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Oral Answers to Questions
(8 years ago)
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Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
Last week’s violence statistics show the very serious issues we have in our prisons, including a 43% rise in the number of attacks on officers. This is unacceptable, and I am determined to tackle it. I have already announced an investment of £14 million in 10 of our most challenging prisons, and I shall say more with the launch of our White Paper shortly.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Just before we take the question, I am very pleased to announce that today we are joined by Lobsang Sangay, the Sikyong or Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government in exile. It is a pleasure and a privilege, Sir, to welcome you to the House of Commons.
Victoria Prentis
What an honour that is, Mr Speaker.
We welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to prison reform, but those sitting on the Justice Select Committee are very concerned about the recent statistics that she mentioned, not just in relation to the safety of prison workers, but in respect of vulnerable prisoners. What steps is she going to take to improve assessment and screening, so that those people can be identified at the beginning of their sentence?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am extremely concerned about the level of self-harm, which is particularly high in the women’s estate. We know that the first 24 hours are absolutely vital, and we are already taking steps to provide vulnerable prisoners with immediate mental health support. Next year, we will bring out a strategy on women offenders.
Maria Caulfield
Given the level of violence in Lewes prison over the weekend, will the Secretary of State update the House on what progress has been made to secure the prison, and what steps are being taken to increase staffing levels to prevent this from happening again?
Elizabeth Truss
The incident at HMP Lewes has been resolved and the prison remains secure with no threat to the public. The prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), spoke to the governor, Jim Bourke, offering support for him and all his staff. We are going to make sure that we have sufficient staff in that prison. I shall have more to say about staffing when we launch the White Paper.
Helen Jones
The number of front-line prison officers has fallen by over 30% under this Government, and the Secretary of State’s own Department’s statistics show a correlation between those cuts and increased levels of violence in prisons. Does the right hon. Lady now accept that what she has announced goes no way towards solving these problems and that there needs to be a thorough investigation so that we can have the safe levels of staffing required in our prisons?
Elizabeth Truss
I have acknowledged that we have a serious issue. I think we have to recognise that there have been a number of causes. The prison and probation ombudsman said that the emergence of dangerous psychoactive substances was a game changer for prison security. We are taking measures to put in place proper testing for that, which we announced in September. I acknowledge that there is an issue with staffing, which is why I have already taken steps in 10 of the most challenging prisons to increase staffing levels, and why we are due to do more in the White Paper.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
In addition to the staffing cuts mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), there is the problem of prison officer retention. The 400 by which the right hon. Lady has said she is going to increase staff numbers are being lost because of the number of people who are leaving. Experienced staff are leaving, and experienced prisoners are now running prisons.
Elizabeth Truss
The right hon. Gentleman is right that we need to make sure that, as well as recruiting prison officers, we are also retaining our fantastic prison officers. At every prison I visit, I meet fantastic people who have come into the service to turn people’s lives around. I want to encourage more people to become prison officers, which is why we launched a programme to bring former armed service personnel into the service. We will announce more about recruitment shortly.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
As part of taking those important steps, will the Secretary of State revisit and act upon the Select Committee’s recommendation that we should be able transparently to measure the performance of the National Offender Management Service by publishing and making available the key data on indicators of disorder; staffing and turnover, and the reasons for turnover; its performance ratings, including those for individual prisons; and activity—the amount of time each prisoner is out of cell or in cell, and what they are doing?
Elizabeth Truss
The Select Committee Chairman is absolutely right that we need clear and transparent data and metrics to be able to understand what is happening in our prison system. I will outline more detail on that issue when we launch the White Paper.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Suicides in prisons are at record levels, and self-harm and violence are soaring. The situation in women’s prisons is worse than it was a decade ago. The Government’s own statistics show that the rate of deaths in England and Wales has risen to almost one a day—a record high of 324 in the last 12 months. Does the Secretary of State recognise that cutting staff and prison budgets while the number of people behind bars grows unchecked has created a toxic mix of violence, death and human misery?
Elizabeth Truss
I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to act on those very problematic statistics, and in particular to deal with the high levels of self-harm and suicide. One of the 10 prisons to which we have given additional money for staffing is a women’s prison. We are looking more widely at how we can ensure that women offenders are given the support that they need, because many come into prison with mental health issues and many have suffered abuse in the past. I want to ensure that those offenders have the support that will enable them to turn their lives around.
Yasmin Qureshi
I hear what the Secretary of State has to say about funding for the 10 prisons, but Pentonville, where only last week there was a stabbing and two people were injured, is not one of them, and the events that took place at Lewes prison at the weekend also underlined the problem of prison understaffing. John Attard, of the Prison Governors Association, has written that we need
“more than the….400 extra officers in just 10 prisons.”
Will the Secretary of State listen to what is being said by that association, and by the Prison Officers Association, about the Ministry’s failings in respect of prison staffing?
Elizabeth Truss
I agree with the hon. Lady that violence and levels of suicide are serious issues, and I am determined to address them. That is my No. 1 priority. I have made an immediate start in 10 of the most challenging prisons, and I will be outlining more in the White Paper. Let me, at this point, express my sincere condolences to the family of Jamal Mahmoud, who unfortunately died in Pentonville.
We all need to recognise that these are serious issues, which have numerous causes including the rise in psychoactive substances. It will take time to turn the situation around—it takes months to train prison officers —but we have developed and will be launching a comprehensive strategy. I want our prisons to be places of safety but also places of reform, where we address reoffending and make our society as a whole safer.
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State. I call Fiona Mactaggart.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
G4S has not operated court custody suites in England and Wales since 2011.
Fiona Mactaggart
Very vulnerable people are held in custody suites, and many have committed suicide. That translates into the presence of such people in prisons, where, as the Secretary of State has just acknowledged, there have been more deaths in custody than there have been for many years. More women are killing themselves than at any time since the Corston report. When we know what has gone wrong from the reports of coroners’ courts or the Corston report, which have given us real advice on what ought to happen, why is it not happening? Has the Minister read those coroners’ reports?
Mr Gyimah
All deaths in custody are a tragedy. They are fully investigated by the independent prisons and probation ombudsman and are subject to coroners’ inquests. As the Secretary of State pointed out, a number of women in prison have been victims of crime themselves and are incredibly vulnerable members of society. As well as modernising the women’s prison estate, we are looking into diversion tactics to ensure that those women do not end up in the criminal justice system in the first place.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Which country in the world has the fewest deaths in custody, and what lessons are we learning from that country?
Mr Gyimah
I am afraid I cannot name the country with the fewest deaths in custody, but what I can say is that we in this country work to create decent and humane prisons, and we are a signatory to the relevant United Nations protocols. As the Secretary of State has rightly pointed out, the rise in the number of deaths in custody is too high, and for that reason we shall shortly be publishing a safety and reform plan in our White Paper.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
I share my right hon. Friend’s concerns about what has happened at HMP Chelmsford. I can confirm that it is one of the 10 prisons for which we are training up additional officers. This will provide a 30% increase in officer numbers to help tackle the scourges of bullying and drug abuse.
Sir Simon Burns
I welcome that answer. It is crucial that more is done to eliminate bullying in the prison. On drug abuse, can the Secretary of State confirm whether sniffer dogs are being used on a regular basis on not only the prison inmates but all types of people entering and leaving prison?
Elizabeth Truss
I can confirm that that is happening. We have trained 300 sniffer dogs to be able to detect new dangerous psychoactive substances, and that testing was being rolled out across the prison estate in September. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I say very gently to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) that I am sure his constituency has many magnificent merits but it is a long way from Chelmsford.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
The coalition Government promised to review parts 1 and 2 of the Act and we remain committed to undertaking that review.
Mr Speaker
We are grateful to the Minister for that reply, but I think he may want to take question 15 with question 4.
Mr Speaker
It is very good of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Minister to be willing to do what he asked me for permission to do; that is extraordinarily gracious of him.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Kelvin Hopkins
I thank the Minister for his answer to my question, but a TUC report of this October raised concerns that the Act is a barrier to access to justice for victims of domestic violence. The regulations concerning the provision of evidence of domestic violence are restrictive and narrow and have led to a 16% drop in applications and a 17% drop in applications granted. Is it not time the Secretary of State admitted that the Act is denying access to justice for thousands and must be amended?
Sir Oliver Heald
It is of course important that legal aid is available for victims of domestic violence, particularly those seeking protective injunctions. On the evidence requirements, in April we more than doubled the time limit on evidence from two to five years, and we have introduced a provision that allows the Legal Aid Agency to grant legal aid if it is satisfied that an application demonstrates financial abuse. This is important and it has been varied in the light of experience over the last two or three years, and we will continue to monitor it.
Rob Marris
Access to justice and legal aid are pillars of the welfare state, yet almost one third of legal aid areas in England and Wales have one or no housing advice providers, including the legal aid area covering my constituency. One provider is not enough, so what steps will the Government take to ensure there are at least two providers for each area?
Sir Oliver Heald
It is important to recognise that housing cases where a person’s home is at risk fall within the scope of legal aid. The Law Society has raised concerns, as the hon. Gentleman will know. There are a lot of these cases in some parts of the country, but very few in other parts. What we have done is, through the Legal Aid Agency, taken active steps to ensure that there is adequate provision of housing advice around the country.
Sir Oliver Heald
On the point about one or two providers, there are some places where one firm is providing a range of offices and functions across a number of clients, and other areas where the circumstances only really require that there should be something like a telephone hotline, which there is. The provision that is being made is what is needed.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
There seem to be conflicting reports on the Government’s position on raising the cost bar for personal injury claims from £1,000 to £5,000. I would be grateful to hear what the Government’s position is.
Sir Oliver Heald
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important point. The Government have been looking at this issue. I do not think we have made a formal announcement on it yet, and therefore I will write to him giving him the absolute latest position.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
What assessment has the Minister made of the recent report by Amnesty International, which has found that insufficient resources for legal aid are creating a two-tier judicial system?
Sir Oliver Heald
It is important that legal aid is available in the most serious cases, such as those in which life or liberty is involved, a person’s home is at risk, domestic violence is involved, or children are being taken away from their families. That is the legal aid provision that we have here. The hon. Lady claims that that is a two-tier system, but we claim that it is one that is targeted on need.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I should declare an indirect interest, in that my wife is a legal aid solicitor and part-time judge. The previous Lord Chancellor promised a review of LASPO. The legislation has not worked. It is a complete and utter shambles, and it urgently needs a review. When will it be properly reviewed?
Sir Oliver Heald
As the hon. Gentleman knows, a promise was made that the Act would be reviewed within three years and five years of implementation—[Interruption.] Yes, within the period starting at three years and going up to five years. That period has just started, and an announcement will be made in due course.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
Exceptional case funding was introduced as part of LASPO with the aim of ensuring that out-of-scope cases with exceptional circumstances would have access to legal aid. Between 2013 and 2016, 4,032 applications were made but, due to the stringency of the criteria, a staggering 3,081 of those applications were not granted. Will the Minister commit to broadening the criteria for exceptional case funding to allow more people to become eligible for this safety net and to increase access to justice for those who need it most?
Sir Oliver Heald
The hon. Lady raises an important point. The number of cases being applied for and granted is rising, but there is also the question of ensuring that people who might need this funding are aware of it. That is an important part of the picture. Exceptional needs funding is a vital part of the picture and we will certainly keep it under review. If she wants to raise a detailed point with me about how it is operating, I would be more than happy either to discuss it with her or to enter into correspondence about it.
Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
We will set out our proposals for a Bill of Rights in due course. We will consult fully on our proposals.
Mr Speaker
This question is to be taken with No. 7. There is something missing from the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s briefing today.
Sir Oliver Heald
I am so sorry, Mr Speaker. Perhaps with your leave I could also answer question 7 in the same way.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
Steven Paterson
We are no closer to a timeframe, a plan or a common theme in regard to how the Human Rights Act is to be replaced. Earlier this year, Nils Muižnieks, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, said that the
“repeatedly delayed launch of the consultation process”
was
“creating an atmosphere of anxiety and concern in civil society and within the devolved administrations”.
Will the Minister tell us exactly when the consultation on this matter will be brought forward?
Sir Oliver Heald
The Government were elected with a mandate to reform and modernise the UK human rights framework, and there are good reasons for that. We have a proud tradition in respect of human rights. The Government are also considering the overall constitutional landscape and how this will fit it following Brexit, but this is something that we are committed to.
Martyn Day
The Council of Europe commissioner for human rights has also said of the consultation on the Human Rights Act:
“My impression is that the debate over the HRA in Westminster is not a true reflection of concerns outside England”.
Does the Minister appreciate that there is no support in Scotland for the plans, and that the impact of any attempt to repeal the Act would be to provoke a constitutional crisis?
Sir Oliver Heald
The issue of human rights is important in all parts of the United Kingdom, and we accept that. We will fully engage with the devolved Administrations on this question. Many people feel that there is a need for a British jurisprudence to emerge on the European convention on human rights and a need to assert certain ancient rights that we have in Britain, such as that relating to jury trial.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I welcome that statement from my right hon. and learned Friend, but I urge him to look particularly hard at the military aspects. The efforts of those who currently risk their lives for us on operations are being overshadowed by what is going on with IHAT—the Iraq Historic Allegations Team—and the pursuit of human rights cases under British law by people who were our enemies.
Sir Oliver Heald
My hon. Friend makes an important point. He will be aware of the announcement about derogation. Previously, there have been occasions when industrial-scale allegations could be made, many of which were later proved to be false, but that will change once the derogation process is in place.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
It has been reported that 28 terrorists have used the Human Rights Act to avoid deportation—no doubt using legal aid as well. Is it not time to scrap the Act and to start thinking less about the human rights of terrorists and foreign-born criminals and more about the human rights of law-abiding members of the British public?
Sir Oliver Heald
The House will be aware that there are concerns among the British public about the barriers to the deportation of criminals that should not have been there. There is also a need for British conditions and British jurisprudence in this area, something which the Conservative party has been calling for over many years and which the Government are alive to.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)
Crime is falling and fewer women are entering the justice system, and the female prison population is now consistently under 4,000. Women who commit crimes are often some of the most vulnerable in our society, which is why we are developing a strategy for women to be set out in the new year. We want to see fewer women in custody and to promote a greater focus on early intervention, diversion and multi-agency approaches to ensure that the justice system can take proper account of the specific needs of women.
Mr Burrowes
There are many victims of domestic violence within the justice system with multiple complex needs—mostly women. What are the Government doing to address the concerns of Women’s Aid about the perverse impact of gender-neutral commissioning cutting women-only specialist services?
Dr Lee
I am committed to ensuring that victims of crime get the support they need. Specialist services for victims of domestic abuse are commissioned both locally by police and crime commissioners and nationally. It is important that a range of provisions are in place to meet the diverse needs of domestic abuse victims. The Government’s new strategy on ending violence against women and girls sets out an ambition that by the end of this Parliament all victims of abuse will get the support they need. We have pledged increased funding of £80 million for that between now and 2020.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
Some 82% of women who are sentenced to prison are convicted of non-violent crimes. Is it not about time that the Government had a cross-Department agenda that focuses on early intervention, so that we avoid locking women up?
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Both boys and girls have to wear uniforms at school. Both men and women have to wear uniforms in the workplace. However, convicted men have to wear uniforms in prison while convicted women do not. Does the Minister agree with that? If so, what does the word “equality” mean to him?
Dr Lee
My hon. Friend has a rich track record in this area. Women are twice as likely to report experiences of abuse as a child. They are more likely than men to be primary or sole carers of their children. They are more likely to display mental health problems and, indeed, class A drug use. It is important that we have a gender-specific approach for women and if that involves different uniforms, so be it.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
At the last Justice questions in September, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), said that he was not going to “make any commitments” about what he or the Department were going to do to provide adequate support to the thousands of people in our prisons with mental health conditions, including so many women. The latest figures show another increase in suicide in our prisons. Since the new Secretary of State took office, one person takes their own life every three days—the highest level in 25 years. Is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice ashamed of the figures? Will he now commit to ensure that paying for crime in this country will never mean paying with one’s life?
Dr Lee
I recall answering the hon. Lady’s question at the last Justice Question Time, and my point was that the cause of this is very complex. I am very much aware of the suicide list, and we know that we have had an increase in the number of suicides this year, particularly in the women’s system. One case in the north-east, that of Michelle Barnes, is particularly shocking. The hon. Lady can be assured that I am looking closely at it, but there have been others. In dealing with this, I am not only trying to work on a women’s strategy that can be brought forward in the new year, but looking at offender mental health across the entire prisons system.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Will the Minister commit to work with devolved Governments to ensure funding for third sector organisations such as the North Wales Women’s Centre, which supports women in the criminal justice system as an alternative to prison?
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
The continued cuts to legal aid funding mean that there is a rising number of litigants in person. Many women have to face their abusive partner in court, with no assistance on how to navigate the complexities of the law. More needs to be done to protect women during the legal process. What steps is the Minister taking to increase legal assistance for women and ensure that justice can truly be done?
Dr Lee
Women do need additional support, not just in going through the legal process, but in housing and on many different issues, before, during and after their time in prison. I have already visited the Pause project in Hackney, where I was struck by how effective its approach has been in helping these vulnerable women. On the specific questions, we are working on this, but I would be happy to write to the hon. Lady with a more detailed response.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
The Government’s reform programme is intended to deliver a simpler, fairer justice system that works for everyone. We are reforming our courts to make them more modern, open, swift and accountable. Since January 2015, we have invested £3.5 million to provide more support to litigants in person.
Stuart C. McDonald
The Government have utterly undermined access to justice for EU citizens and other migrants with their incredible 500% increase in immigration tribunal fees. Will the Minister at least closely monitor the drastic impact that that ridiculous increase is going to have and respond accordingly when everything the Government were warned about during their consultation actually comes to pass?
Sir Oliver Heald
The Government take a markedly different view from the hon. Gentleman about this. The fact is that these tribunals cost money and there are people making applications to them who are not in the category of needing help with fees. Where people need help with fees, we of course have a remissions scheme, but where they do not need help, how can it be wrong that they should pay for the costs of the system? It is only right that they do so.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Sir Oliver Heald
Lord Justice Briggs has prepared a report that has been not only revolutionary, but extremely helpful in the modernisation process, and I pay tribute to his work. We do intend to introduce a new online procedure for lower-value civil money claims. This procedure will be a mix of new technology, conciliation and judicial resolution, and will provide a simple dispute resolution process. We intend also to create a new rules committee to design the simpler rules this will require.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Minister says that the Government take a “markedly different” view on tribunal fees from my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald). However, when the Justice Committee published its review of court and tribunal fees earlier this year, its excellent chairperson, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill)—a Government Back Bencher—stated:
“Where there is conflict between the objectives of achieving full cost recovery and preserving access to justice, the latter must prevail.”
Does the Minister agree with that statement?
Sir Oliver Heald
Yes, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) for the work that he does, chairing the Committee so ably. There is no question but that we do need a mitigation system, as we have for fees, but having said that I welcome the Justice Committee’s report, which goes into a wide range of issues and we will respond to it shortly.
Joanna Cherry
Employment tribunal fees are an additional pressure on people who have been relieved of their employment in inappropriate circumstances, and they create a very real restriction on access to justice for those who are vulnerable. The group Maternity Action has said that, since the introduction of employment tribunal fees, there has been a 40% drop in claims for pregnancy-related detriment or dismissal. Why do the Government not follow the example of the Scottish Government and commit to scrapping employment tribunal fees?
Sir Oliver Heald
The principle should be that if someone cannot pay and mitigation is required, then there should be a system of mitigation of fees. If someone is able to pay, given that this costs the country a huge amount of money, why should they not make a contribution if they are using these facilities?
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
In our country, it is a cornerstone of access to justice that there should be equality of arms in court. I was therefore shocked last week to hear the Minister of State for Courts and Justice tell us in an Adjournment debate on the Birmingham pub bombings that only
“an element of equality of arms”—[Official Report, 26 October 2016; Vol. 616, c. 400.]—
is necessary. Will the Minister come to the Dispatch Box and either reassure us that this was a mere slip of his well-trained legal tongue, or, alternatively, admit that his Government are reducing, not defending, access to justice?
Sir Oliver Heald
That is a bit rich when, at that debate, I was able to announce that the families had got a legal aid certificate through the Legal Aid Agency. The hon. Gentleman is now talking semantics. I was saying that the element that was needed of equality of arms was being met in accordance with the rules of the agency. When it comes to Labour politicians talking about cuts and concerns about legal aid, it is worth remembering why it was necessary to make those cuts—it was because of the mismanagement of the economy, which the Government inherited in 2010.
Richard Burgon
On the subject of that Adjournment debate of last Wednesday, Lynn Bennett died—[Interruption.] I will not give it up. Lynn Bennett died aged 18 in the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974. Her father, Stanley Bennett, and her sister, Claire Luckman, are still searching for the truth. On principle, they refuse to fill in means-testing forms for legal aid representation in the inquest into Lynn’s death. They believe that the state is forcing them effectively to beg for access to justice. Will the Justice Secretary today agree to go back to the Home Secretary and ask her to reconsider this, so that Stanley and Claire can have access to justice on behalf of Lynn?
Sir Oliver Heald
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Legal Aid Agency, which is independent, has considered two applications for legal aid. One has been granted, and on the other, as was pointed out in the debate, a way has been described and set out in which it would be possible for those families to have legal aid, too. There is no question but that the families can be, and will be, represented. I accept that the Birmingham pub bombings were the most dreadful incident of a generation. I said in the debate that I remembered, as a young student, the powerful effect on the whole country of the worst bombing incident since the second world war, in which 21 people died and 222 were injured. All our thoughts in this House are with the families, their loved ones, and those who had their lives affected. On how we deal with these very difficult inquests in a very special category of cases, I made it clear in the debate that the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice are working on that matter, looking at the precedents of what happened with Hillsborough and waiting for Bishop James Jones’s report. We will also look at all the matters that were discussed in that debate.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
We know that getting prisoners into employment is key to reducing reoffending. While there are some excellent initiatives in the Prison Service, there is still no coherent system that links work inside with education and training, and employment opportunities on the outside. That is why I will be bringing forward a plan, early in the new year, to boost offender employment.
Maggie Throup
Despite undergoing training in prison, some offenders are still struggling to secure employment on their release, as highlighted recently by one of my constituents. What more is being done, and can be done, to ensure that the qualifications undertaken by inmates while in prison are both relevant and acceptable to potential employers?
Mr Gyimah
My hon. Friend describes a situation that is all too familiar in our Prison Service where prisoners undertake courses in prison that bear no relation to the outside world or the ability to get a job. In our White Paper, which will be published shortly, we will be saying how we can improve that education system—we have already accepted the reforms announced by Dame Sally Coates in her review—and how we can help governors work with prisoners in the local labour market to boost employment for inmates.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
There is a well-established link between unemployment and reoffending, and we are now five years on from the Government’s rehabilitation revolution. Will the Minister let us know whether the latest reoffending statistics show an increase or a decrease in reoffending rates?
Mr Gyimah
It is still the case, as it has been for decades in the UK, that roughly a third of people who leave our prison system reoffend. The hon. Lady mentions the Government’s record. I do not recollect the last Labour Government ever talking about rehabilitation and reform in our prisons. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will introduce plans that will give governors real power on the frontline, so that they can act as the ringmasters working locally to deliver real reform.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Will the Minister agree to visit Jobs, Friends & Houses, which not only gets ex-offenders into construction jobs, but helps to find them somewhere to live, gets them off drugs and provides them with a supportive group of friends. That is such a good project; I am hoping to set it up in Bedfordshire as well.
Mr Gyimah
My hon. Friend the former Minister mentions an excellent scheme that I definitely support, along with a number of other schemes that are going on in the Prison Service and with some great employers such as Timpson’s, Greggs and Halfords. In our employment strategy, we will make sure that that works throughout the system, rather than having a few bright spots here and there.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
An important follow-on to that is the impediment that insurance premiums caused for employers who wished to engage somebody who had left prison. The former Minister, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), was seized of the issue and pursuing good work in that regard. Will the Minister give an update on the progress with insurers and continue the hon. Gentleman’s good work?
Mr Gyimah
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are a number of barriers for employers in taking ex-offenders—some around trust, some around stigma—and some real hard issues such as insurance. We will be looking at all those issues and reducing those barriers, so that employers are incentivised to take on ex-offenders. Interestingly, those who do so, such as Timpson’s, say that some of their most loyal employees are those who have come out of the prison system. We want that to continue.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
Mr Gyimah
The issue is not just autistic offenders. We know that many people in the youth justice system, as well as in the prison population as a whole, have special educational needs and low levels of literacy. A key step that the Government have taken is moving the relevant education budgets from the Department for Education to the Ministry of Justice. We will be delegating those budgets to prison governors, so that they can spend appropriately on the needs of each prisoner to help them to get the right education so they can get employment.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
I have had no such discussions on this issue. Prisons are a devolved matter and responsibility for HMP Maghaberry lies with the Northern Ireland Department of Justice.
Danny Kinahan
I was hoping that we would not hear about devolved matters now that we are all pulling together more as a Union. This is a vital matter and we must move on. Will the Minister discuss with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Justice Minister how we achieve a level playing field, change the present system and, more importantly, make sure that there are no on-the-run letters in the system?
Mr Gyimah
The hon. Gentleman refers to on-the-run letters, which is a vital issue. This is normally an issue for the Northern Ireland Office, and as the previous Secretary of State for Northern Ireland set out in her statement to the Commons in 2014, the so-called on-the-run administrative scheme established by the previous Labour Government is at an end.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)
The Government are very much aware of the concerns expressed about sentencing for driving offences. We are committed to making sure that the courts have sufficient powers to deal with driving offences appropriately and proportionately. We will consult by the end of the year on those offences and penalties.
Greg Mulholland
Members across the House have supported families who have lost family members to the most reckless criminal driving. Members have also had to support such families through the reality of being failed by our justice system. The Department announced a review two and a half years ago, which should have concluded by now. Three Secretaries of State later, we are told again that there will be consultation this year. It is not good enough. Can the Minister give the House a clear date when the review will finally be published and there will be more justice for victims of criminal driving?
Dr Lee
I am aware that a constituent of the hon. Gentleman was recently knocked down and killed by a driver over the drink-drive limit, and I offer my deepest condolences to the family of that constituent. Parliament sets the maximum penalties for road traffic offences, and we intend to consult by the end of the year on driving offences and penalties for the most serious cases that result in death or serious injury.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s comments, but will he reassure me that part of the review will consider whether greater use can be made of the charge of manslaughter, so that those who have behaved so recklessly and caused someone’s death get the same type of penalty for doing that with their car as they would if they had done it with anything else?
Dr Lee
The Crown Prosecution Service can and will charge a person with manslaughter where the evidence supports that charge, it is in the public interest to do so and there is a reasonable prospect of a conviction. In many driving cases, however, the offending behaviour, which may be highly irresponsible, does not suggest that the vehicle was intentionally used as a weapon to kill or commit grievous bodily harm or that the standard of driving was grossly negligent.
Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
I am aware that Lord Lexden has tabled amendments seeking to extend to Northern Ireland the provisions tabled by Lord Sharkey in respect of England and Wales on this issue. Northern Ireland has legislative powers over matters relating to justice and policing. This is a devolved matter.
Tom Elliott
Given the unique equality legislation in Northern Ireland, does the Minister see a problem in any attempt to introduce such a measure in the Province?
Mr Gyimah
If legislation is to be introduced extending the Turing pardon and a disregard process to Northern Ireland, that is a decision for the Northern Ireland Assembly to take. Were the provisions to be extended to Northern Ireland, a legislative consent motion would, by convention, be required.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
The Ministry of Justice is leading work on future arrangements with the EU for civil, family and commercial law. We are also working closely with the Home Office on EU criminal justice measures. I am determined to make sure that UK legal services, which contribute £26 billion a year to our economy, continue to thrive once we leave the EU.
Ms Ahmed-Sheikh
Official figures show that between 2010 and 2015 the UK made 1,424 requests to EU members under the European arrest warrant, as a result of which 916 successful arrests were made. Will access to the system continue when the UK leaves the EU?
Elizabeth Truss
As I have said, the Home Office is leading on criminal justice matters. We are working very closely with the Home Office, and we want to preserve those beneficial policies where we can deal with criminal and civil justice matters, so that we can make sure that we have the best possible legal services in the world.
Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
English law—particularly English commercial law—is respected around the world for its quality. Will the Secretary of State confirm that her Department will use Brexit as an opportunity to spread its use around the world, working with our international law firms?
Elizabeth Truss
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who has a background in commercial law in one of the top City firms. I had a roundtable with the magic circle and the silver circle to talk about how we can promote those legal areas, as well as all the practices right through the UK, including those practising in Scots law. We have a big opportunity to promote this more widely, and we are using the GREAT campaign as a vehicle to do that.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)
First, I would like to express my deepest sympathy for the family and friends of Jamal Mahmoud, who, sadly, died at HMP Pentonville on 18 October. We need to address the major issue of violence in our prisons, and that is why I have been conducting a comprehensive review of the system. I will shortly be launching a White Paper on how I plan to transform prisons into places of safety and reform. I have announced immediate investment of £14 million to increase staffing levels in 10 of the most challenging prisons.
John Pugh
I thank the Minister for that, but may I change the subject slightly, to domestic violence? Incidents are sharply up, successful Crown Prosecution Service prosecutions are up, which is good, but references to the CPS are, puzzlingly, down. What is the Minister’s take on this anomaly, and do we need some positive feedback from the courts to the police?
Elizabeth Truss
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We have put in extra measures—particularly the law on coercive behaviour, which has been very important. What I am determined to do is make sure our courts system treats vulnerable witnesses and victims as well as possible to encourage more people to come forward.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)
A very pithy question. The new threat from drones is a game-changer, not just for prisons but for other parts of the Government. That is why I am working with Ministers across the Government to engage with drone manufacturers to find a solution to this problem. I am keeping a close eye on what is happening internationally, particularly in Holland, where eagles are used to stop drones. I am sure that we will find a solution in the UK that will take off.
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
Mr Gyimah
The Government are intent on delivering on their historic manifesto commitment to grant a pardon to all those convicted under archaic gay laws. The Scottish Government have announced their plans, but I note that, even in those plans, they are talking about a disregard process in just the same way as the UK Government. Our disregard process will ensure that people who are guilty of crimes that are still a crime do not accidentally get pardoned. That is absolutely right: to have an appropriate safeguard, we do not right a wrong by creating another injustice.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I noted—I am sure colleagues did—that the prince of pithiness was about to leave the Chamber, and I think it ought to be noted.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. We want to make sure that vulnerable witnesses, including children, who have to go in front of an open court at the moment, testify and be cross-examined can be cross-examined in advance—pre-trial and pre-recorded. This is much less intimidating, and I think that it will encourage more victims to come forward.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
Elizabeth Truss
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made it absolutely clear why she has made that decision. It is very important that people have access to justice and we have a country that works for everyone.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)
Our armed forces make huge sacrifices, and plainly no current or former serving member should face unwarranted investigation. However, where there are credible serious allegations of criminal behaviour, they must be investigated; I think that everyone in the military world understands that. It is important to make rapid progress with the Iraq Historic Allegation Team’s caseload. The team expects the caseload to have reduced from the original 3,300 cases to about 250 by early January.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Plans to rebuild Sunderland’s courts complex have been on hold since 2010. Despite raising this issue on numerous occasions with the Courts and Justice Minister’s predecessors, we still have not had a decision. Will the current Minister meet me and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) as a matter of priority to see whether we can make any progress?
Elizabeth Truss
My right hon. and learned Friend will be extremely happy to meet the hon. Lady.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are working very closely with the Department for Education, and we will shortly produce our paper on youth offenders, which will talk about how we intervene earlier before people end up with custodial sentences.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
My constituent, Mrs Fleeting, tragically lost her son, Robert, when he was serving honourably on an English base. The family cannot gain closure, as there is no automatic inquest by jury, and they are understandably distraught. Will the Minister meet Mrs Fleeting and me to discuss the case and access to justice for the late Robert Fleeting?
Sir Oliver Heald
Yes, I would be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady and her constituent.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)
Care applications are made only when a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm. The rise in care applications requires a cross-system response, and we are working closely with a range of partners to establish its causes and mitigate its operational impacts. Conflict during divorce is often focused on children and the division of assets. Mediation can be a quicker alternative to court, and legal aid is available to eligible parties.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Recognising the significant flexibility recently given to the governor of Ranby prison in employment and rehabilitation matters, may I propose that the Prisons Minister and I conduct a joint visit to maximise local and national support for that reform?
Mr Speaker
We learn a lot more about the opinions of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on a vast miscellany of matters—of that he can rest assured.
Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Justice Secretary will be aware that in the past couple of years considerable progress has been made in allowing UK lawyers to practise in India. Will she update the House on progress so far, particularly given that the Prime Minister will be visiting India in the next few days?
Elizabeth Truss
I commend my hon. Friend for his work as a Minister in the Department to promote legal links with India; I am pleased to say that those are being taken forward. The Prime Minister will visit India this month to pave the way for UK lawyers to practise there, helping to improve our international business and trade. English law is a massive asset that we can leverage for wider business negotiation.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
How many of the inquest reports on self-inflicted deaths in custody has the Minister read, and what actions has he taken as a result of the recommendations of inquests that have caused real distress to families?
Mr Gyimah
Every death in custody is a tragic event. As the Minister with responsibility for prisons—I have been in the role for four months—I take every one of them seriously. I look at all the reports and I sign many of the responses to those reports where, for example, the independent monitoring board is involved. We have plans to make sure that we deliver on them.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that we need bold reform to cut reoffending and that that must mean giving prison governors the powers and the accountability to innovate, especially when it comes to skills training and drugs rehabilitation in the prisons that they run?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is nothing but bold. I absolutely agree with him that we need to change the way we are doing things, because the fact is that we have had a persistently high reoffending rate. Almost half the people in prison will reoffend within a year, and that is not acceptable. We need to give governors the power to turn lives around, to get people off drugs and to get them into work.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
The Ministry’s review into the care and management of transgender offenders was due to be concluded in the spring, but almost a year since the review was first announced, a report is yet to be published. Can the Secretary of State update the House today on when we can expect to see that report?
Dr Lee
The Government are firmly committed to ensuring that transgender offenders are treated fairly, lawfully and decently and that their rights are respected. A Ministry of Justice-led review of the care and management of transgender offenders concluded that treating offenders in the gender with which they identify is the most effective starting point for safety and reducing reoffending, where an assessment of all known risks can be considered alongside the offender’s views.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
Mary—not her real name—a constituent of mine, went to Benidorm on a hen do. Her drink was spiked by a British man known to one of the group, and then she was raped by the man. It is now six months since the offence, and the Spanish police seem no closer to taking the case seriously. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the ability to bring to trial in this country a case involving a sexual offence against a Briton overseas is vital for justice when the country in which the offence occurred does not take it seriously?
Sir Oliver Heald
Yes, I do agree. The Istanbul convention, which the UK signed in June 2012, requires ratifying states to assume jurisdiction over offences of this sort when committed by our nationals overseas. But we need to make changes to primary legislation to introduce this, because the existing law applies only where the rape involves a person under 18 years of age.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Will Ministers update the House on progress with the Missing Persons Guardianship Bill? It is of great interest to my constituents Mr and Mrs Lawrence; they are the parents of Claudia, who went missing seven long years ago.
Sir Oliver Heald
I will write to my hon. Friend, because this is a subject on which we will be saying something shortly.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
The illicit use of mobile phones in prisons is a pernicious issue that must be tackled. Will the Secretary of State update the House on what more the Government are doing to make sure that we use a technology solution to deal with that?
Mr Speaker
Finally, the Chair of the Select Committee on Justice, Mr Robert Neill.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State share my concern at the 40% increase in suicides in 2015-16 among offenders undergoing supervision in the community? Will she therefore expedite the Department’s review of the effectiveness of the transforming rehabilitation programme?
Elizabeth Truss
I thank the Committee Chairman for his question, and I share his concern about this issue. We recognise that there are benefits from the transforming rehabilitation programme: for example, 45,000 people with sentences of less than a year who previously were not being supervised are now being supervised. However, the Minister is conducting a review, as we do with all new legislation, to check how it is working. That is one of the aspects that he will be looking at.
Petition
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
This petition is on behalf of the people of Plymouth following the Government decision to announce that the Royal Marines 3 Commando Brigade is leaving Stonehouse barracks.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that RM Stonehouse, which is home to 3 Commando Brigade, will be disposed of through the Ministry of Defence’s estate optimisation strategy.
The petitioners therefore urge the House of Commons to urge the Government to ensure that 3 Commando Brigade is retained in Plymouth and not moved out of the local area.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P001970]
Orgreave
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the process she went through and the papers she considered before reaching her decision not to proceed with an inquiry into the events at Orgreave in June 1984.
The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)
The Home Secretary announced her decision in a written ministerial statement yesterday, in which she explained her main reasons for deciding against instigating either a statutory inquiry into or an independent review of the events at Orgreave coking plant. She has also written to the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign setting out the detailed reasons for her decision, and she answered a number of questions in the House yesterday in response to an oral parliamentary question on this subject.
In determining whether to establish a statutory inquiry or other review, the Home Secretary considered a number of factors, reviewed a wide range of documents and spoke to members of the campaign. She came to the view that neither an inquiry nor a review was required to allay public concern at this stage, more than 30 years after the events in question. In so doing, she noted the following factors. Despite the forceful accounts and arguments provided by the campaigners about the effect that these events had on them, ultimately there were no deaths or wrongful convictions. In addition, the policing landscape and the wider criminal justice system have changed fundamentally since 1984, with significant changes in the oversight of policing at every level, including major reforms to criminal procedure, changes to public order policing and practice, stronger external scrutiny and greater local accountability. There are few lessons to be learned from a review of the events and practices of three decades ago. This is a very important consideration when looking at the necessity for an inquiry or independent review.
Taking these considerations into account, we do not believe that establishing any kind of inquiry is required in the wider public interest or for any other reason.
Andy Burnham
The now Prime Minister invited Orgreave campaigners to submit a bid for an inquiry and she entered Downing Street talking about fighting burning injustices, so the House will understand why so many people feel bitterly betrayed today. Orgreave is one of the most divisive events in British social history. Given that there is evidence of unlawful conduct by the police in relation to it, is it not simply staggering that the Home Secretary has brushed aside an inquiry as not necessary? Is it not even more revealing that she was not prepared to come to this House today to justify her decision?
I want to focus very specifically on her decision-making process, and I expect direct answers from the Minister. Before making her decision, did the Home Secretary recall files held by South Yorkshire police and review them personally? I am told they never left Sheffield. Is that true? Did she consider in detail the new testimony that has emerged from police officers, particularly in relation to police statements? Did she review all relevant Cabinet papers, such as the minutes—stamped “SECRET” —of the meeting between Margaret Thatcher and Leon Brittan, in which the then Home Secretary said he wanted
“to increase the rate of prosecutions”
of miners? If the Home Secretary did not do each and every one of these crucial things, will not many people conclude that the decision-making process was incomplete and therefore unsound?
Yesterday, the Home Secretary promised to release the operational order. Will the Minister make sure that that happens immediately? She also dismissed the link with Hillsborough. In doing so, is she dismissing the words of Margaret Aspinall, who believes that if the police had been properly held to account for their misdeeds in 1985, the Hillsborough cover-up may never have happened? Are we to conclude that from now on, under this Home Secretary, all manner of misdeeds will be left uninvestigated as long as there are “no deaths”?
The Minister attended a positive meeting with campaigners in early September. We left the meeting with the clear impression that it was not a question of whether there would be an inquiry, but of what form the inquiry would take. Indeed, the next day The Times reported on its front page that Whitehall sources had said there would be an inquiry. Did the Home Secretary or her advisers authorise this briefing, and what changed after it was given? In retrospect, does the Minister now concede that it was utterly cruel to give those campaigners false hope in that way?
Yesterday, we were hit with a bombshell, but today we dust ourselves down and we give notice to this Government that we will never give up this fight.
Brandon Lewis
The right hon. Gentleman will know full well from the meeting with campaigners that he came to, and I was also at, that we were very clear, as the Home Secretary has been throughout the process, that she would make a decision by the end of October and would take into account a wide range of factors. She considered a number of factors when making her decision. She reviewed a wide range of documents, carefully considered the arguments contained in the campaign’s submission and spoke to the campaign leaders and supporters, as she did yesterday, when she personally spoke to Barbara Jackson and to the right hon. Gentleman, among others, and I spoke to the police and crime commissioner.
The right hon. Gentleman commented on the links with Hillsborough. I know he will be aware that work is still ongoing on Hillsborough, with the Independent Police Complaints Commission still looking at the issues, and there could still be criminal proceedings.
When the right hon. Gentleman looks at the decision he should remember that, as the Home Secretary rightly pointed out yesterday, we fully appreciate that we disagree on this, but that does not mean that the Home Secretary’s decision is wrong.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I very much support the Home Secretary’s decision. Unlike most of the people bleating on the Labour Benches, I actually lived in South Yorkshire in a mining community during the time of the miners strike and saw at first hand the bullying and intimidation from the miners that went on. People who did not contribute to the strike fund had their windows done in.
These people were trying to bring down the democratically elected Government of the time. They lost, and they need to get over it. Anyone only has to look at the TV pictures—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I recognise that this is a subject that arouses very strong feeling, but the House knows me well enough by now to know that I will facilitate the fullest possible questioning on the matter from Members in all parts of the House. However, I ought to be able to say without fear of contradiction that the hon. Member for Shipley will be heard.
