rupert Murdoch’s right-hand man, was the executive chairman of News International until December 2007. He resigned as chief executive of Dow Jones, another News Corp subsidiary in New York, in July 2011, within a week of the closure of the News of the World—that fact should speak for itself. We found that he was not full and frank in his evidence to our Committee about the payments made to the convicted royal reporter Clive Goodman; about their purpose, which was to buy silence; or about suspicions that were communicated to him about the extent of phone hacking beyond one rogue reporter and one hacker. One only has to look at the detailed memo from Harbottle & Lewis, the lawyers to the group, to see that he also misled us over claims that a full and rigorous investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World happened on his watch—it certainly did not.
On Mr Hinton, the Privileges Committee made three findings, each of no contempt. First, on payments to Clive Goodman, the report concludes that he failed to tell us, but would certainly have remembered, his role in authorising a £90,000 pay-off to a convicted criminal. The Committee says that it found its conclusion of no contempt “particularly difficult”. I, for one, find that a little confusing and surprising, because we certainly, and unanimously, did not find it difficult to reach our conclusion.
Secondly, on knowledge of the allegations about the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World, the report documents that Mr Hinton received a letter in 2007 from Clive Goodman appealing his dismissal, in which he implicated other senior members of staff. Mr Hinton subsequently told our Committee that he had never been provided with any suspicions of wider involvement, and he never sought to correct that comment. Paragraph 269 of the Privileges Committee report says:
“On that basis we agree that Les Hinton’s evidence was misleading because it did not reveal that Clive Goodman was the source of one of those allegations.”
Yet in paragraph 270—the following paragraph—the report goes on to conclude that the allegations that Mr Hinton misled us were not
“significantly more likely than not to be true”,
so it made no finding of contempt. I am not the only person to find that conclusion rather contradictory and confusing.
I will not delay the House in relation to the third finding in this chapter of the report, about the payment of Mr Goodman’s legal fees—the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) may want to ask questions about it—as I have said enough about Mr Hinton. I will say, however, that throughout our investigations we found a pattern of payments, settlements and confidentiality clauses that clearly had one aim in mind: to suppress the truth about phone hacking.
Chapter 7 of the report deals with News International, which has since been renamed News UK. It was the parent company of News Group Newspapers, which ran and published the News of the World and The Sun. I must say that, at the outset of the chapter, the Privileges Committee took a narrow approach to the question of whether News International itself was in contempt. It
“looked to identify the individual who could be said to be a controlling mind such that their written or oral evidence could fairly be said to be on behalf of and bind the company.”
That is tantamount to saying that statements by the company, individual senior employees or its lawyers, with plenty of chance to correct the record, are not binding. The report concludes that, by that test, only the executive chairman or the chief executive giving direct evidence at the relevant time—Les Hinton, James Murdoch or Rebekah Brooks—fits the bill. That is rather contestable.
On corporate liability, the report says that it was unclear why our Committee chose to focus on the parent company, News International, rather than News Group Newspapers. That, too, is a rather narrow point. The Privileges Committee did not ask us about that before it issued its report, but I hope to shed some light on why we chose that route. The issue was not raised before we reached our findings, when the Clerk of Committees was acting as our Committee Clerk and the recently retired Speaker’s Counsel was giving us advice. The title of our 2012 report was, indeed, “News International and Phone-hacking”.
I should mention some of my uncertainties about the Privileges Committee’s methodology. It reviewed, inter alia, oral and written evidence formally given to us, but that was clearly not the sum of our knowledge. It says that it reviewed “other publicly available documents”, but it is unclear from the report whether those included, in particular, court evidence in the myriad civil phone hacking claims and press releases from News International. We certainly considered those documents, as well as the whole behaviour of the organisation over a long period, when reaching our findings. They were not allegations; they were findings.
Throughout, we sought the truth beyond the initial “one rogue reporter” defence. We were clearly not alone in doing so. Along with media investigations, notably by The Guardian and The New York Times, a raft of hacking victims sued in the civil courts. In each case, the pattern of behaviour in the whole organisation was always the same—denials, misleading statements and evasion, until being forced, grudgingly, to make admissions. That extended to out-of-court settlements with strict confidentiality clauses to avoid cross-examination in the witness box and, in the case of the investigator Glen Mulcaire, to indemnities and costs being paid as long as he played ball. We know that, as we knew it then, from all the court documents.
In July 2011, but only after closing the News of the World, News Corporation and News International changed tack, setting up the so-called management and standards committee to handle the scandal. Any notion that afterwards a so-called “zero tolerance”, as the report describes it, equated to openness and full co-operation in reality is completely wrong. We had to probe, dig and cajole, as did lawyers in the civil cases. During our inquiries, News International issued misleading and false corporate statements, including press releases on 10 July 2009 denying a key story in The Guardian and, on 24 February 2010, savagely attacking our earlier report. At the time of that report, News International’s chief executive was Rebekah Brooks, to whom I will turn in a moment. As far as Les Hinton is concerned, I have said enough.
I will not dwell too much on James Murdoch, save to note his “lack of curiosity”, as we termed it, about the key items and events about which he was made aware during his tenure, including the damning opinion from Michael Silverleaf, QC, in June 2008, and the settlement with Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers Association to which that related. In evidence, the Murdochs rested on a letter from their lawyers, Harbottle & Lewis, claiming that there had been a proper investigation. In a key memo to us, the lawyers told us that the Murdochs were not entitled to do so. They said that the Murdochs were either mistaken or confused.
Those senior people were far from being the only News International executives from whom we took evidence. Tom Crone, for instance, who is found in the Privileges Committee’s report to be in contempt, was the legal manager for both News Group Newspapers and News International. In key ways, our 2012 report was unfinished business. Owing to the imminent criminal charges, we, on advice, made no findings about the former editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, or Rebekah Brooks. Whether the Committee will wish to do so now, raking back over old ground, is clearly a matter for the Chair and its members.
In June 2014, Andy Coulson was convicted of conspiracy over phone hacking, while Rebekah Brooks was acquitted. However, those charges were not related to the evidence given to us about whether she had misled our Committee. On page 112 of its report, the Privileges Committee mentions that her evidence in criminal cases and to the Leveson inquiry was “constrained”, as was her oral evidence to us on 19 July 2011. That was four days after she had resigned as chief executive, and the report says that
“as such her answers cannot be said to be on behalf of News International.”
She was sitting alongside the Murdochs at the time. The report concludes:
“There are therefore no particular matters arising from her oral evidence in 2011.”
I am afraid to say that I am not the only one who would beg to differ with that narrow, premature conclusion. Ms Brooks is now, of course, the chief executive of News UK—so much for Rupert Murdoch’s penitence when he said:
“This is the most humble day of my life.”
Chris Bryant
Is it not a curious irony that, because of the Bill of Rights, neither Lord Justice Leveson nor the courts could, when interrogating Rebekah Brooks, ask her why, in an answer to a question from me on 11 March 2003 about whether she had ever paid a police officer for information, she said yes?
Paul Farrelly
I agree with my hon. Friend. That highlights the long record of Ms Brooks coming—or declining to come—to give evidence in this House. We have taken issue with such evidence.
In evidence to our Committee in July 2011, Ms Brooks repeated one central assertion:
“the fact is that since the Sienna Miller…documents came into our possession at the end of December 2010, that was the first time that we, the senior management of the company at the time, had actually seen some documentary evidence actually relating to a current employee.”
The Sienna Miller civil case was seminal in terms of disclosure. Ms Brooks went on to say:
“It was only when we saw the Sienna Miller documentation that we realised the severity of the situation.”
Yet we know that, by then, News International had plenty in its possession to suggest that hacking was widespread, including the Silverleaf opinion. We know that Rebekah Brooks personally negotiated the big out-of-court settlement with Max Clifford, which was all wrapped up in confidentiality, just days after our 2010 report. As the Privileges Committee report records, we know that she was present with other people from News International at the meeting of its lawyers Farrer and Co. on 20 January 2010 that was held to discuss Mr Clifford’s civil claim.
Damian Collins
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Tom Crone’s role as legal manager would surely be to act on behalf of the company to gather whatever advice he needed to advise whoever within the company—senior executives at all levels—of impending issues and problems, and that it is therefore right to assume that he would have made his opinion and that of Michael Silverleaf available to anyone he felt he had to make them available to?
Paul Farrelly
I thank the new Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. There are disputes within the company about who told what to whom at what time. If he will bear with me, in a moment I will come on to something about which there has been no dispute.
We know, too, that back in 2006, when Rebekah Brooks was editor of The Sun, the police informed her that her own phone had been hacked. Courtesy of evidence submitted to the Leveson inquiry in February 2012, we know that she had a long conversation with a police source that was relayed to Tom Crone and then by him in an email to Andy Coulson on 15 September 2006. That email referred to more than 100 victims across all walks of life, not just the royal family, who would have been of interest to royal reporter Clive Goodman.
On reviewing all the lengthy correspondence the Culture, Media and Sport Committee received at the time, it is clear that Rebekah Brooks led us a merry dance for nine months before our 2010 report, saying that she would give evidence in person and then declining. In her final written reply to the right hon. Member for Maldon, on 8 February 2010, she had this to say about what had been known at News International from the police about the extent of hacking:
“I understand that, at some stage between the arrests of Mr Mulcaire and Mr Goodman on 8 August 2006, and their first appearance in court on 29 November 2006, it became known, from information provided by the police, that Mr Mulcaire had accessed the voicemails of people other than Royal Household employees. It was not known how many.”
Compare that to the email from 15 September 2006 that was cited at Leveson. She does not say that it was she herself who received the information from a police source, and the final sentence appears to be a complete untruth. The email cites 100 to 110 victims—a very precise number. Did Mr Crone simply make that number up for Mr Coulson after talking to Ms Brooks? It all certainly contradicts the central assertion that the Sienna Miller case was Ms Brooks’s moment of epiphany about the severity of the situation, four years later. Along with the other replies that Ms Brooks gave us—not least over the cost indemnity arrangements with Mr Mulcaire after he was sacked—this also merits closer analysis than was evident, I am afraid to say, in the Privileges Committee’s report. On all those grounds, I believe that the Privileges Committee is wrong in being “unable to draw” the conclusion that News International misled us, and is rather premature in not considering it
“to have committed a contempt.”
As far as parliamentary privilege is concerned, what is important now is what happens in the future. In chapter 8 of its report, the Privileges Committee is quite right to note that the work of the 2013 Joint Committee has not been taken forward. When we on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee were finalising our 2012 report, as the right hon. Member for Maldon mentioned, we summoned the Murdochs to appear in front of us, as we knew they were in the country to apologise to the family of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler over phone hacking. The uncertainty over our step was what to do if they declined to come. While we were finalising our report, we asked time and again for advice on what sanctions might apply in this day and age for misleading a Select Committee. Too often, I am afraid we found that in the reality behind the rhetoric, the parliamentary emperor apparently had no clothes. That situation needs to be readdressed urgently.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House—
(i) approves the First Report from the Committee of Privileges (HC 662);
(ii) having regard to the conclusions of the Committee in respect of Mr Colin Myler, considers that Mr Myler misled the Culture, Media and Sport Committee by answering questions falsely about his knowledge of evidence that other News of the World employees had been involved in phone-hacking and other wrongdoing, and therefore formally admonishes him for his conduct; and
(iii) having regard to the conclusions of the Committee in respect of Mr Tom Crone, considers that Mr Crone misled the Culture, Media and Sport Committee by giving a counter-impression of the significance of confidentiality in the Gordon Taylor settlement and by answering questions falsely about his knowledge of evidence that other News of the World employees had been involved in phone-hacking and other wrongdoing, and therefore formally admonishes him for his conduct.
That the matter of the exercise and enforcement of the powers of the House in relation to select committees and contempts be referred to the Committee of Privileges.
Backbench Business
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Young People’s Mental Health
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the recommendations of the Youth Select Committee report of November 2015 on Young People’s Mental Health; endorses the findings of that report on the need for more support from the Government for mental health services for young people; acknowledges steps taken by the Government, since its response of January 2016 to that report, with regard to some of its recommendations; and calls on the Government to set out what further progress has been made since its response and what its plans are further to improve mental health services for young people.
The motion concerns the report of the Youth Select Committee on young people’s mental health and the Government’s response to that report. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for the debate, the application for which was supported by more than 50 members from across the House, and to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) for co-sponsoring the debate.
I start by paying tribute to the many health professionals and voluntary sector organisations working in mental health services for young people, the teachers and teaching assistants who support young people with mental health difficulties in classrooms every day of the week and the youth workers seeking to support our young people in many different ways. This debate is not about the commitment of those who work tirelessly to support our young people but about the resources and the framework within which they are working, which affect our collective ability to deliver the outcomes we need.
The Youth Select Committee report on young people’s mental health was published in 2015, as a consequence of more than 90,000 young people voting for the subject of mental health in the 2014 Make Your Mark ballot. It is an exceptionally important piece of work because it is a report on mental health by young people, about young people. Since I was elected last year, I have been struck by how often young people’s mental health issues have been raised with me; whether by individual constituents struggling to access the support that they or their children need, doctors in my local accident and emergency department or teachers in our local schools. The issue is raised very frequently, and no one thinks the current situation is even close to being acceptable.
I pay tribute to the Youth Select Committee for its excellent, rigorous report and clear recommendations, which fall into three areas: funding and the state of services; a role for education; and awareness, stigma and digital culture. The report concludes that mental health services are significantly underfunded, and young people’s mental health services even more so, and that the challenge posed today by young people’s mental health is unprecedented. It highlights significant problems in accessing services, particularly in relation to first contact through GPs, and raises the urgent need for every young person in the UK to leave school with a good understanding and awareness of mental health, empowered and equipped to look after their own mental health.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that some of the issues on access that are raised by this very good report could apply equally to adult services, so there is clearly a read-across between the two?
Helen Hayes
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that, although today we are debating young people’s mental health, many of the same issues apply to mental health services across the board for all members of our communities.
The Government published a response to the Youth Select Committee report in January 2016. That response was, on the whole, disappointing. It referred mainly to work that the Government were already doing rather than the additional work that they and other agencies clearly need to do. Most disappointing of all, the response rejected the key recommendation that statutory levels of attainment in mental health education should be introduced for all young people. I welcome the fact that the Government have subsequently announced some additional funding for young people’s mental health, but I remain very concerned about the current state of mental health services for our young people and the resourcing of those services.
I will focus, therefore, on the current state of services, and what I believe to be evidence of a crisis that is growing, not diminishing, and demands a response far bolder and more comprehensive than that which the Government are currently offering. I will also return to the conclusions of the Youth Select Committee report.
One in four of us will experience mental ill health in any given year. That means that mental health is something that affects every one of us. All of us have a friend or family member who has mental ill health, and many of us will experience mental ill health ourselves. I have known close friends and family members who have suffered from severe anxiety that impacted on their daily lives, clinical depression and eating disorders. There are few worse feelings than the worry for a loved one who seems unreachable in the pit of depression, except perhaps the worry when that loved one is a child. All any of us wants for our own children and the young people we represent is that they grow up happy, healthy and resilient to the stresses and strains of our world. Watching a precious child struggle with clinical depression, severe anxiety or an eating disorder is absolutely devastating.
According to NHS statistics, around one in 10 children and young people has a diagnosable mental health condition; that is around three students in a typical classroom. Many more young people do not have a diagnosable condition but experience a period of mental ill health or emotional distress during their childhood or adolescence. The Government’s own measures of children’s wellbeing found that almost one in four children showed some evidence of mental ill health. Half of mental health problems are established by the age of 14 and three quarters by the age of 24.
Shockingly, suicide is the most common cause of death for boys aged between five and 19, and the second-most common for girls of that age, after traffic accidents. A recent survey by Girlguiding found that 69% of girls aged seven to 21 feel that they are not good enough. It is thought that around one in eight young people self-harm between the ages of 11 and 16.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
I know that my hon. Friend also has concerns, which a number of us share, about serious youth violence. Does she agree with me that mental ill health is now understood to be a key trigger in gang and serious youth violence, and that this deserves a serious and concentrated focus from within the health service and the Government? There is some very good practice out there. It is, sadly, nothing like widely available enough to help us deal with this problem.
Helen Hayes
My hon. Friend makes a very powerful and important point. This is an issue that affects both our constituencies to a significant degree.
Only 0.7% of NHS funding is spent on young people’s mental health and only 16% of that funding is spent on early intervention. The Royal College of Psychiatrists also reports that additional funding the Government have committed to young people’s mental health is not getting to the frontline. Responses to a recent freedom of information request from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) revealed that although the Secretary of State made a commitment that the proportion of funding for mental health services should be increasing everywhere this year, and this is desperately needed, 57 of the country’s clinical commissioning groups are actually reducing the proportion of funding for mental health services.
The charity YoungMinds reports that three quarters of young people with mental health problems may not get access to the treatment they need. Child and adolescent mental health services, on average, turn away nearly a quarter of children referred to them for treatment by concerned parents, GPs, teachers and others. That finding is supported by evidence from the Association of Colleges, which reports that, of 127 colleges responding to a survey, many reported real difficulties referring students on to health services in times of crisis, with 61% of respondents reporting that their relationship as a college with local mental health services is only “fair” or “not very good/non-existent”. The thresholds for support are going up at precisely a time at which demand for services is increasing. This has the potential to create a ticking time bomb of mental ill health for the future.
The average waiting times for all CAMHS providers was six months for a first appointment and almost 10 months for the start of treatment; and an investigation by Pulse recently found that three in five referrals from GPs to CAMHS are being batted back to primary care without any access to specialist support. When early intervention is not available, it is very often schools and colleges that end up dealing with the consequences, and they are woefully under-resourced to do so. A recent survey by the National Association of Head Teachers found that only a third of primary schools have access to a school-based counsellor, and that of those who do have access, 59% have a counsellor on the school site for one day a week or less.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate on this very important subject, which often comes up in my constituency work. She makes a point about schools struggling to find support. That is certainly something I have experienced in my constituency, so I want to reiterate the point that primary and secondary schools know they have children who could really benefit from more specialist support and it is very hard for them to access it.
Helen Hayes
I agree with the hon. Lady completely. As we focus on prevention and early intervention, we need to think about early intervention in terms of age, as well as the stage of mental ill health.
As a consequence of the lack of early intervention support, the number of young people attending A&E because of a psychiatric condition has more than doubled since 2010. I have spoken to many doctors who tell me that when this happens and a seriously unwell young person presents at A&E needing a CAMHS in-patient bed, they frequently wait a very long time—sometimes days—for a bed to be identified. Often that bed is hundreds of miles away from home. One south London hospital has provided me with data that show a 37% year-on-year increase in the number of under-16s being seen in A&E with a mental health condition, and a 193% year-on-year increase in the number of those children being admitted to an in-patient bed.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that while there is a shortage of beds, another issue, particularly in cities such as London, is poor quality housing? In cases where individuals could perhaps have been treated at home and in the community, that treatment cannot be delivered because of the lack of proper housing.
Helen Hayes
My hon. Friend is right. There are multiple causes and contributory factors to mental ill health, and multiple contributory factors that present obstacles to addressing that and providing the treatment people need, where they need it. Housing is certainly one of them.
In London, 69 young people from Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark and Croydon were unable to receive in-patient care in the South London and Maudsley Trust. Of those, 45 were sent out of London for their care. This issue, of seriously unwell young people being sent a long distance away from home to access in-patient care, needs to stop. It is distressing for families, it stops young people receiving the maximum possible support from family and friends to help them recover, and it makes them more vulnerable. When young people are admitted to a CAMHS in-patient unit, very often the service is not what it should be. The Care Quality Commission found that 62% of CAMHS in-patient wards and units were inadequate or required improvement.
The goal of parity of esteem for mental and physical health was introduced into the Health and Social Care Act 2012 via an amendment by Labour peers, and was a landmark in the way that mental health services are considered. However, we only need to think for a moment about what our response would be if some of the statistics on young people’s mental health related to a physical condition to realise just how far away we are from the stated objective of parity of esteem being realised. Just imagine if 75% of people with a bacterial infection struggled to get access to treatment; if almost a quarter of referrals for cataracts were turned away; if people with a chest infection were routinely forced to wait until they had pneumonia before any help was provided; or those with a broken leg were forced to wait for days in A&E only to be sent to a hospital hundreds of miles away to be treated. It would be a national scandal. The state of our mental health services, particularly those for young people, is a national scandal: it just is not being recognised as such. Words alone cannot achieve parity of esteem; the Government must start to act differently.
What action, then, is necessary to transform mental health services for our young people? I want to return now to the conclusions of the Youth Select Committee report. The Royal College of Psychiatrists highlights three recommendations in the report, which it believes are key. First, the Government must increase funding for young people’s mental health services and ensure that this funding is ring-fenced to guarantee that the money “reaches the ground” to CAMHS. There is particular concern at the moment about the introduction of sustainability and transformation plans across the NHS, and the resourcing implications of those plans. The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends that the Government introduce ring-fenced funding for CAMHS and rejects any sustainability and transformation plans that do not clearly set out a plan to improve children’s mental health services in their area. I hope the Minister will commit to that today.
Secondly, health services must pursue co-production, in which young people themselves are involved in the process of formulating policy to improve CAMHS. Research shows that where young people have a clear voice in service design, the end result much better reflects the real needs of the patients.
Thirdly, the Government must focus on improving mental health education in schools, with the aim of ensuring that young people leave school with not only an understanding of mental health, but an understanding of how to help their own mental wellbeing. This recommendation was made by the Youth Select Committee and it is supported by the Education Committee, the National Association of Head Teachers and other teaching unions, the United Nations and many others. The Government have introduced new lesson plans for the personal, social, health and economic curriculum, but there is a broad consensus across the health and education sectors that the role of mental health education in developing resilience, preventing mental ill health and safeguarding young people is so important that it should not be left to chance, and that along with sex and relationships education it should be a compulsory part of the curriculum. I hope the Government will reflect on the urgency of the situation and the consensus around the need for compulsory education, and will make a commitment to introduce it.
The Youth Select Committee report made many other practical recommendations, including the introduction of regional commissioning, the development of an app to provide mental health advice and support, and the introduction of plans to support students through periods of exam stress. I would welcome an update from the Minister on the progress that is being made to deliver these excellent ideas.
Finally, we know that one of the greatest barriers to delivering the mental health support and services that our young people need has always been the stigma that surrounds mental health. I want to pay tribute to a brilliant piece of work that was recently published by the YMCA in partnership with the NHS. Called “I Am Whole”, the research sought to identify the extent and impact of mental health stigma and included the finding that three quarters of the young people spoken to believe that people experiencing difficulties with their mental health are treated negatively as a result of stigma. The project also sought to address stigma directly by publishing a series of stories from young people about their experiences of mental health difficulties. These make for very challenging and moving reading.
Before I close, I want to read a quotation from the foreword to “I Am Whole”, from Connie, aged 22:
“Having mental health difficulties is like being trapped inside a thousand invisible prisons. There are a thousand reasons that as a young person you are driven deeper into that colossal void. Not only isolated by the struggles you’re facing mentally, but further enveloped in a thick, suffocating darkness. The darkness descends, comprised of a tangled web of myths, harmful language, misconceptions and misunderstandings. This is stigma. It is time for these myths to be dispelled, the web broken and the isolation to end. It is time for us to be free to talk about our mental health difficulties openly, so that we can access the services we need. Once the conversation begins, you promote understanding for others and break down misconceptions people hold…It is like being stood in the dark, untangling parts of that web until the sun’s warmth breaks through…the light reaches your eyes, and you look around to see you are not alone.”
When we talk about young people’s mental health, we are talking about the wellbeing of our precious children, about their health and happiness, about the resilience of the next generation and about the ability of young people to fulfil their potential and be everything they can be. We are talking about the ways to stop more families living with the heartbreak of a young person with mental ill health and about ways to stop more families suffering the devastation of a loss to suicide. There are few things more important than this and it is time the Government got it right.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
Thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. The report was brought to my attention by Lucy Broadman, my local member of the Youth Parliament, who has been in the Chamber for Youth Parliament debates. Lucy is in the Public Gallery to listen to the debate today and has even assisted me in formulating my remarks today—I will return to that later. As a result of the contact from Lucy, I made my own application for a Westminster Hall debate, but owing to an administrative error somewhere behind the Chair it was unable to be heard. I therefore congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for bringing this debate to the Chamber today.
Before I address the subject directly, I would like to applaud not only the hon. Lady but the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, not just for the seriousness of the issue but for the legitimacy it confers on the Youth Parliament. As we all try to engage with young people more and more, it is imperative that the efforts of the Youth Parliament get acknowledged and debated in here. As Lucy, now a former member, tells me, when the Youth Parliament casts out for subjects, mental health is very often in the top five or six that concern young people, so it is important that it is considered. The report is excellent, but it is also important that we debate it today.
The report is thorough and makes several conclusions and recommendations, as highlighted by the hon. Lady, but I wanted to get a better understanding of the issues facing young people in the modern age that can lead to the mental health issues laid out in the report. It is a long time since I was a young person—[Hon. Members: “No!”]—thank you—so I thought the best way for me to understand the issue was to make use of the expertise of young people, as highlighted in recommendation 17 of the report. I decided to do that off my own bat, so I had a conversation not only with Lucy but with another 17-year-old young lady I know very well, Martha Banks Thompson. I asked them to tell me what their thoughts and experiences of life as a teenager were and about the pressures that they and their friends have to face in the modern-day world. Both girls are A-level politics students, but from different ends of the country. Lucy is from my constituency of High Peak and Martha lives in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). My remarks today are very much—although not completely—based on the conversations we have had.
Mental health issues in any person, of any age, are very often difficult to diagnose. As has been highlighted, they are not like a broken leg, which can be seen; they are not as tangible as that. Mental health issues can often be mistaken for a temporary emotional upheaval or distress, but in the young they can often be put down to other things: pure teenage angst, raging hormones or just plain old teenage moodiness—or, as some people say, the Kevin and Perry syndrome. Consequently, these issues go unspotted and unnoticed and therefore untreated. By the time it is realised that there is a problem, it has manifested itself to such a degree that it becomes even harder to treat.
Who would, should or could identify the problem? In all likelihood it would be an adult—a parent, a guardian or even a teacher. Because of that, there is a generational gap. I am sure anyone in the Chamber or listening today will have heard from a teenage the line, “You don’t understand”, and in this case I think that, as adults, we do not understand. So what should we look for and how does the problem manifest itself? There are various symptoms and they are all too easy to miss. As we have heard, there could be anxiety, depression, eating disorders, contemplation of suicide or maybe even self-harm. Self-harm can sometimes be seen as a cry for help or attention, but more often it is a symptom of a much deeper problem. When can it occur? In days gone by, the pinch points for stress among teenagers were usually exam times: January for their mock GCSEs—they were O-levels when I took them—or May for their final exams. However, in the modern world there are so many more pressures that can impact on young people and bring about problems.
How are things different from when we were young? What are the extra factors and circumstances that we did not have to contend with that the modern-day young person or teenager does? There are many, but it would be a derogation of our duty to consider this question without looking at the impact of social media, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp or Snapchat, or the many more that those of us in the Chamber have probably not heard of. Only a few years ago, they were a figment of the imagination—in my day they were science fiction—but now not only are they part of everyday life, but for the modern teenager they are often the preferred method of communicating with each other.
These technologies have much to commend them and have many advantages, not just for the teenager but for all of us in the Chamber. I am sure many of us tweet and have Facebook pages, and I am sure we all have websites. Indeed, I would venture to say that most of our communication as Members of Parliament with our constituents comes via email, making us more accessible than we have ever been. It is good that we are, and so is communication between young people. Again, I am going to betray my age now, but the days of sending notes to the object of our affections across the classroom with “SWALK” written on the back of the envelope—
Andrew Bingham
Exactly. I mentioned this to Martha and Lucy and they did not know what SWALK was. I can tell my hon. Friend that it stands for “Sealed with a loving kiss”. Those days are long gone. Now everything is done via social media. It is out in the open for everyone to see and it is also there forever. The SWALK letter is read. If it is not reciprocated, it is thrown away; if it is reciprocated, it is replied to. On social media, it remains there forever.
That brings with it perils and pressures. Relationships, appearance, fashion, style—all are analysed in the public glare. Relationships, attitudes and opinions once shared privately between friends are now put out for the world to see, with every comment seemingly soliciting a further comment or response and the rhetoric growing from that. With, for example, chat groups on applications such as WhatsApp, it is very easy for what could be seen as a little verbal leg-pulling or teasing to take on a sinister complexion. We increasingly hear stories of cyber-bullying and the posting of revenge pictures. I am sure all of us in this House have at one time or another been on the receiving end of comments online that we would see as offensive or upsetting. However, for a teenager, maybe uncertain, vulnerable or lacking in confidence, such remarks can have a shattering effect on their self-confidence and in turn their mental state.
Let us look at the media in general. The modern media seem to present all young people in reality programmes such as “Made in Chelsea” as perfectly formed human beings, which puts pressure on so many young people to be absolutely perfect. The slightest imperfection, perceived or otherwise, can become a major issue. We hear a lot about body image, too, and young people’s attitude towards it. Again, the desire to be perfect crops up, so when a perceived imperfection is not only remarked on but ridiculed via social media, it can be amplified and re-tweeted, when “likes”, “unlikes” and “comments” can become very cruel, particularly to uncertain and vulnerable teenagers. This can severely damage the self-esteem and mental health of a young person.
Our consumer society is another issue. As we see with mobile phones, clothing and computers, everywhere we look there is a thirst for the latest, the best, the biggest, the fastest and the shiniest, while anything less than the optimum is seen as a problem. This is another issue that ratchets up the mental pressure on young people. I am not saying that a young person’s not having the latest iPhone will lead to mental health problems, but I am saying is that if someone is vulnerable and has low self-esteem, this sort of thing can work to enhance those insecurities and push someone into the territory that we are discussing today.
We need to remember, too, that all these pressures—I have mentioned only a few—are impacting on young people at a time when their minds, brains and characters are still growing and forming. As we get older, we form our minds and personalities, and we develop our own resilience to many of these outside pressures.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
My hon. Friend is putting forward a pertinent case and providing an accurate analysis of the pressures on our teenagers. Does he agree that it is important to recognise that we need an integrated solution, which requires education and NHS response, so that schools can get in very early and start tackling some of the behaviours that lead to poor mental health outcomes?
Andrew Bingham
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and his point about the need for a whole school approach is acknowledged in the conclusion of the report. It states that when children leave school, they should be conversant with all the issues around mental health, which the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood also mentioned in her speech. As I was saying, as we get older, we develop our own resilience, but in young people that development is not complete. That is the issue that we need to be aware of, and it is where schools need to play a part in helping to develop that resilience.
As we know, a stigma is attached to mental health—and nowhere more so than with young people. No young person wishes to admit to it for fear of being labelled, and people often are labelled in this society. Parents are similarly affected, so this leads to a situation of potential denial—I am not sure that “denial” is exactly the right word—which further exacerbates the problem. There seems to be a lack of willingness to say, or a fear of saying, “Look, I have a problem, and I need some help.” There should be no stigma attached to any young person admitting that they are struggling with certain issues, and neither should there be any barrier to parents making a similar plea.
Young people should have somewhere to go to ask for help—the report mentions a counsellor—without fear of ridicule. They should not be judged or labelled either by their peers or by society. Parents can be the strongest help and support for any young person, and we should look to families and family support units as well. We need to enable parents to play as full a part as they can. A young person who is getting some help at 15 can find on turning 16 that they are suddenly deemed to be an adult and their parents can be almost excluded from playing a full part. An attentive parent who is trying to help can face being told, “We can’t discuss this with you, because your girl or boy is now 16.” We should look to see whether there is a way around that problem.
In conclusion, I would like to thank Lucy Boardman and Martha Banks Thompson for their help. They have given me an insight into the world of the modern teenager and into how 21st-century pressures impact on their lives in a way that did not impact on my life as a teenager or that of many other Members here today. It was a very illuminating and educational experience for me, and I pay tribute to both of them for their candour and their honesty. As I have said, talking about these issues freely takes a lot. Many of my remarks today have come as a result of their contribution.
I say gently to the Minister that we must not in any way fall into the trap of dismissing mental health issues in the young as mere growing pains. This is a serious matter. I know she understands, but let us recognise that to provide the help needed, it needs to be not only readily and easily available, but available for as long as it is needed for each person according to their individual needs.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) on securing this debate. I warmly congratulate, too, the clearly very talented Youth Select Committee on producing such an excellent report, which cogently highlights the need for additional and better mental health services for young people. It is a job very well done indeed.
For too long, those suffering from mental ill health have received far less care and attention than those suffering from physical ailments. Even though mental ill health accounts for 28% of the total burden of disease, it gets just 13% of the NHS budget. One in four adults is diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lives, but only about a quarter of those who need mental health services have access to them. Serious medical conditions are going untreated because of the disparity of esteem between physical and mental health that everybody—the Government, health professionals, patients, the voluntary sector—speaks of wishing to end. There is such a long way to go.
The consequences of our neglect of mental health services are devastating. Over a third of people with mild mental health problems and almost two thirds of those with more severe mental health problems are, in fact, unemployed—yet research shows that the vast majority of them wish to work.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate the Select Committee on this report. She makes an important point about the number of people with mental health issues who are unemployed. I have been struck by the message from schools; one in my constituency told me that it was referring 40% of its pupils for mental health support. Does she agree that early intervention, as highlighted in the report, is vital? Does she recognise the work of Members of the Youth Parliament, including Tafumi Omisore in Hounslow, who raised these important issues with us?
Lyn Brown
Absolutely. I totally agree with my hon. Friend, and as I go through my speech I am hoping to provide an example to show how intervention is particularly important for a very young child because of the impact on the rest of the family. Early intervention can do a lot to mitigate other events and difficulties occurring in the family that might include other family members, too.
Unfortunately, tragically and outrageously, young people’s mental health services often receive less attention than adult mental health services, so that young people’s mental health services have been called the “Cinderella of Cinderella services”. In November 2014, the Health Committee found that there were
“serious and deeply ingrained problems with the commissioning and provision of services for young people’s mental health.”
Many providers reported increased waiting times and increased referral thresholds for specialist services, where patients would have to show severer symptoms to receive treatment than they would have done in the past. GPs reported feeling ill-equipped and lacking in confidence when dealing with young people’s mental health issues. The Select Committee found that early intervention programmes were
“suffering from insecure or short term funding, or being cut altogether.”
There really is no excuse for this failing. Around half of people with lifetime mental health problems experience symptoms by the age of 14, and about 75% of them before the age of 18. Catching these problems early could well lessen the severity of adult problems, possibly saving the NHS money in the long term. More importantly, I would suggest, it would reduce unnecessary suffering and enable people to live better lives.
I want to be fair to the Government, who have recognised that there is a problem. In 2014 they set up a children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing taskforce, which made a number of recommendations in its 2015 “Future in mind” report. The taskforce identified a number of problems with young people’s mental health services. The right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who was then the responsible Minister, said that there needed to be a fundamental shift in culture, with a much greater focus on prevention and early intervention.
The taskforce rightly recognised that one of the challenges facing young people’s mental health services was—unsurprisingly—funding. I was pleased when the Government responded by announcing the provision of an additional £1.4 billion of transitional funding for youth mental health services, but that additional money needs to be considered in the context of the less encouraging overall picture of mental health services funding. NHS England’s planning guidance states that all clinical commissioning groups must increase their spending on mental health services by at least as much as their overall budget increases. However, there have been warnings from organisations including mental health trusts that mental health funding is not properly ring-fenced, and that NHS England’s target is being missed.
Let me again follow in the footsteps of my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood. We know from the responses to a series of freedom of information requests from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) that more than 50% of CCGs intend to spend a smaller proportion of their budgets on mental health in 2016-17. That clearly demonstrates that what the Government tried to do has failed, and that that target is being missed as well.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making some important points. She referred to the taskforce’s “Future in mind” report. According to one of its startling statistics, only between 25% and 35% of young people with diagnosable mental health conditions access support. Does that not underline the need for much better training and much more awareness among both teachers and GPs, in respect of early identification as well as early intervention?
Lyn Brown
We need early identification and we need early intervention, but we also need the funds to ensure that there are services to which people can be referred. That is the rub of this whole debate. There does not seem to be the necessary funding at any point in the journey of young people who need help, whether in the form of awareness, intervention or services.
I have been looking into the good work done in my borough, the London borough of Newham. Even in these difficult times, it is increasing its mental health spending in both absolute and relative terms, and its children’s mental health services received an “outstanding” rating from the Care Quality Commission. I wanted to find out how we could improve young people’s mental health provision, and to learn about the challenges that an “outstanding” local provider continued to face in its fight for better services. Professionals in Newham recognise that a good young people’s mental health service does not just help those who have already developed severe and serious conditions, but provides early intervention and preventive programmes so that problems can be dealt with at source.
Seema Malhotra
Is it not important for young people’s mental health services to consider the needs of parents as well? I was struck by a recent case in which the parents did not understand where the issues had come from and could not identify what they were, and felt unable to understand how best to help their child.
Lyn Brown
My hon. Friend is right. The family is often key to the provision of the support that a young person needs, but a family may itself need intervention to gain the support that it needs to lead a mentally healthy life.
The national lottery funded a programme in Newham called HeadStart, which helps 10 to 16-year-olds, particularly in schools. It trains teachers in secondary schools to develop programmes that help to build resilience among their pupils. It also provides children directly with mentoring schemes so that they can learn from each other about how to manage mental health issues—it is peer-to-peer learning—and works directly with parents to show them how they can work through mental health issues with their children. Unfortunately, the scheme relies on lottery money rather than core funding, which means that its future as a core service cannot be guaranteed. It is often difficult to obtain the necessary proof that would persuade funders—including the Government—that core funding should continue, because the timescale is often not big enough to be persuasive.
Newham would love to run more services directly in the community, and more integrated services, because it knows that they make a real difference to people’s lives. M, aged two, and her baby brother T, just seven weeks old, were referred by a perinatal psychiatrist, who was helping their mother to deal with chronic mental ill health. M was still frequently breastfed, and showed a very insecure attachment to her mum. Her anxious, and therefore sometimes controlling, behaviour was making it difficult for her mum to wean her and to attend to the needs of the new baby, who was being bottle-fed. M’s speech was also delayed.
Following assessment, the family were offered parent-infant psychotherapy, which enabled them to reflect on the needs of both children, and gradually to help M to become more independent of her mum. At the same time, T was able to have more appropriate attention from his mum as the baby of the family. I am pleased to say that, following that intervention, M is more confident and her speech is developing. She sleeps in her own room, and has settled well into nursery. That is an example of our physical and mental health services working in tandem to improve real lives.
J was a 17-year-old who had been arrested and charged with possession of a weapon and affray. He had a history of violence and non-engagement with services. During the course of his referral to a youth offending team, the team became concerned about his mental health, and referred him directly to a child and adolescent mental health services specialist for an urgent examination. During that assessment, J was having suicidal thoughts, was highly anxious, and showed quite severe symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder as well as softer symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The youth offending team nurse arranged for J to have urgent psychiatric treatment. He was put on medication for his anxiety, with an accompanying course of cognitive behavioural therapy for his obsessive-compulsive disorder. He will also be assessed for ADHD in the longer term once his more acute symptoms abate. I am pleased to report that J has not offended since he has engaged with the mental health services offered through the youth offenders team. That shows that integrated services are better for individuals, and better for the whole community.
Those are just a few of the stories that I have been told, but I believe that there are enormous challenges to the provision of community-based and fully integrated services. I am told that Newham would love to run services directly from general practices, but they cannot currently do so because they do not have the necessary resources. With the current staffing levels it would not be efficient, because staff would spend as much time travelling to and from general practices as they would spend helping patients.
Health professionals acknowledge that early intervention work often increases rather than reduces workload in the short term. Professionals in Newham worry that they simply will not be able to deliver the clinical hours that are necessary to help more patients. Over 50% of patients in Newham already have to wait for more than five weeks to see a specialist, and that figure can only increase when further cases are uncovered without corresponding additional resources.
Some well integrated and community-based mental health services are delivered in Newham and, I am sure, throughout the country, but if we want to preserve and expand those programmes, we must be aware that they need stable and long-term funding. A good place to start would be ensuring that money designed for mental health services actually finds its way to the front line.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I declare my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I apologise for missing the opening couple of minutes of the speech made by the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes).
I am delighted that we are having this debate, and to be participating in it, for two main reasons, which I am sure you will share, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I know your interest in this matter. First, this is an important subject. It is something that we are failing on, so it is right, proper and beneficial that hon. Members talk about it openly, especially because, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham), young people are much more prepared than ever to come forward with their own stories of their problems and issues, hopefully so that solutions can be found through them.
Secondly, I am delighted to participate in this debate because it is part of the UK Youth Parliament’s work. It is significant that we are giving up mainstream parliamentary time in the main Chamber of the House of Commons to discuss a report by the Youth Select Committee, an offshoot of the UK Youth Parliament. It is a shame that we have to do it in Backbench Business Committee time rather than Government time, but I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood for securing the debate and giving it such an excellent start—this will clearly be a high-quality debate. I take the view—I think that you share this view, Madam Deputy Speaker—that the Youth Select Committee has now taken on such status and stature, with its production of reports of such high quality involving such good research, that not only should the Government produce a formal response to the reports, as they have, but they should give up Government time in this Chamber on an annual basis—just once a year—so that we can formally debate the work of the Youth Select Committee. I have put that idea forward for some time, so I hope that the Whips and Government business managers are listening.
I am a big supporter of the UK Youth Parliament. It was founded during my time in Parliament, and I always try to attend its annual parliamentary sittings, which are a great spectacle. It is always exceedingly frustrating for Members when we return on the Monday and the Speaker inevitably says, “Why don’t you lot behave as well as the UK Youth Parliament members who were here on Friday; they are very smart, very concise, very well behaved, don’t heckle and set an example?” It is a shame that the media coverage of the Youth Parliament sitting is not more extensive because it is a great event for a great organisation, and it is great that we are discussing its work today.
When I was the Minister for children and young people, we produced the “Positive for Youth” document, which was all about promoting that sort of youth engagement. One of the things I most treasure having done is helping the transition of the UK Youth Parliament across to the British Youth Council to secure its future. I pay tribute to all its work over the past few years. It is a mainstream part of the youth voice in this country and in this Chamber.
I was the first witness ever to be called before the Youth Select Committee. It was an awesome and intimidating experience. I was called for its first inquiry back in 2012 along with the then Transport Minister, Norman Baker. We rather too nonchalantly rocked up before this group of young people in the Boothroyd Room. They were exceedingly well-rehearsed and well-researched, and were certainly not taking any BS from anybody. I have appeared in front of Select Committees—mostly the Education Committee—on many occasions, but I have to say that this was the most intimidating experience I ever had as a Minister in front of a Select Committee, and it was fantastic. That shows why the work of this Committee, and this, its fourth report, need to be taken seriously.
This Youth Select Committee report is difficult to distinguish, other than by its cover, from a House of Commons Select Committee report, and I congratulate Rhys Hart and his team on their work on it. They did all the things they should have done: they visited experts and sufferers of mental illness, and took no fewer than 148 submissions from expert witnesses and others—if only all the other Select Committees had as many well-informed and well-researched submissions as it did.
The Youth Parliament also has a substantial democratic endorsement. In 2014, when its priorities and the subject of the Youth Select Committee report were decided upon in the “Make Your Mark” ballot—which includes a debate in this House in the Youth Parliament’s annual sitting—no fewer than 875,000 young people from up and down the country bothered to turn out and vote. Of them, more than 90,000 voted specifically for the subject of mental health services, which is why we are debating this report in the Chamber today. That is a huge democratic mandate.
Every year I hold an event in the House of Commons to present democracy awards to schools in West Sussex, including my constituency, that have achieved a high turnout in the elections that are held every February. Each year the turnout gets higher, so more and more trophies have to be given out, and an ever bigger room has to be booked to accommodate everybody. Last year, one school had a 100% turnout—all its pupils turned out to vote for its UKYP members, which is absolutely fantastic.
This report is a chunky piece of evidence that needs to be appreciated, looked at and, importantly, acted upon. I am delighted that we are giving time to it today, and I am also pleased that the Government produced a formal response to it, whatever we may think about the shortcomings of what they said. That was produced jointly by the then Health Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), and the then Education Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah). Neither of them are still in those ministerial posts, but I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), to her new position. I am sure she has learned the ropes quickly and that she will continue to do so. We need consistency in our approach to mental health, however, and a much more joined-up approach—and not just between education and health, because there are many other aspects as well.
This subject is clearly important to young people, as is this report, so it should be important to the House and the Government. There are many useful lessons that we can learn.
I am also very frustrated, however. I have been in the House for almost 20 years. I have been shadow Minister for mental health, and I was shadow Minister for children and young people for some nine years, as well as Minister for children and young people. I currently chair the all-party group on children and the 1001 group, which is all about perinatal mental health. I have seen mental health Bills come and go, too, and have been involved in them. I saw the 2011 mental health strategy “No health without mental health”, which was a very important statement about the parity of esteem we need to achieve, although we still have not. In 2014, I saw “Closing the gap: priorities for essential change in mental health”, with specific commitments to improve mental healthcare for children and young people. I saw the rolling out of talking therapies and the improving access to psychological therapies programme. In March 2015, as has been mentioned, we had the mental health taskforce, which produced “Future in mind”. I have seen lots of good work in the Department of Health, in particular, such as that done by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire, and in February this year the mental health taskforce produced the “Five Year Forward View for Mental Health”. There has been a lot of talk about the importance of mental health and the necessity of achieving parity of esteem but, as the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) rightly said, there is still a very big disparity. And here we are again: we are still here talking about this, and record numbers of children and young people still have mental health problems.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we can have reports, taskforces and recommendations, but the real problem is that mental health is seen as a Department of Health issue, whereas what we actually need is a completely cross-Government approach so that mental health and wellbeing can be part of every single piece of policy development?
Tim Loughton
The hon. Gentleman is right; he pre-empts a couple of my comments. From my experience as a former Minister—and, I am sure, from his—the term “joined-up government” is a complete illusion. Joined-up government does not happen in practice. On becoming a Minister, one is cocooned in a Department, and instead of having a dialogue with colleagues in the Division Lobby or wherever, a huge wall suddenly comes between you. Trying to get interdepartmental action becomes really frustrating.
I remember setting up something called the youth action group, which consisted of Ministers from nine or 10 Departments and representatives of six major children’s charities. It was co-chaired by the Prince’s Trust and Barnardo’s. The charities came to us with problems—often complex ones—affecting young people. One example related to housing benefit and accommodation for children in care. I cannot remember what the specific problem was, but it involved housing, which was the remit of the Department for Communities and Local Government, and benefits, which were the remit of the Department for Work and Pensions, as well as children in care, who came under the remit of the Department for Education. Normally there was a vicious circle that involved people being pushed from pillar to post. Alas, that committee has not met for the past 15 months or so, but our meetings used to consist of at least six actual Ministers—not just civil servants—from the relevant Departments as well as their officials. We would get Ministers together and ask them to go away and solve the problem.
Mental illness falls into that category, in that it is not simply the remit of the Department of Health or the Department for Education. There are many other implications and knock-on effects that can relate to the underlying cause of somebody’s mental illness problems. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the structure of government needs to be much better. We need taskforces that genuinely cut across Government Departments, but in my experience they will flourish only if they have the buy-in and direct engagement of Ministers at the top. One welcome initiative from the hon. Gentleman’s party was the appointment of a Cabinet-level Minister for mental health. I think that that appointment has slightly gone by the wayside now, but the principle behind it was absolutely right, in that it tried to join up all the relevant Departments at the top table.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
May I remind the hon. Gentleman that I am the shadow Cabinet Minister for mental health? That post has not gone away on this side of the House.
Tim Loughton
I am delighted to hear that; I did not in any way mean to underestimate the hon. Lady’s contribution. However, when the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) held the position, she sat at the Cabinet table. I hope that that is still the case, and I would very much like to see my own party replicate that position in government, because this is such an important cross-cutting issue.
Mental health remains the Cinderella service of the NHS. Indeed, the report describes child and adolescent mental health services—CAMHS—as the Cinderella service of a Cinderella service. The whole question of parity of esteem and funding is important. We can have arguments about how much the NHS budget has increased and kept up with inflation, but in every year in which the funding for mental health remains static or, worse still, declines as a portion of the overall NHS budget, we are sending out a clear message that it is a secondary priority within the NHS, and therein lies part of the problem.
I do not want to be too negative, however. We are making progress, as are other countries. For example, when you go in through the main entrance of a hospital in Copenhagen, in Denmark, you turn left if you have diabetes and you turn right if you have a mental illness. And nobody cares whether you turn left or right; there is no stigma attached to mental illness. People are treated on exactly the same basis, and that is how we need to treat mental illness here. Despite the best intentions of many Ministers, that is just not happening in practice at the sharp end where our young constituents are trying to access the mental health support that they desperately need. It is certainly not happening in a uniform way across the whole country. As a result, at least one in four people in this country is still suffering from a mental health problem.
I have a particular interest in perinatal mental health, and I declare an interest in that I chair the all-party parliamentary group for conception to age two—the first 1,001 days. I am also chairman of the trustees of the Parent and Infant Partnership Projects charity. We now have seven parent infant partnerships—PIPs—across the country providing direct support and specialist perinatal psychological help to mums and dads with newborn babies. About half of all cases of perinatal depression and anxiety go undetected, and many of those that are detected fail to receive evidence-based forms of treatment. Alarmingly, at the time of the publication of the all-party group’s report, “Building Great Britons”, in February last year, just 3% of clinical commissioning groups in England had a strategy for commissioning perinatal mental health services. The upshot of all that, as the Maternal Mental Health Alliance has calculated, is a cost to the NHS of £8.1 billion for each one-year cohort of births in the United Kingdom. That is the equivalent of almost £10,000 for every single birth in this country, and it is a cost that the NHS can ill afford.
Why is this relevant to young people? Nearly three quarters of that cost relates to the adverse impacts on the child rather than the mother. Followers of attachment theory, which the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) mentioned, will appreciate the strong link between achieving a strong attachment between the child and the primary carer and good nurturing from the earliest age—that is, from conception to the age of two, as our report puts it—when the synapses in the brain are developing at a rate of some 40,000 a second and the child’s brain, character and development are being formed. The earliest experiences shape a baby’s brain development and have a lifelong impact on that person’s mental and emotional health.
Research shows a direct link between what happens to a mum during the perinatal period and her child in later life. If a teenager aged 15 or 16 is suffering from some form of depression, there is something like a 90% chance that his or her mum suffered from perinatal depression. The link is that clear, so it is absolutely a false economy not to help mum out at that early stage. And let us not forget dad, who also plays a crucial role. Getting it right with parents and children early on is crucial to the good mental health of children and young people. This is not rocket science—technically it is neuroscience—and we should be doing it better, sooner.
Certain other factors have been flagged up in the report. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) spoke about many of them, including the peer group pressure that our children and young people experience. In fact, I have no children any more. My youngest is now over the age of 18, but we went through the teenage years together and I have seen these things at first hand. No one can go out in the morning without the latest iPhone, without checking Facebook and without tweeting what they are having for breakfast and Instagramming a photograph of it. And that all happens just after they have got up. The pressure to succeed in school and the hothouse of exams and testing are not conducive to the best mental health, and young people need support to help them through the challenges. We never had those challenges in my day, which I guess was even earlier than that of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak. Social media is a huge influence on young people, and it was just not around in my day. I would hazard a guess that it was not around in your day either, Madam Deputy Speaker.
David Rutley
I am sure that my hon. Friend would never saying anything indiscreet. He always makes important observations in such debates. He and I were at school together, and if bullying or similar was going on, children left their problems behind when they left school for the day. Does he agree that the challenge today is that such problems go home with the child beyond the school gates and during the holidays? Does he agree that digital service providers should take further steps to provide apps and protections that will help children in those difficult circumstances?
Tim Loughton
I do agree. Believe it or not, my hon. Friend is older than me and was in the year above me at school. He has aged rather better than me, but then he has not been in the House quite as long as I have. He is right about the dynamics of the stresses and strains in those days. How children communicate has also changed. For example, one of my daughters once put in her request for supper by text message from her bedroom to my wife and me in the kitchen—supper’s off! In an age when communicating has never been easier with email, social media, mobile device, tablet or whatever, the irony is that face-to-face communication between human beings has never been more rare or remote. Therein lies part of the problem. Communication between children and parents does not happen as regularly, and the fault lies with the parents as much as the children. Some people cannot talk frankly about the real pressures, strains and stresses on our children and about grooming, sex matters or drugs. In my hon. Friend’s day and my day, we perhaps talked more to our parents or other family members.
I will now pick out a few points from the report—I know that other hon. Members want to speak. We have reached a point at which one in 10 school-age children will have some form of mental disorder, and the age at which that happens is getting younger. Some 340,000 five to 10-year-olds have a form of mental disorder. If it is not detected early and acted on, it just festers and gets worse. Too often, the only immediate response if someone gets access to a clinician is the chemical cosh of drugs, which is in many cases inappropriate for younger children. Talking therapy, for example, might be more appropriate, but we increasingly find that when people have to wait weeks or months for them a call has to be made between waiting longer or giving some form of antidepressant.
The report flags up the big issue of the transition from childhood to adulthood. Nothing changes physically or mentally when someone receives an 18th birthday card from their Member of Parliament. The last thing that an 18-year-old needs if they are going through the stresses of mental health is to have a completely new process and system to deal with because they have suddenly become an adult even though their condition has not changed. There is a particular issue around children in care, who too often used to leave at the age of 16. Fortunately, we now have a new scheme, which I was proud to have piloted at the Department for Education, based on staying put, allowing for a longer lead-in time. Every child is different and different children will be ready to go into the big wide world at different ages. The report contains some good examples of best transition practice. Southampton general hospital has a 0 to 25 age range for its “Ready Steady Go” scheme, under which every person is treated differently—people have different “go” ages.
Turning to the report’s recommendation about GP training, it is right, certainly for younger children, that GPs will be the first port of call for clinical services. Training for GPs to deal with younger people’s mental health problems is not good. Young people may need a lot of confidence to go along to see a GP with a parent or whomever, and there must be a clear understanding of how to tease the best out of children, so we need better guidance. As the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood mentioned earlier, young people should absolutely be in on the genesis of that guidance.
Another recommendation that we have heard a lot about relates to what happens in schools. The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood quoted the National Association of Head Teachers briefing, which states:
“When children do not meet CAMHS thresholds, schools often become responsible for children’s mental health.”
In too many cases, they are ill-equipped to do so. We are dealing with potentially one in 10—three in a class of 30—children suffering from some diagnosable mental health disorder, and the chief medical officer says that three quarters of them will receive no treatment at all. That will obviously have an impact on the child, but there will be an impact on the class as well and it is very much in the school’s interest to do something about that.
We need better teacher training so that they are able to identify the signs that point towards a mental illness. They also need better awareness of where to signpost children to get the treatment that they require. They should also be able to talk about things more generally in class. We can argue whether PSHE should be compulsory—I have some sympathy with that—and whether mental health should be a formal part of it, but it must be done in an environment in which young people will feel engaged. It should not be just another lesson, but a place where they feel free to talk openly, to absorb and to learn.
Helen Hayes
The point about the proposal that mental health education should become compulsory is simply that its presence on the curriculum is too important to be left to chance. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it should be undertaken in a way that is engaging and effective at educating young people, but does he agree that whether it happens at all should not be left to chance?
Tim Loughton
The hon. Lady and I have the same objective, but I am always sceptical about a solution that means making something another compulsory part of the curriculum. Sex and relationship education is an interesting case in point. Some of the best SRE that I have seen has been from outside youth workers and others who can empathise with young people and talk to them in a way that they will appreciate, respect and learn from. Making it another subject taught by Mrs Miggins the geography teacher, who happens to have a free period on a Thursday afternoon and so can be in charge that term, can cause problems. More schools should automatically want to have well-informed mental health education in whatever form is appropriate to engage their children. It is in their children’s best interests. I do not think that my objective differs from the hon. Lady’s, but we can have a debate about how we can most effectively achieve it.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the importance of having appropriate, properly trained, empathetic people—specialists—delivering mental health education to young people. He suggests that youth services could provide such education. The problem is that local authorities are cutting those services because they are non-statutory. Many schools that have been providing support and bringing in specialist experts to help young people and teachers in this curriculum area are also facing cuts. Headteachers are having to pare back services as they deal with reduced budgets.
Tim Loughton
I hear what the hon. Lady is saying and that is a subject for another debate. It is an issue on which I have campaigned for many years, and indeed I chaired a commission looking into the role of youth workers in schools. Some really good examples of best practice are available, often in academies, which have appreciated the value of youth workers, because they can empathise with young people better, and brought them into schools. That is missing in so many other places. I have been advocating giving other roles to youth workers, who, sadly, are no longer being employed, particularly in local authorities, because this is not a statutory requirement and therefore has fallen by the wayside. So I have a deal of sympathy with that view, but it is for another day and debate.
I wish briefly to deal with a couple more points, the first of which relates to the last one: the importance of resilience and character education in the well being agenda in schools. Recent Education Secretaries have begun to take that on board, and a lot of this subject lies within that area. Another issue to consider is how this is monitored, and another good recommendation in the report is that Ofsted should have a role in that. Ofsted now has a role in assessing behaviour in schools, but that should extend to how it copes with mental health problems among pupils—that should be on the checklist. We are really bad in this country at disseminating good practice, but I have seen many examples of it. I recall visiting a school in Stafford and sitting in on some of the sessions held by their full-time counsellor. The teachers had confidence in her, would refer to her children about whom they had some doubts, and the children would speak frankly to her. Such people can prevent a lot of problems from occurring later on in the schools that have them, but not enough schools do—again, there is a debate to be had about why that is.
We also have to address the issue of cyber-bullying and the role of social media. The report gives examples about websites that promote self-harm, which are a huge scourge. We need to be much more aggressive in tackling these sites, particularly where they relate to anorexia and self-harm. People are going to them to seek advice and find a solution because they have feelings about self-harm or problems with anorexia, but these bizarre websites are promoting those things. As the report suggests, we need some form of verification scheme and, as has been mentioned, a much more responsible and bigger role for our social media companies. They are huge companies employing many thousands of people, yet the numbers in their scrutiny and enforcement departments are woefully low. As Members of Parliament with Twitter accounts, most of us have blue ticks to show we are who we say we are. Can there not be some form of verification scheme, described in the report as a “kitemarking scheme”, so that young people, particularly those who are vulnerable and impressionable, have confidence that the sites they are accessing are there to give them support, not to encourage them to do harmful things to themselves? This applies to so many different areas, including in respect of radicalisation sites.
Body image has been mentioned, and Girlguiding, which regularly revisits the issue of body image and young girls’ perceptions, has recently produced a report on the subject. It is always so alarming and petrifying to see the number of young girls as young as 13 whose aspiration is to have plastic surgery. Despite the fact that their bodies are not even fully formed and that they are still growing up mentally, they are being conditioned to think that this is the ideal to which they must aspire. That is wrong, and these influences on our young people are at the root of so many of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities leading to mental illness and, in the most tragic cases, to suicide. In the old days, a note passed across a classroom with the words “Sealed with a loving kiss” might, at worst, end up on a playground floor. At the worst extremes, in the case of a form of sexting, the equivalent these days goes viral and ends up on social media in perpetuity, where it is open for millions of people to see. That is the difference between the note in our playground days and the casual, ill-advised text on social media these days.
Finally, the report makes recommendations about young people wanting to relate to people their own age, rather than old men in suits, which I guess takes in quite a few of the hon. Members here today. [Interruption.] Okay, I was talking about myself and my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak. They say that taking such an approach makes it easier to receive the right message, hence the recommendation that
“a consultation group of young people, both with and without a mental health history, be set up to work on and contribute to the anti-stigma campaign, and that someone is identified to ensure this happens.”
I completely agree with that.
My final point is that when I was a children’s Minister, I had four reference groups within the Department for Education, each of which came to me on a three-monthly basis: one comprised children who had been adopted; one comprised children in foster care; one comprised children in residential care homes; and one comprised children who had recently left care. They came to me in the Department without adults, we sat around the table and they told me exactly what was going on. They challenged some received wisdoms, and I got some of the best information that I ever got from any experts by speaking to those young people. This report has been produced by young people and by reference to many thousands of young people, many of whom have suffered and are suffering the sorts of problems that I and many other hon. Members have mentioned today. We need to listen to the voice of these young people, to act on their recommendations, and to include and involve them in the solutions. That is why this report is so important to them, but it needs to be equally as important to us, to this House and to this Government.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate and thank her for it. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for the House to discuss this issue. May I also put on record my thanks to the British Youth Council, the UK Youth Parliament and the Youth Select Committee for this excellent report? May I also give them another big thank you for allowing us again to talk about mental health on the Floor of the House? People perhaps get a bit sick of me saying this, but I say it again: the way to address some of the stigma is by talking about this more. Talking about this report as we have done today will mean that young people know we are taking this subject seriously.
As I said in an intervention, the report raises issues that cross over into those relating to adult mental health services. As the hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) said, the unique thing about the report is that it gives those of us more advanced in years an insight into pressures on young people today that were not there when we were younger and into the challenges for parents and schools in dealing with them. The core of the report is very important, because it deals with a lot of issues that also affect adult mental health services.
I wish to concentrate on two aspects of the report: how young people get access to mental health services; and the vital issue of prevention and being able to address not just mental health, but mental health well-being. As has been said, how people access these services is important. The report talks about mental health services to young people being:
“The Cinderella of Cinderella services”.
Is this about money? Yes, it is, in some cases. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) eloquently mentioned that we can have all the aspirations in the world, but if the funding is not there locally to provide services, the services will not be there and people will not access them. I agree with the report that this is therefore about more cash, but it is also about how we structure our mental health services in this country.
Page 5 of the report sums it up well. It contains a diagram of a pyramid showing a list of organisations that commission mental health services—schools, local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and NHS England—and calls for a lead commissioner. I totally agree with that, but I would go one step further. When we talk about commissioning services, we need to talk about the treatment pathways and how people get into those systems. Adults trying to navigate the mental health system find that it is like a maze. Not only do they have to find their way through it, but when they get into it they on many occasions find that, as my hon. Friend said, they can wait weeks, months or years to get help—this help is available in some areas but it should be provided more quickly. Early intervention, especially for young people, can prevent problems further down the line.
I sympathise with parents today, because how do they know who to go to if their child has mental health problems? What do they need to ask for? We assume that, somehow, people are well versed not only in issues around mental health, but in how to access help—that is also true for families of adult sufferers. We do need that pathway.
The report quite rightly highlights the issue around GPs and GP training, but, as I have said many times, therein lies the problem. I am not criticising GPs, because there are some very good ones who do help, who are sympathetic and who can access services. I support the recommendation in the report for more training for GPs, but we need a more open system—a system of self-referral—which does not necessarily mean going through a GP.
That brings us to the issue around commissioning and how we provide mental health services in this country. Mental health services very much follow the medical model, but I am not sure whether that needs to be the case. What we need in this country is an open system, which involves the community and voluntary sector. I am suggesting this not because it is a cheap option, but because it is perhaps a better way of providing mental health services. However, those voluntary groups need to be funded, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham said. It is no good saying that we are going to pass this work over to some very good voluntary sector organisations and expect them to do it without the funding. Therein lies the problem. I give credit to the former Minister, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who was a great champion of parity of esteem and of concentrating on how to make the system better. As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), it is no good just looking at mental health in terms of the Department of Health, because the cuts that have taken place in local government are having a direct impact on the provision of mental health services—I am talking about the closure of youth services and voluntary sector organisations that provide mental health services locally. This is a false economy. If we are putting more money into health and taking it out from elsewhere in the system, we will create an ongoing problem.
We also need a fundamental review of CAMHS, as it is a complete failure. I am not for one minute criticising the dedicated individuals who work in that service, because I have met them and know that they work very hard. Given their workload and the way that they get their referrals, they are doing a fantastic job, but the system is broken. We cannot have this situation in which young people are waiting possibly six months for an assessment, and in which families and the individual young person are somehow expected to cope.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, in some cases, children have to become badly ill before the problem is addressed? The problem should be addressed in the first place so that they do not get into that state.
Mr Jones
That is the case, yes. I can say from personal experience that the longer a person leaves the problem undiagnosed or untreated, the worse it gets.
I wish to touch on this idea that parents are, somehow, geniuses and know how to deal with children with mental illness. They do not. I work with Kinship Carers in Durham, which is run by Lyn Boyd, a friend of mine. It deals with grandparents, uncles, aunts and others who often find themselves, later on in life, looking after young people and children. Many of them have quite horrifying stories to tell. They often end up with the children, because of abuse, because the parents cannot cope, or because they want to save them from the care system.
I had a case earlier this year in which a six-year-old was self-harming. When I looked at his background and talked to his grandparents who were looking after him, I could understand why, but the issue is how does he access CAMHS. They were told that he had to wait six months. There we have a couple, who are not the biological parents, looking after a six-year-old. All they can say is, “What do we do?” The child is also disruptive at school. That leads to pressure on the school, which then seeks to exclude him. What happens to the child then? We are talking about not just the trauma, torment and heartache of a six-year-old self-harming, but the knock-on effect on the family and the school.
We do need a new system. It may be a community-based provision. I would certainly like to see open access services—they could be run by well-funded voluntary sector organisations or by the local authorities and councils—where people can go for help or even on occasion just information. Those grandparents, for example, did not have a clue what to do. What does a person do in that situation? The system is certainly failing those individuals. It should not be up to me as a Member of Parliament to contact a mental health trust to enable those people to gain access to services. That is where we are failing.
The problem is not just about ensuring that we have joined-up local services—I have already said that local authority budget cuts are having a direct impact on the working of such services—but the changes in the national health service and GP commissioning, which has made things worse for many voluntary organisations. Contracts are being let for a whole host of services, many of which are too large and too complex. The idea that local community groups can bid for such services does not work because those services are just too big, which means that those groups are being excluded from the money that is available. I am not for one minute saying that anyone who works in the voluntary community sector providing mental health services wants a free ride. Those groups are quite happy to be evaluated. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham mentioned a project in her constituency that secured lottery funding. That project will certainly have had to ensure that the outcomes were there and that it was accountable. There is no way that many of those small organisations, which in many cases would provide a cheaper and better option for delivering the service, can manage those contracts that are currently being let by the NHS.
The way in which the Government should look at this matter—it is perhaps very difficult in this age of austerity—is that if they deal with it properly, they could save taxpayers’ money. It would save not just the heartache of the individuals who are going through the system, but, if done properly, money as well. On page 9 of the report, the chief medical officer said:
“Early intervention services that provide intensive support for young people experiencing a first psychotic episode can help avoid substantial health and social care costs over 10 years perhaps £15 in costs can be avoided for every £1 invested.”
If the Government really want value for money, this is a way to do it. However, there is a problem, which is that, in this country it is said that we know the cost of everything, but the value of nothing. The investment now in young people will possibly not pay for itself for another 10 or 20 years, but when it does, the payback to society will be quite large, and not just in terms of our having a healthier and happier society.
Another area I would like to touch on, which is covered in the report, is prevention—through the work done in schools and by making sure that we mainstream wellbeing. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned the difficulties of Whitehall Government and the silos people are in. We have enough reports on some of these areas now, and we do not need any more; what we need to do now is to hardwire mental wellbeing into all public policy across Whitehall. Can it be done? Yes, it can. I was involved when the last Labour Government mainstreamed veterans policy. Bob Ainsworth, who was the Minister at the time, commissioned a report on veterans. He made sure that the issue was taken forward and that each Department, when it was coming up with public policy, took veterans into account. We need a similar approach to mental health and mental wellbeing. The only way to do that is to have a Cabinet Sub-Committee so that this is dealt with at Cabinet level and the main Departments make sure, when they are coming up with a policy, that they take into account mental health and mental wellbeing.
As I said, early investment saves money, but it also makes for a better society. Another issue where I totally agree with the report is supporting school counsellors. Counsellors could be something of a pressure valve in the system. If they are properly trained, and there is a proper network of them across schools, they could intervene early on and prevent some of these issues. The hon. Gentleman said he was reluctant to make it mandatory for schools to carry out this work, but, as the report says, we have national standards and curricula for physical education, so we should have them for mental health as well.
Again, it is a patchy picture. There is some good work going on in schools across the country, with teachers taking the initiative. In my constituency, Simon Westrip, a lecturer at Northumbria University, has done some work around mindfulness with local community groups, and he is now taking that into secondary schools. If we look at some of the feedback on and evaluation of mindfulness in schools, it is clear that this is not just about the effect on individuals; it actually raises standards in many cases. However, the approach to these issues is patchy, and unless they have dedicated time in the curriculum, or they are something governing bodies need to take into account, people will not do that. Done properly, such work will not only address the pressures that a lot of our young people face now, so that they are happier going through school, but it will save lives and, in some cases, save money in the long term. Is this rocket science? I am not sure it is. We in this country have to change our attitude to mental wellbeing. If we get it right in children, as the report highlights, the payback for this country and its economy in the long term will be tremendous.
Let me finish where I started, by thanking the British Youth Council for its work. I also thank it for giving us another opportunity today to talk about mental health on the Floor of the House.
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
I would like to start by commending the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for securing such an important debate and raising so many important issues. The quality of the debate has been incredibly high so far, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to make a short contribution.
I will start, as others have, by paying tribute to the Youth Parliament. I want to give a shout-out to our young Members of the Youth Parliament in East Sussex: Joshua Moreton, Orla Phipps and Reuben Hayward-Brown. These MYPs do a fantastic job, and I hope that, one day, at least a couple of them will be sitting on these Benches as grown-up MPs—Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you, for one, will agree that we could do with far more grown-up MPs in the House of Commons. The mentor of those three MYPs—and my mentor—Councillor Sylvia Tidy, has done a great job in supporting them, and she is a huge credit to East Sussex County Council.
I also pay tribute to the work of the Youth Select Committee, which has produced this important report. It is still shocking how mental health is treated as a second-class health issue, compared with physical illnesses.
This October, we recognise Breast Cancer Awareness Month by wearing pink ribbons. This month is also when some celebrate Halloween parties up and down the country. It remains a common occurrence for people to dress up as someone with a mental health illness because it is seen as scary to portray mental hospital patients next to flesh-eating zombies. In our culture, sufferers of mental illnesses are often supposed to be feared or ridiculed, and that must change. We have to challenge the stigma and attitude that are so present today; we must challenge those prejudices.
We are all often guilty of making assumptions that are just wrong—I am also guilty of that. As a new MP I received an early piece of casework. I heard about a young teenager who was struggling with an eating disorder, who was self-harming and who had run away from home. I just assumed it was a girl. When I met the parents, “she” was a boy.
We have already heard about the impact of mental health issues on young men. Suicide rates among young men are shockingly high. In the UK today, a young man between 20 and 49 is more likely to die as a result of suicide than he is to die from a cancer, in a road accident or from heart disease. The stats are shockingly high. We do better than Japan, where suicide is the leading cause of death for men aged 20 to 44, but we have a lot of work to do on prevention, early diagnosis and early treatment.
Mental illness also has consequences. It has particular consequences for young people who are already vulnerable to grooming and exploitation, who become more vulnerable when they suffer from a mental health issue. I recently chaired an inquiry for Barnardo’s into harmful sexual behaviour between children, where the victims and survivors are children, and where the perpetrators are children as well. A lack of self-esteem, an eating disorder or depression can sometimes be a factor in children committing, or being victims of, sexual abuse. That makes effective early diagnosis and therapy even more important.
There is an issue about these children sometimes being seen as troublesome, but not recognised as vulnerable or struggling with mental illness. Here, the Government can do more, by sharing best practice across schools, councils and police services. The integration of education and health is key—something my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has already touched on.
The role of the digital world is also important in terms of its impact on young people’s mental health—something my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) has spoken about. The internet can be a dangerous vehicle for grooming vulnerable young people, so I especially welcome the Youth Select Committee’s recommendation that the Department of Health should develop a trusted app, with NHS branding, that young people can use to access mental health services—a positive use of the digital world that stands in stark contrast to the negative use of it. The Government have done great work on the youth mental health hub website, but the hub has not quite made it into app form, so I would be grateful for an update from the Minister.
Though we less youthful MPs have many disagreements across the Floor of the House, there is one thing on which we can all agree: we would be nowhere without the energy, enthusiasm and youthful brains of our hard-working teams. I was touched to hear the story of one young parliamentary assistant, who lost his brother to suicide. This is Jed’s story. Jed woke up on his day off to find his mum in despair at a Facebook message posted by his brother. The message read, “I’m sorry”, with the location, “At the Needles”—a beautiful but treacherous location on the Isle of Wight. Jed’s brother was hard-working, reliable, genuine and caring. He had suffered a marriage breakdown, but he was back to his former self, with a fantastic new girlfriend by his side. But Daniel Dwight took his own life. Writing afterwards, Jed said:
“It seems such a shame to think that he felt that he had nothing to live for...I for one can promise that I shall do everything I can to ensure that the world I grow old in will learn to be fairer, more caring, with a greater willingness to understand others whilst providing all important support.”
Jed’s experience, like that of others, shows what is at stake. We need to tackle stigma. We also need early diagnosis, early support and good-quality therapy that is offered within a sensible timeframe. Waiting months for therapy, whether for depression, anxiety, a personality disorder or an eating disorder, often just because someone has not quite reached a trigger level of concern, does not help them. It hinders their recovery because time allows their suffering to get worse, and they come to believe that their case cannot possibly be important, because if it was then surely the therapy would be provided sooner. This means that when the therapy finally is available, it is even less likely that it will be successful.
One of the key lines in the Youth Select Committee’s report is this:
“Until young people’s mental health services receive funding proportionate to that of physical health, we do not believe parity of esteem can be achieved.”
For me, that squares the circle. The amount of funding we put into mental health support and therapy is linked to our attitude towards it, and our attitude towards it is linked to the amount of funding we put into it. One must lead to the other. We in this place can lead on the funding, ensuring timely and good-quality therapy and support for mental health.
I welcome all the steps the Government have taken so far to improve support for mental health, and youth mental health in particular. The investment of an extra £1.4 billon in children and young people’s mental health services over the course of this Parliament is especially welcome, although there is always more that we could invest, and I urge the Minister to do exactly that. When funding parity is achieved, and timely and appropriate support is available to everyone who needs it, the taboo that surrounds mental health can be crushed.
Finally, I pay tribute to Jed for allowing me to share his touching account of the painful and still vivid memories of the day his brother committed suicide. We both hope that sharing his story might help to prevent others from taking that most desperate route, and remind any young person struggling with their mental health who is listening today that they are valuable and valued.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
I thank the Youth Select Committee for an excellent and comprehensive report, compiled by our young parliamentarians with the backing of experienced evidence. It is extremely thorough, and a credit to them. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling this debate and the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for leading it.
I must begin by declaring a professional interest, having worked for 20 years as a clinical psychologist in mental health. I continue to maintain my skills and engagement in line with the professional requirements of my registration. Just after the election, I had the great privilege of contributing to the evidence taken by the Youth Select Committee during its inquiry into child and adolescent mental health services.
Mental health is an extremely wide field, ranging from major mental illnesses such as psychosis to depression and anxiety, trauma, and eating and adjustment disorders. Childhood developmental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autistic spectrum disorder are often also included in the sphere of mental health. I would welcome future debates on those important conditions too, because I feel that we shall not have time to do them justice today.
As a member of the all-party parliamentary group on autism, I have a particular interest in this field. I commend the recent report by Ambitious about Autism, which, worryingly for us all, highlights the fact that 80% of children with autism experience anxiety on every single day they attend school. For this crucial group, we must target our resources and make sure that early diagnosis and support are provided for the young child and for the whole family. More than half of mental ill health starts before the age of 14, and 75% before the age of 18. Early and effective intervention in and prevention of mental ill health during childhood are absolutely key in reducing morbidity. The quicker we intervene, the more effectively we intervene, and it is also more cost-effective for the NHS.
In 2014, the health improvement efficiency targets were adopted in Scotland and across the UK, meaning that patients should be seen, from referral to assessment, in 18 weeks, including in CAMHS services. The figure that I have researched suggests that in Scotland 84% of children and adolescents are now treated within this time, and we have set a benchmark of 90%. We have therefore come a long way in this regard, but we still have further to travel. There are now significantly increased referral rates. Although that may mean increased numbers of sufferers, it may also mean that stigma is reducing and people feel more able to present, so it is a mixed picture. However, mental health services in Scotland, and across the UK, are not the finished article. We should continually strive towards improvement, and that should always be guided by patient need and by research underpinning the most effective clinical practice.
As we have heard, mental health problems in childhood are extremely serious. At worst, they can destroy educational potential, or at least impede it, and impede relations with peers and within the family. They can also lead to suicide and self-harm. Difficulties must be assessed and recognised at an early stage. In Scotland, widespread staff training has been undertaken to try to ensure that we can pick up on mental health issues within this age group. We have rolled out cognitive behaviourial therapy, family therapy, interpersonal therapy and specialist interventions such as those for eating disorders, with a focus on seeing patients as close to home as possible. We must make continual progress on this.
There needs to be additional resourcing for tier 4 services for in-patients. For children and adolescents, in-patient treatment should be a last resort, because it takes children away from the family home and pathologises their difficulties. Best practice highlights intensive outreach approaches that enable children to be seen at home and treated in their natural environment, so maximising key family and peer supports. Children who need in-patient services may suffer psychosis, intractable eating disorders, severe obsessive compulsive disorders, and a variety of neurological conditions. There are currently 48 beds available in Scotland, and £8 million has been pledged to build a new unit in Dundee for children and adolescents with mental health problems. We must ensure that service provision meets needs. My clinical experience suggests a lack of available tier 4 beds in forensic and learning disability CAMHS, and that should also be addressed.
We need better communication channels between departments when children’s care is transferred between professionals, and importantly, as has been described, at key stages of development such as moving from adolescence to adult services. There requires to be a component of the training programme for general practitioners in primary care that identifies children’s mental health issues. I would include symptoms of autistic spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder within that training. We need to shorten the time from presentation to referral, and picking up symptoms timeously assists greatly with this. As with diet and exercise, good mental health and well-being has to be normalised. These are all fundamental coping skills that impact on everyday aspects of our functioning and deserve to be slanted more towards health and well-being than diagnosis.
Access to mental health specialists in schools is merited, as well as mental health awareness and training, particularly training for staff in schools so that if someone is experiencing a mental health problem the staff can pick it up at a very early stage and help them to access services. Specialist training for teachers would be a positive step forward. Education for children is also crucial so that they can identify when they are struggling, identify what makes for good mental wellbeing and seek help when needed, and so that they can identify whether a peer is struggling. Young people like to be, and should be, fully involved in their care.
We need to modernise our approach to mental health services for children and adolescents. We must embrace IT and social media methods of communicating with young people, because in the modern world, it is often how they communicate. In previous debates I have mentioned a project in Scotland called SafeSpot, which is an application, website and school intervention to promote positive coping skills, safety planning and access to information about mental health services for young people. That is a good step forward. I am aware that recommendations for online standardised and approved resources would be a key step.
As has been mentioned, we must address bullying, particularly online bullying, which appears to be on the increase and which badly affects children’s lives. In fact, we must address bullying everywhere. Only this summer, when I was discussing mental health, I was informed by an MP who was a fellow member of a delegation that MPs have a high suicide rate—something that I was unaware of. We must lead by example. We must ensure that mental health and wellbeing are addressed in all aspects of life, and we must provide our own model.
There remains a lack of empirical data regarding effective interventions for young people with co-morbidity issues, by which I mean mental health difficulties coupled with learning difficulties or substance use. That has to be built on through research and treatment programmes. I would also like to touch on services for looked-after and accommodated children—particularly those who have violence risk needs or self-harm needs—who are some of the most severely disadvantaged in terms of services and the magnitude of difficulties that they present with. Further service provision for specialist groups and underpinning research are crucial, and I am extremely pleased that the First Minister will be pledging to support those groups.
Given that the weight of evidence for child and adolescent mental health services is in favour of psychological rather than pharmacological interventions for the majority of presentations, clear structures must be in place to support the delivery of effective evidence-based psychological therapies for children and adolescents. The number of child and adolescent mental health services psychology posts have doubled in Scotland, and I welcome that, but we need to continue and strengthen that progress. Uptake of such services has always tended to be poorer among people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, and in such cases an assertive outreach approach may be required to ensure that some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and families do not slip through the net.
To summarise, mental health services require parity of esteem and therefore considerable funding. I believe that this goes beyond party politics. It is crucial that we tackle it meaningfully in a cross-party manner, sharing best practice across the whole United Kingdom. We need real progress to reach children and adolescents and to help all our children achieve their full potential.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron)—I hope I have got that correct.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. It is pronounced “Stray-ven and Lez-ma-hay-go”.
Huw Merriman
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am suitably corrected and admonished at the same time. I am glad that you did not ask me to repeat that after you.
I particularly applaud the point that has been made about making this a cross-party matter on which we can all work together. As the young people have shown us in their fantastic report, working together will help to ensure that all voices are heard and recognised.
I thank the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes)—her constituency is much easier for me to pronounce—for sponsoring the debate. I apologise for going back and forth from the Chamber, and perhaps I may explain to those who are watching why there are so few MPs on the Benches. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said that it would be good to hold such debates during Government time, when Members may not be in their constituencies. Of course, Thursday afternoon is also a time when Bill Committees sit, so Government and Opposition Members are required to attend those Committees. I hasten to add that I should also be in a Bill Committee, but I was so determined to speak on this matter that I have come to the Chamber. It is probably for that reason that I will always be asking Ministers for more from the Back Benches, rather than being on the Front Bench and able to deliver those things myself.
I commend the 2015 Youth Select Committee report, and I particularly applaud the 90,000 young people—many more took part in the vote—who voted that mental health services for young people should be the priority concern. They are absolutely right to focus on this subject, and I submit that they are in the best position to give their opinion on it.
I similarly decided that the subject would be a chief priority for me when I was elected as an MP in East Sussex 18 months ago. The severity of this issue, particularly among young people, became all too apparent to me. I found—I still do—the stories of carefree, confident and happy lives being shut down as young people enter a dark world of fear, anxiety and isolation to be incredibly upsetting.
As a result of my concern, I chose this issue as the topic of my question when my name was first pulled out of the hat for Prime Minister’s questions. I told the then Prime Minister that I had spent an afternoon in the small town of Battle in my constituency visiting three families, each of whom had a child who had not been given the early-stage intervention that they expected from the child and adolescent mental health services. I asked the Prime Minister for more focus on early-stage treatment so that young people’s conditions do not become more acute.
Providing such services is not only our civic duty, but an economic and social imperative. When my constituents ask me why the roads in East Sussex are in a state, I explain that I recently secured £250,000 from our county team to fund just one year of acute mental health treatment for one constituent. Fixing people has to come before fixing holes in the tarmac. The phenomenon may not have existed so openly when many of my constituents were younger, but it is now a huge financial concern to my county council colleagues.
I firmly believe that too much pressure is being loaded on to people too young. Social media and the internet, as pioneering as they are, are a curse on wellbeing, and internet service providers must be forced to do more. Every young person should have the right to have their web history expunged. Cyber-bullying is at last being recognised as a crime, but every school must ensure that its pupils are aware of good internet practice and the sanctions for abuse. We also need to be aware that young people and children are accessing graphic images and media on the internet that they cannot understand, process or cope with.
In the report’s consideration of education, I absolutely commend the recommendation
“that the Government develop and introduce statutory levels of attainment for mental health education…Schools should have autonomy to deliver mental health education flexibly but must be able to demonstrate how pupils reach the attainment levels.”
May I suggest that in so doing the Government should ensure that the curriculum combines a consideration of social media and the internet with wellbeing training?
We also need training for our GPs. The situation is summed up perfectly by the experience of a young person that is detailed in paragraph 32 of the excellent report. It is essential that the GP does not diagnose a mental health condition, but merely refers the young person to a specialist. I know that mental health specialists find it frustrating if GPs diagnose a mental health condition when the specialist does not regard it as such. Once that badge is given to someone, it is difficult to remove it. Equally, brilliant local GPs, such as those in Battle who have helped my constituents in their surgeries, have championed young people and become their advocate. They are incredibly frustrated by the delay in early intervention in mental health services. I work closely with my local CAMHS team, and I have the highest regard for the many excellent specialists who do their best. However, I am worried that constituents face lengthy waiting times and that some have been passed from pillar to post when receiving treatment.
Building up trust is a key ingredient of successful diagnosis and treatment. I hear stories about young people finding the courage and trust to open up about their condition, only to find a new practitioner at the subsequent session. It disappoints me that the young person can then regress because of that change of personnel. I would like a commitment to giving treatment on a fixed one-to-one basis. If we can do that for maternity provision, surely we can do it for mental health treatment.
When I attended the launch of the mental health taskforce, I was buoyed by the commitment of the then Minister and the chief executive of NHS England to implement the excellent “Five Year Forward View”. I was cheered by the commitment to funds to ensure that our acute hospitals have adequate mental health expertise on A&E wards to deal with those who are hospitalised as a result of mental health issues, or who have such a condition in addition to a physical illness.
My concern was driven by the experience of a family in my constituency following a suicide attempt. The NHS staff did not have the ability to deal with the mental health condition, and my constituent, a young man in his teens, was forced to wait until CAMHS staff could make their way over from another town miles away. I understand the need for specialist treatment, but it strikes me that there is a need for a culture change across the entire NHS, and that all staff should be trained to understand mental health and provide a basic level of treatment. Specialisation in health is important, but if the NHS becomes over-specialised, it can lead to a lack of general involvement in such care for patients.
I welcome the news that the Government will fund 24/7 mental health provision in our hospitals, but I was alarmed at the suggestion by the chief executive of my local trust that the funding may not stretch far enough. I also want to ensure that that specific coverage will not mean that other NHS staff with the necessary technical understanding and empathy will feel that they are not empowered to assist those many hospital patients who need help with their mental healthcare, in addition to their physical wellbeing.
Ultimately, getting early-stage intervention right is a key part of achieving a proper diagnosis for people with a mental health condition. We should not misdiagnose young people who are suffering growing pains and need the coaching and guidance of family and friends to overcome the problems of adolescence. However, I have met too many young children who face a difficult future because their mental health condition was not treated at an early stage. Funding mental health treatment is a most important investment, not only for people’s welfare and wellbeing, but to enable these amazing young people to fulfil their hopes and dreams in their careers, and to make something of themselves and their country.
I applaud the amazing work of all of those in the British Youth Council, many of whom live in my county of East Sussex, who have done so much to produce this excellent report. Those young people are leading the charge to ensure that the nation supports all those who are affected by this terrible condition. We owe it to them, and to all young people, to deliver a better mental health service, and many of the report’s recommendations will do just that.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) on securing this debate. My hon. Friend is having quite a week: she has pressed the Prime Minister about the serious issue of historical child sexual exploitation in her constituency; she is here today; and tomorrow she will help lead the charge on the Homelessness Reduction Bill. I am delighted that she has found time to lead this afternoon’s debate.
As one of the elected honorary presidents of the British Youth Council, I am particularly delighted that this debate arises from the Youth Select Committee’s report, “Young People’s Mental Health”. I hope that the fact that Members of Parliament have taken the initiative to make sure that we are debating it in the House of Commons reassures the UK Youth Parliament, youth councils and young people generally that their voice is being heard. Our challenge now is to make sure that their voice is listened to by Government.
It is also worth saying that much of the profile that the UK Youth Parliament enjoys in the Houses of Parliament, particularly the annual sitting, which will next take place in this Chamber on 11 November, arises from the personal support of Mr Speaker. I know that I speak on behalf of so many people involved in BYC and the UK Youth Parliament in thanking him for his consistent championing of young people’s voice in democracy.
My interest in young people’s mental health and the reason I am here partly stems from my time as deputy leader and cabinet member for health and wellbeing in the London Borough of Redbridge. However, the main reason I have chosen to be here instead of in my constituency on a Thursday afternoon is my experience, both as a councillor and as a Member of Parliament, of listening directly to young people talk about their concerns and issues, and those of their friends and peers, with mental ill health. Redbridge has a fantastic youth council, which, like the national UK Youth Parliament, has prioritised work on mental health. I will come on to talk about that.
While sitting in Redbridge Council chamber listening to young people from across our borough, I was struck by the way in which they talked in such an open, candid and courageous way about their own struggles with mental ill health and what they have seen in their classrooms and communities. Although much of what they described was harrowing and of concern from a public policy point of view, it is hugely encouraging that this generation of young people seem to be far more at ease with discussing mental health and have normalised discussing it in such a way that it is similar to how they discuss physical ailments. That gives us hope for the future when it comes to changing the culture surrounding mental health, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has mentioned.
Recently I chaired a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on youth affairs about mental health, and it was hugely encouraging to see young people from across the country pack one of the largest Committee Rooms of the House of Commons. The key message that came across was the failure of public services and health services to address concerns that many of those young people had experienced personally.
We know from so much of the research, particularly the excellent briefings we have had from charities such as YoungMinds ahead of this debate, that there are significant and well-known problems nationally with regard to mental ill health affecting children and young people. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood said at the start of the debate, one in 10 children and young people has a diagnosable mental health condition. That is the equivalent of three children in every classroom. We also know that a great many more suffer periods of anxiety, emotional distress and ill health because of the growing pressures of childhood. That should give us all pause for thought and cause for concern.
Three quarters of young people with mental ill health may not get access to the treatment that they need. I am particularly concerned about the statistic that my hon. Friend shared showing that CAMHS is turning away nearly a quarter of children referred for treatment by parents, teachers and GPs. Those children have been referred by people who, to be frank, have expertise, and to turn such a high proportion of them away is wholly unacceptable.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful contribution, as have many others. This summer, Healthwatch Nottingham published the results of its survey of young people about their experience of seeking help and treatment. It found that 26% of young people had not sought any help or treatment at all, despite feeling that they suffered from a mental health problem. That was twice as likely among black and minority ethnic young people. Does he agree that we need to do more to raise awareness of the help that is available, which needs to take account of the needs of all young people?
Wes Streeting
I agree strongly. That leads me neatly on to a point I wanted to raise about the provision for young people. It is not just young people generally who are having trouble accessing mental health services. The Government and the health services need to look carefully at the profile of the young people affected. During my time as head of education at Stonewall, we published “The School Report”, a piece of research undertaken with young people by the University of Cambridge. It found exceptionally high and extremely worrying levels of mental ill health among lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans young people. The alarming rates of self-harm and suicide, to which many hon. Members have referred, are even higher for that particular group. More than half of LGBT young people are self-harming. Around a quarter have attempted suicide or considered taking their own life. Those levels are of epidemic proportions. That points to a crisis among LGBT young people, which is a symptom of wider poor provision.
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend will be interested to know that the same report says that young people who identified as homosexual or bisexual were most likely to have experienced a mental health issue in the past or currently, and that their experiences when seeking treatment and support were more likely to be negative. Does that not give more credence to what he is saying about the need to deal with their specific needs?
Wes Streeting
It really does. One of the things that concerns me most about young people’s poor experience of mental health services—this was reflected at the discussion by the all-party group—is that it is not just GPs and headteachers who recognise that young people are being failed and turned away; young people themselves recognise that. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a young person who is suffering from anxiety, depression or another form of mental ill health, who knows they have a problem, seeks help and is left to feel ignored, dismissed and unsupported. I have mentioned the proportion of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people who are affected, and it is even higher for trans young people.
I represent a constituency that is highly diverse ethnically and religiously. It worries me that Asian communities seem to be far less likely to seek access to mental health services. There is a job to do there to tackle stigma and to make the services more accessible. People from African-Caribbean communities face inequality. The failures of public policy on African-Caribbean people should shame our country. It is a further indictment that the majority of African-Caribbean people who come into contact with the mental health system seem to do so through the criminal justice system. That is a terrible state of affairs. Therefore, the issue of access and support is crucial if we are to deal with the problem.
This is partly about funding. We have had a good-natured debate this afternoon, so I do not say this to be objectionable or churlish, but on Wednesday, three or four Members on both sides of the House raised the issue of mental health with the Prime Minister, and her response was, to put it politely, inadequate. Beyond general statements about parity of esteem, she seemed unable to point to any meaningful actions her Government were taking on the issue of mental health.
I am sure that the Minister has come better briefed this afternoon, but the Prime Minister also needs to make this a priority. Much of this is about joined-up government—this will be a theme of mine this afternoon—and that requires leadership from the centre. It is not good enough for the Prime Minister to be sure-footed, although wrong-headed, when it comes to home affairs issues, but completely blind-sided on issues outside her comfort zone. We need stronger leadership on mental health from her and I was genuinely disappointed with what we saw during Prime Minister’s questions this week.
Parity of esteem is not about sentiment—it is about resources. About 11% of the NHS budget is spent on mental health and just 6.36% of that 11% is spent on children’s mental health. I recognise that the Government have made a commitment to invest £1.4 billion in child mental health in the next five years, and I welcome that, but I urge the Government to ensure that that funding is delivered sooner rather than later. Locally—other Members have referred to this—budgets are being cut or frozen in three in four mental health trusts. Seven in 10 CCGs and local authorities are freezing their budgets because of pressures from central Government reductions. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has, through written parliamentary questions, highlighted that decisions coming down the track will make that picture even worse.
In the London Borough of Redbridge, the council is doing fantastic work with limited resources. However, I can say from first-hand experience—I declare an interest as an elected member of the council—that local government cuts are biting. The picture is compounded by the state of our local health economy. Both our NHS trusts are in special measures, although I hope one of them will be leaving special measures sooner rather than later. I hope that they will both leave, but I suspect one is nearer to the end of that journey than the other. Primary care is creaking, it is fair to say that our clinical commissioning group is struggling, and our community health trust has a rating that requires improvement. The challenge for Redbridge is not simply the funding reductions that affect my borough, but the fact that the funding formula does not lead to a settlement for Redbridge—for the local authority and for the wider health economy—that genuinely reflects the needs of our population. I urge the Minister to look carefully at how Redbridge has been disadvantaged through the funding formula, particularly in public health funding, and at what can be done.
Huw Merriman
I do not wish to get into a skirmish on funding, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as in my area of East Sussex, the way to find the efficiency savings that the NHS is required to make, in addition to the £10 billion that this Government have put in, is to have a “better together” organisation so that hospitals and all the other healthcare providers—at county level and so on—can talk together? That would not only save money, but mean that everyone is joined up, which is the way forward on such issues, as he has rightly said.
Wes Streeting
I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He has anticipated some of my closing remarks about looking to the future. I will have some positive words to say about the direction of Government policy in that respect.
This issue is not simply about funding, but about leadership and accountability. I must say that the damning CQC report on the Brookside unit in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has more than raised eyebrows. Some of its judgments about this facility for children’s mental health provision were:
“The ward environments were not safe, clean or suited to the care of children and young people… The wards were not adequately staffed… There was a high usage of restraint and rapid tranquilisation at the unit… The ethos of the unit was containment rather than therapy… Care plans reviewed were not recovery orientated and more behaviour orientated… During the inspection we saw staff refuse to facilitate the requests of young people… Young people stated the food was of poor quality and cultural and religious foods were not available”—
and those who know the London Borough of Redbridge will know how totally inappropriate that is. My question for the North East London NHS Foundation Trust is very simple: why did it take a damning inspection by the Care Quality Commission for sufficient action to be taken? From what I can see and from my conversations with colleagues in the local authority, there is clearly a road to improvement. It should not take inspectors coming in to highlight the fact that we have failed some of our most vulnerable young people in such a gross and unforgivable way.
Among my worst experiences as a constituency MP—these are universally my worst experiences—are in my surgeries on Friday afternoons when I see absolutely awful cases of people who have been very badly failed by public services. One case I will never forget was that of Simon Harris, a young man—he was 30 years old—who was failed by Goodmayes hospital because he was insufficiently cared for. While under the care of the NHS, he was allowed to take his own life, although he was in the very place that his family thought would keep him safe. I never again want to have a conversation with a constituent like the one I had with his incredibly stoic and courageous grandmother, Brenda. That is the consequence of mental health failure: it is simply the difference between life and death. I do not think that young people like Simon should ever be failed in such a way by the services that are there to keep them safe and well.
This subject is not just about public service provision, but about celebrating the work done by the voluntary sector. In the past year, I have visited a number of programmes in my constituency. I have visited Audacious Veg, a social enterprise that involves helping people suffering from mental ill health to set up their own social enterprise, growing and selling vegetables. This wonderful project runs in conjunction with the Forest Farm Peace Garden, another environmental and sustainability project, which gets people with mental ill health outside, interacting with others and active.
I cannot commend strongly enough to the Minister the importance of social prescribing. Here, public policy has a role to play. When Redbridge Youth Council, for example, commissioned the Redbridge Drama Centre to design and deliver a play on mental health to reach young people, 5,000 young people and counting across the London Borough of Redbridge were reached by that fantastic way of engaging young people in conversations about mental health.
Music can play a powerful role in therapy, as can sport. One of the most impressive projects I have visited in the past 12 months was Coping With Football, sponsored by the London Playing Fields Foundation and run in conjunction with the North East London Foundation Trust. Again, that project got young people outside, interacting and developing their skills and, most importantly, their self-esteem.
That brings me on to looking to the future, and I will press the Minister to take policy in a few directions. I have asked her to look at Redbridge’s funding formula, on public health in particular, and I hope she will undertake to do so. I also ask her to work with her colleagues in Government to think about funding nationally. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle talked about the value of joining up services locally, in particular local government and the NHS. I commend the approach being taken by the Government through the introduction of the accountable care organisations. In the pilot with Redbridge, the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the London Borough of Havering, that approach is bringing the local authority together with stakeholders from across the local health economy to join up public service provision. That will bear fruit.
We also need joined-up Government nationally, however. Other Members have made a compelling case for the Minister to fight her corner in public health, because investment in public health and early intervention is a money saver—and not just across Government; within her own Department we can reduce A&E admissions and the pressure on urgent and primary care if we get public health funding right.
The Minister also needs to make the case, along with the Secretary of State, across Government. For example, it is no good the Treasury making cuts to local government if that leads to cuts in public health funding and undermines the work of the Department of Health. It is no use cutting mental health provision if that leads to a spike in crime, an increase in the prison population and greater demand on the criminal justice system.
In education, it is no good asking Ofsted to inspect schools on mental health provision if school referrals to CAMHS are going unheard. We need to make sure the services are there to support schools. We also cannot continue with the postcode lottery on sex and relationships education and personal, social and health education. I hope we can revisit the issue of compulsory SRE and PSHE.
Finally, and most importantly—it is the reason we are here this afternoon—I urge the Minister and her colleagues in Government to listen to young people. That she is here this afternoon shows the importance the Government place on this report and the views of young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood talked about the importance of co-production and involving young people in the design of public services, and that is absolutely critical. But the Youth Select Committee has made a whole series of other recommendations that deserve not just the serious attention of this House but the response of Government. If that happens, we will get better public policy, and, I hope, we will have a generation of young people whose voices have not just been heard but, most importantly, listened to.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee on allowing it.
I have a new member of staff in Westminster, who started with me only last week, Matthew van Rooyen. He is 18 going on 28. He is cool, calm and collected; I have only seen him panic once so far, which was when he lost his hair gel. By an amazing coincidence he is from the village in south Wales where I was born, Kenfig Hill; more amazing still, I used to do judo with his mother when I was a child. As I have said before, Wales is one big family, and that has its advantages and its disadvantages, so in many ways this is Matthew’s maiden speech.
Matthew is a Member of the Youth Parliament and has been elected by fellow Welsh youth parliamentarians to represent Wales at the sitting of the Youth Parliament in this Chamber on 11 November. The calibre of the debate is always exceptionally high; at times, higher than some of our debates—Matthew is obviously driving the point home here—and I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to attend to show their support for the UK Youth Parliament.
By way of background, each year the UK Youth Parliament holds a UK-wide ballot called “Make Your Mark” that allows for young people to vote to campaign on an issue that is most important to them. The five campaigns with the most votes are then debated by members of the Youth Parliament at their annual sitting in this Chamber. Matthew has asked that I thank the House for allowing this opportunity year after year. In 2014, more than 90,000 votes were cast specifically to campaign for the improvement of mental health services. Following the debate, the Youth Parliament voted to campaign on mental health services as its priority campaign. The Youth Select Committee subsequently launched an inquiry into mental health provision, publishing its report in November 2015. Today, this report comes before the House for debate.
What the report indicates, quite simply, is that there is a lack of full and proper support for young people with mental health issues. Nearly 850,000 people aged between five and 16 suffer from a mental health issue. There is clearly a real need for good quality, mental health provision. The fact that over 90,000 young people voted for this as their priority campaign is indicative that the standard of service provided falls far short of the standard of service that can be expected.
It is not even the case that the service provided is good, but young people expect excellent and they deserve excellent. It is the case that the service is simply substandard. In written evidence to members of the Youth Select Committee, one young person explained their frustration:
“After a lot of deliberation, I decided to take myself to my GP in search of support…What you must remember is the amount of courage it takes to open up about your mental health issues. It is extremely difficult for someone...who’s totally confused about what’s going on in their life, to openly talk about having suicidal feelings in a five-minute appointment to someone who feels like a complete stranger. This landed me in a vicious cycle. I ended up returning to different GPs, in a desperate cry for help, but time and time again I was refused any help. It took seven visits before I eventually got the support I needed. Seven times I had to retell that same story. Seven times I was faced with not being ‘sick enough’ and seven times I had to walk out of that same GP surgery feeling absolutely crushed and demoralised.”
That young person is only 14 years of age.
The stories from young people, up and down the country, of substandard interactions with their GPs and medical practitioners are many. With countless witness testimonies, the report highlights the many areas where improvements need to be made with regard to the medical profession and health services. I would welcome an update from the Minister.
There is not one single area that needs improvement. We need to improve the overall state of services for those suffering from mental health issues. We must also look at the education system and what role this has to play in improving young people’s mental health. The report, very thoroughly, covers the education curriculum. It suggests improvements to personal, social, health and economic education, which would provide the most effective environment for mental health education. I broadly endorse those.
A key issue that has been raised time and again by the Youth Parliament is the need for a curriculum for life—to meet the needs of young people by having a national curriculum that sets them up to succeed and not fail. This issue is so fundamental to young people that it received the most votes in the “Make Your Mark” ballot this year. In the local authority area of Neath Port Talbot, in which my constituency of Neath lies, around 2,300 young people took part in this year’s ballot. I look forward to working with the Neath Port Talbot Member of the Youth Parliament further over the coming year.
To return to the report, the findings of the Youth Select Committee make clear the need for an all-encompassing approach to improving mental health and wellbeing. Although the Department for Education has introduced character-building and resilience programmes, the report notes that this is not the best method of improving the wellbeing of young people and instead proposes further training for teachers and academic staff. The report specifically mentions that teachers said in evidence that they feel they
“need more regular training on how we promote positive mental health.”
The Youth Select Committee recommends that, as part of the core content of initial teacher training, there should be mandatory training for teachers on young people’s mental health, with the training focused on how to respond to a young person who asks about mental health, how to spot problems and where to refer young people. The committee goes on to recommend the inclusion of a trained counsellor in all schools and agrees that schools should make counselling services available to all secondary school pupils. These are recommendations that I am sure every Member of the House will agree with.
Today’s debate has highlighted the vital work done by the UK Youth Parliament, the British Youth Council and the Youth Select Committee, all of whom I commend in assisting young people to have their voices heard. In recent times, there have been multiple reports and initiatives to improve mental health services for young people, aiming to reach parity of esteem, but until equal funding is achieved for physical health and mental health provision for young people, with funding for young people’s care at least equal to funding for adult’s care, the campaign will go on. Young people are our future. It is our duty to ensure their success and wellbeing. My thanks to Matthew—great speech, Matthew, and it is a pleasure to work with you.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I apologise to the House for missing the start of the debate—it started a little earlier than I anticipated and I was sitting on a bus in Millbank—and thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), and I congratulate her on leading this debate and the Backbench Business Committee on delivering it.
I am speaking towards the end of the debate, so I will try not to repeat the many excellent contributions that hon. Members have already made. Like so many other Members, I have had parents contacting me in great distress at the lack of adequate acute services when their children are in crisis. I had one parent who was worried about her daughter having to spend yet another weekend—this was not the first period of crisis she had had—in the children’s ward of the local hospital, as no specialist beds were available. The children’s ward is not a safe place for a young person in a mental health crisis, nor is it fair on the staff or children in the ward to have to support her either. She needed to be in a specialist bed, but in London there are too few tier 4 beds for young people.
I had another distressing experience, where a young man needed to go to hospital urgently, but because of a disconnect between the police, the ambulance services and the other services, it took two attempts on the same day to draw him from his house and get him to the safe place he needed to be in, leading to added trauma and distress and worsening his already critical health situation. To be fair, we are seeing some improvements locally, and we are promised additional tier 4 beds and better joined-up thinking between services, but I have to say that this is a small increase from a very low bar.
An additional problem is the break in consistent service when a child in crisis suffers further as they hit their 18th birthday. They lose one set of services and the adult services may or may not pick up at the same place, which does not make it easy for the child, the family and those trying to support her.
I pay credit to those working in the public and voluntary sector who support and heal these young people, but whose job is being made difficult because of the funding situation and lack of adequate joined-up thinking. In common with all Members here today, I want to thank the Youth Select Committee, the British Youth Council and the many Members of the Youth Parliament across the country for their work.
Earlier this year, I met Hounslow’s MYP, Tafumi Omisore, who told me about the history of this debate and how young people across the country had voted mental health as the top agenda issue for discussion among MYPs and the top issue that they wanted to bring to our attention. Tafumi told me:
“The future of tomorrow cannot possibly get to a stage where young people can rise to their full potential when they are being failed by this current generation”,
by which I think she means us. She continued by saying that they
“lack the support they need for Mental Health. Every time we say we need more support, Mental Health services simply get cut.”
National campaigns for the Youth Parliament come along only once a year, so we have to treat young people’s demands seriously. Tafumi will be holding sessions in her school to promote more education on this subject—and all credit to her.
Earlier in July this year, I met a group of primary and secondary school heads, and I expected them to raise with me the issues of funding, recruitment and retention and testing, which they did. What I had not expected was that they raised their concerns about children’s mental health and the state of the services available to them as being equally important. They were concerned about the increasing incidence of mental health problems, self-harming, disruptive behaviour and so forth. These headteachers had feelings of inadequacy when it came to supporting those children. They felt that they could not get them through a good-quality education and make them ready for the world of work or higher education unless they could give those young people better mental health support.
These headteachers said that the capacity of CAMHS was overstretched and that there were long waiting lists. They had real concerns about inadequate early intervention. They pointed out that more children were vulnerable for many and varied reasons, including mistreatment and abuse at home, and that more families were living in chaotic circumstances. They noted that more families were living in uncertain, insecure and poor-quality housing, which was exacerbated by austerity, particularly in respect of benefits and tax credits. Most parents and families were working, but they had suffered as a result of the changes to the benefit and tax credit system. Increasing numbers of families could not find enough money to pay the rent and put food on the table. This stress impacts on children—it could not fail to impact on them. The head of Kingsley Academy, who has been at the school only a year, told me that during her tenure, three of her children have been sectioned. Some of her children were self-harming and not enough support was available. The social work team could not cope either.
Some solutions were identified. Most of our schools either commission the Hounslow youth counselling service to deliver counselling or employ in-house counsellors. Strand on the Green runs a programme called “theraplay”, which combines therapy and art for children. It is very successful, but there is no funding left to allow it to continue indefinitely. The school heads concluded that not enough support was being provided.
An excellent youth counselling service serves the borough of Hounslow, and has done so for many years. Its counsellors strongly believe that Government cuts have led to the increased need for counselling. Less money means higher criteria for early entry to tier 1 services, and—as other Members have pointed out today—when tier 1 services pull out, young people enter the system when they are in crisis and need tier 3 and 4 services, which are extremely expensive. The Hounslow youth counselling service, like many others, is a tier 1 service, and is there to provide initial counselling and support. It is not a therapeutic service; it cannot be, and it is not funded to be. It does not have the necessary professional advisers. However, it is often the only option for young people, because higher-level services such as CAMHS will not see them for many weeks, and often for many months.
The Hounslow counselling service says that skilled and experienced staff are being replaced by others who are less skilled and experienced, which has made it difficult to maintain important standards in certain departments. It also says that there is no sign that the increase in the number of young people requiring counselling is slowing down, and that further cuts could worsen the situation. It is a voluntary service organisation, funded mainly by local government and the NHS, which are cutting support for the voluntary sector as their own funding is cut. It says that it is likely to see at least 3,000 young people per year and that the number is growing, but it is highly unlikely that it will be able to grow as well in order to meet that pressure. Its waiting lists will lengthen, and young people who are referred by schools or parents, or who refer themselves, will have to wait even longer for counselling.
Our experience in our borough reflects the experiences that other Members have described today. Children and young people are under ever greater pressures from social media, family poverty, housing crises and identity questions. Services are already stretched, and some face an uncertain future: as school and voluntary sector cuts are made, many are closing or have already closed. There is a lack of early intervention. Different services have different priorities, and there are reports of the decommissioning of early intervention services as a result of reductions in spending on social services.
We could do things differently. It is not just a question of funding, although we cannot fail to discuss that issue. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) made an excellent suggestion, based on experience of the armed forces covenant. The establishment of the covenant under the Labour Government was led at Cabinet level, but it filtered through a range of services into local government. I was a councillor in Hounslow at the time, and we adopted the covenant, which filtered into several of our services and priorities. Could we not do the same for children’s mental health?
As many Members have said, we need to do more as a country, and the Government must lead. We must do better. We must listen to young people. We must deliver joined-up services, and we must deliver them early. By doing that, we will save money, but, more important, we will save our young people’s future.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
It is a privilege to take part in the debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for selecting it, and extend my praise to the Youth Select Committee for its excellent report on young people’s mental health. It is a genuinely superb summary of the current situation, backed up by sensible recommendations, and it makes a welcome contribution to the wider debate.
The details of the debate have already been clearly outlined by the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). I agree wholeheartedly that it is a debate about resources and the framework for their use. I also agree that the current situation is not acceptable, and that the demand for services is indeed increasing. I thank the hon. Lady for her clear explanation of the position, and for giving some powerful statistics.
The importance of this issue to the young people of the UK nations is illustrated by the fact that it has been repeatedly chosen as a priority campaign by the UK Youth Parliament, and voted for in the British Youth Council poll. The issue has also been the subject of research by the Scottish Youth Parliament, with the report “Our generation’s epidemic”. So we need not wonder what issues are of concern to young people; they have clearly, intelligently and repeatedly told us and it is incumbent upon us as elected politicians to address the concerns highlighted. The fact mentioned already today by several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), that more than half of all mental ill-health starts before the age of 14 serves to illustrate the seriousness of this issue.
I am also grateful to the hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) for illustrating the risk of the issue going unnoticed and undiagnosed and for highlighting the generation gap technology has developed and the issue of cyber-bullying. I am sure I am not alone in this Chamber in being glad that my youthful teenage years are not preserved for posterity on the internet and in social media.
As well as highlighting an important issue, the Youth Select Committee report shows the importance of young people being engaged in our democratic debate. In Scotland we are already making good progress with this engagement, and our 16 and 17-year-olds had the right to vote in the 2014 Scottish referendum and 2016 Scottish Parliament election. That, however, is an issue that needs revisiting in another debate. I endorse the call of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for an annual debate in Government time on the good work of the YSC.
The issue of mental health is widespread. It affects every part of the country and people from all parts of our society. All ages, races, classes and backgrounds are susceptible to this illness.
The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) highlighted the disparity between mental and physical health problems and emphasised the scale of the issue. We have heard many examples from across the House showing how young people have been affected and that more needs to be done.
All of us will be aware of local examples, and of groups working to address these issues. One such group which covers my area is the Falkirk and District Association for Mental Health, the subject of early-day motion 125 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally). Among the wide range of support the group offers is a befriending service to help combat the isolation experienced by young people suffering from mental health issues. The group also offers a health and wellbeing drop-in, counselling, support groups and other services.
But it is not just specialist mental health groups that help to tackle this illness. For example, the Open Door project, which provides supported accommodation for young people in the West Lothian area, carries out a risk assessment of every young person who approaches it for help. If following the assessment it feels there is an issue it refers them to “moving into health”, psychiatric nurses from the health and homeless team. Some 89 people were assessed in 2012-13, of whom 33 presented with mental health issues. Indeed, the project believes that the number of people presenting with mental health issues is increasing, a theme highlighted by several Members today.
Another example is the Chill Out Zone, or COZ, in Bathgate, a healthy living centre for young people aged between 12 and 20. It is a partnership between Children 1st, West Lothian Council and NHS Lothian. COZ provides a drop-in service that young people can use in their own time to get information, counselling and advice, or if a young person prefers they can make an appointment with a nurse or a counsellor to talk about sensitive physical, emotional, mental and sexual health matters.
I could go on highlighting many other examples, but I think everyone gets the picture. It is not just our young people who are telling us this is an “epidemic”; the evidence of support groups and the impact on other organisations locally demonstrates this for all to see, and highlights the need for action.
Of course in Scotland health and education are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and many of the devolved issues were covered succinctly by my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow. I am grateful for her professionally informed opinions in today’s debate.
Mental health is a priority for the Scottish Government, as demonstrated by the fact that Scotland has the first dedicated Minister for Mental Health in the UK, and while across England funding for young people’s mental health services has been reduced since 2011 the SNP-led Scottish Government have doubled the number of child and adolescent mental health service psychologists, as part of an additional £150 million to improve mental health services.
The Scottish Government have welcomed the Scottish Youth Parliament’s recent research “Our generation’s epidemic”, which I mentioned earlier. That research was undertaken as part of the Scottish Youth Parliament’s Speak Your Mind campaign on mental health. Maureen Watt, the Minister for Mental Health, met representatives of the Scottish Youth Parliament in September and took note of their recommendations that relate specifically to the Scottish Government. They will be considered as part of the public engagement on the new 10-year mental health strategy for Scotland. The SNP will continue to review the legislation in Scotland to ensure that the interests of children and their need to form and maintain relationships with key adults in their lives are at the heart of any new statutory measures.
The Youth Select Committee report highlights the importance of ending stigma around mental health, and the SNP is committed to playing its part in ending that stigma. Education Scotland is developing a national resource to support the development and practice of nurturing approaches for primary schools. A whole-school nurturing approach can promote school connectedness, resilience and the development of social and emotional competences, all of which are key aspects of promoting mental wellbeing.
It is completely wrong that people with mental health issues should suffer discrimination and stigma, but sadly too many still do. The Scottish Government, in collaboration with Comic Relief, fund the See Me initiative to help address this, and they do invaluable work, but the truth is that each and every one of us has it within our power to do our bit to end this stigma and to be more understanding of people who have mental health problems.
It has been a pleasure to take part in this well-informed and largely consensual and good-natured debate.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate on the Youth Select Committee’s report, “Young People’s Mental Health”. I too want to thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for the debate, but I agree with the Conservative Members who suggested that this matter should have been debated in Government time. We must underline the importance of this report.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) on securing the debate. My hon. Friend talked about the focus on the need for early intervention, as did many other Members. She also talked about the need for beds, saying that sending seriously ill young people away from home had to stop. I think we all support that view. She made it clear that, in her view, the state of the service was a national scandal, and she raised a number of points that we hope the Minister will respond to. They included the recommendations for ring-fenced funding for CAMHS and for co-production involving young people in the design of CAMHS, and the need to improve mental health education in schools. I will talk about those issues as well. My hon. Friend also referred to the notion in the YMCA report on stigma, “I am Whole”, of young people feeling as though they are
“trapped inside a thousand invisible prisons”.
We should keep that in mind.
The hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) acknowledged the legitimacy of the Youth Parliament. He also talked about the pressures on young people and related that back to his own experience when he was young. That has been a bit of theme in this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) stressed the need for early intervention. That subject that has come up many times today, and quite rightly, because early intervention can decrease the severity of mental ill health. She made a powerful case for the Government’s funding pledges to be fulfilled.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) talked about the importance of the status of the report and rightly said that it should have been debated in Government time. I am glad to have his support for the fact that Labour has a shadow Cabinet Minister for mental health, which is me. It is interesting that the Scottish National party Government also have a dedicated Minister for mental health. I think we are moving towards a position in which that is seen as something to be supported. The hon. Gentleman also talked about the effect of the pressures of social media on the mental health of young people. It is interesting to note that we shall debate the impact of social media on the mental health of young people in Westminster Hall next Wednesday.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) talked about the real problems that parents and grandparents face in navigating mental health services. He talked about commissioning and made some important points about the difficulty of working through GPs in our medical model. He also talked about local government cuts and said that they were a false economy. I shall talk about that as well. He also talked about the need for open-access services, given the difficulty in navigating the system.
The hon. Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani) talked about a teenager with an eating disorder, the suicide rate and the problems faced by young men. Although there is a focus on the impact on women of mental health issues, young men are also badly affected.
The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) talked about access to mental health specialists in schools and training for staff, which has been a theme this afternoon. She also mentioned the need to modernise approaches. We keep hearing about the importance of IT and social media, and she referred to the SafeSpot app. Like several hon. Members, she also talked about online bullying.
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) is back in the Chamber. He came out of a Bill Committee to speak today and regards this topic as very important. His clear commitment to mental health was shown by it being the subject of his first question at PMQs. He also talked about social media and the need for early intervention.
I did not know that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) was elected an honorary president of the British Youth Council. He quite rightly thanked the Speaker for his support for the British Youth Council and the Youth Parliament. It is important, as he has done, to listen to young people’s concerns about mental ill health because that can lead to open, candid and courageous discussions. It is good that groups of young people can become more at ease with discussing mental health—there is hope for the future. He also talked about the exceptionally high incidences of mental health issues among LGBT young people, including high rates of self-harm and suicide. He referred to the poor standards of care at Brookside adolescent unit. It took a damning report from the CQC to highlight its problems, the consequence of which was the death of the young man Simon.
My hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) gave us the first speech of Matthew, a member of the Youth Parliament who works in her team, and talked about the lack of full and proper support for young people’s mental health. She also mentioned the difficult experience of a young person who had to visit the GP seven times before getting help and felt crushed by the lack of support. Like other Members, she referred to training for teachers and having a trained counsellor in every school.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) talked about hospital wards not being safe for young people with mental health problems. A headteacher in her constituency reported having three children sectioned from school, which is a sobering thought indeed.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), the SNP spokesperson, talked about many local groups. It is a sign of the difficulties facing support within the NHS that there is a need for all the groups he mentioned.
Before I move on, I want to pay tribute to the work of my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger). She has campaigned tirelessly for improvements to the mental health system. Her work helped to raise the profile of many issues that had not previously been given the attention they deserve. I join other Members in congratulating the Youth Select Committee on its excellent report.
The Secretary of State for Health recently admitted to failings in mental health services for children and young people. He said:
“I think we are letting down too many families and not intervening early enough when there is a curable mental health condition, which we can do something about when a child is eight or nine, but if you leave it until they are 15 or 16, it’s too late”.
People working in mental health services know all too well the truth of what the Secretary of State says. We know that on average one in four people experience a mental health problem, that 50% of adult mental health problems start before the age of 15, and that 75% start before the age of 18. Yet just 8% of our mental health budget is spent on children, with CAMHS, which have been referred to extensively, representing just 1% of the NHS budget. Members have quite rightly referred to that as the Cinderella of the Cinderella service. Does the Minister agree that 8% is far too small a proportion of the budget to spend on youth mental health, and does she agree that more needs to be done to intervene earlier when mental health issues are involved? Demand is clearly outstripping supply. Demand for child and adolescent mental health services is growing, but Government action is not meeting that demand. Funding for overstretched mental health services is not reaching the frontline, where it is so badly needed.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said, essential support services are being lost as a direct consequence of Government cuts to local authority budgets. Ofsted has reported that between 2010 and 2015 there was a 38% cut—£538 million—in funding for children’s centres, and a 53% cut, which is £623 million, in funding for youth services. Very many children and young people are not receiving the help that they need until they reach crisis point, and those cuts in local authority services are part of the problem. By failing to address these critical issues, Ministers are letting down vulnerable children and young people.
Sarah Brennan, the chief executive of Young Minds, has said that children’s mental health services have been “woefully” underfunded for years and that:
“While the government’s extra investment is welcome, it’s unclear whether it’s making a difference to frontline services. Even if the new money is spent where it’s intended, the Chief of NHS England has admitted that it will only be enough to reach a third of the children who need help.”
She goes on to say:
“Because of long waiting lists the threshold for accessing specialist services has got higher. Without treatment, problems are very likely to escalate and children are more likely to self-harm or become suicidal, to be violent and aggressive, or to drop out of school, which can ruin their prospects for the future. Delays can also have a disastrous effect on families, with parents forced to leave their jobs to look after their children”.
A report for the British Medical Association underlines that by telling us that the number of young people aged under 18 attending accident and emergency because of a psychiatric condition more than doubled between 2010 and 2015. The number of children and young people self-harming has also risen dramatically in the past 10 years, with the upward trend more pronounced among girls and young women. We have heard examples of that in the debate.
The number of referrals to child and adolescent mental health services increased by 64% between 2012-13 and 2014-15, but 28% of children and young people referred to CAMHS were not allocated a service. Members have referred to that fact in this debate. A report by the Children’s Commissioner found that 79% of CAMHS imposed restrictions and thresholds for children and young people accessing their service—I could go on. We have a tale in this debate of an increasing number of referrals to CAMHS, high thresholds for care and long waiting times. What all those things mean is that many children and young people are not receiving help.
Let me come back to the Secretary of State, because in reference to the quality of care that CAMHS teams provide, he said:
“I think this is possibly the biggest single area of weakness in NHS provision at the moment.”
Does the Minister recognise that the statistics we have heard in this debate show that demand for mental health services has clearly outstripped supply? Can she tell us what actions Ministers plan to take to address those issues?
I want to talk about regional variation, because it is an important aspect of the issues we are seeing. The Children’s Commissioner’s report also highlighted regional variations in treatment, suggesting that access to CAMHS is, in effect, a postcode lottery. The data gathered suggest that in England the average waiting time between referral and receipt of services from CAMHS ranged from 14 days in the north-west to 200 days in the west midlands. Does the Minister agree that that level of variation is totally unacceptable? Can she highlight what Ministers are doing to achieve swift access to care across the country at the same levels? A recent report on the state of mental health by the Public Accounts Committee warned:
“Good access to mental health services matters. Many people can make a full recovery if they receive appropriate, timely treatment. However, a high proportion of people with mental health conditions do not have access to the care they need.”
I wish to dwell for a moment on the state of CAMHS services, because that has been an important aspect of this debate. There is a lack of crisis services, a lack of accountability for transformation plans, and a lack of co-production with parents, carers and service users. One person asked, “Who cares for the carers because it certainly isn’t the mental health service?” That view of CAHMS is borne out by nurses who work in CAHMS. In a survey of 631 CAMHS nurses, 70% said that the services were “inadequate” or “highly inadequate”—I put it to the Minister that it is very worrying that the very people who work in CAMHS refer to the services in such a way—73% said that the main problem was too few nurses, 48% said that there were too few doctors, and 62% said that there were too few beds for patients.
Last December, the Secretary of State made this pledge:
“CCGs are committed to increasing the proportion of their funding that goes into mental health.”
However, as we have heard in this debate, increased front-line funding is not being delivered, and that is clear in the provision of services.
Let me refer to a matter that was raised by a number of my hon. Friends. In the responses to the freedom of information requests made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree, 73 out of 128 CCGs—more than half those that responded—admitted that they plan to cut the amount they will spend on mental health, which underlines the fact that the funding issue is just getting worse.
Does the Minister agree that the Secretary of State has clearly broken his promise and that many CCGs are not increasing funding for mental health? As we have heard in this debate, the pledge to achieve parity of esteem is repeatedly being broken. Despite Ministers’ promises about achieving parity of esteem between mental and physical health, there is still a great difference in the treatment of families of children with physical rather than mental health needs—a number of Members referred to that disparity. Indeed, many physical health hospitals now have family rooms or flats in which parents can stay to support a child, and parents can, in some cases, get help with transport costs. By contrast, the families of children in mental health units feel isolated. There is no provision for families to stay, and no support with transport costs, which can become prohibitive. Often a child can be sent home with no transition plan. It is clear from this debate that the Government are failing to achieve parity of esteem.
We had four questions on mental health at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, which is an indication of the level of concern among hon. Members. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle made mental health the subject of his first such question. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North said, there was real disappointment about the responses from the Prime Minister, so I hope that we get better answers from the Minister today.
Much has been said about education and the role of schools. A report by the Education Committee on the mental health and wellbeing of looked-after children made the clear recommendation that schools should have a role in teaching about mental health and wellbeing. That report said:
“The interface between schools and health services needs to be strengthened to ensure that teachers and schools are better equipped to identify, assess and support children and young people with mental health difficulties.”
It has been quite clear in this debate that Members feel that schools and colleges should play a key role in promoting the good mental health of children and young people. More young people are experiencing serious psychological distress because they are under unprecedented social pressures. It is a credit to Members that those pressures are recognised.
Although we will not have time to cover this subject today, I have to say that easy access to the internet poses new challenges for young people. Cyber-bullying is increasing with more than one in 10 children now saying that they have experienced it. Young people cannot get away from bullying even when they have closed the door of their homes.
A number of Members have stressed the role of schools in ensuring that these problems are spotted as early as possible and addressed. Counselling services are vital. As a Salford MP, I am pleased that Salford has launched a register of approved providers of counselling in schools, and that one provider has already been appointed to deliver a two-year pilot to train and support a cluster of schools in counselling. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham talked about the importance of counselling, but we recognise that there are funding problems. Many schools will not be able to afford to pay a trained counsellor.
Clear guidance is needed for schools on how to commission high-quality mental health support programmes and how to tackle mental health discrimination and stigmatisation. Will the Minister outline the Government’s plans to ensure that education, health and social services work together to provide an extra layer of support to spot and treat mental health problems? The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham talked about how cross-departmental working can help.
Clearly, the best way to deal with a crisis is to prevent it from happening in the first place. It is critical that people can access the right information and that better support is provided in childhood and adolescence. That can help to reduce the incidence of young people developing mental health problems.
Overall, it is clear from the debate that actions speak louder than words. If Ministers are serious about tackling these issues, they must follow through with their funding pledges. Government cuts to local authority budgets, which I and others have referred to, have meant that many of the local services providing early intervention have had to scale back services or close their doors. I have talked about cuts to children’s centres, social workers, educational psychologists and mental health services in schools. There has been a reduction in care and support for under-18s, so we need urgent action. The Minister has been urged by Government Members, as well as Opposition Members, to relieve that pressure on overstretched CAMHS, but we also need to develop prevention and early intervention strategies. Crucially, the right help and support must be available for vulnerable children and young people when they need it, not 200 days later. I look forward to the Minister answering my questions and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, and telling us what action will be taken to improve provision in this vital area.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Nicola Blackwood)
I thank the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) for initiating this debate on the Youth Parliament Select Committee report on young people’s mental health. I want to add my voice to those from both sides of the House in paying tribute to the Youth Select Committee for its powerful report—it is an important and timely intervention. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, Rhys Hart was, by all accounts, a remarkably effective Chair, and the 10 members were dedicated and focused. They won the admiration of the House of Commons staff who were involved, and they made particular mention of that to me before this debate.
The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) demonstrated quite clearly that he is an elected president of the BYC, with his particularly eloquent speech. He is right that we should thank those young people who have had the courage to speak up on their mental health experiences and opinions, and who have allowed us to refer to them today, because the value of those first-hand stories in this Chamber cannot be overestimated.
I would like to make a particular point of thanking the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham), Lucy Boardman and Martha Banks Thompson, and my own Youth Parliament representatives, Tara Paxton-Doggett and Rowan Ibbotson, who spoke to me about the mental health campaign. A number of colleagues have spoken about the impact of meeting the Youth Parliament representatives. As has been said today, what is important now is to prove that we have not just heard them; we have listened to them, and we are taking action on their words. That is why this has been such a moving and necessary debate.
Members have shared some very personal experiences of mental health and the services and support that they and their constituents have received. All of us will know the cases that haunt us. All of us know that we need to do better. As colleagues have said, over half of all mental ill health starts before the age of 14, and 75% has developed by 18. We know the distress that mental health problems cause to individuals and all those who care for them, and we know that the earlier we intervene, the better.
Children’s and young people’s mental health is a priority for this Government. Not only has the Health Secretary made it his personal priority, but so has the Prime Minister. It is time for a step change in the way that we deliver mental health services in the UK, and we are determined to deliver that. But we must not underestimate or under-sell some of the progress that has already been made, because that is thanks largely to the efforts of dedicated NHS staff, stakeholders, voluntary services and others. We have heard some success stories today, and it is important that we praise those involved for the hard work that they do in the face of great challenges.
We agree with recommendation 3 that funding needs to increase, as many colleagues have said. That is why we have increased investment in children’s mental health, with an additional £l.4 billion. While we do believe that it is right that local CCGs, led by clinicians, are best placed to prioritise their spending to meet the needs of local populations, we have been clear that this money is provided for mental health services, and we are requiring CCGs to increase their spending year on year.
Nicola Blackwood
I was attempting to deal with that point, but obviously not being very clear. As I said, we have been listening to these requests. We are looking very closely at how effectively the money is getting to the frontline, but at the moment we still believe that local clinicians are best placed to decide how to target these services. However, we have put in place a requirement for CCGs to increase spending on mental health year on year. We are also very clear that STPs must reflect the NHS mandate, which says:
“We expect NHS England to strive to reduce the health gap between people with mental health problems, learning disabilities and autism and the population as a whole”.
That will require great strides to be made in improving care.
Nicola Blackwood
One of the ways in which we are ensuring that money reaches the frontline is through driving accountability through transparency. Mental health services have lagged behind the rest of the NHS in terms of data and our being able to track performance. That is why the NHS will shortly publish the mental health dashboard, which will show not only performance but planned and actual spend on mental health. This is real progress.