Philip Davies
People only have to look at the TV footage of the event to see the violence that the miners were carrying out against police officers. Will the Minister explain why, if this matter is so important to Labour Members, in the 13 years they were in government they did absolutely nothing about it?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes an impassioned point. I would not for a moment want to put words in the mouth of the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) from the Dispatch Box. I am sure he will be able to explain the actions he took or did not take during that period. For us, this has not been a political decision. The Home Secretary said yesterday that it is about looking at what is right in terms of the wider public interest and in the light of the substantial changes to and reforms of the police service there have been. All of us, across the House, should get behind the continued driving through of future reforms of the police service through the Policing and Crime Bill.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
We on the Labour Benches have noted that the Home Secretary has not bothered to come before the House on this occasion to explain her decision.
Most people in this House remember the miners strike, and what happened at Orgreave was totemic. Most people in the House also remember what Lord Stockton—Harold Macmillan—said in his maiden speech in the House of Lords about the miners strike:
“it breaks my heart to see what is happening in our country today. A terrible strike…by the best men in the world. They beat the Kaiser’s army and they beat Hitler’s army. They never gave in.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 November 1984; Vol. 457, c. 240.]
Does the Minister understand that the Home Secretary’s decision is a slap in the face to the best men in the world and their friends and supporters? Does he understand that the Orgreave campaigners feel that they have been led up the garden path by the Home Secretary? And does he understand that the Home Secretary’s proposition is that because there were no deaths and no convictions—and the cases only collapsed because the collusion by South Yorkshire police officers was revealed—injustice must stand? The Opposition say to Ministers that we will not let this issue go and that injustice will not be allowed to stand.
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Lady was here yesterday when the Home Secretary was here, having already made a written ministerial statement, to answer questions on this matter during oral questions. I am here today because this issue forms part of the portfolio I cover for the Home Office.
The Government have stood up and brought forward inquiries before. We have not been afraid to address matters to correct the wrongs of the past. We have had to consider the wider public interest, which includes what lessons need to be learned and how we change police behaviour based on what happened 30 years ago. Bear in mind that since that time we have had not only the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 but a range of other reforms, not least the delivery of local accountability through police and crime commissioners and changes in police practice. Looking at what lessons could be learned, what the benefits would be and what outcomes we are looking for from a public inquiry, the Home Secretary’s decision, although the hon. Lady disagrees with it, is absolutely right.
I would just make a further point to the hon. Lady. In looking at the wider public interest, the Home Office considers a wide range of matters, including differences with previous cases where there were a substantial number of tragic deaths. In this case there were none and there were no convictions, so what we are looking at with a public inquiry is whether other lessons could be learned. As I said yesterday, if the hon. Lady looks at the changes in police practice over 30 years, she will see there would be no benefit from proceeding with a public inquiry.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Some of us did not read accounts of the miners strike in The Guardian, with the benefit of living in London. Some of us—as I was, reporting for Central Television—were there on a daily basis. I totally agree with the Home Secretary’s very sensible decision. If we were to have an inquiry, does my right hon. Friend agree that it might be into the funding and activities of the National Union of Mineworkers, which on an almost daily basis bussed thousands of their members into the county of Nottinghamshire to not only bring down a democratically elected Government, but to thwart the democratic decision of the Nottinghamshire miners to work?
Brandon Lewis
My right hon. Friend highlights the very strong feelings on all sides about Orgreave. We totally understand that. The Home Secretary outlined that here yesterday and in the meeting with Orgreave campaigners that I and other MPs also attended. As the Home Secretary outlined yesterday, we appreciate that the campaigners will be disappointed with the decision she has made, but we have to make a decision about what is in the wider public interest, and an inquiry is not.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I listened very carefully to what the Home Secretary had to say yesterday, but, as has already been indicated, her argument that there were no wrongful convictions does not hold water when one realises that the cases collapsed when a decent lawyer revealed collusion on the part of the police.
The absence of deaths at Orgreave is also a red herring. Is not the real issue here as follows: when the redactions to the June 2015 IPCC report were revealed, they showed striking similarities between the personnel and the alleged practices of South Yorkshire police at Orgreave and Hillsborough? Of course, we all now know what went on to happen at Hillsborough. Did the Home Secretary not feel that the striking similarities between personnel and practices at Orgreave and Hillsborough alone justified an independent inquiry, even as an opportunity to increase public trust in the police?
Moreover, there is a very important issue raised by Orgreave, which is the alleged political interference by the then UK Government in operational policing. If there was political interference from the Government in operational policing, it would be a deeply troubling matter and one of huge constitutional significance. Did the Home Secretary give this grave accusation consideration as part of the process leading to her decision yesterday?
Brandon Lewis
The hon. and learned Lady addresses issues relating to the investigation. The IPCC has said that, should further evidence emerge of any impropriety by an officer, retired or otherwise, it would look at it. I met the chairman of the IPCC yesterday afternoon. She confirmed again that if new evidence came forward it would look at it. Furthermore, the report published by the IPPC was redacted on legal advice because it contained passages relating to the then ongoing Hillsborough inquiry. I refer back to my comments of a short while ago: investigations are still going on into Hillsborough and criminal proceedings may well come out of them. The IPCC is involved in those investigations.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
It is disappointing that the Labour party seems to want to divide our society once again. Labour Members would do well to remember that the miners in South Derbyshire, North West Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire wanted to work and bore the full brunt of secondary picketing. Does the Minister agree it is important that the new chief constable of South Yorkshire police, who was only appointed in the summer, has a chance to bed into his position and start to rebuild his relationships with the local community?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, a variation of which was raised yesterday by another hon. Friend. I spoke to the police and crime commissioner of South Yorkshire yesterday, so I know that the force is determined to build a new relationship with the people of South Yorkshire. There is new leadership and new membership in that police force, and I said that I was looking forward to working with them to develop a new approach from what existed some 30 years ago. They acknowledge that they have a piece of work to do to rebuild engagement with the community, and we will stand with them in support.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I find it painful that Members are rehashing discredited, 30-year-old smears, which does nothing for community cohesion. Both the Home Secretary yesterday and the Minister now seem to be saying that we are not having this inquiry because nobody died. Is that the new bar that this Government are levying on justice?
Brandon Lewis
No, and with all due respect, I think the hon. Lady is using an unfortunate interpretation of what I said. I have been clear, as was the Home Secretary yesterday, that there is a wide range of issues surrounding the public interest in having an inquiry. There were no wrongful convictions, and there were no deaths, but a key question is—I stress it again—what lessons are we looking to learn from an incident that happened 30 years ago? In the period from the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 right through to the Policing and Crime Bill that is going through the House today, there has been a substantial and dramatic change in the system and structure of policing in this country. Things are very different today, so there is no wider public interest in having an inquiry at this time.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that we are in danger of running away with the concept that all police at the time were bad and all the striking miners were good? I still remember Arthur Scargill refusing to condemn picket line violence. I remember the murder of the taxi driver, David Wilkie; and I remember the relentless use of the word “scab” to describe anybody who simply wanted to go to work. Should we not get a sense of proportion here?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a strong point. I fully recognise that there are very strong feelings on all sides of the debate. Some families feel very strongly about it, and I and others met them in September this year. I absolutely understand the strength of their feeling and why they feel as they do, but we have to look at the wider public interest. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) refers from a sedentary position to other issues around South Yorkshire, but they are separate issues. This is a decision specifically about Orgreave, not the wider issues for South Yorkshire. We may disagree with it, but the Home Secretary has made the decision—the right decision—that there is no benefit from having a public inquiry on this issue.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
The Minister’s statement today reflects what the Home Secretary said in her written ministerial statement yesterday, which is that somehow there can be no inquiry because South Yorkshire policing has moved on. I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that this is a new principle of truth and justice—that it can be denied, in the face of serious allegations, because of the dubious claim that lessons have been learned. That is why families and communities in South Yorkshire feel that they have been sold down the river by this Government—and this cannot stand.
Brandon Lewis
As I said earlier, this has to be looked at in the context of this particular case. Under this Government, the Prime Minister and Home Secretary have stood up to take on independent reviews and inquiries over a range of very difficult issues over the last six years, looking at what happened in the past. Despite what Opposition Members might wish to make of it, this is not a political decision; it is a decision based on looking at the particular case of Orgreave and at what is in the wider public interest. As I have outlined, a public inquiry will not serve that interest.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that far and away the worst atrocity in those terrible events was the murder of the taxi driver, David Wilkie? Is my right hon. Friend as amazed as I am that his death has not been mentioned once by Opposition Members? Does he agree that if we are to have a public inquiry, it should be into what the former leader of the Labour party called the lies, the violence and the lack of a ballot by those strike-breakers?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend highlights the strength of feeling that exists on all sides of the debate about the activities that happened many years ago. On the point he raised about what would happen if there were a public inquiry, there will not be one. The decision of the Home Secretary and the Government is that the wider public interest is not served by having an Orgreave inquiry.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Why is it that 31 years is too long for an inquiry, yet 31 years is not too long for this Government to carry on hiding the Cabinet papers on the strike and to refuse to release them? Why is it so long, when we know that the Thatcher Government were going to close 75 pits and not 20? The truth is that this nasty party has now become the nasty Government, who are more concerned about preserving the Thatcher legacy than they are fighting for truth and justice.
Brandon Lewis
Again, the hon. Gentleman misinterprets what I have said this afternoon. What I have said very clearly is that the decision not to have a public inquiry is based on looking at the wider public interest. Included in that are the facts that there were no wrongful convictions and no deaths and, importantly, that police structure and behaviour has changed. This was seen partly under the last Labour Government, but predominantly under this Government. I ask the hon. Gentleman to support and join us in carrying out the further work to continue those reforms and to work with the South Yorkshire police to improve their relationship with people as we go forward. I have spoken to the police and crime commissioner of South Yorkshire, and I know that he is very keen to be transparent and to deliver more. He has employed an archivist to try to ensure that South Yorkshire police get all the archives they can. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to engage with that.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
The synthetic indignation from Labour Members cannot mask the fact that in 13 years of a Labour Government, the issue of Orgreave was completely neglected and forgotten. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, notwithstanding the absence of an inquiry—I concur wholeheartedly with the Home Secretary’s decision—the clear and necessary changes in governance and mind-set required within the South Yorkshire police will continue and be delivered?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good and important point. It is very important that we continue to reform the police service for the future. Some reforms are outlined in the Policing and Crime Bill, and there are others that the former Home Secretary, now our Prime Minister, has taken on, and that the Home Secretary is determined to deliver. It is part of the task of changing how the police work from how they used to work some 30 years ago. I spoke to Dr Alan Billings, the police and crime commissioner for South Yorkshire yesterday afternoon. I am determined to work with him and his chief constable to make sure that they get a good relationship with the people of South Yorkshire in the future. We want to ensure that the police service delivers on the work that the police do every single day—policing by consent.
Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
I have represented Orgreave in this House since 1983. I well remember the events of the miners strike at that time. I called for a public inquiry to review the policing of the miners strike in 1985—and it was denied at that time as it has been denied now. The Minister says that the IPCC is still looking at these issues, but he must know that the IPCC deals with serving police officers. If they are still serving in South Yorkshire, they would have been about 16 at the time, so this is not an answer to the problem. He says that the Home Secretary is looking at the papers, but we need an independent individual to look at them. If we cannot have a full public inquiry, we should surely be able to have someone of an independent nature to look at what happened to see if any lessons can be learned from the policing of the miners strike in 1984-85.
Brandon Lewis
I think the fact that the IPCC is involved in work on Hillsborough that could lead to criminal proceedings shows that it is prepared to deal with these issues appropriately. After all, it is an independent organisation. As I said earlier, I met its chair yesterday, and he confirmed again—as the IPCC has already confirmed publicly—that if new evidence appears, it will look at that evidence. I assume from the right hon. Gentleman’s comments that he will fully support the work that we are doing to reform and update the IPCC to ensure that officers who have left the police force can still be involved in investigations and prosecuted by the organisation.
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
I was a serving police officer at the time, and I well remember the situation as described by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). Does the Minister agree that policing has moved on significantly in the last few decades, that there are sufficient safeguards against a repetition of an episode like Orgreave and that there is no useful purpose in an inquiry?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend has made a very good point. As I have said, the changes made by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, the criminal justice changes, and other reforms—not least the introduction of local accountability through police and crime commissioners—have led to a dramatic change in policing practices in the last few decades. I welcome that, but we all need to work to ensure that it continues.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I note that the Minister has failed to answer a single one of the questions asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham). I feel sorry for the Minister, because the Home Secretary bottled it yesterday and she has bottled it again today. He knows that she did not review the documents on the basis of which the IPCC reached its decision. Does he honestly believe that she can honestly say that there is no link with Hillsborough and that there are no lessons to be learnt today?
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Lady should have another look at what I said in response to the right hon. Gentleman’s question. Although I fully appreciate that both she and he may not agree with or like what I said, that does not mean that I did not answer the question, and it does not mean that the Home Secretary’s decision is wrong. A number of factors were taken into account in the making of that decision. It involved looking at a wide range of documents, and, indeed, meeting the Orgreave campaigners themselves, as the Home Secretary, the hon. Lady and I did in September. I suggest that the hon. Lady look again at my answers to questions, including my answers to the right hon. Gentleman.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I wonder whether the Minister agrees with David Blunkett, the former Labour Home Secretary, who reportedly said that he
“would take some convincing that another agonising internal inquiry would shed more light than is already known.”
Brandon Lewis
I saw that quotation as well, and I think it underlines and highlights the fact that this was a difficult decision. No one has said that it was easy. As the Home Secretary herself said, in the House yesterday—and she was here yesterday, answering questions on this matter—and also during previous appearances in the House and when meeting the campaigners, a difficult decision had to be made and many factors weighed up. Ultimately, however, we had to make a decision about what was in the wider public interest, and this decision is in the wider public interest.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
May I ask the Minister a very simple question? Will the Home Secretary meet members of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign to discuss this matter further?
Brandon Lewis
The Home Secretary has met the Orgreave campaigners, and she spoke to Barbara Jackson yesterday. She has also written to the campaigners, and I think that they need time to digest her letter. I know that they made a statement shortly before I came into the House today, but we shall have to await their response to the Home Secretary and take matters from there.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
A few moments ago, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron) mentioned the 1983 election. May I invite the Minister to consider improvements that have been made in police codes of conduct in the past 30 years by, for example, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which came into force on 1 January 1986? Given the apparent strength of feeling on the Opposition Benches, is it not strange that successive Labour Governments failed to conduct a review of, or inquiry into, what had happened at Orgreave?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend has made a couple of points. I will let others draw their own conclusions about the actions of those other than ourselves in the Home Office, but I will say that he is absolutely right about the changes that have taken place. We have had PACE, the Public Order Act 1986, the changes at HMIC, and the police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy inspections. The Association of Chief Police Officers has now become the National Police Chiefs Council and has its own codes of conduct. Furthermore, we have the Policing and Crime Bill, and we have the police and crime commissioner reforms that were introduced in the House by the present Prime Minister. Policing has changed dramatically, but we want the reforms to continue, and I urge all members to support that work.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
I was elected to the House in 1984, in the middle of the miners strike. I spoke about the strike in my maiden speech, and I stood on the picket lines and saw what happened. I saw the brutality and the intimidation. I saw a pregnant woman kicked in the stomach. There was a lot of violence. That was in the Cynon valley, and people in the Cynon valley still feel very strongly about this issue. They believe that unless the Government have something to hide, they should agree to an inquiry. We are fully behind the people who call for the inquiry: people never forget, and certainly they will never forget the experiences of the miners strike.
Brandon Lewis
As I said earlier, the decision that we have had to make—the decision that the Home Secretary has made—involved looking at a range of issues relating to the specific case of Orgreave and considering whether it was in the wider public interest to hold an inquiry. It was decided that it was not.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) on being granted the urgent question, but does the Minister agree that if there is to be an inquiry of this kind, it should take place as soon as possible after the event? Did the Home Secretary take account of the fact that Prime Minister Brown and Prime Minister Blair did not hold such an inquiry? Is not the danger now that all that would happen is that a lot of lawyers would become even richer, and we would not gain any more knowledge?
Brandon Lewis
The Home Secretary’s decision involved looking at a wide range of documents and considering a wide range of factors. Ultimately, however, the core of the decision was the question of what was in the wider public interest, and we have decided that an inquiry is not in the wider public interest.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Home Secretary stood at the Dispatch Box and encouraged me to present the evidence that I had been given by one of my local councillors, Mike Freeman. He was a serving officer in Greater Manchester police whose whistleblowing about the corrupt practices in South Yorkshire featured in an edition of the Channel 4 “Dispatches” programme. This Government did not have Mike’s back. Would the Minister like to apologise for the personal cost that he has suffered?
Brandon Lewis
As I have said, the Home Secretary looked at a wide range of documents and considered a wide range of factors, and that included meeting the campaigners. We are determined to ensure that whistleblowers are properly protected, which is why we are seeking to increase their protections. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support that, along with the Police and Crime Bill and our work with the IPCC.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Does it not strike the Minister as odd that Labour Members are using part of their Opposition day tomorrow to debate police officers’ safety? They seem to have forgotten that 32 years ago individual police officers from up and down the country, including Northamptonshire, faced an unprecedented wave of picket-line violence from yobs, led by trade unions, without the protective equipment that police officers have today. Yes, it was ugly; yes, it was violence, and those unfortunate events happened on both sides. However, to spend millions of pounds on investigating events of 32 years ago when things have moved on would be a waste of time.
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend has raised the important issue of the safety and security of our police, which we will debate tomorrow. It is right for people to appreciate that our forces police by consent, which is why I think that the reforms that have taken place over the past few decades are so important, and why I think that we must continue those reforms. We want a police force that we can continue to be proud of and continue to rate as the best in the world, and we want to make sure that our police officers are safe as well. That does not detract from the fact that both the Home Secretary and I fully appreciate the strength of feeling on all sides of the debate. Nevertheless, the decision about Orgreave had to be about what was in the wider public interest. That is the decision that the Home Secretary has made, and rightly so.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign is supported by people throughout the United Kingdom, including many of my constituents. Yesterday’s decision ultimately means that South Yorkshire police will not be held to account for their actions and required to answer the serious allegation that they were deliberately trying to create circumstances in which riot charges would stick, a narrative that was briefed to the then Prime Minister and her Cabinet. In the absence of an inquiry or an independent review, how do the Government intend to deal with that very serious allegation?
Brandon Lewis
If there are allegations and new evidence, the IPCC chair repeated to me yesterday what it has said publicly: it will look at any new evidence and take it into account in any decisions it makes moving forward. In particular, there are still ongoing investigations and potential criminal proceedings linked to Hillsborough. This is also why it is important that we not only continue to deliver the reforms outlined over the last 30 years, and in particular the last five or six years, but we continue the reform of the police service, especially working with South Yorkshire police on its relationships with its local community.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
I was very young during the miners strike but I do know Nottinghamshire’s former coalfield communities today; I represent some of them. Those communities are still suffering in many respects from the miners strike. They are suffering from ill health, low levels of employment, addiction and many other problems. As so little is to be gained from having this inquiry, would it not be better if we all now concentrate on the present and the future?
Brandon Lewis
There is an important point here as this highlights why the Prime Minister is right to state that we as a Government need to work to ensure we deliver a country that works for everybody, so everyone in those communities— communities I worked in myself a decade or more ago—has the chance to succeed in life. We must always learn the lessons of the past. That is why the reforms over the last three decades and the reforms going forward are so important in making sure we continue to have a first-class police force in this country.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The police and crime commissioner in South Yorkshire, Dr Alan Billings, has made it absolutely clear that he does not want to begin the process of building a new future for South Yorkshire police by sweeping under the carpet the problems of the past. Will the Minister specifically say whether he and the Home Secretary have looked at the evidence of masonic links involved in the cover-up at Orgreave and whether they are the same masonic links that were evident in the cover-up at Hillsborough?
Brandon Lewis
I repeat what I said earlier this afternoon: the Home Secretary has considered a number of factors in the decision, including a wide range of documents and arguments put forward in the campaign submission. [Interruption.] Members on the Opposition Front Bench are saying this has already been said, but that might be because I am being asked the same question in effect time and again. No matter how many times I am asked, I will be clear to Opposition Members that the Home Secretary has looked at a wide range of issues in making her decision. [Interruption.] I say specifically on the hon. Gentleman’s point about the PCC, if Opposition Front Benchers will allow him to hear what I am saying, that Dr Alan Billings makes an important point about wanting to move forward with a fresh start for the new leadership of South Yorkshire police. My hon. Friends have made that point, and when I spoke to the PCC yesterday he was clear about his determination to have transparency and to have an archivist work through the archives to get as much as possible out into the public domain to help us move forward. The relationship with the public of South Yorkshire is important.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that, although there was of course a tragedy at Orgreave and there were abuses almost certainly on both sides, justice delayed is justice denied, and it would have been better to have had this inquiry 15 years after the event rather than waiting 31 years, when so many people are retired or have died, and it would be inappropriate to have it now?
Brandon Lewis
I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but the reasoning behind the Home Secretary’s decision comes from looking at the wider public interest. There were no wrongful convictions and no deaths and, importantly, the changes in policing over the last three decades mean policing has moved on, and we need to continue those reforms.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that there were no wrongful convictions because the case the police fabricated against those 95 miners collapsed because of the fabricated evidence? Does he not accept that there was then no accountability for the senior officers in South Yorkshire police, including the chief constable at the time, who led that arrangement to fit people up wrongly? Five years later, that same cadre of senior officers was responsible for fabricating evidence against fans after the Hillsborough disaster. Yes, that did lead to 96 deaths, but the denial of justice over so many years for the Hillsborough families and those affected by the events at Hillsborough might never have happened if the chief constable and his senior cadre of officers had been held to account for what happened at Orgreave, but they were not.
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Lady has in effect outlined why it has been so important to have those reforms in how policing works and that local accountability over the last three decades. Her point about Hillsborough is right, and criminal proceedings may well come out of that with the IPCC, but that is because the reforms and changes through the IPCC and further reforms in the Policing and Crime Bill and the PCCs have changed the landscape of policing. It has changed dramatically in the last 30 years, and that forms a part of the Home Secretary’s right decision that it is not in the public interest to have a public inquiry.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
In 1984 I sat on these Benches representing the coalmining communities of Cannock and Burntwood. At that time my constituents working at Lea Hall and Littleton collieries were being subjected to the kind of intimidation that my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) has mentioned, including the throwing of bags of urine by striking south Wales miners as my constituents attempted to go to work. So does my hon. Friend the Minister accept that Orgreave was in fact a violent attempt to prevent the British Steel Corporation from going about its lawful business and furthermore a naked political attempt to bring down the Government of Margaret Thatcher, and that since then trade union relations and industrial relations have been transformed out of all recognition, to the betterment of this country?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend highlights the strength of feeling on both sides about issues that happened decades ago, and also highlights again that, hugely importantly, the police have reformed. There are still reforms going forward that we need to see through, and I hope we will all be working together in the years ahead to deliver them.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
The jobs of ordinary police officers, many of whom came from mining families, were made difficult for many years after the miners strike precisely because of the misuse of police by the state. Is that not the fundamental issue here? Zimbabwe, China and Venezuela are three countries that have recently used the police to undermine individual rights and freedoms. How do we know that senior politicians were not involved, as the Cabinet papers have not been revealed and there is no longer going to be an inquiry? When will we know, for better or for worse, what senior politicians did and what pressure they brought to bear on the police?
Brandon Lewis
A large number of historical files on Orgreave and the miners strike are already publicly available through the National Archives. Also, as I have said, the PCC for South Yorkshire is employing an archivist to look at publishing even more from its archives, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will take a great interest in that. He should also work with us and endorse the reforms to the police service that will lead to that key important result that Members have mentioned: that the new leadership of South Yorkshire police is able to find a way to build a new relationship with the people of South Yorkshire and to continue the work the police do every day, policing by consent.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
It is with great sadness that I hear Conservative Members saying that an inquiry is neither justified nor needed. I wonder how many said the same prior to the Hillsborough inquiry. We on this side of the House will continue our fight for justice and truth for those affected in Orgreave.
Brandon Lewis
I would just draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the inquiries and work that this Government have done to bring injustice to the surface. We have a good track record of making sure we unearth things but ultimately always making a decision that is in the wider public interest.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
The Prime Minister’s own chief of staff, Nick Timothy, is on record as saying:
“If the police pre-planned a mass, unlawful assault on the miners at Orgreave and then sought to cover up what they did and arrest people on trumped up charges, we need to know.”
He is absolutely right. Why are the Government stopping us knowing?
Brandon Lewis
I suggest the hon. Gentleman read through the evidence that is out there—that is published in the National Archives and being published by South Yorkshire police—and reads the full IPCC report on its investigation as well as the paperwork from the campaigners themselves. These are all part of the wide range of sources that we and the Home Secretary have looked at in making a decision on what is in the wider public interest.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
It is incumbent on every Member of the House to fight for truth and justice when lies and injustice have been exposed. The Home Secretary is denying us a public inquiry into the Orgreave tragedy, and the Scottish Government are denying us an inquiry in Scotland on the policing and convictions relating to the injustices that happened there during the miners strike. Can the public of this country therefore conclude that the Governments that are democratically elected to represent them here and in Scotland are no longer interested in fighting for justice even when new information becomes available?
Brandon Lewis
As I have said, if new information becomes available, the IPCC will look into investigating it. I had that conversation with the chairman of the IPCC yesterday, and I refer the hon. Gentleman to the comments I made on that earlier this afternoon. I would also like to think that the public will look at the track record of the Government, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister in taking on vested interests and making difficult decisions. This has been a difficult decision. The Home Secretary has made a decision that we believe is in the wider public interest, and it is the right decision.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
Trust is crucial to policing, and the image of mounted police officers cantering towards the striking miners is seared on the imagination of everyone who has seen it. This is a huge issue of public interest, as are the allegations of political interference in policing in our country. Does the Minister not recognise the damage that the Secretary of State’s failure to hold an investigation and to stand up for justice is having on public confidence in her Department?
Brandon Lewis
The IPCC has held an investigation, and if there is new evidence, it will look at the potential for further investigations. That is a matter for the IPCC, which is, by definition, independent. The hon. Lady also touched on the point that our police forces police by consent in this country. That is a two-way thing. In fact, we will be debating that subject tomorrow. It is important that the police and crime commissioner and the new leadership of the South Yorkshire police look at how they build that relationship with the public. It is also important that we and the public respect the police, as they continue to police us by consent. No doubt that will be part of the debate tomorrow afternoon.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
It is not good enough for the Minister to say that there should have been an inquiry earlier, because papers on Orgreave were still being released up to Christmas 2015. Those papers prompted calls for an inquiry because they showed an abuse of power in South Yorkshire police and the concocting of statements. Yes, no one was killed at Orgreave but lives were ruined and innocent people were sent to jail on remand. More importantly, in the mining areas that I know well—I am the direct descendant of generations of miners—trust in the police was completely destroyed in communities where children were previously brought up to trust and support the police. Until there is an inquiry, those wrongs cannot be righted. How can the Minister possibly keep denying us one?
Brandon Lewis
If the hon. Lady looks at what I have said this afternoon, she will see that I have not commented on what the previous Government did or did not do. I have stated specifically that that is a matter for those who were members of that Government to comment on, not for me. Our decision is about the Orgreave case, based on the facts that the Home Secretary and I have looked at and the meetings with the families. The hon. Lady talked about the public’s view of South Yorkshire police, and of the police in general, and it is important that we continue with the reforms and ensure that South Yorkshire police have the support they need to rebuild those relationships with the public. That is the outcome that should be right for people across the country. We should continue with the reforms and I hope that she will support us in doing so.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The miners from the Rhondda at Orgreave were dressed in T-shirts and plimsolls, and they were batted aside like flies by what felt like a paramilitary operation under political instruction. There are very real questions that the community in the Rhondda is still asking. Who gave those instructions? Has the present Home Secretary seen the operational instructions of the day? Why will she not publish them? Who told the police officers to fabricate evidence and to perjure themselves? The Home Secretary says that there has been no miscarriage of justice, but the people of the Rhondda will conclude that without a proper investigation and full publication, the miscarriage of justice is being done in this House by this Government. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is so much yelling from each side of the Chamber that it was difficult for me to hear the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who should be heard by the House—and, indeed, by the world. I also need to hear the response from the Minister, which should also be widely heard. I say to Members on both sides: please, hold your noise.
Brandon Lewis
The point that the Home Secretary was making, and that I have made today, is that we have looked at a whole range of factors. The comparison has been made with Hillsborough, but unlike at Hillsborough, there were no deaths or wrongful convictions as a result of Orgreave. Also, policing has changed dramatically in the years since then. That is why the Home Secretary’s decision, which had to be made in the wider public interest, is the right one, despite the fact that there is disagreement on it.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Today’s exchanges show that what the Minister has described as the Home Secretary’s “difficult decision” is hardly going to be received as an independent consideration. He has said a lot today about the public interest. Will he tell us which public interest would be compromised or undermined by a demonstrably independent and cost-effective review of these signal events?
Brandon Lewis
That is a very good question. This reminds me of a question I asked when I met the campaigners. I asked what they were hoping an inquiry would achieve. There were no wrongful convictions to correct, and there were no deaths to investigate. There was, however, a question about police behaviour. We can learn the lessons of the past and look at the behaviour, performance, structures and working of the police for the future. Things have changed dramatically in the past three decades, from the reforms in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 right through to the ones that we are introducing today. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to support us in our work on continuing with these important reforms.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Many of those campaigning for an inquiry into Orgreave drew hope from the result of the Hillsborough inquiry. Is the real reason that no inquiry will be allowed in this instance the fact that the Government fear that it would show that, unlike at Hillsborough, the police conspired in advance and initiated the confrontations, which would undoubtedly lead to questions about Government involvement?
Brandon Lewis
As I have said, there are considerable differences between the two situations. The basis on which the Government’s decision on an inquiry into Orgreave was made was whether it would be in the wider public interest.
Press Matters
Tuesday 1st November 2016
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Health and Social Care (National Data Guardian) Bill 2016-17 View all Health and Social Care (National Data Guardian) Bill 2016-17 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Karen Bradley)
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement on matters relating to the Leveson inquiry. A free press is an essential component of a fully functioning democracy, which is why it was a manifesto commitment of this Government to defend a free press. The press should tell the truth without fear or favour and hold the powerful to account. However, we now know that that freedom has in the past been abused. We know that some parts of the press have ignored their own code of practice and the law. I have met victims of illegal and improper press intrusion, some of whom have suffered immense distress.
In July 2011, the coalition Government announced an inquiry into the role of the press and the police in phone hacking and other illegal practices in the British press. Lord Justice Leveson—now Sir Brian Leveson—was appointed chair of the inquiry. Part 1 of the inquiry examined the culture, practices and ethics of the press. It considered such matters as whether the press needed a different form of regulation and how the press interacted with the public, the police and politicians. Sir Brian Leveson heard evidence from more than 300 people, including some of those who had been affected by the most egregious press behaviour. On 29 November 2012, the Leveson inquiry published its report on part 1. It contained 92 recommendations, the majority of which have been acted on and are being delivered. Part 2 of the inquiry, which has not yet begun, would further examine wrongdoing in the press and the police.
Following a cross-party agreement, a royal charter established the Press Recognition Panel, which began operating in November 2014. As stated on its website, the panel’s purpose is to ensure that any press self-regulator is
“independent, properly funded and able to protect the public, while recognising the important role carried out by the press”.
Since September 2015, the panel has been taking applications from regulators that are seeking recognition. Alongside the royal charter, section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 was designed to incentivise newspapers to join a recognised self-regulator. Section 40 has passed into law but remains uncommenced. It is one of two incentives. The other, relating to exemplary damages, came into effect on 3 November 2015. A self-regulator applying for recognition must meet the specific criteria set out in the royal charter, including providing a system of low-cost arbitration to replace the need for court action. Section 40 contains two presumptions: that if a publisher who is a member of a recognised self-regulator loses a relevant media case in court, they do not have to pay the winning side’s costs; and that if a publisher who is not a member of a recognised self-regulator wins such a case in court, they would have to pay the losing side’s costs as well as their own. Each element was intended to encourage the press to join a recognised self-regulator through a legitimate rebalancing of the normal rules on costs.
It has hitherto been the view of Government that as we wait for a number of elements of the new self-regulatory regime to settle in—the exemplary damages provisions of the 2013 Act, the press developing an effective form of voluntary self-regulation, and self-regulators applying for recognition—the time has not been right to commence section 40. However, the panel recently recognised its first self-regulator, the independent monitor for the press or IMPRESS, which currently has around 50 members. Meanwhile, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, known as IPSO, regulates more than 2,500 publications but has been clear that it will not seek recognition from the panel. We think the time is right to consider section 40 further.
It has also become apparent that the final criminal case relating to the Leveson inquiry is entering its final stages. We therefore think it is an appropriate time to start to consider the next steps on part 2 of the inquiry. Many of the issues that part 2 would have covered have been addressed over the past five years. Three police investigations— Operations Elveden, Tuleta and Weeting—have investigated a wide range of offences. A clear message has been sent to all police officers and public officials that receiving payments for confidential information will not be tolerated and will be dealt with robustly. The Metropolitan Police Service has introduced new policies on whistleblowing, gifts and hospitality, and media relations.
There was also a degree of subject matter overlap between parts 1 and 2 of the Leveson inquiry. For example, the inquiry reviewed the MPS’s initial investigation into phone hacking and the role of politicians and public servants regarding any failure to investigate wrongdoing in News International. Part 1 made numerous recommendations which, where they relate to them, are being addressed by the police, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the College of Policing. Given the extent of the criminal investigations, the implementation of the recommendations from part 1 of the Leveson inquiry and the cost to the taxpayer of the investigations and part 1—£43.7 million and £5.4 million respectively—the Government are considering whether undertaking part 2 is still in the public interest.
We are keen to take stock and seek the views of the public and interested parties—not least those who have been the victims of press abuse. We will also formally consult Sir Brian Leveson, in his role as inquiry chair, on the question of part 2 at the appropriate time. I can announce that today we are launching a public consultation, inviting comments on both section 40 and part 2 of the Leveson inquiry from organisations that are affected by it and from the public. It will run for 10 weeks from today—1 November—until 10 January 2017. It is laid out in a consultation document entitled, “Consultation on the Leveson Inquiry and its implementation”, published on gov.uk. I am also depositing it in the Libraries of both Houses.
I have met Sir Brian Leveson, and spoke to him again this morning. I will write to him formally as well. I am extremely grateful for all the work that he and his team have done to get us this far. The Government are determined that a balance is struck between press freedom and the freedom of the individual. Those who are treated improperly must have redress. Likewise, politicians must not seek to muzzle the press or prevent it from doing legitimate work, such as holding us to account. The police must take seriously their role in protecting not only their own reputation, but also those people they are meant to serve. That is the balance that we wish to strike, and the consultation is the most appropriate and fairest way of doing so. I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
What a sad day this is. I am at least grateful to the Secretary of State for giving me an advance copy of her statement an hour ago—947 days after all parties reached an agreement to implement in full the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry.
The Prime Minister herself set the test for the process on 14 June 2012 when she said to the inquiry:
“I will never forget meeting with the Dowler family in Downing Street to run through the terms of this Inquiry with them and to hear what they had been through and how it had redoubled, trebled the pain and agony they’d been through over losing Milly.”
She went on to say that the test should be
“are we really protecting people who have been caught up and absolutely thrown to the wolves by this process. That’s what the test is.”
The Government reassured victims that if they spoke out at Leveson, the Government would act on his recommendations. Today, the Culture Secretary has announced that we must wait another 10 weeks while the reforms are discussed all over again in the context of a wider consultation on the press. The Opposition believe that they have been discussed and debated enough and should have been implemented years ago. The victims of press intrusion cannot wait a day longer for this Government to honour David Cameron’s promises to pass the then Home Secretary’s self-defined test. For the Culture Secretary to stand here today and announce a consultation into the press nearly 1,000 days after those reforms were agreed by party leaders is deeply regrettable.
As the Culture Secretary said, it is more than five years since the previous Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and announced an inquiry into press practices and ethics. A lot has happened since then. We have had the Hillsborough inquiry and its findings on misleading police statements to Government officials and subsequently newspapers. We had the urgent question on Orgreave just this morning. We have had the case of Mazher Mahmood, the fake sheikh who perverted the course of justice to secure his scoops and in so doing left scores of previous convictions unsafe. Senior police officers have had to resign over phone hacking. We have had more information emerge about the brutal murder of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator who was threatening to reveal police corruption to the press. Over 30 police and public officials have been jailed for bribery.
Leveson 2 was meant to look at the relationship that existed between newspapers and police. Despite the exposure of criminality, it is impossible for the Minister to credibly conclude that we have learned enough about corruption to halt Leveson 2 before it starts. After all, one of the terms of reference for the second part of Leveson is
“To inquire into the extent of corporate governance and management failures at News International and other newspaper organisations, and the role, if any, of politicians, public servants and others in relation to any failure to investigate wrongdoing”.
In other words, Leveson 2 is the investigation into how the cover-up of phone hacking was conducted. In effect, the Culture Secretary is today announcing a consultation on whether the cover-up should be covered up. It is my view that the events of the past five years make Leveson 2 more urgent, not less. Leveson was created so that a Minster would not have to worry what pressure she was put under by newspaper editors. What the Secretary of State is doing today is abandoning that principle. She is taking back the power from an independent judge, and in so doing she opens up the Executive to accusations that they have succumbed to the vested interests of media barons—it is an age-old story and she is carrying the can.
I am afraid that the Secretary of State leaves us no choice but to ask her some searching questions. First, did the Prime Minister discuss the Leveson process at her private meeting with Rupert Murdoch in New York last month? Secondly, when the Secretary of State spoke to Lord Leveson earlier today, did he approve this hurried consultation? Does he agree with her analysis? Will she allow him to make a public statement? Finally, has she spoken to the parents of Milly Dowler and to other victims of press intrusion? What is their view of these proposals? Do they think this passes the Prime Minister’s test? Are we really protecting people who have been caught up and absolutely thrown to the wolves?
Karen Bradley
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box, but I disagree with much of what he has just said. Let me start by being clear about victims of press intrusion: the first people I met in this job regarding press regulation were the victims of phone hacking—I did so with Hacked Off. I have been determined throughout my time in this role to make sure that I meet as many victims as possible; I did the same in my previous role in the Home Office and I continue to do it, because if we do not listen to people and what they have been through, we cannot possibly imagine it and legislate in an appropriate way. But what is clear to me, and I think to him, is that we all want effective, robust press regulation, so we have to look at the situation we find ourselves in today, not five years ago, to make sure we can achieve that. In his list of things that had happened, he actually set out all the reasons why we need to take a step back and to consider the position, so I invite responses from all interested bodies—from all people affected by this. I am sure that we will get many, many responses to the consultation and I welcome them. We need to look at this in terms of the situation and the press regulation we have today, to make sure we get the right, appropriate, robust, effective press regulation, so that, as he said, we do all we can to protect people.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s intention to continue to listen very carefully on these matters. Will she confirm that in considering how best to proceed, she will take account of the significant deterioration in the economic health of traditional media, which has taken place even since Leveson and is still leading to the closure of titles at both national and local level? Will she bear in mind that the real media giants of today, such as Facebook and Google, are outside the scope of legislation and regulation altogether?
Karen Bradley
My right hon. Friend, who was my predecessor in this role, sets out important arguments, which we need to consider. He rightly says that we need to make sure that this regulation affects the whole of the press, not just the print media that are on our high streets and that are produced locally, but those global players on the internet.
John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
As the House knows, section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 was passed to implement the recommendations made by the Leveson inquiry that any new regulator set up should be accredited as independent and effective. The purpose of that section is to provide costs protection for claimants and Leveson-regulated newspaper publishers. Section 40 extends to England and Wales only. Regulation of print media is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, which has provided cross-party support for the UK Government’s actions to implement the royal charter. Does the Secretary of State understand the difficulties that local newspapers face and recognise that the majority of the press, especially the regional press in Scotland, was not involved in the sort of malpractice that prompted the Leveson recommendations?
It is important that we balance respect for the freedom of the press and the public desire for high standards, accuracy and transparency. That said, does the Secretary of State agree that the protection afforded by section 40 would be available to Scottish litigants who chose to sue newspapers based in England and Wales in the event that section 40 was enacted? In the meantime, Scottish National party MPs will support the House of Lords amendment to the Investigatory Powers Bill that will introduce a new clause 9, on the back of clause 8, which was introduced as an SNP amendment.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman raises the issues regarding the devolution of regulation of the press. As he will know, part 2 of Leveson will cover the whole United Kingdom but, as he said, section 40 covers England and Wales. I am due to speak to Fiona Hyslop this afternoon to discuss exactly how we make sure it works across the whole country. He makes the point strongly that many good local newspapers were not involved in any form of press abuse or intrusion, and we need to make sure that we do press regulation in a way that protects a free, vibrant local press.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I declare an interest, in that I have had four successful defamation actions against newspapers. I say to my right hon. Friend that having an effective, robust press is even more important than having effective, robust press regulation. If we have 2,500 newspapers, including all those—or nearly all those—represented by the Society of Editors, and we have a pretty pathetic list in IMPRESS, most of which do not have a circulation of more than 200, 300 or 1,000, we must not introduce section 40 and we ought to find a way in which the IPSO people cannot be forced into the Press Recognition Panel but can be recognised as representing newspapers, with a proper way of redress?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend sums up the dilemma that faces the Government today: we have more than 2,500 newspapers and other publications that have not signed up and never will sign up to a recognised regulator. We have to make this work in that climate and with that situation, and I urge all interested parties to respond to the consultation, so that we can hear all those views.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
I thought I was going to welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, because she explained in clear detail why the incentives contained in section 40 are essential to the Leveson recommendations, which this House approved overwhelmingly in the royal charter and which, as she said, are already in law—and we now have a recognised regulator. But she went on to say that, rather than commencing section 40, the Government were just going to consider it further. Why does she not just do the right thing by the victims and commence the legislation that this House and the House of Lords have already passed?
Karen Bradley
What I said is that we are going to consult; it is a 10-week consultation, and it is very clearly about part 2 of the Leveson inquiry and the commencement of section 40. I want to hear all views in that consultation.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
I was struck by an article in this weekend’s Observer by the former editor of The Guardian, Peter Preston, who calls for section 40 to be mothballed and suggests that the Government could
“seek a fresh, more collegiate start.”
I would not expect the Secretary of State to take such an extreme position as the ex-editor of The Guardian, but does she agree that this consultation is exactly the right way forward and that it is an opportunity to take stock of where we are, to involve all interested parties and to see whether we can move on in a more consensual fashion?
Karen Bradley
I read that same article, and I should read out what Peter Preston says:
“It doesn’t make sense any longer. Blanket bitterness stuck in a time warp. Most editors, like most politicians, with a soupçon of perspective, would know what to say about such impasses. Time to dismantle the barricades. Time to move on.”
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has a very easy way out of her dilemma, which is to name a future date for the commencement of section 40. She will then get plenty of movement, because there will be plenty of incentive. We have all been circulated things by local newspapers, at the behest of national newspaper owners, but does the Secretary of State agree that that lobbying tells only half the truth? Section 40 gives protection for serious journalism from the chilling effect of deep-pocketed vexatious litigants, because such people would first have to go through a low-cost arbitration system and not to the courts? In that sense, it protects hard-pressed local newspapers in particular, whose investigations have, sadly, not been of the calibre that we have been used to.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman and I discussed that at the Select Committee last week. We share a local paper in the Stoke Sentinel, which has communicated with both of us, but he must recognise that the Stoke Sentinel and others have signed up to IPSO, which does not have recognition under the Press Recognition Panel. We need to ensure that we get this right, which is why we need to take stock, listen to all views and consider the position based on the fact that we are now five years on from the original date of the inquiry.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Questions are rather long. Perhaps we can get pithiness from a classicist and a philosopher. I call Sir Oliver Letwin.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for that equivocal introduction.
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Does she agree that the members of IPSO—the press—could spare us a lot of grief and move the matter on if they were to enforce, through IPSO, a genuinely Leveson-compliant regime, including the provision of a low-cost arbitration service?
Karen Bradley
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the role that he has played in developing the cross-party agreement. Those are exactly the kind of comments that we want to hear through the consultation.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I rather agree with the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) that that is precisely what IPSO could do, but this is now a matter of keeping faith. David Foulkes was killed in the 7 July bombings in Edgware Road. His father, Graham, said:
“We were in a very dark place. You think that it is as dark as it can get, and then you realise that there’s someone out there who can make it darker.”
The right hon. Gentleman made promises to Mr Foulkes, as did the Prime Minister at the time and the present Prime Minister. The right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) also made promises to Mr Foulkes and to so many others that, first, the commencement would start immediately, and secondly—no ifs, no buts—that there would be Leveson 2. Why on earth is the right hon. Lady reneging on all those promises made to the victims?
Karen Bradley
Nobody is reneging on any promises. We are having a consultation. We want to hear from all sides, and we will make a decision after that.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State bear most in mind the weakening and poor health of local and national newspapers, as set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), and make sure that they will always be protected in being able to expose people in authority? They should be protected from rich bullies who, by the very threat of legal action against them, may force newspapers not to print stories that would be in the public interest. Not doing that may suit many people in this House, but it would do a gross disservice to the public at large.
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend is right. We all know of instances when local newspapers have perhaps printed something with which we did not necessarily agree, but I defend the right for them to do so.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
I feel so let down and disappointed by the Secretary of State’s statement. She could have come here and announced the commencement of section 40, which would have been the right and proper thing to do. I do not know what she thinks more talking will do after the months and months of Leveson, but I want to ask this specific question: has she met the families and the victims of the lack of press regulation—not on the day that she took office, but today or yesterday—to say that there was going to be more delay and more consultation and to explain what she was coming here to announce today?
Karen Bradley
As I told the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), I have met victims and I will continue to meet them. I will ensure that I have correspondence and engagement with all, but I wanted to come to the House and make this announcement because Parliament needs to hear it first.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I suppose I had better begin by declaring an hereditary interest rather than a direct one.
I want to commend my right hon. Friend for her excellent statement. She is clearly right to be reviewing this, because the system cannot be working when IMPRESS, funded by a degenerate libertine who was embarrassed by free newspapers a few years ago, has only 50 subscribers, and IPSO, representing the vast swathe of the press, has 2,500 subscribers. She is quite right to review that, and also right to defend the freedom of the press, which is more important than the press being responsible.
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. That is why we are having a consultation. I want to hear all responses, and I want to look at this in the light of today, not of five, 10 or 15 years ago.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
One common thread that runs between the injustices uncovered in recent years is an unhealthy, collusive relationship between police and the press. Part 2 of the Leveson inquiry was intended to examine that in detail. It is seen as essential by Hillsborough campaigners to bring a form of accountability, and yet the Secretary of State, if I heard her correctly, has effectively announced today that she is consulting on a decision to reject it. Can she not see that that will leave campaigners feeling bitterly let down? Does it not sound for all the world like the second Government cover-up in just two days?
Karen Bradley
I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman for whom I have enormous respect. In this case, he is simply wrong. We are consulting on what is the right thing to do today. He must recognise that there have been significant changes in the way in which the police behave and are accountable, much of which was uncovered during the inquiry on Hillsborough. I want to look at the position today to get the right result for those who have been victims of press intrusion in the past and to make sure that people in the future have the appropriate regulation and the appropriate redress.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
I really welcome the comments of my right hon. Friend about effective and robust regulation. It is crystal clear that IPSO does neither of those. Will she do all she can to ensure that low-cost arbitration is on the top of her list?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We do want to see all people, no matter what their background, being able to get appropriate redress and arbitration that is effective and works.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The Secretary of State says that she wants to come up to date with what is going on now, and not just look back at the tragedies of 10 years ago. Well, she needs only to look at the case of Fatima Manji to see that the same people being complained about were the judges and the jury in the regulator, IPSO. That is the problem.
Karen Bradley
I do not want to comment on individual cases that have been brought to any regulator. What I want to see is robust regulation.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State accept that, regardless of her consultation, the current status quo is not acceptable, because we have yet to see the establishment of a robust industry-funded system of arbitration, which gives access to justice—one of Leveson’s key recommendations?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee, makes a very good and important point, and one that I want to hear more about during the consultation.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Press Recognition Panel set up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal stated that urgent action is required if the post-Leveson system of independent regulation is to be given a chance to survive. Surely today’s procrastination is tantamount to political interference by the Government.
Karen Bradley
I do not accept that point. We have commenced the exemplary damages point. We now have a recognised regulator. Now is the time to take stock and look at what further work needs to be done.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
As a former journalist of some 17 years, I was shocked when only 14 of us in this House voted against the Royal Charter all those years ago, and I questioned whether democracy was at risk. May I remind Opposition Members and perhaps one or two Government Members that phone hacking is already illegal and a person will go to jail if they commit that offence? Finally, local newspapers, which had nothing to do with the scandal that occurred in a very small majority of the major newspapers, fear that if they have to pay costs despite even winning their case, they will have to close down and they will not be able to challenge those who should be challenged.
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. This is why we are consulting and taking stock.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
The Secretary of State says that press regulation is failing, but let us not forget that this Government set up this system, which is now failing. Is it not the case that this Government have been engaging in political gymnastics on this issue since the beginning to arrive at the very point that we are at today where section 40 and part 2 are going to be scrapped? It has always been the Government’s intention to pay lip service to this issue and not to consider the victims.
Karen Bradley
This is a full, open consultation on which no decisions have been taken.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State is absolutely right to stand up for independence, regulation and arbitration, but the consultation she has announced today will of course delay, at best, section 40. Does she not agree, therefore, that it would be reasonable to accept Baroness Hollins’s amendments to clause 8 of the Investigatory Powers Bill?
Karen Bradley
I do not agree with that point. The Investigatory Powers Bill is a matter of national security and nothing should get in the way of us passing it to establish an Act of Parliament to ensure that we have the right powers for our law enforcement to keep us all safe.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Section 40 needs to be implemented now—not just because it is in statute and part of Leveson, but because it is necessary to address part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. The effect of that Act, which was introduced by the previous coalition Government, is that it is not possible for victims easily to sue people, so will they not continue to be vilified and humiliated?
Karen Bradley
I would welcome comments on that particular issue in the consultation.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
Like my right hon. Friend, I believe in a free press, but I also believe in a responsible press. Does she not agree that a great virtue of the Leveson inquiry was that it took this whole contentious issue out of the hands of politicians; that by going for this consultation, which she will respond to, she is in danger of embroiling politicians in the issue again; and that low-cost arbitration has to be part of the solution?
Karen Bradley
The very fact that we are having a debate about section 40—tied up with the matter of national security, which is the Investigatory Powers Bill—means that we need to take stock and work out exactly what is the best thing to do.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Academic research has shown conclusively that the false lies printed on a daily basis on most of the front pages of our newspapers against migrants and minority communities have led to the rise of violence and prejudice towards those people. When complaints are made, all we get is a two-line correction at the bottom of the page. Has not IPSO singularly failed to deal with that?
Karen Bradley
Those are the points that I would like to hear in the consultation, so that we can make a decision based on the evidence.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman does not have to look quite so surprised. He was standing. Therefore, I did think he wanted to contribute. It is not surprising, if he then rises to his feet, that I call him.
Bob Stewart
I was just surprised that I was called so early. I am normally further down the list.
Mr Speaker
Order. I must say that the capacity of right hon. and hon. Members for misguided self-pity is unlimited.
Bob Stewart
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will get to it now.
We in the House unanimously agreed to support Leveson part 1. Well, most of us agreed. Is the consultation, therefore, simply a tactic to get the press on board?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend is usually at the top of my list. I want to assure him that this is an open, frank consultation where we want to hear all views so we can make a decision based on the situation we find ourselves in today to get the effective, robust regulation that we all want.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State deliberately refused to answer the precise questions that my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) put to her from the Front Bench. Will she now say, having spoken to Lord Leveson, what are Lord Leveson’s views on the statement she has made today and whether she will allow him to speak publicly about his views?
Karen Bradley
I apologise if the hon. Gentleman does not think that I answered the question, but, to be clear, I discussed the matter with the hon. Member for West Bromwich East earlier. The conversation I had with Lord Leveson is private and I am not going to comment on it in public.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I should declare that I spent 15 years as a journalist at The Daily Telegraph. We all feel profound sympathy for the victims in this situation, but, overall, is not the real prize that a good, free, robust and boisterous press holds the Government to account regionally, locally and nationally? If we get that wrong by allowing it to become either unsustainable or impractically regulated, we will lose far more than we are talking about today.
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend makes the point very well. We want a robust, free, strong press that holds us to account. We will not like it when the press holds us to account, but it should have the right to do so.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
My local, family-owned newspaper, the Newark Advertiser, knows what it is like to be vexatiously sued by a politician. When Harold Laski sued the newspaper to try to ruin a local family, the Parlbys, he lost. That is now one of the leading cases in this area of law. Of course, had these rules been in place, the family would still have been ruined and my local newspaper would still have been put out of business. In the consultation, will the Secretary of State pay particular attention to local newspapers and, above all, to independent titles such as the Newark Advertiser?
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I am sure the Secretary of State, like me, will be amazed by the spectacle of a Parliament in which it is the Opposition who are demanding more restrictions on the press. Will she reassure me that we will balance any future system against the needs of the local media, particularly in an era when, sometimes, update lists via email run by Members of the House have a larger circulation?
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend touches on the point alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale): we are in a news world entirely different from what we have ever had before. We have digital media, global players and local players who can get to people through social media and the internet in a way that is totally unregulated. We need to ensure that we look at all those matters and get the right regulation.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
How many marks out of 10 would my right hon. Friend give IPSO?
Karen Bradley
I have not yet been asked to give IPSO a mark out of 10, so I will restrain myself from doing so at this stage.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Believing that my right hon. Friend’s heart is in the right place, I wonder whether the irony in her repeated statement that this is the right thing to do for today was intended or unintended. What assurance can she give me that she will commence section 40 if there is no other way to get to low-cost arbitration?
Karen Bradley
I can assure my hon. Friend that I will look at all the consultation responses and will make a decision based on the evidence.
Mr Speaker
We will come to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. The wine will mature. Do not worry.
Bill presented
Health and Social Care (National Data Guardian) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Jo Churchill, supported by Alistair Burt, Maria Caulfield, Jeremy Lefroy, Ben Howlett, Will Quince, Rebecca Pow, George Freeman, Nick Thomas-Symonds, Karin Smyth and Liz McInnes, presented a Bill to make provision relating to the National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 2 December, and to be printed (Bill 84).
Points of Order
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I misattributed a quote earlier. I was in error about which Prime Minister’s promise to the Dowlers is not being kept. It is David Cameron’s promise that is not being kept, not the current Prime Minister’s. I have put that right as early as I could.
Mr Speaker
Thank you. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as will the House be. The matter is now firmly on the record.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last Thursday, the chief executive of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs gave evidence to the Treasury Committee in which he said that never again would HMRC outsource to a private contractor anything to do with tax credits. That represents a significant U-turn in Government policy. Do you think it would have been appropriate for a Minister to come to the House to make a statement, not least because that was the day after we had had a full Opposition day debate on Concentrix? Several questions remain outstanding on Concentrix, the contract that is in place and whether compensation will be received for the early release that the Minister said is being negotiated. Will you find a way to encourage the Minister to come back before the House to give a full statement on Concentrix and the outstanding questions that remain, but also on the decision no longer to outsource in relation to tax credits?
Mr Speaker
I do not think it would be right for me to engage in public exhortation, and certainly it is for Ministers to decide when to make an oral statement and when to make a written statement. That said, the hon. Lady has made an interesting observation about what appears to represent a change of heart, and indeed of intended policy. In such circumstances, it is commonplace, and invariably appreciated by the House, if a Minister chooses to come to it formally to announce that and to be open to questioning on the matter.
The hon. Lady has made her point with her usual force and eloquence and it will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench. At this stage, I say let us await the development of events.
There are no further points of order now, although I have a feeling that one is brewing and we will hear it erelong, at a time the hon. Member in question thinks apposite in relation to upcoming business. Before we get to that, we have a ten-minute rule Bill.
School Admissions (Special Educational Needs)
Tuesday 1st November 2016
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate School Admissions (Special Educational Needs) Bill 2016-17 View all School Admissions (Special Educational Needs) Bill 2016-17 Debates Read Hansard Text
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the access to education, school admissions and support for special educational needs, with particular reference to children diagnosed with autism; and for connected purposes.
The Equality Act 2010 exists to protect people of all ages from discrimination. It should prevent disabled people from being treated unfairly because of their disability, but in some respects, sadly, there is still a long way to go. Like every other Member, I suspect, I have had parents of disabled children visit my surgery. Like all parents, they want the best for their children, but as a result of the barriers that they have to overcome, they are even more driven and determined than most as, too often, the system makes it difficult to ensure that their children get the very best, particularly when it comes to education.
It is an irony that the Equality Act is being used to discriminate against children with autism. The National Autistic Society believes that too many schools do not fully understand their duties towards children and young people with this condition. The law requires them to make reasonable adjustments for their disabled pupils, so that they may achieve their full potential. “Reasonable adjustment” means ensuring that a disabled child can do what their non-disabled peers do.
There appears to be a loophole in the law that does not consider challenging behaviour linked to a child’s disability as an impairment. If their disability could result in aggressive behaviour towards others in the school, the law on disability discrimination does not help them, and some governing bodies use “tendency to physical abuse of others” as a reason not to meet the needs of an autistic child and to exclude them. Of course, governors have a duty to others in the school, but it can sometimes be easier to refuse admission than to facilitate a solution.
Let me give a specific example from my constituency. Mr and Mrs Chase of Healing in north-east Lincolnshire took the decision to remove their son from his second maintained mainstream primary school owing to the lack of appropriate provision and a lack of advice and support for the school and themselves with regard to the types of provision that could be put into a mainstream school. Explaining their decision to withdraw their son, Mr and Mrs Chase said in their email to me:
“Our decision was the last straw and a very hard decision to make. However we could no longer sit back and watch our son’s lack of education continue. So throughout the summer holidays we pushed the LEA and SEN Assessment Team for an out of area specialist school placement for our son and due to the fact there is nothing else in the area for our son, his placement was agreed and he started at an independent family run school in Brigg that provided a specialist setting for boys on the autistic spectrum.”
Although this may be difficult to replicate on a wider scale, it is not impossible.
Mr and Mrs Chase continued:
“The first two weeks went very well, but we experienced some blips as this setting is very different to a mainstream school and our son is still trying to become familiar with the differences in environment, figuring out where the boundaries are, how to fit in with his peer group and also start to manage a full school day and realise that he must do this five days a week.”
Mr and Mrs Chase went on to say that
“without the right kind of ethos and staff attitude, specialist units can become very institutional and more like mini correctional facilities, which often can do more damage than good to children with these conditions.”
Mr and Mrs Chases’s son was permanently excluded when his primary school became an academy. They challenged the decision through an independent panel review, which concluded that the school had made a premature decision on permanent exclusion and asked it to reconsider, but the independent panel had no power to reinstate their son.
Mr and Mrs Chase said:
“Our main worry as parents of a disabled child with some very challenging behaviours caused by his disabilities is that with regulation 4 (1)”—
of the Equality Act—
“disabled children are being villainised, they are being made out to be the bad guys particularly in disability discrimination cases . . . Our children’s rights to an education and also special educational needs provision due to their disabilities are being washed away by this regulation. Schools are getting away with poor special educational needs provision for disabled children and most probably poor allocation of the additional monies allocated to special needs children. Schools have been given a loophole in law to out difficult disabled children that are their responsibility to educate”,
due to regulation 4(1).
I appreciate that this is emotive language, but I ask Members to put themselves in the shoes of parents who find barriers placed in front of them. They want to prevent their children from being discriminated against. That must surely have been the intention of the Equality Act. In fairness I must emphasise that I recognise that some schools and local authorities make far better provision than others. Teaching assistants are often allocated to work with autistic children. Indeed, my own daughter has performed this task at a primary school in my constituency.
In March this year, the House of Lords Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability published a report evaluating the impact of the Act on disabled people. Evidence was presented to the Committee by the charity Independent Parental Special Education Advice and also by the Alliance for Inclusive Education. Section 501 of the report states that those organisations
“were concerned that the exclusion had resulted in schools moving straight to exclusion of pupils with challenging behaviour, without first considering whether reasonable adjustments could prevent it.”
The report continued by pointing out that challenging behaviour results because reasonable adjustments have not been made.
Recommendation 503 of the report states:
“Schools should be encouraged and supported to make the kinds of adjustments that can help to address the educational inequalities faced by disabled children and young people, including those whose disability gives rise to challenging behaviour. This is undermined by Regulation 4(1) of the Equality Act 2010 (Disability) Regulations 2010, and we recommend that the Regulations are amended so that a tendency to physical abuse of other persons ceases to be treated as not amounting to an impairment for the purposes of the definition of ‘disability’.”
The Government responded as follows:
“Our Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice makes it clear that teachers should look beyond disruptive or challenging behaviours to determine whether there are underlying issues or disabilities and put appropriate support in place. . . The department’s exclusion guidance also sets out that early intervention measures should include an assessment of whether appropriate provision is in place to support any SEN or disability that a pupil may have. It makes clear that schools should consider the use of a multi-agency assessment for pupils who display persistent disruptive behaviour, which could include pupils who have unidentified SEN. Schools should arrange such assessments when concerns arise rather than waiting for a specific trigger.
Although there remain strong public policy reasons behind the excluded behaviours, the Government has listened to the issues raised by the Committee and will consider how the exemption around ‘a tendency to physical abuse of other persons’ applies to those under 18 in an education context.”
As we all know, guidance and what actually happens can sometimes be very different. I recognise that much good work takes place, but parents of autistic children can sometimes have an uphill task to ensure that a full and comprehensive education is made available. Society has made great strides in recent years in how we educate and care for the disabled, whether that disability be mental or physical, but there is still some way to go. My Bill seeks to remedy one of the loopholes, and I hope that the Minister, who I know cares deeply about these issues, will work with me and the various charities and support groups to ensure that the difficulties faced by my constituents and thousands of others is minimised and eventually eliminated.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Martin Vickers, Mrs Cheryl Gillan, Jim Shannon, Fiona Bruce, Mr Barry Sheerman, Melanie Onn, Kit Malthouse, Mr David Nuttall, Mr David Burrowes, Justin Tomlinson and Rehman Chishti present the Bill.
Martin Vickers accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 16 December, and to be printed (Bill 85).
INVESTIGATORY POWERS BILL (PROGRAMME) (NO. 3)
Tuesday 1st November 2016
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 68-I Marshalled list for consideration of Commons reasons (PDF, 78KB) - (1 Nov 2016)
Table | |
|---|---|
Lords Amendments | Time for conclusion of proceedings |
Nos. 11 to 15, 338 and 339 | 90 minutes after the commencement of proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments |
Nos. 1 to 10, 16 to 337 and 340 to 377 | The moment of interruption |
Investigatory Powers Bill
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
15:52 - The House divided: - Ayes: 298 / Noes: 261 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
Before we come to the first group of amendments, may I say that, as the House knows, there are 377 Lords amendments to the Investigatory Powers Bill, which were passed to this House yesterday evening? I must inform the House that none of the Lords amendments is certified—it says here “are certified”, but that is quite wrong; “none” takes the singular—under the EVEL Standing Orders. The Scottish Parliament passed a legislative consent motion on 6 October, copies of which are available with the Bill documents online and in the Vote Office. I must also inform the House that two of the Lords amendments—270 and 271—engage Commons financial privilege. If they are agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered in the Journal.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have made reference to the Sewel convention and to the legislative consent motion being available in the Vote Office. The legislative consent motion from the Scottish Parliament is dated 6 October. Amendment 15—one of the most important amendments we will consider—was passed on 11 October and deals with a matter referred to by the noble Lord Howe as being outside the ordinary ambit of the Bill and a considerable advance from what was in the rest of the text. I am concerned, therefore, that amendment 15 by their lordships is not approved by the Sewel convention or covered by the legislative consent motion that we have received from the Scottish Parliament. I know that, strictly speaking, this is a matter for the Government, not the House of Commons itself, but I fear that the House would be doing a discourtesy to the Scottish Parliament if we were to proceed to legislate on a devolved matter, which media policy is. It would be helpful to have your guidance, and perhaps ruling, on where we should go with the Sewel convention, and perhaps for the Government to clarify their position.
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for advance notice of his point of order. Might I just mention in passing that his exegesis of the legislation, and his courtesy and regard for the principle of courtesy in respect of other Parliaments, are impeccable, as is invariably the case.
As the hon. Gentleman will know—I welcome this opportunity to clarify the position, and it does require clarification—section 2 of the Scotland Act 2016 enshrined in legislation the statement that:
“the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.”
That does not prevent the House from considering amendments that the Scottish Parliament has not consented to.
We are just about to come to the first debate on a group of Lords amendments that, as the hon. Gentleman rightly observes, includes Lords amendment 15, and it is, I believe, with that that he is overwhelmingly concerned. The Government have given notice of their intention to disagree with Lords amendment 15, among others. We will have to wait to learn from the debate why the Minister takes that view. I am giving due notice that the House will certainly expect an explanation on that matter—whether the House as a whole does, I feel absolutely certain that the hon. Member for North East Somerset will.
If the hon. Gentleman’s thought about Scottish consent had not already occurred to Ministers, or those advising them, I surmise from the attentive attitudes of right hon. and hon. Members on the Front Bench, including much nodding of heads and expressions of sagacity, that it will have done so now. I hope that will do at least for now. I thank the hon. Member for North East Somerset because he has done the House a service. These conventions matter, and he has reminded us of that point.
Clause 8
Civil liability for certain unlawful interceptions
The Minister for Security (Mr Ben Wallace)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 11.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Lords amendment 12, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 13, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 14, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 15, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 338, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 339, and Government motion to disagree.
Mr Wallace
The Investigatory Powers Bill will provide a world-leading framework for the use of investigatory powers by law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies. It will strengthen the safeguards for the use of those powers, including through the introduction of a double lock for the most intrusive powers, and it will create a powerful new body responsible for oversight of them. This is the most important piece of legislation this Government will bring before the House.
I will turn first to the amendments tabled in the other place by Baroness Hollins. As we have just heard from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the Government will hold a landmark public consultation relating to the governance of the press and its relationship with the public, police and politicians. This consultation will give everyone with an interest in these matters an opportunity to have their say on this vital issue, which affects each and every one of us in the country. I hope the whole House will welcome the announcement, which shows the Government’s commitment to addressing the issues and recommendations set out in the Leveson report in the most appropriate way.
This is an emotive subject for Members, in both this House and the other place, where Earl Howe set out the Government’s position in relation to this issue during the debate on Report. I hope the House will indulge me while I set out the key points. As I said at the start of my remarks, the Investigatory Powers Bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation the Government will bring forward. It will provide a world-leading framework for the use of investigatory powers by law enforcement and security agencies and, in doing so, protect this nation from some of the most serious crimes and threats. We should not forget that the Bill will also strengthen the safeguards for the use of those powers, and it will create a powerful new body responsible for that oversight.
We heard yesterday in the Lords from peers on all sides about the importance of the Bill and the careful cross-party scrutiny that has got it into the very good shape that it comes back to the House in today. The Bill will provide vital tools for our law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies. It is not, and never was, intended to provide for the regulation of the press.
Whatever the merits of the provisions introduced by Baroness Hollins, this is not the place for them. Their inclusion is a distraction from the very important aims of the Bill. Moreover, they threaten to undermine an important provision in the Bill.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
While I entirely accept that this is not the place to deal with those matters, I hope the Minister will recognise that there is very strong feeling on these Benches that the issues in relation to Leveson do need to be dealt with as a matter of some urgency. While I agree that we should not, therefore, accept the amendment, I very much hope that he and other Ministers will ensure that these matters are brought to the House at the earliest possible opportunity, so that they can be fully and properly dealt with.
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I do, of course, recognise the strength of feeling about press regulation, but I also recognise the strength of feeling about making sure we give our security services and our police forces the tools to tackle the paedophiles, the serious and organised criminals and the terrorists who threaten the state and my constituents.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am wholly in favour of most of the other provisions of the Bill, but that is not the point we are debating now; we are debating why the Government are reneging on their promise, made on 18 March 2013 as part of a package, that we would commence section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Does the Minister not realise that if we keep getting statements such as the one we just had from the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, suggesting that the Government intend to kick this issue down the road yet further, their lordships are simply going to send the proposals back again, and again, and again, with probably even larger majorities?
Mr Wallace
I know that the hon. Gentleman is an impatient individual, but 10 weeks is not a long time to wait in engaging in a consultation. [Interruption.] He says, “Three and a half years”, but what is 10 weeks on top of that?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend makes a crucially important point. If SNP Members do not require the Sewel consents to be given, then implicitly, as we have an unwritten constitution and operate by convention, they would be giving media policy back to the United Kingdom Parliament.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Minister asked me a question. I can only remind him of what Mr Speaker said when he was in the Chair: that legislative consent is not required until the Bill has been amended, as the Minister will know very well. Legislative consent to those aspects of the Bill that require it is not sought from the Scottish Government until the Bill has passed through this House. He is therefore setting a false trap. He will remember a phrase from the Scottish Parliament, “My head does not zip up the back.” My head does not zip up the back, and I will not fall into his false trap, but SNP Members will give their support to the Lords amendment on this occasion.
Mr Wallace
I think we can debate Zippy another time.
This is about an important issue of principle. Throughout all the Bills I have ever been involved in, we in this House have gone out of our way to make sure that we seek the up-front approval of the Scottish Parliament in an LCM before we start down the path of picking and choosing what we do or do not support.
Mr Rees-Mogg
What the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said may well be true, but this is our last opportunity to approve or reject the amendment. If it goes back to the House of Lords, and all the other amendments that we make are agreed to, there will be no further opportunity to amend the Bill, so legislating now, without consent, would make the law.
Mr Wallace
Not for the first time, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is the last opportunity to amend this Bill—there will be no going back. Should the hon. and learned Lady wish to go back, then we shall hear her options.
Joanna Cherry
The Minister is in a slightly unfair position because he did not pilot the Bill through the Bill Committee, but I did serve on the Committee, and he can check what happened with his ministerial colleagues. The Government accepted clause 8, on the back of which this amendment rides, as a result of an SNP amendment to reintroduce the tort—or, to use the Scots word, delict—in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. This further Lords amendment rides on the back of an amendment that arose from the historic event of the Government actually accepting an SNP suggestion. I was absolutely delighted about that and will mention it at every opportunity.
Mr Wallace
In the words of the hon. and learned Lady, my head does not zip up the back either. This is an amendment to an accepted amendment. That does not mean that the amendment is accepted in relation to an LCM—we cannot make that assumption. We should reflect on Mr Speaker’s point that this House does not usually legislate on policy that is not agreed to by the Scottish Parliament in advance.
Mr Rees-Mogg
We have developed a fascinating constitutional suggestion that amendments made by SNP Members of this House are senior to legislative consent motions given by the Scottish Parliament. SNP Members seem to be raising their status.
Mr Wallace
I am keen to move on, but merely say that how SNP Members vote today will certainly be a clear sign of whether they are embracing a new principle on how we should choose to legislate on issues in Scotland.
As I said, this clause was never intended to provide a basis for claims against newspapers for voicemail interception—so-called phone hacking. Civil claims can already be brought in respect of such activity. In any case, the Bill makes such activity a criminal offence, as is surely right for such egregious interferences with privacy.
If there is a problem to be addressed, this is not the way to do it, and this is not the Bill in which to do it. This is the wrong amendment in the wrong Bill at the wrong time. Governance of the press is an important issue, and it is right that such an issue is subject to full consultation and dedicated scrutiny and consideration. It should not just be tacked on to one of the most important cross-party Bills that this House has debated. This Bill is about the security of the nation. It is a Bill to keep all our constituents safe. Members should ask themselves whether it is appropriate to jeopardise this Bill for the sake of opportunism in the other place.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The solution, of course, would be for the Government to accept Baroness Hollins’s amendments, and then the Bill would be secured, since all of us in this place are broadly supportive of its stated intentions. Many of us have sat through these debates at great length for a very long time.
Dr Murrison
My hon. Friend is right to say so.
Does the Minister accept that the only objection to this measure that the Government are putting forward is that it is in the wrong place? That appears to be a fairly slim argument. Can he assure people like me who are perhaps wavering on this matter that the terms of reference of the consultation that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport announced earlier will be sufficiently robust and give a steer on the Government’s good intentions on section 40, because then we might be tempted to be a little more patient in the hope that that consultation will result in an outcome that makes Baroness Hollins’s amendments redundant?
Mr Wallace
I hear my hon. Friend’s comments, but this is like saying, “Because we’re being blackmailed, we should give in to the blackmail.” The Bill will give powers to our security services and our police to deal with some horrendous crimes and threats to the security of the nation. That does not mean that because someone has tacked an amendment on to the Bill that is not really anything to do with it, we should just give in. We should say, “Let us have the debate about press regulation in the proper forum.” My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has brought forward a 10-week consultation period. As the House will know, the Government have been put on notice that, at the end of that period, they will need to listen to and engage with everyone’s concerns and to come up with a position. That is not necessarily the end of this matter in Parliament—there will be plenty of other times when pieces of legislation that may be more appropriate come through.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
I thank the Minister for that reassurance. I welcome the Government’s approach, particularly in addressing the critical question of the Bill—the balance between security and privacy—and in accepting many of the recommendations on safeguards proposed by the Intelligence and Security Committee, whose Chairman, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), is in his place. May I urge the Government not to allow the Bill, which is fundamentally about national security, to be conflated with, or held up by, the very different and much wider question of media regulation, as urged on us by the other place?
Mr Wallace
The whole House will hear my hon. Friend’s comments. He is a dedicated campaigner on privacy—in fact, on both parts of the Bill—in terms of what he believes in, and he has been consistent throughout. The House should listen when he says that he wants to make sure that a Bill with good oversight is passed correctly, giving us the freedom then to move on to debate and shape press regulation in, rightly, a different forum.
Mr Wallace
No, I am sorry.
On that basis, I urge this House to reject the Lords amendments in relation to clauses 8, 9 and 273.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I rise to speak to the group of amendments and to Lords amendment 15 in particular. I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who did so much work, on a cross-party basis, to bring the Bill to its current position. However, we still need to investigate unfinished business concerning the relationship between various authorities and the media. That is why the Labour party fully supports the Lords amendments, particularly Lords amendment 15.
The Minister has told us about his landmark consultation, but we are baffled as to why it is needed when we already have the Leveson report, which had so much time, effort and expertise poured into it. It seems to me that the Minister’s vaunted landmark consultation is merely a stalling exercise.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
The hon. Lady is new to her position, as is the Minister. I served on the Bill Committee and she is right to point to the work that the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) did to build cross-party consensus on what could have been a difficult Bill to land. If the Lords amendments are ultimately rejected by this place and the other place caves in, will the Opposition continue to support the Bill, or will the hon. Lady use that as a crutch on which to base the withdrawal of their support?
Ms Abbott
We are not in the habit of artifice or crutches. Let us see what Members in the other place do with the Bill, and then we will make our position clear.
The Opposition have consistently called for the Leveson recommendations to be implemented in full. The public have waited long enough. In 2013, following extensive consultation with victims of press intrusion, a new system of independent self-regulation was agreed by what were then the three main political parties. It is therefore disappointing that Members in the other place have had to table an amendment, and that we have to debate it, to get the Government to honour their promises. It is disappointing also that the Minister calls legitimate amendments, which have been passed in good faith in the other place, blackmail. What kind of way is that to talk about our friends in the other place?
Chris Bryant
Is not the point that the amendments almost exactly replicate legislation that was introduced by Conservatives in another Act? It would be bizarre in the extreme for the Government to say that they should not become law. If the Government want their Bill, they can have it today. All they have to do is say, “Yes, we agree to all the amendments.”
Mr Wallace
In that spirit, perhaps the hon. Lady could answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare): should the Bill not contain Baroness Hollins’s amendment, would the hon. Lady support it?
Simon Hoare
I have heard the hon. Lady say in other places what a future Labour Government would deliver. That, surely, is a supposition. She should deal with the supposition in question.
Ms Abbott
When the hon. Gentleman heard me say those things, I was not yet shadow Home Secretary.
There were concerns when section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 was not commenced in summer 2015. The right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, was asked about it by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, but he refused to be drawn on it. He said at the Society of Editors conference in October 2015 that he was not minded to commence section 40. We believe that that is a breach of the cross-party agreement and that it breaks the promises made to the House and, perhaps even more importantly, those made to victims.
Mr Raab
For all the differences between me and the hon. Lady, I totally understand the importance that she attaches to section 40 and the issue of costs. I join her in wanting to scrutinise them very carefully and there will be ample time to do so, but may I gently say to her that it would be wrong and irresponsible to hold up, let alone frustrate, this Bill on account of those legitimate concerns, which can be dealt with separately and discretely?
Ms Abbott
We are not attempting to hold up the Bill; all the Government have to do is accept the amendments.
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act remains unimplemented, despite widespread support in principle from Members on both sides of the House, including Front Benchers. The amendment, which the Government want to vote down, was tabled in the Lords by a Cross Bencher, Baroness Hollins, and overwhelmingly passed by 282 votes to 180. That is one of the reasons that I am shocked that the Minister regards it as blackmail. It would implement, as my colleagues have said, the same provisions as those contained in section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act in relation to claims against media organisations over phone hacking and other unlawful interception.
The amendment goes further. Unlike section 40, it would not require ministerial approval, which we regard as an improvement, so it would automatically implement section 40 in relation to phone hacking claims. That would restate the very clear intention of Parliament, as previously expressed in 2013. I repeat that the amendment would not be necessary if the Government had fulfilled their stated commitment to implementing section 40.
Part 2 of the Leveson inquiry sought to investigate the original police investigation and corrupt payments to police officers and to consider the implications for the relationships between journalists, politicians and the police. We are therefore going to have to undergo further weeks of consultation. Previously, Ministers had said that part 2 would begin after the criminal cases relating to phone hacking had concluded. Then they said that they would make a decision on whether it would begin once all the criminal cases had concluded.
If we look at the provisions affecting journalists and the press in this Bill, we will see that there is no protection of journalistic sources. Law Officers may act on their own cognisance to access data, collect and retain them for 12 months, and share them with other bodies, including overseas agencies. It would be a simple matter to establish the identity of a whistleblower in any public or other body by trawling the journalist’s internet history. That would be detrimental to all of society and to fundamental press freedoms. The contradiction here is that there is a free-for-all in ignoring the thinking behind Leveson, and yet there is a failure to implement section 40. Some of the most irresponsible practices of the press go unchecked, and there is no recourse for anyone except the ultra-rich and those who can afford libel lawyers.
To function properly, the press should be able to hold all who are in power to account and unearth important wrongdoing. That is wholly in the public interest. But the Government stand accused of allowing muck-raking, savage attacks on the vulnerable and the defamation of those who cannot afford to defend themselves legally, while proper journalism in the public interest—holding the powerful to account, giving an outlet to whistleblowers and investigating matters in the public interest—is to be fatally undermined. The proposals, in their current shape, run the risk of being seen as a charter against valuable and public interest journalism, but for the worst journalistic excesses.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I want to focus on several aspects of Lords amendment 15. First, I want to focus on what it is designed to do, in which I think it is fundamentally wrong-headed. It provides for an increase in the penalty that will be applied to newspapers where an accusation of phone hacking is made in a case that is brought against them. That is difficult, because in the ordinary course of events, a newspaper will want to protect its sources. A newspaper that tried to protect its source for a story would not be able to prove the negative that phone hacking had not been involved, even when it had not been.
The immediate risk will be that newspapers will be reluctant to print investigative stories because they will be unable to avoid the double penalty of extra costs, even in the event that their story was true. The particular outrage of amendment 15 is that the press could report a story accurately, fairly and honestly but still find that, if they were taken to court by an aggressive litigant, they would have to pay the litigant’s costs. That is an absolute charter for the very rich to bully the press into not publishing stories about them. It will not help the poorest in society, who will not be able to afford the initial fees to get a case going, but anybody with any funds will be able to use it as an opportunity to bully the press into not printing anything disagreeable about them.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, as always. Does he agree that the regional press, which does not have the necessary resources, will be particularly vulnerable to such claims by the people he has described?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The regional press and local newspapers will simply not be able to print stories that are critical of almost anybody. Perhaps MPs do not want any critical stories to be printed about them. We would be able to bully the local papers in our constituencies by saying, “We will bring a court action against you, and, by the way, we think that you might have been hacking our telephone,” and they would risk double costs. That is absolutely ruinous to a free press at a local and national level, because such costs run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. Even the biggest newspaper groups find that level of cost very difficult to absorb. The amendment will therefore get rid of the free press. Our press will be afraid to go after the rich and the powerful. It will be afraid to go after leading politicians whose friends can lend them the money to start a case off. It will be a supine press.
Dr Murrison
As ever, I am listening to my hon. Friend’s comments with a great deal of interest. I fear, however, that he may be over-egging things a little bit. There are, of course, very large organisations behind the apparently small media outlets that he refers to. He probably received a note this morning, as I did, from News Media Association, pressing the case of smaller newspapers. In truth, it represents a smokescreen for the interests of larger press organisations. Does he not share my concern that we need to disentangle the very small press outlets that we heard about earlier from regional press, which tends to be controlled by larger operations?
Mr Rees-Mogg
That is not what the amendment does. It includes all the press, so the Midsomer Norton, Radstock and District Journal will be included, as will the Farrington Gurney parish magazine. Every single publication will be included and will be under this threat.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I hesitate to criticise the wisdom of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), but, from a journalistic perspective, I humbly submit that nobody in the modern media world feels as though they are working in an enormous environment with oodles of cash swimming about the place. This will have a chilling effect across national, local and regional media.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is right. Although some newspapers are part of bigger media groups, those media groups will not be willing to fund indefinitely loss-making newspapers. The journalism that is the core of not only the print media but most of what people get online, which is not covered by the measure anyway, comes from a narrowly profitable print media. If that ceases to have any chance of being profitable, where will all the internet content that people read for nothing come from? Where are the resources to provide us with investigations into wrongdoing? Wrongdoing—not only of politicians, but of institutions—is revealed year in, year out. Great footballing institutions were investigated by The Sunday Times. How will the newspaper be able to do that if it gets sued and has to pay double damages on merely the allegation that hacking has taken place? This is a real threat to press freedom.