Barbara Keeley
Let me make a couple of points in addition to the useful points made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). First, it is clear that CCGs are ignoring the Government’s requests, so we will need more action than the dashboards and transparency that the Minister has mentioned. The Secretary of State will need to go back to CCGs and make the position very clear to them. Secondly, as other hon. Members and I have said, there is the question of local authority funding. Over £1 billion has been taken out of various services for children and young people such as children’s centres and youth services. That is a factor too. Those two things need to be addressed.
Nicola Blackwood
It is not fair to say that CCGs are ignoring the funding that is coming through. Moreover, it will not be possible for them to ignore what is going on when transparency and accountability is put in place with data sets that clearly show not only performance down to CCG level but the amount of funding that CCGs are given and the amount they are spending. These data will be much more detailed than before. In January, we introduced the first ever provider-level data set on children’s mental health services, and that will provide data on outcomes, length of treatment, source of referral, and location of appointment.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 contained one provision that I welcomed—allowing CCGs and others to commission services in the third sector, for example. A lot of the good work in this area is done in the third sector, but the problem lies in how the contracts are drawn up, because they are either too big or too complex for smaller organisations to bid for. Will the Minister look at that?
Nicola Blackwood
I am happy to look at it. We are very clear that there is a vital role for the voluntary sector to play in delivering some of these services. We hope that local transformation plans will be part of the way in which this is clarified. The programme to deliver transparency and accountability will be essential if local areas are not only to design effective services that match the needs of their local populations, but to be held to account for delivering them. I will not beat about the bush. We recognise that a complex and severe set of challenges faces children and young people’s mental health services. This area has been undervalued and underfunded for far too long.
While I am happy to investigate funding formulas such as those mentioned by the hon. Member for Ilford North in relation to Redbridge, I agree with him that leadership and accountability are also key to making the changes that we need. That is why we are committed to delivering real changes across the whole system, not just in funding, and to building on the ambitious vision set out in “Future in mind”. I pay tribute to my predecessors for the work they have done to bring those forward. As the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood has said, we need to go further to drive through these changes, which young people have told us they want to see.
Children want to grow up to be confident and resilient, and they want to be supported to fulfil their goals and ambitions. We are placing an emphasis on building in that resilience, on promoting good mental health and wellbeing, on prevention—it is so important, as the shadow Minister has said—and on early intervention, as a number of the recommendations propose. We are looking, in particular, at how we can do more upstream to prevent mental health problems before they arise.
Barbara Keeley
The Minister is about to move on to intervention. Before she leaves funding, which has been pretty key, does she believe that the 8% of the budget spent on young people’s mental health—1% for CAMHS—has been anything like adequate? I did put that question to her. If she does not think that that is adequate, could Ministers tell us what they think it should be? If CCGs are ignoring Ministers’ continual urges to them to make pledges, will there be sanctions against CCGs that do not put in that extra funding?
Nicola Blackwood
I think I have already answered those questions. The Government have been clear that we think that mental health funding for children and young people, as well as for other areas of mental health, needs to increase. That is why we have increased mental health funding to local areas and we are putting in place measures to improve accountability and transparency, and the STPs, to make sure that that can be tracked locally. We are going to see how it works in the first instance.
Nicola Blackwood
I must continue.
Another issue that was raised is the fact that children and young people want to know where to find help easily if they need it. I want to make sure that I respond to all the issues that have been raised, otherwise it will not be fair to the young people who wrote the report. Children want to know that they can trust such help when they find it. Young people are clear that they want a choice about where they can get advice and support; they want to be able to get it from a welcoming place, based on the best evidence about what works; and they want the opportunity to shape the services they receive. Many colleagues have spoken about co-production.
“Future in Mind” committed to sustaining a culture of continuous evidence-based service improvement, as well as improving transparency and accountability across the whole system, as I have mentioned. A big part of that is producing the datasets that I have mentioned, which will give local areas the ability to hold their CCGs to account. Those datasets will include information on funding. As the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) told us so eloquently—Matthew’s maiden speech has made its mark on all of us—young people want, as we all do, to tell their story only once rather than having to repeat it lots of times to lots of different people. We are committed to delivering a much clearer and more joined-up approach, with services coming together and communicating more effectively.
As numerous other colleagues have said, young people do not want to have to wait until they are really unwell—until they have reached a higher threshold—to get help. Asking for help should not be embarrassing or difficult. They should know what to do and where to go. If they do have to go to hospital, they should be on a ward with people around their age and close to home. So we are delivering a step change in how care is provided and ensuring that access is improved so that children and young people can easily access the right support from the right service at the right time, as close to home as possible. I recognise that this is a process.
“Future in Mind” is more than just a report. It is more than just words. It has already brought together key players, focused efforts and given us a clear trajectory for improving services. It is only the start of the journey, however, and we need to maintain the effort, focus and political momentum from this place and in our local areas.
In February 2016, the “Five Year Forward View for Mental Health” set out the start of a 10-year journey to transform NHS care across all ages. The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) was absolutely right to say that similar problems can be tracked across to adult services. The report was clear:
“The NHS needs a far more proactive and preventative approach to reduce the long term impact for people experiencing mental health problems and for their families, and to reduce costs for the NHS and emergency services”.
A lot of it is simply common sense. The five year forward view for mental health is underpinned by additional funding, which I have already spoken about, and the NHS England implementation plan sets out in detail where and when that money will become available. It builds on the foundation of local investment in mental health services and the ongoing requirement, which I have referred to, to increase that baseline by at least the overall growth in allocations.
“Implementing the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health” sets out clear objectives, which will support improvements to the services that young people will receive. I think it would be helpful if I say exactly what they will be, as they will make practical changes. The first is a significant expansion in access to high-quality mental healthcare for children and young people. At least 70,000 additional children and young people each year will receive evidence-based treatment. By 2020-21, evidence-based community eating disorder services for children and young people will be in place in all areas, ensuring that 95% of children receive treatment within one week for urgent cases and four weeks for routine cases. By 2020-21, in-patient stays for children and young people will take place only when clinically appropriate; will have a minimum possible length of stay; and will be as close to home as possible, to avoid inappropriate out-of-area placements. Inappropriate use of beds in paediatric and adult wards—this has already been referred to—will be eliminated.
All general in-patient units for children and young people will be commissioned on a place basis by localities, so that they are integrated into local pathways. That is designed to address some of the concerns that have been raised today. As a result, the use of in-patient beds should reduce overall, with more significant reductions possible in certain specialised beds.
Those objectives are supported by a refresh and republication of the local transformation plans, which have been mentioned. The plans set out how local areas will work together to improve services for children and young people with mental health problems across the whole care pathway. The plans are, in fact, the richest source of information available to date about the state of children and young people’s mental health services across England.
NHS England has also commissioned a number of thematic reviews as part of an analysis of the LTPs. In July, it published the children and young people’s mental health LTPs, which provide a summary of the key themes. It is fair to say that, essentially, they found that there was a lot of variation in local areas in terms of approaches, quality and priorities. We have heard about that in some of the stories that have been told today. The LTPs are a starting point. They are living documents and are not designed to just go in a drawer. They are reviewed and refreshed at least once a year, and we are clear that children, young people, families and carers must be involved in the process, for the exact reason given by the shadow Minister, which is to increase accountability and effectiveness and to make sure that the plans actually work.
A number of key themes have emerged from the report recommendations and the LTPs. Recommendations 5 and 6 comment on the need to support the workforce. We acknowledge the need to address the capability and capacity needs of the workforce—from GPs and A&E, to the mental health specialist—to deliver on our ambition to transform mental health services. In line with the eight specific workforce recommendations of the taskforce report, we will work with Health Education England and others to develop a five-year mental health workforce strategy, which we will publish in 2017. That is a serious response to a serious problem, and it is designed to address a lot of the challenges that have been raised today.
As many Members have rightly said, access to services is a priority area and we need to address it. We know that young people do not want to wait until they are really unwell to access services, and we do not want that to be the case, either, so we are tackling the issue. In August 2015, NHS England published an access and wait standard for children and young people with eating disorders, as I have said. From January, compliance with that standard has been monitored via the data collected through the mental health services dataset. It is, therefore, being held accountable and the aim, as I have said, is that 95% of young people will be seen within a clinically appropriate timeframe by 2020. That is just the first of the waiting time standards.
NHS England has commissioned the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health to develop a new evidence-based treatment pathway for children’s mental health. The project will report in March, recommending maximum waiting times for referral to treatment. An England-wide quality assessment will then be used to establish a baseline and trajectory to achieve those national waiting time standards in local areas. The matter was also raised by the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), who is no longer in her place.
We are also taking action on particularly vulnerable groups of children and young people. In April, Alison O’Sullivan and Professor Peter Fonagy were appointed as the co-chairs of the expert working group for looked-after children, established to lead the development of models of care for looked-after children’s mental health, which has historically been a blind spot. The expert working group is about practical outcomes—not just what is needed but how it should be delivered, without jargon, proposing concrete milestones and measures. We expect that work to conclude by October 2017.
However, ensuring access to services will not be enough if young people do not feel confident and safe seeking help. All children and young people should feel able to go for help when they need to, without fear of discrimination or stigmatisation. We have made a lot of progress in tackling stigma in recent years. The fact that young people have been willing to tell their stories demonstrates that.
Time to Change is a campaign that aims to tackle the stigma around mental health. In October, it was given £20 million in funding from the Department of Health, Comic Relief and the Big Lottery Fund. We are committed to ensuring that the Time to Change initiative, which is run by charities such as Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, will work with schools, employers and local communities to do more and go further to reduce discrimination and to raise awareness. It is developing a targeted campaign for young people, working with experts by experience.
As “Future in mind” and “The Five Year Forward View For Mental Health” both made clear, co-production is now a fundamental principle in the way we seek to develop and improve services, and anti-stigma campaigns are no exception. However, as many colleagues have said, to make that work, and to see the progress that is so desperately needed, we also have to work closely with colleagues across government, in particular the Department for Education, but not exclusively.
We are determined to continue that collaboration, as recommendation 2 proposes. We have been working closely together to ensure that the vision of “Future in mind” becomes a reality. We are also working together to consider what more can be done upstream to intervene early—an issue raised by the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and many others—and to provide the right interventions as soon as they are needed. The report’s recommendations will be a valuable resource for us as we do that, including the recommendations on attainment, Ofsted, teacher training and a whole-school approach, which was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak. We know that this is the weakest link in our current process and we are prioritising activity in that area to ensure that young people get the support they need right from the start.
A number of colleagues have mentioned the issue of online pressures and cyber-bullying. That matter has been taken extremely seriously by the Government Equalities Office, which announced in September £4.4 million of funding to tackle bullying. That includes a number of measures to underpin the fact that all schools are required by law to have a behaviour policy with measures to tackle bullying among pupils, and they are held clearly to account for their effectiveness by Ofsted. However, we know that more needs to be done, including to support parents. That is why the GEO has also invested £500,000 in the UK Safer Internet Centre to provide advice to parents on how to keep children safe and provided support to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre to support a national roll-out of parent information through schools.
Today’s debate has been important because it has provided an opportunity not just to reply to the details in the Youth Select Committee report, which is so important, but to test the Government’s commitment to mental health reform. I am grateful to colleagues for the time they have taken today to raise concerns, to champion good practice and to propose innovative solutions. I hope that, in my response, our commitment to reform mental health services is beyond doubt. I also hope that it is clear that I believe that it is only through concerted political will, allied with the extraordinary and selfless determination of the mental health workers throughout this country, that we will have any hope of achieving our goal of mental health services that are accessible when and where they are needed.
I look around the Chamber and I hear speech after speech expressing determination to see a change. It gives me courage because great reform requires long-term vision, non-partisan partnership and fine minds. I have seen all three of those today, not just in the excellent Youth Select Committee report, but in all colleagues’ speeches. That truly is a firm foundation for the tough task ahead.
Helen Hayes
I very much thank the 10 Back Benchers, the Opposition Front Benchers and the Minister for taking the time to be in the House to contribute to this debate. It has been an excellent debate, with some very powerful speeches. Members have acknowledged the scale of the crisis in young people’s mental health, very effectively represented those of their constituents who face mental health issues, brought to bear their direct experience in this field and called on the Government to take a different approach. We have discussed many statistics, and they paint a picture of a heartbreaking reality for young people and families across this country. Many Members have also highlighted the false economies involved in failing to invest properly in young people’s mental health, with the additional costs to the health service, local authorities, the criminal justice system and, indeed, to human beings themselves.
Many Members have paid tribute to the work of the British Youth Parliament, and I want to add my voice to those saying that the work of the Youth Parliament should be debated in Government time. We must continue to build the institution of the Youth Parliament as the voice of young people in our democratic process. It is right and proper that it should be given such a status. The debate has, on the whole, been very consensual, and it has shown the House at its best. I hope that Members on both sides of the House have communicated to the British Youth Parliament, the Youth Select Committee and young people across this country the seriousness with which we take this issue.
I very much welcome the Minister’s response, and her commitment to address this issue and to deliver a step change in young people’s mental health. She is right to point out that this will require resources, leadership and work across Departments. She mentioned work with the Department for Education, but work with the Department for Communities and Local Government will also be very important. As the Minister also has responsibility for public health, she will know the extent to which public health expenditure is so challenged at the moment. We heard from several Members during the debate about the impact of such cuts on mental health and as a direct consequence of them. I welcome her response, but it must be backed up by action, following through and delivering on those commitments.
I hope all Members from both sides of the House who have contributed to this debate will join me in holding the Government to account on delivering the step change we need to protect our vulnerable young people and on delivering a framework of support that will help them to be resilient, confident and healthy as they grow into adulthood.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes the recommendations of the Youth Select Committee report of November 2015 on Young People’s Mental Health; endorses the findings of that report on the need for more support from the Government for mental health services for young people; acknowledges steps taken by the Government, since its response of January 2016 to that report, with regard to some of its recommendations; and calls on the Government to set out what further progress has been made since its response and what its plans are further to improve mental health services for young people.
Petitions
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council should not approve the planning application to change the use of the Abberley Hotel to a 32-bed house in multiple occupation (HMOs); further that there are too many HMOs in Walsall; further that Walsall Council’s Housing Standards objects to this application; and further that 194 individuals have signed a local petition on the same subject.
The petitioners therefore request the House of Commons to urge Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council to reject planning application 15/1266.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P001968]
Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of the Women Against State Pension Inequality, who are now better known to us all as the WASPI women. I know that this is not the time to make a great long speech, and I do not propose to do so, but I will, if I may, pay tribute to the women who have contacted me during this campaign. They are the most decent, the most honourable and the most well-mannered campaigners I have ever had the pleasure, or not, to come into contact with. They have been fabulous. For completeness, I will read out the petition, which I am afraid is rather long.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Southampton Itchen,
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.
[P001969]
HS2 Ltd: Communication and Engagement
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise, in what will be a slightly lengthened Adjournment debate, the subject of the effectiveness of communication and engagement by HS2 Ltd.
I welcome the Minister to the Front Bench. I think this is the first time he has had the joy of responding to a debate on HS2 that I have secured. I hope that he will be in his place for many years to come to respond to future such debates. I have great hopes that his response will be full and encouraging, both to my constituents and to many others up and down the line of phase 1 of HS2.
I thank Buckinghamshire County Council and my local parish councils in particular for their input into the debate, for their perseverance and for their work for greater mitigation in our area; I extend those thanks to local authorities up and down the line, which have worked tirelessly to try to mitigate the damage to their areas.
I am one of the few MPs along the route of phase 1 with the privilege of the freedom of the Back Benches to speak on these matters. It would be remiss of me not to thank my colleagues up and down the line who have had an input into the debate. I pay particular tribute to their researchers, who do so much work on HS2. The burden has fallen disproportionately on our offices as MPs. Although she has absolutely no idea that I am going to do so, I pay tribute to Kate Fairhurst in my office, who has done tremendous work in co-ordinating and working on this subject for a long time.
I am particularly disappointed still to be facing the prospect of having to raise the quality and standard of HS2’s communications and engagement, which have made this project a very difficult one for my constituents in Chesham and Amersham in particular. They have found it difficult to deal with in the past, and I am afraid it still fills them with dread for the years to come.
It would be unfair if I did not recognise some of the efforts that HS2 Ltd has made recently to try to improve its communications. Indeed, it has done so in some instances—for example, the introduction of local engagement managers. But that is too little, too late, and must be set against the background of the scars of communications in previous years, which have left a deep-rooted history of poor engagement along phase 1.
It is fair to say that that has resulted in an atmosphere of mistrust among many of our constituents, up and down the line, along with a great feeling that there is a complete lack of empathy from HS2 Ltd and the people who work for it. In the words of one of my constituents, its
“record is poor and they have been talking about more engagement for months, but for the local affected resident at the coalface, it’s hard to spot any change”.
I understand that that view is replicated in the constituencies of many of my affected colleagues. For an organisation with such an enormous operation and rapidly expanding workforce, I think the Minister would agree that this is unacceptable and requires addressing with senior personnel and at ministerial level.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) recently wrote to the chairman of HS2 Ltd to convey her concern that her constituents were not being adequately communicated with, ahead of their petitions to the House of Lords Select Committee. That caused undue frustration. She asked me to introduce that into my speech this evening, because she is at an HS2 meeting herself and is unable to be here.
In the course of preparing for this debate, I have been contacted by Chalfont St Giles parish council, which reports that HS2’s original attempts at engagement, in the form of focus groups, did little to allay the fears of the local population. It was felt that they were entirely controlled by HS2. The council felt that the community events were designed to promote the project, rather than to engage effectively with those who were most affected. It reported to me that HS2 personnel seemed uninterested in tapping into the wealth of local knowledge, which could have helped HS2’s work hugely, in places such as Chalfont St Giles. This point is echoed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden, who feels that more positive solutions could have been generated if HS2 had just listened and utilised local expertise.
I do not know whether the Minister has had the chance to study the design panel for HS2. It is full of the great and the good, with some marvellous members, including leading stars in the worlds of architecture and design. However, what is not as obvious is the local input that we were promised. We were promised that the design of this project would rely on local input to help to get the best possible solutions in areas as the line goes through them.
I think it is fair to say that the earlier community forums are considered to have been disastrous. Great Missenden parish council felt the engagement was part of a tick-box exercise by HS2, which was unable to provide the detail that residents and constituents want. Residents tell me that they think HS2 is going through the motions during community engagement. That is not good enough. For them to come out of the community engagements thinking that it was a one-way-only, top-down discussion, reflects very badly on the quality, content, thought and input that goes into them. The situation was summed up in a recent comment by a parish councillor in Great Missenden:
“The parishioners have no real knowledge of what is happening; in fact, most still believe that HS2 will not happen. This is not democratic. In fact, it is bordering on a dictatorship.”
It is sad that after six or seven years that is how residents feel following an attempt at engagement with the community.
This poor engagement will continue to cause problems with the progress of HS2’s work. As I understand it, there was a fracas at Fairford Leys recently, when HS2 omitted fully to communicate to residents that it would be accessing a site for groundworks. I am told that households were leafleted only after the work had commenced.
I am very pleased to see the Leader of the House of Commons, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), in his place. I know he shares my concern that this kind of incident is a very worrying precedent for the future. I ask the Minister to familiarise himself with these interactions and to seek improvement. This sort of work is going to multiply and increase dramatically in the coming months. I do not want to see any repeat of this type of incident, which actually comes from poor communication.
The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) became so exasperated with HS2 Ltd’s poor communication that she personally delivered more than 1,000 leaflets explaining to residents in Brent how the construction of a vent shaft would affect their homes. It really is a sad indictment when a hard-pressed, stretched Member of Parliament has to do the job of an organisation in receipt of such vast sums of taxpayers’ money and do the communications on behalf of the project.
Construction is due to begin next year, as the Minister will know. Not only are construction timetables not yet available to residents, but the newly appointed construction commissioner will apparently be unable to intervene in individual cases. The newly appointed, interim construction commissioner came to see me in my office. I have to say that I still question his independence, particularly when I am told that any correspondence should be sent to HS2’s office. That hardly gives the impression that that commissioner is totally independent from HS2. I said to him—and I think this is fair—that my constituents and others deserve to be informed of what is happening well in advance of construction works. At the moment, if they want to find out anything, they have to ring an HS2 helpdesk, and they have no information about who exactly they are dealing with and no named person to deal with. HS2 can honestly be said to have not taken a proactive approach to engagement with the community, but is relying on a reactive strategy, putting the onus on the very people who are adversely affected by the plans.
To pursue this issue, I have invited the construction commissioner to attend the HS2 compensation and mitigation forum, a group in the House that was founded by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) back in 2012. I hope the construction commissioner will come to our next meeting in a few weeks’ time and reassure us that communication on construction matters, not least with MPs and their offices but also with our constituents, will be a priority. I would like to ask the Minister now whether he will talk with the newly appointed, interim independent construction commissioner and try to ensure that when he arrives at that meeting he has more to tell us that we can pass on to our constituents than when he first came for his courtesy call on me last week.
When there is one commissioner, another commissioner always comes along, and in this case it is the residents commissioner. We all welcomed the appointment of the residents commissioner last year, who we thought was there to assist specifically with communication. I have met her several times. I have to say that she is a thoroughly nice woman and I am always encouraged by her intentions. However, the reality is that the impact is very low. First, the Minister should be aware that she, too, does not appear to be independent. She reports to the HS2 chairman, she is paid by HS2 Ltd and she sits in its offices. Again, that does not strike me as an independent operation. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority certainly does not sit in the House of Commons, but instead sits down the road and is truly seen to be independent. It is nothing to do with MPs, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker; in fact, it seeks to regulate what MPs do in their expenses.
Secondly, the residents commissioner only makes recommendations to the chairman. They are in no way enforceable. That seems to me to be pretty weak and to lack teeth. Thirdly, she cannot intervene in individual cases either, which prompts the ongoing question of who my constituents can go to when problems arise. Of course, they go to their MP, and, as we have heard, when MPs have to distribute leaflets with information about a Government project, their offices become only too hard pressed and the burden that disproportionately falls upon them becomes quite tremendous.
The result is a lack of confidence. Residents along the line do not have the confidence that the residents commissioner is a credible independent figure, and thus her role to scrutinise HS2’s communications has, I believe, so far been pretty ineffective. I stress that it is no reflection on her individually. The problem comes from the job and the description that has been given to her and from the approach that HS2 has to this project, which has always been, “We’re doing it whatever; we have the mandate to do it, and you are just getting in the way.” That is the message that has come across to our constituents. When it comes to those two commissioners, it is fair to say that constituents feel that all roads lead to HS2, which is effectively both judge and jury in all circumstances.
I do not know whether the Minister has had a chance to read it, but in March this year the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, on which I happen to sit, produced a report on HS2’s communications, following the damning report on its communications by the parliamentary and health services ombudsman. The ombudsman determined that HS2’s actions towards a community in Staffordshire had constituted maladministration. The Committee concluded that “the necessary fundamental changes” had not taken place, and that
“the continuing existence of a culture of defensive communication and misinformation within a public body, responsible for the delivery of such a large and highly controversial project, is not acceptable”.
I think you would agree with me, Mr Deputy Speaker, that that is not acceptable.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) has been working alongside Jonathan and Elaine Loescher and the wider community at the heart of the ombudsman’s report for some time now, and in spite of them receiving an apology by HS2 Ltd, the Loeschers have contacted me—and I have been in contact with my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth—to say that very little has changed in practice. HS2 Ltd’s treatment of residents remains poor; it simply does not prioritise community engagement. In fact, there is no one to hold its feet to the fire or to ensure that HS2 Ltd fulfils its responsibilities to residents. Sometimes it feels as if I am the only person holding its feet to the fire on many issues.
I do not know whether the Minister is aware of it, but only a couple of weeks ago, HS2 advertised for four newly qualified graduates to work for six months, at salaries up to approximately £30,000—I am quoting from the advert—to “write the story” of HS2. I have been a Minister, and it sounds to me that the record-keeping in the Department and in HS2 Ltd is so poor that they do not know how they have got to where they have got to, so they are bringing people in to do some forensic analysis to try to dig out the policy. Frankly, that is not good enough, and it reflects some of the chaos that I see from the outside as being evidence of what is happening in the organisation.
Ultimately, the two commissioners—the construction commissioner and the residents commissioner—have been put in place to hold HS2 to account, and I do not think that the drafting of those jobs and the way in which their remit will operate in each case is going to fit into the Bill. I know that I bang on a bit about HS2 from time to time, but I and others have put considerable thought into the amendments tabled to the Bill, which is currently in the House of Lords.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
My right hon. Friend may well bang on and on, but she has many admirers in this place for doing so on such an important issue. My constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) are going to be affected by phase 2a, so I encourage her to go on banging on.
Mrs Gillan
I am grateful for the break in proceedings and for that kind intervention by my hon. Friend. As I have said before, it is never possible to over-flatter a politician! I feel passionately about this issue, as do many others, and if I have the freedom to speak, I am very happy to reflect the views of others. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) has himself worked very hard on trying to mitigate this scheme. In fact, I am now alongside two Staffordshire Members. I am second to none in my admiration for the support that I have had from my colleagues who, I think, feel as strongly as I do.
At the time of Third Reading, I tabled amendments proposing the introduction of an adjudicator—an independent regulatory body that could deal with complaints swiftly and fairly. People who are affected by the scheme would have confidence and faith in such a body, and I think that it is still badly needed. I urge the Minister to think about the amendments again before Royal Assent, to accept them and to try to create a body that would give confidence and faith to the people who are being so badly affected.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) is aware, we have a serious problem in our part of Staffordshire. What my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) is suggesting would help enormously to deal with the frequent complaints about the manner in which HS2 Ltd is operating, which is causing local people enormous anxiety. I shall be seeing some of them over the weekend to discuss these very questions. I am deeply grateful to my right hon. Friend, and totally endorse her proposal.
Mrs Gillan
I thank my hon. Friend for what he says. We spent some time drafting the amendments, and some serious and senior legal brains were brought to bear. The Minister is new to his post, so he might not be as familiar with this project as the rest of us, and this would be a good opportunity for him to review my proposal. Then at least I would feel that it had been examined and considered before being rejected, whereas at the moment I feel that the proposal was rejected out of hand because it came from someone whose constituency was affected so badly by the scheme.
I am astounded by the lack of information that HS2 Ltd has about communications. I do not know whether the Minister has had a chance to look at the answers that have been supplied to my written questions over the past fortnight. In preparation for the debate, I asked for the annual budgets for communication and engagement by HS2 Ltd since 2010. The response stated that the figures could not be provided, as
“the amount of time spent on communication and engagement activity is not centrally tracked.”
I am astounded that, in spite of all the external criticism and scrutiny of its poor communications, HS2 Ltd is not even keeping track of what it is spending, how it is spending, and who is doing what.
Sir William Cash
The cost of HS2 started at £30 billion, then rose to £50 billion, and is now increasing further. According to the latest estimates from all the experts, it is rising exponentially. One can imagine that it might end up being £80 billion or even more, in which case it would cost more than Hinkley Point, the Heathrow development and a development at Gatwick, if that were also to take place. We are talking about a payment of massive sums for what many people regard as a badly thought out project that will cause a great deal of anxiety and trouble.
Mrs Gillan
It is a case of the three Hs: Hinkley, Heathrow, and HS2; and the greatest of them all is HS2. The Minister has probably heard me say this before, but I still think that the project is so gargantuan that it deserves to be overseen by a dedicated Minister who would keep an eye on it. A sum of £80 billion is larger than the budgets of many Departments of State. It is absurd to think that five Secretaries of State and as many Ministers have overseen this project over a comparatively short period. The lack of continuity is ridiculous. Now we have lost the chief executive, of course, who is going to Rolls-Royce. We have an interim chief executive—Mr Hill, I believe—who comes from CH2M, which has just received a bonus from HS2 for some of its works, and I believe is still in the running to bid for contracts. The arm’s length relationship with contractors does not seem to have been maintained in the current circumstances.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire asked me to raise particular communications flaws in the need-to-sell scheme. Apparently, constituents still find it difficult to speak to a named lead on their case and cannot retrieve information from HS2 Ltd until they have made an application. On Tuesday, in reply to a written question inquiring about the effectiveness of the scheme, the responding Minister told me that it was operating fairly and as intended. That is certainly not reflected in my right hon. Friend’s remarks to me, so that is worth looking into. I hope that the Minister will respond positively to that.
I will not go into the inadequacy of the legislative process through which the HS2 Bill is being put through this House and the House of Lords. That is a matter for another time but, needless to say, the process itself causes a great deal of confusion and consternation. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) raised with me the excellent point that better communication and provision of information would have negated the need for the House of Commons Select Committee to hear so many petitions. Constructive engagement beforehand could have promoted a dialogue away from the Committee Room, and thus speeded up the passage of the Bill. I think that people felt the only way they could communicate with HS2 Ltd was by depositing a petition and coming along in person to make their case.
I also wish to highlight the poor practice of corridor deals during the Select Committee process. The relocation of the construction haul road in Great Missenden in my constituency was agreed in principle between Buckinghamshire County Council and HS2 Ltd in such a deal. The promise by the promoter altered the evidence given thereafter in Committee and, as it stands, the pledge has not been fulfilled.
The nature of these corridor deals means that vital discussions are not transparent and assurances cannot be enforced. In this case, my constituents feel they are left in a very uncertain and unclear position as to HS2’s intentions towards a traffic management plan that will have an enormous local impact at Great Missenden.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam also asked me to raise the unsatisfactory fact that constituents need to resort to submitting freedom of information requests to obtain meaningful and detailed information. Once again, such information should have been available from HS2 Ltd at the outset, and it is a great shame that it does not display greater transparency. It must understand that I, as an MP—I think I am speaking for my hon. Friends in the Chamber with an interest in the matter—have always approached this on a twin-track basis. If I could not persuade the Government that this was not the scheme in the right place at the right time, and going to the right places, I would be working hard to mitigate its effect on my constituency, and especially on the area of outstanding natural beauty. However, it always seems to me that HS2 thinks that MPs are working against it, yet if this scheme is going to go through, we will have to accept that, but we need to work with HS2 to improve the outcomes for the people we represent.
Jeremy Lefroy
Phase 2a has not reached Parliament yet, but the effects of blight are felt by my constituents, as they are by those of my hon. Friends the Members for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), for Stone (Sir William Cash), for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson). These constituents feel that they are not being given the necessary support for planning if they will have to move house. Some of my constituents’ homes will be demolished in phase 2a, but they are being told that because parliamentary consent for that phase has not been given—the matter is not even before Parliament—nothing can be done, even though they have to make plans over the next four or five years to build a new house. Has my right hon. Friend come across such instances?
Mrs Gillan
What is so depressing is the fact that the lessons from phase 1 that we have tried to point out do not seem to have been learned, and the mistakes are being repeated in phase 2. The burden of supplementing HS2’s poor performance has certainly fallen disproportionately on local authorities. I am fearful about the next part of the process and the planning that will follow, because there will be more and more burdens on our local authorities, whose budgets—let’s face it—are stretched as it is.
Sir William Cash
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford implied, the fact is that whatever is decided regarding the current Bill as it goes through the House of Lords will inevitably be applied as a precedent for the next Bill. That is why we need to follow closely what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham says. I congratulate her on doing everything possible to get this right now.
Mrs Gillan
Separately from giving evidence and making recommendations on how we should change the procedures of the House, I think that everyone would agree that it is inequitable that our Standing Orders prevent Members of Parliament from appearing as petitioners in the other place. The Chairman of the Committee had no choice but to interpret the Standing Orders in that way, but to remove the right of advocacy from Members of Parliament seems self-defeating and inadequate, and I am sure that Members of both Houses will want that to change.
The burden on local authorities, especially in relation to communications, has been astronomical. The leader of Buckinghamshire County Council told the House of Lords HS2 Select Committee on Monday that the council had spent £110,264 in 2015-16 on community liaison relating to HS2. That was entirely to cover for HS2’s poor communications. The council has asked for retrospective compensation to recover those costs, which I think is entirely reasonable. I hope that the Minister will agree to that request. If he cannot do so at the Dispatch Box today, perhaps he will do me the courtesy of looking into the matter to see how we can compensate our local authorities.
I would like the Minister to note that I find it incredible that a county council can provide actual figures for communication and community engagement, down to the last pound, whereas HS2 Ltd cannot do so. Indeed, the county council has since incurred further costs in assisting HS2 Ltd’s groundwork investigations, as its staff are consistently used to help to mediate between HS2 Ltd and residents when intentions to access land have not been adequately communicated. HS2 Ltd could and should be doing that job satisfactorily on its own, if only it had the will. Prior to the introduction of the local engagement managers, local authorities were expected to plug the gap in communication and to provide residents with information that was not readily available from HS2 Ltd. The Minister should bear in mind the fact that that was all done at the councils’ own expense.
It is not just local authorities, parish councils and residents that are affected in this way; HS2 Ltd’s poor engagement reaches into a wider constituency. I have been contacted by the Woodland Trust, which reports that it has not been engaged on the independent review of biodiversity, as recommended in the House of Commons Select Committee, and that it might now have to petition the House of Lords without the information it needs. It also tells me that information regarding third-party planning applications has not been forthcoming from HS2 Ltd, and that that has caused unacceptable delays in compensation payments. A project of this size that brings with it such a heavy burden on our environment, in particular the violation of the AONB in the Chilterns, really should ensure that it deals with the detail and follows up with the environmental organisations that are trying to help to mitigate the project’s impact on the environment.
I ask the Minister to take note of the ongoing communication failures and to ensure that he will make sorting them out his priority. This catalogue of errors has considerably hindered HS2 Ltd’s operation—it is the company’s fault—and is costing the taxpayer even more money. The Minister needs to consider creating a scrutiny body with teeth to hold the organisation to account, especially with construction fast approaching.
HS2 Ltd needs a better attitude towards the affected people. When I was preparing for this debate, I thought of two main themes that I wanted to leave with the Minister. First, I want to ensure that there is an overhaul of the communication and engagement strategy and the attitudes of HS2 Ltd. That should be considered at the highest level of the Department for Transport. Secondly, echoing the interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), I want to ensure that this communication calamity never happens again. Residents who received substandard treatment during phase 1 should be the exception, not the rule. If residents are going to be treated the same way under phase 2, the taxpayer will be paying even more for the project than is anticipated.
We have to reconsider how we do major infrastructure projects. We had an announcement this week on Heathrow, which I welcomed because it will be of economic benefit to Buckinghamshire, my constituency and my residents. We finally got a decision after the Davies commission and years of investigation—the project has been examined from every angle. HS2, however, was written on the back of an envelope by a Labour Transport Minister and immediately adopted by the coalition Government. All those processes were not followed. One system is far too long and the other is far too short. We need to find a way of ensuring that our infrastructure projects are the right projects in the right places, and that communications and engagement are of the highest standard, otherwise greater problems will emerge as such projects progress.
I do not usually talk at such great length and did not realise that I was going to have the luxury of taking so many interventions. I thank my colleagues in the Chamber for their support today, particularly those who must remain silent. I hope that the Minister will assure me that he will use his influence radically to re-evaluate how HS2 Ltd deals with our constituents, and that he will embed a culture of respect, transparency, openness and improved communications.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) on securing this debate on the effectiveness of the communication and engagement undertaken by HS2 Ltd. I must begin by acknowledging her tireless work, which has had a measurable effect on the Government’s approach. She also highlighted the communications problems that have been a part of the project to date, about which I have heard not only from my right hon. Friend today, and previously, but from other colleagues around the House. The main thing that she asked of me in her closing remarks was whether I would undertake to look at the communication thus far and improve it. I can assure her on that right now, and I will go into this in a bit more detail.
Let me start by putting the HS2 project into context. I know that we might disagree on this, but I believe that HS2 is a vital strategic issue for our whole country. Our rail industry is a huge success and—
Andrew Jones
Our rail industry is a huge success, and that growth is causing huge problems for the capacity of the network. We need to put capacity into the network, which is what HS2 is about. We need to recognise that it will bring connectivity and capacity on the vital routes between London and the west midlands, Crewe, Leeds, Manchester, south Yorkshire and the east midlands. It will also create space on our networks for other new routes, and give a boost to our regional and national economies. It is vital for the jobs it will create.
Sir William Cash
I know that the Minister is only using those things as a backdrop to the points he is going to deal with in a moment on the specifics that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) so ably put forward. Will he accept, however, that report after report has challenged the assumptions on which he has just made his remarks? Although the vote in the House of Commons demonstrated a huge majority for the project, the reports that have been coming out over the past few years have universally condemned the project, on cost and increasing cost grounds, and on many of the assumptions on which he has just put forward his case.
Andrew Jones
It would be a little extreme to say that all the reports that have been written on this project are universally condemning it—I do not believe that to be the case. I recognise that some voices have cast doubts upon the project, or have said that we should be doing a different project or that there could be an alternative use of public money, but there is now real momentum behind this project, which had overwhelming support in this House, with the votes on Second and Third Reading of the phase 1 hybrid Bill being passed by nine to one in favour.
When construction begins next year, attitudes will change on this again. We intend to start construction shortly after Royal Assent, which we anticipate will be towards Christmas or in January, depending on the progress that their lordships make; the commencement of work should be in the spring. At that point, the debate will change. It will not be about whether or not we should be doing this project, but about how we can maximise its benefits, because this project is going to happen. When the construction does start, HS2 will rapidly become the largest infrastructure project in Europe. A project of the scale, complexity and duration of HS2’s nature requires engagement across many communities, organisations and individuals.
Mrs Gillan
Having just confirmed the scale and complexity of the project, does the Minister agree that it would be sensible to have a dedicated Minister for it, as it is of such size that it needs supervising closely? It is clearly out of control at the moment.
Andrew Jones
I would not say this project is out of control. The apportionment of responsibilities is mercifully way above my pay grade, but I am thoroughly enjoying having responsibility for this project, because it is an exciting one that will transform our rail industry. It is our long overdue recognition that we need to start taking responsibility for our own transport futures. We are still trading off Victorian infrastructure, which shows not only how significant the ambitions of our Victorian forefathers were, but how we need to address the situation and take responsibility for ourselves.
Let me get back to my point about the scale of the project. We are dealing with a project of enormous scale, complexity and duration, and we are talking about one of the largest communications and engagements challenges ever undertaken on an infrastructure project in this country. On a project of this scale, we cannot leave the communications and engagement to chance. The Government and those who enact the policies of the Government, such as HS2 Ltd, have a duty to communicate clearly and openly with everyone, but above all with those on whom Government policies may impact and, in some cases, disadvantage. All of that takes time, resources and professionalism. Above all, the underlying attitude has to be to treat individuals and communities with respect. That point underpinned many of the remarks of my right hon. Friend. It is very disappointing to hear that there are huge concerns about this, and that people feel that that has not happened. I personally undertake to take all the points from today’s debate to HS2 Ltd, and to have further conversation about them, because the attitude that has been described is unacceptable and will have to change.
Jeremy Lefroy
l very much respect the attitude of the Minister towards the project and this debate. Will he also mention to HS2 another concern of my constituents, which is that when they are suffering from great stress as a result of this project—we are talking about some fairly elderly folk—there is no particular provision for them at their local GP surgeries to receive some kind of additional counselling to help them overcome it?
Andrew Jones
I will most certainly look into that. My hon. Friend always speaks up as a great champion for his constituency, particularly in health matters, and I am happy to take his point forward.
Communication and professionalism are the principles that HS2 must apply, but not in a profligate way. We have taken a very positive and conservative approach to publicly funded communications under this Government and the coalition Government. Basically, I am talking about doing more without spending more. By 2015, we were actually spending 47% less on communications than six years previously. HS2 must be focused in its communication.
It might just help if I explain some of the things that have happened before talking about the future. Over the past few years, HS2 Ltd has delivered what has been estimated as the largest public consultation that we have ever had in this country. Through public events, exhibitions and information boards, the company has engaged with more than 30,000 people. The High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill Select Committee has heard more than 1,578 petitions, compared with 205 petitions for the Crossrail Bill. Overall, HS2 Ltd estimates that it has interacted with more than 140,000 people, received 80,000 consultation responses, dealt with 37,000 helpdesk inquiries, engaged with 20,000 people at meetings and events and, last year, sent out approximately 396,000 pieces of literature.
All of that says to me that there are things happening in scale, but all of the concerns that have been articulated by my right hon. Friend indicate that we have much further to go in this piece.
Sir William Cash
As my hon. Friend will know, the word consultation means “I hear what you say”, but it does not mean that “I will do what you ask”. In fact, the attitude that has been highlighted by my right hon. and hon. Friends, and that I have had personal experience of, is that people are listened to, but then nothing much happens after that. That is called communication, not consultation.
Andrew Jones
My hon. Friend makes a legitimate point. Consultation in the worst cases can simply be a tick-box exercise—a process that has to be undertaken for lots of different elements of public policy or for planning applications. That is not good enough, but during the progress of the Bill, we have seen many changes in the original proposals, the consultation and the route and the communication around it. We are not in that place where people are just going through the exercise and not listening, but I do not want people to think that their voices will not be heard. We must ensure that people recognise that their views are respected. That goes back to my earlier point about ensuring that, underpinning everything, there is an attitude of openness and respect for individuals.
Mrs Gillan
I am sure the Minister will—he has a good 20 minutes, and he thought he was going to have only 10, so he has plenty of time.
Yes, in my area, for example, we have had route changes, but the proposal that HS2 should come up in the middle of the football pitch in the middle of Old Amersham was geologically incompetent, and it had to be changed because it was impossible for it to come up in that particular area, so they moved it along to Mantles wood. However, the change was made by the Select Committee here in the House of Commons on additional provision 4, so it was not HS2 or the Department that were listening; it was actually the House of Commons Select Committee—our colleagues—that was listening and made changes. We in the Chilterns area would still like further tunnelling to protect the valuable and fragile landscape. However, that is rapidly diminishing into the great beyond and is impossible, but I am hoping that, maybe, the Minister will give me encouragement that he is listening and that he could achieve that for us.
Andrew Jones
I am, indeed, listening. I am not entirely sure that I can promise extra tunnelling in the Chilterns—that was a very big ask. We have, as a House, and through this project, been over that ground in some detail. However, the point remains that consultations are to genuinely listen to local input so that projects can be improved, whichever part of our public services it is. That cannot mean that everybody gets what they want—that is not possible—but it certainly means that people should be treated with respect and that it is not just a tick-box exercise.
The point about the numbers I was going through earlier is that there is already scale to what is happening. These are big numbers, but the big numbers have to be backed by practical help. In April 2014, an improved assistance package for property owners close to the route was announced. I would stress that the Government are committed to fairly compensating land and property owners directly affected by HS2. Most large infrastructure projects compensate property owners only when statutory compensation measures apply. Given the time it will take to develop HS2, which is a most unique project, the Government recognise that earlier discretionary schemes help those property owners who are most severely affected by the proposals.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) raised the point about those most affected by blight in phase 2a. They can submit a blight notice, and that means, potentially, face value for property—10% homeowner’s payment and costs. I will write to my hon. Friend with details of that so he can pass those on to his constituents and anybody else who may contact him.
Residents with properties on the full phase 1 and phase 2a routes currently have access to a package of compensation measures and assistance. Overall, these are available much more widely than for other infrastructure projects, and, indeed, offer more choice. We intend to bring forward proposals for long-term property compensation and assistance schemes when the HS2 phase 2b announcement is made later this year.
The need-to-sell scheme is, I believe, operating fairly. I will of course pick up the points my right hon. Friend mentioned. We already have updated guidance to reflect learning from the scheme since its inception in January last year. In particular, a change made earlier this year allows a successful applicant to choose one of the two initial valuers, either from HS2 Ltd’s pool or any Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors-registered valuer. While that change is recent, initial results show fewer properties need further valuations to determine their fair price. That is an issue the right hon. Lady has raised, and I am grateful to her for her contribution. It was alluded to by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, when he talked about how increased and improved communication may have mitigated the need for more petitions as the Bill progressed.
A residents’ charter has been introduced setting out clear commitments by HS2 Ltd to local communities. Through the charter, HS2 Ltd pledges to communicate plainly; respond to inquiries quickly and efficiently; and promote awareness of all discretionary property schemes. Holding HS2 Ltd to the standards of the charter is the independent residents commissioner Deborah Fazan. I have met her already, and I intend to have a regular series of meetings with her and, indeed, others, to make sure they are taking up and following through any issues raised with me by colleagues.
HS2 Ltd has introduced a robust, verified complaints-handling process which includes an independent review stage that meets ISO 9001—the nationally accredited standard. The real prize, of course, is to avoid as far as possible giving cause for complaint. That means building HS2 carefully and correctly. An environmental statement accompanied the introduction of the hybrid Bill, and further environmental statements have accompanied the additional provisions considered by the Select Committee. Changes made in the Select Committee mean less land take, more noise barriers, and longer tunnels. On the latter point, I again acknowledge the successful campaigning by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham to lengthen the tunnel through her constituency.
Sir William Cash
It has been brought to my attention that there have been proposals for tunnelling through sand and gravel, and that in such circumstances an enormous of time will be wasted given that it is not possible to do that because it just falls in.
Andrew Jones
I am not a geologist, but I am aware of concerns about the ground conditions on the route for phase 1 and phase 2a. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) has highlighted the challenges regarding salt mines. These issues will be tackled in full and in detail by geologists. I recognise the challenges involved in a project with significant tunnelling, but, as a country, we have learned more about that through the progress made on Crossrail.
My right hon. Friend has made very clear the frustrations of not only her constituents but those of her colleagues’ constituents. HS2 Ltd acknowledges that it has not always got communications right, as we know. It did not in the case of Flats Lane near Lichfield, as the parliamentary and health service ombudsman’s report and the inquiry by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee laid bare. I am not here to make excuses for the company. We must deal with all those affected with fairness, and fairness requires the highest standards of engagement. I believe that HS2 is an organisation that is learning, and it needs to learn and improve over time. Communications on phase 2 reflect the lessons of past engagement. I cannot correct what has happened before, but I can seek to learn from it, to make sure that the company has learned from it, and to correct and improve things for the future. Much has taken place and much more is planned.
On phase 2a, HS2 Ltd has seen 2,184 people at 13 information events held this month and last month, as well as numerous meetings with parish councils and action groups. It has also met individuals directly and indirectly affected by the 2a line of route. In addition, 1,487 people have been seen at phase 2a property events this year, and 1,442 were seen in 2015. On phase 2b, the company has already seen 6,458 people at nine information events held in South Yorkshire, plus a further 123 at appointment events. For me, that shows how much demand for information there is from the public. They know that this is a big deal, and they need to know what it means for them. High-level communication has to be at the core of a successful project. Following a decision on the phase 2b route, the company has plans for a series of further engagement events, details of which will be made known once confirmed.
Vital as good engagement on phase 2 is, the first phase of HS2 is poised at a significant threshold—the start of construction. HS2 Ltd will specify the behaviours it expects of its contractors in their engagement with residents and communities. For contractors working on HS2, key performance indicators on community engagement will form part of their contracts, and HS2 Ltd will measure their approach to this. The phase that we are entering will see many more people working not just on HS2 but all through the HS2 supply chain. The number of potential interactions between members of the public and the project will therefore increase. It is important to note that this is not just an HS2 Ltd issue; it is an HS2 Ltd and supply chain issue.
Mrs Gillan
One of the key things I have tried to put across during this debate is the fact that people do not have confidence in HS2 or in the independent commissioners who are supposed to represent their interests if things go wrong. Does the Minister agree that for HS2 to have an interim chief executive who comes from a contractor that has already received contracts from HS2, and that is now bidding for further contracts from HS2, makes it look as though there is a conflict of interest? Does the Minister agree that it hardly engenders confidence in the public that the project is being anything other than steamrollered through by people who are connected and who do not share the best interests of those who are affected by the scheme? Is that a relationship that the Minister is happy with? I think that there is a conflict of interest.
Andrew Jones
We sought to make sure that the project continued in its critical phase of delivery when Mr Kirby left to join Rolls-Royce. People leave companies all the time. He had a very good offer to go into Rolls-Royce, and he has taken it. “Man leaves company” is not necessarily news, but it would be news if the project faltered. We seek to secure continuity of delivery while we engage in a full and open recruitment process for a replacement for Mr Kirby.
I understand all the points that have been made about trust and communication. Trust is easy to lose and difficult to gain. As the project develops, the company will simply have to work much harder to rebuild trust. It takes ages to rebuild something that can be lost in a moment. As I have said, we cannot correct what has happened in the past. I know that there are frustrations from communities, councils and colleagues here. We have to learn from them and put in place measures in HS2 and the HS2 supply chain, with a means of appeal. We can come on to the commissioners in a moment. Those have to be the principles by which we can plan for the future. The company is developing its plans for working with contractors to deliver engagement plans for each area, and they will be captured in a public code of construction practice.
An announcement will be made shortly on HS2 Ltd’s appointment of a director of community engagement, who will answer directly to the CEO. In addition, HS2 Ltd has recruited engagement managers for the phase 1 route, and their numbers have increased from six earlier this year to 26 today. They will be the main points of contact for local communities and will be responsible for acting on the concerns of those communities. Moreover, the engagement managers will be responsible for ensuring that the issues that are raised with them are addressed by HS2 Ltd in a timely and open manner.
As a statutory undertaker, HS2 Ltd has been required to appoint an independent construction commissioner. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham highlighted her meeting with Gareth Epps, who was appointed to the role on an interim basis in July. His is an interim role, but we envisage that it will increase after Royal Assent. It would be inappropriate to start adding to the cost base by allocating offices and taking on staff until we have clear Royal Assent. We intend to make sure that that role is independent and away from HS2 Ltd.
Sir William Cash
I want to use this opportunity to register my concern, about which I am writing to the persons responsible, regarding the temporary construction facility of a railhead near Stone, in my constituency, which will affect Swynnerton, Eccleshall and Stone itself—as well as Yarnfield, of course, which is where I am going on Saturday. I just thought I would get that on the record so that the Minister could pass on that message to the people he is talking about.
Andrew Jones
That message is now firmly on the record. It is inevitable that when projects of great scale arrive in any area, they will attract enormous public interest, public concern and, in many cases, public enthusiasm. We need to make sure that we get this right, and Members of Parliament have an important role as a natural place for a resident who is concerned about a national policy initiative to go.
The construction commissioner will mediate in unresolved disputes between HS2 Ltd and individuals or bodies, including under a planned small claims scheme. He will also monitor complaints and advise on how to reduce them where possible, and he will scrutinise HS2 Ltd and the community engagement work of its contractors, to provide a clear steer for the company. As I have said, following Royal Assent we expect it to become a permanent role, and I intend to have regular contact so that I am fully informed of any issues up and down the line.
I have alluded to the variety of communities and groups with an interest in HS2. The company understands the importance of a tailored approach. Its equality, diversity and inclusion team is at the forefront of engaging with harder-to-reach communities, including perhaps those with a language barrier. There have been concerns in the Camden area, for instance. That highlights the importance of local representatives, so local government has a significant role to play in HS2.
HS2 Ltd provides briefing sessions for local authority elected members and chief officers, and it meets, briefs and seeks input from them. I have met authority leaders in Birmingham and Manchester in the past few days. They are looking at the project in a very encouraging and exciting way and are considering how they will be able to redevelop their areas when the project lands. However, it is not just about redevelopment; it is also about construction work. HS2 Ltd, local authorities and other bodies, such as Highways England, have to engage properly in order to plan the building process effectively.
Mrs Gillan
Will the Minister give an undertaking that he will look at my amendments relating to the adjudicator?
Andrew Jones
I am coming to that and the answer is yes.
HS2 Ltd also has to engage with business organisations, to ensure that they know how to take advantage of the opportunities provided by HS2. I want HS2 to be a project that is from the UK for the UK, with UK contractors bidding for and winning business.
This is a project that matters to everyone, and I believe that it is in the national interest. Of course, it matters particularly to those whom it directly affects, and doing what is right by them includes excellent communications and engagement. That is what I and, most importantly, those along the route are entitled to expect from HS2, and it has given me that commitment. It is seeking to learn and build on what has happened before.
I will visit the HS2 offices in Birmingham shortly to review the community engagement plans. I will sit down with the team to discuss them and I will go through all the points that have been made by colleagues today. I can certainly provide an undertaking to review the amendments, as requested by my right hon. Friend. I will also consider her point about compensation to local authorities and write to her.
The point that I really want to make is that we cannot correct the past. This is a project that is happening. I believe that it is exciting and necessary and that it will transform our rail industry and provide a huge opportunity to regenerate large swathes of big cities across our country. Ultimately, I believe that it is a project that we will be proud of as a nation, but we have to make sure that we deal with the issues that have been raised, including building trust and communicating better. I can certainly give colleagues the undertaking that they can raise issues with me and that I will then take them up with HS2 right away. I want to make sure that, from the moment we set about building the project and right along the length of its line, people are treated with openness and respect, and that through that we can build the trust that has been missing, as judged from the comments of colleagues today.
Question put and agreed to.
Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (Third sitting)
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 3 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 1—Impact review: automatic enrolment and pensions savings—
“(1) HMRC must review the impact of Lifetime ISAs on workplace pensions automatic enrolment and pensions savings within one year of this Act coming into force and every year thereafter.
(2) The conclusions of the review must be made publicly available and laid before each House of Parliament.”
This new clause would place a duty on HMRC to review annually the impact of Lifetime ISAs on automatic enrolment.
New clause 2—Lifetime ISAs: Advice for applicants—
“(1) The Secretary of State must make provision by regulations for all applicants for a Lifetime ISA to have independent financial advice regarding the decision to save in a Lifetime ISA or through a pension made available to them.
(2) Any applicant that opts in to the services offered under subsection (1) shall be given a signed declaration by that service provider outlining the financial advice that applicant has received.
(3) Any provider of a Lifetime ISA must confirm whether the applicant—
(a) intends to use the Lifetime ISA for the purposes of paragraph 7 (1)(b) of Schedule 1,
(b) has a signed declaration of financial advice under subsection (2),
(c) is enrolled on a workplace pension scheme or is self-employed.
(4) Where the provider determines that the applicant is—
(a) self-employed and does not participate in a pension scheme,
(b) not enrolled on a workplace pension scheme,
(c) does not intend to use the Lifetime ISA for the purposes of paragraph 7(1)(b) of Schedule 1, or
(d) does not have a signed declaration of financial advice under subsection (2)
the provider must provide information to the applicant about the independent financial advice available to them under subsection (1).”
This new clause would place a duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations that ensure all applicants for a Lifetime ISA receive independent financial advice.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The Opposition’s new clauses 1 and 2 are designed to address the concern expressed across the board, including by the pensions industry, the trade union movement, Select Committees of this House and the Office for Budget Responsibility, that the lifetime individual savings account poses a threat to traditional pension savings, and most significantly to auto-enrolment.
Auto-enrolment has been a success story in the pensions environment. As Members will recall, witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee had one or two things to say about LISAs. For example, some made it clear that there is concern about the LISA interfering with the roll-out of auto-enrolment. Mr Davies suggested that although few object to the LISA, there is concern about
“where it fits within the overall landscape of provision for retirement”.––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 38, Q65.]
Given that, it is incumbent on us to ensure that any reasonable concerns are assuaged. The cost to the taxpayer, certainly in the longer term, was also of concern, given that for a standard taxpayer, the LISA is tax-free going in and going out, so to speak. Mr Davies of Union Pension Services certainly alluded to that.
New clause 1 would require Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to conduct a review of the impact of the lifetime ISA on automatic enrolment in workplace pensions and pension savings within one year of the Act coming into force and every year thereafter. The conclusions of that review would have to be made publicly available and laid before both Houses of Parliament.
It is patently obviously that automatic enrolment, which was brought in by the Labour Government, is an outstanding initiative and is starting to achieve the objectives set for it as the years pass by. It has been rolled out to large businesses and is well on its way into the small business sector. That is clearly good news, as I am sure the Minister will acknowledge. I appreciate that neither she nor other Committee members are partisan on that matter. However, not all employees will be auto-enrolled until February 2018, and the increase in minimum contributions to 8% will not be completed until April 2019. Drop-out is relatively low among younger people. We do not want anything in the meantime to jeopardise the maximum possible number of people enrolling, or to provide an incentive to opt out; that is not an unreasonable position to take.
Auto-enrolment is one of the few success stories in the pension landscape, and is widely acknowledged in all sectors to be right. I fear that the Government’s policy—intentionally or not; I do not point the finger—may put the wider landscape in jeopardy and be a dangerous path, and the history of pensions suggests that that will be recognised only in years to come. By that time, it will be too late to turn back. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles highlighted on Second Reading, the OBR agrees with that assessment, and has reported that the Government’s pensions and savings policies have
“shifted incentives in a way that makes pensions saving less attractive—particularly for higher earners—and non-pension savings more attractive—often in ways that can most readily be taken up by the same higher earners.”
The Minister may respond that this is not an either/or situation, but of course she would say that. I respectfully suggest that that demonstrates a potential lack of appreciation that many people out there cannot afford to pay into both a pension and a LISA. In fact, many can do neither. The Work and Pensions Committee has warned the Government that
“Opting out of AE to save for retirement in a LISA will leave people worse off. Government messages on this issue have been mixed. While the DWP has been very clear that the LISA is not a pension product, the Treasury has proffered an alternative view.”
Those are not my words, but those of the Work and Pensions Committee. That simply affirms that there is confusion over the matter. At the very least, that is the perception abroad, and as some people say, perception is reality. If we have learned one thing over the years, it is that confusion in the market simply puts people off.
Moreover, we heard in evidence from Ms Lowe of the Women’s Budget Group that making a LISA
“available to everyone does not make it gender-neutral”—[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 51, Q96.]
She said that account had to be taken of people’s capacity to access the LISA, and in that regard, many women would be left out. That is a salutary observation.
Although Mr Bennie from Scottish Friendly supported the LISA, he recognised that people’s experience of pensions was sometime bad, which could be a problem for take up. In response to the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, he said that he recognised that for some, given their experience, pensions are a broken product. He also indicated that he saw LISAs as being complementary to a main pension, as did Ms Knight of the Tax Incentivised Saving Association, hence the Opposition’s caution about pushing on with this product without appropriate review.
It is fair to say that messing about with the pension system over the years has left people sceptical and blaming politicians for the mess. I worry that that we will be seen as messing about again, even with the best intentions. Our proposals today are a form of inoculation against the problem. The Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign is an example of a pension issue, albeit a public pension one, coming back to haunt us—or rather, it is the women concerned who are coming back to haunt us. That has shown the scepticism about pensions in general.
The Work and Pensions Committee recommended that the Government conduct urgent research into any effect of LISA on pension savings through auto-enrolment. That is another sensible bipartisan approach to the issue, which, political banter apart, is worthy of consideration by the Government. After all, the wisdom of Conservative Members on that Committee—and on this Committee—is always welcome on these matters.
Our new clause 1 would require the Government to carry out the review every year after the passing of this Bill. I hope that the Minister will consider accepting the new clause, or at least take it away for consideration.
The purpose of new clause 2 is to ensure that those opening a lifetime ISA for retirement savings receive independent financial advice. Advice is a crucial in purchasing any expensive product, be it a car, house, university education, or holiday. The advice would be offered automatically through an opt-in service, and the service provider would sign a declaration outlining the advice that the applicant received. Any provider would have to confirm the status of the applicant, whether they were enrolled in a workplace pension scheme, whether they had signed a declaration of financial advice, and whether they plan to use the lifetime ISA for a first-time residential purchase. The Opposition believe that it is only right that anyone considering a lifetime ISA is given the opportunity to see its benefits, compared with those of other schemes on the market.
The new clause would: ensure that people make an informed choice, with the benefit of independent financial advice; create parity in the quality of advice for all those entering the scheme; and offer much-needed oversight and education about the benefits of the scheme. The purchase of a pension is perhaps one of the most important purchases a person makes. That issue has exercised the minds of many people in Government, the regulatory sector and the product sector. The history of mis-selling has left a long, deep shadow across the financial product sector, and we must take that into account. It is fair to say that all witnesses made this point, either directly or indirectly.
There was more consensus among the witnesses on the issue of complexity than a first assessment would suggest. Hon. Members may recall me asking Mr McPhail of Hargreaves Lansdown about his assertion that the LISA was a misguided policy. His response was that the product was not complicated—the point that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle made to Mr Lewis—but that the pension landscape was complex. Mr McPhail said:
“The product itself is reasonably simple…but you have dropped it…into a complicated landscape.”—[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 20, Q40.]
I repeat that he never said that the product was complicated. The assertion from the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle that
“this morning we heard from some of the representatives from the financial services industry, who seemed to think that this was a complex product”
was seized on by Mr Lewis, who called that view “palpable balderdash”. However, Mr McPhail did not say that. What Mr Lewis said, which is more than reasonable, is that people need to understand what they are buying. He said of LISA:
“All products are complicated; all products can be explained…They have to be explained and they have to be communicated. They will take time.”
That reinforces the reason for supporting the new clause, and the need for independent robust advice, which, as Mr Lewis advised, should be given in
“nice, easy and real terminology and not jargon”.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reading those passages. I was also struck by Mr Lewis’s comment that
“When you contrast these products with the state pension, they are pretty easy products to understand.”
Would the hon. Gentleman like to comment on that section of Mr Lewis’s assessment?
Peter Dowd
Yes, I am happy to. The point that we were discussing was that while the products may or may not be complicated, the environment and landscape in which they are being sold is complicated, as there are all sorts of other financial products out there. That was the issue.
The primary point is that if people are to make a decision about something so important in their lives, and especially a pension, they need as much simple advice as they can get, with
“nice, easy and real terminology and not jargon”.
Huw Merriman
It may seem a strange analogy, but there are lots of laws passed by this House that could be quite complicated; that does not stop us passing more laws that may help people, though. I find the defeatist attitude somewhat baffling.
Peter Dowd
I genuinely do not think that ours is a defeatist attitude. The responsibility of this House when we pass complicated laws, which we do all the time, is to make clear what they mean. I would rather we spent more time in here dealing with these matters, teasing and winkling out the issues, and being clear about what we mean. I would rather spend 10 hours in here dealing with an issue and sorting it out than one hour in here and 10 hours out there trying to unravel it.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. However, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle in his previous comments. In the Hansard of the witness hearings, Martin Lewis is very clear:
“The argument that they are too complicated is just a complete load of palpable balderdash.”––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 56-7, Q100.]
Those are not my words but his. He went on to say that there might be sections of the industry that think that they have products that could compete with those in the Bill, but if there is a product that is right, we should be getting on with introducing it.
Peter Dowd
There is a danger of an “angels dancing on a pinhead” argument here. Mr Lewis said that an assertion had been made—an assertion attributed to Mr McPhail—that this was a complicated product, and that has clouded the issue. I am trying to get clarity that that was not what was said. It is not the product per se that is complicated; it is the landscape in which it is delivered. There are so many products that people may get confused, depending on how much information and simple terminology they are provided with. All I am trying to do is pin this issue down.
If, having been auto-enrolled in a pension, someone opts out of it to go into a LISA, it is important that they have all the boxes ticked and understand exactly what they are doing. I say that only because of the point I made earlier. There have been so many scams and so much mis-selling in the past that when we introduce a product that some see, rightly or wrongly, as being in direct competition with a pension, we must ensure that people make their decision in full knowledge. We are trying to tie independent financial advice into the legislation. The Government may or may not accept that; that is a matter for them. I am trying to put the idea into the mix and get discussion on it.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I absolutely agree with what my hon. Friend is saying and support the new clauses. We have had a recent history of appalling mis-selling, with billions having to be paid back to people who were mis-sold savings instruments and schemes over the years. Even though this scheme may be simple in itself, it could have serious knock-on effects on other parts of the industry. He is right in what he has been saying.
Peter Dowd
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that in. I reaffirm the point: we have a responsibility and duty to ensure that we nail this issue down. The last thing any of us wants is, in three, four, five or six years’ time, to have to unravel and unpick a problem we could have avoided in the first place. That is our intention. The new clause is not a spoiler; it is a genuine attempt to get the issue into the open.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
Should we not reflect on what experts in the industry have said? Zurich said there is a danger that the LISA
“would derail auto-enrolment and reverse”
the progress made
“in encouraging…people to save”
for later life. We heard evidence on Tuesday that nobody would be better off coming out of auto-enrolment and investing in a LISA.
Specifically on mis-selling, do we not run the risk of ending up with financial institutions marketing the LISA in a way that is to its detriment? I cannot put it any other way: that is creating the circumstances for mis-selling, and having shaped the Bill in this way, the Government are responsible for that.
Peter Dowd
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. That reinforces the concern out there. If his point was completely off the wall, I would say so, but it is not. Millions of people out there have completely lost confidence in much of the sector. That is partly why, as was alluded to by the witnesses, if people are saving, they are often doing so in cash ISAs—because they are not sure about stocks and shares and other things. They therefore put their savings in products that give them a return of 0%, 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, or 1% if they are lucky. We must create an environment in which people save and feel confident that they will get a reasonable return on their investment, especially if that investment is for their later years. That is perfectly reasonable.
This is not a question of protecting people from themselves. We are saying, “If you want to buy a product, look it over, and we will set up mechanisms to enable that to happen.” In a sense, it is for the Government to decide whether they believe that what they are doing is enough.
The Work and Pensions Committee said:
“We recommend the Government develop a communications campaign that highlights the differences between the LISA and workplace pensions. It should make it clear that the LISA is not a pension and that, for employees who have been automatically enrolled, any decision to opt-out is likely to result in a worse outcome for their retirement.”
It is not just the Labour party, the Scottish Nationalists or anyone else saying that; a bipartisan Committee that includes Government Members is saying it. That is why I said that there is a little wisdom there that we should tap into.
Opposition Members are concerned that the Government are not doing enough to ensure that people who are considering opening a LISA are fully aware of all the pensions savings options available to them. New clause 2 would require the Government to legislate to ensure that all applicants for a lifetime ISA had to prove that they had received independent financial advice if they intended to use the ISA for retirement savings. If they had not received such advice, the provider of the lifetime ISA would have to direct them to independent financial advice.
With so many bodies from across numerous industries outlining concerns that there is a risk that people will save into a lifetime ISA when it is not the most beneficial retirement savings option, I cannot see a reasonable argument against ensuring that applicants receive independent financial advice before opening an account. To paraphrase Mr Lewis, it seems palpably sensible to take that approach. I hope that the Government give careful consideration to our proposal and take on board the concerns that not only I but many people have expressed.
Ian Blackford
The Scottish National party welcomes the attempts by Peter Dowd, the hon. Member for Bootle, to ask the UK Government—
The Chair
Order. You refer to hon. Members not by their name but by their constituency. He is the hon. Member for Bootle.
Ian Blackford
Indeed. The hon. Member for Bootle is right to ask the UK Government to keep a watchful eye on the impact of automatic enrolment. However, that does not go far enough. The LISA must be paused. It is a gimmick that has not been thought through. The impact assessment states:
“The government could have done nothing more, relying on existing tax incentives to promote saving among younger people and working families on low incomes. However, this would have failed to provide the necessary level of support for those who are unable to use existing support to plan and save for their future.”
What a dismal statement. Where is the vision? Where is the hope? Where is the idea of a Government who can architect a pensions savings system that encourages young people to save? Should we not bring forward next year’s review of auto-enrolment and make sure that we have the tax incentives and the structure right? That is what we should be doing, not introducing this hopeless gimmick that risks mis-selling to young people in this country. This Government stand charged with creating circumstances that could lead to mis-selling through this product. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
The SNP has tabled amendments that ask for the LISA to be halted until workplace savings are enhanced through automatic enrolment, which is the right way to proceed. Stakeholders have picked apart the UK Government’s main arguments for the LISA, including that it will be good for self-employed individuals who are left out of automatic enrolment. The British Bankers Association said that
“two thirds of the self-employed are already ineligible for the lifetime ISA.”––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 18, Q34.]
One of the Government’s major arguments has been shown to be fatally flawed. Why do we not reform auto-enrolment to make sure that the self-employed are included? That is the right way to progress.
At present, as a savings model, the LISA only supports the wealthy—those with the ability to save. New clause 2 is a welcome move to promote financial advice. We welcome this amendment. However, an SNP new clause that will be tabled ahead of the next stage will go further and explicitly demand that the advice extends to workplace savings and automatic enrolment and targets young people. We encourage Labour colleagues, and indeed the Government, to join us in supporting that new clause.
In its oral evidence to the Committee, the Association of British Insurers raised concerns about the communication of the difference between automatic enrolment and the LISA. There is a real concern that individuals could switch out of automatic enrolment and into LISA, and that
“they could lose up to a third once they get to the age of 60.”––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 5, Q1.]
The ABI also said that
“there needs to be a strong signpost towards the guidance services.”––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 9, Q14.]
Individuals who choose to invest in a LISA, rather than investing through automatic enrolment, could lose a third of their retirement benefits.
Carol Knight of the Tax Incentivised Savings Association said:
“We should be looking at retirement saving as a whole and helping people to put different types of assets towards funding later life.”––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 14, Q26.]
It is clear that stakeholders are concerned about the confusion that may arrive for savers with the introduction of the LISA. When he gave evidence to the Committee, Tom McPhail from Hargreaves Lansdown said forcefully:
“We are in danger of sending ISAs down the same road as pensions, making them more and more complicated.”––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 15, Q29.]
He advised of savers that it is
“really important that we support them with good information”.––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 16, Q31.]
As well as the potential distractions from auto-enrolment pension schemes, the LISA represents a major missed opportunity to increase the attractiveness of auto-enrolment. In a submission to the Work and Pensions Committee, the union Prospect argues:
“If Government wants to subsidise younger workers saving towards a deposit on a first home it could just as easily do so through changing the rules relating to the taxation of pension schemes as through introducing the Lifetime ISA. Such an approach would greatly increase the attractiveness of automatic enrolment pension schemes.”
The submission goes on to say:
“Anecdotally, Prospect members who opt out of automatic enrolment pension schemes sometimes report they do so in order to be able to save towards a deposit for a first home. Research shows a majority of young people would be more inclined to save into a pension scheme or would save more if they could use their pension pot to fund a deposit for a first home.”
Prospect also points out:
“In New Zealand the rules of the Kiwisaver allow the withdrawal of savings to purchase a first home”,
and research from the Pensions Policy Institute shows that early access and borrowing against funds for the purpose of home purchases are permitted in other countries.
David Wren of the BBA pointed out that the LISA will be the sixth type of ISA on the market. He said:
“The hybrid nature of the product—between saving for a house and saving long term for retirement—also adds considerable complexity for people who are choosing where to save and what to do.”––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 17, Q32.]
He also noted that
“complexity is definitely the enemy of success in getting people to save.”––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 20, Q39.]
That is why robust financial advice that takes account of an individual’s other savings and pension pots is essential. We do not accept that no alternatives to the LISA were considered—the impact assessment for the Bill spells that out clearly. The Government must look at other options. Surely the delay that we are calling for would give the space for a pause.
Since its introduction in 2012, auto-enrolment has been a success, with more than 6.7 million workers successfully enrolled by September 2016 and lower opt-out rates and higher employer compliance than was initially expected. That success has been built on the back of a broad political consensus and thorough planning ahead of its introduction. As the National Audit Office report on auto-enrolment pointed out, the policy faces greater operational risk as it is rolled out to small employers. The phasing in of increases to minimum contribution levels also presents challenges. A separate NAO report identified a potential risk if individual interventions
“are managed separately without adequate consideration of their impact on the overall objective of increasing retirement incomes.”
That warning could hardly fit the circumstances of the introduction of the LISA any better.
The Government’s main priority should be to build on the success of auto-enrolment to date and deal with the upcoming challenges that have been identified. That work should include strategies for addressing issues with ineligibility for auto-enrolment and for increasing contributions under auto-enrolment. That is particularly important for workers aged under 40, because most will be worse off in retirement as a result of the introduction of the new state pension. Prospect also said that
“the Government is in danger of losing focus on what should be its priority with the introduction of the Lifetime ISA.”
Kelvin Hopkins
I rise to support new clauses 1 and 2, along with everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle and much of what was said by the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber. It would be sensible of the Government to accept the new clauses. They are practical and logical, and it is perfectly reasonable that we want a review of the effect of the LISA on auto-enrolment and pensions savings and that anybody choosing to buy a LISA is given proper advice. None of that would undermine the Government’s legislation; it would actually improve it considerably and give the necessary protections.
I have considerable doubts about the wisdom of going ahead with lifetime ISAs. The whole pensions and savings world has been far too complicated for far too long. Some 25 or 30 years ago, I reached the age at which I had sufficient income to start to save so that I would have extra income in my later years—I must say that I am now benefiting from that, in spite of having a very generous parliamentary pension as well. At that time it was extremely complicated. There were tax-exempt special savings accounts, personal equity plans, ISAs, national savings certificates and all sorts of tax-free savings instruments, but interestingly they were all perfectly acceptable for people on higher rate tax like me. I have always been concerned about that.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the LISA’s major flaws is that the only people who will be able take full advantage of it are people who have a spare £20,000 a year to save? That is an attractive tax break for very wealthy people.
Kelvin Hopkins
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. During the era of TESSAs, PEPs, ISAs and national savings certificates, the wealthy, if they were wise, would have bought all of them for themselves, their partners and their children—anyone within the family for whom they could buy them—every year. They would build up a massive portfolio of tax-free savings over the years and be extremely well off in old age, especially if the savings in those four schemes would otherwise have been taxed at the higher rate. Instead of incentivising poor people to save, the schemes were actually tax-free bunce for the wealthy. I had some TESSAs, PEPs and ISAs, and I still have some national savings certificates today, so I am sitting pretty, but I am comfortably off. I am more concerned about people who are poor, and I am certainly not poor. I am not wealthy, but I am not poor. Mr Davies made the point well.
That is a frontal assault on such instruments, but the concern about damaging auto-enrolment is also serious. I strongly support auto-enrolment, which has been a great success so far. I wanted to go much further, and I have said in the Commons on more than one occasion that I believe we should have a compulsory universal earnings-related savings system for everyone, including the self-employed, so that we all make sure that we save for our old age. I do not stand back from that proposal, which I intend to continue advocating as a step beyond auto-enrolment. Auto-enrolment is a major step forward, but it is still not a defined-benefit scheme and it is still subject to stock market fluctuations, whereas a state system could have guaranteed defined benefits.
David Rutley
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about self-employed people. We heard in the evidence sessions that LISAs would help a significant element of the self-employed. The Government are carrying out a review of how auto-enrolment could support the self-employed in future. Does he think it is important to think about not just nirvana and what might be, but how we can tangibly help people now? This product will make a difference to a big section of the self-employed.
Kelvin Hopkins
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is a serious problem for the self-employed. There is a lot of bogus self-employment, with employers forcing their employees into self-employment. If we counted only genuine self-employment, there would be far fewer self-employed people. We could then make sure that people are paying into the system through taxes and national insurance contributions. They could also be enrolled in a compulsory state system of earnings-related savings. I agree that there is a problem with the self-employed and I am glad that the Government are reviewing the problem, but we have to go far further into that than we are discussing today.
What my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle said is sensible, practical and reasonable. The Government should just accept his argument and say, “Of course, we want a review of the impact on the automatic enrolment and pension savings and we want to have proper advice for people applying for lifetime ISAs.”
When I was investing in my middle years—rather than my later years, as I am now—people gave me advice. People came to my door and talked about their savings schemes. I did not understand what they were talking about, even though I used to teach statistics and am mathematically qualified and could understand logic. It became clear to me that the people coming to my door did not understand the instruments either. They were selling something because they had been told to sell and they were on commission: “Just sell it, get the signature on the bit of paper, come away and we will give you 5%.” When they did not understand, I thought it was even more terrifying. No wonder we had mis-selling on a gigantic sale. Billions are now having to be paid back, and no doubt billions have been lost for ever and will never be paid back because many people died before compensation was thought about.
We have a problem. We have to make things automatic, simpler, with a state-managed system involved. We also need to ensure that, if there is any kind of subsidy for pensions in old age, it should go to the poor and not to the better-off like me. The gulf between rich and poor in our country has widened. We have a serious problem of poverty in old age and we have to deal with that through the state. I hope to persuade my own party to adopt a policy of that kind, as and when we become the next Government.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
It is a pleasure to be here with you and the Committee, Mr Chope. I thank everybody for their attention at the very good witness sessions on Tuesday, when we heard from some very interesting people who were good enough to give up their time to come and inform our deliberations.
I will say a general word around lifetime ISAs when speaking to clause 1 and will come on to new clause 2. However, I should say first that there is much about the spirit of the new clauses and amendments proposed with which I agree, as I think we all would. When I come to speak on them, it will be to demonstrate that they are unnecessary or would not work as intended. I do understand the spirit in which they are tabled. I also note, as we all have, that there are areas of significant consensus across the Committee, particularly around auto-enrolment, the success it has been and the wish to see it go from strength to strength.
I will come to that in a moment, but I will first introduce the broader product. We believe the lifetime ISA is a positive addition to the savings landscape. That was a view substantiated by a number of the experts we heard from on Tuesday. It will support younger people to save for a first home and to supplement their long-term savings by topping up individual contributions with a generous 25% Government bonus of up to £1,000 a year.
In 2015, the Government held a full consultation on pension tax relief, which is the background to how we came to the lifetime ISA. The outcome was clear: there was at that time no consensus for fundamental reform to the pension tax system. In some ways, some of the comments that we have heard in speeches this morning reflect the fact that there is still a desire among some people for a fundamental redrawing of the landscape, but the reality is that that is a debate for another time and place. We are in Committee to deal with this Bill, but I acknowledge that that other debate is ongoing.
Throughout the course of the consultation, young people indicated that they wanted more ways to save flexibly for the future. At Budget 2016, therefore, the Government announced the introduction of the lifetime ISA, which has been welcomed by insurers, ISA providers and other industry experts, as we heard on Tuesday. Although some people had some concerns, I think it is fair to say that there was a broad degree of welcome from people across the sector. They see the lifetime ISA as a valuable new vehicle to help young people save.
Ian Blackford
Does not the Minister accept that all the generous bonus will do, in effect, is compensate those who have gone into the LISA for the fact that, in contrast to a pension where people are putting pre-tax income in, the money is coming out of post-tax income, so on a zero-sum basis it comes out more or less the same? Anyone going into a pension can expect to get employer contributions, so anyone saving in a pension will be better off. For the life of me, I cannot understand, given the cross-party consensus about supporting and strengthening auto-enrolment, why on earth she wants to muddy the water so that people might be seduced into this product when they should be investing in a pension.
Jane Ellison
This perhaps goes to the nub of the disagreement we have in Committee: the Government do not see it as an either/or. The hon. Gentleman is very much positing the product versus pensions as an either/or, but we have been quite clear that the lifetime ISA is a complement, and we heard that from witnesses. I also think that, while acknowledging the consensus to protect auto-enrolment, and indeed to encourage people to save with the pension products appropriate for them, to jump from that to the assumption that the lifetime ISA is, by its nature, going to undermine everything else is a jump too far. I would reject some of his language. Later, I will come on to some points to support my assertion.
The clause itself sets out the defining characteristic of the lifetime ISA: a Government bonus will be paid by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs where a qualifying addition is made to a lifetime ISA in a relevant period. “Lifetime ISA”, “qualifying addition” and “relevant period” will be defined in regulations, which will also provide that the Government bonus will be 25% of all qualifying additions made to the account. I confirm that those new regulations will be brought to the House for debate ahead of the launch of the new account in April 2017. Further detail on the lifetime ISA is set out in schedule 1.
New clause 1 seeks to place a requirement on the Government to conduct an annual review of whether the lifetime ISA has had any impact on workplace pensions, and in particular automatic enrolment, as we heard from the shadow Minister. The Government are absolutely committed to automatic enrolment, which will help 10 million people to newly save or to save more into pensions by 2018.
The lifetime ISA is designed to be a complement to automatic enrolment and workplace pensions, not a replacement. We are clear about that language, and we will continue to be. The aim of the lifetime ISA is to support younger people to purchase a first home and to supplement their long-term savings, not to choose between the two. The reality is that some of the youngest people who take out this product will be able to take the money out at 60, but that will not be their retirement age. We are talking about people saving for a later phase of their life, perhaps the last phase of their working life, or to do something in their later years that they always wished to do but did not have the chance to do when they were younger.
The Government’s different policies on employer contributions to a pension and a lifetime ISA reflect all that, which goes to the point made in an intervention. Employers have a statutory obligation to contribute towards pensions under automatic enrolment. They also have a direct incentive to do so through relief on national insurance contributions. The cost of that to the Exchequer was £13.8 billion in 2014-15, which is a powerful demonstration of the Government’s commitment to retain strong incentives in the system. Neither is the case with the lifetime ISA.
We have already conducted an impact assessment, published alongside the Bill, and we clearly do not expect that people will opt out of their workplace pension in order to pay into a lifetime ISA instead. The help to buy ISA already provides a 25% bonus to support people to purchase a first home, but the launch of that did not lead to a surge in opt-outs. I accept that it is a slightly different product, with a different timescale. Nevertheless, there is real-world evidence that it did not lead to that.
Ian Blackford
I agree with the Minister about us all being satisfied by the opt-out rate being lower than anticipated. The real challenge will come in the next few years, as rates going into the auto-enrolment scheme increase. That is why it is important we keep the primary focus on auto-enrolment, to ensure that as contribution levels increase, we do not inadvertently see an increase in the opt-out rate, with people perhaps switching to the LISA.
Jane Ellison
I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s broad point. He assumes the worst will happen, whereas I have good evidence to show that that is not a reasonable assumption. I will go on to show that we are keeping these things under constant review across the broad piece of pensions and savings.
The lifetime ISA, like all Government policies, will be kept under review to ensure that it is meeting its objectives. We already publish a wide range of details about the take-up of Government-supported savings accounts such as ISAs, and we intend to take a similar approach with the lifetime ISA. Similarly, national statistics and other information such as the Office for National Statistics wealth and assets survey set out information on the savings held across a range of different household types. It is quite granular information.
As the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber said earlier, we have a legislative commitment to review certain aspects of auto-enrolment in 2017. In addition, we have the discretion to conduct wider review activity. We recognise that broader challenges and questions have been raised by stakeholders in connection with the review—for example, questions of inclusion and adequacy. It is important we look at the scope and the right sequencing of review activity. The Government are currently scoping the review and hope to update further on that by the end of the year. Of course, the debate we are having in this Committee will inform those deliberations. Because of that, we consider publishing an additional review of the scheme’s operation to be unnecessary in terms of its interaction with the product we are discussing in this clause. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Bootle not to press new clause 1.
New clause 2 seeks that the Government provide in regulations that independent financial advice is made available to all customers making an application for a lifetime ISA. I think we all agree with the thrust of the debate on the new clause. We have all seen victims of mis-selling and want to ensure that our constituents go into every financial decision with the best information available. The Government want people to have the information they need to make important financial decisions and we will achieve that by providing clear factual information on gov.uk, as well as working with the Money Advice Service and its successor to ensure they make appropriate and impartial information available.
New clause 2 would require all individuals to take out financial advice before they open a lifetime ISA. I want to demonstrate that that is not practical, however well intentioned it is. Financial advice is relatively expensive. The point has been made that we do not want to disadvantage younger people and basic rate taxpayers who want to take advantage of this product. Our impact assessment and all the work that we have done indicate that the vast majority of people who take up the product will be basic rate taxpayers.
Research carried out by Unbiased shows that the average cost of financial advice for customers is £150 per hour and the average advice process takes around eight hours. That totals £1,200. Even if we assume that that is the upper end of estimates, it is still £200 more than the maximum annual bonus that an individual could receive from the lifetime ISA. That would create a significant barrier to all but the wealthiest individuals opening a lifetime ISA, and I know that that is the opposite of the Opposition’s intent.
Kelvin Hopkins
If there was a simple state office where people could obtain such advice from an objective, publicly employed adviser rather than a private financial adviser, would that not be an efficient and relatively cheap way of providing good, reliable advice?
Jane Ellison
I think we would all agree on the broad point about wanting people to have access to financial advice whatever their income, but we are dealing with this Bill. The Government will consult and take soundings on the successor to the Money Advice Service and the other advice services that will be brought together, and I am sure that we will have a good debate about that in due course. The hon. Gentleman may wish to contribute those broader thoughts to that debate.
Let me turn to the current regulatory framework around the LISA. It is worth saying that it is not the Government’s role to set that regulatory framework. The hon. Member for Luton North talked about the different regulatory landscape at the time when he was being sold products—not particularly well, apparently. We are all thankful that that landscape has changed greatly since those days, and rightly so, but it is the role of the independent Financial Conduct Authority to regulate the providers of ISAs, and it will likewise set the appropriate framework for the lifetime ISA.
The FCA will consult on the regulatory regime for the lifetime ISA throughout the autumn and will, as is its ordinary remit, ensure that providers are transparent to customers about the products that they are offering and those products are sold with suitable safeguards in place. We heard in some of the evidence sessions on Tuesday about how the industry wants to get advice right. Everyone has been scarred by what has happened in years past. As I said to the hon. Gentleman, we will consult later this year on the scope of the new financial guidance body, as a complement to the industry’s advice. We heard people such as Martin Lewis talk about the common-sense advice that people need to hear, and that is also an important part of the landscape from which people can seek guidance. I am sure that Martin Lewis and others will contribute to the debate about the new advice services.
I reassure the hon. Member for Bootle that information about the lifetime ISA will be available so that potential customers can make informed choices about which financial products to use. We want people to understand what the right choices are for them, but it would not be appropriate for the Government to require advice to be provided, as that would create a significant financial barrier to individuals accessing the lifetime ISA. It is the independent FCA’s role, not the Government’s, to set the regulatory framework for ISAs. For those reasons—not because I disagree with the spirit of his new clause but because I do not think it would work in practice—I encourage him to withdraw new clause 2.
I conclude my remarks about clause 1 by saying that the lifetime ISA will benefit many young people by supporting them to save flexibly for the long term. It is designed to complement the pension system, not replace it. The clause makes provision for the fundamental feature of the lifetime ISA: the Government bonus. We think that is a positive product for young people, and we do not want them to lose out on, for example, a year’s worth of saving and the compound interest on that because of the delay that has been called for. I therefore ask Committee members to support clause 1.
Peter Dowd
I welcome some of the Minister’s comments on both new clauses, and the spirit in which she made them. In the spirit of trying to move on, we will not push new clause 1 to a Division. We acknowledge that the Minister has said that there will be reviews of some fashion, though maybe not statutory reviews; we will take that away and consider it, and may come back to the question of reviews. Our concerns in relation to auto-enrolment can be appreciated. It has been a good product, to use the jargon, and we do not want to lose that. However, again, in the spirit of moving on, we will pull away from the new clause.
We will push new clause 2, on independent financial advice, to a vote, because this House has to lay down a marker when it comes to people’s future and making a significant investment in a product. The lifetime ISA is a significant investment, whatever way we look it. Importantly, it is also a significant investment by taxpayers; that has to be taken into account. If somebody wants a lifetime ISA, and rightly understands that the Government will put a lump sum towards it, it is not unreasonable for us to say that we expect that person to take independent financial advice.
Kelvin Hopkins
I absolutely support what my hon. Friend says, but is it not important to have that commitment in the Bill, rather than just rely on the apparent sympathy of the Government?
Peter Dowd
It is, and that is why I am trying to push that message home. To some extent, we need to draw a line in the sand.
Jane Ellison
Given that some of the debate on new clause 2 has been about the concern that the product would be insufficiently attractive to people on lower pay, the practical nature—not the spirit—of what the hon. Gentleman proposes would essentially be regressive, and make the product less attractive to those on lower incomes, whom we wish to attract.
Peter Dowd
I completely understand that. The Bill is full of principles: we want people to save and to have pensions, to have the Government cough up towards that, and the individual to put money in personally. There is a whole series of things that we say must be part of the process in principle. For us, there is also the principle at stake of seeking independent financial advice. That is not unreasonable.
Dr Whiteford
The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about independent financial advice. The Minister also made an important point about the cost of that advice. From the evidence we heard, it came across strongly to me that for most people on moderate incomes, this product is a lot less advantageous than putting the money into a pension and attracting employers’ contributions. That is why independent advice is so important, and why this product is not very attractive for anybody on a normal salary.
Peter Dowd
That is a reasonable point to make. The question is: what is the reasonableness of the argument? The Minister, again perfectly reasonably, makes her point. I do not necessarily accept the figures that she gave, but I take at face value the point that she makes. On balance, people have found that not taking independent advice on such matters was a little costly in the short term, but in the long term, if they did not get the right advice, it was even more costly. That bill has to be picked up by someone, and we are not talking about a few pounds—we are talking about people’s lives in the future, and it is difficult to put a price on that. We recognise the points that the Minister made, and the spirit in which she made them, but as a matter of principle, we want to press new clause 2 to a Division, just to get it into the mix.
The Chair
May I explain the procedure? We will not vote on new clauses yet. We will vote on them after we have finished discussing the amendments and the rest of the Bill. At that stage, it will be open to anyone to press new clause 1 to a vote, if they want to, and then we can have a Division on it, if that is the will of the Committee, and similarly for new clause 2. I have made a note that the hon. Member for Bootle wishes to press new clause 2 to a Division at the appropriate time.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1
Lifetime ISAs: further provision
Question proposed, That the schedule be the First schedule to the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 3—First-time residential purchase: Research and impact assessment—
‘(1) Within one year of this Act coming into force the Secretary of State must conduct a review into the potential impact of provisions within paragraph 7(1)(b) of Schedule 1 on house prices in the UK.
(2) The findings of the review must be made publicly available and laid before each House of Parliament.’
Peter Dowd
New clause 3 would require the Government to conduct a review within a year of the Act coming into force of the potential impact of the lifetime ISA on house prices in the United Kingdom. The review must be made publicly available and laid before both Houses of Parliament. The Opposition recognise that many people want to own their own home. However, we are concerned that the Government’s housing policy will only inflate house prices further. We have concerns that the LISA will make things even more difficult in a housing environment that is already strained because of the limited number of houses being built nationwide, not to mention the huge cost of housing, particularly in London and the south-east; the average figure is £250,000.
Evidence to the Committee on Tuesday was cautionary. Martin Lewis from MoneySavingExpert.com, while acknowledging the potential popularity of the LISA, flagged up its potential impact on the housing market. He highlighted that
“Unintended consequences are possible—the lifetime ISA might pump the housing market, which is a concern”.––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 50, Q95.]
The Institute for Fiscal Studies, referring to the Office for Budget Responsibility, made a similar point.
I do not want to over-emphasise the point, but it is worth noting—and perhaps assessing, as suggested in the new clause—the effect of the LISA on house prices overall. It is worrying that fewer homes were built in the last Parliament than under any previous peacetime Government since the 1920s. LISA may help—if that is the right word—to overheat a market that is already short of capacity. The Government’s priority should be to try to mitigate that, not to add to the problem. I do not think that is an unreasonable point to make.
The fact is that people are increasingly chasing a product in a market that has low supply levels. It so happens that the product is a house. The facts speak for themselves. Since I sat on the Housing and Planning Bill Committee around this time last year—it may well have been in this very room—the housing market has remained pretty tight, with supply remaining low. The national planning policy framework, which the Government were warned would create confusion, has done so. That all adds to the broth and is creating problems. By now, according to the plan, and the former Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), there have should been a better housing supply. Alas, he was wrong.
The lifetime ISA, which will in effect replace the help to buy ISA in due course, provides a Government bonus that can be used towards a deposit on a house—if one can be found. If I remember correctly, concern was expressed by a witness that the help to buy ISA had been poorly articulated, and that the current one was potentially being poorly articulated as well. There was the impression that an ISA could be used for a deposit. Of course, there was a smorgasbord of consternation, anger, disappointment, frustration and bewilderment when many young people found that that was not the case. The problem is that if people are encouraged to borrow money for a house in a tight market, the more house prices rises, the bigger mortgages they need, and so on. The fact that the Government are helping to do that is not helpful. The problem is exacerbated. When the growth of mortgage lending outpaces the supply of housing, prices just keep rising and rising, making it increasingly difficult for people to access the housing market at a reasonable rate. There is no doubt about that.
The Government have identified the right problem but are coming up with the wrong solution. We need to build more houses. That is the only way to solve the housing crisis. New products are fine, as far as they go. Lots of people welcome the LISA—I cannot argue against that—and many people do not, but the comprehensive solution is to deal with the continuing housing supply problem. It is worth noting that the house shortage is simply a physical manifestation of the shortage of skills in the construction sector in general and the housing market in particular.
The Government are almost two years through their five-year housing plan, not counting the previous five years, and we are still falling badly behind on targets. The question is whether the proposals really deal with the substantive issue of supply, and the answer is no. In that context, it is important to look at whether this policy will have an impact on house prices. If it will, in addition to there being a lack of action on housing policy in general, that is a concern. It is legitimate to ask the Government to review the impact on the housing market of this product.
Kelvin Hopkins
I rise to support my hon. Friend’s new clause. Many of us have long been concerned about the massive rise in house prices. I will give a simple example. When I bought my first house in Luton in 1969, house prices were three times average earnings. Now in Luton, they are 12 times average earnings.
Millions of people are seeing the possibility of home ownership disappearing. Owner-occupation is in decline; it is becoming a smaller sector, and we are seeing an opening up of major social divisions between owner-occupiers and renters. For owner-occupiers, equity will cascade down the generations, and their children and grandchildren will stay in the owner-occupied sector because they will inherit the equity. Those who are not in the sector and do not have sufficient income will remain outside the sector, as will successive generations after them—unless they win the lottery or become extremely wealthy for some other reason, but that will apply to only a small number. The great majority of people will find it very difficult to become owner-occupiers if they do not have equity handed down by their forebears.
Adding extra cash to help people who are already likely to be in a position to buy their own home will simply increase house prices further and take home ownership even further away from those who do not have equity and are unlikely to be able to afford a home. We have to see some action by Government over time at least to stabilise house prices, so that more people can get into owner-occupation, and so that those who aspire to be a homeowner have a realistic prospect of becoming one.
I support what my hon. Friend said. We have to build many more houses. The only way to stabilise house prices is to raise supply, not increase demand, which would just push house prices up. It is not the price of houses that is increasing, but the price of the land on which they are built. The cost of building a house does not increase by that amount; it is the land on which it is built. There is a case for land value taxation and doing something about the price of land.
It is a mad world. In 1969, I thought becoming an owner-occupier was a bit of an adventure, but I could afford it on one income—mine, which was not massively high, because I was a trade union research officer. Nevertheless, I could afford to buy a three-bedroom house with a garage and gardens back and front—a nice, typically British home, which we might all aspire to. If I were trying to buy the same house now, with the same sort of income, in the same town, I would have great difficulty. On my generous parliamentary salary, I might stand a better chance, but not on the salary that I had at the time, so I think my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle is absolutely right, and I support his new clause 3.
Jane Ellison
The Committee is enjoying the autobiographical journey to Luton North through the ages.
Kelvin Hopkins
I used to be a teacher—I taught economics years ago—and I always found that using examples kept the class alive and entertained them. It also helped them to understand the points that I was making.
Jane Ellison
To that end, he has succeeded magnificently; everyone looks thoroughly engaged, which is not always the case in Bill Committees, it is fair to say.
Before I speak about schedule 1 and new clause 3, I have a couple of points to make. I do not intend to go into a wide discussion about house building. We all agree that we need to build more houses. Earlier this month, the Government unveiled a £5 billion package at the Conservative conference, which will make substantial progress and build on the progress already made.
The help to buy ISA is often unfairly criticised. In a way, those myths then transfer across to criticism of the lifetime ISA, so it is worth putting on the record that the take-up of the help to buy ISA has been high; there have been more than 650,000 of them to date. Where people have used help to buy to buy a home, that home has been worth on average £167,250, which is well below the scheme’s property price cap of £250,000, or £450,000 in London. That underlines the fact that we expect the majority of those who use the lifetime ISA to be basic rate taxpayers.
I will turn to schedule 1 and then make a point or two about new clause 3, because I hope to show the shadow Minister that I can respond to his substantive concern. The schedule sets out some of the detailed rules of the lifetime ISA. It is a long schedule, so I propose to provide only an overview.
Regulations made under paragraph 11 of the schedule will set out who is eligible for a lifetime ISA by specifying who “the investor” is. We intend to provide in regulation that a new account may be opened only by a person aged under 40, and that payments to a lifetime ISA may only be made until an account holder reaches 50. That is to reflect the fact that the scheme, as discussed, is designed to support younger people in getting into the habit of saving. Draft regulations have already been published for consultation, and they will be considered and debated by the House before the product is launched.
Paragraphs 7 and 8 of schedule 1 concern withdrawals. Account holders will be able to withdraw sums from their lifetime ISA at any time; that is consistent with normal ISA rules. Such withdrawals will not be subject to a withdrawal charge in the circumstances set out in paragraph 7, which include account holders purchasing their first home after saving in a lifetime ISA for 12 months or longer, or reaching a specified age, which regulations will set at 60.
Regulations will also set out detailed rules for the processes to be followed when a withdrawal is made to buy a first home. We intend to consult with industry experts to ensure that those regulations are simple to apply and that they meet our objectives for the scheme. Officials have been working hard and openly with industry experts for some months to ensure a product that works well. There will also not be a withdrawal charge when an account holder dies or becomes terminally ill, or when savings are transferred to another lifetime ISA.
Peter Dowd
To start with, I telegraph the fact that we will not pursue this matter. However, it is important to get on the record the fact that where Government policy has an effect on house prices, it is important—given the current state of the housing market, which is overheating due to lack of supply—to have that logged and noted, however marginal the effect appears to be. I am not suggesting that the Minister has brushed that point aside, but it is our responsibility to bring that effect to account.
The Minister quoted some figures on seeking advice for particular products, but 0.3% inflation on housing is a fair old amount of money. If that is 100,000 transactions a year of around £750, that is the best part of £70 million-odd a year added to house prices by this policy alone. If we are to introduce policies that add to an already overheating sector, it is important that as a nation, a Government and a Parliament, we take into account their impact. That additional £750 for that person is £750 not going somewhere else in their budget. I only say that to try to get that issue into the smorgasbord of issues that we have to take into account. I will not be pursuing the matter.
Question put and agreed to.
Schedule 1 accordingly agreed to.
Clause 2
Government contributions to Help-to-Save accounts
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Jane Ellison
The Prime Minister has set out the Government’s mission to build a country that truly works for everyone, not just the privileged few. Clause 2 introduces the Help to Save product, and we can be extremely encouraged that it speaks directly to that mission. Evidence from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation cited in the House of Commons Library briefing paper shows that between a quarter and a third of households have said that they are unable to make regular savings for rainy days. According to the family resources survey, a household with less than £25,000 in income is twice as likely to have no savings as a family with more than £50,000. We heard from the debt charity StepChange in its written submissions—this point was amplified in its contribution to the evidence session—that access to a £1,000 savings pot can reduce the likelihood of the average family falling into debt by almost half.
Faced with that evidence—and the evidence we all know from our constituency surgeries of people living fragile financial lives, where one thing going wrong can tip them into debt or other problems—it is only right that we provide a strong incentive and reward for working households on lower incomes to build a savings buffer.
Help to Save will support up to 3.5 million people on lower incomes who are just about managing but may be struggling to build up their savings. It will help them develop their financial resilience and ability to cope with unexpected financial pressures. Clause 2 sets out the main characteristic of Help to Save: the Government bonus or contribution, which will be paid by the paying authority. The bonus will be paid at 50% of the highest balance achieved in the account. Over the four-year maturity period of the account, an eligible individual can save up to £2,400 and earn a Government bonus of up to £1,200. We intend that HMRC will pay any bonus amounts due and that that will be passed to eligible individuals by the account provider. Schedule 2, which we will consider shortly, makes further provision in relation to Help to Save accounts and the Government bonus.
Help to Save will meet a real need and will support many of those who are just getting by, helping them to build their financial resilience and supporting their ability to cope with financial shocks.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2
Help-to-Save accounts: further provision
Dr Whiteford
I beg to move amendment 6, in schedule 2, page 16, line 31, at end insert—
‘(1A) The conditions specified under sub-paragraph (1) shall not include the condition that the individual be over 25 years old if that individual meets all other specified conditions relating to the working tax credit.’
Currently those aged under 25 only qualify for Working Tax Credits if they work at least 16 hours a week. This amendment would ensure any individual aged under 25 would qualify for a Help-to-Save account if they met other specified criteria.
In relation to later amendments to the schedule, I declare an interest as a member of the North East Scotland Credit Union. I tabled the amendment with my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber. In contrast to the LISA, the Help to Save product offers genuine benefits for low and middle-income savers. All our amendments today seek to strengthen it and address some of the limitations that have emerged in the written and oral evidence.
Currently, the under-25s will not qualify for Help to Save unless they are in receipt of the disabled element of working tax credit, or they are responsible for children and are working 16 hours a week or more. Many young adults under 25 who are in full-time work could benefit greatly from Help to Save. The amendment would ensure that those under 25 could qualify for a Help to Save account on the same basis as those over 25 if they meet the specified criteria.
We know that the under-25s need some encouragement to save. As we heard from the Minister, having some savings can be incredibly advantageous; it cushions them against unexpected financial shocks and prevents them having to use the excruciatingly expensive payday lenders and getting into problem debt when they face unplanned costs.
Help to Save is probably a more realistic way for people to save for a first home than the LISA. Extending it to more young people in that age group can only help to incentivise early saving and improve financial literacy. It seems wrong to deprive young adults who are already working more than 30 hours a week of the opportunity to benefit from this scheme just because of their age.
Jane Ellison
The amendment would ensure that individuals aged 25 or under would be eligible for an account if they meet the conditions relating to working tax credit eligibility. It is worth making it clear that under-25s will be eligible to open accounts if they meet the relevant criteria for working tax credit or universal credit. A person under 25 is eligible for working tax credit if they work a minimum of 16 hours a week and have a child or a disability.
Our intention is for eligibility for a Help to Save account to be determined by people passporting from working tax credit and universal credit. That is a well established way of targeting support to people on lower incomes. The Government recognise that some people of working age with lower incomes may not be eligible for Help to Save, but passporting is the simplest and most effective method available for determining and notifying eligibility; it is fundamental to the efficient operation of the scheme.
In particular, passporting means that people will not be required to complete a means test to prove that they are eligible for an account, or to contact the Government. It avoids the need to develop bespoke systems to determine eligibility that would be an additional cost to the Government and could deter many savers. That is why we will resist the amendment and I ask the hon. Member to withdraw it.
Dr Whiteford
I would rather press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (Fourth sitting)
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 3 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 9, in schedule 2, page 17, line 31, at end insert ‘( ) a credit union;”.
It was terribly remiss of me not to say that, as a relatively new Member, I appreciate your helpfulness in the Committee, Mr Chope. Thank you very much for that.
On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) expressed concern that credit unions, which in many areas have an excellent community base, command huge levels of trust and are embedded in communities, are not, in effect, one of the account providers. Hon. Members who were present at Second Reading, or who no doubt assiduously read the report of the proceedings subsequently, will know that my hon. Friend made a number of very important points, including about qualification periods and the role of credit unions in the scheme. His arguments were listened to with attention and deserve fair consideration in relation to product flexibility, and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury gracefully agreed to meet him and the Association of British Credit Unions. Given that, I suspect that part of those discussions will be wide and may encompass the role of credit unions as providers, so I will not push the matter today. I just wanted to get the point across that we know that a meeting will be held and we hope that it will lead to constructive discussions and outcomes.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I will be brief in supporting the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Bootle. Including credit unions as providers is critical, given the vast number of savers who use community credit unions to build up incomes for later life. Many credit unions set up local pay-in points such as shops or community centres and are increasingly important, given the withdrawal of the banks from many of the communities that credit unions represent. Therefore I wholly support the amendment.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
I echo the comments that have been made about credit unions. I am sure that many of us, on both sides of the Committee, have credit unions in our local area. There is an excellent one in Wandsworth, which I do what I can to support with publicity and signposting for constituents. I certainly place on the record our admiration for the credit union movement. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bootle, said, there will be a meeting. His colleague the hon. Member for Harrow West made a very good speech on Second Reading, and I am glad that that meeting will take place.
This debate is about who provides the Help to Save product. We were clear in our consultation that the options for delivery were to engage a single provider to guarantee nationwide provision, or to open the opportunity to offer the account to a wider range of providers on a voluntary basis. Although we are keen to explore the potential for credit unions to be involved and we of course acknowledge, as I have done, the valuable work that they do in our communities, we believe that they could not guarantee the nationwide provision of accounts that we seek.
Appointing National Savings and Investments as the scheme provider, which we have obviously made public, does involve our funding it for nationwide account provision, but it also means that we can work with a single provider to ensure that accounts are easily accessible to all eligible people, and it removes what could be the significant administrative and compliance costs associated with allowing a range of providers to offer accounts. Those could include costs associated with approving providers, checking for multiple account opening, checking and paying bonus claims from different providers and ensuring that each provider is operating the account correctly.
An option whereby we funded NS&I to provide accounts while we also allowed other providers to offer accounts on a voluntary basis would not provide value for money in this environment. A product such as this operates very much at the value-for-money end of the market. However, I am clear that we should not rule out the option for a range of providers, including credit unions, voluntarily to offer accounts in the future if that would deliver national coverage, and I reassure the Committee that the Bill has been drafted to accommodate different models of account provision, should that situation arise. In the meantime, we will work with the credit union sector to explore further options for Help to Save that work for it.
The hon. Member for Bootle has indicated that he will not seek to press the amendment to a vote, and with those points and that clarification in mind, I urge him to withdraw it.
Peter Dowd
I thank the Minister for those words. I think it would be inappropriate to take up the Committee’s time pursuing the amendment any further at this stage, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Ian Blackford
I beg to move amendment 2, in schedule 2, page 18, line 16, leave out “maximum” and insert “average”.
See explanatory statement for amendment 5.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 3, in schedule 2, page 18, line 19, leave out “maximum” and insert “average”.
See explanatory statement for amendment 5.
Amendment 4, in schedule 2, page 18, line 19, after “means”, insert “an average of”.
See explanatory statement for amendment 5.
Amendment 5, in schedule 2, page 18, line 19, after “£50” insert
“across every two month period within the maturity period”.
Together with amendments 2 and 3, this amendment would allow HTS to provide for “top-up” monthly payments above £50 so long as the average payment for every two months is £50.
Ian Blackford
The amendments would allow Help to Save to provide for top-up monthly payments above £50 as long as the average monthly payment in every two-month period was £50. Many people in the target group will have fluctuating incomes. Allowing people to save a maximum of only £50 per month will reduce applications from people who may have, say, £20 spare one month and £70 spare the next.
A survey by StepChange revealed that 34% of respondents
“would prefer to be able to pay in an average maximum of £50 per month.”
The amendments would allow Help to Save account holders to save an average of £50 per month over the course of the account period. That would allow account holders to overpay to catch up following lower payments in previous months and maximise bonus payments. I hope that the Minister will look favourably upon the amendments as a way of strengthening the Bill.
Jane Ellison
The amendments are about the scheme rules on monthly deposit limits. They would provide that rather than the maximum monthly deposit being set at £50, a saver could add an average of £50 per month to their account, calculated over a two-month period. That would allow individuals to make additional catch-up payments to their Help to Save accounts in the event that they did not use their full £50 deposit allowance in a preceding month.
We consulted on whether individuals should be able to pay in excess of the £50 monthly deposit limit to catch up on either unused monthly allowances or withdrawals. Respondents were clear that that would add complexity to the scheme for savers and account providers, and given the objectives of the scheme and our desire for the product to be straightforward and simple, it was vital that the account rules were kept as simple as possible to ensure that the scheme was easy to understand and accessible to the target group. Having an average monthly deposit limit would complicate the simple position that we propose in relation to account limits.
I entirely understand the spirit in which the amendments were tabled, but we consulted on this issue and the feedback that we received was that that was not the most straightforward way to proceed for the target group. It may also help the Committee to know that the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that on average people will deposit £27.50 into their accounts each month. That suggests that a £50 monthly limit is adequate. We have actually raised that limit from the £25 limit that was proposed for the Saving Gateway scheme—a scheme that, as some Members will know, contained elements similar to Help to Save. Quite a lot was learned from it, because it was piloted.
Peter Dowd
The Committee heard evidence from Joseph Surtees of StepChange that
“When it was introduced in the Budget, the potential eligibility for the scheme was 3.5 million, but the impact assessment says that it will probably only reach about 500,000”
and asked
“how do we get…to the 3.5 million figure?”––[Official Report, Savings (Government Contributions) Public Bill Committee, 25 October 2016; c. 28, Q49.]
Does the Minister agree that, if we are to get a higher level of engagement, the scheme may need to be more flexible, as suggested by the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber?
Jane Ellison
It is certainly fair to say that we want to look at all aspects of how we grow the scheme and reach as many eligible people as possible. At this stage, we disagree about offsetting greater flexibility against perhaps great simplicity, and how we balance the two. Because of the way we have structured the Bill and its consequent regulations, there is quite a lot of flexibility built into the scheme in the future. We have the £50 monthly limit in the schedule, but there are ways that we might be able to return to the product and look at it in the future. I come down on the side of simplicity in this argument, and that is why we have proposed what we have—notwithstanding the evidence we heard on Tuesday.
The Saving Gateway, which was essentially the partial forerunner of this scheme, had a proposed limit of only £25. Given the OBR’s forecast that £27.50 will be the average deposit, doubling the limit from Saving Gateway effectively allows for people to make almost twice that average deposit. In effect, the upper limit offers the flexibility that the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber proposes. It is also worth noting that the four-year duration of an account will allow savers to dip in and out of saving when they can afford to put money aside. Savers will still earn an attractive Government bonus even if they are not in a position to save the full amount each month. With those points in mind, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing the amendment.
Ian Blackford
I thank the Minister for her remarks, but I am both a little surprised and a little disappointed. I thought the Government were in favour of freedom and choice and what we seem to have here is a Government who are trying to shut down freedom and choice. The Minister talks about complexity; I cannot see why giving consumers the choice of being able to get to £50 over an average will bring additional complexity. I think that this is really just a software issue for those who are going to be providing the scheme, so I do not accept that argument. We will be pressing the amendment to a vote, because it is the right thing to do. This is about growing the market for Help to Save, and the amendment has been put forward with a genuine desire to help the Government make this policy more attractive. The Minister talks about coming back to the scheme in the future, but I think we should put that flexibility in today. On that basis, I wish to press the amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 8, in schedule 2, page 19, line 11, at end insert—
“(e) make provision for eligible persons to be auto-enrolled into Help-to-Save accounts from benefit entitlements unless the individual chooses to opt-out.”
This amendment would enable an “auto-enrolment” workplace saving scheme which would see an individual automatically signed up to a Help-to-Save account. He or she then must “opt-out” to stop money being deducted from their pay or benefits into a savings account.
The amendment would enable the establishment of an auto-enrolment type of workplace saving scheme that would allow individuals to be automatically signed up for a Help to Save account. Individuals could of course opt out of this entirely, but for many it could help overcome the inertia and procrastination sometimes associated with getting started in setting up a savings account. These days, there are fewer and fewer high street outlets, banks and building societies—indeed, several are closing in my constituency tomorrow—and that is going to make it even harder for people to talk to somebody face to face about savings products. I believe that if an incentivised savings scheme is made easily accessible and available the likelihood of participation is greatly increased. More people who would be well advised to save but who do not do it would find it an awful lot easier to get started.
Jane Ellison
The amendment is about auto-enrolling individuals into Help to Save accounts. I understand the motivation, and given the evidence from StepChange the Government do not doubt the sincerity of the intention and the desire to help people to save. However, we have concerns, and I shall explain why we cannot support the amendment.
The amendment would provide for arrangements allowing employers or benefit paying bodies to divert money from employees’ pay or benefits into a Help to Save account, unless they chose to opt out. To return to an earlier debate about auto-enrolment, we all believe that it has been a huge success in pension saving. However, while there is a strong case for auto-enrolling people into long-term pension savings, we do not think that is the case for the rainy-day savings that Help to Save is designed to support.
We want a decision to save into an account to be an active choice made by eligible individuals at a time that is right for them. Given the focus on rainy-day savings, we think that many will want to use the account flexibly, putting aside what they can afford each month rather than committing to a fixed amount being deducted from their salary or tax credit payments. For those looking to make regular payments into a Help to Save account, a standing order that they control will be the best option. That is because many people who are eligible for Help to Save could well have more than one job or other changes in circumstances over the four-year period when they have an account. The target group for a Help to Save account is disproportionately more likely to have a series of different jobs or more than one job at the same time.
Nevertheless, an employer that wants to offer payroll deduction into a Help to Save account to its employees is perfectly free to do so—nothing in the legislation would stop them. The Government are aware of successful voluntary workplace savings schemes and we are keen to explore the role that employers and other local organisations can play to support people in getting access to Help to Save, but we have no intention of making that a statutory requirement at a time when we are still working with businesses to roll out and embed automatic enrolment into workplace pensions—particularly given the forthcoming rises in contribution rates. We think that that must remain the priority for employers. That takes us back to an earlier debate about the support we all give to auto-enrolment, and the desire not to confuse that picture.
I hope that, with those points in mind, the hon. Lady will withdraw her amendment.
Dr Whiteford
I take on board the Minister’s concern, particularly for people who may be in multiple employment; that is a fair point. I am not sure that the arrangement would not be hugely beneficial for employers too, or that they would be all that resistant. The amendment is intended as an enabling provision, but in the interest of making progress, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Ian Blackford
I beg to move amendment 7, in schedule 2, page 19, line 31, at end insert—
‘(2A) Where a bankruptcy order is made against a person with a Help-to-Save account any bonus paid into the Help-to-Save account will not form part of a debtors estate during insolvency proceedings.
(2B) Any bonus paid into a Help-to-Save account shall not be liable to be taken as repayment via third party debt orders.’
The amendment would ensure that those subject to a bankruptcy order would not be stripped of their assets. Currently, Help to Save affords no protection to the Government bonus paid into accounts from insolvency proceedings or third-party debt orders from creditors. The Government need to look closely at the debt collection and insolvency implications of the scheme. Given the target audience of Help to Save, it is likely that many will face financial difficulties while holding a Help to Save account. That would leave them vulnerable to third-party debt orders and potential insolvency.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I wonder why the hon. Gentleman is proposing this provision for protection from insolvency when we know that under section 283 of the Insolvency Act 1986 the bankrupt’s home is not protected from insolvency. A pension that is already in payment is also not protected.
Ian Blackford
I would not agree with the last assertion, because pension payments—certainly pension pots—are protected under the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999. That condition exists, so I do not agree with the hon. and learned Lady on that point.
Ian Blackford
That is not the point that I made, which was about when payments are in the pension pot. We are arguing that the pots should be protected under the Help to Save scheme. Given that a key purpose of the Help to Save scheme is to promote long-term financial resilience, it would be counterproductive if creditors could take the money saved, or even the bonus, to satisfy existing debts. That would result in creditors benefiting from public money intended to help low-income families build precautionary savings. At the very least, the bonus should be protected. For the absence of doubt, there is a precedent for that in the 1999 Act, which states that approved pension arrangements do not form part of the bankrupt’s estate.
Jane Ellison
The amendment seeks to prevent creditors from accessing the Government bonus in the event that the account holder is subject to insolvency proceedings or a third-party debt order. Obviously I appreciate that the objective is to protect the account holder, but the Government also need to consider what is fair to creditors by not providing people with an opportunity to shelter from debt proceedings when a creditor has a legal right to be repaid.
I am aware that it has been argued that a special case should be made for ring-fencing the Government bonus to avoid taxpayers’ money being used to repay debts, but I underline that the scheme rules mean that account holders will be entitled to a bonus on the highest balance achieved in the account. That represents an asset for the account holder, and it should be treated as such in any insolvency proceedings.
It is worth noting that there was a Government policy change that meant that, from October 2015, the minimum debt on which creditors can ask the court to declare an individual bankrupt rose to £5,000 from £750, ensuring that people with low-level debts are taken out of that. This measure is consistent with Government policy in other areas—that is the point my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire made—such as the rules around when funds to pay creditors can be deducted from benefit payments.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I concede that there is some worth in what the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber was saying, but my concern is that if all sorts of accounts were protected from insolvency prosecutions, people might pile all of their cash into those accounts while knowing that they were going to go bankrupt or behaving in a financially irresponsible way. That protection would not help creditors.
Jane Ellison
A fair point—I certainly acknowledge what the hon. Gentleman says. What we propose in the Bill around creditors and insolvency is consistent with Government policy in other areas. For those reasons, I urge the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber to withdraw the amendment.
Ian Blackford
I am flabbergasted that some Government Back Benchers do not even understand their own legislation. The amendment would put Help to Save on the same footing as pension pots, and I will certainly press it to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Dr Whiteford
I beg to move amendment 1, in schedule 2, page 20, line 21, at end insert
“which must be paid no later than six calendar months beginning with the calendar month in which the account is opened”.
This amendment would reduce the time before the holder of a Help to Save account would receive a government bonus to six months.
I will be extremely brief. This amendment is very simple: it would reduce the amount of time before a Help to Save account holder receives their Government bonus to six months, which simply reflects the reality of the timeframe in which people on lower incomes are likely to have to dip into their savings to cover unexpected costs. Again, the amendment builds on research by StepChange, whose users are the target group for the product. According to StepChange, more than three quarters of people in the target income band will need to dip into savings more than once in a year, and a significant proportion will need to do so within six months. Two years is probably too long for them to see the full benefit of the bonus. A more frequent bonus payment will make the product more attractive to the people it is aimed at.
Jane Ellison
The amendment would require the Government to pay the bonus on Help to Save accounts within six months of the account opening. On Second Reading, hon. Members expressed concerns about the bonus being paid after two years and on maturity, and not more regularly. The Government are not requiring people to lock their money away in Help to Save. People will still have full access to their savings and will be paid a bonus on the highest balance obtained. Even if people are able to save for only six months, they will still be entitled to receive a bonus at the two-year point and on maturity.
We have said a number of times that the purpose of Help to Save is to support rainy-day saving over a four-year period to help people to build a buffer against unexpected financial shocks or changes in circumstances. In light of that objective, we have looked carefully at how frequently we should pay the bonus.
Similar accounts in the Saving Gateway pilots run by a previous Government ran for 18 months. Published research shows that participants had different views on account duration, but many were in favour of extending the period. Additionally, there is peer-reviewed research by US academics on individual development accounts, a similar savings scheme in the US that also provides match funding to help people on low incomes to save. The research concluded that 19 to 24 months is the optimal time period to embed a savings habit.
Kelvin Hopkins
I am somewhat persuaded by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan. In the American case, is that the convenient time period for those organising the scheme, or is it the optimal time period for the saver?
Jane Ellison
My understanding—I have not read the detailed research, although I suspect I will before Report—is that it is what people who were in the scheme fed back about how they felt. That is certainly the case with the Saving Gateway research, which was published in the Journal of Economic Psychology, and I will certainly read it before we get to the next stage of the Bill. Research was published on the Saving Gateway pilot showing that participants were generally in favour of extending the period. We have the right focus there.
Kelvin Hopkins
I remember that when people on lower or ordinary incomes were paid monthly instead of weekly, it was sometimes felt that that was uncomfortable, and that short timescales were better for those on low incomes than those on high incomes.
Jane Ellison
We risk straying slightly off the point, but there has been a lot of debate about weekly and monthly pay in the discussions about the many changes to the welfare system in recent years. Universal credit, which like many other benefits is moving to a monthly-by-default payment, is subject to the same argument about striking the right balance. We think that paying the bonus at two years and on account maturity strikes the right balance, because it gives people enough time to build up their savings and develop a saving habit, while allowing them to access the bonus within an appropriate timescale.
The Government bonus is designed to provide support and a real incentive to those building up their savings over a long period, rather than supporting or incentivising short-term spending. A bonus of up to £600 after two years is an attractive target to save towards, and will encourage people to keep saving, if they can. We do not believe that smaller bonus amounts paid at more frequent intervals would provide the same incentive for regular saving over the long term.
Given the rainy-day nature of the scheme, Members may be concerned to ensure that savers can access their bonus early if they face an unexpected cost or change in circumstances, and I stress that savers can access their money at any time and still earn a bonus on their savings. The four-year duration of the account allows people to start saving again, so they can earn an additional bonus. While I recognise the strong views on this issue, the motivation behind the amendment, and that no one solution will work perfectly for all savers, I think—in light of the argument I have made and some of the evidence I have cited—that we have got the balance right in this regard. I ask the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan to withdraw her amendment.
Dr Whiteford
I am disappointed that the Government have not taken on board a simple and straightforward amendment. I am minded to push the amendment to a vote, simply because many Members expressed concern about this matter on Second Reading, and the amendment could be made fairly easily.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Digital Economy Bill (Ninth sitting)
Thursday 27th 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 27 October 2016 - (27 Oct 2016)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
If hon. Members wish to take off their jackets, they have the Chair’s permission to do so.
Clause 38
Disclosure of information by civil registration officials
Amendment proposed (25 October): 107, in clause 38, page 36, line 12, leave out from “that” to end of subsection and insert—
“(a) the authority or civil registration official to whom it is disclosed (the “recipient”) requires the information to enable the recipient to exercise one or more of the recipient’s functions and,
(b) the data subjects whose information is being disclosed have given valid consent under data protection legislation.”.—(Louise Haigh.)
This amendment would remove bulk sharing while allowing certificates to be shared to support electronic government services.
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing amendment 97, in clause 38, page 36, line 15, at end insert—
‘(2A) An authority or civil registration official requiring the information must specify the reasons for requiring the information to be disclosed.
(2AA) Information disclosed under this section shall not be shared with any other public or private body beyond those specified in subsection (1).”
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
It has been a couple of days since we last met, but my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley made a very important point in her speech regarding where we should look for best practice. The UK is one of the Digital 5, and she brought up Estonia as a country that, when we consider big data, we should reflect on. In dealing with the Bill, we are casting our eye around to see how we can manage big data, personal information, between public bodies. She made the valid point that a fundamental question seems to run throughout the Bill and the clause: does the individual own the information or does the state own it? Because the Government have taken the view, unlike what happens in Estonia, that the state owns the information, we have a series of such clauses. We are primarily trying to find a way to balance the rights of the individual, while the state retains ownership of the information in any form, but, particularly as we move forward, in digital form; that is what I am concerned about.
Let me explain what is done in Estonia and why the Bill in years to come will probably need to be usurped by a new Bill. Estonia has transferred the ownership of data from the state to the individual. When the individual owns the data, there is no need for these complex fudges to try to find a way in which people’s privacy and the integrity of data can be respected, while ownership remains with an umbrella organisation.
The criticism that I make to the Government, and my hon. Friend’s point, is that a fundamental rethink or reset will have to occur at some point because of what is missing from the Bill and the clause. It talks about public bodies, but the Government do not address in this or any other clause the fact that private corporations hold enormous amounts of personal data on people and the ownership of that lies with them, not with the individual. That is why the point that she made was so pertinent. The ownership of data should lie with the individual. As a country, as a nation, we should be looking to transfer that ownership. That is why we cannot address what happens in the private sector. Absent from the Bill are any clauses or even subsections tackling data and information in the private sector. It is solely about the public sector and trying to square off those conundrums and contradictions.
The Government have missed an opportunity to empower people and to be on the side of the individual, the ordinary person, who feels disempowered by all this. They are on the side of big government and, by absence, of big corporations, which in my view is a fundamentally flawed position. That question was asked in Estonia, and it is why it reversed the answer: ownership should lie with the individual.
I can see the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, chatting to the Minister for Digital and Culture, and he will probably provide an answer that talks about a destination, saying that if someone gets on a bus, they only get off at the end destination. We all know that when someone gets on a bus, there are many stops before the destination on the front of the bus. They do not have to go all the way. I presume the Minister will explain why the clause is correct from the Government’s point of view and why my argument is flawed. He will say, “If you are going to empower the individual with data, you would need a national identification card system, as in Estonia. The empowerment of the individual must correlate with a national ID card scheme.”
The Minister will make that argument, but that is like getting on a bus and only being able to get off at the final destination, with a national ID card scheme. No one is saying that. There are many bus stops we can get off at before the end. The issue is not binary, with the place we get on the bus and the place we get off. The destination is not necessarily ID cards. The principle that these are the individuals’ own data should be at the heart of the Bill, and the clause does not represent that. The absence of any mention of the private sector is alarming.
Moving on, I want to touch briefly on another aspect that is missing from the Bill and should be considered. This is the Digital Economy Bill, but it is all about the public sector. There is an absence of any reference to the private sector per se. This part of the Bill deals with the digital economy and the provision of public services. Returning to the Estonia example and empowering the individual, people in Estonia can set up a business or company in three or four minutes online. Where is the pro-business element of the Bill? It is certainly not this clause, which relates to data and information in relation to the state and public bodies. Why can individuals here not set up businesses in four minutes? Why is it not a pro-business Bill? Why does it not talk about business? Nothing in the Bill talks about being pro-business.
The clause is simply about public bodies holding big data, and in that respect, it lives in the past, not the future. I urge the Government to think about the fundamental principles and to not make the argument that the amendments would lead to an ID card system, although Estonia does have ID cards. I would have ID cards tomorrow—it is well known across the patch that I would not be on the list of soggy, wet liberals—but that does not mean that the principle that the individual owns data would lead to ID cards. It does not. I ask the Minister, with all due respect, not to suggest that I am making that argument, because I am not.
The Bill is not pro-business and is fundamentally flawed. The clause is simply about trying to manage all the conflicts and contradictions from yesterday’s age. It does not deal with the future. The Government have fallen short. I emphasise the word “economy” in the Bill’s title—it is not about public services, but the economy. I put that word up in bright lights. Where does the Bill talk about the economy? We are talking about public bodies and public authorities.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)
That was an impressive Second Reading speech. I am here to speak to amendment 97 and 107.
Chris Skidmore
Not necessarily; that has not been called yet. The amendments have been tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley. She finished her speech on Tuesday, and I put on record my thanks for her impressive scrutiny of the Bill, which she has done almost single-handedly. I note that she made a weighty speech about Concentrix yesterday, so I do not know how she finds the time to sleep. I am sure that it will be noted in the Lords that we have gone through a full process of scrutiny in Committee.
The Government will ensure that citizens can access future Government digital services effectively and securely, while removing the current reliance on paper certificates. That will provide more flexibility and modernise how services are delivered.
Amendment 97 would require registration officials and public authorities requesting information to specify reasons for requiring disclosure. In considering a request to share information under those powers, a registration official would first need to be satisfied that the recipient requires the information to enable them to exercise one or more of their functions.
In her speech on Tuesday, the hon. Lady raised some issues about the Data Protection Act 1998 and said that the Government should set out clearly that it is being honoured, particularly for registration. The hon. Member for Hyndburn talked about fundamental principles, and I can confirm that the Bill’s fundamental principle is its compliance with the Data Protection Act. Data should not be disclosed if to do so would be incompatible with that Act, the Human Rights Act 1998 or part 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
The Data Protection Act is Magna Carta of the data world, and we want to ensure that all parts of the Bill comply with it. When disclosing information, only minimal information will be provided, in accordance with the requirements of the data recipient.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for his kind and polite words. If that is the case, why does the Bill contain the words “clear and compelling”, rather than “necessary and proportionate”, which is the term associated with the Data Protection Act?
Chris Skidmore
I have taken legal advice about that issue, which the hon. Lady raised in her previous speech, and I have been told that those words do not in any way, shape or form challenge or change the interpretation of and compliance with the Data Protection Act. We will be happy to look again at the wording and reflect on it if that gives her confidence that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that the Data Protection Act runs through the core of the Bill. Registration officials are required to be aware of the reasons for the request, so the intention behind the amendment is already achieved by the clause.
Amendment 97 seeks to prevent the onward disclosure of information by the data recipient to any other public or private body beyond the specified public authorities listed in proposed new section 19AB(1) of the Registration Service Act 1953. Disclosures under the power will be restricted to the specified public authorities listed in proposed new section 19AB(1). In addition, personal data will be shared only in accordance with the power and in adherence to the Data Protection Act, by which the recipients will also be bound. As an additional safeguard, under the code of practice, data-sharing agreements can place restrictions on onward disclosures of data, which will be adopted where appropriate.
Amendment 107 would retain the requirement for a civil registration official to be satisfied that the information was required by a recipient to fulfil one of more of their functions before disclosing data. It seeks to add a requirement that an individual must have given valid consent under data protection legislation before any disclosure of their personal data. The data protection legislation referred to is believed to be the Data Protection Act, to which these clauses are already subject. They already state that personal data must be processed fairly. In practice, it will sometimes be necessary to share information in the public interest, where it is impractical or inappropriate to seek or rely on the consent of the individual concerned, but that is already permitted under the Data Protection Act, which we are determined to ensure remains in force.
In the hon. Lady’s speech on Tuesday, she talked about the uses of bulk data and asked me to give examples of where the powers will be used and where they are already used. The powers will allow registration officials to disclose birth data to other local authorities. Currently, a registrar is unable to notify another local authority if a birth takes place in their district but the child’s parents reside in another. Being able to disclose data across district boundaries will assist healthcare, school and wider local authority planning. Being able to share bulk information will ensure that children are known to the local authorities in which they reside and that action can be taken to address any needs of the child or parent.
Another example relates to blue badge fraud. It is estimated that about 2.1% of blue badge fraud relates to use of a blue badge following the death of the individual to whom it belonged. The new powers will allow data to be shared with the local authorities to help reduce that fraud.
Louise Haigh
The Minister gives an important example—blue badge fraud—in which data are accessed rather than shared. The local authority will have an access point into Department for Work and Pensions data to determine whether someone is disabled, but there is absolutely no need for bulk data sharing across local authorities. That is the kind of example that we should follow in the rest of the public sector.
Chris Skidmore
The hon. Lady mentions legal portals through which data can be shared. The key point is that although we have specific examples of data being accessed or shared, every new data-sharing arrangement has to be established within a very specified remit. A great example of a data-sharing arrangement for registrars that is already happening is the Tell Us Once service, in which birth and death registration information is shared across local and central Government. That system has been developed by Government, is envied by the private sector and clearly demonstrates the benefit of sharing civil registration information for both citizens and Government, but the problem is that it is very limited.