Press freedom is of the greatest possible value, and it is one of the reasons why the United Kingdom is such a stable polity. The press shines a light on corruption, on criminality and on wrongdoing. It holds people to account. It brings them to book. Why do we give an absolute protection to whatever is said in the House, so that it cannot be contested in any court outside Parliament? We give ourselves that protection because we so value freedom of speech. We should be extending that protection as widely as possible—not holding it narrowly to ourselves, but allowing the country at large to enjoy the same benefit.
The chippy speeches made by those in the other place, and unfortunately in this House too, who have come under the spotlight of the press and had a rude story printed about them that they did not like—about a big scandal, a little scandal, something that caused offence or something that upset their spouse—ought not to be used to take away a fundamental constitutional protection of the greatest importance. That should not be done by the back door, by tacking something on to a completely different Bill in a hissy fit because the Secretary of State has not done it under existing legislation. That is quite a wrong way to proceed.
That brings me on to the second part of what I want to say. The first part is of overwhelming importance: the freedom of the press is an absolute, and it is much, much better to have a free and irresponsible press than it is to have a responsible but Government-controlled press. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) would like me to say, the principle of England free rather than England sober should be at the heart of our understanding of the press.
The constitutional aspects of how we legislate are also important, however. In this House we have very strict rules, which are implemented fairly by the Clerks and the Speaker, about the scope of Bills, and we cannot tack on random things that we feel it would be nice to have. The House of Lords, being a self-governing House, can tack things on. Its Members have lost the self-restraint that they used to have of following constitutional norms in relation to legislation. They showed that in the last Session of Parliament in relation to boundaries, and they are doing so again now. I am concerned that the SNP is not more worried about the Sewel convention.
Joanna Cherry
I hesitate to give the hon. Gentleman a lecture on constitutional procedure, but I can give him full comfort on the points he has raised if he cares to consult the devolution guidance note 10. It states:
“During the passage of legislation, departments should approach the Scottish Executive about Government amendments changing or introducing provisions…or any other such amendments which the Government is minded to accept… No consultation is required for other amendments tabled. Ministers resisting non-Government amendments should not rest solely on the argument that they lack the consent of the Scottish Parliament unless there is advice to that effect from the Scottish Executive.”
The note goes on to explain what happens in such a situation:
“The Scottish Executive can be expected to deal swiftly with issues which arise during the passage of a Bill”.
With great humility, I want to say that on this occasion the hon. Gentleman is mistaken.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. and learned Lady will very shortly have an opportunity to make her speech in full. I must urge hon. Members to make short interventions as we have only 55 minutes left for this debate.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I will cover that point, and then swiftly come to a conclusion. The amendment was passed on 11 October, but there has been no response to it, and this is the very last opportunity to decide whether this provision should pass into law. If it passes into law, the Scottish Parliament will have had no opportunity to give its consent to what, in effect, is the repatriation of a power from the Scottish Parliament to the UK Parliament. It is quite right that the Government have not asked for such consent, because the change has not been made on a Government amendment, but SNP Members might well have wanted to seek the guidance of their friends in the Scottish Government to determine whether this was acceptable and to get their consent.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I will leave the hon. and learned Lady to come back to this point in her own speech.
These forms are very important. I would not pretend that I am anything other than a Unionist, but I believe that the Union will do well if we observe the norms and the courtesies between the various Parliaments. This Parliament must be exceptionally careful about overriding things that have been devolved, as media policy clearly has been, and we should therefore tread on such areas lightly.
The SNP should be cautious about using this in a politically opportunistic way, however convenient that may be. There will come a time when it is politically convenient for those on the Treasury Bench not to use the Sewel convention, but to get a Back Bencher to table an amendment that will go through without needing the Government to ask for consent at a very late stage in the proceedings, perhaps even as an amendment to a Lords amendment, and such an amendment will go through, with the Sewel convention brushed aside. If SNP Members say that that is perfectly all right and that that is the way to do it, that will leave such conventions in disrepute and will lead to rows between the constituent Parliaments. Basically, disrespect will be shown by one Parliament of another, which will become very serious constitutionally. For a one-day win, they may be risking a constitutional imbroglio.
Joanna Cherry
I rise to give the Scottish National party’s support to this group of Lords amendments.
Much was promised of the Lords when the Bill left this House—many Members had deep concerns about the Bill’s intrusion on civil liberties and about the security of data—but I regret, although I am not surprised, to say that the Lords amendments as a whole have not lived up to the expectations that some of us had. Although there have undoubtedly been some improvements in the safeguards afforded by the Bill, which we intend to support later—they are the result of Government amendments in the Lords that largely arose from suggestions made by the opposition and the Intelligence and Security Committee—we do not think those Lords amendment go far enough, and I will give specific examples of that later.
At the moment, we are dealing with the group of Lords amendments that some people, for convenience, have called the Leveson amendments. I want to knock firmly on the head any suggestion that Scottish National party Members or the Scottish Government are making any concessions in relation to the Sewel convention. Hon. Members would no doubt be very surprised if we did, but we are not doing so. Unlike the Minister, we are following the proper procedure, as laid down in devolution guidance note 10 on “Post-Devolution Primary Legislation affecting Scotland”. As I have already said, the note specifically comments on such amendments. In paragraphs 18 and 19, which I will read in full because this is very important, the note states:
“During the passage of legislation, departments should approach the Scottish Executive”—
or the Scottish Government, as they now are—
“about Government amendments changing or introducing provisions requiring consent, or any other such amendments which the Government is minded to accept.”
Clearly, Lords amendment 15 is not a Government amendment, and the Government are not minded to accept it. In such a situation, paragraph 18 says:
“It will be for the Scottish Executive to indicate the view of the Scottish Parliament.”
Very importantly, it goes on:
“No consultation is required for other amendments tabled.”
It is not therefore incumbent on the UK Government to consult the Scottish Government about opposition amendments. It goes on:
“Ministers resisting non-Government amendments should not rest solely on the argument that they lack the consent of the Scottish Parliament unless there is advice to that effect from the Scottish Executive.”
I know as a matter of fact that there is no advice to that effect from the Scottish Government, because I spoke to the Minister concerned about that at the weekend. Paragraph 19 says:
“The Scottish Executive can be expected to deal swiftly with issues which arise during the passage of a Bill, and to recognise the exigencies of legislative timetables (eg when forced to consider accepting amendments at short notice). Nevertheless since the last opportunity for amendment is at Third Reading in the Lords or Report Stage in the Commons the absence of consent should not be a bar to proceeding with the Bill in the interim.”
That is what the guidance note states, so the point made by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) is fallacious. This is not a Government amendment or an amendment that the Government are minded to accept; it is an opposition amendment. It is perfectly open to SNP Members to support the Lords amendment at this stage without making any concession. Only in the event that the amendment is passed by this House will it be incumbent on the Government to go to the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament to get a legislative consent motion. This point is a complete red herring.
Mr Rees-Mogg
In the event that such a legislative consent motion were refused, would the hon. and learned Lady expect the Queen to refuse to give Royal Assent to the Bill, because that would be the only way to stop the Bill becoming law?
Joanna Cherry
I assure the hon. Gentleman that it would not come to that, because if the amendment is passed by the House, the Scottish Government will grant a legislative consent motion. The SNP, which is in opposition in Westminster and the Government in Scotland, has discussed this issue in detail over the weekend—I discussed it with the Scottish Government Minister—and we have a position on Lords amendment 15. I will now set out our position, but I am very conscious of the time, so I will be as brief as possible.
As I said earlier, Lords amendment 15 rides on the back of clause 8, and I am very proud to say that it arose from an SNP suggestion in Committee for such an amendment. We have heard about the effect of the Lords amendment. In my respectful submission, the effect will be good: no newspaper should be involved in telephone hacking, and if one is, it should face the consequences. I want to make the SNP position clear.
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, about which we have heard much today, was passed in March 2013. It was part of implementing the Leveson inquiry recommendation that any new regulator set up by the press should be accredited as independent and effective. The purpose of section 40 is to provide costs protection for claimants and Leveson-regulated newspaper publishers. It was passed in this House with cross-party agreement, including the support of SNP MPs. There were rather fewer SNP MPs then than there are now, but my colleagues supported the then Bill. As has already been said, the UK Government have reneged on implementing section 40 on many occasions. Today’s announcement of a consultation kicks its implementation further into the long grass.
As has correctly been said, section 40 extends to England and Wales only, because the regulation of print media is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament has provided cross-party support for the UK Government’s actions to implement the royal charter. The Scottish Government will continue to monitor the current press regulations and work with other parties in Scotland and at Westminster to ensure effective regulation of the media on a non-political basis.
The majority of the press, and in particular the regional press in Scotland, were not involved in the sort of malpractice that prompted the Leveson recommendations. It is therefore the view of the Scottish Government and the Scottish National party that any policy in this area in Scotland must be proportionate and must balance the freedom of the press with the public desire for high standards, accuracy and transparency.
That said, the protection afforded by section 40 when brought into force would be available to Scottish litigants who chose to sue newspapers based in England and Wales. Regrettably, a number of major newspapers based in England were involved in the sort of malpractice that prompted Leveson, and it is therefore right that such protection should be afforded. The limited amendments that we are discussing will not affect small or regional newspapers adversely at all, because they have not been involved in phone hacking, and, I assume, do not have any plans to become involved in it.
Scottish National party MPs are going to support the Lords amendments to provide costs protection across the UK for claimants and Leveson-regulated news publishers in claims for unlawful interception of communications, including phone hacking. I hope that as a result of the amendments some good, at least, will come of this Bill’s passage through Parliament, in the event that this House is minded to support them. I will be crystal clear that nothing I have said involves any concession whatever about the primacy and importance of the Sewel convention, which is now enshrined in legislation. If anyone is in any doubt on that, they should go away and read carefully the guidance note from which I have quoted at some length this afternoon.
Mr Wallace
On memorandum 10, to which the hon. and learned Lady refers, is she saying that she is happy to accept the principle that in future when amendments come forward that are not Government amendments nor amendments that the Government are minded to accept, whether from a friendly Back Bencher or an unfriendly one, we do not have to consult the Scottish Government for a legislative consent motion?
Joanna Cherry
The hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware of what I did for a career before I came here. I have no intention of making any concession that goes beyond the four walls of what I have already said.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
I will be as brief as possible. First, let me say how much I have enjoyed this afternoon’s debate. For the past six years, as a Minister, having been locked up—
Mr Vaizey
Yes, I should be. But being locked up as a Minister, I did not have the benefit of hearing the wise constitutional pronouncements of my now prone hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg)—very few hon. Friends will be able to see him as he is sunbathing at the moment. I have found myself in an “Alice in Wonderland” world, where the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was praising the House of Lords from the Labour Front Bench, and my hon. Friend was attacking it. I really did not know where to turn. That is the first thing that has interested me in the debate.
The second is the extraordinarily complex constitutional argument going on about the various powers of the Westminster Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. I think we have come to the clear conclusion and have constitutional clarity that this House can now amend legislation that then goes into force in Scotland without waiting for a legislative consent motion from the Scottish Parliament. That is a welcome, if interesting, concession from the Scottish National party.
Joanna Cherry
The right hon. Gentleman should try very hard not to misrepresent what I have said. I have not made any concessions. I have quoted from the established procedures that are already laid down.
Mr Vaizey
As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset pointed out, the Scottish Parliament has had plenty of time to let this House know its views on the amendment, but has not done so, and the hon. and learned Lady is now going to support it. She cannot answer the question put by the Minister, namely what would be the constitutional position if, having passed this amendment, the Scottish Parliament then refused the legislative consent motion. That question was also put by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset; it was at that point I knew I was on to something, because I was going to ask her exactly the same question.
Dr Murrison
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is some help for us in this extremely big Bill at clause 232, on review of the operation of the Act? Although we cannot tell what the consultation on Leveson will come up with—there are four options in the document I have just read—we can come back in five years’ time and, if we are concerned about the implementation of section 40 of the 2013 Act, in our review of the Act this Bill will become we might be able to revisit a Baroness Hollins-type amendment from the other place.
Mr Vaizey
No. I have read the Bill, and in particular spent some time pondering whether clause 232 could help us in these circumstances, and came to the conclusion that it could not. A five-year review of an amendment, passed in the other place, that has nothing to do with the Bill did not strike me as something the Bill’s drafters had in mind—I am sure the Minister will clarify that for us—when they put in place the five-year review. They want that review to be of the very important measures in the Bill that govern the operation of the security services and how they are able to carry out their investigations.
Regardless of one’s views on the implementation of section 40, this amendment is absolutely the wrong way to do it. It is, to coin a phrase, opening up a back door to implement section 40 when it should be for the Government to have a debate in this House on whether that is appropriate.
That brings me to my next point, which is of course about the statement made earlier in the house by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who made it clear that there will be a consultation on the implementation of section 40. Now, to quote a former editor of The Guardian once in the Chamber is bad enough; to quote him twice may be a misfortune. But I remind the House that he wrote on Sunday in The Observer that he would like to see section 40 “mothballed”. As I said earlier, that may perhaps go too far, but the tone of his very thoughtful article was that the position we have come to on potential regulation of the press has been circumspect and perhaps tactical rather than strategic. Going forward, this House has an opportunity to talk about a regime that actually works. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) said during the statement earlier, the current system of press regulation itself does not take into account wholly unregulated arenas such as Facebook and so on, where so many people go to get their news.
That brings me to my third point, which is a more general one on press regulation, as that is what we are debating because of this Lords amendment. We should give IPSO time to settle down. It is introducing a system of arbitration. It has something like 2,500 members. It could take into account the issue of how so much of the information we now get is available in the unregulated sphere that is the internet.
My fourth point echoes the excellent points made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset on the impact on newspapers. I said many times as a Minister that our newspapers, and our local and regional newspapers in particular, faced a perfect storm, with both their readership and the classified advertisements that were their revenue migrating on to the internet.
I take issue here with the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). She is quite right that regional newspapers were not affected by the phone hacking scandal, as they did not participate in phone hacking. But it is also right to say that they are the ones that have been contacting Members to point out how section 40 could have an impact on them. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s consultation on section 40 is so welcome.
Dr Murrison
Will my right hon. Friend explain how small press outlets will be impacted by the Hollins amendments? As the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) rightly pointed out, small papers do not hack.
Mr Vaizey
That is precisely the point. I was intrigued by what the hon. and learned Lady said. She said that they had not hacked and would therefore not be affected. This is not some retrospective legislation that will impose costs on newspapers that have hacked; it is legislation that will impose costs on newspapers in the future. Again, I hate to sound utterly feeble in holding on to the coat tails of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, but I could not put the argument better than he did. The key point about the clause—I would probably oppose it even it was in the right Bill—is that it gives anyone who wants to “try it on”, to use a phrase that is perhaps slightly casual for this Chamber, the opportunity to do so with a newspaper that wants to protect its source. The claimant can allege that information has come to the newspaper by means of phone hacking or interception of email. It is then, as my hon. Friend said, up to the newspaper to prove a negative. Common sense dictates that the only way it can do that is to, effectively, give up its source.
In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), it is precisely the regional newspapers which could be hit by this measure. A small claim, one in the tens of thousands of pounds rather than in the hundreds of thousands, can still cause them immense financial damage. As MPs, we all know that our regional papers have been through a torrid time. Ten years ago when I started as the MP for Wantage, every one of the four major towns in my constituency had their own dedicated reporter. I have seen the decimation of journalism in my constituency, although I praise my local newspapers for holding on as much as they can to their journalists.
I will not be supporting the amendment. I will support the Government in the Lobby.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I was struck by the Minister—well, not physically—I was struck by the Minister’s accusation that I was an impatient man. That felt just a little bit patronising. It reminded me of the time I was in the theatre and the couple in front of me, as the curtain was about to rise, were having a terrible row. The woman said, “The worst of it is that you are so blasted paytronising.” The man kissed her on the forehead and said, “It’s ‘pahtronising’, dear.” [Laughter.] I don’t know how Hansard will write that up.
The Minister’s only argument was that this is the wrong Bill—that was his only argument. Interestingly, the Minister in the House of Lords, when these Lords amendments were carried, said that a clear message had been sent by the debate, which would not be lost on her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport as she considered these matters. Well, that was then. Today, we have seen that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has no interest whatever in what their lordships have to say on this matter, even though this was a Cross-Bench Lords amendment carried by a majority of very nearly 100. She has decided today to effectively try to unwind the whole of the Leveson provisions. That is the problem we face.
Let me take the House back to 18 March 2013. It was an extraordinary day. Lord Justice Leveson had produced his report on 29 November 2012. For the first time in our history, the Prime Minister came to the House to seek a Standing Order No. 24 motion, so that we could urgently debate the regulation of the press and the royal charter that had been agreed over the weekend in 48 hours of negotiations in the Leader of the Opposition’s office. The royal charter, which can be amended only by a two-thirds majority in this House and a two-thirds majority in the House of Lords—it is here to stay, I would suggest—would set up a press recognition panel. Accompanying that was to be an amendment to the then Crime and Courts Bill. Why do those who argue that the Investigatory Powers Bill is the wrong Bill because it does not relate to press regulation think it was right to amend the Crime and Courts Bill on the matter of press regulation, something the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) advocated?
Simon Hoare
Is the hon. Gentleman not—I dare say inadvertently—making the point that underscores, rather than undermines, the Minister’s position? He is drawing attention to the fact that when this place acts in haste in response to an event, as heinous as it might be, it very often gets it wrong. That is why the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport today, now that a passage of time has elapsed since all the brouhaha about it and we will have the 10-week consultation, is the proper way to deal with what is a serious issue to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn the attention of the House—not to tack something on to the end of a Bill.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) cannot give way and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) does not have to tell him to give way. I recognise the sarcasm. What he meant was that the intervention was too long. The hon. Member for North Dorset will have the opportunity to make a really long speech if he would like to, but please we must have short interventions.
Chris Bryant
Well, I do not think the hon. Gentleman will be allowed to make a very long speech, as we do not have much more time. He is completely and utterly wrong. He has dragged himself into a hermeneutic circle and he will never get out of it.
When the amendment—which was carried by 530 votes to 13 to become section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013—was tabled, the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said:
“Today marks a turning point. We can move on from simply talking about Lord Justice Leveson’s report to start acting on it, with a new package...The package includes a new royal charter, as announced by the Prime Minister earlier; a new costs and damages package that seeks to maximise incentives for relevant publishers to be part of the new press self-regulator; and one short clause reinforcing the point that politicians cannot tamper with the new press royal charter, which is the subject of debate in the other place.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 698.]
Why was there an all-party deal? Because the Leveson inquiry exposed real failings both in the press and in the regulatory system. Many of us felt that we, the elected politicians of this country, had failed. Whether out of partisan ambition, deference, cowardice or a genuine determination to do everything in our power to protect the freedom of the press, we had nonetheless failed. We had developed relationships with the press and the media that were so cosy that the people no longer trusted us to make the best decisions on these issues in the national interest. We were on trial as much as the press itself. That is why we all agreed that we had to find a better way forward.
Above all, we knew there had to be a genuinely independent system of redress. I do not often agree with the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), but he said that it could not just be
“an updated version of the Press Complaints Commission. God forbid that it is”—[Official Report, 18 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 662.]—
because that would be doomed to failure. But without the commencement of section 40, that is precisely what we have got. IPSO is the Press Complaints Commission in all but name. It is not independent in terms of its finances, the membership of its board or the decisions it makes. It is entirely compromised, as recent decisions have shown. The press marks its own homework and, surprise, surprise, it always gives itself gold stars. Five hundred and thirty Members wanted it to be independent of government and independent of the press, too.
Mr Rees-Mogg
If the hon. Gentleman does not like IPSO, how can he think that IMPRESS is any better? It is approved by the state, and it is funded by one irritated celebrity.
Chris Bryant
It is not my business to decide which of the two is better. The whole point is that we set up—through a royal charter that can be changed only by a two thirds majority here and a two thirds majority in the other place—a body that would take the decision at arm’s length from us. My anxiety about today’s decision by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Media and Sport is that she is bringing this matter right back into her inbox, which I think is wholly mistaken. The press would be best advised not to encourage that.
Since that day in 2013, Conservative Ministers have repeated their commitment to the package time and again: the right hon. Member for Basingstoke on 18 March 2013; David Cameron and Viscount Younger of Leckie on that same day; the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) on 10 April 2013; the right hon. Member for Basingstoke again, six times, on 16 April 2013; the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on 16 April 2013; the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), now the Attorney General, on 25 April 2013; Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 3 July 2013; the right hon. Member for Wantage—again—on 4 December 2013; David Cameron in The Spectator on Boxing day 2013—a nice little Christmas present; Lord Gardiner again on 2 April 2014; the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, now the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on 20 January 2015; and indeed, the Government did so as late as 26 June 2015. All these people constantly reaffirmed that they were in favour of the commencement of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. No wonder, then, that some Members in this House are impatient; no wonder there are Members in the House of Lords who are impatient and want the Government to get on with it. That is precisely why the amendments were tabled.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I am sure that in addition to the things that the hon. Gentleman says that he wants, he will also want a full debate this afternoon and he will not want to stop other Members from speaking. I am sure that he is going to conclude very soon.
Chris Bryant
I would have finished already if you had not interrupted me, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman meant that quite the way it sounded to the Chair.
Chris Bryant
I had one sentence left to say: the Conservatives promised it; the two Houses voted for it; it is time the Government commenced it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
We now need brevity from everyone.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I am grateful to be called to speak in this important debate. The changes that the Lords have brought before this House are significant because they adulterate what is fundamentally an essential Bill. The Investigatory Powers Bill, which has been brought here after the careful, bipartisan—in fact, multi-partisan—work of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when she was in her former post, is one of the most important Bills that we have brought forward. It has been brought forward with very little trouble or argument because of the efforts put in beforehand. To find ourselves in the House of Commons today debating an amendment that does not even belong in the Bill because Members of the House of Lords have misunderstood its purpose is deeply unhelpful.
Moreover, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), the ability to shoehorn amendments into Bills starts to take us into the pork-barrel politics of the United States. I think that that would be a great error not only for our country but for the conduct of government, because it would lead to our seeking to add the bridge, the road or the school to the back of a Finance Bill—or, indeed, an Investigatory Powers Bill.
The Bill matters fundamentally, particularly today. I do not like to bring up the subject of The Guardian too often—after all, the only reason we had it in the officers’ mess was to dust it for prints—but now that it has been mentioned a few times, I think it wise for us to read what appears on the front page today. The head of MI5 himself has given an interview to The Guardian, presumably—well, I will stop there, but his warning is very clear: Russian activity in this country has now grown to a level which is simply unacceptable, which is genuinely a threat to our nation and with which his organisation must now deal. I am delighted that the Bill is back in the House of Commons, because we now have an opportunity to cut the barnacles off the boat and get rid of this amendment.
The Leveson legislation was introduced in the last Parliament, when I was not here and nor were many of my colleagues. I hope you will forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I express some dissatisfaction about the speed with which the last Parliament debated the legislation. I also hope you will accept that some of us who are new to this place are deeply uncomfortable with state authority over a free press. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) have already spoken eloquently, so I will not go over the same ground, but I feel very uncomfortable when I am asked to set up a regulator to govern who governs me, and I feel deeply uncomfortable when I am asked to say who is the judge who can hold me to account.
Tom Tugendhat
I hope the hon. and learned Lady will forgive me if I do not, for reasons of time.
Having been brought up at the foot of a judge who did indeed hold me to account—very actively—I now realise that the judiciary works better when it is appointed without the control of the House and the Government. I will therefore not encourage the Government to invoke section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, and I will speak against it during the investigation that is to be conducted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport over the next 10 weeks.
Members have asked how on earth this measure could possibly bully the regional press. We all know that a free press is the lifeblood of democracy, but the troubles experienced in borough and county councils across our land are partly due to the fact that our regional presses are being silenced. Too many are closing, and too few now have regular reporters in the county council rooms, the borough council rooms or the district council rooms to follow what elected members are saying. I think that what we are doing here will increase the pressure still further. Forcing organisations to join IMPRESS, for example, imposes a cost that many cannot bear.
Other Members have mentioned the unlikelihood of any regional paper or regional organisation hacking a telephone, and it is indeed deeply unlikely. Of course, we all thought it was deeply unlikely that a national paper would do that, and then we found that one had; but that does not matter, because clause 8 does not tell us whether it is likely or unlikely. It merely sets out the penalty, and in doing so, effectively holds all those organisations to ransom. It forces them into organisations like IMPRESS, to which they must pay an extra tax.
Given the parlous economic situation of so many regional media outlets—in my own wonderful county of Kent, many papers have lost their correspondents from various towns—I cannot possibly support the amendment. It would be bad for the regional press and for a free press, and it would therefore be bad for our democracy and for us. Furthermore, it would act as a brake on an essential piece of legislation—a piece of legislation that we need to keep us safe, and to ensure that the safety of all those whom we are here to represent is also guaranteed.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I always listen very carefully to the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), and I noted that he said he was not a Member of the House when these measures became law. I was; I was in fact deputy Chief Whip of the coalition Government when the Leveson committee was set up, when it then reported and when these measures were put through Parliament. I saw rather more of the machinations surrounding this than was perhaps healthy for anyone, but it is disappointing and more than a little depressing that we are back here again debating it today.
I remember the Thursday afternoon when these amendments were tabled. It was the point when collective responsibility had broken down. There was no agreement between my party and the Conservatives and in fact I was up in the Public Bill Office ready with the amendments to be tabled subject to agreement with other parties, and to get that agreement more time was necessary. Spurious points of order were raised, there was a somewhat spurious Division on the House sitting in private, and I think the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who was then in the Opposition Whips Office, went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the Lobbies were not cleared; I will be no more specific than that.
I remember that over the course of the following weekend there was a change of heart by the then Prime Minister, and I remember then the way in which matters proceeded on the basis of an all-party deal. I thought that would be the end of the matter, and I am afraid to say that I see the fact that it is not the end of the matter and we are back here today as something of a breach of good faith on the part of the Conservative party.
But more than all the parliamentary and intra-Government shenanigans at the time, the thing I remember most clearly, and will never forget, is meeting the parents of Milly Dowler at the time when we set up the Leveson inquiry and giving them the solemn pledge that whatever Leveson said was necessary, we as a Parliament would do. We set up Leveson for a reason, and we implemented it for a reason. The reason was, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has said, that it was necessary to take this place out of press regulation, and that is what pains me more than anything else about what we have heard from the Treasury Bench today, both from the Minister and earlier from the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The time for action is long overdue; there can be no more delay and no more obfuscation.
If we do continue and if we do revisit this, as the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling suggested, we will not just be breaching faith between ourselves as political parties; we will be breaching the acts of good faith and the commitments we made to the parents of Milly Dowler, and I am never going to be part of that.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
There will be Members who feel that section 40 should be implemented immediately and others who feel that it should never be implemented, and certainly persistent questions have been asked—including by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which I chair, last week when the Secretary of State gave evidence to us—about when this will happen and when a decision will be made. The Secretary of State has now set out a clear timetable that says there will be a consultation, at the end of which a decision will be made.
The one clear question that must be answered from that consultation is, if the Government are minded, in response to the responses they receive to the consultation, not to implement section 40, what will be done instead. As I said when the Secretary of State made her statement earlier today, the current status quo is not acceptable; we do not yet have a robust system of arbitration and redress for the press.
That is the spirit of section 40. People may debate its wording and its consequences, but at its heart was one simple idea: that innocent victims—people who have never courted the media and never wanted to be personalities who have, through no fault of their own, got caught up in a major press story and had their lives trashed by it—should have some mechanism for redress that does not involve the expense of going through the courts, which is beyond the means of ordinary people. That is the spirit of section 40.
IPSO could go further in its pilot and reduce the cost of access to arbitration. It could also do as Sir Joseph Pilling suggested in his review of IPSO, by establishing proper guidelines for newspapers on the redress available when they have been ruled against or found against. No such guidelines currently exist. The industry could do a lot to make IPSO better. The outcome of the consultation and the review cannot be to maintain the status quo. We have to make a decision, and we have to ensure that however it is delivered, fair redress and arbitration are available for victims of the press.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I am honoured to be called to speak in the debate, and I rise to talk about Lords amendment 15. I understand that I have two and half minutes to speak, to allow my other colleague time to speak. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) has pointed out, it is extraordinary that we are talking about the press when the Bill is actually about the security of our country. Lords amendment 15 is clearly in the wrong Bill. In the six years that I have had the privilege of representing South Dorset, I have noticed that the decisions made in this place are often knee-jerk decisions made to satisfy a public reaction that has nowadays often been fed by Facebook or Twitter, to which too many of us react too quickly.
I suspect that, over a period of time, many sensible people in this place—the majority of people here are sensible—have come to think that we cannot use the state to interfere with the freedom of the press in this country. It is mainly Opposition Members who are making this point, and I remind them again that phone hacking is already illegal. It is a criminal offence and people who commit that offence go to jail. I worked in the press for 17 years, including at national level, in radio and for local newspapers. Never once in that time was I influenced by a producer or asked to concoct a story in any way other than honestly and accurately. That includes my nine years working with the BBC. My point is that the offences that so many Members are almost ranting about are being committed by a tiny minority of the press, and that punishing everyone—as the House is thinking of doing—would be totally and utterly wrong.
Matt Warman
This short, impassioned debate about the freedom of the press has surely proved that a 90-minute debate on a Lords amendment shoehorned into a Bill about national security cannot be the right place to make a decision as important as this one. This Bill is supposed to regulate hacking, yet the Lords are seeking to hack the Bill by putting in something completely irrelevant to the vital matters of national security that it covers. As the previous Prime Minister and the present one have said, this is one of the most important—if not the most important—pieces of legislation in this Parliament. Were I to dare criticise either of them, I would contend that the freedom of the press is even more important than some aspects of the Bill. It is absurd for anyone seriously to suggest that we can deal with this matter in 90 minutes.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the view of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that the chilling effect of the proposals in section 40 would have a hugely negative impact across not only the national media but the regional and local media. Over hundreds of years, we have seen the good that a vibrant, boisterous and scabrous press can do, as other Members have said, and we need to preserve that. We do not need to damn it in a 90-minute debate. I hope that Members of all parties can see that this is not the right place to take such a momentous decision.
Mr Wallace
Every morning I go into my office and I open a number of documents. They are not nice reading. They usually focus on those people that want to kill us, want to rob us, want to corrupt our country or want to spy on us. This is not a subject to take lightly. This is not a subject to which to politically attach something to settle a score elsewhere. The Bill is about giving our brave men and women in the security services and the police forces up and down the country the powers to do their job, to make sure that we put away those people that pose a threat to this country.
Those men and women are watching this debate today. Instead of seeing this House debate the hundreds of amendments that this Parliament has collectively produced to reach a consensus to make the Bill something to go forward with, they see political opportunism being played out on another subject: press regulation. They do not see us discussing how we are going to protect them and society. We should not forget that.
What is important is that this Bill is not like any other Bill. This Bill is here because we have to bring it forward to replace the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. DRIPA has a sunset clause and will expire on 31 December. The irony of that is that if DRIPA expires, we lose the requirement that we can place on internet companies and CSPs to retain data—data that we need to catch phone hackers, to catch child killers, to put away paedophiles. That is the risk that hon. Members are taking, with amendment 15. That is what they are making us decide on. We should reject the choice that they are putting before us and focus on the good things in the Bill and what it has done to strengthen and protect our security forces to ensure that we put away the right people. We should not play politics in this House or the other place.
Lords amendment 11 disagreed to.
Lords amendments 12 to 14 disagreed to.
After Clause 8
Motion made, and Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 15.—(Mr Ben Wallace.)
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this we may take Lords amendments 2 to 10, 16 to 337 and 340 to 377.
Mr Wallace
The Investigatory Powers Bill will ensure that the police and the security and intelligence agencies have the vital powers they need at a time of changing threats and rapidly evolving technology. It will place those powers on a clear statutory footing and achieve world-leading oversight. It will leave no doubt about how seriously we value privacy and individual rights in this country.
Let us not forget why those powers are so important. Every day, our law enforcement and security and intelligence agencies use those powers to investigate serious crime and collect evidence to convict offenders. They are particularly crucial in combating human trafficking and child exploitation. For example, in January 2009, Operation Retriever, an organised crime investigation in Derby, uncovered one of the most serious cases of child sexual abuse in recent times, involving multiple offenders and multiple victims.
During the investigation, officers uncovered an elaborate and hideous campaign of sexual exploitation directed against teenage girls who were groomed by people they thought they could trust and were driven around the midlands to houses, hotels and bed-and-breakfasts, where they were raped, often violently. One of the officers involved in the investigation described it as
“a campaign of rape against children”.
The investigation team used a combination of covert policing and communications data, such as mobile phone records, to link group members and their victims to each other, to phone handsets and to downloaded images and videos of sexual abuse taking place. In that investigation alone, 27 female victims aged between 12 and 18 were identified. Communications data evidence helped to secure the convictions of nine defendants. One of the offenders is serving at least 11 years for rape, sexual assault, sexual activity with a child, perverting the course of justice, aiding and abetting rape, false imprisonment and making child pornography. Another is serving at least eight years for rape, sexual assault and other sexual activity. Yet another is serving three years for the supply of cocaine.
Those men could still be on our streets, exploiting innocent children, without the police having access to the important intelligence that communications data provide. It is essential that we give the police the tools they need to investigate and prevent awful crimes such as these. That is what this Bill will do.
I am pleased that the Bill has commanded cross-party support, and I am grateful to all those who helped, in the spirit of consensus, to produce the Bill that we have before us. On Report, the former shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), set out his party’s position:
“We have supported the principle of a modern legal framework governing the use of investigatory powers, recognising that as communications have migrated online, the police and security services have lost capability”. —[Official Report, 6 June 2016; Vol. 611, c. 952.]
On Third Reading, the right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
“The police and security services do incredibly difficult work on our behalf and we thank them for it. Their job has got harder as both the level of the threat has risen and the nature of communication has changed in the modern world. To fail to respond to that would be a dereliction of our duties to them; it would also fail our constituents. The Bill is ultimately about their safety, the safety of their families and their privacy. I think we can look ourselves in the mirror tomorrow and say we have done our level best to maximise both.”—[Official Report, 7 June 2016; Vol. 611, c. 1148.]
The right hon. Gentleman was right. This has been a truly collaborative effort, of which both we and the Opposition can be proud. I note that the Government’s approach has attracted support from some of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords, although Liberal Democrat Members are not present here.
We have before us today a substantial number of changes agreed in the other place—evidence of constructive engagement from all sides to further improve this landmark legislation. Let me list the main changes. Responding to concerns raised by the former shadow Home Secretary, we have replicated changes agreed in this House throughout other parts of the Bill, including protections for trade union activity and amendments to the test applied by judicial commissioners when reviewing warrants, notices and authorisations under the Bill.
We commissioned an independent review by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, that comprehensively endorsed the necessity of the bulk powers. As a consequence of that review, we have included provision for a technical advisory panel to advise the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the Secretary of State on the impact of changes in technology. We have added a sentencing threshold for access to internet connection records, so that they could not be used to investigate minor crimes. We have added extra protections and safeguards for journalists, lawyers and parliamentarians.
We have addressed issues raised by the Intelligence and Security Committee by giving the Committee the right to refer matters to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to investigate on behalf of this House; adding a requirement for the commissioner to report on thematic warrants and operational purposes; introducing a criminal offence for the misuse of bulk powers; bolstering safeguards surrounding the modification and renewal of warrants; and clarifying provisions relating to class BPD warrants, improving safeguards, and prohibiting the retention of medical records in bulk personal datasets held under class warrants.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
May I put on record my appreciation for the way that the Minister listened to the representations made by the Intelligence and Security Committee in this matter? It has proved to be a most constructive dialogue and I am extremely grateful to him for having taken on board and acted on the vast bulk of the recommendations that we put forward. May I raise one matter? On the issue of thematic warrants, I know that the Government, for very understandable reasons, were unable to move on some of the safeguards that the Committee wanted. Will the Minister give an undertaking that he will keep that under review as we see how the measure operates in practice?
Mr Wallace
I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his comments. Although it would be nice to take the credit, that belongs to my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, who steered the Bill through Committee, and the present Prime Minister, who helped shape and deliver the Bill. I have merely come in at the end, but will take some of the credit nevertheless.
Of course we will keep the matter under review, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee asked. I do understand the concerns about thematic warrants. I know that he will keep the matter under review and the Government will do so as well.
We have made a number of minor and technical changes to improve the clarity and consistency of the legislation. Finally, in the absence of legislative consent from the Northern Ireland Assembly, we have removed measures that would have brought oversight of devolved investigatory powers in Northern Ireland within the remit of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner.
Many amendments have been accepted and we have worked together to produce the Bill that is before us today. I hope it will command the support of the whole House.
In closing, I remind the House that one of the aims of this legislation is to update investigatory powers for the digital age. It is worth contemplating briefly the consequences that would have come from failing to achieve that aim. Police forces across the country are increasingly struggling to pursue investigations because they cannot uncover crucial information as criminals’ activity moves online. Alan Wardle of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children told the Public Bill Committee that
“the police’s ability to investigate and prosecute some of the high-profile crimes we have seen in recent years—online grooming of children and the number of people who are viewing illegal images of children online, which has grown exponentially—is increasingly dependent on communications data. I think it is vital that this Bill ensures that the police have the powers and capabilities to continue to do that.”––[Official Report, Investigatory Powers Public Bill Committee, 24 March 2016; c. 34.]
Ms Abbott
Like the Minister, I came to the Bill towards the end, but I am happy to claim credit just like him. Let me say right at the beginning that the Bill has enjoyed, and continues to enjoy, cross-party support, but the House will forgive me if I put on record some of the reservations still raised by important stakeholders.
The first thing I would like to remind the House of is that there is a case before the European Court of Justice that involves the Home Secretary. It is brought by, among other distinguished persons, the deputy leader of the Labour party, my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson). It relates to the predecessor legislation to the Bill—the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. It seems clear from the interim judgment delivered by the advocate-general on 19 July this year that key sections of DRIPA will be struck down. It is clear that the Bill has even more widely drawn powers and has fewer safeguards and mechanisms for judicial oversight. The logical conclusion —we cannot say at this point what will happen—is that the powers in the Bill may well be among the shortest-lived in parliamentary history, as they may be struck down at the European Court of Justice, and that court proceedings would almost immediately follow Royal Assent.
Among the issues that have been raised with us during the passage of the Bill by stakeholders are access to internet records and the nature of the judicial safeguards; the protection of data, and the rights of journalists to protect their sources; the lack of powers to refer issues to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal; and insufficient checks on the sharing of data between agencies. There is no right of disclosure to the target and not necessarily a duty to provide information to the service provider. There is also the concern—it may be a theoretical concern, but it is a real one for many stakeholders—about the potential abuse of these investigatory powers by state agencies.
A wide number of interest groups and stakeholders have told Opposition Members that the powers in the Bill are perhaps a little disproportionate in relation to the objectives. The Society of Editors, the National Union of Journalists, with the backing of the TUC, and many others concerned with the freedom of the press have raised valid and important objections to the Bill, which, despite the best efforts of Members on both sides of the House—particularly my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer)—have not been fully addressed in the parliamentary process. Among the issues that have been raised with me is the ability of journalists to protect their sources.
Another concern, which should also be a concern for Members, is the protection of whistleblowers, who have played an important role in public life, whether at Addenbrooke’s or at other hospitals. The concern is that public bodies, by being able to identify internet records—without, as we know, examining the content—may be able to identify the whistleblowers. There is a measure of judicial oversight. However, many stakeholders have said to us that judicial oversight of data access, gathering and retention is not as strong as they would like. The absence of review proceedings has been raised with us as another troubling aspect of the Bill.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that despite these reservations, the almost 300 amendments that the Government were forced to table on Report give us much greater safeguards in the exercise of these powers and a much greater capacity to scrutinise whether they are being used properly, with clear avenues for challenge where people are tempted to misuse them, all of which was absent before these changes?
Ms Abbott
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his, as usual, very wise observation. There is no question but that the amendments that the Government have been forced to table, and the work of Members on both sides of the House, have made this a much better Bill than the one that was originally presented to this House.
Dr Murrison
It is not a question of being forced. The hon. Lady may recall that this measure was subject to a Joint Committee on the draft Bill. There can be no Bill in recent memory that has had more scrutiny than this one. Will she also note clause 232, which establishes a review of this measure after five years—a most unusual mechanism for a Bill of this sort—and give the Government credit for doing everything in their power to reconcile the need to protect our liberties with the need to protect the press?
Ms Abbott
Right at the beginning of this debate, I made a point of acknowledging the very hard work of hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, including hon. Friends of mine, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not here at that stage. The first thing I did was to acknowledge the diehard work of Members on both sides of Chamber. There is no question but that this is a better Bill than the one that was originally presented to us. We are very grateful, and, more importantly, the stakeholders are very grateful, for the possibilities for a review, but I would not be performing my role as a member of Her Majesty’s Opposition if I did not put on the record the reservations that still exist among some of our stakeholders.
A number of stakeholders, campaigning groups and other bodies have expressed their continuing dissatisfaction with elements of the Bill. They include Amnesty International, Article 19, Big Brother Watch, the Centre for Investigative Journalism, Don’t Spy On Us, English PEN, Index on Censorship, Labour Campaign for Human Rights, Liberty, the National Union of Journalists, OpenMedia, Open Rights Group, PEN International, Privacy International, Scottish PEN, the Society of Editors and the World Wide Web Foundation. In addition, I have held meetings with the TUC and a number of other trade unions that still have concerns about this Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister explained why, despite all the efforts that have been made to improve the Bill, there continue to be concerns among such a wide array of stakeholders.
Mr Wallace
Perhaps I could pick up on some of the concerns of Liberty. We will all have had in our inboxes this morning a letter from Liberty. The concerns expressed in it are, I am afraid, simply wrong. In the third paragraph, Liberty’s policy officer says:
“Bulk powers allow for…surveillance…The much vaunted ‘double lock’ system of authorisation in fact allows the Secretary of State rather than judges to authorise warrants.”
That is incorrect; in fact, the Secretary of State and a judge will authorise a warrant. Perhaps Liberty is incorrect in some of its assertions about why it is unhappy and should look at the Bill, as amended, that has been before this House.
Ms Abbott
I have no doubt that stakeholders will look at the amended Bill, and if it returns to us from the Lords, there will no doubt be another opportunity to tease out some of these issues.
This Bill has all-party support and that is significant, because getting the balance right between updating legislation to deal with an internet and high-tech age and defending the civil liberties of subjects is very important, and this House is best placed to do that. We have been grateful to Ministers for being willing to listen to Members in all parts of the House in seeking to improve the Bill.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Privacy is an essential right in a democratic society. It is a basic civil right, protected by statute, so it must follow that any incursion into that right should be limited and carefully considered. I want to make three short points to show that, through the passage of the Bill through this House, that necessity for considered judgment has been respected.
First, a significant amount of information
“was given when the Bill was first tabled…including more information about the security services than we have ever seen in parliamentary papers.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2016; Vol. 774, c. 1797.]
Those are not my words, but the words of the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Carlile during last month’s debate in the other place.
Secondly, as the Bill has passed through the House and through Committee, the Government have listened. Again, that is not my view, but that of Lord Janvrin, the Cross-Bench peer who opened the debate in the other place by stating that the
“changes have introduced significant improvements in the protection afforded to privacy.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2016; Vol. 774, c. 1797.]
Thirdly, this is a Bill that
“stands not only for transparency but for the introduction of significant new safeguards”,
which is a view expressed by David Anderson in paragraph 1.20 of his most recent report on bulk powers.
It is right that we think carefully when we look to limit the right to privacy, and this Government have done so. Importantly, we must also remember why we are passing this Bill. We are doing so to protect and ensure the safety of our citizens from illegal acts, including serious crime, and to fight international terrorism; and we are doing this in a fast-moving environment where we have to keep pace with technology.
Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, told The Guardian this morning that the number of terror plots thwarted in the past three years stands at 12. He said that
“the tempo of terrorist plots and attempts is concerning and it’s enduring. Attacks in this country are higher”
than he has experienced in the rest of his 33-year career at MI5. The Bill’s provisions are designed to ensure that our security services have the tools that they need to protect our citizens from those attacks.
David Anderson wrote in his report, which was published in August:
“The bulk powers play an important part in identifying, understanding and averting threats in Great Britain, Northern Ireland and further afield. Where alternative methods exist, they are often less effective, more dangerous, more resource-intensive, more intrusive or slower”.
The Bill strikes a balance between privacy and security, and it does so because the Government need the tools to fight external threats to the nation. Those tools ensure our safety and our freedom.
Joanna Cherry
Unlike the Minister and the shadow Home Secretary, but like the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), I have been with this Bill since the beginning and it has been an interesting journey. As I said earlier, much was promised from the Lords when the Bill left this House, and, as the shadow Home Secretary has said, people had considerable concerns at that time about its intrusion into civil liberties and the security of data.
It is a matter of regret that the Lords amendments as a whole have not lived up to expectations. However, some improvements have undoubtedly been made in the safeguards afforded by the Bill, as a result of Government amendments in the Lords. Although the SNP does not believe that they go far enough, we will support them because they improve the safeguards. The Minister has listed some of them. I am particularly happy with the taking up of the recommendation for a technical advisory panel; the imposition of some restrictions on access to bulk personal data sets; and the inclusion of the threshold for internet connection records. I also particularly welcome the Government amendments to clause 233, to ensure that the Scottish Government will be provided with the means to engage with the work of the judicial commissioners relating to the devolved powers in Scotland.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
I am pleased to note that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and I have made similar sartorial choices today. Although we disagree on many other things, it seems we agree on the important things. Does she agree that the legislation is essential, because without it the expiration of existing legislation will create a legal vacuum?
Joanna Cherry
I agree that the legislation is essential. The SNP believes that it is important to give the security services and, indeed, law enforcement necessary and proportionate powers. I welcome, as I have said repeatedly in this House, the attempt in the Bill to codify the law and to provide an enhanced oversight regime. However, I will not demur from the position that I have held throughout, which is that in some respects the Bill does not provide sufficient safeguards.
The SNP and many other stakeholders mentioned by the shadow Home Secretary remain very concerned about allowing significantly unfettered collection of, and access to, communications data including internet connection records. We also oppose far-reaching bulk powers to acquire the personal and private data of our constituents when a proper case for the necessity and proportionality of those powers has yet to be made.
I consider it a matter of deep regret that the review of bulk powers by David Anderson, QC reported not to this House, but to the House of Lords. This House—the democratically elected and accountable Chamber—has not had an opportunity to debate that review. It is an excellent review as far as it goes, and I would not dare to undermine much of what it says. It is what is missing from the review that is important. It makes out a case that bulk powers can be of use to the state, but it does not address the necessity and proportionality of those powers. Those matters are yet to be addressed, and we will not get to debate them here. As the shadow Home Secretary said, they are very likely to be the subject of litigation in the future, and they are likely to be addressed by courts in the United Kingdom and in Europe—for as long as we have the sense to remain part of those European systems.
Dr Murrison
On the question of proportionality, does the hon. and learned Lady agree that the proposals must be put into some sort of context? As Lord Rooker pointed out yesterday, the problem is that we have a commercial sector with a large number of commercial providers who are busy harvesting data all the time in order to advertise things to us. Since the powers that the state is taking to itself are similar in some respects, it is important to bear that in mind when trying to ensure that we have some level of proportionality.
Joanna Cherry
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that at some point the House needs to look at the mass harvesting of data by private companies, but there is a big difference between a private company harvesting personal data and the state doing so. A private company does not have the coercive power of the state, and that is the crucial reason why the Bill must be scrutinised so carefully.
It is a matter of the deepest regret that the review on bulk powers did not report to this House and has not been scrutinised in this House. I would not wish the SNP’s position on the Bill to be portrayed as irresponsible, because it is not. It is an attempt to make sure that the Bill fulfils its purpose while remaining lawful and proportionate. As has been alluded to during this debate, the Scottish Parliament has given legislative consent to the consolidating and enhanced safeguard provisions in the Bill, so far as those matters fall within its legislative competence. If Members care to read the terms of the legislative consent motion, which I do not believe was opposed by anyone in the Scottish Parliament, they will see that concern was reiterated about the potential impingement on civil liberties by internet connection record collection and bulk data collection.
I want to correct something that the Minister said about Liberty. Liberty has scrutinised the Bill in detail and provided detailed briefings—one might not agree with them all—on every aspect of the Bill. It is unfair to say that Liberty is mistaken about anything. Liberty is quite correct to say that, in reality, all that the double-lock system means is that a judge will check that the correct procedures have been followed; the Minister will still make the initial decision.
In previous debates, I have said that I would not use the phrase “mass surveillance”, because it is a bit too broad, and I have instead talked about suspicionless surveillance. That is the problem with the Bill: SNP Members and many others with concerns about the Bill believe that surveillance should be targeted and based on suspicion. There is a deal too much suspicionless surveillance in the Bill, even as amended.
The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)
I listened very carefully to what the hon. and learned Lady said about the double lock. Surely the point is that where the judge has the final say, authorisation will not be granted. Will not that fundamental change create the balance that both she and I want?
Joanna Cherry
I do not accept that the Government have gone as far as some of us would have liked them to go on the double lock, which is by having full-blown judicial warrantry with the power to look at the merits as well as at the process. However, I accept that this is an improvement on what was originally in the Bill, and its inclusion is a great tribute to the hard work that was done by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), as well as by Labour members of the Committee. If there had not been such root-and-branch opposition, many of the Government amendments that have finally been passed in the Lords would not be with us today.
The Solicitor General
We are all keen to claim the credit, but let us not forget that the Government’s position from the outset was to have a double lock. This important change is very much the result of Government initiative, as well as of the good intentions of Opposition Members.
Joanna Cherry
Indeed, but the fine detail on the double lock—that is what enables the Solicitor General to get up and say that it goes as far as it does—was inserted by way of amendment during the Bill’s passage.
Joanna Cherry
I will make a little progress, and then give way again, because I do not want to take up too much time.
During the Bill’s passage, SNP Members were pleased to offer our support to the Labour party on its amendment to protect trade unionists going about their lawful activities, but what about protections for other activists and campaigners going about their lawful activities and what about non-governmental organisations and whistleblowers? We should not have unjustified spying on trade unionists, and we should not have unjustified spying on other activists either. Whistleblowers can sometimes be very inconvenient to the Government and to the private sector, but they fulfil an important function and the Bill contains insufficient protection for them.
On the protection of journalists, it is true that significant amendments have been made in the Lords, but it is important to put on the record today that journalists have continued concerns about the provisions in the Bill. They feel that safeguards for journalistic sources should apply across the various powers in the Bill, rather than in their current limited form.
In parallel, although great progress has been made in the Lords on the question of legal professional privilege, some in the legal profession still have concerns about the way in which the Bill approaches it. The way the Bill is drafted may have undermined the central premise on which legal professional privilege is based. However, credit where credit is due: significant progress has been made. I spoke this morning to the Law Society of Scotland, which recognises that the Government have come a long way but is still concerned about these somewhat controversial measures and is very anxious to have post-legislative scrutiny of how legal professional privilege will work in practice.
The Solicitor General
The hon. and learned Lady will agree, first, that legal professional privilege has for the first time been averred in legislation, which is very important, and secondly, that further amendments made in the Lords—they were approved by Members such as Lord Pannick—now deal with situations in which legal professional privilege material has been obtained inadvertently. We are now covering even more areas in a circumscribed way, and creating the sort of safeguards that I know she wants.
Joanna Cherry
I read with interest the debates in the Lords about legal professional privilege. I noted carefully the approval granted to the measures by Lord Pannick, but I also noted that Lord Paddick made the point that the Bar Council of England and Wales is still not entirely happy about the provisions. That is a matter for the Bar Council, but we should adhere to the Law Society of Scotland’s suggestion of careful post-legislative scrutiny of how legal professional privilege will work in practice.
The two huge concerns I still have about the Bill relate to internet connection records and bulk powers. I have already spoken about the limitations in how we have dealt with the bulk powers review and the fact that, in my opinion and that of many others, it does not deal with the issues of necessity and proportionality.
On internet connection records, I welcome the limited safeguards introduced by the Lords, in particular, the threshold increase on serious crime, judicial approval for data retention notices and prohibition of the retention of third-party data, which we were quite agitated about in Committee. But it is a matter of regret that the Bill still includes provisions dealing with the collection of internet connection records that go beyond anything that any other western democracy has on its statute book and that, as the shadow Home Secretary said, may be of dubious legality.
The fight for our civil liberties concerns about the Bill has been lost in this House, but, as the shadow Home Secretary suggested, it is likely to continue in the courts. Liberty is representing the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) in a legal challenge to existing surveillance laws. As the shadow Home Secretary said, the Government have ignored the opinion of the advocate-general in the Court of Justice of the European Union on these issues, which was that current provisions lacked vital safeguards. To my mind, that means that when this Bill becomes law it will be open to immediate challenge.
The Bill is certainly the better for its passage through the Lords, although it pains me slightly to say that, as someone who does not approve of the House of Lords—not because I do not approve of a second Chamber but because I think that it should be democratically accountable in some way. However, I do not believe that what was promised of the Lords, and expected by some on the Opposition Benches, on the protection of civil liberties has come to fruition.
It is a matter of the greatest regret that peers supported the internet connection record powers just hours after the Investigatory Powers Tribunal had ruled that the security agencies had been unlawfully scooping up personal confidential information on a massive scale for more than a decade. I was repeatedly told regarding my objections to the Bill that our security agencies are the best in the world and never break the law. I suspect that it is close to the truth that the British security agencies are, if not the best, among the best in the world; but they do sometimes break the law. No one is infallible. We must have safeguards that are real. It is noteworthy, and an indication of the inadequacy of the scrutiny of the Bill that, only hours after the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that unlawful action had taken place, the Lords supported the provisions on internet connection records in their totality.
It seems that the battle has been lost in this House. But given the very real concerns I and others have about the lawfulness of aspects of the Bill, I suspect the battle may be won elsewhere.
Suella Fernandes
This landmark legislation enables our security, intelligence and law enforcement services to continue the intelligence gathering, analysis and code-breaking that are essential for the security of our country in a digital age. I was pleased to support the Government on Second Reading, and am even happier to do so today.
The Investigatory Powers Bill has been subject to intensive scrutiny. Along with many Members in the Chamber—including my hon. Friends the Members for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) and the Solicitor General—I was privileged to sit on the Committees for that scrutiny. I was a member of the Joint Committee responsible for pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill. We considered 1,500 pages of evidence, interviewed numerous experts and campaigners, and made 86 recommendations to the Government.
Following that, there was a refreshingly collaborative cross-party approach during the Bill’s passage through Parliament. The Bill has benefited from the expertise and constructive criticism of many hon. Members, including the then Labour party spokesman on the issue, the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), a former Director of Public Prosecutions.
Throughout that process it has emerged that our intelligence and security agencies depend upon the acquisition of bulk data—that is, information acquired in large volumes and used, subject to special restrictions, to acquire vital and unique intelligence that they cannot obtain by other means. They need the power to intercept messages and will not be able to do their job without contextual intelligence, provided in the form of internet connection records.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) and to speak in support of the Bill.
In March 2016, David Anderson, QC suggested that this Bill
“charts a bold route forward—and gets the most important things right”.
He went on to say that it
“restores the rule of law and sets an international benchmark for candour.”
He suggested at that time that some matters remained to be resolved, but as the Government’s support for these Lords amendments demonstrates, there has been cross-party co-operation and support both in this House and in the other place. The Bill is all the better for it.
This relative consensus is well demonstrated by the remaining amendments, just rejected, relating to press regulation. There were, of course, concerns prior to my election to this place, that a Bill of this type could be construed as a snoopers’ charter. The fact that we have just had a debate on Leveson speaks well of the progress made on this Bill. The fact that we have got to this positive position is, in my view, in no small part due to the Government’s acceptance of suggestions made across the political divide and their taking of the three independent reviews as a starting-point for this legislation.
It is worth considering that the first report, the Anderson report, called for a new law that would be both comprehensive and comprehensible. The second report, from the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, said that the
“legal framework has developed piecemeal, and is unnecessarily complicated.”
That, it said, had resulted in a
“lack of transparency, which is not in the public interest.”
The third report, produced by the Royal United Services Institute, called for a
“radical reshaping of the way that intrusive investigative techniques using the internet and digital data are authorised”,
and said that it should be
“subject to judicial scrutiny”.
The Bill delivers on all those fronts. It gives our law enforcement and intelligence agencies the power that they need to keep us safe. It brings together all the powers that are already available to those agencies before they are due to expire following the judicial review of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014, and gives them additional powers to catch up with new technology and the web. It introduces a double lock for the most intrusive warrants, providing judicial oversight and creating an investigatory powers commissioner. It not only delivers comprehensive legislation with safeguards, but gives the security agencies the power to keep up with technology that is being used by those who seek to do harm to our constituents.
That takes me back to the words of David Anderson, QC. Last month, in Strasbourg, he spoke to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, a Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—of which I am a member—about these powers and about the threat posed by terrorists across Europe. During the same session, the threat was brought home most powerfully by another speaker. This lady, a Parisian, had lost her daughter to the terrorists who were responsible for the Bataclan massacre in Paris. Her words, and her pain, were incredibly moving for all who listened. She demonstrated to us how difficult her life had become, and also the terror that her daughter had experienced in her final hours. That brought home to me the need for us in this place to do everything we can to ensure that we never have to hear testimonies like that from our constituents across this nation, and it is on that basis that I shall be very pleased to see the Bill become law.
Mr Wallace
I wish to place on record our gratitude to the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party, and the Opposition Front Benchers—the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and, in the other place, Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Lord Rooker—for their contribution to making the Bill what it is today. We must ensure that it proceeds in a spirit of consensus, and I therefore approve of the provision in clause 232 for a review of the Bill in five years’ time. Obviously I must also express my gratitude to the Prime Minister, who helped to shape the Bill and to introduce the important powers that it gives our security services and police to help them to do their job.
I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes)—the former Security Minister—and the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). They, too, have made a considerable contribution. I also thank the SNP, including the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), although she seemed rather cynical about the Bill in her more recent contributions. I recognise that the support of the SNP goes a long way towards the application of the Bill in the United Kingdom; it is important that we all embrace its aims.
A long time ago, in a different life, I did some of this stuff when there was no regulation, before the introduction of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. We are now in a much healthier place: a place with scrutiny, oversight and an understanding by all of matters that, in the old days, we did not even avow had happened. We should not underestimate the distance that we have come since days gone by. We have come a very long way since then, and I am proud of what the Bill gives us, and gives the men and women who need in to keep us safe.
Having had conversations with colleagues overseas, I know that people are envious of this Bill. We should not forget that, at this moment, there are people in Germany and France who face a much greater threat to life and liberty. There are forces of law and order that are struggling to come to terms with the modern threat, sometimes with legislation that is out of date. I think that by introducing this Bill we have brought ourselves up to date, and that we are now in a position to tackle the threat. I am grateful to the whole House, and to members of all its political parties, for supporting the Bill.
Lords amendment 1 agreed to.
Lords amendments 2 to 10, 16 to 337 and 340 to 377 agreed to.
Ordered, That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their amendments 11 to 15, 338 and 339;
That Ms Diane Abbott, Victoria Atkins, Robert Buckland, Joanna Cherry, Nic Dakin, Andrew Griffiths and Mr Ben Wallace be members of the Committee;
That Mr Ben Wallace be Chair of the Committee;
That three be the quorum of the Committee;
That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(Christopher Pincher.)
Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.
Business Without Debate
Delegated Legislation
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With the leave of the House, we shall take the motions together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6) and Order of 24 October),
Electoral Commission
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will appoint Sir John Holmes as the Chair of the Electoral Commission with effect from 1 January 2017 for the period ending on 31 December 2020.
Electoral Commission
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will appoint Dame Susan Bruce as an Electoral Commissioner with effect from 1 January 2017 for the period ending on 31 December 2020.—(Christopher Pincher.)
Question agreed to.
European Union Documents
The Royal Marines
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
This petition is on behalf of the people of Plymouth following the Government decision to announce that the Royal Marines 3 Commando Brigade is leaving Stonehouse barracks.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the UK,
Declares that RM Stonehouse, which is home to 3 Commando Brigade, will be disposed of through the Ministry of Defence’s estate optimisation strategy.
The petitioners therefore urge the House of Commons to urge the Government to ensure that 3 Commando Brigade is retained in Plymouth and not moved out of the local area.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P001970]
Chase Railway Line
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
The clocks turned back last weekend and the upside was an extra hour in bed. However, not only does this mean the days are getting shorter and winter is on the horizon, but I am afraid, for passengers of the Chase line, it marks more misery. What is at the best of times a railway line where passengers have to endure cancelled and delayed trains is at this time of year a line where they also face severe overcrowding.
I should start by giving some background. The Chase line is the railway line that connects Cannock Chase with Walsall and Birmingham. It runs from Rugeley Trent Valley, a station which is actually in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), and stops in my constituency at Rugeley Town, Hednesford and Cannock.
The good news is that the misery for the passengers will be addressed by the electrification of the line. Indeed, the previous Secretary of State for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin), was incredibly supportive of this electrification project, understanding the line well and the needs of residents as a former Cannock resident and councillor.
The electrification of the line will mean faster and more frequent trains, increasing the capacity on the line. But I am afraid there are several issues that I would like to outline in this debate relating to the service passengers will experience in the next couple of years. I want to cover the issues that passengers are currently facing, the issue of rolling stock when the line is electrified and the need to upgrade the facilities at the stations throughout my constituency, particularly Rugeley, Hednesford and Cannock.
Amazon has one of its fulfilment centres in Rugeley. Every autumn, it recruits seasonal staff to support demand and it recently announced 4,500 seasonal jobs. This is clearly excellent news for the creation of jobs. However, with a claimant rate of just over 750 across Cannock Chase, people will need to travel to fill those positions. Last autumn, Amazon recruited around half of its additional seasonal staff, and my inbox was full of complaints from passengers who were using the Chase line. Their complaints included overcrowded trains, passengers not buying tickets, and trains being delayed and cancelled. I am afraid that this autumn has been much the same for Chase line passengers, and the situation is likely to get worse.
The overcrowding of some services, particularly the commuter trains, is a constant and consistent complaint. All too often, it is reported to me that there are only two carriages on these services. Bearing in mind the level of use, that is simply unacceptable. Only this morning, I received a tweet from a passenger saying that the 7.04 service from Rugeley was made up of only two carriages. The passenger went on to say that they were standing in a packed carriage and asking London Midland to turn down the heating. On a different occasion, a passenger reported seeing a schoolboy faint, having had to stand. I have called for the level of service to be improved, and I have specifically asked the franchisee, London Midland, to review the number of carriages, particularly at peak hours. I am therefore particularly disappointed that the problem has recurred this autumn. Chase line passengers deserve better. I would therefore like to ask the Minister to put pressure on London Midland to provide the appropriate number of carriages on peak-time services on the Chase line.
The issue of overcrowding is exacerbated by the fact that not all passengers are paying for their tickets. As I understand it, the issue of Amazon staff not paying for their tickets is being addressed, and they are having their tickets paid for at source out of their salaries. However, there are still concerns about the lack of ticket inspectors resulting in passengers still not paying for their tickets. Some are able to dodge the inspectors at the various stations. Honest fee-paying passengers are hugely frustrated by this, and they want London Midland to ensure that tickets on these services are inspected, where possible as passengers board the trains.
The misery does not stop there. Another issue facing those long-suffering passengers is delayed and cancelled trains. It is not uncommon for passengers using the service to and from Rugeley to complain that the service has been stopped and re-directed from stations further up the line. This is an hourly service, so these problems result in people not being able to get to work on time and having to explain why they are late, day in and day out. They result in parents being unable to get back from work to pick up their children, and parents picking up children who are using the service not knowing when their train is going to arrive because it is stuck at Hednesford or Cannock station. London Midland’s explanation is that delayed trains are redirected part-way up the line to ensure that subsequent services are not also delayed, but that is little comfort for someone who is trying to use the service from the Rugeley stations. Frankly, residents in Rugeley are poorly served by this service, and that needs to be addressed.
As I have said, the electrification of the line will help to alleviate many of the issues I have outlined. For one thing, we will have a faster and more frequent service, with a train every half hour rather than every hour. That said, that will happen only when electric trains are running on the line.
I am glad to say that the electrification works are on track—sorry for the expression—for completion on time by the end of 2017. It was a real pleasure to meet the various stakeholders to look at the progress of the engineering works along the line, including meeting the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) to review the now-completed major engineering work to tunnel under the shops in Walsall town centre, which included managing to keep the shops open throughout. I believe that McDonald’s did a very good trade during that time.
While the engineering works will be completed on time by the end of next year, which is fantastic news, I have uncovered an issue that I never really thought was possible. Despite plenty of warning—this project has been under way for some time—it appears that London Midland does not have access to rolling stock to run on the line, saying that it may be December 2018 before it has the electric trains. I started to get a sense that there was an issue with rolling stock when I wrote to London Midland asking when we would get electric trains on the line and have a faster, more frequent service. The initial reason I was given for a potential delay to the new service was timetabling, which made me somewhat suspicious.
The Hendy review stated that electric services would start by May 2018. However, it has now become apparent that London Midland will not be able to run electric trains until much later in 2018—nearly a year after the completion of the engineering works. Quite rightly, the passengers who use the service will see the project being completed at the end of 2017 and expect the new service to be running soon after. While we accept the need to test the line and train the drivers, which might delay things a little, the lack of rolling stock is unbelievable and unacceptable. There is a danger that Chase line passengers will have to suffer yet another autumn of pain.
I have several points to raise with the Minister. What are the Government doing to take a strategic view of the status of electrification projects and the availability of electric trains to ensure that rolling stock is being utilised in the most effective way? What measures are the Government taking to make sure that those bidding for new franchises are ensuring that the rolling stock requirements are being met?
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
One of the challenges in my part of the country is that the rapid housing growth that is coming on stream will put only more pressure on our existing rail services. Is that a problem in my hon. Friend’s area? Residents in Corby want more trains both northbound and southbound.
Amanda Milling
My hon. Friend must have been reading what is coming up later in my speech. His point also affects my constituency. Following the closure of Rugeley B power station, which I have discussed in this place several times, there will be new development, including new homes and businesses, meaning more passengers on the line and the need for more capacity. The problem is only going to increase and we need to solve it as quickly as possible.
The franchise for the Chase line is currently under review and, with the appointment due next year, I want to make a few points. What measures will the bidders take to ensure that the short-term issues of overcrowding, delays and cancellations are built into their plans for 2017? When will electric trains be running on the line? The contract says that that should be by the end of 2018, which is movement from what was stated in the Hendy review and some 12 months after the electrification work will be completed. I would like to know from the bidders what they are going to do to get trains on these lines as quickly as possible, at least by May 2018, as outlined in the Hendy review earlier this year. I know from some of the points made by passengers that there is a desire for later trains to and from Birmingham, so I am pleased that part of the specification will include those. I call on the bidders to do everything they can to make sure we get those later trains, because people are having to leave concerts and events in Birmingham early because otherwise they are not able to get home.
Finally, let me deal with the facilities available at each of these stations which serve Cannock Chase residents. In 2010, the national stations improvement programme led to welcome upgrades, including CCTV at platform level, new shelters and customer information systems. However, the facilities are still incredibly basic in terms of offering a welcoming environment—a welcome to Cannock Chase. There will soon be a designer outlet village in Cannock, similar to that in Bicester, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who is in her place, and Cheshire Oaks. It is expected to attract about 4 million visitors a year and will be situated close to Cannock train station. The developer anticipates that about 2% of visitors will be coming in by rail, although it is felt there is scope for that number to be much greater. As such, Cannock station will be the gateway to Cannock Chase and the Mill Green designer outlet village. The station currently does not have the facilities suited to that level of traffic and hardly provides a warm welcome to Cannock. The section 106 agreement provides £90,000 for station improvements, but it is accepted that much wider external funding will be required to make the necessary upgrades to the station’s facilities. I therefore ask the Minister to look at what Government investment could be provided to improve the facilities at Cannock station. The next station up the line is Hednesford, where I commend the work being undertaken by the Heart of Hednesford Group to adopt the station as a community platform to ensure the station provides a warm welcome to Hednesford. This is an excellent example of how a community group can work to improve the facilities at a station.
The station upgrades were not included as part of the electrification project. I have mentioned two stations that need improvement, but in all honesty I can say that they all do. Just some of the improvements required include having public toilets, parking and improved disabled access—that is a short list, drawn from the very long list I have in this folder. I therefore ask the Minister to consider what additional support can be provided by the Government to upgrade the facilities. I also call on the bidders, Network Rail and the two local enterprise partnerships to look at ways in which they can provide the investment to make these necessary improvements.
I could talk about many issues on the Chase line, after 18 months of social media contact, emails and letters on the subject. I hope that I have covered at least some of the issues raised by passengers. I wish to take the opportunity to thank the passengers and residents who have contacted me over the past few days, in the run-up to this debate, with specific examples, pulling together the key themes. In summary, Chase line passengers are getting a poor deal and deserve a better service, this autumn, next autumn and beyond. I hope the electrification project will address many of the issues outlined, but it will do so only if there are electric trains running on the line. With the Mill Green development and significant redevelopment in Rugeley, following the closure of Rugeley B power station and the subsequent addition of new homes and new businesses, the need for the railway line and the station facilities to be suitable for increased passenger use is as important as ever. I am incredibly grateful to the Minister for his time this evening, and I look forward to his response and to his support for the various issues I have outlined.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
It is a pleasure to be here today. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) on securing this debate and on demonstrating once again why she is a doughty champion for her constituency and for the needs of the Chase line. This is not the first time that she has raised these issues with me. We have met in the past as well, and I know that she has also met officials from London Midland to discuss her concerns. I wholly understand her frustrations and the frustrations of her constituents.
Overcrowding is not unique to the Chase line. It is an issue across the network that we are continuing to address through continual investment in new rolling stock. We have more and more passengers using our railways, with a 115% increase in the number of people using the railways since privatisation. The Chase line is no different. Our own rail investment strategy recognises that there has been significant passenger growth in this corridor between Birmingham and other towns along the line. Growing at approximately 14% per annum, the Chase line is in fact the west midlands franchise’s fastest growing route. It has seen significant investment in rail electrification to improve capacity and journey times.
As my hon. Friend pointed out, the already crowded line has seen the addition of some 4,000 seasonal workers whom Amazon employs at its Rugeley fulfilment centre. We welcome the boost that that will have for the local economy, but it does place short-term additional pressures on local rail services.
At present, London Midland does not have any additional trains to bring into service to alleviate the problems that my hon. Friend highlighted. Nor are there any suitable diesel trains nationally that it could lease, which would match the needs of the Chase line. Therefore, in the short term, London Midland is limited to its current fleet of diesel trains.
Performance on the Chase line is regularly over 90% in terms of punctuality performance measurements. Over recent weeks, cancellations have been slightly higher than normal, partly due, I gather, to the volume of train crews who are in training and also to the fact that the class 170s, which form the majority of services on the Chase line, are not necessarily behaving as they should, because of their defective door control units. I understand that London Midland has commissioned an investigation into how to improve the reliability of those door control units, which I hope will start to address some of the issues that my hon. Friend raises, particularly the existence of two-carriage trains on some of the Rugeley services that are being diverted or that are non-stopping. I look forward to hearing what London Midland has to say when it has conducted its review.
The Chase line is an important rail connection between Birmingham New Street and Rugeley Trent Valley via Walsall and Cannock. It currently has one train per hour in each direction with some additional services in the peak. The electric services only operate between Birmingham and Walsall, where the overhead line equipment ends, and that is what we are seeking to change. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the electrification of the Chase line will give the new rail franchise holder considerably more capacity to carry additional passengers.
Work has already started on this project and is due to be completed in December 2017. The project will bridge the gap in the electrification between Walsall and Rugeley Trent Valley. It will also create a diversionary route for west coast main line traffic if other lines are closed for engineering works. It will be gauge cleared for larger freight train traffic.
A parallel project will deliver enhancements to line speed alongside electrification through track remodelling and the closure of a level crossing in Bloxwich. Switching services to run with electric rolling stock with enhanced performance characteristics will reduce journey times to such an extent that a regular, all-day, two-trains-per-hour service can be operated with no additional rolling stock. Furthermore, the electrification will release diesels for use across the west midlands.
Doubling the off-peak frequency of services will enhance connectivity for all towns along the Chase line. In particular, it will improve connectivity to the west coast main line services. As I have said, work has already started. The entry-into-service date is due to be December 2017, and, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, the full timetable is likely to be delivered by December 2018. However, during that period, as she also rightly pointed out, time will need to be taken to train up drivers in the new route and ensure that the trains are serviceable for the route, are reliable and can operate fully, although the timetable will be introduced gradually from May 2018, ramping up as the service reliability improves also.
We anticipate that those services will start in May 2018, with a full service by December 2018, but bidders have the opportunity to propose alternative procurement strategies for rolling stock that may allow that to be brought forward if the rolling stock is there. As a Department, we specify the output that we want on behalf of passengers, but it is primarily for train operating companies to work with rolling stock companies to find the rolling stock that best suits the needs to fit the output that we have specified and ensure that they can deliver on commitments that they make in their bids and in the eventual successful franchise.
That is an important part of the franchise process, because the more that bidders can impress the Department that they are exceeding the specification in the invitation to tender, the more chance they have to obtain quality points in terms of the bid and the way the Department will judge it. It is in the interest of bidders always to seek to exceed the minimum identified in our specification.
Even with our invitation-to-tender specification, there will be numerous passenger improvements by December 2018. The number of trains per hour between Birmingham and Rugeley during the morning off-peak will be doubled. There will be increased evening frequency, Monday to Friday between Birmingham and Walsall, at three trains per hour, and new direct services between Walsall and London at peak times.
As part of the competition for the new franchise, bidders are required to present solutions that meet forecast passenger demand in affordable stages through to 2026. A base minimum requirement is set to enable bidders to present competitive, innovative, value-for-money solutions that best meet that demand and overall passenger needs. That solution could be presented in a number of different ways, dependent on fare income, infrastructure constraints and availability of rolling stock. It is therefore the Department’s policy to set that as an output-based specification to give bidders the maximum flexibility to deliver the best solution as they find it on the ground.
On the Chase line, the demand requirements have been derived from a number of measures, including a recent independent ticketless travel survey, conducted as a precursor to the issuing of the invitation to tender. In addition, bidders will have to take into account local views from the public consultation in which there are representations from the Cannock area by Cannock Chase District Council, Brereton and Ravenhill Parish Council and the active Cannock Chase Rail Promotion Group.
I also note the concern my hon. Friend expressed regarding the Rugeley trains that are being diverted. I am sure she will want to take note of the fact that financial penalties accrue to train operating companies should they miss stations out or cancel services, even if the end goal is to restore services for the rest of the day in a logical format.
My hon. Friend may also wish to reaffirm to her constituents that the new franchise will include delay repay 15, which will see passengers eligible for at least 25% compensation if a train is more than 15 minutes late, and more if it is cancelled.
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the many community groups that make Hednesford, Cannock and Rugeley stations the very best that they can be to support their local communities. She referred to the new station improvement scheme. There is also a minor works scheme that each train operating company has access to. She also mentioned section 106 investment. If any commercial development—she referred to one that is forecast in the area, Mill Green—drives extra demand to the extent that the existing infrastructure cannot cope, it has the option of choosing to invest, as Bicester Village did, in the local station for its own commercial benefit. I urge her to have that particular discussion.
Let me address the issue of antisocial behaviour that my hon. Friend raised. As she knows, this has been attributed mainly to the 4,000 seasonal workers at Amazon. My Department has spoken to London Midland, whose view is that the antisocial behaviour is predominantly due to fare evasion. I hope my hon. Friend will welcome the fact that to address the problem, London Midland has taken on five new revenue protection and security managers. Among their other duties, they will carry out increased patrols and ticket checks on the Chase line between Rugeley and Birmingham New Street, providing an increased presence during the morning peak to coincide with Amazon’s shift change-over.
London Midland met Amazon in mid-September to discuss further solutions. As my hon. Friend mentioned, they have come to an agreement whereby Amazon will soon start selling passes directly to staff in the form of scratch-off tickets. It is hoped that this will eliminate much of the antisocial behaviour, but London Midland will continue to work closely with the British Transport police to address all antisocial behaviour throughout the network.
As I mentioned, we recently issued the invitation to tender for the west midlands franchise to the shortlisted bidders. We are asking them to deliver ambitious improvements for passengers across the west midlands network as a whole, not least some 20,000 additional passenger places on trains between London and Birmingham in the morning peak. Bidders will be asked to provide new ticket options that provide better value for customers who may travel fewer than five days a week, as well as new peak time services between Walsall and London.
As I said earlier, these are minimum requirements. We expect bidders to go above and beyond what we are asking for. I urge my hon. Friend to contact the bidders directly and let them know the benefits that she wants to see on behalf of her constituents. I am sure the bidders are paying close attention to her words today and are listening carefully to them, but nothing beats meeting those companies to tell them face to face.
I recognise and pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s dedicated pursuit of an improved service on the Chase line. We are committed to tackling overcrowding wherever it occurs to provide better, more comfortable journeys for passengers. We are in the midst of the largest rail investment programme since the Victorian era, which will increase capacity and improve the rail network. It does not happen overnight. It takes time for new rolling stock to come on stream and for passengers to see the benefits, but with continued pressure from the Department and from local MPs, I am sure that in the west midlands the bidders will be taking close note of who is shouting, what they want to see and what they want on behalf of their constituents. I welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution today.
Question put and agreed to.
Savings (Government Contributions) Bill (Fifth sitting)
(8 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 6, page 3, leave out lines 36 to 39 and insert—
‘(2) This Act comes into force on the day after the establishment of an Independent Pensions and Savings Commission.’
This amendment would delay the commencement of the products until an independent pensions and savings commission is established.
The amendment would delay the commencement of the products until an independent pensions and savings commission was established. The Scottish National party has long called for the establishment of an independent pensions and savings commission to look at the crisis in saving for retirement. Following the success of the Turner commission, we should recognise that we need a standing commission to help us steer a long-term, sustainable path for pensions and savings. The Cridland commission is looking at the state retirement and pensionable age, which we welcome, but all such matters should be looked at holistically.
A commission of experts, free from political influence, could focus on all aspects of pensions and savings, with a view to delivering a universal pensions and savings system that enables dignity in retirement. Such a commission is needed to minimise politically motivated changes to pensions and savings, with the aim of eliminating complexity and perverse incentives. We have voiced our legitimate concerns that the Bill risks undermining pension savings and redirecting consumers to products that will not confer the greater level of benefits that pension savings offer. We need to pause and consider what we are seeking to achieve with pensions and other savings products, while making sure that we build confidence in pension savings in particular.
Malcolm McLean of Barnett Waddingham, the pensions consultant, who is a former head of the Pensions Advisory Service, said:
“Much of pension policy seems to be dictated by political expediency rather than the needs of consumers… Political time horizons are too short. Pension policy is controlled by a government whose agenda is short-term, yet pensions are a long-term issue.”
Chris Noon, a partner at the consultancy Hymans Robertson, also commented on the need to free pensions from the political system, saying:
“Political temptation to raid pensions in hard times is too great. We need less meddling and more long-term thinking. We need to get the best brains together to work out how we deal with longer term, intergenerational issues.”
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Ellison)
Good morning to you, Mr Wilson, and to the rest of the Committee.
As we have just heard, the amendment concerns the date from which the Bill will come into force as an Act. The hon. Gentleman has outlined his reasons for wanting a delay. The amendment would provide that the Act will not come into force until the day after the establishment of the independent pensions and savings commission he has just described.
Over the course of our deliberations in Committee, we have discussed why the schemes in the Bill are really positive steps for savers, so I will not go through those arguments at length again. The fundamental point is that we want both the lifetime individual savings account and Help to Save to become available to people as soon as possible. A delay would not be fair to the people who could have benefited from them. For example, delaying the lifetime ISA for a year would mean that people would miss out on the chance to save up to £4,000 into such an ISA and get a bonus of up to £1,000.
Ian Blackford
Will the Minister confirm that anyone who has the opportunity to enrol in an auto-enrolment pension is going to be better off doing that than investing in an ISA? That is one of the issues we are trying to determine with the amendment.
Jane Ellison
To some extent, we are returning to a debate we had during last week’s proceedings. The products in the Bill are not designed to be an alternative to pensions. The Government could not have been clearer in expressing our strong support for auto-enrolment and pensions saving more generally. Help to Save is very much a product directed at people for whom there is very little choice available in the savings products that are currently on the market.
Ian Blackford
I apologise for coming back to this, but it is critical. My real worry is that there is nothing that will prevent someone from taking out a LISA and perhaps not taking out an automatic enrolment pension, when the latter would be best for their financial interests. My real concern with the LISA and its consequences is that we will end up with savers putting money into products that are, in this case, not fit for purpose.
Jane Ellison
That takes us back to territory we have covered. I do not doubt the hon. Gentleman’s sincerity in putting forward his concerns, which he has expressed during debates on other amendments, but as I say, the Government are completely committed to auto-enrolment. We want to have a robust, functioning pension system, but there is also a need for complementary products.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I am strongly persuaded by the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber. Indeed, I wish I had thought of his amendment before he did, but there we are. Is the Minister not concerned by all the issues raised in the evidence sessions last week about possible complexities and indecision by people who do not know whether to invest? A commission would clarify things for everyone, including us and the Government.
Jane Ellison
I rather take issue with that point. Commissions and reviews by nature tend to look at the broad sweep of policy and how policies interact; they could never offer specific advice for each individual. That is why we have the various advisory services—the Money Advice Service and its successor organisation—and why the Financial Conduct Authority will consider and offer advice on each individual product. Even making the slightly optimistic assumption that every member of the population would read such a commission’s outpourings, it would be unlikely to offer individual advice. I accept the general point that such things can often offer policy guidance in the long term, but that does not alter the fact that we want individuals to take advantage of the advice services that are available and to be guided by what the FCA says about individual products.
Most of the people who gave evidence to the Committee stressed that they saw the lifetime ISA as complementary to pensions. Help to Save is in much more of a standalone category. In all cases, everyone emphasised the Government’s commitment to auto-enrolment. I bring the Committee back to the figures that I gave last week: the rate of opt-out from auto-enrolment is around 9%, which is not just lower than originally expected, but lower than the amended figure.