We cannot move forward by having endless tiny data-sharing agreements; we need to be able to create a wider platform. For instance, to share death data, individual local authorities have to forge individual relationships. We need to ensure that that is far broader, so that local authorities and Departments can work together to help to prevent unwarranted and unwanted mail from being sent to the family of a deceased person, which can often cause a great deal of distress.
This is evolution, not revolution. We are following the Data Protection Act 1998 and the codes of practice, which the Committee will discuss, will be reviewed every year. We can now share data effectively on a bulk level but without using personal details apart from for the benefit of those it will serve: children, local authorities, planning numbers. This is absolutely the right thing to be doing.
Disclosure will take place without consent only where that is consistent with Data Protection Act rules on fair disclosure. At all times, data can be shared only with specified public authorities as defined in section 19AB of the Registration Service Act 1953. The code of practice makes it very clear that if there are any data breaches or any of those authorities do not follow the code—we will discuss the code when we consider debt measures—they can be removed from that list. With that explanation, I hope the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley will agree that the necessary measures are already included in the clause and will withdraw her amendment.
Louise Haigh
My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn made important points about the absence from the Bill of clauses dealing with the private sector. In the evidence session, we heard from the chief executive of a tech start-up in Canary Wharf who made it very clear that nothing in the Bill would help his business or others operating in the digital economy. We will certainly return to that theme. I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to new clause 31, which the Committee will consider on Tuesday morning and which will require a review of data ownership across the public and private sectors.
I am grateful that the Minister has confirmed that the Government will consider a rewording of “clear and compelling”, because I think it could lead to some confusion regarding the compliance of part 5 with the Data Protection Act. It is great to hear him praise the Tell Us Once scheme, which was set up by the shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson)—I will pass on the Minister’s congratulations to him.
The Minister referred to a platform; will he confirm whether he is referring to a central database of citizens’ civil registration information? That is a key concern. I am also glad to hear that sharing information without consent will take place only in explicitly defined circumstances, but I am still not clear why chapter 2 of part 5 will not—as our amendment 97 would—require civil registration officials to disclose why they are sharing information, as all the other chapters in part 5 require data-sharing arrangements or specified persons to do. If the Minister can explain that to me in an intervention, I will happily withdraw the amendment.
Chris Skidmore
I used the word “platform” as part of a process argument about being able to look at data in the round, rather than to suggest that there would be any centralised data collection. That is certainly not the case. For public confidence, measures in the codes of practice set out clearly that when it comes to the data-sharing measures, once data have been used for the required purpose, they are then destroyed. They are not kept on any register for any historical purpose.
Turning to the hon. Lady’s second point—
The Chair
Minister, this is an intervention. I call Louise Haigh—you may intervene again, Minister.
Louise Haigh
My question stands: why is there not a requirement in this chapter of this part for the reasons for disclosure, as there is in all the other chapters? I would be grateful if the Minister intervened regarding that point.
Chris Skidmore
The registration codes of practice clearly set out that the purposes will need to be defined and that a business case will need to be made. None of that can take place until we ensure that there is a specified public function defined on the face of legislation, particularly when it comes to the code of practice that registrars will have to follow and which will be reviewed yearly. I believe that measures are in place to ensure that any data-sharing is done through a due process that is incredibly tight, restrictive and respectful of the use of individuals’ data.
Louise Haigh
I am afraid I am still not satisfied with why that requirement is not on the face of the Bill as it is in other chapters, so I will press amendment 97 to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 97, in clause 38, page 36, line 15, at end insert—
‘(2A) An authority or civil registration official requiring the information must specify the reasons for requiring the information to be disclosed.
(2AA) Information disclosed under this section shall not be shared with any other public or private body beyond those specified in subsection (1).”—(Louise Haigh.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Chris Skidmore
The clause amends the Registration Service Act 1953 to introduce new flexible data-sharing powers that allow registration officials to share data from birth, death, marriage and civil partnership records with public authorities for the purpose of fulfilling their functions. That will provide more flexibility and modernise how Government services are delivered.
Being able to share registration data will bring many benefits, for example, in combating housing tenancy fraud. The National Fraud Authority estimates that housing tenancy fraud—for example, a tenant dies and someone else continues to live in the property when they have no right to—costs local authorities around £845 million each year. Being able to provide death data to local authorities will assist in reducing that kind of fraud. The sharing of data will provide benefits for the public in a number of different ways, including the removal of barriers when accessing Government services. It will pave the way for citizens to access Government services more conveniently, efficiently and securely, for example by removing the current reliance on paper certificates to access services.
Data will continue to be protected in accordance with data protection principles, and a number of safeguards will be put in place. Registration officials will be able to share data with only specified public authorities, as defined in new section 19AB—which also includes a power for the Minister to make regulations to add, modify or remove a reference to a public body, thereby providing reassurance that the data will only be disclosed in a targeted way to the Departments listed. As set out in paragraph 58 of the code of practice, the Registrar General has a responsibility to review the code annually, which will involve the national panel for registration. As an additional safeguard, such regulations will be made under the affirmative procedure, requiring the approval of both Houses.
All data sharing will be underpinned by a statutory code of practice, as set out in section 19AC. As I have said, when revising the code the Registrar General will have an obligation to consult the Minister, the Information Commissioner and other relevant parties. The code of practice will act as a safeguard by explaining how discretionary data-sharing powers should be used. The code will require data-sharing agreements to be drawn up, which will includes safeguards on things such as how data will be used and stored and for how long they are to be retained, and forbidding data to be cross-linked in any way.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 38, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 39
Consequential provision
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
Several questions relating to the clause remain unanswered because we were cantering through on Tuesday afternoon. Will the Minister confirm, and give examples of, what the powers in this part of the Bill will exclude? Will he give some guidance on how officials are meant to determine where the line is for what is and is not included? Will there be more guidance issued for non-public sector authorities that will come under the legislation? Will he assure us that the codes, in their next iteration, will provide further guidance on how officials should deal with conflicts of interest when sharing data, how they should identify any unintended risks from disclosing data to organisations, and how sponsoring public authorities should assess whether their systems and procedures are appropriate for the secure handling of data? I would also be grateful if the Minister confirmed what lessons have been learned from the recent National Audit Office report that found more than 9,000 data incidents in the past year alone, and how the Government are improving their data processes to address those issues.
Will the Minister assure us that nothing in the Bill will undermine patient confidentiality? I am aware that the British Medical Association has written to him but has not had a response. The BMA is unclear about whether the scope of the Bill includes the disclosure of personal health and social care information, which would significantly weaken existing protections for confidential data. Will the well established rules that already protect such confidential information continue to apply, and will he assure us that these powers will not override common law in this vital area?
Finally, on a significant area that has not yet been addressed, do the Government intend to implement the EU’s general data protection regulation? If they do, why is the Bill not compliant with it?
Chris Skidmore
On the European directive, which is to be introduced in May 2018, the codes will be revised and will reflect that. That is why the flexibility we have from the codes not being written into the Bill is so important—so that we can deal with instances in which there will be change in the future. They will be updated to reflect that change in May 2018.
Civil registration officers—public servants who want to share data for the benefit of the public—are not trying to do anything that would compromise those whom they serve. In the code of practice, paragraph 47 states that privacy impact assessments will be put in place to ensure that there will be compliance with data protection obligations and that they meet individual expectations of privacy. All Departments entering into data-sharing arrangements under the powers must comply with privacy impact assessments and publish the findings. We want to ensure transparency so that members of the public understand why it is necessary for those data to be shared.
An application to share data is not simply a permissive path by which new data-sharing arrangements can be established without going through due process and regard. In the fairness and transparency section of the data code of practice, there are many questions that must be addressed in order to establish the data-sharing arrangements. They are clearly laid out.
Louise Haigh
The Minister says that civil registration officials will be required to publish their findings. What exactly will they be required to publish, under either the code or the measures in the clause?
Chris Skidmore
Paragraphs 47 and 49 of the civil registration data-sharing code of practice clearly state:
“All government departments entering into data sharing arrangements under these powers must conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment and to publish its findings. The Information Commissioner’s Conducting Privacy Impact Assessments code of practice provides guidance on a range of issues in respect of these assessments, including the benefits of conducting privacy impact assessments and practical guidance on the process required to carry one out…Registration officials entering into new data sharing arrangements should refer to the following guidance issued by the Information Commissioner on Privacy Impact Assessments which includes screening questions…to determine whether a Privacy Impact Assessment is required.”
On health care data, the Government are considering Dame Fiona Caldicott’s recommendations. The consultation closed on 7 September, and I confirm that the Bill’s powers will not be used in relation to health and care data before we have completed that process.
Louise Haigh
The Bill explicitly says that health and social care information should be excluded, but there are concerns that it is drafted so widely that it could be used for that, and I think that the Minister has just confirmed it. He is saying that it is wide enough that should the Government decide on the basis of Dame Fiona’s review that they want to share health and social care information, the Bill will enable it. Is that the case?
Chris Skidmore
The Government will respond to the National Data Guardian’s review. It will not have an impact on the Bill at this stage. The Department of Health recently concluded a public consultation and is considering how to implement her recommendations. As it will take time to make the changes and demonstrate that the public have confidence in them, it would be inappropriate for the Government to seek new information sharing powers in respect of health and care data at this time. I note that we will come to health and care data when we debate a later group of amendments on research, and I hope to provide more information when we do.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 39 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 40
Disclosure of information to reduce debt owed to the public sector
Louise Haigh
I beg to move amendment 190, in clause 40, page 39, line 21, leave out “have regard, in particular, to” and insert “must comply with”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 191, in clause 44, page 42, line 8, leave out “have regard to” and insert “comply with”.
Amendment 192, in clause 52, page 49, line 8, leave out “have regard to” and insert “comply with”.
Amendment 193, in clause 60, page 55, line 20, leave out “have regard to” and insert “comply with”.
Amendment 194, in clause 67, page 66, line 15, leave out “have regard to” and insert “comply with”.
Amendment 198, in clause 82, page 80, line 18, at end insert
“and only after the codes of practice required under sections 35, 44, 52 and 60 have been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
New clause 35—Public register of data disclosures—
‘(1) No disclosure by a public authority under Part 5 shall be lawful unless detailed by an entry in a public register.
(2) Any entry made in a public register under subsection (1) shall be disclosed to another person only for the purposes set out in this Part.
(3) Each entry in the register must contain, or include information on—
(a) the uniform resource locator of the entry,
(b) the purpose of the disclosure,
(c) the specific data to be disclosed,
(d) the data controllers and data processors involved in the sharing of the data,
(e) any exchange of letters between the data controllers on the disclosure,
(f) any other information deemed relevant.
(4) In this section, “uniform resource locator” means a standardised naming convention for entries made in a public register.
Louise Haigh
These are further amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West and me to make the codes of practice, on which officials have obviously worked so hard and which were developed in consultation with the Information Commissioner, legally binding. With your permission, Mr Stringer, I will come to specific issues about the data-sharing measures and fraud during debate on clause stand part.
I appreciate what the Minister said about sanctions being enforced on those authorities that do not have regard to the code of practice, but it says on the front page of the code:
“The contents of this Code are not legally binding”;
it merely
“recommends good practice to follow when exercising the powers set out in the Bill.”
That is not really a strong enough message to send to officials and all those involved in data-sharing arrangements. I would be interested to hear examples from the Minister of when it would be considered reasonable not to follow the code, as I assume that that is why he does not want to build it into primary legislation. I know that he will tell me that his real reason is that he wants to future-proof the codes. That is all well and good, but the Bill is already outdated. One witness wrote to us in evidence:
“Part 5 seems to imply an approach to ‘data sharing’ modelled on the era of filing cabinets and photocopiers when—quite literally—the only way to make data available to others was to send them a duplicate physical copy. Modern technology has already rendered the need for such literal ‘data sharing’ obsolete: data can now be used without copying it to others and without compromising security and privacy.”
Furthermore, data sharing is not defined, either legally or technically, in the Bill or in the codes of practice. Does data sharing mean data duplication—copying and distribution—or does it mean data access, or alternatives such as attribute exchange or claim confirmation? These are all quite different things, with their own very distinct risk profiles, and in the absence of any definition, the term “data sharing” is ambiguous at best and potentially damaging in terms of citizens’ trust, cyber-security and data protection. Let me give an example: there is a significant difference between, and different security risk associated with, distributing personal information to third parties, granting them controlled and audited one-time access for the purpose of a specific transaction, or simply confirming that a person is in debt or is or is not eligible for a particular benefit, without revealing any of their detailed personal data.
What is more, there is no reference in the clause to identity and how officials, citizens, or organisations, or even devices and sensors, will be able to prove who they are and their entitlement to access specific personal data. Without this, it is impossible to share data securely, since it will not be possible to know with whom data are being shared and whether they are an appropriate person or organisation to have access to those data. Security audits, of who has accessed which data, when and why, require a trusted identity framework to ensure that details of who has been granted access to data are accurately recorded. Presumably, it will also be mandatory to implement good practice security measures, such as protecting monitoring, preventing in real time inappropriate attempts at data access, and flagging such attempts, to enable immediate mitigating action to be taken.
As I said on Tuesday, all these details are moot, as are the codes of practice and indeed the Information Commissioner Office’s excellent code of practice, if the existence and detail of data sharing is not known about to be challenged; hence the need for a register, as set out in new clause 35. That is why we have tabled our amendments and we would like the Minister to give serious consideration to the inclusion of these important principles and safeguards in the Bill. We are not talking about detailed regulations, we are certainly not talking about holding back technological advances, and we are not talking about the “dead hand of Whitehall”, as the Minister said on Tuesday. We are talking about vital principles that should be in primary legislation, alongside any new powers to share information. The most important of those principles is transparency, which is exactly what new clause 35 speaks to. It would require public authorities to enter in a public register all data disclosures across Government.
The Minister did not know the detail of the audits that are mentioned in the codes of practice. We really need more detail on those audits, as it may well satisfy us in our request for this register. Will all data-sharing agreements be kept in a single place in each Department, updated as data are shared and disclosed across Government, with Government agencies and with non-public sector organisations? Will these additional agencies keep similar audits and—crucially—will those audits be publicly available? Also, will the audits include the purpose of the disclosure, the specific data to be disclosed, how the data were transferred, how the data are stored and for how long, how the data are deleted at the end of that time frame, what data controllers and processors are involved in the sharing of that data, and any other restrictions on the use of further disclosure of that data?
If we have, in a single place, data-sharing amendments, as this amendment would establish, the public can see and trust how their data are being used and for what purpose. They can understand why they are getting a letter from Concentrix about Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, or why they have been targeted for a warm home scheme, and—crucially—they can correct or add to any information on themselves that is wrongly held.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Does the hon. Lady agree that, if there is an opportunity to access a proactive notification service that indicates to the member of public that their data are being used and for what purpose, that should be included in any future consideration of this matter?
Louise Haigh
I completely agree, and I believe that the gov.uk Notify service would be an excellent means by which to go about that. I hope that the Minister will consider it.
Graham Jones
My hon. Friend is making a valid point, which I referenced in my point about getting on the bus and the destination. She is suggesting that individuals have rights to own their information; there is a register that they could accept. This is the journey that we have to make. It is about empowering the individual. My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. I am pleased that the Opposition are making this point, because it needs to be made. The future will be about individual ownership of information. I hope that my hon. Friend prosecutes the argument as well as she can.
Louise Haigh
The point is vital and it is the point that was made earlier in our proceedings. Unless we get this right at this stage, it will become a scandal that the Government will then have to deal with and it will hold back progress on sharing data, as we saw with the care.data scandal. We do not want to see the Government embroiled in another scandal like that and we hope that they heed our warnings in order to avoid one in the future.
The objective behind the register is that it could be considered an amnesty for all existing data-sharing projects, with the disclosure assisting understanding of the problem and improving public trust. Let us not kid ourselves that the Bill covers the only data sharing that happens across Government. In a recent interview with Computer Weekly, the new director of the Government Digital Service, Kevin Cunnington, said:
“The real work is going on in”
places such as “Leeds and Manchester”—I would disagree with him on that point for a start, because we are not fans of Leeds in Sheffield—
“as well as London. We need to be part of that. The example I use is where DWP now runs a whole set of disability benefits. It would be incredibly helpful if DWP had selected and consensual access to some of”—
those people’s—
“medical data. Right now, NHS Digital and DWP are having that conversation in Leeds and we’re not in the conversation. Why wouldn’t GDS be in a conversation like that? If we’re going to be, we’ve got to be in Leeds—we can’t do that from here.”
We know that that conversation is happening between the DWP and the NHS—despite assurances that sharing of health and social care information is not happening across Government—only because a random official mentioned it in a random interview, so I ask this question again: does the Minister have an audit of data-sharing agreements and arrangements across Government, or is it the case, as I fear it is, that not only do the public not know which data are shared across Government, for what purpose and how they are stored, but Ministers do not know either?
Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (SNP)
The hon. Lady is making an excellent point. What this cuts back to is the underlying theme of transparency. Rather than the Government acting in a paternal way—“We’ll do what is best for the citizens”—they should be transparent and make it clear to citizens why and where data are being used.
Louise Haigh
That is exactly the kind of attitude that underpins these elements of the Bill: “Trust us. We’ll sort it out. Give us your data. No problem. We’re going to share them freely and fairly.” The Government may well do. The problem is that the public do not have that trust in them. As I said on Tuesday, this is not a party political point. The previous Labour Government were not up to scratch in handling data either. This is not a party political attack at all. It is a genuine attempt to get these proposals in the best shape possible, to aid Government digitisation and deliver efficient public services.
Just as the Government give taxpayers a summary of how their tax money has been spent so they should give citizens information on how they have used data on them. If there is transparency through a register, there can be an informed conversation about whether a data disclosure will solve the problems that it claims to. There has been data sharing to prevent fraud for decades and a complete absence of audited and accurate results from that work. Arguing that current data sharing has not prevented fraud and so there should be more data sharing equates to doing the same thing over and again and expecting a different result.
The amendment is vital to restore and build on public trust in the Government handling of data. It is not in my nature to call on my constituents to trust this Government, but if they enacted the amendment, I absolutely would. I would be able to tell my constituents in good faith that they were right to trust their data to this or any future Government, because they and the data community could see exactly how and why their data were being used and exert some control over it. If the Government do not heed this lesson now, I am afraid that they will learn the hard way when things go the way of care.data or worse, as they inevitably will.
Chris Skidmore
I thank the hon. Lady for her speech, and I appreciate the caution with which she approaches the subject. We have been determined that our definition of data sharing should be in the ICO’s code of practice, and we have adopted that definition in our own draft code. We will comply with ICO’s best practice, which of course means keeping careful records of all data-sharing agreements. We already keep registers of data sharing by Department, and they are FOI-able. We need to take public confidence with us. We will not allow data to be shared with a public authority that does not have appropriate systems in place.
To reassure those whom the hon. Lady seeks to assure that their data can be shared without any compromise to individual security, I will take a journey through the data sharing code of practice. When we come to establish some of the fraud elements, it will be an incremental process. Debt and fraud data-sharing pilots will be set up, and the UK Government are establishing a review group to oversee UK-wide and England-only data sharing under the fraud and debt powers. The review will be responsible for collating the evidence that will inform the Minister’s review of the operations powers as required under the Bill after three years. Devolved Administrations will establish their own Government structure for the oversight of data-sharing arrangements within their respective devolved territories.
Following that, a request to initiate a pilot under the debt and fraud powers must be sent to the appropriate review groups in the territory, accompanied by a business case. The business case must detail its operational period, the nature of the fraud and debt recovery being addressed, the purpose of the data share and how its effectiveness will be measured. Absolutely rock-solid requirements need to be put in place. For instance, the public service delivery debt and fraud powers require a number of documents to be produced as part of the case for a pilot.
Those documents will be a business case for the data-sharing arrangement, which can be collated by all the organisations involved; data-sharing agreements; and a security plan. Furthermore, as part of any formal data-sharing agreements with public authorities that grant access to information, security plans should include storage arrangements to ensure that information is stored in a robust, proportionate and rigorously tested manner and assurances that only people who have a genuine business need—
Graham Jones
The Minister is making an argument to which I would extend my previous comments. He is arguing that there will be security because we will have a data repository—it will inevitably be a single data repository—with secure firewalls around it. However, the architectural principle for which he is arguing is that all data will be kept in one place. From a security perspective, that is the most dangerous way to store data. To return to why Estonia leads the world, there is a distribution—
The Chair
Order. That is an intervention. I am quite happy if the hon. Gentleman wants to catch my eye, but interventions should be short. I have been very lenient with that one.
Chris Skidmore
To return to the security angle, we must have assurances that only people with a genuine business need to see the personal information involved in a data-sharing arrangement will have access to it; confirmation of who will notify in the event of any security breach; and procedures in place to investigate the cause of any security breach. Paragraph 104 of the code suggests:
“You should ensure that data no longer required is destroyed promptly and rendered irrecoverable. The same will apply to data derived or produced from the original data, except where section 33 of the DPA applies (in relation to data processed for research purposes).”
At all times, we want to ensure that public confidence is taken forward with the pilots. They will be put in place only once all the boxes have been ticked. Paragraph 108 of the code states:
“You should make it easy for citizens to access data sharing arrangements and provide information so that the general public can understand what information is being shared and for what purposes. You should communicate key findings or the benefits to citizens derived from data sharing arrangements to the general public to support a better public dialogue on the use of public data.”
Security is not discretionary. Amendment 190 would not reinforce that requirement. It is not a question of compliance with systems in place. Instead, there must be adequate systems in place and Ministers must have regard to those systems to ensure they meet the essential security specifications that the Government demand.
Amendments 191 to 194 concern the codes of practice and present a similar discussion to the one we had about using “have regard to” or “compliance to”. The powers cover a range of public authorities in devolved areas, and we want to ensure flexibility in how powers will be operated, so that we can learn from what works and adapt the code as necessary. If bodies fail to adhere to the code, the Minister will make regulations to remove their ability to share information under the power as set out in paragraph 11 of the code of practice.
As I mentioned, the requirement to have regard to the code of practice does not mean that officials have discretion to disregard the code at will. They will be expected to follow the code or they will lose their ability to share data. There could be exceptional reasons why it is reasonable to depart from the requirements of the code. To fix a rigid straitjacket creates a system of bureaucracy where officials must follow processes that run contrary to logic. This is standard drafting language adopted for the above reasons in the Immigration Act 2016, the Children and Families Act 2014 and the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, to name a few recent pieces of legislation.
Louise Haigh
It is welcome to hear how detailed and extensive these audits will be. If they are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000, will the Minister consider proactively publishing them anyway, so that we can be assured that they are all kept in one place and that data sharing happens only in accordance with data-sharing arrangements that are in the public domain?
Chris Skidmore
When we set up new data-sharing arrangements, we must remember that the ICO and the devolved Administrations must be consulted and that the powers must go before Parliament again. We will have further scrutiny when considering the regulations under the affirmative procedure for secondary legislation.
Louise Haigh
Given that the arrangements have to go through all the obstacles that the Minister has just outlined, I do not understand why not then include them in a central register, so that they are all in one place. We could then be confident that not just those cases in the Bill but all data sharing across the Government is made public and people can have confidence in how and why their data are being used and shared.
Chris Skidmore
The hon. Lady refers to new clause 35, so I would now like to address that and take her points on board. This is about informing the public about what information is being shared by public authorities and for what reason.
The Bill’s provisions already include a number of commitments to transparency and proportionality, which I have already discussed in disclosing information by public authorities. There is a consistent requirement to uphold the Data Protection Act, including its privacy principles that govern the secure, fair and transparent processing of information.
We require the publishing of privacy impact assessments and privacy notices as set out in paragraph 82 of the code of practice. The research power requires the UK Statistics Authority, as the accrediting body, to maintain and publish a register of all persons and organisations it has accredited, and they can be removed under clause 61(5), which mandates that a withdrawal of accreditation will take place if there has been a failure to have regard to the code of practice.
The requirements of the new clause would inevitably create a new set of administrative burdens, which in turn would carry significant cost implications. It is not clear how the uniform resource locator referred to would be agreed upon, or what assessment has been made of the administrative changes that may be required across the public sector. The requirement might have an unintended consequence. For example, it is possible that including information on the specific data to be disclosed would raise difficult questions about whether the public register would interfere with the duty of confidentiality or breach the provisions of the Data Protection Act. Some of the new powers—in particular, the research provisions—would involve the sharing of non-identifying information, so it is not clear how citizens would understand from a register which datasets contain information relating to them or any particular group of reasons.
The key purpose of the new powers is to simplify the legal landscape to enable public authorities to do their job more effectively and deliver better outcomes for the citizen. The new clause, however well intentioned—I respect the hon. Lady’s point—risks working against that purpose and I therefore invite her to withdraw it.
Louise Haigh
The Opposition drafted the amendments and I accept that they may not be perfect, but the principle behind the idea of a data register is impossible to argue with. If the Minister claims that these audits will be done thoroughly and that they will be subject to the Freedom of Information Act anyway, I see no reason why they should not be proactively published, so that the public and Opposition Members can have full confidence that everything in the codes of practice, which are not statutory, is being properly adhered to.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend concur that a proactive publication might be a lot more cost-effective than chasing after hundreds or, indeed, thousands of FOI requests?
Louise Haigh
Absolutely. This is where the Government often miss a trick: the interrelationship between FOI and open data could drive significant efficiencies across the Government and provide citizens and the data community with valuable data, including data that are valuable to the digital economy. I appreciate that our amendment might not be perfectly drafted, but I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to the proactive publication of these audits and of all data-sharing arrangements across the Government.
Drew Hendry
There are existing mechanisms across Europe whereby information can be given to the public proactively. Does the hon. Lady agree that the public should not have to go through the process of making an FOI request—they should not have to go through all that hassle—to get the information that pertains to them and their lives?
Louise Haigh
Exactly. The data belong to them; that is exactly right. They should not have to jump over legalistic hurdles to find out how and why the Government are using data that should belong to them, and the Bill completely turns the view that they should not have to do so on its head. I take the Minister’s point about the amendment not being properly drafted. We will go away and redraft it and we will absolutely return to this issue on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
As I have already set out, the Opposition broadly support the objectives outlined in the clause, but, as we have said on several occasions, those objectives must be set within strict safeguards to enable the better management of services.
Indeed, the open data policy process, which has been referenced several times, was a practical and commendable way in which to establish key principles for data to be handled, and to seek the views of industry experts. It is just a shame that it was completely ignored.
Polls show that the public consistently approve of the better use of data across Departments to help to improve customer service; nobody could really dispute that. However, our concerns are not related to the broader principle but to the practicality of these measures.
As we heard in the evidence we received, if these new powers are used appropriately in the management of debt, they could help put a stop to aggressive, unco-ordinated approaches from Government agencies to debt. There is little doubt that debt collection for central Government Departments leaves a lot to be desired. Vulnerable citizens facing multiple hardships are being pursued in a way that is to the detriment of the overall policy of reducing debt.
Citizens Advice said in its evidence to the Committee that there has been a big growth in demand for help with debt, as policies such as the bedroom tax and complex tax credit arrangements are pushing people, through no fault of their own, into debt. The Government’s haphazard approach often compounds matters and creates perverse outcomes, whereby thousands of individuals who are claiming exactly what they should be claiming are targeted in profiling exercises, which amount to nothing short of a mass Government-sponsored phishing exercise. Such an exercise has no place in necessary Government efforts to reduce error.
Shocking research by the charity StepChange has found that these aggressive debt collection methods have resulted in Government Departments having the dubious accolade of being second, behind bailiffs and ahead of mobile phone companies, in the list of those organisations that are considered most likely to treat debtors unfairly.
Again, there is little doubt that the Government’s move to help Departments to better share necessary information on debt could help reduce the unco-ordinated approach that currently harms debtors. However, there are two problems. First, as we have heard, the Government’s debt collection process is flawed and suffers from a lack of trust; and, secondly, the clause will furnish the Government with an extension of their power in matching data, yet this year alone the Government have demonstrated an abysmal failure to match their powers to their responsibility to the users of their services. That leaves public trust hanging by a thread.
Chris Skidmore
Good debt management is a key part of achieving the Government’s fiscal policy objectives. Clause 40 provides a permissive power that will enable information to be shared for the purposes of identifying, collecting, or taking administrative or legal action as a result of debt owed to the Government. With more than £24 billion of debt owed to the Government, the problem is clearly significant.
Public authorities need to work together more intelligently to ensure that more efficient management of debt occurs. We believe that the new power will assist in achieving that. By enabling the efficient sharing of information to allow appropriate bodies to draw on a wider source of relevant data, informed decisions can be made about a customer’s circumstances and their ability to pay. Sharing information across organisational boundaries will help the Government to understand the scale of the issues individuals are facing, and where vulnerable customers are identified, they can be given appropriate support and advice.
Citizens Advice stated:
“This new power is an opportunity to advance the fairness and professionalisation agenda in government debt collection…Sharing data between debt collecting departments will create improved opportunities for better treatment of people in vulnerable situations, and must be matched with fairer and more effective dispute resolution processes.”
The Government agree with that and have worked with non-fee paying debt advice agencies to develop fairness principles to accompany the power, which are included in annex A of the code of practice.
It is important to dwell on the principles that organisations will adhere to, which state:
“Pilots operating under the new data sharing power should aim to use relevant data to help to differentiate between: A customer who cannot pay their debt because of vulnerability or hardship…; A customer who is in a position to pay their debts but who may need additional support; and A customer who has the means to pay their debt, but chooses not to pay - so public authorities, and private bodies acting on their behalf, can assess which interventions could best be used to recover the debt”,
and that:
“Pilots must be conscious of the impact debt collection practices have on vulnerable customers and customers in hardship”.
The principles go on to cover:
“Using relevant sources of data and information to make informed decisions about a customer's individual circumstances and their ability to pay.”
That process could include:
“An assessment of income versus expenditure to create a tailored and affordable repayment plan based on in work and out of work considerations, including the ability to take irregular income into account; and consideration of the need for breathing space to seek advice, or forbearance, in cases of vulnerability and hardship…Where a vulnerable customer is identified, they should be given appropriate support and advice, which may include signposting to non-fee paying debt advice agencies.”
Louise Haigh
I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that those pilots and the powers enabled in the Bill will apply only to individuals already identified as being in debt, and that they will not seek to profile individuals who may or may not be in debt.
Chris Skidmore
Yes, I can confirm that. Moving forward, I reassure the Committee that we will continue to work closely with Citizens Advice and StepChange to look at fairness in Government debt management processes. Only HMRC and DWP have full reciprocal debt data-sharing gateways in place, under the Welfare Reform Act 2012. This power will help level the playing field for specified public authorities by providing a straightforward power to share data for clearly outlined purposes. Current data-sharing arrangements are time-consuming and complex to set up, and significantly limit the ability of public authorities to share debt data. This power will help facilitate better cross-Government collaboration that will help drive innovation to improve debt management. The clause will provide a clear power for specified public authorities to share data for those purposes, and will remove the existing complications and ambiguities over what can and cannot be shared and by whom.
Christian Matheson
The Minister may have just clarified the point I was seeking to tease out of him. The problems that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley described show that, far from helping people with debt, the agencies acting on behalf of the Government have created debt that did not exist previously by misusing Government data. The Minister may have just assured us that that will not be the case. If the Minister is really concerned about reducing Government debt, perhaps the Government should have not chopped in half the number of HMRC tax inspectors and instead gone after the people who owe the Government tax.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 40 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 41
Further provisions about power in section 40
Amendments made: 120, in clause 41, page 40, line 5, at end insert—
“(ba) for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour,”
This amendment and amendment 123 create a further exception to the bar on using information disclosed under Chapter 3 of Part 5 of the Bill for a purpose other than that for which it was disclosed. The amendments allow use for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour.
Amendment 121, in clause 41, page 40, line 6, leave out
“(whether or not in the United Kingdom)”.
This amendment removes the provision stating that a criminal investigation for the purposes of clause 41(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to a criminal investigation covers an investigation overseas in any event.
Amendment 122, in clause 41, page 40, line 8, leave out
“and whether or not in the United Kingdom”.
This amendment removes the provision stating that legal proceedings for the purposes of clause 41 may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to legal proceedings covers proceedings overseas in any event.
Amendment 123, in clause 41, page 40, line 11, at end insert—
‘( ) In subsection (2)(ba) “anti-social behaviour” has the same meaning as in Part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (see section 2 of that Act).”—(Chris Skidmore.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 120.
Clause 41, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 42
Confidentiality of personal information
Amendments made: 124, in clause 42, page 41, line 4, at end insert—
“(da) for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour,”
This amendment and amendment 127 create a further exception to the bar on the further disclosure of information disclosed under Chapter 3 of Part 5 of the Bill, allowing disclosure for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour.
Amendment 125, in clause 42, page 41, line 5, leave out
“(whether or not in the United Kingdom)”.
This amendment removes the provision stating that a criminal investigation for the purposes of clause 42(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to a criminal investigation covers an investigation overseas in any event.
Amendment 126, in clause 42, page 41, line 8, leave out
“and whether or not in the United Kingdom”.
This amendment removes the provision stating that legal proceedings for the purposes of clause 42(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to legal proceedings covers proceedings overseas in any event.
Amendment 127, in clause 42, page 41, line 12, at end insert—
‘( ) In subsection (2)(da) “anti-social behaviour” has the same meaning as in Part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (see section 2 of that Act).”
See the explanatory statement for amendment 124.
Amendment 128, in clause 42, page 41, line 13, leave out subsections (3) and (4) insert—
‘( ) A person commits an offence if—
(a) the person discloses personal information in contravention of subsection (1), and
(b) at the time that the person makes the disclosure, the person knows that the disclosure contravenes that subsection or is reckless as to whether the disclosure does so.” —(Chris Skidmore.)
This amendment applies to the disclosure of personal information in contravention of subsection (1) of clause 42. It has the effect that it is an offence to do so only if the person knows that the disclosure contravenes that subsection or is reckless as to whether it does so.
Clause 42, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 43 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 44
Code of practice
Amendment made: 129, in clause 44, page 42, line 7, at end insert—
‘( ) The code of practice must be consistent with the code of practice issued under section 52B (data-sharing code) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (as altered or replaced from time to time).”—(Chris Skidmore.)
This amendment requires a code of practice issued under clause 44 by the relevant Minister and relating to the disclosure of information under clause 40 to be consistent with the data-sharing code of practice issued by the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 1998.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
In evidence, Citizens Advice told us that an estimated £1 in every £5 of debt in this country is debt to the Government. It found that its clients can suffer detriment when public bodies have overly aggressive, unco-ordinated and inconsistent approaches to debt collection. There is also fairly substantial evidence that central Government debt collection lags behind the high standards expected of other creditors, including water companies, council tax collection departments, banks and private debt collectors.
I ask the Minister to consider extending the common standard financial statement to set affordable payments, as the energy, water, banking and commercial debt collection sectors do. That is demonstrated by research from StepChange, which found that in terms of debt collection, those facing severe financial difficulty were likely to rate the DWP and local authorities only just behind bailiffs as those most likely to treat them unfairly.
Chris Skidmore
The Government have started work to look into the common financial statement and standard financial statement alongside non-fee-paying debt advice agencies. That work is in its infancy, but the evidence will help us to decide whether the CFS/SFS could have benefits for Government. Until that work is completed, the Government cannot commit fully to adopt the CFS/SFS.
Louise Haigh
Will the Minister give a timeframe for when that work will be completed and when we will have a statement from the Government?
Chris Skidmore
It is not possible for me to give a timeframe in a Bill Committee discussing clause stand part. I suggest that I write to the hon. Lady, setting out those details in due course.
Government debt is clearly different from private sector debt. It is not contractual. The Government provide a wide range of services to citizens, such as the NHS and education system, and targeted support for those who meet the eligibility requirements to receive benefits. In return, citizens are required to pay taxes and repay any benefit in tax credit overpayments or fines that have been imposed for criminal activity. That revenue helps to fund vital services. The Government aim to ensure that customers are treated fairly. We encourage customers to engage early, so that they can agree on an affordable and sustainable repayment plan that takes individual circumstances into account. We understand that if poor debt collection practice occurs, that can cause distress.
The clause requires in particular that the code of practice must be issued by the Minister. It sets out more detail about how the power will operate and the disclosure and use of data. All specified public authorities and other bodies disclosing or using information under the power must have regard to the code of practice, which sets out in detail best practice of how the data-sharing power should be used. That includes what data should be shared, how data will be protected, issues around privacy and confidentiality and, significantly, the set of fairness principles that I talked about, which must be considered when exercising the power in clause 40. With that in mind, and the fact I have discussed extensively how the codes of practice will help protect the most vulnerable in society, I hope the clause will stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
I am grateful to the Minister for the commitment to write to me. It would be welcome if he could write to all members of the Committee. That shows how committed he is to improving the detail of the clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 44, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 45
Duty to review operation of Chapter
Chris Skidmore
I rise to speak to amendment 130, in clause 45, page 43, line 10, at end insert—
‘( ) The relevant Minister may only make regulations under subsection (5)—
(a) in a case where the regulations include provision relating to Scotland, with the consent of the Scottish Ministers;
(b) in a case where the regulations include provision relating to Wales, with the consent of the Welsh Ministers;
(c) in a case where the regulations include provision relating to Northern Ireland, with the consent of the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland.”
This amendment requires the relevant Minister to obtain the consent of the Scottish Minsters, Welsh Ministers or Department of Finance before making regulations which, following a review under clause 45, amend or repeal Chapter 3 of Part 5 and make provision relating to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland respectively.
Chris Skidmore
It is envisaged that information-sharing powers will enable sharing arrangements to be set, but they may take place solely within a devolved territory or involving data relating to devolved matters. The amendments intend to require the consent of Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland before making any regulations to amend or repeal the provisions that relate to those territories. Regrettably, we have found technical flaws with the amendments, so we will reconsider this issue and return to it at a later stage.
Louise Haigh
I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed what technical issues there are with the amendments.
Chris Skidmore
There are a number of technical issues in these amendments, and we are determined to consult thoroughly with the devolved Administrations and the relevant offices. We will do so in due course. We will return to that later in the Bill.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
It is unusual for the Government to introduce amendments and then find technical problems with them. That is obviously what has happened and it is very unfortunate. Given that we were expecting to debate the amendments at this point, can the Minister give us an indication of when he will bring back non-defective amendments—or whether, indeed, he intends to bring any further amendments in this area?
Chris Skidmore
When it comes to the point of process that the hon. Gentleman mentions, we intend to return to this further into the Bill. The particular issue that arose with the amendments as currently drafted is that the need for consent needs to apply correctly only to devolved matters. We found that the amendments do not reflect that, which is why we wish to withdraw them today.
Kevin Brennan
It would be helpful if that were to happen during the Commons stage of the Bill, rather than in the Lords, so that this House has an opportunity, at least on Report, to consider this aspect.
Chris Skidmore
I note the hon. Gentleman’s concerns and will reflect on them. I cannot give any further information at this moment. We hope to ensure that the amendments, when later drafted, will reflect the Government’s desire to listen carefully to all devolved nations and ensure that this applies across the UK.
The Chair
The amendment is not moved.
Clause 45 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 46 to 48 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 49
Further provisions about power in section 48
Amendments made: 131, in clause 49, page 46, line 43, at end insert—
“(ba) for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour,”
This amendment and amendment 134 create a further exception to the bar on using information disclosed under Chapter 4 of Part 5 of the Bill for a purpose other than that for which it was disclosed. The amendments allows use for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour.
Amendment 132, in clause 49, page 46, line 44, leave out “(whether or not in the United Kingdom)”
This amendment removes the provision stating that a criminal investigation for the purposes of clause 49(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to a criminal investigation covers an investigation overseas in any event.
Amendment 133, in clause 49, page 46, line 46, leave out “and whether or not in the United Kingdom”
This amendment removes the provision stating that legal proceedings for the purposes of clause 49(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to legal proceedings covers proceedings overseas in any event.
Amendment 134, in clause 49, page 47, line 6, at end insert—
‘( ) In subsection (2)(ba) “anti-social behaviour” has the same meaning as in Part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (see section 2 of that Act).”—(Chris Skidmore.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 131.
Clause 49, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 50
Confidentiality of personal information
Amendments made: 135, in clause 50, page 47, line 44, at end insert—
“(da) for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour,”
This amendment and amendment 138 create a further exception to the bar on the further disclosure of information disclosed under Chapter 4 of Part 5 of the Bill, allowing disclosure for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour.
Amendment 136, in clause 50, page 48, line 1, leave out “(whether or not in the United Kingdom)”
This amendment removes the provision stating that a criminal investigation for the purposes of clause 50(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to a criminal investigation covers an investigation overseas in any event.
Amendment 137, in clause 50, page 48, line 4, leave out “and whether or not in the United Kingdom”
This amendment removes the provision stating that legal proceedings for the purposes of clause 50(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to legal proceedings covers proceedings overseas in any event.
Amendment 138, in clause 50, page 48, line 11, at end insert—
‘( ) In subsection (2)(da) “anti-social behaviour” has the same meaning as in Part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (see section 2 of that Act).”
See the explanatory statement for amendment 135.
Amendment 139, in clause 50, page 48, line 12, leave out subsections (3) and (4) insert—
‘( ) A person commits an offence if—
(a) the person discloses personal information in contravention of subsection (1), and
(b) at the time that the person makes the disclosure, the person knows that the disclosure contravenes that subsection or is reckless as to whether the disclosure does so.”—(Chris Skidmore.)
This amendment applies to the disclosure of personal information in contravention of subsection (1) of clause 50. It has the effect that it is an offence to do so only if the person knows that the disclosure contravenes that subsection or is reckless as to whether it does so.—
Clause 50, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 51 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 52
Information disclosed by the Revenue and Customs
Amendment made: 140, in clause 52, page 49, line 7, at end insert—
‘( ) The code of practice must be consistent with the code of practice issued under section 52B (data-sharing code) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (as altered or replaced from time to time).”—(Chris Skidmore.)
This amendment requires a code of practice issued under clause 52 by the relevant Minister and relating to the disclosure of information under clause 48 to be consistent with the data-sharing code of practice issued by the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 1998.
Clause 52, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 53 to 55 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 56
Disclosure of information for research purposes
Chris Skidmore
I beg to move amendment 142, in clause 56, page 52, line 23, at end insert—
‘(3A) For the purposes of the first condition the information may be processed by—
(a) the public authority,
(b) a person other than the public authority, or
(c) both the public authority and a person other than the public authority,
(subject to the following provisions of this Part).
(3B) Personal information may be disclosed for the purpose of processing it for disclosure under subsection (1)—
(a) by a public authority to a person involved in processing the information for that purpose;
(b) by one such person to another such person.”
This amendment and amendments 143, 144, 146 to 149, 151 to 153, 159, 160 and 162 to 166 relate to the processing of information for disclosure under clause 56 so as to remove identifying features. They make it clear that a person other than the public authority which is the source of the information may be involved in processing that information.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 143 to 153, 159, 160 and 162 to 170.
Chris Skidmore
The amendments apply to the research power. Together they provide clarity on the conditions that must be met when information provided by public authorities for research purposes is processed, as set out in clause 56. They also require public authorities to obtain accreditation to process personal information with that power, and they provide further clarity on the exclusion of health and adult social care information in clauses 56 and 63.
Personal information must not be disclosed to researchers under the power unless it is first processed in a way that protects the privacy of all data subjects. Those involved in the processing of information must be accredited as part of the conditions under this power. Processing may be carried out by the public authority that holds the data concerned, a different public authority, or specialist persons or organisations outside the public sector, including those providing secure access facilities and other functions, those commonly referred to as trusted third parties, or a combination of the two.
These amendments have been tabled to ensure that the position is reflected accurately in clause 56 and to ensure that it is clear that each accredited processor can disclose information to other accredited processors as required. In addition, they clarify that a person involved in the processing of information other than the public authority holding the information can disclose the de-identified information to researchers.
As drafted, the Bill does not require public authorities to be accredited or to process data for disclosure to researchers. On reflection, the Government recognise the importance of ensuring that all bodies involved in processing information are subject to the same level of accountability and scrutiny. The amendments will enable the UK Statistics Authority, as the accrediting body, to enforce a consistent approach to best practice for handling information.
Finally, it is important that the exclusion of health and adult social care data is defined in a way that is accurate and transparent. As drafted, the research clauses could be interpreted as excluding from the power public authorities that are primarily health and adult social care providers, but which provide some health-related services. That could mean that, contrary to the intention of the Bill, public authorities, including local authorities that provide a range of services, are at risk of being barred from sharing data relating to their functions because they provide some health and social care-related services.
The amendments will clarify that public authorities whose sole function is to provide health and/or adult social care services will be excluded from the power. They also clarify that public authorities that provide health and/or adult social care services as part of a range of services can share information, including health and adult social care data.
Louise Haigh
I very much welcome the amendments. Has the Minister considered the Information Commissioner’s recommendation to have an additional offence for re-identifying anonymised personal information, as in the Australian model? I otherwise support the amendments.
Chris Skidmore
We are obviously working closely with the Information Commissioner. We will consider all her recommendations in due course, but I cannot comment on that at this moment in time.
Amendment 142 agreed to.
Digital Economy Bill (Tenth sitting)
Thursday 27th 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 27 October 2016 - (27 Oct 2016)
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. There is little need to dwell on this chapter of the Bill because of the safeguards that, as we have heard, are already in place and are well tried and tested. I was greatly encouraged that the Royal Statistical Society said in our evidence session that there needs to be a clear and well understood framework for the sharing of such information, as proposed in this part of the Bill. As we have said at length, we support that.
Most importantly for this debate, the Office for National Statistics operates transparently and publishes guidance on what data it uses and when, and on the public value that is derived from the data and information supplied to it for the purposes of producing official statistics and statistical research. The ONS’s information charter sets out how it carries out its responsibility for handling personal information, and the ONS’s respondent charters for business surveys and household and individual surveys set out the standards that respondents can expect.
The code of practice for official statistics has statutory underpinning in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. Statisticians are obliged to adhere to its ethical requirements, including its principles of integrity, confidentiality and the use of administrative sources for statistical purposes. The Royal Statistical Society said that consideration could usefully be given to whether a new framework for the national statistician to access identifiable data held across the Government and beyond should require a supplementary code of conduct, to extend further public confidence. I would be grateful to the Minister if he confirmed whether he has responded to that and what steps he intends to take on that point.
Finally, the national statistician recently established the national statistician’s data ethics advisory committee, which provides ethical consideration of proposals to access, share and use data. The majority of the committee are independent and lay members from outside the Government, and it operates transparently with all papers and minutes published. It provides independent scrutiny of data shares and reports to the national statistician, who then reports to the UK Statistics Authority board. That model could easily be transposed to better protect data across the Government, as described in other chapters in the Bill.
We are happy to support the measures given the excellent and long-standing safeguards that are already in place, and we hope that, in time, the codes and other requirements in other parts of the Bill follow suit.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)
The clause will create a clear, permissive power for public authorities to disclose information that they hold for the purpose of research in the public interest. It will ensure that any personal information is processed before it is disclosed and that a person’s identity is not specified in the information, so that a person’s identity cannot be deduced from that information. It will establish a set of conditions to ensure that any processing of personal information is undertaken in a way that protects the privacy of individuals.
To maintain a truly innovative and competitive economy and to ensure that decisions taken on a range of economic and social issues are informed by the best possible evidence base, it is essential that we maximise the use of rich and varied sources of administrative information that is held across public data.
Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (SNP)
I am not sure whether the Minister is aware, but Scottish universities share all their research on the internet for the public to read, ensuring world-class Scottish research can help the world. Do the Government agree that such rules should apply to all publications resulting from the research and statistics chapters of the Bill?
Chris Skidmore
I think that it is up to each university to have a policy on what research should be published and when. There is a particular situation in Scotland, but other universities may decide that their research may be used for purposes that remain confidential. Publication is up to the universities and academic bodies to decide.
Calum Kerr
The Minister is absolutely right—perhaps I rushed my question. I was trying to emphasise the point that, when data are shared, will he match that transparency, so that citizens can see what public benefit has been drawn from the use of their data?
Chris Skidmore
I shall come in a moment to the UK Statistics Authority’s position on the use of national statistics; it would benefit enormously from these measures. The potential benefits from increased access to information extend far beyond the research community. It is generally accepted that increased research and development leads to improved productivity and therefore increased economic growth. Information is increasingly a key raw material.
The research community has for some time been prevented from making better use of information held by the public sector, due to a complex legal landscape that has evolved over time. As a result, public authorities are often uncertain about their powers to share information, leading to delays, in some cases lasting years. In the meantime, projects become obsolete or are abandoned.
The Administrative Data Taskforce warned in its 2012 report that the UK was lagging behind other countries in its approach to this issue. It called for a generic legal power to allow public authorities to provide information for research purposes. As well as providing that power, which will remove the uncertainty that has frustrated the research community, the clause will provide a set of conditions that must be complied with if personal information is to be shared.
The conditions can be summarised as the sharing and use only of information that has been de-identified to industry standards to remove information that would identify, or is reasonably likely to identify, an individual, and the requirements that those who process information that identifies a person take reasonable steps to minimise accidental disclosure and prevent deliberate disclosure of such information, that all those who process personal information or receive or use processed personal information are subject to an accreditation process overseen by the UKSA, whether they are researchers, technicians or those who provide secure environments for linking and accessing data, that research for the purposes of which the information is disclosed is accredited and that all those involved in the exercise of the power adhere to a code of practice that is produced and maintained by the UKSA.
The UKSA is the designated accredited body with a duty to maintain and publish registers of all those accredited for any purpose under the power. That includes all those who may be involved in preparing personal information for disclosure to researchers and the research project itself. The results or outcomes of the research project must be publicly available, to demonstrate that the research is for the public good. The UKSA has a duty to maintain and publish the criteria for accreditation, and all activity under the power will be subject to a code of practice issued by the UKSA. I hope that answers the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.
Turning to the willingness for this to happen, the clause represents an important step forward for research in the UK. It will allow greater opportunities to produce high-quality research, which, in the words of the Economic and Social Research Council, can place
“the UK at the forefront of the international scientific landscape.”
It will allow greater opportunities to improve our understanding of our economy and society.
I would like to put on record the comments of Sir Andrew Dilnot, the chair of the UKSA:
“The Digital Economy Bill, currently before the House of Commons Public Bill Committee, represents a unique opportunity to deliver the transformation of UK statistics. The existing legal framework governing access to data for official statistics is complex and time-consuming. The proposals in the Bill, by making use of data already held across Government and beyond, would deliver better access to administrative data and for the purposes of statistics and research, delivering significant efficiencies and savings for individuals, households and businesses. Decision-makers need accurate and timely data to make informed decisions, in particular about the allocation of public resource. This Bill will deliver better statistics and statistical research that help Britain make better decisions.”
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 56, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 57
Provisions supplementary to section 56
Amendments made: 150, in clause 57, page 53, line 24, at end insert—
‘( ) In its application to a public authority with functions relating to the provision of health services or adult social care, section 56 does not authorise the disclosure of information held by the authority in connection with such functions.”
This amendment and amendments 168 to 170 ensure that Chapter 5 of Part 5 applies to a public authority with functions relating to the provision of health services or adult social care and other functions, but that in such a case the powers to disclose in the Chapter only apply to information held in connection with the other functions.
Amendment 151, in clause 57, page 53, line 28, leave out “56” and insert “56(1)”.—(Chris Skidmore.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Clause 57, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 58
Bar on further disclosure of personal information
Amendments made: 152, in clause 58, page 53, line 38, leave out “56(9)” and insert “56(3B)”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Amendment 153, in clause 58, page 54, line 2, at end insert “(including section56(3B))”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Amendment 154, in clause 58, page 54, line 6, at end insert—
“(da) which is made for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour,”.
This amendment and amendment 157 create a further exception to the bar on the further disclosure of information which is disclosed under clause 56 (so that it can be processed for disclosure under that section), allowing disclosure for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour.
Amendment 155, in clause 58, page 54, line 7, leave out
“(whether or not in the United Kingdom)”.
This amendment removes the provision stating that a criminal investigation for the purposes of clause 58(3) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to a criminal investigation covers an investigation overseas in any event.
Amendment 156, in clause 58, page 54, line 10, leave out
“and whether or not in the United Kingdom”.
This amendment removes the provision stating that legal proceedings for the purposes of clause 58(3) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to legal proceedings covers proceedings overseas in any event.
Amendment 157, in clause 58, page 54, line 11, at end insert—
‘( ) In subsection (3)(da) “anti-social behaviour” has the same meaning as in Part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (see section 2 of that Act).”
See the explanatory statement for amendment 154.
Amendment 158, in clause 58, page 54, line 21, leave out subsections (5) and (6) insert—
‘( ) A person commits an offence if—
(a) the person discloses personal information in contravention of subsection (2), and
(b) at the time that the person makes the disclosure, the person knows that the disclosure contravenes that subsection or is reckless as to whether the disclosure does so.
This amendment applies to the disclosure of personal information in contravention of subsection (2) of clause 58. It has the effect that it is an offence to do so only if the person knows that the disclosure contravenes that subsection or is reckless as to whether it does so.
Amendment 159, in clause 58, page 54, line 39, leave out “56(9)” and insert “56(3B)”. —(Chris Skidmore.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Clause 58, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 59
Information disclosed by the Revenue and Customs
Amendment made: 160, in clause 59, page 54, line 43, leave out “56(9)” and insert “56(3B)”.—(Chris Skidmore.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Clause 59, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 60
Code of practice
Amendments made: 161, in clause 60, page 55, line 19, at end insert—
‘( ) The code of practice must be consistent with the code of practice issued under section 52B (data-sharing code) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (as altered or replaced from time to time).”.
This amendment requires a code of practice issued under clause 60 by the relevant Minister and relating to the disclosure of information under clause 56 to be consistent with the data-sharing code of practice issued by the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 1998.
Amendment 162, in clause 60, page 55, line 24, leave out “56” and insert “56(1)” —(Chris Skidmore.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Clause 60, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 61
Accreditation for the purposes of this Chapter
Amendments made: 163, in clause 61, page 56, line 7, leave out “56” and insert
“subsection (1) of section 56”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Amendment 164, in clause 61, page 56, line 9, leave out “section” and insert “subsection”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Amendment 165, in clause 61, page 56, line 11, leave out “section” and insert “subsection”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Amendment 166, in clause 61, page 56, line 23, leave out “56” and insert “56(1)”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 142.
Amendment 167, in clause 61, page 56, line 38, at end insert—
‘(6A) The Statistics Board—
(a) may from time to time revise conditions or grounds published under this section, and
(b) if it does so, must publish the conditions or grounds as revised.
(6B) Subsection (6) applies in relation to the publication of conditions or grounds under subsection (6A) as it applies in relation to the publication of conditions or grounds under subsection (2).”—(Chris Skidmore.)
This amendment enables the Statistics Board to revise the conditions and grounds it establishes for the accreditation and withdrawal of accreditation of people and research for the purposes of information sharing under Chapter 5 of Part 5 of the Bill.
Clause 61, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 62 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 63
Interpretation of this Chapter
Amendments made: 168, in clause 63, page 57, line 18, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
‘(2) A person is not a public authority for the purposes of this Chapter if the person—
(a) only has functions relating to the provision of health services,
(b) only has functions relating to the provision of adult social care, or
(c) only has functions within paragraph (a) and paragraph (b).
(2A) The following are to be disregarded in determining whether subsection (2) applies to a person—
(a) any power (however expressed) to do things which are incidental to the carrying out of another function of that person;
(b) any function which the person exercises or may exercise on behalf of another person.”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 150.
Amendment 169, in clause 63, page 57, line 21, leave out “subsection (2)(a)” and insert “this Chapter”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 150.
Amendment 170, in clause 63, page 57, line 30, leave out “subsection (2)(b)” and insert “this Chapter”.—(Chris Skidmore.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 150.
Clause 63, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 64
Disclosure of non-identifying information by HMRC
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
Very briefly, I would be grateful to the Minister if he confirmed why a separate, further clause is necessary on disclosure of non-identifying information by HMRC. The safeguards in the rest of the Bill are sufficient.
Chris Skidmore
As the holder of some of the most useful datasets in the public sector, HMRC has an interest in sharing data more extensively where it does not compromise taxpayer confidentiality. The clause relates to the current legal constraints for HMRC on the disclosure of non-identifying information, allowing the UK tax authority to share information for purposes in the public interest. It deals with information that does not reveal a person’s identity: either general information that is never related to a taxpayer or information aggregated to such a degree that it does not reveal anything particular to a person.
Chris Skidmore
I beg to move amendment 171, in clause 67, page 60, line 37, at end insert—
“() a subsidiary undertaking of the Bank of England within the meaning of the Companies Acts (see sections 1161 and 1162 of the Companies Act 2006),”
This amendment means that the provisions in new section 45B of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 about access to information by the Statistics Board will apply to subsidiaries of the Bank of England as well as to the Bank itself.
Chris Skidmore
These are minor and technical amendments to various definitions in proposed new sections 45B and 45C of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. Sections 45B and 45C give the UK Statistics Authority a right of access to information required for its functions held by Crown bodies and public authorities respectively. Under section 45B, if a Crown body declines to provide information requested by the UK Statistics Authority, the authority may decide to lay the related correspondence before the relevant legislature, including the relevant devolved legislature for the devolved Crown bodies. Under section 45C, before issuing a notice to a devolved public authority that is not a Crown body, the UK Statistics Authority must seek consent from the relevant devolved Administrations.
Amendments 173 and 176 amend the definition of the phrase “Wales public authority” in sections 45B and 45C to refer to a new definition of “Wales public authority” being created by the Wales Bill, which is currently going through the House of Lords. They ensure that sections 45B and 45C are updated with a new definition of “Wales public authority” and will operate consistently with other definitions.
Amendments 172 and 175 amend the definition of “Scottish public authority” in sections 45B and 45C to capture public authorities with mixed functions or no reserve functions within the meaning of the Scotland Act 1998. Amendment 172, which amends section 45B, also refers expressly to a public authority that is part of the Scottish Administration, clarifying that these are Crown bodies to be dealt with under section 45B.
Section 45B states that Crown bodies include
“the Bank of England (including…the Prudential Regulation Authority)…the Financial Conduct Authority…and…the Payment Systems Regulator”.
Amendment 171 clarifies that the reference in section 45B to the Bank of England also includes any of its subsidiaries. That means that section 45B can also cover bodies such as the asset purchase facility fund, which the Bank of England set up in 2009. Amendment 171 also means that any subsidiaries that the Bank sets up in future will be treated in the same way under section 45B as the Bank itself.
Amendment 174 reflects the fact that the Prudential Regulation Authority is currently a subsidiary of the Bank of England formed under section 2A of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. This position will change when section 12 of the Bank of England and Financial Services Act 2016 comes into force. Section 12 changes how the PRA is formed and gives the Bank of England functions as the PRA. Amendment 174 therefore ensures section 45B applies during the transitional period before section 12 of the 2016 Act comes into force. It treats the wording in brackets in the relevant part of section 45B as not applying until section 12 comes into force. Until then, the PRA, as a subsidiary of the Bank, will be covered by amendment 171.
Amendment 171 agreed to.
Amendments made: 172, in clause 67, page 61, leave out lines 39 to 43 and insert “the public authority—
() is a part of the Scottish Administration, or
() is a Scottish public authority with mixed functions or no reserved functions (within the meaning of the Scotland Act 1998).”
This amendment modifies the requirement for a request for information under new section 45B of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and any response to be laid before the Scottish Parliament so that it applies to a request to public authority which is a part of the Scottish Administration or a Scottish public authority with mixed or no reserved functions.
Amendment 173, in clause 67, page 61, line 45, leave out from beginning to end of line 3 on page 62 and insert
“the public authority is a Wales public authority as defined by section 157A of the Government of Wales Act 2006.”
This amendment modifies the requirement for a request for information under new section 45B of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and any response to be laid before the National Assembly for Wales so that it applies to a request to a Wales public authority.
Amendment 174, in clause 67, page 62, line 13, at end insert—
‘( ) Until the coming into force of section 12 of the Bank of England and Financial Services Act 2016 subsection (1)(b) has effect as if the words in brackets were omitted.”
This amendment makes provision about the reference in new section 45B(1)(b) to the Bank of England in the exercise of its functions as the Prudential Regulation Authority in the period before the coming into force of section 12 of the Bank of England and Financial Services Act 2016. Until that section comes into force the Authority will remain a subsidiary of the Bank and so will be covered by the reference in amendment 171.
Amendment 175, in clause 67, page 62, line 41, leave out from “authority” to end of line 3 on page 63 and insert
“which is a Scottish public authority with mixed functions or no reserved functions (within the meaning of the Scotland Act 1998).”
This amendment modifies the requirement to obtain the consent of the Scottish Ministers before giving a notice under new section 45C of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 so that it applies to a notice given to a Scottish public authority with mixed or no reserved functions.
Amendment 176, in clause 67, page 63, line 5, leave out from “authority” to end of line 10 and insert
“which is a Wales public authority as defined by section 157A of the Government of Wales Act 2006.”
This amendment modifies the requirement to obtain the consent of the Welsh Ministers before giving a notice under new section 45C of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 so that it applies to a notice given to a Wales public authority.
Amendment 188, in clause 67, page 65, line 3, at end insert—
‘( ) The statement must be consistent with the code of practice issued under section 52B (data-sharing code) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (as altered or replaced from time to time).” —(Chris Skidmore.)
This amendment requires a statement issued under section 45E of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 by the Statistics Board and relating to the exercise of its functions under sections 45B, 45C and 45D of that Act to be consistent with the data-sharing code of practice issued by the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 1998.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
As the Minister has just outlined, clause 67 differentiates access to information held by Crown bodies and a power to require disclosures by other public authorities. In essence, it enables the statistical authorities to request information from Crown bodies and to demand it from other public authorities. I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed why there is that distinction. He may well be aware that the Royal Statistical Society and the ONS would like the Bill to be amended to include the power to require disclosure from Crown bodies in exactly the same way as from public authorities. What consideration has been given to that? Why are the same requirements not on both types of public authorities?
Chris Skidmore
The clause gives certainty and teeth to data supplied to the UK Statistics Authority. Official statistics are not an optional extra. If they are incomplete, decisions made by the Government and Parliament that rely on those statistics could be misinformed, late and lose impact. UKSA must have the data equipment necessary to produce the numbers that decision makers need to make the best decisions in the interests of the country.
Existing legislation provides precedents for requiring businesses and households to provide information for producing aggregate statistics about the economy and society. For instance, the Statistics of Trade Act 1947 requires businesses to report the data required for the production of UK economic statistics. For the past 100 years, the Census Act 1920 has required every household to provide information once every 10 years so that we can understand our population and society. To put that in context, censuses are long established but expensive. The 2011 census cost us almost £500 million. Census data are the statistical spine of decision making, including the allocation of public funds.
Allowing UKSA access to administrative data the Government already hold is more efficient. We should not be asking people in business questions when we already know the answers from other sources. Under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, UKSA must seek legislation every time it needs access to Government datasets where there is no existing data-sharing gateway. That mechanism is limited and only removes barriers that existed before the 2007 Act, and will become increasingly redundant over time.
The clause realises the expectation that, where UKSA needs access to datasets to produce statistics, it should be given that access. Section 45B requires Crown bodies, in particular central Government Departments, to provide data when UKSA asks for them, or, where necessary, have their refusal put before Parliament. Why treat Crown bodies differently from public authorities? That way of working, set out in sections 45B and 45C, ensures consistency between how a Crown body interacts with another on the one hand, and how a Crown body interacts with a non-Crown body on the other.
Sections 45C and 45D allow UKSA to require data from public authorities and large businesses. In practice, UKSA will focus on businesses that hold data likely to support to UKSA’s data needs, reducing the existing burden of surveys on businesses and individuals. UKSA must be sure that the data it relies on will continue to be provided, to ensure the integrity of the statistics it produces and the integrity of decisions based on those statistics.
Section 45F makes it clear that public authorities and businesses must comply with the notice they receive from UKSA under sections 45C or 45D, which draws on existing precedents for enforcement seen for the census and business surveys. Section 45E also requires UKSA to publicly consult on a statement of principles and procedures it will apply when operating these new powers. UKSA will lay that before Parliament and the devolved legislatures.
Louise Haigh
Section 45B lays out that UKSA must
“specify the date by which or the period within which the public authority must respond to the request.”
What kind of period are we are talking about? What kind of period does the Minister consider reasonable in which a public authority must respond to a request from UKSA?
Chris Skidmore
I will write to the hon. Lady on that particular point with further information. I am more than happy to do that. She correctly noted that timeframes are set out, which highlights the transparency arrangements already set down in the Bill. That has been well thought through, and we are determined to ensure that we work closely with UKSA going forward. UKSA will publicly consult on a new code of practice to support public authorities in consulting it on planned changes to data systems to protect the accuracy and integrity of its statistical outputs. Again, that will be laid before Parliament and the devolved legislatures.
We have spoken previously about codes of practice. Illustrative first drafts of the statement and the code have been made publicly available, including to members of the Committee, and they continue to be developed ahead of a full public consultation in a few months’ time. We are determined to ensure that the research and statistics communities are given the tools to enable them to do their jobs efficiently and effectively going into the 21st century. We want to ensure that the UK is a leader in developing statistics and research.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 67, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 68 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 69
OFCOM reports on infrastructure etc
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
I welcome the other Minister back to his place, and I look forward to the lengthy correspondence that the Cabinet Office Minister and I will be having. The Minister for Digital and Culture and I also had lengthy correspondence when he was at the Cabinet Office, and I look forward to that continuing.
Will the Minister lay out what the clause seeks to achieve? What reports would Ofcom publish under this power that it currently cannot? Would this extend to requesting and publishing information that was referenced in an earlier debate—right at the beginning on part 1—potentially in relation to existing broadband and communications infrastructure and to where Openreach and other providers are rolling out broadband in order to ensure a more effective market? The Opposition welcome all attempts by regulators and Government to make as much data open as possible, so we very much welcome the powers in the clause.
The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)
Clause 69 allows Ofcom to prepare and publish reports on underlying data at times it considers appropriate as opposed to at specified times, as is currently the case. The short answer to the hon. Lady’s question is yes. Before the end of the year, Ofcom will publish a “Connected Nations” report, for example, which typically goes into detail about the connectivity of the infrastructure, but there are restrictions at the moment on when these can be published. We think it is better to allow Ofcom to prepare and publish reports at times that it considers appropriate.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 69 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 70 and 71 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 72
Provision of information to OFCOM
Matt Hancock
I beg to move amendment 177, in clause 72, page 70, line 15, after “135”, insert “of the Communications Act 2003”.
This amendment makes it clear that the Act amended by clause 72 is the Communications Act 2003.
The amendment corrects a minor error to clause 72. We omitted the words
“of the Communications Act 2003”.
I consider this to be a pretty technical amendment.
Amendment 177 agreed to.
Clause 72, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 73
Information required from communications providers
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
I would like to put on the record again that this Bill was clearly not ready for Committee. We have just seen another example of an amendment that was completely uncalled for. In the last part, amendments had to be withdrawn that were incorrect. I hope that the proposals are properly examined in the Lords and that this is not a recurring theme throughout future legislation that this Government introduce. It is very disappointing to see the lack of preparation for this Bill.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
The hon. Lady is doing a marvellous job for her Front-Bench team, but having sat through several Bill Committees, I assure her that this situation is not particularly unusual. What is important is getting the Bill absolutely right and making sure that we use this opportunity to scrutinise it. We should proceed in the spirit of us all wanting the best thing and stop taking pops at the drafting team.
Louise Haigh
I am assured by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West that this was not common practice under the last Labour Government, and I am horrified to hear that it has been common practice over the past couple of years.
Matt Hancock
Amendment 177, which was agreed on a cross-party basis, corrects what was in fact a printing error. I hope that the hon. Lady will withdraw her rather pernickety point. I am glad that the Committee has had the opportunity to correct the problem.
Louise Haigh
It is good to hear that it was the 177th amendment that the Government have had to table to this Bill.
Let us move on to clause 73. The Minister will be pleased to hear that we welcome the clause, which has clearly been drafted with consumers at its heart. The clause provides Ofcom with powers to require information that will enable and empower consumers to switch, thereby creating a much more efficient and open market with fewer barriers to entry.
Ofcom does not currently have powers to require communications providers to provide information on quality of service, such as how they are doing on customer service, complaints, fault repairs or the speed of installation, and it does not have the power to specify how it would want that information to be provided. We welcome these new powers, which will make it much easier for Ofcom to publish this important comparative information that will help consumers.
I would be grateful if the Minister expanded on the points raised in relation to clause 69. He said that BT is about to be forthcoming with information on its existing infrastructure and on the roll-out of broadband. Can he confirm whether that information has been provided? If not, when does he expect it to be provided?
Subsection (5) of proposed new section 137A of the Communications Act 2003 states that the power conferred on Ofcom
“is to be exercised by a demand, contained in a notice served on the communications provider”.
Prior to that, a draft notice will stipulate a reasonable notice period. Can the Minister give us some examples of what he would consider to be a reasonable notice period for a particular dataset? Will that be in negotiation with a provider, or will it be set by Ofcom? What will be the consequence for communications providers that refuse to comply? Finally, how quickly would he like to see Ofcom publish the publishable data after receiving them from a communications provider?
We are happy to support clause 73 stand part.
Matt Hancock
Clause 73 paves the way for greater access to information to help consumers make more informed decisions. The hon. Lady has set out exactly why that is needed. The clause will also enable Ofcom to require providers to collect, retain or generate data for these purposes and to ensure that consumers are easily able to access information that is most relevant to their decision. The power will enable Ofcom to require information in machine-readable formats, for example, so that third parties can mash it and provide it in a usable, meaningful and accessible way for the consumer, thereby helping things such as comparison websites, which we strongly support.
On the hon. Lady’s specific questions, the data will form part of Ofcom’s data publication before the end of the year. She asked about a reasonable notice period, which will be for negotiation with providers. It is for Ofcom to decide when it is appropriate to make a publication, and it will endeavour to do so as soon as possible. On the consequences for providers that do not supply the data, these are highly regulated markets in which Ofcom has significant powers, some of which we are enhancing elsewhere in the Bill, so there will be very serious consequences for a provider that does not abide by a requirement from Ofcom to publish. I hope that answers the questions.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 73 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 74
Appeals from decisions of OFCOM and others: standard of review
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
The clause will reform the appeals process against Ofcom decisions, speeding up the process and ensuring that consumers’ interests are better prioritised. The Communications Act 2003 states clearly that Ofcom’s principal duty is to further the interests of citizens and consumers, but clearly there are issues with how the current appeals process works.
The current process is that Ofcom makes a decision following full consultation with the industry and the public; under the Competition Appeal Tribunal rules, an affected body can then appeal against the decision. Ofcom has six weeks to lodge its defence, and a month later substantive appeals are considered in a court case management conference, at which procedural and substantive points are raised. Third parties can then intervene, after which the appellant can lodge a reply. About a month before the hearing, the parties can lodge skeleton arguments. The hearing then takes place, and judgment is usually reserved. That judgment can take anything from weeks to up to a year. Parties then have about three weeks to decide whether they want to go to the Court of Appeal.
Not only is that process incredibly cumbersome, but it allows for considerable new evidence and new parties to the appeal, of which Ofcom had no knowledge at the consultation phase, to be brought forward mid-process. Under the new system, both the process of gathering evidence, including for the cross-examination of witnesses and experts, and the general treatment of that evidence are designed to be slimmed down. The system will still allow for an appeal, of course—that is only right for the sake of justice—but it will ensure that the appeals process does not unduly benefit those who can afford to litigate. It is alleged that it is currently those with the deepest pockets who bring forward the greatest number of appeals; indeed, most appellants have far deeper pockets than Ofcom has to defend itself with.
I have heard the concerns of some within the industry about the changes, as I am sure the Minister has. Although we are in favour of the Government’s proposals, I would appreciate the Minister’s response to some of those concerns. In a submission to the Committee, a group of the largest communications providers has claimed that the current appeals regime works well for consumers and has delivered consumer benefits to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds.
Calum Kerr
I understand the rationale behind trying to split up the powers that Ofcom has been given and make the process slimmer, but it is quite an achievement to get BT, Sky, Virgin Media, Vodafone and O2 in agreement. I share the hon. Lady’s concern and look forward to the Minister’s response, which I hope will help to allay it.
Louise Haigh
I agree, and although I support the Government’s objective, it is of concern that such a wide range of communications providers—the biggest investors in communications infrastructure in the UK—are so vehemently opposed to the changes. This is exactly what the Committee stage of any Bill is designed for: to test out arguments and make sure that the right thing is being done. Will the Minister confirm what impact assessment of the proposals has been made, and what benefit he anticipates the changes will bring to consumers?
The submission that I mentioned claims that if the proposed regime had been in place, the mobile call termination case in 2007 would have led to a £265 million loss to consumers over the two-year period from 2010 to 2012. It states that
“in each of the cases cited, the Tribunal’s decision was that Ofcom’s decision had not gone far enough in consumers’ favour. The quantifiable financial impact of these appeals totalled a net benefit to consumers of around £350-400m.”
It says that the merits review
“enabled these errors to be corrected, the finding of the Government’s 2013 research was that on a JR”—
judicial review—
“standard, each of these decisions would have stood unadjusted.”
No one is saying that Ofcom will get things right 100% of the time—clearly, it will not. The new appeals process is not saying that either, but it will substantially raise the bar for appeals by allowing only regulated bodies to contest how a decision was made. Is the Minister confident that the decisions cited in the evidence from BT and the other providers would still be corrected under the new regime? The providers claim that they would not.
We have heard mixed messages about whether the proposals will bring the communications regulator in line with other utilities regulators. Ofcom told us in evidence that they would do just that, but is it not the case that the price control decisions of both Ofgem and Ofwat are subject to merits review by the Competition and Markets Authority? Will the Minister confirm why that is the case for other industries but not for communications?
On SMEs, techUK is particularly concerned that the higher bar of judicial review will have a disproportionate impact on smaller providers, which brought 17% of appeals between 2010 and 2015. I would be grateful if the Minister assured us that his Department has fully considered the impact these changes will have on SMEs, and particularly on new entrants to the market.
I understand that there will always be winners and losers in any regulatory change. The Minister will no doubt enjoy basking under the adoring gaze of TalkTalk and Three, but he will have to live with the fact that he is in BT’s and Virgin’s bad books for now. What is also clear is that for most people this appeals regime is far from well understood, as the industry claims. In fact, they would find it very difficult to understand why changes that could benefit them are being held up, sometimes for years on end, and why big communications providers are spending millions of pounds on litigation when they should be ploughing that money into helping their customers.
That is no basis on which to continue an appeals regime that leads to excessive litigation and smothers changes that may help—indeed, in some cases, may transform—consumers’ relationships with their communications providers. Clearly, during the exercise of that duty, Ofcom will be required to intervene and make a ruling, which sometimes the industry may not like.
If the broad contention on this side is that Ofcom should be given further powers to ensure that the industry acts in the best interests of consumers, there is little point in allowing an appeals process to continue that is so lengthy that it can render any changes useless. One particularly compelling example given in the evidence session was about the need for far greater switching for consumers. The chief executive of Three remarked that we are at the bottom of the class in terms of switching, and that despite nearly a decade of campaigning little has been done to get rid of provider-led switching. That was because when Ofcom tried to legislate on it, to enable consumers to switch, one of the major mobile providers was able to litigate and push the matter into the long grass, from where it has not emerged until today.
With all that in mind, and pending answers to the questions that I have put to the Minister, we are happy to support the clause.
Matt Hancock
That was an excellent assessment of the pros, cons and challenges around the proposed changes to appeals. Much of the analysis and thinking that the hon. Lady has just set out is what we went through in coming to the same conclusion that it is sensible to change the appeals process.
I will set out some of the detail of the changes and then I will answer the specific questions that were put. The clause alters the standard review applied by the Competition Appeal Tribunal when deciding appeals brought under the Competitions Act 2003 against decisions made by Ofcom. This is in order to make the appeals process more efficient. The changes will not apply to appeals against decisions made by Ofcom using powers under the Competition Act 1998 or the Enterprise Act 2002.
Currently, appeals can be brought and decided on the merits of a case, and this exceeds and effectively gold-plates article 4 of the EU framework directive that requires that the merits of a case are taken into account in any appeal. The result of this over-implementation is an unnecessarily intensive and burdensome standard of review that can result, as the hon. Lady set out, in very lengthy and costly appeals litigation, which can hinder timely and effective regulation, and risks Ofcom taking an overly risk-averse approach to regulating the sector properly.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Would it also not give Ofcom much more credibility in the eyes of the organisations that it regulates, because they would realise that they had much less ability to overturn its decisions?
Matt Hancock
That is right. We heard the evidence from Three and TalkTalk, who are in favour of this change. That is no surprise, as they are essentially the insurgents in the infrastructure market, and the incumbents were less keen on this change. We also heard from Which? and Citizens Advice, which explained that it is no surprise that large companies want to keep the status quo.
It is not my job to bask in the reflected glory of the appreciation from Three or TalkTalk, nor is it to have undue concern, rather than due concern, for the complaints of those who disagree with this change.
Calum Kerr
The briefing we received recognises the Government’s line on the current approach but disagrees with the contention. It actually puts forward a form of words that it believes, if inserted, would not risk any issue with the relevant European directive. Have the Government considered that? I am happy to forward that form of words if the Minister does not know what I am referring to; it is in the latest briefing.
Matt Hancock
Again, I am happy to look at any detailed representation, but we have had significant and extensive discussions about this, including with techUK and others. On the SME point that techUK specifically raised, that was covered in the impact assessment that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley asked about. It was published on 12 May; on page 15 it sets out the concern that, if we had a separate system for SMEs, we would end up with a yet more complicated process, as opposed to a simpler one, which I think would be an overall benefit.
Louise Haigh
I completely accept that we should not have separate regulatory systems for SMEs and larger providers. Will the Minister confirm that the new judicial review process will not unduly hinder SMEs, in contrast to the current “on the merits” appeal process?
Matt Hancock
I have looked at that specific point and I am satisfied that the new process does not, because a judicial review can take into account those sorts of concerns but is a more efficient process of appeal.
On the point raised by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, I should say that we have considered using the language of the directive but we do not believe that it materially changes our approach. I said I would get back to the hon. Gentleman; I was a bit quicker than even I expected.
On that basis, I hope that the use of the well-tried and well-tested judicial review will prove a more efficient regulatory basis in future.
Louise Haigh
The Minister has not addressed a couple of points: the potential loss to consumers that the industry claims the new system will create and the cases that would not have been brought under the existing system; and the mixed messages we have heard about whether the Bill brings Ofcom into line with other utilities regulators.
Matt Hancock
On the first point, I am convinced that this change will act in the benefit of consumers, because we will have a quicker regulatory approach. The big incumbents will not be able to hold up a regulatory decision through aggressive use of the appeals process. Instead, we will have a more efficient appeals process. I am convinced that this will improve the situation for consumers.
Of course, it is possible to pick out individual cases that may have gone the other way or may not have been able to be considered under the new approach. First, it is not possible to know whether that is the case without testing them. Secondly, looking at individual cases out of context does not allow us to step back and look at the effective operation of the system as a whole. I am sure the hon. Lady agrees with that approach.
Louise Haigh
But is it not the point that those decisions were made by Ofcom and were incorrect, according to the tribunal? They were not made with consumers’ best interests at heart and they would not have been appealed under the new system because the method by which they arrived at those decisions was correct. Is there any scope in the proposals to allow certain examples, such as those put forward by the industry, to be given a merits-based review, as with price control reviews by Ofgem?
Matt Hancock
The cases that the hon. Lady and the industry cited have been assessed, and we believe that judgment under a JR system would have gone the same way as under the old system—but quicker. I hope that deals with that concern. JR is used in a large number of other areas. Of course there are specific other cases in which it is not, but it is a strong basis of appeal that is regularly used in public sector decisions. If material error is present, it can then be addressed by judicial review. I hope I have answered the hon. Lady’s questions.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 74 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 75
Functions of OFCOM in relation to the BBC
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
We do not wish to oppose Ofcom’s new role in regulating the BBC, for which clause 75 provides—as the Minister knows, we supported the BBC charter agreement last week in the House—but we have some concerns, which are shared by the BBC, about how Ofcom’s new role will work out in practice.
Distinctiveness is an absolutely vital characteristic of the BBC and its services. It is one of the things that justifies its public funding. The BBC should deliver its public purposes and mission, and it should serve all audiences, through distinctive services. Critically, distinctiveness should be judged at the level of services, rather than programmes. That does not mean that the BBC should focus on “market failure” programming or never make a programme that the commercial sector might make. Instead, the test should be that every BBC programme aspires to be the very best in its genre. Overall, the range of programmes in the BBC services should be distinguishable from its commercial competitors. There is a concern that Ofcom could be too prescriptive in the standards it expects of the BBC. For example, it might focus on quotas, such as the number of religious or news hours, rather than a substantive, qualitative assessment, and rather than a standard, such as high-quality journalism.
Evidence shows that BBC services are distinctive and have become more so in recent years. Audiences agree: more than 80% of the people responding to the Government’s charter review consultation said that the BBC serves audiences well, almost three quarters said that BBC services are distinctive and about two thirds said that they think it has a positive impact on the market.
The definition of distinctiveness in the agreement and the framework for measuring it are therefore critically important. The section of the charter agreement that relates to the new powers that will go to Ofcom requires Ofcom to set prescriptive and extensive regulatory requirements, which must be contained in an operating licence for BBC services. Ofcom must have a presumption against removing any of the current requirements on the BBC—there are about 140 quotas in the BBC’s existing service licences—and seek to increase the requirements overall by both increasing existing requirements and adding new ones.
Ofcom has been given detailed guidance about what aspects of distinctiveness it must consider for the BBC’s TV, radio and online services. That follows an old-fashioned approach to content regulation based on prescribing inputs, rather than securing audience outcomes, such as quality and impact. The BBC is concerned that it will introduce a prescriptive and inflexible regulatory framework that could restrict the BBC’s editorial independence and creativity.
Clarity about the definition of distinctiveness would be welcome. It should be applied to services, not individual programmes. The extensive content quotas in clause 2 of the charter should be a response to a failure to be distinctive, not the starting point.
Christian Matheson
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, when the Government came up with the idea of distinctiveness, they themselves were not absolutely clear what it meant? Frankly, we are still at the stage at which the Government might say, “We don’t know what it is, but we might recognise it when we see it.”
Louise Haigh
That is a very great concern. There is a serious risk of confusion about how the new regulatory regime is going to work for both Ofcom and the BBC. To be frank, I do not think quotas are appropriate in this respect. I have got nothing against quotas—I was selected on an all-women shortlist, which aim to increase the number of women in the parliamentary Labour party.
Louise Haigh
The Minister is absolutely correct that I would have won it on an open shortlist. It is very kind of him to say that.
But quotas in this respect restrict creativity and innovation, which are prerequisites of distinctiveness. Ofcom, as an independent regulator, should have the freedom to determine how best to regulate the BBC to secure policy goals. I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed what consideration has been given to the impact this will have on the quality programming we have come to expect from the BBC.
Finally, there is a concern that Ofcom may prejudice value for money over public interest. It would significantly reassure the BBC and the public, and would provide a greater degree of certainty over how Ofcom will behave in its enhanced regulatory role, if the same principles applied to the BBC charter—that there must be parity between public interest and value for money—were applied to Ofcom as well.
Matt Hancock
I am glad we have cross-party support for the clause, as we do for the BBC charter. It is incredibly helpful to the BBC’s role that it knows that the basis on which it operates and is regulated is supported on a cross-party basis.
It is very important—I will read this clearly on to the record—that distinctiveness as set out in the framework agreement is about BBC output and services as a whole, not specific programmes. Ofcom has the capability to make judgments about the overall distinctiveness of BBC output and services as a whole. That is the basis on which we expect it to operate under this legislation.
The hon. Lady asked whether there should be guidance underneath that. As she set out, there is existing guidance, and the public are very happy in large part with the result of that. I reject the idea that we cannot have any detail underneath the basis that distinctiveness should be decided on BBC output and services as a whole. At the moment, as she set out, there is detail, and it works well.
This is essentially an incremental approach. The BBC already faces this guidance and operates successfully. The clause is not prescriptive in that regard. Ofcom needs to operate in a reasonable way and exercise its judgment to ensure that we get the much-loved BBC operating as well as it can, as it has in the past and as it should in the future.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 75 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 76
TV licence fee concessions by reference to age
Matt Hancock
I beg to move amendment 178, in clause 76, page 74, line 24, at end insert—
‘( ) In subsection (4)(a) after “concession” insert “provided for by the regulations”.”
Section 365A(4) inserted by clause 76(6) gives the BBC power, where they determine that a TV licence fee concession is to apply, to provide how entitlement to the concession may be established. This amendment makes a consequential amendment to the Secretary of State’s power to make similar provision.
Matt Hancock
Clause 76 will transfer policy responsibility for the concession that provides for free TV licences for those aged over 75 to the BBC. These technical amendments clarify the relationship between the Secretary of State’s power to set concessions and the BBC’s power to set concessions for those aged 65 and over. The amendments provide clarity, making it clear that the power of the BBC from June 2020 to determine age-related concessions for people over 65 extends to any such concession as previously provided for by the Secretary of State, with the exception of the current residential care concession. That was always the intended effect of the clause, and the amendments merely provide greater clarity in the drafting and remove any ambiguity.
Amendment 178 agreed to.
Amendments made: 179, in clause 76, page 74, line 26, after “section” insert “or section 365A”
This extends the definition of “concession” given in section 365(5) of the Communications Act 2003 to section 365A inserted by clause 76(6).
Amendment 180, in clause 76, page 74, leave out lines 28 and 29 and insert—
‘(5A) Regulations under this section may not provide for a concession that requires the person to whom the TV licence is issued, or another person, to be of or above a specified age, unless—
(a) the age specified is below 65, and
(b) the requirement is not satisfied if the person concerned is 65 or over at the end of the month in which the licence is issued.
(5B) Subsection (5A) does not apply to—
(a) the concession provided for by regulation 3(d) of and Schedule 4 to the Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004 (S.I. 2004/692) (accommodation for residential care), or
(b) a concession in substantially the same form.”
This amendment allows the Secretary of State to continue the existing concession in relation to accommodation for residential care, including its age-related element, after May 2020, but after that date any other age-related concession would be a decision for the BBC (see amendment 181).
Amendment 181, in clause 76, page 74, line 33, leave out from “apply” to end of line 39 and insert—
‘(1A) Any concession under this section must include a requirement that the person to whom the TV licence is issued, or another person, is of or above a specified age, which must be 65 or higher, at or before the end of the month in which the licence is issued.
(1B) A determination under this section—
(a) may in particular provide for a concession to apply, subject to subsection (1A), in circumstances where a concession has ceased to have effect by virtue of section 365(5A), but
(b) may not provide for a concession to apply in the same circumstances as a concession within section 365(5B).” —(Matt Hancock.)
This amends the power of the BBC from June 2020 to determine age-related concessions for people over 65, to make clear that it extends to any such concessions previously provided for by the Secretary of State, with the exception of the current residential care concession (see amendment 180).
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 38—Responsibility for policy and funding of TV licence fee concessions—
After section 365(5) of the Communications Act 2003 insert—
“(5A) It shall be the responsibility of the Secretary of State to—
(a) specify the conditions under which concessions are entitled, and
(b) provide the BBC with necessary funding to cover the cost of concessions,
and this responsibility shall not be delegated to any other body.”
This new clause seeks to enshrine in statute that it should be the responsibility of the Government to set the entitlement for any concessions and to cover the cost of such concession. This new clause will ensure the entitlement and cost of over-75s TV licences remain with the Government. It would need to be agreed with Clause 76 not standing part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
I rise to address new clause 38, which is in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West. I am sorry to say that this is where any cross-party consensus on the Bill ends. We absolutely do not support clause 76 or any of the amendments to it. Not only the Opposition, but the more than 4 million over-75s in this country who currently make use of this benefit oppose the clause. The benefit was promised to them in last year’s Conservative manifesto, a manifesto that, frankly, many of them will have voted for in good faith. Now, just 16 months into the Parliament, the Government are abandoning that pledge on the pretence that it should now be for the BBC to decide. Well, it will not only be Opposition Members, but millions of over-75s, and indeed future over-75s, who see right through that underhand tactic.
Just to concentrate the Committee’s mind, I did a bit of research at 11 o’clock last night, when I was still in my office writing my speeches for today. Given that more than 89% of over 75-year-olds make use of the free TV licence introduced by the previous Labour Government, in the Minister’s West Suffolk constituency there will be 8,863 over-75s who potentially stand to lose out because of the Government’s tactics—that is one of the highest numbers in the entire country. I do not have good news for the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office either: 7,121 over-75s in his constituency will be very unhappy with this measure.
An awful lot of disgruntled over-75s will be coming the Ministers’ way in future surgeries. There will be quite a queue at their constituency offices. I would not rule out the pensioners having a copy of the Conservative manifesto in hand, because that manifesto contained a pretty unequivocal promise:
“We will maintain all the current pensioner benefits including Winter Fuel Payments, free bus passes, free prescriptions and TV licences for the next Parliament”.
In fact, the header above that list of pensioner benefits said:
“We will guarantee your financial security”.
Those benefits were all introduced by the previous Labour Government.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Does the manifesto mention anywhere that the Government might transfer their responsibility for any of those benefits to an unelected body?
Louise Haigh
No, that is exactly my point. Whether or not the BBC gains responsibility for this provision is moot. The BBC is an unaccountable organisation when it comes to setting welfare policy. This represents the start of a slippery slope. Where does it end once the Government start asking other bodies to make decisions on who gets benefits? This is yet another broken promise—one promise has already been broken in part 3—so we are not doing very well. I am sure the powerful older voter lobby will not take this lying down.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady accept that this measure was not imposed on the BBC? The deal was negotiated with the BBC in exchange for other things, including opening up revenue opportunities such as by closing the iPlayer loophole.
Louise Haigh
It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman makes that point, because I was just about to say that I am sure the Government will argue that the BBC has been rewarded handsomely in the charter renewal process and that the BBC will decide its funding policy for over-75s within that context.
From 2018, the BBC is being asked to shoulder £200 million of the annual cost of free TV licences, and it will assume the full £745 million annual bill from 2020—that amounts to more than a fifth of the entire BBC budget. It is more than enough to fund Radio 4 ten times over, and it is almost enough to fund the entire budget of BBC 1. The BBC has been asked to take control of setting the entitlement for over-75 licences because the Government know that they cannot afford it at its current rate. We accept that the BBC has asked for responsibility for this policy, but that is because the cost of the policy was enforced on it through negotiations. It is outrageous that the BBC is being asked to fund it at all.
Kevin Brennan
It is interesting that my hon. Friend used the term “negotiations” and the Minister repeated it from a sedentary position. There is a difference between negotiations between equals and being negotiated with by someone holding a loaded gun to one’s head.
Louise Haigh
That is absolutely right. The Opposition made clear in the debate on the BBC charter our utter condemnation of the underhand, aggressive, bully-boy way in which the Government “negotiated”. It was not a negotiation. As a former trade union rep, I recognise a negotiation when I see one, and the way the Government handled the previous licence-fee settlement was nothing of the sort. That led us to the position we are currently in. The BBC should never have been given the responsibility for delivering on a Conservative party manifesto pledge. It should have felt able to reject even the suggestion that it take on the cost of free TV licences for the over-75s.
Nigel Huddleston
Is the hon. Lady suggesting that the BBC is not capable of effective negotiations? Its senior executives include Labour’s former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
Louise Haigh
The point is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West said, the BBC was essentially in negotiations with a gun to its head. It was not a free and fair negotiation. The individual to which the hon. Gentleman just referred does not sit on the BBC board, and I do not believe he was involved in the negotiations with the Government.
The fact that we have reached this point—that the BBC was in essence forced to agree to become an arm of the Department for Work and Pensions—says a lot about the overbearing, menacing way the Government treated an organisation that they should cherish, and the cavalier disregard they have shown to the over-75s to whom they made a promise last year. Call me old fashioned, but I believe that promises should be kept. Behaviour like the Government’s brings disrepute on all Members from all parties. It makes people think that it is exactly what politicians do: we promise things in elections that we have absolutely no intention of delivering. It is a problem for all Members, whether Government or Opposition.
Despite public outcry, the Government have still not ruled out further stick-ups of the type that have got us into the position we are in now. They have refused to establish a transparent process to set the licence fees of the future. The Opposition do not consider it a done deal. With new clause 38, we are seeking to guarantee free TV licences to over-75s. That would give the responsibility for the policy and the funding of TV licences back to the Government, where it belongs. There would be no more wriggling out of a decision that should be laid firmly at the Minister’s door.
If the Conservatives want to rid themselves of the cost of the free TV licence, they should have the courage to say that they are doing it. They should have put it in their manifesto and campaigned on it; they should not have created a non-ministerial branch office of the DWP in the BBC to do their dirty work for them. That is why if our new clause was accepted we would be calling for the scrapping of clause 76 in its entirety.
The new clause is very clear: it should be for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to specify the conditions under which people are entitled to concessions, and to provide the BBC with the necessary funding to cover the cost of those concessions. That is how it was set up under the previous Labour Government, and it is under those conditions that it should continue. The responsibility should not be delegated to any body other than the Government themselves. They should not be allowed to get away with delegating the responsibility and effectively forcing the BBC to take the rap.
This is a point of principle for the Opposition. We cannot accept a policy that takes the responsibility for even a tiny part of our social security system and gives it to an organisation with no direct accountability to the electorate. Unaccountable organisations do not have to face the consequences of their decisions, especially given the announcement we have heard today from the chief executive of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Even HMRC does not want to see private sector involvement in decisions on tax credits. A non-ministerial body has said that the private sector should not be involved in who does or does not receive tax credits, or any other type of benefit. That is exactly the argument we are making.
Private sector organisations are the wrong bodies to be involved in deciding who gets benefits, not only because they are incentivised by profit but because they are unaccountable. They do not have to stand for election based on those decisions, and therefore they should not be allowed to make them. It is the equivalent of outsourcing children’s services to Virgin and, in the process, asking them to pick up the tab for child benefit and requiring them to decide who gets it. Our social security system is far too precious for BBC executives, however noble their intentions or professional their considerations, to decide who is and who is not entitled to a benefit of any description. Labour introduced the free TV licence for the over-75s. It cannot be a BBC executive, unaccountable to the public and unaccountable to all our constituents, who calls time on it.
If the amendment falls, it will be high time that the Government were honest about what they were doing and honest with the voters. If they are not, Labour will do everything in its power to make it clear to those millions of over-75s exactly what is happening: their TV licence entitlement will be reduced or taken away not by the BBC, but by the Government who knowingly and cynically engineered the change.
Calum Kerr
What a fantastic presentation of a new clause, which I absolutely agree with.
Having looked into this whole area, I find it staggering. The BBC is faced with the prospect of huge cuts, but I am concerned that it is suddenly being passed the responsibility for setting policy. The Bill shows that the Government like to outsource as much as possible, because they outsourced most of the content to Ofcom in the early stages. However, the proposal relating to free TV licences for the over-75s is an absolute abdication of responsibility. We have all been invited to enough Age Concern events to know how isolated elderly people feel and how important television is for them. This is fundamentally welfare policy.
Kevin Brennan
On the point about isolation, does the hon. Gentleman agree that what the Government are effectively doing is equivalent to devolving concessionary fares to private bus companies and then letting them decide whether older people should have concessionary fares?
Calum Kerr
Absolutely. I see we are on a bus theme, which must be because the hon. Member for Hyndburn has returned to his place.
We must consider the risks inherent in this shift. With its budget potentially squeezed in future, the BBC is the one faced with choosing a priority. The BBC will have to decide whether someone should get a free TV licence. Fundamentally, that is welfare policy. I hope the Government are listening and will reconsider. The new clause is well worded and I fully endorse it on behalf of the Scottish National party.
Christian Matheson
I support the new clause and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley on an outstanding contribution among numerous outstanding contributions during the Committee’s considerations.
The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk is absolutely right that the proposal is an outsourcing of responsibility, but there is more to it than that. The Government are not only putting a further financial squeeze on the BBC, but when, as may be inevitable, the allocation of TV licences to the over-75s has to be reviewed, they will apparently have a clean pair of hands. It will be, “Not us, guv—it was the BBC what did it”, when that may well have been the intention all along. It is, again, outsourcing of responsibility and an attempt to evade responsibility, put on the financial squeeze, take a step back and say, “It’s nothing to do with us. It’s that bad BBC. Because that bad BBC is so bad, we shall cut them even more to punish them for how they have treated pensioners.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who does not serve on this Committee, described the events of June and July 2015 when the so-called negotiation took place as a drive-by shooting when we were in the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Hon. Members have today talked about negotiations with a gun to the head; a drive-by shooting is an appropriate description of what happened.
The BBC board was taken by surprise by the motives of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), and the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The Select Committee asked the chairwoman of the BBC Trust whether she and her fellow trust members had considered resigning in protest at what was happening; she declined to answer. I am sure that there were discussions.
Kevin Brennan
Is there not a further cynicism to this? The Government did that in the full knowledge that the policy had what the Treasury often calls “future reach”, as the number of over-75s is likely to go up. Even given that the Government are partially compensating the BBC for this, they know full well that the policy will become more expensive.
Christian Matheson
That is an extremely good point, and it reads back to the point that I made earlier: when there has to be a review of the cost of the policy, and perhaps a reduction in the availability of free TV licences, Ministers—perhaps they will be shadow Ministers by that time—[Interruption.] We fight on to win. Conservative Members will be able to point to the BBC and say, “It was the BBC what done it”, in order to evade all responsibility. But they will not evade responsibility, because this will not be forgotten, if they get away with doing it. There is a much better alternative: the excellent new clause proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley.
Louise Haigh
I am appalled by what is, as my hon. Friend is clearly laying out, a naked attempt to evade responsibility. Does he share my concern that this is the beginning of a slippery slope? Where exactly does this end? Once the principle that the Government are attempting to put in the Bill is in legislation, to whom else can they outsource responsibility for their social security policies?
Christian Matheson
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am cautious about straying too far from the point under discussion, but she says that this is the beginning of a slippery slope. It is not, because the Government have form in this area. I look to you, Mr Streeter, for a little bit of latitude here.
There are, for example, massive cuts to local government funding; the Government have taken huge amounts of money away from local authorities, expect them to come up with cuts and reductions in services, and then say, “It is nothing to do with us; blame your local authority.” There is one point on which I would disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley: this is not the beginning of a slippery slope; it is a continuation of form. The Government have been rumbled, and they know it.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
The amendment is important. It defines the Opposition against the Government. We value the BBC, but there is always a criticism, and the Government are reaffirming people’s view that the Government do not really trust the BBC. If they can do anything to undermine the BBC, they will, instead of supporting it. During the passage of the charter, there has been to-ing and fro-ing, and criticism of the BBC, using the stick of distinctiveness and other sticks, such as the five-year break clause.
The Government always say that they are there to stand up for the BBC and give it the freedoms that it wants, but this is not a freedom, of course; it is a shackle. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West said, the Government are trying to outsource responsibility. They will not do it on bus passes; they will not say, “We’ll make the bus companies make the decision on free bus passes”, but they will make the BBC accountable for the over-75s’ free TV licences. I do not think that the Government can escape that responsibility, or the accusation that they are continually chipping away at the BBC.
Let us talk about the issue in numbers. By 2020, when the BBC has to pay fully, the figure will be £700 million. That is a considerable amount of money for the BBC to find at a time when the Government have chipped away at BBC budgets through a bit of slicing here and another bit of slicing there, and even with a cap on the licence fee.
Kevin Brennan
Is it not correct that at that point the people at the BBC will be faced with a decision, which is to do what is in their nature—to make programmes, to produce content and so on—or to continue an aspect of what is, after all, social policy? Will they not always have to look at what their core activity is: programme making and their distinctive role in the broadcasting universe?
Graham Jones
Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes the point perfectly. There is no need to add too much to that, other than to say that if we want to talk about the Government’s view of the BBC and this chipping away, which our new clause is designed to prevent, it is the outsourcing of programme making again to 100% programme making that will now be made out in the private sector and not in-house. Again, it is part of the package of making the BBC less viable, so that we arrive at a day when a tough decision might have to be made because the BBC as it exists now has been completely undermined. The policy is not to put it on a firmer footing. This £700 million is a huge part of that chipping away at the BBC.
Calum Kerr
In reality, the Government by all means could have had a financial settlement that reflects the same outcome, but the fact is they have passed the policy. Why pass the policy other than to abdicate responsibility?
Graham Jones
The hon. Gentleman anticipates what I was moving on to, which is that the policy is also about passing responsibility. The Government want to shape the decision and take the credit where there is an upside, and to dump it on the BBC where there is a downside. That is what this is about—so the BBC is left with it.
Suppose the Government wanted to offer further icing on the cake and have over-70s get the free TV licence. The Government would take the credit for that, but any difficult decisions, such as only over-80s getting the free licence and the 75-year-olds losing out, will of course be the BBC’s fault. We can see exactly what is happening and the duplicity of the argument. The Government are setting the BBC up with a dilemma: it will take the stick for any downsides, but for any upsides the Government will be up there on the podium, all backslapping each other, saying, “Great social policy!”
There is no escaping that, and I do not think that the general public are fooled—they can see. It would make perfect sense for the Minister to accept new clause 38, because the public see what the Government are doing with that shift of responsibility for the over-75s. The public will not be fooled by the shift; they can see precisely what Ministers are trying to achieve. The public, too, will be concerned and asking how it affects them, the ordinary person. Will the BBC, faced with further cuts, have to say, “Well, we’re sorry, it’s only over-80s who will get it”? Decisions and responsibilities are outsourced to the BBC, and the licence fee payer, in particular those coming up to that age, will be wondering, “Hang on, I’m going to get the worst of both worlds—either a Tory Government or the BBC cutting my licence fee.” I do not think that the public will be too happy. They will not not see through this—sorry about the double negative.
Louise Haigh
My hon. Friend is right. This predates the Minister’s time in post, so I very much hope that he takes the opportunity to go back on his predecessor’s decision. The Government thought they were being very clever with this move to outsource and put the duty on the BBC, but as my hon. Friend says, everyone will see right through this. Nobody will blame the BBC. The responsibility will lie clearly with the Government, and I hope that they are listening and will act on his points.
Graham Jones
We trust that the Government will listen to the public and see that they are on the wrong side of the argument, but perhaps we will find out in a few minutes that they do not recognise that.
Kevin Brennan
I do not think the 5,503 people in my constituency who will be affected are fools, but does my hon. Friend agree that any Member who votes for the change must think that the people in their constituency who will be affected by it are fools? To take an example at random, the hon. Member for Devizes has 6,478 constituents who will be affected.
Graham Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I have glanced over the figures, and it seems that more people will be affected in the constituencies of Government Members. Perhaps those Members should be mindful of their constituents who will have real concerns about the proposal. They will not be fooled by the idea that the Government are taking a genuine and reasonable approach in giving the BBC responsibility for TV licences for over-75s.
If the Government have to take with one hand—and I do not agree with that—they could at least have made an attempt to give back with the other hand. Other than some minor giveaways to the BBC, they have made no attempt to correct even the fiscal element of the change, never mind the moral, ethical, social and public policy elements. The Government say in their explanatory notes that the BBC cannot expect to get any retransmission fees from Virgin, which is covered by the Bill, or Sky, which is not. There will therefore be no material change in the relationship between platform providers and content providers such as the BBC, which are forced to provide their content on those platforms. The Government could at least have corrected the fiscal element of the change by doing something about that commercial relationship, but instead they decided to take £700 million from the BBC. They already have a track record of slicing BBC funding for pet projects such as local TV or broadband.
The public will not be fooled. Thousands of constituents of Government Members will see the change and wonder why their Member of Parliament has taken this decision. Those in receipt of an over-75 TV licence, or coming up to that point, will think it is a deterioration in public policy. They will think, “This is not in my interests. I don’t agree with it. Why has my Member of Parliament voted against the new clause?” Government Members should think long and hard about the new clause, because I am sure their constituents will not approve of them voting against it.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
I did not intend to speak to new clause 38, but the power of the arguments made by Opposition Members has led me to rise to my feet. As a vice-chairman of the all-party BBC group and a fan and defender of the BBC, I cannot let some of the comments that have been made go unanswered.
If the situation were as simple as costs being transferred from the Government to the licence fee payer so that older people lost out, I would be the first to join Opposition Members in the fight against it, but that is not what the Government are proposing. We have to look at the change in its totality. For example, there is no proposal to end the over-75s’ free TV licence. It is clear that the Government wish that to continue. It was part of the negotiations and agreements that the BBC agreed to as part of the overall package. It was quite happy to accept responsibility for the over-75s’ licence fee funding.
Louise Haigh
It is interesting to hear that the hon. Gentleman thinks that the Government have ended top-slicing. What is his opinion of the contestable fund that should have gone back to the BBC? There was an underspend in the top-slicing he mentioned. We have had no commitment from the Minister, so that will be a one-time-only thing, and we do not know that it will continue after the three-year period.
The Chair
Order. I am keen that we focus on the new clause and on clause 76 stand part, and not allow ourselves to get into a wider discussion about the future of the world and the BBC as we know it.
Mark Menzies
The other reason that I oppose new clause 38 is that the BBC, under the settlement, has a clear commitment to original content. Conservative Members should be reassured, as should older people listening and reading about the debate and the Government’s measure. The money does not come from a money tree and would have to be found from somewhere, and it would be found from taxpayers, many of whom are over 65. Elderly people themselves would have to find money to go towards paying for over-75s’ free TV licences. That money is now coming out of the licence fee, so taxpayers’ money is now available to go into other things. It is important that we do not forget our elderly constituents and that the Government in their totality do everything they can to ensure that the money that is freed up from being spent on the over-75s’ free TV licence goes to older people.
Graham Jones
I am grateful to my hon. neighbour for giving way. I respect the fact that he has in the past been a passionate spokesperson for the BBC, and I hope that he continues to be. He argues that it is the Government’s policy not to change the current arrangements for over-75s’ free TV licences. One therefore has to ask: why is it the BBC’s responsibility if it is the Government’s policy?
Mark Menzies
I take compliments wherever they come from and I am certainly happy to take them from the hon. Gentleman. The key question for me is: are we, in one form or another, providing free TV licences for over-75s? Yes, we are. Is the BBC, under the current settlement, out of pocket? No, it is not because the licence fee is being increased and top-slicing is ending. The BBC is committing to continue to invest record sums of money in facilities such as BBC Salford, which has been truly transformational up in the north-west. If money were not an issue in the public sector, I would be saying, “Absolutely, let’s continue to find more money for the BBC to provide TV licences to an even larger group of people.”
Kevin Brennan
The hon. Gentleman is making a stout and reasoned defence of the Government’s position and many aspects of the settlement with the BBC. I accept that, but can he say truthfully that he believes that it is the right move to transfer responsibility for this policy from the Government to the BBC?
Mark Menzies
I think it was part of the overall negotiation. Look at the package that was agreed, which included the end of top-slicing—a considerable liability that the BBC itself felt was an unfair burden on it under the previous settlement—and responsibility for broader licence fee management. Looking at it like that, I think it is a fair settlement during a difficult financial period.
It is easy to castigate the Government’s move on measures such as this, but look at it against the backdrop I have outlined. There is more money for the BBC and also an agreement from the BBC. This was not objected to or protested against by the BBC management. They are not raising this as an unfair charge, in a way that at times the previous BBC management cited the issue of broadband top-slicing as unfair. The Government noticed that was unfair, acted upon it and removed it.
Graham Jones
The hon. Gentleman is making a passionate defence and trying to justify the Government’s position. I applaud him for trying to make the best of what is a bad job. He talks about fairness and says that it is the 65-year-old licence fee payer who will subsidise the 75-year-old. There are twice as many over-75 TV licence holders in Beverley and Holderness as in Hyndburn. Where is the fairness in pensioners in Hyndburn subsidising pensioners in Beverley and Holderness, where there are twice as many free TV licences?
Mark Menzies
If you will forgive me, Mr Streeter, I will not get into the debate of whether Beverley and Holderness or Hyndburn should be the ultimate beneficiaries, because that is ultimately about Lancashire and Yorkshire—a subject I will stay well away from.
I conclude by saying I appreciate the efforts of the Opposition in raising this point, but we have to appreciate that, at the end of this settlement, the BBC will have more resources going into it.
Mark Menzies
I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me; I have given way to her several times. The BBC will have more resources as a result of this. The over-75 licence fee will become the responsibility of the BBC, but the indications from the Government are clear: we are committed to free licences for the over-75s, as we promised in our manifesto.
Matt Hancock
It was going so well and we were having such a rational debate until that sudden outburst. Let me respond to the points that were made. I am proud to support clause 76, which safeguards the TV licence and delivers on our manifesto commitment to maintain free TV licences in this Parliament. Until that speech right at the end, we heard an awful lot of bluster but saw little light, so I will remind the Committee of a few facts.
First, transferring the responsibility for the free TV licences to the BBC as part of the funding settlement was agreed with the BBC and is what it says on the tin: it is part of a funding settlement. The question of who pays is part of the funding of the BBC. In July last year, Tony Hall, the Director General of the BBC, said:
"I think we have a deal here which is a strong deal for the BBC. It gives us financial stability."
I suggest that anybody who votes against clause 76 votes against financial stability of the BBC and is ultimately voting to put the free TV licence at risk. I will be saying to all 8,853 of my constituents who get a free TV licence that we are safeguarding the free TV licence.
In the run-up to the 2015 general election, during which we committed to protecting the TV licence in this Parliament, who was it that wanted to do away with it? Who was it? A certain Mr Ed Balls, who is now more famous for being on the TV than for talking about TV policy. When he was questioned about whether the universal free TV licence should stay, while he was saying that the universal winter fuel payments should not, he said:
“I think you have to be pragmatic”
about the TV licence. It was the Labour party that put the free TV licence at risk and we are proud that we supported it in our manifesto.
The director-general did not stop there. He also said:
“The government’s decision here to put the cost of the over-75s on us has been more than matched by the deal coming back for the BBC.”
Unfortunately for those who seek to cause a fuss about this, their view on funding seems to go against the view of the director-general of the BBC.
Matt Hancock
I will give way if the hon. Gentleman can explain why he disagrees with the director-general of the BBC.
Kevin Brennan
The Minister does not understand parliamentary procedure. That is not a reason to give way. He should give way to allow me to ask him a question, to avoid my having to make a speech. My question—a straightforward question, which does not require anything but a straightforward answer—is on what principle he thinks that this is the right move.
Matt Hancock
On the principle that the BBC is responsible for the funding of the BBC according to the licence fee negotiations agreed with the Government. This is a funding decision, and funding issues are for the BBC.
I have given the Opposition a couple of quotations from the head of the BBC about why he agrees with the policy. Let me give them another quotation:
“The Labour party welcomes the fact that the charter provides the BBC with the funding and security it needs as it prepares to enter its second century of broadcasting.”—[Official Report, 18 October 2016; Vol. 615, c. 699.]
Not my words, but those of the boss of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, the shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson). Well, I agree with her boss—he was absolutely right.
Matt Hancock
Of course I will give way—if the hon. Lady can explain why she disagrees with her boss.
Louise Haigh
I made it clear that we support the BBC charter, but my boss—as the Minister calls him—and I also made it clear that we do not support this element of it.
I have two more quotations to put to the Minister. In the Lords debate on the charter two weeks ago, the assessment of the former BBC director-general, John Birt, was that
“the impact…will be—over the span of a decade—to take almost exactly 25% out of the real resources available to the BBC for its core services. A massive reduction in programming is therefore simply unavoidable.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 October 2016; Vol. 774, c. 1950.]
The former chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, then said:
“I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said about the licence fee settlement—not just the finance on the table but the way it was done. It was a scandal to do it like that”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 October 2016; Vol. 774, c. 1954.]
The Opposition absolutely agree.
Matt Hancock
That is not related to clause 76. What is related to the clause is the fact that the BBC agrees it has the funding it needs, as I set out and as agreed by the shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
My next point is about why we are transferring the power and why it would be wrong to adopt new clause 38, which would undermine the BBC’s funding settlement. The reason is that the BBC asked for it. It is incumbent on those who propose new clause 38 and oppose clause 76 to explain why they disagree with the BBC, with this strong settlement and with all those who say that we have provided a good funding settlement for the BBC. Instead of pressing the new clause, I suggest that the hon. Lady should support clause 76, to put the BBC’s funding on a sustainable footing for years to come.
Louise Haigh
The hon. Member for Fylde said that he opposed our new clause on two grounds, of which the first was that the BBC provides free TV licences. It does, but we have absolutely no guarantee that it will continue to do so.
The Minister is correct that the BBC asked for this, but as I referred to earlier, the BBC asked for the policy on who should and should not get a free TV licence because the funding was forced on it. It asked for that funding because it wants to reduce the number of people who get free TV licences in the future—it as much as said that to us. We do not want the BBC to have that policy; nor do we want it to have the funding settlement. It is a principle that we fundamentally oppose, so we intend to test the will of the Committee.
The Chair
We will come to the new clause later in our proceedings, but right now the question is that clause 76, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 76, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 77
Direct marketing code
Louise Haigh
I beg to move amendment 195, in clause 77, page 75, line 22, leave out “direct marketing” and insert
“any form of marketing, including direct marketing, or customer engagement”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 196, in clause 77, page 75, line 27, leave out “direct marketing” and insert “marketing and customer engagement”.
Amendment 197, in clause 77, page 75, line 40, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
‘(4) In this section—
“customer engagement” means the interactions initiated between a business and an individual or group of individuals for marketing and other business purposes;
“direct marketing” means the processing and use of personal information for marketing purposes;
“marketing” means the business processes through which goods and services are moved from being concepts to things that customers and potential customers want.”
New clause 34—Power of Information Commissioner to take action on unsolicited communications—
‘(1) The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (S.I.2003/2426) are amended as follows.
(2) In Regulation 31(1), between “sections 55A to 55E” and “of the Data Protection Act 1998” insert “and section 61”.
(3) In Schedule 1, after paragraph 8B insert—
8C In subsections (1) and (3) of section 61—
(a) for “an offence under this Act” there shall be substituted “a contravention of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2000”;
(b) for “guilty of that offence” there shall be substituted “liable for that contravention”; and
(c) for “proceeded against and published accordingly” there shall be substituted “served with a notice, proceeded against of punished accordingly”.’
This new clause seeks to allow the Information Commissioner’s Office to take action against company directors for breaches not only of the Data Protection Act 1998, but of the 2003 EU regulations on unsolicited communications.
Louise Haigh
Thousands of individuals are plagued by nuisance calls every day. I will turn to that in my remarks on clause stand part, but I shall speak to the amendments and new clause first. We welcome the inclusion in the Bill of a direct marketing code. If it works effectively, it will contain practical guidance and promote good practice in direct marketing activities. It will help to guide the experiences of companies and individuals, but direct marketing, as we know, is fairly narrowly defined and refers to the direct selling of products and services to the public. It is covered under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the privacy and electronic communications regulations. The rules cover not only commercial organisations but not-for-profit organisations such as charities and political parties. The rules for direct marketing are very clear and are becoming —absolutely rightly—increasingly tougher.
There are two types of nuisance call: live marketing calls—unwanted marketing calls from a real person—or automated marketing calls, which are pre-recorded marketing messages that are played when someone answers the phone. They are covered by a raft of legislation and regulation attempting to clamp down on that type of behaviour. Our amendments attempt to broaden the definition of the new direct marketing codes, so the law will cover not only direct consumer marketing but consumer engagement.
Direct marketing uses personal data and demographic insights relating to residence and the habits of people previously to market to people individually and directly. Consumer engagement is much broader and involves the use of personal data to engage with customers for a broad set of business processes, which include, but are not restricted to, direct marketing. TV advertising, for example, is not considered to be direct marketing, but TV advertising campaigns can be designed with information derived from consumer data and used to target broad groups of consumers based on data derived from individuals.
In our view, the direct marketing code, which we very much welcome, and the Information Commissioner’s guidance in this field should cover this broader use of individuals’ data. As we have said throughout, we want data to be used responsibly, and this simple amendment would extend the code to apply to all uses of data in consumer marketing, and not just the kind that is used to directly target people.
Matt Hancock
What a welcome return to sense from the Opposition. The amendments tabled to clause 77 relate to the definition of direct marketing, which, as defined in the Data Protection Act, is
“the communication (by whatever means) of any advertising or marketing material which is directed to particular individuals.”
The definition captures any advertising or marketing material, not just commercial marketing, which is a point that the hon. Lady made, as well as all promotional material, including material promoting the aims of not-for-profit organisations. It also covers any messages that include some marketing elements, even if that is not the main purpose of the message.
The privacy and electronic communications regulations put direct marketing by electronic means into the scope of the definition, thus making it applicable to telephone calls, both live and automated, faxes, emails, text messages and other forms of electronic communication. It is essential that the definition of direct marketing in the PECR remains aligned with the definition in the Data Protection Act, so that the Information Commissioner’s Office’s powers of enforcement for nuisance calls to remain effective and enforceable in law.
New clause 34 is intended to amend the PECR, to extend to company directors and other officers liability for breaches when those officers have allowed breaches to occur or when breaches have happened because of something they have failed to do. In that way, the Information Commissioner could impose fines on company officers rather than just on companies as at present. The proposal relates to nuisance calls made by organisations. They are a blight on society, causing significant distress to elderly and vulnerable people in particular.
The Chair
It may be helpful for the Minister to know that, because of a miscommunication between Mr Kerr and myself, Mr Kerr will speak to new clause 34 when the Minister sits down, so the Minister may want to save his comments until later. Please continue.
Matt Hancock
I hope that I will still agree with new clause 34 then; I think I will, because I am so enthusiastic about it.
Matt Hancock
I thank the hon. Gentleman.
I hope that, having answered the hon. Lady’s questions in relation to amendments that I think are intended to probe and in anticipation of our coming on to new clause 34, she will be able to withdraw her amendment.
Calum Kerr
I am sorry for the miscommunication; it was my fault. Actually, having read the newspapers at the weekend, I think that the Minister may be in agreement on extending the penalties in relation to nuisance callers to company directors; I certainly read a number of quotes about the importance of doing that. What I am unclear about—perhaps he will enlighten me—is whether he intends to accept our new clause or whether he has another vehicle by which he intends to make this change. I would be grateful to him if he intervened, because there is no point in my—
Matt Hancock
We agree with moving liability on to individuals rather than on to companies, because sometimes those companies will be closed down, bought up and restarted under a different name very quickly. We propose to do that by tabling a Government amendment.
Calum Kerr
I thank the Minister for that intervention. I had thought that I might have done his homework for him already with new clause 34. Perhaps he might consider embracing the cross-party consensual nature that might return after the BBC fun and games—except on tobacco ads, which certainly go too far.
Matt Hancock
Before I was stopped by Mr Streeter, I was going to say precisely that—namely that I have just announced that we intend to introduce such measures. We need to consult on the exact details of those measures, which is why I do not propose to accept the new clause, but we intend to put into place something of similar substance.
Calum Kerr
Excellent. I thank the Minister for that and given that comment, rather than outlining the full case for why I think accepting new clause 34 is a good idea, I will embrace the positivity and happily sit down, without pressing my new clause, knowing that the Government will introduce a similar measure.
Louise Haigh
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Graham Jones
I have a couple of points that I would like the Government to consider on clause stand part and why there is a deficiency, not only in the Bill but in all the other regulations, guidance and advice that support it.
My first point is simply that people the length and breadth of this country are sick and fed up of direct marketing. They are sick and fed up of the back of their doors having a mound of unwanted mail that they have to dispose of, which has come from companies that they have no interest in. I have a high number of empty properties—2,500—in my area, and in some cases this goes beyond being a nuisance and an aggravation, and becomes a fire hazard. We have mounds of direct mail behind the door, and it is never-ending and never stops.
People receive not only physical mail but email. Businesses the length and breadth of Britain—I have made the point that this is not a business-friendly Bill and it should be, as it is a Digital Economy Bill—are sick and fed up of their email boxes being stuffed full of unwanted emails, which are costing them a fortune as they have to put someone on them to go through them. It has got to stop. We have to act as a Parliament, and the Government have got to sit up and take notice. How much is this costing British businesses? How much is it aggravating UK citizens?
These companies seem to get away with it. There is a free-for-all at the minute. There is no way anyone can tell me that a mound of mail does not come through my letterbox weekly or there is not a long sequence of unwanted emails in my inbox, and no one can tell me that companies in my constituency and every other constituency do not face huge costs.
Kevin Brennan
My hon. Friend is right about that wider point, even though the clause deals particularly with calls. I do not know about him, but I am fed up of receiving calls even in my parliamentary office—I know that other hon. Members have had this—from energy companies, which continually seek to talk to me about energy bills. Does he agree that if the problem is getting to the heart of Parliament, it really is getting out of hand?
Graham Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As busy MPs, the last thing we want is to deal with that. I will come to clause 77, which is about marketing calls—all these things are interlinked. As he says, we get a mound of marketing calls, as do businesses. They are piling up, and they are unwanted.
I appeal to the Government to consider introducing mandatory pro formas in all these fields—marketing calls, but also email, direct mail and conventional snail mail. On a letter, I want to see the name and address of the people who sent it, so that I can tick the box saying “no more mail” and stick it back in that red box. I want to know how they have got my information, too. On digital communications, I want to see a pro forma on the bottom that says, “No more. I don’t want to receive any more. How did you get my details, and which company are you?” I want straightforward pro formas on the bottom of all those things. On marketing calls, I want those who are calling to have to explain explicitly who they are and where they got the data from and ask, “Do you wish to proceed with the call?” That would be very helpful. Having pro formas on all that marketing would empower individuals. This is about taking back control and empowering the UK citizen against some of these things, and simple pro formas would go a long way to helping that.
I ask the Government to consider introducing some amelioration or making some concession on this issue on Report. The British people would be eternally grateful to the Minister. He would become legendary in this place. His career path would be stratospheric. He would have helped so many people on a daily basis that he would be remembered forever as the Minister who resolved the issue of direct marketing calls. He has an opportunity to do that. A pro forma would suffice.
I come to a second issue: the exposés that, sadly, all too frequently appear on our television screens, on Channel 4 or “Panorama”. Every now and again, we hear scandals about marketing companies that act on behalf of charities and raise money through telemarketing. Those scandals often reveal undesirable elements and policies in those companies that go against the grain of what it is to be a British citizen. Those marketing calls must be dealt with, and clause 77 fails to deal with—
The Chair
Order. It may help the hon. Gentleman to know that clause 77 is not intended to deal with the kinds of TV issues that he is concerned about. It is concerned with telephone calls, texts and emails.
Graham Jones
Yes. The Minister must look at marketing calls from companies seeking money on behalf of charities. Those scandals must go on no longer. I ask him to address that matter. He could take several measures that do not cause distress but identify the skimming off of huge amounts by those companies, which target easy pickings from the old, the vulnerable and people with dementia. That is unacceptable. Those marketing scandals must not continue.
Mark Menzies
If I may briefly comment with regard to the direct marketing code of practice, I first welcome wholeheartedly the Minister’s desire to accept the terms of new clause 34, proposed by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. This is a blight for all our constituents, regardless of which side of the House we sit on.
Matt Hancock
The hon. Member for Hyndburn made an impassioned plea. I recognise the long-standing interest of my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde in this issue and the work he has done.
Matt Hancock
There is a real Lancashire alliance to ensure people do not get pestered. The clause will place a statutory duty on the Information Commissioner to publish a direct marketing code of practice. I am sure that the Information Commissioner will have heard the plea for a pro forma, which could appear in such statutory guidance.
We all know, from being sent emails that we are not interested in, how powerful it is almost always to have an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom; we can get rid of a lot of junk by clicking that. Nuisance calls continue to blight people’s lives, particularly the vulnerable, who rely on their phones as a main point of contact. So far in 2016, the Information Commissioner’s Office has issued fines totalling £1.5 million to companies behind nuisance marketing. Those firms were responsible for 70 million calls and more than half a million spam text messages. That should give the Committee a feel of the scale of the problem.
We think that the new code will support a reduction in the number of unwanted direct marketing calls by making it easier for the Information Commissioner to take effective action against organisations in breach of the direct marketing code under the Data Protection Act and the privacy and electronic communications regulations. In response to the specific question whether this applies also to snail mail, the answer is yes. The mail preference service to which individuals can subscribe to prevent direct marketing mail already exists but is also covered by the statutory code of practice.
Graham Jones
Does the Minister agree that it would bring not only function but pleasure to have a return mailing address on the front, so that we could take no more and shove this mail back in the red box?
Matt Hancock
I am sure the Information Commissioner will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s plea. There is such logic and force behind it that I am sure it will be taken into account.
Kevin Brennan
We very much support the concession that the Minister made following the evidence session and the amendments tabled. Does he think that anything more could be done where the origin of these calls is overseas, as with very many of them?
Matt Hancock
I propose after consultation to bring in measures to ensure that the liability is on the individual. That will significantly strengthen the hand of the regulator here, alongside the code of practice, but I am open to working with the hon. Gentleman and others to see what else we can do for calls that originate from overseas. I entirely understand the problem. Ultimately, we are trying to stop as much spamming as possible, while allowing people to communicate and use modern means of communication.
Calum Kerr
Last week I had a call from a director from Ofcom, who had just returned from south-east Asia, discussing nuisance calls. As the Government go around the world setting up their new trade agreements, perhaps they might consider this one of the clauses they build in around nuisance calls.
Matt Hancock
That is an interesting suggestion. Of course, this will apply to overseas companies; it is just that, as we have discussed in other parts of the Bill, that is harder to enforce against.
Finally, there was discussion about charities making nuisance calls. Charities, and agents on their behalf, were covered in the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016, which introduced a new regulator specifically for charities in this space. With those explanations, I urge that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 77 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 78 to 81 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 82
Commencement
Matt Hancock
I beg to move amendment 182, in clause 82, page 80, line 3, at end insert—
“() section (Power to apply settlement finality regime to payment institutions);”
This provides for new clause NC29 to come into force on royal assent. By convention regulations made under the section inserted by that clause would not be made so as to come into force earlier than two months after royal assent.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 184.
Government new clause 29—Power to apply settlement finality regime to payment institutions.
Government new clause 30—Bank of England oversight of payment systems.
Government new schedule 2—Bank of England oversight of payment systems.
Government amendment 187.
Matt Hancock
We are committed to creating a more competitive financial services sector. Like many other parts of the Bill, this one covers the private sector. Greater competition in financial services creates better outcomes for consumers and lowers the cost and broadens the range of services available. These measures pave the way for a broader access to payment systems, driving competition in them.
New clause 29 allows the Treasury to extend the benefits of the existing settlement finality regime to non-bank firms that provide payment services, such as Worldpay, through statutory instrument. The existing regulations provide that payments initiated in these systems by banks cannot be unwound if a bank becomes insolvent while it has an unsettled transaction in the system. This is important for the integrity of payment systems, but currently does not extend to payments initiated by non-bank payment institutions, which are a growing part of the financial services system. Extending coverage to transactions initiated by non-bank payment institutions will therefore enable those institutions to obtain direct access to payment systems.
New clause 30 and new schedule 2 amend the Banking Act 2009 so that the Treasury can formally recognise a non-bank payment system for regulatory oversight by the Bank of England. Currently, the Bank of England may only supervise interbank payment systems. Without this change, if a non-bank system were to grow rapidly, the Treasury and the Bank of England would have limited tools to address any financial stability risks stemming from a non-bank system in a timely manner. This is required now, as a systemically important non-bank system is made more likely by broadening access to payment systems, as it creates the conditions that make non-bank systems more likely to grow.
Together, the two measures enable broader access to payment systems. The impact assessments for both are with the Regulatory Policy Committee and we expect them to be non-qualifying on the grounds that they are pro-competition, support financial stability and have a low regulatory burden.
Amendment 182 agreed to.
Matt Hancock
I beg to move amendment 183, in clause 82, page 80, line 14, leave out “section” and insert “sections (Suspension of radio licences for inciting crime or disorder) and”.
This provides for new clause NC28 to come into force 2 months after Royal Assent.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 27—Digital additional services: seriously harmful extrinsic material.
Government new clause 28—Suspension of radio licences for inciting crime or disorder.
Matt Hancock
We take very seriously the responsibility to ensure that the broadcasting regulatory framework is as robust as possible. As part of the cross-Government strategy to ensure we are doing all we can to counter the pernicious impact of extremism and extremist narratives, we and Ofcom have carefully assessed whether consumers are fully protected from the most harmful content on TV and radio. That work identified potential anomalies in the current broadcasting legislation, which the amendment and new clauses seek to address.
Ofcom requires broadcasters to hold a licence to broadcast on TV or radio in the UK. The licence regime has developed over time and in response to technological developments. Different licence regimes apply depending on the way in which broadcast content is received.
New clause 27 relates to a subset of Ofcom licences known as digital television additional services licences—in effect, a catch-all for the range of services that do not fall under the more usual licences required to broadcast directly via satellite and cable or the digital television platform. There are two DTAS licenses, or portal channels, which provide viewers using connected or smart TVs on the freeview platform with access to internet-streamed television channels by first going through the electronic program guide.
A potential anomaly we want to address arises because one of the portal channels has begun contracting with internet-streamed channel providers based outside the European economic area, which could potentially give rise to a situation where that internet-streamed channel includes seriously harmful content without Ofcom or any other regulator having recourse to act. I want to absolutely clear that there is no suggestion that any of the current DTAS licensees would purposefully provide access to seriously harmful content, but I am sure the Committee will agree that having that happen inadvertently, and finding regulators are unable to act, is not a position we would like to be in. The amendment puts it beyond doubt that Ofcom is able to set conditions to act.
New clause 28 concerns radio. At present, there is a limitation in Ofcom’s ability quickly to deal with the exceptional circumstance of a terrestrial radio station, whether analogue or digital, repeatedly broadcasting harmful material that incites listeners to crime or disorder. We are acting to prevent such an outcome.