Kelvin Hopkins
I thank the Minister for her answer, but does she not accept that an objective and disinterested arm’s length body such as a commission would be preferable to either private financial advice, which may involve vested interests, or Government advice? I can see strong arguments for what the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber says.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
I thank the Minister for her contributions on this important point. Does she not recall that during the evidence sessions last week, Martin Lewis—I think it was him—and others said that some of the issues about confusion can be dealt with by prompting people during the sales process? That is the appropriate place to ensure that the right questions are asked. Does she agree that that is where the focus needs to be?
Jane Ellison
Yes, I do. That is exactly right. I remind the Committee of the independent Financial Conduct Authority’s remit in this regard. Its role is to regulate the providers of policies to ensure, as is its ordinary remit, that they are transparent to consumers about the products that they are offering and that those products are sold with suitable safeguards in place. That is in addition to the Government publishing factual information about the lifetime ISA on gov.uk and working with the Money Advice Service and its successor to ensure that appropriate information is available. I reiterate that if we want individuals to be well informed, those are the mechanisms by which an individual, with their individual circumstances, will be informed. I genuinely do not think that a commission is the way to look at advising each individual, because by its very nature, it cannot look at each person’s affairs, life and aspirations and say what is right for them. We need to give people individual advice.
Ian Blackford
I am very grateful to the Minister; she is being generous with her time. The whole point about a pensions and savings commission is not to look at each individual and give advice, but to ensure that we bring Government policy together and look holistically at all the issues affecting pensions and savings, deal with the fact that we have had so many gimmicks like these and get something that is right for the long term for those who wish to save for their pensions.
Jane Ellison
I do not accept that these are gimmicks. I do not think the hon. Gentleman means what he said about Help to Save. If we can help thousands of families to save money for a rainy day and stave off disaster, to which they are all too susceptible at the moment, that would be a very good thing, and all of us on the Committee could take pride in that.
Ian Blackford
To clarify, I am talking about the LISA. I have not made any reference to Help to Save in this regard. I am specifically addressing what I see as the shortcomings of the LISA.
Jane Ellison
Indeed, and we have debated that in previous sittings. The thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s argument is that the Government do not consult and are not reviewing things, and that Governments—I suspect he means Governments of all colours—have tinkered with these things. I do not accept the broad point. We have done consultations on Help to Save and the lifetime ISA came out of an extensive consultation on pension tax relief. It is worth noting that there was no clear consensus from that. It is not as if the truth is out there, and if we just have an enormous commission, we will come to one point of view that everyone agrees with. In this area, there is a lot of debate and contention, and therefore we are trying to find a way through that goes with the grain of human nature and common sense. That is why having the lifetime ISA as a complementary product to auto-enrolment or people’s other pension arrangements makes sense.
I will finish the point about Government reviews, because it is worth getting it on the record. We already hold all savings policy under review, particularly through the Budget process. Our commitment to reviewing policy is also evident in the review of the state pension age, which will be informed by the independent report led by John Cridland, and the upcoming review of automatic enrolment in 2017. The Government are not walking away from the important job of scrutinising how things land in reality, but I am not persuaded that the reasons the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber advanced for a delay are right in the context of these two products and this Bill.
Ian Blackford
Does the Minister accept that the Turner commission was a force for good and for change in pensions and savings in this country? Out of the Turner commission, we effectively got auto-enrolment, about which there was cross-party consensus in the House. That is what we seek to achieve by taking these issues away to a commission. That would create the circumstances in which we could all work together to improve the pensions and savings landscape in this country.
Jane Ellison
Let me try to wind this debate up on a note of consensus. Where we can achieve consensus on important long-term reforms—auto-enrolment is a very good example—it is wise to do so, but we are debating apples and pears here. The debate about what is the right way to go in the pensions and savings landscape over the next several decades is separate from, albeit related to, the Bill and the two products that we want to bring in to augment the available landscape of products for individuals in this country.
Kelvin Hopkins
I want to reinforce the point that the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber made. The Turner commission was extremely valuable, because there was serious resistance from the Treasury. It was only because the Turner commission put its case so well and measured this so carefully that we got some positive change. Commissions can be extremely useful. As the Minister said, some of these issues are contentious.
Jane Ellison
I do not disagree that commissions can be useful; of course they can. A very good example has been cited. Neither am I arguing that we should not review things and seek, where we can with long-term things such as this, to get a degree of cross-party consensus. I referred to the review we have committed to on automatic enrolment. I am simply making the point that that debate is not relevant to the Bill. Delaying Help to Save for a year would mean people on low incomes missing out on the chance to save up to £600 in a Help to Save account and, of course, to benefit from a Government bonus.
As I say, we are debating two slightly separate issues. I think we all agree that these sorts of commissions and profound examinations of big issues often give rise to important things that achieve a degree of consensus, enabling us to move forward. However, that is not a relevant reason to delay the Bill, and that is why I reject the amendment. We heard in the evidence from StepChange that having £1,000 of rainy-day savings reduces the chance of falling into problem debt by 44%. Help to Save is a product that we have to get on with and not delay further.
I stress that we take an open approach to making pensions and savings policy and that we have approached these policies in an open and transparent way, as I have said. We will consult on the new financial guidance body later this year and, during the course of that consultation, there might well be a relevant moment to come back to some of the wider issues such as how we help individuals to make the right decisions for them. I have mentioned the automatic enrolment review, which will take place next year.
Those are better vehicles through which to have the debate we have just had and to get across some of the points that have been made, not all of which we would necessarily contest. I reject the amendment simply because it is not particularly relevant to the Bill. There is no need to delay the introduction of these two important schemes to establish a further commission.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Ian Blackford
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This new clause builds on new clause 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Bootle, and it makes specific reference to advice to be given on automatic enrolment and workplace saving. Many people are in the dark about what they can expect from the state and their employers when they retire. The complexities in the system and in products and the lack of independent advice are not only confusing but may lead to a lack of uptake on saving.
In March 2016, Citizens Advice, which delivers the face-to-face channel of Pension Wise, found that some of the most used pension terms were confusing for customers. It said that people would find it easier to understand their pensions if the industry used simple, standard language to describe its products. It says that some people are also unclear about terms that appear to be more straightforward, which puts them at risk of missing out on the best pension options for them.
The Chair
New clause 2, which has already been debated, is on a similar subject, and I therefore remind Members wishing to speak to new clause 4 that their remarks should cover new material, and not be a repetition of the debate we have already had.
Kelvin Hopkins
I rise in support of the new clause. I believe that most citizens would benefit from this kind of advice. As the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber said, even experts in the field of economics and finance are sometimes puzzled and at a loss when it comes to deciding what to do regarding savings and investments. The new clause is eminently sensible and would be a strong addition to the Bill. I would have liked this kind of advice when making my own investments back in the 1960s and 1970s.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
The issue was summed up for me last week when we heard evidence and got into a rather esoteric discussion about “taxed, exempt, exempt” and “exempt, exempt, taxed”. That is just gobbledegook to the average person, including me. We absolutely need to translate that into language that normal people, with a normal level of financial literacy, can understand.
Kelvin Hopkins
I thank the hon. Lady for that useful intervention, with which I strongly agree. I hesitate to say this, because I said it before, but it has been calculated that 50% of the population are not functionally numerate—they do not understand percentages and that kind of thing—so advice of this kind is vital for the ordinary citizen. I hope that the Government see fit to accept the new clause, and that we can move on.
Jane Ellison
I will try to observe your stricture, Mr Wilson, and not go over ground that we have already covered.
The Government do not disagree with the intention that everyone should get good advice before they take out a pension, and I certainly would not argue with the fact that for many of us, however well-informed we might like to think ourselves, such things can be confusing. The reason I will ask that the clause be withdrawn is simply that the solution it presents is not correct. Also, there are things in place to steer people, which I will touch on.
It is worth reminding the Committee about the definition of advice and guidance. “Advice” is financial advice involved in the provision of a personal recommendation for a specific product. It takes into account the wider circumstances of the person to whom the advice is given, and must be suitable for them. The definition also mentions regulated products. That is at the heart of the matter. I give a commitment that the Government will ensure that clear and accessible information about the lifetime ISA and Help to Save is available, so that potential customers can make an informed choice about whether the accounts are right for them.
Our impact assessment, which was based on a costing certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, shows that our costings do not assume that people will opt out of workplace pensions to save into a lifetime ISA. However, as I have outlined, it is ultimately the role of the independent Financial Conduct Authority, not the Government, to set the regulatory framework for providers that will offer the lifetime ISA, including setting out any suitability tests that should apply. The FCA will consult on its regulatory framework shortly. It will ensure that providers are transparent to customers about the product, and that the products are sold with suitable safeguards in place.
I recognise the importance of individuals making an informed choice about whether Help to Save is right for them. Some may well be the same people who stand to benefit enormously from auto-enrolment. I have stated our commitment to that a number of times. We know that the Help to Save target audience may have less experience of financial products than the population on average. That is why we have already committed to work with interested parties to ensure that the right support and information are available, so that eligible people can decide whether the account is right for them. That will involve information and support from Government and the account provider, but we are also keen to explore a role for local organisations that are well placed to support the target population, such as local charities, advice bodies, social housing providers and the Churches, many of which have very good outreach and advice provision for people suffering from financial exclusion.
While we want to ensure that people have the information that they need, we must ensure that opening an account is as straightforward as possible. Requiring the account provider to give financial advice to every applicant makes the account application process more complex and time-consuming, and risks discouraging eligible people from opening an account. Countless studies show that the more hurdles there are to opening an account online, the more people are likely to fall away. Getting the balance right is really important.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
I completely acknowledge that. The Minister referred to more hurdles being put in people’s way. Does she agree that many people out there wish some hurdles had been put in their way to prevent them from buying things that they did not want, instead of something that they would have preferred?
Jane Ellison
I totally accept that point. I suspect that some of us on the Committee would put ourselves in that category, casting their mind back over the years. The point is that the regulatory landscape today is very different from what it was; the hon. Member for Luton North made that point in one of our debates last week.
The Government are fully committed to providing advice. The Treasury sponsors the Money Advice Service, which has started to play a greater role in co-ordinating financial education programmes in schools. We have seen a lot more progress on that. We have the 10-year financial capability strategy, led by the Money Advice Service and supported by industry, which aims to improve financial capability across the nation. We see many different bodies going into schools and working with young people. There is always more to do, but I genuinely think that we are looking at a very different landscape from that of some decades ago. While we would never be complacent, that is why we want to take all the measures that I have mentioned to provide advice and information.
We have to find a balance in ensuring that people can access accounts that could greatly benefit them and their family. It is worth reiterating that with Help to Save, people’s money is not locked away. If individuals change their mind or decide the scheme is not for them, they are free to close their account and withdraw their savings, free of charge. I want to end with that reminder. We have designed the product with maximum flexibility in mind for a group of people whose current financial exclusion we should be ashamed of as a nation. We want to do something about that.
Ian Blackford
I am disappointed that the Minister has decided to reject the new clause, because it is about ensuring that those applying for the LISA or Help to Save have appropriate advice, which is important to them. We have talked about ensuring that people are aware of the other choices that they have, particularly auto-enrolment. The new clause is about ensuring that we do not end up in a situation where there could be any dubiety about the potential for mis-selling. This is not about the regulator; it is about ensuring that consumers are given all available information at the point of sale. On that basis, I seek to press the new clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Jane Ellison
With your indulgence, Mr Wilson, I want to take a moment to thank you and Committee members for the constructive debates that we have had while considering the Bill. I have listened carefully to the points made, and tried to answer them as fully as possible, but I will reflect on the wider points made and am happy to continue to discuss them. It is important that we get the Bill right, so that our constituents understand the benefits of both the lifetime ISA and Help to Save accounts and can reap the rewards of the Government bonus. I greatly appreciate the flexibility that Members have shown in withdrawing some of their amendments along the way. Where people did not withdraw amendments and we had votes, our disagreement was in most cases not with the amendment’s intent, but simply with the immediate point in hand.
May I also put on the record my thanks to the Bill team from Her Majesty’s Treasury and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, who have supported me in these debates, and to Hansard, which has faithfully recorded our words and provided an important service to us and the public, as it always does?
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.
Digital Economy Bill (Eleventh sitting)
Tuesday 1st November 2016
(8 years 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 1 November 2016 - (1 Nov 2016)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
As I have made clear in earlier contributions, I welcome the Government’s intention to protect children from the harmful effects of pornography. However, the Bill does not deal with other harmful effects. Not only can pornography be a potential source of harm to adult viewers and a way of promoting the very worst forms of gender inequality and stereotyping—both issues were discussed in a recent House of Lords debate, which I will not address—but the process of producing pornography can itself be harmful to the people involved, because of trafficking, deception, coercion and violence. New clause 5 seeks to deal with that.
The high frequency of violent scenes in pornography, in particular violence directed against women, has been well reported, although I have evidence if the Minister would like it. Testimonies from and research about people who have experienced the porn industry reveal that in many cases such scenes involve genuine violence, and that coercion is involved. There are serious questions to be asked about the level of coercion involved in pornography and what is being done to address it.
Online pornography is the easiest way for people to make, distribute, share and consume pornography, for free and commercially; I tabled the new clause because I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing about the safety of people involved in the production of porn. People watching pornography would not want unwittingly to watch acts of rape, violence or coercion, but I am not convinced that there is anything like an adequate framework to prevent that.
The new clause is intended to probe. If this country is to lead the way in ending modern slavery and preventing exploitation, as the Prime Minister has pledged, we need to do everything we can to prevent pornographic material produced through coercion, trafficking or violence from being made in or distributed from the UK. The new clause would make it an offence to make available in the UK online pornography that involves people who have been exploited. Words to explain that are included.
There are strong links between pornography, trafficking and prostitution, as part of a complex system of exploitation within and fuelled by the global sex industry. Organised crime groups, individual traffickers and pimps exploit people to make money, and online pornography presents them with an easy opportunity to make more money by exploiting a person who is already under their control. Someone who has been trafficked or is providing sexual services might also be filmed or photographed. The development of technology has made filming and uploading material to the internet extremely easy, and production of porn is no longer limited to large commercial enterprises.
Areas of the world known to have significant problems with human trafficking, including eastern Europe, Russia and the Philippines, are also known to have growing porn industries. Professor Donna Hughes has written extensively about trends in human trafficking:
“Brothel owners, pimps, and pornography producers place orders with traffickers for the number of women they need.”
That has also been identified in the UK. A report by the POPPY Project as long ago as 2004 noted that some of the trafficked women it was caring for had been photographed or filmed naked by their traffickers, including while abuse of them was taking place.
Exploitation in internet pornography, however, is much wider than trafficking, which is why proposed new subsection (3) of the new clause sets out a broader definition of exploitative conduct. Coercion, drug use and violence, as well as poor labour conditions and low pay, have been well documented in the commercial porn industry. Evidence and first-hand testimonies from former porn industry insiders reveals that women are forced and coerced to participate in sexual acts that are often violent. They are constantly pressured for ever more extreme performances.
Many young women enter pornography as a result of coercion and deception about the realities. The young women are often extremely vulnerable. Many of them have experienced childhood sexual abuse, been in foster care or lived in poverty. Professor Hughes writes:
“Most women entering the pornography industry don’t know what they will be subjected to...they need money and are looking for opportunities. The agents, directors and producers take extreme advantage of these often naive young women. Their first experience making commercial pornography is often brutal and traumatic.”
One former porn performer from the US has said:
“When I was first introduced to my agent I told him I had no limits and would do it all. But I had NO idea what I was saying. I didn’t know about all the hardcore sex acts I would be forced to do.”
She also describes how she was threatened with being sued for large sums of money when she tried to pull out of performing in a scene, and speaks of being physically beaten on and off screen. She used alcohol and a range of prescription drugs to help her cope. Coercion in the industry goes beyond just pressuring or manipulating people to sign a contract; that is just the beginning. Coercion extends to forcing women to perform physically abusive scenes repeatedly.
Finally, I turn to the legal context. Dr Max Waltman, a researcher who has analysed the laws on pornography—including online pornography—in Sweden, Canada and the USA, as well as the political contexts in those countries, writes that
“testimonial evidence on violence, coercion, and trauma during pornography production revealed in public hearings repeatedly mirror both quantitative and qualitative data on these subjects in the lives of prostituted women around the world”.
That evidence cannot simply be discarded as unrepresentative or “anecdotal”.
Through the internet, pornographic material produced involving coercion, violence and even trafficking is accessible throughout the UK. While the viewers, distributors and host websites may not be directly involved in the coercion or violence, they are complicit in it by watching, paying for or receiving revenue by promoting the material. Viewers of pornography are not likely to be able to take action to find out the origins of the material, but promoters are. They have a responsibility to check the sources of the material they distribute. We hold supermarkets and clothes shops responsible for the conditions in their supply chains, so why not pornographers?
The clause recognises that it might not always be possible for a distributor to find out all the details of the production of material, so criminal responsibility is limited to cases where the distributor
“knows or ought to know”
that the material involved exploited persons. Nevertheless, I believe that such a clause would contribute to a greater awareness of the need to investigate the origins of pornographic material.
Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires large companies to report on trafficking and forced labour in their supply chains. I would like the Minister to say whether or not that measure also applies to pornography; recent analysis found only patchy compliance with supply chain obligations. However, as I have already said, coercion in pornography extends beyond trafficking and forced labour, which is why I have tabled this new clause.
Finally, I turn again to the legal framework. Dr Waltman analysed the implications of the Swedish “sex buyer law”—the law that criminalised the demand side of prostitution while decriminalising the supply side—for the laws governing the production of pornography. He points out that, under Swedish law, the person paying for the sex act does not have to be the person having sex; it could be the producer of online pornography, paying people to have sex. Using this measure could mean that producing pornography with exploited persons was already illegal. Dr Waltman is exploring that possibility further and he has written about
“what the political obstacles are to challenge the production of pornography with real persons in Sweden. How come…the legislature did not recognize that the procuring provisions should apply to pornography production?”
Was the resistance to such an application based on law, or ideological perceptions?
I cannot answer those questions about the “sex buyer law” in Sweden, but I can pose related questions today about our own laws as they relate to online pornography, given that it is in the scope of the Bill. We already have a partial version of the Swedish “sex buyer law” in force in this country. Since April 2010, section 53A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, as inserted by section 14 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, passed by a Labour Government, has created a new offence of paying for the sexual services of a prostitute who has been subjected to force. This legislation set down a clear line that paying for sex with someone who had been trafficked or coerced was never acceptable, and it now needs to apply to pornography.
This probing new clause is designed to find out various things. For instance, will the Government consider using existing legislation to outlaw the distribution of internet pornography involving a prostitute who has been subjected to force or to widen the scope of the legislation by replacing the word “prostitute” with “person”? That would make it clearer that nobody should pay for sex with anyone who is trafficked, whether or not they define themselves as “a prostitute” and whether or not the sex takes place within a prostitution setting or in pornography. The dividing lines for people who are coerced, trafficked and harmed in the sex industry are not felt as clearly as our laws imply they are.
I may as well place on the record that I am also in favour of a “sex buyer law” in this country, but discussion of that issue is for another debate.
Finally, I would like to hear from the Minister answers to the following questions. First, what are the Government doing to hold the makers and distributors of internet pornography to account for coercion and violence committed in the course of pornography production, from which those makers and distributors are profiting? Will the Government consider the matter of abuse, coercion and trafficking in pornography, and how to safeguard people from harm? Will they consider what regulatory or legal framework would be adequate to ensure that consumers of pornography can be sure that they are not viewing rape or sexual assault, or sexual acts taking place under or as a result of the threat of violence or actual violence?
Will the Government ask their advisers to look into the potential for our existing legislation to be amended—or for new legislation—to prevent trafficking, coercion, violence and abuse in the making of pornography? Will they also consider all of these questions, keeping in mind that it is entirely possible that there is no regulatory or legal framework that could adequately protect people from violence, abuse, coercion and trafficking in online or offline pornography or in prostitution, and that we may one day have to consider that there needs to be stronger legislation against both? Although the new clause is intended only to probe, I end by urging the Minister to consider the issue seriously because it matters too much. The way we treat the most vulnerable in society is a measure of how we are as a nation.
The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)
I want to respond to a powerful and impassioned speech by the hon. Member for Bristol West and set out why, while agreeing with much of the substance of what she says, we think that many of the issues are covered by existing legislation and why we think that enforcement is the biggest part of the challenge, as she pointed out. There are also some technical deficiencies with the proposed clause. I will deal with all those issues in the context of strongly supporting the thrust of her argument and the desire to protect vulnerable women.
New clause 5 seeks to make it a criminal offence to
“make available on the internet pornographic material on a commercial basis to persons in the United Kingdom if they know or ought to know that the production of the pornographic material involved exploited persons.”
The language is similar to that used in other parts of the Bill, but it covers quite different ground in terms of the substance. I do not want to see people exploited in this way; the question is about what is provided for through existing law and how the new clause would affect that.
The offence is targeted at persons “making available” material that may have involved exploitation, rather than the exploitation itself. We are committed to ensuring that people are not subject to exploitation; this is a technical difference in respect of the way that the law applies. Tackling exploitation is the existing basis of the work of, for example, the National Crime Agency’s child exploitation online protection command and the violence against women and girls strategy as well as the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Making sure that we implement the 2015 Act—recent legislation—and enforce it is a critical part of the work of the Home Office at the moment.
Thangam Debbonaire
I am grateful to the Minister for reassuring me that the 2015 Act could cover what I am talking about. My concern relates to whether that is actually happening. Could the Minister expand further on that point?
Matt Hancock
Of course. The expansion of enforcement in respect of the 2015 Act is an important part of the work of the Home Office at the moment. The Minister who took that legislation through Parliament is now the Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, so Ministers at that Department have a good understanding of not just the legislation, but the need for enforcement.
Existing legislation, including the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, clearly makes it an offence to be in possession of “an extreme pornographic image”—which includes images depicting non-consensual sex—and to possess and distribute indecent images of children. In addition, the independent Internet Watch Foundation works to identify and remove child sexual abuse, which we discussed earlier in Committee, as well as criminally obscene content hosted anywhere in the world. We are able to take down criminally obscene content, and the approach has started to work effectively. The organisation works closely with Government, at national and local levels, and policing agencies to support investigations and prosecutions.
There are a couple of technical reasons why the new clause is deficient. First, the scope of the offence is unclear; there is no definition as to what constitutes pornographic material. It is not made clear whether the definition at clause 16 of the Bill is to be used. Similarly, it is not clear what is meant by “make available” on the internet: would that capture internet service providers who host the material or just the individual who actually uploaded it to a specific website?
Secondly, the proposed classification of the offence is summary only and the corresponding maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, a level 5 fine or both, is incongruous for an offence dealing with this kind of conduct. Other sentences for offences in this area are much more serious. For example, the proposed maximum is much lower than for other offences relating to coercive conduct, such as trafficking for sexual exploitation, which carries a maximum of life imprisonment, and the possession of extreme pornographic images, which carries a maximum of three years’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both.
I am also concerned that the offence as drafted could be difficult to prosecute. In practice, it is difficult to show that a person making material available online actually knew, or should have known, that an individual featured had been exploited. There may be no link, or a very tenuous link, between these individuals and those engaged in the exploitation itself. Lastly, there are also potential territorial difficulties involved in prosecuting this offence. In the absence of any express provision to the contrary, it is presumed that any criminal offence is subject to the jurisdiction only when it is perpetrated in the UK. This is an issue that we have dealt with elsewhere in the Bill.
I applaud the hon. Lady’s intentions and have given assurances about the ongoing work in prosecuting other offences. I invite her to withdraw the motion.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the Minister for his responses. My understanding is that the implementation of the Modern Slavery Act does not cover this area of work so I will be following that up with the Minister and his colleagues. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 13
Offence to use digital ticket purchasing software to purchase excessive number of tickets
‘(1) A person commits an offence if he or she utilizes digital ticket purchasing software to purchase tickets over and above the number permitted in the condition of sale.
(2) A person commits an offence if he or she knowingly resells or offers to resell a ticket that the person knows, or could reasonably suspect, was obtained using digital ticket purchasing software and was acting in the course of a business.
(3) For the purposes of subsection (2) a person shall be treated as acting in the course of a business if he or she does anything as a result of which he makes a profit or aims to make a profit.
(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to—
(a) imprisonment for a period not exceeding 51 weeks,
(b) a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or
(c) both.
(5) In this section—
(a) “digital ticket purchasing software” means any machine, device, computer programme or computer software that, on its own or with human assistance, bypasses security measures or access control systems on a retail ticket purchasing platform that assist in implementing a limit on the number of tickets that can be purchased, to purchase tickets.
(b) “retail ticket purchasing platform” shall mean a retail ticket purchasing website, application, phone system, or other technology platform used to sell tickets.”
(6) Subsections (1) and (2) shall apply in respect of anything done whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.’—(Nigel Adams.)
This new clause creates an offence to use digital ticket purchasing software to purchase tickets for an event over and above the number permitted in the condition of sale. It also creates an offence to knowingly resell tickets using such software.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause would make it an offence to use digital ticket purchasing software to purchase tickets for an event in excess of the number allowed by the retail ticket purchasing platform. It also creates an offence to knowingly resell tickets bought using such software. This is not a silver bullet. Ticket touting is a huge problem and touts use a variety of methods to obtain tickets. There is also the issue of regulation of secondary resellers. However, the new clause would address one problematic aspect: it would help to get a higher proportion of tickets into the hands of genuine fans on their first attempt.
I have told colleagues repeatedly in this place about my recent experience of trying to purchase tickets for a Green Day concert; I dread to think what a credibility hit I have caused fans by referencing the fact that I am a huge Green Day fan. The experience really did upset me. The primary ticketing website I was using, See Tickets, had been the victim of a computerised attack by organised touts using botnets. That meant that I and other fans lost out, but the tickets were available minutes later at grossly inflated prices on other sites.
The practice occurs every day on an industrial scale in all types of sporting and cultural events. Whenever tickets to popular events go on sale, they are snapped up by professional ticket touts and prices become prohibitive for many genuine fans, often hampering the ability of the artist to fill their venues.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I rise briefly to support the new clause and to pay tribute to my good friend and fellow Select Committee member, the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty, who has form on campaigning in this area. He is known as a music fan, and the new clause is the culmination of a long campaign on behalf of music fans everywhere.
Moreover, I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman will damage the credibility of Green Day, because he has a track record of supporting live music—this is certainly nothing like David Cameron suggesting that he was a Smiths fan and having Johnny Marr tweeting him to back off. While I am on the subject, I remind the Committee that I was at the last concert of The Smiths, which was in Brixton Academy, probably in December 1986 or ’87.
In those days, ticket touts were blokes in long macs shouting, “Any spare tickets?”, which was a problem, but manageable. The hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty has been outlining industrial-scale, mechanical touting, which is way beyond my experience of those days 20, 30 or even 40 years ago. The problem absolutely needs to be addressed and the new clause does so. I am pleased to support it and, if the Minister is planning to accept it in principle, I suggest that he could do worse than recognise the work of the hon. Gentleman, give him the credit for the new clause, along with my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, and the chance he so richly deserves to make a mark.
Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (SNP)
I could not possibly be as glowing about the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty as the hon. Member for City of Chester has been. There is a love-in across the Benches this morning.
I, too, rise briefly to support the new clause. To paraphrase a well-known quote by Eric Hoffer, the American moral philosopher, every good idea begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket. That is what we have here. Online sales and fan-to-fan ticket sites are fantastic at enabling people to get access to the music events they want to go to, but because of the evolution of technology, software and bots, we now have a distorted market, about which we absolutely need to do something.
I want the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty to be able to go to see his favourite band, Green Day—as he was mentioning them, it occurred to me that one of their songs, and the name of their 2004 album, seemed appropriate for a gentleman who might yet end up in the White House. I must also add that my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) suggests that MP4 tickets are very easy to get hold of—he is determined that they are stopped from selling below ticket value.
I commend the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty on his new clause and I am happy to support it.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I rise briefly to support the new clause. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West and I were proud to put our names to it. I commend the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty for bravely revealing his devotion to Green Day. I stand in solidarity with him—I, too, am a big fan.
This issue has been a problem for too long for fans of musicians of all descriptions. It prices people out of access to their favourite bands and acts and thereby entrenches a class barrier to culture, which cannot be allowed to continue. For as long as there have been ticketed events, there have been people making money out of the fact that demand for live sports or music outstrips supply. As my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester pointed out, the development of technology has escalated the problem. Punters simply do not stand a chance against digital ticket purchasing software. The new clause would kick away one of the legs that ticket touts rely on.
The current legislation contained in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 is extremely patchy. It can compel ticket resale sites to publish information such as seat number and face value, but it is not enforced sufficiently and tickets are routinely sold at a high mark-up. Unless Parliament gets tough now, resale sites will continue brazenly to flout the law. It is high time that Parliament closed the legal loophole. That is what the industry, musicians and fans are calling for. I take the opportunity to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who has been calling for this change for some time. We wholeheartedly support new clause 13.
Matt Hancock
I recognise the strength of feeling across the Committee on this matter. I will certainly do the bidding of the hon. Member for City of Chester and pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty, who is a long-standing supporter of live music and has made his case. Last week, he introduced me to Josh Franceschi in the House of Commons, who was able to make his plea very directly.
I match my hon. Friend’s Green Day ticketing problem and raise him my Paul Simon ticket problem. I had a similar experience when buying tickets to see Paul Simon next week at the Royal Albert Hall, to which I am looking forward enormously. I had to pay an eye-watering amount for the tickets—much higher than the face value.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
If even the Minister cannot obtain tickets, given the strings he can pull, what hope is there for the ordinary punter?
Matt Hancock
I stress that I bought my tickets to see Paul Simon completely off my own bat, as a fan. My wife and I are enormously looking forward to going. I am prepared to pay the very high price because it will be such an amazing concert, but it would be far better if I could pay the face value or something close to it. I went online immediately the tickets were released and a huge number had gone already. Secondary ticketing sites were the only way that I could get the tickets. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty, I was bent over my laptop pressing the button trying to get the tickets as quickly as possible. I only say that to explain to the Committee that I feel the pain of all those who end up having to pay far more than face value because of automated bots.
The Committee will know that we asked Professor Michael Waterson to review secondary ticketing. His very good independent report makes a number of points relevant to the new clause. The offences set out in the Computer Misuse Act 1990 have broad application and the Waterson review concludes that unauthorised use of a computerised ticketing system to avoid ticket volume constraints may give rise to breaches of that Act. Such breaches need to be reported, investigated and case law then established.
Having said that, I recognise the very clear sense in the debate that there remains a problem to be solved. I reiterate the words of the Secretary of State, who said last week that
“the advice has always been that the Computer Misuse Act applied. I want to look carefully at that and see how best we can get to a robust position on this matter”.
She proposed to convene a meeting of all interested parties. If we can get it scheduled, we will have that meeting within a month; if not, I commit to holding it before Christmas.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
It is welcome to have a deadline, but would it not be better if that meeting took place before Report, so that the Commons has an opportunity to consider the points made at it?
Matt Hancock
We will seek to have it before the Bill reaches Report, but I will commit to having it before Christmas. Consideration of the Bill will still be ongoing after Christmas in the other place. At the same time, we need to work on making sure that, should we make progress in this area, we get the details and technicalities right and consult appropriately.
There are some technical deficiencies in the new clause. I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty to withdraw it, with that clear commitment to making progress in this area while there is still an opportunity—should that be the outcome—to amend this Bill.
A series of non-legislative work is also needed to tackle the problem. As my hon. Friend says, this is not a panacea. Today, we are announcing the new national cyber-security policy and that includes support, through the National Cyber Security Centre, for further action. The centre is in touch with ticketing organisations to enable this and I suggest that we also invite them to attend the meeting to see what progress can be made.
With those assurances, I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw the motion and I look forward to working with him and others to see what we can do to tackle this problem.
Nigel Adams
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. It was remiss of me not to mention the tremendous work of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West, who chairs the all-party group on secondary ticketing. She does an amazing amount of work on this subject. In fact, I spent a day with her tramping up and down in the middle of 50-odd touts outside Wembley. I know how passionate she is about this issue and I appreciate her support.
My right hon. Friend the Minister has made a brilliant case for action on this problem. I am not at all surprised that he is a Paul Simon fan. At some stage, I will invite the Minister to a rock show. I love Paul Simon as well and I am sure the Minister will have paid several hundreds of pounds to go and see him. It seems outrageous, but the Minister will have a good time. “Catch him while you can” springs to mind.
I would be grateful to know when the Waterson review is likely to appear. The industry has been waiting for this for some time. It is a great piece of work, but I do not think it goes far enough on industrial ticket touting and bots. Can the Minister put on the record when the industry is likely to see the Government’s response to this review?
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
“The sound of silence.”
Nigel Adams
Indeed, there is a sound of silence on this particular review response.
I am delighted that the Minister has committed to following up the Secretary of State’s pledge to hold a meeting before Christmas. With something as technical as this, it is crucial to get all the players round the table: primary, secondary ticketing sites, representatives of both the fans and artists and, dare I say it, the Minister could probably do with me there as well.
Matt Hancock
On the response to the Waterson report, it will be published in due course. The question is whether it is best to hold back publication until after the work I have just committed to is done, to incorporate fully the views of the fans, artists, the ticket-selling industry and, potentially, even my hon. Friend.
Nigel Adams
It would be a sensible move. Perhaps it is not a bad idea to have this round-table and take soundings from the industry before the Government respond to the review; I do not think that the Waterson review goes quite far enough in tackling bots, although there is plenty of good work in there for the Government to consider.
I am happy to withdraw my new clause at this stage, following the Minister’s clear commitment to solve the problem. I am hopeful that the issue will be resolved at some stage during the passage of the Bill. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
I have done a quick count. I think there are nine new clauses and two new schedules left. I remind hon. Members that we have an hour and 20 minutes before we have to finish.
New Clause 15
Storage of uploaded works
“(1) The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 is amended as follows.
(2) After Regulation 19 (a)(ii) insert—
“(iii) does not play an active role in the storage of information including by optimising the presentation of the uploaded works or promoting them.”.”—(Kevin Brennan.)
This new clause clarifies circumstances when a digital service is deemed an active provider of copyright protected content.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I hope that the Minister enjoys his concert next week; I am sure he will be feelin’ groovy. I rise to speak to new clause 15, which is a probing new clause to clarify when a digital service is deemed to be an active provider of copyright-protected content. Taking on board what you have said, Mr Stringer, I will truncate my remarks.
The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, which put into law the EU’s e-commerce directive 2000, include certain exemptions from liability for online services, including copyright-protected works. The fundamental concern from the music industry is that the hosting defence provided by regulation 19 of the 2002 regulations acts as a safe harbour and allows some services, including user-uploaded services such as YouTube, to circumvent the normal rules of licensing.
Those services can use copyright-protected content—a song by Paul Simon or Green Day, for example—to build businesses without fairly remunerating rights holders. In recent years, the music industry has argued that the online content market has developed in such a way that there is now a value gap between rights holders, such as artists, record companies and publishers and so on, and the digital services themselves, such as YouTube.
As evidence of that, the recent report by UK Music, “Measuring Music 2016”, highlighted that user-uploaded service YouTube, the most widely used global streaming platform, increased its payments to music rights holders by 11% in 2015, despite consumption on the service growing by 132%. That is the value gap in a nutshell. Further industry analysis indicates that video streams increased by 88% year on year, but generated only a 0.4% increase in revenues. Nine of the top 10 most watched videos on YouTube are official music videos by artists such as Adele, Psy, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber.
The inequality ensuing from that safe harbour is not only between those who produce music and those who promote it online; the provisions in new clause 15 have benefits for other sectors that seek to achieve a level playing field in online markets, too. The current legal ambiguity and imbalance has created a distortion in the digital market itself, with services such as YouTube benefiting from those exemptions while other services, such as Apple Music and Spotify, do not. The reality is that many people principally use YouTube to play music. It is nonsense to suppose it is not an active provider of copyright-protected content as those other services are.
There was, and continues to be, a justification for exemptions in some areas for passive hosts, but those must reflect the balance between the rights of rights holders and users. The industry is concerned that existing provisions are not sufficiently defined and as a result are open to deliberate manipulation. New clause 15, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley, aims to clarify the legislative framework, so that creators and rights holders can secure a fair and proper value for the use of their work by online services in a fair and properly functioning market.
Will the Minister clarify some issues? Many of the matters raised by new clause 15 are being considered by European institutions at this very moment. On 14 September, the day after Second Reading, the European Commission published a draft directive on copyright that seeks to address many of these points. That is a welcome development, and the Minister will probably to refer to it in his response. After the recent referendum put us on the path towards Brexit, many issues have been raised in relation to these proposals. It is highly conceivable that we will be Brexiting at the same time as Europe begins to adopt copyright rules for a digital age.
I would like to ask the Minister a few questions. First, will he assure us that the UK Government remain committed to engaging constructively with the European Union on matters relating to the draft copyright directive, and that they will put the interests of the creative industries at the heart of their representations? Secondly, will he support the positive measures in the draft directive that address the value gap between rights holders—particularly the music industry—and digital services?
Thirdly, and more generally, once article 50 is triggered, how do the UK Government intend to implement legislation agreed in Europe before we Brexit? Finally, what commitments is the Minister prepared to make today to reassure UK creators and rights holders that they will not miss out on any positive measures contained in the draft directive as a result of leaving the European Union?
Nigel Adams
I rise briefly to speak to the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Cardiff West. I understand that it seeks to clarify a rule that already exists. As has been mentioned previously, I chair the all-party parliamentary group on music. Earlier in the year, we held a dinner with representatives from the industry and services such as Spotify and Apple Music. The intention of the dinner was better to understand the growing music-streaming market and what measures are needed to help it flourish further for the benefit of creators, fans and those services. I was taken by the agreement across the room about the existence of a value gap between rights holders and some digital services, and the need to ensure fairness in the way music rights are valued and negotiated.
The Government’s response to the EU’s digital platforms consultation, published at the beginning of the year, stated:
“Clarification of terms used in the Directive would, we believe, help to address these concerns.”
I hope the Minister and the Government remain committed to that view and the intention behind the new clause to clarify existing law.
Matt Hancock
As we have debated, the Bill sends a clear message about copyright infringement, not least because we are increasing the penalty for online copyright infringement from two to 10 years. Of course, I know about the concern in the music industry and elsewhere that online intermediaries need to do more to share revenues fairly with creators. That is what this new clause seeks to tackle, and I agree with that concern.
The hon. Member for Cardiff West mentioned the interaction of the Bill with EU law. The change proposed by the new clause is already the position in European Court of Justice case law, and we support that position in the UK. That provides some clarification to the existing position.
Let me answer the specific questions. First, we are heavily engaged in the digital single market negotiations and the discussions ongoing in Europe. While we are a member of the EU, we will continue to do that. The issue of the value gap, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, is important, and the development of ECJ case law in that direction has been helpful.
That brings me to Brexit because, as the e-commerce directive is EU single-market legislation, we will have to consider what the best future system will be as we exit the European Union. We will have to consider how the e-commerce regulations as a whole should work in the future. That will be part of the debate about leaving the European Union. For the time being, ECJ case law supports the intentions in the new clause, and I would be wary about making piecemeal changes to the regime. I acknowledge the need, through the Brexit negotiations and the process of setting domestic law where there is currently European law, to take into account the important considerations that have been raised.
Kevin Brennan
The new clause was a probing amendment, and I thank the Minister for his response. It is important to have the Government’s response on the record.
We debate this issue in the context of the UK music industry’s growth: over a four-year period, it has grown by 17%. During that same period, there has been a massive shift from consumers owning music towards the streaming of music. The value of subscription streaming services has jumped from £168 million in 2014 to £251 million in 2015. So there is a model, if you like, in the market, which can produce value for the industry, but it is being undermined by the value gap that is created by the different treatment of these different types of services.
I accept that the Minister has put on the record the Government’s current position and said that there will be a positive engagement with this issue. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 16
E-book lending
‘In section 43(2) of the Digital Economy Act 2010, leave out from “limited time” to “and loan.”’
This new clause aims to extend public lending rights to remote offsite e-book lending.—(Kevin Brennan.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move that the new clause be read a Second time.
This new clause would enable the consideration of public lending right for remote e-lending from libraries. That would be achieved by amending section 43(2) of the Digital Economy Act 2010, which sets remote loans outside the definition of lending under public lending right.
I do not know whether the Minister, like me, is a bit of a dinosaur and prefers his books to come in physical form—I am currently reading Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography, which I recommend, as well as Ed Balls’s book on politics, which is also very good. However, in this Digital Economy Bill we should acknowledge the increasing role of e-books and their impact on the income of authors. The spirit of the Bill is that we should better reflect how technology has changed our economy, so it is important that we go further in some places to acknowledge where technological change has outpaced legislation in relation to the arts.
Our approach here should be informed by the fact that we have the Digital Economy Act 2010. At the time that it was passed, some opportunities were missed. We should keep that in mind as we discuss this Bill and make sure that we do not allow those opportunities to pass by again as the Bill completes its stages in the House of Commons and afterwards in the other place.
The Digital Economy Act 2010 made some progress but it failed to forecast how our relationship with books would change. In particular, the 2010 Act touched on the subject of e-books, but its wording ignored the main way libraries would end up lending e-books: remotely, over an internet connection. Of course, remote lending is a natural continuation of the function of e-books. One of the main benefits of e-books is that they escape physical constraints such as location and storage.