Amendment 183 agreed to.
Amendment made: 184, in clause 82, page 80, line 14, at end insert—
“() section (Bank of England oversight of payment systems) and Schedule (Bank of England oversight of payment systems).”—(Matt Hancock.)
The amendment provides for the new clause and Schedule about the Bank of England’s oversight of payment systems (NC30 and NS2) to come into force 2 months after Royal Assent.
Clause 82, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 83
Extent
Matt Hancock
I beg to move amendment 185, in clause 83, page 80, line 31, at end insert—
‘( ) Section (Qualifications in information technology: payment of tuition fees) extends to England and Wales only.”
This amendment is consequential on NC26.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 26—Qualifications in information technology: payment of tuition fees.
Government amendment 186.
Matt Hancock
This is one of the clauses I am most excited about. We are committed to public investment in skills and learning to ensure everyone has the chance to master the basic skills required to get on in life and work. We are very clear that, in addition to numeracy and literacy, that now includes digital. Our workplaces and homes are increasingly integrated with digital technologies, so we are clear that a sound grasp of basic digital skills is as important as numeracy and literacy.
Too many adults are unable effectively to use the digital technologies that allow them to keep in touch with friends and family, find the cheapest offers for goods and services, search for jobs online and work effectively and productively in those jobs. All too often, the digitally excluded come from the least advantaged parts of our society—the less well paid, the older and the more geographically remote. We are committed to making society work for everyone, and we take the issue of digital exclusion very seriously. That is why we intend, in this amendment, to create a duty on the Secretary of State for Education to ensure that, where specified, digital skills qualifications are made available by providers and that they are free of charge to people aged 19 and over who need them and do not already have the relevant qualification.
This duty will measure the duties for maths and English provision for adults. The justification is clear: people who can effectively use digital technology pay less for goods and services, save time on routine tasks, can more easily connect with society and can attract a wage premium in the labour market. We want to enhance social mobility and give everyone the opportunity to acquire the skills they need to succeed in the modern workplace.
Louise Haigh
We very much welcome the new clause and are pleased that, once again, the Government have heeded the Opposition’s advice. We said clearly at the beginning of the process that, in regard to the digital skills that are needed to support and improve the digital economy, the Bill was lacking. I want to put on record the fantastic work already going on across the UK in supporting adults to learn digital skills, not least by organisations such as the Tinder Foundation and community organisations—I will abuse my position now and reference organisations such as the Heeley Development Trust and Heeley City Farm in my constituency, which through community work already skill up adults in digital skills. We very much support the clause and look forward to the Government taking our advice more in the future.
Amendment 183 agreed to.
Clause 83, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 84 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 26
Qualifications in information technology: payment of tuition fees
‘(1) The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 88(1) (qualifications for persons aged 19 or over: payment of tuition fees), for “1(a) or (b)” substitute “1(a), (b) or (ba)”.
(3) In paragraph 1 of Schedule 5 (qualifications for persons aged 19 or over), after paragraph (b) insert—
(ba) a specified qualification in making use of information technology;”.
(4) After paragraph 5 of that Schedule insert—
“Power to specify qualification in information technology
5A The level of attainment demonstrated by a specified qualification in making use of information technology must be the level which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, is the minimum required in that respect by persons aged 19 or over in order to be able to operate effectively in day-to-day life.”’—(Matt Hancock.)
This clause creates an obligation on the Secretary of State to ensure that courses of study for qualifications in information technology are free of charge for persons in England aged 19 or over. The qualifications will be specified in regulations under Schedule 5 to the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 27
Digital additional services: seriously harmful extrinsic material
After section 24 of the Broadcasting Act 1996 (digital additional services) insert—
“24A Duty to prevent access to seriously harmful extrinsic material
(1) In carrying out their functions, OFCOM must do all that they consider appropriate to prevent digital additional services from enabling members of the public to access seriously harmful extrinsic material.
(2) “Seriously harmful extrinsic material”, in relation to a digital additional service, means material that—
(a) is not included in the service, and
(b) appears to OFCOM—
(i) to have the potential to cause serious harm, or
(ii) to be likely to encourage or incite the commission of crime or lead to disorder.”’ —(Matt Hancock.)
This new clause would require OFCOM to seek to prevent digital television additional services enabling access to seriously harmful content that does not form part of the service, for instance by linking to content streamed from the internet. OFCOM could do this by imposing licence conditions in relation to such services.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 28
Suspension of radio licences for inciting crime or disorder
‘(1) In Chapter 2 of Part 3 of the Broadcasting Act 1990 (sound broadcasting services), for section 111B (power to suspend licence to provide satellite service) substitute—
“111B Suspension of licences for inciting crime or disorder
(1) OFCOM must serve a notice under subsection (2) on the holder of a licence granted under this Chapter if they are satisfied that—
(a) the licence holder has included in the licensed service one or more programmes containing material likely to encourage or incite the commission of crime or to lead to disorder,
(b) in doing so the licence holder has failed to comply with a condition included in the licence in compliance with section 263 of the Communications Act 2003, and
(c) the failure would justify the revocation of the licence.
(2) A notice under this subsection must—
(a) state that OFCOM are satisfied as mentioned in subsection (1),
(b) specify the respects in which, in their opinion, the licence holder has failed to comply with the condition mentioned there,
(c) state that OFCOM may revoke the licence after the end of the period of 21 days beginning with the day on which the notice is served on the licence holder, and
(d) inform the licence holder of the right to make representations to OFCOM in that period about the matters that appear to OFCOM to provide grounds for revoking the licence.
(3) The effect of a notice under subsection (2) is to suspend the licence from the time when the notice is served on the licence holder until either—
(a) the revocation of the licence takes effect, or
(b) OFCOM decide not to revoke the licence.
(4) If, after considering any representations made to them by the licence holder in the 21 day period mentioned in subsection (2)(c), OFCOM are satisfied that it is necessary in the public interest to revoke the licence, they must serve on the licence holder a notice revoking the licence.
(5) The revocation of a licence by a notice under subsection (4) takes effect from whatever time is specified in the notice.
(6) That time must not be earlier than the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the day on which the notice under subsection (4) is served on the licence holder.
(7) Section 111 does not apply to the revocation of a licence under this section.”
(2) In section 62(10) of the Broadcasting Act 1996 (application of sections 109 and 111 of the 1990 Act to digital sound programme services) for the words from “section 109” to “1990 Act” substitute “sections 109, 111 and 111B of the 1990 Act (enforcement)”.
(3) In section 250(3) of the Communications Act 2003 (application of sections 109 to 111A of the 1990 Act to radio licensable content services) for “111A” substitute “111B”.’—(Matt Hancock.)
This new Clause gives OFCOM power to suspend immediately, and subsequently revoke, the licence of any licensed radio service if material is included that is likely to encourage or incite crime or lead to disorder. It replaces a power applying only to satellite and cable services.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 29
Power to apply settlement finality regime to payment institutions
In Part 24 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (insolvency) after section 379 insert—
‘Settlement Finality
“379A Power to apply settlement finality regime to payment institutions
(1) The Treasury may by regulations made by statutory instrument provide for the application to payment institutions, as participants in payment or securities settlement systems, of provision in subordinate legislation—
(a) modifying the law of insolvency or related law in relation to such systems, or
(b) relating to the securing of rights and obligations.
(2) “Payment institution” means—
(a) an authorised payment institution or small payment institution within the meaning of the Payment Services Regulations 2009 (S.I. 2009/209), or
(b) a person whose head office, registered office or place of residence, as the case may be, is outside the United Kingdom and whose functions correspond to those of an institution within paragraph (a).
(3) “Payment or securities settlement system” means arrangements between a number of participants for or in connection with the clearing or execution of instructions by participants relating to any of the following—
(a) the placing of money at the disposal of a recipient;
(b) the assumption or discharge of a payment obligation;
(c) the transfer of the title to, or an interest in, securities.
(4) “Subordinate legislation” has the same meaning as in the Interpretation Act 1978.
(5) Regulations under this section may—
(a) make consequential, supplemental or transitional provision;
(b) amend subordinate legislation.
(6) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”’—(Matt Hancock.)
The inserted section enables the Treasury to apply a settlement finality regime to payment institutions. The current settlement finality regime for payment systems and securities settlement systems is in the Financial Markets and Insolvency (Settlement Finality) Regulations 1999 (S.I 1999/2979).
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 30
Bank of England oversight of payment systems
“Schedule (Bank of England oversight of payment systems) extends Part 5 of the Banking Act 2009 (Bank of England oversight of inter-bank payment systems) to other payment systems; and makes consequential provision.”—(Matt Hancock.)
The new clause introduces new Schedule NS2 which extends the Bank of England’s oversight of payment systems, by removing the current restriction that limits the Bank’s oversight to systems for payments between financial institutions.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 1
Strategic review of sharing telecommunications infrastructure
‘(1) Within six months of this Act coming into force, the Secretary of State shall commission a strategic review of the sharing of telecommunications infrastructure and shall lay the report of the review before each House of Parliament.
(2) The review under subsection (1) shall consider measures to maximise the sharing of telecommunications infrastructure by telecommunications service providers.’—(Calum Kerr.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 20—Strategic review of mobile network coverage—
‘(1) Within six months of this Act coming into force, the Secretary of State shall commission a strategic review of mobile network coverage and shall lay the report of the review before each House of Parliament.
(2) The review under subsection (1) shall consider measures to ensure universal mobile network coverage for residences and businesses across all telecommunications providers.
(3) The review under subsection (1) shall also consider measures to ensure savings made by telecommunication providers under sections (4), (5) and (6) of this Act are reinvested into expanding network coverage.’
Calum Kerr
We seem to have raced through this final section, for which I commend all right hon. and hon. Members. We do not need the gift of foresight to know that the Minister will tell me, “We do not do reviews in this Government. We expect someone else to do them for us.” Let me briefly explain why I support new clause 1, which I will not press to a vote, and I will then touch on new clause 20.
We heard an excellent articulation in the evidence sessions of the value of third-party infrastructure as an effective means of maximising communication roll-out across the country. Today, about a third of the UK’s 27,000 masts are independently operated, and that contrasts with about 60% of masts globally. In EU countries, it is 80%. Independent analysis has shown that independently operated towers across Europe and North America host at least twice as many masts as when those towers are operated by the mobile companies themselves. As we map a new digital future—we are all excited to see what the new Minister does with his digital strategy for the country—we should be conscious of the fact that we will need a lot more masts. We know that he knows that. Technology such as 5G is higher frequency and covers shorter distances. Unless we want our country to resemble the back of a hedgehog, we need to look at effective ways of minimising the number of masts while maximising the coverage we need.
With the approach in the new clause, we are looking to encourage the Government to be consciously competent and to come forward with a model or measures that will enhance the further deployment of shared infrastructure, so that as we deploy 5G and embrace the technology of the future, we minimise the impact on our environment.
New clause 20 is certainly a different take on this area. It is well meaning but not quite right, to be honest. I do not think the idea of a universal service applies in the same way for mobile as it does for wired. It is probably something we will evolve to as the worlds of wired and wireless networks intertwine and overlap going forward. I would be happy to support the new clause, but I would welcome some more discussion.
I hope the Government and the new Minister and team recognise that third-party infrastructure will be central to driving the coverage model in rural and urban areas as we look to put a lot more masts out there to deliver the potential speeds and capability of the technology in the future. If the Minister will not give me a review, perhaps he will at least throw me a bone or two that things are beyond, “Hopefully the Select Committee will do a review.” The Select Committee has only so much bandwidth to do it.
Matt Hancock
I can do better than merely asking the Select Committee, although I do think that Select Committees do important reports and should not be denigrated. Ofcom has also been given a statutory duty to provide a report to the Secretary of State every three years on the state of the UK’s communications infrastructure, including the extent to which UK networks share infrastructure. That is precisely what the new clause asks for as a one-off. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the reports will happen regularly. The next three-yearly report is due in 2017, which is the same time that new clause 1 specifies for its review.
Moving on to new clause 20, we recognise the importance of improving mobile coverage. I support the intention behind it, but I do not think a statutory review is necessary at this time. We already have building blocks in place to deliver extensive mobile connectivity, and it is happening. The changes that we have debated today will give Ofcom the ability to provide data to ensure that we know how effective mobile connectivity is. We have legally binding licence obligations to ensure that each mobile operator provides voice coverage to at least 90% of the UK land mass. Taken together, 98% of the UK will have a mobile signal by the end of 2017, according to the agreements.
Louise Haigh
Does the Minister envisage, then, that Ofcom will gather data to produce reports on the extent of mobile coverage against the Government targets set with mobile network operators?
Matt Hancock
I do expect that. I can confirm my expectation that that is what Ofcom will do.
Louise Haigh
How often does the Minister expect Ofcom to produce those reports?
Matt Hancock
We just changed the rules so that instead of being restricted to producing such reports three times a year, Ofcom can do so whenever it thinks it appropriate. That will provide for Ofcom to be able to do so as much as possible, but I committed earlier today to having a connected nations report before the end of this year. I hope that that provides for what the hon. Lady seeks in new clause 20 and that the hon. Members will not press their new clauses.
Calum Kerr
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Graham Stuart.)
Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Seventh sitting)
Thursday 27th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 View all Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 27 October 2016 - (27 Oct 2016)
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 31, in clause 12, page 10, line 10, leave out “6” and insert “3”
This amendment would reduce the length of time that an acquiring authority can take temporary possession of land.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. Amendment 31 would reduce the length of time that an acquiring authority can take temporary possession of land for. It is very similar to amendment 30, in that it aims to provide a degree more certainty for owners about what temporary possession means. At present, the Bill states that the amount of time that an owner—defined as having either a freehold or leasehold interest in the land—can limit temporary possession to by means of a counter-notice is 12 months where the land is or is part of a dwelling and six years in any other case, or else the acquiring authority must take further action.
The amendment would allow owners to limit the amount of time that land can be temporarily possessed, where it is not a dwelling, to three rather than six years. Our position reflects that of the Compulsory Purchase Association, which said in evidence,
“we feel that, for freehold owners, six years is too long. Three years as a maximum is better. Notwithstanding that, the ability to serve counter-notices is correct and encouraging to development.”
I want to stress that point to the Minister. It is not the counter-notice period as such that we have a problem with, but the length of it. The CPA went on:
“Six years is quite a long period. If a business is dispossessed of its property for six years, that is effectively almost as good as a permanent dispossession”.––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 66, Q117.]
If a business is away from its premises for six years, it will essentially have to completely restart the business somewhere else. One would assume that it will feel much more like a permanent relocation if it is away in excess of five years.
The IPD UK lease events review 2015, which was sponsored by Strutt and Parker and the British Property Federation, pointed to short-term leases of five years or less being particularly desirable for smaller commercial leases, stating:
“Flexibility remains key for many tenants, despite the lengthening of commercial leases, with 73% of total leases signed so far in 2015 for a term of between one and five years.”
Allowing counter-notices to be served that limit temporary possession to three years, rather than six, relates more directly to the reality of a lease’s lifespan, particularly for a small business. The whole point here is that if a lot of leases are five years in length and businesses are required to move for six years, it is very likely that a substantial number of those businesses will have lost the lease on the original premises and had to take out a lease on wherever they relocate to, for five years or even longer.
We are trying to find out why the length of time is being set at six years. What research did the Government do to come up with that period? Have they any plans to meet the CPA or representatives of small businesses who may be particularly affected by the measures in clause 12? Do they have any plans to review how the clause is operating in practice, and particularly whether it is producing problems for small businesses?
The Minister will probably say that only a small number of businesses would be affected by the relevant type of compulsory purchase, that the balance is right and that the provision should therefore remain. I am sure he is right that the clause will not be used in many instances. Nevertheless it is a critical matter for the businesses that are affected. We would not want the clause to result in businesses moving from a high street or an important position in the community and not being able to come back, so that there would be blight further down the line. I hope that the Minister has got the drift of our argument.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Bone.
The amendment is entirely legitimate as a way of probing why the Government have arrived at the figure in question. It may help if I explain the purpose of clause 12 before I discuss the amendment, because some of the provisions will, I think, help to reassure members of the Committee.
The Government recognise that in certain circumstances taking temporary possession of land may be at least as disruptive as permanent acquisition. Clause 12 therefore provides an important additional safeguard to protect the interests of those whose land is subject to temporary possession. I say “additional” because any proposal for temporary possession of land must be authorised in the same way as compulsory purchase.
Clause 12(2) allows the owner of a freehold, or a leaseholder with the right to occupation, to serve a counter-notice requiring the authority to limit the period of possession to 12 months for a dwelling or six years for other land. That ability to serve a counter-notice on implementation of temporary possession is a further check and balance, in addition to scrutiny during the confirmation process.
Under clause 12(3) leaseholders—who are, I think, the people in whom the hon. Member for City of Durham was particularly interested—will also have the option to serve a counter-notice providing that the acquiring authority may not take temporary possession of their interest in the land at all. In those circumstances the acquiring authority must either do without the land or acquire the leasehold interest permanently.
Where a counter-notice is served under clause 12(2) the acquiring authority will have to decide whether the limited possession period sought by the landowner is workable for the acquiring authority at that time, or whether permanent possession is necessary. Alternatively, the acquiring authority may conclude that it does not need to take temporary possession of the land in question; for example, it might alter its construction plans.
Where the acquiring authority opts for acquisition of the land, subsection (9) provides for the standard material detriment provisions to apply. That means that if only part of a person’s land is acquired, but the retained land would be less useful or valuable as a result of part of the land being acquired, a further counter-notice may be served requiring the authority to purchase all the land.
I hope that the Committee can see that there are a number of safeguards, including time limits that can be placed on periods of temporary possession of a leasehold interest; I think that that is the issue about which the Opposition are particularly concerned. It is possible to say, in that case, “If it is going to be for that length of time we do not want temporary possession at all, and you either need to take permanent possession or do nothing at all.” Also, if possession is taken of part of a site and that will have an impact on the rest of the site, there are provisions to require the whole site to be taken.
The amendment, as the hon. Lady explained, would limit the period of temporary possession of land not occupied by dwellings to three years, rather than the six specified in the Bill. I entirely appreciate why she tabled the amendment; it was, I think, out of a determination, which I share, to ensure that those whose land is subject to temporary possession are properly protected.
The limit of six years is designed to give those affected greater certainty about the total period that non-dwelling land can be subject to temporary possession. Restricting the temporary possession period to three years would limit the usefulness of this new power and may drive acquiring authorities down the route of compulsory purchase in certain circumstances where that would be unnecessary. There are some schemes—one example not too far from us here is the Thames Tideway tunnel—where the temporary possession of land has been required for longer periods than the three years in the amendment.
There needs to be a balance between giving acquiring authorities the power they need to deliver their schemes and ensuring that the interests of those whose land is taken on a temporary basis are protected. The Government believe that six years strikes the right balance. In many cases the temporary possession will be for far less than six years. In the case of the Thames Tideway tunnel, the maximum length of temporary possession is eight years, so the acquiring authority would have to decide to permanently acquire the land.
As the Bill continues its progress through Parliament, I am happy to consider any evidence that Opposition Members or interested parties are able to provide that suggests the six-year figure does not achieve the correct balance. I can also reassure the hon. Member for City of Durham that even if the legislation is passed in its current form, the Government will keep the time limit under review as the new power begins to take effect, because the regulation-making power in clause 19 would allow us to make changes to the time limit without having to come back to the House with further primary legislation.
I hope I have given significant reassurance. On that basis, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.
The Chair
The Minister has kindly set out what clause 12 is all about, so there will be no separate stand part debate. If anyone wants to speak on stand part, now is the time to do it.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I thank the Minister for his largely helpful response. It is useful to point out that a counter-notice can try to remove possession being taken at all. It is quite a drastic measure to ask local businesses to enter into a lengthy and difficult process. However, it is worth stressing that that option is open to them, as is trying to suggest that possession should be for only a part of the site. Again, that could be helpful.
I listened carefully to what the Minister said about reducing the total period of temporary possession to three years. I am very pleased that the Minister said he would keep that under review. He did not address the fact that a lot of leases for businesses are five years, and that requiring them to move for six years is effectively a permanent removal to a new location for them. However, I heard what the Minister said about keeping the matter under review and seeking evidence from people who have a specific interest in this area. It was a very helpful response. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 13
Refusal to give up possession
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Gavin Barwell
The clauses deal with compensation and other matters related to the temporary possession power. Clause 13 is relatively straightforward. It ensures that where someone refuses to give up possession of the land, the acquiring authority can take steps to gain possession by ensuring that the existing enforcement provisions for compulsory acquisition cases, which enable an acquiring authority to use a sheriff or officer of the court to enforce possession by a warrant, also apply to temporary possession cases.
Clauses 14 to 16 set out how the compensation provisions will work to ensure that those whose land is subject to temporary possession are fairly compensated for the disruption caused. Clause 14 provides that the claimants will be entitled to compensation for any loss or injury that they sustain as a result of the temporary possession. The compensation payable will reflect the rental value of the leasehold interest in the land. Where the claimant is operating a trade or business on the land, they will be entitled to compensation for disturbance of that trade or business.
Dr Blackman-Woods
How will the Secretary of State know that he has to give a direction, in a particular case, about what temporary possession can be used for?
Gavin Barwell
I imagine—although I will happily write to the hon. Lady if inspiration arises subsequently suggesting that I have got this wrong—that it would be a situation in which a dispute had arisen about the use that the land was put to and where there was a question of whether that would have an effect on the long-term interests of someone on the land. The casework would end up on the Secretary of State’s desk and give him the power to make a ruling to that effect. If there are other points that I have not mentioned, I will write to the hon. Lady and members of the Committee to clarify.
Clause 20 simply provides meanings for some of the words used in the earlier temporary possession clauses. Finally, clause 21 provides that the temporary possession power can be exercised in relation to Crown land, subject to the acquiring authority obtaining the consent of the appropriate authority.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I repeat my declaration of interest as a member of Oldham Council, as on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I am asking for clarity, because the measure states that compensation will be made for the period of occupation or possession of the land, and that subsequent compensatory payments will be made for any loss or injury suffered. In one possible scenario, however, if farmland was taken possession of, unforeseen costs might be incurred. For example, if the planting season occurred before occupation, a poor harvest might be the result of occupation, so how would the compensation payment work in such circumstances?
Gavin Barwell
Again, it is better that I write to the hon. Gentleman, rather than giving an answer on the spot. I guess he is asking about when some detriment has been done to the long-term interest in the land by the period of temporary occupation and how that is catered for.
Gavin Barwell
Exactly; if it is discovered afterwards. I will write to the hon. Gentleman to answer his point, rather than speculating now.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 14 to 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 22
No-scheme principle
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the following:
Clauses 23 to 30 stand part.
New clause 13—Review of compulsory purchase—
(1) Before exercising his powers under section 35(1) the Secretary of State must carry out a review of the entire compulsory purchase order process.
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to review the entire compulsory purchase order process.
Gavin Barwell
I will now run through the remaining compulsory purchase measures in the Bill. Clause 22 is the key measure of all the CPO measures in the Bill. It wipes the slate clean of more than 100 years of sometimes conflicting statute and case law about how compensation should be assessed, and it establishes a clear, new statutory framework for doing so.
The core principle of compulsory purchase compensation, which is not altered by the Bill, is that the land should be acquired at market value in the absence of the scheme underlying the compulsory purchase. Any increase or decrease in land values arising from the scheme is therefore disregarded for the purposes of assessing compensation.
The problem is that since the “no-scheme world” principle was first established, it has been interpreted in a number of complex and sometimes contradictory ways. That lack of clarity can make negotiations over the level of compensation difficult, resulting in unnecessary delays. The clause will therefore clarify the position by creating a statutory no-scheme principle and setting out a series of clear rules to establish the methodology of valuation in the no-scheme world.
The clause will also extend the definition of the scheme to include relevant transport projects where they have made the regeneration or redevelopment scheme that is the subject of the compulsory purchase possible. I will say more about that later. The Committee will be delighted to hear that I will not go through the clause line by line, but focus on a few key points.
Subsection (3) will replace sections 6 to 9 of the Land Compensation Act 1961, which set out how the scheme is to be disregarded when assessing compensation. Proposed section 6A in the Land Compensation Act will maintain the fundamental principle that any increases or decreases in value caused by the scheme, or the prospect of the scheme, should be disregarded, and lists the assumptions to be made. If there is a dispute about compensation and the parties have to go to the Upper Tribunal to resolve it, proposed section 6D clarifies how to identify the scheme that must be disregarded.
The default position is set out in proposed section 6D(1): that the scheme to be disregarded means the scheme of development underlying the compulsory acquisition—usually the current compulsory purchase order. If an acquiring authority wants to assert to the Tribunal that a scheme to be disregarded covers a larger area than the underlying scheme of development, it can do so only if that was identified at the outset in the authorising instrument or associated documents, when the acquiring authority started the compulsory purchase process. I hope that is clear.
In proposed section 6D(2) we have replicated the current special provisions for new towns and urban development areas. This special status means that all development within these designated areas forms part of the scheme to be disregarded, so the value of later acquisitions within a new town area will not be influenced by earlier developments within that area. We have extended this special provision to mayoral development areas as well.
We have also made special provision where regeneration or redevelopment schemes have been made possible only by relevant transport projects. I said I would say a few more words about this. New transport projects will often raise land values around nodes or hubs—HS2 is a good example. Where that makes regeneration or redevelopment attractive, but the private sector is unable to bring a scheme forward, public authorities might have to step in by using their compulsory purchase powers to help bring forward the regeneration.
In those circumstances, when assessing the compensation that people might receive if their property is acquired through compulsion by a public authority, the regeneration or redevelopment scheme will be able to include the relevant transport projects as part of the scheme to be disregarded in the no-scheme world. This is a complicated area of law, so let me try to make it as clear as possible. What that means is that the land will be valued without the uplift caused by the public investment in the transport project. This is one of only two bits in the Bill that change the compensation people might get if some of their property is subject to compulsory purchase.
The provision is subject to some very important safeguards to ensure that it is proportionate and fair to all. They are as follows. The prospect of regeneration or redevelopment must have been included in the initial published justification for the relevant transport project. In other words, an acquiring authority could not come along to a piece of land that had been improved by a transport project 20 or 30 years ago, when no mention of this redevelopment happened, and use this legislation to try to drive down the price of compensation. The instrument authorising the compulsory acquisition must have been made or prepared in draft on, or after, the day on which this provision comes into force. The regeneration or redevelopment scheme must be in the vicinity of the relevant transport project. The relevant transport project must be open for use no earlier than five years after this provision comes into force—they must not be existing schemes. Any compulsory purchase for regeneration or redevelopment must be authorised within five years of the relevant transport project first coming into use.
Importantly, if the owner acquired the land after plans for the relevant transport project were announced, but before 8 September 2016—the date on which we announced we were going to do this—the underlying scheme will not be treated as though it included the relevant transport project. In other words, the provision should not be retrospective for people who acquired the land before they might have known the Government were going to change the law in this way.
I recognise that extending the definition of the scheme in this way will mean that some claimants receive less compensation than might otherwise have been the case. However, I hope that the Committee shares my view that it is right that the public, rather than private interests, benefit from public investment into major transport projects. Having increased neighbouring land values by providing new or improved transport links, the public sector should not then have to pay more when acquiring land for subsequent development that was envisaged when that transport project was announced, and would not otherwise have been possible. The provision will ensure that the public purse does not have to pay the landowner land values inflated by previous investment that the public sector has already made.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I thank the Minister for his helpful run-through of the CPO clauses in the Bill. I have a couple of specific questions about clause 22, but I want to say at the outset that those are probing questions because we agree with the overall thrust of the clause. I think that the Minister has taken some tentative steps down the road of socialism in protecting the public interest in the way that might happen under the clause. We absolutely agree with the broad intention of the clause. It is right that it applies to new towns and mayoral developments, and to an extent to transport, to try to facilitate, in particular, the larger scale development that is very much needed. Nevertheless, there are a few questions about how compensation will be decided under proposed section 6D(2) to (4), which is what my questions specifically relate to. At the moment it does not look as though any claims under the proposed section can be referred to the Upper Tribunal. If that is not the correct interpretation, perhaps the Minister will clarify that.
We know that the no-scheme principle is central to a fair assessment of compensation and that the scope of the disregarded scheme must be appropriate so that proper compensation is paid. The Government have included proposed section 6D(5) under clause 22 to safeguard the public purse in circumstances where it is appropriate to disregard a wider scheme. Where the appropriateness of doing so is challenged, the Upper Tribunal is empowered to determine the matter. Can the Minister explain what safeguards exist where a scheme is extended instead under proposed section 6D(2) to (4), where the recourse to the Upper Tribunal does not exist and all qualifying schemes, regardless of merit or circumstances, will be extended as a matter of law? I am sure that he has sensible reasons for including them but, to ensure that there is confidence out there in the development sector, we might need to hear a little more about why that is the case—if indeed it is the case.
Does the Minister agree that, as desirable as it is to recover the benefits of public investment, such recovery should be made from all those who benefit and should not discriminate against those who are already bearing the impact of losing their homes or businesses to make way for the scheme? The extension of the scope of the scheme in proposed section 6D(2) to (4) without any appeal or consideration of the facts of a case means that there could be injustice to homeowners and small businesses as well as investors and developers that own land affected by such schemes. It goes beyond ensuring fair compensation, which is assured by proposed section 6D(5).
My point is that the Government must avoid poorly targeted policies to recover the benefit of public investment and must introduce separately a properly considered mechanism that might build on existing schemes such as the tax incremental funding and community infrastructure levy schemes, which properly focus the recovery of value from past and future public investment.
Those are my questions for the Minister. As I have said, we agree very much with the basic provisions of clause 22, but there is perhaps a need to put something else into the public record about why they are being introduced in the way they are. Perhaps he should look at the limitations for appeal under proposed section 6D(2) to (4). Does he think anything more needs to be done, or will the scheme as outlined put in place appropriate safeguards for those who might be concerned about the extension of the wider scheme, in particular, and the extension to transport? Overall, we can see the rationale for the Government wanting to do that.
I move on to new clause 13. We have had a helpful discussion about CPO. We had a rather lengthier discussion about CPO during the passage of what is now the Housing and Planning Act 2016. I also looked at CPO powers under the previous Government’s Infrastructure Act 2015. Having recognised that CPO powers and the legislation underpinning them are very complex, we are in danger of the Government going on with the process of simply amending CPO powers and tinkering with the system, making it more complex, I suspect, rather than less. However, there seems to be a view across all parties that we need to review this in its entirety and bring forward a much more consolidated and rationalised piece of legislation that will be much easier for local authorities and developers to get their heads around.
Unfortunately, I do not have with me the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015. The last time I asked the Government to introduce a piece of consolidated legislation on permitted development, I did not think I was going to get 167 pages in return, plus an additional 12 pages a couple of months ago, separate from that order, so I have some anxieties in proposing this new clause.
CPO legislation goes back a very long way—I think to 1845, with parts of that legislation still used—and it might be about time to think of consolidating it. We are not the only ones to think so. Colin Cottage from the CPA—which is the Compulsory Purchase Association, not the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, although that might have an interest in CPO—told the Committee:
“The existing system is not helpful for reaching quick solutions. In fact, in many ways it encourages people to be fighting with each other from the outset. Ultimately, that increases the uncertainty, conflict and cost. That is really the issue that we have to look to address in order to give ourselves a more streamlined system.”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 64, Q114.]
Richard Asher from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors said:
“I believe, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has always believed, that codification of the whole of the CPO rules, which go back to 1845 and are highly complex, would be a sensible way forward. I think the simplification of the rules for CPO would be a major step forward…I think the complexity often deters people—particularly local authorities, in my experience—from using CPO powers. It also results in a number of CPOs being refused or rejected by the courts because of the complexity of the rules that surround them.”––[Official Report, Neighbourhood Planning Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2016; c. 63, Q114.]
If ever there were an argument for simplifying, rationalising, streamlining and consolidating a bit of legislation, surely it is that the courts, simply because they are finding the legislation too difficult and complex, are throwing out what might be bona fide requests for a CPO.
Gavin Barwell
I will begin by answering some of the hon. Lady’s detailed questions and then come on to the principles behind the amendment. I think she had three questions; I was not quite clear on the first, so I will deal with the other two and then see if I understood the first question correctly.
The hon. Lady’s third question was about ensuring that everybody benefits from an uplift in land values as a result of Government public investment in the scheme and that there is a way of capturing back some of that uplift. To a degree, she answered her own question: under current policy, CIL is the main mechanism by which we seek to capture some of the uplift when development is given, so that a contribution can be made to necessary improvements within a community area, a new infrastructure or whatever is required. She will be aware that I have on my desk a review by Liz Peace and her team of CIL and issues relating to section 106 contributions. We are considering that review and will respond to it in our White Paper later this year. The hon. Lady’s point that it is legitimate for the state to capture some of that uplift is absolutely valid; we need to think about the best mechanism for doing that.
I believe that the hon. Lady’s second question was on arguments about the definition of the scheme, what it constituted and whether the upper tribunal had a role. Have I understood her correctly?
Dr Blackman-Woods
It was whether the widening of the scheme under proposed section 6D(2) to (4) of the Land Compensation Act 1961 could be referred to the upper tribunal under proposed section 6D(5).
Gavin Barwell
The answer is a simple yes. Proposed new section 6D(5) states:
“If there is a dispute as to what is to be taken to be the scheme…then, for the purposes of this section, the underlying scheme is to be identified by the Upper Tribunal”,
so the answer is a simple yes.
I think the hon. Lady’s first question was about the wider role of the upper tribunal in dealing with compensation disputes. She was concerned that there were some other areas that could not go to the upper tribunal. We believe the answer is that they can, but I may not have captured her question correctly. Would she reiterate in which particular cases she was worried that people could not go to the upper tribunal?
Dr Blackman-Woods
It was the schemes referred to in proposed new section 6D(2) to (4), and whether compensation arrangements could be determined under proposed new section 6D(5).
Gavin Barwell
The answer is a definite yes.
If Mr Bone is feeling particularly generous, he might let me answer hon. Members’ earlier questions, but he may prefer me to write to them rather than going back to a previous debate.
Gavin Barwell
Inspiration has arrived. Clause 19 gives the power to make regulations limiting or making particular provision about temporary possession; the hon. Member for City of Durham asked for some guidance about how those powers might be used. The Government’s thinking is that it could be about particular types of land, such as open spaces, commons or National Trust land. We might want to give particular thought to classes of land in which the provisions might not apply.
In the agricultural example given by the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, the losses would be assessed as a claim for loss or injury under clause 14(2), so the answer is that it is covered. Thank you for allowing me to clarify those two matters, Mr Bone.
I have some sympathy with the points made by the hon. Member for City of Durham. As we touched on in an earlier debate, the evidence we heard showed that there was definitely a strong desire out there for simplification of the CPO rules. We believe that the Bill contributes to that, particularly by clarifying in statute how the no-scheme world principle works, but also by removing the uncertainty that I referred to about people’s ability to come back and make subsequent claims for compensation based on subsequent planning applications. There are definitely measures in the Bill that deliver some of the simplification that people want, but the hon. Lady is right that some people who gave us evidence said that maybe we need a fundamental rethink of the whole thing. I certainly do not have a closed mind on that.
The Law Commission has looked at this area of law. To a degree, what the Government did in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 and what they are doing in this Bill reflects the advice of the Law Commission. Compulsory purchase is probably an area on which it is easier to say, “We need a fundamental reform,” than to develop consensus on what that fundamental reform should be. I am certainly not opposed to that in principle.
What I would like to do, if the Committee is agreeable, is to implement these reforms, around which there is a good degree of consensus. Let us see what impact they have on speeding up CPOs; hopefully they will make it easier for people to use and undertake them. At that point, we can consider the hon. Lady’s suggestion. There is something that I do not like doing, although I accept that I may be in a slightly different position from other members of the Committee. I have become very conscious, in just the three months I have been doing this job, of how easy it is for Parliament to write into legislation, “The Government must review this” and “The Government must review that.” A huge amount of civil service time is then taken up with undertaking those reviews.
We keep all our policies under review and based on the evidence all the time. However, something that has been said to me consistently by people across the housing world—large developers, smaller developers, people working in local authority planning departments and housing associations—is that people are looking for consistency of policy. Therefore, my ambition, if possible, is to set out in the White Paper a strategy for how we can get the country building the number of homes that we need, to listen to what people have to say in response to the White Paper and to implement it. I would then like to try—this is an ambitious thing for a politician to say—to have a period of policy stability during which we get on and implement the strategy that we have set out, rather than introducing changes every single year.
I do not want to be unsympathetic to the hon. Lady because her new clause just reflects the fact that some people have said, “Could we look at a more radical thing on CPO?” If, over time, there were a growing consensus about how that might be done, I would not close my ears to it. However, I do not want to write into this legislation a statutory requirement on the Government to conduct such a review when I am clear that my officials will have a huge piece of work on their hands dealing with the White Paper and the responses to it, and then implementing the strategy. I hope that I have explained my position without being in any way unsympathetic to the principle of the hon. Lady’s point.
The Chair
It might be helpful to right hon. and hon. Members to understand a couple of technical things that happened there. First, we are appreciative of the Minister going back to earlier matters. It is my belief that it is better to have answers given on the record, rather than by letter.
The second point is that new clause 13 has been spoken to in this group because it is about CPO, but it is not being moved at this stage, so it cannot be withdrawn. It will be up to the shadow Minister whether she wants to move that clause when we reach it later. As nobody else wishes to speak, we can move on.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 23 to 30 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 31
Financial provisions
Gavin Barwell
I will try to be brief. Clauses 31 to 33 make standard provision in relation to expenditure incurred, consequential provision that can be made and any regulations that may be passed by virtue of the provisions in the Bill.
Clause 31 provides spending authorisation for any expenditure incurred in consequence of the Bill. That is necessary, for example, in relation to the provisions in part 2, which provide for the circumstances where public authorities may be liable to pay compensation—and, in some cases, interest on that compensation—to persons who have an interest in or a right to occupy land that is compulsorily acquired or subject to temporary possession.
Clause 32 confers a power on the Secretary of State to make such consequential provision as is considered appropriate for the purposes of the Bill. A number of consequential changes are made by the Bill, including those flowing from: the addition of a new procedure for modifying neighbourhood plans; the changes to restrict the imposition of planning conditions; and the amendments to compulsory purchase legislation. Despite aiming for perfection, it is possible that not all such consequential changes have been identified. As such, it is prudent for the Bill to contain a power to deal in secondary legislation with any further necessary amendments that come to light.
Clause 33 makes provision for the parliamentary procedure that applies to any regulations made under any delegated powers set out in the Bill. The majority of delegated powers in the Bill will be subject to the negative procedure, but there are two exceptions. First, any regulations made under clause 19(1) that set out further provision in relation to temporary possession—the hon. Lady asked me about this, and inspiration arrived to answer her—will be subject to the affirmative procedure. That is because the nature of the power to take temporary possession, which interferes with property rights, and the public interest in compulsory powers over land merit a higher level of parliamentary scrutiny.
Secondly, any consequential amendments that amend primary legislation under clause 32(1), which I was just talking about, will also be subject to the affirmative procedure. That is to ensure that any further changes that might be necessary to Acts of Parliament that have previously been subject to the full parliamentary process are appropriately scrutinised. In plain English, if we have missed anything and we need to use clause 32 to deal with that, it would be inappropriate to do that through the negative procedure. Parliament should have the opportunity to properly debate any changes that have been made.
In conclusion, the clauses make standard an essential provision that is necessary to ensure that the measures in the Bill can be commenced.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 31 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 32 and 33 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 34
Extent
Gavin Barwell
I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 34, page 26, line 38, leave out “subsections (2) and” and insert “subsection”.
This amendment and amendment 25 provide for the repeal of section 141(5A) of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 in clause 23(3) to extend to England and Wales only. Although section 141 generally extends to Scotland, subsection (5A) only extends to England and Wales, so its repeal should only extend there.
Gavin Barwell
As a demonstration that perfection is not always possible, amendments 24 and 25 are technical amendments to clause 34, which is the standard extent clause of the Bill. In other words, it is the clause that says which parts of the United Kingdom the legislation applies to. They are necessary to correct a drafting error.
As currently drafted, clause 34 provides that clause 23(3), which makes a consequential amendment as part of the repeal of part 4 of the Land Compensation Act 1961, extends to England, Wales and Scotland. That is incorrect, as the measures in the Bill, with the exception of the final provisions, should extend to England and Wales only.
Clause 23(3) is a consequential provision that repeals subsection (5A) of section 141 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980. That provides that part 4 of the 1961 Act does not apply to urban development corporations. Although the 1980 Act extends to Scotland, section 141(5A) extends only to England and Wales. That is how the mistake was made.
Although leaving clause 34 without amendment would have no practical effect, it would be beneficial to correct it to avoid any potential confusion about the territorial extent of the Bill as it proceeds through Parliament. Making the correction will mean that the extent clause of the Bill will correctly reflect that the substantive measures in the Bill extend only to England and Wales. I hope that is clear; I have done my best to make it so.
Amendment 24 agreed to.
Amendment made: 25, in clause 34, page 26, line 39, leave out subsection (2).—(Gavin Barwell.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 24.
Clause 34, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 35
Commencement
Gavin Barwell
I beg to move amendment 26, in clause 35, page 27, line 8, after “3”, insert
“, (Power to direct preparation of joint local development documents)”
The amendment provides for the regulation-making powers conferred by NC4 to come into force on the passing of the Act resulting from the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 4—Power to direct preparation of joint development plan documents—
(1) The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 28 insert—
“28A Power to direct preparation of joint development plan documents
(1) The Secretary of State may direct two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document.
(2) The Secretary of State may give a direction under this section in relation to a document whether or not it is specified in the local development schemes of the local planning authorities in question as a document which is to be prepared jointly with one or more other local planning authorities.
(3) The Secretary of State may give a direction under this section only if the Secretary of State considers that to do so will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in the area of one or more of the local planning authorities in question.
(4) A direction under this section may specify—
(a) the area to be covered by the joint development plan document to which the direction relates;
(b) the matters to be covered by that document;
(c) the timetable for preparation of that document.
(5) The Secretary of State must, when giving a direction under this section, notify the local planning authorities to which it applies of the reasons for giving it.
(6) If the Secretary of State gives a direction under this section, the Secretary of State may direct the local planning authorities to which it is given to amend their local development schemes so that they cover the joint development plan document to which it relates.
(7) A joint development plan document is a development plan document which is, or is required to be, prepared jointly by two or more local planning authorities pursuant to a direction under this section.
28B Application of Part to joint development plan documents
(1) This Part applies for the purposes of any step which may be or is required to be taken in relation to a joint development plan document as it applies for the purposes of any step which may be or is required to be taken in relation to a development plan document.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) anything which must be done by or in relation to a local planning authority in connection with a development plan document must be done by or in relation to each of the authorities mentioned in section 28A(1) in connection with a joint development plan document .
(3) If the authorities mentioned in section 28A(1) include a London borough council or a Mayoral development corporation, the requirements of this Part in relation to the spatial development strategy also apply.
(4) Those requirements also apply if—
(a) a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 has the function of preparing the spatial development strategy for the combined authority’s area, and
(b) the authorities mentioned in section 28A(1) include a local planningauthority whose area is within, or is the same as, the area of the combined authority.
28C Modification or withdrawal of direction under section 28A
(1) The Secretary of State may modify or withdraw a direction under section 28A by notice in writing to the authorities to which it was given.
(2) The Secretary of State must, when modifying or withdrawing a direction under section 28A, notify the local planning authorities to which it was given of the reasons for the modification or withdrawal.
(3) The following provisions of this section apply if—
(a) the Secretary of State withdraws a direction under section 28A, or
(b) the Secretary of State modifies a direction under that section so that it ceases to apply to one or more of the local planning authorities to which it was given.
(4) Any step taken in relation to the joint development plan document to which the direction related is to be treated as a step taken by—
(a) a local planning authority to which the direction applied for the purposes of any corresponding document prepared by them, or
(b) two or more local planning authorities to which the direction applied for the purposes of any corresponding joint development plan document prepared by them.
(5) Any independent examination of a joint development plan document to which the direction related must be suspended.
(6) If before the end of the period prescribed for the purposes of this subsection a local planning authority to which the direction applied request the Secretary of State to do so, the Secretary of State may direct that—
(a) the examination is resumed in relation to—
(i) any corresponding document prepared by a local planning authority to which the direction applied, or
(ii) any corresponding joint development plan document prepared by two or more local planning authorities to which the direction applied, and
(b) any step taken for the purposes of the suspended examination has effect for the purposes of the resumed examination.
(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision as to what is a corresponding document or a corresponding joint development plan document for the purposes of this section.”
(3) In section 21 (intervention by Secretary of State) after subsection (11) insert—
“(12) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the Secretary of State may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the Secretary of State thinks just between the local planning authorities who have prepared the document.”
(4) In section 27 (Secretary of State’s default powers) after subsection (9) insert—
“(10) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the Secretary of State may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the Secretary of State thinks just between the local planning authorities for whom the document has been prepared.”
(5) Section 28 (joint local development documents) is amended in accordance with subsections (6) and (7).
(6) In subsection (9) for paragraph (a) substitute—
“(a) the examination is resumed in relation to—
(i) any corresponding document prepared by an authority which were a party to the agreement, or
(ii) any corresponding joint local development document prepared by two or more other authorities which were parties to the agreement;”.
(7) In subsection (11) (meaning of “corresponding document”) at the end insert “or a corresponding joint local development document for the purposes of this section.”
(8) In section 37 (interpretation) after subsection (5B) insert—
“(5C) Joint local development document must be construed in accordance with section 28(10).
(5D) Joint development plan document must be construed in accordance with section 28A(7). ”
(9) Schedule A1 (default powers exercisable by Mayor of London, combined authority and county council) is amended in accordance with subsections (10) and (11).
(10) In paragraph 3 (powers exercised by the Mayor of London) after sub-paragraph (3) insert—
“(4) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the Mayor may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the Mayor thinks just between the councils for whom the document has been prepared.”
(11) In paragraph 7 (powers exercised by combined authority) after sub-paragraph (3) insert—
“(4) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the combined authority may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the authority considers just between the authorities for whom the document has been prepared.”
This new clause enables the Secretary of State to give a direction requiring two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document. It also makes provision about the consequences of withdrawal or modification of such a direction.
Amendment (a) to Government new clause 4, in proposed new subsection (12) of section 21 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, at end insert
“after consulting with the local authorities concerned.”
Gavin Barwell
If I may, before I turn to the specific amendment, I would like to make introductory remarks about the amendments that we are debating here, and the next couple, which sit together, to a degree, in policy terms, although we shall debate them separately. This is really about our proposed approach to ensuring that all communities benefit from the certainty and clarity that a local plan can provide. I hope that what I say will provide helpful context.
The planning system is at the heart of the Government’s plans to boost housing supply. It is not the only thing that we need to do to build more homes; but certainly, one of the crucial ingredients of the strategy that we shall set out in the White Paper will be to release enough land in the right parts of the country to meet housing need. However, rather than having a top-down system in which central Government decide where the housing goes, the Government passionately believe in a bottom-up system where communities take the decisions. There is one caveat: that councillors should not be able to duck taking the tough decisions. In my view, my role in the system is to ensure that each community in the country takes the necessary decisions to meet housing need. How they do it should be a matter for them.
A second objective, looking at the matter from the viewpoint of those who want to build homes, is that the planning system should give them certainty about where the homes can be built, and where they should not try to build homes. That is why we have a longstanding commitment to a local plan-led system, which identifies what development is needed in an area, and sets out where it should and should not go, and so provides certainty for those who want to invest.
Local planning authorities have had more than a decade to produce a local plan. The majority—more than 70%—have done so. However, not every local authority has made the same progress towards getting a plan in place, and there are some gaps in parts of the country where plans are needed most. We have made clear our expectation that all local planning authorities should have a local plan. We have provided targeted support through the LGA’s planning advisory service and the Planning Inspectorate, to assist them in doing so. We have also been clear about the fact that local plans should be kept up to date, to ensure that the policies in them remain relevant. If that is not happening it is right for the Government to take action.
We invited a panel of experts to consider how local plan-making could be made more efficient and effective. The local plans expert group recommended a clear statutory requirement for all authorities to produce a plan. We agree that the requirement to have a local plan should not be in doubt. However, as long as authorities have policies to address their strategic housing and other priorities, they should have freedom about the type of plan most appropriate to their area. In fact, the constituency of the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton is an example of a part of the country where a decision has been taken to work with a strategic plan over a wider area, rather than 10 individual local plans.
Effective planning, which meets the housing, economic and infrastructure needs of the people who live in an area, does not need to be constrained by planning authority boundaries. We want more co-operation and joint planning for authorities to plan strategically with their neighbours, ensuring, together, that they can meet the housing and other needs of their areas. There are opportunities to improve the accessibility of plans to local people. The amendments that we propose will strengthen planning in those areas.
New clause 4 enables the Secretary of State to direct two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document—the documents that comprise an authority’s local plan—if he considers that that will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in one or more of those authorities. Where we direct authorities to prepare a joint plan, the local planning authorities will work together to prepare it. They will then each decide whether to adopt the joint plan.
The country’s need for housing is not constrained by neighbourhood, district or county boundaries. The system needs to support planning and decision making at the right functional level of geography.
Mrs Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
I wholeheartedly subscribe to the sentiments that my hon. Friend the Minister expressed at the start of his remarks about local councils and communities making decisions. How is that reconcilable with the position in London, where, although borough councils have important powers in this policy area, they can effectively be overridden by the Greater London Authority? If we were really localist, would we not be pushing decisions on housing down to our borough councils?
Gavin Barwell
Actually, most of the statutory responsibilities in London still sit with the London boroughs, but their plans do have to conform to the strategic policies of the London plan, as my right hon. Friend knows. There is a debate about such matters. An interesting distinction is that the London plan cannot allocate specific sites, in either my right hon. Friend’s constituency or any other part of the capital. It can set out some overall strategic policies, but it is then essentially for the borough plan in Barnet, Croydon or wherever else to decide where the development in their area goes, subject to the overall strategic policies.
The Government’s view is that the balance is right, and that there is a case for strategic planning across London, but clearly it would be possible to argue otherwise. Indeed, there was a period during which the capital did not have a body to provide strategic planning. There is absolutely a legitimate debate to be had. It might reassure my right hon. Friend to hear that I would be opposed to a situation in which the London plan could allocate particular sites contrary to the wishes of Barnet Council, because that would undermine the kind of localism that she refers to.
We have been clear that local planning authorities should work collaboratively so that strategic priorities, particularly for housing, are properly co-ordinated across local boundaries and clearly reflected in individual local plans. We have already discussed the duty to co-operate, and separately we have set out our commitment to strengthen planning guidance to improve the functioning of that duty. The Government recognise that it is not currently functioning in an ideal way.
Following a call for evidence and discussions with a range of bodies, including planning authorities, the development industry and the community groups, the local plans expert group drew attention to the difficulty that some areas are having with providing for the housing that they require, particularly where housing need is high and land is heavily constrained. Such challenges can be compounded when the timetables for local plans coming forward in neighbouring areas do not align, and the plans are therefore not informed by a common evidence base. We need to ensure that such challenges—they are real challenges—do not become reasons for ducking the tough decisions that need to be made to ensure that we build the housing we need.
A joined-up plan-making process, in which key decisions are taken together, will help local planning authorities to provide their communities with a plan for delivering the housing they need. The idea of joint planning and working collaboratively with neighbours is not new. Local planning authorities can already choose to work together on a joint plan and as part of a joint planning committee. There are many examples of their doing so. Indeed, I recently met representatives of Norwich City Council at the MIPIM exhibition. They told me about the way in which they are working with South Norfolk and Broadland districts to produce a combined plan across the three districts. I have already referred to the example in Greater Manchester, with which the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton will be familiar.
We will continue to support and encourage local planning authorities to choose the most appropriate approach to plan-making in their area, whether they are working on their own or with others to prepare a joint plan. My first bit of reassurance to the Committee is that I envisage the power we are taking being used sparingly. Where effective planning across boundaries is not happening, we must take action to help local planning authorities to make progress, to provide certainty for communities; otherwise, we risk delaying or even preventing the delivery of housing that is urgently needed.
New clause 4 will enable us to do what I have just described. It amends the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to enable the Secretary of State to direct two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint plan. The power can be exercised only in situations in which the Secretary of State considers that it will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in one or more of the authorities. The change will apply existing provisions for the preparation and examination of development plan documents. It also provides for the consequences of the withdrawal or modification of a direction.
New clause 4 will also amend some existing provisions—sections 21 and 27 of the 2004 Act—to ensure that, should the Secretary of State need to intervene more directly in the preparation of a joint plan, there is a mechanism for recovering any costs incurred from each of the relevant local planning authorities. Costs will be apportioned in such a way as the Secretary of State considers just. If the Mayor of London, a combined authority or a county council prepares a joint plan at the invitation of the Secretary of State, they will be responsible for apportioning liability fairly for any expenditure that they incur. Government amendment 26 will provide for the regulation-making power conferred by new clause 4 to come into force on the passing of the Act.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I shall address my introductory remarks to the Minister’s general points about the importance of local plan-making. I say at the outset that Opposition members of the Committee have noticed and welcomed the difference in tone and the slight change in policy direction that have come with the new Minister. I agree about the importance of having communities at the heart of local plan-making. When planning is done really well and people are involved in planning their neighbourhoods, we are much more likely to get the sort of development that supports our placemaking objectives, and that is supported by local people. Critically, in my experience, the involvement of local communities drives up the quality of what is delivered locally. We totally agree with the Minister that, where possible, local communities should be at the heart of planning and local authorities should work with their neighbourhoods to draw up a local plan.
Nevertheless, like the Minister, we recognise that if a local plan is not in place, local communities and neighbourhoods are at risk of receiving really inappropriate development. To determine applications, a council is likely to rely on saved local policies, if it has them, from a previous plan which might be out of date. What often happens in my experience—this is particularly true recently, with local authorities concerned about the number of applications they reject in case they subsequently get overturned on appeal—is that decisions go through that might not be in the best interests of the local authority or the local community, simply because a local plan is not in place.
I am pleased that the Minister consulted the local plan expert group in thinking about how to bring forward the provisions in new clause 4. The people on that group are very knowledgeable about the planning system. Nevertheless, he did not need to do that. He just needed to pick up his copy of the Lyons report—I know he has one—and turn to page 62. On that page he will find our arguments as to why in certain circumstances it might be necessary for the Secretary of State to intervene in local plan-making when, for whatever reason, local plans are not coming forward from the local authority.
The Minister knows that one of the major reasons for plans’ not coming forward or being thrown out by the inspector is that councils are not suitably addressing the duty to co-operate. When we were taking evidence for the Lyons review, a number of councillors said, “The real problem is that we cannot meet housing need in our area because we do not have enough land available. We cannot put a proper five-year land supply in place because we simply do not have the land available.”
From memory, two examples that stood out were Stevenage and the city of Oxford. They have substantial housing need and a strong demand for housing, but they do not have enough land within their specific local authority boundary to meet that need. Under the Government’s legislation, the duty to co-operate would come into play. Those authorities would sit down and make a decision.
The city of Oxford needed South Oxfordshire to bring forward some land, and Stevenage required its neighbouring authorities to bring forward some land. Alas, the duty to co-operate did not work as the Government had envisaged. The land did not come forward in those neighbouring authorities’ plans, and that placed both the city of Oxford and Stevenage in the rather difficult situation of having acute housing need but no means by which to meet that need. There are many other such examples around the country.
We listened to a lot of evidence in the Lyons review. In an ideal world, one would not want to give powers to the Secretary of State to direct authorities to come together and produce a plan, but if they are not doing so, they are putting their communities at risk of not meeting housing need, which is acute in some areas. We therefore decided reluctantly—very much like the Minister—that powers should be given to the Secretary of State in limited circumstances to direct local authorities.
The new clause refers to,
“two or more local planning authorities”.
That is one way forward. Another that we thought of would be to look at the area covered by strategic housing market assessments and perhaps make that subject to direction by the Secretary of State, but a few local authorities coming together in the appropriate area is just as good a way forward.
As the Committee will have gathered from what I am saying, the Opposition do not have any particular problems with new clause 4, but I have some specific questions. First, will the Minister clarify who decides exactly what is in the document? Perhaps I misheard him, but I think he said it would be up to local authorities themselves, under the provisions in proposed new section 28A, to decide exactly how they would put the plan together. My reading, though, is that that proposed new section gives powers to the Secretary of State to determine exactly what is in the documents and what they might look like.
Proposed new section 28A(4) says that the Secretary of State can give a direction about:
“(a) the area to be covered by the joint development plan document to which the direction relates;
(b) the matters to be covered by that document;
(c) the timetable for preparation of that document.”
I have absolutely no problem with that—it seems to us to be an entirely sensible way forward when local plan-making arrangements have broken down for whatever reason—but it does seem to suggest that it will not be the local councils that will be deciding what the documents cover. In those circumstances, it will be the Secretary of State.
Gavin Barwell
The hon. Lady has read the provisions entirely correctly. We want to make sure that, for example, everywhere in the country there is clarity about site allocations and where people can build. That is why we need that power. The point I was making in my speech was that authorities can choose whether they wish to do their own local plan or to work together, as those in Greater Manchester have done, to produce a spatial development strategy. We shall not specify all the detail, but there are some core things that need to be covered throughout the country.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I thank the Minister for that helpful clarification.
My second point is about proposed new section 28C. Will the Minister direct us to where we can find the set of circumstances that will trigger the Secretary of State’s asking local authorities to come together to produce a joint plan? I have given him the example of when the duty to co-operate is not working. I would have thought that should be pretty apparent, because the likelihood would be that a local plan would be thrown out by the planning inspector. I am not sure whether there are other circumstances that the Minister can tell us about. It could be that things are just taking too long, or that something is not being done properly.
I suspect that we will have regulations to support the legislation, which will make it all clear to us at some future date. They will have the specificity on the action or non-action that the Minister has in mind that would trigger the Secretary of State’s involvement and such a direction being given to local authorities. It would help our deliberations if the Minister could be a bit clearer about the circumstances in which the Secretary of State will make this direction.
Finally—we will get on to this later, I hope—the Planning Officers Society has helpfully put into the public domain some detail on how the duty to co-operate is failing to meet housing need in this country. The association has very helpfully proposed policies to ensure that everywhere has a local plan in place that are pretty similar to what the Minister has suggested this morning. I did not want to finish my remarks on new clause 4 without acknowledging the work done by the society over several years to highlight, to the Minister and others, the fact that the current system is just not working for everyone, and the fact that something must be done to ensure that each area can have a local plan in place.
Neighbourhood Planning Bill (Eighth sitting)
Thursday 27th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 View all Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 27 October 2016 - (27 Oct 2016)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Government new clause 4—Power to direct preparation of joint development plan documents—
(1) The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 28 insert—
“28A Power to direct preparation of joint development plan documents
(1) The Secretary of State may direct two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document.
(2) The Secretary of State may give a direction under this section in relation to a document whether or not it is specified in the local development schemes of the local planning authorities in question as a document which is to be prepared jointly with one or more other local planning authorities.
(3) The Secretary of State may give a direction under this section only if the Secretary of State considers that to do so will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in the area of one or more of the local planning authorities in question.
(4) A direction under this section may specify—
(a) the area to be covered by the joint development plan document to which the direction relates;
(b) the matters to be covered by that document;
(c) the timetable for preparation of that document.
(5) The Secretary of State must, when giving a direction under this section, notify the local planning authorities to which it applies of the reasons for giving it.
(6) If the Secretary of State gives a direction under this section, the Secretary of State may direct the local planning authorities to which it is given to amend their local development schemes so that they cover the joint development plan document to which it relates.
(7) A joint development plan document is a development plan document which is, or is required to be, prepared jointly by two or more local planning authorities pursuant to a direction under this section.
28B Application of Part to joint development plan documents
(1) This Part applies for the purposes of any step which may be or is required to be taken in relation to a joint development plan document as it applies for the purposes of any step which may be or is required to be taken in relation to a development plan document.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) anything which must be done by or in relation to a local planning authority in connection with a development plan document must be done by or in relation to each of the authorities mentioned in section 28A(1) in connection with a joint development plan document.
(3) If the authorities mentioned in section 28A(1) include a London borough council or a Mayoral development corporation, the requirements of this Part in relation to the spatial development strategy also apply.
(4) Those requirements also apply if—
(a) a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 has the function of preparing the spatial development strategy for the combined authority’s area, and
(b) the authorities mentioned in section 28A(1) include a local planning authority whose area is within, or is the same as, the area of the combined authority.
28C Modification or withdrawal of direction under section 28A
(1) The Secretary of State may modify or withdraw a direction under section 28A by notice in writing to the authorities to which it was given.
(2) The Secretary of State must, when modifying or withdrawing a direction under section 28A, notify the local planning authorities to which it was given of the reasons for the modification or withdrawal.
(3) The following provisions of this section apply if—
(a) the Secretary of State withdraws a direction under section 28A, or
(b) the Secretary of State modifies a direction under that section so that it ceases to apply to one or more of the local planning authorities to which it was given.
(4) Any step taken in relation to the joint development plan document to which the direction related is to be treated as a step taken by—
(a) a local planning authority to which the direction applied for the purposes of any corresponding document prepared by them, or
(b) two or more local planning authorities to which the direction applied for the purposes of any corresponding joint development plan document prepared by them.
(5) Any independent examination of a joint development plan document to which the direction related must be suspended.
(6) If before the end of the period prescribed for the purposes of this subsection a local planning authority to which the direction applied request the Secretary of State to do so, the Secretary of State may direct that—
(a) the examination is resumed in relation to—
(i) any corresponding document prepared by a local planning authority to which the direction applied, or
(ii) any corresponding joint development plan document prepared by two or more local planning authorities to which the direction applied, and
(b) any step taken for the purposes of the suspended examination has effect for the purposes of the resumed examination.
(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision as to what is a corresponding document or a corresponding joint development plan document for the purposes of this section.”
(3) In section 21 (intervention by Secretary of State) after subsection (11) insert—
“(12) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the Secretary of State may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the Secretary of State thinks just between the local planning authorities who have prepared the document.”
(4) In section 27 (Secretary of State’s default powers) after subsection (9) insert—
“(10) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the Secretary of State may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the Secretary of State thinks just between the local planning authorities for whom the document has been prepared.”
(5) Section 28 (joint local development documents) is amended in accordance with subsections (6) and (7).
(6) In subsection (9) for paragraph (a) substitute—
“(a) the examination is resumed in relation to—
(i) any corresponding document prepared by an authority which were a party to the agreement, or
(ii) any corresponding joint local development document prepared by two or more other authorities which were parties to the agreement;”.
(7) In subsection (11) (meaning of “corresponding document”) at the end insert “or a corresponding joint local development document for the purposes of this section.”
(8) In section 37 (interpretation) after subsection (5B) insert—
“(5C) Joint local development document must be construed in accordance with section 28(10).
(5D) Joint development plan document must be construed in accordance with section 28A(7).”
(9) Schedule A1 (default powers exercisable by Mayor of London, combined authority and county council) is amended in accordance with subsections (10) and (11).
(10) In paragraph 3 (powers exercised by the Mayor of London) after sub-paragraph (3) insert—
“(4) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the Mayor may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the Mayor thinks just between the councils for whom the document has been prepared.”
(11) In paragraph 7 (powers exercised by combined authority) after sub-paragraph (3) insert—
“(4) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the combined authority may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the authority considers just between the authorities for whom the document has been prepared.”
This new clause enables the Secretary of State to give a direction requiring two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document. It also makes provision about the consequences of withdrawal or modification of such a direction.
Amendment (a) to Government new clause 4, in proposed new subsection (12) of section 21 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, at end insert—
“after consulting with the local authorities concerned.”
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I refer to my entry in the register of interests as a member of Oldham Council. I am speaking to amendment (a) to new clause 4.
Throughout the debate, what has stood out is a sense that although we are creating a framework to be understood clearly and to set expectations, that is in the spirit of communities themselves determining what is right—a genuinely partnership approach. The amendment to Government new clause 4 seeks to ensure that there is discussion with local authorities before the apportioning of costs between local authorities for joint development plans.
At the moment, new clause 4 will allow the Secretary of State to apportion liability for expenditure, on the basis of what the Secretary of State thinks is just, between the local planning authorities that have prepared the document. The amendment would ensure consultation with the relevant local authorities before the Secretary of State determines what proportion of costs each must pay. The Secretary of State might already intend to consult with local authorities, so reassurance would be what is required. Given that the tone of the debate so far has been one of working with local communities, it would be helpful not to go against that and impose costs without any kind of consultation or discussion.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr McCabe.
The hon. Member for City of Durham asked a couple of questions about new clause 4, which I will endeavour to answer before I come to the amendment to the new clause. In essence, the main issue that the hon. Lady wished to explore was the circumstances in which the Secretary of State might wish to pursue the power to intervene. The wording of the new clause is relatively broad—I tried to touch on this wording in my speech this morning—under proposed section 28A(3):
“The Secretary of State may give a direction under this section only if the Secretary of State considers that to do so will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in the area of one or more of the local planning authorities in question.”
It might help the hon. Lady if I expand on that and give an idea of the types of situation we have in mind. I will make two points. First, in relation to “one or more”, there might be a situation in which a particular local planning authority is struggling to produce its own local plan—perhaps, as I indicated in my speech, because there is not only a high level of housing need in the area concerned, but also heavy constraints on land. Given the cases I have already dealt with over the past three months, I am thinking of districts where a significant proportion of the land area is green belt and therefore has heavy constraints on development potential.
In such circumstances, the Secretary of State might want to direct that authority and two or three others where land is much less constrained to produce a joint plan, in order to provide an opportunity to consider whether some of the housing need in district A might be met in some of the adjoining districts. It is possible that authorities covered by such a direction might have produced a perfectly viable plan for their area, but we would be looking to work across a group of authorities to meet housing need over a wider area.
Secondly, there are probably two types of situation in which that might arise. I have alluded to one already—where an authority has simply failed to produce a plan. As the Committee knows, several authorities are in that position at the moment. The second is where an authority might have tried to produce a plan, but is failing to meet the housing need in its area. Either it has fallen short of the assessed need or the plan was accepted by an inspector but the authority subsequently found itself unable to deliver the housing it had planned for various reasons. Essentially, the two things that I think the Secretary of State is likely to be interested in are, first, authorities that are simply not doing the job of producing a plan; and secondly, plans that are wholly inadequate in terms of meeting the required level of housing need.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Will regulations set out the circumstances that are likely to lead to a Secretary of State’s direction, or the process that will be followed in order to involve the Secretary of State? We are struggling with what will trigger the Secretary of State’s involvement. Will it be a complaint from a member of the public or one of the local authorities, or something else?
Gavin Barwell
I will do my best to answer that question. I am in a slightly difficult position. I might as well be open about the difficulty that I face. I have referred several times to the fact that there will be a White Paper that will set out clearly how we intend to use the powers. Given that I do not yet have collective agreement to the White Paper, it is difficult for me to say too much. However, the powers will not be used if it is a simple matter of complaints from individual members of the public in an area or from developers.
The Department is likely to proactively monitor the progress that local planning authorities make. I made it fairly clear in my opening remarks that I attach great importance to getting full coverage of the country, not necessarily in terms of every single planning authority having its own plan, but in terms of making sure that all parts of the country are covered by a plan, whether it is a strategic plan covering a wider area or individual authorities having their own plan. I will ask my officials to give me regular updates on progress and I will proactively look to intervene if I believe that is the only remaining lever to get to where I think we all agree we want to get to in planning. Does that go far enough to help the hon. Lady?
Gavin Barwell
It does. That is good to hear.
I hope I can provide some reassurance on the amendment. As the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton said, in the case of a joint local development document or a joint plan, where the Secretary of State is apportioning liability for the expenditure between the relevant authorities, the amendment basically says that the relevant authorities have to be consulted. As I have argued before, I do not think it is necessary to write that into statute, but it is clearly something that we would want to have a discussion with the relevant authorities about. To reassure the hon. Gentleman, the key language in the clause is about justness. There is a test of reasonableness in terms of the way the Secretary of State will be doing it in legislation.
Jim McMahon
Clearly, we have absolute confidence in the Minister. We know he is a localist and values relationships with our local authorities, but—heaven forbid—if another Minister in that position with such powers has a different approach, we would want to make sure that safeguards are in place.
Gavin Barwell
Let me make a couple of further remarks and then I will be happy to go away and reflect on that point. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says.
Should the Secretary of State intervene under section 21 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, statutorily he can only require reimbursement of any costs he has incurred if the costs are specified in a notice to the authority or authorities concerned. I will read this into the record because it will allow the hon. Gentleman to go away and look at this and check that he is satisfied with it. This is set out in subsection (11) of section 21 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, which is inserted by section 145(4) of the Housing and Planning Act 2016.
Should it be necessary for the Secretary of State to prepare a plan because the relevant authorities have failed to do so, despite being given every opportunity, again it is right that he can recover his costs, but in doing so he would need to demonstrate that he has been just and has acted reasonably. The former—the justness point—may require a consultation with the authorities concerned. I have given an assurance that that would happen. The latter is a concept that is well understood in legal terms. I do not believe it is necessary to write this into law, but if the hon. Gentleman is happy he can go away and look at what I have just referred to in statute. If he is still not satisfied, there is the option for him to press the matter a bit further on Report. I am happy to talk to him outside the Committee if he is still not satisfied.
Amendment 26 agreed to.
Gavin Barwell
I beg to move amendment 27, in clause 35, page 27, line 8, after “3”, insert
“, (Review of local development documents)”.
The amendment provides for the regulation-making powers conferred by NC7 to come into force on the passing of the Act resulting from the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 3—Content of development plan documents—
(1) In section 19 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (preparation of local development documents) after subsection (1A) insert—
“(1B) Each local planning authority must identify the strategic priorities for the development and use of land in the authority’s area.
(1C) Policies to address those priorities must be set out in the local planning authority’s development plan documents (taken as a whole).
(1D) Subsection (1C) does not apply in the case of a London borough council or a Mayoral development corporation if and to the extent that the council or corporation are satisfied that policies to address those priorities are set out in the spatial development strategy.
(1E) If a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 has the function of preparing the spatial development strategy for the authority’s area, subsection (1D) also applies in relation to—
(a) a local planning authority whose area is within, or the same as, the area of the combined authority, and
(b) the spatial development strategy published by the combined authority.”
(2) In section 35 of that Act (local planning authorities’ monitoring reports) after subsection (3) insert—
“(3A) Subsection (3B) applies if a London borough council or a Mayoral development corporation have determined in accordance with section 19(1D) that—
(a) policies to address the strategic priorities for the development and use of land in their area are set out in the spatial development strategy, and
(b) accordingly, such policies will not to that extent be set out in their development plan documents.
(3B) Each report by the council or corporation under subsection (2) must—
(a) indicate that such policies are set out in the spatial development strategy, and
(b) specify where in the strategy those policies are set out.
(3C) If a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 has the function of preparing the spatial development strategy for the authority’s area, subsections (3A) and (3B) also apply in relation to—
(a) a local planning authority whose area is within, or the same as, the area of the combined authority, and
(b) the spatial development strategy published by the combined authority.”
This new clause requires a local planning authority to identify the strategic priorities for the development and use of land in the authority’s area and to set out policies to address these in their development plan documents. The latter duty does not apply in the case of certain authorities to the extent that other documents set out the policies, but in that case the authority’s monitoring reports must make that clear.
Amendment (a) to Government new clause 3, after proposed new subsection (1E) to section 19 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, insert
“(1F) The Secretary of State may by regulations require a particular timescale to be set for the production of plan documents.”
Government new clause 7—Review of local development documents.
Gavin Barwell
This morning, when Mr Bone was in the Chair, he kindly allowed me to make some introductory remarks about the whole package of amendments in relation to local plans, so I hope I can be a little more brief as I tackle each one.
We have previously made clear our expectation that all local planning authorities should have a plan in place. That is in paragraph 153 of the national planning policy framework, for example. As I said earlier, the local plans expert group recommended introducing a statutory duty on local planning authorities to produce and maintain an up-to-date plan. The group saw that as a means of underlining the importance of local plans and ensuring that their production is given the necessary priority. We have carefully considered those recommendations and the representations we received on them, and we agree.
New clause 3 amends the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, and introduces a requirement for each local planning authority to identify the strategic priorities for the development and use of land in their area. It also places a requirement on the local planning authority to set out policies that address those strategic priorities in the authority’s development plan documents, which collectively make up the local plan. That requirement does not apply if a local planning authority in London considers that its strategic priorities are addressed in the Mayor of London’s spatial development strategy, the London plan. The same opportunity will be given to local planning authorities in the area of a combined authority where the combined authority has the function of preparing a spatial development strategy for its area as, for example, Greater Manchester will.
Where a local authority is relying on policies in a spatial development strategy to deliver its strategic priorities, it has to make that clear in the authority monitoring report that it is required to publish annually. For local plans to be effective, they need to be kept up to date, which brings me to new clause 7.
Paragraph 153 of the NPPF makes it clear that a local plan should be reviewed
“in whole or in part to respond flexibly to changing circumstances.”
We want to put beyond doubt our expectation that plans are reviewed regularly, so new clause 7 amends the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, introducing a requirement for a local planning authority to review its documents at intervals prescribed by the Secretary of State. When reviewing its documents, it should consider whether they should be revised, a little bit like the statements of community involvement that we covered earlier in relation to the neighbourhood planning provisions. If the authority is content that a document does not need to change, that is fine, but it needs to publish its reasons for coming to that decision. The new requirement does not affect the existing duty to keep documents under review.
Finally, amendment 27 simply provides for the regulation-making powers conferred by new clause 7 to come into force on the passing of the Act resulting from the Bill.
Taken together, the two new clauses and amendment 27 put beyond doubt the Government’s commitment to a plan-led system in which all local planning authorities have an up-to-date local plan that ensures that sufficient land is allocated for housing in the right places to meet needs, with roads and other vital amenities required to support that housing—a local plan that crucially provides an opportunity for local communities to shape the development of their city, town or village. I am grateful for what the hon. Lady said earlier, and I hope that the amendment is accepted.
Dr Blackman-Woods
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I will speak about Government new clause 3 and amendment (a) together. I tabled amendment (a) hoping to elicit more information from the Minister about what the Government are trying to do with new clause 3. On the face of it, that new clause seems very sensible in asking that development plan documents set out strategic priorities. That is quite hard to disagree with. What I am not clear about is whether an additional tier of work will be required of local authorities in putting their plan together.
I tabled amendment (a) simply so that I could ask the Minister to focus on the speedy production of local plans. He will know that this has been an ongoing issue for some time. It is undoubtedly the case that the local plan-making process put in place in 2004 ended up being rather more lengthy than those who put the legislation together—I hasten to add that it was not me—thought it would be. It is a very cumbersome process for local authorities. It is not that all the documents are not needed. I will say something about that in a moment.
The issue—I think it is one that the Minister recognises, particularly in terms of the content of new clause 4—is that we need to get local authorities to a position where it is a more straightforward process for them to put a local development plan document together. We know that under the 2004 process, even where there were not really any local difficulties or much complexity, it was taking on average three years to produce the plan to make it ready for inspection. That was not getting it right through the process; that was just getting it ready and going through the various rounds of consultation.
The average cost of the process, from beginning to end, was a staggering £500,000. When I argued earlier in the Committee’s deliberations for putting more money into neighbourhood plans as the building block for local plan-making, that was the figure I had in mind. Lots of money is being set aside for consultation, but it has not always produced results that have altered the local plan-making process in any way. As I said earlier to the Minister, I think that money could be better spent.
I think it is fair to say that there has been a difference of opinion among some inspectors as to the weight that should be given to the plan, and various bits of the plan, during the whole process, particularly if the plan was referred back for a part of it to be rewritten. All in all, we have ended up in a situation where local plan-making has been very complex, lengthy and costly. I pay tribute to the Minister and others who are looking at streamlining this process, but I want to suggest a way of doing it that would help not only local authorities but local communities and all those who are subsequently involved in implementing the plan.
This is not actually my idea; it was put in evidence, before the last election, by the Planning Officers Society, the organisation that represents planners. They are the people who draw up the plans and then have to try and implement them. It is important that any Government listens to what they have to say about the planning system because they know better than anyone the difficulties and what would work in practice.
The planners, interestingly, have put together a two-stage process that relates directly to the content of new clause 3, which is why I made the suggestion here. They are suggesting a first stage, which could be the outcome of a lot of work with the local community to set strategic priorities for that specific local authority, or a group of local authorities if that is deemed to be more important. The critical point is that it would not require the long technical documents that currently go with local plans—such as a detailed minerals assessment or watercourse assessment—to be drawn up at that early stage.
I do not know whether the Minister has worked with local communities, particularly on the examination of a local plan, as I have in my local area on our local plan, but everyone came to the committee with documents at least 12 inches thick. They were incredibly complicated and technical, and unless someone is an expert they simply would not understand or have time to go through them. I am sure almost everyone could get to grips with such documents if they had all the time in the world, but to expect a local community to go through such highly technical and detailed documents at the stage of a public inquiry does not seem sensible. Nothing will be agreed until the public examination takes place.
It would be really helpful to consider what planning officers are saying. They are suggesting getting the community on board for what is important to them, such as the strategic direction forward plan and what, broadly in terms of land use, the local authority will set out—what types of housing and other developments in what timeframe. If it is possible to get broad agreement on that general way forward, there could be a second stage when the first one has been agreed and has been through a lighter-touch inspection. In the second stage, the more technical documents could be brought into the frame and all the professionals who will have to put the document into operation will be able to assess whether the technical support and evidence is there for the exact developments to take place.
I know the Minister is open to speeding up the process and introducing an easier one. I want to use the opportunity of amendment (a) to new clause 3 to suggest this as a possible way forward that could greatly speed up the whole process, not only for local authorities, but for the local community. That is the purpose of amendment (a).
There are two issues. It is really important to have a final date by which local authorities must produce their plan. I hope that we will not be sitting in another housing and planning Bill Committee, but I fear there may be one coming down the line. I certainly hope that in a year or 18 months, 30% of local authorities will not be without a plan in place. We certainly do not want to be here in 2020 with a set of local authorities not having a plan in place, 16 years after a Bill was enacted requiring a local plan.
As well as testing the Minister on whether he has given any consideration to how to speed up the overall planning process, I want to know whether he thinks it would be appropriate to set a final cut-off point for local plans to be made.
Gavin Barwell
The hon. Lady has just made a very interesting speech. I do not particularly like her amendment, for reasons I will explain, but I have a lot of sympathy with the ideas behind it and will try to reassure her on that front. She quoted the Planning Officers Society, a fine organisation that is chaired by Mike Kiely, who was chief planning officer at Croydon Council and whom I know very well—he is an excellent planning officer. She is quoting from a very reputable organisation.
The hon. Lady made some sage points about the time and cost involved in producing a local plan, which we will address in the White Paper; I hope that reassures her. We are particularly keen to remove a lot of the confrontation involved in the local plan process, such as the huge arguments about whether councils have calculated objectively assessed need correctly, and everything that follows. Councils face the very high test of whether the plan is the most appropriate one, which allows the developer to say, “Well, you’ve got everything right, except that this site is better than that site.” A huge amount of wrangling goes on, and I am not sure whether that is in the public interest. I have a great deal of sympathy with the arguments underlying the amendment, which the hon. Lady outlined. If she bears with us for a few weeks, she should see our proposals to address those issues.
Let me say a few words, first about the indication of a final date, which the hon. Lady asked for, and secondly about my concern with the specific wording of the amendment—I think it is a probing amendment, so she is probably more interested in the principle than in the detail. The Government have said that we expect authorities to have plans in place by early next year. Anyone who is listening to this debate can be clear that there is a clear deadline to get this work done. That does not mean that we will want to intervene on every single council that has not achieved that by then, because some councils may be working flat out and are very close, so intervening would do nothing to speed the process up. However, councils that are not making satisfactory progress towards that target should be warned that intervention will follow, because we are determined to ensure that we get plan coverage in place.
The key issue with the wording of the hon. Lady’s amendment is that the gun did not start at the same moment; councils are at very different stages of the process. Rather than just saying, “Everybody needs to get to these points by these dates”, we need to reflect the fact that some councils have plans that are no longer up to date, so they need to do a review. Others have never produced one and are at a different stage along the road. If the hon. Lady was in my shoes, she would want a little more flexibility than her amendment would allow to decide on the right triggers for intervention.
What we hold councils to at the moment is whether they are achieving the timescales they set out in their own documents. I hope that I have reassured the hon. Lady on the issues of principle about trying to reduce the cost and the time taken to produce plans, which is very important, but I would not necessarily want to set out in statute or in secondary legislation a set of timescales that every local council had to fit into.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I have heard what the Minister has said, particularly on the measures that the Government might consider to help speed up and simplify the plan-making process. I await the White Paper with even more fervent anticipation; it is going to be really interesting. I wanted to test the Minister on what was meant by the Government’s expectation that plans would be put in place by March next year. I heard his response, but I press him to ensure that local authorities complete the plan-making process as quickly as possible.
Amendment 27 agreed to.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Gavin Barwell
Clause 35 makes standard provision in relation to the commencement of provisions in the Bill. Subsection (1) sets out the default position, which is that provisions are to come into force on a day appointed by the Secretary of State in commencement regulations. Where that default position applies, the Secretary of State may appoint different days for different purposes and may also make transitional provisions and savings. Subsection (3) sets out the exception to the default position, which is that the delegated powers within the neighbourhood planning provisions, the planning register provision and the final standard provisions of the Bill will come into force when the Bill obtains Royal Assent. The clause contains an essential and standard provision that is necessary to implement the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 35, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 36 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 3
Content of development plan documents
(1) In section 19 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (preparation of local development documents) after subsection (1A) insert—
“(1B) Each local planning authority must identify the strategic priorities for the development and use of land in the authority’s area.
(1C) Policies to address those priorities must be set out in the local planning authority’s development plan documents (taken as a whole).
(1D) Subsection (1C) does not apply in the case of a London borough council or a Mayoral development corporation if and to the extent that the council or corporation are satisfied that policies to address those priorities are set out in the spatial development strategy.
(1E) If a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 has the function of preparing the spatial development strategy for the authority’s area, subsection (1D) also applies in relation to—
(a) a local planning authority whose area is within, or the same as, the area of the combined authority, and
(b) the spatial development strategy published by the combined authority.”
(2) In section 35 of that Act (local planning authorities’ monitoring reports) after subsection (3) insert—
“(3A) Subsection (3B) applies if a London borough council or a Mayoral development corporation have determined in accordance with section 19(1D) that—
(a) policies to address the strategic priorities for the development and use of land in their area are set out in the spatial development strategy, and
(b) accordingly, such policies will not to that extent be set out in their development plan documents.
(3B) Each report by the council or corporation under subsection (2) must—
(a) indicate that such policies are set out in the spatial development strategy, and
(b) specify where in the strategy those policies are set out.
(3C) If a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 has the function of preparing the spatial development strategy for the authority’s area, subsections (3A) and (3B) also apply in relation to—
(a) a local planning authority whose area is within, or the same as, the area of the combined authority, and
(b) the spatial development strategy published by the combined authority.”—(Gavin Barwell.)
This new clause requires a local planning authority to identify the strategic priorities for the development and use of land in the authority’s area and to set out policies to address these in their development plan documents. The latter duty does not apply in the case of certain authorities to the extent that other documents set out the policies, but in that case the authority’s monitoring reports must make that clear.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 4
Power to direct preparation of joint development plan documents
(1) The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 28 insert—
“28A Power to direct preparation of joint development plan documents
(1) The Secretary of State may direct two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document.
(2) The Secretary of State may give a direction under this section in relation to a document whether or not it is specified in the local development schemes of the local planning authorities in question as a document which is to be prepared jointly with one or more other local planning authorities.
(3) The Secretary of State may give a direction under this section only if the Secretary of State considers that to do so will facilitate the more effective planning of the development and use of land in the area of one or more of the local planning authorities in question.
(4) A direction under this section may specify—
(a) the area to be covered by the joint development plan document to which the direction relates;
(b) the matters to be covered by that document;
(c) the timetable for preparation of that document.
(5) The Secretary of State must, when giving a direction under this section, notify the local planning authorities to which it applies of the reasons for giving it.
(6) If the Secretary of State gives a direction under this section, the Secretary of State may direct the local planning authorities to which it is given to amend their local development schemes so that they cover the joint development plan document to which it relates.
(7) A joint development plan document is a development plan document which is, or is required to be, prepared jointly by two or more local planning authorities pursuant to a direction under this section.
28B Application of Part to joint development plan documents
(1) This Part applies for the purposes of any step which may be or is required to be taken in relation to a joint development plan document as it applies for the purposes of any step which may be or is required to be taken in relation to a development plan document.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) anything which must be done by or in relation to a local planning authority in connection with a development plan document must be done by or in relation to each of the authorities mentioned in section 28A(1) in connection with a joint development plan document .
(3) If the authorities mentioned in section 28A(1) include a London borough council or a Mayoral development corporation, the requirements of this Part in relation to the spatial development strategy also apply.
(4) Those requirements also apply if—
(a) a combined authority established under section 103 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 has the function of preparing the spatial development strategy for the combined authority’s area, and
(b) the authorities mentioned in section 28A(1) include a local planning authority whose area is within, or is the same as, the area of the combined authority.
28C Modification or withdrawal of direction under section 28A
(1) The Secretary of State may modify or withdraw a direction under section 28A by notice in writing to the authorities to which it was given.
(2) The Secretary of State must, when modifying or withdrawing a direction under section 28A, notify the local planning authorities to which it was given of the reasons for the modification or withdrawal.
(3) The following provisions of this section apply if—
(a) the Secretary of State withdraws a direction under section 28A, or
(b) the Secretary of State modifies a direction under that section so that it ceases to apply to one or more of the local planning authorities to which it was given.
(4) Any step taken in relation to the joint development plan document to which the direction related is to be treated as a step taken by—
(a) a local planning authority to which the direction applied for the purposes of any corresponding document prepared by them, or
(b) two or more local planning authorities to which the direction applied for the purposes of any corresponding joint development plan document prepared by them.
(5) Any independent examination of a joint development plan document to which the direction related must be suspended.
(6) If before the end of the period prescribed for the purposes of this subsection a local planning authority to which the direction applied request the Secretary of State to do so, the Secretary of State may direct that—
(a) the examination is resumed in relation to—
(i) any corresponding document prepared by a local planning authority to which the direction applied, or
(ii) any corresponding joint development plan document prepared by two or more local planning authorities to which the direction applied, and
(b) any step taken for the purposes of the suspended examination has effect for the purposes of the resumed examination.
(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision as to what is a corresponding document or a corresponding joint development plan document for the purposes of this section.”
(3) In section 21 (intervention by Secretary of State) after subsection (11) insert—
“(12) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the Secretary of State may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the Secretary of State thinks just between the local planning authorities who have prepared the document.”
(4) In section 27 (Secretary of State’s default powers) after subsection (9) insert—
“(10) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the Secretary of State may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the Secretary of State thinks just between the local planning authorities for whom the document has been prepared.”
(5) Section 28 (joint local development documents) is amended in accordance with subsections (6) and (7).
(6) In subsection (9) for paragraph (a) substitute—
“(a) the examination is resumed in relation to—
(i) any corresponding document prepared by an authority which were a party to the agreement, or
(ii) any corresponding joint local development document prepared by two or more other authorities which were parties to the agreement;”.
(7) In subsection (11) (meaning of “corresponding document”) at the end insert “or a corresponding joint local development document for the purposes of this section.”
(8) In section 37 (interpretation) after subsection (5B) insert—
“(5C) Joint local development document must be construed in accordance with section 28(10).
(5D) Joint development plan document must be construed in accordance with section 28A(7). ”
(9) Schedule A1 (default powers exercisable by Mayor of London, combined authority and county council) is amended in accordance with subsections (10) and (11).
(10) In paragraph 3 (powers exercised by the Mayor of London) after sub-paragraph (3) insert—
“(4) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the Mayor may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the Mayor thinks just between the councils for whom the document has been prepared.”
(11) In paragraph 7 (powers exercised by combined authority) after sub-paragraph (3) insert—
“(4) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the combined authority may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the authority considers just between the authorities for whom the document has been prepared.”—(Gavin Barwell.)
This new clause enables the Secretary of State to give a direction requiring two or more local planning authorities to prepare a joint development plan document. It also makes provision about the consequences of withdrawal or modification of such a direction.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 5
County councils’ default powers in relation to development plan documents
Schedule (County councils’ default powers in relation to development plan documents) makes provision for the exercise of default powers by county councils in relation to development plan documents.—(Gavin Barwell.)
This new clause and NS1 enable the Secretary of State to invite a county council to prepare or revise a development plan document in a case where the Secretary of State thinks that a district council in the county council’s area is failing to prepare, revise or adopt such a document.
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment (a) to Government new clause 5, at end insert—
“with the agreement of district councils.”
Government new schedule 1—County councils’ default powers in relation to development plan documents.
Gavin Barwell
New clause 5 is the next part of the package of amendments that the Government have tabled in relation to local plans. It allows for the introduction of new schedule 1, which enables the Secretary of State to invite a county council in a two-tier area to prepare a local plan for a district local planning authority in the county in instances where, despite having every opportunity, the district has failed to do so.
The Government absolutely want to see local planning authorities producing their own local plans, but where that is not happening it is right that we take action to ensure that communities and business can benefit from the clarity and certainty that having a plan can provide. The Committee has already accepted the principle that the Secretary of State should have the power to direct a group of local planning authorities to work together on a joint plan. This would be an alternative way of addressing the same problem—namely, to direct a county council to produce a plan for a local planning authority area.
It may help the Committee to know that the Secretary of State can already invite the Mayor of London or a combined authority to prepare a plan for an authority in their respective areas under similar circumstances. New clause 5 would extend the same opportunity to county councils in two-tier areas so that, as far as possible, local plans are developed at the most appropriate local level.
I said in a previous debate that the powers for intervention will merely be for the Secretary of State to produce a plan. I think we would all agree that that should very much be a last resort, and that we should explore different options. It would be preferable to have other people in the local area being directed to get involved if a local planning authority is not doing its job. The new clause will work by amending schedule A1 to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.
Under our proposals, a county council will be invited to prepare, revise or approve a local plan only if the local planning authority has failed to progress its plan, and when the Secretary of State thinks it is appropriate. County councils are directly accountable authorities, with the knowledge and understanding of the development needs of their areas, so in the Government’s opinion they are suitable bodies to prepare a plan for the areas they represent.
New schedule 1 will amend paragraphs 3 to 8 in schedule A1 to the 2004 Act to ensure that the existing powers available to the Mayor of London and combined authorities also apply to county councils. The county council would be responsible for preparing the plan and having it examined. It may then approve the document, or approve it subject to modifications recommended by the inspector, or it may direct the local planning authority to consider adopting it. The new schedule will also enable the Secretary of State to intervene in the preparation of a document by the county council.
Should the Secretary of State believe it is appropriate to step in to ensure that a plan is in place, new clause 5 and new schedule 1 will give him a further option, alongside existing powers, so that decisions are taken at the most local level possible. I commend the new clause and the new schedule to the Committee.
Dr Blackman-Woods
With your permission, Mr McCabe, I will speak to new clause 5 and amendment (a) at the same time.
The new clause is interesting. The Minister has given us some helpful clarification of the circumstances in which the measures it contains might be invoked, but I suspect that district councils might require a bit more information. I am sure the Minister does not need me to tell him that district councils are not terribly happy with the provisions in the new clause, which allow the Secretary of State to invite a county council to prepare a development plan document if he or she thinks that a district council in the county council’s area is failing to prepare, revise or adopt such a document.
In terms of sequencing, if a local authority has not prepared a local plan, when might the Government decide to invoke new clause 5 and when might they decide to invoke new clause 4? Presumably, both could be used to bring forward a plan that is not being developed. If the Minister could say something about that it would be extremely helpful.
Amendment (a) was tabled to put on the record the fact that the power in the new clause would allow quite a drastic thing to be done to district councils. I suppose some might be mightily relived, but others will not be. There is no evidence in the new clause or the attached new schedule that efforts will be made to involve district councils in the process, either in making the decision to move the responsibility for producing the plan to a county council or subsequently, once that decision has been taken.
Such involvement might be quite important, particularly because, aside from unitary counties, county councils might have limited planning expertise. They have planning departments that look after minerals and so on, but they may not have the planning expertise to deal with the whole range of housing and other issues that need to be in a local plan. It seems to me quite important for the district councils to be involved at some stage if those plans are to have local acceptance.
Hardly surprisingly, although district councils are not very happy, the County Councils Network has welcomed new clause 5 and new schedule 1. However, even the County Councils Network says in its briefing to the Committee that peer support may be appropriate to facilitate the signing off of the plans, and something may need to be done to work with district councils in addition to a direction from the Secretary of State. I thought it was quite interesting that it mentioned that, and it reinforces my point about amendment (a).
The Minister will know that the District Councils Network has expressed serious concerns about the new clause and the new schedule. It would much prefer a collaborative process. It feels that the new clause casts district councils aside and leaves county councils to get on with the job rather than district councils being expected to work with county councils to see plans through. The district councils have put a series of questions to the Committee. Given what the new clause will do to some district councils’ local plan-making functions, it is worth taking a few minutes to go through those questions.
The first question is:
“As County Councils are not local planning authorities, what estimate has the Minister made of the extra time it would take for the County Council to carry out the functions…and where would this expertise come from?”
Will that expertise be expected to come from the district council involved, other district councils or the county council’s neighbours? That is not clear. The Minister may intend to follow up on this point in regulations, but it is also not clear how district councils will be notified of the plan-making process, what rights they have to be consulted or what requirement there will be for county councils to continue to seek to work in partnership with district councils.
Given that the process of public involvement in local plans is clear, the District Councils Network also asked what the public’s involvement will be when county councils have plan-making powers. County councils typically deal with much bigger areas, so some clarity may need to be given about how exactly affected residents will be consulted by the local authority. That is a particularly important question. I am sure that the Minister will reassure us, but I sincerely hope that new clause 5 is not intended in any way to bypass the local community and its input into the local plan-making process. It would help us all in our deliberations on new clause 5 to have more information about that.
Not surprisingly, the district councils are concerned that the costs of producing local plans will fall on them. They have asked a whole set of questions about funding, but I will wrap them up and paraphrase them. What is there in the system to prevent county councils from spending money in an extravagant way, on things such as exhibitions about the plan, lots of public consultation and glossy documents? The district councils will have to pay for that, so what will be in place to ensure cost-effectiveness in the delivery of plans and efficient use of resources?
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I want to say a few brief words on new clause 5 and to get a thorough understanding from the Minister about a particular situation that I, and I am sure others, might have in my constituency. This is about a local authority’s ability to use new clause 5 or possibly new clause 4 to avoid its responsibility in terms of required housing in its area, and how the Minister or Secretary of State will determine why one local authority is determined not to take its fair share of required housing.
I have a number of local authorities in my constituency, some of which are very keen to deliver houses and are doing so. One or two are not. How do we deal with a situation in which one errant local authority does not appear to want to produce a local plan that meets its objectively assessed housing need, and so uses new clause 4 or new clause 5 through the back door? I have not dreamed that situation. It is not that production of the local plan is being prevented, but there might simply be a political reluctance in the local authority to put housing in its area or there might be an ongoing battle to deliver a proper local plan.
That authority could argue, “We haven’t got the land in our local authority area, so we think all these houses should go in the adjoining local authority area”—which has a sound local plan and is delivering on its housing numbers. It might say, “Houses shouldn’t go in my local authority area. They should go in this adjoining one because they’ve got lots of space and lovely green fields to put the houses in.” The errant local authority might argue that houses should go into another local authority. We then come along and use new clause 4 or new clause 5 to say, “This has to be a joint plan, and these houses will have to go into the other local authority area that’s doing its job properly.” How will the Minister or the Secretary of State determine situations in which a local authority is not carrying out its duty to assess need and deliver those houses? Will the Minister look into that situation?
Gavin Barwell
It has been a useful debate, and I hope I can provide some clarification. Perhaps a mistress of understatement, the hon. Lady said that district councils were not terribly happy and county councils were reasonably happy. My message to district councils listening to this debate is that it is completely in their own power to ensure that this new clause is never used. All they need to do is produce local plans that address housing need in their area, and there will never be any reason at all for the Secretary of State to make use of this power. The only circumstances in which the power could ever be used would be if a district council somewhere in the country were failing to produce a local plan that met need in its area. To county councils, I would say, “Don’t get too excited,” because I do not think the intention is to make regular use of this power.
I will make one observation. When you become a Minister, you get given a mountain of brief to read into your subject. Something that stood out from one brief was the powers that the Government have taken to intervene on local planning authorities that are not deciding a high enough percentage of major applications within the specified timescale. That was quite contentious when the powers went through Parliament. What is interesting about it is that it has, I think, been used only three times. The existence of a power that says that the Planning Inspectorate is now going to determine planning applications rather than the relevant local authority determining them, has acted as a real spur to people to raise their game. It has not been necessary to use the power very often at all, and I suspect that this power might serve the same purpose. If it has provoked a strong reaction among district councils that do not ever want to see this happen, and that leads to more of them adopting their plans on a timely basis, I will be very happy never to have to use the power.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Does the Minister accept that one of the consequences—whether intended or unintended, I am not sure—of the possible designation of local planning departments as failing on the basis of the number of their determinations that are overturned by the inspector, is that, in practice, local authorities are very reluctant to turn any application down, lest it be overturned on appeal? That is most unfortunate, because we want local authorities to be able to determine an application on its merits, and not for it to be favoured because authorities are worried that they are going to lose their ability to determine all applications.
Gavin Barwell
That would be highly unfortunate and also unnecessary because the performance metric is purely about determining planning applications. It is just about ensuring that decisions are made within the statutory timescale.
Coming back to the issue the hon. Lady is probing with her amendment, what would be most useful—what she was really interested in—is some steer from me about when the powers under Government new clauses 4 and 5 might be used. The speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton was useful in providing a pointer about that. I will make two observations. One is generic: the hon. Lady was expressing nervousness that we might be back here in 12 months’ time debating another planning Bill. One of the things I wanted to do with this Bill was make sure that we took the necessary range of intervention powers in this area, so that we would not have to keep coming back and saying, “Actually, in this case we would like you to do this.” So I sat down with my officials and went through a variety of different situations and how Ministers might want to respond to them.
Taking my hon. Friend’s hypothetical example, if there is a local planning authority that is heavily constrained in terms of land—that is doing its best but is really struggling to meet housing needs in its area because of the make-up of that area—that would naturally lead to the use of new clause 4, because one might then look and say, “There are other authorities in the area that are not so constrained and if you worked together across that wider area, could you meet housing need across the area?”
My hon. Friend then mentioned a different kind of example: an authority that—an objective observer might suggest—had plenty of potential to meet housing need within its own area and was just ducking taking the necessary decisions. An intervention there, asking the authority to work with some neighbouring ones to produce a plan, would probably not work because they would continue to obstruct their neighbours and, as my hon. Friend said, potentially seek to pass the burden on to others. This might be a more suitable intervention power in those cases.
If the hon. Lady applies her mind to it, she can probably think of a couple of cases around the country in which a number of planning authorities within a county council area are struggling to meet their obligations. In that situation, looking at a county-wide solution to meeting housing need over a wider area might be an appropriate way forward. In some of those cases, county councils might choose to work with the relevant district councils, even if the Secretary of State gave them the formal responsibility.
Let me provide a little reassurance on a number of the detailed points that the hon. Lady made. She talked about three main things: skills and resources, and whether county councils had the skills and resources to do this work; the process in relation to the adoption of a plan—so if a county council produced a plan, how that plan got adopted; and also reassurance over residents’ involvement. I will deal with them in reverse order. I can provide her with complete reassurance on resident involvement. Local plans—whoever prepares or revises them—are subject to a legal requirement to consult the public and others, along with the right to make representations on the plan. From the point of view of residents living in a particular area, their ability to have their say and input on a plan will be completely unaffected. I hope that provides complete reassurance on that point.
Adoption is set out in the detail of new schedule 1, which goes with the new clause. I point members of the Committee to new paragraph 7C(4), which says:
“The upper-tier county council may…approve the document, or approve it subject to specified modifications”—
there it refers to modifications that the inspector recommends—
“as a local development document, or…direct the lower-tier planning authority to consider adopting the document by resolution of the authority”.
The county council has a choice: it can take the legal decision and have the plan adopted, or—perhaps in circumstances in which it has worked with the district council to get to that point—it might be prefer to say, “Okay, there is the plan. It would be better for the district council to make that decision.” Either option is available.
On the resources front—financially, as it were—there are clear provisions in place. Let me deal with the skills front. County councils do have significant input and involvement in the local plan-making process. They often have a significant contribution to make in terms of infrastructure—highways infrastructure and some of those other issues—but clearly if the Secretary of State felt that a particular county council did not have the relevant skills to do the job, he or she would not seek to use this provision and might rely on those in new clause 4.
On resourcing and the financial side, there are provisions that can provide reassurance. A county council has to be reimbursed for any expenditure where it prepares a plan because a local planning authority has failed to do so. Likewise, when it is necessary for the Government to arrange for a plan to be written, they can recover the costs.
I recognise—perhaps it is inevitable—that, say, organisations that represent district councils will have concerns about the proposal, but I hope I have provided reassurance. First, I do not expect the provision to be used on a regular basis, and indeed district councils have in their hands the means to ensure that it is never used. Secondly, the Government have sought to address concerns on resident involvement, the adoption process and the skills and resourcing of county councils. Thirdly, the right thing to do in the Bill, given the strong cross-party consensus on the need to get plans in place, is to ensure that, where it is necessary to intervene, the Secretary of State has the powers to think creatively about the ways in which that might happen.
My view in terms of the hierarchy is that the preferable solution would be to direct a planning authority to work with some of its neighbours. If that were not viable, the county council route is an interesting route. My strong view is that the worst option is ultimately that the Government have to step in, intervene and write a plan because, by definition, they are the most distant from the relevant local community. I hope I have provided the reassurance that the hon. Lady was looking for.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I thank the Minister for that helpful and detailed response. There are just two issues I would like him to go and ponder. First, what might be put in place to ensure that costs are kept at a reasonable level for district councils, bearing in mind that many local authorities really are struggling financially? Secondly, in the interests of keeping a positive relationship going between the district council and county council, what could be put in place to try to ensure that they work together in the production of a plan? I will come to amendment (a) at the appropriate point.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 5 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 6
Format of local development schemes and documents
(1) Section 36 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (regulations under Part 2) is amended in accordance with subsections (2) and (3).
(2) In the heading after “Regulations” insert “and standards”.
(3) After subsection (2) insert—
“(3) The Secretary of State may from time to time publish data standards for—
(a) local development schemes,
(b) local development documents, or
(c) local development documents of a particular kind.
(4) For this purpose a ‘data standard’ is a written standard which contains technical specifications for a scheme or document or the data contained in a scheme or document.
(5) A local planning authority must comply with the data standards published under subsection (3) in preparing, publishing, maintaining or revising a scheme or document to which the standards apply.”
(4) In section 15(8AA) of that Act (cases in which direction to revise local development scheme may be given by Secretary of State or Mayor of London)—
(a) after “only if” insert “—(a)”, and
(b) at the end of paragraph (a) insert “, or
(b) the Secretary of State has published data standards under section 36(3) which apply to the local development scheme and the person giving the direction thinks that the scheme should be revised so that it complies with the standards.”—(Gavin Barwell.)
This new clause enables the Secretary of State to set data standards for local development schemes and documents, requiring these documents or the data they contain to comply with specified technical specifications. It also enables the Secretary of State or the Mayor of London to direct a local planning authority to revise a local development scheme so that it complies with data standards.
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment (a) to Government new clause 6, after proposed new subsection (3)(c) of section 36 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, insert—“(d) technical documents.”
Gavin Barwell
New clause 6 will enable the Secretary of State to publish data standards for local development documents and local development schemes. Local planning authorities already gather a range of information during the planning process, and the local government transparency code places a duty on authorities to make openly available data on which policy decisions are based and public services are assessed.
The local plans expert group, to which I have referred several times, believes that there needs to be a step change in how local plans are presented to their users—for example, ensuring that documents are accessible on the web, improving the interactivity between maps and planned policy documents, which is something to which I personally attach particular importance, and exploring opportunities for improving online consultation. The Government agree with that recommendation.
There are a number of examples of where new technology has enhanced and improved engagement in communities on local planning matters. By way of example, my Department funded an initiative that has seen Plymouth City Council’s neighbourhood planning team lead a Data Play initiative to help to open up council data for neighbourhood forums to use, but we can be more ambitious to ensure that planning and planning documents take advantage of what technology has to offer. New technology means that individuals, groups, entrepreneurs and businesses can now access and exploit public data in a way that increases accountability, drives choice and spurs innovation.
A constituent came to my surgery and brought a relative of his who did not live in my area but was involved in the development business. He showed me something that he had produced for a town in Kent. He had essentially taken a detailed Office for National Statistics map of that town and overlaid on to that map the planning policies of the relevant local plan in order to identify 324 small sites that would accommodate at least one unit of housing and that ought to receive planning consent because they appeared to be consistent with the planning policies set out in that relevant local plan. That was hugely interesting, thinking about the experience we all have with small and medium-sized enterprise builders who talk about access to land. My constituent’s relative was planning to go into partnerships with a whole series of small builders in that area. He would secure planning consent and work with the builders to develop out the scheme.
Jim McMahon
I want to endorse the power of open data. Greater Manchester is one of the pilot projects for the Cabinet Office’s open data scheme. That means that across all of Greater Manchester the public can access, completely free of charge, data on utilities, services, natural boundaries and, quite importantly, land ownership. We have discovered that the public sector sits on quite a lot of land that is ripe for development. Of course, the Land Commission will identify that as part of the whole parcel of attempts to get such sites developed. I recommend that the Minister, when he visits Greater Manchester, takes a look at that project.
Gavin Barwell
I am always grateful for tips. I think that I am coming up to co-chair a meeting of the Land Commission at the start of December with Tony Lloyd, so I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing that project to my attention.
I think that we are all localists here, but I hope that we all recognise that, to capitalise on the opportunities provided by new technology and gain maximum value, key planning data need to be published in a consistent format across the country. If every local planning authority opened up its data, but did so using different systems and in different ways, it would be much more difficult for people who want to operate across local planning authority boundaries to make use of the data.
The intention behind new clause 6 is to open up those possibilities, and it will do that by amending the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, with which we are becoming very familiar by now, to enable the Secretary of State to publish data standards. In essence, those standards are detailed technical specifications that local planning authorities must meet for documents that they are already required to publish.
We want to work with representatives of the sector to develop the specification of the data standards. We will then consult local planning authorities on the technical document that authorities will need to follow. Once the data standards are defined, they will apply to all local development documents, the planning documents prepared by a local planning authority; and local development schemes, the timetable for the preparation of the development plan documents that comprise the local plan.
The measure provides a solid basis for creating more accessible and more transparent plans. Opening up public data lies at the heart of a wider Government push for a digital nation, in which the relationship between individual citizens and the Government is transformed. This is a small but important contribution to that.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I will make a few brief comments on new clause 6 and on amendment (a). The Opposition very much welcome new clause 6. Anything that the Government can do to make planning documents more accessible to local people, the better, because, as I described earlier, some of those documents can be very weighty and lengthy. Being able to access them easily online and in a format in which people can comprehend them more easily will be a good thing and is very much to be welcomed.
I tabled the amendment on technical documents to test with the Minister whether the provisions of new clause 6 will relate to technical documents as well and to ask whether the Government will give some consideration—to reiterate a point I made earlier—to what exactly is needed in technical documents, which are public-facing documents. Obviously, we want people to have as much information as possible about what underpins policies in a local plan, but we also want to ensure that the important points do not get lost in a mass of detail such that people never seek to address, look at or try to understand the documents.
My first point is that I broadly welcome new clause 6, and it will be interesting to see how it works in practice and what sort of data the Secretary of State puts in the standards. I hope that the Minister will learn from his Cabinet Office colleagues about the open data project mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton and that the documents are made as successful as possible. Will the Minister deal with the specific issue I have raised about how we might do the whole technical documents thing?
Gavin Barwell
I hope that the hon. Lady and I can have a discussion outside the Committee to test whether we have a point of difference here. In essence, as the new clause is drafted, it defines what needs to be released in legally precise language—as I said, the local development documents, which are the planning documents prepared by the authority, and the local development scheme, which is the timetable for preparation. If she feels that that does not capture some of the things that need to be released, the Government are very happy to look at what other wording can be included. Clearly, however, the wording would need to be precise, so that authorities understand it exactly. Our intention is clear: all the key documents that make up the local plan should be covered by the measure. If, having listened to me, hon. Members feel that there is a gap here and that something is missing, I am happy to talk about it outside the Committee, perhaps coming back at a later date to address it.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 6 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 7
Review of local development documents
In section 17 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (local development documents) after subsection (6) insert—
“(6A) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision requiring a local planning authority to review a local development document at such times as may be prescribed.
(6B) If regulations under subsection (6A) require a local planning authority to review a local development document—
(a) they must consider whether to revise the document following each review, and
(b) if they decide not to do so, they must publish their reasons for considering that no revisions are necessary.
(6C) Any duty imposed by virtue of subsection (6A) applies in addition to the duty in subsection (6).”—(Gavin Barwell.)
This new clause enables regulations to require a local planning authority to review local development documents at prescribed times.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 9
Sustainable development and placemaking
(1) The purpose of planning is the achievement of long-term sustainable development and placemaking.
(2) Under this Act sustainable development and placemaking means managing the use, development and protection of land and natural resources in a way which enables people and communities to provide for their legitimate social, economic and cultural wellbeing while sustaining the potential of future generations to meet their own needs.
(3) In achieving sustainable development, the local planning authority should—
(a) identify suitable land for development in line with the economic, social and environmental objectives so as to improve the quality of life, wellbeing and health of people and the community;
(b) contribute to the sustainable economic development of the community;
(c) contribute to the vibrant cultural and artistic development of the community;
(d) protect and enhance the natural and historic environment;
(e) contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change in line with the objectives of the Climate Change Act 2008;
(f) promote high quality and inclusive design;
(g) ensure that decision-making is open, transparent, participative and accountable; and
(h) ensure that assets are managed for long-term interest of the community.”—(Dr Blackman Woods.)
This new clause would clarify in statute that the planning system should be focused on the public interest and in achieving quality outcomes including placemaking.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I accept that this is a fairly long new clause, but it seeks to do something that is really important: to put the purpose of planning in the Bill to be absolutely certain that it is about achieving long-term sustainable development and, critically, placemaking alongside that. It is very much along the lines of, but not identical to what is in the national planning policy framework.
The new clause then says what a local planning authority should do to try to achieve sustainable development: identify suitable land for development; contribute to the sustainable economic development of the community; contribute—this is really important because it often falls off the agenda when considering development issues—to the vibrant cultural and artistic development of the community; protect and enhance the natural and historic environment; contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change in line with the objectives of the Climate Change Act 2008, which I rehearsed for the Committee the other day; promote high-quality and inclusive design, which in my experience planning applications and determinations do not pay enough attention to; ensure that decisions are transparent and involve as many local people as possible; and finally and really importantly, because it often falls out of the decision-making process in applications, ensure that assets are managed for the long-term interest of the community.
Far too many developers in my area and others are very keen and quick to demolish or to enable alterations to be made to important historic buildings, for example, particularly if they are not protected by a listing. Planners often do not consider the short-term nature of some developments and whether they are of poor quality. If planning communities had to think about how they were managing assets for the longer term, some of the truly awful planning decisions that have been made might not have been made.
The Royal Town Planning Institute, in its August 2016 report, “Delivering the Value of Planning”—I am sure that it was one of the first things to land on the new Minister’s desk—pointed out:
“Instead of stripping power from planning, governments need to maximise the potential of planning and ensure that planners have the powers and resources to deliver positive, proactive planning.”
That is the purpose of new clause 9.
Gavin Barwell
I thank the hon. Lady for tabling the new clause and for underlining the importance of sustainable development and placemaking. To a degree, we have had this debate before—we had an interesting debate earlier about sustainable development—so she probably knows what I am going to say on the overall issue. However, she raised some interesting specific points about new settlements, which I will come on to in a moment.
The Government agree that sustainable development is integral to the planning system and that a plan-led system is key to delivering it, but we do not believe that it is necessary to write these things into legislation. The new clause seeks to make the achievement of sustainable development and placemaking the legal purpose of planning, and it would set objectives to be met by local planning authorities in working towards that goal. However, the Government believe that that goal is already adequately addressed both in legislation and in policy. I refer the hon. Lady to a statute that I have referred to many times today, the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, section 39 of which requires bodies that prepare local development documents for local plans to do so
“with the objective of contributing to the achievement of sustainable development.”
Our national planning policy framework is also very clear that sustainable development should be at the heart of planning and should be pursued in a positive and integrated way. Taken as a whole, the framework constitutes the Government’s view on what sustainable development means. It is explicit that the purpose of the planning system is to contribute to achieving sustainable development; that the economic, social and environmental aspects that the hon. Lady referred to in some detail in an earlier debate are mutually dependent and that none should be pursued in isolation. The Committee has discussed the NPPF already, so I will not read out a long quotation from it, but the first sentence of the ministerial foreword, written by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) when he was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, reads:
“The purpose of planning is to help achieve sustainable development.”
Our commitment there is very clear. That principle runs through all levels of plan-making—strategic, local and neighbourhood. Since decisions on individual applications must by law be plan-led, the goal of sustainable development permeates the planning system.
Although the Government completely agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of sustainable development and placemaking, we do not believe that setting a prescriptive definition in statute is the right way forward—not least from a democratic point of view, because it is perfectly possible that a future Government will want to amend the NPPF definition in some way, hopefully an ever more progressive way. In our view, that should not necessarily have to be done by introducing more primary legislation; the Government should be able to do it through policy.
For those reasons, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her new clause, but I will say a few positive words on her comments on new settlements. I very strongly agree with those comments. I have had some very good discussions with the Town and Country Planning Association on the issue, and I recently addressed a conference at Alconbury Weald, which is one of the new settlements being delivered along garden village principles. There were people there from all over the country who had bid into our programme to create new garden towns and villages. I very much hope to make an announcement on that shortly.
The Government have taken action fairly recently to try to change the law in a way that helps the process. At the instigation of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, we made some important changes to the New Towns Act 1981 by means of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. Those changes make it easier to set up new town development corporations in areas and to extend their objectives so that they can better support the delivery of new, locally led garden towns and villages where that is what local areas want.
I very much agree with the hon. Lady that new settlements will be an important ingredient of our strategy to ensure that we get this country building the homes we need. They are not the only answer because, by definition, a significant number of new homes are involved in the creation of a new settlement, and it takes time to get the build-out of those properties. We also need smaller sites where we are more likely to get rapid build-out. The hon. Lady is right to say that in many parts of the country it will prove much more politically acceptable to plan some new sustainable settlements, with all the community infrastructure and environmental sustainability that is at the core of the garden town and garden village concept, than to slowly expand every existing settlement out.
The Government share the hon. Lady’s thoughts on new settlements, and our garden towns and cities programme is good evidence of that. In fact, one of the first visits I made as a Minister was to Ebbsfleet to see the progress that is being made. It took some time to get under way, but we are now seeing good progress. I am looking forward to visiting several other new settlements throughout the country over the coming months. I very much share the aspirations that the hon. Lady expressed in support of her new clause.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I thank the Minister for his response, much of which I anticipated, if not quite all of it. I shall make two brief points.
First, with some of the detail of the new clause I was trying to tease out the extent to which the Government feel that new towns or garden cities have to abide by the garden city principles. For example, I discussed with the Minister’s predecessor the lack of affordable housing in Ebbsfleet, which did not seem to me to be in line with the garden city principles. That is why the new clause contains quite a detailed list and includes things such as community assets, which are not mentioned in the national planning policy framework. Will the Minister ponder on the fact that there is a great deal of detail in the new clause that is not in the NPPF? How might such detail be applied to new towns?
Finally, we have not discussed this much in Committee because the national infrastructure commission was taken out of the Bill, but I emphasise to the Minister that for any new settlement it is essential to get the infrastructure costs met, and met up front. That was a huge problem for Ebbsfleet, which is why there was considerable delay in the build-out. When the Minister comes to putting the final touches to the White Paper, I hope there is something in it about how infrastructure will be funded, because that seems to be a major issue that holds up the development of new settlements. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 10
Funding for local authority planning functions
(1) The Secretary of State must consult local planning authorities prior to the commencement of any new statutory duties to ensure that they are—
(a) adequately resourced; and
(b) adequately funded
so that they are able to undertake the additional work.
(2) In any instance where that is not the case, an independent review of additional cost must be conducted to set out the level of resource required to allow planning authorities to fulfil any new statutory duties.—(Jim McMahon.)
This new clause would ensure that the costs of new planning duties are calculated and adequately funded.
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 15—Ability of local authorities to set planning fees—
(1) A local authority may determine fees relating to planning applications in its area.
(2) Subsection (1) applies, but is not restricted to, fees relating to—
(a) permitted development applications, and
(b) discharge of planning conditions.
Jim McMahon
The new clauses are linked: they both relate to resources and funding. New clause 10 would ensure that we carry out a thorough review to understand the situation in local authorities, while new clause 15 would give local authorities the ability to charge more realistic fees for the services they provide.
We have heard a great deal in Committee about resourcing—it was a key feature of the oral evidence sessions—and about how local authorities have been affected by central Government cuts to the revenue support grant and how that has affected planning services. Despite that, local authorities are still subsidising planning services, because they are not able to get enough money from planning fees to cover the cost of those services.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
It continues to be a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. As I said in an evidence session, I completely accept the principle we just heard described: that planning departments are woefully under-resourced, which is a significant inhibitor to development and to planning consent being granted, and that the most appropriate way to remedy that under-resourcing is for applicants—the developers—to pay higher fees. I agree with the spirit of what has been said. This is a point I raised in the Housing and Planning Bill Committee in this very room a year ago and with both the current Housing and Planning Minister and his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis). I am completely on board with the principles being described. However, the two new clauses have some deficiencies.
New clause 10 simply says that where there is inadequate resource, a review must be conducted to set out the appropriate level of resource. Setting it out does not provide it. That is simply a statement that there is inadequate resource, so I do not think new clause 10 addresses the problem; it simply highlights the fact that the problem exists, which we all know already.
New clause 15 is very generally worded. It gives local authorities complete discretion to set their own fees. I have three concerns about it. First, there is no limit on how high the fees might go. I accept that the fees are currently too low, but as drafted the new clause would mean that some local authorities might set fees that are unreasonably high and in fact deter development. There is nothing in the new clause to address that concern. Secondly, there is nothing to ensure that the money raised by higher fees will be ring-fenced for the provision of additional planning services, nor, in a similar vein, to ensure that the existing level of service being provided by general taxation is maintained. There is nothing to ensure that the extra money raised leads to extra—that is to say, incremental—levels of resource in the planning department, which is what I want. Thirdly, the new clause does not place any performance obligations on the local authority planning department. It is essential that if a developer or applicant is paying higher fees, they receive improved performance in return—for example, a decision made within a certain period.
While I fully support the principles articulated by the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, I am afraid to say that the details do not quite pass muster. I could not support a new clause unless it had those three things: reasonable fee levels, ring-fenced money to ensure incremental service provision and a link to performance. I am deeply sorry that I will not be able to support the new clause, despite the fact that I support its spirit.
I listened carefully to the Minister’s evidence and what he said about the coming White Paper. I very much hope to receive satisfaction when that White Paper is published—I hope in the near future. Should these measures not find their way into the White Paper, I will be an energetic and active advocate of those principles in due course. I would be happy to discuss this further with the Minister.
Gavin Barwell
Let me start by reiterating what I said during previous Committee discussions and in the evidence that my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South just referred to. The Secretary of State and I have heard the concerns of developers, local authorities, professional bodies and hon. Members about stretched resources of planning departments and the calls for an increase in planning fees. We absolutely accept that there is an issue here and we are looking closely at it. I want to ensure that planning departments have the resources to provide the service that applicants and communities as a whole deserve. However, for many of the reasons that my hon. Friend eloquently set out, I do not believe that new clauses 10 and 15 are the answer.
Chris Philp
Could we not have a graded scale of enhanced fees, reflecting the size of different applications?
Gavin Barwell
There is already a grading of the fees, but the general presumption is that fees increase by a similar percentage. We could consider increasing some fees and not others for larger schemes, with the caveat that although developers with large applications pay very significant fees, the majority of people who pay fees are individual constituents wanting to put an extension on a domestic property.
The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton and I may have different views on the issue, but it is worth pointing out that we already have the powers to achieve what new clause 15 proposes. The Secretary of State can already provide in regulations for local planning authorities to set their own fees, at least up to the level of cost recovery. I would be surprised if the Opposition believed that fees should go beyond full cost recovery. Earlier this year, we consulted on several proposals for the resourcing of planning departments; we shall publish our response shortly, as part of the White Paper.
Before I resume my seat, I should like to add one other caveat, which does not detract from the central importance of getting the resourcing right. This is about not just money but ensuring that sufficient people enter the profession. In the last year, we have provided the RTPI with funding for a bursary scheme for students undertaking postgraduate planning studies. I very much agreed with the hon. Member for City of Durham when she spoke passionately about the important contribution that planners make with regard to new settlements. Raising the profile and status of the profession and ensuring that planners are seen as not obstructing or stopping development but ensuring that we get the quantity and high quality of development that we need is important in getting enough people coming into the industry.
Money is an issue—I hope I have provided sufficient reassurance that the Government are looking at that—but we must ensure that we have the human resources as well as the financial resources. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the new clause.
Jim McMahon
I am willing to withdraw new clause 10 on the basis that there is universal agreement that local authority planning departments are under-resourced. If there is no need to carry out a review to establish that, it is not an issue that is worth falling out over.
I do want to press new clause 15 to a vote, though, because we need to focus minds. It is all very well saying that there will be jam tomorrow—there is a White Paper coming and it will all be milk and honey—but our planning departments want more.
Gavin Barwell
Clearly the Opposition can test that issue with a vote, but may I press the hon. Gentleman on the point I raised? Regardless of the wording of the amendment, do the official Opposition believe that planning authorities should be able to charge fees beyond full cost recovery?
Jim McMahon
That has never been a suggestion in any of our debates, or from any of the people who have given evidence. The proposal is not to profiteer from developments that enhance the local community, but to reflect the true cost of administering planning applications. Taxpayers should not subsidise applications through their council tax, and developers should get the service they require. I agree with the hon. Member for Croydon South that there is a need to ensure good performance, as there is a contract between developers and the local planning authority. We would be open to that, as would councillors—Councillor Newman was clear that a better relationship would be created between local authorities and developers through the increased fee and through developers’ expectations being managed.
Dr Blackman-Woods
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Does he agree that if the Government do not like the wording of the new clause, they can table another proposal on Report that makes it clear that only full cost recovery is being sought, and that it is about hypothecating for planning any additional money raised?
Jim McMahon
That is an important point. I am a localist at heart. I want to get away from the idea that central Government determine absolutely every fee, charge and activity at a local level. We should be far more inclined to push back and say that if people have an issue, they should take it up with the local authority concerned and have that direct relationship, holding to account locally. It is interesting that we are giving developers a facility that we do not give to members of the public, for example when they are having a relative cremated—we do not determine in Parliament how much those fees should be. We should be a bit more realistic and accept that councils are grown up and mature and that they do such things on a daily basis. That relationship with developers can be done to a great extent.
No one in the Opposition will say that the wording of the new clause absolutely achieves everything we have set out. That was not the intention; the intention was that we put a marker down and that we push the issue, because people have pushed us to push the issue—we heard that in the evidence sessions—and we would be absolutely delighted to see alternative wording come forward at a later stage to tie things down.
Gavin Barwell
I understand that the Opposition want to test the issue with a vote, but I repeat that the law already provides the exact power being sought; it is already in law that we could charge at full cost recovery.
Jim McMahon
It could well be that between now and our next sitting that legislation is used, that the regulatory power of the Secretary of State is enforced and that local authorities are given that ability, in which case we might have a very different debate at our next sitting. As it stands, however, that power is not used, which is why we suggested the new clause. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 11
Review of sustainable drainage
(1) Before exercising his powers under section 35(1) the Secretary of State must carry out a review of planning legislation, government planning policy and local planning policies concerning sustainable drainage in relation to the development of land in England.—(Dr Blackman-Woods.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to review the impact of the planning system on the management of flooding and drainage.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I am sure that the Minister was an avid follower of the deliberations on the Housing and Planning Bill, so he will know that the issue raised by this new clause was mentioned in those proceedings, particularly in the other place. The Government have already committed to a review of planning legislation, Government planning policy and local planning policies as they relate to sustainable drainage. Given that, it is appropriate for the Minister to ask, “If so, why make a similar amendment to this Bill?” I hope to give him the answer. The new clause is, first, very much a probing one, so that we may put questions to the Minister about the review, and secondly, to reiterate the importance of undertaking that review before the Secretary of State exercises new powers that the Government have said are made under the Bill in order to bring forward more development.
The review came about as a result of a call for a more strenuous new clause on sustainable drainage that was tabled by a cross-party group in the other place. In response, the Government said that they would carry out a review, although it was much narrower than what was requested by their lordships. We ended up with a commitment to undertake a full review of the strengthened planning policy on sustainable drainage systems by April 2017—narrower than this new clause and the previous one.
The Housing and Planning Minister at the time said:
“The Government are committed to ensuring that developments are safe from flooding, and the delivery of sustainable drainage systems is part of our planning policy, which was strengthened just over a year ago. Our policy is still new, as I outlined in more detail last week, and I am willing to consider issues further as it matures. I am happy to review the effectiveness of current policy and legislation”.—[Official Report, 9 May 2016; Vol. 609, c. 463.]
That commitment was given in lieu of the amendment in May this year.
Gavin Barwell
Not for the first time, the hon. Lady has accurately predicted what I was going to say. The Government believe that the new clause is unnecessary. Section 171 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 includes a requirement for the Secretary of State to carry out a review of planning legislation, Government policy and local planning policies concerning sustainable drainage in relation to the development of land in England. Rather than just leaving it there, perhaps I can provide some reassurance on where we are with all that.
My Department has formally commenced work on the review and that section of the 2016 Act. The review’s primary purpose is to examine the extent to which planning has been successful in encouraging the take-up of such drainage systems in new developments. More specifically, it will look at how national planning policies for SUDS are being reflected in local plans; the uptake of SUDS in major new housing developments, including the type of systems employed; the use of SUDS in smaller developments below the major threshold; the use of SUDS in commercial and mixed-use developments, including the type of systems employed; and how successful local plans and national policies have been in encouraging the take-up of SUDS in housing developments. It will engage with a wide range of stakeholders to gauge how the new policy and arrangements are bedding in and to analyse options for further action to improve take-up.
My officials are working on gathering evidence for the review, in collaboration with colleagues at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency. We aim to substantially complete our evidence gathering by spring 2017 to ensure that the findings of the review are available to inform the Committee on Climate Change’s adaptation sub-committee’s progress report on the national adaptation programme, to be published in summer 2017.
It might be worth saying a brief word about the substantive policy issue. The background to the review relates to a non-Government amendment that sought to remove the automatic right to connect to a public sewer for surface water, in a bid to push people into adopting SUDS. Even before the changes to planning in major developments that came into effect in April last year, the NPPF set out some strict tests, which all local planning authorities are expected to follow, to protect people and property from flooding. As part of that policy, priority should be given to SUDS in all developments—except very minor ones—in areas at risk of flooding. The policy has now been strengthened to make clear our expectation that SUDS will be provided in all major new developments, whether or not in a flood risk area, unless they can be demonstrated to be inappropriate.
As well as strengthening policy expectations, we have extended national guidance to set out considerations and options for sustainable drainage systems, including in relation to their operation and maintenance. Lead local flood authorities have been made statutory consultees for planning applications for major developments, to ensure that local planning authorities have access to appropriate technical expertise and advice.
I hope I have reassured the hon. Member for City of Durham that there has already been a significant policy shift in the right direction and that good progress is being made on the review and on meeting our undertakings in the Housing and Planning Act 2016. On that basis, I ask her to withdraw the new clause.
Dr Blackman-Woods
The Minister is right that I tabled the new clause primarily to get an update on the availability and use of SUDS. There is cross-party agreement that they should be employed when new developments are at risk of flooding, and indeed in wider circumstances. We look forward to seeing the report on the climate change adaptation programme in summer 2017. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 12
Planning obligations
(1) The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1) of section 106 (planning obligations) paragraph (d) at end insert—
“(e) requiring that information submitted as part of, and in support of, a viability assessment be made available to the public.”—(Dr Blackman-Woods.)
This new clause would ensure that viability assessments are public documents with no commercial confidentiality restrictions, except in cases where disclosure would not be in the public interest.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I am not sure that the Minister and I will be in such agreement on new clause 12, but we shall see. The new clause would ensure that viability assessments are put into the public domain so that they are available for public scrutiny. The Minister will know that the Opposition have long raised this issue. Labour’s view is that for the public to accept new development, they have to be absolutely certain that viability arrangements for a site—particularly safety integrity level requirements and section 106 requirements—are all that they should be.
I know from my own experience the kind of situation that can make local people sceptical about development or turn the public against a new housing development: for example, when they do not get the amount of affordable housing they think they should get; or when a contribution to a local primary school is suddenly no longer applied by the local authority because of viability issues. Although I am happy to take on trust a lot of what local authorities do, we would all accept that, as a general principle, local authorities need to be as transparent as possible in all their decisions. I am entirely uncertain as to why the Government are of the view that viability assessments should not be in the public domain.
The new clause would also help the public by giving us all a better view of any uplift in the value of land across the country. In some areas developers can provide more of a payback to the local community than in others because of the price of land. It does not always vary depending on the value of land—there will be other local circumstances. However, it would be good to have a more detailed understanding of what is being delivered, in terms of a planning gain, and why that particular level has been arrived at, than we currently have from the information that is in the public domain.
Viability assessments are used by developers to argue their planning obligations under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Of course, we find that a lot of viability assessments are used to reduce payments, although not always—that would be completely unfair. The Royal Institute of British Architects has commented:
“Despite the Planning Practice Guidance encouraging transparency, developers may opt not to disclose their viability assessments to the public on grounds of commercial confidentiality. It is widely accepted that this is sometimes done in order that they can negotiate down their S106 obligations without public scrutiny. As a consequence, affordable housing may be reduced and the quality of the built environment may suffer.”
We know that there is a huge lack of affordable housing across the UK, so it is absolutely vital that developers are not allowed to deliberately dodge their obligations to contribute to affordable housing through viability assessments. It is equally important that they can be held accountable by local people.
National planning policy guidance states that when it comes to viability, plans should
“present visions for an area in the context of an understanding of local economic conditions and market realities.”
In many places, local economic conditions mean that some affordable housing is required. In fact, that is the case in most areas; I was trying to think of some areas where it might not be required, and it is really hard to do so because there is such a desperate need for genuinely affordable housing. I am talking about genuinely affordable housing, not the starter homes that the Government have put into this category, because £250,000 is certainly not affordable for many people in my constituency.
Dr Blackman-Woods
In Durham city, which has a very different level of average house prices than in the county, the average house price is probably about £200,000 to £220,000.
Gavin Barwell
In that case, I put it to the hon. Lady that constantly quoting the maximum level for starter homes across the whole of England is not a particularly accurate rendering of what the policy will mean in her area. The average house price in the city is £200,000, so the average starter home in the city will be about £160,000. That certainly would not be affordable to everybody living in the city, but it would clearly bring home ownership within the reach of a greater proportion of her constituents than currently have it.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am not sure that that is how the policy will work in practice. I spoke to the developer of a new development in Durham where really quite attractive family homes are being built. The prices range from £220,000 or £230,000 up to £310,000. Without the developer having to change anything at all that it does to roll out the development, it will meet its requirement under the starter homes initiative and will not have to deliver any affordable housing. That is the effect of the policy in an area such as mine. Those homes would have been delivered anyway. I am not sure that the policy is adding to the quantity of genuinely affordable homes locally, which is what we really need.
The point I was making was that greater transparency about viability arrangements would help us to understand how planning gain is arrived at and give the local community, which is at times concerned about how section 106 obligations get watered down, more confidence in the planning system overall. It would help communities to accept development more readily if they understood what the costs were and how they stacked up. Sometimes, such transparency would lead to more sympathy for developers than they currently get. The public often assume that the developers are making thousands and thousands of pounds from each development, but in some areas of the country where land prices are more difficult for developers, that might not be the case at all.
The new clause could help developers by making it clear how their obligations were arrived at. It would also help the public to understand how the finances and the housing market in this country stack up. On top of that, it might create circumstances in which, when the public are concerned about a particular development, better negotiation can take place between the developer and the local community about what can be delivered and in what way. At the moment, those conversations simply do not happen because viability assessments are kept confidential.
Gavin Barwell
As the hon. Lady said, new clause 12 relates to section 106 planning obligations and viability assessments. Planning obligations are normally agreements negotiated between the applicant and the local planning authority. They usually relate to developer contributions to infrastructure and affordable housing, and reflect policy in local plans.
The purpose of a section 106 planning obligation is to mitigate the impact of otherwise unacceptable development, to make it acceptable in planning terms. Local planning authorities may seek viability assessments in some circumstances, but Government guidance is clear that decision taking on individual applications does not normally require an assessment of viability. Developers may submit a viability assessment in support of their negotiations, if they consider that their proposed development would be rendered unviable by the extent of planning obligations sought by the local planning authority. Some authorities make such assessments publicly available, which I suggest shows the hon. Lady that there is no need to introduce legislation. Local authorities are currently perfectly free under the law to do what she wants them to do.
It is important that local authorities act in a transparent way in their decision-making processes. My main point of assurance to the hon. Lady is that there is already legislation—principally the Freedom of Information Act, but also the Environmental Information Regulations 2004—that governs the release of information. If necessary, that legislation enables people to seek a review if they are not satisfied by the response of the local authority and, ultimately, to appeal to the Information Commissioner if they remain unsatisfied.
Jim McMahon
If a developer does not want that information to be made public because of the commercial confidentiality of the scheme, surely it would be exempt from release under the Freedom of Information Act.
Gavin Barwell
That is my understanding. I am not an expert on that legislation, but I understand that that would be a judgment for the Information Commissioner to make. The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on the problem.
Sometimes developers will argue that the information they provide in order to give the authority a proper insight into the viability of a development is highly commercially sensitive. Therefore, they would not want to see that released in the public domain. If we were to change the law requiring all viability assessments to become public, there is a danger that the quality of information that local authorities would receive as a result would be significantly diminished.
I hope I have provided some reassurance. I will end with two other quick thoughts. There is a read-across from the amendment to the review of the community infrastructure levy, which is currently sitting on my desk, which looks at both CIL and the interaction with section 106. There are some powerful arguments to look at reform in this area so that we are more dependent on a nationally set charge that is locally collected and spent locally and less dependent on individual section 106 contributions, where there is much more scope for the kind of long-running argument that does not necessarily work in the public interest.
Although it is slightly tangential to the amendment, because the hon. Lady was principally concerned with affordable housing I want to set her straight on the starter homes policy. We are very clear on what the policy is, which is to require developers to provide a proportion of homes—we have yet to set out what that will be—at a 20% discount to what the market price would otherwise be. The figures bandied around in London are different because the limit is different in London—this is frustrating to me—so I regularly hear from people who have had colleagues from the Labour party contact them, who say, “Who says £450,000 is affordable?” but that is the maximum limit in London. In New Addington in my constituency, homes sell at well below that, and starter homes will sell at a 20% discount to what they would otherwise sell at in New Addington.
I will not claim for one moment that starter homes will ensure that home ownership is affordable for everyone who currently cannot afford it, but there is compelling evidence—if the hon. Lady is interested, I can write to her with the figures—that it will allow a significant proportion of people who currently privately rent to access home ownership who would not otherwise do so.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Will the Minister update us on the Help to Buy programme? I understand that that has collapsed.
Gavin Barwell
The hon. Lady is wrong. It has not collapsed; it continues to help large numbers of people own their own homes. There were two different Help to Buy schemes: the mortgage guarantee scheme and the equity loan scheme. The mortgage guarantee scheme, which applied to all homes, was basically a market intervention because after the great depression of 2008-09 there was a point in time when people with low deposits were not able to access mortgages. The scheme was an intervention to deal with that. The market has now adjusted and it is possible to access those kinds of mortgages.
The equity loan scheme applies when people are looking to buy a new build property. That scheme is still running because there is a strong public policy benefit. Research evidence shows that something like 40% of those purchases are homes that otherwise would not have been built. The scheme is therefore helping to drive up the supply of new housing, which ultimately is the critical issue we are debating. The publicity the hon. Lady has read—to reassure her, she is not the only person to have got the wrong end of the stick—was about a particular part of the Help to Buy scheme that is coming to an end at the end of this year. The equity loan scheme is continuing, and it will continue through to at least 2021.
I will not go much further, because this is slightly tangential to the main issue, but I want to reinforce strongly and publicly that the starter homes policy will bring home ownership within the reach of a significant number of people who would not otherwise find it affordable. It is not the only answer—other things are required, and I am happy to accept that affordable housing should be about not just helping people to afford to buy, but shared ownership and affordable homes for people to rent. We should not say that the starter homes initiative is not making a contribution to helping people afford a home of their own.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Let me give the Minister a bit of reassurance in terms of our understanding of the starter homes initiative. Opposition Members understand what the words “up to £250,000” mean. We were not suggesting that every single home will be £250,000 under this initiative or £450,000 in London, nor were we suggesting for a minute that the initiative does not reduce the cost of home ownership for a number of people. I do not recall mentioning that.
I was making the point that in lots of our constituencies, reducing a home from £250,000 to £200,000 does not make it affordable housing for many people. Enabling developers to discharge their affordable housing obligations through this mechanism means that money might not be available for other obligations under section 106 of the 1990 Act. Because of the viability of a particular site, we would not know that, because we were not seeing the viability assessment.
Gavin Barwell
It is important to get this on the record. The hon. Lady is quite right that if we set the requirement for starter homes too high, it could squeeze out some other important forms of housing. However, one difference that is worth teasing out is what we understand by the term “affordable housing”. It has been used traditionally in housing policy to mean council and housing association housing. When most of our constituents hear the term, they are interested in how they can be helped to afford a home of their own. To me, policy that makes home ownership affordable for people who otherwise would not have been able to afford it is not the only important type of affordable housing but is absolutely affordable housing.
Dr Blackman-Woods
International uses of affordable housing are usually something like three times average income. In my constituency, that would make a home affordable at about £75,000 or £80,000 if it was one person, and for a couple, double that. That is by international standards. For a lot of people on average incomes, that puts starter homes out of their reach, but that was not the point I was raising.
Now it is my turn to tell the Minister that we are doing a piece of work on what affordability means in the current housing environment. When we have completed that, I will be happy to share it with him. New clause 12 seeks to make viability a bit more transparent. The Government’s own review of the NPPF and guidance came forward with the suggestion of guidance being stronger on the transparency of viability assessments. I direct the Minister to Lord Taylor’s work and ask him to ponder on it. That was, as far as I understand it, an independent review of the Government’s guidance. There is general agreement that it would be really helpful to our whole development system if viability was more transparent. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 14
Review of permitted development rights
(1) Before exercising his powers under section 35(1) the Secretary of State must review the provisions of all General Development Orders made under the powers conferred to the Secretary of State by sections 59, 60, 61, 74 and 333(7) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 granting permitted development rights since 1 January 2013.—(Jim McMahon.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to review the permitted development rights granted since 2013.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Jim McMahon
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 14 intends to finally hold the Government to account on the extension of permitted development rights. We have heard a lot about our aspirations for quality, decent neighbourhoods and places where people aspire to live and are proud to live. Extension of permitted development rights flies in the face of that, because it allows a free-for-all for developers without checks and balances, local control and long-term stability and quality in mind.
Kevin Hollinrake
I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which I should have done earlier.
Is the hon. Gentleman implying that every single development that is commercial to residential is not done well? In my life prior to entering politics, I dealt with many schemes that developers brought forward because of permitted development rights. They resulted in excellent developments that met market demand, which is key. I do not deny that there will be problems on some occasions, but is he trying to argue that every single development is an inappropriate home not built to the right standards?
Jim McMahon
I suppose the hon. Gentleman could listen to me, or he could listen to the architect who said of the Housing and Planning Bill:
“This new Bill only addresses speed of delivery: short-sighted political gain at the cost of long-term quality.”
The professionals are saying that quality is an issue. I can point to conversions in Greater Manchester, which I know well. Some have used the extended permitted development rights to produce a quality development. That will almost certainly be true, but we can all point to one and try to hold it up as an example of many, when of course that is rarely the case. However, as we are seeing, the Government just do not know. It is okay to shine a light on the evidence provided by professionals, but the Government do not know the answer. If a more regulated planning system were brought back in, council planning departments would definitely be able to get a grip on quality and see it through.
That is all we are asking for. It is not about passing judgment on whether premises should or should not be converted from commercial to residential; it is about ensuring quality, affordability and long-term sustainability and starting to plan communities and neighbourhoods, instead of letting developers get away without paying their fair share. I cannot see why anybody would argue against that. It would highlight the best developers who contribute to community and society. Fair play—they make a profit doing so, and there is nothing wrong with that, but there are some people who do not play the game fairly and who extract as much cash from it as possible, with absolutely no interest in quality or community. Bringing measures back in to take firmer control of that has got to be in the long-term interests of this country and of our towns and cities.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Would my hon. Friend like to point out to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton that on the internet, one can find the 10 worst permitted development loopholes, and they are truly shocking? I am happy to let the hon. Gentleman see the examples after the Committee has ceased this sitting. They point to some serious breaches of good planning policy that emerge from an overzealous use of permitted development.
Jim McMahon
That is a fair point. The topography of a town like Oldham, in the beds of the Pennine hills, is a good example. Under the current permitted development rights, height restrictions apply only at the start of a development. If someone who lives on a slope builds out to the maximum height allowed, by the time they get to the bottom of the hill, the property could be 10 m high. Under permitted development, they would be allowed to do so, with no thought for the consequence to the people living below. There are issues, not just about conversion from commercial to residential but about the character and nature of our communities and where people live, and the impact that neighbouring properties can have on each other.
We have heard a lot about quality, and about how neighbourhood planning would go a long way towards giving community a voice. The Bill does not do that. It takes away that voice, it takes away control and it takes away the quality that we all aspire to. We think that new clause 14 is important. It is not a probing amendment; we are absolutely committed to seeing it to a vote, and I hope that we get some support on it, because it is in line with the debate that we have been having.
Gavin Barwell
To a degree, we had a debate on the principle of this earlier when we debated clause 8, so I will not rehearse all those arguments. However, I will pick out three or four points from what the hon. Gentleman said and then make one substantive point about the wording of the amendment, which I think is relevant.
I think that I am quoting the hon. Gentleman correctly—he was quoting somebody else; they were not his words—in saying that the allegation is that this is all about speed and political benefit at the expense of quality. I think I captured the quote correctly. There is no political benefit at all; the benefit is providing homes to thousands of people who otherwise would not have them. There absolutely is a debate to be had about quantity versus quality. I suspect that that is an ongoing debate in housing policy, but it is worth putting it on the record that there is no political benefit to the policy. The Government are trying to drive up the supply of housing in this country to meet the urgent pressing need for extra homes. That is what the policy is about.
The hon. Member for City of Durham gave some terrible examples she had seen of how the policy had been misused. As constituency MPs, we all see examples of where people have gone ahead and done things without getting planning, and the enforcement system has not picked it up, and we also see examples of developments that planners have approved that are of appalling quality. Even if we lived in a world where every single change to any building, however de minimis, had to go through a formal planning process and acquire planning permission, that would not be a guarantee of quality, and we should not pretend that it would be.
Ultimately, the argument is about the extent to which members of the Committee believe there is an urgent need to build more homes in this country. I have touched on this before, but several issues have been raised in this debate on planning conditions and permitted development. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw was speaking on Second Reading on the duty to co-operate, but despite the Opposition’s rhetoric, saying that they recognise the urgent need for more homes in this country, they oppose policies that help deliver those crucial homes.
Rather than re-run the argument of principle, I make one point on the wording of the new clause. When we came to clause 8, despite our differences on the principle of permitted development, there was agreement that it was a good clause because it would ensure that data were available not only to the Government but to all of us, to enable us to assess whether the policy was a good policy. The new clause would require a review of the policy before the Government could commence the provisions of the legislation—before we have the data we all agreed were crucial. The hon. Member for City of Durham was nodding gently as I made that point.
The Opposition may well want to press the new clause to a vote as a vote on the principle of permitted development, but its wording is not sensible as it would require that review to happen before we had the crucial data that we all agreed were needed to make a judgment on the policy.
Jim McMahon
I think the Minister has just made the argument for dismissing the driving test. Why not just let everyone get in a car, van or truck and take to the road? Some might crash and some might kill people, but it is fine, because some will not and there is no evidence base. That is a nonsense, of course. We all have examples of good-quality development and bad-quality development, and we can always use a single example to make a point, but the issue is that the controls are not in place.
The Government do not know the answer to the question, which is why we had the debate on putting measures in the Bill to enable us to understand the quantum of the developments, but it is beyond that now. If the argument was that the measure was about kick-starting development to get the economy going and put roofs over people’s heads, because that is what was required at the time, and it was a short-term measure, then there can be a debate about that. There cannot, however, be a compromise on the long-term sustainability and viability of communities, and the affordability or quality of housing.
The measure goes against a lot of what we have been discussing, and it beggars belief that the Government seem happy to continue walking down this road with a blindfold on and no idea of what is in front of them. That is a dangerous way to draw up housing policy, and that is why a vote is important. If we get to a stage at which the Government have better wording, they should bring it forward, and we can have a debate about it. Provided that the wording resolved the issue, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham would support it. However, it is important that the issue is tackled and that the Government show a sense of urgency.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
As the Minister is carrying out lots of reviews, I thought he might like to add another to his list and review the way in which local authorities are able to determine amendments to see whether he can give local planning departments a bit more flexibility in how they deal with amendments, and in particular what they consider to be material or non-material considerations. Does the Department have a view on allowing split decisions to be taken on planning applications? A local authority may say, for example, “We want to approve this application, but there is one bit that we do not like. We are going to approve the rest of the application, but we want this one bit to be changed.” I am simply asking a question of the Minister. Further, does he have a view about local authorities being able to charge additional fees where an amendment means that they have to go out to public consultation again, or a lot of officer time has to be put into determining whether a particular amendment should stand?
Gavin Barwell
The Minister is not particularly welcoming of another statutory requirement to have another review, as the hon. Lady may have predicted, but perhaps I can get a better understanding of her concerns outside the Committee, reflect on those and come back to her.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I am happy to write to the Minister with some of the documentation from the Planning Officers Society, which is exercised about the issue. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Schedule 1
County councils’ default powers in relation to development plan documents
1 The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 is amended as follows.
2 Schedule A1 (default powers exercisable by Mayor of London or combined authority) is amended in accordance with paragraphs 3 to 8.
3 In the heading for “or combined authority” substitute “, combined authority or county council”.
4 After paragraph 7 insert—
“Default powers exercisable by county council
7A In this Schedule—
‘upper-tier county council’ means a county council for an area for which there is also a district council;
‘lower-tier planning authority’, in relation to an upper-tier county council, means a district council which is the local planning authority for an area within the area of the upper-tier county council.
7B If the Secretary of State—
(a) thinks that a lower-tier planning authority are failing or omitting to do anything it is necessary for them to do in connection with the preparation, revision or adoption of a development plan document, and
(b) invites the upper-tier county council to prepare or revise the document, the upper-tier county council may prepare or revise (as the case may be) the development plan document.
7C (1) This paragraph applies where a development plan document is prepared or revised by an upper-tier county council under paragraph 7B.
(2) The upper-tier county council must hold an independent examination.
(3) The upper-tier county council—
(a) must publish the recommendations and reasons of the person appointed to hold the examination, and
(b) may also give directions to the lower-tier planning authority in relation to publication of those recommendations and reasons.
(4) The upper-tier county council may—
(a) approve the document, or approve it subject to specified modifications, as a local development document, or
(b) direct the lower-tier planning authority to consider adopting the document by resolution of the authority as a local development document.
7D (1) Subsections (4) to (7C) of section 20 apply to an examination held under paragraph 7C(2)—
(a) with the reference to the local planning authority in subsection (7C) of that section being read as a reference to the upper-tier county council, and
(b) with the omission of subsections (5)(c), (7)(b)(ii) and (7B)(b).
(2) The upper-tier county council must give reasons for anything they do in pursuance of paragraph 7B or 7C(4).
(3) The lower-tier planning authority must reimburse the upper-tier county council—
(a) for any expenditure that the upper-tier county council incur in connection with anything which is done by them under paragraph 7B and which the lower-tier planning authority failed or omitted to do as mentioned in that paragraph;
(b) for any expenditure that the upper-tier county council incur in connection with anything which is done by them under paragraph 7C(2).
(4) In the case of a joint local development document or a joint development plan document, the upper-tier council may apportion liability for the expenditure on such basis as the council considers just between the authorities for whom the document has been prepared.”
5 (1) Paragraph 8 is amended as follows.
(2) In sub-paragraph (1)—
(a) omit the “or” at the end of paragraph (a), and
(b) at the end of paragraph (b) insert “, or
(c) under paragraph 7B by an upper-tier county council.”
(3) In sub-paragraph (2)(a)—
(a) for “or 6(4)(a)” substitute “, 6(4)(a) or 7C(4)(a)”, and
(b) for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”.
(4) In sub-paragraph (3)(a) for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”.
(5) In sub-paragraph (5) for “or 6(4)(a)” substitute “, 6(4)(a) or 7C(4)(a)”.
(6) In sub-paragraph (7)—
(a) in paragraph (b) for “or 6(4)(a)” substitute “, 6(4)(a) or 7C(4)(a)”, and
(b) in the words following that paragraph for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”.
6 In paragraph 9(8) for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”.
7 In paragraph 12—
(a) for “or the combined authority” substitute “, the combined authority or the upper-tier county council”, and
(b) for “or the authority” substitute “, the authority or the council”.
8 In paragraph 13(1)—
(a) for “or a combined authority” substitute “, a combined authority or an upper-tier county council”, and
(b) for “or the authority” substitute “, the authority or the council”.
9 In section 17(8) (document a local development document only if adopted or approved) after paragraph (d) insert—
“(e) is approved by an upper-tier county council (as defined in that Schedule) under paragraph 7C of that Schedule.”
10 In section 27A (default powers exercisable by Mayor of London or combined authority) in both places for “or combined authority” substitute “, combined authority or county council”. —(Gavin Barwell.)
See the explanatory statement for NC5.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.
Gavin Barwell
Mr McCabe, may I take a minute of the Committee’s time to say thank you as we come to the end of our proceedings in Committee? I thank you and Mr Bone for the way in which you have chaired these proceedings, which I am sure all Members have appreciated. I also thank the officials, the Clerks who have assisted you, Hansard and the Doorkeepers for their support.
I thank all members of the Committee. We have had good debates to which nearly all Members have contributed fully. We on the Government Benches are grateful for the scrutiny of the Bill. I thank my officials for their work on the Bill and the Bill documents, which has been useful in scrutinising the legislation, and certainly for their support of me with their words of inspiration as I have tried to answer questions for members of the Committee.
Perhaps I could single out two people. I learned earlier today that this is the first time my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet has sat on a Bill Committee as a Back-Bench Member. I hope that she has enjoyed the experience, and that the Whips are looking forward to putting her on many more such Committees. Finally, perhaps reflecting on whence I came, I thank our Whips. I have had to do their job for a number of years, and have had to sit through proceedings silently, unable to say anything. I think Members on both Front Benches are grateful for their support and help in getting through our proceedings.
Dr Blackman-Woods
Like the Minister, I thank you, Mr McCabe, and Mr Bone for chairing this Committee with good humour, which is much appreciated. I also thank the Clerks for their excellent service and their help in drafting and tabling amendments in the right order and, in particular, in the right place, so that we could debate them. I marvel at the Doorkeepers. I do not know how they manage to sit through our hours of deliberations with such good humour. They keep us safe and secure. I thank Hansard for turning around a great deal of material in such a short time. I also thank the organisations that gave detailed evidence to the Committee, and those who turned up to give oral evidence. I hope that they think we have done justice to the points they raised.
I thank my fellow shadow Minister for his input, and both our Whip and the Government Whip. The way in which our proceedings have been conducted is a tribute to the way they organised the business. Although they are not all in their place, I thank Opposition Committee members—and indeed Government Members—for their excellent speeches and, sometimes, passion, even though we sometimes disagreed. Finally, I thank the Minister for his responses, which were very helpful at times, and I thank his hard-working civil servants, who have had to put up with all our questions.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill, as amended, accordingly to be reported.
Westminster Hall
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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
Defence Expenditure
(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
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
If Members wish to remove their jackets, that is totally in order. I apologise for the fact that one of the green clocks is not working, but the other two are.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Second Report from the Defence Committee of Session 2015-16, Shifting the goalposts? Defence expenditure and the 2% pledge, HC 494, and the Government response, HC 465.
It is a privilege to present the findings of our report entitled “Shifting the goalposts? Defence expenditure and the 2% pledge” to the public once again—it was published some time ago. I doubt whether anybody two or three years ago would have registered the significance of the term “2% of GDP” in connection with defence, because it was only relatively recently that the prospect of Britain’s falling below the NATO recommended minimum expenditure on defence for the first time came to the public’s attention. For many years, we spent a great deal of money on defence. The purpose of the report is to track the history of that expenditure to check the extent to which we are continuing to meet the NATO minimum and to see whether there has been any financial jiggery-pokery to enable us to do so.
In a nutshell, we found that no rules have been broken. The Government’s figures and methodology conform to the NATO guidelines. It is true that, on the basis of including such things as armed forces pensions, which were not previously included but are allowed to be included, the Government will reach the 2% minimum. I use the word “minimum” advisedly, because that is what it is. It is not a target, but the minimum expected of each NATO country to contribute as a proportion of their gross domestic product to their defence. One could argue that it remains a target for countries that have never managed to reach it, but for those of us who have always exceeded it, often by very large amounts, it remains a floor, not a target, let alone a ceiling.
I know it is frowned upon to use props in debates in any Chamber, but the sheet of paper I have is so vivid that, even at a considerable distance and through the lens of a television camera, it is easy to read. The bar graph shows a consistent and steady decline in the percentage of GDP spent on defence since the mid-1950s. In the mid-1950s, we spent more than 7% of GDP on defence. In about 1963-64, that downward-falling graph crossed the upward-rising graph of what we spent as a proportion of GDP on welfare. Far from spending more on defence than on welfare, as we did until about 1963, we spend six times on welfare what we spend on defence. In the mid-1980s, we were spending roughly the same amount on defence, education and health. Since then, the descending graphs for defence expenditure and the rising graph for education and health have similarly crossed over, and we have declined closer to the 2% minimum. We now spend almost four times on health and about two and a half times on education what we spend on defence.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I am interested in the chart that my right hon. Friend is describing, which appears as a corrigendum to our report. More interesting than the three Departments he mentions is the fact that, during that period, spending on overseas aid increased by a significant amount while spending on defence declined. Is that not a significant correlation?
Dr Lewis
It is significant, and it is indeed included on the chart. The only reason why I did not mention it is that, in comparison with the total spent on the other high-spending Departments, it is a relatively small proportion of our GDP. However, my hon. Friend is absolutely right because, such has been the decline in defence, our commitment to spend 0.7% on international development now amounts to one third of the total that we spend on defence, which comes in just above the 2% minimum.
When we called the report “Shifting the goalposts?”, we put a question mark at the end because we did not wish to prejudge it. There are two ways in which the Government could be said to have shifted the goalposts: first, by including things they are not allowed to include—we absolved them of that—and, secondly, by including things that they are allowed to include but never included in the past, which would mean that we are not comparing like with like in terms of our previous methods of calculating UK defence expenditure. The Defence Committee inquiry found that the NATO minimum would not have been fulfilled if UK accounting practices had not been modified, albeit in ways that are permitted by the NATO guidelines.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some of the money that is counted in the 0.7% official development assistance is also counted towards the 2%? I might take issue with some of his line of argument, but it sounds like he is arguing that that double counting should not be double counted.
Dr Lewis
We did not find a hard and fast case of double counting, but we noticed in the past that there are items of expenditure that are highly relevant to defence and security that could fairly and usefully be catered for by the international development funds. Given that the 0.7% is protected, and given that one sometimes hears stories of the Department for International Development struggling to find creative ways of spending the money it has to dispose of, there is an opportunity, particularly in relation to soft power, to use elements of the international development money for measures that add to our security.
Of course, this is a rather crude measure, because gross domestic product can vary. If this country’s gross domestic product goes down but we spend the same amount on defence, it might appear that we are doing more when we are doing nothing of the sort. Similarly, when the value of the pound changes, as has happened in the short term following the Brexit decision, we see the effect on what we are able to buy for the money we have available for defence when we purchase big-ticket items such as the P-8 maritime patrol aircraft from the Americans, although a considerable amount of that purchase will find its way to the British defence industry. What I am driving at is that perhaps we ought to be talking not about shifting the goalposts, but trying to move the benchmark.
We should be reminding people that, in the 1980s—the last time we faced a significant threat from the east in Europe in the second and closing phase of the cold war—we regularly spent between 4.5% and 5.1% of GDP on defence. The similarity lies not only in the international situation. In the 1980s, we simultaneously faced a very significant terrorist threat in the form of Irish republican terrorism. We now face a similar threat in the form of fundamentalist Islamist terrorism.
It therefore seems appropriate to note that and, in the week that we were told that the first of the successor submarines for the nuclear deterrent will be named HMS Dreadnought, to remember a previous HMS Dreadnought, the battleship that changed the whole nature of sea power as far as capital ships were concerned in the years approaching the first world war. A famous naval arms race was going on between this country and Germany and, around 1909, there was a great deal of controversy that the German navy was drawing level with the grand fleet of the British Royal Navy in terms of dreadnought battleships. A public campaign was mounted, encapsulated by the phrase of the Unionist politician George Wyndham:
“We want eight and we won’t wait!”
My view, which I believe is shared by at least some other members of the Defence Committee, is that a new benchmark is perhaps needed for the percentage of GPD to be spent on defence: “We want three to keep us free!” In reality, if we go on at the 2% level, we are in danger of finding ourselves incapable of meeting the threats that face us today and will continue to face us in future.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Yes, the threshold is important for a whole number of reasons, and we want to look at the overall level and get that focus of Government, but it is not the most important thing. The right hon. Gentleman might be about to come to this point, but we ought to be pressing the Government on what capability we are getting as a consequence in terms not only of materiel, but of manpower, and experienced manpower in particular.
Dr Lewis
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely spot on, and of course that is what underlies my remarks about the fact that the figures are only, at best, the crudest guides. Nevertheless, they give us some sort of measure of comparison. Spending a certain amount of money on defence—or, should we say, investing it in defence—is not a sufficient condition for the reason that the vice-chairman of the Committee has just explained. It is, however, a necessary condition: if we do not spend enough, we cannot possibly have the potential. If we have enough to spend, we can consider how to ensure that we spend it in the most efficient and productive ways.
At this point, I pay tribute to the staff who help the Defence Committee to prepare our reports and, in particular, to one member of staff, Dr Megan Edwards, who did all the background research for the appendices to the report. They show, on as near as it is humanly possible to express the same terms, how much we have spent every year since 1955-56 up to the present day. That sort of original research work is of lasting value, because it sets into context the minuscule efforts that we make these days in comparison with the efforts that we had to make in the past. The reason that I single out Dr Edwards is that today is her last day working as a specialist member of the staff of the Defence Committee—our loss will be the Cabinet Office’s gain, and we wish her well in her new post and congratulate her on it.
Another aspect of the financial calculations that causes particular concern is the constant emphasis on efficiency savings. The most recent tranche of efficiency savings that the Government required from the Ministry of Defence was, I believe, some £0.5 billion, just before the 2015 strategic defence and security review. Some estimates put the aggregated total of efficiency saving requirements in recent years at something in excess of £1 billion, carried forward year on year. Theoretically, savings are ploughed back into the MOD. In practice, I understand from people who know about such things, it is hard to track that money, to apply those notional savings in concrete terms and to see where exactly the savings have gone in terms of new capacity.
A few days ago, on 18 October, that matter came up during a hearing on the Ministry of Defence’s annual report and accounts for 2015-16. The Defence Committee was interviewing Mr Stephen Lovegrove, the new permanent secretary at the MOD; Lieutenant General Mark Poffley, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff for military capability; and Ms Louise Tulett, director general of finance at the MOD. They made an impressive trio of witnesses.
At one point, it was put to the witnesses that, of the almost £26 billion of equipment commitments that came out of the SDSR, almost a quarter really was new money, nearly £11 billion was so-called headroom or contingency, which is understood to be used up at appropriate points in the programmes, but the rest of it was in fact efficiency savings. It is therefore understandable if we feel a bit worried that what seems on paper to be a substantial commitment to spending large sums of money is, in a significant respect, notional, because it is dependent on the redistribution of money that the MOD already has but is supposed to spend more efficiently in some way or another.
Mr Spellar
May we forbear on the nomenclature of the civil service—the so-called efficiency savings? Efficiency, as I understand it, is when we are running a payroll office and using 100 people, but we bring in new equipment and only employ 50 as a result, while keeping outputs the same. Efficiency is when people find new and improved ways of undertaking their work. Everything else is cuts. We should be clear that many of the things we are discussing are not efficiency savings but cuts, and we should describe them as such.
Dr Lewis
The right hon. Gentleman perfectly exhibits the cross-party basis on which we try to find agreement on such matters in Committee, and the extent to which we succeed in doing so. He is of course absolutely right.
I do not intend to speak much longer, because it is excellent to see so many would-be contributors to this short debate, but I will first refer to the question that was put to Mr Lovegrove. We asked, basically, when the point will arrive at which an organisation can truthfully say, “We are just about as efficient as can be and, indeed, any further ‘savings’ that we make must amount to cutting into the bone, having already cut through the flesh.” The permanent secretary’s response was as follows:
“There may be a moment at which that happens. It is not on the horizon right now. There are certainly efficiency savings that we can get at in the Department, and our focus is on doing that and seeing whether or not we can go even further. It is only at that point that we would start engaging in the kinds of conversations that you suggest.”
With the greatest respect to the permanent secretary, who as I say made a good impression and was a credible witness in our examination of the annual report and accounts, we hear time and again from within the armed forces the same underlying fear: that we are in danger of creating a hollow force, which may have exquisite equipment—perhaps not enough so-called platforms, but exquisite nevertheless—but not enough people to man it.
The trouble is that short-term cuts—I beg your pardon; efficiency savings—can lead to long-term problems. That applies in particular to training. With the carriers coming on stream, the big frigate programme having to get under way and the new F-35 joint strike fighters taking over the maritime air role from the sadly missed Harriers, which will have filled too long a gap in our naval capabilities, now is the time when we should inject maximum effort into training. Yet we find ourselves in a position—perhaps for reasons of morale or under-investment, or perhaps because insufficient emphasis is being placed on defence in our national priorities—of struggling to recruit and retain the people we need even as we cut the size of the armed forces.
The Government have not broken any rules, but they have scraped over the line by the narrowest of margins. There is no guarantee that we will not dip below the 2% figure. People usually come up with the response, “Just remember that we are the second highest spender on defence in NATO.” I remember that sort of argument from back in the 1980s, when people who wanted us to spend less on defence—we were spending quite a lot in those days; between 4.5% and 5%—said, “Why should we spend this amount on defence when Germany and so many other European countries spend so much less than we do?” The answer, as the author of a short and pithy letter to The Times pointed out, was that the countries that we were being compared with were all on our side. We have to judge our defence expenditure by what our potential adversaries spend and what defence and attack capability they get for the money that they invest.
We do not want to engage in a race to the bottom. We do not want to preen ourselves on doing a good job because people on our own side are spending even less than we are. Our percentage expenditure on defence is lower than it has ever been—even on the new calculation, it is 0.1% lower than it was in the previous financial year. Something has gone wrong with our scale of national priorities, and the purpose of the Committee’s report is to draw attention to that, in the hope that the Government will renew their emphasis on their first duty: to keep our nation safe.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Order. It may help Members to know that I hope to finish this debate at around 3 o’clock. It is not my intention to put a time limit on speeches, so perhaps Members will bear that in mind.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
I will not delay everyone for long. Although the Committee found that the Government’s accounting criteria fell firmly within the NATO guidelines, we also found that those criteria had been amended to include several significant items that had not previously been included when the UK calculated its defence expenditure. That is the nub of the issue that we must address. The Committee is concerned that the inclusion of such items, which were critical in attaining the 2%, could undermine the promises in the SDSR of new money for defence.
During our inquiry, there was considerable discussion of the 2% as an indicator of Britain’s political willingness. Witnesses said that
“2% is good politically”
and not to meet the 2%
“would have been damaging to our reputation politically.”
The 2% was said to have
“a…powerful symbolic meaning”.
The UK has made great play of that 2% as demonstrating its commitment to collective defence in NATO, but the inclusion of items that had not previously been included, such as pensions, has not gone unnoticed—with considerable contempt—across the alliance. As well as being a member of the Defence Committee, I represent the UK on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and I have found that other countries, when talking about their expenditure and accepting that it does not reach 2%, take great delight in pointing out that their figures do not include pensions, as they have no wish to use creative accounting to bolster their spending. That is divisive within NATO and damages our credibility and capability to defend our shores and those of our allies.
Our report highlighted that 2% should be a minimum, not a target, and certainly should not be seen as an indicator of capability or capacity, or give a false glow of competency and readiness. The report also urged the Government to provide a calculation of what defence expenditure would be if we left out the new items such as pensions and used the same items as we had under the 2010 accounting rules. We still await those figures.
A perfect storm is building of cuts to personnel, cuts to training, problems in procurement and gaps in capability. With the 2%, there is a disparity between our procurement aspirations and their affordability—and our capacity to deal with major defence equipment deficiencies, such as the engines for the Type 45 destroyers and the delays in replacing the Type 23 frigates and logistics supply ships. I have a major concern in particular about the Royal Navy’s capacity and capability. If we went back to realistic accounting, perhaps we would be able to deal with those issues.
I do not want to take too much time, because I know that colleagues want to speak, but I must emphasise that in our report, the Committee expressed concern that the UK must not become a hollow force. Sadly, despite the great commitment and bravery of our personnel and their amazing “make do and mend” ingenuity, I fear that we are hiding our vulnerability behind the cardboard shield of 2%.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
It was just outside the constituency of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) that Her Majesty’s Government first committed two or three years ago to the 2% target—or the 2% figure; I will come back to the target in a moment. I would be ungracious if I did not start by saying that I warmly welcomed that that was the case. Until then, through five years of coalition government, that had not been the case. It probably would not be the case—dare I say, without being too party political—if we had a Labour Government; people would seek to find savings from defence to spend on schools and hospitals. The first thing that we ought to say is that thank goodness we have that 2%. I am glad that the previous Prime Minister made that firm and rather surprising commitment at the Wales summit.
Mr Spellar
Will the hon. Gentleman tell me in which year under a Labour Government expenditure fell below 2%?
Mr Gray
The trouble is that under Labour Governments we always have wars and things so we have to keep spending up—that is the difficulty. However, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. I am not suggesting that the Labour party made cuts in previous years, but, from listening to some of the speeches produced by the current leader of the Labour party, it would be perfectly reasonable to expect that significant defence cuts would be made were Labour to be in power today.
Mr Gray
Before the right hon. Gentleman leaps in to enter into a party political discussion of the matter, the purpose of the debate is not to have a party political pop across the Chamber—and of course I would not wish to tread unreasonably on the Opposition’s personal grief on this subject.
Mr Spellar
On a point of order, Mr Bone. As we are having a debate on defence, it is perfectly proper for the hon. Gentleman, who is normally much better behaved in the Defence Committee, to make partisan points. What I think is improper and verging on being out of order is then not giving way for a response, because I for one do not believe in unilateral disarmament either in the Chamber or in our defence policy.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
The right hon. Gentleman is very experienced and knows full well that that was in no way a point of order.
Mr Gray
No, if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me. We have a short debate and I have one or two things to say. I do not want to go on too long, but too many interventions of that kind will simply delay the proceedings. He knows perfectly well, because he and I are close friends—
Mr Gray
I have the strongest respect—[Laughter.] Allow me to finish the sentence. I have the strongest respect for the strength of commitment by Labour members of the House of Commons Defence Committee to the defence of the realm. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that I have been a little ungracious in talking about some other parts of his party’s approach to defence because I know the members of the Labour party on the Defence Committee are strongly committed to that.
Mr Spellar
May I thank the hon. Gentleman, my friend from the Committee, for giving way? I point out that in fact he cannot point to any Labour party policy. The policy of the party is decided at our party conference, as indeed is our commitment to Trident. In the previous Parliament, when decisions were being put off on Trident, there was an overwhelming majority in the Labour party to support the Labour party policy of renewal of Trident. It is the same for the defence budget.
Mr Gray
I am most grateful and greatly reassured by the right hon. Gentleman’s commitment both to Trident and to an increase in defence spending. I look forward to that vision being repeated by the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) when he replies to the debate from the Front Bench. It is good news to know that that is what Labour thinks.
In all events, the debate is not about which party will spend more on defence. I think perhaps we should move away from that parti pris squabble and move on to discuss the report in front of us, which is a very well worded, calculated and researched paper. The first thing I would say, however, is that the Ministry of Defence’s accounts are second only to the Schleswig-Holstein question in being completely and utterly incomprehensible. I think there is nobody alive today who fully understands the MOD accounts, so the one or two accountants in the Department are well able to move figures around and fiddle with them in such a way that no normal human being can understand or follow.
Indeed, much of the language used is equally incomprehensible. For example, in paragraph 14 of the Government’s reply they are talking about the £11.2 billion of efficiency savings—we asked where they would find that. It lays out a few efficiency savings first and then says:
“A further £2 billion will be delivered through the reprioritisation of existing funding.”
They will save £2 billion through the reprioritisation of existing funding. They then go on to say that £2.1 billion that will come in from the joint security fund will in fact allow cuts in the ordinary defence spending. Therefore, that is not extra money coming in from the joint security fund at all; that is merely replacing moneys that otherwise were to be cut. There are many other examples of precisely the same thing.
Without a PhD in such matters it is simply impossible to understand exactly how the MOD accounts work and I am slightly concerned that the Government’s response tends not to try to clarify matters but to make them even more complicated than before. That makes comparators extremely difficult. It is very difficult indeed to compare our spending today with what we spent in the past. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) touched on this: it is perfectly true that when I was born in 1954 we were spending something like 7.8%—if I remember rightly from the charts in the report—and today we spend about 2%. Therefore, the cut has been gigantic. However, comparing what we were spending then with what we spend today is extraordinarily difficult because of the accounting procedures.
It is unclear whether things like urgent operational requirements, or several other things that occurred in the past, are included, not least because, as the MOD said in its reply, it keeps its accounts only for seven years. Therefore, if we ask officials about any financial matter before seven years ago, they do not know. They are unable to give answers on what happened in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s because they do not keep the accounts. It seems to me simply bizarre that a Government Department should not keep accounts in perpetuity—it ought to be able to give an answer on what Government spending on defence was at the time of Waterloo if we asked the question sensibly. To say that it does not know for more than seven years ago is simply extraordinary. We therefore do not know how our spending today compares with previously because of that rule and we cannot compare our spending with other NATO countries for the same reason: it is all lost in the shrouds of mystery and antiquity.
My right hon. Friend made the extremely important point that 2% is all very well, but it is not a target and it is not even a floor—it is absolutely the minimum. In terms of the rhetoric, the Government appear as if they are claiming, “Haven’t we done well? We have achieved 2%.” No, never in the history of British defence before have we ever had to spend only 2% of GDP. Actually, that is the lowest figure we have ever been at. Moreover, if we were to listen to the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer and we were to face quite a significant recession post-Brexit—I personally do not believe that will occur, but he said so plainly—2% of GDP would presumably mean a significant cut in the pounds spent on defence. Therefore, the 2% figure is, to some degree at least, misleading. What we need to know is that this year we are spending £35 billion or thereabouts on defence and that that will increase every year irrespective of what happens to the economy.
The opposite applies as well. Supposing the economy were to grow at some fantastic rate thanks to Brexit—let us imagine that we see 2%, 3% or 4% growth—does that really mean that we will spend billions and billions of pounds more on defence than we have currently programmed to do? If so, how on earth will we find things to spend the money on? I am not certain that the 2% figure necessarily allows for sensible comparators with other Departments or that it is quite the right way to judge it.
We need to know how much the Government will spend and, as my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Bridgend said, not only how they will spend it but what they will spend it on. What we need to know is what we can do in defence terms—how many ships, tanks, soldiers and sailors and all the other things we need, such as cyber, will we have in the future? The 2% figure does not necessarily tell us that. It is a question of capabilities and not necessarily of money.
While I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to the 2%, which is certainly a step in the right direction, that by no means reassures me that we as a nation are ready to face the appalling threats we now face. Russia is a bigger threat to us today than it has been since the cold war, the middle east is in complete turmoil and much of the rest of the world is a disaster area and we are struggling to maintain a level of spending that we have never before seen.
It seems to me that we are in danger of failing in our primary responsibility of defending the realm by allowing ourselves to be fooled by a piece of camouflage: “Aren’t we being great? We are spending 2% of GDP”. Are we able to defend the realm? I suggest that we may well not be.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
I know this is a very important debate and I have six Back-Bench Members who want to catch my eye as well as the Front Benchers, so could Members keep their remarks as brief as possible?
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Bone. I will try to be as brief as possible because I also hope to catch the Chair’s eye in the next debate— I have half a speech to give because at first I thought there would be one debate.
Of all the Government’s commitments, we can point at and quantify two—2% of gross national income on defence and 0.7% on aid—and the others go up and down. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) appeared to imply that somehow that was a bad thing and that spending more on welfare than defence, showing compassion to the most vulnerable and needy in our society and providing that social security safety net of which we all ought to be so proud, was somehow at odds with finding the money we need to spend on the defence of the realm.
The right hon. Gentleman also spoke of investment, which I think is also quite important when considering the international aid budget. I would argue that spending money on international aid is an investment in our security and in our enlightened self-interest—helping to build a more stable and secure world by lifting people out of poverty and helping them get the food and education that they need.
It is particularly interesting that the 0.7% target, which admittedly was agreed some time ago, was based on a calculation of what was needed to meet the globally agreed goals for poverty eradication, including ending hunger, access to education and so on. I am not entirely clear where the 2% target came from. Is it a needs-based assessment of what NATO countries ought to be spending in order to effectively defend themselves or, as the report seems to say, a political target—an arbitrary amount? I think that has serious implications.
Even if we are meeting the 2% target, the key point I make is that there is a serious risk of conflation between those two targets. This might be a point of agreement: by definition, the double counting of money that is spent on aid and money that is spent on defence means the total amount of money being spent on each of those is less than it ought to be. That might be permitted under OECD rules, and sometimes there might be a good reason, but both the people who support the aid budget, like I do, and people who support the minimum defence spending target are effectively being short-changed by the Government’s practices in this regard.
There is also the question of what the 2% is actually spent on. I was in Westminster Hall not that long ago and was told that money could not be found for the Type 26 frigates, yet there seems to be a blank cheque for weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. I have spent a lot of time in Westminster Hall this week discussing the Chagos islands and Libya, as has the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton). We heard a worrying amount of language that sounded an awful lot like old-style projection of power and a frankly old-style colonialist mind-set that belongs in the past. If the Government insist on setting these targets for defence spending and want to spend that, fine, but please spend it on what we need, such as modern counter-terrorism or conventional forces in places such as Fort George near Inverness, which is where I grew up. Do not conflate that spending with aid and do not waste it on weapons of mass destruction.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I commend the Chair of the Defence Committee on the leadership he has shown in bringing the Committee together, as is obvious from our work. While there may have been a wee bit of spat today, the fact is we all work together because we all share the same goals. It is good to be able to tell people outside of the Chamber that we were able to work together on behalf of our service personnel. It is always wonderful to be able to do that.
As a member of the Defence Committee, this is an issue I feel strongly about, and other hon. Members have strongly expressed themselves as well. The evidence that came before the Committee was incredibly persuasive, and I believe the Government have issued their conclusive response since April 2016. The crux of the matter is clear. I have a direct quote from the press release for the report, which I agree with. It says that
“the Government has achieved its 2% commitment to defence spending in the last year only through what appears to be creative (albeit permissible) accounting.”
That is the fact of the case. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), who spoke very clearly, outlined that. We are all saying together that there has been creative accounting and that, while the figures may show that the percentage has been met, it is not where we wanted it to be. That is the clear issue and what we are about.
I am a straight man. If I can do something for someone, I will tell them and then do it. If I cannot do something, I will tell them that it cannot be done, and together we can work to find an alternative plan. We do that in the House, in the advice centre back home, in the constituency office and in life in general. I understand that Government bodies cannot always achieve miracles and that people cannot do everything I would like them to do, but this is life. By the same token, if someone says they can and will do something, I expect it to be done. That is the fact of it, and that is what the debate is about.
When the Government made the pledge, I was among the first to stand up and congratulate them on taking this step to ensure that our armed forces were at full strength in all aspects. Why, because of creative accounting, has the pledge not been met in real terms? Why have I seen so much evidence that the 2% pledge has not been fulfilled? Today, along with other members of the Committee, I am holding the Minister and the Government to account on the reasoning behind the failure simply to do what they committed themselves to do with the statements they made a long time ago.
The Government’s commitment to not fall below the NATO-recommended minimum defence spending of 2% of GDP for the rest of the current Parliament was not simply a message to our armed forces that they will not be sent out without adequate equipment, training and intelligence. It also sent an important message to our partners and potential adversaries that we are a force to be reckoned with and that we will continue to improve and enhance our defence with an appropriate budget. As other hon. Members have said, we have to respond adequately and strongly to threats, and send a message that defence and our ability to take up arms if necessary is a Government priority. That message has been diluted and clouded by rhetoric, and has not amounted to much in reality.
It is unclear what accounts have been included in the definitive defence budget, both now and in the past. The Ministry of Defence has been unable to provide a robust dataset that identifies which years the costs of operations or the purchase of urgent operational requirements were included in the calculations it submits to NATO. Such inclusions are allowed by NATO, but the lack of clarity confuses anyone’s ability to make year-on-year comparisons of the defence budgets. The MOD must be secretive—that is the very nature of it—but there is no need for shading in that respect, unless it is because the Government hope to get away with not doing what they said they would do. If that is not the case, it could easily be cleared up and rectified with a clear, simple and transparent spreadsheet. That has not been done. I am sure the Minister will respond to that when the time comes.
In accounts provided by the MOD for 2010 and 2015, the new inclusions of the 2015 accounting strategy are difficult to identify. The new inclusions should be outlined and shown from which Department each was previously funded, such as war pensions, intelligence gathering and all of the other things that may be found in the budget for the first time that have suddenly been introduced as part of the 2%. Hon. Members will understand why the Defence Committee is concerned; others who are not on the Committee have expressed concerns as well. My mother often talked of “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. That is what appears to have happened. We have enlarged one defence budget by doing away with others. In the end, Peter and Paul have the same combined amount as they did before. It really is hard to understand how it all works.
As I said in March 2015, my concern is not and never has been about the pennies. My concern is about provision and whether we have in place what we need to actually do the job we want. That was mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), who spoke before me. Is there enough? I do not believe there is enough spending, and the report backs up the fact that that has not changed. My first concern is not having the adequate manpower or provision to step in and offer adequate aid to buttress against further pressures in the areas in which we are involved, which is in the wider context of heightened security tensions across Europe and the middle east and across the Atlantic.
I and other members of the Defence Committee have expressed concerns before about the numbers of reservists and how we get those numbers up. How do we deliver that? How do we retain our regulars? How do we ensure that our service personnel are adequately trained and equipped, and that we have the frigates and ships to fulfil the Royal Navy’s roles? Sometimes Members who are not here or not on the Defence Committee may not know what those roles are. Do we have an RAF that can carry out its responsibilities, from as far away as the Falklands to the piracy in the horn of Africa? Can we be effective in the middle east? We need to be, and we need to have the money in place to do that.
We face threats of both an internal and existential nature, which we need to be prepared to meet. Those threats stretch the capacity of our defence capabilities, first, to maintain the standard of assistance in areas in which we are involved and, secondly, to meet the prospect of further demands. That is what we have to do: meet those further demands.
Those concerns have been shown to be truth over the past 18 months, as we have become involved in more and not fewer situations that require, if not a presence, then intelligence and preparation. We cannot stretch ourselves to such a limit that we are no longer able to protect our citizens, or commit to and deliver our responsibilities, wherever in the world they may be.
As I stood then for at least a 2% of GDP spend, I stand today. We will not be pacified with pie charts and graphs, as the Chair of the Defence Committee presented it to us at an earlier stage, or columns of this or that. We need an honest and open account, and that is not what we have received.
I am conscious that other Members wish to speak, so I will conclude. I say to the Government: do the right thing. Be a Government who stand by their word. Do not seek to pull the wool over the eyes of the Defence Committee or anybody else outside it, when our national security and the lives of men and women are at stake. Our men and women whom we are very proud to see serving and honouring the pledge they have made to defend all these shores and all our interests deserve no less, and their service demands that we cease the disservice that has been done. The Government should simply do what they said they would do by delivering on the 2% and ensuring it is a real 2%. At this time, I do not believe it is.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. It is always a challenge to follow my informed colleagues in these debates, so I apologise for any repetition.
The first duty of any Government is the defence of the realm and security of their citizens, so I welcome this opportunity to discuss the Government’s ongoing defence commitments. We are living through a period of global turmoil and national uncertainty. Though Britain is preparing to exit the European Union, we must remain an outward-looking nation, committed to fulfilling our role in the world and supporting the efforts for peace and international stability across the globe.
The threats to that peace are many and varied: an emboldened Russian Federation, continuing instability in the middle east, a Europe struggling to come to terms with the historic migrant crisis, ever-adapting terror networks, and modern technology that expands the potential threats to our country and that has revolutionised the theatre of war. In these uncertain times, it is more important than ever that the UK is committed to maintaining a military that is capable of dealing with whatever threats the future may hold and that meets the capacity and capability needs identified by the strategic defence and security review. That can be achieved only by ensuring sufficient year-on-year funding to maintain and expand our armed forces capability. That is why I and my colleagues on the Defence Committee welcome the Government’s continued commitment to the 2% pledge on defence spending, to ensure our NATO compliance. That commitment sends an important message to our allies in NATO and beyond that the UK remains committed to fulfilling our role in the world, and to defending and supporting our friends, wherever and whenever that need arises.
As we have heard, the UK has the largest defence budget in the EU, the second largest in NATO and the fifth largest in the world, but money alone will not solve these issues. I hope that the 2% pledge is a commitment to maintaining our military strength in the long term. It is important that we do not simply take the figure of 2% as an arbitrary one or as the final word on Britain’s spending and procurement in the years ahead. In charting the future of the UK’s military capacity, we must always endeavour to work from first principles. What is required to keep our country safe?
In our Committee’s report, we raised a number of initial points in response to the Government’s spending plans. We noted that while the Government met their 2% commitment to defence spending last year, they did so with the aid of what appeared to be a measure of creative accounting, albeit creative accounting that was accepted by NATO, as was outlined by the Chair of the Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). By revising the criteria by which defence expenditure is calculated, the predicted Government spend for 2015-16 rises from £36.8 billion, or 1.97% of GDP, to £39 billion, equivalent to 2.08%. That was achieved by including expenditure from other funds, such as the conflict, stability and security fund, which is controlled jointly by the MOD and the Department for International Development.
I have no doubt that the Government’s commitment to defence spending and recognition of the challenges our country faces is sincere. However, our troops deserve more than financial wizardry. I hope that, in future years, the Government work to ensure that the necessary resources are put into defence, and ensure that we are spending a minimum of 2% annually in real terms, so that we have sufficient resources to fund our capabilities as well as to invest in our future.
I also welcome the Government’s commitment to maintaining the size of our armed forces, with plans to grow the size of the Royal Navy to 30,600 in 2025—an increase of 400 personnel and an uplift of 1,600 over the position initially laid out by the previous Government in 2010. However, as we have discussed today, with the planned retirement of HMS Ocean, even those numbers are insufficient to fully man our current capabilities. I have significant concerns about proposed cuts to our Royal Marines in terms of absolute numbers, which I hope our Committee will continue to investigate.
Considering the ongoing active deployments of our RAF forces, plans to expand the strength of RAF regular personnel to a baseline of 31,750 are welcome. However, with the imminent arrival of not enough F-35s, we will have to review that number. I remain sceptical of the Government’s suggestion that an integrated Army of 112,000 personnel is sufficient to deliver the Army’s contribution to joint force 2025, but time will tell, and I am sure we will revisit that.
There is much in the Government’s response to our report that is welcome, but I wish to stress the importance of ensuring that capacity is met and that our defence spending is sufficient to meet our needs, even when that may necessitate a spending increase over and above the 2%, which, despite what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) said, many Members on the Labour Benches would support. We must understand that the 2% pledge represents a minimum annual spend, and we should never seek to curtail or compromise our military capacity in order to stay within that amount. Our report stated that
“the Government must be clear that 2% is a minimum—not a target—and be prepared to increase defence expenditure further, in order to reflect the increasing threats faced by both the UK and our Allies.”
We must also take into account the UK’s situation in the wake of the EU referendum and the role that the current uncertainty may play in our economic outlook. With the additional financial and geopolitical challenges that Brexit may pose in the short to medium term, it is vital that the Government recognise those concerns and act to ensure that our military remains on solid financial and operational ground in the years ahead. A report from the Resolution Foundation suggested that the economic upheaval thrown up by uncertainty around Brexit could cost the UK economy up to £84 billion over the next five years, which would have a significant impact on the 2%. The real value of the Government’s 2% pledge ebbs and flows with the country’s economic fortunes. As outlined by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, the commensurate drop in GDP resulting from that would be reflected in a drop in the value of the 2% set aside for annual defence expenditure, which could have a devastating effect on our capability, especially if the 2% comes to be seen as a spending cap rather than a minimum.
A further concern is the declining value of sterling and the impact that it may have on overseas procurement. One particular issue is the purchase of military equipment bought in US dollars, at prices that could greatly exceed initial estimates. For instance, the MOD recently announced the purchase of nine P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft from Boeing via a foreign military sale. The predicted cost, including training, infrastructure and the necessary support at RAF Lossiemouth, was recently estimated to be £3 billion over the next decade. However, with the pound slumping to its lowest value against the dollar in some time, the initial costs of purchase could greatly exceed initial predictions unless appropriate—
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mike Penning)
I apologise for interrupting, but as former Ministers in the room and the Chair of the Defence Committee will know, these sorts of contract are offset, and predictions are put in—the Treasury has that capability. If we build a road project, we put in the project cost and the inflation cost. That risk is built into the project, which former Ministers in the Chamber know.
Ruth Smeeth
I thank the Minister for that. The end of my sentence was, “unless appropriate hedging is put in the contract.”
Ruth Smeeth
While I appreciate that it probably is, I do not think anyone could have anticipated the likely devaluation of the pound in recent days. I hope very much that that is the case, but we will see what happens in the long term when we get the full figures.
Mr Spellar
Is it not even more significant that, in giving this order directly to Boeing, the MOD did not seek to get any offset in other programmes in order to create work back in the UK?
Ruth Smeeth
I totally agree with my right hon. Friend. With the P-8A and even the F-35, we get only 20% of the build in the UK.
Ruth Smeeth
And the Apache. There are significant concerns about British manufacturing capabilities within the current procurement programme.
As the UK comes to terms with our future outside the European Union, it is more important than ever that we maintain a strong independent military presence. I believe the Government recognise that. I again welcome their response to the Defence Committee’s report and their ongoing commitment to supporting a robust UK military. I for one believe these issues to be above party politics.
Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.
I was going to talk about the 2% pledge, but many of the points I was going to make have been covered today and were extensively covered in the report, so I will confine my remarks to chapter 4 of the report: “UK defence: what can we afford”. It considers that question in the context of the 2% pledge.
In paragraph 75, the Ministry of Defence is quoted as saying that the SDSR would
“determine priorities for investment to ensure that the UK has a full suite of capabilities with which to respond to defence and security threats”.
Indeed, page 67 of the “National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review” document of last year identifies the three tiers of domestic and overseas risks we face, grading them as tier 1, 2 or 3
“based on a judgement of the combination of both likelihood and impact.”
Taking that at face value, the National Security Council has identified terrorism, international military conflict, cyber, public health, major natural hazards and instability overseas as the tier 1 threats facing the UK.
With that exercise having been undertaken, one would have thought the resources would follow the perceived threats and their perceived likelihood, but that does not seem to be the approach followed by the Ministry of Defence. For example, it is extremely concerning that the Government seem to be hellbent on pursuing their ideological obsession with a new generation of nuclear weapons, which its proponents argue are to deter an attack using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons—a tier 2 threat according to the National Security Council risk assessment.
Meanwhile, the Government have delayed commissioning and building the promised Type 26 frigates on the Clyde, which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) mentioned. Those are essential to address tier 1 threats—international military conflict and instability overseas.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
May I ask whether the hon. Gentleman is in favour of continuing to produce Type 26 global combat ships on the Clyde when their primary role is the protection of our independent nuclear deterrent, which he detests?
Steven Paterson
I am in favour of fulfilling the promise made in 2013 to have 13 ships built on the Clyde. If the hon. Gentleman goes to the Ministry of Defence website he will see that its description of those ships’ role includes a whole range of things in addition to protecting the nuclear deterrent.
We wait to see whether the national shipbuilding strategy, which is due by 23 November, sees an end to the disgraceful delay in commissioning those ships on the Clyde. We wait to see whether there is a guarantee that the five multi-purpose frigates will be built on the Clyde, or whether they will be commissioned to be built overseas. Based on the answers to those questions, we will evaluate the long-term prospects for the Clyde yards, which provide vital capability infrastructure, enabling the UK to address tier 1 threats set out in its own national security strategy and SDSR.
Originally, of course, the Government promised that 13 Type 26 frigates would be built on the Clyde, but they revised that substantially to eight, with five general purpose frigates to make up the shortfall. In paragraph 90 of the report, the Committee correctly identifies the risk:
“Should…the ‘concept study’ to investigate the potential for a new class of lighter, flexible general purpose frigate be unsuccessful, we wish to be informed at the earliest opportunity of the MoD’s contingency plans to deliver the extra ships to satisfy the total originally promised.”
The Government’s response to these concerns merely indicates a willingness to keep the Committee informed, and we must hope that there will be no further backtracking on the general purpose frigates. Further, we await confirmation that they will be built on the Clyde. Should that not occur, as well as being a betrayal of the skilled workers employed at those shipyards, it will threaten the yards’ capacity to deliver complex warships in the future and undermine the UK’s ability to meet the challenges identified in the national security strategy and SDSR.
The report also identifies clear concerns among the witnesses the Committee questioned about the MOD’s ability to maintain the size of the armed forces at the levels envisaged in the SDSR, which several speakers touched on today. Those concerns were voiced more than six months before the EU referendum and the economic impact of that vote. Should the decision of the UK as a whole to leave the EU result in an adverse economic impact on the UK, as seems likely given its impact in the months since the vote, there will be further pressure on the UK’s ability to deliver expensive military capability and manpower in future.
In particular, the collapse in the value of the pound may have a serious impact on the affordability of imported military systems, of which we have many and plan many. Spending 2% of a significantly smaller pot will have serious implications for the delivery of ships and planes and the maintenance of manpower, particularly if, as seems inevitable, the costs of vastly expensive programmes such as the successor nuclear weapon submarines spiral.
I thank the Defence Committee for its work in this area—it does an excellent job looking at this policy. I am very happy to have had the opportunity to speak today.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.
This debate is about what sort of country we see ourselves as being. I have always seen the UK as a force for good, and I mean that not just in military terms but in our humanitarian role in the world and how we have defended liberal democracy over the decades. The issue is not just the 2% pledge, but whether we have the capability to achieve what we set out to do as a military nation. In 2013, the UK’s GDP was £1.6 trillion, with a defence budget of £37 billion, or 2.3% of GDP. In 2014, our GDP was £1.7 trillion and the defence budget was 2.17% of GDP. At the same time as the budget has fallen significantly over that period, Russia’s defence budget went up by 21% last year alone. That is what we must consider.
I do not think the Russians want to enter into a war with the west, but times are uncertain. Russia might be a declining power, but insecure powers, like insecure people, may lash out, and that country also has nuclear weapons. I read in The Times at the beginning of this week that Russia has just unveiled a new sort of intercontinental ballistic missile. We know that it has put nuclear weapons into Kaliningrad, and we know what it does in Syria. We definitely know what it did in Ukraine. Russia is flexing its muscles, and we must be prepared for that.
General Sir Richard Shirreff said in his evidence to the Committee that even if all NATO’s member states put 2% of their GDP into the defence of the west, he was sceptical about whether that would be enough to see off the threat from countries such as Russia. We must realise that many of the military conflicts and issues around the world are asymmetrical, and there are all sorts of issues such as cyber and terrorism. Russia is one nation that we could find ourselves in conflict with.
China’s defence budget is well over $200 billion. The rest of that region’s defence budget put together is only $45 billion. A figure I came across at the beginning of the week is that there are more than 100,000 UN peacekeepers around the world in 16 locations, many of them in Africa. The world situation is very turbulent. Are we in a position to defend ourselves?
Sir Richard Barrons said in The Daily Telegraph on 17 September that the UK’s armed forces are withered. I do not want to talk down our armed forces and the brave men and women who serve in them, but this man knows what he is talking about, so he should be listened to. He referred in the Financial Times to Britain’s ability to defend itself from aerial attacks and said:
“UK air defence now consists of the”
working Type 45 destroyers,
“enough ground-based air defence to protect roughly Whitehall only, and RAF fast jets. Neither the UK homeland nor a deployed force—let alone both concurrently— could be protected from a concerted Russian air effort.”
These issues are worrying for me and, I believe, for the other people in this Chamber and the Defence Committee.
Is 2% enough? When other things, such as pensions and so on, are included, and there is creative accounting, do the Government really mean 2%? We must sit down and think whether it is enough. Efficiencies are brilliant and fantastic. We all agree with that, but the one thing we must do is to protect this country. We must have a serious look at whether 2% is what we should be paying.
We have two brilliant aircraft carriers that will come into service in a little while, but have we got enough ships to defend them? Have we got the submarines to defend them? Have we got the skills to man them? We need to look at that. If we are to punch above our weight, let us ensure that we can actually do that. We just have to be honest with ourselves. Is 2% enough? Is the 2% actually 2%? Should the figure be higher? We need to hear from the Minister on that.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) for his input this afternoon and for his chairmanship of the Defence Committee. I associate the Scottish National party with his comments about the excellence of the Committee staff.
In preparing for today’s debate, I not only read the report and the Government response, but looked back over my notes from last year of the evidence that the Committee took. It speaks well of the quality of the witnesses to the inquiry that much of what they said is now coming to pass. I will touch on some of that evidence today.
This is obviously a vast subject that really deserves a day’s debate in the House. However, time pressures will restrict me to only dipping into some of the issues raised in the report. Those are the decidedly squidgy nature of what 2% means; the pressure that that will inevitably put on future procurement projects; and the overwhelming feeling that the Government are confusing “preserving the shop window”, which is typified by the pledge, with actual hard-headed strategic thinking that links in to capability. The focus on inputs has simply provided a useful smokescreen for a distinct lack of usable outputs in our defence capability.
The report is unequivocal that although 2% may act as a useful benchmark and a statement of intent, we should not kid ourselves that it means anything more than the MOD wants it to mean, because, quite simply, using previous measures of defence spending will bring us below the desired figure. Shifting the goalposts means bringing into that figure a whole range of spending priorities, from pensions right through to Trident, that would not have been included before. That has conspired with a whole range of other restraints and ring fences in a way that will see the MOD increasingly tie itself in knots.
Let us take pay restraint, for example. Central to future budgets of the Department is a commitment to ensuring that any rise in the pay of personnel does not exceed 1%. Any upwards movement on salaries would, given the nature of such a target, mean less money for other projects. As inflation rises in post-Brexit Britain, so our dedicated and selfless armed forces personnel will face a pay “crunch”, as Dr Robin Niblett of Chatham House foresaw in his evidence to the Committee last October.
In that regard, although giving hard-pressed personnel a pay rise will be out of the question, the one part of the 2% that there will be no problem with is funding the weapons of mass destruction. I and my colleagues have been relentless in asking the Government to address that anomaly. In fact, if the SNP Defence team could be renamed, I am sure that we would be called HMS Relentless, because we know that every penny spent on Trident is a penny less spent on conventional defence, and that also mean fewer pennies for the salaries of serving personnel.
The right hon. Member for New Forest East suggested that we should move to “three to be free”. I think that a great campaign would be to go for “nil to save on the bill”. Perhaps the Minister can comment on that.
As the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, I am sad to say that every penny spent on Trident also means less money to support the stunning Queen Elizabeth-class carriers being built in my constituency. Those amazing vessels deserve and require a host of capabilities around them, but in the Government response to the report, we do not get much idea of how they will be paid for. Other hon. Members have alluded to the Type 26s, for example. Whether we are talking about the F-35B joint strike fighters that will fly from the carriers or the Type 26s that will protect them, it seems that in putting forward their pledge, the Government may have caught themselves in a trap of their own making. Of course, as the Great British pound continues to fall in value against the dollar, each of the planned 138 F-35s becomes that bit more expensive, even allowing for what the Minister alluded to earlier. Every day that passes without a timetable being given for the Type 26 programme means that the hard work of my constituents in ensuring that the carriers are delivered on time and on budget is being undermined. I hope that, along with addressing the other substantial points from the report today, the Minister will take the time to let us see what his Department plans to do to ensure that those projects are not adversely affected by the plummeting pound.
Ultimately, the problem is that the 2% pledge should not be confused with a strategy—a charge made by many witnesses in their evidence to the Committee and most forcefully by Professor Julian Lindley-French. The problem is well illuminated in the recent document leaked to the Financial Times, in which General Sir Richard Barrons critiqued the Ministry of Defence for its focus on “preserving the shop window” over its most basic national security duties. The 2% pledge obviously sits very nicely in that shop window.
Also in the shop window sit projects such as Trident, which the Government hope will boost our international prestige and look good in a press release, but which bear no relation to the threats that this country faces and are taking a terrible toll on real, usable procurement projects and, indeed, our armed forces personnel. As we float off into the uncertain waters of Brexit Britain, I would hope that at the very least we could have some form of real stability in our national defence, but as the report shows, as it is with Brexit, so it is with defence—there are more questions than answers.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
I thank hon. Members for their participation. Because we have run over a little bit—I thought it was right to do so—we will try to wind this debate up at 3.15 pm.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I add my voice to those congratulating the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) on securing this important debate. As we have heard from other hon. Members, he has been an excellent chair of the Defence Committee. I congratulate him and his Committee on their report “Shifting the goalposts? Defence expenditure and the 2% pledge”.
I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, but particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Stirling (Steven Paterson), for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman) and for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady). [Interruption.] And the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) of course, although I will have to caveat that by saying that I agreed with much of what my hon. Friends said and, as the hon. Gentleman will not be too upset to discover, I did not agree with a great deal of what he had to say.
What has been confirmed to us today is that the 2% target was created to redress the balance between the defence budgets of the United Kingdom, the other European NATO members and the United States. It has been correctly pointed out that it does not necessarily follow that achieving the 2% target will deliver the defence capabilities required by the UK. The Defence Committee was very aware of the limitations of the arbitrary 2% figure in delivering capability. It may well, as has often been stated in this debate, have a powerful symbolic meaning in the context of the perceived commitment of the UK to our NATO allies. As the report says, it
“sends an important message to all the UK’s partners and potential adversaries.”
However, as I am sure the right hon. Member for New Forest East would agree, that is a far cry from saying that we are getting this right. Committing a minimum percentage of GDP to defence may well send the desired message, but—as my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling said—it does not adequately protect us from the threats that we ourselves have identified. I need not remind hon. Members of the words of General Sir Richard Barrons just last month. He said that the UK armed forces had lost much of their ability to fight a conventional war and accused the MOD of sidestepping “profoundly difficult” strategic challenges. He also said that there is
“no military plan to defend the UK in a conventional conflict.”
Let us be clear: that is because we have made in this country the political choice to go down a nuclear route at the expense of a conventional route. That will have massive consequences for what we can do now and in future. Do not just take my word for it. Just last year, when General Sir Richard Shirreff spoke at the Defence Committee, he said one either goes
“down the line of a nuclear capability at the expense of conventional capability, or conventional capability at the expense of nuclear.”
As a result of our decisions, our vital conventional defence capability has been sacrificed on the altar of this Government’s obsession with nuclear weapons. As my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North and for Stirling said, the most notable casualty of that is the Type 26 programme, which has been cut, delayed, cut again and further delayed while the Ministry of Defence struggles to find the money to cut the first steel on the Type 26 frigates. Lord West, a former First Sea Lord, said:
“Because of pressures…our numbers have declined. Not only is that a problem for our defence capability and the security of our nation and our people; it is a problem for our shipbuilding and our defence industries.”
The lesson we have learned from this Government is that there will always be money for nuclear weapons and that it will always come at the expense of our conventional defence. How much longer will the workers on the Clyde have to wait to start work on the Type 26 programme? How much longer does the Ministry of Defence believe it can eke out the ageing Type 23 fleet? Those frigates were supposed to have been taken out of commission by 2023, but that is now virtually impossible to see happening. The Type 26 frigates are badly needed by the Navy and are a vital part of our conventional capability; however, they are being sacrificed because of this Government’s obsession with nuclear weapons.
Bob Stewart
I thank the hon. Gentleman—he might even be a friend—for giving way. I repeat: a primary role of the Type 26 global combat ship is to preserve our independent nuclear deterrent. Frankly, if we really go down that road, perhaps we do not need the Type 26. If the Scottish National party were in power, it would get rid of our independent nuclear deterrent, make us really vulnerable and get rid of the Type 26 frigates while it was at it.
Brendan O'Hara
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s repetition and think that my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling adequately answered him previously. There is much more to the Type 26 frigates than simply protecting the deterrent. The workers on the Clyde were initially promised 13, which has subsequently been cut to eight. All we are asking the Government to do is honour their commitment and fulfil their promise to the workers on the Clyde.
Whatever the Government’s method of calculating defence expenditure, we have grave concerns about their strategic choices and the effects those are having on the UK’s defensive posture. As the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and the hon. Member for North Wiltshire said, the MOD’s creative accountancy and ability to hide a multitude of sins in a fog of statistics is the stuff of legend. Let us be absolutely clear, as Professor Phillips O’Brien at St Andrews University said recently, defence
“cuts have fallen disproportionately on the guts of British defence: the army and logistics.”
The Army is smaller than it has been for centuries while the Government throw obscene amounts of money at Trident.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife said, although 2% may act as a useful benchmark and a statement of intent, let us not kid ourselves that it means anything more than what the MOD wants it to mean. As we have heard on numerous occasions this afternoon, if we take previous measures of defence spending, it brings us well below the desired figure. Only by adding a whole range of spending priorities, from pensions to Trident, can we achieve that 2%. In many ways, that renders “2%” meaningless—it becomes a totem rather than any meaningful gauge of how we defend this country. The Government have thrown everything into the pot, including the kitchen sink—indeed, we probably could claim against the kitchen sink—in order to play what has become a rather crude numbers game.
On this side of the House, we have said many times that the Select Committee’s report noted that meeting the minimum NATO spending targets does not mean that defence is adequately resourced. That is very clearly the case under this Government and previous ones. Their sums do not add up, and we believe that their decisions have been highly detrimental to the armed forces and to this country’s conventional capabilities.
In his opening statement, the right hon. Member for New Forest East said that there had been no jiggery-pokery by the MOD, but I am sure he would agree that there is, indeed, a strong whiff of jiggery-pokery in reaching the 2% target. The Government have had to rely on childish tricks, including conflating international development and defence spending, to reach this target. They have ignored numerous requests from the Committee to come clean and to explain where that money has been re-accounted for.
In conclusion, this debate has shown that the 2% figure is pretty meaningless; it is a totem and is merely symbolic. The debate is now about what we should be doing with the real money we have, rather than posturing with percentages. It is about the amount of money we have and what we do with it, not whether it is 1%, 2%, 3% or—in the opinion of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire—4%. We can do better if we allocate it properly, which means allocating it to our conventional defences and not pouring it down the black hole that is Trident.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. We have had an extraordinary debate this afternoon here in Westminster Hall. I want to add my congratulations from the Opposition Front Bench position to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who chairs the Defence Committee, and to all the members and staff of his Committee, on producing an excellent report. So far, nine right hon. and hon. Members have spoken about it, plus two Front-Bench spokespersons, and the Minister will speak in a few minutes.
The Chairman of the Committee made it clear at the beginning that what we spend as a percentage of our gross domestic product on defence has radically altered since I was born in 1955, a year after the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray). [Interruption.] Yes, I appreciate he looks considerably younger than I do. When we were born in the ’50s, it was just 10 years after the most momentous world war and the destruction of so many lives and properties throughout this country and the world. Our entire country was effectively one armed force to defend ourselves from the aggression we faced at the time. It was logical, therefore, that we should have scaled down the percentage that we spent. However, one of the themes that has come through clearly during the debate this afternoon, is that it is not about the crude percentage, but about how we spend it and the value for money we get. Speaker after speaker has made that point and I am sure the Minister will underline it when he sums up at the end.
We have heard some very good contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is well known for her hard work on the Defence Committee and for her knowledge of defence. She questioned, yet again, the criteria of the calculation that was amended so that the Government were assisted in reaching that 2%. As many other right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned, including pensions is perhaps a slightly dodgy calculation when trying to make up that 2%. I would welcome the Minister’s view on the inclusion of pensions in the overall percentage. My hon. Friend made the point that the UK’s credibility is being damaged by the way in which we make up the 2% that NATO demands.
We heard a very good contribution, as always, from that expert on the Government side, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire. I have known him for many years and have worked on many campaigns with him—we share that in common. He made the point that we cannot compare the percentage spent in 1954 with the percentage spent today because the world is a totally different place. He also made a very important point about accounts: why are they not kept for more than seven years? I find that surprising. Surely the different accounts must be in the records of this place in Hansard from when estimates have been debated and discussed in the decades since 1954.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), as always, made his contribution to a debate—it seems that every debate I take part in he is there, making important points. He said that the MOD was unable to provide a robust dataset and that, as his mother used to say, it was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
[Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), who made a thoughtful and well written contribution to the debate. We are the fifth largest defence spender in the world, but it is really important that 2% does not remain a maximum of what we spend to keep the realm safe. She said that we need to spend what is required. We on the Labour Front Bench agree.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) spoke well, as always, being very knowledgeable in these things and being an active member of the Committee. He pointed to the threat from Russia. In my previous role in the foreign affairs team, I was responsible for our connections with NATO, where I went in June. We heard over and over again, from officials in Brussels and in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, about the increasing threat from Russia as it flexes its muscles in the world, shows us what it is made of, making up for the deficiencies of the President of that country in internal and domestic policy with aggressive foreign policy. It is very clear that that is what dictators look to divert attention.
In bringing my remarks to a conclusion, Mr Bone—[Interruption.] Sorry, Mr Rosindell. Thank you for pointing that out, Minister. In trying to bring together the points that have been made this afternoon, I make it absolutely clear that Labour’s position is to remain an active, important and strategic member of NATO and to keep our defence spending as we need it to be to defend the realm.
Everyone in the armed forces knows the damage that was done during the last Parliament when our defence spending dipped well below that 2%. Many are questioning, as we have this afternoon, what is now included in the calculation that puts us artificially over that 2% to 2.08%. It has not necessarily been achieved as a result of increases in actual defence spending on our armed forces and on the equipment that they need; it has been done by showing and including other expenditures, such as some of the money spent within the Department for International Development. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that.
As my colleagues have pointed out, the Labour Government comfortably met that 2% target each year. In fact, the lowest percentage of GDP spent in the 13 years that Labour was in power was 2.4%, so the next Labour Government are certainly committed to spending that NATO minimum. [Interruption.] Sorry, did the Minister want me to give way?
Fabian Hamilton
Well, that is the calculation that I have been given by my researchers.
As I said, we have the fifth largest defence budget in the world. I am glad to say that defence spending will increase by £5 billion up to 2020-21. That is welcome, but like any competent business purchasing supplies or the resources necessary to make it work, we have to ensure that we get the best possible value for what we buy, and that, as the Chair of the Committee pointed out, we put money into our personnel with adequate, proper and decent training. We all know that without that training, our forces cannot work as a collective whole and cannot work as effectively as possible.
I believe that only Estonia, Turkey, Greece and France spend 2% of GDP or more on defence. There has been anxiety in Washington about the fall in the UK’s defence budget. In the Financial Times recently, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), the former head of policy at No. 10 Downing Street, was reported as saying:
“If we need to get to 2 per cent of GDP, there is a question of whether you can increase overall spending by counting funding of the intelligence agencies as defence spending”.
I would welcome the Minister’s response to that.
The Opposition Front-Bench team believes, like the Government and I think every Member of this Parliament, that the defence of the realm is the No. 1 priority of the Government of the day. We need to spend what is necessary to keep the population of this country safe, but we need to spend it wisely and well.
I will conclude by returning to the remarks that were made by my friend and colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield. He said that even if all the NATO countries put 2% of their GDP into defence, it would not be enough to protect us from our enemies. There are 100,000 UN peacekeepers in 16 countries because the world is in such turbulence at the moment, so the question I leave the Minister with is this: is 2% of GDP sufficient?
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mike Penning)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell—I hope I get your name right; I got told off last time, so I will try hard.
This has been a very interesting debate on such an important day—the day that the national poppy appeal is launched, when we remember those who gave so much for us. What a perfect time for this debate to take place. It is my first debate as Minister for the Armed Forces in the Ministry of Defence.
I completely agree with the Committee in asking whether 2% is enough. Could we spend more? I am sure we could, but 2% is a NATO guideline. Would it not be great, as the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) indicated, if the other NATO countries also stepped up to the plate and spent 2% of their GDP on defence?
What great news it was today that our GDP has increased, even though scaremongers, including the BBC and others, said that the economy was in a dive after Brexit. It has gone in the opposite direction, which will mean there is more money to be spent. No Defence Minister would stand up and say, “No, we wouldn’t like to have more money,” and anybody who did would not be telling the truth. However, we have to live within our means and make sure that what we get is spent correctly, which is the crux of today’s debate.
Let us get Trident over and done with first. If we want to be a member of NATO, we have to be under a nuclear umbrella. If we do not want that, we do not stay in NATO. If we took the Scottish National party’s position, not only would we lose thousands of jobs on the Clyde, but we could not really be part of NATO. That debate has been had before. We debated the nuclear deterrent in the House, when the House—not the Conservative party or this Government—made the decision on the future nuclear deterrent by a huge majority. That was the message to the rest of the world and to NATO.
Brendan O'Hara
Does the Minister accept, though, that the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government, the SNP, the Labour party, the Greens, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, the Scottish churches and great swathes of Scottish civic society have all said no to Trident? Should that voice not be respected?
Mike Penning
Perhaps the referendum in Scotland, when the Scottish people decided to stay part of the United Kingdom and under the rule and sovereignty of this Parliament, is another important decision that needs to be taken into account. The percentage of GDP in the Scottish economy from defence spending is huge, and the SNP really have to take that on board in what they say about the future of defence.
Mike Penning
No, I have given the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to intervene and he has had plenty of time.
We have to spend the money correctly. Comparisons are really difficult. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East, the Chair of the Committee, touched on that point in saying that trying to compare like with like is very difficult. National service was still in place when the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) were born, which has been alluded to. When I joined the Army in 1974, I was in the British Army of the Rhine in Germany with the 3rd Armoured Division. We had almost no fuel and almost no ammunition and we hardly ever left the military transport park. We just did not have the money. We sat there knowing full well that we were a deterrent. The boys and girls who were serving at that time were very brave—all the armed forces were brave—but we knew that the money was not being spent correctly. As a young soldier, I could see it then and we have seen it through various Governments that have been in power.
How do we spend the money as well as possible? We get the right kit to deal with the threats, but the threat changes. Most of us thought the cold war was over. We thought we could look at the threats from other parts of the world and apply our defence accordingly. In the past couple of months we have had to look back to the old foe. We saw their fleet sailing through the English channel, probably as a sign of what they could do. We saw black smoke coming out of the top of the aircraft carrier—she could not have gone a knot faster if she had tried because she is so old and decrepit—but she represents a threat. Could they have gone round the north, as they have done before? In fact, the weather was very bad off the west coast at the time, but probably they were sending a message. Our boys and girls in our armed forces shadowed her man for man as she came through. I know that because I was on a frigate in the channel while the aircraft carrier was coming through.
We have to be careful with these defence reports. We are genuinely trying to do the best for our armed forces and make sure they have the right equipment. We must show we are behind them and not undermining them. It is a very thin line.
I have responsibilities as the Ops Minister. Everybody thinks we are home from Afghanistan and Iraq, but we have ops in nearly 39 countries where our armed forces are serving us today. I do not think we have paid enough tribute to those boys and girls—our servicemen and women who are out there on our behalf—during this debate. I know it was touched on in some Members’ speeches, but mostly it was not, and that is a real disappointment because the forces pick up on what we say in this House and see where their support is.
Are we hollowed out? I do not think so; I would not be able to do this job if I thought that was the case. We will continue to fight the Treasury to make sure we have as much as we possibly can. It is enormously difficult to compare what happened in 1956 with what happened in 1974 when I joined the Army. The package we offer our armed forces is absolutely important. The issue is not just about recruitment, but about retention, which I will come to in a moment.
Kirsten Oswald
(East Renfrewshire) (SNP): There is genuine support for the armed forces, but when working out what we have to spend, it is difficult to have confidence in the figures we have been given. For the seventh year in a row the Ministry of Defence accounts have been qualified because they cannot meet international accounting requirements. A resolution of that would go a long way to supporting the appropriate spend in the areas that need it. It would also give confidence to our service personnel.
Mike Penning
I completely agree. It is way beyond me to understand the accounts of the MOD. I freely admit that.
Mike Penning
I am in my seventh Department in six years and I have struggled to understand the accounts in most of them. That does not make it right—I fully accept that. From my point of view and that of my fellow Ministers, when we are looking at what we can and cannot do around the world and at home in defence of the realm, it is difficult, but at the end of the day, NATO set the 2% so that the rest of the NATO countries would come on board.
The question has been asked whether the international aid budget, which is 0.7% of GDP, should be linked to the MOD budget. Some of us have been in this place a long time. Although I was not elected such a long time ago, I remember a huge argument going on between DFID and Defence when Clare Short was the excellent DFID Secretary of State over helicopters during the flooding in Bangladesh—I may be wrong, but I think it was in Bangladesh. A massive delay took place while they argued about money. Is that the sort of situation that we want to be in today? If our Navy or our armed forces are operating in a humanitarian area, it is right that we help, but should that come from my budget or from DFID’s? We need to work much more closely together.
I will not be able to answer all the questions in the time I have been given, but the crux of the matter is that we are all, no matter what party we are from, pushing for the same thing. We want to respect our armed forces and give them the kit and equipment they need. We will disagree on certain aspects. We disagreed on Trident, which was debated in the House. We will continue the debate, but the House has made a decision and we are pressing ahead. I am really pleased that Her Majesty’s Opposition has committed to 2% of GDP on defence. That is the first time we have heard that. We have had a commitment for this Parliament going forward and I am really pleased that the Labour party has bitten the bullet, for want of a better description, and committed to doing that. I hope the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) has not got into trouble over it, but I will write to him to confirm the commitment when this debate is over. It is a very important message from this House as we go forward.
I felt the report was helpful. As it says, we have not broken any rules. Along with my fellow Ministers, I will spend the money in the best way we possibly can to make sure we continue to have the best armed forces in the world and that they have the kit and equipment they require.
Dr Julian Lewis
I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate. We have had an excellent turnout for a quiet Thursday afternoon. The fact that so many people have given up their afternoon to take part in this debate and made such strong contributions, both from the Back and from the Front Benches of the respective parties, is a matter for congratulations. I think we all agree that adequate funds are a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition for wise defence expenditure. The question that came up again and again was whether 2% is enough. We heard it from the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) and from the Front-Bench spokesman for the Labour party, the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton).
I started off by referring to the “we want eight” crisis of 1909, of which Winston Churchill wryly noted:
“The Admiralty had demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight.”
Perhaps in the context of this debate we might end up by saying that I want three to keep us free in terms of percentages. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) wants four or the Government should be shown the door. Maybe we can compromise and, like the Bee Gees, say, “We want five for stayin’ alive.”
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Second Report from the Defence Committee of Session 2015-16, Shifting the goalposts? Defence expenditure and the 2% pledge, HC 494, and the Government response, HC 465.
Lariam
(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
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Fourth Report from the Defence Committee of Session 2015-16, An acceptable risk? The use of Lariam for military personnel, HC 567, and the Government response, HC 648.
Before I turn to the overview of the report and the conclusions of the Select Committee on Defence, I want to put on record our thanks to those who gave us the impetus to investigate the issue and contributed their knowledge and their time. I apologise if I leave anyone out. Our thanks go to Trixie Foster and the retired Colonel Andrew Marriott for their persistence in raising the issue and co-ordinating a detailed submission; to defence correspondents who took the matter up; and to Forces TV whose work brought in more evidence. I thank the Library for its research and our Clerks, who do a magnificent job, as well as the witnesses who appeared at our three evidence sessions, including from the drug’s manufacturer, Roche.
I would also like to put on record my personal thanks to the Committee for agreeing to pursue the issue for the sake of the approximately 25% to 35% of personnel who have taken Lariam who have been directly affected. The Committee was determined to ensure that the Ministry of Defence would examine the damage to lives and the failure of the duty of care, and to make the necessary recommendations to protect our armed forces personnel in the future.
Lariam is one of several antimalarial drugs that the MOD uses to protect military personnel against malaria. None of the alternatives is without its problems, but Lariam has been the subject of concern for a long time. The inquiry set out to establish a clear picture of the impact of its use in the UK armed forces. I think it is fair to say that the Committee was shocked and surprised by what we found. I will leave others to go into details, as it is my role to give an overview of our principal conclusions and recommendations.
From the evidence we received from individuals and the statistics that the MOD provided, we were shocked that Lariam is still being used so often despite the well-known problems. We were told by the drug’s manufacturer that the MOD accounts for one fifth of all its UK sales. At a minimum, 17,368 personnel were prescribed the drug between 2007 and 2015. There may well be more, but one of our findings was the haphazard nature of MOD medical record keeping. Note to the Minister: it was particularly unhelpful when the MOD published its first 10-page statistical bulletin on Lariam on the day we took evidence from the Minister.
The MOD receives advice from the Advisory Committee on Malarial Prevention alongside the advice from the manufacturer. Roche is clear in its guidance that every individual who is prescribed Lariam should undergo an assessment with a medical professional to identify any contra-indications that might make them more susceptible to side effects. We questioned whether the ACMP’s advice was appropriate. It was clear to us that the general advice that it offered was not tailored to the specific needs and circumstances of the military. It fell short and put military personnel at risk. We concluded that the MOD should work with the ACMP to develop specific guidelines, similar to the US so-called “Yellow Book”.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
Is the hon. Lady now confident that the MOD will be able to deliver on the duty of care and the commitment to proper prescribing of Lariam, especially when a large number of troops are leaving at the same time?
Mrs Moon
If I am perfectly honest, no. I think that the medical care that is offered continues to fall short, but I hope that the Committee will be able to address the issue again in future and ask for further updates. Of course, we have the opportunity to hear from the Minister today what further progress has been made.
Alongside our findings about the ACMP, we looked at whether Lariam was appropriate to where personnel were sent and the work that they do. The Minister and the Surgeon General told us that geographical location was a consideration in prescribing Lariam. By contrast, other witnesses made it clear that there is nowhere where Lariam should be the preferred drug, particularly given that there is increasing resistance to it and there are alternatives available. Geography aside, and linked to our earlier concerns about the ACMP advice, we sought to clarify whether Lariam, given the known side effects, was appropriate at all in a military setting. A military deployment is a world away from a tourist sightseeing or sitting by a pool. The physical and mental strain of being deployed in stressful situations does not need to be exacerbated by the severe side effects that Lariam can induce.
Dr Nevin gave evidence of an alarming potential negative impact on military performance and operations. There were cases of service personnel experiencing
“episodes of panic resulting in abnormal behaviour”
and incidents of servicemen becoming confused and being found “wandering aimlessly”. There were incidents of tension and anger, episodes of severe mental and physical exhaustion and nausea, lapses of concentration and episodes of short-term memory loss, ill temper, dangerous driving, confusion and suicide ideation. That is a grim picture of medically induced problems for military personnel on deployment.
We explored whether other nations gave Lariam to their armed forces. Our research uncovered a mixed picture, but a tendency towards either no longer using Lariam at all or using it only as a drug of last resort. That all added weight to our recommendation that greater clarity is needed in determining when to use Lariam, and that attention should be paid to whether it is appropriate for military personnel.
At the heart of our inquiry was the question whether the MOD was fulfilling its duty of care by following the clear guidance on prescribing Lariam. Did every individual undergo the Roche-required individual medical assessment prior to deployment? Was it realistic to think that the MOD could ensure that that happened, particularly for a large-scale, short-notice deployment? Alarmingly, there was evidence that individual assessments were not happening. Lariam was included in pre-deployment kit; it was handed out on parade; or the MOD relied on an assessment of medical records only for prescription. We felt that that was a fundamental failure in duty of care. We concluded that, aside from the need to consider the practicalities of arranging assessments, prescribing Lariam should only ever be a last resort bounded by strict conditions. Linked to that, we uncovered concerns about non-reporting of contra-indications; military personnel appeared unwilling to admit to conditions such as a previous history of depression, because of fear of a negative impact on their career. That underlines even further the need for individual assessments.
Several witnesses reported that personnel were so concerned by the reputation of Lariam that they discarded their medication and were potentially left with no antimalarial protection at all. That came even from the very top. I believe Lord Dannatt has announced that he refused to take Lariam and would throw it away. We were deeply disturbed by that and recommended that the MOD should monitor compliance rates.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I recall that evidence that came to us, as hearsay, from Lord Dannatt. It really shocks me that he was Chief of the General Staff and felt that way and did not take action. I think that the Committee felt that too.
Mrs Moon
We most certainly did; but that also shows the inertia in the Ministry of Defence. We heard from many personnel—either individually or as a Committee—at different ranks within the MOD. The matter was not something that was not known about, but it was not being tackled or recognised as a major problem for serving personnel.
Finally, and most tragically, we heard from many individuals who suffered severe long-term effects from taking Lariam. Long after leaving the military, they are still suffering such things as mental trauma, vivid dreams and suicide ideation. That is totally unacceptable. We sought to establish what support was on offer for them from the MOD as it became clear that arrangements were somewhat fragmented. We recommended the establishment of a single point of contact, which we felt was particularly important for veterans, some of whom have experienced mental health problems for years.
Having seen what happened in the previous debate, when the vice-chair of the Committee could not be called to speak owing to time restrictions, I shall now leave it to my colleagues to expand further on the report and evidence. We look forward to hearing from the Minister that further progress has been made.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
I, too, want to thank the Defence Committee Clerks, who did a terrific job. We were presented with a wide range of evidence, some of which was reasonably scientific, and we certainly needed their help. I also pay tribute to our many witnesses, one of whom flew in from America to give us evidence.
The report has been an important one for the Committee. In the first 18 months following the 2015 general election we have produced three reports on the duty of care and how we look after people. It is an interesting time in politics, and there are diverse views on defence on either side of the party divide and in the SNP; that is great, but we have a duty to hold the Government to account. That is where Select Committees can come into their own, and we have had some success. The report speaks to the soft side of looking after people and why it is important.
Having served and so on, I know that the interesting side of the military is going on operations and all the things that come with that—shiny stuff, bombs and all the rest of it—but what we fail to get in this country is the importance to combat power of looking after people. I certainly would not hold the United States up as a bastion of getting everything right, but we have seen its forces go through a process so that they understand the whole force concept. They do not just talk about it doctrinally or write about it at staff college. They actually impose a whole force concept whereby looking after families, housing, accommodation, health, wellbeing and so on contributes to fighting power. The US has seen those rewards. We are slow to that game, but we are beginning to get there and we are making real strides, particularly under the current Minister.
In the challenging time we are going through with Brexit, which absolutely presents opportunities as well, it is important that we do not drop the ball on defence issues. As everyone will recognise, we have come out of a particularly tense time on operations. We must maintain our focus, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces alluded to in the previous debate. People read and watch what happens in this place, and it means something to them, so I am pleased that we are having this debate.
Lariam can be quite a complex issue, but it comes down to one clear thing. There is a drug that is clearly very effective at fighting malaria, which is a killer—we should not lose sight of the fact that malaria still kills a lot of people worldwide—but any manufacturer will say that the drug should be used within the guidelines. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, we did not use it within those guidelines, and people were affected.
The matter can be viewed as being a bit niche. When I first brought it to the attention of the Ministry of Defence in August last year, I was treated as though it were a personal campaign of mine. I have never taken the stuff, so I have never experienced any of the effects at all, but the issue is not niche to those who have been affected. We are now doing so much better in this place when it comes to the problems caused by Lariam, as we are on other mental health matters. However, it is simply not good enough to understand it just because it happens to us, our family or someone close to us. We have to take these things seriously, and we must take responsibility.
Douglas Chapman
The hon. and gallant Gentleman has been identified as being closer to the issue than most. Do his former colleagues in the services believe that things have improved or changed? Is there any evidence of more support being given to our armed forces who have been subjected to the drug over many years, and are there signs of improvement in the support they get?
Johnny Mercer
It would be hard for me to say, at the moment, whether there has been a shift. From the information I have been receiving, I understand that work has been done and it will take a little while to get the granular picture of that support. We have been given assurances that the report has changed things for people who are suffering.
We have to be mature and accept that, as an employer and a Government, we have asked young men and women to take medication to protect them from a disease in areas where we are asking them to operate, and we have not done so correctly. I welcome the fact that the report realises that. It is not in keeping with how we normally look after people. I know that, having served, I have come to this place on a bit of a mission, and that I get slightly carried away, as I did the other night, about how we look after people. However, one of the strengths of the military, including the Army, is that we do look after people. That pastoral care very much contributes to what we do, but the way in which we have looked after those who have taken this drug has been out of keeping with that.
Bob Stewart
I thank my very good friend for giving way. I am slightly concerned by the third condition for prescribing Lariam, whereby the danger of the drug is explained to the soldier, sailor, airman or airwoman, and then the decision is down to them. In my experience, a lot of soldiers will say, “For goodness’ sake, tell me whether I should take it or not. Why do you give me that decision?” That condition worries me, because I think that most soldiers will say, “You tell me what I should take. I am not the judge of that.”
Johnny Mercer
I thank my hon. Friend, loosely speaking, for raising that point. He gets to the crux of the problem. Essentially in the military, we go on medical advice. None of us are scientists or doctors. If we get into the real detail of the issue, it is on that point that we get to the nub of what has gone wrong.
Mrs Moon
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problem was that there was no medical advice? Often, a sergeant major would just walk down the ranks, saying, “Take these.” There was no assessment—nothing. It was just, “This is what we have in the stores. You take it.” There were no warnings about the side effects or about reporting them. That was, and remains, the failure.
Johnny Mercer
I absolutely agree that the single point of failure was that we had a drug that, like any drug—even paracetamol or Anadin—should be used within the guidelines set down by the manufacturer, but instead of people being given it carefully, in a medical fashion, with individual risk assessments as stipulated by Roche, Lariam was just handed out on parade. Clearly, that is not the way to do business. The hon. Lady is right. I am glad that we have identified that practice, and I believe that we have put a stop to it. That is a good thing to have come out of the report.
We now need to ensure that we look after those who come forward. There are conversations about compensation and things like that—I understand that that is the way of the world—but that is never the intent behind inquiries such as this. I am interested in looking after those who are going through the process. We must get those who come forward some sort of treatment. We must provide some point of contact that is not just known by me, other MPs and those within Main Building. Everybody should know where they can go to get help if they feel they have been affected, and we need to show them a clear pathway.
Ultimately, we need to pay people an interest and accept that something has gone wrong. There is a slight issue within the Department—I know that everybody, including the Minister, knows this—with accepting evidence of a problem. If I have seen that in my experience as a lowly Member of Parliament, I can only imagine what it is like for families who have an issue with the Ministry of Defence to come forward. I bring that point to people’s attention and ask that we never ignore evidence of problems. We all know what soldiers are like. They are fantastic people, although if they are not moaning, something is not right, but we need to be slightly smarter and understand what they are saying so that we can identify problems before they become as big a problem as Lariam.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I am loth to interrupt the hon. Gentleman when he is in such impressive flow, but I would suggest that the chain of command is a problem. Although soldiers may moan to one another—the hon. Gentleman will have more experience of that than I do—they are unlikely, at any point, to want to challenge. When soldiers are brave enough to say that there is a problem, that should be our priority and we should listen to them.
Johnny Mercer
The hon. Lady is right. That is a generic function of leadership, not one that is particular to this cause. Having that intimate relationship with our soldiers, or with those under our command, is something we work hard on at a junior level. At a senior level, it is desired. Whether the time is taken to do that is another matter. Across the military, we need to foster an environment where it is okay for a conversation to go both ways so that we can get on top of such problems.
I know that more Members want to speak, so I will finish soon. We need to change our view on having a softer side in the Ministry of Defence and understand how important it is to look after people. Whether we reconfigure what we do, or look into having a Minister for defence people or whatever as a No. 2 in the MOD, we need to bump that change up the priority list. I thank the Defence Committee and its Chair for letting us look into the issue. People talk about Parliament being so remote—that essentially, we just turn oxygen into carbon dioxide and no one really cares—but I hope that the people who have been affected by the issue see that Parliament does work for them and can take some comfort from that.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
It is a great privilege to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate the Defence Committee, under the excellent chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), and all previous speakers in this debate.
I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases and as a trustee of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. I have a large MOD base in my constituency, MOD Stafford, which has three signals regiments and the RAF’s tactical supply wing. Many members of those units spend quite a lot of time on deployment in countries where malaria is a problem.
Malaria, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) said, is a killer. It used to kill well over 1 million people a year, but thankfully that figure is now down to 438,000 a year, according to the World Health Organisation in 2015. I hope the figure is still falling, but it is an awful lot of people. I have had friends die from malaria, which is a serious disease.
It is absolutely right that the Ministry of Defence should take every precaution to protect its personnel from the depredations of malaria, but the question, of course, is how to do it. I had experience of Lariam when I lived in a tropical country. I took it when I was diagnosed with malaria—I took it not as a prophylactic but as a curative—and they were four of the worst days of my life, and not because of the malaria. Lariam produces extraordinary dreams that leave those who take it completely debilitated. The next time I had malaria—I have had malaria four times—I took a different drug, artemether, and the experience was quite different. Within 12 hours I was back on my feet, back at work and able to continue. The side effects were almost zero.
We are talking about Lariam as prophylaxis, but several alternatives are mentioned in the report. There is Malarone, which for many years was quite expensive, but it is a lot cheaper now that it is off patent—that is the one I use whenever I go to tropical countries. There is doxycycline, which is effective and cheap, and of course chloroquine and proguanil, which have been used for decades. Those two drugs have some side effects, particularly proguanil, which can cause mouth ulcers if taken over an extended period—proguanil is also an ingredient of Malarone.
On the curative side there is Lariam, but artemisinin-based combination therapies are also incredibly effective and are the recommended curative drugs for malaria across the world—I will talk about those in my conclusion.
The Committee’s recommendations for using Lariam are spot on. First, the MOD should find out whether service personnel are unable to tolerate alternatives. Secondly, individual risk assessments should be conducted and, thirdly, the patient should be aware of alternatives. I am delighted that the Committee has come up with those recommendations, which are all absolutely right, but they need to be put into effect. I am delighted to hear that the Ministry of Defence has taken the report seriously.
I finish by issuing a warning. We think that we have come a long way with both prophylactic and curative drugs against malaria, and that is indeed the case. All the research funding over the past decade and a half has partially resulted in halving the number of deaths, although a substantial part of that is also due to the use of mosquito nets. Has the Committee looked at how many service personnel are provided with insecticide-treated mosquito nets? A recent study by Oxford University found that almost two thirds of the reduction in deaths from malaria since 2000 is the result of insecticide-treated bed nets, not the improved drugs.
Be that as it may, it is vital that research into improved drugs continues because, unfortunately, we are beginning to see resistance to the artemisinin-based combination therapies—ACTs are the best drugs available at the moment—in south-east Asia, particularly on the Myanmar-Thai border. The worry is that resistance to all the previous effective antimalarials, first chloroquine and then sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, started in that same area. The fact that resistance to ACTs is starting there gives us great cause for concern. The Department for International Development is putting a lot of effort into research on that subject, which I welcome, but it is important that we continue to focus research on antimalarials both as prophylaxis and as curative.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I thank my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Defence Committee for their excellent work, which I hope results in better treatment for our servicemen and women across the world.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
It is right that the first three speakers in this debate should be the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who has campaigned on this subject for probably the longest time; my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), who is an outstanding campaigner on behalf of anything to do with the welfare of veterans and current service personnel; and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), whose unparalleled experience of malaria—experience of an unfortunately all too personal nature as well as professional experience—we have just listened to with great attention.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford asked whether the Committee had considered the question of mosquito nets impregnated with insecticide, and the answer is no. We were focused entirely on Lariam and our concern that it was being prescribed inappropriately. We said that the prescription of a drug known to have what were described as “neuro-psychiatric side effects” and to cause “vestibular disorders” without face-to-face interviews showed a lamentable weakness in the MOD’s duty of care towards service personnel. We are grateful that the Minister, who has an outstanding record of military service, made an apology to present and former service personnel when he appeared before the Committee on behalf of the MOD in relation to those who believe that they were prescribed this drug without the necessary individual risk assessments.
This is a slightly unusual case because, for once, nobody is pointing a finger of accusation at the drug manufacturer. Roche appears to have behaved responsibly in this matter from the outset. It always gave the clearest possible instructions that this particular drug, though it could be effective in some cases, could have dangerous side effects and therefore absolutely should not be prescribed without a face-to-face assessment of each individual first. It was good to receive a letter from the manufacturer, despite the Committee’s report being so critical of the drug itself and despite the adverse publicity that the drug inevitably received, stating:
“Your report has made a major contribution to highlighting the correct use of Lariam in the armed forces.”
That shows the strength of the arguments in the report and reinforces the importance of the MOD following Roche’s guidelines for use.
The hon. Member for Bridgend mentioned several of the people who gave evidence to the Committee. I would like to mention Mrs Ellen Duncan, who gave evidence on behalf of her husband, Major-General Alastair Duncan. Alastair Duncan was awarded the Distinguished Service Order while in command of the First Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire, or 1 PWO. In May 1993, he took the battalion to Bosnia-Herzegovina under the UN mandate during the Balkans conflict. The Daily Telegraph described what he did in the following terms:
“The hostilities had escalated into a three-cornered fight between the Bosnian-Serbs, the Bosnian-Croats and the Muslims. In this dangerous environment, at great risk to himself, Duncan sought out the commanders of the belligerents in an attempt to broker a truce. In June, he was instrumental in the rescue of 200 Croats who had sought sanctuary from a violent attack in a monastery at Guca Gora. The citation for the award to Duncan of the DSO paid tribute to his courage, resolution and inspired leadership which, it stated, had saved many lives and had helped 1 PWO to win an outstanding reputation.”
He was subsequently awarded the CBE for his work in Sierra Leone.
Major-General Duncan suffered from post-traumatic stress as a result of all that he had seen and done, but his wife was absolutely convinced that taking Lariam destroyed his mental stability. He was sectioned many times. Our report was published on 24 May 2016, and I was truly saddened to read in The Daily Telegraph that he had died on 24 July 2016. He was a year younger than I am. It is a case of someone at the highest end of the Army whose life was wrecked by the inappropriate prescription of the drug.
I will touch briefly on a number of the Committee’s recommendations and the Government’s response. As we have heard, the Committee recommended
“a single point of contact for all current and former Service personnel who have concerns about their experience of Lariam”,
and the Government announced that that would be done. I would like an update on that, as I have heard suggestions that the advice people get when they ring the relevant number is very basic indeed, even on a par with “Go and visit your GP.” If that is all they are getting, we still have some way to go on that recommendation. We also said that people should be offered an alternative to Lariam if they are concerned about the risks, that this should be explained to them and that a box should be ticked to show that it has. I believe that that is now happening.
One part of the Government’s response was strange. They have alleged that they need to keep Lariam on the books because there are certain geographical areas where no other drug will work. The report disputed the Government’s assertion that geography was a valid factor. We therefore asked the Ministry of Defence to set out which geographical areas, if any, it believed to be resistant to each antimalarial drug it uses, and give us any accompanying evidence to support that view.
The Government’s response was:
“The MOD relies on authoritative external advice on the global distribution of antimalarial resistance.”
They provided us with a link to guidance from Public Health England. That guidance, which is 109 pages long, includes a table where areas of malaria risk are listed alongside the recommended antimalarial drug for that area. The table shows a dozen countries or areas for which only chloroquine is recommended, but by contrast, we could see no instances where Lariam was the only recommended antimalarial drug in any single area. [Interruption.] I am interested to see my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford assent.
The report questioned the feasibility of providing face-to-face individual risk assessments before prescribing Lariam in the event of a significant deployment, so we asked the MOD to set out how it would be able to do so, alongside an estimation of how much time it would take to conduct face-to-face individual risk assessments at both company and battalion level. I will not go into all the details of the MOD’s response, but I found one aspect worrying. The MOD acknowledged that if the operational imperative meant that the timing of a deployment did not allow for specific face-to-face interviews,
“an appropriately trained and regulated healthcare professional will review individual electronic health records and confirm that there are no contraindications to the recommended anti-malaria drug. It is estimated that this will take up to five minutes per individual, or approximately eight hours for a company, or approximately 50 hours for a battalion.”
Can the Minister explain—or, if not, write to us—exactly what that means? Is it predicated on the fact that people will have had a face-to-face individual assessment at an earlier stage in their career? In that case, there might be some argument for it, but if it is meant to be a substitute for individual face-to-face assessments, I am sure the Chamber will agree that that would be wholly unacceptable.
Ruth Smeeth
Is not one of the problems with Lariam that if someone has had a mental illness before, they may be more vulnerable? A lot of servicemen and women would feel uncomfortable admitting that, would be unlikely to have told anyone within their chain of command and may well not have sought guidance, so the idea that the medication could be used even with those measures is almost impossible.
Dr Lewis
That is probably the single strongest point that one could make in the course of this entire debate. Particularly in the macho military environment—I use that term in a non-sexist way—people are unlikely to disclose mental troubles in their past, meaning that either they may take a drug that is inappropriate for them or they may throw it away, rendering themselves vulnerable to contracting malaria.
Jeremy Lefroy
Did the Committee have any idea why there is such a particular emphasis on Lariam when other drugs are available, such as doxycycline or Malarone, that many of us take whenever we go to countries affected? The emphasis on Lariam seems to me extraordinary. I absolutely applaud my right hon. Friend’s point about the importance of encouraging Roche to continue its research in this area; we do not want it put off. Roche has been excellent in its clarity about what Lariam is about and what precautions need to be taken.
Dr Lewis
Other Committee members may correct me, but I have a feeling that we never quite got to the bottom of why the MOD is so fixated on that particular drug. What I am about to say is sheer speculation, but it could have something to do with the relative cost of different types of drug, or with concern about compensation claims. If the drug were given up completely, it might be easier to bring claims on that basis: “You don’t prescribe this drug at all now, so therefore you were wrong ever to have prescribed it.”
We sought to give the MOD a bit of wriggle room, for want of a better term, by saying that all we wanted it to do was designate Lariam as a drug of last resort. I do not see why it should not do that. It is obviously a drug of last resort, because the MOD accepts the fact that it should now be issued only under the most strictly defined conditions. What is that if not making it a drug of last resort? So why does the MOD not say so?
Similarly, there has been reluctance to acknowledge the experience of other countries. The MOD asserted that Lariam was
“considered by US CDC”—
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is the US equivalent of Public Health England—
“to be equally suitable (with an individual clinical assessment) as each of the other drugs”.
However, Dr Remington Nevin—one of the two doctors to whom we owe a great deal of gratitude for their consistent campaigning on this issue and for the evidence they brought to the Committee—described that as a “misinterpretation of CDC’s position”. The section entitled “Special Considerations for US Military Deployments” in chapter 8 of the CDC’s publication “Yellow Book” states:
“The military should be considered a special population with demographics, destinations, and needs that may differ from those of civilian travelers.”
In respect of the use of Lariam in other states’ armed forces, Dr Nevin argued that
“many of our Western allies have all but abandoned the use of the drug”,
and that the US and Australian military use it only for
“those rare service members who cannot tolerate…two safer and equally effective alternatives”.
That is why we made the point that Lariam should really be used only for such people, because we are not convinced that there is any geographical area where some other drug could not be used.
Dr Nevin also referred to the US Army Special Operations Command having taken the
“very wise step of banning it altogether”.
He said that the decision by the US military was made
“primarily on clinical grounds”
and was intended to
“decrease the risk of negative drug-related side-effects”.
The MOD’s response commits merely to updating the information held on the use by our allies of Lariam and other antimalarial drugs, including the extent to which Lariam is used and the circumstances in which it is supplied. It still does not appear to accept that its policy on Lariam is increasingly out of step with that of our allies.
We have made considerable progress by focusing on the terrible situation in which a drug designed for very specific issuing to very specific people after a very specific interview was doled out en masse as a routine prophylactic to our service personnel who were about to go to malaria-infested areas. That really was a scandal, and it would be another scandal if it ever happened again.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)
Order. May I ask for brevity in the remaining speeches? I shall call the shadow Minister to speak next, because he has to leave a little early; I know that that is not regular, but we do not want Fabian to miss his train.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I thank Members for bearing with me; I know they will all get the chance to say their piece. I apologise to the Minister for having to leave. I have had to stand in at the last minute for my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who has been taken ill, and I need to catch a particular train to get back to my party meeting this evening.
Like my friend—I hope he does not mind my calling him that—the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), with whom I served on the International Development Committee for three years, I feel a personal connection to the subject of Lariam. Unlike him I have never had malaria, but had I contracted it I would no longer be standing here, because it is fatal to patients who have no spleen—mine was removed some 20 years ago. I really feel very concerned about malarial areas. The hon. Gentleman knows how difficult it is for people who do not have a spleen to go to them because of the risks involved. Even the prophylaxes that he mentioned are not 100% effective, so even places where there is a tiny risk of contracting malaria are too dangerous. The Foreign Office advises all its asplenic personnel not to visit those areas at all. His personal experience has informed us greatly about the effects of Lariam, and the fact that he has taken it himself and knows exactly what its side effects can be has brought the issue to life for many of us.
I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), because she has pursued and pursued this. I am so glad that the Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), and the rest of the Committee agreed that the issue of Lariam was so important and wrote this splendid and well written report with all the evidence that they accumulated. I congratulate them and their staff on it.
I feel huge sympathy with the 25% to 35% of Army personnel who have been affected by taking Lariam. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend mentioned that geographical location was a consideration when prescribing Lariam, and the hon. Member for Stafford underlined that with his point about the resistance that is now growing in south-east Asia. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend also said something very important that is contained in the report: military deployment is very different from tourism. While it is unpleasant to suffer the side effects as a tourist, it is dangerous if not worse for military personnel who suffer them on military duties.
The biggest scandal of all that has been revealed in the contributions to this debate, many from former serving personnel such as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), is that there seems to have been no duty of care from the Army. The right hon. Member for New Forest East said that just five minutes’ assessment may be sufficient to ensure that individual Army personnel have the right prescription and are not forced to take Lariam when it is wholly inappropriate for their needs.
Dr Julian Lewis
May I correct that? I did not say that five minutes was sufficient. I said that the MOD was saying that.
Fabian Hamilton
My apologies for that. I obviously did not write my notes correctly. I am sorry if I misquoted the right hon. Gentleman.
As we discussed in the previous debate, we have a duty to ensure that people who put their lives on the line for the defence of this country, like hon. Members in this Chamber who have done so, do so in the knowledge that those who ask them to do it and who send them to dangerous places are looking after their interests.
We know that Lariam is the brand name of mefloquine and that it is used to treat malaria. It is most commonly administered as a prophylaxis, but the history of side effects, the evidence we have received and the evidence in the Defence Committee’s report make it clear that it is not necessarily the most appropriate prophylactic medication. I am glad we have made it clear that we do not blame the manufacturer, Roche, for the misuse of its drug. It is clearly an issue for the Army itself and we want the Army to get it right. That is why the Committee’s report was written in the first place. I myself have taken chloroquine and proguanil; I suffered some side effects, but nothing like those that have been recorded for Lariam.
We know that many countries’ military forces have used Lariam in the past, but that it is becoming increasingly uncommon because of its side effects. Some 17,000 British military personnel were prescribed Lariam between April 2007 and March 2015, and the reports of those side effects meant that many of them have discarded their Lariam tablets instead of using them. That makes them far more susceptible to malaria, which is extremely dangerous—as the hon. Member for Stafford said, it has killed 438,000 people in the last 12 months.
The summary of the Defence Committee report says:
“The evidence we received highlighted some severe examples of the possible side-effects of Lariam in a military setting. While they may be in the minority, we do not believe that the risk and severity of these side-effects are acceptable for our military personnel on operations overseas.”
When the Minister responds to the debate—I apologise that I will not be present to hear him—will he care to tell us about the handing out of Lariam to military personnel in future in the light of the report and the evidence contained within it?
In preparing for this debate, I sought the advice of a specialist—he has asked not to be named—who works at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. His view was quite interesting. He made the point that Lariam is a cheaper medication than some antimalarials, and that it is very effective. That could be one reason why the MOD is maintaining its support for Lariam in the face of media controversy, the Defence Committee report and, of course, resistance from many military personnel. The specialist said that it is a good drug. He even gave it to his spouse when they went to west Africa a few years ago. He reported that she had had the most vivid and crazy dreams. Like most drugs, it is not good for some people, but it is good for others.
One thing in favour of Lariam is that it is administered once a week. Many other antimalarials are administered once a day. For someone in a military setting who is in a conflict situation, or who has been deployed in a remote area, it being a once-a-week drug will have a huge benefit for those administering it and those having to take it. A once-a-week dosage also increases the chances of compliance and of people actually taking the medication when they need to take it.
The specialist I mentioned noted that the number of tests on the effects of Lariam on Army personnel were small and were not done in an adequately controlled situation. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend would agree with that, given the evidence taken by the Select Committee, but there needs to be far more testing. There needs to be a much greater database of evidence to prove conclusively that so many people will not tolerate Lariam and that it should perhaps be replaced by other drugs, depending on geolocation and the individual assessment of military personnel.
Mrs Moon
Is my hon. Friend aware that there have been episodes in which serving personnel have murdered individuals, and in which they have deliberately carried out inappropriate acts, all because they were under the influence of Lariam? That is part of the record that the Committee looked at.
Fabian Hamilton
Yes, I was aware of that, but I am not aware of the details. I have heard anecdotal evidence, but it is important to hear about the actual cases and evidence.
I know that other Members wish to speak, and of course the Minister must respond, so I shall conclude. Paragraph 97 in the conclusion of the Defence Committee report states:
“The Ministry of Defence has a duty of care to protect military personnel on operations overseas. It includes ensuring that they are adequately inoculated against disease. This will never be without the risk of detrimental side-effects, and we understand that the MoD must balance those risks against the health of our Armed Forces. However, in the case of malaria, we conclude that the MoD’s current policy has got that balance wrong.”
I hope the Minister addresses that point in his response.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I shall be as brief as I can.
I have a couple of brief reflections of my own and from a constituent. I took Lariam prophylactically when I worked as a teacher in Malawi, and I certainly experienced what I later realised were its various side effects, including vivid dreams and a certain amount of paranoia. It was difficult to tell, though, because I had moved to a new context and was working in a stressful environment. It was not until some time afterwards that I started to realise that those side effects were the result of the Lariam kicking in. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) was absolutely right to ask at the outset how much more difficult it must be for troops and service personnel, who are put into extremely pressurised situations, to try to deal with the consequences and side effects of these medicines.
I have heard from several individuals who have taken Lariam as part of their service. My colleague Feargal Dalton, a councillor for part of my area who also happens to be the husband of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), was a serviceman who served on Trident submarines and elsewhere. He described similar side effects which, fortunately for him, did not last after he stopped taking it. The point he made was that the drugs were prescribed and had to be taken under orders. If someone was to stop taking them, even if they were having side effects and making the person ill, they could be subject to military discipline. Many service personnel were put in a very difficult situation.
I was contacted by a constituent who was given Lariam while he was in Kenya for six weeks in the mid-’90s. Twenty years later, he continues to suffer from severe headaches and migraines, which are attributed to side effects of the drug. He has been given no compensation. He has also been told that the side effects are actually the result of post-traumatic stress disorder, but he has not been given any compensation for that either. The problems he faces are making it difficult for him to access work and, when he does, to maintain steady work. He has been told that his condition is not severe enough for him to be admitted to a treatment centre, despite his having approached various different charities. I wrote to the Secretary of State for Defence on 21 September but have not yet had a reply. I hope this debate will help to speed up the process.
There is clearly consensus in this debate. Lord Dannatt, who was quoted earlier, said:
“It is extraordinary that the MoD continues with this policy given the mounting evidence as to the harmful effects of Lariam.”
The Government have a duty of care to those who, like my constituent, have served in the armed forces. I call on the Government to implement the recommendations in the report and to provide the support needed by my constituent and many like him.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Rosindell. I am aware that we are now very short of time, so I shall look for your guidance on when you want me to stop speaking so that the Minister can respond.
I thank the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) for opening the debate so thoughtfully, and the Defence Committee for its work. I endorse its recommendation that Lariam be retained for use by the Defence Medical Services, but it should be a drug of last resort, subject to the clear recommendations set out by the Committee. I would go further and suggest that those who are prescribed Lariam should be counselled about the potential side effects and the need to report them up the chain of command.
Once I had reviewed the Select Committee’s report, I was left wondering whether the level of debate and conflict on this issue was actually necessary—I shall try to return to that point at the end. I noticed from the departmental memorandum submitted to the Committee that the Ministry of Defence policy on preventing malaria is contained in a joint services leaflet called “Preventing Malaria in Military Populations”. I understand that the leaflet was made available to the Committee, but when I looked on the Government website, it was not there—it was released under a freedom of information request in 2013, so I was able to see it that way. The covering letter attached states that, in the interests of transparency, it should be published online. Had that happened and we had been able to see it, it would have been useful to a number of people. The sole reference in the leaflet to the use of Lariam and other antimalarial drugs is the statement:
“In the UK Armed Forces…policy is based on the guidelines at Footnote 1”,
which helpfully read:
“British National Formulary (BNF). BMJ Group and Pharmaceutical Press Extant Version”.
As we have heard from several Members in the debate, information on the use of Lariam is sorely lacking. The only direct reference to it in the guidance was regarding its use by divers and aircrew, who are not to use it. There is considerably less information than I would have expected from a document that is described to Members of this House as the Government’s policy on the use of antimalarial drugs. It is exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman) said.
Had the information been freely available, we would have seen a description of the briefing that is given to personnel receiving antimalarial drugs without an individual consultation. The only definitive items that have to be included in that consultation are dosage and frequency, and when to start and finish taking the drug. If that is the situation, advice levels clearly fall far short of what we would expect, as the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said. There was simply no indication that Lariam should be regarded as any different from other antimalarial drugs.
Will the Minister address whether the document was published online? Will he tell us more about the advice the Government are seeking from Public Health England’s Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention? Will he commit to a wider consultation on the version of the guidance that is currently being prepared? I also wonder whether he will commit to review the procedures for sharing and consulting on policy documents, which are so vital to the welfare of our armed services personnel, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) told us.
The Government response looks too much like business as usual. The Committee’s report outlined the three stages when a risk assessment should be carried out: on completion of initial training; on being posted to a deployable role; and on receiving warning of possible deployment. Will the Minister clarify how the assessments will be made? Are they additional assessments, in which case how do we know what resources are needed to deliver them and are those resources in place?
As we heard from the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), the evidence provided by the Department in its response to the Committee reveals a significant difference in the nature of the side effects caused by Lariam and those caused by alternative drugs. We have heard significant detail about that difference today. As the right hon. Member for New Forest East said, the evidence that Lariam has such a clear link with adverse psychoactive effects suggests that the Committee’s recommendations about the use of the drug should be clearly heard by the Government, and it should simply be a drug of last resort.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mark Lancaster)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell.
We seem to have had something of a flurry of detailed questions towards the end of the debate, giving me little opportunity to address many of them in the nine minutes I have to respond to the debate. I will do my best, but at the start I simply commit to writing to any hon. Member whose question I do not manage to answer during that time.
Of course, I begin by taking this opportunity to thank the Defence Committee for its very thorough report on the use of mefloquine by service personnel, and I also thank the hon. Members who have spoken today, from the opening contribution by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) onwards. I will address many of the points that were made as I go through, but on a specific point that she made, I absolutely regret the publication of the statistics on the day of the Committee hearing. However, she may not be aware that it is absolutely right that Ministers have no control over the collection or publication of statistics; it would be wrong if we did. So it was genuinely an unfortunate coincidence, and it would have been even worse if the statistics had been published the day afterwards.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) for his passionate contribution, not least because every time he speaks in this House he seems to suggest that I should be promoted—so I thank him very much indeed. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who gave an incredibly incisive personal account; it really was very powerful. Of course, I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who asked a number of questions, which I will endeavour to answer during my response to the debate.
We had other good contributions from the hon. Members for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), who has had to leave us, for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald). I will endeavour to address all the points that they made in due course.
The Government have considered our conclusions carefully, and I will outline the positive steps that the Ministry of Defence is taking to address the Committee’s recommendations. Before I do so, I want to nail one issue that floated around towards the end of the debate—that Lariam is somehow the MOD’s drug of first choice, and that cost is a factor in its use. According to the “British National Formulary” of March 2015, Lariam, at £14.53 for an eight-week supply, is more expensive than Paludrine/Avloclor, less expensive than Malarone but more expensive than doxycycline. So cost is not a factor, and we would never prescribe on the basis of cost alone.
Equally, mefloquine currently constitutes only 1.2% of all the antimalarial tablets held by the MOD, and in terms of doses for a six-month deployment—of course, doses for different drugs are given at different rates—it accounts for just 14% of the stock. So 86% of our stock is not Lariam. That hardly represents a reliance on Lariam or evidence that it is being used as a drug of first choice.
Mark Lancaster
Those figures give the current status, but I believe that the figures for the last eight years, which is as far as we go back, are similar. However, I am happy to write to the hon. Lady to give the exact figures. Of course, much of this debate is about how we move forward, as opposed to what we have done in the past, and I hope to demonstrate in my response over the next five and a half minutes that the steps we are taking are very positive.
It is important for me to state that we take the health and wellbeing of our personnel extremely seriously and acknowledge the duty of care to provide the best possible support to them. Malaria is a deadly disease, and we must protect our deployed personnel from it. The most effective way to do so is through the use of antimalarial drugs. However, as we have established, no antimalarial drug is 100% effective and risk-free. Indeed, all medications have the potential to cause side effects and adverse reactions in a small number of people. That is why the MOD needs to use a range of prevention drugs to protect our personnel and ensure that the treatment provided is the most effective for each individual. I should emphasise that despite tens of thousands of service personnel deploying to malaria-risk areas, no serviceman or woman has died from malaria resulting from an operational deployment since 1992, and cases of severe malaria are rare in the armed forces.
I turn to the two main recommendations of the Committee’s report. The first was that the MOD works with the Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention to develop guidelines on mefloquine and other antimalarials, specifically regarding their use by military personnel. The MOD has always kept its malaria prevention policy under constant review, and I can confirm that a recently revised malaria prevention policy has been passed to the ACMP for its consideration.
The revised policy is based on three elements. In the first instance, at around the time when individuals complete initial training they will undergo a face-to-face consultation with a medical professional, to identify any adverse reactions to the five most commonly used antimalarial drugs. Secondly, after posting into a deployable role, armed forces personnel will undertake a generic face-to-face travel health risk assessment, again with a medical professional. Finally, once individuals are advised that they are likely to deploy, they will undertake a deployment-specific face-to-face travel health risk assessment.
The results of those assessments will be recorded in the patient’s electronic health record. Although the need for a risk assessment is not new—defence policy since 2004 has been clear on the requirement for such assessments—monitoring will now be better aided by an electronic records system. In answer to a question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East, perhaps I can say that if the actions that he described need to be taken, in extremis, before an emergency deployment, they will be based on those three thorough, face-to-face, comprehensive interviews, as recorded in the electronic record.
On that point, I reiterate what I said when I gave evidence to the Committee. I recognise that anecdotal evidence submitted to the Committee suggests that, in a small number of cases, some people believe that their individual risk assessments did not take place in the past. I hope that the new system will prevent that situation from recurring. I encourage anyone who has concerns about the issue to come forward, in confidence, as there are established processes by which current and former members of the armed forces can be referred to medical staff to have such concerns investigated.
That leads me to the second main recommendation of the Committee’s report, namely that the MOD should establish a single point of contact for those who are worried about their experience of mefloquine. I am pleased to report that the mefloquine single point of contact has been set up and publicised widely through the chain of command, veterans’ organisations, military publications and GPs. As I sat here listening to the debate, I googled the advice about that single point of contact, and there it was on the gov.uk website. It was launched last month and is easily accessible. It is a confidential service for people to make contact by phone and email, and it is supported by other information on the Government website, as I have just said. Depending on their circumstances, individuals are directed to a range of information and services available to help them. That includes how service personnel and veterans can find out whether they have been prescribed mefloquine in the past. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East has raised concerns about the quality of information being given on the helpline. I am more than happy to go and examine that, and I will write to the Committee with details as to exactly what advice is being given.
Again, I encourage anyone who is concerned about their experience of mefloquine and who has not yet gone to the single point of contact, including those who believe that their risk assessment did not take place, to contact the single point of contact or speak to their GP.
In addition to those two main recommendations, the MOD will conduct a prospective audit of returning travellers, to assess the impact of the new policy. That will be for any antimalarial drug that has been taken. The MOD will also continue to undertake post-deployment surveys, to enhance its understanding of compliance with the revised policy.
The Government informed the Committee that the MOD would undertake further research into the impact of the adverse effects of antimalarial drugs on the performance of military personnel. A research proposal is currently being considered by the MOD’s research ethics committee. The research will be in the form of a retrospective survey of soldiers deployed on exercise in Kenya who have been prescribed one of three antimalarial drugs. A questionnaire will seek information about risk assessments, individuals’ compliance with prescriptions, the incidence and prevalence of side effects of the drugs, and the impact of those side effects on functional effectiveness.
If there are any other questions, I will endeavour to write to hon. Members about them.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Fourth Report from the Defence Committee of Session 2015-16, An acceptable risk? The use of Lariam for military personnel, HC 567, and the Government response, HC 648.
Written Statements
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
ECOFIN
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
A meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) was 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 discussed the following items:
Opening session
Ministers were briefed on the outcomes of the 10 October meeting of the Eurogroup and the Commission presented an update on the current economic situation. Ministers also discussed issues relating to the improvement and implementation of the stability and growth pact and Commission proposals for a European fund for sustainable development.