However, under current legislation, authors receive no payment when a public library loans their book remotely, which is different from any other form of book loan. Last year, 2.3 million remote loans were made, but they were not counted at all towards authors’ payments because the 2010 Act allowed only for on-site loans of e-books, of which there was a negligible number—who will go to a library when they can borrow the book remotely? That is the whole point of e-books. There is no reason in principle why the distinction should exist; that is what the philosophy of this Bill is supposed to be. Nevertheless, as a result, the public lending right—a right for authors established in 1979—has not been honoured, due to the failure of the 2010 Act to keep up with technological change.
I hope that we can take the opportunity today to avoid repeating that mistake. The Society of Authors, the Association of Illustrators, and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society all support the new clause. Public lending right is designed to balance the social need for free public access to books against an author’s right to be remunerated for the use of their work. Indeed, public lending right provides a significant and much-valued part of many authors’ incomes, particularly those authors whose books are sold mainly to libraries and those whose books are no longer in print.
The recent opinion of the Advocate General, relating to a case on rental and lending in respect of copyright works that is currently before the Court of Justice of the European Union, asserted that the lending of electronic books is the modern equivalent of the lending of printed books. I am aware that the Government expressed a desire to reflect this technological change in their March 2013 response to the independent review of e-lending in public libraries in England, but for some reason—perhaps the Minister can tell us why—they have neglected to take the opportunity presented by this Bill to put the matter right.
Furthermore, figures from March this year show that 343 libraries in the UK have been shut down in the past six years, with another 111 closures planned for 2016, which will result in the loss of almost 8,000 jobs. So it is particularly nonsensical not to apply PLR to remote e-book lending, given that it is becoming increasingly hard to visit a physical library. PLR is a legal right and a keystone of a society in which authors receive reward for their considerable cultural contribution. While we can all benefit from technological change and new ways of accessing creative works, it is important that the obligation to remunerate authors fairly is acknowledged and honoured.
Having acknowledged this loophole and the difficulties it causes, it is vital that the Bill addresses the issue, so that right-holders are treated equitably. Will the Minister take action on this issue and accept the new clause—and if not, why?
Matt Hancock
I wholeheartedly support the hon. Member for Cardiff West in his analysis of the increasing range of digital services at libraries across the country and the importance of those digital services to the communities they serve. I also agree with what he said about the increasing range of e-books and the importance of e-book lending. I am touched by his care for our delivering on the Conservative party manifesto and can tell him that we will deliver on this one too.
Libraries are increasingly providing remote e-book lending, so readers have the opportunity to borrow physical and audio books. Over the last year, 2 million e-book loans were made, which shows how important this is. We have been carefully looking at options for how to implement the manifesto commitment and appropriately compensate authors for remote e-lending, including by extending the PLR to e-books. In doing so, we have engaged with representatives of authors, libraries, agents, publishers and booksellers as well as the Public Lending Right Office. The collaborative input is very valuable and helps to ensure that we achieve an outcome that will be supported by all.
Like the hon. Member for Cardiff West, I am a mixed book reader. I am reading “Down and Out in London and Paris”—a well-thumbed hard copy. I am reading “King Lear” on an e-book, although I would say it is more studying than reading, because it is quite hard work. I bought a Kindle book at the weekend. I fully appreciate all types of books: hard copy and soft, hardback and soft.
The hon. Gentleman will understand how keen we are to implement our manifesto commitment. However, we want to take the time to get it right. Furthermore, we need to ensure that the measure is compatible with the copyright directive while we remain within the European Union. In doing so, we are also paying close attention to a relevant court case, again in the European Court of Justice, where we expect a ruling later this year that will have a bearing on how any clause to bring this into place would be drafted.
For those reasons, we are taking our time to get this right. With that explanation, I hope the hon. Member will withdraw his new clause.
Kevin Brennan
I will, but I do not think that there is any real need for the Minister not to commit carrying the measure out in the Bill. It simply extends what is already available. If someone borrowed an e-book by turning up at a library, the author would receive their public lending right, but if they did so remotely through the same library service, the author would not. Clearly that is an unacceptable injustice and anomaly.
The Minister has said that the Government need to take their time. It was March 2013 when they said in their response to the independent review that they intended to reflect that technology change. Three years and eight months later, we have a Bill in Committee in the House of Commons and still the Government say they need to take their time to get it right. This Bill is the right time to get it right. I hope the Minister will reflect further on the raft of amendments to this defective Bill that will be introduced in the House of Lords if we do not put this right in the House of Commons. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 19
Personal data breaches
‘(1) The Data Protection Act 1998 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 24 insert—
“24A Personal data breaches: notification to the Commissioner
(1) In this section, section 24B and section 24C, “personal data breach” means unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data or accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.
(2) Subject to subsections (3), (4)(c) and (4)(d), if a personal data breach occurs, the data controller in respect of the personal data concerned in that breach shall, without undue delay, notify the breach to the Commissioner.
(3) The notification referred to in subsection (2) is not required to the extent that the personal data concerned in the personal data breach are exempt from the seventh data protection principle.
(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations—
(a) prescribe matters which a notification under subsection (2) must contain;
(b) prescribe the period within which, following detection of a personal data breach, a notification under subsection (2) must be given;
(c) provide that subsection (2) shall not apply to certain data controllers;
(d) provide that subsection (2) shall not apply to personal data breaches of a particular description or descriptions.
24B Personal data breaches: notification to the data subject
‘(1) Subject to subsections (2), (3), (4), (6)(b) and (6)(c), if a personal data breach is likely to adversely affect the personal data or privacy of a data subject, the data controller in respect of the personal data concerned in that breach shall also, without undue delay, notify the breach to the data subject concerned, insofar as it is reasonably practicable to do so.
(2) The notification referred to in subsection (1) is not required to the extent that the personal data concerned in the personal data breach are exempt from the seventh data protection principle.
(3) The notification referred to in subsection (1) is not required to the extent that the personal data concerned in the personal data breach are exempt from section 7(1).
(4) The notification referred to in subsection (1) is not required if the data controller has demonstrated, to the satisfaction of the Commissioner—
(a) that the data controller has implemented appropriate measures which render the data unintelligible to any person who is not authorised to access it, and
(b) that those measures were applied to the data concerned in that personal data breach.
(5) If the data controller has not notified the data subject in compliance with subsection (1), the Commissioner may, having considered the likely adverse effects of the personal data breach, require the data controller to do so.
(6) The Secretary of State may by regulations—
(a) prescribe matters which a notification under subsection (1) must contain;
(b) provide that subsection (1) shall not apply to certain data controllers;
(c) provide that subsection (1) shall not apply to personal data breaches of a particular description or descriptions.
24C Personal data breaches: audit
‘(1) Data controllers shall maintain an inventory of personal data breaches comprising—
(a) the facts surrounding the breach,
(b) the effects of that breach, and
(c) remedial action taken
which shall be sufficient to enable the Commissioner to verify compliance with the provisions of sections 24A and 24B. The inventory shall only include information necessary for this purpose.
(2) The Commissioner may audit the compliance of data controllers with the provisions of sections 24A, 24B and 24C(1).
(3) In section 40 (Enforcement notices)—
(a) in subsection (1)—
(i) after “data protection principles,” insert “or section 24A, 24B or 24C”;
(ii) for “principle or principles” substitute “principle, principles, section or sections”;
(b) in subsection 6(a) after “principles” insert “or the section or sections”.
(4) In section 41 (Cancellation of enforcement notice”)—
(a) in subsection (1) after “principles” insert “or the section or sections”;
(b) in subsection (2) after “principles” insert “or the section or sections”.
(5) In section 41A (Assessment notices)—
(a) in subsection (1) after “data protection principles” insert “or section 24A, 24B or 24C”;
(b) in subsection (10)(b) after “data protection principles” insert “or section 24A, 24B or 24C”.
(6) In section 41C (Code of practice about assessment notices)—
(a) in subsection (4)(a) after “principles” insert “and sections 24A, 24B and 24C”;
(b) in subsection (4)(b) after “principles” insert “or sections”.
(7) In section 43 (Information notices)—
(a) in subsection 43(1)—
(i) after “data protection principles” insert “or section 24A, 24B or 24C”;
(ii) after “the principles” insert “or those sections”;
(b) in subsection 43(2)(b) after “principles” insert “or section 24A, 24B or 24C”.
(8) In section 55A (Power of Commissioner to impose monetary penalty)—
(a) after subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) The Commissioner may also serve a data controller with a monetary penalty notice if the Commissioner is satisfied that there has been a serious contravention of section 24A, 24B or 24C by the data controller.”;
(b) in subsection (3A) after “subsection (1)” insert “or (1A)”;
(c) in subsection (4) omit “determined by the Commissioner and”;
(d) in subsection (5)—
(i) after “The amount” insert “specified in a monetary penalty notice served under subsection (1) shall be”;
(ii) after “Commissioner” insert “and”;
(e) after subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) The amount specified in a monetary penalty notice served under subsection (1A) shall be £1,000.
(5B) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend subsection (5A) to change the amount specified therein.”
(9) In section 55B (Monetary penalty notices: procedural rights)—
(a) in subsection (3)(a) omit “and”;
(b) after subsection (3)(a) insert—
(aa) specify the provision of this Act of which the Commissioner is satisfied there has been a serious contravention, and”;
(c) after subsection (3) insert—
“(3A) A data controller may discharge liability for a monetary penalty in respect of a contravention of section 24A, 24B or 24C if he pays to the Commissioner the amount of £800 before the time within which the data controller may make representations to the Commissioner has expired.
(3B) A notice of intent served in respect of a contravention of section 24A, 24B or 24C must include a statement informing the data controller of the opportunity to discharge liability for the monetary penalty.
(3C) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend subsection (3A) to change the amount specified therein, save that the amount specified in subsection (3A) must be less than the amount specified in section 55A(5A).”;
(d) in subsection (5) after “served” insert “under section 55A(1)”;
(e) after subsection (5) insert—
“(5A) A person on whom a monetary penalty notice is served under section 55A(1A) may appeal to the Tribunal against the issue of the monetary penalty notice.”
(10) In section 55C(2)(b) (Guidance about monetary penalty notices) at the end insert “specified in a monetary penalty notice served under section 55A(1)”.
(12) In section 67 (Orders, regulations and rules)—
(a) in subsection (4)—
(i) after “order” insert “or regulations”;
(ii) after “section 22(1),” insert “section 24A(4)(c) or (d), 24B(6)(b) or(c),”;
(b) in subsection (5)—
(i) after subsection (c) insert “(ca) regulations under section 24A(4)(a) or (b) or section 24B(6)(a),”;
(ii) for “(ca) regulations under section 55A(5) or (7) or 55B(3)(b),” substitute “(cb) regulations under section 55A(5), (5B) or (7) or 55B(3)(b) or (3C),”.
(13) In section 71 (Index of defined expressions) after “personal data |section 1(1)” insert “personal data breach |section 24A(1)”.
(14) In paragraph 1 of Schedule 9—
(a) after paragraph 1(1)(a) insert—
“(aa) that a data controller has contravened or is contravening any provision of section 24A, 24B or 24C, or”;
(b) in paragraph 1(1B) after “principles” insert “or section 24A, 24B or 24C”;
(c) in paragraph (3)(d)(ii) after “principles” insert “or section 24A, 24B or 24C”;
(d) in paragraph (3)(f) after “principles” insert “or section 24A, 24B or 24C.””
This new clause seeks to create a general obligation on data controllers to notify the Information Commissioner and data subjects in the event of a breach of personal data security. The proposed obligation is similar to that imposed on electronic communication service providers by the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.—(Louise Haigh.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Louise Haigh
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 19 would provide a general obligation on companies to report personal data breaches. This crucial amendment gets to the heart of the regulatory system around cyber-security. Cyber-security is one of the greatest challenges we face as a country. Despite the Government’s multi-million pound strategy and their further welcome announcement today, we do not believe they have faced up to the challenge yet. Some 90% of large UK firms were attacked in 2014. That is an astonishing figure, and yet only 28% of those businesses reported their cyber-attack to the police. As the Minister knows, national crime statistics rose for the first time in 20 years last year, because scams and cybercrime are now included.
Throughout discussion of the Bill, we have made it clear that we feel it does nothing to address the real challenges facing the digital economy. The Bill should have equipped the sector for the digital future—a future as replete with challenges as with opportunities. None of those challenges could be greater than cyber-security. That security says to consumers and individuals that, in this coming century, when data will be the lifeblood and the exchange of personal data the currency, nothing is more critical to ensure that that runs smoothly than their trust.
This multi-billion-pound sector, which now amounts to 11% of our GDP, is utterly reliant on the mutual trust fostered between consumers and producers, which is why the new clause is so critical. It would establish for the first time a duty on all companies to report any breach of cyber-security. The legislation as it stands is simply inadequate. The Data Protection Acts deal extensively with the protection of personal data, but there is no legal obligation on companies to report data breaches. The privacy and electronic communications regulations include an obligation to report data breaches, but that only applies to telecommunications companies and internet service providers and, at that stage, only requires companies to consider information customers.
Clearly, however, it is not only communications providers that hold sensitive data about people that carry the potential to be commodified. Insurance companies have had their data stolen, to be sold to claims management companies; banks are hacked, as J.P. Morgan was in 2014; and TK Maxx suffered the largest retail hack to date with the loss of credit and debit card information. Yet none of those examples had a duty to report to their customers to ensure that further harm was not done with their information.
The net impact of the lack in existing legislation is that the vast majority of attacks go unreported, and people are left in the dark when their personal data have been hacked, leaked, stolen or sold. If we are to talk meaningfully about data ownership, we cannot allow that to continue. We welcome yesterday’s announcement that the Government will be implementing the general data protection regulation. As the Minister knows, the GDPR provides for a general obligation on all companies to report breaches to regulators and customers. Will he make it clear how he expects to fulfil that obligation and whether he is willing to accept the new clause?
Fundamentally, we are keen that the UK’s digital economy is not seen as a soft touch on cybercrime. That is why the new clause would impose a general obligation on data controllers to notify the Information Commissioner and data subjects in the event of breaches of personal data security. We believe that that would be a major step forward, and we look forward to the Minister’s comments.
Matt Hancock
I hope that we can deal with this new clause fairly quickly. I strongly support the hon. Lady’s assertion that cyber-security is vital, and I appreciate her welcome for the national cyber-security strategy that the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out today. People say that there are two types of company: those that have had a cyber-attack and know about it; and those that have had one and do not know about it. It is vital that cyber-security is a priority for all companies that use the internet.
As the hon. Lady said, we have announced that the general data protection regulation will apply in the UK from May 2018. That new regime will introduce tough measures on breach notification, making it a requirement for all data controllers and processors to report data breaches to the Information Commissioner if they are likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals. Breaches must also be notified to the individuals affected where there is a high risk to their rights and freedoms. Under the GDPR, the sanctions available will be worth up to 4% of total global annual turnover, or €20 million, so it will be strongly in the interests of organisations to comply with the requirements.
I suggest that the bringing into UK law of the GDPR is the appropriate place to make the change that the hon. Lady suggests in her new clause. I therefore ask her to withdraw the motion.
Louise Haigh
If the Government intend to implement regulations in May 2018, I am not convinced why they cannot amend this legislation now.
Matt Hancock
The implementation of GDPR is a much bigger piece of work than simply this change. It is better to bring the whole thing in properly and in good order, rather than piecemeal.
Louise Haigh
It is highly unsatisfactory that, for the next 18 months, companies receiving cyber-attacks will still not be reporting them to customers that have had their data stolen, hacked or lost, but it is welcome that the Government will be implementing the general data protection regulation. The Opposition will continue to scrutinise the implementation of their cyber-security strategy, so, with the Minister’s assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Louise Haigh
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second Time.
The new clause is a very simple amendment, one that I hope the Committee will agree is long overdue. The Communications Act 2003 ensured that access services—subtitles, audio description or sign language—are available on TV that is watched at a prescribed time and channel.
The way in which we watch and consume television has changed considerably since 2003; it is worth remembering that once the Communications Act 2003 reached Royal Assent, it would be a full five years before BBC iPlayer launched online. Similar on-demand services launched in the same year. Although subtitling is at or near 100% across the public service broadcasters, 76% of the UK’s 90 on-demand providers still offer no subtitles at all—despite the fact that, according to Ofcom’s figures, some 18% of the UK population use them.
The principles behind the Communications Act 2003 recognise that those with sensory loss should not be denied access to the information and services that many of us take for granted. Obviously, that principle still applies, yet, because of changes to technology, those with sensory loss cannot keep up.
In July 2013, the then Minister for the Digital Economy acknowledged this paradox, saying:
“If it is clear that progress isn’t being made in three years’ time…we will consider legislation.”
We say that time is up. That is why the Opposition have helpfully brought forward a new clause to remind the Government of their commitment. The clause would merely update the existing regulatory regime that has worked so well for linear TV and apply it to on-demand.
There is no reason to believe that a burden will be imposed. The current code has a sliding scale for access services provision so that new and smaller broadcasters are either exempt or have gradually increasing targets. No linear broadcasters are ever required to spend more than 1% of their relevant turnover on access services. The new clause would be subject to public consultation. It is eminently reasonable and long overdue. It is clearly time the Government acted to reflect the digital world in which we live and allowed those with sensory loss to play a full and active part in it.
Matt Hancock
The creation of a digitally inclusive society is a crucial commitment for this Government. If somebody is not able to enjoy and exploit the benefits and convenience afforded to able bodied people, it is for us to better understand why and to work with interested parties to identify and implement a remedy.
The current statutory targets for subtitling, signing and audio description—collectively known by domestic TV channels as “access services”—cover 83 channels, over 90% of the audience share for broadcast TV. Over the years, the provision of access services has increased. Most notably, the number of service providers reporting subtitles grew from seven channels in 2013 to 22 in 2015. However, there is still clearly room for improvement.
We have become a society that wants to watch TV at a time and place convenient for us. As with much of the Bill, changes in technology outgrow the underpinning regulatory framework. It is not unreasonable to expect that content should have subtitles when it is made available at a time and place that are convenient for the viewer—even more so if access services were present at the scheduled broadcast time.
Ofcom currently possesses the power to encourage the 116 on-demand services providers in the UK to provide these services, but it does not have the power to require them. We have been considering what can be done—as the hon. Lady might imagine, given the previous commitment. We have been engaged in discussion with Ofcom to determine how we can address the shortcoming so that an increase in the provision of access services for video on demand can be achieved. We will continue that engagement with Ofcom. It made its position clear in evidence to the Committee, having previously argued that the law as it stood was what was needed.
I urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the new clause. It would require a code of practice that would be too prescriptive and would get into the micromanagement that we talked about earlier in our consideration of the Bill. Also, I would want the clause to specify that it is for Ofcom, not the Secretary of State, to make such a code.
Louise Haigh
I would be grateful if the Minister gave us a firm timeframe for this work with Ofcom; this is yet another area that could easily have been addressed in the Bill. He is saying, “Work is ongoing. We might come back to it later.” There are so many areas of the Bill that could have been addressed by ongoing work. It all shows yet again that the Bill should have been delayed and brought forward when it was fit for Committee and ready to tackle all the issues.
Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady is clearly wrong about that, for two reasons. First, I do not want to delay the other measures in the Bill; she seems to want to delay a whole series of things that will improve mobile roll-out and broadband roll-out and will put age verification in place, and I think that would be a mistake.
Secondly, in the Committee’s consideration of the Bill, we have had opportunities for further debate that have not been taken up. That shows that there has been full and proper scrutiny of the whole Bill. In this case, after the publication of the Bill, Ofcom said that it thought there was a need for the change in the law. We should take that seriously, consult Ofcom and consider exactly what needs to happen.
Louise Haigh
I repeat that in July 2013, the Minister’s predecessor said:
“If it is clear that progress isn’t being made in three years’ time…we will consider legislation.”
The Government have had more than three years to do this. It is not that Ofcom came forward after the Bill was published. The Bill presented a perfect opportunity, so will he commit to the exact timeframe for giving Ofcom the powers?
Matt Hancock
Ofcom previously said that it had all the necessary powers, but its position has changed. When the regulator changes position, it is reasonable to take that into account and to consult on ensuring that we can get the powers into place.
I make no bones about it: the support for access services for video on demand has not been in place before. We made big strides in the previous Parliament. We are committed to doing more to ensure that the support is more widely available. Instead of the tone of delay that is coming from those on the Opposition Benches, we should have a tone of support. That is what I propose, so I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the new clause.
Louise Haigh
It is completely outrageous to suggest that we are the ones arguing for delay.
Louise Haigh
The Minister’s predecessor said more than three years ago that the Government would legislate. I say to the Minister that he will legislate in haste and repent at his leisure. He may live to repent in terms of some of the measures that have been brought forward and some that have been missed in the Bill. I will seek assurances from Ofcom, seeing as the Minister has not been able to provide them, and we may return to the issue on Report, but for now I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 24
Employers in the digital economy
“Where a business provides a digital service in which they act as an intermediary between labour suppliers and consumers where that service retains significant control over the service providers the labour suppliers shall be defined as employees of that business, as defined in section 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.”—(Louise Haigh.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Louise Haigh
The digital economy is the fastest growing area of the UK economy. We are very proud that, as a proportion of GDP, it is the largest in the G20. It employs more than 1.3 million workers, of whom a significant proportion—many more will not be categorised in that figure—are employed in the so-called gig economy. As we heard following the Uber ruling on Friday, many of those people do not enjoy very basic workers’ rights. The London employment tribunal found that Uber was a transportation business and that the drivers who work through the app do work for Uber. The judgment against Uber was hailed as a landmark by the union that brought the claim, GMB, and rightly so. I am a proud member of that union.
Friday’s landmark ruling should have ripple effects across the entire digital economy. At its best, the disruptive force of technology is reframing our relationship with each other and the world around us, whether that is farmers using millimetre-accurate GPS to guide their crops or technical experts in safety-critical industries using live data to monitor the manufacturing process. While the digital economy is heralding an unprecedented opportunity for many, the reality can be very different for the more than a million workers employed within the industry. Too often they will find themselves overworked, underpaid and exploited by bosses they never meet, and who do not even fulfil their basic duties as an employer.
Uber is the totemic example. Their “workers”—who pay Uber commission for every taxi ride completed—are not guaranteed breaks, holiday pay or even the minimum wage. Astonishingly, Uber did everything they could to argue to the tribunal that these people were not employees or workers. The judgement states that
“Any organisation (a) running an enterprise at the heart of which is the function of carrying people in motor cars from where they are to where they want to be and (b) operating in part through a company discharging the regulated responsibilities of a PHV [private hire vehicle] operator, but ( c) requiring drivers and passengers to agree, as a matter of contract, that it does not provide transportation services…and (d) resorting in its documentation to fictions, twisted language and even brand new terminology, merits, we think, a degree of scepticism.”
We could not agree more, and it is a bitter irony that a force that is making this era one of the most inter-connected in history has left many workers more isolated than ever before. The Government—who have promised to look out for those that are “just managing”—seem to have been blindsided by the challenges faced by the most enterprising of workers in our economy. There are few workers who would better match that description of “just managing” than the taxi drivers who work upwards of 60, 70 and 80 hours per week and still struggle to pay their bills.
The new clause goes further than the Uber ruling; it would require drivers and other workers to be treated as employees of digital intermediaries. In so doing, their rights to sick pay and holiday pay would be protected as well as the right to paid breaks and the right to the bare minimum wage. When companies such as Uber inevitably try to wriggle out of their responsibilities by appealing against this recent decision, they will have nowhere to go.
We hope that the Government will step into the breach and move to enshrine the rights of workers employed in this emerging sector in law. This decision applies solely to Uber, but the principle should surely hold across the economy. It could affect many tens of thousands of people. So far, the Government’s only announcement has been a two-sentence press release issued on a Friday afternoon referring to a review that has no end in sight. If that is all that the Government can muster, it is hard to believe that they have grasped the scale of the challenge. This will be creating considerable insecurity for both the businesses operating in the digital economy and the workers involved.
I hope that the Minister is acutely aware of both the urgency and the importance of new clause 21 and why it was wholly inadequate for there to be no mention of workers and their protections in the Digital Economy Bill. Hopefully, the Minister will go away and consider measures that will fill the legal vacuum now created, and provide reassurance to the burgeoning digital workforce who, by virtue of a technological sleight of hand, are denied the rights that many of us take for granted. That is clearly an injustice of the first order.
Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady asks for us to act, and then sets out the way in which we are acting. That demonstrates that this important area is being considered by the Government.
Technology is indeed changing employment patterns, and the system must keep up with it. Clearly, employers must take their employment law responsibilities seriously and they cannot simply opt out of them. This means making sure that workers are paid properly and enjoy the employment rights to which they are entitled. As a very strong supporter of the living wage and the national living wage, which we introduced, I am a great proponent of ensuring that the labour market operates fairly. Part of that fairness is making sure that it is also flexible. That needs to be considered too, alongside the rights.
Christian Matheson
Will the Minister tell us which trade unions are actively involved in the review?
Matt Hancock
I have no doubt that Matthew Taylor will get in contact with lots of trade unions. It is a good idea to take a cross-party approach. The review will last for about six months and among other things it will consider security, pay and rights, skills and progression, and specifically the appropriate balance of rights and responsibilities of new business models and whether the definitions of employment status need to be updated to reflect new forms of working such as on-demand platforms. It will tackle some of those issues. With that explanation, I hope that the hon. Lady will see that we are taking a sensible, reasonable approach and will withdraw her new clause.
Louise Haigh
The Opposition have been nothing but reasonable in Committee. The Minister refers to righteous anger; for those taxi workers in London, Sheffield and across the country who are working and not guaranteed paid breaks or the minimum wage, it is not righteous anger but justifiable anger on their behalf. We are arguing not against all flexibility but for those basic rights to be enshrined in law. They should never be compromised for anyone’s convenience.
We are pleased finally to see a timeframe and have a commitment that the review will report back in six months. We will keep a close eye on the review and hope that it will take note of today’s debate. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 31
Review of information disclosure and data ownership
‘(1) The Secretary of State must commission an independent review of information disclosure and data ownership under Chapter 1 of Part 5 of this Act.
(2) In conducting the review, the designated independent reviewer must consult—
(a) specialists in data sharing,
(b) people and organisations who campaign for the rights of citizens to privacy and control regarding their personal information, and
(c) any other persons and organisations the review considers appropriate.
(3) The Secretary of State must lay a report of the review before each House of Parliament within six months of this Act coming into force.
(4) The Secretary of State may not make an order under section 82(4) bringing the provisions of Chapter 1 of Part 5 of this Act into force until each House of Parliament has passed a resolution approving the findings of the review mentioned in subsection (3).’.—(Louise Haigh.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Louise Haigh
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
A great deal of our lengthy debate on part 5 has focused on data ownership and control. The Government have stated elsewhere that their policy is that citizens should own and control their own data, but sadly the Bill takes us backwards in that regard by adopting a completely paternalistic approach to data sharing, with a “Government knows best” attitude. We are blindly to assume that our data are being kept, shared and used appropriately while we are kept in the dark about how they are being used and for what purpose.
As the former Prime Minister famously said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” and as I have previously argued, a register for all data-sharing arrangements is necessary—in fact, essential—to ensure trust in the Government’s data sharing. Quite simply, we cannot have trust when there is no transparency, and that is true for Governments of any colour. The new clause would require the Government to commission an independent review of information and data ownership under chapter 1 of part 5, which would seek to establish the direction in which the Government’s stated policy intent for individuals to have control over their data is heading.
The Minister has given us all kinds of assurances that the codes of practice will sufficiently embed the principles, which have been debated at length, but as they are not statutory, there must be some form of mechanism to ensure that the spirit of the codes and the intention he stated in our debates are adhered to. Following the announcement that the Government will implement the general data protection regulation, the codes and the legislation are already out of date. I understand the role of Select Committees in this House, but the proposals made in the Bill are about incredibly detailed practices relating to the day-to-day operation of the civil service that are unlikely to be unearthed through a Select Committee report without a whistleblower or any kind of proactive publication, as suggested in our new clause on the new register.
The use of administrative data has been discussed at length, but it is not to be confused with the use of big data—a wholly different beast that has not been tackled in the Bill. That is another missed opportunity. A committee has been established in the Cabinet Office to consider the ethics of big data. That is absolutely necessary, but, again, it should have been conducted as an independent review, rather than something led by Government. My fear is that we are lagging well behind other Administrations with respect to how we treat data, and in the embedding of consent and control into our data regimes. We run a serious risk of sleepwalking into a major scandal.
Before I was elected I worked in the City of London, for Aviva. There I was put on a project looking at the type of things that we could do with big data. Aviva is a gold star insurer so it certainly was not indulging in unethical behaviour, but the kind of data that, if allowed, actuaries would like to test is simply not known—it would horrify the average consumer. There are many providers in the market for data, and many ways beyond our imagination in which our data could be commodified. It would take only a “Dispatches” exposé, or a scandal in The Mail on Sunday, and the Government would be forced to react; then, as all Governments do, they would over-react.
The Bill provides an excellent opportunity to look at the issues in the cold light of day, rather than the heat of reaction. I strongly urge the Ministers to take that opportunity and accept the new clause.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)
There are several problems with the new clause. First, it would delay the delivery of significant public benefits; secondly, it seeks more consultation on measures where there has already been a long and broad-ranging consultation effort over many years; thirdly, it is asking for even more Parliamentary time, when the scheme, future pilots and data-sharing measures are already subject to significant and continued Parliamentary scrutiny.
We believe that the proposed review and subsequent delay would prevent us from delivering significant public benefits, such as extending the warm home discount, which had the support of the Committee last week. If implementation of warm home discount reform were delayed by one year because of the time needed to carry out the review and then to establish the necessary data-sharing arrangements, the Government would potentially help about 750,000 fewer fuel-poor homes in 2018-19. Further, there would be a delay to our ability to implement the benefits of more effectively targeting the £640 million-a-year energy company obligation.
The measure is not short on consultation. That process started in April 2014 and has involved civil society groups, experts and practitioners. There was a public consultation. The draft clauses were published in February 2016. There has been lots of discussion and the Government have listened. That is why information can be shared only for specific objectives, which can be added to only if they satisfy the public benefit test. It is why we have new unlawful disclosure offences, and a code of practice that has been welcomed by the Information Commissioner. The proposed review would require the Government to consult the very people we have already consulted in developing the public service delivery power.
The Bill is also not short on parliamentary oversight. There must be agreement by Parliament to new objectives for sharing data, new public authorities—a list will be drawn up—and the code of practice. The code of practice clearly sets out the process for public bodies to maintain public confidence, with privacy and impact assessments and by ensuring that all data-sharing arrangements are public. That is clearly set out in paragraphs 74 to 78 in part 5. The further scrutiny sought in the new clause is unnecessary duplication. The purpose of scrutiny by Parliament is to decide whether the powers should be taken, so no purpose would be served by having another review before the powers are commenced. For that reason I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.
Louise Haigh
The Minister is dead right. We would like some more consultation on the review, not least because nearly all of the Government’s consultees are unhappy with the proposals in the Bill.
I hope that we have thrashed out many of the part 5 issues and that the Government will act and amend the provisions in the other place. If that does not happen, we shall return to the matter on Report. I beg to ask leave with withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 32
OFCOM power to enforce structural separation of BT Openreach
‘After section 49C of the Communications Act 2003 insert—
“(49D) OFCOM has the power to enforce the structural separation of BT Openreach, should OFCOM consider this necessary.”’—(Calum Kerr.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Calum Kerr
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I will outline the rationale and seek reassurances as to how the Government intend to deal with this matter. We propose that the Bill be amended to ensure that Ofcom has the strongest legal basis to deliver all the options highlighted in its digital communications review. Ofcom is consulting at the moment on how it could introduce legal separation for Openreach within the BT group, but structural separation remains an option.
Drew Hendry
Does my hon. Friend agree that the current structure is insufficient to provide an incentive to effectively invest in the network that is required? Ofcom has itself said that the existing ownership allows it to discriminate against competitors.
Calum Kerr
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. At the crux of the debate as to where we go in terms of connectivity is BT, which has a case to answer regarding its investment. Ofcom has a case to answer on being technology agnostic. We have to be bolder and push more ambitiously for fibre. The Minister has told us “fibre means fibre”, so we look forward to seeing progress. Sometimes I think the Government have consumed too much fibre.
It is essential that Ofcom is confident it can enforce separation of Openreach should it conclude it is necessary. It is important to understand the position today. Ofcom considers that it does have the power under the EU framework directive to impose structural separation. The problem with that approach is that Brexit means Brexit. Should Ofcom decide that separation is the right approach, would it take its case to the EU Commission at the time of Brexit? That would be fraught with difficulty, not least as BT might appeal and we would have a long drawn-out process.
It is also worth noting that the telecoms framework under which Ofcom regulates the UK is EU legislation. We need to consider that BT has stated publicly that it believes there is no mechanism for structural separation even within the EU. We are trying to flush out some of the Government’s thinking. The new clause is designed to avoid the potential uncertainty and paralysis should Ofcom want to go down this route. Even if Ofcom does not use this power, having it there will have the added benefit of strengthening its hand in negotiation and enforcement as we all try to improve UK infrastructure.
The SNP’s position is that the digital communications review is following the right lines. Structural separation at this stage is the right approach, but we need to ensure that the final option is available. Given the change in relation to the EU, I would welcome the Government’s comments on how they propose to ensure that is an option.
Matt Hancock
We have made it clear that the UK needs a competitive and effective market in telecoms, and I have made it clear that fibre is the future. Fibre means fibre. The amendment seeks to ensure Ofcom has the power to impose structural separation on BT Openreach if Ofcom considers it necessary. There is already a process available to Ofcom to pursue structural separation should it be considered necessary. The Committee knows that Ofcom is currently considering how Openreach should be structured. We have made it clear that Ofcom should take whatever action it considers necessary and that structural separation remains an option.
Of course, in a rapidly moving sector such as communications, circumstances can change. We regularly review whether Ofcom has the right powers. We will need to do that in the context of our exit from the European Union, but at present Ofcom has the appropriate powers that it needs and it will continue to have them. With that explanation, I hope the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.
Calum Kerr
I thank the Minister for his comments, but the position in relation to having the powers is a weak answer. If there were a separation, we would enter into uncertainty without explicit powers. I will not press the motion to a vote, but I encourage the Government, as the picture on the EU evolves, to be clearer, and if they think it necessary to introduce something specific, so that we have a measure available.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 36
Bill caps for all mobile phone contracts
‘(1) A telecommunications service provider supplying a contract relating to a hand-held mobile telephone must, at the time of entering into such a contract, allow the end-user the opportunity to place a financial cap on the monthly bill under that contract.
(2) A telecommunications service provider under subsection (1) must not begin to supply a contracted service to an end-user unless the end-user has either—
(a) requested the monthly cap be put in place and agreed the amount of that cap, or
(b) decided, on a durable medium, not to put a monthly cap in place.
(3) The end-user should bear no cost for the supply of any service above the cap if the provider has—
(a) failed to impose a cap agreed under subsection (2)(a),
(b) introduce, or amend, a cap following the end-user’s instructions under subsection (2)(b), or
(c) removed the cap without the end-user’s instructions or has removed it without obtaining the consumer’s express consent on a durable medium under subsection (2).’—(Louise Haigh.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Louise Haigh
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This new clause would mean that mobile phone service providers must give all consumers the opportunity to put a financial cap on their monthly mobile phone bill and that a mobile phone service cannot be provided until the service provider has put in place a cap of the agreed amount, if the consumer has made an express request. The new clause would be welcomed by many who have found that, when they receive an email or check their bank balance at the end of the month, their monthly mobile phone bill has come in much higher than expected.
The reason for the new clause is clear: mobile phone tariffs are complex, particularly on data. Few of us understand how much data we need for an average month, and consumers of all kinds can find that they use much more data than expected. Citizens Advice has provided me with an example that reveals the problem. One man changed his shift patterns and started using his phone to watch films during the night. His network sent a text message to tell him that he had gone over his monthly allowance, but he did not think too much about it until he received a bill for more than £2,000 at the end of the month. His service was subsequently cut off. Research suggests that as many as one in five consumers finds it difficult to keep track of how much they spend on data. The average unexpectedly high bill is usually double the cost of the original monthly fee.
Citizens Advice has received more than 60,000 inquiries about telephone and broadband debt, with its in-depth specialists dealing with nearly 27,000 individual mobile phone debt cases. Mobile phones have become a staple of our everyday life, and a voluntary cap would help consumers, particularly those who can ill afford an occasional doubling of their bill. Consumers support the measure, with more than 77% welcoming the idea.
This is not the first time that the proposal has been considered. In 2012, Ofcom considered introducing regulations but could not overcome the objections of providers, who argued that it would be too costly. Since then, two mobile phone providers have led the way and proved that it can be done. With the Bill’s new provisions on Ofcom appeals, I hope the Government will now consider our new clause.
Matt Hancock
The new clause seeks to place a mandatory obligation on mobile phone service providers to agree a financial cap on monthly bills with the customer at the time of entering into the contract, or to secure an agreement from the customer that they do not wish to have a financial cap. Consumers can avoid bill shocks in a number of different ways, so this additional measure is not necessary.
Before purchasing a mobile contract, consumers can already calculate their normal usage based on their last couple of bills. Once a consumer has established their monthly usage, Ofcom-accredited comparison websites are available to them. In fact, the Bill makes further progress on switching. Mobile phone providers are also taking steps to protect their customers from bill shock. As the hon. Lady says, many providers alert customers when they are close to reaching usage allowance limits and offer apps that enable consumers to monitor that usage.
Drew Hendry
I hear what the Minister is saying, and he is right that mobile phone operators have put measures in place, but none of them actually caps the amount paid so that people can avoid the situation where, for example, a child runs up exorbitant bills by overriding those limits.
Matt Hancock
I do not think that is true. There are examples of contracts that have caps or prepayment. Such contracts exist and they would not be complemented by the new clause, which is about ensuring that information and agreement are available at the start of a contract. The new clause proposes that such an agreement is available or that the person explicitly chooses not to have a cap, which in substance is the same position as now—it would just change what is in the vast quantities of small print at the bottom of these contracts.
Louise Haigh
The provisions in the new clause will not be a negative process, as the Minister has just outlined; they will require people to request a cap, rather than to agree that a cap is not put in place. Does the Minister honestly believe that enough information is provided when customers negotiate a contract with a telecoms provider about how much data are going to cost and how much additional data—over the agreed limit—will cost? Does the law currently guard against the example I provided of the gentleman who was watching films, completely oblivious to the fact that he was running up a bill of hundreds of pounds?
Matt Hancock
I think that that information has to be provided. Further, it is Ofcom’s job to ensure that that sort of information is provided in a reasonable way, and it has the capability to do that.
Can we guard against anybody using a mobile phone in a way completely different to their own intention at the point of signing the contract, having not taken into account the impact of that behaviour on the price? It is very hard to do that. I also do not see how the new clause would do that. It would simply change the way that a contract is written in the first place, giving the same options of either a capped or non-capped contract. It still provides for the two, so I do not think it would make a substantive difference.
That is not to deny that there is not always a challenge here to make sure that people get the best possible information, and crucially that switching is available and, as is provided for, that if somebody enters into a contract and wants to change that contract shortly after entering into it, they have the ability to do so. One provider now gives new customers the ability to put on a block on outgoing calls after they have reached their allowance, which they can turn on and off via their account, for example. There are dynamic ways of dealing with this within contracts, and I think that is probably the best way to do it, rather than with primary legislation.
Having said all of that, I of course recognise that this is an important and challenging area, but I hope that with that explanation the hon. Members will withdraw the new clause.
Louise Haigh
The Minister has not given us a good enough reason for why consumers should not have the ability to put a financial cap on their monthly bills. He has laid out some voluntary mechanisms that various communications providers have implemented, which is all well and good for their customers, but I am sure he will accept that that is a very haphazard way to deal with this issue.
Matt Hancock
The proposal in the new clause is itself a voluntary proposal, because it provides for the agreement from a customer should they not wish to see a financial cap. In substance, that is exactly what the new clause provides for.
Louise Haigh
It is voluntary for the consumer but not for the telecoms provider. The Minister, in his typical, patronising way, is trying to put this differently from how the Opposition is putting it.
Drew Hendry
Does the hon. Lady agree that it is just common sense to allow the consumer the choice to avoid high bills?
Louise Haigh
Absolutely. I do not think the Minister has made a case at all for not allowing this to happen, or why mobile phone companies should object to people voluntarily placing a financial cap on their bills to avoid the kind of excessive bills that can be, and are, run up by even the most tech-savvy of people. We will divide the Committee on the new clause, because we have not been provided with sufficient explanation as to why it should not go forward.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Louise Haigh
I beg to move, That the clause be read a second time. We have reached our final new clause, which was tabled in frustration at the amount of time I spend on trains every week and how shockingly poor the quality and consistency of wi-fi is, even when one has paid for the privilege of accessing it, in addition to not inconsiderable rail fares. To make things worse, the Sheffield to London line has appalling mobile network coverage; I can make a call on about 15% of the journey, just when we are in the stations. That is why our new clause on the mobile strategic review is absolutely necessary to ensure that network coverage is extended across the UK and to keep those mobile network operators on target. We need decent quality wi-fi on all our public transport and in all our public spaces. We now have a record high of 1.65 billion rail passenger journeys every year. Without decent network and internet coverage, they are essentially unproductive journeys that could be used to boost our economy. Indeed, many of our cities outside London lose out on investment precisely because the connecting transport has such poor mobile and internet coverage.