Current financial services legislative proposals
The Council presidency provided an update on current legislative proposals in the field of financial services.
Fight against fraud
The Council presidency and Commission delivered 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 discussed the current state of play regarding implementation of banking union within the eurozone.
G20 and IMF meetings
Council followed up on the G20 and IMF meetings which took place in Washington on 6 to 9 October 2016. The presidency and Commission provided information on the outcomes including; continuing the work on resilience and sustainability, continuing the work on tax avoidance and tax evasion and considering issues around the digitalisation of financial services.
Climate finance
Ministers discussed preparations for the 22nd conference of parties to the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) (Marrakesh, 7 to 18 November 2016), and agreed draft European Council conclusions.
European semester 2016—lessons learnt
Ministers exchanged views on key challenges, lessons learnt and the way forward for the European semester.
Joint report on health systems and fiscal sustainability
A presentation was given by the Commission on the joint Commission-EPC report of the health systems and fiscal sustainability. This was followed by an exchange of views.
Other business—the Basel Committee’s banking reform agenda
The Commission provided an update on the state of play in ongoing Basel negotiations.
[HCWS222]
Technical and Further Education
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
We have today introduced the Technical and Further Education Bill.
My ambition is to drive long needed improvements in the quality of technical education in this country—mirroring the impact of this Government’s reforms to the quality of academic education. The reforms in this Bill are fundamental to the Government’s vision of ensuring that all people, irrespective of their background, have a level playing field to fulfil their potential and have high quality routes to secure not only their own futures but also the skills that British business needs.
Following implementation of the current Government programme of area reviews for the FE sector—which are designed to give institutions the opportunity to put themselves on a secure and sustainable financial footing—the Bill will also reflect the important principle of student protection, already set out in the Higher Education and Research Bill currently before Parliament, through the introduction of an effective insolvency regime for further education and sixth form colleges. The Bill we are introducing today ensures that, for the first time, suitable protections are available for students in further education, and this follows a public consultation, during July and August 2016, on introducing such a regime which saw broad support.
Beyond the measures in the Bill, this Government have a fundamental mission of social reform to deliver our vision of an education system that works for everyone. Education is at the heart of our ambition to make Britain a true meritocracy. That is why we have put responsibility for early years, schools, Further and Higher Education, adult skills and apprenticeships in one single Department. In light of these changes and the Department for Education’s existing two Bills in Parliament—the Children and Social Work Bill and the Higher Education and Research Bill—we have rightly reflected on our strategic priorities and the proposals for education legislation put forward at the time of the Queen’s Speech. I am clear that the Technical and Further Education Bill will enable us to get on with transforming technical education in this country while we continue to develop proposals for a school system that works for everyone.
The “Schools that work for everyone” consultation, which I announced in an oral statement to the House on 12 September, remains ongoing. This consultation asks how we can create more great school places in more parts of the country—including selective places for local areas that want them—and asks our independent schools, universities and faith schools to play their part in improving the quality of our state-funded schools. In addition, my Department has renewed its focus on ensuring everything we do drives towards improving social mobility with an emphasis on not just the most disadvantaged families but also on those that are just about managing. Our ambition remains that all schools should benefit from the freedom and autonomy that academy status brings. Our focus, however, is on building capacity in the system and encouraging schools to convert voluntarily. No changes to legislation are required for these purposes and therefore we do not require wider education legislation in this Session to make progress on our ambitious education agenda.
The Technical and Further Education Bill takes forward the Government’s ambition to streamline technical education to ensure clear routes into skilled employment. These reforms will put employers at the heart of the skills system, enabling them to drive the skills they need and value the most. Supporting individuals to a lifetime of sustained skilled employment will not only help to boost productivity and the growth of our economy in line with our industrial strategy but it will also deliver on the Government’s vision for an economy that works for all, not just the privileged few. The measures in the Bill build on the progress the Government have already made by investing in high quality apprenticeships and they deliver against the commitments the Government made in the Post-16 Skills Plan published earlier this year.
[HCWS223]
G6 Rome
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)
The informal G6 group of Interior Ministers held its most recent meeting in Rome on 20 and 21 October 2016. Representatives of the United States of America and the European Commission also attended the meeting.
The summit was chaired by the Italian Minister of the Interior, Angelino Alfano, and I represented the United Kingdom. The other participating states were represented by Jorge Fernandez Diaz (Spain), Tomasz Orlowski (Polish ambassador to Italy), Bernard Cazeneuve (France), and Thomas de Maizière (Germany). The USA was represented by Jeh Johnson (US Secretary of Homeland Security) and Loretta Lynch (US Attorney General). The European Commission was represented by Dimitris Avramopoulos (Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship) and Sir Julian King (Commissioner for the Security Union). Representatives from other organisations including UNHCR, the International Organisation for Migration, Interpol and Europol also attended.
The first session took place on 20 October. This consisted of a discussion on migration in the 21st century, focusing on effective upstream action in source and transit countries, particularly in Africa. The discussion also covered procedures to identify those in need of protection, how to deter economic migrants who do not need our protection and approaches to enhance co-operation with transit countries. There was a general consensus that upstream intervention was essential to addressing the issue of illegal migration to the EU but that this will take time and will involve concerted and continued efforts by the EU and all G6 States.
The meeting continued on Friday 21 October, with the next session on security and terrorism, focusing on efforts to counter radicalisation. The attendees agreed the need to learn from each other and the importance of working closely with communities to deter extremism. Participants noted that counter-radicalisation policies worked best when delivered in a “bottom up” way with full engagement from local communities in designing and developing the right strategies. The group reaffirmed the G6’s commitment to ensure that steps to improve security and counter terrorism are at the forefront of the EU’s political agenda.
The final session focused on cyber-security, which had been chosen as a discussion topic on the basis that, as technology progresses and cloud computing grows, cybercrime is perhaps the fastest growing criminal threat that we face. The attendees discussed how best to co-operate to address the problem and considered the implementation of the Budapest convention on cybercrime.
In my interventions, I outlined the large amount of work the UK is doing to address the current migratory pressures, including our upstream work, and reaffirmed our continuing commitment to help front-line member states manage the EU’s external borders. I also sought agreement from other member states that the EU’s approach to partnership frameworks with third countries must be comprehensive, and reiterated the three principles as set out in the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly: to ensure that refugees claim asylum in the first safe country they reach in the region; to improve the ways we and our partners distinguish between refugees fleeing persecution and economic migrants; and to agree a better overall approach to managing economic migration which recognises that all countries have the right to control their borders. During the session on security I shared UK’s experience of countering extremism and radicalisation and highlighted the work of the Prevent programme. At the final session on cybercrime I reiterated the UK’s support for increased international co-operation to address cybercrime, and highlighted the work of the UK’s new National Cyber Security Centre in tackling this threat.
The next G6 will take place in Poland and is likely to be held early in 2017.
[HCWS224]
Brussels IIa Regulation on Family Law
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
The Government have today decided to opt in to the European Commission’s proposal which repeals and replaces regulation 2201/2003, also known as the Brussels IIa regulation, on cross-border family matters.
Brussels IIa has applied since 1 March 2005 and is the main instrument for families involved in cross-border divorce or children proceedings. It establishes rules to decide which EU member state’s courts can determine divorce and other matrimonial matters, and parental responsibility matters (including residence and contact), and how orders arising from these cases can be recognised and enforced in another member state. It also provides rules on the return of children abducted to, or wrongfully retained in, other member states (usually by one parent), which supplement the international 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention.
Following an evaluation of the current regulation the Commission’s proposal aims to improve its use by providing clearer deadlines for certain procedures; making it easier for judgments to be recognised and enforced in another member state; clarifying and streamlining certain parts of cross-border child abduction proceedings; removing the possibility that a court will refuse to enforce a judgment on the basis that it would have applied different national rules to whether a child should have been heard in the proceedings; and clarifying and improving the procedures for co-operation between authorities.
Notwithstanding the result of the referendum on EU membership the Government consider it is in the UK’s interests to opt in to this proposal. First the UK already applies the current regulation to the benefit of UK citizens, including children, in cross-border families, and it wants to avoid the risk that, if the new regulation comes into force before the UK’s exit, and the UK has not opted in to the regulation, the existing regulation will no longer apply to the UK because it might be deemed inoperable. This might mean for a period of time no EU instrument regulates these matters for UK families even though the UK is still a member state. Secondly, even after a UK exit the regulation will affect UK citizens, principally in other member states, and it is in the UK’s interests to influence the negotiations. As a family justice measure, this proposal must be agreed by unanimity in the Council.
During the negotiations the Government will aim to make sure that what is agreed respects national competence, limits any impacts on domestic law and procedures and minimises any additional burdens on the courts and the authorities that will use the new regulation.
[HCWS225]
Social Fund Annual Report
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)
In the annual report of the social fund by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the social fund 2014-15, published in June 2015, in annex 9 on page 52 of the report the number of social fund appeals decided in the appellant’s favour was incorrectly reported by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) as follows:
Social fund (funeral payments): 380
Social fund (sure start maternity grants): 190
Total: 560
The percentage decided in the appellant’s favour was incorrectly reported as follows:
Social fund (funeral payments): 77%
Social fund (sure start maternity grant): 90%
Total: 81%
This was due to an error, which led to the figures for appeals decided in the Department’s favour being mistakenly given under this heading. The correct figures—rounded as in the report to the nearest 10—are:
Social fund (funeral payments): 110
Social fund (sure start maternity grants): 20
Total: 130
The correct percentage decided in the appellant’s favour are:
Social fund (funeral payments): 22%
Social fund (sure start maternity grant): 11%
Total 19%
I apologise for this inadvertent error.
Later today I will lay a correction slip to formally correct the record.
[HCWS221]
Grand Committee
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McFall of Alcluith) (Lab)
My Lords, welcome to Grand Committee.
Superfast Fibre Broadband
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Foster of Bath
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure the rollout of superfast fibre broadband to homes across the country.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity for this short debate and to other noble Lords who will participate. I hope to argue that we are in danger of overselling how well we are doing on broadband rollout and that as well as promoting more use of fibre we need to do more to stimulate demand.
I begin by declaring that I live in the wilds of rural Suffolk, in a home as yet untouched by superfast broadband. I am not alone in having broadband difficulties —eight days ago, the DCMS’s connectivity Minister, Matt Hancock, addressing the Broadband World Forum, said, “This Friday I appeared on our local news programme with positive stats about broadband in Suffolk, but at the time I was on my hands and knees under my desk trying to fix my wifi, and it stayed off all weekend”. I know the feeling.
Yet as the LGA has said, broadband is a vital element in our everyday lives, as we shop and pay our household bills online, access our bank accounts and stay in touch with distant friends and relatives. Excellent digital connectivity is also a major driver behind growth, jobs and the creative industries. Without high-quality broadband services, residents will be increasingly cut off from digital local and central government services, including major programmes such as universal credit. Fast broadband services are also essential for all rural businesses, enabling them to reach their full potential by competing online.
Of course, many homes and businesses are more fortunate than I am in rural Suffolk. Indeed, it is quite easy to paint a rosy picture about how far we have come with broadband rollout. In the UK, more than 99% of premises have access to basic broadband, at 2 megabits per second—that is the best in the G8. About 90% of premises have access to broadband speeds of over 30 megabits per second—that is the highest of the big five EU economies, 8% higher than our nearest rival, Germany. By the end of 2017, it is confidently predicted that 95% of premises will have access to superfast broadband, being defined as 24 megabits per second and above. It all sounds pretty impressive and the Government’s plans in the Digital Economy Bill for a universal service obligation, clamping down on poor service providers, and the introduction of an easier system of changing service providers, as well as completing the 4G mobile rollout, should help make the picture look even rosier.
However, if we look more closely, the picture is less rosy. Take, for instance, the language that is used: the Government define superfast as broadband with download speeds of 24 megabits per second and above. However, across Europe superfast means 30 megabits per second and above, and even our own regulator, Ofcom, uses this higher-value definition. As my noble friend Lord Fox will discuss, download speeds are one thing, but what about upload speeds, which are so important for businesses?
What exactly is meant by “access to”? Access to superfast broadband is one thing, but having superfast broadband operating in the business or home is another. For example, only 30% of premises that have access to BT’s Openreach superfast broadband are using it. That is partly due to BT investing in fibre to the cabinet, but often not using fibre for the onward connection to the premises. So there may be a superfast cabinet nearby, but the connection to it from the business or home is usually copper rather than the far more efficient fibre. The degradation along the copper wire means that the so-called accessible superfast speed is nowhere near that at the premises.
BT’s efforts, such as long reach VDSL, to get faster speeds along copper may help, but compared with many countries across Europe we score low on fibre to the premises deployment. No wonder the CMS committee in another place said in July:
“The UK is a laggard by international standards in providing fibre connectivity”.
It talked of a lack of ambition in terms of fibre to the premises. With faster connections from cabinet to the premises like those offered by Virgin, the take-up is 42% instead of 30%. With full fibre to the premises it is likely to be even higher.
Of course, I welcome the exciting fibre optic developments by, among others, CityFibre, Hyperoptic and even BT, but we need a strategic shift to encourage fibre to the premises solutions for homes and businesses. In his speech, Matt Hancock, said, “fibre is the future”, and I look forward to hearing the plan for its realisation. We also need concrete action to promote new mobile technologies to play a critical role in enhancing the UK’s connectivity such as in remote areas, in on-the-go uses like self-driving cars and even in broadcasting. The UK should lead the world in 5G and the Government need to seize the opportunity in the 5G strategy that they have promised to publish next year.
However, it is clear that, even when truly superfast broadband is available in their homes, in businesses and on the go, far too few choose to take up the opportunity—not least older and less affluent people, who make up a high proportion of the 30% of the population who are non- or limited users of the internet. Higher take-up means lower unit costs. More importantly, as the Tinder Foundation and others have pointed out, only when we have a very high take-up rate can we achieve the huge benefits to individuals, businesses and the nation that superfast broadband offers. To date, the Government’s strategy has been to concentrate almost exclusively on encouraging, and partly financing, the development of superfast broadband structures. But a connected Britain is not just about the availability of superfast broadband. Driving take-up is just as important, and there has been a lamentable failure to address demand management. As a result, digital inclusion has already become a huge missed opportunity. Far more should have been done and now needs to be done to drive up demand through skills training, through marketing the benefits, by addressing barriers such as cost and by developing quality technology and content.
Of course I welcome the work being done by many others, such as BT, local councils, the BBC—through its Make It Digital programmes and apprenticeship schemes—and Barclays. But we need more, not least because the lack of digital skills is becoming a real constraint to economic growth. Indeed, 90% of all new jobs require digital skills, yet nearly three-quarters of large UK companies already say that they are suffering from gaps in digital skills. The recent government announcement on digital skills is welcome, but it is not a silver bullet and it does not go far enough. Without intervention beyond what is currently scoped, it is estimated that there will still be 7.9 million adults without basic digital skills in 2025. We need nothing short of a digital skills revolution.
Far more needs to be done to explain the benefits of getting online. The digital TV switchover was a great success, helped enormously by a brilliant marketing campaign. We need something similar to drive online take-up. The BBC’s iPlayer is already recognised as a great demand driver, and I welcome new connected TV services, from the likes of Freeview and Freesat, giving consumers catch-up TV for free from all our public service broadcasters. But more needs to be done to encourage new and exciting technological developments and high-quality content.
Furthermore, we have to address cost. Some 26% of non-users say that it is too expensive to have the internet at home. BT customers on benefits can have BT’s Basic + Broadband, but not all internet providers have such schemes. Last week the LGA, in its submission to the Government’s consultation on the Autumn Statement, called for all poorer households to get subsidies for fast broadband—as a social tariff. I hope very much that the Government will consider it part of their plans for the new universal service obligation. Following the freezing in October 2015 of the Government’s voucher scheme to help small businesses get online, it would be good to hear what the Government plan as its replacement.
Like water and electricity, reliable, superfast broadband should become universally available, and all our citizens should know what it can do and have the skills to benefit from it. Much has been achieved and more is planned, but unless we raise our ambitions still further, move from copper to fibre and address the demand management issues of skills, marketing, cost and content, the full potential will not be realised. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reactions and details of the Government’s plans.
Baroness Pidding (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for initiating this debate. When it comes to the challenges of rural broadband, at least for the humble end user, I can speak from first-hand experience. My partner and I are regular visitors to a lovely corner of deepest, darkest Devon and, even for visitors, the frustrations of a poor internet connection are very real. I can only imagine how much worse it is for residents. I am very pleased that the Prime Minister acknowledged the importance of rural broadband provision at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month. Not only is it a matter of basic fairness that country dwellers should have the same access to something so important, but greater connectivity is essential to unlocking the economic potential of rural areas.
The Brexit vote has made these arguments even more compelling. Not only did the result highlight deep divisions between our plugged-in cities and their rural hinterlands but we must now pull out all the stops to make the British economy as competitive as we can. Just as the canals and railways allowed the industrial revolution to flourish, so I believe will our broadband infrastructure prove the essential foundation for a globally competitive economy in the 21st century. According to the Countryside Alliance, 82% of adults believe that in the 21st century superfast broadband should be considered an essential utility, like water or heating. A similarly high proportion believes that investment in internet infrastructure would have a positive impact, more than the percentage that says the same for much higher-profile projects such as HS2 or a new runway. It is not difficult to see why.
We increasingly live in an online age and the Government are rightly trying to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by new technology to make their services available online, replacing long waits on the phone or mountains of paperwork with websites which can be accessed 24 hours a day, but it does not matter how impressive the Government’s digital services are if the national hardware is not up to scratch. For example, HMRC apparently expects all tax returns and PAYE to be completed online. Farms and other rural businesses that do not have access to adequate internet facilities have no choice but to shoulder additional costs by hiring an agent or adviser to fill in online forms for them. This is not a small number of businesses. A National Farmers’ Union survey found that 90% of respondents lacked reliable broadband while 40% had none at all and, according to the Federation of Small Businesses, half of rural SMEs are dissatisfied with their broadband connection. That is more than double the share of urban SMEs that feel the same. Such figures are deeply concerning, especially when research by McKinsey finds that businesses that have a proper online presence are growing twice as fast as those that do not.
If we are to make a success of Brexit, we need the entire economy to be firing on all cylinders. It would be foolish to strike out into the world without properly equipping ourselves for the challenge. Digital connectivity is part of this challenge. It is very important that we get ahead in this issue, otherwise the UK might find itself spending a lot of money delivering yesterday’s solutions to rural people as the cities embrace the next wave of new technology. The Government are clearly taking this issue seriously and I am sure that many of their proposals will be welcomed by rural communities, in particular the universal service obligation of 10 megabits per second and the commitment that 95% of UK households will have superfast broadband almost two and a half times that speed by 2017. However, what about those rural areas where the speed is currently under 2 megabits per second? Can we not start with these?
I recognise the importance of mobile internet so I am particularly pleased by the commitment to see 4G services rolled out to 98% of the population as part of BDUK. However, what about the other 2%? That 2% represents 1.3 million people who will be missing out.
Before this House can be satisfied that we really are building the state-of-the-art, future-proof, comprehensive and accessible internet infrastructure that this country needs, there remain questions to answer. I would like to hear a clear plan from the Government for how they intend to identify so-called not-spots—gaps in the coverage of the network. We must remember that poor connections can affect all sorts of areas and are not limited to the most remote communities and households. A good start would be reform of planning laws and the electronic communications code to make it easier for providers to build the infrastructure they need, while the Church of England's decision to allow 10,000 rural churches to use their spires as wireless beacons is a welcome and imaginative one.
I would like to see much more concrete evidence that the plans for mobile broadband will really deliver the coverage that rural businesses and communities need. I am also keen to hear how the Government intend to ensure that their rural internet solutions are sustainable. It is little use spending a lot of money to achieve equality today if cities retain structural advantages that will allow them to race ahead tomorrow. The Government must demonstrate that not only will the network they are delivering bring the countryside up to speed today but it will allow it to keep pace in the future.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, like the noble Baroness, I shall focus on the question of rural broadband services and, like my noble friend Lord Foster, I am doing that from the perspective of someone who lives in Suffolk.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market
Overrepresentation of our lovely county, indeed. I live in a very small village, and it is a mark of how village life has changed that when we come together for our social events one of the main topics of conversation is how bad the broadband is and how it has taken all night to download a two-minute YouTube video. I accept that the joint efforts of BT and the Government have taken us to a position where almost all households now have access to basic broadband, but I also agree with the proposition that in today’s world that simply is not enough. I note that the Countryside Alliance estimates that 48% of rural premises are not able to reach the speed envisaged in the USO.
Rapid digitalisation has meant that a whole range of rural services now require a good broadband link. As the percentage of households covered by superfast broadband increases, so that digitalisation gains pace. That means that a small minority of households run the risk of being left behind. I also observe that, as the assumption is made that households have superfast broadband, the functionality of the websites themselves has changed. What looks like an exciting and thrilling website to some people is actually a nightmare if you are trying to use it in a rural area with poor speeds.
The purely commercial case would have taken superfast broadband in Suffolk to around 50%. I pay tribute to the local authority in Suffolk, which, at a time when so many local authorities are strapped for cash, has invested heavily to meet around half the extension costs. However, around 3% of people in Suffolk—I think it is about 5% in the whole UK—remain outside any funded policy commitment, so as it stands there is a real danger of a big divide for them. There has been some speculation that this will be dealt with on a demand-led basis. To my mind, that is very much a suboptimal solution. The problem is that as we near the high 90s, the cost per premises increases dramatically as the civil engineering works and the distances become more complex and therefore the value-for-money question for those last few households becomes more and more difficult. We need to think about the cost per premises across the whole venture, not an ever-reducing number of houses.
I have other concerns about a demand-led USO. What if one house wants it now and then the neighbour wants it in two years’ time? That is simply not a practical or economical way of doing business. If someone who does not want it now sells their house, the new people coming in may want it; so the demand-led model has real problems.
The BT community fibre grant scheme is very welcome but it is limited to communities with schools and, of course, many small villages no longer have schools. When I think about my very small village, there are a number of older people who are not interested in broadband, but we also have young families with small children and, as they get older, I worry about whether they will stay in the village if they do not have the access they need in terms of schooling and social media. Rural services, not only in villages but even in market towns, are declining rapidly as banks close and government and council offices shut their doors; for example, when the Ipswich tax office closes in a few years’ time our nearest tax office will be in Stratford, east London, so digital services are key. Of course, to add to the problem in many rural areas we have poor mobile phone coverage as well: 4G is pretty much non-existent where I live, so we do not have the benefit of that either.
Until May I was chair of your Lordships’ EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, which included agriculture. The last inquiry we carried out was about increasing resilience. Access to new information and innovation is key to helping farmers. Some of the most exciting innovators we saw told us how they were working from YouTube videos from around the world and how they use Skype, but very few farmers are far-sighted enough to make the investment; one farmer had invested in satellite. If farmers are to thrive in the new world to which the noble Baroness just referred, they need this, too.
Another problem is understanding what your speed actually is. It is usually given to you in terms of your postcode, but of course in rural postcode areas the distances are enormous, so these can be pretty meaningless and there is an issue about the masking of huge variations. We need to keep rural communities viable, not just in Suffolk or Devon but everywhere. Digital infrastructure is now as important to that as water, gas, electricity and roads.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, my thanks, too, go to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for securing this important debate. I, too, want to address rural issues and I declare an interest as president of the Rural Coalition. Many of our members are deeply concerned about this area. As other noble Lords have mentioned, nearly half of rural households in the UK currently struggle with broadband speeds of less than 10 megabits per second. Around one in five rural households can only access broadband speeds of under 5 megabits per second, and a significant proportion cannot access any broadband at all. This lack of connectivity acts as a huge obstacle to the growth of the rural economy and to rural sustainability. This is even more important as we get ourselves geared up for Brexit.
Without adequate broadband, small businesses cannot grow or thrive; freelancers struggle to connect with potential clients, particularly in an age of videoconferencing; farmers cannot complete the many forms for the smooth operation of their businesses, such as cattle movements or the basic payments scheme; and it is almost impossible for anyone to buy or sell anything online. Young people can also be very isolated from their friends. Noble Lords who, like me, know rural issues well realise that rural isolation is a huge issue. Children can also struggle to complete their homework. Students in remote areas cannot access resources or learning, which is particularly problematic as many educational institutions develop part-time and distance learning. So areas of the country without adequate access to broadband could increasingly fall behind.
The current minimum provision of 2 megabits per second is insufficient and although the 10 megabits per second universal service obligation promised by the Government for 2020 is welcome, it needs to go further. The USO must mean that households and businesses are connected to the network in the same way that electricity and water have to be provided. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said, BT currently adopts a demand-driven approach, providing new infrastructure and connections only when a minimum number of people in an area request it. I am aware of instances where households and small businesses have been prevented from moving to new premises, not because the broadband is not available but because there is no interest in providing the additional local infrastructure needed. The USO must also rise in line with the increasing demands of technology so that the hardest-to-reach areas are not continually left behind.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to improving competition when it comes to delivering broadband for the 1.5 million rural households without an adequate provision. That is important because, while fibre might be the appropriate technology for 90% of the UK, it is not always the best option for isolated rural areas, where mixed technologies, particularly wireless, can be far more cost effective. We have already heard reference to Broadband Delivery UK and its market test pilots, which suggest that where a hybrid technology approach has been used, particularly merging fibre and fixed wireless, it has proved effective in very challenging areas, delivering high-coverage percentages while demanding relatively low public subsidy. Can the Minister give assurances that the final assessment of these projects will be published soon, the findings implemented quickly and funding provided, so that these alternative services can be delivered on the large scale that is needed?
I hope that the Minister might also explain a bit more about how DCMS expects the USO to be fulfilled. Most public statements on fulfilment seem to indicate that the focus remains very much on fibre, without any real consideration of proven alternatives. There seems to be a danger that a focus on only one technology might mean that rural communities could end up paying over the odds for fibre, when alternative technologies would have been more cost effective.
Finally, on the issue of mixed technologies, already referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, I want to mention the potential for church spires in some of the hardest-to-reach rural areas to be adapted for wireless broadband provision. There are a number of examples of this in rural areas, including in Norfolk, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, which all have more than their fair share of hard-to-reach areas. WiSpire in Norwich has already shown how this kind of initiative can be successful and of real value to both the Church and the local community. It is a win-win situation. I hope that there might be opportunities for DCMS and the Church to have further discussions about how we can take that kind of collaborative working forward.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Foster for securing this debate, which serves as a useful preface to the Digital Economy Bill and the discussions that will ensue on that. I shall ask a number of questions of the Minister, but I understand that he has a limited time in which to answer them. This is part of the continuing debate that I am sure we will all be having as the Bill makes its way towards us.
First, I want to acknowledge the scale of the rollout challenge that has been undertaken. We can see from the numbers that it has come a long way. We should thank the hardworking teams in Openreach, who have done some pretty tough stuff to get us as far as we have. We should not debate this matter without making that acknowledgement. However, the UK’s broadband capacity is very important, as is access to it, and we need to be honest with ourselves about how far we have got on this rollout journey.
I want to set the scene slightly, while avoiding too much history. It is worth looking at the facts. BT has a number of irons in the fire. It has a considerable asset in its copper network and, understandably, like any company, it will want to leverage the value from that asset. Meanwhile, it is increasingly selling digital products down the network. These are products that add further strain to capacity where it is constrained, down the network that it has been tasked to build. It also has a business selling network services. This portfolio of businesses is not generally compatible with the building and operating of what should be a dull and efficient utility—let us call it a superefficient utility. To put that in context, it is the equivalent of asking a consortium comprising Network Rail, Eddie Stobart and Tesco to build and own our roads. We would not do that. I know Ofcom’s previously stated preferred option for how the ownership of Openreach might change and I am not going to spend much time—because we do not have it—debating that future ownership model, which clearly will be an issue, but I would welcome the Minister’s view on that.
Leaving that aside, does it matter who owns it and how it works? Do the ends justify the means anyway? My noble friend Lord Foster gave us a snowstorm of percentage signs and download speeds, proving how well or otherwise we are doing. Perhaps we should be somewhat wary of how those speeds are measured. My noble friend Lady Scott pointed out that, essentially, these are theoretical models based on the make-up of the network, how it gets there and postcodes. Who does that measuring? We know, as we heard from all the speakers so far, that the rates quoted rarely match those actually experienced in the office and at home. Above all, as my noble friend Lord Foster said, we should remember that the rate-determining link in the broadband delivery chain for most people remains a strand of often quite old copper wire linking them to a cabinet somewhere in the general vicinity of where they live or work. Will the Minister comment on having some independent verification of the measures we use for download speed? How would he seek to add to the confidence that consumers and buyers of these services can have in those speeds?
Perhaps we are looking at this the wrong way round. The focus on download speed is itself revealing, reflecting an aim by almost everybody to send stuff to people. It reflects an ambition to sell to consumers: the better the download capacity, the more we can put down the pipe and the more money we can make. But this is not a one-way street and for many who aspire to be part of the digital economy the priority is often the other way round: upload speed is equally important, and almost always lower in the available packages. Our budding designers, fintech entrepreneurs, games makers and whoever else need effective upload speeds to deliver their work to the next stage in their value chain. To realistically assess our success to date, this needs to have equal status with download speeds. Does the Minister agree with this analysis and will he push Ofcom and others to include stretching upload targets in the data we set for the network?
Finally, there is the industrial strategy—two words used by many people but we have yet to find out exactly what they mean. We heard from a Minister in the Chamber yesterday how important infrastructure will be in the industrial strategy—whatever that looks like. Last month, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, said, we heard from the Prime Minister in her party conference speech that we need better broadband connectivity to create equal opportunity across our country. Mrs May clearly does not think that what we have to date is good enough and I am happy to agree with Theresa on that. While it is important that we all adopt a realistic understanding—we need to develop that—of how far we have got, we also need to understand that the current targets are not good enough. The world has moved on substantially since those targets were set. We must raise the bar higher and be more ambitious, rather than merely meet the current set of targets. So my final question is: how will the Minister ensure that the industrial strategy will deliver a 21st-century broadband network, rather than the 20th-century one that we are currently trying to build?
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, on obtaining this debate on a subject of such great importance. Having served on your Lordships’ Digital Skills Committee, I particularly agreed with the points he made on digital skills and digital inclusion. It is also a pleasure to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Fox, who, in a previous life, was a business client of mine.
I shall address two issues, with apologies for repetition. First, my concern that the superfast broadband rollout strategy will not prove ambitious enough; and secondly, the need for a more aggressive approach to the challenge of bringing superfast broadband to the elusive “final 5%” of premises across the UK.
We pride ourselves on the fact that the UK is a leading nation in terms of our digital infrastructure, including access to high-speed broadband. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, told us, the figures tell a rather less encouraging story. Our position in the Akamai global rankings for average fixed-line broadband performance is slipping. In the latest table we are ranked 19th in the world, down from 14th, 18 months previously; and ranked 13th in Europe, down one place. Our average speeds are improving, but at a slower pace than in many other countries in the top 30—only just over half of UK broadband connections achieve speeds of 10 megabits per second. Therefore, I welcome the proposed universal service obligation for access to broadband of at least 10 megabits. However, I question whether this will be enough. In these days of video streaming, catch-up television, big data, massive open online courses, and coming developments such as the internet of things, 10 megabits will soon fall far short. It does not even begin to meet the Government’s definition of superfast—namely, speeds of over 24 megabits.
As we have heard, most broadband supplied by BT’s Openreach subsidiary relies on copper wire, not fibre optic cable, for the final link to user premises—so-called fibre to the cabinet, rather than fibre to the home. This seems bound to constrain achievement of the even higher speeds likely to be required in the future—ultrafast broadband of 100 megabits or more, or hyperfast broadband of 1,000 megabits and up, for a truly gigabit society, as countries such as Singapore are aiming for. Fibre to the home coverage in the UK is below 2%, against a western European average of 25%. Therefore, I welcome Ofcom’s commitment to,
“encourage large-scale deployment of new ultrafast networks, including fibre direct to homes and businesses, as an alternative to the copper-based technologies currently being planned by BT”.
I realise that there are trade-offs between present costs and future-proofing, but I hope we will not rely too heavily on a single supplier, Openreach, and a single approach, fibre to the cabinet, lest we find in the future that we end up with the equivalent of only one runway—to use a topical comparison—at a time when we need several, if not many more. I certainly would like to see other suppliers encouraged, and indeed incentivised, to come up with more innovative solutions, not least to find ways of tackling that stubborn final 5%.
That brings me to my second theme. My home in Carmarthenshire has no mobile telephone coverage. BT provides a landline, with poor line quality and not infrequent interruptions or breakdowns. Until quite recently, BT also offered the only so-called broadband service available, which seldom, if ever, reached 2 megabits, despite being charged at BT’s standard broadband rates. No wonder Carmarthen East and Dinefwr was ranked third bottom in an Ofcom table of broadband speeds by constituency as at June 2015. Salvation came in the form of a small local network supplier, appropriately called ResQ, deploying a fixed wireless access system to which we were fortunately able to connect via a farm across the valley—I do not think we have a church spire in sight. We now get speeds of 10 megabits or more for both download and upload in order to support local businesses. However, the prospect of any significant further improvement seems remote, particularly if it depends on BT and Openreach, which already seem at full stretch just keeping the landlines working.
Would it not make sense to open up at least some of these hard-to-reach and less well-covered areas to a greater variety of different suppliers and technologies, with support and encouragement through some of the funding allocated to promote high-speed broadband rollout? Even if Openreach is not wholly split off from BT, there is surely a case for trialling new and more ambitious technologies aiming for higher levels of speed and service in some of these hitherto deprived areas. How otherwise can we avoid them slipping further and further behind in an increasingly digital world, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out? How nice it would be if some of the areas currently languishing in the final 5% backwater could be transformed through innovative technologies, including satellite and wireless technologies, for example, into the leading 5%, helping to bring the UK nearer to the top of the global league tables, where it surely needs to be to achieve the Prime Minister’s aspirations for our role in the world after Brexit. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us on plans to provide greater drive and impetus to make superfast broadband a genuine utility service, including for the final 5%.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a very good debate. As someone who is technologically a bit illiterate, I have learned much too much too quickly, and I am probably going to get confused as I try to go through some of my points.
Anybody who has got teenage children—I have children in their late teens—will know the agony of trying to match their expectations in terms of what you provide in your home environment. In Buckinghamshire, we have just experienced the rollout of fibre. I thought I could relax and retire at that point. It has been a nightmare because what you are not told is that there is a headline figure of 30 megabit downloads, but you do not realise that it is still two miles to the nearest exchange, it is still copper wires—why copper when everyone is giving up the landline, I do not understand—and you still have to compete with others in the same area, which is called the contention ratio.
That leads to a question about exactly what target we are aiming for. We have had a number of very good and interesting responses on that. There are already disagreements between the Government’s principal adviser, Ofcom, and the Government about whether it is 30 megabits or 24 megabits. We are still talking about people getting, on average, up to 2 megabits, not 10 megabits, which seems to be what Ofcom regards as sufficient to meet the needs of a typical household—not my household—to access government e-services, do basic web browsing and make video calls. We are not addressing what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, picked up, which is the way demand can change, and, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans pointed out, people in rural and other communities have been relatively low users from necessity not choice. We are not measuring up to the demand that we are expecting over the next 30 years. It may well be that increases in data usage are coming and will largely be in urban areas on fibre, but if we roll this out and, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, suggested, get behind an inclusion strategy that shows people why they could and should be using digital, then we are talking about huge increases which I do not think are envisaged.
If connection is the main aim, we are probably not going to get to the right place quickly enough. It is a necessary but not sufficient way of progressing. We will have to think much harder about education, skills, the current barriers, how content changes will make differences and the possibility of subsidies and additional support for people. Without that, we will continue to have a suboptimal solution to a problem which has to define us in the new economy that we are approaching.
To sum up, most people are saying that there is an opportunity here—presumably we will return to this in the Digital Economy Bill—to do something that is a step change not an evolutionary change. If we do not do that, if we do not aim high for the gigabit society, we will be rushing to catch up. We are not in a good place, as the figures mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, show. We are way behind other countries in western Europe in terms of the support that is being provided. Sweden and Spain now have 80% of homes served by fibre. We are a long way away from that. I spent some time in a very small place in south-west Ireland called Skibbereen. It is not well known, but it has one of the best internet offices I have experienced. You can get speeds that reflect almost frightening capacity and it is full of people taking their work in to the Ludgate Hub, as it is called, in order to try to build their businesses in a rural environment. Without it, there is no doubt that they would have had to travel to Dublin in order to survive. That is the future we should be thinking about. We should gain more experience from it and try to aim higher than we are currently.
Finally, when we come to the Digital Economy Bill, I hope that we will also look at consumer rights. The Bill takes some grudging steps towards trying to make sure that those who use the new technologies have redress, but we have failed to achieve some of the changes that could have been put into the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in terms of making sure that consumers have those rights. I give notice to the Minister that we on this side will want to come back to some of these issues when we get to the Bill. It is good that providers will have to be more responsible for what they provide in terms of broadband speeds and effectiveness, but there has to be compensation on a much greater scale than is currently the case from those who do not supply it. We also have to make sure that those who acquire products on the internet using the superfast gigabit services that are coming down the track will have the same rights as ordinary consumers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, I will speak as quickly as I can because there is a lot of ground to cover. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for securing this debate and for all the contributions to it. Like the noble Lord, I live in an area with slow broadband and I share the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, of using a good local supplier—Wurzel in my case rather than ResQ—which produces 50 to 70 megabits per second, but that is not available to everyone. The other thing I should say is that I am looking forward very much to being invited to a party in Suffolk where the main topic of conversation seems to be broadband. There is rightly a lot of interest in the superfast broadband programme and we agree that fast broadband is increasingly regarded as a necessity of modern life. I agree with virtually all the points made by noble Lords that the question is how we will get there. So I am delighted to have the opportunity not only to celebrate what we have done to date—and that is a lot—but also to reassure noble Lords that we are doing even more to ensure the delivery of the sort of broadband service that is required for the UK not just for today but for tomorrow, which all noble Lords have spoken about.
I know that some noble Lords are worried that we are in the slow lane, so to speak, in terms of broadband speed. I cannot quibble with the statistics cited by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. I do not know how long it took him to find those rather depressing numbers because in part through the work done by Broadband Delivery UK, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, we are sitting at the top of the EU five; Germany, Spain, Italy and France, and indeed we are 8% higher than Germany, our nearest rival. But I agree that within those statistics there are quibbles about upload and download speeds, average speeds and latency. However, that is not really the point and we want to make it better. When it comes to digital infrastructure connectivity, we want the UK to be not only the lead in Europe, we want to be a world leader.
Perhaps I may remind your Lordships at this point of the scale of the superfast broadband programme which in addition to the already extensive commercial rollout shows how much has already been achieved. We are investing £790 million to reach areas untouched by the commercial sector while local and European funding has increased that public investment to a total of £1.7 billion. In view of the concerns surrounding Brexit, it is also worth noting that all EU funding of broadband contracts is guaranteed for at least the next two years until the UK is officially no longer a part of the European Union. Along with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I pay tribute to the support of local authorities and the devolved Administrations for their tremendous support and investment in the Government’s superfast programme. That reflects their recognition of the local benefits that superfast broadband can bring.
My right honourable friend Matt Hancock, the Digital Minister—I should say the Minister for Digital; he is a real Minister, body and soul—explained recently that our path to a more digitally connected UK can be envisaged as a three-part journey. First, we must complete the rollout of universal 4G and superfast broadband between now and 2020. Secondly, we must continue to drive connectivity in the areas of need, both rural and urban, and support a competitive market for delivery. Speaking of competition, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, on Openreach, we support Ofcom’s position on the need to improve digital connectivity, including looking into the position of Openreach. It is already subject to wholesale access regulation that allows other suppliers to access its networks. Third in our trio of priorities, we must start work now on ubiquitous 5G and fibre over the decade ahead—by that, I mean fibre to the premises, and I will come to that later if I have time. That is, of course, the future for broadband, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, said.
In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, the reason we talk about fibre to the premises is in part a recognition of the need to improve upload speeds. I understand quite well the issue about BT’s investment in its copper, but that will have to be dealt with in due course.
The first step of our journey is progressing well. Indeed, the figures coming out of the BDUK programme to date are encouraging. More than 90% of homes and businesses now have access to superfast broadband, up from only 45% in 2010. In fact, 88% has reached Ofcom’s higher measure of 30 megabits per second, which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned. This will increase and be updated in December 2016. More than 4 million additional homes and businesses have access due to the Government’s programme. This will rise to more than 5 million additional homes and businesses by the end of the programme. We remain on track to get to 95% superfast coverage by the end of 2017.
In addition, more than 42,000 SMEs across 52 cities have benefited from superfast and ultrafast broadband connections because of the Government’s broadband voucher scheme. To choose a random example, coverage in Bath, the former constituency of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is expected to reach 98% by December this year, well above the national average. At the moment, any home or business with speeds below 2 megabits per second can access a grant for better broadband through alternative technologies, such as satellite or wireless, through the Better Broadband Subsidy Scheme. In fact, 99% of UK premises have access to basic broadband, which is the best in the G8.
Furthermore, because of provisions in the BDUK contracts, funding is being returned by suppliers as a result of higher than expected take-up, so £129 million has already been made available, with at least as much to come again. Together with the project savings, local authorities and the devolved Administrations should have more than £400 million available to reinvest in superfast broadband coverage over the next three years. As a result of the superfast broadband programme, coverage should increase to around 97% by 2020. Indeed, 20 new broadband procurements are already being taken forward by local authorities and devolved Administrations using this funding and other local and European sources of funding that they have been able to access. This includes £14.5 million that the Government have allocated to support ultrafast broadband in south-west England. Each of these procurements is open to all suppliers, both large and small, to bid for.
As mentioned previously, we understand that fast broadband is very much a fourth utility in modern life and that the future most definitely lies with fibre and 5G. The challenge that we are now addressing is how to get there. It is important to have market innovation in this area, with the Government setting the framework and supporting competition at all stages to ensure the best outcome. The industrial strategy needs to recognise digital skills, infrastructure and the power of digital in the economy. I am sure that more details will be available in due course.
The importance of broadband to rural communities is well understood and unprecedented, and I speak from personal experience. As more and more government services move online, rural businesses and households need to be able to rely on a good broadband connection so that they can continue to operate effectively. That is why the Government announced plans last year to introduce the new broadband universal service obligation, of which many noble Lords spoke. This will ensure that anyone who does not benefit from the existing commercial or publicly funded programmes is not left behind. It will give all homes and businesses the legal right to a connection of at least 10 megabits per second on demand. The Digital Economy Bill will be coming before this House either at the end of this year or at the beginning of next year and we will talk about that then. Although it will be set at 10 megabits per second initially, the Bill includes a power to review the USO over time to make sure it continues to meet people’s needs, which the right reverend Prelate mentioned, but we realise that there are many details to be worked out, some of which were outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and others. We will take all these difficulties on board and look at the detail behind the USO and we will be making crucial decisions in due course. In the meantime the USO needs to be passed in the Bill in this House.
To conclude I want to mention some points that noble Lords raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, asked how we identify not-spots. Ofcom undertakes mapping to do that. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, mentioned digital skills and we certainly want digital skills to be embedded in education. We are actively looking at what more is needed to increase digital skills. The right reverend Prelate asked about the final report on market pilots which tested new ways of delivering superfast broadband in hard-to-reach areas. That is due to be published by the end of 2016. That is about all I have time for. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, made a number of other points. We understand the problem of not doing enough to get fibre to the premises and we will be addressing that. We agree with driving take-up and I will write to him on that.
We are working hard and we are making progress. I think we all agree with the ultimate objective, which is to not be satisfied with just superfast broadband; we want fibre to the premises for everyone and we want increasingly high speeds because that is what the future will require.
Anti-Semitism
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Deech
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they propose to take to combat anti-Semitism, in particular in universities.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, I never once thought that I would stand here to address this House on this topic. As has often been said, the UK is a wonderful place in which to be Jewish, free of the anxiety besetting Jews on the continent of Europe and causing some of them to emigrate. It gave refuge to my father in 1939, for which he was deeply grateful. He urged me to remember this hospitality and to contribute in return. Hence, many thousands of us are very grateful to the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, to the many parliamentarians who led the fight against anti-Semitism—to name but two, John Mann MP and the noble Lord, Lord Boswell—and to the Government’s envoys for post-Holocaust issues, first Sir Andrew Burns and now Sir Eric Pickles, as well as for various government initiatives.
My generation of Jews has flourished here. I have known nothing but equality for most of my life. The problems emerged about 10 years ago, not as recently as some might believe. The rise in reported anti-Semitic hate crimes is no surprise to the Jewish community and has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit and the focus on hate crime since June. The Community Security Trust reports that 2015 saw the third highest annual total of anti-Semitic hate incidents since it started reporting in 1984, and 2016 saw an 11% rise in six months.
This is despite valued Holocaust education, which is part of the national curriculum. Yet a 2016 Commons report showed that that is superficial for too many young people. While the support of the previous Prime Minister was welcome, I doubt the value of yet another Holocaust memorial in Westminster, as recently announced. It will do little to teach the meaning of the Holocaust or address prejudice in our society. Indeed, it might serve simply as a target for graffiti unless protected by a barrier, which is not the reminder one would wish for. Do the Government agree that it is time for an impact assessment, and to check whether pupils learning about the Holocaust make the connection to Jews today and their bond with Israel? Moreover, it is widely reported that some Muslim schools teach Jew hatred to pupils. It is high time there was regulation of out-of-school teaching. Our young people are not getting the right message and that shows up in universities, as I will explain.
There have been three recent inquiries into anti-Semitism: those by the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Chakrabarti, and that by the Home Affairs Select Committee. The weakness of such inquiries is that their remits include racism and Islamophobia, thereby sidelining anti-Semitism and its special characteristics, and failing to deal with the tricky issue of when hatred of Israel becomes anti-Semitism. This is a characteristic of some politicians’ statements on the subject—“We are against all forms of racism”—thereby acquitting themselves of anti-Semitism and failing to look at it from the victims’ perspective. For that reason, the Chief Rabbi said of the Chakrabarti report that its credibility “lies in tatters”. It is not enough to wrap oneself in the banner of the Cable Street clash. The modern equivalent of the Cable Street stand is Jews opposing rabid anti-Zionists, and in this scenario some self-defining anti-racists would be on the wrong side.
The excellent report of the Home Affairs Committee is a blueprint for the way ahead. It examined the mutating forms of anti-Semitism over the centuries and its various ideologies, of which the most novel is the toxic mix of disillusioned left-wingers looking for a cause, western guilt over colonialism, Islamist extremism, fascism and age-old religious anti-Semitism. This report shows that it is important to abide by the definition of anti-Semitism endorsed by the Government and by Sir Eric Pickles. It is especially important that universities do so in order to help them draw the line between attacks on Israeli government policy and hate speech. The definition is valuable because it faces squarely the difficult area of distinguishing legitimate criticism of the Government of Israel from anti-Semitism, and gives examples. Will the Government ensure that in all situations where anti-Semitism is considered, the Pickles definition is applied?
Zionism is the Jewish people’s liberation movement—their end to servitude, their claim to equality among the nations—one of the most inspiring and successful national movements in human history. Over 90% of British Jews support Israel’s existence. To call for Israel to lose that right or to cease to exist is in effect to call for the obliteration of the 6 million Jews gathered there, and is anti-Semitism. Blaming Jews for the Holocaust, applying double standards to Israel and drawing comparisons between Israel and the Nazis all come within the definition, as does accusing Jews of having malign power and of conspiracies, child killing and organ harvesting. Jew-hatred through the ages has been represented by just those libels, and they have now been transposed into Israel-hatred. Supporting a Palestinian agenda must not be allowed to morph into Jew-hating libels and fascist-type caricatures. Why do the EU and the UN ignore the occupation of Kashmir, Western Sahara, Tibet and Northern Cyprus while ceaselessly condemning Israel? Why do grave human rights breaches by Turkey and Saudi Arabia and the killing of civilians by the US, Russia and Syria cause nothing like the reaction to such inadvertent behaviour in self-defence by Israel?
Sadly, our universities have become hotbeds of anti-Jewish incidents. I have spoken previously in the House about the threats to freedom of speech on campus. Curiously, when it comes to hate speech or action against Jewish students, the normally oversensitive campus police are failing in their duty. From a chronicle of too many anti-Semitic incidents I highlight: the award to a student of £1,000 by York University for the abuse he suffered; the violent demonstration, ending in court, at King’s College London against an Israeli peace speaker; swastikas daubed on student doors; Jewish students being told they are not welcome or to leave the country; Islamist extremist speakers on campus using the most derogatory terms and voicing lies about Jews in the name of religious preaching; shouting “Filthy Zionist” at a girl every time she passes; and requiring Jewish students to denounce Israel as the price of entry to a committee, boycotting them if they do not. The NUS, whose own president is one of the worst offenders, has become tainted and does not take the issue seriously, in contrast to its vigorous opposition to the Prevent policy.
Will the Government urge the NUS to ensure that campuses are safe for Jewish students who find they have to stand up to the Israel-hatred thrust in their faces when they arrive, activists or not? UUK should provide a resource for students on how to deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict without resorting to anti-Semitism. The recent UUK report on sexual harassment and hate crime provided no focused answers.
Boycotts only harden resistance among Israelis—who themselves hold a whole range of opinions on peace and the occupation—and deepen defensiveness and mistrust of European countries. The Government have condemned them. Nevertheless, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement manifests itself in academic boycotts and the physical obstruction of students at checkpoints on campus. It is not only discriminatory against Israeli nationals but contrary to the public sector equality duty imposed on universities, contrary to the principle of the universality of science and, where it involves the expenditure of money, contrary to charity law. Not for a moment would universities tolerate a “Boycott China Week” or a “Muslim Misogyny Week”, to take apposite examples.
The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, should be thanked for her evidenced report on anti-Semitic incidents at my own university, Oxford. Oxford, officially the best university in the world, has made no public statement in response. Oxford, the home of Isaiah Berlin, Ernst Chain, Zelman Cowen, Hans Krebs, Claus Moser, Goodhart, Ayer, Hart, Beloff and Goodman, needs to condemn what has happened and explain measures taken against the malefactors in order to reassure Jewish students that anti-Semitism will not be allowed and so that justice is seen to be done.
Will the Government recommend to UUK the following? The equality and diversity offices at universities should pay as much attention to anti-Semitism as they do to gender and other race issues. Each university should monitor anti-Semitic incidents, and put out statements emphasising their commitment to combating it and to assisting students to make complaints, when, as I know, they are often too intimidated to do so. Training university authorities, unions and staff in the law surrounding this area should be mandatory.
We have already seen that where anti-Semitism starts and is unchecked, the hate and misinformation behind it spreads to infect other minorities and to poison the community in which it exists. As Edmund Burke said:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and I thank her for initiating this debate, and for doing it so well. I, too, want to concentrate on what universities need to do. Universities have duties to their students that they must not neglect. They must provide an atmosphere of free inquiry in which students learn to examine ideas and theories critically and rigorously, and, at the same time, they have a duty of care to students so that their precious time at university is not disrupted or destroyed by those who fail to treat fellow students with respect and decency. Anti-Semitism is as intolerable in the university context as it is in any other, and as unacceptable as all kinds of racism and hatred based on religious difference.
As the noble Baroness indicated, anti-Semitism has some characteristics which make it a particular challenge and call for extra effort, particularly in the liberal context of a university. Anti-Semitism often makes its appearance in the very thin disguise of attacks on the existence of the State of Israel, with the term “Zionist” used in a way that indicates that the attacker has an agenda or motive that goes far beyond criticism of the policies of any Israeli Government and extends to an attack on Jews in general. Those whose background is Pakistani or Bangladeshi are not held responsible for every action of the Governments of those countries or required to disavow the very existence of those countries, which are of a similar age to Israel as a state. They have other problems—Muslims are so often associated quite wrongly with Islamic terrorism—but the problem I have described is one that relates particularly to anti-Semitism.
Anti-Semitism is a conspiracy theory that suggests that because some people share a particular racial background or religion, they must be engaged with each other in a conspiracy to exercise undue influence, subvert democracy or take over the world. It would be risible if it was not deadly—quite literally deadly, because that was the basis on which 6 million men, women and children were slaughtered in the lifetime of some of us present. Of course, the same conspiracy theory infects those who deny that the Holocaust ever happened or who try to excuse it—an utterly ludicrous position.
There are many things that have to be done about anti-Semitism and its close relations, racism and hate crime, which thrive on it. University authorities must make student unions aware of their legal responsibilities under criminal law and charity law, and must be ready to enforce conditions they can act on when they own property or land that unions occupy. Universities should continue to make sure that the rigorous, critical and well-informed examination of ideas is part of every undergraduate student’s education and development. They should see that vulnerable students are supported and helped and that respect for diversity is actively promoted. The National Union of Students needs to get rid of leaders who pander to anti-Semitism—calling Birmingham University “a Zionist outpost”, for example, as Malia Bouattia did—otherwise that organisation will find more university unions disaffiliating from it, as those in Birmingham and Newcastle have done.
Time does not allow me to go into the detailed proposals of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on dealing with anti-Semitism in universities and, indeed, more widely, but I commend its report and hope very much that it will be acted upon. I also commend the continued work of the Community Security Trust, which does so much to protect and reassure members of the Jewish community when they find themselves under threat. Finally, I welcome the interfaith dialogue that goes on in and around many universities, promoted by university chaplains of all faiths and by local churches, mosques, synagogues and religious organisations. It is an important part of educating a wide range of students.
One omission I must repair is to say that I have been president of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for interrupting but the time allowed is four minutes and the noble Lord is now on his fifth minute. There is no spare time in this debate.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for securing this debate on such an important subject. While I was, of course, aware of the issue, the detailed evidence of anti-Semitism on campuses in the UK still makes for appalling reading. What is described there is totally unacceptable. I chaired the 1994 Runnymede Trust report on anti-Semitism titled A Very Light Sleeper. Sadly, Conor Cruise O’Brien’s resonant phrase is all too true today.
I will confine myself to one section of the APPG report on anti-Semitism: that dealing with the Israel-Palestine issue and the toxic nature of the debate on campuses. In particular, I commend the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee that Universities UK should work with appropriate bodies to produce a resource on how to deal with the issue sensitively and to ensure that,
“students are well-informed about both sides of the argument”.
I recommend that the bodies it consults on this include the Council of Christians and Jews, which has many decades of experience of handling this issue. This arises from the fact that historically the churches have had very close links with Palestinian and Arab Christians, and are deeply involved in aid work. At the same time they have made strenuous efforts to overcome the long history of anti-Jewish teaching—the teaching of contempt, as it has been well labelled. These twin claims have resulted in valuable experience of how debates on the subject can avoid becoming toxic.
I shall make three points that bear on this. First, the State of Israel is not simply a result of European guilt for the Holocaust. James Parkes, that remarkable Christian priest who in the 1930s pioneered the serious study of anti-Semitism and after whom the library and centre in Southampton University is named, put forward in the 1940s a five-fold case for Israel, which was little known or understood even by most Jews at the time. One element is the fact that there had always been a Jewish population in Palestine, as large as the circumstances at the time allowed. Another was that, throughout history, Jewish communities had never given up hope of returning there, hence the refrain at the end of every Seder: “Next year in Jerusalem”. These facts enable 19th-century Zionism, and any use of the word Zionist, to be seen in its proper historical context.
Secondly, I always find it helpful to bear in mind that the fiercest critics of the particular policies of different Israeli Governments are often Jews in Israel, and they make these criticisms out of loyalty to the State of Israel, whose validity they continue to uphold and whose existence they feel is sometimes threatened by those policies; nor, so far as I am aware, do they support boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions, in contrast to campaigners in South Africa at the time of apartheid.
Thirdly, after World War II all the Christian churches wrestled with the issue of the State of Israel and its legitimacy. Endless church documents were produced. The American scholar Paul van Buren, summing up these documents, put forward the minimum Christian position in these words:
“Because the state of Israel is in part the product of the ancient and living hope of the Jewish people and is of deep concern to almost all Jews, disregard for its safety and welfare is incompatible with concern for the Jewish people”.
A concern for the suffering of the Palestinian people and a desire to see a just peace in which some historic wrongs are righted must never lose sight of those words, so I look forward to seeing some resource material produced by Universities UK which can help this painful debate take place on campuses in a way which is well informed and not toxic.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, in thanking my noble friend Lady Deech for initiating today’s important short debate, I refer to my interests in higher education. For nearly 20 years, I held a chair in citizenship at Liverpool John Moores University, where I am an honorary fellow, and was director of the Roscoe Foundation for Citizenship. I have also been a visiting fellow at the University of St Andrews.
In September, I was in Jerusalem and Warsaw—two cities which have the toxic story of anti-Semitism written into their DNA. As we have heard, universities have a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to provide a safe and inclusive environment but, as the experience of a Jewish law student at York University illustrates, students have had to use their own resources to seek legal redress and apologies where anti-Semitism has occurred. That should have been done on their behalf by the university authorities. It is the job of an institution’s leaders, and it is a task that they must take very seriously and prioritise without fear or favour. My noble friend is right to remind student leaders of their duties, too, and to insist on monitoring and training.
On our campuses, and in political parties, contemporary anti-Semitism can often be the wolf concealed in sheep’s clothing. Jihadist attacks in Toulouse, Brussels, Paris and Copenhagen, the burning of kosher shops in the Jewish quarter of Sarcelles, and the sight of Jews fleeing their neighbourhoods and synagogues under siege by thugs brandishing placards threatening death to Jews have uncanny and terrifying echoes of Germany in 1934. We know how that began and to what it led.
I have been particularly disturbed by the growth of online bullying and hate, and by the targeting of opposition Jewish politicians. What is being done to engage the industry and online comment editors in tackling online hate? What response have we had from companies such as Twitter about taking stronger action against hate crimes on their platforms? With around 1,000 anti-Semitic hate crimes every year, it is clear that far more needs to be done, so what assessment have we made of the effectiveness of initiatives such as True Vision and the UK No Hate Speech Movement? Through counter-narratives and the smart power of aid programmes, the BBC World Service, the British Council and the Commonwealth, we must use every possible outlet to combat internet postings and, among other things, Wahhabi-sponsored school textbooks, funded by Saudi Arabia and distributed worldwide.
The recent death of Sir Sigmund Sternberg brings me to my final point, which is about interfaith relationships, a point touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Beith. My noble friend Lord Sacks has always led by example. His inspiring books about how we build our home together and learn to appreciate the dignity that comes through difference brilliantly show us what needs to be done. Those ideas need to be understood and implemented, especially at grass-roots level. On this International Religious Freedom Day, when we celebrate Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which had its origins in the horrors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and the other camps, and which promotes the right to believe, not to believe, or to change your belief, we must insist that our Jewish citizens are an essential part of who we are as a nation, and anything which compromises their safety or devalues their place in British society devalues us all. No one should live in fear because of their beliefs or because of who they are. Difference is to be prized and upheld, and the political imperative which flows from this assertion is that wherever it manifests itself we must counter anti-Semitism.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for initiating this extremely important debate. I found myself, in contemplation of it, recalling my own modest experience of anti-Semitism. As a non-Jew, I am not normally in the firing line. My interest is as someone who cares about the values of a free, multi-ethnic, multicultural, liberal democracy, who has as a parliamentarian taken a particular interest in justice and civil liberties—including combating all forms of prejudice, bigotry and discrimination.
However, I had a personal moment when I experienced an echo of anti-Semitism when I was a Member of the European Parliament, probably almost 15 years ago. I reacted with some frustration to what I saw as a gap in the output of the EU racism monitoring centre, the forerunner of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights. From memory, I said that it was unfortunate in terms of the perception of balance that the EUMC had produced three reports on Islamophobia while doing nothing on anti-Semitism. I was then criticised for condemning the EUMC’s production of three reports on Islamophobia—they chopped off the final part of the sentence.
An important element that we need to bear in mind is that anti-Semitism evolves and mutates, a point picked up in the Home Affairs Select Committee’s excellent report. Old stereotypes do not disappear, and of course they still get a regular outing, particularly those linked to Jewish power, especially financial power, but new ones arrive to sit alongside them. Some are related to the State of Israel, while others seek to diminish the unique nature of the Holocaust—the Shoah—by talking about other holocausts with a small “h”, as if Holocaust Memorial Day did not also commemorate other genocides. I am mindful of the paragraph in the committee’s report that says:
“Antisemitism is a problem of such gravity that no party can afford to be complacent. It is an issue that should transcend party loyalties and inter-party conflict”.
Now I will quote the leader of the Labour Party, only to illustrate an issue. Jeremy Corbyn told the committee:
“Antisemitism is where you use epithets to criticise people for being Jewish; where you attack Jewish people for what they are”.
This is possibly where things can go wrong and it is not unique to any one party. That kind of direct racism, alarming and deplorable as it is, is in a sense easier to recognise and deal with, but it makes the contemporary kind—which tars Jews with all the perceived ills of the existence of Israel as well as the activities of the Israeli Government—easier to ignore and overlook and thus to evade responsibility for. No one thinks that the Government of Israel should be above criticism, but context is all. The blaming of Zionists for the actions of the Government of Israel is what is so pernicious. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, the disproportionate concentration on the so-called wrongs of Israel compared not only with other players in the Middle East but other Governments around the world makes it obvious that Israel is indeed held to a different standard.
I conclude by asking the Government whether they will consider providing additional funding for the Community Security Trust to work with the Union of Jewish Students to assist in an increase in the reporting of anti-Semitic incidents on campus, and what they are going to do to implement the recommendations of the Home Affairs Select Committee report, especially, as has been mentioned, the necessary resources so that students can be well informed about the Israel-Palestine issue.
Lord Sacks (CB)
My Lords, in 1927 a French intellectual called Julien Benda published a prophetic book called La Trahison des Clercs—the treason of the intellectuals—in which he described the process by which universities that were once known as places for the collaborative pursuit of truth had become homes, in his phrase,
“for the intellectual organization of political hatreds”.
Sadly, that is what some universities in this country have become today. I speak from personal experience.
I was Chief Rabbi for 22 years and during that time I was under constant security protection, but only once in all those years did I feel genuinely afraid. That was when I gave a talk to students at Oxford University. Just before the start of my lecture, a whole group of rather menacing Muslim students came in and occupied the centre of the front row. It was a blatant attempt at intimidation. Luckily, my capacity to be boring at length saved the day and after half an hour they left, but that is increasingly what Jewish students, and indeed Jewish university chaplains, are facing. So threatened do Jewish university students feel that in 2012 they asked me personally to address the annual conference of the National Union of Students. I did. I spoke about academic freedom. I explained that this means that a university is a place where you give a respectful hearing to views with which you disagree. There was a wonderful atmosphere, with people of all ethnicities and faiths. A group of young women Muslim students came up especially to thank me, and I left on a high. That evening, when I had left, the Union of Jewish Students stand was vandalised and threatening messages were left all around.
One of the most frightening books I have read is Ed Husain’s The Islamist. He describes in detail how a mere handful of extremists from Hizb ut-Tahrir were able to dominate and intimidate an entire university. In that case, the primary victims were not Jews but predominantly Muslims, primarily young Muslim women who were not wearing the veil. This is how it begins. The ending of this story is not a happy one—not for Jews, not for Muslims, not for anyone. In this age of extremes, we need to be vigilant in defending academic freedom, which means zero tolerance for intimidation of any group of students. It means insisting that in student debates all sides are given a respectful hearing. It means refusing to allow universities or any other institutions to become homes for the intellectual organisation of political hatreds. If the report in today’s Times is to be believed, that includes Her Majesty’s parliamentary estate. If we do not, this will be the treason of the intellectuals of our time.
Lord Mitchell (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I can think of no one better suited than the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, to lead this debate on anti-Semitism. She has a long history of fighting racial intolerance. The noble Baroness and I were trustees of the Coexistence Trust. Our mission was to help heal the toxic atmosphere that existed on our university campuses between Jewish and Muslim students. We made a great deal of progress. What shocked me at the time was the sheer ignorance of university administrators and faculty about the religious requirements of Jews and Muslims. Will the Minister tell me what progress has been made to educate the educators?
I have also been shocked by the pronouncements of the president of the NUS, Malia Bouattia. The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee report into anti-Semitism criticised her when she denounced Birmingham University as being,
“something of a Zionist outpost”,
which the committee said “smacks of outright racism”. Will the Minister comment on that assertion? That committee turned its attention to the Labour Party, which it said had created,
“a ‘safe space’ for those with vile attitudes towards Jewish people”,
and that its passivity risked,
“lending force to allegations that elements of the Labour movement are institutionally anti-Semitic”.
That hard-hitting document contrasts starkly with the anaemic report, also on anti-Semitism but restricted to the Labour Party, written by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. Her description of the anti-Semitism that even she said existed within Labour was that it was an unhappy incident. It is more than an unhappy incident to me; it goes to the very core of my political being. The press has had a field day with the report and made legitimate points on the sequence of events. The noble Baroness joined the Labour Party one day, she commenced writing the report shortly afterwards, she received no payment for two months’ work, she received a peerage, she became the shadow Attorney-General and she sits in the shadow Cabinet. You can call it whatever you like, but to me it feels like a massive stitch-up. The report recommended that those found guilty of anti-Semitism be suspended. I would have thought that those found guilty of any racism should be kicked out of the party for life.
Ken Livingstone is a case in point. Not for the first time, Livingstone made a comment that he knew would cause maximum distress to Jews. Stating that Hitler was a Zionist was like a punch to the stomach for every Jew. Why has Corbyn not had him banned for life? I am Jewish, and last month I resigned from the Labour Party. Today most Jews have given up on Labour. They feel alienated by Corbyn and his coterie. They feel that Labour is a cold house.
I am often asked whether I think Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite. In truth I do not know, but he certainly surrounds himself with close colleagues who flirt with anti-Semitism. He certainly stood by and smirked when a Jewish MP, Ruth Smeeth, was being verbally abused by a Momentum thug. Israel is a Jewish state, Jews support Israel, therefore Jews must be the enemy. As a Jew and a supporter of the State of Israel, how could I possibly remain in a party whose leadership is so hostile to both?
Today’s Times reports that the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, recently hosted a reception in your Lordships’ House where Jews were blamed for the Holocaust. Even here, in our own House, such things are happening.
The Lord Bishop of Winchester
My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for initiating this debate.
Despite there being Jewish societies in over 60 universities, a study in 2011 found that half of all Jewish students in the UK attend only eight universities. Safety in numbers seems to be key, as Nottingham, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester all boast Jewish societies with over 1,000 members. None the less, we know that Jewish staff and students experience anti-Semitism in a significant number of higher education institutions today. As the recent Universities UK task force report on hate crime makes clear, anti-Semitism is a practice for which there is no place in universities, nor in the Church or society at large.
Anti-Semitism is a virus that latches on to existing beliefs—for example, in the relationship with the Christian story, with Christ’s death in Jerusalem and with the promises of God to all humanity, Jew and Gentile alike. We know that anti-Semitism has also found roots in dangerous forms of nationalism, and today it corrupts political activism as people turn criticism of Israel into an attack on all Jews as “Zionists”. While the rights of Palestinians remain an unresolved matter of social justice, I suggest that to challenge the right of Jewish self-determination and the existence of the State of Israel is, in itself, anti-Semitic.
In each case, anti-Semitism hides behind the respectability or popularity of a common belief, concealing the fact that it is not implied by any of them. Such a shift is often subtle, yet in our universities such a failure of logic should be identified and criticised in open debate. Anti-Semitism must therefore be confronted in the student union bar, the halls of residence, the common room, the public lecture and, if need be, the governing body. So I particularly welcome the proposal that Universities UK should work with appropriate student groups to produce a resource for students and lecturers on how to deal sensitively with the Israel/Palestine conflict, and how to ensure that pro-Palestinian campaigns avoid drawing on anti-Semitic rhetoric.
To combat anti-Semitism we must continue to build relationships between Jewish students, student societies and university chaplaincy teams, and encourage NUS leaders to take the issue seriously, distinguishing between anti-Semitism and racism in general and focusing on the need for collaboration and mutual support in the context of our pluralist society. If we are to maintain universities as communities of wisdom and learning, it is vital to support and protect free and open debate, both by defending individuals’ rights and by confronting practices that seek to curtail them. How will the Government play their part in ensuring that anti-Semitic practices are challenged?
Baroness Neuberger (CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Deech for initiating this debate. I, too, can claim a parent who came to this country and sought refuge here—a very proud Brit with a very strong German accent.
Back in April, I was somewhat surprised to find myself commenting on anti-Semitism publicly and in the media for the first time in my life. Apart from very occasional anti-Semitic comments from a very few people in politics and outside, it was something I had not really feared or experienced, despite hearing of such things as my noble friend Lord Sacks raised. We knew what was going on on campuses. I felt—and feel—proud to be a subject and citizen of what has historically been such a deeply tolerant and diverse country, and I have felt nothing but acceptance and respect for my traditions and beliefs throughout my life’s work.
However, last year—though we know it did not really start last year and has much deeper roots in a combination of anti-Israel views and a definition of anti-racism that is exclusive and perverse—things began to change. I found myself appearing on “Newsnight” with the noble Lord, Lord Levy, discussing anti-Semitism in the Labour Party—the Labour Party in which I grew up—and on campuses, where the cry, “Zio, Zio”, said to Jewish students, is ringing in our ears. This was all in the wake of Naz Shah’s comments, for which she rightly apologised.
Add to that what we can read and what is repeated and retweeted in the blogosphere and on Twitter, where we see ad personam attacks of a disgraceful and upsetting style, particularly against MPs such as Luciana Berger and Ruth Smeeth, who are both Jewish, let alone others—the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, talked about that—and we have reason to be worried. This is a style of attack that makes no attempt to tackle the issues but just goes for the person and is anti-Semitic to boot, while hotly denying that anti-Semitism is even possible in a left-wing, anti-racist party. “I am an anti-racist”, goes the cry. “By definition, I therefore cannot be anti-Semitic”. Really? That thinking has become a serious problem for Jewish students around campuses in the UK, for that cry keeps emerging.
Now, we know that the Labour Party has had very serious issues with anti-Semitism, with significant resignations because of it, or indeed exclusion in the case of Michael Foster on the basis of a headline he did not even write. It is not only in Labour, although it feels as if it is becoming institutionalised and part of the party. Of course, there have been instances in other parties and elsewhere in considerable quantities. Social media need to be looked at and sorted out if anything is to be done about all this.
All this should be a wake-up call. The Government need to act in relation to campuses and universities, as do the political parties—notably, but not only, Labour. I end by asking the Minister two questions. First, apart from the Government’s power to legislate, how will they set or indeed change the tone around this anti-Semitism debate and give leadership, particularly in regard to universities? Secondly, in the wake of the Commons Home Affairs Committee’s excellent report, what assurances can the Minister give that action will be taken to force Twitter and other social media sites to take action against the appalling anti-Semitic tweets and posts, and other extreme blogs, that allow this poison to fester?
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I join this debate in the context of the current wave of anti-Semitic incidents, ranging from abuse to violence, and the deplorable, disgraceful and disheartening activities in some university campuses, such as the appalling events at King’s College London.
We are apparently seeing the convergence of the hard left and the hard right, lapsing into this grotesque world of an ancient hatred, often not only under the cover of criticism of the policies of the Government of Israel but also in opposition to the very existence of the state. I declare my interest as vice-chairman of the New Israel Fund. For all the criticism of Israeli policy, where, for example, are the protesters outside the Syrian Embassy or the embassy of Syria’s supporter Russia?
It is particularly important that the three Abrahamic faiths work together to tackle anti-Semitism, which recent surveys suggest is higher among Muslim communities than is generally the case. Of course, there is good collaboration between the Community Security Trust and Tell MAMA and between local community leaders in many parts of the country, but this needs to be reinforced in our schools, colleges and universities.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I will start by reading out a brief comment from my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn. Many of your Lordships know of his interest and commitment in this area. He would have been speaking here today, but unfortunately the trade debate, in which he is taking part, has overrun. I see a number of people have come in to listen to the concluding part of this debate, which is important. What my noble friend wanted to say is that he has a strong personal connection to these issues, not least the fact that his daughter is now at university, and he hopes that there will be an opportunity in the future to set out some of his trenchant views about what has gone on in our party. A number of other noble Lords have made these points already. He and I are particularly anxious that the issue of anti-Semitism is not just properly acknowledged, as it must be, and that it is recognised to come from many different quarters, but that it is seen to be best dealt with by nurturing our values, with, in the case of universities, a much stronger commitment than we have seen in the past to ensure that a culture of openness and diversity exists on campus.
In her excellent speech introducing this debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, asked Her Majesty’s Government what steps they propose to take to combat anti-Semitism both generally and in particular in universities. So there are both general and specific points to which the Minister must respond. We have had two very good reports recently. The best one is the Home Affairs Committee report, which is available here and has been widely discussed. It is as good as any of the best reports from the Lords committee system —that is very high praise indeed—and I recommend it.
To focus a little more closely on universities, the recent Universities UK task force deals—although perhaps not as much as many people would have wished—with anti-Semitism in universities. The report is quite clear when it states that there is no place for anti-Semitism or any other kind of unlawful discrimination in our universities. Although it may be that the number of reported incidents is low, the report accepts that even a single incident is one too many. We all want our universities to be tolerant and inclusive places. As the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, put it so well, we want academic freedom but zero tolerance of those who practise or preach anti-Semitism.
There are questions for the Minister to answer in the time available to him. If he is not able to respond, I hope that he will write to us because this is such an important subject. The new guidelines place a duty on university authorities to engage more closely in incidents which may be a criminal offence. What discussions have the Government had with the universities on this issue? It is a difficult one. Are we confident that the new guidelines will ensure that any cases that might engage criminal proceedings will indeed be pursued with vigour?
Secondly, the Universities UK report recommends that universities develop and maintain partnership working as a fundamental component of preventing and responding to the sorts of issues we have been talking about. Can the Minister assure us that all that can be done is being done to ensure that the partners identified in this report, many of which are attached to central government, not only know that it is their duty to support staff and students in universities but will assist in delivering the necessary training and help to assess the nature and scale of the issues affecting universities? In the past the barriers have been too great, and they must be removed.
Thirdly, will the Minister consider whether there might be an opportunity in forthcoming legislation—for instance, the Digital Economy Bill—to provide a better regulatory framework for issues relating to the internet? This was mentioned by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger. The internet has become a place for trolling and worse, and behaviour of that type is not being curtailed in any way. I am obviously anxious that we do not see a backlash against it, but it is very important that we use the opportunities we have—there are not that many—to make sure that the legislative framework is appropriate for our aims.
Finally, will the Minister use this debate today to make it clear to all and sundry that the Government will be single-minded in their determination to make sure that every Jewish student has a safe and positive university experience?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for securing this debate. I will attempt to address, in brief, the main issues raised. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, this is an important issue, and the passion that came out in many of the speeches today reinforces that point.
Britain is proud to be multi-ethnic and multifaith. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, it is also a good place to be Jewish. There is no place in our society for anti-Semitism or any form of harassment, discrimination or racism. Therefore, anti-Semitism is abhorrent, and we must take it very seriously.
As the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, mentioned in his speech, many noble Lords will have read in the Times this morning with dismay that a Member of this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, hosted an event at which Jews were blamed for the Holocaust. I am sure that all noble Lords will join me in condemning this shameful display of anti-Semitism.
The UK has one of the strongest legislative frameworks in the world to protect people against incidents of violence and hate crimes and other forms of harassment, including racial and religious discrimination. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, was very helpful in raising the issue of how one might attempt to define anti-Semitism. I am pleased to inform the noble Baroness that the Pickles definition she mentioned has been part of the operational guidance for police officers responding to hate crimes since 2014. The Government are currently reviewing whether the definition should be more widely applied. The Government know full well that there is more to be done. Anti-Semitism is a hate crime, and in 2015-16 UK police forces recorded 62,518 hate crimes. The Community Security Trust, which is the main recording medium, recorded 557 anti-Semitic incidents across the UK in the first half of this year. This is up from 500 incidents recorded in the same period last year.
I now turn specifically to universities, the subject of this debate. Twenty-seven anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in the first six months of this year, affecting students, academics, student unions and other student bodies. Eight of these incidents took place on a university campus and 15 involved social media. While this number is relatively low, one incident affecting one individual is one incident too many. We recognise the debilitating effect such incidents can have on students and the atmosphere of hatred they can create.
The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, among others, raised concerns about the level of anti-Semitism on social media, which is a very good point. The harm caused by anti-Semitism on the internet is a growing concern for the Government, and we have outlined a firm plan to hold social media companies to account in the recently published hate crime action plan. The noble Lord, Lord Sacks, mentioned the chilling effect of the boycotts, divestment and sanctions campaign on university campuses. I assure the noble Lord that this Government wholeheartedly condemn and reject the BDS campaign and strongly believe that it has no place on our campuses.
The question I am sure noble Lords will be asking and have asked is: what are the Government doing about this? The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, stressed the importance of leadership in tackling anti-Semitism, and that is why the Government have accepted and are acting on all 34 recommendations provided by the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism following its 2015 inquiry, which communicated the reality of anti-Semitism on the UK Jewish community. For example, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police are working on publicising all arrests and prosecutions relating to anti-Semitism, underlining that public bodies take anti-Semitism very seriously indeed. Government’s relationship with the Jewish community has been built on the solid work of the cross-government working group on tackling anti-Semitism. This ensures that we are alive to any issues and concerns of the Jewish community and can respond quickly.
This is a tolerant country, and universities are an extension of that tolerance. Freedom of expression and academic freedom are fundamental principles, but not a licence to propagate hate speech. As the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Beith, said, the Equality Act 2010 places a duty on all public bodies, including universities, to protect individuals from discrimination and harassment with the aim of helping them to feel safe and to live in an inclusive environment which respects their difference. Free, open debate offers the best tool available to challenge those who espouse intolerance or discrimination. It is vital that universities have policies and procedures in place to ensure that ideas can be heard and challenged in a safe and well-managed environment that allows for the free exchange of ideas without harassment or intimidation. The Government have an overarching responsibility to ensure that the laws of the land are upheld. This takes on board that universities are autonomous institutions, but it does not mean that the Government bear no responsibility. Universities clearly have a legal obligation to ensure that students do not face discrimination or harassment. The noble Lord, Lord Sacks, made some powerful comments on this very point.
We look to universities to have robust policies and procedures in place. The Union of Jewish Students and the CST provide guidance to universities on addressing illegal and unacceptable behaviour on campus, and some institutions have successfully addressed it. For example, as was mentioned in one of the speeches today, at the University of Birmingham the campus security staff have been very active in their attempts to protect the welfare of the Jewish student population. However, as a Government and as a society we cannot be complacent. One incident of anti-Semitism is one too many.
I turn to the more serious matter of the NUS, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lords, Lord Beith and Lord Mitchell. The NUS also has a role in ensuring that safeguarding, anti-discrimination and harassment policies are implemented on the ground. Sadly, as the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, has pointed out, the actions and words of the current NUS president, Malia Bouattia, have undermined the positive engagement that Jewish students have had with the NUS for decades. I agree with the noble Lord that Jewish students’ concerns about some of her comments have aroused disquiet. It is important that the national president acknowledges that her past rhetoric has caused much harm and that she apologises.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, referred to the payment from University of York Students’ Union to Zachary Confino for suffering anti-Semitism. It is absolutely right that it should not be up to individual students to fight lengthy battles of this kind. I am aware that following this incident the University of York ran a day of inclusivity training for all staff, which is most welcome.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, made an excellent and rather sobering point about how anti-Semitism, often called the world’s oldest hatred, has the ability to morph from Palestine and Gaza and the role of the state of Israel into a hatred of Zionism and incitement to hate Jews. This ability often to hide in plain sight is what makes anti-Semitism so dangerous. If I have got this right, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, described anti-Semitism as being a virus. She reminded us all of the importance of not holding Israel to a different standard.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, spoke about University UK’s harassment task force report. In September 2015, the Government asked UUK to set up a harassment task force on violence against women, harassment and hate crime, including anti-Semitism. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester said that anti-Semitism can hide behind respectability. I could not agree with him more when he says that universities must ensure that anti-Semitism is confronted whenever and wherever it arises on our university campuses.
The task force has brought together vice-chancellors of institutions, students, university experts and external organisations. It published its recommendations in its report last Friday. They set out clear, practical steps that institutions should take to prevent and respond to hate crime in all its forms, including anti-Semitism. We are committed to ensuring that the task force’s recommendations are implemented, and we have asked UUK to scrutinise progress over the next six months. I make it clear that if we are not satisfied with the progress made, we will consider further action.
The work of the UUK task force and partnerships between the universities and organisations such as the Union of Jewish Students are important steps towards changing behaviours. While the Government are acting on many fronts to tackle intolerance and racism, we are never complacent. The effects of anti-Semitism on an individual can be devastating. The Government will diligently pursue our commitment to tackle intolerance and bigotry in whatever form and continue to work in partnership with public bodies and communities to support universities in the pursuit of eliminating anti-Semitism and all forms of harassment, discrimination or racism in universities.
I want to pick up a point made by the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, about the importance of faith and interfaith. We are supporting faith communities because, frankly, practical co-operation between faith groups is crucial to the kind of society that we want to build. It is about people from different backgrounds coming together, not just sitting around tables but working together for the common good and tackling shared social problems. The Government have invested over £8 million in the near neighbours project run by the Church Urban Fund to build productive working relationships between people of different faiths at the local level.
I realise I am running out of time but there are two questions that I failed to answer.
Immigration: Detention of Pregnant Women
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan routinely to publish statistical information on the detention of pregnant women under the Immigration Act 2014.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I make no apology for returning to an issue that was discussed at length in this House earlier this year during consideration of the then Immigration Bill, now the 2016 Act, and which I raised again on 25 May, but I do regret having to do so. I feel that the Government have behaved badly here and I would like to hear an explanation. This is a vital issue that goes to the heart of the sort of nation we want to be and think ourselves to be. In the words of the Royal College of Midwives:
“Women who are pregnant are uniquely vulnerable in so far that they (and their babies) will always have specific, and sometimes serious healthcare needs which are time critical and may impact on health outcomes … Given these risks, and the fact that pregnant women are very rarely removed by means of immigration detention, there is simply no justification for detaining pregnant women in immigration facilities”.
To their credit, after more than a bit of nudging by this House, Ministers largely accepted that argument and Section 60 of the 2016 Act provides for a new 72-hour time limit on the detention of pregnant women. This can be extended to seven days if authorised by a Minister. In common with the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Maternity Action, Women for Refugee Women, Medical Justice and many members of this House, I believe that pregnant women should never be held in detention. I would have much preferred to see the Government agree to an absolute ban on such detention. In the words of Medical Justice:
“Even short-term detention can be harmful to pregnant women and their unborn babies”.
As I said, the 72-hour time limit, which came into force on 12 July, represents a significant and very welcome step forward. However, if we are going to have confidence in this time limit and its effectiveness, and in the Government’s stated intention to end the routine detention of pregnant women, it is essential that meaningful statistics on the detention of pregnant women be publicly available. On this, not only has there been disappointingly little progress since the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, told me on 25 May that the Government were considering how best to collate the information on detained women, but the Home Office has actually actively hindered efforts by Women for Refugee Women and others to monitor the use of detention and compliance with the new time limit. Since the Home Office started collecting information on the detention of pregnant women in August 2015, following a recommendation from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, Women for Refugee Women has asked to access that data through freedom of information requests.
The Home Office took almost five months to respond to the first request, which was made in February this year, and did so only after the Information Commissioner’s Office upheld Women for Refugee Women’s complaint that the Home Office had breached Sections 1(1) and 10(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by failing to respond substantively within 20 days. Women for Refugee Women put in a second freedom of information request at the Home Office on 23 August, but as of today it is still awaiting a response and has been forced to lodge a further complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. I find it a matter of concern that even after the upholding of a complaint by the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Home Office still does not appear to regard responding to such requests in a timely manner as at all important. Its failure to comply with the 20 working-day period specified in the Freedom of Information Act hinders scrutiny of the use of detention of pregnant women.
More generally, I find it astonishing that five months after the Minister told this House that the Government were busy considering the options for the collection of data on detained women, we are still awaiting a mechanism for making that data publicly available. After all, we are talking—at least, I hope we are—about a relatively small number of women, so I simply do not see how difficult it can be. Once they have said that they might be pregnant and they have been examined, surely it is easy to collate that information. Ministers have asked us to accept that they have committed themselves to a new policy to minimise the number of pregnant women in detention. I am willing to accept that, if the Home Office would only make the tiny effort necessary to allow proper scrutiny.
Data collection aside, in June the Home Office issued a draft detention services order on the care and management of pregnant women in detention. It sought comment on the draft and stated that a final DSO would be published over the summer, but as of today it has yet to release that—not to mention that in the view of the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Maternity Action and a host of others, the draft DSO was absolutely inadequate. Accordingly, I have some questions to which I would very much like answers. I understand that it may not be possible for the Minister to give them all today, but I hope I do not have to go through a freedom of information request because obviously, that will take a long time.
I would like to know how many pregnant women have been held in immigration detention since the implementation of the new time limit on 12 July. How many of those women were held for more than 72 hours? How many were removed from the country and how many were released back into the community? When will the Home Office start publishing these figures and other data on a regular basis, and when will it publish the final revised detention services order? On a day when we have heard that the Government have been forced to pay out £14 million to 573 people who were wrongly imprisoned under immigration powers, and earlier this year an inspector’s report said that Europe’s largest detention centre near Heathrow was “dirty and run down”, “overcrowded” and with “seriously insanitary” toilets and showers, it seems that something has to be done. If we are a nation of people who pride ourselves on our compassion and upholding our principles, this is something that we need to deal with, and quickly.
Finally, I hope that the Minister can give us an assurance today that any further freedom of information requests on the detention of pregnant women will be dealt with by the Home Office in a legal and timely manner, and certainly within the 20 working-day time limit.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulescoomb, for securing this short debate on such an important question. It takes most of us back to not exactly happier times debating the Immigration Bill, which became the Immigration Act 2016. At that time, I and others called on the Government to commit to making the statistics on the detention of pregnant women regularly available for public scrutiny. This was partly in response to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, promising that he would continue to reflect on how best to create greater transparency concerning procedures.
Yet in place of transparency, we have a disgraceful situation whereby the Home Office appears to have done its utmost to block FoI requests submitted by Women for Refugee Women, despite a successful complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. I, too, ask the Minister to explain why the Home Office is still failing to comply with requests in a timely manner, despite the ICO’s ruling. Will she give a commitment that any future requests will be dealt with in a timely manner—not that an FOI request should be necessary in the first place? Will she explain how the Government plan to monitor the very welcome commitment to reduce the number of survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in detention? Will she commit to publishing the findings so that it is possible to assess how well the new policy is working?
During the last gasp of our debates on the issue of pregnant women, having failed to achieve the recommendation of the Shaw report that there should be an absolute exclusion on their detention, I expressed the wish that our colleagues in the other place might read our debates and,
“think about how, within the constraints of the legislation as it is, we could make this a more humane process”.—[Official Report, 10/5/16; col. 1.]
I hope we will use the opportunity afforded by this debate to do that now. In particular, I want to go back to an underlying issue that I raised during the debate on the Bill, which got a bit lost in the niceties of the wording of amendments. It is how we best achieve the Government’s stated aim that the treatment of pregnant women should be:
“Similar to the arrangements put in place as part of ending routine detention for families with children”.
Indeed, it was claimed that the Government are using precisely that model, and yet my second amendment, designed to help achieve that aim, was rejected by the Government.
The family returns process to which Ministers referred has been successful in significantly reducing the number of children in detention. It is based on the principle of engagement. Evidence from countries such as Sweden indicates that where engagement is embedded throughout the asylum process, it can reduce the use of enforcement and detention. According to Women for Refugee Women, to which I am grateful for its briefing, engagement generally takes the form of a case-management approach. Through this, ongoing structured practical and emotional support is provided to migrants and asylum seekers while they are going through the immigration and asylum processes, so that they are able to understand what is happening and participate fully in the resolution of their case while based in the community.
The evidence suggests that such an approach improves decision-making, particularly as women may be more willing to disclose information about what has happened to them. It can also help those who receive a positive decision to rebuild their lives more easily, having had practical and emotional support throughout the asylum process, but it also ensures a more humane and dignified process for those whose claims are ultimately refused. Comparisons between the experience of the UK, which relies so heavily on detention, and Sweden, where detention is much rarer, suggest that those refused are more likely to leave through voluntary return programmes in which policy prioritises engagement over detention. It is suggested that this is because people are more likely to accept a negative decision if they feel it has been reached through a fair and humane process.
Women for Refugee Women argues that engagement is not only more humane but more cost-efficient than detention, because operational costs are lower and it avoids resorting to forced deportations and potential compensation claims in the event of unlawful detention. It believes that this approach should also be considered for asylum-seeking women more generally, given their vulnerabilities and that many are survivors of sexual or other gender-based forms of violence.
I understand that Women for Refugee Women met the Immigration Minister in September to discuss these issues, and I would welcome a commitment from the Minister to continuing these discussions in the hope that we can make this a more humane process for this uniquely vulnerable group, in the interests of not just their health but that of their unborn children—a point made by a number of noble Lords during the debates on the Immigration Bill. Then, we can start to discuss how such an approach might help asylum-seeking women more generally.
I understand that a new draft rule contains a paragraph that states:
“when medical advice is given that locating the detainee in Rule 40/42 accommodation”—
that is, removing them from association or putting them in solitary confinement—
“would be seriously detrimental to a detainee’s health or is life threatening, the multi-disciplinary team should urgently consider this advice”,
and that any decision to continue the use of rule 40 or 42 must be recorded, clearly stating the rationale. Surely, there can be no acceptable rationale for action that has been deemed potentially seriously detrimental to health or even life-threatening. I have not been able to find out the current status of this draft. Will the Minister reassure us that this guidance is not and will not be contained in the final draft? It appears to fly in the face of everything the Shaw inquiry was trying to achieve.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, on obtaining this debate, and I thank her for it. I salute her persistent pursuit of the right course of action regarding the detention of pregnant women. I also thank the House of Lords Library for yet another comprehensive and helpful briefing pack.
My interest in the subject began in 1997, when as Chief Inspector of Prisons I was invited to take on the inspection of what were then called immigration detention centres. I immediately found that the detention of pregnant women was one of many issues demanding urgent attention. What was particularly disturbing was the lack of availability of reliable statistics with which to identify the scale of separate parts of various problems, and proper scrutiny was inhibited by a lack of information. Like the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister, I was a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees that reported on the use of immigration detention in 2015 so, while not exactly having an interest to declare, I must admit to having form on the subject.
Like other noble Lords, I was very glad when in April this year the Government announced that a 72-hour time limit was to be placed on the detention of pregnant women, which could be extended up to a week. However, that this debate has been tabled so soon after that makes me wonder whether the Home Office is producing the required statistical information. That scepticism results from numerous examples of poor availability over the years, and is reinforced by the recent experiences of the charity Women for Refugee Women, which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has already spoken about. You would think that after being publicly castigated by the Commissioner for Information for having breached the conditions of the Act, any organisation would learn its lesson. Not the Home Office. I am sure the Minister will agree that this story is simply not good enough, and if the Home Office knows the facts it should be able to answer by return rather than having to be chased. This failure to produce data has been matched by the Home Office’s failure to produce its promised detention services order, which the noble Baroness has also mentioned.
That leads me on to two other issues, not solely about statistics but about which statistics should be available: the definition of torture and the short-term detention rules, both of which affect pregnant women in detention. On 12 September this year the Government issued draft guidance on adults at risk in immigration detention, which did not adopt the wider definition of “torture” previously used in detention policy but, rather, the rather narrower one in the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which limits torture to acts involving a public official. This conflicts with Stephen Shaw’s findings and recommendations in his recent report, including that there should be a presumption against detention for victims of rape and other sexual or gender-based violence. Therefore I have to admit that I was rather surprised by the Minister’s assertion in answer to a Written Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that those most likely to be adversely affected by detention are those who have been harmed by the state. I ask the noble Baroness from where the evidence for this assertion comes and how it was gathered? The Government’s time limit was based on evidence that pregnant women are extremely likely to be adversely affected by detention, which pregnancy may well have resulted from rape. Her assertion explains why I am also concerned that Home Office caseworkers should have appropriate statistical information available when considering a recommendation that any pregnant woman should be detained for more than 72 hours.
I now come to the conditions in which pregnant women are detained. When, as Chief Inspector, I expressed concern about the lack of facilities in detention centres, particularly for those detained for months or even years, I was told that they had not been deemed necessary because they were essentially only short-term holding centres. However, as their regimes did not appear to be geared to quick assessment and turnaround, I began agitating for the production of short-term detention rules which have since been promised over and over again. I thought, in vain, that we were there following a consultation on a draft in 2006 and again following a similar consultation in 2009. Yet again my hopes were raised and dashed following ministerial assurances that publication was imminent in connection with the Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016, the latter accompanied by yet another consultation. Surely it should not take longer than World Wars I and II combined to produce a set of rules based on existing rules, but then this is the Home Office. I have to say to the Minister that I simply do not believe that officials have been so snowed under by new responses that they cannot produce something that allegedly has been so near completion for so long. In the past their habit has been to ignore submissions from outside sources, such as the Immigration Lawyers’ Association. I therefore ask the Minister: how many responses were received?
Noble Lords will no doubt sense that I am a long-time critic of our current immigration system but, starting with my time as Chief Inspector of Prisons and repeated since in numerous reports and inquiries, I hope that I have been a constructive one. Currently, the system has a millstone of over 630,000 unresolved cases around its neck that prevents it being able to handle new applicants quickly, which situation is likely to get worse rather than better as numbers increase. Ministers can only make timely and accurate decisions if they are given timely and accurate facts which emphasises the importance of timely and accurate statistics. If the Home Office cannot even produce timely and accurate statistics about the small number of pregnant women in detention, what chance is there of Ministers being given the facts about larger problems? I therefore suggest to the Minister that it is Home Office Ministers rather than Members of this House who should be pressing for the regular publication of accurate statistical information on the detention of pregnant women, thus ending the stream of very valid complaints from the many organisations that are trying to help the Government look after immigration and asylum seekers, including pregnant women, with the decency and humanity on which this country has always prided itself.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness for raising the subject and the House of Lords Library for its briefings, which are wonderful. I hope I do not lose this one because it has so many helpful references in it. Like the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, I, too, was a member of the All-Party Inquiry into Immigration Detention. Before I start my rant, I want to say that I am sorry that the layout of this room somehow seems to support an adversarial process when actually I suspect that everyone here would rather be sitting round in a circle, trying to find a solution.
One of the frustrations of the job that we all do—this must apply to Ministers most of all—is having a continual, nagging anxiety that practice differs from the theory that we discuss in such detail, and that the formal position is a world away from lived experience. It sometimes seems that a Minister’s briefing is a different reality and that we are working in parallel universes. Statistical information would help with this. It would not be the complete answer. There would always be comments that the criteria were poorly chosen and that such and such should have been measured, but statistics are a necessary component for judging practice and, of course, they are necessary for an open society. Statistical information may sometimes dispel myths; it may confirm one’s suspicions or even prejudices, but it always should tell us—this is a point that the noble Baroness made—what sort of society we are living in, as well as the one we hope to live in.
How pregnant women are dealt with for the purposes of immigration detention is not the only example of a concession given by the Government to get a piece of legislation through. Many of us, led valiantly by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, wanted to see better protection than Section 60 of the Immigration Act, but the Government convinced parliamentarians of the validity of the provision. It is now a matter of good faith for the Home Office to demonstrate how Section 60 is operating. I am conscious of other matters that will be coming across the Minister’s desk—indeed, one of them has just been mentioned. Some noble Lords may have heard the programme on Radio 4 a couple of nights ago about the protection of overseas domestic workers, in which the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland, and James Ewins, who reported to the Government with recommendations, both expressed the view that that protection is not working as it should.
The guidance on adults at risk in immigration detention, on which the Minister recently answered Written Questions from me, to which the noble Lord referred, distinguishes between torture by the state and by non-state actors. I recognise that this is not the subject of this short debate but it illustrates a failure to see matters from the point of view of the individual affected. In the case of torture victims, are the numbers so great that the system would be overwhelmed if those were treated as two categories? Is there some issue of comparative fairness? I am really quite puzzled by this. Will it be another frustration for the doctors from whom our inquiry heard about the operation of rule 35? There is no doubt they were very frustrated.
In the case of pregnant detainees, we understand that in 2014 the great majority were released to pursue their applications in the community. Again, what is the point in holding any of them? I am not sure that the more humane and effective approach taken in Sweden, which supports immigrants whose applications are unsuccessful and which we were told we were edging slowly towards, is actually happening to any extent at all. This leaves us with the same old question: what purpose does it serve to lock up pregnant women, not as a punishment but in administrative detention?
We may be told that these are nuanced issues, and that is inherent in Section 60 with its reference to “exceptional circumstances”—although of course Stephen Shaw said that it was a statement of the obvious that,
“detention has an incontrovertibly deleterious effect on the health of pregnant women and their unborn children”.
For the purposes of this debate, and given the wording of Section 60, I accept that. One has to wonder, without the information, how the Home Office can know whether its policy is working and whether it is even meeting its own objectives. If the Home Office does not know, how can the rest of us?
Of course, the collection of statistics is not the same as publication and in May the Minister then dealing with the matter told the House:
“The Government are considering how best to collate the information and whether it will be necessary to actually publish it”.—[Official Report, 25/5/16; col. 388.]
It is necessary. The Home Office itself says so. The guidance includes, in paragraph 6, one of the principles underpinning the guidance:
“There will be a clearer understanding of how the government defines, ‘at risk’ and how those considerations are weighed against legitimate immigration control factors to ensure greater transparency about who is detained and why”.
I think that that makes the case.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
First, I join other noble Lords who have spoken in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for introducing this Question for Short Debate today. I very much agree with what she said. She raises a very serious matter that should be of concern to the whole House. By the publishing of regular statistical information, we are able to assess what the Government are actually doing on a whole range of matters, compared with policy objectives and pronouncements, and this is an area of both policy and action that requires a very detailed level of scrutiny.
It is my understanding that Section 60 of the Immigration Act 2016 provides for a 72-hour time limit for the detention of women known to be pregnant, and this may be extended for up to seven days only if authorised by a Minister. This policy, we have heard, was a compromise following a defeat in the House of Lords earlier this year on an absolute exclusion. A woman should be detained only if she will shortly be removed from the UK or if there are “exceptional circumstances”—I think that these exceptional circumstances are listed as public harm and/or national security. The reason mainly given for detention, of course, is to ensure a person’s removal from the United Kingdom.
It is my understanding that a pregnant woman needs an assessment of her fitness to fly if she is 37 weeks or more into her pregnancy and it is uncomplicated. I understand also that there are international air travel criteria that have to be complied with for any pregnant woman, not just those in detention. I hope we can all agree that having a reliable assessment in less than 72 hours in what can be described only as difficult circumstances will be a challenge, to say the least. My understanding is that matters such as prior medical history would ideally be considered and additional medical tests might also be required. I am aware of the review on vulnerable people in immigration detention, and the comments of the former prisons ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, to which other noble Lords have referred, on the damaging effect on the health of pregnant women and their unborn children.
It would be useful if the Minister could tell the Committee, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has asked, in the years for which figures are available, how many pregnant women held in immigration detention were deported direct from that detention and how many were released back into the community to pursue their cases there. I find it puzzling that the Home Office has been collecting data on the detention of pregnant women since August 2015, following a recommendation from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, but that it has no plans to actually start publishing this information. The reason given is that it has not been assured to the standard of official statistics, which I find to be a very weak reason indeed. Will the Minister tell the Grand Committee what needs to be done to get this information to the standard of official statistics? Have the Home Office started doing that, and if not, why not?
Would the Minister also like to comment on the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, when he told your Lordships’ House earlier this year that the Government were considering,
“whether it will be necessary to actually publish”,—[Official Report, 25/5/16; col. 388.]
the information at all. As I said earlier, Governments can come up with all sorts of policy announcements, objectives, plans and procedures, but unless we have some evidence as to what they are actually doing in specific areas, they cannot be held to account. As we have heard, FoI requests have been put into the Home Office and I think it is fair to say that the response times have fallen well below the expected standards for promptness of replies. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has told us, the first FoI was complied with only following a complaint to the Information Commissioner and the complaint being upheld. We have also heard that the second one has still not been complied with. It feels like the Government are very reluctant to publish this information, and perhaps the Minister can tell us why. We need to know why these FoI requests have not been dealt with in a timely manner because it is not acceptable. Is it due to staff shortages or some other reason? What is going to be done to get this information released in the expected timeframe?
The detention of vulnerable pregnant women should be something that never happens, and I think the Government would agree with that as a policy aim. So I say to the Minister that if that was achieved by the Home Office, the Government will receive only praise for having delivered on it. The present situation appears to be clouded in mystery and there is a reluctance to provide information. That leads to people thinking that the policy aim and pronouncements and the actual situation are miles apart, with little chance of ever being brought together, which is why the Government are so reluctant to release the information as it would confirm what the situation really is. That is a bad place for the Government to find themselves in and they would be better advised to allow the maximum amount of light to shine on where we actually are. We can then debate how we can get to a place where I think we all want to be.
I was very impressed by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. He made a devastating critique, highlighting the policy failures at the Home Office. I await with particular interest the Minister’s response to the noble Lord’s points. I do not expect her to respond to everything I have raised, of course, but I hope that she can give a commitment to note any points that require a response in writing to noble Lords.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who spoke in this debate, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who secured it. The issue of pregnant women in detention is a delicate one and understandably it is often quite emotive. Perhaps I may be clear on behalf of the Government that the decision to detain any individual under immigration powers is never taken lightly. As published Home Office policy already makes clear, detention must only ever be used sparingly and for the shortest period necessary. There is a presumption of liberty for any individual and our preference will always be that those who have no right to remain in the UK should leave the country of their own volition, but unfortunately that does not always happen. Where that is the case, regrettably detention may be necessary to enforce an individual’s removal.
Where we decide that detention is the appropriate course of action, it is important that the individual is treated with respect and dignity for as long as they remain in our care. To underline this commitment, in February 2015 my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, when she was still Home Secretary, announced that she was asking the former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, to undertake a review of the welfare of those in detention, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, referred. Mr Shaw’s comprehensive Review of the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons was published under cover of a Written Ministerial Statement in January. It made a number of recommendations addressing detainee welfare and vulnerability, including in relation to pregnant women.
The Government accepted the general thrust of Mr Shaw’s recommendations. We were not, however, persuaded by his recommendation to completely exclude pregnant women from detention in future. Home Office detention policy has never been based on excluding entirely any particular group of persons, including pregnant women, from detention. There will be occasions in which it is both appropriate and justified to detain a person, even if they are vulnerable in some way. For example, a pregnant woman might pose a risk to the public which would make her detention in the public interest and outweigh the fact of her pregnancy. There is a need to keep the capability to detain at the border, pending removal, if entry is refused.
The Government listened to concerns about the detention of pregnant women. During the passage of the Immigration Act 2016, to which many noble Lords referred, we introduced statutory limits on periods of detention of any woman who we are satisfied is pregnant. Section 60, which came into force on 12 July, restricted the circumstances in which a pregnant woman who is being removed or deported from the UK may be detained. Detention of pregnant women is limited to a maximum of 72 hours, although there is provision—as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, pointed out—for this to be extended to an absolute statutory maximum of one week in total, only in exceptional circumstances. Ministerial authorisation must be obtained for any extension beyond the 72-hour point, to ensure that periods of detention are kept to a minimum and to provide an effective safeguard against the risk of the longer period of detention being used inappropriately.
Most noble Lords asked about the numbers of women in detention. There are no women in immigration detention today recorded as being pregnant. Since July, when the Immigration Act came into force, the total number of women recorded as being pregnant while in detention is 15. None of them were detained beyond the statutory limit bar one, where there was ministerial authority. That means obviously that 14 were detained up to 72 hours.
We do not propose to publish statistical information routinely on the detention of pregnant women. Such information would be limited by caveats as to scope and accuracy, given that it could relate only to those women known to be pregnant. In addition, any statistical information would not in itself provide a fully accurate, rounded picture unless it was accompanied by a detailed narrative on the circumstances of the individual cases, which would not be appropriate, not least given the risk of identifying particular individuals. For the same reasons, the Government do not propose to provide a running commentary on the numbers involved.
The legislation, as I have just discussed, also imposes a duty to have regard to the pregnant woman’s welfare in deciding whether or not to detain. This might include matters such as whether there have been complications with the woman’s pregnancy. The Home Office published comprehensive guidance for its caseworkers on the detention of pregnant women. That covers the general principles to be considered in deciding whether to detain a pregnant woman, consideration of the duty to have regard to the pregnant woman’s welfare, the operation of the detention time limit, and the procedures in exceptional cases for seeking ministerial authority to extend detention beyond 72 hours.
There will be occasions, particularly where a woman is in the early stages of pregnancy and not visibly pregnant, when it is possible that her pregnancy will come to light only after she has been detained. That might be because she does not want to disclose her pregnancy, or she might not even be aware yet that she is pregnant. The Section 60 restrictions still apply in such cases, with the 72-hour time limit being calculated from the point at which the Home Office accepts that the woman is pregnant.
To support the new statutory arrangements, we published a new operational instruction on the management of pregnant women in detention. All staff working in immigration removal centres, including healthcare staff, must follow this. It covers matters such as the woman’s welfare during her transfer to her place of detention, her care while in detention and the arrangements for her removal.
The Home Office has now introduced its new adults at risk policy for the detention of vulnerable persons, in direct response to Stephen Shaw’s recommendations. Under Section 59 of the Immigration Act 2016, the Government laid before Parliament draft statutory guidance on the policy in July. This guidance came into force on 12 September. Although the policy applies to all detainees considered vulnerable, it provides additional safeguards for pregnant women, beyond those set out in the 2016 Act. The starting point of the policy will be that an individual considered to be at risk in the context of the new policy should not be detained. This builds on the general presumption against detention and will be displaced only when the immigration factors outweigh the contention that the individual in question is at risk. The underlying principle is that the greater the weight of evidence of risk, the weightier the immigration factors need to be to justify detention.
Under the adults at risk policy, individuals are considered to be at a particular level of risk depending on the type and quality of the evidence available in their particular case. The mere existence of a woman’s established or accepted pregnancy will place her automatically at the highest level of risk. As a result, the pregnancy will be afforded significant weight when assessing the risk of harm in detention and require weightier immigration factors to be present to justify authorising or maintaining detention. The position of pregnant women in the context of immigration detention has changed. The combined effect of the statutory restrictions on the detention of pregnant women and the introduction of the adults at risk policy, with its specific protections for pregnant women, ensures that pregnant women will be detained only in very limited circumstances, for very short periods, and only when such action is justified, taking full account of the likelihood of risk to the woman in question. This strikes the right balance between recognising the inherent vulnerability of pregnant women, particularly in relation to detention, and the need to secure our borders and maintain effective immigration control.
The Home Office has never detained pregnant women in large numbers. Previous Home Office detention policy was clear that pregnant women should be detained only in very exceptional circumstances. Although the Home Office began collating data on the detention of pregnant women only comparatively recently, anecdotally, numbers have always been small. We expect the statutory restrictions introduced in July and the more recent implementation of the adults at risk policy to reduce those numbers still further.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked about the publication of the DSO. It will be published in November, which is some time from next onwards for four weeks. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked about FoIs. We take our responsibility under the FoI Act seriously. FoIs are being dealt with as a matter of priority. On 29 September, we answered an FoI on pregnant women statistics that we had received from Medical Justice.
The noble Baroness also asked about the Family Returns Panel, which has proved so efficient and effective, and how lessons can be learned from that in detaining and removing pregnant women. In addition to the time limit that now applies to the detention of pregnant women, we are putting in place a robust package of safeguards, including: the duty to have regard to the welfare of the woman; detaining only if removal is due to happen shortly or, if there are exceptional circumstances; the adults at risk policy, which I have talked about; and improvements to the caseworking process when managing vulnerable persons. Taken together, those developments will ensure that detention is used sparingly and for the shortest period of time when it becomes absolutely necessary to detain pregnant women who will not leave voluntarily. We do not believe that oversight by the Family Returns Panel would add any further safeguard, although I accept that it has been a very effective process.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, asked why we limited the definition of torture for adults at risk to that set out in the UN Convention against Torture. The Government adopted that definition as it most accurately reflects the need to protect those who are the most likely to be adversely affected by detention, which is those who have been harmed by the state or by an organisation exercising similar control and for whom detention is most likely to be redolent of the harm that they suffered.
The noble Lord also asked why the STHF rules have still not been made. The Home Office undertook a targeted consultation of detention stakeholders on the draft set of short-term holding facility rules earlier in the year, and the responses received were extremely detailed and will take some time to go through. However, that process is almost complete. He asked how many responses there were to the consultation exercise. There were 10.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked at what stage of pregnancy the Home Office considers flying to be inappropriate. A pregnant woman’s fitness to travel by air, and therefore whether it is likely to be possible to remove or deport her, is assessed on a case-by-case basis using guidance from the IATA. The guidance states that for a single uncomplicated pregnancy, travel would be appropriate without a medical certificate up to 37 weeks.
My time has run out by a minute. If I have not answered any questions, and I suspect there might be a couple from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I will do so in due course. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate.
Armed Forces: Foreign Language Speakers
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Harrison
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the United Kingdom has sufficient speakers of foreign languages serving the Armed Forces and defence services.
Lord Harrison (Lab)
My Lords, “Parlez-vous Brexit?” was the eye-catching headline in last weekend’s i newspaper after suggestions that the designated EU Brexit commissioner, Michel Barnier, might insist that the forthcoming EU/UK Brexit negotiations are conducted in French. Twice I took our EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee to Brussels to interview M. Barnier in his role as financial affairs commissioner, and I took care to address him in French. Speaking to someone in their own language is not only a mark of respect and welcome, manifesting an eagerness to listen and learn, it is also downright common sense. We have lost that art and our self-inflicted defenestration from the European Union will only further impair our ability to make and influence friends, nowhere more so than in our engagement with partners in the defence of the realm, in the armed services, diplomatic corps and intelligence services.
As a recent copy of the Soldier magazine declared:
“Many of our forebears would have been embarrassed to see how little knowledge we arrived with in Iraq and Afghanistan … our great grandfathers … spoke the language and knew the people”.
That was quoted in the Daily Telegraph. It goes on to suggest that the Government will not entertain promotion in the Army above the rank of captain for those without a foreign language. The programme started in 2015 and comes into full play in 2018. Could the Minister confirm that that is the case? What numbers of personnel have embarked on such training? What level of language skill—passing, competent or fluent—is expected? What particular languages and what numbers are envisaged over the next 10 years? Will the Minister further confirm that the method of achieving success in language acquisition will be part of an exchange programme between nations where UK personnel are encouraged to go on exercises to learn languages at the same time that we help to train the receiving country?
Before we can make an effective judgment on Britain’s capacity to defend itself through language competency, we urgently need facts and figures. These have been conspicuously absent despite numerous Written Questions from me. I hope the Minister can provide us with real and verifiable figures. He told me in a Written Answer earlier this year that some 700 armed services personnel hold a language qualification but there is no notion of how that compares with 10 or 20 years ago. Similarly, the category of expert speakers is but 132 out of that 700. How does that compare with 20 years ago? Crucially, does it match our current operational needs? How is it assessed and who by? We are told that the services hold competency in 48 languages but how does that compare with the past? What and where is the distribution of these languages, and where is the flexibility to learn new languages as changes happen? Is that 48 sufficient?
When discussing this topic with my noble friend Lord West, he told me that we need to use the Army and services’ reservists more to build up language competency. Does the Minister agree and does he have plans to do so? Indeed, what assessment and analysis has been made of the Defence Centre for Languages and Culture in terms of its capacity to meet the real language needs of the services? How does this compare with our erstwhile partners in the EU where languages are commonly learned and spoken as compared with the UK, a “proud nation of monoglots”?
HMG have recently replied to the House of Lords Select Committee on Soft Power. They are lukewarm to the suggestion that there should be an audit of language skills of civil servants across all departments, as proposed by the committee which,
“would bring sizeable advantages for officials working overseas or with foreign counterparts”.
Can the Minister tell us what the funding is for the FCO’s language centre and what we are going to do about this gaping hole of spoken languages acquisition? Are we increasing the budget to try to fill it? Similarly, are there sufficient funds to enable the Defence Centre for Languages and Culture to fulfil its crucial job? I highlight in particular its Operational Languages Award Scheme to incentivise MoD personnel in language skills. We urgently need more knowledge and transparency about our language holdings. Given that for cultural reasons the British have never revelled in language skills, Britain lacks the home grown linguists which most countries have.
Having said that, what greater efforts might the MoD make to recruit from our indigenous communities found here in Britain, especially from the subcontinent? Similarly, we are told that London is home to some 300 spoken modern languages. How many are mobilised to serve our defence and intelligence services? GCHQ, our largest employer of linguists, insists on recruiting only United Kingdom citizens, but is that wise? Are we not cutting off our nose to spite our face when we enforce that? Indeed, will the Minister tabulate the shortages in GCHQ of certain crucial languages, known to be Mandarin, Russian and Arabic? How much retraining of modern languages graduates does GCHQ do for the scarce languages which have to be used from time to tmie? Again, may we have the numbers, please?
In our universities is it time that we followed the example of UCL in requiring a foreign language GCSE as compulsory for all entrants? When I was at school, entry to Oxbridge required Latin, thereby breeding a generation of brash, bumbling Borises. At grammar school in Oxford I was taught to speak a dead language, Latin, while French was unspoken and confined to reading the texts of Racine and Corneille. Given the many unfortunate policies of successive Governments, must we not concentrate on in-house tuition in the armed and intelligence services while radically remodelling the primary and secondary long-term contribution?
Finally, on the role of the FCO in supporting our defence and armed services, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, tells how when he was Permanent Secretary, some 500 people spoke Arabic, but now the figure is 131. Is that not sheer madness? Embassies are now increasingly geared to promoting trade and business, all needed in the lonely post-Brexit world, but our foreign embassies still need to do their regular job of intelligence gathering for the defence of the realm—a Government’s first duty to the people. On a parliamentary visit to Estonia in April, I met General Wes Clark and General Sir Richard Shirreff, also visiting NATO’s local HQ as well as the Russian border and the college serving the Russian-speaking minority of Estonians. We heard the good news today that the UK is posting 800 personnel to help our Estonian colleagues inhibit a Russian incursion but can the Minister find out for us how many of those 800 are language experts in either Estonian or Russian?
The news this morning that sixth form colleges are axeing French, German and Italian from their core curricula is deeply disappointing, but my task in today’s debate is to suggest that HMG must rely on the defence and intelligence services to plunder home-grown language skills. We must make do and mend because we cannot wait for the schools to do the job. Before I came into this debate I was stopped by one of the Doorkeepers who told me that when he was on pre-deployment in the Army, he learned languages from people with language skills here in the United Kingdom. After that they could go on to the Army language centre. This is an important issue which has not been covered and I am very pleased to begin today’s debate.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I remind the Committee that I still hold a commission in the Reserves, although it is extremely unlikely that I will ever be active again. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for initiating this QSD.
There are many difficulties with engaging local interpreters on an operation. It is hard to be sure that they are reliable and secure. It puts the interpreters in a difficult position when we eventually withdraw, and even when they go home, perhaps at the weekend. Noble Lords have frequently debated the difficulties that we have incurred with regard to honouring our moral obligations to locally employed interpreters from our operations in Afghanistan.
Another difficulty with local interpreters is that the other local party will try to negotiate with the interpreter rather than the British officer. It is of course possible that the discussions that the interpreter and the local party are engaged in are nothing at all to do with what the British officer thought they were supposed to be talking about. Fortunately, I assure the Committee that in my personal experience, pre-deployment training in the British Army includes how to use an interpreter. It is not like what we see in films when an interpreter has a long chat with the other party; in fact, you carefully let them use only one sentence at a time. It is therefore much more difficult for them to start going off-piste.
Being able to speak the local language is a huge advantage. When I was engaged in international work in Rwanda, I will never forget the look of horror on the face of the government official when I turned up without a local interpreter and started speaking French. I expect this was on two counts: first, the lost advantage for him of working through a local interpreter and, secondly, my not particularly good French. On many occasions they suddenly remembered that they could speak English after all. If one does have to use a local interpreter, only a basic working capability in the local language will be needed to ensure that the interpretation is reasonably reliable and not going off-piste.
The short answer to the noble Lord’s question is no. The first reason is that we do not know which local language will be applicable to the next major operation, or whether it will be enduring or just a short intervention. Of course, as the noble Lord indicated, there is a need to have modern European languages, but I am talking particularly about the local language of the operation. It is simply not worth investing in huge amounts of language training that may never be needed. All that I have said is perfectly understandable, and I think the noble Lord agrees.
The second reason is not so good, and it is that we are very poor at putting in place a language capability even for enduring operations. So far as the regular Army is concerned, incentives for service people to acquire a capability in the local language of current operations are available, but I am not convinced they are sufficient to encourage so many to take it up that the need for local interpreters is significantly reduced.
How much overall do we pay service people to maintain the capability to deploy by parachute drop, and how does this compare with how much we pay in incentives to have the capability in the local language of any operations? I asked a Written Question about when we last deployed at company strength by parachute drop. Apparently it was the second most unhelpful Question that the MoD could be asked. The first is something to do with the RAF, although to be fair the answer to that question has a lot more to do with a successful defence policy over many years.
It is not just officers who could benefit from language training. A full corporal in the regular British Army is an extremely capable person but it may be that his trade, or his type of unit, is not required for the current operation. If they are any good, they will be desperate to “go on tour”, as they say. Being an interpreter for, say, a local liaison officer would be a fabulous opportunity for a junior NCO. Only a fairly modest financial incentive would be needed to encourage regular NCOs of any service to acquire a language of a current operation, and, of course, a certain proportion of service people will turn out to be gifted in languages.
I turn to the Army Reserve, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison. To be honest, a junior direct entry reserve infantry officer with no previous regular service would find it hard to get the chance to deploy in role on an operation; it really does not happen that much. I will spare the Minister’s blushes by not asking how many such officers we have.
Suppose that in 1993 a junior TA officer, on his own initiative, learned to speak Serbo-Croat at conversational level—possibly achieved by engaging with a local diaspora. In the mid to late-1990s, he or she would have been able to deploy in operations almost as often as desired. The military skills of such an officer would be perfectly adequate for the role of interpreter or local liaison officer, and they could have a very fulfilling tour.
My counsel is that we should have much better financial incentives for regular service people at junior level, both officer and enlisted, who acquire an operational local language as directed. We should also very strongly encourage reservists to acquire the operational local language with the clear expectation that they would be able to deploy. It needs to be managed. If we had this policy in place, we could increase our operational effectiveness and reduce reliance on local interpreters, with all the ensuing problems. Finally, I say to my noble friend the Minister: good luck with the Treasury.
Lord Wilson of Tillyorn (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for raising this subject, a very important one indeed. I declare an interest relating to one language at least: Chinese. I am president of the Scotland China Education Network, which, under the energetic leadership of Dr Judith McClure, promotes the teaching of Chinese in Scottish schools.
I do not know how many noble Lords here this afternoon have read a 1950s book by Eric Newby called A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush; there are some who have read it. It is the most wonderful account of a journey to the Hindu Kush, the formidable mountain range between Pakistan and Afghanistan, by a very amateur group that included Eric Newby and one Persian-speaking young diplomat. At the end of their expedition, as they are coming down, they meet, coming up into the mountains, that very great traveller, Wilfred Thesiger. He insists that they should stay and have supper with him. In the exchange, Thesiger says, “Slight problem here. I can’t speak a word of the language. Still, it’s not really necessary”. Then he turns to the cook, who has only just been employed that morning and has never met another Englishman in his life and certainly does not speak English, and says in a loud voice, “Make some green tea, a lot of chicken and rice—three chickens”, and it is done.
I suggest that there are two morals to this story, which is a caricature of that very great traveller, Sir Wilfred Thesiger. He was a real expert. He had twice crossed the Rub al-Khali—the Empty Quarter—in Arabia. He travelled in the country with the Marsh Arabs in Iraq; he travelled extensively in north Africa. He really knew the Arab world. But the second moral is: it is no good if you are outside your area of language comfort, relying on speaking English in a loud voice. It does not do, as has just been said by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee.
As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has said, an interpreter has to be used on some occasions but an interpreter is not enough. It is not simply a question of whether your interpreter is having a different conversation from the one you want him to have; it is that only by knowing a language do you really have an understanding of the culture, the history and the customs of the people you are dealing with. That is key. It seems that in recent conflicts in Iraqi and Afghanistan that sort of expertise and local understanding was badly needed, and surely it is equally true of the highly complex situations in Syria and Libya that we need real expertise and understanding. That is as true for the intelligence services and GCHQ as it is for the military.
Unfortunately, as has just been said, we are increasingly bad at teaching foreign languages in schools, and we seem to have taken it as perfectly normal that we should reduce the amount of effort that goes into learning foreign languages. There are one or two bright spots, thank goodness. I mentioned the Scotland China Education Network. Two weeks ago I went to a meeting of that body at a school in Perthshire, and every person in the entry year was learning Chinese. They did not have to go on doing so but they did have to go on learning at least two languages throughout their time there. It was giving them an introduction to a difficult foreign language and its culture, which is as important as it is to learn the language itself. We need much more than can be taught at school. We need, in our intelligence services and our Armed Forces, experts in the hard languages that are never going to be taught in our schools.
We had a debate earlier this year on the funding of the Foreign Office in which I asked the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, to give me figures, which he later gave in writing, about the number of people who had studied hard foreign languages in the Foreign Office. The figures he gave were very interesting; they were slightly better than those given by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. For instance, 14 people were studying Mandarin and the Foreign Office had 44 registered speakers of it, while 34 were studying Arabic, with 51 registered speakers. That is encouraging, and with it comes a greater concentration in the Foreign Office on local expertise and taking it seriously. It would be interesting to know whether that is true of the Armed Forces as well.
It would be useful if the Minister could give figures, perhaps afterwards, for some of the key hard languages. The ones I am thinking of that are going to be needed over a considerable period are Afghan Persian, or Dari, and Pashto, the two main languages spoken in Afghanistan, and Arabic. I do not think we can legitimately ask for the figures of those in the intelligence services who speak hard languages, but it would be useful to have an assurance that having a sufficient number of people in command of those key foreign languages in the intelligence services is seen as essential.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on securing this debate. I must declare various interests: I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages, president of the Speak to the Future campaign and vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.
I want to put on record at the outset, before I go into a more critical tone, my huge admiration for the work being done by both the Foreign and Commonwealth Office language centre and the Defence Centre for Languages and Culture. As the British Academy’s report Lost for Words put it, these two establishments are,
“potential beacons of commitment to language learning across government”.
I hope this debate today will result in that commitment being strengthened even more.
There is a great deal of robust evidence about the need for, and the lack of, language skills in the Armed Forces and defence services. For the purposes of this debate we should include security and diplomacy within our terms of reference. Indeed, Sir Richard Ottaway MP, former chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place, said that the language skills issue had been highlighted in almost every inquiry his Committee had undertaken since 2010. Similarly, in your Lordships’ House, the issue has been raised in a number of important Select Committee inquiries. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, referred to the report on soft power in 2014. Evidence to the EU Committee’s inquiry, The UK and Russia: Before and Beyond the Crisis in Ukraine, on which I had the privilege to serve, included a remark from a former UK ambassador to Russia that UK diplomacy had,
“suffered because of a loss of language skills, particularly in the Foreign Office”.
This view was echoed last year by the report of the House of Commons spending review of the FCO, saying that,
“the FCO has lacked the expertise, analytical capability and language skills to manage the fallout from the Arab Spring and the crisis in Ukraine”.
Publications from highly respected non-parliamentary and non-governmental sources have reached similar conclusions. The British Academy’s Lost for Words report said:
“It is clear that the lack of language skills among British officials and armed forces is both embarrassing and risks putting the UK at a competitive disadvantage”.
The University of Cambridge’s report earlier this year, The Value of Languages, said that:
“The crucial role of language and cultural understanding in the work of the armed forces was brought home in recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
Our forces’ reliance on locally employed interpreters is well known, including some controversial issues to do with their treatment post-conflict. However, as Lost for Words points out, over-reliance on native translators carries significant risks for patrols as well as, in some cases, the locals themselves. Language needs can be highly specific and exacting. Getting the accent or dialect variation wrong can have significant consequences.
Nevertheless, the Army certainly seems to be ahead of the game compared to the other armed services. The Cambridge report that I quoted from earlier, for example, refers to the fact that the Army has a comprehensive languages policy which includes identifying personnel with language skills including so-called heritage language speakers. The Army is developing an effective examination system for identifying language competences that can then be called on and used at short notice whether for operations or urgent tasks. Languages are valued, literally, with an award scheme that pays out supplements on a scale depending on usage. The Army is now funding 2,500 soldiers a year to acquire a basic language skill, equivalent to the A2 level of the common European framework.
Will this commendable and comprehensive approach from policy to payment be adopted across the other armed services? Will the Minister commend the Army’s example of auditing personnel with language skills as an exercise that should also be conducted comprehensively across the Civil Service? This was one of the British Academy’s recommendations—as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, mentioned. It has always struck me as a no-brainer, and a relatively cheap one at that, if we are serious about needing to find out what language skills we already have at our disposal. Quite apart from the ambit of today’s particular debate, this is a crucial resource to know about in the context of Brexit and post-Brexit negotiations.
Could the Minister also confirm that there will be no reduction in the budget allocated to the FCO for its language centre and that there will be more rigorous attempts to improve on the target level attainment for languages in key regions such as the Middle East and north Africa? The low targets achieved here seem to somewhat undermine the good work being done by the language centre and to fly in the face of the very positive launch given by the then Foreign Secretary—now the noble Lord, Lord Hague—when the centre was reopened in 2013. I also question whether the FCO is drawing in as many civil servants from other departments as originally envisaged, as I understand that the centre was meant to be a resource for the whole of government.
Finally, I would like to say something about the supply chain of language skills in the UK. It is all very well that the FCO and the Defence Academy are doing what they can to plug the immediate gaps that they face—and thank goodness that they are—but we also need to change the whole culture around learning foreign languages in this country and vastly to increase the number of school pupils and university students who are doing so. GCHQ, for example, suffers from the shortfall in our education system, which produces too few people competent in Mandarin, Arabic and Russian. Only six state schools currently teach Arabic on the timetable and only 16 universities out of 130 teach it. Only 1% to 2% of state schools currently offer Russian and only 14 universities offer Russian as a single honours degree, with none at all in either Wales or Northern Ireland and only three in Scotland.
The irony is that in the UK we have over 1 million school pupils who are bilingual, but all too often this is seen as a problem, not as the asset that it really is. Far more of these children should be encouraged to pursue academic qualifications in their other languages. I ask the Minister whether he will work with the Department for Education to look at ways in which the languages considered to be of particular importance to the armed services and defence and security needs more generally can be made more mainstream, so that more children study them to a higher level.
All the major studies that have looked into this issue have concluded that there needs to be government-wide co-operation on language skills. We should build on the existing cross-Whitehall language focus group, which already includes GCHQ, the Defence Centre and the MoD. Such a cross-cutting approach would also meet the call from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages, which last week published a checklist for Brexit negotiators, pointing to the language needs of business and research, as well as security, defence and diplomacy.
Language skills and cultural knowledge are now deemed essential not just in military operations but in peacekeeping, post-conflict and conflict prevention. Language skills are everybody’s and every department’s business and it would be doing the UK a great service if the leadership already shown by the Army could be the catalyst for a truly national strategy for all ages and stages of education and learning.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for introducing this debate and for his contribution, which among other things centred on the availability of information. The contribution of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, about local interpreters was very useful. He seemed to conclude that we cannot do more to have our own capability, but I certainly take the view that we should. The noble Lord, Lord Wilson, stressed the importance of real expertise and noted the increasingly bad performance in schools. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for pointing to the light among the gloom, particularly in relation to the Army, and for making the important point that there is an intrinsic skill in our population, an issue to which I shall return.
The protection of the British people is the first priority of government. We, as the Opposition, remain committed to Britain’s NATO membership and to spending 2% of GDP on defence. We will stand up for our Armed Forces and ensure that they have the best support. That means leadership, equipment and training, and it is a particular aspect of training and support on which this debate centres.
War has changed. State-on-state wars ending with unconditional surrender and unresisted occupation, as in the Second World War, are becoming an out-of-date concept. The Cold War kept the ideas alive for some time, but recent wars or, perhaps more correctly, armed conflicts have been messy affairs. Enemies have been unclear. Sometimes they have been of the people; they have frequently been among the people and indistinguishable from the people. Targeted aid and diplomacy—winning hearts and minds—have been at least as important as the ability to deliver lethal force.
A key barrier to success has been communication and language. Therefore, I ask the Minister to what extent he agrees with my analysis and to what extent the Government have conducted a lessons-learned exercise into recent conflicts. In particular, have they been able to determine the extent to which better local language capability might act as a force multiplier in future “boots on the ground” deployments? Further, would such language capability improve performance if extended to DfID operatives and diplomats working in crisis situations?
To flesh that out slightly, we have an Army, what is it there to do? If it is fighting a tank battle in East Sussex, something has gone terribly wrong. Yes, the Army must be capable of offering a credible conventional opposition on NATO’s borders, but the overwhelming probability of the future is that the Army will be deployed in very messy situations—insurrections and potential civil wars—working in a local environment where English is not the language. Consider the difference in performance between a unit arriving with its own local language capability, compared with all the problems of recruiting interpreters, getting to know them and getting to work out whether you can trust them.
I have to admit, somewhat ashamedly, that I have no residual foreign language capability. However, this has not stopped me thinking about language and the role it plays. I believe that it probably has three roles. The first is direct communication—giving orders and warnings, and seeking simple intelligence. The second is understanding the society and culture in which one finds oneself, and the third—this is the bit that eluded me as a young person—is understanding how people think. At one point I was responsible for all British Airways overseas staff. When I visited them, they would constantly explain to me how the fusion of language and culture would influence local people, officials, diplomats and politicians. Does the Minister agree that, as soft power and foreign aid merge, greater language capability will pay back the investment with significantly enhanced effectiveness?
Teaching a foreign language takes many forms. My own, traditional experience led to a marginal O-level in French with barely any conversational capability. On the other hand, peers of mine went on to do modern language degrees. My charming German neighbour learned her English in the age-old way. She was a young lady in war-torn Cologne who met a young Royal Air Force meteorologist, part of the occupying power. Magically, she learned to speak English and he learned to speak German. They were married for 50 years. I give these examples to illustrate the range of different ways of teaching a language and to make the point that careful analysis of what capability is required, particularly verbal—or conversational—capability, and to whom it is being taught, may lead to more efficient training than traditional methods. Are the Government planning to increase language training, and will they make a careful analysis of available techniques?
The United Kingdom, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, noted, enjoys a rich and diverse cultural base. Immigration over centuries has created this. Many recent immigrants whose mother tongues are from areas where problems may arise have themselves struggled to learn a foreign language—English. Most will not have any formal teacher training, but they speak their native language. Particularly, they speak the language of the streets. These may be the streets and fields where our troops and aid workers may need to be deployed in future. Surely, those immigrants and their children should be recruited into any enhanced language training facility. In the longer term, should we not be recruiting individuals with useful mother tongue languages into our Armed Forces, security services and aid agencies? To fully utilise them, the military, in particular, would have to develop a more flexible approach to their deployment, but they would, surely, significantly add capability. The concept of a special reserve corps, where individuals were trained with basic “look-after-themselves” infantry capability and could be deployed in support of overseas deployments, using their native language skills, should surely be looked at as a way of increasing this capability.
This has been an interesting debate about an important aspect of the United Kingdom’s weakness in language skills. Sadly, there is little sign of the traditional methods meeting that need. It is good to hear that the Army, in particular, is making progress. I hope the Minister will find some merit in the ideas put forward by noble Lords and will be able to persuade colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and other departments that change is necessary.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, I anticipated a constructive and interesting debate, and I have not been disappointed. I take this opportunity to thank all noble Lords who have taken part for the valuable insight and experience that they have brought to bear on this vital subject.
I shall start by directly addressing the question with which the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, opened this debate—do we have sufficient speakers of foreign languages serving the Armed Forces? The answer to that is: as of today, yes, we do. The totality of defence’s operational and diplomacy requirements are being met. Furthermore, if we take as a starting point the strategic defence and security review of 2010, since then we have significantly improved the way in which we recruit, identify and train the linguists we need to achieve our defence aims. We currently have the capability to train in more than 40 languages. That is not to say that we are in any way resting on our laurels. As my noble friend Lord Attlee pointed out, our requirement for foreign language skills is ever-changing. As with many other aspects of defence, such as the purchase of ships and aeroplanes, we are trying our best to look ahead not just months but years, while retaining the ability to respond at very short notice to events as they occur.
On the one hand, there are languages that will be required no matter where—or, indeed, if—we are conducting operations. Those skilled in the major languages of commerce and diplomacy, such as French, German, Russian and Arabic, will always be required as defence attachés, training teams, exchange officers and members of headquarters and formations, and we will continue to ensure that sufficient such-skilled personnel are available. On the other hand, who would have thought that, prior to the dark events of September 2001, we would within weeks have need of expert speakers of Dari and Pashto, and require such skills in large numbers and for many years?
We now work hard to ensure that we can balance the longer, top-down requirements—those that are mostly foreseeable—with such shorter-term tactical needs that are much harder to envisage. Our systems must be flexible enough to allow for both, and we believe that they are. Also, as the noble Lords, Lord Wilson and Lord Tunnicliffe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, pointed out, this is about more than being just a skilled linguist. The Armed Forces recognise that any future operating environment is highly likely to present personnel with a diverse mosaic of audiences, actors, adversaries and enemies, meaning that, in the recent words of President Obama,
“in the 21st century, military strength will be measured not only by the weapons our troops carry, but by the languages they speak and the cultures that they understand”.
The Armed Forces also recognise that the breadth and depth of their understanding of these audiences need to be improved, and that culture and language skills are a key enabler in preparation for these contingencies. It is of note that the emphasis is now on both the language and the culture in which that language is used. As the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said, that is an important ingredient of UK soft power. We recognise that in order to operate effectively in such an environment, defence requires personnel with highly developed intercultural expertise. The ability to understand what is termed the “human terrain” is now rightly seen as essential to successfully operating and achieving our aims in almost all overseas operations.
To deliver those aims, defence has taken a number of strategic steps to strengthen its organisational structures, including setting the pan-defence strategic capability for culture and language. We have a joint influence board with two-star representation from across the armed services. Below that is a steering group reporting to the board, which tasks a working group responsible for staffing, development and delivery functions of the capability programme. The Defence Centre for Languages and Culture is a world-renowned training facility, parented by the Defence Academy. There is a separate authority for capability generation. These interlinked arrangements ensure that the system is capable, responsible and flexible enough to meet defence needs as they arise.
Defence can certainly not be accused of failing to take this matter seriously. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, that in the Army, within the next few years, it will become essential for any officer wishing to make a success of their career to have skills in a foreign language. He asked what we are doing to find out who can speak what language. The Armed Forces are even now running a trawl to identify those already serving who have been hiding their linguistic skills under a bushel, and encouraging them to register these accomplishments so that they may be used not only for the benefit of defence but for themselves—as the noble Lord said, there are substantial financial rewards available for those with the skills we need. The incentives commended by my noble friend Lord Attlee are certainly there; for example, I can tell him that the daily rate of extra pay for a qualified paratrooper is £5.69, but a serviceman on operations with a valuable language skill is paid up to £70.20 per day.
Earl Howe
It is quite a significant sum of money. We are employing many methods to ensure not only that we are harnessing existing talent within both Regular and Reserve Forces but that we can attract people into both the regulars and the reserves who already have specific linguistic talents, or who have the potential to learn languages. We will also continue to look at those already within defence to find those suitable to undertake such training.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, was—if he will forgive me for saying so—a veritable Gatling gun of questions, and I will need to take many of them away with me and write to him about them. Some of them, such as those relating to GCHQ and our agencies, I may not be able to answer on security grounds. Others, such as detailed questions relating to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which was also the subject of a number of questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, I shall need to seek advice on. However, I assure all noble Lords that I shall study their speeches after this debate and ensure that I address in writing those questions I have not answered but which are capable of being answered.
I turn to a number of those questions now. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked about the apparent reduction in language skills in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The FCO, like the Armed Forces, currently has sufficient linguists to achieve its objectives and aims. I will, however, get a readout from the FCO as to how it views its situation and what it is doing to address it. He asked about Army officers and language training—first, what level of skills are required and, secondly, what languages are acceptable. The Army now insists that officers must have a survival level of speaking and listening to a foreign language prior to the appointment of command at the rank of major. The level of skills required ranges from expert to functional. The Armed Forces maintain skills from across the spectrum in more than 30 operational languages. Those languages deemed to have an operational requirement are reviewed by a two-star board and a senior responsible officer on a yearly basis.
Across defence, there is a total of 655 personnel recognised as holding a functional level of qualification. The numbers that I will quote represent those individuals who fall within the examination currency period, which is three years. The actual number of personnel with language skills is almost certainly considerably higher than the figures I will give, as it includes those who have not renewed their qualification and those with a latent skill that has not been declared. I do not have figures relating to 20 years ago, which the noble Lord asked me for, but we have, for example, 108 Arabic speakers at functional, professional or expert level, and 217 French speakers, of whom 48 are expert. Of the specific languages mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, we have 22 speakers of Dari, of whom four are expert; 39 speakers of Farsi, of whom seven are expert; and 29 speakers of Pashto, of whom one is an expert. I emphasise that those figures do not include many others who may have fallen outside that three-year period to which I referred.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked how flexible defence is in responding to new language demands. I believe that we are more flexible than we were, but that is not to say that we cannot do better. We maintain a pool of linguists who can respond to contingent operational demands. The Defence Centre for Languages and Culture has an agile structure that allows it to use the commercial sector to respond to short-notice language teaching demands and, next year, the DCLC will instruct more than 370 individuals to a level of functional to expert, and a further 550 to a level below this.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, made some important points about the teaching of languages in schools and I undertake to bring them to the attention of my ministerial colleagues in the DfE. She asked whether the measures adopted by the Army will be extended across the other services—the answer is yes. All measures that I have highlighted are common across all defence personnel, both regular and reserve, and the language competency award schemes are in play here. We are, as I say, conducting a 100% audit of all personnel with a latent language skill.
I have exceeded the time allocated to me. I will, as I promised, write to noble Lords on those areas that I have not been able to cover. In the meantime, I repeat my thanks for a series of very constructive and helpful speeches.
Mesothelioma
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Wills
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to support those who have contracted mesothelioma.
Lord Wills (Lab)
My Lords, I asked for this debate to highlight, again, the urgent need for progress in research into effective treatments for mesothelioma. This is not a new topic for your Lordships’ House, and the fact that we are returning to it again, and that so many of your Lordships signed up for this short debate, indicates its importance.
As your Lordships’ House has heard many times before, mesothelioma is a terrible disease, among the most cruel of all fatal illnesses. It is inflicted too often on those who contracted it through their occupation which exposed them to the asbestos which causes it, and too often through public service, so members of the armed services and teachers as well as factory workers have been disproportionately affected by it. Yet those suffering from it, and their families, were appallingly treated for decades. It took years of struggle to force insurance companies to discharge their obligations to pay compensation, in the end taking legislation by the previous Labour Government—I am delighted to see my noble friend Lord McKenzie on the Front Bench today, as he was the Minister who did so much to make that happen—and the coalition Government to force them to do this.
There have been inexcusable delays in providing adequate resourcing for research into effective treatments for this dreadful illness. More than twice as much is spent on breast cancer research per sufferer, for example, than on mesothelioma. This matters. Although these are projections and, given the long gestation periods for this illness, they could well be underestimates, more than 50,000 people are projected to die in this country alone. There will be many more times that number in the rest of the world. Mesothelioma is a global problem. It affects almost everywhere in the world, including some of the poorest countries in Asia and Africa, countries ill-equipped to develop such research on their own.
However, for all these problems, in the past few months since the last time the House debated the issue, there has been significant progress. The most recent Budget allocated £5 million towards research and the setting up of a national mesothelioma centre. I take this opportunity to thank the Minister who did so much to make that possible and who has always been a stalwart supporter of efforts to improve the situation of those suffering from this disease. There is also now the possibility of matching funds from a charitable donor, thanks in large part to the efforts of my noble friends Lord Giddens and Lord Alton and the British Lung Foundation, and two insurance companies, Aviva and Zurich, have over the past two years, to their credit, donated a combined £1 million to the British Lung Foundation’s mesothelioma research programme. However, all this is only a start. It has been estimated that a national centre for mesothelioma research, on a hub-and-spoke model, will need set-up costs of £15 million to £20 million and projected running costs of £3 million to £5 million annually. So much could be done with this funding. Medical science has made extraordinary progress in the past decades. Once-dread diseases have become manageable through the efforts of brilliant and dedicated researchers, and the combination of developments in genomic science and the dazzling new power to process data digitally promises so much more.
We have the infrastructure in the form of the MesobanK, a biobank unique in Europe and one of only two worldwide, which collects tissue, blood samples and clinical data from mesothelioma patients to help accelerate research across the UK and internationally. Sequencing technology is being used to observe gene mutations in mesothelioma which will support the development of future therapies. Advances are being made in immunotherapy and radiotherapy. Other developments in genetic research could produce advances in treatment if sufficient funding is found to run appropriate clinical trials. So where is the extra money going to come from to build on these developments and make further progress possible?
The Government obviously have it in their power to provide it by increasing the sums of money available for research, and the arguments for doing so are compelling. I shall run through them briefly. Apart from the alleviation of terrible suffering in patients, it would save taxpayers money. Of course, there is no guarantee that any research will produce results, but the experience of research into other cancers suggests that a combination of money and time will produce significant advances in treatment, saving taxpayers some of the huge sums involved in treating mesothelioma sufferers, currently upwards of £75,000 per patient, with total annual costs exceeding £185 million. By 2050, the total is likely to rise above £5 billion. Investing in mesothelioma research can only help to build on our world lead in biomedical research.
Even in these difficult times, £3 million a year would more than treble the amount currently spent and fund a national centre to co-ordinate and develop research. Perhaps a little of all those savings that leading figures in the Government promised us would result from leaving the EU could be made available for research into this terrible disease. I suspect that this will not be the last time the Minister hears that particular argument in the months ahead.
If not from government, where else might funding come from? The insurance industry has historically been implicated in the way mesothelioma sufferers and their families have been failed over generations, but the Mesothelioma Act 2014 offers an opportunity to start a new chapter in that relationship, building on the good examples set by Aviva and Zurich. Surely, the time has come for others in the industry to stand beside them in providing the relatively small sums, in terms of their turnover and profits, to fund research. After all, the more effective treatments can be found, the less they will need to pay out in the long run.
Perhaps the time has come also to look to another business sector that has been heavily involved in these issues over the years. Law firms have received huge sums in fee income from mesothelioma claims over the years. Of course, much of this has been justified, as they fought for justice for sufferers, and no one should ever want to see the victims of this disease denied appropriate legal representation. However, the Mesothelioma Act has streamlined the process for compensation, so perhaps the time has come to look at those fees, with a view either to fixing them, and thereby releasing more funds that could be made available for research, or for the legal industry to step up beside insurers to ensure that research is adequately funded.
Progress is waiting to be made, and there are ways of making it quickly and relatively painlessly, but, if none of these things happen, this campaign will still continue. As we have seen over and over again over the past 10 years, neither your Lordships’ House nor the other place will accept the status quo. I hope that there is action that the Government can and will take, and I hope that the Minister will indicate today that they will at least be prepared to explore one or more of the ways that I have suggested to ensure that the funds so desperately needed for research into this cruel disease will be made available, and soon.
Baroness Couttie (Con)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for introducing this very important topic. Unfortunately, at the beginning of this year, someone I know extremely well was diagnosed with mesothelioma. She is a middle-aged woman who does not have any connection to the building industry and has not lived or worked in a building under renovation—and nor has any of her family. As noble Lords can imagine, therefore, it was an incredible shock. Over this year, I have become quite familiar with the disease and its treatments, so this afternoon I am speaking from the point of view of the patient.
What has really struck me is the stark contrast in the drugs you receive if you treated are under the NHS and those you can receive if you are being treated under private healthcare and are wealthy enough to be able to afford the best possible treatment available. Those treatments can extend life expectancy, which on diagnosis if you undergo all the chemotherapy, is on average about 18 months. The NHS provides the chemotherapy and does an absolutely wonderful job. An operation can be undertaken, although it is a very complex one, to remove the multiple tumours associated with mesothelioma. It can involve removing the diaphragm, the pleura around the lungs and the membrane around the heart. Skilled surgeons are required to undertake the operation and some healthcare companies provide cover for it, although the NHS will not. The cover that most healthcare providers offer does not necessarily meet the full costs of the surgeons, who have to be very highly skilled. Undertaking the operation means that you can double the life expectancy of an individual.
At the end of chemotherapy, what are the options? You can continue with a drug called Avastin, which is licensed for breast cancer but not for mesothelioma. It can be taken in conjunction with the rest of the chemotherapy. It costs £5,000 a pop. Some health insurance companies and providers will cover it, but the NHS will not. You take it once every three weeks, so more than £86,000 a year is required to cover the cost. Some patients have been on it for more than two years without recurrence. Its success varies as people vary, but there have been some great successes.
If—or unfortunately more like when—the mesothelioma returns, what are the options? You can try the chemo again, although sadly it is not always effective. The NHS will provide that chemo. What health insurance companies and the NHS do not cover is access to the latest drugs. The one that is most recommended costs a quarter of a million pounds—it is a one-off treatment and it has to be funded. Under the NHS you have access to UK trials, but because this disease is incredibly rare and has multiple sub-types, the trial you would be best suited to is not necessarily taking place in the UK, so if you want to get on a trial you have to fund your own transport and accommodation costs, possibly for several months while you undergo the trial. Life expectancy can and has been proven to be extended in people who have been fortunate enough to be able to afford this.
As the noble Lord, Lord Wills, mentioned earlier, there are many civil suits as people are able to identify the source of asbestos that triggered their mesothelioma. However, a group of people are unable to identify the source and are totally reliant on the Government’s compensation scheme, which goes nowhere near covering the costs that will prolong their lives. I therefore ask the Government to please look at the compensation scheme to see whether the payments can be upped so that everybody, regardless of their own wealth, can have access to these drugs. It involves a relatively small number of people because only about 2,500 a year are diagnosed with mesothelioma, and only a percentage will not have a civil action. It therefore should not cost the Government that much. It seems only right and fair to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to prolong their life as far as possible.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for securing this important debate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie, for outlining the clinical scenarios that people face, often when they are young, as they suddenly realise that they have this devastating disease. More than 2,500 cases are diagnosed each year.
I will focus initially on the iceberg effect; we are seeing just the tip because of asbestos in schools and the worry about that. Some 94% of cases of mesothelioma are effectively preventable because they are associated with chronic exposure to asbestos in one way or another, and we know that three-quarters of our schools have asbestos in place. The number of teachers dying of mesothelioma has been going up from around three a year in the early 1980s to 22 in 2012 alone. That is a marker of developing mesothelioma following chronic exposure.
The Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment has pointed out that we do not know whether children are intrinsically more susceptible to developing mesothelioma following asbestos exposure. However, it seems that the lifetime risk if they are exposed at the age of five is about five times that of someone aged 30 who is exposed to the same amount of asbestos. Therefore it seems that exposing children is storing up problems for the future.
I would like to coin the term “pre-mesothelioma” for the number of people in the population who will probably go on to develop mesothelioma but have no idea about it at all. If we are undertaking research, we have to get to earlier diagnosis, so we have to find ways much earlier on of picking up the markers of transformation to malignancy in the areas where asbestos fibres are stored. At the moment we do not know of any actionable drivers of the disease in order to pick up and identify early markers. There are multicentre trials, as the noble Baroness has just outlined, but the problem is that they are very disparate. That is why there is a desperate need for a single centre in the UK to co-ordinate them. That reminds me of when I was a very junior doctor and the MRC co-ordinated trials into the leukaemias, and it was from those that some advances were made. There needs to be a driver with just about everybody being recruited into a trial if that is at all possible. Currently, patients have to find out about trials and they do not really know where to go. They want to contribute because they do not want the same thing to happen to other people. The other problem is that of course while the MesobanK is in place and the cell lines are coming along, they are not there yet. We need to identify how tumour surface antigens are expressed and detect better markers of early disease.
I remind noble Lords that 60% of patients diagnosed with mesothelioma are dead within a year; in other words, they are palliative care patients. I am afraid that some clinical commissioning groups are not commissioning specialist palliative care services adequately, not at a level that allows them to be integrated with cancer and chest disease services. That is essential to provide psychosocial support as well as support for the rest of the family, and to deal with the devastating symptoms of the disease. Those groups of specialists also want to research some of the effects of the disease when it is not curable.
Lastly, we need data. I declare an interest as chairman of the National Council for Palliative Care. I was very concerned to discover that Public Health England does not plan to carry on collecting a minimum dataset from specialist palliative care services. Without that data we will not know whether what we are doing is improving services for patients. It would cost only £200,000 to refresh the collection and data management process, which in the greater order of things is nothing. Without good data on the number of patients, the people who transform from what I would call pre-mesothelioma into mesothelioma, and the numbers that need palliative care services, we will have no idea whether we are improving.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I had always associated mesothelioma with the construction trade. It came as a complete shock that a dear friend—Sylvia, a retired maths teacher, an energetic walker and a very active grandmother—should be diagnosed with the disease. It may well have been contracted 50 years ago when she worked as a teacher in west Africa. It was even more of a shock to discover that it was a death sentence. Sylvia died a troubled and dreadful death five months later. As her husband Geoff said, “This cancer doesn’t allow for peace. There are more sorts of pain than those that can be, and were, dulled by opiates”.
What shocked me almost as much was the struggle of medical researchers to raise money to find improved treatments for the disease. The British Lung Foundation —BLF—and Mesothelioma UK have campaigned tirelessly for more research but with only limited success. Do funders regard it as a marginal cancer? Perhaps they think it will be reduced over time because products containing asbestos were banned in the UK in 1999. How have we become so complacent? Some 2,500 people in the UK are predicted to die each year of mesothelioma. The incidence is increasing, as has been mentioned, for example among schoolteachers. How have we become so blind to the immense suffering of those who contract the disease and of the families who care for them? Although we can hope that the rate will eventually decrease, no such hope is available in developing countries where asbestos continues to be used and where committed people just like my friend Sylvia will continue to work, as will countless members of the local populations.
Research is key yet the BLF’s figures show that funding is absolutely parlous compared with other cancers that kill a similar number, and even the published figures are thought to be an overestimate. I talked to the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at UCL—I declare an interest as a member of council at UCL. UCL, along with Leicester and Barts, is doing innovative and exciting work with a small amount of funding into genomic damage which might lead to targeted new treatments. Other centres are similarly innovative. How much more could be done if they were better funded?
Companies such as Hugh James, Simpson Millar and Shield Environmental Services have donated. Insurers have helped in the past. Two which have already been mentioned, Aviva and Zurich, have increased their contribution to £1 million over two years, but the final grant is this year. The £5 million grant from the Government this year for a national centre for research is indeed welcome. I hope it will enable increased collaboration with other centres, but it will take £5 million each year to put mesothelioma on a par with other cancers, such as skin cancers, that have the same mortality levels.
A more sustainable model is required. Where is the rest of the insurance industry? Insurers are likely to pay out £11 billion in compensation to people who were exposed to asbestos in the workplace. If only a tiny fraction of this were donated to research, it would be transformational. Saving lives by donating to research could potentially save insurers millions. Will the Minister commit to some strong arm-twisting to persuade the industry to make this a comprehensive and permanent commitment, if necessary on a statutory basis?
I want to make a final point about the carers of those affected. My friend’s husband Geoff said, “Sylvia’s progress wasn’t predictable, no routine could be established, every day involved new challenges”. He was part-retired and had a pension. Supported by the GP and the district nurse, he was able to provide the care that enabled Sylvia to live and die at home as she wanted, where her dignity was preserved in a way she felt it could not have been even in the kindest institution. If he had been on a limited income and had to go out to work, how would that have been managed? Will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to make that kind of caring an option for anyone suffering a terminal illness of this kind?
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I am delighted to be able to support the noble Lord, Lord Wills. It gives me the chance to say how much I have appreciated working with him, the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, and other noble Lords in trying to push this issue up the list of political priorities. An indication that the message is bearing fruit was contained in the former Chancellor’s Budget announcement on 16 March that £5 million would be approved for a national mesothelioma centre, which I greatly welcome.
This is also a chance to say that after the Second Reading of my Private Member’s Bill on mesothelioma research the Minister has been unstinting in his efforts to draw together the medical and scientific community, the insurance industry and diverse political interests. It is good to be able to put on record my appreciation of his commitment and engagement. That Private Member’s Bill emerged from a narrowly defeated amendment in your Lordships’ House that would have required the more than 120 insurance companies to contribute to mesothelioma research. The former Minister told the House that he was confident that the four insurance companies that were then voluntarily supporting research would be joined by others. The sad reality, as we have heard, is that the four fell to two, Aviva and Zurich.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, just told us, insurance companies that represent employers whose employees were exposed to fatal asbestos must recognise their moral obligation, but it is also in their own self-interest to help find the causes of and cures for mesothelioma—a public health disaster that should never have happened. I recently heard from a patient support group that is concerned by media reports that Companies House proposes to destroy defunct company files after a period of five years. Perhaps the Minister will either say a word about this or agree to write to me.
The admirable British Lung Foundation says that we are now at a point in mesothelioma research where we can see real potential. For example, Dr Sarah Martin at Barts Cancer Institute has found that 50% of mesotheliomas lose the enzyme ASS1, which makes the amino acid arginine. As these mesotheliomas depend on a steady supply of arginine from the bloodstream and other cells to grow, Dr Martin is exploring the potential of using existing drugs to block the flow of arginine to these cells, in turn starving them.
Resourcing this and innovatory adult stem cell work, which the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, and I heard about more than two years ago and which we were told would require £2.5 million to bring to clinical trials, is imperative in a country that has the highest recorded incidence of mesothelioma in the world, with 40,000 recorded deaths already, and, as we have heard, a further 2,500 deaths annually. One in five work-related deaths are attributed to mesothelioma. What is the Government’s current estimate of the cumulative number of British people who will die of mesothelioma over the next 30 years? Perhaps we can also be told how many of the 3,000 cancer nurse specialists specialise in mesothelioma care.
With tens of thousands destined to succumb to this fatal disease, it greatly disturbs me that we have no national programme, plan or timetable for the removal of asbestos from our environment, although, by contrast, we have devised one for the Palace of Westminster. Significant quantities of asbestos remain in our homes, workplaces and public buildings, not least in the schools referred to by my noble friend Lady Finlay, and there is a growing incidence of mesothelioma among schoolteachers. As my noble friend said, we should carefully consider the effects on children.
When the Minister replies, I hope that he will refer to the need for a national strategy and to what he might be able to do to draw cross-departmental Ministers together to consider what it should consist of. I hope too that he will look at properly resourced research in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, described, as well as at an examination within his own department of the significant variations in the levels of care, treatment and support, which have been referred to during this short debate.
Lord Giddens (Lab)
My Lords, mesothelioma, if I may put it in this way, has a past and a future. The past has seen a long struggle to get the origins of the disease recognised and then to achieve adequate compensation for those suffering from it. That struggle is well documented in the book by Geoffrey Tweedale, Magic Mineral to Killer Dust. Asbestos was originally a magic mineral. He shows in detail just how much industry resistance there was to accepting the link between asbestos and mesothelioma.
I wish to pay tribute to MPs and noble Lords. If your Lordships will forgive me, I should like to single out—it is like a little boys’ club—the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Wills, with whom I have worked closely, but many have been involved in pressing for proper recognition of the disease and for increased compensation for sufferers. That struggle, of course, continues. The British Lung Foundation has been mentioned, and a range of other, more local groups have had a significant impact. It is good news that former members of the armed services who have contracted mesothelioma will henceforth be entitled to significant compensation. However, on the issues of adequate compensation and giving the disease a higher profile in the public consciousness, plainly a lot more needs to be done. I am afraid that Action Mesothelioma Day, designated as Friday 1 July this year, received only scant coverage in the press.
When I say that mesothelioma has a past but also a future, I mean that it is time to stop it being seen as simply a legacy disease—a hangover from a time when asbestos was widely used. I believe—and I hope that people who work more directly in medicine than me will agree—that we are entering a period of potential breakthroughs on the frontiers of medical research, especially as concerns the diverse forms of cancer. The awesome algorithmic power of supercomputers is making possible advances in genetics that could not have been achieved before. A good example—perhaps the most well known—is the supercomputer Watson, which won the amazing game of “Jeopardy!” on American television. It is an ordinary-language, everyday knowledge game. At one point, no one thought that it would be possible for a computer to win it, as it depends on so much everyday knowledge. In terms of being applied to cancer research, as is now the case, Watson and other supercomputers have massive capacities compared with any human researcher. They may not have the same innovative capacities, but their algorithmic powers are extraordinary. Watson can sift through literally millions of scientific papers and use data-mining to suggest hypotheses to be subject to further tests. One should also mention the supercomputer Beagle at the University of Chicago, which is being used to radically accelerate genome analysis.
For the first time ever—perhaps because of the digital revolution, which is one of the things we are talking about—there is a truly global community of scientists working at the cutting edge of medical issues once thought to be intractable. As a result of such ongoing research, we now know that mesothelioma shares certain components, on a genetic level, with other types of cancer. Cancers are in general now increasingly identified genetically rather than described on a more macro level. This means that research into the nature of mesothelioma is of broader significance than was once thought to be the case, and that advancing knowledge about other forms of cancer can in turn be brought to bear on mesothelioma. For these reasons, like other noble Lords, I very much welcome the £5 million towards establishing a research centre, which the noble Lord, Lord Prior, has played such an important part in. As the noble Lord knows, I would like us to raise further sums, which I believe one can do once this funding exists. I would like the centre to have a global orientation linked to, for example, the Pacific Mesothelioma Center in Los Angeles. We should drive research onwards to look not just for improved treatments but for something that is perhaps no longer completely impossible: some kind of cure.
Lord Freyberg (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for securing this debate and giving us an opportunity to discuss this subject once again.
I shall focus my remarks today on how we might improve mesothelioma surgery in the NHS. It is a subject that rarely gets discussed, but one that deserves much more attention than it gets at present. I was delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie, was able today to highlight some of the options available.
When my sister Annabel was diagnosed with mesothelioma a couple of years ago, one of the treatments available to her was radical surgery. This meant removing her pleura, the lining surrounding each of her lungs. Finding a surgeon with the right experience was not a straightforward process and relied entirely upon a Rolodex network of surgeons that her oncologist had built up over many years, often scattered around the country. Eventually, she found someone to evaluate her, but it took a long time to arrange and the procedure proposed was very risky, which was due in part to the fact that her tumour had grown so rapidly since her original diagnosis. On top of that, the surgeon, although very experienced, had not performed the procedure very often and lacked the familiarity of approach that specialisation usually provides. Given its radical nature and the need for complete tumour removal, should not surgical resection be concentrated at one centre of excellence, where patients can receive immediate attention, new techniques can be researched and surgeons can benefit from training and others’ experience? I am sure that patients will be willing to travel as far as needed to be in the hands of super-specialists.
Given the highly specialised procedure of removing pleura, what research is currently being carried out on resection methods? How does the NHS plan to optimise its approach to such surgery? Does it, for example, appear in the National Institutes of Health research plan? If not, why not? Again, there is huge scope for improvement here.
With regard to new drugs, what research is currently taking place on the impact of preoperative non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, given their success in other forms of cancer surgery? This should be another research priority for the NIHR, especially given the chronic inflammation component of mesothelioma. The synergies are such that we ought to be applying the benefits of such cancer research wherever possible. This is a cheap intervention, given that the drugs are generic.
All these issues point to the need for a specialist surgical registry and surgical outcome transparency in mesothelioma. Even transparency on the basics of annual volume and 30-day mortality by surgeon, centre and surgical approach would allow the supervising oncologists to find experienced surgeons in a timely manner. It will also allow for continuous surgical method improvement and best-practice dissemination. This holds true not only in mesothelioma but in less common and rare cancers requiring radical high-risk surgery. These cancer surgical registries should be a priority for the NIHR and NHS England. We need clarity about which body is responsible for their funding, given that they span both quality control and research. I hope that the Minister will encourage the bodies responsible to outline how they plan to drive and develop surgical registries and associated research in these cancers.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I, too, would like to focus on the patients—the 2,500 British people who are expected to die each year of mesothelioma, most of whom have contracted the disease as a result of exposure to asbestos. The use of asbestos in industry and construction, although now banned, was a practice that has had a detrimental effect on many lives, and it is our duty now to offer sufficient aid to those it has affected.
Asbestos lurks in many strange places, including, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, this very building. My husband and I recently demolished an old cottage on our property, and we discovered that there was asbestos in the floor tiles with which my late mother-in-law had been living for 40 years. We had to have them removed by specialists. In the 1970s, when I lived in an old farmhouse, I used an asbestos product to fill the rather irregular holes that I used to drill in the walls to hang pictures and bookshelves, having no idea that there may be a problem with it. Concerns about the dangers of asbestos were first raised early in the 20th century, but its use was not outlawed until 1999. For the thousands of cases now arising 40 or 50 years after first exposure, it is our responsibility to ensure that they are given the compensation and support they require. Unfortunately, the median survival time for pleural mesothelioma, once it has taken hold, is 12 months from diagnosis, but this time, and beyond for the dependents of those affected, must be made as comfortable as possible for those who need help.
Over the years, there have been many shortcomings in the handling of asbestos-related cases across the globe, one such case being the fire at the central ordnance depot in Donnington, Shropshire, in 1983. The blaze which released a huge cloud of asbestos into the air has had a huge repercussion which is still being felt today. Paula Ann Nunn, Ellen Paddock, Susan Maughan, Richard George and Marion Groves are just five local people who contracted mesothelioma and unfortunately passed away as a direct result. Mrs Maughan died only last October. Her daughter told the inquest that it took the local authority five days before they told the community so they were exposed to asbestos for all that time. The ash cloud which spread over an area of 15 square miles attracted many small children who played in it as if it were snow which fell in local gardens for days before people were told it was unsafe. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, how very harmful that could be to those children. My colleague and noble friend Lady Pinnock has told me about many cases in her area of Kirklees, resulting from working for a brake linings factory, long since closed down.
Mesothelioma is generally resistant to conventional cancer treatment. Long-term survival and cures are extremely difficult, but that does not mean that the mistakes of government and industry alike over the past century should not be paid for by compensation to those affected. The current range of available benefits, both lump sums and long-term allowances, must get to the right people at the right time. The Mesothelioma Act 2014, for which we have to congratulate several noble Lords present today, went a long way to help those who had been unable to access compensation because of the passage of time or a lack of effective record-keeping identifying those responsible. Since 2014, a total of £62.2 million has been awarded. However, of those who were unhappy with the result and requested a review of what they were awarded, 25% had their compensation rate altered—I presume upwards. Given that this illness is still an issue affecting thousands of British people every year and that the nature of mesothelioma’s progress means that time is literally of the essence, it is essential that the correct support is awarded without delay in all cases. Given the significant number of cases reviewed since the launch of the scheme, how do the Government intend to learn from those cases and improve the process so that the right decision is made the first time in as many cases as possible?
Can the Minister also outline the ways in which the Government are promoting the compensation scheme, so that those most in need are fully aware of the support available? Given the vital work done by the charitable organisation, Mesothelioma UK, and its invaluable lung nurse specialists, do the Government intend to follow its lead and introduce more specialist nurses into hospitals to support patients?
Finally, to safeguard against mesothelioma cases slipping under radar given the disease’s lengthy latency, are the Government willing to begin actively seeking out those involved in previous incidents, such as the Donnington fire, so as to promote early identification of their disease and to get immediate support to them?
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a brief but exceptionally well-informed debate. We have heard from noble Lords whose understanding of mesothelioma has been driven by a family experience, a colleague’s experience or a friend’s experience. We have also heard from the medical fraternity and its expertise. I thank my noble friend Lord Wills for initiating this debate and acknowledge the work which he, together with the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Giddens, and others, have done since our last debate on this topic a year ago. We should remember, as have others, the tireless efforts of Lord Avebury, who campaigned persistently for the sufferers of mesothelioma.
Obtaining justice for sufferers of mesothelioma has been a long and tortuous journey. I think that it is fair to say that, until recent times, efforts have been concentrated on seeking to ensure that sufferers and their families have received material support—money—to help them cope with the traumatic effects of this invariably fatal and excruciatingly painful condition. This journey has encompassed access to the industrial injuries disablement benefit; the 1979 compensation Act for work-related mesothelioma where the employer no longer exists or their liability policy cannot be traced; efforts to improve retracement policies; the 2008 diffuse mesothelioma scheme, where there is no nexus; and then the diffuse mesothelioma payment scheme, which is funded by insurance companies. Each of these in its own way has made access to support more secure, however inadequate. We have praised before the work of the noble Lord, Lord Freud, in delivering the 2014 payment scheme and condemned the historic reluctance of insurers to meet their moral obligations. We note that the payment scheme was able to raise payment levels to 100% of average civil claims in 2015. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that this has been maintained. It is understood that it is driven by the benefits of better tracing of employer liability insurance policies. Again, perhaps the Minister could confirm that.
Last year, the Minister acknowledged that it was wrong to look at mesothelioma as a legacy issue. The projections are that it may have peaked, but it will be with us for a very long time. Moreover, the causes of mesothelioma—exposure to asbestos—are still too prevalent in our environment, especially, as we have heard today, in schools. We may be more aware about how it should be managed—the HSE gives advice on it—but we know that practice is not always followed and people will cut corners. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, spoke about the effects of this on children. Seeking a cure remains the imperative. When we discussed the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, there was some disagreement about precisely how much research had been undertaken previously—how much might be generic and how much was specifically focused. The Minister argued that the problem was not lack of funding but a lack of quality research proposals—I think that this was the position asserted by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in the previous debate on that Bill. Can the Minister now bring some clarity to this issue? What has been the outcome of the strategy to stimulate more research projects?
The Government should be congratulated on their allocation of £5 million of LIBOR fines to establish a national mesothelioma centre. The announcement, of course, made specific reference to service veterans, but this centre is to be a collaboration, it is understood, between four leading institutions which will form a hub—I presume that it will be a virtual hub. It would be good to hear from the Minister, as a practical matter, how the funding of this is to be organised and how it is to go about undertaking and supporting research. It is to be welcomed, but this is still not on equal footing with the rest of cancer research. Nevertheless, “progress is waiting to be made” was the expression, but not without continuing pressure from a range of noble Lords and Members of the other place, those noble Lords who have participated in this debate and, of course, the continuing suffering of those who endure this terrible condition.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)
My Lords, this has been another really excellent debate on this subject. I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for raising it again—it is really important to keep it in the public eye. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Giddens and Lord Alton, for collaring me on this subject many times over the last year. It is one of the privileges of being in this House that one is able to take an interest in these issues and try to do something about them—otherwise, what is the point of being here? The point is to make a difference. What this has demonstrated is that if there is persistence—real, dogged persistence, often in the face of all kinds of tribulations—you can make progress. It has been a long and tortuous journey, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, but there are signs of progress.
I shall pick up a few points before I get into my speech. First, I cannot answer the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie, in detail today, but the level of compensation is certainly something I shall look at in view of her comments about the cost of these new drugs. This is probably an issue more for NICE and NHS England than the compensation scheme. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked whether we are learning from the reviews of these cases, in view of the importance of time. I will certainly look at both those issues. They are, in a sense, related to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, about the huge benefits of specialisation. I have the guidance from NHS England on the treatment of mesothelioma here. I shall not read it out today, because there is not time, but the noble Lord’s point about having a centre of excellence and looking at the improved outcomes from people doing these things repetitively, many times, rather than spreading very complex surgery over many different sites, is absolutely true. Having proper data in registries which can be made transparent is also a hugely important driver of change.
The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, raised the issue of data. Data are hugely important. In a way, if one looks at all the advances that are coming along in cell therapy, gene therapy and the like, in health analytics and big data, the artificial intelligence and machine learning that come from these offer huge potential for improving healthcare in this country. I should also mention that it is clear that many people here have been touched, directly or indirectly, by this devastating disease. That adds not just poignancy but urgency to our discussions. It is interesting how often a patient’s story can bring data to life—data on their own are not enough. It is when you hear about individuals who have suffered and whose lives have been changed or who, indeed, have died, that it is brought home to all of us just how important it is.
We expect the rates of mesothelioma to increase in coming years, due to high exposure to asbestos in the 1960s and 1970s. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, raised the issue of schools. It is the responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive, as she will know. The advice is often to leave it where it is and not disturb it—it is not dangerous to children if it is left dormant. If anyone has any evidence that the HSE is not doing the rounds or that there are local authorities in the country where schools are in need of repair, they should bring it to my attention and I will ensure that the HSE follows that up.
Rates of mesothelioma have increased by nearly five times in Great Britain since the late 1970s. In 2014, there were 2,343 registrations of mesothelioma in England: 1,954 men and 389 women. The incidence is expected to peak in the 2020s but, as has been mentioned, it will remain a significant health problem into the 2050s. It is not a legacy disease. It is going to kill many people over the next 30 or 40 years. In 2014, 2,236 deaths were caused by mesothelioma in England, and the latest survival figures suggest that 46% of men survive for one year, compared with 51% for women. Five-year survival is much worse: only 5% for men and 11% for women. It is a death sentence—there is no getting away from that. Others have mentioned that this is a worldwide issue. One research group estimates that, on average, 14,200 cases are diagnosed worldwide every year, and that will be going up, not down.
On the research aspect, there is some better news. On 16 March, the Chancellor announced an award of £5 million to establish a national centre for mesothelioma research. A number of noble Lords have said how important it is that this is co-ordinated—that various universities and research centres around the country do not all have a crack at it, but there should be a national centre for research. This announcement was in response to an application from Imperial College to urgently address the anticipated imminent high mortality rate among Royal Navy veterans and dockyard workers. The award is one of a series funded by the LIBOR fines that have been made since October 2012.
It is envisaged that the national centre will be a collaboration between four leading institutions which have a major interest in the treatment of mesothelioma: the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College, the Royal Brompton Hospital, the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital. It is pretty impressive standing here naming four institutions that are absolutely world class. This is an extraordinary country when it comes to research. The Marsden, the Brompton and all these institutions are fantastic. They bring together expertise in the genetics of cancer susceptibility and in targets for treatment. Of course, the work being done in genomics will have a huge impact on this in years to come—not quite yet but soon, I hope.
The Department of Health has been in discussion with the British Lung Foundation to work together to bring about the establishment of the research network. The plans are not yet finalised, but the aim, which the department supports, is to attract further donations, to be channelled by the British Lung Foundation so that it can continue its role as the body through which voluntary donations for mesothelioma research are being channelled competitively to the best science centres across the UK. As the organisation which currently administers mesothelioma research grants funded from insurance industry donations, the BLF is well placed to do this. I add my thanks to Aviva and Zurich, the only two insurance companies which have lived up, I think, to a very important moral obligation. We should not give up in our talks with the insurance industry to persuade it. It owes a moral duty but, as pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, it is not just a moral duty; there is also some enlightened self-interest in this. Maybe the lawyers would like to chip in as well; that would be good.
We understand that on 1 November—next week—the BLF, alongside the Association of British Insurers, will be hosting a seminar in this House on the future of mesothelioma research. The seminar will focus on the previous research which the insurance industry has funded across the UK, how it can be built on, and how to ensure that mesothelioma projects across the country tie into the work of the new national centre. Together, the MRC and the NIHR spend more than £1 billion annually. In 2015-16, they spent more than £3 million on mesothelioma research. I will be sending a copy of this debate to Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, and Chris Whitty, the Chief Scientific Adviser, to ensure that they pick up all the important arguments that have been made today.
Last month the Government announced £816 million over the next five years for the biomedical research centres across the UK. These centres host the development of ground-breaking new treatments, diagnostics, prevention, and care for patients in a wide range of diseases. Around £118 million of the funding will be for cancer research and we would expect some of that to support mesothelioma research. The fact that we have this £5 million ought to attract more money from the more conventional cancer research programmes.
In March 2016 the National Cancer Research Institute co-ordinated a meeting with the British Lung Foundation, the MRC, Cancer Research UK and the Department of Health to discuss research opportunities in mesothelioma. This was followed up with a community workshop at the International Mesothelioma Interest Group meeting in Birmingham in May this year and has led to the formulation of a draft research priorities document. This will be further developed at a second workshop currently scheduled to take place in February 2017.
There is room for hope that some progress is being made here. We have to keep the momentum going and the profile high. I think we all accept that some cancers seem to have caught the public imagination to a greater extent than this one, which in a sense puts a greater obligation on us to keep it in the public eye. I have been delighted to do what I can and will continue to do so. Again, I thank all noble Lords for continuing to raise this very important topic.
House of Lords
Creative Industries Exports: Publishing Industry
Baroness Grender
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the publishing industry ahead of the development of the Department for International Trade’s creative industries export strategy.
Baroness Mobarik (Con)
My Lords, the Department for International Trade holds regular discussions with the Publishers Association. Working in partnership, we are supporting this important sector to grow exports. This takes many forms, and includes enabling UK businesses to attend international trade fairs and hosting an international business lounge at the London Book Fair.
Baroness Grender (LD)
Does the Minister share my astonishment that publishing, the fastest-growing creative industry exporter—a sector that has doubled book export revenues from China alone in the past four years—has been completely left out of the Department for International Trade’s five-year campaign for creative industries? In a post-Brexit world, can we really afford to ignore this great British success?
Baroness Mobarik
DCMS is doing quite a lot in that area. We are ensuring that the level of support for the creative industries is maintained and enhanced, because part of our whole trade strategy is that we would like to have a unique, bespoke strategy for each of our trade sectors. We are talking and listening to the various sectors to make sure that we get the very best.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, in previous Questions on this matter, we have learnt that there have been substantial cuts in support for exporters, particularly those in the creative industries, in recent years. I would be grateful if the Minister could remind us what the current state of play is. Will there be more money to make sure that people can attend trade missions and other important areas where they can do business?
Baroness Mobarik
I think some positive news is that the Creative Industries Council’s Brexit report, which was commissioned by the Government to explore priorities within the UK creative industries following Brexit, will be launched this afternoon, and we will be looking at all the issues that the noble Lord has raised.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, we have not yet really heard from the Minister what evidence the Department for International Trade will require, and regard as sufficient, from the publishing industry to give it the support it needs. Is this another example of a government department not having the necessary post-Brexit skills required to do the necessary for the British economy?
Baroness Mobarik
No, I disagree. We are expanding our trade policy capability very rapidly. The department has recruited a new senior team on trade policy, and we will continue to hire the brightest and best talent from within the UK Civil Service and elsewhere, in order to deliver the very best outcomes for the UK—looking in particular, too, at the creative industries sector, which is very important.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, will the noble Baroness inform us how the Department for International Trade will organise itself? Will it have experts in particular fields who really understand how particular industries operate and what might be the scope for international trade, or will it simply rely on generic civil servants providing work in that area?
Baroness Mobarik
Yes, we are going to expand the capability within the Department for International Trade, but we are also working with other departments and tapping into the potential and ability in those departments as well.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, surely the success story here is the fact that the creative industries have done so well in exporting to places such as China, with minimal government support.
Baroness Mobarik
I agree with my noble friend. Publishing exports increased by 166% between 2009 and 2014 and total exports were worth £2.1 billion. All sorts of interesting things are happening with geographical shifts towards markets in the Middle East and Asia. This sector looks as if it will continue to grow. It definitely has the support of government behind it.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, one of the most promising creative industries in this country is the music industry, particularly our outstanding conservatoires, one of which I am proud to be chairman of. What is the Minister doing to encourage students from outside and inside the EU who make connections in this industry to continue to come here to ensure that our music is exported and these connections continue? At the moment, there is increasing nervousness about Brexit and the risk that students are turning away and thinking of conservatoires in other countries.
Baroness Mobarik
I assure the noble Lord that there has been no change to the rights and status of EU nationals in the UK or of British citizens in the EU since the referendum. As regards his very positive note about the music sector, the Department for International Trade has relaunched the Music Export Growth Scheme with £2.8 million of grant support being made available to music SMEs up to 2020.
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)
My Lords, in view of the increased role that e-books have in the publishing industry, and given the ease with which they can be exported, what discussions are the Government having with Amazon, which tends to dominate this trade?
Baroness Mobarik
I have that information somewhere. I am sorry; I will write to the noble Lord.
Solar Panels: Business Rate Exemption
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Featherstone
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will reverse their decision to end the business rate exemption for small solar panels from April 2017.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
The Government are aware of the solar industry’s concerns regarding the application of business rates on microgeneration and changes that may affect businesses with solar more widely. We continue to engage with the affected parties. Following the business rates revaluation and this year’s Budget, nearly three-quarters of businesses will see no change or a fall in their bills next year, with 600,000 businesses set to pay no business rates at all.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
I thank the Minister, but I have to say that if one parish council in Wokingham can find that its business rates are going from £7,000 to £14,000, this will be the death of non-domestic solar roof panels. I urge the Government to look at the impact on schools and parish councils, which will be devastating. Will she also address the unfair and unjust anomaly whereby schools with charitable status will be exempt from the new increased business rates, thus creating a two-tier system that penalises local authority schools?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The noble Baroness is right that there is in this area a curiosity, as I think I would describe it, which is that private schools and academies, being charities, as she said, get an 80% reduction, which is good. We have a system where the impact depends on the ownership, as she will know, of the affected solar project, so we have a situation in which there is a fall on new projects where the electricity generated is sold and an increase where the electricity is used directly by the owner—she mentioned the example of schools. It is not possible to estimate the impact of those changes because it depends on ownership but, as I said in my reply, we are considering the impact and any proposed changes will be made in due course.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, last year I visited a school in Croydon, which has had to cancel an expansion of its solar installation because of the Government’s cuts to the feed-in tariff. I invite the Minister, when she is sure about the impact of this particular measure, to go with me to that school in Croydon and explain why its solar installation is now going to be taxed and how much it will be taxed by.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
As I have said, we are looking at the rate issue. There is also an issue relating to VAT, where HMRC issued a consultation—at the moment, domestic VAT continues to be 5%. The feed-in tariff deployment actually continues. Obviously, the subsidies of solar have come down because the costs have come down to such an extent. Solar has been a big success in this country and it is obviously right that the subsidy levels reflect that innovation and productivity.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I do not think that there are business rates on domestic solar panels—that falls under my right honourable friend Sajid Javid’s department. Businesses have been caught because the rateable values reflect the value of the business property, and there have been changes to the regime that have led to the situation that I have described to the noble Baroness. We are looking at that, but rates reflect, in the long term, the value of property. However, I can see that there is an issue in relation to solar panels.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth
My Lords, may I press the Minister a little further on the impact—perhaps, I am hoping, the unintended impact—of this decision on some small schools? Is it really intended that small schools should pay business rates, often after significant community fundraising to install solar panels to increase awareness among children and young people of climate-change issues?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
We are looking at this, and, in particular, this change to microgeneration, which has had these anomalous effects. In the past, schools have been totally exempt; now, as I have said, the rate system is coming in and biting in a way that perhaps was not intended in the first place. We are looking seriously at the impacts against this background of some doing better out of the system than others. We look forward to making some progress in this area.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
Can the noble Baroness tell the House how many more changes of policy impacting on renewable energy and carbon reduction will come from the Government? We seem to have had quite a string of them, all of them rather unexpected. Perhaps they are in response to the cheaper generation issue that the noble Baroness raised, but they have certainly reduced confidence both among domestic and commercial investors and in the renewables industry. Are there many more changes to come?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think the noble Baroness should take comfort from the signing of the agreement in Paris, the statements we have made and the comments I have made about the carbon budgets that will be put forward in due course. This Government and the last one have made enormous investments in renewables, but nobody could fault us now for looking properly at affordability and at where things can be affordable. Innovation—for instance, on solar—is making things less expensive, and then the subsidy regimes should change. However, of course we understand the need for investor confidence.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
My Lords, solar PV has taken the brunt of corrective measures taken by the Government, as in their analysis it is the key reason for the overspend on renewables. In fact, the National Audit Office report shows that solar accounted for only 6% of this overspend. The technology is so popular and affordable. What steps will the Minister and her department take to review this overcorrection, encourage further solar deployment and restore confidence to the sector?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The noble Lord is right that solar has been a success. We have over 11 gigawatts now installed, with 49% of EU investment in solar, so we have strength. We have had to bring down the subsidies for that, although feed-in tariffs and so on continue. My own view is that solar is an important part of the mix, particularly internationally, because there is more sun and less intermittency, which helps us with our climate change targets. However, the noble Lord can be reassured that we are looking carefully at solar, and a lot of our innovation budget is going toward solar and storage to see whether, going forward, we can take those two together and make the technology even more cost effective.
Brexit: Creative Industries
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will match current levels of European Union funding for the creative industries following the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, the Chancellor announced that the Treasury will provide a guarantee for all new structural investment fund projects signed after the Autumn Statement and before we leave the EU where they provide value for money and support domestic strategic priorities. Leaving the EU means that we want to take our own decisions about how to deliver the policy objectives previously targeted by EU funding. Over the coming months, we will consult with stakeholders to review all EU funding schemes in the round to ensure that any ongoing funding commitments best serve the UK’s national interest while ensuring appropriate investor certainty.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
I thank the Minister for his reply. I know he agrees that our creative industries are one of the great successes. Does he also agree that they have massively benefited from our being a member of the European Union? For example, the Creative Europe programme has a budget of £1.1 billion, for which funding UK applicants have a success rate double that of the EU average. Considering the contribution of the creative industries to our economy and our position as a soft-power superpower, can the Minister confirm that the creative industries will be at the top table when Brexit negotiations commence?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I am happy to agree with the noble Baroness that the creative industries are one of the great success stories of Britain. They have expanded by 34% since 2010 and now contribute 5.3% of GVA, so they are economically important, quite apart from the important cultural and aesthetic areas of promoting Britain abroad. They are at the top table—Ministers have had many meetings about the creative industries—and even if it was not for the cultural aspects, the fact that they are so important economically means that they are very much at the top table when Brexit is discussed. To show that in some way, the Secretary of State for DCMS is a member of the Cabinet’s economy and industrial strategy sub-committee, which met yesterday.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the free movement of artists and performers on our continent is a cornerstone of the creative industries? This is not just because of an international labour market but because of an established co-operation, meaning movement in both directions. If the right to work, travel and study abroad freely is removed, it will be hugely damaging.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I think it is very important that people who are involved in the cultural aspects of life can move freely and exchange ideas. I agree with the noble Earl. Interestingly, only 6.2% of people who work in the creative industries come from the EU.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, is the Minister aware of the benefit that has come to Wales from the INTERREG programme, whereby the creative industries in Wales and Ireland have had many projects of mutual benefit? When we leave the EU and Ireland remains in, how on earth will it be possible for those projects to continue?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
When we leave the EU, the Government will have to decide how to support industries in the UK. The difference is that we will be able to decide that for ourselves.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
Would my noble friend accept that—aside from the people aspect, which is rightly being raised—while fully applauding the colossal success of our creative industries around the world, they are mostly in the form of services in digital information transmission and exports? This is a services area where, frankly, the single market has not been very encouraging over the last 30 or 40 years when we have been a member. Would he accept that, in fact, the real prizes and best opportunities for the service industries are going to lie increasingly outside the European Union? That is where, as we have already heard in earlier questions, we are going to make a major mark. The single market is fine but not the best deal for our service industries.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I agree that it is very important that we look at other countries outside of the EU, but the EU will remain important to us and we can still continue to trade there. As far as the digital market is concerned, it is obviously easier in some ways to trade with other countries because distance does not matter so much. To that extent, I agree with my noble friend.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, I return to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. Does the Minister agree that part of the reason why our creative industries—in particular, our performing arts—are so admired worldwide is that there is a very free interchange internationally of artists? Will he also agree that it is increasingly difficult for people who do not have the right to work here as EU citizens to get visas? It is a difficult, time-consuming and often demoralising process. Will he ask his colleagues in the Home Office please to note that, although we have not yet left the EU, the prospect of those rules applying to EU citizens in the future is liable to have a rather chilling effect on the international flow of talent?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
As I said before, I completely agree that cultural interchange is important and, by its very nature, it requires people to move around. I can assure the noble Baroness that that is well understood and it will be taken into account—among a host of many other factors—by the appropriate departments.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, one other feature of the creative industries, which is important to bear in mind, is that they are a mixed economy. As well as the commercial and profit-seeking side, there is the publicly supported side—particularly the BBC and Channel 4. Does this not suggest that the Government should do more to support these national institutions?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I think the Government do a huge amount to support those institutions. I think we spend £3.9 billion on the BBC.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, the Minister gave a very careful reply to my noble friend—an extremely careful reply. Is the bottom line that the Government are not going to guarantee the current level of funding to our creative industries?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
No, that is not what I said. I gave a very careful reply, as the noble Lord mentioned. In fact, for the creative industries, the most important fund is the Creative Europe fund, which is applied for directly to the EU. Funds that are applied for directly to the EU have an unconditional guarantee from the Treasury until we leave.
European Union and Canada: Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the current state of negotiations of the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada; and what lessons they have drawn from these negotiations.
Baroness Mobarik (Con)
The UK remains fully supportive of CETA and of the EU’s wider trade agenda. We have been working closely with the Commission and other member states to enable signature of this agreement to take place, and negotiations are continuing in Brussels today. As noted by the Prime Minister, we are not looking to replicate a model that another country has; we want to ensure that we have the right deal for the United Kingdom.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)
I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. I wonder whether she recognises these words: Brexit,
“means immediately seeking Free Trade Agreements with the biggest prospective markets as fast as possible. There is no reason why many of these cannot be achieved within two years. We can pick up the almost complete agreement between the EU and Canada, and if anything liberalise it”.
In case she does not remember them, they were written on the website of Conservative Home by the current Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Mr David Davis. Do the Government still believe that their bespoke deal can be delivered in two years? What bilateral talks are they having with other EU member states to prevent the UK deal being a “mixed” agreement, needing ratification in over 30 assemblies and parliaments?
Baroness Mobarik
I thank the noble Baroness for that. I think that there were several questions there and I shall attempt to answer at least one of them. The UK is unique and the deal that we negotiate will be bespoke. The relationships that Canada and the UK have with the EU are very different. We are an EU member state, whereas Canada is not. The UK is an important market for the European Union and therefore an ongoing trading relationship is in the EU’s interests.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend not rather tired of these Moaning Minnies? Today we learned that the economy has grown by 0.5% and has not gone into recession. We also learned that Nissan is going to build its cars in the north-east. Should we not take a positive view looking forward, and is not the lesson of the disintegration of the Canada deal that it is extremely difficult to negotiate with and involve 28 countries and 28 interests? In the future, we will be able to decide for ourselves.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister not accept that CETA was cooked up all too secretively between officials and corporate lobbyists; that it is no less objectionable than TTIP; that giving power to corporations to sue Governments in an international tribunal when they think that their anticipated profits might be jeopardised by new laws is not compatible with our parliamentary and judicial traditions; that this House ought to record its gratitude to the stout Walloons for blocking it; and that we should be extremely wary of the General Agreement on the Trade in Services, which is the next one looming?
Baroness Mobarik
In terms of scrutiny, we are not going against procedures; we followed the usual procedure and responded in detail to the concerns raised by the scrutiny committees in both Houses. There will be debates, such as this afternoon’s debate on global free trade, votes on the great repeal Bill and, very likely, votes on any new arrangements and consequential legislation. We want to offer maximum transparency and scrutiny as long as we do not compromise our negotiating strategy.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that what we have seen in the negotiations between the European Union and the Canadian Government is an example of totally dysfunctional, incompetent and blundering government in Brussels? There is no democratic way in which that can be altered. Does that not make a very strong case for getting out from that shambles as fast as we can?
Baroness Mobarik
We regret that agreement has not been possible by all member states at this stage. The UK hopes that agreement is reached swiftly in order for it to be signed. However, the UK continues to support the EU’s trade agenda, including CETA. It is an important trade agreement for the UK, with an economic benefit to UK business while we remain in the EU estimated at £1.3 billion.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, is not the point shown by the Canadian negotiations that seven years of work have been scuppered by a sub-state institution inside Europe? Do the Government recognise the difficulties of the path on which they have embarked, for there are sub-state entities in the United Kingdom, such as the Scottish Parliament, and in every other state in Europe? Can the Minister therefore assure us that in this complex, huge, interlocked series of negotiations there are no issues which require other than qualified majority voting? In other words, is every single aspect of this negotiation free from the prospect of a unanimous decision being scuppered by a sub-state institution, here or in Europe?
Baroness Mobarik
We want the best deal for the whole of the United Kingdom. The UK is a unique case. We want to negotiate something bespoke, but that is not to say that we are not looking at every single region of the United Kingdom to see what is best for it.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, time is up.
Business of the House
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
That the debate on the motion in the name of Lord Leigh of Hurley set down for today shall be limited to 3 hours and that in the name of Lord Holmes of Richmond to 2 hours.
Select Committees
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That Lord Stoneham of Droxford be appointed a member of the following committees: Finance (in place of Lord Newby) and Privileges and Conduct, Procedure and Selection (in place of Lord Wallace of Tankerness).
Brexit: Domestic and International
Lord Leigh of Hurley
That this House takes note of the opportunities presented by the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union for the promotion of global free trade, and the impact on domestic and international trade.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, it is a great honour to lead off this take-note debate. I start by clearly stating my position. The debate title shows that opportunities abound if we can become an,
“outward looking champion of global free trade”.
We can do that only if we leave the EU customs union, and it is to that that I want to address my remarks.
In 2008, after seven grueling years of negotiation, the Doha round of trade talks collapsed as India, China and the US failed to agree on farm import rules. TTIP continues to founder as unions promulgate the barely even half-truth that it will lead to mass privatisation of the National Health Service. The raging US presidential debate piles myth on top of myth about the supposed damage caused by free trade, with startling implications for not only TTIP, but other trade agreements as well. Despite the UK having a trade commissioner present in the case of Doha during these events, the UK’s voice in trade was subsumed into that of the EU. Now, no longer. Now is the time to articulate our own vision of global free trade. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Maude, who began to do this with some alacrity, even before the referendum.
Leaving the European Union, which, for transparency, in case noble Lords had not guessed, I disclose that I voted to do, has undoubted risks. We have seen this with the slide in sterling and its possible implications for inflation. We may yet see it in business confidence and inward investment as the Article 50 negotiations proceed, with every summit, press conference and crossed word capable of moving markets. But, for all these threats, one such opportunity stands out. It is shown in the title of the debate—namely, for,
“this country to be an outward looking champion of global free trade”.
This is something for which the Conservatives have historical form. The Corn Laws were a great and terrible example of how protecting local producers at the expense of cheaper imports impoverished UK consumers. It was contentious enough to split the Conservative Party, but it seems to me, when we speak against global free trade today, that we are essentially making the same mistake, favouring narrow producer interest over the common good. Indeed, in 1904 we had not gone far enough for one Winston Churchill, leading him to join the Liberal Party in response to our ongoing fixation with tariffs. I look forward to hearing whether the modern incarnation of that party is similarly dedicated to free trade.
In the context of leaving the EU, how do we make this into an opportunity for the UK? There are many permutations for our future relationship with the EU, but I want to focus on what opportunities we might avail ourselves of by leaving the EU customs union. If we are to become a global trading nation once again, we must do so. While some UK businesses accustomed to the existing arrangements may cry foul, it is surely a price worth paying to be outside it. This is principally because, if we are, we can strike free trade deals of our own, and, indeed, grandfather into some free trade agreements.
We will not be bound by the protectionist whims of the EU. It is worth remembering that while tariffs have been eliminated between member states, they are most certainly imposed on countries outside the EU. It is worth bearing in mind that these tariffs were devised to protect certain EU industries in which the UK may not have any or significant interest. Once outside the customs union, we can reduce tariffs on non-EU countries, meaning low prices for British consumers.
Here I commend the excellent work of the Policy Exchange, in particular Dr Geoff Raby and his work on free trade. He tells us, for example, that the EU currently imposes tariffs of 165% on dairy products, 192% on livestock and 197% on horticulture. In addition, he cites the EU’s 97 anti-dumping measures, which were not designed with protecting British interests in mind. Once out of the EU, we will have a huge competitive advantage over EU countries. Yes, we will be bound by existing regulation, but we will not have to adopt future regulation. Achieving a mutually beneficial UK-EU trade treaty is viewed as a challenge by some, despite the fact that there is a deficit in both goods and services with the EU. In reality, all we have to do is merely to strive to maintain the status quo—an unusual objective, which so many EU businesses, despite pressure from EU leaders, are keen to see.
Notably, at worst, if no specific trading relationship were put in place, the UK would continue to trade with the EU using WTO most-favoured nation rates. For most manufactured goods, the EU’s most-favoured nation tariff rates are low, so UK exporters could certainly continue to trade profitably. To reiterate, this is the worst-case scenario, in that no alternative arrangement had been put in place. As Dr Raby said recently, “a EU-UK FTA”—free trade agreement—
“would be the most unusual trade negotiation in modern history. It would involve two highly integrated partners negotiating to introduce new trade barriers (such as tariffs, quotas, or non-tariff measures) which would make both parties worse off. This is the opposite of what trade negotiators are trained to do. The art of any trade negotiation is to produce win-win outcomes, not lose-lose”.
We should not underestimate how integrated the UK and EU markets are. Therefore, the barriers to signing a free trade agreement are much lower than with third parties. To those who recently referred in this House to the collapse in talks between the EU and Canada, this gives insufficient credence to the amount of existing alignment between the EU and the UK in both standards and regulations. This is a crucial point. I know others will go on to explain difficulties in doing business with the EU, but we have an enormous degree of alignment.
One obstacle that is often mentioned is the labour chapter, but the EU has many FT agreements where there are no labour chapters. I am thinking, in particular, of Turkey. Once outside the EU, we will automatically become a member of the WTO. Those saying we will have to re-join by negotiating with 163 countries are not right. As the WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo has said, Britain would “remain” a member. He was not quite as helpful as in some of his comments in June, but he has now confirmed that we would remain a member and would then need to re-establish the defined terms in the WTO for trade in our goods and services. We could put ourselves on the fast track to do this by accepting higher commitments. This would involve opening up our economy significantly, but that is where the future should lie for our trading policy anyway. This would require real leadership from the Government.
This free trading approach is already gaining traction. At the recent G20 meeting in China, India, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore, all hugely dynamic economies, expressed an interest in freer trade with Britain. My recent trip to Israel with the APPG as a guest of the Israeli Government confirmed that this high-tech, fast-growth economy, is keen to sign a deal with us as soon as possible.
Your Lordships may have noticed that during the summer, UK politics seem to go a little quiet, so in mid-July I found myself at the Republican Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, as a guest—as an observer, I hasten to add. It was clear there that many in the States, and certainly in the Republicans, are very keen on a trade treaty with the UK at the earliest opportunity—and why should they not be? Britain is already second, behind only the US, for foreign direct investment. We can now showcase our own dynamism on a global stage. UK businesses may fear that renegotiating customs duties, and rules of origin will be fiddly in the extreme, but we need to look at this strategically. Our goal should be turning a European opportunity into a global one.
I am concerned that some are going in a different direction. The leader of the Opposition has already tumbled down the slippery slope of protectionism, claiming that free trade has,
“been pursued at the expense of the world's most fragile economies”.—[Official Report, Commons; 7/9/16; col. 338.]
I suggest he take a trip to Mexico, a country he should know well, where he could see first hand the benefits that NAFTA has brought to businesses and the economy there. It is a truism we should repeat daily: capitalism and free trade have eliminated more poverty than any aid programme. Despite their free trade policy’s once being of sufficient vim to entice Churchill to cross the Floor, the Liberal Democrats, I believe, remain wedded to the straitjacket of the customs union, failing to see the opportunities outside the EU for British consumers and businesses.
It is true that some 40% of our £500 billion of exports in goods and services currently go to the EU, but in 1991, that was more than 60%. Only £48 billion goes to the Commonwealth, for example. This surely shows us what potential for growth we have. Take China. We have doubled exports there in the past five years, and Chinese investment into the UK is growing at 85%. Imagine what we could do outside the customs union. I am delighted that our new Prime Minister has already been on a trade trip to China and is taking a plane load of SME businessmen and businesswomen to India next month.
I hope this is the optimistic and outward-looking approach that the Government ultimately adopt, and I hope they will be joined by noble Lords from all sides of the House. I look forward to contributions from some extremely distinguished experts and, more important, practitioners in international trade, far more so than would ever be possible in the other place. I particularly look forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Gadhia.
I began today by lamenting the loss of a distinct British voice in the global debate on trade from our position within the EU. Our re-entry into this most vital of debates is exactly what is needed to dull the voices of protectionism and get global free trade talks back on track. Since as far back as the Suez crisis, so many have questioned what Britain’s role in the world is and what it should be. I think that we may have found it again.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, I always welcome an economics debate, and I looked forward to hearing what the noble Lord had to say because of his long business experience. I look forward to hearing the Minister too. But I was a little confused by the noble Lord’s words, because I always thought that we were an outward-looking champion of global free trade. I know that we were there when China announced the open door policy in 1978. We have been active in Asia, North and South America and the Middle East—trade delegations have been going there for years, with government departments and trade organisations developing and promoting UK goods and services. The noble Lord implies that this was hindered by our membership of the European Union. My response is one word: Germany. We have been very open for global free-trade business at home. The proof lies in the large number of UK businesses owned from overseas and the success of inward investment. Certainly, much of this investment was influenced by our membership of the European Union. It must be important that we retain these trading links, links that must not be sacrificed for political ends.
After all, what is modern world trade? It is relationships that lead to investment, trade in goods and services and movement of people, which nowadays are interconnected and interdependent. Much of this is taking place in an intangible digital world. This is why it pays to belong to a single market: it facilitates this rather complicated structure. Yes, the alternative is protectionism, but it is the kind of protectionism and national control of business that we see in places such as Russia, Turkey or China and which is on the rise in the face of declining growth in trade.
The noble Lord spoke of activating our own individual membership of the WTO. This could be a hair shirt. The WTO rules are very unforgiving. For instance, until we make our new arrangements, we shall have to charge tariffs on goods coming into this country. The noble Lord spoke of tariffs, but they are only one part. More important in world trade are the rules and standards, not only the technical standards set by standards institutions but the myriad product and service rules on health and safety, animal welfare, tax avoidance, labelling, the environment and modern slavery—I could go on. So is it envisaged that we will simply adopt the arrangements that currently exist between the EU and the WTO, or does becoming more open to world trade mean that we will seek our own detailed arrangements? If we do not accept those standards, we just enter a race to the bottom.
So, internationally, I do not see any benefits; domestically, I can see only problems. For instance, our membership of the European Space Agency gives us access to satellites which touch many sectors of our domestic economy—transport, communications, security, farming, land use and weather. Healthcare is being revolutionised by gene editing and stem cell therapy, much of it funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme and work at the Crick Institute. Yes, the Chancellor has guaranteed that, if withdrawn, this funding will be continued by the UK taxpayer, but it is well known that, on average, international collaboration leads to much higher quality research than national research. So should we pay our dues to remain in the Horizon programme and to be a member of the European Space Agency? These are just two of the possible domestic difficulties.
It seems to me that we first have to get our own house in order, to make our own economy more resilient to a world of free markets. We need to build back our currency; raise productivity; modernise by building the fourth industrial revolution into our economy; and redouble our efforts to encourage long-term investment. We need to become less dependent on low-cost labour and immigration and focus on employee engagement and real growth in wages through investment and productivity and raise the standard of our goods and services. This is what world trade is about.
What does this add up to? To get rid of uncertainty we should maintain our access to the EU single market through membership of the European Economic Area with generous movement of people; sign up to the same existing arrangements between the EU and the WTO; and get on with the real work of an industrial strategy to build our economy. The noble Lord seems to be saying that disruption brings opportunities. Sometimes it does, but uncertainty is always the enemy of growth.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, this is the second time in recent weeks that I have had the pleasure of speaking in a debate opened by my noble friend Lord Leigh and I am very grateful to him for initiating this one. I also look forward to my noble friend Lord Gadhia’s maiden speech.
Although I disagree with my noble friend Lord Leigh on a number of points, there are two on which I hope we do agree. One is that the decision to leave the European Union is a profoundly important one and the second is that, whichever side one was on in the referendum, one must strive to make it a success. To do that it is important to face facts. One of the biggest problems during the leave campaign was the extent to which those advocating leave tried to make everything sound so easy—epitomised by the remark of the now Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, that one can have one’s cake and eat it. That is something which he may be able to do but it is very difficult for the rest of us to achieve.
That error has been compounded since the referendum by the propensity of some Ministers to accuse those who point to difficulties of trying to undermine or reverse the referendum. That is a tone that has come through all too often in some ministerial statements. The reverse is true. We point out the difficulties in order to find ways of overcoming them and to avoid the pitfalls.
What is so extraordinary about the decision to leave the European Union is not that we have undertaken a profound change of policy—democracies do that. What is so extraordinary is that we are undertaking this immensely important change with absolutely no plan of campaign at all and having to make it up as we go along. That is why those of us on both sides of the argument have a duty to point to difficulties in order to find a way through.
Nothing is more important than ensuring continued access to EU markets on terms as close as possible to those that exist at present. This is partly for the obvious reason that just under half UK exports currently go to the EU and we must safeguard this very important bird in the hand, before we try to do anything else. It is also because membership of the EU in no way inhibits us from increasing our exports to other parts of the world. One only has to look at the great success achieved by Germany in China and India and also by other EU countries to see the truth of that.
In any case, it is quite clear that special deals with other countries cannot be signed before we have clarified and agreed our position with the EU. Even when that applies, the whole climate of opinion in so many countries, including the United States, to which my noble friend drew attention, is very hostile to trade agreements. Not only that, but trade agreements are extremely difficult to negotiate and even more difficult to get through domestic legislatures. That would perhaps particularly apply in some respects in our case, because the services which are so important to us give rise to such difficult political issues in many of the countries with which we would wish to reach agreement.
Apart from all that, I draw the House’s attention to one particular aspect of the British economy which is all too often overlooked, and that is the very high proportion of large British manufacturing companies that are foreign owned. The car industry is of course a particular example, but there are others. The UK has derived great benefit from foreign direct investment, but we must recognise that the companies that have bought, expanded and placed plants in this country have above all done so in order to serve the EU market. Those plants are part of a worldwide network. The companies concerned have plants in other parts of the world to serve markets in other parts of the world, so that if the plants in the UK become less competitive on the continent of Europe, those plants will not simply switch their products to other parts of the world, because the companies that own them have plants that already serve those other parts of the world. This is a problem that particularly applies in the case of the United Kingdom.
In making these points, I do not want to be thought pessimistic. If Britain, in accordance with the referendum result, takes over control of immigration from elsewhere in the EU, it cannot expect to remain in the single market on special terms. But that does not mean that a separate and distinct agreement, tailored to the new conditions, to the benefit of both sides, cannot be reached. What we must bear in mind, however, is that we have chosen to put non-economic self-interest factors at the top of our agenda. We have a right to do that, but so too do others, and when I read in today’s papers that Dr Fox is complaining that other people are putting politics ahead of prosperity, I feel he should look at the beam in his own eye.
Lord Razzall (LD)
My Lords, the House clearly owes a great debt of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, for bringing forward this extremely important and topical debate. The topicality and importance of it are clearly indicated by the number of noble Lords who have put their name down to speak. We all look forward of course to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, which will follow my remarks.
As other noble Lords have indicated, the political world is now obsessed by the negotiations to come out of the European Union. Will it be a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit? What will the trade-off be between our business relationship with Europe and the restrictions on European immigration? We have not really had any answers from the Government. We have been told by the Prime Minister that we have to accept that Brexit is Brexit—but I am not quite sure where that gets us. The Prime Minister had an opportunity yesterday at Questions, in response to a question from the Leader of the Opposition, to say whether, like Baldrick, she had a cunning plan. I am not sure that her reply—that Baldrick was a member of the Labour Party, which seemed to confuse the political views of the actor with the political views of the character—was terribly relevant. Of course, I do not think she appreciated that the whole point of Baldrick’s cunning plan was that ultimately there was no cunning plan. Some of us on this side of the House think that is where we are.
Apart from the creation of the Brexit ministry under David Davis, we also, as noble Lords know, have a new ministry under Liam Fox, who has been given responsibility for all our trading relationships outside the European Union. But until today, there has so far been very little debate about the issues that now face the Liam Fox ministry. Apparently he has two responsibilities. The first is to improve our trading relationship throughout the world. In this regard, he has inherited the policies of the previous Government and the team of trade envoys now led by Mark Price, the former chief executive of Waitrose. Sensibly, it seems that he is leaving this structure alone to continue its good work. I am glad that he has agreed that it should remain cross-party.
The other issue that has not really been discussed publicly is that apparently we are to negotiate trade deals with our most favoured partners—which, according to some government statements, will need to be concluded within the next two years. There are serious issues to be discussed here. First, how are we going to negotiate trade deals outside the European Union while we remain a member of it until the expiry of the two years following the triggering of Article 50—particularly when we do not and will not know the restrictions we will have to accept as part of any retention of access to the single market? Secondly, how can we put in place the trade negotiators to provide assistance in these negotiations? I suspect that most negotiators with this experience are still working in Europe, and we do not want to have to rely on law firms and firms of accountants to provide our negotiators. Do we seriously anticipate that we will be able to negotiate these deals within two years? The recent Canada experience demonstrates those difficulties.
There is a more fundamental point. We are all agreed that free trade is beneficial, as the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, indicated. Protectionism—either by tariffs or quotas—has costs, makes imports more expensive and depresses the incomes of consumers. By shielding domestic industries, protectionism diverts scarce resources to less efficient uses. This concept of free trade was advanced initially through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade after the Second World War and subsequently, as the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, indicated, through the World Trade Organization. But this is not what Liam Fox seems to be advocating. Bilateral trade agreements favour some countries over others and are, by definition, discriminatory and preferential. The danger is that we confuse bilateral trade deals with free trade. Basing policy on finding partners such as Australia or South Korea will secure preferential access for our exports there and may increase trade flows between us and them. But will it enhance efficiency and improve British living standards? That is the question that Liam Fox, the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, and their colleagues need to answer.
Lord Gadhia (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, I speak for the first time in this House with all humility and respect for an institution that has welcomed me so warmly to its fold. I have been here for only a few weeks, yet it feels like several years, and I mean that as a compliment to your Lordships. The officials, clerks, attendants and doorkeepers have all been exemplary in their professionalism and courtesy—so professional that on the day of my introduction I was prompted discreetly, with a firm tug of the ermine, not to forget my signature on the roll of Peers and the Code of Conduct.
All rites of passage require trusted guides to navigate the important journey ahead, and my entry to this House has benefited hugely from this tradition. I am indebted for the support and guidance of my two distinguished sponsors, my noble friends Lord Popat and Lord Fink. I also acknowledge, with much gratitude, the wise counsel of my mentors, my noble friends Lord Borwick and Lord Geddes. To top it all off, I have benefited from the spontaneous generosity of an honorary mentor in the form of my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley, who has so eloquently introduced today’s debate.
The topic of both debates in this House today, on championing global free trade and promoting social mobility, could not be more intertwined with my own journey to these Benches. Noble Lords will therefore get two maiden speeches for the patience of sitting through one. I am the very first generation of my family to be born outside India. My grandfather took the brave decision to travel 3,000 miles across the Indian Ocean from the state of Gujarat, in north-west India to Uganda, where I was born. Gujaratis are well known as a trading community, for their entrepreneurial flair and god-fearing modesty. We are often seen as pioneers—establishing ourselves in new countries, businesses or professions—and represent the majority of the 1.5 million British Indians in this country. I believe that globally connected communities will be of ever greater value as we forge new trading relationships with the rest of the world.
Had it not been for a twist of destiny, I would still have been in Uganda today, but the despot Idi Amin had different ideas. In 1972, he served notice on 60,000 Asians to leave the country. We were forced to flee overnight, leaving everything behind. To his eternal credit, the then Prime Minister Edward Heath fulfilled his moral and legal responsibility to provide a safe harbour to 30,000 of my fellow compatriots, and we started all over again.
For most of us arriving here, it was our third country and we had no choice but to get it right. Migrants, as a group, are people who are prepared to uproot themselves, who want to improve their lives. They are already highly motivated. Those forced to be migrants more than once are doubly driven. The story of the Ugandan Asian community and its settlement and contribution to Britain has been the subject of important debates in both Houses of Parliament—introduced on the same day, 6 December 2012, by my noble friend Lord Popat in this House and by my honourable friend Shailesh Vara in the other place. I would commend the respective Hansard entries as required reading.
Immigration has become an emotive topic following the EU referendum, but let us not forget that immigration is one of the things that has made Britain great. Britain is fundamentally an open, tolerant and welcoming nation. We look out to the world for trade, for skills, for friends. We are not a small country that closes itself off to the world. That has never been our outlook and must never be. So I wear the badge of an immigrant with pride. People want to come to this country because they see us as the land of opportunity—somewhere to build a new life and secure better prospects for their families. My parents worked long hours and made sacrifices so that their children could enjoy a better future. I am standing here today precisely because Britain offered me those opportunities and I seized them with both hands.
I also had luck on my side—luck in the form of an excellent British education and the fortune to work for a number of major global financial institutions over the last 25 years. I have survived that rollercoaster ride and learned the lessons, too. I have focused on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, raising capital and making investments, frequently connecting emerging markets with western economies. I came full circle by leading some of the largest investment flows between the UK and India, ranging from steel to pharmaceuticals. This experience led me to work closely with the former Prime Minister David Cameron, who I believe did more than any other holder of his position to build a modern partnership with India and also to engage proactively with the British Indian diaspora. I am pleased to say that our new Prime Minister Theresa May is building on this strong legacy, and it will be my privilege to accompany her in 10 days’ time to India on her first major planned official visit overseas, at the invitation of my fellow Gujarati, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
I am also proud of my background in financial and professional services. It is our flagship export sector, generating a combined trade surplus of £72 billion, contributing £66 billion in tax revenues, which pays for essential public services and accounts for 2.2 million jobs, two-thirds of which are outside London. While the complex City ecosystem is difficult to replicate and usurp, we should not be complacent either. Our position is hard won over decades and should not be traded off lightly against misguided fears of immigration.
The City of London has also been one of the greatest engines of social mobility which our country has ever seen because it is rooted in meritocracy. So sacrificing a sector where we have a natural competitive advantage, which generates significant tax revenues to pay for public services and which underpins aspiration for so many, would be a triple travesty.
Whether it is selling services or goods, we are a trading nation first, last and always. Total trade as a share of GDP has increased from just over 50% in 2003 to over 60% today. However, in Germany it is almost 90%, and we should make that our long-term objective, too.
Our natural instincts are supported by hard logic. The Brexit imperative is also an economic imperative. At a time when fiscal policy is still constrained and the efficacy of monetary policy has long since been exhausted, liberalising trade offers a policy lever that can lift economic growth potential around the world against the centripetal forces of deflation.
I also believe that, with some deft footwork, we can get to the front of the queue on trade deals. While we cannot sign actual trade deals, there is nothing to stop us agreeing MoUs, as confirmed by my noble friend Lord Price in his recent evidence to the EU External Affairs Sub-Committee. I make this exhortation to EU leaders: liberalising trade is a positive sum game; you may want to teach the UK a lesson for leaving the EU, but do not betray your own self-interests by being protectionist.
In conclusion, I am deeply honoured to have been introduced to this House and given this opportunity to serve this great country. As a Hindu, the act of selfless service, or seva, combined with right conduct, or dharma, are among the noblest of Vedic traditions. I truly believe that our best times lie ahead if we can capture the full benefits of being an open, outward-looking country that embraces global free trade and welcomes new talent to our shores. Let us make that dream—a British dream—our destiny.
Lord Lupton (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that the House will agree with me that that was a powerful maiden speech by my long-standing and now noble friend Lord Gadhia. It drew on his displaced, almost nomadic, early life and on the debt which he palpably feels to this country, which took his family in. He is, however, too modest to highlight the notable success he has had in the London-based financial services industry, nor did he refer to his active and consistent track record of public service—either as a trustee of Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospitals, or as a board member of NESTA, UK Financial Investments or UK Government Investments—or his philanthropic activities. I am, therefore, pleased to speak after him, since I shall allow myself just a little reflected glory for spotting the talent and recruiting him as a fresh-faced graduate in 1991 to my former firm, perhaps creating the foundation for his future success. He will make an important, enlightened contribution to this House and I congratulate him on his maiden speech.
While I admire the conviction your Lordships bring to this debate on the opportunities and benefits that the UK can now reap post-referendum, it is still a little too early to be entirely confident about predicting a positive result—from whatever route we choose. Having said that, there are some pointers. We could use history as a guide; my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley has already referred to the corn laws. The economist James Wilson described them at the time as,
“laws passed by the seller to compel the buyer to give him more for his article than it is worth. They are laws enacted by the noble shopkeepers who rule us, to compel the nation to deal at their shop alone”.
Indeed, Wilson dismissed tariffs, saying they were unnecessary “swaddling” against an economy as mature as Britain’s in the 19th century.
On the other hand, we know that opening up our economies to global competition, as we would be doing outside the EU—which currently has significant external tariffs to protect EU industry—carries risks. For example, after China joined the WTO, the US lost 6 million manufacturing jobs between 1999 and 2011.
Another pointer is economic research. Consumers in closed countries have a lot less purchasing power, and the effect is progressive. Academics at Columbia University suggest that in an average country, if trade borders were closed, citizens on higher incomes would lose 28% of their purchasing power but the poorest 10% would lose a horrifying 63%—something the leader of the Opposition should note carefully. Free trade adds to growth. Trade with the EU, since we joined in 1973, has increased Britain’s GDP by 10%.
So at this stage we should be careful about what we wish for. There are conflicting economic and political forces at work, the latter pushing for immigration control of our borders outside a customs union, the former less clear-cut, although I lean towards leaving the EU customs union.
My second point is a simple one. Britain is a major economic force in the world. We are an inventive nation, we are pioneers. While it is sensible to allow history to inform our decisions, as I have already done in this speech, it concerns me that we hear in the debate about Brexit too much about this or that established model for leaving—there is no model for leaving, no country has ever done it. The rhetoric should embrace the concept of an innovative and, above all, bespoke solution being devised, which forges a new path for the UK while being acceptable to our European partners.
My final point echoes a speech I made in this Chamber a few weeks ago about the feeling of disfranchisement among the working poorly skilled and educated, who are of such concern to this Government. We must of course back British exporters more. We have world-leading capabilities in, for example, advanced manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. A modern industrial strategy must support British business to reach beyond the EU to new markets, but we must be open to helping those who could suffer as a result of our economy being more open.
Academics at the LSE have found that areas of the country such as Northampton, Blackburn and Port Talbot, which are more exposed to Chinese imports, for example, have a higher rate of unemployment. The UK has something called the rapid response service, which is meant to help the economically displaced, but its activities are frankly unclear and in 2008, when the other place investigated it, it had a budget of a paltry £6 million. It is clear that we will need our own adjustment fund with a much bigger budget and much clearer strategic, industrial purpose.
It is not enough to say that the UK overall will benefit from more openness to trade. We will have to identify where people are not benefiting and support them to develop new economic activities, just as we did in the north-east of England a generation ago, when the closure of the coal mines left an industrial vacuum so successfully filled by our becoming a highly efficient car manufacturer, as again demonstrated by Nissan today.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, let me start by paying a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, who I thought delivered a particularly well-conceived and lucid maiden speech. I share his great admiration for Edward Heath and the Conservative Government in the 1970s; I was a political supporter of the Conservative Party and of that Government at that time. Their brave decision to let in the Ugandan east Asians was taken for the highest motives of humanitarianism and a sense of historical obligation for the movements of peoples that had taken place under the British Empire. If the motives were very pure, we have been rewarded many times in sheer economic terms by the extraordinary and quite exceptional enterprise and wealth creation of that community, which has now become such a valued part of our country. I cannot help saying what a sad thing it is that the Conservative Party which made that brave decision back in the 1970s should now be the hotbed of chauvinism and the source of so much agitation about freedom of movement—and indeed should have become so obsessed by its desire to oppose freedom of movement that it appears willing to pay almost any economic price to thwart it.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, for having given the House the opportunity to discuss this matter, though I am afraid that may be the last compliment I deliver to him in the course of my remarks. I very much agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, about the dangers of wishful thinking in this world. He expressed himself perhaps a little more subtly than I will on the subject. I think that wishful thinking is a very dangerous thing in human affairs and, particularly when one contemplates a large, strategic decision of any kind, great effort should be made to clear one’s mind of wishful thinking. I do not think that the noble Lord has made that attempt. I have not heard for some time a more delusory speech than the one we just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Leigh. He seems to be one of those people who goes around the world and hears what he wants to hear rather than what people are saying. Here is a man who apparently went to the Republican convention, no less, and came away thinking that the Republicans were friends of free trade and very likely to want a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom. I have to tell him that the Republican Party now opposes TTIP, and some of its members even oppose NAFTA. The Republican candidate at the presidential election has said that he opposes NAFTA. So much for the Republican enthusiasm for free trade at present.
The noble Lord also mentioned India and China. India and China have indeed developed a very good relationship with this country and invested a lot here; we have done a lot of trade with both those countries—although the Germans have, of course, done far more trade with both. However, the noble Lord does not appear to have noticed that during the campaign those two countries made it very clear that that relationship had been greatly strengthened by the fact that we were members of the European Union, and they wanted us to remain part of the EU. Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi were both explicit on this point. If the noble Lord listened a bit more carefully to what people are telling him, he might not draw such very perverse conclusions from his running around the world and his global travels.
The noble Lord made another great mistake—indeed, a fundamental mistake: to suppose that there was some trade-off between developing international trade with the whole of the rest of the world outside the EU and our membership of the EU. There is no such trade-off; there is no evidence of that at all. In fact there is a negative trade-off. Our membership of the EU is a very positive asset in terms of our ability to trade with other people. I must tell the noble Lord, because he does not seem to know about this, that the single market was conceived for precisely that reason—so as to provide European economies with the strength of a domestic market comparable to that enjoyed by the United States and Japan, and to give us the longer production runs and economies of scale that enabled us to compete with those countries right around the world.
That has worked. That is why we have such an extraordinarily complex and sophisticated structure of supply chains throughout the European Union—and that is why it is so dangerous for us to leave the European Union. Immediately there is the threat not only of tariffs but of regulatory changes over time, and people will no longer be able to depend on our presence in one of those supply chains.
The noble Lord seems to think that we can go around the world signing free trade agreements with all kinds of people very easily. He is totally wrong about that. If we leave the European Union we shall leave, at the same time on the same day, 35 free trade agreements that the EU has with other countries or groups of countries throughout the world, involving about 45 nations in all. What a completely crazy thing to do, if we want to sign FTAs around the world—to walk away from 35 of them before we have even started. Then we will have to start negotiating new foreign trade agreements, and they take an average of five to 10 years. On this occasion things will be even more complicated, because we will not be able to complete one until we have completed another, as people will want to know what concessions we have made to their potential trade rivals. This is an extraordinarily complex area, and the noble Lord really needs to think about it a bit more clearly.
I leave the House with one final thought. We have two big important economic assets in this country. One is the fact that we have been the most favoured locus for corporate headquarters and manufacturing bases for international investors wanting to access the single market. Clearly, if we leave the European Union that will go overnight. Our second great asset is that we are the financial capital of the European Union. That is under direct threat. If we leave the single market we leave the banking and insurance passports, and that asset too will go by the board. It is pretty extraordinary that the Government of a country are planning to destroy, at a stroke, the two major economic assets that it has. That is a frightening thought and we should contemplate it, and try to clear our minds of any kind of wishful thinking about it, before we do that.
Lord Livingston of Parkhead (Con)
My Lords, I first thank my noble friend Lord Leigh for tabling this important debate. I also welcome my noble friend Lord Gadhia to this House. I have known him for a number of years, and I know that he will be a great addition to this Chamber. His powerful maiden speech highlighted his background, experience and expertise, and what he will bring to this House.
Often in these debates we tend to decry the UK’s export performance, and of course we do have a trade gap. But it must be remembered that the UK is one of the world’s leading exporters—not just in services, although we are the second largest exporter of services across a range of service industries. That includes not just financial services but creative industries—the publishing industry deserves a good mention—and sectors such as the car industry. We are now the second largest producer of motor cars in Europe. We are also the second largest exporter in the world in the aerospace industry. Therefore, our exporters do a good job but, of course, we would like to see more exports.
However, whichever side of the Brexit debate you are on, I think there is widespread agreement that the uncertainty of Brexit certainly does not help. The notion that we will exit the EU in 2019 with a range of trade agreements with a number of countries is appealing but, regrettably, I believe that it is unrealistic, even verging on the fanciful. It is not that there are no interested countries: there are plenty of countries interested in doing a deal with the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world. However, there are still legal issues regarding the ability to negotiate during Brexit. The Australian Trade Minister made that point very recently, and Australia was already starting to talk to us. Moreover, it is very difficult to have meaningful conversations with the UK until we sort out our position with the EU. Mike Froman, who heads the US trade commission, and who I knew very well during my time as Minister of Trade, made that point very clearly. He would be willing to talk to the UK but we have to work out what our relationships are going to be. We can, over time, reach trade agreements, and they can be comprehensive, good and quick. Unfortunately, they cannot be all three of those things. It is important that we do not sacrifice the quality and breadth of a trade agreement on the altar of time. That will not be in our country’s long-term interests. Therefore, we need to play for time.
I loudly supported staying in the EU and regret the decision that was made. However, we have made this decision and it is not helpful for us to go through the arguments for and against Brexit. I agree with my noble friend Lord Tugendhat that we must get on and make the best of it for the UK. I also think that a message was sent out about taking back control. In the long term we will need to exit the single market and the customs union. People talk about Norway and government by fax machine, but being in the single market would create new rules for us over which we had no say. I think that would be very difficult. When I visited Turkey, people always complained to me about its inability to participate in trade agreements when it was part of the customs union.
Therefore, we need to buy ourselves time. I suggest we do that by agreeing with the EU to establish beyond the two-year Brexit period a further period in which we will stay part of the single market but after that period—say, another three years—that will stop. We should use that period to negotiate a proper, deep free trade agreement with the EU. In addition, as we would know our end status, we could start negotiating with other partners. We can debate whether that involves having a CETA-plus deal or is something new but it must include deep free trade and tariff cuts; non-tariff barriers; availability, for instance, for local procurement; and, critically—most trade agreements do not have this in depth—it must include services. Services account for 80% of the UK’s economy and without them we will struggle to increase our overseas exports.
As we negotiate these agreements, we must look to certain countries. The US is our largest trading partner. We will see who the next President will be but the US will prioritise. As regards Canada, there is a basic agreement under CETA regarding what we should do. There is also Australia and New Zealand. But we are going to have to focus because we cannot address all countries together.
I would like to say a lot more about exporting but time will not allow me. Suffice it to say that I have been on both sides of this issue. I have been a Trade Minister and I have been responsible for companies that export around the globe. I know that in both cases exporting is not easy. It is government’s job to reduce these barriers, not increase them. The Government must look forward and try to give certainty to our exporters. They must also try to buy some time so that we can have a long-term deep trade agreement with many of the major trading countries around the world. In that way we can look forward to the future with some confidence and make the best of an otherwise bad decision regarding Brexit.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, and his very thoughtful contribution to this debate. I was also impressed by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Livingston of Parkhead, particularly in relation to his comments on the media, and his warning about the pace of exiting the EU and the need to buy some time.
We are debating the issue of global free trade, and we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, for enabling us to have this debate. The Secretary of State for International Trade said in Manchester a few weeks ago that our departure from the EU would provide an opportunity for the UK to become a world leader in free trade. He said this, which I took directly from the Library briefing for this debate:
“I believe the UK is in a prime position to become a world leader in free trade because of the brave and historic decision of the British people to leave the European Union”.
We should note the words “because of”. They imply that it is our departure from the EU that will enable us to grow our trade across the rest of the world. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, reminded us, we can increase our trade with the rest of the world while being inside the European Union. Exporting to the rest of the world is not a problem for Germany, which exports very successfully—and Germany is not planning to leave the European Union.
I question the assertion that we promote global free trade by leaving the free trade area—the EU—that we are currently in. It will not make it easier for us to promote global free trade; it will reduce our global free trade because it will reduce our free trade access to the European Union and the 35 agreements to which the EU is party. It will stifle our businesses exporting to the EU, to which 44% of our exports go. We will face tariff barriers and customs delays as we comply with complex rules of origin that will increase the cost of exporting—and we will lose the ability to influence the harmonisation of non-tariff barriers.
The Government need to recognise that we are part of integrated European supply chains. Countries outside the EU—not least the USA and Commonwealth countries—invest here to gain access to the EU. Crucially, how can it be helpful to leave the EU in 2019 when securing global free trade could take many years to achieve—if we ever do?
It is undoubtedly the case that there is capacity for growth of exports worldwide, but to make sure that our exporters are making the most of worldwide opportunities, the support provided by the Department for International Trade is key. But I draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that in the last year, the DIT’s nine English regions saw major cuts in their promotion and support of exporting, with more cuts thought to be pending, perhaps over the lifetime of this Parliament, amounting to some 20%. Will the Minister, in summing up, tell us how we can promote exporting globally if the Government insist on cutting the very budgets that can enable exporting to increase?
I turn now to inward investment. A recent report produced by Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners showed that the amount of foreign direct investment that the north-east of England—where I live—has received declined dramatically from 14.3% of national jobs in 2009 to the current low of 7.8% in 2015: a cut of nearly half. I can suggest one reason why this has happened: the absence of regional targets for inward investment, which were abolished a few years ago. National targets can be achieved by the DIT by promoting London and the south-east, to the disadvantage of other parts of the United Kingdom. Over the last five tax years, the DIT’s own website tells us that London and the south-east received half of all projects and 35% of all jobs. But promoting global trade means promoting all parts of the UK—and their products and their skills—to the world.
Briefly, on overseas students, to stop talented students from overseas coming to study in the UK because the Government insist on counting them as part of net migration fails to understand that overseas students become ambassadors for the UK. Reducing the number who can come undermines our universities and says that we are neither global nor open.
The noble Lord, Lord Leigh, in introducing this debate, said that leaving the EU to promote global free trade was a price worth paying. It is a huge price, which will have a huge impact on all parts of the United Kingdom. I fear that it is not a price worth paying, and I very much hope that those who believe that the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, is correct will pay heed to the warnings that we have already heard in this debate from his own Benches.
Lord Bamford (Con)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, on his excellent maiden speech.
I am a businessman, in the business of manufacturing and selling construction and agricultural machinery to customers all over the world. You see, exporting is in my blood, and I have been doing it for over 50 years, since I started in our family business. We now export around 75% of everything we make in the UK. We export to customers in North America, South America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and, of course, to mainland Europe. We also import goods and services from around the world.
There is much speculation about the future terms of trade between the UK and the EU. We currently trade with each other on the basis of zero tariffs and no import duties. It would be helpful, of course, if this carried on after we leave the EU. It has indeed made exporting somewhat easier for us all. But is it the end of the world if tariffs and import duties re-emerge upon exit? For companies that export, tariffs and import duties are not alien concepts. They are simply part of how we do business each day. I remember trading with France, Germany and the Benelux long before we joined the common market. Tariffs and import duties were simply part and parcel of doing business with Europe back then. They were not a concern or a threat to British business, unlike currency fluctuations. A weakening deutschmark against the pound could do a lot more damage than any tariff or import duty.
Please do not think for one minute that zero tariffs across the EU today mean that we operate on a level playing field. For example, my company sells farm tractors into the single market, so there are zero tariffs, no import duties and, supposedly, no barriers to trade, in an EU without borders. Noble Lords may find this hard to believe, but farm tractors must comply with at least 10 individual—and different—pieces of national road legislation, at great cost to my business, in the likes of Germany, Italy, and certain other EU markets. So there are hidden barriers. This is just one example of many in my industry that proves that the single market has not created a level playing field.
I want British business to get behind the Government. We need the Government to secure an exit deal that is in Britain’s best interests—one that will allow us to become a truly global trading nation. If tariffs are the price we have to pay to leave the EU, so be it. I hope that common sense will prevail. But if, for example, WTO rules were to apply, the EU would lose out much more than the UK. That is what Civitas concluded this week in its analysis of potential tariff costs for EU-UK trade.
In my own industry, under WTO rules tariffs of 4% could apply to certain types of UK-built machinery. Of course, similar tariffs would be levied on equivalent products imported into the UK from EU countries. But British businesspeople are very adaptable. They adjust very quickly to changes in the trading environment, so rest assured they would take tariffs in their stride. If tariffs are the price that we have to pay to secure free trade agreements with the rest of the world, I think it is a price worth paying.
Please remember that, as a nation, over 54% of all UK exports go to non-EU countries. Of course, Europe will continue to be an important market, but the EU’s role in the world economy is shrinking and will continue to shrink further. That is why regaining control of how we trade with the rest of the world is so important.
British businesses must now work together to help create a truly global Britain. Free from the constraints of Brussels, British businesses are certainly up to the task of making Britain a global leader in free trade.
Lord Patten (Con)
Two key cogs in the myriad of moving parts involved in these issues are the World Trade Organization and our own government machine.
I start with the WTO. This is, in its purposes, a non-political organisation. The UK has been there since it was first dreamt up at Bretton Woods in 1944. We were there at the foundation of its predecessor body, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1948 and then at the start of the WTO itself. We are one of the founding fathers and mothers of the organisation and a driving force. As such, I wish to seek reaffirmation from the Minister that she has already had reassurances in straight terms from the WTO that, as a founder member, after we leave the European Union we will not have to go through any reaccession process whatsoever.
I think the world needs the WTO. The UK certainly needs the WTO, but the WTO also needs the UK, as a forceful member, promoting free trade, rooting out protectionism and standing firm against trade distortions. This was our historic role within that organisation in the past.
Only yesterday, by happy coincidence with the timing of my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley’s debate this morning, the World Trade Organization’s director-general Roberto Azevedo, whom we heard about earlier, told Sky News—the “truth station”, as I think of it—that he does not want to see the UK suffering “disruption” after we leave the UK. He wants, rather, to see a “fast and smooth” transition. I welcome that very much indeed. He goes on to say that,
“The global economy … is not in the best shape for us to be introducing turbulence”.
Mr Azevedo has changed his tune. I hope my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley welcomes that change of tune, because Mr Azevedo is going to be a dominant figure on the world stage—not just as far as the UK is concerned, but as far as the European Union is concerned. The UK can take the lead in helping him work towards offering reciprocal, tariff-free entry to all sorts of goods and services coming from third countries.
Consider, for example, countries such as Germany, which are facing economic headwinds at the moment. Germany has a considerable surplus with us. It is running a surplus not just in Mercedes and Volkswagens, but also in all professional and other services into the United Kingdom—to the surprise of many. In future, we may find that the thought of having tariff-free entry to the UK has its own particular charm, to put it mildly, for economies like those of Germany. However, we need to work much harder to export to Germany, and to Poland and other eastern European countries, in return.
My second point turns to the UK Government. It must be very exhilarating and challenging on the home front for those setting up new or reformed ministries and fettling up our export promotion machine. This is a matter not just of organisation charts and talent searches but of attitude at the centre. Such global promotion is multilayered and certainly not just a matter for the huge FTSE 100 companies and their often very corporatist representative bodies, such as the CBI. Such FTSE 100 companies may often have a welcome UK heritage but generally get a majority of their earnings abroad, so they should have the global structures and intelligence-gathering machines in place not to need much help from trade delegations and the rest.
No, it is the companies of the FTSE 250 size and below, having a much more UK-centric view, that arguably deserve the greatest attention, and even more so the entrepreneurial classes—footloose, high-tech and other developing start-ups—which are characteristically very uncorporate in their attitudes. So I am very glad to learn that the Prime Minister is taking a plane-load of representatives of SMEs to India to kick off what I hope is a totally new trend, rather than having the front of the plane clogged with the CEOs and chairmen of great FTSE 100 companies, who should be able to look after their shareholders’ interests without much help from Prime Ministers.
I also believe that the Government should welcome—I draw this in particular to the attention of my noble friend the Minister—what I am told is a queue of professionals in the legal and professional services who are stepping forward as volunteers, offering themselves on a continuing pro bono, part-time basis to help Her Majesty’s Government in what they are trying to do. We should welcome a “Government of all the talents” in trying to promote international trade, and particularly in helping what one might loosely call the Brexit Ministries as they set themselves up, upskill and get to grips with the new world of post-EU government. These volunteers are part of our national brain reservoir.
We must also welcome—I stress this—top-class immigrant brain power. We need to develop a discerning approach to high-tech, high-medical and high-finance open borders—in other words, a free market in the brain sphere. That is vital to the United Kingdom to help sustain old markets and win new ones, at the same time as we seek, quite rightly, to control our borders in relation to entry-level employment-seekers coming into this country.
Lord Taverne (LD)
My Lords, what surprises me is the complacency in the Government and in certain other circles about our trade prospects after Brexit. It is claimed that we are in a strong negotiating position but, when Article 50 is invoked, we have about a year and a half after the German elections to complete infinitely complex negotiations. We will be arguing against the clock—a very weak position.to be in.
The least bad deal after Brexit would be the Norwegian model, which would keep us in the single market—although it still has severe disadvantages, now well known, and will be unacceptable to Brexiteers. Alternative forms of access, or partial access, to the single market have even greater disadvantages. Negotiating a new free trade agreement with the EU will be much more complex than the Canadian agreement, which took ages and may never have effect. Any agreement, moreover, has to be approved by all 27 other members, each with different interests and a power of veto.
It is said that it benefits the European Union to give us a soft Brexit, but there is little good will towards Britain, especially after Mrs May’s speech at the Conservative conference, and several of the 27 have different reasons for not helping: they fear other separatists; Paris and Frankfurt would love to replace London’s financial services; Spain has offered a secure home within the EU for London banks; and, as the imposition of sanctions against Russia showed, the lobbying power of German industry, often invoked, does not outweigh Angela Merkel’s political concerns, which are mainly to keep the European Union together.
I fear the odds are that we will not reach an agreement before 2019. Can we negotiate an interim agreement, as many hope, to enable more negotiations after Brexit? That is very unlikely. The same obstacles have to be overcome and our partners know that temporary agreements often become permanent. So we will be left with a WTO solution which some advocate and which—as I understand from what has been written by Mr Peter Sutherland—involves having to submit new schedules of commitments to the WTO that will need approval by all its 164 members. That is not just a simple formality.
We will have to renegotiate, or rather negotiate, new bilateral free trade agreements with the 35 or 50—I am not sure exactly how many—countries that have them with the European Union, and with third countries with which the EU is currently negotiating. None of them will talk to us until they know what our relations with the European Union will be.
No agreement would be the hardest of hard Brexits. Our huge service industry will suffer most. As uncertainties grow, and as the prospects and implications of exclusion from the single market and the customs union become clearer, it is likely that domestic and foreign investment will decline; many companies will emigrate; the pound will fall further; and we would be in a severe Brexit recession. What price then the sunny uplands promised by the leave camp? As Donald Tusk, one of our friends in Europe warned, the choice will be between a hard Brexit and stay.
Anyone who challenges the June vote is immediately branded as anti-democratic. But why should a referendum vote be sacrosanct, unlike the result of a general election, especially when the choice of Brexit was not clear? Did it mean staying in the single market, which is what the Conservative manifesto pledged and what many leave voters thought it meant? It is the essence of a democracy that no decision is ever irreversible. Of course we cannot have a second referendum now, but with a major shift in public opinion it would be fully justified. To deny—before a final decision to leave—that there could be a new decision would be truly undemocratic.
Finally, will Article 50 allow us to withdraw? I quote the view of a former head of the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union, Jean-Claude Piris, who wrote that the article declares an “intention” to leave, which is a unilateral act that does not depend on the views of other EU members. He wrote that an “intention”,
“cannot be interpreted as a final and irreversible decision”,
and that nothing in the article prevents the UK from withdrawing its unilaterally declared “intention”.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, surely everyone realises the world will be better off the more it engages in free trade. As the Prime Minister recently said in Brussels:
“I am determined that as we leave the EU, Britain will be the most passionate, the most consistent and the most convincing advocate of free trade anywhere in the world”.
That was a powerful statement. Based on this, she made the point that as we look beyond our continent, we will seize the opportunities of Brexit to forge an ambitious and optimistic new role for Britain in the world. I am pleased the UK is already discussing its future trading relationships with third countries and wish all success to the forthcoming visit to India, where there is now major scope to increase our trading and financial relationships. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Gadhia on a moving maiden speech and welcome what I believe will be the major ongoing contribution that he will make to our commercial relationships with India.
I commend to your Lordships Professor Patrick Minford’s IEA paper of this May, No Need to Queue: The Benefits of Free Trade without Trade Agreements. His argument is that for a country the size of the UK, which represents only some 3% of global trade, unilateral free trade is a better option than individual trade agreements which, inevitably, entail both bilateral and multilateral complications and costs. Some 70% of UK trade is already conducted under WTO rules with no involvement with EU trade deals. This includes the export of services where the EU has little or no commercial policy. Indeed the UK’s exports of services to the EU owe little or nothing to the single market. Rather, the obstruction to larger EU international trade in services arises from national barriers within the EU to protect domestic services.
Professor Minford’s practical point is that being a relatively small supplier, the UK benefits trade-wise from being of marginal importance. The UK’s share of world trade is sufficiently modest that there is little incentive to levy tariffs on UK exports. May I comment how much I agreed with my noble friend Lord Bamford’s speech, and with the point that enterprising British business has to get on with it and cope with whatever the ups and downs and issues are? My noble friend might well agree with Patrick Minford.
The fundamental point is that increased trade boosts output and raises living standards. China and India have demonstrated over the last three decades the huge gains to be made by opening up economies to world markets. This did not and does not need an expansion of trade agreements either regionally or via the WTO globally. China’s rapid growth owes little to trade agreements; it was not even a member of the WTO until 2001. Indeed, it has been the 165 non-EU states that have accounted for the majority of the world’s growth in recent years. I regret to comment that the UK in the single market is essentially part of a protectionist structure based on regulation and protecting domestic EU markets from competing international trade.
For trade in goods, a zero tariff regime with the EU would make the most sense, combined with an invitation to the EU to reciprocate, which is likely to be attractive to EU commercial organisations. This is the sort of regime that Hong Kong and Singapore have taken up, where both have a better network of free trade arrangements than the EU. Indeed, my vision for the UK post-Brexit is what I might call a super-Singapore or a super-Hong Kong. I add the point that this could equally well be organised under a WTO regime.
Of our total trade, our exports to the Commonwealth presently represent only 9%. We are the biggest exporter of services to Commonwealth countries. I believe there is huge scope to increase our trade with Commonwealth countries. As my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford has pointed out, the Commonwealth is more suited than the EU to the expansion of trade and commerce in the digital age because of its growing emphasis on information and data exchange. The Commonwealth network could provide a gateway to the faster-growing economies of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
I would have liked to have spoken about the City, where I believe a lot of overpessimism is argued about the effect of Brexit, but alas, there is not time. I close by saying that the case for free trade is moral as well as economic. It is an instrument of poverty alleviation. Since 1990, the numbers living in poverty have fallen from 36% to 8%. I end by repeating a comment by the governor of Hong Kong in I think 1857:
“Free trade is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is free trade”.
He meant by that that free trade is a hugely effective moral force in raising living standards for the less fortunate.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I also begin by congratulating my noble friend Lord Gadhia on an excellent maiden speech. I also mention his great contribution in getting the Indian community engaged in the British political system.
Having started on the London Metal Exchange in 1963 I have been involved in metals trading for more than 50 years. At present, I have every intention of continuing. I am therefore grateful to my noble friend Lord Leigh for securing this debate on the impact of Brexit on trade and particularly the promotion of global free trade. We are in danger of reverting to an unattractive and counterproductive negativity, talking ourselves down and doing our great British brand a disservice. Of course Brexit has brought with it a new source of uncertainty, and business thrives on stability, but it is important to be clear-eyed about what lay behind and optimistic about what lies ahead.
Shortly before the referendum I wrote that as an island nation we have always depended on our trading and market skills and how continued membership of the European Union posed a direct risk to our unrivalled concentration of markets and trading expertise. The market in which I am most involved, the London Metal Exchange or LME, is the global pricing mechanism for base metals and has, since it was founded in 1870, provided substantial invisible exports for this country. I was concerned that European regulators were endangering the sophisticated systems and culture undergirding London markets’ success. Our international reputation for trading ethically and innovatively has made Britain very attractive for investors. Yet, regulators in Brussels, issuing ever more top-down directives, effectively sidelined personal responsibility, creativity and innovative flair.
The LME, which operated smoothly and without disruption during the financial crisis, is governed by rules designed and developed over the last 150 years that are, as a result, well suited to its markets. However, these were in danger of being swept away by EU laws such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II. MiFID II, as it is known, actively deters people from taking on risk in markets and betrays the assumption of those at a remove from trading that risk should be avoided. Yet risk is what gives markets liquidity. It needs good controls, but risk is a good thing.
This trend towards overregulation made it increasingly likely that the now Hong Kong-owned LME would sooner or later have been forced to relocate to Hong Kong or to another major Chinese city. The irony is that as a global exchange the LME was not affected by the single market, yet was subject to the EU’s strictures, which were endangering its continued operation in London.
Now free to take back control of our regulation, we need to have a healthy dose of national confidence and self-belief on the grounds that other countries will want to trade freely with Britain, the world’s fifth-biggest economy, especially if, like the EU, they are already doing so. In this interconnected world, our trade with Europe, which has a surplus of nearly £70 billion with us, is an indispensable source of jobs and wealth for their economies.
However, I wish to make another point. We are also free to help other countries create wealth through free trade. Harvard Professor and author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, David Landes, emphasises that the task of rich countries like ours,
“in our own interest as well as theirs, is to help the poor become healthier and wealthier. If we do not”,
he says,
“they will seek to take what they cannot make; and if they cannot earn by exporting commodities, they will export people. In short, wealth is an irresistible magnet”.
Written nearly two decades ago, he is prophetically summing up what happens when trade is not free. The European Union has to ask itself to what extent its protectionism is responsible for so many economic migrants willing to take perilous journeys across the Mediterranean and turning up on her shores with no certainty of a good outcome even if they survive the passage.
Our exit from the European Union creates a vital opportunity to make arrangements with just-about emerging economies that would previously have been at the back of the queue for trade deals with nations such as ours. Surely this would enable them to hold on to more of those citizens who want to better themselves instead of losing them to uncertain tides, flimsy boats and people smugglers.
Will the Minister provide a little more detail of what my right honourable friend in the other place, the Secretary of State for International Development, is planning in terms of free trade with poorer countries as part of her welcome drive to ensure that every penny of the aid budget is well spent? We need to ensure that the rising tide of what I believe will be our post-Brexit prosperity lifts as many boats as possible.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, another brilliant Ugandan, to this House. I would like to hear him talk more about Uganda, which I visited when my father was in the embassy there.
We should thank the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, for this debate but also perhaps for exposing the questionable arguments for the UK’s prospective departure from the EU. This is a very important debate because the magnitude and extent of trade are essential for improving the livelihoods of people all over the world and for dealing with the massive challenges of global problems, whether they be climate change, the quality of the environment or security.
I am glad to say that the mainstream of the Labour Party has always recognised that a good society works with strong trade and with public bodies. I have worked in both sectors, and the small high-tech company I helped to set up benefits from free trade in the EU but, regrettably, is completely blocked from trade with the USA. Leaving the EU may lead to our being blocked by both the EU and the United States.
It is of course the founding principle of the European countries that, within and outside the EU, they believe in trade and public bodies as being the basis of a good society. It is partly because of the broad commonality of European societies that European trade has prospered. The proposal being moved in this debate is that international trade, especially for the UK, will expand as a result of the UK leaving the EU. One has to ask, however, what will be the real benefits to the British people of detaching our business from our European partner countries when major countries such as Germany are more successful on average than the UK in both trade and productivity, both within and outside Europe, as other noble Lords have pointed out.
Germany maintains its successful trade at the same time, of course, as maintaining much higher standards of living and a better environment, especially in housing, as I would see when I visited as a councillor in the UK. Surely the UK should be working even more closely with such successful countries, whose new industrial collaboration and technological methods have been recommended for this country, for example by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who explained his ideas to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.
Indeed, the success of this new methodology, which the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, also mentioned, is attracting new investments into those countries by leading UK industrial and high-tech companies. It was excellent to hear another engineer, the noble Lord, Lord Bamford, speaking in this debate, and to hear his comments about technical collaboration. There are excellent UK companies, but I think we have to see where the leadership and the new developments are coming from.
One of the important features is what is going to happen next. One of the interesting points that I have tried to discuss with civil servants in the UK and in Brussels is what they are thinking. I have heard some sphinx-like utterances that one of their ideas is that every effort should be made for the UK and other countries outside the EU to continue to participate in technological and scientific networks based in the EU. These have been very successfully developed. Indeed, I myself, with UK colleagues, helped to set up one in aerospace and other engineering which is very important.
These networks, based in Brussels, which I am sure will continue, will greatly help UK industries and research organisations to participate in and contribute to the latest technical advances and to trade, but I am afraid that will be a second best for the UK because there will no longer be the funding streams for UK research and industry that we have seen over the past 20 years. One hopes that UK industries will also receive funding from the UK Government to participate in industrial fairs. This point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.
Criticism of the lack of funding for UK businesses to export and explain themselves was made by the British Chambers of Commerce, and that point is made in the document from the Library. Representatives of British SMEs whom I have met in various parts of the world have also complained that funding is not available for them to participate. Meanwhile, the European Commission has technological representatives all around the world, many of whom are seen at these major trade fairs. I think, therefore, that it is very important that we continue to work in these EC networks; it is clear that the EC would welcome that.
One of the other features about the development of our industry and our trade and the connections to technology will be to question how UK international trade will make good use of the UK’s continued participation in these very large and technically successful intergovernmental European agencies such as the European Space Agency, the European Medicines Agency, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, telecoms and so on. It is extremely important that negotiations dealing with these agencies are very successful.
Finally, one hopes that when the Prime Minister was talking about getting closer to Europe, she was not thinking of the kind of schoolboy abuse that we heard today about Europe and we hear sometimes from the Foreign Secretary.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I remind your Lordships that this is a time-limited debate, and speakers should seek to contain their speeches within the five-minute limit.
Lord Horam (Con)
My Lords, I do not always listen to the Whips, but I will endeavour to do so on this occasion.
I thank my noble friend Lord Leigh for this debate. As an economist, I certainly appreciate an economic debate, although I do not think “It’s the economy, stupid” all the time. None the less, I think we are glad to have an economic discussion. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Gadhia on his maiden speech. We will be very glad to have his particular experience in the House of Lords over the coming years.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Leigh that free trade is indeed extremely important. As someone who has founded a company which exports more than 80% of its products—even more than the famous company of which the noble Lord, Lord Bamford, is managing director—I am certainly in favour of free trade and always advocate it when possible. However, I would point out to the House that there are losers as well as winners in the free trade argument. Although there can be a net gain from free trade, none the less some people lose. We saw that in the Brexit debate.
I am, like my noble friend, an optimist. That may be something that is just natural to our personality—I recognise that in him—but I also feel that we are right to be optimistic in the present situation. None the less, we are in a difficult situation, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, made the point in his opening speech that uncertainty is the enemy of business. It is, and we have already seen the Chancellor make the point, on a number of occasions, that the uncertainty of the present situation is deterring future investment. Present investment is going ahead, but there is a deterrent effect on business investment. That is why I hope that, in the coming Statement next month, we will have an increase in government investment to make up the gap in business investment. I certainly hope that that will happen because it is necessary.
We are now poorer. We are now poorer than we were before the referendum took place. We are poorer because sterling has gone down and food prices have gone up. I would make the point, which the Prime Minister has made at some length, quite well in my view, that it is the people at the margin who are suffering.
So what do we do in these circumstances? I believe the right approach in these circumstances is to remain a member of the European Economic Area and, if possible, rejoin the European Free Trade Association. That may not be possible—I fully understand that—but if we cannot do that, I would certainly want a bespoke agreement which is as similar as possible to the existing arrangement. Under the EFTA arrangements, we would have immediate clarity. If the Government said in their expected Green Paper that they would be pursuing a course of action whereby we would remain in the European Economic Area, that would give immediate clarity to all investment decisions. Immediately, people would say, “Well, there we are. We know where we stand. We can carrying on investing”.
The advantage of that is that, first, under the EEA agreement, you can action Article 112, which allows you to deal with immigration if there are societal problems with it. That could quite easily be invoked. Secondly, the European Economic Area agreements do not involve the European Court of Justice. Therefore, both those elements of the Prime Minister’s red lines are met. Finally, carrying on as a member of the European Economic Area would relieve us of the frankly crushing burden of having to renegotiate all our trade and tariff barriers in the WTO. There are some 160 members of the WTO. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, said, it would take at least five to 10 years, if not longer, to renegotiate all that.
Those who advocate a hard Brexit say, “We should take the risk, the risk is worth it”, but I would argue that it is not we who are fairly well-off—some of us are extremely well-off; I do not include myself in that—who will bear the burden the burden of that risk; it is the poor, the people at the margins of society. As the Chancellor rightly said, they did not vote for Brexit to get poorer.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank my noble friend Lord Leigh for giving us all the opportunity to do so today. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, on his extremely moving maiden speech. He struck a perfect chord by saying that Britain is a trading nation first, last and always. It is interesting that all of us who have spoken in this debate have agreed with that—every one of us has started from a premise that free trade is a good thing. As the chief executive of TalkTalk and a businesswoman all my life, I know that that is true: that unfettered, open and competitive markets at home and abroad bring out the best in people. They bring out the best in businesses and, in turn, give the best possible outcomes to customers and citizens.
It is not just physical trade that is a good thing in this modern world; digital trade is hugely powerful, too, as many other noble Lords have mentioned. For this country in particular, digital free trade should be something that we are brilliant at. We are already brilliant at consuming products online, and the UK’s reputation for the protection of intellectual property and the fair rule of law means that a Chinese citizen looking at a website of an unknown British business is more likely to click “buy” than they would on a website from many other countries. So we should be brilliant at global free trade.
I want therefore to focus my remarks not on whether free trade is a good idea or a bad idea but on how we bring everyone in the country with us. I voted to remain in the EU, but, as a businesswoman, I cannot but hear the fury, frustration and disaffection of a significant number of people who feel that the modern, global, digital world that I have just described is not working for them. While many of my noble friends have spoken eloquently about how leaving the EU will be brilliant for global trade, many people who voted with them to leave the EU would disagree. We have all to work out how we make the global trading nation of Britain work for everyone in this country and take to heart that that is not the case now. I want to offer a few suggestions for business and for government on how we might make the case for free trade genuinely working for everyone.
First, we need to focus on building skills. If you do not have skills to take advantage of free trade, you are understandably scared of it. You are more likely to be convinced that an open economy means that your living standards will be threatened rather than seeing it as an opportunity. We need to make sure that we upskill our nation to be the global free trade bastion that we all want it to be. I hugely welcome this Government’s commitment to build basic digital skills across the whole country, but we know that we all need to invest in engineering and R&D skills, at every stage of people’s career. That is not just about government money; all of us who run businesses need to take this much more seriously.
Secondly, we need fair and competitive markets, not just open ones. Competition drives out bad behaviour, provided that consumers have choice, so we need strong, independent competition regulation in every market. That is how you do the best possible job of ensuring that everyone in society benefits from global free trade. We also need to tackle the issue of fair working practices in a modern, global world. I welcome the Government’s appointment of Matthew Taylor to run an independent review of modern working practices. As the world changes, we need to make sure that business genuinely works for everyone. I have been a strong advocate in this House of zero-hours contracts, but I would be the first to admit that they can be horrendously abused if they are not properly regulated. It is incumbent on those of us who operate in a modern economy to work through what the rights to sick pay and holiday pay of those working in the flexible, gig economy should be. The Matthew Taylor review could be a hugely important component in setting Britain up to be a brilliant trading nation in the future global economy.
Finally, businesses have a responsibility for this, too. It is not enough today to do a brilliant job for your customers and to make money for your shareholders. Successful Great British companies also need to make sure that they know what contribution they are making to their community and country as a whole. It will not be enough just to look after where you are already driving employment, in the local community where your factory or office might be based. Those in this House today who really believe that free trade will drive economic growth for the whole country—I believe that is all of us—need to make sure that that is genuinely true. My noble friend Lord Lupton spoke eloquently about making sure that we really understand and identify those people who are not benefiting. That is as true of business leaders as it is of politicians, otherwise the global free trade world that we would all like to part of will be pulled back because, rightly, some citizens will feel that they are being left behind.
In conclusion, although I campaigned to remain in the EU, I am an entrepreneur and a businesswoman. The secret to successful business is to accept the world that you are in and to move on, rather than to fight yesterday’s battles. I am excited that Britain really can be a fabulous trading nation. As we exit the EU, I think that championing free trade at home and abroad that genuinely works for everyone is a prize that we can all agree we want to chase after.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I am a committed free-trader, as are most of those who have spoken in this debate. The evidence is there for everybody to look at: since the end of the Cold War, the proportion of the world’s population living on less than $1.25 a day has dropped from 40% to 23%, and that is due to free trade. We should congratulate not only ourselves but the other free-traders in the world, such as America.
I pick up on what was said by my noble friend who spoke before me: there are major problems. When one looks at CETA, one asks what is stopping that free trade agreement. Ninety-eight per cent of the tariffs will be taken down; there will be annual savings of €500 million in duties. What is stopping that and why is free trade such an important issue in the American election? Why did Bernie Sanders, Clinton and Trump all highlight not free trade but protectionism? There is a worry. It reminded me a little of that old Scottish saying:
“Wha’s like us? Gey few, and they’re a’ deid. If they’re not deid, they’re dying”.
We are going down a route that is absolutely right, but we have to sell it. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said, there are those just managing in this country who do not like free trade. They do not see the benefits of it.
I want to take a slightly different road from that taken my noble friend and look at what are the problems with free trade. Free trade agreements have become far too complicated. They include matters that are not trade. If we are trying to win the argument, let us get back to a trade agreement that does not include things such as patents.
The problem areas are many, but the real difficulty, as highlighted by the Walloons, is the investor state dispute settlement. It is quite wrong that big corporate bodies should be able to sue Governments, which puts them in a powerful position, equating to government, overriding local sovereign democracy and being able to influence Governments in a way in which they never did before. That is one of the main reasons that CETA is failing at the moment. The Walloons want a lot of protectionist measures which I do not approve of, but I sympathise with them on that point. It is not good.
It is also very noticeable in America—which is, or has been, our biggest ally in this area—that these ISDSs are growing in number and causing increasing problems for the Americans. That is why TTIP is not going to happen and why the TTP and NAFTA are under threat—because of the threat of corporate bodies. If corporate bodies want to take a risk overseas, they must take the risk, not the people.
There must therefore be more transparency in our free trade agreements. The EU is good on this; America is lousy and needs to change. One of the things Britain can do, through its diplomacy, is get the USA and others to be much more open about this. A free trade agreement needs tighter definition on rules of origin. Those are being abused, and if they are abused, it leads to resentment. There need to be more enforceable and substantive labour and environmental rights. We need to be able to protect those, while continuing free trade.
My noble friend Lord Bamford said that changes in currency are a bigger threat than tariffs. He is absolutely right. That was why Mr Trump wanted to shove on a 45% tariff against the Chinese, because they have manipulated their currency. Our currency has just fallen and that is distorting our free trade agreements. We need to look at that.
I end with a point for free trade: it does boost productivity. Since the 2008 crash, there has been a levelling off and down-turn in productivity. It is trade that builds that up. That leads to prosperity, that leads to a better feeling and that will lead to a happier community.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, there has been considerable agreement this afternoon in that we all appear to support free trade. We lack the leader of the Official Opposition, Mr Corbyn, who perhaps does not agree with free trade in the same way. However, across your Lordships’ House there seems to be some agreement and a sense that there are opportunities from global free trade.
These opportunities are not cut off by our membership of the European Union. We are already able to trade globally. A set of questions needs to be considered in the current period before we leave the European Union in the transitional period and looking forward, about what the UK’s relations might look like after we leave.
During the referendum, it was entirely unclear what the leave campaign meant by “leaving the European Union”. Did it mean leaving the single market? Did it mean leaving the customs union? There has been a bit of rewriting of history. In the last week I have heard Matthew Elliott and Douglas Carswell of Vote Leave saying, “It was always entirely clear, we have to leave the single market”. It was not clear to me and I spent a lot of time listening to the leavers during the referendum.
There are real questions about where the UK is going and where we want to end up in trading relations with the EU. At the moment our trade with the EU is 44%. Some Ministers may feel that it is a price worth paying to walk away and trade simply on WTO terms, but have the Government undertaken any sort of review of the financial costs of increased tariffs?
Beyond that, the EU and the single market clearly offer far more than simply tariff-free trade. They allow us to get beyond non-tariff barriers to trade, to give a level playing field. That was precisely the reason why Margaret Thatcher pushed for it 30 years ago. To what extent have the Government begun to look at the implications for the UK if we walk away and then need access to the market, without being part of it? The EU is a rules-based system. If we seek to export to the European Union from the outside, we will still need to meet EU standards.
We have heard that somewhere between 6% and 11% of British companies currently export—a relatively small percentage. Some hard Brexiteers have suggested that we can take the opportunity of leaving the European Union to have a bonfire of red tape. But if some companies are going to export to the EU, they will still be bound by EU regulations. Are we going to have a two-tier system, where exporters have to abide by different rules for health and safety and environmental standards from those companies that do not export? Is that what the Government are thinking about? If not, are we going to leave the European Union and somehow create our own legal system? Or will we simply follow the European Union in its entirety but without any seat at the table? That would be true whether we were in the EEA, EFTA or entirely outside—we would have no say in those rules.
However, there are opportunities for trading now, for free trade and for expanding trade. We already trade significantly with the Commonwealth. We could do more. The old Commonwealth countries that have already suggested that they might be interested in free trade deals with us have relatively small economies, nothing like the size of the US or our European market.
There is one way in which the United Kingdom could demonstrate right now that it wants to go global—that it is open for business. That is in the area where I spend my time when I am not in your Lordships’ House. I declare my interest as an academic at Cambridge. Higher education and education more generally are massive global exports. The United Kingdom has a considerable competitive advantage in this area yet it links to an issue that the Brexiteers were not comfortable with—immigration. Here, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, for a fantastic maiden speech and note the points he made about immigration and the importance of people coming to this country. They may be teachers or academics, but they may also be students. Will the Minister take back to her colleagues in the Home Office—across departments—the importance of looking again at visa restrictions? At the moment, the UK does not look as if it is open to business for Indian and other students who would happily come here. If we are going to go global we need to show we are open. We need to look again at our visa regimes for students.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley for introducing this important and timely debate. It is an honour to lend my voice to the incredible array of expertise in the Chamber today. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Gadhia on his excellent and moving maiden speech. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments he so powerfully expressed.
Navigating through the noise, post-referendum but pre-Article 50, I say that one point of clarity in a Mexican wave of uncertainty is that we do not yet know what our relationship with the EU will ultimately look like. This is, after all, a negotiation. However, I am clear that Brexit cannot and must not mean Britain turning in on itself, so that we shut ourselves off from the world. It is not in our history, it is not in our culture and it is not in our nature. Nor is it in our short-term or long-term economic interest.
As expressed so eloquently by the rather magnificent butterfly on the cover of the Spectator magazine on the eve of the referendum, Britain must go:
“Out and into the world”.
This goes for immigration, where the goal must be control, not arbitrary reduction. It goes for diplomacy and foreign policy, where a more engaged Britain is a necessity in these uncertain and volatile times. It must certainly go for trade as we look to sign agreements with developed nations and emerging markets alike—places on our doorstep starting with the EU and the fastest-growing nations in Asia, Africa and elsewhere.
This is not ideological, it is economic, and the benefits for Britain and the world are clear. We have heard today that free trade increases the purchasing power of our consumers, putting more pounds in the proverbial pocket, just as it helps our exporters and goods go further and deeper into global markets. It is quite simply about the age-old principle of comparative advantage. We can import goods from where they can be manufactured cheapest to reduce prices for consumers. But where we in the UK do it best, be it advanced manufacturing, financial services or bioscience, we can export our expertise and sell it on the global market. It really is win-win.
However, free trade can be more even than this. Done well, it can be the final, decisive arbiter in the war on poverty. The World Bank looked at 30 African countries between 1981 and 2000 and concluded that trade liberalisation had materially reduced poverty. So not only is it good for us, the fifth-largest economy in the world with the second-highest level of foreign direct investment, it is good for those countries that are still on the up. There are many who say that this world order I have described is nothing more than a pleasant fiction: that countries are not clamouring to sign trade deals with us, that it will take for ever and that politics will trump economics. I say again though that our trump card is Britain—our skills, our capability and, now, our leadership on the world stage.
Other nations are responding. We have already seen Australia and New Zealand speak out in favour of a deal with the UK. Indeed, those two long-standing allies have gone a stage further, and have offered to plug the gap in our Civil Service where trade expertise should be and to lend us their own experts. If that is not enough for the sceptics then what of South Korea, a country quick to express an interest? What even of the USA? My noble friend Lord Leigh has already cited senior figures in the Republican Party who believe a deal can be done. I would like to add my own experience to that, so that I am not just hearing what I want to hear. At a dinner that I attended a few months ago in Washington DC when I was an adviser to the then Trade Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Maude, we asked some former presidential US trade representatives from both parties whether it was true that the UK would need to go to the back of the queue. With one voice, they answered in the negative. They were quick to cut through the prevailing scepticism to say that a US-UK free trade deal could be done. So there is hope yet.
To those who worry about what it means for the state of Britain if we are really to leave the EU—myself included—I say that we must make sure that we get the best deal with the EU we possibly can, yes, but the best deal with the rest of world too. This will show that Britain is still open: open for business, open to immigration and ready to lead the world in getting global free trade back on track.
Lord Popat (Con)
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Leigh for initiating this important and timely debate and for his excellent opening remarks. It was also a pleasure to listen to my noble friend Lord Gadhia’s excellent maiden speech. A Hindu and a Ugandan like me, my noble friend has extensive experience in international trade. I am sure that that experience will be a great asset in your Lordships’ House and I look forward to many more contributions from him.
The truth is that, irrespective of how the nation voted on 23 June, we have needed a new approach to our trade policy for some time. Britain’s economy has been skewed for a long time. Our current account deficit is unsustainable, we export far too little, our productivity is too low, we are overly reliant on both the City and consumer spending, our manufacturing base is too small and our house prices are too high. Irrespective of Brexit, these problems have been in place for some time.
We have become complacent, both in government and in the private sector. We have some firms that do a tremendous amount of work to export, but nowhere near enough. Too many businesses avoid the risks. When I was in business in the 1970s and 1980s, exporting was seen as a great point of pride for companies. Now it is just seen as a risk. We have to change that mindset.
Part of that work falls to government. Our Government should be more proactive. The Department for International Trade—previously UKTI—works on the basis that companies will come to it. This is fine if you already export, or if you are a FTSE 100 global company with vast resources, but it does not help SMEs. Indeed, it is the wrong way round. The department should be identifying opportunities—a road project in Tanzania, for example—putting them straight up on their website and emailing the link to every infrastructure company in the UK. A bit of proactivity could get us a long way.
Before I move away from government, I will make two additional comments. The first is that the previous Prime Minister committed to making our diplomatic service more business orientated: to appoint business leaders to high commissioner and ambassador posts and to increase the commercial knowledge of those from a diplomatic background. Could the Minister give me an outline of what progress has been made in this area?
The final thing I will mention in relation to government—in this case, I have definitely saved the best for last—is UK Export Finance. For those who are not aware, UK Export Finance is the UK’s export credit agency and directly supports the export of British goods and services. Its work is invaluable. I highly recommend that any company thinking about exporting should look at its work. This is a vital service and one that we must do a lot more to promote.
In the time I have remaining, I would like to talk about Africa, which my noble friend Lady Finn covered very well, and the opportunities available on that continent. I was very fortunate to be given my dream job earlier this year, acting as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Rwanda and Uganda. Africa is home to a number of the fastest-growing economies in the world—exactly the type of markets we need British firms to be focusing on. Huge chunks of Africa are now prime markets for British firms. Yes, there are risks, but the rewards are also fantastic. With a developing middle class, 52 huge cities with populations of more than 1 million and some of the most innovative banking systems that I have seen, this is a continent that has come on leaps and bounds.
For too long Britain has seen Africa through the Band Aid lens and has missed its real potential. We have to change our mindset on Africa and on exporting. This is why we should focus more on trade and not aid. We should not have the situation, as we do in many African countries, of having dozens of DfID staff but no trade representatives—it is lunacy. Similarly, we cannot have an entire continent, especially one with the economic potential of Africa, constantly overlooked when it comes to visits by our Cabinet Ministers. These are little things, but they add up to our current exporting difficulties.
Our business leaders and the Government need to seize the opportunity that Brexit has offered to reset our path, to be more proactive in identifying and advertising opportunities, and to be less risk-averse and lazy. We have barely gone a day since the referendum without talk of free trade deals and of hard and soft Brexit, but this is a red herring. If we are not encouraging and supporting firms to export in the first place, additional tariffs are hardly a significant factor. I hope that we will see a new approach from this Government.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, I, too, take the opportunity to thank my noble friend Lord Leigh for securing this debate today and to congratulate my noble friend Lord Gadhia on his excellent maiden speech.
We have been members of the EU for the last 40 years, and it has played a hugely important role, whether in business, trade, science, technology, employment or human rights. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that EU countries now have some of the lowest economic growth rates in the world and some of the highest unemployment rates. Some EU countries are precariously close to bankruptcy. These can hardly be considered hallmarks of a vibrant or successful economic model.
Despite this, like many in your Lordships’ House, I supported the UK remaining a member of a reformed EU. But there is one simple and unavoidable fact: more than 1 million more people voted in the referendum to leave the EU than to stay. So that is what Britain must do. To do otherwise would be to defy the democratic will of the British people. Most people like me just want the Government to get on with it and remove the uncertainty that damages confidence in our businesses, deters investment in our economy and erodes public confidence.
Of course, we will need to negotiate new bilateral trade deals and non-tariff barriers. Nobody says that this will be easy, but is it achievable? Certainly I believe it is. Parliament must now unite to deliver what the British people have voted for. To do otherwise would be antidemocratic, illiberal and a dereliction of our duty. Indeed, on referendum night I was pleased to note that my noble friend—I hope he remains a friend—the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, said:
“I will forgive no-one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken. Whether it is a majority of 1% or 20%, when the British people have spoken, you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you don’t”.
I believe in democracy.
Despite all the challenges and complexities, there are also great opportunities for our forward-thinking, tolerant and outward-looking, great country as a global trading nation. Successful trade negotiations, not just with the EU but with the wider global economy, are key to exploiting these opportunities. Yet some politicians are trying to force open any door to remain in the EU, and are talking down or belittling our country’s outward and forward-thinking strategy. I am not one of them. It is in the interests of neither our economy nor our country at this crucial time in our history to do this. Independent countries can and do successfully trade with the EU single market without being a member of it.
If we are to compete on the global stage and remain a world leader among the developed economies, the Government must ensure that there is long-term investment in infrastructure, skills, science and innovation, as these are the key drivers of increased productivity and economic growth. I welcome the fact that a long-term industrial strategy is being developed, as this should help us identify how best to build our strengths, overcome our weaknesses and take full advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead.
During my recent visits to the Middle East, India, Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Turkey, I saw and heard at first hand how well respected the UK is in so many sectors. Some of these countries want to establish trade agreements with the UK as soon as possible. We are recognised as having a world-renowned higher education system and a world-class health service. We are one of the world’s leading scientific nations, and our life science sector contributes around £60 billion to the economy each year. We are considered world experts in financial services, agriculture and digital technology. We have much to be proud of and we offer fantastic opportunities for trade and investment.
However, to retain our global competiveness we must remain a magnet for the best of international talent. I urge the Government to rethink and consider taking international students out of the migration targets because they could be our future ambassadors for trade across the world. We are travelling in a brave new world. We need to make our economy more agile in order to respond more quickly to new opportunities such as solar power, robotics or biotechnology and react more successfully to competitive threats such as the dumping of cheap steel.
Yes, there are significant and complex challenges ahead but we can be a great global trading nation. We have all the hallmarks of one.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
First, I thank noble Lords for allowing me to speak rather belatedly. I thank my noble friend Lord Leigh for outlining the global situation. It may not be everybody’s cup of tea but those are the facts. It goes without saying that my noble friend Lord Gadhia spoke not just emotionally but with huge experience and knowledge. I very much appreciated sitting behind him and listening to his speech.
I spent my working life in delivering international trade—driving international trade and tourism. The latter has not been talked about today. My company has operated for nearly 200 years in 110 countries. Everybody keeps talking about Brexit—a word I dislike intensely. I suggested recently to the Prime Minister that we should think of something different, because it is a toxic word. However, in practice, economic power and strength have been dominant in every country in the world that has ever made its name. That is what it is all about. If we do not retain and create further economic strength, everything means nothing. One cannot have hard power without economic strength.
People talk about protectionism. Does one honestly believe that the Germans, with their memory of the Weimar Republic, or America, given what happened in the 1920s and 1930s, want to go back to that form of protectionism? Never—because there is too much knowledge and experience around.
Big companies know their way around. In practice, we must remember that the SMEs and self-employed in this country comprise 58% of our workforce. They are the middle class and the real driving force. As time goes on, they will be key. It may not be widely realised, but those who get involved in exports usually achieve at least a 7% improvement in productivity. The day has to come, therefore, when the SMEs need and must have encouragement; this is one of the problems with the current uncertainty. Encouragement is key because we are dealing with people, not just institutions. When they get encouragement, there will be a moment, as happened in the 1980s, when they start to invest, including in R&D. That is when the country will start to move forward. We could do that in spades.
I ask the Minister to consider the following. One of the problems for SMEs is that the banking system does not help them—not deliberately, but it has not been created in a format that can help. Anyone who has worked with SMEs recently will know that the cost of money is horrendous for them, as against rates that are nearly zero for everybody else. I ask my noble friend to inquire about this, and for the Chancellor to consider, in advance of his Statement later this month, putting it right.
One can see that we are in a very strong position to take advantage of our leading technology in all areas. There is much talk of deals. Those of us in business are negotiating every day of the week. As Peter Lilley, who has been involved in major negotiations and trade talks, said only yesterday in the other place, one does not remember trade deals as history progresses. They are made out to be much more important than they really are. We are constantly talking about deals here and negotiations there, and what they will do to us. It does not matter.
I conclude by asking why entrepreneurs—there are many in this House; and I have been one all my life—here and elsewhere, who put their own money at stake, are not worried about the future. As far as they are concerned, there is a great future and in 10 years’ time we will look back and realise that we made the right decision.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, I join in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia. I also echo what has been said around this Chamber that the welcome to immigrants is something that we need to keep living today and not just think of as a quaint achievement of the past. I am conscious that this debate is time-limited and we are well over the anticipated time for the beginning of the winding-up speeches, so I shall reconstruct what I had hoped to say—partly because so many people have said almost everything of importance—into a series of questions to the Government. I hope that the Government will feel that they have time to reply.
I come, as we know, from very much a free-trading party; that is one of the reasons why we backed Mrs Thatcher in developing the single market. That took the concept of removal of barriers even further, and I shall be astonishingly sad to lose it. Perhaps the Government can tell us what priority they give to non-tariff barriers. We hear constantly about tariffs but almost no comment on non-tariff barriers, until we talk with companies and discover that they are very often a larger part of the problem than the tariffs themselves.
Does the Minister agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bamford, who basically took the view that tariffs are simply something that we have to live with? Is that what our companies now need to expect? They are making decisions about their future and, if WTO tariffs are the future they are looking at, they need to know now so that they can make their adjustments. They may not all have the noble Lord’s view towards living with tariffs on that kind of scale.
There has been a lot of talk about free trade. As I say, I am inherently a free trader and so is my party, but what is the Government’s view on the general momentum across the globe on free trade? Many would say that the momentum has turned against free trade. The pace of increase has slowed and now we hear a strong language of protectionism. The United States, probably the most protectionist country on the globe, now speaks a protectionist language. The trade deal with the Pacific looks likely to die on the vine and it looks like there will be very little progress on TTIP, and NAFTA is at risk. We hear Hillary Clinton—it is not just the Republicans but the Democrats—criticise free trade extensively.
Part of the issue is that free trade and globalisation are linked together in both the mind and experience of many people, and it is the rising of the people who feel they have been hurt by globalisation that is creating a very fundamental problem. If we are relying on a free trade mood and say that we will lead free trade and it is the only and essential route to saving our economy post Brexit, we need to know the Government’s assessment of where the free trade movement is in countries today. I fear—some have said this, and I want to know whether the Government agree—that those most likely to enter trade agreements with us are relatively small countries such as New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
Also on that subject, I talk now with companies based in small Commonwealth countries—the Bahamas is one example. They are absolutely in a state of shock because their access to the EU market is, as I understand, through the agreements that we signed up to when we joined the European Union. They need to know that, if those agreements fall away and their access to that market disappears when we leave, whether that is being encompassed in the work that we are doing. As well as talking about them as free trade partners for us, it seems to me that we have to answer the question of where they will stand in their trading relationship with the European Union.
Does the Minister agree with Priti Patel that we should take the aid budget and use it largely to promote UK exports, or does she accept that, according to the 2002 Act, we are committed to using that DfID budget to support the poorest and the most vulnerable, not to promote ourselves? Those who want to go back and read the discussions around the creation of the 2002 Act will discover that that was a much-discussed issue. At that time, there was a real recognition of the importance of an approach to international aid that supported the poor but was not looking to create a benefit for us as an important part of its process.
I talked about the issues around tariff and non-tariff barriers. We are being told constantly that there can be no running commentary from the Government. I understand that, but the Government have been quite vocal in saying that they have agreed a deal with Nissan in order to immunise it completely from any negative effects of Brexit. Can we be told what the costs of that will be to the British taxpayer? It seems to me that, since that has been spoken of openly, it is not an issue that needs to be withheld in any kind of free trade discussions.
Will the Minister say what the Government will do with small businesses? I was on the Select Committee on small businesses and exports that was inspired by the noble Lord, Lord Popat. It was absolutely clear when we talked to small businesses that, first, exporting is difficult and, secondly, exporting to China is extremely difficult—the phrase often used is “one sale only” because of the risk of loss of intellectual property. Exporting to South America and Latin America was extremely difficult because obtaining letters of credit to ensure that payment was received was near impossible for any small company and non-payment was a very primary problem. Exporting to the US was exceedingly difficult because of its protectionist rules—most small businesses have to link up with and find a joint-venture partner in the United States, which then takes most of the upside of the revenues and profits that are generated. Perhaps the Minister can tell us much more.
Does the Minister accept that the structure of businesses in the UK is very different from that in many other countries? We have a few large major international exporters. I forget which noble Lord made the point that many of those do not necessarily export because they have an overseas base from which to sell into various markets. Many of our small businesses export and we want more of them to do so. That is a very different profile from somewhere like Germany, where most of the exporters are at the large end of medium-sized enterprises, or are large companies, that can overcome the various obstacles that have been described.
Lastly, will the Minister talk about the hiatus period that potentially will follow actual Brexit? Where do we stand with the WTO? It has been said that we retain our membership, but I understand that the effectiveness of that membership—the ability to make use of it—depends on our schedules being approved by 163 countries. That is a matter of fact, not opinion, and I hope that the Minister will clarify it.
Others have said that, if we do not have a deal, we can continue trading with the European Union just as we do today. I understand that, under European law, it would be a criminal offence for a company within the European Union to trade with a company in the UK on current terms unless an actual trade deal was in place. That again is a matter of fact, not opinion, and I wonder whether the Minister will clarify that, as well as tell us as much as she can beyond simply the words, “Brexit is Brexit”.
Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, and congratulate him on securing this debate, which has been very interesting. As ever, the noble Lord demonstrated his great commitment to this House with a very interesting exposition of his views. One illustration of the way in which the debate has changed matters is that, during the course of this debate, Belgium has backed the trade deal with Canada. Many things change quite slowly in life, but it seems that in the world of international trade things that might have taken years change very quickly. Perhaps it is the power of the conversation in this House.
I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, on his maiden speech, which was a truly excellent speech. I was most impressed as he read out his list of mentors and sponsors. It started to appear that it was a new board of directors of a company. One could be mistaken for taking such a view, given his distinguished career—he is now with the great behemoth, the Blackstone Group. We look forward to his contributions in this House and wish him much enjoyment and strength here.
It is also a pleasure to have the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, here for the first time, I believe, in her role in the department—
Baroness Mobarik (Con)
It is my second time here, but the first time in a debate.
Lord Mendelsohn
This is her first time speaking in a debate. The noble Baroness is very well-known. She performed hugely effectively as the president of the Scottish CBI and is well-known as a champion of SMEs and family businesses. We wish her well in responding to the debate.
It has been a very useful and broad debate. We have had a number of very interesting contributions—started by the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, but there were others such as the noble Baroness, Lady Finn—that showed great enthusiasm for our prospects. Those were sensibly tempered by the wise words of my noble friends Lord Haskel, Lord Davies and Lord Hunt, who have raised a number of the issues that we have to demonstrate. The noble Lord, Lord Livingston, also made a very important point about how difficult it is to export and how difficult some of these issues really are.
The noble Lord, Lord Horam, made a very good point about the fact that there can be losers in free trade, which is important for us to recognise. I also want to associate myself with a number of questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, made in an outstanding summary speech. They are questions on which we are looking for the Government to give as much guidance as they can in the weeks ahead.
There is a new department in town. We on these Benches welcome the elevation of international trade to departmental level. It reaffirms our commitment to ensuring that Britain is seen as a great place to do business and that British products and services continue to be considered of world standard; this must be not just a means to usher in a new deregulatory agenda that is not so much about free trade as about rolling back standards on rights and protections. The department really needs to make sure that it adds power to trade promotion and works properly for the interests of SMEs as well as big business.
So the question at this stage is: what has the department been busy doing? Well, a tweet from the Department for International Trade requesting British jams has caused a major stir on social media. The department tweeted:
“France needs high quality, innovative British jams & marmalades #EXportingisGREAT #ExportOpps”.
It is linked to an advert saying:
“A fine food representative/agent, with good connections to gourmet distribution and fine food retailers on a national level, is looking for British food & drink brands which offer innovative and high quality jams/marmalades”.
It seems, however, that a few people did not take the appeal entirely seriously, with some suggesting it was straight out of “The Thick of It”, and others questioning whether the account was supposed to be a parody. I will read out some of the tweets and responses. One said:
“Tell me more about these innovative jams. Are they wi-fi enabled? Future-proof? Self-spreading? What's the future of jam?”.
Another said:
“You do realise you’re a government department, don’t you? This is international trade, not an episode of Bake Off”.
I have some sympathy for the Government, whose overriding strategy has been defined by the result of a referendum that they neither wanted nor planned for—a referendum that was a rejection of the real and an affirmation of an aspiration. The Government will be respected for their desire to be honest on the size of the challenge and the breadth of the changes needed. They will set themselves up for failure if they do not.
Some will say that Brexit helps us focus on the world beyond Europe, as if this was a sudden or new revelation. The European Commission’s trade and investment strategy, written in 2015—in which we played a significant role—is explicit in saying that 90% of future global growth will take place outside Europe’s borders and a variety of tools will be needed to ensure that Europe continues to thrive. Indeed, it is not just about commerce but also the values that we ascribe to commercial activity: human rights, sustainable development, anti-corruption, high-quality regulation and effective investment in public services. While we may not have even triggered the first steps in leaving, let alone defined our trade relationship, it does seem obvious that Europe is likely to be our most important ally in what even its most ardent detractors describe as the UK returning to leadership in free trade, competition and property rights.
We are where we are, and I hope that the Government will not mind some constructive thoughts and reasonable questions. There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience.
First, we have to address some of the weaknesses in our trade performance. Published data show that the UK ranks almost at the bottom of OECD countries when it comes to export growth since 2010. In dollar value, in 2015—pre-Brexit—we were the fourth biggest exporter. I think that we are two places lower now, but irrespective of that we need to do more than just recover our position; we need to excel.
Our export growth depends on a variety of factors. One of the most significant is whether the markets we are looking to export to need the goods and services that we are offering. The markets in developing and fast-developing nations have a demand for raw materials and capital goods, which are not our strongest point. They will be harder to create significant trade with, and we must focus very carefully on where we prioritise.
But it is not just about the UK’s performance. Since the late 1990s, the UK and the G7 have been in decline, as competition from emerging markets has increased. Our performance, however, has not been as good as countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria, and a very few, such as Germany, have increased their share. We have to raise the number of exporters and exporting businesses. I think that the Government had a target of moving from 188,000 in 2010 to 288,000 by 2020. But actually we need to reach around half a million to have any possibility of increasing our capacity.
I would like to know whether the Government have a new strategy for developing trade, and whether the Minister can give us some idea of it. In particular, we need a real sense of what we are going to do about our performance on goods. The UK is, I think, the 10th largest, by dollar value, exporter of goods. Naturally, China, America, Germany, Japan and France are there; we are, I believe, behind Italy, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and South Korea.
The size of the manufacturing sector has declined, but we have a couple of lagging problems. For example, UK manufacturers import 60% of the final value of their production from overseas, which makes it very difficult for us to get the full value of the drop in sterling. In the US, 30% of the final value is from imports. In addition, UK manufacturers have contracted out their offshore manufacturing rather than buying or building factories. Between 2010 and 2014, German companies invested in 165 manufacturing and 54 logistics projects a year compared to the UK’s 29 and 10 respectively. For an effective trade strategy, we will need to support overseas investment and have more effective targeting of FDI. FDI has changed: net outflows exceed net inflows, and therefore too much of just asset purchasing is insufficient to help us.
We need to plan for how we can continue our world-class performance in services. We are the number-two global exporter, with China, Germany and Malaysia hot on our tail. To remain world-class, we will need to overcome some of the issues around the fact that a lot of our services are dependent on our expertise in Europe, and the problems of finding new markets. It is important that the Government devise a strategy for that.
The country has chosen a new and difficult challenge for us, which will require all our skill—and our agreement that our past differences should be set aside for the sake of our future. We cannot take our future success for granted. I am in business and I have learned that opportunity is usually disguised as hard work, so most people do not recognise it, and I am a strong believer that hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard. We have to be prepared to work hard, to make this situation work and at times to get it wrong—mistakes are proof that you are trying. But I caution the Government that, without direction, their mistake could be that they do not show that they are serious about trying.
Baroness Mobarik
My Lords, I am pleased to wind up for the Government in this debate. It is the first time I have done so for this department, as the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, mentioned, and I thank him for his kind words of welcome.
First, I would like to say just how enjoyable I have found this debate. I thank my noble friend Lord Leigh for initiating it. The views that I have heard and the number of speakers at this debate have certainly emphasised the importance that noble Lords place on trade. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Gadhia on making his inspiring and most moving maiden speech here today, and look forward to hearing more of his contributions. He was right to emphasise the benefits of free trade, as have many others during this debate.
Leaving the EU offers us an opportunity to forge a new role for ourselves in the world: to negotiate our own free trade agreements and to be a positive and powerful force for free trade. I thank noble Lords for their input in this debate, and will now address the points that have been raised.
As the Prime Minister has said, the UK will strike a unique agreement that gets the best deal for people at home and the right deal for Britain abroad. It is possible to be in a customs union and still strike trade deals. We will consider all options available to us. As we develop that position we will consider all the options, bearing in mind the issues that we have discussed here today: the need to regain more control of the numbers of people who come here from Europe, while allowing British companies to trade with the single market in goods and services. We recognise the need for a smooth transition which minimises disruption to our trading relationships, including those with developing countries. The Government have been engaging widely since the referendum and my noble friend Lord Price has met with more than 20 Trade Ministers, both inside and outside the EU. Everyone is keen to ensure a smooth transition for the UK.
Although we will work to avoid short-term disruption, there is one important change that we must make in the longer term: we need to change the terms of the debate around trade. As we leave the EU, we have an opportunity to be a global champion for free trade. We will develop our trading links and create opportunities for UK businesses across the world, including in developing nations. Trade with the UK will be a force for good. We will work with our missions overseas to promote the UK as a trading partner and a place to do business. We will drive inward investment and we will support our businesses and exporters. In time, we will also negotiate free trade agreements that will lower barriers to trade and create vital opportunities for UK businesses.
The UK is a full and founding member of the WTO. We are currently represented by the EU at the WTO—as my noble friend Lord Leigh notes, we are already a member. As my noble friend Lord Patten has said, the WTO director-general, Roberto Azevedo, said only yesterday:
“The UK is a member of the WTO today, it will continue to be a member tomorrow. There will be no discontinuity in membership”.
When we establish the UK’s position at the WTO as a post-EU member we will need to separate out our schedules of commitments, which are currently integrated into the schedule for the EU as a whole. We will do this in a way that causes the least disruption possible to our trading partners. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, while the simplest option would be to replicate the EU’s existing tariffs, we cannot set out our approach at this stage.
To deliver all this, the Government have been building our capability rapidly. The trade policy team has more than doubled in size since the referendum. We are looking at models from around the world to inform our resourcing requirements and the most effective way for us to pursue trade negotiations. The overseas visits that DfIT Ministers have been carrying out over recent months have given us great insight into the way that other countries structure their trade departments. We are ensuring that we have the expertise to deal with specific sectors, as well as the right in-country knowledge, to prepare us fully for the time when we will need trade negotiators. Over time, we will be putting trade negotiators in place. My noble friend Lord Patten raised the need for external help in our negotiations; we have already had more than 800 expressions of interest from external parties, which we will consider carefully. My noble friend Lord Popat mentioned appointing those with a business background to overseas posts and I thank him for raising this important point—the business ambassador network of key business and academic leaders acts as a powerful advocate of the UK abroad.
It is important to remember that UK companies are still exporting and doing deals abroad. The Department for International Trade is continuing to support them with advice, marketing support, trade missions, expertise on foreign markets, and more. Britain will continue to press for an ambitious EU trade agenda, including forging ambitious free trade agreements with major trading partners. We will continue to participate fully in these discussions for as long as we are members of the EU. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on his point that the UK is walking away from existing EU deals, the Department for International Trade is looking at a range of options for the transitional adoption of EU deals. The UK remains committed to pursuing free trade and continued access to existing EU free trade agreements. So this may be an option we wish to pursue—it would be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
However, as we leave the EU, we will also forge our own new trade deals. The UK is keen to seize the opportunities that leaving the EU presents, as are many of our international partners who recognise the attractiveness of doing business with the UK. We will have discussions with countries on the potential for future free trade agreements. There are limits in terms of concluding deals while we remain a member of the EU, however, and we recognise those constraints. The Government will be holding discussions and making progress in the period before we leave the EU. The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, asked how long it would take to negotiate trade deals with different countries. Trade agreements vary in shape, scope and form and, therefore, there is no average timeframe for a deal. For example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement—TPP—took eight years, but the US-Jordan FTA negotiations took only four months. The process is complex and it would be wrong to set out timelines before entering into negotiations. We want to get the best deal for Britain. We have already received positive signals from a number of other countries and the Government have already announced the establishment of a bilateral trade working group with Australia and a bilateral trade policy dialogue with New Zealand. In addition to this activity, the leaders of countries including Mexico, South Korea and Singapore have said that they would welcome talks on removing the barriers to trade between our countries.
As many noble Lords have recognised, one of the advantages of leaving the EU is the greater flexibility it offers us to trade more freely with the rest of the world. My noble friend Lord Flight spoke of the importance of increasing trade with the Commonwealth, an issue on which I too have spoken before. Shared systems and language mean that the cost of trade between Commonwealth countries is already estimated to be 19% lower than that with non-Commonwealth countries. There are enormous opportunities for increasing trade with the Commonwealth, which is a priority for the UK. We are committed to helping the Commonwealth unlock its vast potential in this area.
We also want to promote free trade by making sure that our regulatory environment helps businesses and workers. We are committed to reducing regulatory barriers to trade and will continue to give our strong support for further WTO action to reduce and eradicate non-tariff barriers. With a reduction in tariffs in many advanced economies, tackling non-tariff barriers is increasingly important. We will work with trade partners to minimise the regulatory burden placed on exporters, where appropriate, by developing mutual recognition agreements and economic partnership agreements. We will also work within the WTO to build on its successful work in taking an axe to red tape across borders, phasing out distortive export subsidies, and scrapping tariffs. My noble friend Lord Caithness mentioned investor state dispute settlement; the UK has a great record of creating the right environment for investors and treating them fairly. We have more than 90 such agreements in place with other countries and there has never been a successful investor state dispute settlement claim brought against the UK, nor has the threat of claims affected the Government’s legislative programme. But many UK investors overseas who have suffered discrimination, expropriation and lack of due legal process have relied on investor state dispute settlements.
Noble Lords will be aware that the Government are developing an industrial strategy that will put the United Kingdom in a strong position for the long-term future. This strategy will focus on improving productivity and rewarding hard-working people with higher wages. It will focus on creating more opportunities for young people and will ensure the benefits of growth are shared across cities and regions up and down the country. As my noble friends Lord Tugendhat and Lord Lupton highlighted, the industrial strategy must ensure that the economy delivers for all and not just the privileged few. The strategy will support and encourage companies to trade internationally, and create a business environment that will attract overseas investors to locate here for the long term. On top of all this, the strategy will identify and maximise the opportunities that we have from exiting the European Union, which we have discussed in such depth today.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked how we promote exports locally and whether the Department for International Trade is reducing funding to regions. The department supports all areas of the country. Support to the north and the Midlands has been up-weighted because overall economic indicators of prosperity are lower for those areas than for London and the south. Department for International Trade support continues to be available from international trade advisers in all English regions. This support is more sharply focused than ever on new exporters.
In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, may I say that increasing opportunities is hugely important for SMEs. Small businesses account for more than 99% of private businesses in the UK, employ more than 15 million people, and generate nearly half of all private sector turnover. They play a vital role in the economy and in global trade. The Government will continue to support them, from working to reduce tariffs that hinder exports, to making sure that 95% of UK premises will have superfast broadband by 2017.
Another important question we must continue to consider as we leave the EU is how we can support developing countries. Countries to which we are providing aid today will be the markets that we can trade with tomorrow. The UK remains committed to ensuring that developing countries can reduce poverty through trading opportunities. Trade is an effective way of driving economic growth, and of helping to raise incomes and create jobs.
In answer to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Farmer about the role of DfID in terms of free trade with poorer countries, I can say that the UK’s aid programmes are tackling the domestic constraints in developing countries, reducing the costs of trade, integrating firms in poor countries into global value chains and improving the investment climate. DfID is committed to ensuring value for money and maximising the impact of UK aid on poorer people’s lives.
I thank noble Lords for their contributions over the course of this debate. Many valid points have been raised—for example, on international students’ ability to come to the UK; I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, who raised that point. I shall take those comments back to raise with the relevant departments and get back to her.
Noble Lords’ expertise will be invaluable to the Government on this most important of issues. I am sure that there will be many further opportunities to debate the subject of leaving the EU, and the trade opportunities which that brings to the UK. And I am sure that the House will continue to play an invaluable role in informing the Government on these issues.
Lord Leigh of Hurley
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comments, and for allowing this debate to take place. As she said, over the past three hours we have had a variety of contributions from people with an extraordinary amount of knowledge. We also welcomed a maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia—who I would advise not to get used to the outpouring of affection and love, or expect it every time he speaks. None the less, it was well deserved.
It is difficult to draw any conclusions of unanimity, although I will try to keep to the description of me by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, as “enthusiastic”. The first theme to come through was that we are all keen to see more free trade, and we need to find ways to ensure that it happens. Secondly, we are all aware of the huge uncertainty, which we all counsel the Government can be damaging to business. However, many businesses quite relish uncertainty and, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, they are used to it.
One worrying phrase I heard was that “politics trumps economics”. I do not know whether that is necessarily true; I hope it is not. It was reassuring to hear that in the privacy of certain conversations some politicians recognise that free trade is vital to this country, so perhaps I am not entirely living in the land of wishful thinking.
The current situation is not perfect, despite the fact that many people said that we might be losing something wonderful. As my noble friend Lord Bamford pointed out, there are imperfections. The Motion before us in this take-note debate mentions “opportunities”. One can only hope that we end up with a trading arrangement that allows all citizens of this country to benefit—and, more importantly, allows people from other parts of the world who are currently prohibited, or inhibited, from trading with us on effective terms, to do so.
Social Mobility
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Holmes of Richmond
To move that this House takes note of Her Majesty’s Government’s plans to promote social mobility.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege and a pleasure to open this debate on social mobility. Despite the subject of the previous debate, I contend that there is no more significant subject than social mobility, not just at this time but at any time. As is usual when starting a debate, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I am very much looking forward to the contributions of all noble Lords from across the House—not least the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie, who is incredibly welcome today.
I am pleased to be able to call the noble Baroness my noble friend. Before joining your Lordships’ House she had an extremely successful career in the City before joining Westminster City Council, becoming its extremely creative and wise leader. Words close to her heart are, “Local people know best”. Hear, hear. I am sure that we shall hear many wise contributions from her, not only in her maiden speech today but on many subsequent occasions—not least as your Lordships’ House falls within her manor.
I shall read a quotation:
“where every single person has the opportunity regardless of background or that of their parents to have the chance to achieve whatever they want”.
Those words were spoken by the Prime Minister in Birmingham at the Conservative conference last month. They are important words for anybody occupying the role at No. 10, but they are equally important for all of us if we are to ensure that everybody, whatever their background, their geography or their socioeconomic status may be, has the opportunity to succeed in modern Britain. If we cannot all put our hands on our hearts and say that everybody has that opportunity in Britain today—to rise, to achieve, to get out from under—what is the purpose of politics? How can we suggest that Britain is a civilised modern 21st-century democracy?
Many subjects will be covered this afternoon—early years, education, employment, housing and health, not least mental health. Those are some of the key enablers of social mobility. Even more significantly, what are the key characteristics, the underpinnings, that must be in place? They are stability, security, self-belief, self-worth, self-discipline, approach and attitude. All those and more are what enable that most powerful of forces, social mobility, to flourish right across the nation.
I shall focus my opening remarks on school and sport, digital and diversity, apprenticeships and aspiration, character and collaboration. It is pleasing to see that the schools budget has been protected: it has risen by 3% on 2014-15 and will be some £40 billion next year. What everybody should seek is quality aspirational education for all—and within that not just academic work, but those elements of the curriculum that inspire, and touch our souls and hearts: sport, music, debate, drama, literature, dance and more.
I have a specific question for my noble friend the Minister on the proposed sugar tax. How will this be deployed to ensure that sporting opportunities are increased right across the sporting life of our young people, not least to put right the appalling decimation of school sport that happened post-2010, and in the current environment to bolster the excellent sports strategy set out by my honourable friend Tracey Crouch last year? Similarly, how will we ensure that character education is such an integral part of people’s learning? Of course, it goes without saying that literacy and numeracy are important, but in an increasingly complex and fractured labour market, resilience, grit, determination and respect will get people through—all the stuff which I know from first-hand experience, and which is set out in the character education programme. Therefore, what are the new Government’s plans to champion character education? When I attended the character education awards earlier this year, I saw at first hand what tremendous work was being done in this area.
Surveys demonstrate that where people have the opportunity to engage in sport, their numeracy can rise by up to 29%, with similar increases in behaviours. This cannot be underestimated. It is not just about social mobility, although of course that is in the mix. If we can turn inactivity into activity—this goes wider than sport and encompasses recreation, leisure, young people getting involved in sport, games and having fun—it will not just positively impact social mobility, but there will be a boon for the economy of potentially £53.3 billion.
An example of this to which I have referred in earlier debates is the Hackney Boxing Academy. Its trained staff mentor groups of six young people and work on numeracy, behaviour and skills learned through the sport of boxing. You could barely put it in starker terms than one of the graduates of this programme, Dylan, who said, “As a result of being involved in this programme, I am a completely different person”. What more could one say about social mobility?
We also need effective careers advice to enable people to even know about some of the jobs available, never mind be able to aspire to them. I was lucky enough to be a member of the Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility that reported earlier this year. We found that the provision of careers services for young people was at best patchy. This needs to start not in the sixth form or in secondary education but right from the first moment that someone steps into the classroom. They need to be exposed to opportunities and possibilities. When I was young I did not have a clue about the full range of jobs and opportunities that existed.
Role models are incredibly important. Working parents are obviously the most significant role model but also people from different backgrounds going into schools and talking to pupils. The Primary Futures programme is an excellent initiative of the National Association of Head Teachers whereby people from different walks of life go into schools and talk to young people. They do not wait until the young people enter secondary education but talk to them when they are in primary schools to spark young minds to think, “I could do that. What do I have to get in place to achieve that?”.
In Birmingham last month, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education announced opportunity areas to drive social mobility. Six have already been identified. Will my noble friend say when the next four will be released? What further information can he give the House on these opportunity areas? How exactly will they work to drive social mobility?
As I mentioned at the outset, collaboration is incredibly important. It is difficult enough to drive cross-Whitehall working but it is essential to collaborate with local authorities. If, for example, local authorities shared their data with schools, given the data that local authorities have, children could be auto-enrolled into free school meals and the pupil premium, thereby cutting out bureaucracy and any potential for those pupils to fall through the cracks in terms of opportunities.
What of life post-school? It seems extraordinary to me that in 21st-century Britain there is still such a disparity of esteem between higher education and other potential routes post-school. I believe that many people go to university who, with the benefit of better advice and greater foresight, could have chosen another route which might have afforded them greater opportunity and social mobility. Perhaps we should consider ending the national curriculum when pupils reach 14, and treat the years between the ages of 14 and 19 as a period of potential transition. At this point I give more than a positive nod towards my noble friend Lord Baker and all the work that he did on university technical colleges. That vocational opportunity is for many people not just a route but the right route that will deliver them a better life, better opportunities and, potentially, more income—not that that is a fundamental point.
We have heard much about apprenticeships. I fully support the ambition to have 3 million apprenticeships by 2020. That is not easy to achieve and there has been a lot of concern around maintaining the quality of those 3 million apprenticeships. I was delighted to see the announcement earlier this year on the appointment of a regulator to set standards and ensure that an apprenticeship does what it says on the tin. We and young people need to be assured that an apprenticeship is a badge of quality and that, if they put in the time to achieve an apprenticeship, it has real value. Will my noble friend tell us more about how the role of the regulator is unfolding? Some 2.3% of new entrants to the public service will be apprentices. This is a brilliant boon for young people but will also enable the public sector to truly benefit from what apprentices can bring to it. Payments for firms with fewer than 50 employees enable them to offer apprenticeships right across their operations. This is what 3 million apprenticeships can offer. However, none of us should doubt that to deliver that day in and day out through to 2020 is no easy task.
Probably the biggest threat and biggest opportunity facing our country is the digital revolution. It is already well under way and will make the Industrial Revolution look like a children’s tea party. The Industrial Revolution took place over more than 100 years but the digital revolution is happening sometimes in weeks. Why does this matter to social mobility? It matters because potentially 35% of existing jobs are in danger of being automated. Many of these jobs were previously guarantors of social mobility. What does this mean for people’s ability to climb up the social ranks? By the same token, 1.1 million new jobs in the digital economy need to be filled before the end of this decade. The report of the Select Committee on Digital Skills, Make or Break, which was published the year before last, recommended that in schools and through life digital literacy needs to be considered as important as literacy and numeracy. It is that significant if everybody is to be able to benefit from digital opportunities. Alongside that, superfast broadband needs to be available to all and everybody needs to be online. That is not just something that is nice to have; the internet and superfast broadband should be viewed as being as important as a utility because so much will depend on people’s digital skills and their ability to transact and interact online. When you look at the 7 million people currently offline, you see that lower socioeconomic groups and disabled people are highly overrepresented in that offline community. Talking of inclusion, I point out that 4,000 young people received an A-level qualification in computer studies in 2014 but that fewer than 100 were girls. If we are to ensure that everyone has the chance to benefit from digital opportunities, we need to ensure that they are fully inclusive for all.
I turn now to volunteering. I thank all the organisations that have sent in briefings across the various areas of interest in this debate. Volunteering can have such an important role when it comes to improving people’s opportunities to get on in life. Look at the debate earlier this week on Second Reading of the National Citizen Service Bill; I fully supported that initiative. Some 200,000 people have already benefited from it; more than seven out of 10 say that they believe that their involvement in the scheme has made them more confident in terms of gaining employment. It is significant, it is unique and it will have a profound effect on volunteering in this nation.
It is also crucial to recognise all the other organisations that do great stuff in this area, not least the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, for which I am lucky enough to be an ambassador. It is chaired by my noble friend Lord Kirkham. If you were to look up “social mobility” in the Oxford English Dictionary, and it said “the life of Lord Kirkham”, you could get few better definitions.
In sum, we need to focus on early years education, employment, aspiration, attitudes, formal education, everything that happens outside the classroom, volunteering, and opening up every opportunity. All of us across the country need to think about what we can do as individuals to try to increase people’s ability to get on in life. Essentially, the fundamental truth remains the same: talent is everywhere; opportunity is not. Our business this afternoon is social mobility; our business all days needs to be social mobility—how to ensure that we are doing everything we can to enable everybody to achieve their potential in whatever field that might be. That could truly enable Britain to say, “We are on the right path”. That could truly enable Britain to be a fundamentally better place: open, with opportunity for all. I beg to move.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for introducing this debate. I had the pleasure of serving with him on the Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility. I know of his passionate interest in this subject, and I congratulate him on the way that he has introduced it. He has given us an insight into the extent of this problem and its importance. I also add my welcome to his for the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie, and say that I look forward to her maiden speech and wish her well during her time in the House.
To some extent, social mobility is a challenge of our time. Perhaps for the first time, there is political agreement across the spectrum that it needs to be addressed and we need to do better than we have done in the past. In truth, whatever we think about our country, whatever our achievements, and however proud we are of what we do, the fact that our social mobility record does not compare well with our competitors overshadows those achievements and makes us not the sort of country that we would want to live in. That underpins our need and desire to try to improve in this area.
As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said, social mobility covers a wide area of issues. In the time that I have available, I am mainly going to concentrate on one, but I just wanted to acknowledge two other areas before I move on to that. First, we very often see social mobility as an issue for education and an issue about youth. It is not: we should live in a country where adults have the opportunity to be socially mobile as well, even if they did not have the opportunities during their youth. That falls to the area of skills and reskilling and giving people opportunities throughout their lives to achieve their potential and do as well as they can. Secondly, I am conscious that many children and young people achieve grades but find that they do not have the opportunities available to others because of their backgrounds. I acknowledge that that is a problem: it is about a change in culture throughout society, not just about what we can do in this House and through legislation.
I turn to my main area of concentration: those children who do not achieve in school and therefore do not experience the problem of having the grades but not getting the opportunities after that. If you look at the policies of both political parties for the last 20 years, you cannot say that there have not been attempts through the school system to try to increase and improve social mobility. Every policy that is launched now is introduced in the name of social mobility—in the name of giving those left behind a better chance and of closing the attainment gap. So it should be: that is a challenge that falls to education in schools. I acknowledge that success: today in schools throughout this country, there are young people who have been given opportunities through the school system, who are socially mobile and who will go to university and have the skills and opportunity to achieve what they want to achieve.
However, we are at risk of assuming that schools can solve the problem by themselves. I worry that, in answer to the question “What should we do about social mobility?”, too many people say, “We have to improve schools”. I know that we have to improve schools and that a failure to close the attainment gap in schools is a failure of the school system. I do not shy away from that, but I know that schools do not cause the problem in the first place. We should not shy away from that either. They are asked to address and remedy an endemic problem in our society: what they inherit with children at the age of five is a difference in attainment that is clear from the age of 18 months. Look at those geographical areas that underperform at GCSE and A-level, that we bemoan do not get as many children to university as we would like. When you look at what we call school readiness in that area, you find that that is low as well. We know that standards in schools are low in the north-east, but guess where school readiness is also low: in the north-east. We know that achievement is good in London boroughs, and—guess what—when you look at school readiness measures, they are actually far better in London than in other parts of the country. Let us be clear what we mean by school readiness. It is to be able to listen, to speak, to pay attention, to handle objects, to move confidently, to have self-confidence, and to have social skills. It is those basics that any person needs if they are to stand a chance of doing well throughout life and throughout school.
We know a lot about that group that does not have school readiness. We know that those children are more likely to be poor and more likely to come from families that have ill-health and low skills—not all lazy and dependent on benefits. We know that by the age of five, they will know fewer words than people from middle-class families; that their social and physical skills will be less developed; that their mothers are less likely to have attended antenatal classes; and that their parents are less likely to have accessed what we might call enrichment activities between the child’s age of nought and five. The Government have to ask themselves whether they are doing enough to address the needs of this age group. In truth, all Governments have a tendency to put their efforts, emphasis, money and resources on schools. As somebody who is passionate about schools—and I spent my ministerial time concentrating on schools—I am not inviting the Minister to stop focusing on schools. However, I invite him to consider that the way in which he could most help schools to close the attainment gap is to do more for the age of nought to five.
When I look at what the Government are doing on this, I acknowledge that they have put more money into childcare; I acknowledge the pupil premium, which was part of the coalition. However, the Commission on Social Mobility and Poverty says that the efforts to improve the school readiness of the poorest children are unco-ordinated, confused and patchy.
We know that despite the importance of this nought-to-five period, it is where our least-qualified and lowest-paid teachers are, and where there is less stability. Both the Minister and I could probably quote the floor targets for key stage 1 to GCSE and A-level. I also know by heart the underperforming local authorities or the type of school that is the most underachieving. I think I know what his targets are for every stage of school. I do not know what his targets are for the other years, what he is doing about children’s centres that are falling behind, or what the emergency intervention strategy of the Government is for nought-to-five provision that is not coming up to scratch. When I look through the DfE website, I cannot see a speech the present Secretary of State has made about early years, four or five months into her office. I will stand corrected if the Minister tells me that I am wrong.
Again, the best way to raise standards with some of our children in some of the most challenging schools from the most challenging backgrounds is to reduce the development gap between children when they start school. I very much hope that the Minister might consider adopting that as a target and working toward achieving it.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, when I saw that this debate was down in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, I immediately thought, “Yes, I’m going to say something about that”—and then I thought, “I have a lot to say about that, on numerous subjects”. It was restrained of the noble Lord in his 15-odd minutes to limit himself to a number of subjects, because everything affects social mobility. However, I will try to exercise a little restraint and will talk about only two areas. One is how we help those in the education system—I take on board the stricture of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, on this. The first thing you should say is that your parents are your key educators, and doing anything that improves the status your parents give you is a difficult task. So we are setting ourselves a little mountain to climb at the beginning.
Also, your parents will usually tell you to be like them. I am afraid that when people tell you to be like them, it brings in a whole series of straitjackets. It is also worth reminding ourselves that occasionally people who are in one of the professions do not want their children to do anything else. So if you happen to be a potentially excellent cabinetmaker or artist, you may be restrained from doing that. But I agree that that is a smaller problem than many others. If there is this pressure on you to attain and jump over certain hurdles, usually educational ones which allow you to access the better opportunities and things, are we identifying properly all the things that might slow you down?
I hope that the Minister will not be terribly surprised—indeed, I hope that his office passed on my advance warning on this subject—that I think that when it comes to special educational needs or the “hidden disabilities”, as I like to call them, which you have to look for and know what you are looking for, we are not at present equipping our teachers and educators throughout the education system to identify these people, who have different learning patterns. Let us face it: this subject has been given a little frisson by the idea that grammar schools will come back in and make everybody more socially mobile.
The Minister made it slightly more difficult for me to have a go at him after I asked him a question about the age of entrants and the flat rate by saying, “No, we’re not going to do that—we’re going to do it differently”. If we are going to do this and think it is a good idea, and if we are going to have a different series of entrance requirements, how will we identify those people who need to be tested differently, to see that that they will benefit?
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
Does the noble Lord agree that this is not just a matter of fairness to the individual, having a focus on special needs of some sort, but a great loss to the country? For instance, there is increasing evidence and experience—
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
This is a time-limited debate and we are behind time already. I ask the noble Lord to make his point to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, at another time. I apologise to the noble Lord but there is no time for interventions.
Lord Addington
I do have a moment to reply—which is the advantage of not being tied to notes. Yes; there is a waste to society. To go back to my point, if the wrong people are getting there, if you are not getting others properly qualified and they are not going through, and you want to create a fast track—which preferably will get people to the right position in society, which will benefit society—you have to identify it. I hope that the Minister will be in a position to say whether we will make some movement on this. I know that there has been some contact between us, but it is probably a good idea to let the rest of the world know what we are thinking about here. If we do not, as has just been mentioned on what I will call my physical right, it is a great way of wasting resources and the benefit to our society.
Secondly, in the debate on the National Citizen Service Bill—which, oddly, I managed to listen to about half of on a monitor and in the Chamber—it struck me that in a small way this was quite a nice idea. But it then struck me that many of the social activities that people might be removing themselves from because their parents do not do them already do this. In many sports clubs—especially the bigger ones, which have a mix of people from different backgrounds who interact—and art, drama and music groups, you have a point of contact with people outside your immediate group on a subject that allows you to interact socially. If you can do that, you have the aspiration and the idea that it is worth while to undertake the extra effort in things such as education.
This is about bringing things together. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, suggested that bringing bits of Whitehall together is a herculean task. The thing is that two Ministers come together and work until they are dripping with perspiration; they bring things together and then two Ministers come in who have new agendas, budgets and priorities. How do we integrate this across the board and not have people fighting with each other about their little patch of authority? It is a job that I am afraid we will always be going back to.
Can the Minister describe the practical educational terms used to identify those who will struggle—how much further progress have we made? When it comes to the use of outside bodies, what attempts are we making through things such as governing bodies of sports to say that part of their job, for which they get some support from government, is to make sure that people are aware—younger people and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, people who are reskilling and retraining later on—that these things are out there and you can act on them. Nothing will work by itself; if you go into a silo, you will stay in a silo and that is where you will end up.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes on securing this important and timely debate and I also very much look forward to my noble friend Lady Couttie’s maiden speech. One of the policy areas I will touch on today is the troubled families programme. Since 2008, Westminster Council, which my noble friend leads, has been helping families to restore order when they find themselves in chaos, through its family recovery team. It was an important trailblazer for this Government’s national programme. I am delighted that she will be on these Benches and I hope that she will join me in keeping the pressure on the Government, and indeed on all political parties, to develop an armamentarium of policies sufficient to tackle the epidemic of family and relationship breakdown.
Families are of fundamental importance to the whole process of social mobility, for good or for ill. When relationships between parents break down or when families cease to provide a safe, stable and nurturing environment for children and young people, it can make it far harder for them to thrive, especially when the family has other difficulties such as worklessness, serious personal debt, mental ill-health or addictions to drugs or alcohol.
Children from stable families tend to have better mental health, and preventing mental health problems from developing is incredibly important given their concerning prevalence among today’s young people. Such children also have greater access to social capital, more confidence, better-developed social networks and, therefore, more of the ingredients needed for them to experience upward social mobility.
Young people’s character and resilience have deep roots in the parenting they have received, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned; important life skills are for not only the education system to impart. Yet, in efforts to improve social mobility, it is far too easy to ignore families’ influence, focus solely on other areas such as education and work and to be overly “economistic”. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, cautioned us against this during the passage of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill.
Families are the neglected third pillar of the welfare state. That is why I, the Children’s Commissioner and the Centre for Social Justice keep bringing the concept of family hubs to the attention of Ministers and policymakers. Rather than letting their children’s centre stock wither on the vine, several local authorities have recognised that they need to make this infrastructure work even harder. They are integrating troubled families, early help and other budgets, including public health, in order to integrate and expand services within existing spending settlements. So help, including relationship support, is accessible for parents of children at any age through family hubs. They are somewhere to go where someone will have the answers.
The Children’s Commissioner has indeed issued a discussion paper on family hubs this month, which states:
“Family hubs would co-ordinate statutory and voluntary approaches to tackling the root causes of inter-generational poverty, family breakdown and poor outcomes for children. They have social mobility and family stability at their core”.
The Department for Education has a role to play in spreading such good practice and helping local authorities work through financially credible alternatives to simply closing children’s centres. Can my noble friend the Minister inform the House when the long-promised consultation on children’s centres will be launched?
The costs of family instability and failure are picked up by the health service, criminal justice and the courts, the benefits system, education and social care, businesses—the whole of society. This is why I have also been talking to many Ministers about the need for every government department to develop policies to strengthen families. I welcome the introduction of the Government’s family test and urge its strengthening. But this is reactive.
The test needs to be complemented in every government department by proactive policies to help create strong families, in the awareness that they are as essential to national success as employment and education. This join-up is happening locally; an important part of the rationale behind the troubled families programme was that getting truanting children back into school and long-term workless parents into employment required addressing the complex family issues holding everyone back. For example, it means integrating help and support so that specialist employment advisers work alongside family intervention key workers, and schools reinforce what these workers are seeking to achieve with families.
Could the Minster inform the House, what has been the impact of employment advisers from the troubled families programme on getting people into work? The great prize of this programme has always been its potential to drive systemic change, not just in the families whose problems are blighting their lives and draining local budgets but in how public services work. A similar systemic change in the structure of central government is also required if stronger families are to emerge and help drive much-needed improvements in social mobility.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My Lords. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for securing this debate. I know he has great commitment to this issue, not least through his work on the Select Committee on Social Mobility.
I also join others in saying that I am looking forward to the maiden speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie. The issue of social mobility was the subject of my maiden speech earlier this year.
When we make the case for improving social mobility in our country, there should be a moral, a political and an economic dimension to our argument. The moral case is surely unarguable: that everyone deserves the same opportunities in life, irrespective of the family they were born into, the place where they live, or the school they attend; and that no one should be condemned to a life of poverty and low expectations simply because they were born poor. Instead, we should strive to build a society where your progress in life is determined by your aptitude, ability, effort and aspiration. So it should be of great concern that there is currently a gulf between the Britain we are and the Britain we should strive to be.
Today, the UK is one of the least socially mobile countries in the developed world. A boy born into a middle-class family is 15 times more likely to become middle class himself than a boy born into a working class family—odds unchanged over the past 100 years. My noble friend Baroness Morris referred to the fact that, by the age of five, a child from the poorest 10% of families will already be 19 months behind a child from the richest 10%. On the current trajectory, it would take 30 years before the attainment gap in schools between poorer children and their better-off classmates even halved; and it would take 50 years to close the gap between those parts of the country that send the most children to university and those that send the least. Of course, none of this is to say that social mobility never happens; it does, and many succeed against the odds. But that is the whole point—they have to swim against the tide if they are to get on.
This divide in our country was brought into sharp relief by the vote to leave the European Union. The correlation between those who voted to leave and those areas with the lowest rates of social mobility is hard to deny. Of the 65 areas of the UK identified by the Social Mobility Commission as the worst for education and employment prospects, only three voted to remain—so the political case for improving social mobility has become acute.
The idea that each succeeding generation will do better than the last is fundamental to an aspirational society, and fundamental to the fabric of Britain. But if so many feel they are consistently excluded from this idea—that their ambitions are consistently thwarted, while they see the rest of the country forging ahead—we create the space for a dangerous politics of resentment.
It is in this context that the Prime Minister's commitment to heal these divisions and build a country that works for everyone is so welcome. But we must ask whether this desire for a different kind of society is matched by plans capable of delivering it. Initiatives such as the new opportunity areas and the youth investment fund are, of course, welcome. However, if the Government’s highest-profile policy for social mobility is a return to grammar schools, then the answer is surely no.
To genuinely promote social mobility, we need a comprehensive strategy that includes employment support, housing, early years provision, vocational education, public health and parenting skills. Our consistent failure to meet the moral obligation to improve social mobility contributed to the vote to leave the European Union, which in turn has the potential to create real economic challenges for our country.
A strong economic case for high rates of social mobility has always existed: that we should minimise the loss of productive potential from talent that is never deployed. Indeed, an economic analysis by the Boston Consulting Group for the Sutton Trust estimated that closing the educational attainment gap could add as much as 4% to GDP. But leaving the European Union makes this case even more important. Now, more than ever, we cannot afford to waste anyone’s potential. We must make use of all the talents in our country as we seek to remain internationally competitive.
The economic consequences of Brexit, when it happens, have the potential to create a perfect storm for social mobility: less inward investment would mean fewer career opportunities for young people. Businesses leaving the UK—or corporation tax cuts or subsidies to induce them to stay—would reduce our tax base and the money available for deprived communities. A shrinking of the financial services sector would remove a powerful engine of social mobility. Any recession would disproportionately impact young people at the beginning of their careers, and reduced opportunities to work and travel freely within the EU would risk curtailing their horizons and aspirations.
We know what happens to social mobility in these circumstances: those from privileged backgrounds jump to the front of the queue for scarce job opportunities, ahead of their more disadvantaged counterparts.
At this time of profound economic change, it is vital that we embed our commitment to social mobility in the development of new policy within government. As the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, the Government have done this successfully elsewhere, ensuring, through the family test, that a family perspective is considered in every new policy.
I end by asking the Minister whether the Government will consider a similar initiative for social mobility, issuing guidance to government departments in the form of a social mobility test, to ensure that the impact on social mobility is recognised explicitly in all that the Government do.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth
My Lords, in these few minutes I should like to set the concern and aspirations for social mobility—already so well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and other noble Lords—in the context of the challenges faced by many people, some in my own diocese, who face the daily grind and trial of simply getting by for the day or, at best, the week. The Prime Minister has referred to the need to focus on “just managing” families, and I agree with her, but surely the task is to help make it possible for them to do better than just manage, enabling their energy to be taken up not just in dealing with the everyday challenges but in improving life chances for themselves and their families, including social mobility.
The policies inherited by this Prime Minister and her new Government can be expected to have a significant impact on those towards the bottom of the income and privilege ladders, whom we surely want and ought—if I may introduce a note of morality—most to support and encourage. Those who are on benefits, and whom none of us wishes to keep reliant on them, will see income reductions in the years ahead. I am thinking most of those in work and on benefits. There will indeed be some modest compensation for cuts in working-age benefits from income tax changes and the introduction of what the last Chancellor styled the “national living wage”; nevertheless, the bottom 30% will see a reduction. The same suite of policies is expected to raise incomes for those of us in the top half of the distribution. If there is higher inflation, and even if just a temporary contraction of the economy follows Brexit, the poorest will be likely to be hit the hardest. All this has an impact by retarding social mobility. These people will need extra support to manage, not less.
It is against that background of existing policy that we engage in a debate about doing more than managing—that is, improving opportunity for social mobility. It is hard, and sometimes impossible, to seek a new or better job or to support your children in their education if your daily preoccupation has to be with getting by. As we enter a period when there will be difficulties for those on the lowest incomes, we need to ensure that economic inequality does not worsen the base from which mobility can come. Trapping people on a lower income undermines social mobility, making it more difficult to access other welcome initiatives to address intergenerational mobility.
I accept that social mobility is not only about income, but it is a major factor in, and influence on, people’s ability to access other opportunities. Having to struggle to get by and, for instance, working very long hours on low pay, reduce time and energy for parental engagement in their children’s development. An advantageous home environment is very important in a child’s early years development. Enough parental and adult time, energy and money are essential for children to access sport, non-statutory educational opportunities and community engagement, all of which should begin at an early age if mobility is to be possible.
A key finding from the Social Mobility Commission highlights areas of the country that have become social mobility cold spots, particularly coastal areas. Some are in the diocese that I serve, covering the mainland coastal areas of Gosport and Portsmouth, along with the Isle of Wight. Many of these areas perform badly on both educational measures and adulthood outcomes, giving people from less advantaged backgrounds limited opportunities to get on. Regional disparities require focused attention, and I trust that our grand aspirations lead to resourcing for hard-to-reach regions and communities and the people who live there.
I draw my comments to an end, delighted to make way for the much-anticipated maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie. In our ambition to enhance social mobility, we must recognise the reality—that those just managing are those who ought to be our special focus.
Baroness Couttie (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is with great humility and a deep sense of pride that I stand before your Lordships today as a Member of this noble House, as ready as I will ever be to give my maiden speech. I have to admit to feeling a little daunted, as I do so in front of such an august audience.
To a certain extent, the enormity of my entry to your Lordships’ House is still sinking in as I try to learn the great customs and traditions of this hallowed House, but your Lordships have all been so welcoming, for which I am very grateful.
I would like to take this opportunity to highlight my appreciation to my two supporters, my noble friends Lord Lamont and Lord Astor, for introducing me to the House. It was an incredible honour to have their patronage and it is something that I will always remember. I must also place on record my sincere thanks to the talented team of officials here; they have been a tremendous source of knowledge and orientation.
Now, I am giving my first speech to the House on a matter that was the driving force behind my entry into public service—how we promote social mobility. I feel privileged to speak in a debate led by my noble friend Lord Holmes, who is himself such a role model.
I was fortunate enough to be sent out into the world from a strong foundation and with support from my parents. I recognise how fortunate I was to have the opportunities afforded to me and, as a result, I have been driven from an early age to help others to reach their full potential.
On leaving St Andrews University, I began my career in public relations, where I became the managing director of a subsidiary of a publicly quoted company, and I founded, built up and sold two businesses. I then joined Schroders, where I headed its principal finance business, funding the redevelopment of schools and hospitals and building new ones. Schroders was taken over by Citigroup, where I became a director.
Most noble Lords will not see that investment banking has anything to do with social mobility, but in fact it was the ultimate meritocracy. I worked with individuals from every nation, creed and socioeconomic background, including those who had left school at 16 with few qualifications but who, by dint of their intellect, hard work and a bit of luck, had reached senior levels within the bank. I realised how important aspiration and all types of opportunity are in determining life chances.
Then, later in life and after some considerable struggle, I had twins, prompting me to leave the City. Politics has been part of my life since childhood, so, when a council seat became vacant in my own ward, I decided it was time to put something back into society and bring my experiences in the private sector to the world of the public sector. I had an ideal which inspired me—that to help individuals and communities succeed, we must facilitate the ladders of opportunity for people to make the kinds of steps forward that they want to make.
Government, both central and local, works best when it nurtures our human instincts to succeed and to build a better life for ourselves and our families. Government works best when it helps people to realise that potential and does not unwittingly stifle it, locking them in to a cycle of dependency and despair.
On being elected to Westminster City Council in 2006 and then, in particular, since serving as its leader, I have sought to weave the ladders of opportunity into my work. Despite the world-renowned tourist destinations and nationally significant economic dynamism of areas such as the West End, Westminster is a city of contrasts. Sitting cheek by jowl with some of the most desirable postcodes on the globe are pockets of severe deprivation, experiencing levels of poverty comparable with the highest in the country. In one of our wards, 50% of the residents are unemployed, and 50% of those have mental health issues. In another of our wards, 100% of the children are deemed as living in poverty.
In this day and age, in the very centre of our nation’s capital, no one should find themselves in that situation, and I have been determined to create the education, skills, housing and social support that Westminster residents need to succeed in their ambitions. I have committed the city council to tackling long-term unemployment as its number one priority. We have 10,000 long-term unemployed people in Westminster, many with complex issues, including mental and physical health problems. Tackling this worklessness is not easy, but we are succeeding. We are also supporting parents on low incomes to find better paid work to help tackle child poverty. Success can be achieved only with the local authority, employers and other partners working together to ensure that people can access jobs, training, apprenticeships and work placements. I am glad to see that the opportunity areas proposed by the Government suggest just such an approach.
As cabinet member for housing, I completely reinvented the way that we approached investing in our housing stock, not only to deliver over 1,000 new homes but to build an economic regeneration in our deprived areas. It was underpinned by my belief in building communities with the right infrastructure and jobs for local people, as well as homes.
In giving our children the best possible start in life, Westminster’s troubled families programme has gone from strength to strength, as my noble friend Lord Farmer has mentioned. I am aware that recent coverage of the scheme has not been positive, but that certainly does not reflect the experience in Westminster, as we have turned round the lives of more than 1,500 families.
In January this year, the Social Mobility Commission published an index setting out the differences between where children grow up and their chances of doing well in adult life. The City of Westminster was ranked first out of all local authorities in the country for providing social mobility. That was because 85% of children eligible for free school meals in Westminster attended a secondary school rated outstanding or good by Ofsted. Only 8% of young people eligible for free school meals are not in education, employment or training one year after completing their GCSEs—the seventh lowest rate in the country.
It is my strong belief that no child’s life should be defined by their circumstances, and I am convinced that as a country we must redouble our efforts to promote social mobility. I welcome the Government’s clear commitment to this and very much hope that, as a Member of this House, I can make a contribution to support this.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure and privilege to follow my noble friend Lady Couttie’s exceptional maiden speech. She comes to this House not only with a wealth of experience in business and at the top of local government but with expertise in a wide variety of other roles; for example, as governor of Imperial College and a member of the London LEP. As a Westminster councillor for 10 years, including, as we have heard, four years as leader, she has a reputation for listening and consulting, as well as for running what is widely regarded as one of the most efficient, competent and innovative local authorities in the country. I know that she will not mind me telling the House that she has also battled with cancer and has spoken out about it publicly because she feels, rightly, that not enough people talk about their experiences, which can be so helpful to those struggling with the disease.
My noble friend also comes with a significant heritage. I hope it is not inappropriate to pay tribute also to her mother, Dame Marion Roe, a Conservative MP elected in 1983 at a time when there were only 13 Conservative MPs—the same number as in 1931. Dame Marion has been a wonderful support to many new women MPs and I am delighted to welcome her very able daughter to our Benches today. With her 25 years in leadership roles we look forward to significant contributions from my noble friend in the future.
I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Holmes for introducing today’s debate in his usual inspirational way. His own story of social mobility, from a working class background in Kidderminster to becoming Britain’s most successful Paralympian—amassing nine gold, five silver and two bronze medals across four Games, including a haul of six golds at Barcelona in 1992, followed by an amazing, stellar career outside active competitive sport—is an inspiration to us all. If we could bottle my noble friend’s spirit, character, personality and resilience and parcel it out, we would have no further challenges with social mobility in this country. My noble friend talked about role models and there can be none greater than him. Like all noble Lords, I am totally in awe of his achievements.
Theresa May, from her first speech as Prime Minister, has been unwavering in her commitment to social mobility. The need to redouble efforts to target disadvantaged pupils is obvious and urgent. Recent research published by the Education Policy Institute shows that there is still significant work to do to create an education system that offers opportunity for all and not just those living in the most affluent postcode areas or from the most privileged social backgrounds. No one is in any doubt that social mobility means many different things to different people. It is complex and multifaceted and can include poor health. Obesity, especially, is a major contributor to social immobility. I welcome the recent launch of the Centre for Social Justice’s inquiry into childhood obesity. As noble Lords will know, although I would like to focus more on that aspect in my speech, there is not enough time to do so today.
What is also needed is an understanding of the fact that some of the things that hold children back are not just deficiencies of the state and its machinery. These obstacles cannot all be reduced or removed by ministerial instruction or legislation or even by additional funding. We need an acceptance that some obstacles are social, some cultural, and some have their roots in the families and communities where those children grow up. You cannot legislate for higher parental ambition or better social connections.
However, a great start has been made by reorganising government so that the levers which manage and control the life chances agenda are now firmly within the Department for Education and supervised by Justine Greening, who, with colleagues such as Stephen Crabb and Robert Halfon, had prepared much of the life chances and social mobility policy work in advance of her move to education.
Much has been made of the background of the Secretary of State. It is indeed remarkable that she is apparently the first person to hold the job who was educated at a comprehensive school—although that background is actually far more common in the other place than many realise or understand. However, attitude and understanding are more important than her education, and Justine Greening is now in a position to do something about it. Anyone who cares about making Britain a country where your place in life depends on your talents and efforts should support her ambitions and programme. She says that her own background as the comprehensive-educated daughter of a Rotherham steelworker has given her the inspiration to fight for social mobility from inside government. Talking about her vision of a levelled-up Britain, she says:
“When I was growing up in Rotherham I knew there were kids getting a better start than me, but it would never have helped me to have their opportunities taken away. That wouldn’t have suddenly improved my life; it would have made theirs worse, and it certainly wouldn’t have done Britain any good at all. So for me this levelling up is about us saying we need to have opportunity and potential for children who currently don’t have it. It goes beyond education to some of the work we’re doing on apprenticeships, and about businesses saying what can they do to find those rough diamonds that are coming through and fast-track them through the system, even if perhaps they don’t have that kind of network that some other people might have. It’s about us as a country deciding that social mobility, and people being able to get to the top wherever they start and whoever they are, is one of the defining features of Britain for the 21st century. It should be something that we’re recognised for. People talk about the American Dream, but what we’re talking about”,
here today,
“is how do you create the British Dream”.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, one of my heroes, for introducing this debate in such a wide-ranging way. I have also enjoyed the contributions from other Members of the House, including the excellent maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie.
This Government, like Governments before them, expressed the wish to improve the lot of children who do not achieve all that they might. I suggest that that success has been limited due to complex factors. Many of these factors in the UK mitigate against those children who are deprived in some way. Many parental options are limited to those in the upper and middle classes. A worrying fact pointed out by the OECD report last year and echoed by the Office for National Statistics said that the UK has the worst performance of intergenerational earnings mobility compared with other OECD countries.
I want to touch on what denies and what facilitates progress. To start at the beginning, the Early Intervention Foundation has provided much valuable research on the importance of brain development in the early years, the need for language stimulation, and for books and toys. This points to the need for positive parental care action, but parenting classes are thin on the ground and mainly absent in any school curriculum. We are neglecting the most important job of all: parenting. Early years education, discussed admirably by my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley, is not about testing, as she said. It is about developing self-esteem, self-confidence, resilience and curiosity, as well as intellectual confidence. These are the bases for success, good relationships and mental health. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, would agree with that.
Childcare is shown to have positive effects if it is of high quality. A Select Committee carried out an inquiry into affordable childcare last year. I was delighted to be involved in its work. We took valuable evidence from a number of sources. The Government’s extended childcare offer will provide more support for many working parents. However, local provision varies in quality. We found that, too frequently, the most deprived areas have the poorest quality of childcare. There is not enough flexibility in the system, which can be difficult to negotiate for parents. What are the Government doing about this?
The Select Committee on Social Mobility, chaired by my noble friend Lady Corston, produced an excellent report on social mobility in this Session. It states that factors that may influence social mobility include coming from a poorer background, low educational attainment, family background, gender, ethnicity, health, special educational needs, disability, and where a child grows up. Comparisons have been made between the north of England and London, where the excellent London Challenge, established by the Labour Government, transformed the lives of many children. This was a well-designed and targeted intervention. The Sure Start programme, sadly being dismantled by this Government, was another successful initiative. On the other hand, we have the troubled families initiative, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, costing over £1 billion with disappointing results. Why? I agree on the importance of families. I say yes to initiatives and innovation, but they need to be based on firm evidence, consultation, appropriate targets and good monitoring, and, as the noble Lord said, the need to integrate.
On secondary education and grammar schools, why the Government wish to return to a flawed, divisive system I cannot imagine. I went to a grammar school. I was a working-class girl there. At that grammar school, only a fraction of the top stream went on to higher education. I know that that was a long time ago.
There was a debate on grammar schools in your Lordships’ House on 13 October. Grammar schools do not work for everyone. Those not selected, or those in lower streams of grammar schools, may feel that they have failed. What a waste. As my noble friend Lady Andrews pointed out in her riveting speech in that debate, the idea that grammar schools promote social mobility is a nonsense. I quote her:
“The fact that the heyday of the grammar schools between 1950 and 1970 coincided with significant social mobility driven by economic and technological change is just that—a coincidence”.—[Official Report, 13/10/16; col. 2014.]
We must not go backwards. We should explore what positive models work in other countries and what progress has been made in our own country. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, who I see has disappeared in a puff of smoke, inspired the university technical colleges. He said that he could not be here today; he was, but he has gone. He told me yesterday that in July 2016, 1,292 students from these colleges left with excellent results and only five were not in education, employment or training. This is from a comprehensive intake.
Good schools promote holistic education and life skills: the arts, sport, programmes of social development and so on. I agree entirely with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. They are not full of stress in pupils and teachers, as well documented by many researchers. They are models of social mobility. Unfortunately, I see no coherent plan for the education and development of young people in this country. I have pleaded before for an overall strategy for youth in this country, embracing education, health, sport, the arts and social skills. What I see at the moment resembles a kaleidoscope, constantly being shaken to change the place of the pieces. The patterns, by chance, settle down into different formations, but they are fragile and confined. Attempts at improving social mobility need better planning, cross-disciplinary action involving parents and children, and a dedicated strategy. Does the Minister agree?
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes on the debate, which is very timely. I am also delighted to have been here for the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Couttie. I served for 10 years on Westminster City Council and my husband served for 25 years, so I am particularly delighted that she comes from that background.
It was interesting listening to the speeches. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for example, stressed the need for more development and encouragement in the ages of nought to five. I absolutely agree, because I was chairman of social services. In some of the ethnic groups, their only idea of how to care for their child was to keep them sedated and sit them in a big cardboard box in the kitchen while they did other work. Those children made no progress because they had no stimulus or outside interest; whereas other families were very active in encouraging their children to take interest in things, and they were given incentive and encouragement. That is very important.
My family background is that my grandparents went to Australia and ended up in Parkes because that was the end of the bullock train. You could not go any further. Then, by chance, my father got an education. There was one rich family in this town, which still has only about 10,000 people, who came to my grandfather, who ran a small dairy farm and said, “The education at this college is all paid for, and my boy won’t go, so I would like you to send one of your children”. It was offered to the eldest son, and he said, “No, it’s too late for me. I think the next boy should go”. That was my father.
My family said, “No, we cannot really spare him because we have got to get round and sell the milk”. The eldest boy said, “Well, I will do a double round”. Through that, my father got to that college, and he went from there to Sydney University. It was the first ever graduating year of pharmacy from Sydney University. Later, he was the deputy premier of New South Wales, and apparently the world’s only Minister for Public Health and Motherhood, so he achieved quite a lot. There were nine children in our family, and I think, because of that, he realised how very hard it is, and he brought in child endowment, which here we call child benefit, to help families.
He met my mother at Sydney University. She was very keen on education, and she had had to come from Queensland because there was no university there. She graduated in 1912, and was determined that all her children would get an education. My father did very well financially, but after he died things went terribly wrong, and the last two children did not get a penny. That was probably good for me, because I had to turn around and do something for myself. My father had believed we should all be worthy of our place in society. We should not just be sitting back because someone had made a financial success of things. That proved to be very important.
I think it is very important for all children to have encouragement from their families. They can have that encouragement only if the families know what the opportunities are and have an interest in the child achieving something. It is not a straightforward situation.
I found, in dental practice in Old Street, which was never smart in my day, in the 35 years I was there, the real problem was that so many of the parents or grandparents had very little English. This is where we can see the relevance of the statement that has been made today, that adult education is important, not only child education. People would come in for treatment, and a child would have to accompany them to explain what the problem was and then to translate what the dentist said to the parent or grandparent. Those women were completely cut off from society. I remember that Keith Joseph always said, “You can’t teach your children how to wash clothes unless you know how to wash clothes”. I think this is true. This cycle of deprivation has to be broken if we are going to give people opportunities for social mobility.
I see that the report issued by the Library mentions that the OECD in 2010 said that it is easier to advance in Australia and Canada than it is here. I think that is only because those countries are so much less developed. What concerns me more is a statement that London is pulling way ahead of other parts of the country in terms of opportunities in education. That should not be. It is very important that all the other big cities do everything they can to help their people.
Things need to be done to encourage people, particularly the young. Opportunities, encouragement, and a feeling that one can achieve something are important. Two things that I speak on pretty regularly I will comment on briefly. One is housing. Social mobility is pretty closely linked to having somewhere decent to live, where you can make a success of life. Therefore, there should be more social housing and more housing to rent and we should make sure that these holiday people do not take over valuable accommodation.
Another thing is nursing. I think we went too far—I think it was the Blair Government that did it—in saying that you had to have a university degree to become a nurse. Some of the very best nurses I know could never have got five As to get in. They were in a different category of nurse, and they were very good indeed. We should bring back that second tier in nursing which still exists in Canada and Australia. They brought in the A-levels and the superb university degrees, but they maintained that middle level as well. That is such an opportunity and a way for people to get social mobility, to enter a profession of that type and feel proud to be a member of it.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, for initiating this important debate. I was so pleased that he talked about effective careers advice and the need to start that in primary schools. He also mentioned the importance of the early years, a subject I will be coming to. On my behalf and that of my noble friend Lord Addington, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie, on her excellent maiden speech, a clarion call to redouble our efforts. She really is a glutton for punishment, because I notice that she is speaking at 5 pm in Grand Committee. I am very impressed. I do not think there are many people who would make another speech on the same day as their maiden speech.
As a number of speakers have said, our society must ensure through our policies that every person can have a quality of life and the opportunity to improve their circumstances, regardless of their background, where they live or who they are.
As we have heard from a number of your Lordships, the Prime Minister promised on taking office that she was committed to putting social reform and social justice at the heart of her Government. Promoting social mobility, particularly for the most vulnerable, will be crucial to creating a society that indeed works for everyone. A range of issues has to be tackled if the Prime Minister’s words are to become a reality—poverty, employment support, welfare, housing, public health, mental health and family support. Many of your Lordships have spoken eloquently on these issues. The excellent report of the Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, makes a raft of recommendations. I was taken particularly by its focus on what it called the overlooked middle; that is, that group of 16 to 19 year-olds who are neither going on to do A-levels nor in the NEET group. The report talked about better mechanisms for co-ordination between FE and employers at a local level, plus better national-level support on things like tracking and data on this group, which are currently very poor. I was interested to read in Hansard the debate in another place on Merseyside schools and was delighted for the first time to see a Minister in this Government talk about how important was further education. I thought that that was a real sea change. Linked to the work that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, has been doing, there are real possibilities there. Perhaps the Minister will tell us when the House can expect to debate that report.
Members will no doubt have been sent a large number of detailed briefings ahead of this debate from a wide range of organisations—and I would like to thank them. As one reads through each briefing, it becomes apparent that one issue above all is seen as the way to tackle social mobility. That, of course, is through education. To paraphrase that American political slogan: it’s education, stupid—and crucially in the early years. As Action for Children says, significant evidence points to a child’s education in the earliest years as being central in shaping the rest of their lives. The NAHT points out that, by the age of 11, poor children lag on average nearly 10 points behind their peers in educational progress. That attainment gap grows ever wider as they progress through the rest of their schooling, affecting their life chances in the most dramatic—some may say, the most disturbing—way.
What is the proposal of our new Government in using education to help social mobility? Yes, it is the reintroduction of grammar schools. Where grammar schools exist, they do nothing to increase social mobility. Creaming off 20% of the brightest children does not help other local schools; it does not help that all important pupil-peer support; it has the potential of taking the best teachers away from other schools; and it does not help a local community. Every piece of independent research carried out confirms that grammar schools do nothing for social mobility. I suggest to the Minister that if a grammar school landed on the catchment area of his Pimlico Academy it would not help his school by creaming off the brightest, and it would do nothing to help social mobility. If the Government are intent on this policy—it is doubtful that they would get it through—then why not move away from the rhetoric and carry out some proper analysis and evaluation? Let them ask the NFER, for example, to do the research and then we can formulate policies based on proper research. As Russell Hobby of the NAHT wrote in the Times Educational Supplement, the Government’s grammar school plans are based on anecdote and not on evidence.
By the time children reach the age of 11, it is too late to tackle many of the disadvantages they face in relation to education and development. If the Government are truly focused on increasing social mobility, they should invest in early years. Research shows that children’s life chances are often determined before they even enter primary school. This means that if we are really to achieve change, it can happen only if there is a strong focus on families with pre-school-age children. Children’s centre provision must remain at the heart of policies to effect social mobility and they must remain flexible to fit local needs. Can the Minister update us on any plans the Government may have to evaluate children’s centres, and to see what creates a successful children’s centre and how we can learn from that?
Let us remind ourselves that 10,000 young people leave care every year. These children are some of the most vulnerable in our society. Research shows that young people leaving care are more likely than their peers to have poor outcomes in a whole range of areas. In recent years it is to be celebrated that governments have done much to formulate policies which will help these young people, but much more needs to be done.
A key factor influencing the social mobility of a young person is their ability to find full employment. Care leavers and young people with special educational needs often face particular challenges finding work, and more intensive help and support are needed. It is important that the Government’s recent commitment to provide support for employers to take on care leavers and those young people with special educational needs is fulfilled, particularly in the role of apprenticeships.
Career education is a key component of employment and skills provision, but the current offer is delivered through a range of initiatives and providers, making it patchy and fragmented. Can the Minister say when we are likely to see proposals come forward on careers education?
We have been trying to tackle the causes of the prevention of social mobility for a considerable time. I am absolutely sure about the sincerity of successive Ministers and governments. I have found myself agreeing with everything that has been said in this debate. I was particularly taken by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, about the nought to five year-old group and the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, about the family hub. On many occasions I have seen how children have succeeded against all the odds. As parents, we would do everything for our children. That everything includes things that many families do not possess—family support and networks.
An interesting NFER report landed on my desk the other day on how parents choose the school their child goes to. Parents from low-income groups let the child decide, or select the school already attended by siblings. Those from higher-income groups undertake research on possible schools and attend open evenings.
There is not one single silver bullet that will achieve what we all want to happen, but if we are prepared to listen and learn from good practice and the research available we will continue to make good strides.
Baroness Prosser (Lab)
My Lords, this has been an interesting and wide-ranging debate and I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for placing the debate on the agenda and in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie, on her maiden speech and in welcoming her to the House.
Many influences in society affect people’s lives and it is incumbent on Governments to devise and deliver policies and programmes that enable citizens to flourish and grow. Citizens and parents in particular must also take advantage of available opportunities. All that is in an ideal world, of course, but in the great mix of things there are folk who may be less able to move on and up. In the interests of the rest of us, the call goes back to government to intervene.
I absolutely agree that early years interventions are hugely important. But sometimes life is not quite so straightforward and pesky changes intervene. Let us take the world of work as an example. In the lifetime of most of us in this House, a person could leave school with zero qualifications and walk into a job, which may have been a bit boring but which—because it was a buyer’s market and because the trade union movement was on the case—might have paid quite well. If that job did not suit, there was always another one down the road.
For those who suddenly woke up and realised that they could and should have done better at school, there was always night school and employer-supported day release. Not so now, of course. Any halfway decent job that a person could walk into requires the applicant to have at least five good GCSEs, A levels and/or a university degree.
Aside from apprentices, about whom more later, applicants without any of the above find themselves in jobs paying the minimum wage or, worse still, part of the “gig economy”, delivering goods and packages as fast as is humanly possible and listed as self-employed: no security, no status and no stake in society.
I make these comments because I firmly believe that good employment opportunities are the key to upward mobility. But, of course, good employment opportunities stem from good education, and the ability to make the most of these chances goes back to a decent start in life. Take what used to be called the Sure Start programme: launched by Labour in 1998, it recognised this issue, targeting children and families in areas of high deprivation and aiming to boost their life chances. Changes have been made to the programme since then, with funding reductions and a transfer of responsibility to local authorities.
Criticism of these changes by Norman Glass, one of the founding architects of the scheme, points in particular to a shift from child development to childcare and towards getting mothers into work. Would the Minister care to comment on these changes? Such initiatives require considerable long-term intervention, and I would have thought that in the case of the Sure Start programme, where the parents’ behaviour was identified as being in need of attention, getting mothers into work would not have been a priority.
Obviously, the free pre-school policy is to be welcomed. It is available across areas so that children from a mix of backgrounds are involved, and we know that it gives children a good start when they then attend primary school. But what does the Social Mobility Commission say about how opportunities manifest themselves across educational areas in England? In producing the Social Mobility Index, it has assessed the best and worst-performing schools, largely using free school meals as the indicator. The results show that 20 of the 25 best-performing areas for schools are in London. Rural and coastal areas figure highly in the bottom 25—very similar results to the analysis carried out on youth mobility indicators. Labour’s London Challenge scheme has seemed to be pretty influential and successful here. However, when the Social Mobility Index moved on to look at which areas proved best for adult social mobility, the tables were turned. Using indicators including housing and pay, only one London borough came into the top 20 this time, while five London boroughs were in the bottom 20 areas.
Life in these times does not always follow a smooth path. Jobs for life are long gone. A person may get a good education and be doing quite well, but changes to the labour market, combined with high housing costs, can mark the beginning of a downward spiral so that any upward mobility can be forgotten, and geographic mobility is a non-starter. We need therefore to pay greater attention to the churn in the jobs market. People are living longer. Work is often short-term or otherwise insecure, and opportunities for retraining are few and far between.
This brings me neatly on to apprenticeships. I know that much work has been done on this subject and that the Government are keen to tighten up the definition of an apprenticeship—all that is welcome. Welcome also is the availability of adult apprenticeships, because that plays to my point above on the need for retraining. However, I am concerned about much of this programme.
First, the Government have committed to the provision of 3 million apprenticeships by 2020. That is 5,500 apprenticeships every week over the five-year period. Seriously, Minister? Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to tell the House how this is progressing, and at the same time assure us that the desired level of quality is also being achieved. This week, the House received a Written Statement in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, entitled “Supporting Apprenticeships”. The second paragraph points out how an apprenticeship can unlock a brighter future for “those just about managing”. That is a really unfortunate phrase, which speaks volumes about the attitude in this country to vocational versus academic learning. Could the Minister explain the thinking behind this?
Secondly, the Statement comes from the Department for Education and yet contains no mention of the role of schools in helping young people to make choices, including a move, where appropriate, towards apprenticeships and vocational learning. Again, can the Minister tell the House how we can get over the conflict between schools being tick-boxed against academic achievement and, in part, funded via the numbers of students remaining in the sixth form as against recognising the tendencies of some young people towards a more vocational career? A number of employers have complained to me that schools will not allow them in to talk to the students about apprenticeship opportunities, yet this route can lead to satisfying and often lucrative jobs—the path to social mobility indeed.
One good course of education for later learners comes via the trade union movement. Always known for its commitment to education and learning, the union record is long and proud. The TUC acts as the umbrella for the Unionlearn programme, delivered in workplaces, often lifting up people’s literacy and numeracy skills, and consequently their chances of moving on and up in the workplace. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure the House that funding for the programme, popular among employers as well as employees, will continue to be supported.
I cannot leave the area of education without saying something about grammar schools, which are not universally well received, to put it mildly. Toby Young, that stalwart supporter of free schools, has expressed reservations. Writing in the Spectator, he points out that grammars take in on average four times as many children from fee-paying prep schools as they do children on free school meals. He also quotes a 1959 report which showed that, even then, only 3% of grammar pupils came from unskilled manual backgrounds and that they were less likely to go to university. Indeed, I fell into that category myself.
Many other aspects of this subject have been covered, but a shortage of time means I must conclude my remarks.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Holmes for tabling this debate. I echo my noble friend Lady Jenkin’s comments about what a wonderful role model for social mobility he is. I thank all who contributed to this debate. It is clear that we all share the view that social mobility is essential to making our country one that works for everyone, not just the privileged few.
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Couttie on her maiden speech. Her role as leader of Westminster Council—the most socially mobile local authority, according to the Social Mobility Commission, as she said—means that she brings with her excellent insights into this issue. I pay tribute to her work on the troubled families programme. I have had the pleasure of dealing with her in my role as an academy sponsor in Westminster, and I therefore know that she will bring considerable intellect and clarity of thought to your Lordships’ House.
Children from many different types of families lack access to the opportunities they need to succeed, and this Government are determined to tackle that, not only for the most disadvantaged but for those parents who work but, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth said, struggle to get by—those who are “just managing”. There are social mobility cold spots up and down the country, as a number of noble Lords mentioned, where too many children start school behind, too many schools are not good enough, progress to the best universities is limited to the very few, and too many children go home to families where no one has worked or possibly ever worked. Gaps in cognitive skills by family background start off large, as early as age three, and get larger as children progress through education. Our recently launched opportunity areas will be at the forefront of tackling the causes of these gaps.
We agree that there is a need to level up the playing field to ensure that for all children, it is talent and hard work that determines success in life, not the lottery of one’s birth circumstances. When less able but better-off children are 35% more likely to become high earners than bright but poor children, we know there is a problem that we need to fix. This issue goes beyond the education system, and I welcome the steps taken by professional firms to recognise talent and not background, including changing A-level criteria and creating new apprenticeship routes into top jobs. This marks real progress but there is further to go. Education is a crucial part of the answer to reverse this problem. By prioritising knowledge and skills, the right advice at the right time and the need for challenging life-shaping experiences, the education system can support everyone. The Department for Education now has higher education, further education and skills back within its remit. I will not dwell on how we lost them in the first place.
The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, made a powerful speech on how socially immobile our society is, and asked about the need to consider the impact on the social mobility in policy development. Having all the educational levers in one place means that we can make sure that each part of the system leads fluently to the next and sets all children up for successful careers which play to their individual talents. This gives us an exciting opportunity to make education a driver of social mobility. He referred to the question of a social mobility factor. The social mobility impact is essential to our policies and we are testing our new policies in the department against this. I also echo the comments of my noble friend Lady Jenkin about the particular personal driver of the new Secretary of State for Education in relation to social mobility. I see this in evidence every day, and it is impressive.
As the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Massey, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, early years are so important. It all starts from the earliest days and weeks. High-quality early years education lays the foundation for a child’s education, opening the door to a future opportunity. Attendance at a preschool can result in an increase of seven GCSE grades or equivalent at key stage 4—the equivalent of getting seven B grades compared to seven Cs. Parents are their child’s first educators and need to know how best to support development and instil a love of learning, because we know that when children start behind, they stay behind. Our What to Expect, When? guide sets out the development expectations at each stage so parents can properly support their children to reach these milestones.
I reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Prosser, that the Government recognise the vital importance of early intervention and the crucial role played by education and children’s services in providing it effectively and promoting good outcomes for children and families. The Early Intervention Foundation has been funded for three years by the DfE and other government departments, and further funding has just been agreed for the 2016-17 period. As well as doubling free childcare for eligible parents of three and four year-olds, we have expanded the entitlement for two year-olds from our lowest income families.
The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, asked about the decision to move from Sure Start local programmes to Sure Start children’s centres and the transfer of responsibilities for the programme to local authorities. This decision was taken by the previous Labour Government. The local authority duties in relation to children’s centres were set out in the Childcare Act 2006 and would have been debated at that time. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, particularly stressed the importance of the years zero to five. It has been particularly encouraging, since we enabled free school applications for primaries to include nurseries, to see how many primary free schools have included applications for nurseries. The points she makes are powerful and I will discuss them with Minister Dinenage. The noble Baroness may be pleased to hear that the Secretary of State visited a children’s centre in Norwich last week.
My noble friend Lord Farmer asked about family hubs and children’s centres. The Prime Minister has been clear that tackling poverty and disadvantage and delivering real social reform will be a priority for this Government. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, also asked about our thinking and plans for children’s centres. We will provide further detail in due course and will make it clear how stakeholders and the public can contribute. I very much hope that my noble friend Lord Farmer will contribute to this, as I personally have considerable empathy for his family hubs concept.
My noble friend Lord Farmer talked about the troubled families programme. In June 2013, as part of the first troubled families programme, 150 employment advisers were seconded from Jobcentre Plus to work in local authorities and offer direct support to help troubled families into work. In total, more than 18,000 families in the first programme saw an adult come off out-of-work benefits and move into continuous employment. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about the Select Committee on Social Mobility. The Government’s response was published in July and the debate in the Lords on that has not yet been tabled.
We want all pupils to have access to a good local school. Today, there are more than 1.4 million more children in a good or outstanding school than in 2010. We are doing more to bring in and support excellent teachers, leaders and school sponsors in all parts of the country to turn around schools that are not delivering for young people and which are all too often attended by the most disadvantaged. We believe that all good and outstanding schools that have the capacity to do so should be able to expand to meet the demands of parents in their local area.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Prosser and Lady Massey, asked how grammar schools will help with social mobility. Selective schools have a track record of closing the attainment gap, adding value for all children, but even more for the most disadvantaged children who attend them. That is why we want more disadvantaged children to have the opportunity to attend selective schools, and we want a commitment from those schools to take steps to ensure that disadvantaged children get places. However, we accept that grammar schools as they currently operate admit too few disadvantaged pupils and that they could do more to raise standards for all pupils in the areas in which they are based. That is why our proposals will ask them to do more.
We have been clear that this is not about returning to the binary system of old, but about creating a system in which new and existing grammars contribute in a meaningful way: improving educational outcomes for all pupils and increasing access for disadvantaged pupils.
More high-quality teachers are essential to lift the horizons of children who are not currently fulfilling their potential. We are continuing our commitment to develop teacher and leadership capacity. We recently announced a £75 million investment fund for innovative professional development projects aimed at strengthening teaching and leadership in the areas of the country that need this most, including the opportunity areas.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about sports bodies getting involved. We are doing this under our free schools programme. We recently approved a free school involving Saracens rugby club. We have a number of football clubs involved in AP schools, and we hope shortly to bring other sports clubs into the free schools programme. He also asked about progress on emphasising SEN. Following the Carter review, we have much strengthened ITT teacher training standards in relation to SEN. The new framework published in July includes explicit content on SEND that will improve the quality of training for teachers entering the system. In order to be awarded qualified teacher status, teachers must demonstrate a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND, and be able to use and evaluate distinctive teaching approaches to engage and support those with special educational needs and disabilities. Trainees must also recognise signs that may indicate SEND and support those pupils’ needs. Representative bodies in the sector are working on guidance to ensure—
Lord Reid of Cardowan
On that point, which I almost made earlier, will the Minister pay special attention to the growing indications and evidence that some children who have “suffered”, as it has been put, from social and educational disadvantage—particularly those on the autism spectrum or with Asperger’s syndrome—are particularly well equipped, it seems, for tackling cyber and digital communications issues? This is important not only for them but for the nation: they seem to have a particular proclivity for contributing to the national development of cyberspace.
Lord Nash
I will take that point back. I remember, many years ago, visiting a high-end SEN boarding facility where I was shown two satellite photographs of Iraq and asked if I could spot the difference between them. I could not. The teacher said that neither could the computer. But one of our former pupils could. Representative bodies in the sector are working on guidance to ensure that the new framework is properly embedded by providers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, asked about our expectations for apprenticeship starts. We are taking action to support the growth of apprenticeships to meet our 3 million commitment, working with large and small businesses to begin or expand their programmes, setting new expectations for public sector bodies and through public procurement.
Measures proposed in the Enterprise Act will also protect the term “apprenticeship” to prevent misuse by providers in England, ensuring it is associated with high quality. Investing in a high-quality technical offer is not only the right thing to do; it is also important because we know that at least half the population do not choose to go down the route to higher education. For this reason, we must ensure high-value alternatives that serve students from all backgrounds, but in particular those from lower income families who are most likely to choose these routes. My noble friend Lord Holmes asked about the Institute for Apprenticeships; it will be fully operational by April 2017. The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, talked about some employers finding it difficult to get access to schools to talk about apprenticeships; we are aware of this issue and we are considering how best to address it. Under our skills plan, young people will be free to choose between the academic and technical options, and they will be able to switch between them at key points. We want them to make informed choices based on the career they want to enter, not their social background.
My noble friend Lord Holmes and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about careers guidance. Good careers education and guidance should give people access to the information and data they need to make informed decisions on education, training and employment options, including the routes into technical education, apprenticeship and higher education. Young people should have a good understanding of the world of work and the skills needed to do well in the labour market. A planned careers programme can help all young people to make important decisions, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds who are still all too often held back by a lack of support. We know that the more interactions that school children have with the world of work, the more likely they are to do better in their studies. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, also asked when we plan to announce our proposals on careers. We have already done so, in the sense that we are investing £90 million in careers education over this Parliament, including funding the Careers & Enterprise Company to continue its excellent work, under the guidance of the very able young woman Claudia Harris. This organisation has made an excellent start and it will be looking particularly at the opportunity areas. Since August 2016, the company has appointed more than 1,100 enterprise advisers and 78 enterprise co-ordinators in its enterprise adviser network, connecting more than 900 schools in 37 out of 38 local enterprise partnerships.
We are investing £20 million to increase the number of mentors from the world of work to support 25,000 young people at risk of underachieving by 2020. This year, we have introduced destinations data which provide clear and comparable information on the success of schools and colleges in helping all their students take qualifications that offer them the best opportunity to continue in education or training. Primary Futures was mentioned—I have visited it and agree that it is an excellent programme for primary schools.
We also know that young people need access to wider experience and extra-curricular activities as well as the workplace. A lack of these experiences can widen gaps. Business has made it clear that the right attitudes and attributes matter much more to employers when recruiting than academic results alone. Supporting schools to develop well-rounded and resilient pupils is a priority for this Government and we are continuing to work with a range of partners to ensure that this happens. We should draw on the experience of schools such as Kings Langley in Hertfordshire, which I visited recently. From being in the bottom 3% of schools in the country in 2002, it is now flourishing and attributes much of its academic success to its focus on developing the character of all its students, with a particular commitment to three core values: stickability, self-regulation and empathy. It also has a very impressive programme of engagement with parents.
My noble friend Lord Holmes and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, highlighted the role of the National Citizen Service. We are working with the service to expand it considerably. We have just announced that it will benefit from more than £1 billion over the next four years, so that by 2021 it will cover 60% of 16 year-olds. I have to say that having personally been slightly involved when it was first established, I am delighted about this and must pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wei who was involved in designing this programme. When he first explained it to me I have to say that I was a little sceptical, but he knocked it into shape and it is wonderful to see it flourishing so well. The independent Ipsos MORI evaluation found that 82% of pupils who attended it considered it very satisfactory.
My noble friend Lord Holmes asked about the opportunity areas, and what exactly they would do. We launched the opportunity areas to provide £60 million of additional funding to support social mobility coldspots. In these areas, we will focus our ideas and resources on young people. We will work with the local areas to identify the priorities and the action that needs to be taken. We expect this to include an increase in high-quality teachers in schools, summer schools run by local universities, advice for young people on what subjects to study to get into a good university, and introductions to employers to help them understand the world of work. They will also be given priority in existing schemes—for example, Teach First—and we will incentivise our best academy sponsors to work in these areas. We shall announce other areas in the coming months.
I now turn to the final points made by my noble friends Lady Jenkin and Lord Holmes regarding health and sport. Childhood obesity is the great health challenge of this generation. We have one of the worst records on childhood obesity in the developed world—one in five children leaves primary school obese. The Government’s approach is to help children and families to recognise, and make, healthier choices and to be more active, supported by schools and the NHS. But we cannot do this alone, and everyone has a part to play to help children improve their diets, be more active and lead healthier lives.
As announced in the strategy, many new DfE policies are expected to make a direct contribution to reducing the incidence of childhood obesity, such as the doubling of the primary PE and sport premium to £320 million from September 2017. As well as this, there will be a review of school food standards to reduce sugar consumption, and from September next year there will be £10 million per year to expand breakfast clubs, so that children have a nutritious start to their school day.
My noble friend Lord Holmes asked about the sugar tax. In the 2016 Budget the Government committed to using money from the sugar levy to double the sports premium from £160 million to £320 million. This funding is committed to 2020, and will help drive up the quality and breadth of PE and sport provision, and increase participation so that all pupils develop healthy and active lifestyles.
The increased funding for the premium will play a key role in helping to tackle childhood obesity. We are working with DCMS, the Department of Health and the sector to agree how this funding will be allocated, and are exploring the options for strengthening accountability arrangements and guidance, to ensure value for money.
I conclude by thanking all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. There is no quick fix for social mobility—but we are committed to addressing the challenges that exist, so that we can make Britain a country that truly works for everyone.
Lord Holmes of Richmond
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken the time to participate in the debate, not least my noble friend Lady Couttie, who made an excellent maiden speech. It is clear that, at whatever age and whatever stage, social mobility matters—and there are precious few policy areas that do not have a role to play. Security and stability are the bedrock of mobility. A nation where every individual, regardless of background, has the opportunity to achieve their potential: I believe that is a mission that we can all completely get behind.
Cyprus
Lord Northbrook
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the likelihood of a solution to the situation in Cyprus before the end of 2016.
Lord Northbrook (Con)
My Lords, once again, after two years, I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate the Cyprus issue on the Floor of the House. Before I start, I have apologies from the noble Lords, Lord Hannay, Lord Sharkey and Lord Maginnis, and from the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, for being unable to participate in the debate. The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, informed me that she had to be abroad in Paris, but I know that my noble friend Lady Goldie will be a more than capable replacement.
First, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my membership of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus—TRNC. During my visit there in July, I met in particular the President, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, so I had a good opportunity to form a judgment on how the peace talks are going. Sadly, I came away with the impression—I hope that I will be proved wrong—that major problems still remain which will prevent any settlement before the end of 2016, and may well make a settlement in 2017 speculative. The one important hope is that the good personal relationship between the two Presidents will finally achieve a result and prove me wrong.
I think it is useful to start with my July meetings. First, I saw President Akinci. He began with these opening remarks:
“I tell you very frankly that this is the last chance of our generation for a settlement”.
He then went on to discuss the major issues, which he set out as bizonality, political equality—although he did not say what this meant except in terms of a right to citizenship of essentially one Turkish Cypriot for four Greek Cypriots—and the need for security guarantees. Importantly, he said that the discussions had to be completed by the end of 2016 because, first, there will be a change of Secretary-General at the UN next year, which will cause delay as the new person will have to get to grips with the issue. Secondly, there will be a new US Administration with the same delay arising. Thirdly, there will be a new Greek Cypriot Administration in 2018, but the parties will start preparing for that in 2017. Fourthly, there will be the complications arising from the prospect of international companies drilling for natural gas in 2017 in the eastern Mediterranean, especially if Greek Cyprus starts doing separate deals with them.
In summing up, the President said, “But we have difficulties”. He cited, as a small example, the failure of two confidence-building measures: first, the reluctance of the Greek side to accept help without strings attached in the recent serious forest fire in the south; and, secondly, the unfriendly behaviour of the Greek Cypriot President Anastasiades in refusing to attend the Turkish President’s dinner, to which TRNC President Akinci had also been invited, on the outline of the UN humanitarian summit. To the outsider, these two examples may seem quite trivial but, as mood music, they are a good indicator of the suspicious atmosphere still prevailing on the Greek side in particular. At the end of the meeting the President took a sideswipe at the UK and said that, throughout the time from 1963, we as guarantor power “just watched”. I will come on to this area with questions to the Minister later.
The meeting with the TRNC Foreign Minister was different in tone and much more pessimistic. He essentially did not believe that there would be any solution, and when asked whether there was a plan B, said that five or six plans came to mind but he was not prepared to discuss them at this stage. He also had a swipe at the UK, saying that we did not wish to offend the Greek side due to our fear of losing our sovereign Army bases in the Greek part of the island. On that topic, will the Minister say whether we are planning to cede part or all our bases there if there is a successful settlement? On the plus side of the detail of the peace talks, the Foreign Minister said that there had been good progress in four areas—the economy, the EU, property and governance and power-sharing. The most sensitive issues of territorial adjustment and security guarantees were being left to the end.
Reflecting on my visit, there seems to have been little progress since then. Time has moved on and at the end of October the sensitive issues remain the same. When both sides met at the UN in September, it had been hoped that the UN would be able to announce a multiparty conference to discuss security guarantees. However, President Anastasiades refused to accept this. Furthermore, he refused to agree to any future timetable for the talks. All that could subsequently be agreed to, according to President Anastasiades, is that there could be talks away from the island, in Switzerland, to discuss territorial issues in the first half of November—another example of timetable slippage. The UN special adviser, Espen Eide, has today said that the talks would provide clarity on whether a peace accord can be reached this year.
I myself received a sharp reminder of hostility from the Greek side when I received a letter from the consul-general in London at the Cyprus High Commission, Ioannis Koukoularides. He strongly criticised my July visit to Northern Cyprus. I wrote back that if he had read my speech in the debate of July 2014, he would have understood that I am anxious to see a solution to the Cyprus issue without taking sides between the north and the south. I added that, in that spirit, I went there to see how the peace process was going, and to listen and try to offer advice where appropriate from a neutral basis. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, the chairman of our group, subsequently wrote a letter to the high commissioner in London and I quote one particularly relevant part of it:
“It is not normally helpful for diplomats to write to parliamentarians in such strident and intemperate terms. It is particularly unhelpful when negotiations for a settlement are at such an advanced and sensitive stage”.
Does the Minister agree with him on this?
I now move on to the question of the UK’s role in helping the peace talks. I know what the Minister will say: that the UK cannot get involved in any details of the talks; that it is up to the Turkish and Greek sides to make their own agreement; that as long as our two military bases are secure, we do not need to get involved until the very end stages. Having considered this attitude carefully, I believe that it is wrong. There is a great opportunity to demonstrate that we can have some impact on the world stage behind the scenes by encouraging the Greek side in particular to show some urgency to achieve a settlement through a timetable and by explaining to it the benefits of a settlement. Does the Minister agree with this? The FCO could use my speech of July 2014 to remind it of these benefits.
Before my last debate, the FCO was very helpful and telephoned me to ask me if I had any issues that I would like it to clarify. This time, alas, there was no such luck. Following the departure of the excellent Jill Morris, our party chairman had an unhelpful meeting with Lindsay Appleby, who kept asking us for ideas rather than giving any from the FCO. When I telephoned the FCO this week, no one would discuss the issue with me. Perhaps Caroline Wilson, the new FCO Europe director could take note.
I turn to an analysis that I sketched out in my July 2014 speech and make no apologies for repeating it. This explains a key missing factor in current and previous peace talks. According to a paper from the well-respected Cyprus expert Alexander Lordos, research director for Cyprus 2015, one of his key explanations for the failure of peace talks current and previous is that the Cypriot public are not involved in the peace process. Lordos states that there had been an opportunity to add public opinion analysis to the Annan negotiating process: specifically, Professor Colin Irwin from Ireland was asked in 1998 if he could assist with such a programme. I quote from his book:
“I was invited to attend a meeting of the Greek Turkish Forum in Istanbul in December 1998 ... I made a presentation of my Northern Ireland work to the Greek and Turkish Cypriots present and explained how it was used to help build a consensus around the Belfast agreement. They subsequently decided they would like to undertake a similar programme of research in Cyprus … although the Greek Cypriot negotiators wanted to go ahead with a poll the Turkish Cypriot Government did not ... in the end no polls were undertaken and without the benefits of an effective programme of public diplomacy both the negotiations and subsequent referendum failed”.
The danger of secret negotiations, as are going on now, is that when the results reach the public, there can be a huge hurdle to cross to get them accepted.
Overall, I hope that the Minister will be able to stir the FCO to give the same impetus to the peace talks that she gave to the Scottish Conservative Party in her maiden speech as their leader, where she said in a reference to Lady Thatcher,
“I think you may take it that matron’s handbag will be in hyper-action”.
Will she apply this also to the FCO Cyprus department, so that the UK can play its part in achieving a solution?
Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)
Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he could address what I am about to say. I have to declare a professional interest because as counsel I have appeared for the Government of the Republic of Cyprus against Turkey in various cases in the European Court of Human Rights and, for that matter, in the Committee of Ministers—so from that point of view I am one-sided. The noble Lord has not said a single word to indicate that he understands the Greek Cypriot point of view about the invasion, the failure of Turkey to honour judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, or the property issues and its failure to comply on those. Would it not be sensible for him, as an advocate on one side, to show some recognition that there are two sides to the story?
Lord Northbrook
I thank the noble Lord for his question. When the consul-general wrote to me I replied saying that I would be pleased to have a discussion with him to give a balanced view of the situation—to which I had no reply.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I, too, declare an interest as a long-standing visitor to both sides of Cyprus, although probably I have been more frequently to the north than to the south. This has gone on for the last 25 years, during which I have increasingly despaired of any solution being found. None the less, like my noble friend Lord Northbrook—I was there slightly after him this summer—I, too, had the pleasure of a one-to-one meeting with the President, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister.
My noble friend outlined exactly the President’s attitude so I will not repeat it. I asked all four, “What is your plan B?”. The President said, “I have no plan B. This either has to work or the whole thing dissolves. There is no plan B”. It was interesting that two other broad plan Bs came out of conversations with the Prime Minister, in particular, and the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. One is that they have some sort of Channel Islands solution. In other words, the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus becomes a Channel Island to Turkey, which formally—it already does actually—takes over responsibility for defence and foreign affairs, and North Cyprus effectively has home rule. Of course, as the politicians pointed out to me, they have an English-based system of justice—quite a different legal system from that of the Republic of Turkey—so it would make quite good sense for them to have that status.
The other solution that was put forward, particularly by the Deputy Prime Minister, which is probably the most sensible in the long term, is that if the negotiations break down, they should just clearly state: “There will be no further talks for 10 years, and we will get on with making this northern part of the island work somehow or other”.
That will work. Having been in North Cyprus for the first time in the late 1980s and intermittently since then—probably six or seven times—I have noticed the way in which it has developed: the new building, the way in which they have solved the water problem, and the developments as they have moved forward. North Cyrus could survive and even prosper without the island being reunited. So it is not the end of the world if these talks fail—although I share the President’s hope that they succeed. However, I feel quite strongly that if they fail, that has to be it. We cannot go on, year after year, having abortive talks and not getting anywhere.
In the event of what I call the 10-year solution, groups such as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have to come much more firmly off the fence and give North Cyprus, if not complete recognition, at least more hope than they do at the moment. However, in fairness to Islamic states, there has been a reasonable input from them into North Cyprus—they are clearly friends of North Cyprus—as of course are the Israelis. There is quite a bit of Israeli investment in North Cyprus, particularly in the gambling industry. But if things do not work, we will need to build an alternative.
My noble friend Lord Northbrook has already mentioned the discussions on territory and property, which will take place in Switzerland during the course of the next month. These are quite crucial. It is no good pretending that North Cyprus can find millions and millions of euros to pay huge amounts of compensation. The money is not there. If we want compensation to be paid, let me ask the Minister: who is going to find the money? It can be found only by the European Union, the United States or the United Kingdom—but it does not exist in North Cyprus. It is no good sending them bills. It would be like sending bills to the debtors’ prison. There is no money in the bank. I believe a famous Labour politician left a note for a famous Tory politician to find when they came into office: “I’m sorry, there’s no money left”.
If a solution is wanted, I believe that it can be found. However, I am not sure that a solution is wanted. My noble friend Lord Northbrook was rather kind in quoting from his letter. I wonder if he would mind if I quote the opening sentence of a letter from a diplomat to a Member of this House:
“Dear Lord Northbrook, I am writing with regard to your recent visit to the occupied part of Cyprus. I understand you visited Cyprus on the despicable anniversary celebrations of the Turkish mass murdering invasion of 1974”.
I am sure the Minister will agree that, were a sentence like that to be found in a letter written by a British Foreign Office official, it would not be accepted as the norm for diplomatic discourse. It is way out of line. If we want to put it in perspective, let me quote yesterday’s Financial Times, which I think summed it up brilliantly and accurately:
“Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-inspired coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece”.
I think that is very accurate—and it is what we are up against. In my view, many of the protagonists on both sides are not looking for a settlement. They are looking more for a propaganda coup. But they are talking to their own sides. The Greek side believes what it wants to believe about the Greek negotiating position and how good it is, and the Turks believe that their future lies in Turkey.
President Akinci is actually an extraordinarily brave person. There are a lot of people in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus who agree more with the views of his Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister: “let them get on with things; we are going to survive here; we do not need a settlement”. So the President is doing very well. However, both sides have to want a settlement for it to work—and, with letters like that from the Cyprus High Commission, I am not sure that all sides are on board.
Since I have got the Floor, I will also say that North Cyprus itself needs to do a bit of sorting out. For some time now, I have been following a case that has been 10 years in the Cyprus legal system. I had an assurance from the President in July that there would be a letter, but I have heard nothing. If North Cyprus wants to come in from the cold, it needs to sort out its legal system—and, frankly, it has got to learn to reply to letters. This is not an acceptable way of running things.
Finally, we have Brexit on the horizon. It is not something that I voted for, but I believe that it gives us an opportunity to reverse the situation caused by the ECJ judgment of 1994. North Cyprus needs freer access to trade and I hope that, as part of the Brexit negotiations, we will set aside that judgment and play our part in helping the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to come in from the cold so that all its citizens do not have to live in Tottenham but can travel between the two.
I see that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, clearly does not agree with me. I am sure that he will make his feelings clear to me in private as he is not on the speakers list. As I said, this is a somewhat divisive subject and there are people on both sides. Let us hope it can be solved.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
I understand that in time-limited debates it is not usual to make repeated interventions.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, it is sadly rare, late on a Thursday afternoon, to speak of potential good news in the eastern Mediterranean, and it is hard not to get excited, but others may say, as my noble friends have, that we have seen this before. However, as the invasion is not in the conscious memory of anyone of my age or generation, perhaps I may be forgiven for expressing some optimism. It is not an event studied by many British schoolchildren in their history classes.
Many people probably do not know that here within the EU is the longest UN peacekeeping mission in the world. When one meets refugees from Northern Cyprus and travels to the island, as I had the privilege of doing this year, seeing the checkpoints in the UN buffer zone and the sandbags still blocking the streets brings home for the first time the human cost of this divided island. The sight of the deserted, formerly glamorous, resort of Famagusta, the children who left their homes during the war and who now, as adults, want to return home to their birthplace before they die, and the ongoing significant economic effect for those living in the northern part of the island are important drivers for peace.
However, the current global security situation has also highlighted that in today’s world, having irregularly governed territory is a risk to everyone’s security. The TRNC, which is recognised only by Turkey, is not a nation state and is seen by many as an irregular back door to the European Union. More than 40 years since the invasion, it has periodically caused significant problems for other countries, including the UK, when it has been used by criminals to hide out. Ports within non-recognised international territory also present opportunities for illegal trading in drugs, art and people. Therefore, it is not only because of our role as the previous guarantor of this island that it is in our interests for there to be peace in Cyprus.
Although the UK has stepped aside from its role as guarantor and has given it to the EU, I would be interested to know Her Majesty’s Government’s view on Turkey’s continued insistence on remaining in such a role. Will our Brexit change of status in relation to the EU have any effect on the current position? I join my noble friend Lord Northbrook in also being interested in knowing the position of the British Overseas Territories during any negotiation.
However, if there is one thing that the previous attempts at peace have shown us, it is that a political agreement by the political leaders is not enough—not only because any peace deal will have to be put to the people in a referendum but because, for a sustainable situation and for peace to endure for communities, the people also have to make that peace. I think that here too there are grounds for optimism, as there have been many civil society projects over many decades bringing the young people of Cyprus together for ordinary human contact.
Also, an interesting piece of research in the early 2000s revealed that some of the leaders who needed to be persuaded to become more involved in the peace process were in fact Cyprus’s religious leaders. Although primarily a political issue, one must not forget that Cyprus, like Jerusalem, features in the earliest life of the world’s two major faiths: Christianity and Islam. The Republic of Cyprus is 90% Greek Orthodox and the TRNC is 98% Sunni Muslim. As the newly appointed EU Special Envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside the EU recently said:
“Religious leaders often have a bigger say than political leaders”.
The UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief relating to Cyprus said:
“While … Cyprus … is not per se a religious conflict, all cooperation between the religious leaders had stopped when the bi-communal conflict”,
was exacerbated 50 years ago. Research has shown that the Office of the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process, which sits under the auspices of the Swedish embassy and the UN, has been highly successful in facilitating the repair of places of worship and enabling mosques in the south and churches in the north to be used for services for the first time in decades. On 18 October 2013, the Grand Mufti of Cyprus crossed the green line and conducted for the very first time a service in the Hala Sultan mosque, near Larnaca. His entry into the republic was personally facilitated by the Archbishop from the Republic of Cyprus.
Before 2009, 500 churches and monasteries in the north were derelict, looted or used for other purposes, and only eight out of the 110 mosques in the south were operating. However, between December 2013 and June 2014, the UN facilitated 48 religious services and commemorative events and 98 intercommunal harmony events across the border zones. On 16 September last year, a meeting was held at the Ledra Palace Hotel in the UN-controlled buffer zone, which was attended by the President of the Republic of Cyprus, the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community and the five religious leaders of the island as a whole.
As one of the key issues for the peace talks is property, it is very important that much progress has been made with regard to religious buildings. It could form a model for the restoration of property following any peace settlement.
Psychologically, people returning to the place of worship that they knew could form the first step in healing and preparing them—if one can ever be prepared—for walking back into their home to see where they left the cutlery in 1974. This is the reality for many thousands of people, and will never be easy.
It perhaps goes without saying that, at this time more than ever in recent history, the reunification of Cyprus is needed for the region. Again, as the UN special rapporteur has said, Cyprus could be a “model” for the Middle East. The involvement of religious leaders in peacebuilding that I have outlined is necessary for any lasting peace, and could be a model strategy for the FCO, UN, Commonwealth and others when peace does come. I mention the Commonwealth not only in passing. Currently, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group is chaired by the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cyprus. It is hard to overestimate, both within the Commonwealth and in that region, the effect if peace could be achieved—particularly peace as I have outlined—involving leaders from the Christian and the Muslim community. As my noble friend has correctly mentioned, to have secret negotiations that you then have to take to the people can be problematic.
In light of what I have outlined, can the Minister request a place in these secret negotiations for the religious leaders who have been involved in this twin-track diplomacy? I do not expect the Minister to be able to disagree with the outline of the UK Government’s position as presented by my noble friend Lord Northbrook, but can she say what role the Commonwealth can play in these peace talks if the UK Government are unable to change their formal position?
I hope I have outlined that, even if there is no political agreement and settlement, all is not lost and we have a valuable model of engaging religious leaders in a peace process that can hopefully be used across the region where it is most desperately needed.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, following Cyprus’s independence from the UK and as a former guarantor of the 1963 treaty, we obviously have a close interest in the negotiations, as the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, said. The Prime Minister, Theresa May, recently underlined the UK’s steadfast support for the process of negotiation and said that,
“the UK stood ready to help bring this to a successful conclusion”.
Apart from the Prime Minister’s recent meeting with President Anastasiades, will the Minister tell the House the extent of the UK’s practical involvement in the negotiations? What sort of advice and support have we been giving through this process?
As we heard in the debate from a number of noble Lords, with Mustafa Akinci’s election in April 2015, we have, for the first time since Greek Cypriots rejected the Annan 2004 reunification plan, two community leaders with the political will and commitment to reach a settlement and a solution. That is something we should not underestimate. As we have heard, in May 2015 the UN special adviser, Espen Eide, announced that the restarted negotiations had yielded their first tangible results, with decisions to open new crossings and interconnecting electricity grids on the island. Those are practical steps to reunification that again should not be underestimated.
The talks are based on an agreed formula of a unified state of Cyprus—a state, of course, which is a full member of the European Union—with a single sovereignty, single international personality and a single citizenship in a bicommunal, bizonal federation with political equality, as described in a series of United Nations resolutions. The problematic issues, which we have heard described in the debate, include power-sharing, with one side favouring more power with the federal Government and the other keeping as much as possible in the two constituent parts. There is also security, with the status of Turkish troops and the 1960 treaty of guarantee; residence and citizen rights of settlers from mainland Turkey; and the property issues that the noble Baroness outlined—there are thousands of claims to ownership of properties from people displaced during the events of 1974.
As we have read in the excellent briefing from our Library, this year both leaders completed an intensive phase of meetings, reiterating their determination of reaching a comprehensive settlement agreement in 2016. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, outlined why we have that timeframe and some of the conditions. I will return to the timeframe later.
After the 14 September meetings, both leaders then held a joint meeting with the UN Secretary-General on 25 September in New York, following which Ban Ki-moon welcomed their commitment to intensify efforts to reach the goal of a settlement in 2016. The fact that this meeting took place at all was a breakthrough. In the 16 months since this latest round of peace talks began, the two men have only ever met together with Ban Ki-moon on one other occasion. However, in press reports I read yesterday, President Anastasiades said that,
“it looks like many decisive convergences have been achieved that allow us to say that we can, under conditions, hope for an overall proposal for a settlement in the next few months”.
He went on to say, however, that he is not certain if developments will proceed the way everyone hopes. This, he said, does not depend on their commitment but on the determination and the implementation of a rhetoric that wants Turkey to pursue a solution. It is the sort of language that we have heard a lot of over the past 20 years. He said that this will depend and will become more evident at the forthcoming meeting on the territorial issue, which will take place possibly, as we have heard, in Switzerland.
I ask the Minister what assessment the Government have made of the likely success of these further talks, bearing in mind the comments of President Anastasiades. In the same report he spoke of creating a state that was based on the principles and values of the EU and will be functional and viable, allowing everyone to live wherever they want and to give, at last, the right to refugees to find their homes. He said he would not fail to knock on the door of anyone, especially the permanent members of the Security Council, to persuade them of the lawful right that no guarantee or the right of intervention is justified in a modern European country.
He expressed the belief that it would be inconceivable and a humiliation for Europe and for every European if a European state requires the guarantee of a third country, not that of Europe. Of course, in terms of the timeframe we are facing on these talks, we have the Cypriot presidential elections in early 2018. If there is a solution with potential referendums within that period, the UK will be preoccupied with Brexit. At Theresa May’s recent meeting with President Anastasiades, this issue was fully discussed, according to the subsequent Downing Street press release.
What is the Government’s assessment of the impact, if any, that Brexit will have on the negotiations over the Cyprus issue? Does the Minister believe that it will affect the 1963 treaty obligations? What assurances did the Prime Minister give to President Anastasiades on the legal rights of EU nationals already in the UK once we leave? On process the Prime Minister explained, according to the Downing Street press release, that we are currently preparing for the negotiations and therefore will not trigger Article 50 before the end of the year. Of course, we know that timetable has been revised. President Anastasiades extended an invitation to the Prime Minister to visit Cyprus. Will this be undertaken prior to Article 50 being triggered?
Some divergent views have been expressed in the Chamber today. The fact is, we can never undo the injustice that was done to the 200,000 people of Cyprus driven from their homes in 1974 and still living with that injustice today—seeing other people living in their homes, running their businesses or just leaving them to rot, as the noble Baroness indicated in terms of one of the once-prosperous seaside resorts. The injustice cannot be undone, but we can hope that the next generation of children will not have to live with the division and the injustice which their parents and grandparents had to face. We can hope that, given the leadership shown by both leaders—and it is no longer a vain hope—these children will grow up in peace and security in a united and democratic Cyprus.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Northbrook for calling this debate and to other noble Lords for their contributions. I know that they maintain a close interest in, and reflect an extensive knowledge of, Cyprus—that was manifest in their contributions. I commend their continued support for efforts to bring lasting peace to the island.
A settlement is in the interest of all Cypriots. The contributions from your Lordships today have served to underline that it is in the UK’s interest, too. The Government are fully seized of this and are actively engaged in supporting both sides in their search for a solution, as I shall set out.
The Government believe that there has never been a better opportunity for peace in Cyprus. This is down to the unstinting efforts of the leaders of the two communities, President Anastasiades and Mr Akinci, who have given hope and wrestled with undeniably complex problems. I pay tribute to their courage, their commitment and their leadership. I feel that there is justification for a degree of optimism, having regard to the challenging difficulties that the island of Cyprus has faced.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, sought clarification of the United Kingdom’s role in relation to these discussions and attempts to reach an agreement. I reassure him that my right honourable friends the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Europe and the Americas are in touch with all the key players, not only on the island but in Turkey and Greece. We believe that they share the same ambition to reach a settlement.
The leaders recently reaffirmed their commitment to reach a solution by the end of 2016. No one should underestimate the scale of the challenge, but with courage and compromise we believe that reaching a deal in this timeframe is achievable. The United Kingdom will continue to support the leaders as they seek to make this aspiration a reality.
I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that United Kingdom support includes practical measures. We have reiterated our offer, originally made in 2004, to cede almost half the land of the UK sovereign base areas to a reunited Cyprus. The Government have looked at this carefully. I can assure your Lordships that this offer will not adversely affect the ability of the bases to carry out their vital work to promote our security and that of the wider region. I hope that that answers the question posed also by my noble friend Lord Northbrook.
The United Kingdom also has a specific role to play as a guarantor power in the search for a settlement, alongside Turkey and Greece. The Government stand ready to play their part when asked to do so by the two sides. It is important to say that it is not for us to dictate what those arrangements should be. Rather, we will continue to support efforts to find a solution that allows both sides to feel safe.
The United Kingdom is also playing a role as one of the largest troop contributors to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Cyprus. I pay tribute to the dedication of the British troops and the more than 100,000 soldiers from 39 countries who have served in the mission to date. British troops have been there from the beginning, since 1964. The United Kingdom, together with Australia, is the only continuous contributor since the mission began. This demonstrates the UK’s long-term commitment to Cyprus, but more than half a century of peacekeeping also serves to highlight the pressing need to find a lasting solution.
The United Nations plays a key role in supporting the efforts of the two leaders in their search for peace. I pay tribute in particular to Special Adviser Eide, as well as to outgoing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the personal attention that he has given to the Cyprus talks. I take this opportunity to congratulate his successor, António Guterres, on his recent appointment. I am confident that he will continue the good work of his predecessor.
The benefits of a Cyprus solution are clear, economically and politically. A united Cyprus would increase prosperity both for Cypriots and the wider region for three main reasons. First, a united Cyprus would have a larger and more efficient economy. Secondly, it would create a more stable investment climate and enable greater trading opportunities with Turkey and the wider Middle East. Thirdly, it would be able fully to exploit its natural resources for the benefit of all Cypriots.
According to analysis by PRIO Cyprus—an independent bi-communal research centre—the peace dividend for a united Cyprus could reach €20 billion over 20 years, and average annual incomes could rise by as much as €12,000 within the same period as a direct consequence of settlement.
The benefits go wider than the economy. A reunited Cyprus would not only provide greater stability and security for Cypriots but contribute to wider regional security. At a time when others are trying to sow discord and division, a peace settlement in Cyprus would stand out as a model of courage, tolerance and inter-communal cooperation—a country at peace with itself and its neighbours and a beacon of stability in a sometimes difficult region.
I turn to some of your Lordships’ specific contributions. My noble friend Lord Northbrook raised the role of the UK. I think I have partially covered that in my speech. The UK is sensitive to the need to recognise that only the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots can negotiate an agreement. The UK is supportive, but not intrusive. We want to encourage, but not to interfere. To my noble friend Lord Northbrook, I say that I shall have to be circumspect about the use of my handbag.
My noble friend Lord Balfe made a speech in which he balanced optimism with pessimism, but he rightly identified economic potential. In response to his speculation about the consequences of the talks failing I would say that we are in the business of wanting, for both sides, the talks to succeed. We are trying to support as best we can what we see as a positive development offering a better prospect for both communities in Cyprus and a more hopeful future. In fairness to my noble friend Lord Balfe, I thought that he ended with a more upbeat prognosis.
My noble friend Lady Berridge, in a very constructive and positive contribution, raised a number of issues. In particular, she asked what would be the role of the Commonwealth in relation to a reunited Cyprus. The Republic of Cyprus is currently in the Commonwealth, so the assumption is that a united Cyprus would also be in the Commonwealth. However, although Cyprus is a member of the Commonwealth, that organisation has not had any direct role in the talks, because, as I indicated, it is up to the two leaders to decide how best to conduct the negotiations and when and how to involve others.
My noble friend Lady Berridge also raised the issue of the military bases—the sovereign base areas. They will remain, although, as I indicated earlier, we have offered to cede almost half the territory of our sovereign base areas to a united Cyprus if an acceptable agreement can be reached by the two communities.
On the question of guarantor powers, which my noble friend also raised, security and guarantees will be discussed as part of the settlement negotiations. It is not for the UK to dictate what the outcome should be, but just to continue to support efforts to find a solution which allows both sides to feel safe. While no agreement exists, the guarantor powers system remains. I was also much encouraged by my noble friend’s comments on the activity of the faith communities on the island of Cyprus.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked two questions. First, he asked what assessment the UK has made of off-island talks in the near future. I simply repeat our role: we wish to encourage, we do not want to interfere. We want to support, but we have no desire to intrude. He also asked whether Brexit will affect the UK’s role in settlement talks. The ongoing talks to reunite Cyprus are led by the leaders of the two on-island communities and facilitated by the United Nations. The UK’s role as a guarantor power under the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee and as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council is unrelated to the UK’s membership of the European Union. This is an objective that we wish to see attained and which we think would be very good for both communities on the island.
I will finish by saying that the Government believe that a deal by the end of the year is achievable. The two sides, facilitated by the United Nations, are working tirelessly to make it happen. The UK commends their efforts, and we will do what we can to help. As I have said, the main beneficiaries of a deal will be the Cypriots themselves, but ultimately we all stand to gain.
We do not underestimate the difficulties. There will be tough choices to make. All parties will need to show courage and will have to be willing to compromise. But we firmly believe that the rewards will outweigh the sacrifices. I urge the leaders and the two communities to seize this opportunity for lasting peace. I assure your Lordships that the Government will remain steadfast in their support of both parties at this critical time.