I have spoken to several London-based tech companies that have chosen to invest in cities other than Sheffield, because they would essentially lose the time travelling from London through being unable to work. You would be forgiven for thinking that this was deepest, darkest Peru rather than one of the biggest cities in the UK, just two hours’ train journey from London; but I was in Peru earlier this year and they have free wi-fi on their buses and in public spaces. In fact, of the top 10 most wi-fi-friendly cities in the world, the UK does not even feature. From Taipei to Florence and Tel Aviv to Hong Kong, the rest of the world is far ahead of us on access to free public wi-fi, which is boosting their tourism industries and domestic industries. There is benefit to be had for the train operating companies as well. In some US states, people recognise that they can deliver passenger-oriented services as part of wider, often safety-related, communications projects that they need to undertake, and harvest passengers’ use of social media as a valuable data source for plugging gaps in their travel information services, as well as for monitoring reactions to network performance and being able to take remedial steps.
I am sure that the Minister is going to tell the Committee about the Government’s superconnected cities programme, which got off to a shaky start—though they are to be congratulated on the progress that has already been made in delivering free wi-fi to trains and buses across Leeds, Bradford, Edinburgh, Newport, Cardiff, Greater Manchester, York and Oxford. As ever, though, we will push the Government and the Minister to be more ambitious and achieve everything they are capable of achieving, investing in the digital infrastructure that we need to ensure that our digital economy can continue to thrive across the whole country. Alongside roads and rail, it is the Government’s job to ensure that our country is fully equipped with the digital infrastructure necessary for the digital revolution. As has been said many times, I am afraid that this Bill, unamended, does not cut it.
Our proposal would not require a single penny of public money. It would simply chip into the tens of millions of pounds of profit that the train companies make off the back of publicly-funded infrastructure. It would simply put into franchise agreements a requirement for all trains to provide free wi-fi and we have been very flexible and reasonable about the level at which that should be provided. Ultimately, we need to see free wi-fi on all our public transport. Sheffield’s longer bus journeys already offer free wi-fi, while York and Newcastle have opened up their public spaces. It will mean that people and businesses can be more productive and we can all spend less on our data packages.
Drew Hendry
In a progressive spirit, we join in the support for this measure. As someone who travels regularly, having taken my position in this House, on some of the train services, I note that the difference between the contract that the Scottish Government have organised through the franchise with ScotRail with intercity wi-fi, and what is available here is quite stark. In fact, all new electrical multiple units of 318s, 320s, 334s and 380s in Scotland come with wi-fi and power sockets. I urge the Minister to consider including that and to ensure that customers in England and Wales get the same sort of service as those in Scotland.
Matt Hancock
It is highly appropriate to end this sitting with the new clause because the intent behind it has cross-party support from both parts of the Opposition represented here. Government Members not only recognise, but are enthusiastic and passionate about getting better wi-fi on trains. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes, as a Transport Minister and more specifically a Rail Minister, was instrumental in getting Britain to where we are with wi-fi on trains. It is something all MPs understand as we travel around the country. Our frustration is shared by the great British travelling public and the demands for better and faster free wi-fi on trains will continue until they are sated.
Requiring free wi-fi on trains has been undertaken through new franchises and implemented also in existing franchises. The obligation to provide free wi-fi is now secured in 10 of the 15 franchises and we forecast that more than 90% of passenger journeys will have access to wi-fi by the end of 2018 and almost 100% by 2020. There have been further programmes, such as the superconnected cities programme. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley says she wants to press us to achieve all we can, and we accept the challenge.
For all new franchises, the current specifications will require a minimum of 1 megabit per second per passenger, which allows for web browsing, basic email and social media activity. Crucially, this is set to increase by 25% every year with a focus on ensuring that it is reliable and consistent because dropped calls or frequent breaks in ability to access wi-fi are seriously frustrating.
There are even stronger bids in some competitions. For example, the East Anglia franchise, which I use a lot, will provide up to 100 megabits per second to the train by 2019, then 500 megabits per second by 2021 and 1 gigabit per second by the end of 2021 on key intercity routes, not least the Norwich in 90 and Ipswich in 60 plans. That is totally brilliant and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes for making it happen.
Wi-fi was previously dependent on mobile coverage that trains went through, but train operators have started to innovate and have done deals with mobile operators to make sure they have enough 4G coverage down the track. Chiltern is an example. It agreed a deal with EE to provide 100% coverage from London to Birmingham. This is happening. Specifying a particular technology in legislation is likely to provide more problems than solutions. Our changes in driving wi-fi through contracts with operators is more likely to be successful in getting more connectivity faster. That is the approach I propose.
In a moment, I will ask the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley to withdraw the motion, but first I want to pay tribute to all the people who have helped to make this Committee happen, including the Opposition. We have had cheerful and sometimes forthright debates, but in the best spirit of improving the digital economy for all the citizens we serve. I pay tribute particularly to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley who, in her first performance in her new position, has shown the rest of us how to do it. She has been charming and brilliant. I can only say, thank goodness for Jeremy Corbyn.
I thank you, Mr Stringer, and Mr Streeter for chairing the Committee so effectively and efficiently, and for ensuring that I made fewer mistakes than I otherwise would. I thank the Clerk and the staff of the Public Bill Office, who have helped enormously to keep us on the straight and narrow. I thank the Doorkeepers for holding the doors open long enough for my Whip to ensure that we had all our people here when necessary. I thank the Hansard reporters for no doubt capturing us accurately, in sometimes quite complicated language. I thank the police, my officials in DCMS—in particular the Bill team—and also those from across Government, because the Bill has measures in it from many different Departments. There has been great cross-Government collaboration and I put on record my thanks to my policy officials, the Bill team and my private office team. I thank all those who have given oral or written evidence to the Committee, which has improved our ability to scrutinise the Bill. With that, I hope that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley will withdraw this final new clause and we can report to the House a well-scrutinised Bill.
Louise Haigh
It is very welcome to hear that all new franchise agreements—the Minister is nodding—will contain a requirement for wi-fi. I am happy to withdraw the motion.
Before I do, I add my thanks to you, Mr Stringer, and to Mr Streeter. You have both kept us in order and guided us through, particularly me in my first time on the Front Bench in a Bill Committee. I was put in this job two days before the Committee proceedings began, when I had not yet read the Bill. To say that this was being thrown in at the deep end is something of an understatement. I add particular thanks to the Clerk, who has been incredibly helpful in getting our last-minute amendments together, to the Hansard writers, to the police and Doorkeepers, and of course to all the civil servants who have been in and out of here through a revolving door as we have cantered through the various clauses. I also thank all my hon. Friends who have contributed, SNP Committee members and Government Committee members. I thank both Whips who have kept us to time—we are going to get there eventually.
It has been unsettling to agree with the Minister on so many things but I have been very relieved to find that he still manages to infuriate me. I believe we have stress-tested the Bill pretty roundly. We have found it wanting in several areas and I am confident that it will receive amendments in the other place. I am disappointed to see it emerge relatively unscathed from Committee, but I am confident that it will return from the other place in better shape. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Schedule 1
Electronic communications code: consequential amendments
“Part 1
General provision
Interpretation
1 In this Part—
“the commencement date” means the day on which Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 comes into force;
“enactment” includes—
(a) an enactment comprised in subordinate legislation within the meaning of the Interpretation Act 1978,
(b) an enactment comprised in, or in an instrument made under, a Measure or Act of the National Assembly for Wales,
(c) an enactment comprised in, or in an instrument made under, an Act of the Scottish Parliament, and
(d) an enactment comprised in, or in an instrument made under, Northern Ireland legislation;
“the existing code” means Schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984;
“the new code” means Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003.
References to the code or provisions of the code
2 (1) In any enactment passed or made before the commencement date, unless the context requires otherwise—
(a) a reference to the existing code is to be read as a reference to the new code;
(b) a reference to a provision of the existing code listed in column 1 of the table is to be read as a reference to the provision of the new code in the corresponding entry in column 2.
(2) This paragraph does not affect the amendments made by Part 2 of this Schedule or the power to make amendments by regulations under section 6.
(3) This paragraph does not affect section 17(2) of the Interpretation Act 1978 (effect of repeal and re-enactment) in relation to any reference to a provision of the existing code not listed in the table.
Table
Existing code | New code |
Paragraph 9 | Part 8 |
Paragraph 21 | Part 6 |
Paragraph 23 | Part 10 |
Paragraph 29 | Paragraph 17 |
References to a conduit system
3 In any enactment passed or made before the commencement date, unless the context requires otherwise—
(a) a reference to a conduit system, where it is defined by reference to the existing code, is to be read as a reference to an infrastructure system as defined by paragraph 7(1) of the new code, and;
(b) a reference to provision of such a system is to be read in accordance with paragraph 7(2) of the new code (reference to provision includes establishing or maintaining).
Part 2
Amendments of particular enactments
Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (c. 56)
4 In section 43 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (tenancies to which provisions on security of tenure for business etc tenants do not apply) after subsection (3) insert—
“(4) This Part does not apply to a tenancy—
(a) the primary purpose of which is to grant code rights within the meaning of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code), and
(b) which is granted after that Schedule comes into force.””
Opencast Coal Act 1958 (c. 69)
5 (1) Section 45 of the Opencast Coal Act 1958 (provisions as to telegraphic lines) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2) for “paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In section (4) for “Paragraph 1(2) of the electronic communications code” substitute “Paragraph 103(2) of the electronic communications code”.
Land Drainage (Scotland) Act 1958 (c. 24)
6 In section 17 of the Land Drainage Act (Scotland) Act 1958 (application of paragraph 23 of the code) for “Paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Pipe-lines Act 1962 (c. 58)
7 In section 40(2) of the Pipe-lines Act 1962 (avoidance of interference with lines) for “Paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Harbours Act 1964 (c. 40)
8 In section 53 of the Harbours Act 1964 (application of paragraph 23 of the code) for “Paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Fair Trading Act 1973 (c. 41)
9 In section 137(3)(f) of the Fair Trading Act 1973 (general interpretation: services covered) for “paragraph 29 of Schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984” substitute “paragraph 17 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Highways Act 1980 (c. 66)
10 The Highways Act 1980 is amended as follows.
11 In section 177(12) (restriction of construction over highways: application of paragraph 23 of code) for “paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
12 (1) Section 334 (savings relating to electronic communications apparatus) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (8) for “Paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In subsection (9) for “the said paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10 of the electronic communications code”.
(4) In subsection (11)—
(a) for “Sub-paragraph (8) of paragraph 23” substitute “Paragraph 68”;
(b) for “that paragraph” substitute “Part 10 of the code”.
(5) In subsection (12) for “1(2)” “substitute “103(2)”.
(6) In subsection (13) for “Paragraph 21 of the electronic communications code (restriction on removal of electronic communications apparatus)” substitute “Part 6 of the electronic communications code (rights to require removal of electronic communications apparatus)”.
Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 (c. 54)
13 The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 is amended as follows.
14 (1) Section 50 (planting of trees etc by roads authority) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (3) for “Paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In subsection (4)—
(a) for “sub-paragraph (8) of paragraph 23” substitute “Paragraph 68”
(b) for “that paragraph” substitute “Part 10 of the code”.
15 (1) Section 75 (bridges over and tunnels under navigable waterways) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (9) for “Paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In subsection (10)—
(a) for “sub-paragraph (8) of paragraph 23” substitute “paragraph 68”
(b) for “that paragraph” substitute “Part 10 of the code”.
16 (1) Section 132 (saving for operators of telecommunications code systems) is amended as follows.
(2) In the heading for “telecommunications code systems” substitute “electronic communications code networks”.
(3) In subsection (4) for “paragraph 1(2) of the electronic communications code” substitute “paragraph 103(2) of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(4) In subsection (5) for “Paragraph 21 of the electronic communications code (restriction on removal of electronic communications apparatus)” substitute “Part 6 of the electronic communications code (rights to require removal of electronic communications apparatus)”.
Housing Act 1985 (c. 68)
17 Section 298 of the Housing Act 1985 (telecommunications apparatus) is amended as follows.
18 For the heading substitute “Electronic communications apparatus”.
19 In subsection (2) for “paragraph 21 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 6 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
20 In subsection (3) for “paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10”.
Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 (c. 48)
21 The Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 is amended as follows.
22 In section 8A (electronic communications apparatus: operations in tidal waters etc) for the words from “paragraph 11” to “1984” substitute “Part 9 of Schedule 3A of the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
23 In section 9(8) (defence to operating without licence under Part 2)—
(a) for “paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A of the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”;
(b) omit the words from “In this subsection” to the end.
Airports Act 1986 (c. 31)
24 The Airports Act 1986 is amended as follows.
25 (1) Section 62 (electronic communications apparatus) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1) for “Paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A of the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In subsection (4) for “Paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10”.
(4) In subsection (5)—
(a) for “Sub-paragraph (8) of paragraph 23” substitute “Paragraph 68”;
(b) for “that paragraph” substitute “Part 10 of the code”.
(5) In subsection (6) for “1(2)” substitute “103(2)”
(6) In subsection (7) for “Paragraph 21 of the electronic communications code (restriction on removal of apparatus)” substitute “Part 6 of the electronic communications code (rights to require removal of apparatus)”.
Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 (c. 31)
26 In section 4(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 (disposals which are not relevant disposals for purposes of tenants’ right of first refusal) after paragraph (da) insert—
“(db) the conferral of a code right under Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code);”.
Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Act 1989 (c. 22)
27 In paragraph 4 of Schedule 4 to the Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Act 1989 (application of paragraph 23 of code to licence holders) for “Paragraph 23 of Schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Electricity Act 1989 (c. 29)
28 In paragraph 1(6) of Schedule 16 to the Electricity Act 1989 (application of paragraph 23) for “Paragraph 23 of Schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (c. 8)
29 (1) Section 256 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (electronic communications apparatus: orders by the Secretary of State) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (5) for “Paragraph 1(2) of the electronic communications code” substitute “Paragraph 103(2) of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In subsection (6) for “Paragraph 21 of the electronic communications code (restriction on removal of electronic communications apparatus)” substitute “Part 6 of the electronic communications code (rights to require removal of electronic communications apparatus)”.
Water Industry Act 1991 (c. 56)
30 In paragraph 4 of Schedule 13 to the Water Industry Act 1991—
(a) for “paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10”;
(b) for “Schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984” substitute “Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003”;
(c) in the heading, for “telecommunication systems” substitute “electronic communications networks”.
Water Resources Act 1991 (c. 57)
31 In Schedule 22 to the Water Resources Act 1991 (protection of particular undertakings)—
(a) in paragraph 5 for “Paragraph 23 of Schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”;
(b) for the italic heading before paragraph 5 substitute “Protection for electronic communications networks”.
Electricity (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 (S.I. 1992/231)
32 In paragraph 3(2) of Schedule 4 to the Electricity (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 (application of paragraph 23) for “paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Cardiff Bay Barrage Act 1993 (c. 42)
33 In paragraph 16 of Schedule 2 to the Cardiff Bay Barrage Act 1993 (application of paragraph 23) for “Paragraph 23 of Schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 (S.I. 1993/3160)
34 (1) Schedule 9 to the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 (saving provisions) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 2(2) for “Paragraph 1(2) of the electronic communications code” substitute “Paragraph 103(2) of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In paragraph 2(3) for “Paragraph 21 of the electronic communications code (restrictions on removal of apparatus)” substitute “Part 6 of the electronic communications code (rights to require removal of apparatus)”.
(4) In paragraph 3 for “Paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10”.
Airports (Northern Ireland) Order 1994 (S.I. 1994/426)
35 (1) Article 12 of the Airports (Northern Ireland) Order 1994 (provisions as to electronic communications apparatus) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph (1) for “Paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In paragraph (3A) for “Paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10”.
(4) In paragraph (4)—
(a) for “Sub-paragraph (8) of paragraph 23” substitute “Paragraph 68”;
(b) for “that paragraph” substitute “Part 10 of the code”.
(5) In paragraph (5) for “1(2)” substitute “103(2)”.
(6) In paragraph (6) for “Paragraph 21 of the electronic communications code (restriction on removal of apparatus)” substitute “Part 6 of the electronic communications code (rights to require removal of apparatus)”.
(7) Omit paragraph (7).
Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995 (c. 30)
36 In section 5 of the Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995 (tenant released from covenants on assignment of tenancy), after subsection (4) insert—
(5) This section is subject to paragraph 15(4) of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (which places conditions on the release of an operator from liability under an agreement granting code rights under the electronic communications code).”
Gas Act 1995 (c. 45)
37 In paragraph 2(7) of Schedule 4 to the Gas Act 1995 (application of paragraph 23 to public gas transporters) for “Paragraph 23 of Schedule 2 to the Telecommunications Act 1984” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996 (c. 61)
38 (1) Part 4 of Schedule 15 to the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996 (protection of telecommunications operators) is amended as follows.
(2) For the heading substitute “Protection of electronic communications code operators”.
(3) In paragraph 2(1) for “Paragraph 21 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 6 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(4) In paragraph 2(2) for “Paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10”.
(5) In paragraph 3 for “paragraph 9” substitute “Part 8”.
(6) In paragraph 4(1) for “paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10”.
Gas (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (S.I. 1996/275)
39 (1) Schedule 3 to the Gas (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (other powers etc of licence holders) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 1(1) omit the following definitions—
(a) “public telecommunications operator”;
(b) “telecommunication apparatus” and “electronic communications network”;
(c) “telecommunications code”.
(3) In paragraph 3(2) for “paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
Business Tenancies (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (SI 1996/725 (NI 5))
40 In Article 4(1) of the Business Tenancies (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (tenancies to which the Order does not apply) after paragraph (k) insert—
“(l) a tenancy the primary purpose of which is to grant code rights within the meaning of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code), where the tenancy is granted after that Schedule comes into force.”
Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 (c. 8)
41 (1) Section 212 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 (electronic communications apparatus) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (7) for “Paragraph 1(2) of the electronic communications code” substitute “Paragraph 103(2) of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In subsection (8) for “Paragraph 21 of the electronic communications code (restriction on removal of electronic communications apparatus)” substitute “Part 6 of the electronic communications code (rights to require removal of apparatus)”.
Enterprise Act 2002 (c. 40)
42 The Enterprise Act 2002 is amended as follows.
43 In section 128(5) (mergers: references to supply of services) for the words from “(within” to the end substitute “(within the meaning of paragraph 17 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)) for sharing the use of electronic communications apparatus.”
44 In section 234(5) (enforcement of consumer legislation: references to supply of services) for the words from “(within” to the end substitute “(within the meaning of paragraph 17 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)) for sharing the use of electronic communications apparatus.”
Communications Act 2003 (c. 21)
45 The Communications Act 2003 is amended as follows.
46 (1) Section 394 (service of notifications and other documents) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2) omit paragraph (d).
(3) After subsection (10) insert—
(11) In its application to Schedule 3A this section is subject to paragraph 87 of that Schedule.”
47 (1) Section 402 (power of Secretary of State to make orders and regulations) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2) after paragraph (a) insert—
“(aa) regulations under paragraph 91 of Schedule 3A which amend, repeal or modify the application of primary legislation,”.
(3) After subsection (2) insert—
(2A) A statutory instrument containing (whether alone or with other provisions) regulations under paragraph 91 of Schedule 3A which amend, repeal or modify the application of primary legislation, may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
(4) After subsection (3) insert—
(4) In this section “primary legislation” means—
(a) an Act of Parliament,
(b) a Measure or Act of the National Assembly for Wales,
(c) an Act of the Scottish Parliament, or
(d) Northern Ireland legislation.”
48 Schedule 3 is repealed.
Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 (asp 2)
49 (1) Schedule 1 to the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 (path orders) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 12 for “Paragraph 1(2) of the electronic communications code” substitute “Paragraph 103(2) of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) In paragraph 13 for “Paragraph 21 of that code (restriction on removal of apparatus)” substitute “Part 6 of the electronic communications code (rights to require removal of apparatus)”.
Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (c. 17)
50 The Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 is amended as follows.
51 In section 2(3) (objects of the Homes and Communities Agency: interpretation) in paragraph (a) of the definition of “infrastructure” for “telecommunications” substitute “electronic communications”.
52 In section 57(1) (interpretation of Part 1) omit the definition of “conduit system” and insert in the appropriate place—
““infrastructure system” has the meaning given by paragraph 7(1) of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code), and a reference to providing such a system is to be read in accordance with paragraph 7(2) of the code (reference to provision includes establishing or maintaining),”.
53 In the table in section 58 (index of defined expressions in Part 1) omit the entry for “conduit system (and providing such a system)” and insert in the appropriate place—
“Infrastructure system (and providing such a system) | Section 57(1)”. |
Crossrail Act 2008 (c. 18)
54 (1) Part 4 of Schedule 17 to the Crossrail Act 2008 (protective provisions) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 1(2) for the definition of “electronic communications code” substitute—
““electronic communications code” means the code set out in Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003;”.
(3) In paragraph 2(1) for “paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10”.
(4) In paragraph 2(2) for “Paragraphs 21 and 23” substitute “Parts 6 and 10”.
(5) In paragraph 3 for “paragraph 9” substitute “Part 8”.
(6) In paragraph 4(1) for “paragraph 23” substitute “Part 10”.
Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 (asp 5)
55 The Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 is amended as follows.
56 In section 36(1) (electronic communications apparatus) for the words from “paragraph 11” to “apparatus)” substitute “Part 9 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code) (works in connection with electronic communications apparatus).
57 (1) Section 41 (defence to offences: electronic communications: emergency works) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1) for “paragraph 23 of the electronic communications code” substitute “Part 10 of Schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003 (the electronic communications code)”.
(3) Omit subsection (2).”—(Matt Hancock.)
The new Schedule replaces Schedule 3 to the Bill and contains the amendments in that Schedule with other amendments consequential on the replacement of the electronic communications code.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Schedule 2
Bank of England oversight of payment systems
“Part 1
Extension of Bank of England oversight of payment systems
1 The Banking Act 2009 is amended as follows.
2 In the heading to Part 5 (inter-bank payment systems) omit “Inter-bank”.
3 In section 181 (overview) for “payments between financial institutions” substitute “transferring money”.
4 (1) Section 182 (interpretation: “inter-bank payment system”) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)—
(a) omit “inter-bank”;
(b) omit the words from “between financial institutions” to the end.
(3) After subsection (1) insert—
“(1A) But “payment system” does not include any arrangements for the physical movement of cash.”
(4) Omit subsections (2) and (3).
(5) In subsection (5) for “an inter-bank” substitute “a”.
(6) In the heading omit “inter-bank”.
5 In section 183 (interpretation: other expressions), in paragraph (a) for “an inter-bank” substitute “a”.
6 (1) Section 184 (recognition order) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1) for “an inter-bank” substitute “a”.
(3) In subsection (2) omit “inter-bank”.
(4) In subsection (3) for “an inter-bank” substitute “a payment”.
7 In section 185 (recognition criteria), in subsection (1) for “an inter-bank” substitute “a”.
8 In section 186A (amendment of recognition order), in subsections (2)(b) and (4), omit “inter-bank”.
9 In section 187 (de-recognition), in subsections (2), (3)(b) and (5), omit “inter-bank”.
10 In section 188 (principles), in subsection (1) omit “inter-bank”.
11 In section 189 (codes of practice) omit “inter-bank”.
12 In section 190 (system rules), in subsection (1) omit “inter-bank”.
13 In section 191 (directions), in subsection (1) omit “inter-bank”.
14 In section 192 (role of FCA and PRA), in subsections (2)(a) and (b) and (3), omit “inter-bank”.
15 In section 193 (inspection), in subsections (1) and (2), omit “inter-bank”.
16 In section 194 (inspection: warrant), in subsection (1)(a) omit “inter-bank”.
17 In section 195 (independent report), in subsection (1) omit “inter-bank”.
18 In section 196 (compliance failure) omit “inter-bank”.
19 In section 197 (publication), in subsection (1) omit “inter-bank”.
20 In section 198 (penalty), in subsection (1) omit “inter-bank”.
21 In section 199 (closure), in subsection (2) omit “inter-bank”.
22 In section 200 (management disqualification), in subsections (1) and (2), omit “inter-bank”.
23 In section 201 (warning), in subsection (1) for “an inter-bank” substitute “a”.
24 In section 202A (injunctions), in subsections (2)(a) and (3)(a), omit “inter-bank”.
25 In section 203 (fees), in subsection (1) omit “inter-bank”.
26 In section 204 (information), in subsections (1A), (2) and (4)(c), omit “inter-bank”.
27 In section 205 (pretending to be recognised), in subsection (1) omit “inter-bank”.
28 In section 206A (services forming part of recognised inter-bank payment system), in subsections (1), (2) and (7)(a) and in the heading, omit “inter-bank”.
29 In section 259 (statutory instruments), in the Table in subsection (3)—
(a) in the heading for the entries in Part 5, omit “Inter-bank”;
(b) in the entry for section 206A, in the second column omit “inter-bank”.
30 In section 261 (index of defined terms), in the Table—
(a) omit the entry for “Inter-bank payment system”;
(b) at the appropriate place insert—
“Payment system | 182” |
Part 2
Consequential amendments
Financial Services Act 2012
31 The Financial Services Act 2012 is amended as follows.
32 (1) Section 68 (cases in which Treasury may arrange independent enquiries) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (3), in paragraphs (a) and (b)(ii), omit “inter-bank”.
(3) In subsection (5), in the definition of “recognised inter-bank payment system”—
(a) omit the first “inter-bank”;
(b) for “an inter-bank” substitute “a”.
33 In section 85 (relevant functions in relation to complaints scheme), in subsection (3)(a) omit “inter-bank”.
34 In section 110 (payment to Treasury of penalties received by Bank of England), in subsection (5)(d) omit “inter-bank”.
Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013
35 The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 is amended as follows.
36 In section 45 (procedure), in subsection (1)(a) omit “inter-bank”.
37 In section 46 (amendment of designation order), in subsection (2)(a) omit “inter-bank”.
38 In section 47 (revocation of designation orders), in subsection (3)(a) omit “inter-bank”.
39 In section 98 (duty of regulators to ensure co-ordinated exercise of functions), in subsection (5)(b) omit “inter-bank”.
40 In section 110 (interpretation), in subsection (1), in the definition of “recognised inter-bank payment system”—
(a) omit the first “inter-bank”;
(b) for “an inter-bank” substitute “a”.
41 In section 112 (interpretation: infrastructure companies), in subsections (2)(a), (4)(b) and (5), omit “inter-bank”.
42 In section 113 (interpretation: other expressions), in subsection (1)—
(a) in the definition of “operator” omit “inter-bank”;
(b) in the definition of “recognised inter-bank payment system”—
(i) omit the first “inter-bank”;
(ii) for “an inter-bank” substitute “a”;
(c) in the definition of “the relevant system”, in paragraphs (a) and (c), omit “inter-bank”.
43 In section 115 (objective of FMI administration), in subsection (1) omit “inter-bank”.
44 In section 120 (power to direct FMI administrator), in subsection (8) omit “inter-bank”.
45 In section 127 (interpretation of Part 6), in subsection (1), in the definition of “operator” and in the definition of “recognised inter-bank payment system”, omit “inter-bank”.”—(Matt Hancock.)
This is the Schedule introduced by new clause NC30.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
Title
Amendments made: 186, in title, line 8, after “functions;” insert
“to make provision about qualifications in information technology;”.
This amendment is consequential on new clause NC26.
Amendment 187, in title, line 8, after “functions;” insert
“to make provision about payment systems and securities settlement systems;”.—(Matt Hancock.)
The amendment is consequential on new clauses NC29 and NC30 and new Schedule NS2.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
Westminster Hall
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
Apprenticeships Funding
(8 years 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 David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered apprenticeships funding.
I am pleased to bring this important debate to the House and I thank the 55 Members from six parties who helped to secure it. I speak, of course, as a former Universities and Skills Minister, and I am well aware of how important apprenticeships are across the country. There is a further education college in every constituency, so cuts in funding will directly affect thousands of young people all over the UK. It is therefore disappointing that the Government published initial details of those cuts in August without any parliamentary debate or scrutiny.
I do not want to be churlish, so I thank the Minister for the letter that I received from him at 26 minutes past 6 last night. I am grateful for that. That was 56 days after I first wrote to him about those cuts, 45 days after the Prime Minister said during Prime Minister’s questions that she does not recognise the cuts, 21 days after the Minister batted away questions on the cuts during Education questions, and a timely 15 hours before I opened this debate. Unfortunately, the letter says nothing that I did not already know.
It is important to acknowledge that the Government have listened to concerns raised by the further education sector and opposition from Labour Members of Parliament in particular. The written statement that the Government made last Tuesday goes some way to mitigating the worst effects of the cuts, particularly for 16 to 18-year-olds and disadvantaged areas, but that U-turn is a very different line from the one taken by the Department on 9 September in its response to my letter to the Minister, when it made no mention of a consultation or change of heart and stated that the cuts of up to 50%
“will help to ensure every young person, regardless of background or ability, has the chance to take their first step into work”.
As is always the case with funding announcements, the devil is in the detail. Despite the Government’s U-turn, areas such as my constituency of Tottenham will face huge cuts. Tottenham is rapidly regenerating, and with the Government apparently committed to building the homes needed to tackle the housing crisis, there should be opportunities for my young constituents to get skilled jobs in the construction sector, yet the Government are cutting funding for 16 to 18-year-old construction apprentices in Tottenham by a staggering 37%. According to the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London, funding will be cut by 28% for 16 to 18-year-olds in Tottenham in customer service, 38% for those wanting to go into business administration, 43% for engineering apprentices, and 45% for hairdressing apprentices.
I ask the Minister why. Why does he think that my constituents, who live in one of the country’s most deprived constituencies, should not be able to participate in the construction that is happening across the capital? Why should they not be afforded the opportunity to become engineers? Why do his Government prioritise the academic stream with their new scheme to expand grammar schools while cutting funding for those with vocational backgrounds who want to be construction or engineering apprentices? It is a simple question: why?
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. The Institute of the Motor Industry described the original cuts as a “car crash”. I suppose a U-turn is not a bad idea when faced with a car crash, but that organisation is still warning that a lot of employers in the motor industry simply will not be able to cope with the existing shortfall in funding and the complexity of the existing frameworks. The Minister really needs to do more work on that if he is to answer the criticisms that have been levelled by both employers and potential apprentices.
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. Let me give an early reminder that interventions should be brief.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I praise my right hon. Friend for his outstanding leadership on this vital issue. Apprenticeships transform lives. Warren Shepherd, an apprentice in Erdington, moved into the house of his dreams as a consequence of gaining an apprenticeship and becoming a time-served engineer in the Jaguar factory. Erdington is rich in talent, but it is one of the poorest constituencies in the country. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the ladder of opportunity is kicked away for people like Warren, the Government can talk until the cows come home about social mobility and building a strong economy in the midlands, but they will not be willing the means to deliver that?
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. He has been pursuing this subject for a long time. Our hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) raised a real question about the Government’s boasts and commitments to west midlands manufacturing. They have made great play of manufacturing, but in Coventry, for example, further education funding has been cut by 24%. That raises serious questions.
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Services now account for 80% of this country’s economy. If we are to build manufacturing and have young people who are able to construct wonderful buildings such as Coventry cathedral, which was levelled during the war, we need apprentices.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
In my constituency, apprenticeships are booming. At the new Bridgwater and Taunton College, which is soon to become a university, the first nuclear apprenticeships have started to fuel training of young people in that booming new industry. For Taunton Deane, everything that the Government are doing is positive—particularly the levy that will come in next year and fuel many more apprenticeships.
Mr Lammy
I encourage the hon. Lady to get into the detail, because that may not be the picture after the cuts that are coming. She may also have seen that the axe is, sadly, falling heavily on disadvantaged areas. I do not know whether there are pockets of deprivation in her constituency, but that is an underlying theme in this debate.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Lammy
I will not. I ought to make some progress, because I am conscious that many Members wish to speak.
The national picture is also worrying. Analysis by FE Week of the new funding rates found that children’s care, learning and development apprenticeships now face cuts of between 27% and 42%, compared with between 36% and 56% in August. Hospitality and catering funding will now be cut by between 34% and 45%, compared with between 41% and 60% in August. As the principal of the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London told me, those cuts will only make it harder to get young people into apprenticeships.
Even after the Government’s U-turn, nine out of the 10 most popular apprenticeships still face cuts ranging from 14% to 51%. The best case scenario is average cuts of 27%; the worst case scenario is average cuts of 43%. The Department for Education was presented with that analysis last Thursday morning, less than 48 hours after it published details of the cuts on the gov.uk website, yet no response has been forthcoming. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about the detail of the range of those cuts—after all, he has had plenty of time to prepare.
Mr Lammy
I will not at this stage.
I now turn to the disadvantage uplift—the additional funding to support disadvantaged areas that I referred to earlier. That was quietly scrapped completely in the proposals published in August. Last week’s statement promised a
“simplified version of the current system of support for people from disadvantaged areas”,
yet the Minister has told FE Week that that is guaranteed only for one year, while the Department undertakes a review to work out how best to support disadvantaged young people to undertake apprenticeships. One year? Why does it take so long to work out what needs to be done for disadvantaged young people? It is clear: give them an opportunity! It is quite straightforward, and that requires resources.
What does this mean? Will Parliament be told what is going on or will Members of Parliament have to find out through the media? It sounds to me like more cuts will come in a year’s time. Will the Minister confirm today what will happen to support for disadvantaged areas in 12 months’ time? Will the support be maintained or cut? If it is to be cut, may I reassure him that I will be back here, along with many other Members of Parliament, to oppose that once again?
On Tuesday, the Secretary of State told Parliament:
“Apprenticeships transform lives and are vital in making this a country that works for everyone.”
Apparently, the changes made since August
“will ensure apprenticeships are high quality…and provide opportunities for millions more people.”—[Official Report, 25 October 2016; Vol. 616, c. 6WS.]
If the Government are serious about social mobility, will the Minister explain today why the Government are pushing ahead with cuts of anything between 27% and 45% for nine of the 10 most popular apprenticeships? Does he have a response for Paul Warner of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, who warned:
“It is completely self-defeating to cut funding, because that is just preventing disadvantaged young people from getting on”?
The apprenticeship levy will raise £3 billion from large employers and will replace all current Treasury funding of apprenticeships. If the Government are making a saving by passing the cost of funding apprenticeships to the private sector through the levy, why cannot the Treasury give some of that money back to reverse the funding rate cuts and provide support for disadvantaged areas? I hope the Minister will be able to explain.
It is also important to look at the context in which the cuts are happening. The Brexit vote was underpinned by people living in our post-industrial towns in the north and the midlands and in our seaside towns, who are feeling left behind and left out of economic growth. Youth unemployment stands at 13.7%, with 624,000 people aged between 16 and 24 unemployed; more than 100,000 of them have been unemployed for at least a year. The unemployment rate for 16 and 17-year-olds is a staggering 27.7%. It is interesting to look at other countries. Relative to population size, we are doing worse than Slovakia, worse than Hungary, worse than Ireland, Poland, Portugal, the United States, Canada, Australia, Estonia and New Zealand. We are doing four times worse than Germany, three times worse than the Czech Republic and twice as badly as Japan, Denmark and Sweden in terms of the proportion of our young people who are not in education, employment or training.
Last year, the Treasury found that
“the UK’s skills weaknesses…are of such long standing, and such intractability, that only the most radical action can address them.”
I ask the Minister: is this the radical action that his Treasury was talking about?
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
In fact, the national picture is that the youth unemployment statistics are down to 13.7%, which is down on last year, down from the height, and close to the lowest they have ever been, which was 11.1%.
Mr Lammy
Unless the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the figures I just quoted are wrong, we should not be happy with the picture of youth unemployment in our country. Many Members in the Chamber are well aware of the young people walking our streets literally because there is not enough to do. I might just remind him that I have seen two riots in a generation, so I know something about idle hands making very dangerous work indeed. We need to put these young people to work. We need apprenticeships for them. We need more than rhetoric from the Government, and we certainly do not need cuts in this part of the economy.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has warned that
“we are in the grip of our worst construction skills crisis in almost 20 years.”
That skills crisis will hold back big infrastructure and house building projects. Post-16 education was cut by 14% between 2010 and 2015 and last year the Public Accounts Committee warned of a “financial meltdown” in further education.
Further education is just about on its knees. Most of the Members in this House grew up in a period when they could go into an FE college that was open well into the evening, not just for young people but for adults—adults could also get into FE and skill up. I ask hon. Members to find me an FE college open past 8 o’clock in the evening where an adult can skill up and I will give them a beer. It is not happening! We should not be having a debate in Britain about grammar schools; we should be having a debate about night schools. Bring back night schools! Instead, we see cuts in funding for young people and no mention of the importance of adult education in an economy that will be more reliant on talent on its own shores in the coming years.
Helen Whately
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that vocational education is incredibly important for young people and the economy, but will he bring a little more balance into his argument and recognise that since 2010-11 vocational education has improved? The UK has made progress in international rankings such as PwC’s recently published young workers index and in 2020 we will spend double what was spent on apprenticeships in 2010.
Mr Lammy
I would rather not rely on PwC reports, if the hon. Lady will forgive me. I would rather rely on what I see happening in the country. We have a lot more to do. I gently remind the hon. Lady, who is a new Member, that having been Minister for Skills in the previous Labour Government I am well aware of how Labour lifted apprenticeships from their dismantling under the Tories. We were down to 5,000 apprenticeships across this country, and completion and success rates were on the floor. It was the Labour Government who lifted up apprenticeships, put all the effort in and grew them to a figure by the time we left office. Now, unsurprisingly, this Government are about to dismantle them.
The National Audit Office found that the Department for Education must do more to ensure that all apprenticeships meet basic quality requirements and that the Department had not even set out how an increase in apprenticeship numbers will deliver improvements in productivity. There are real concerns that some employers are hiring staff as apprentices to undercut the minimum wage of £5.55 an hour for 18 to 20-year-olds and pay them the apprentice minimum wage of £3.40 an hour. One in five apprentices reported that they had not received any formal training at all and Ofsted reports found that 49% of apprenticeship programmes require improvement or are inadequate. The Government’s own “Post-16 Skills Plan”, published in July, states that
“Reforming the skills system is one of the most important challenges we face as a country. Getting it right is crucial to our future prosperity, and to the life chances of millions of people.”
Why is further education and skills training more generally always the poor relation of higher education? Why did it take a huge campaign by the sector and Labour Members even to bring this debate to the House?
Announcements on higher education are pre-briefed to the Sunday papers, together with opinion pieces from the Prime Minister and TV interviews, while apprenticeships funding cuts are snuck out of the back door on a Friday afternoon in the middle of the summer recess in the hope that no one will see them. In a written statement placed before Parliament last Thursday, the Secretary of State committed the Government to a
“fundamental mission of social reform to deliver our vision of an education system that works for everyone”
as part of delivering on
“the Government’s vision for an economy that works for all”.—[Official Report, 27 October 2016; Vol. 616, c. 16-17WS.]
I therefore ask the Minister a simple question: can he explain today how cuts in apprenticeships funding of 30%, 40% or even 50% fit into that mission to deliver an education system and an economy that works for all and not just for the privileged few?
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Colleagues, Front-Bench speeches will begin at 10.30 am, which gives us 40 minutes for the eight people who have caught my eye, so there are five minutes per speaker.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter, and also a real pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), whose first-hand experience and wealth of knowledge were apparent. He delivered his speech with passion—good luck to the shadow Minister following that. My hon. Friends and I can probably be grateful that the right hon. Gentleman is not on the Front Bench; it was an impressive performance.
For me, the importance of apprenticeships is summed up in the fact that 90% of those who complete one will go on either to work or to further training. That compares fantastically with the figures of 80%, which is the percentage of the working age population in work, and 48%, which is the percentage of people with a disability who are employed—up 4% but still considerably less than 90%. I will focus on people with learning disabilities, who in this country have a 6% chance of having a meaningful, sustainable career.
I know that the Minister is incredibly passionate about this subject. When I was the Minister for Disabled People, he was lobbying me to do something about it. My view was transformed after a tricky television interview in which I was told that Governments of all political persuasions have tried, tweaked and made changes, and made almost no difference, with the figure bobbing between 5% and 6%. I went on a visit to Foxes Hotel in Bridgwater—a working hotel, which took on young adults with learning disabilities who were taught independent living combined with practical working skills in the hotel and restaurant. That was done in conjunction with local restaurants, hotels and care homes. Of the young adults who completed the three-year course, 80% ended up with one of those employers, and half of them—about 46.6%—were paid, in contrast to that figure of 6%.
I was so impressed that I asked representatives to meet me at Westminster, and I asked them, “Why can’t we just have one of those in every town?” It would not necessarily be a hotel; the key is to identify the skills relevant to each town. In Bridgwater, tourism, care homes and restaurants are where the jobs are; in other towns it could be manufacturing or engineering. Our constituencies each have their own skills gaps. The reply I received was that the frustration lay in the work placement training. There was sufficient funding to take on almost as many students as they could fit into the hotel for the first two years, but the one year in a work placement was the bit that cost the money. I said, “But surely that is an apprenticeship?” They patiently train someone who will typically take a little longer to get the skills, but the advantage for employers is that, with that support and patience, they get someone who will probably continue in their role for the next 25 years—and will probably be the happiest person in the workforce. It is a win-win situation, but there was a problem, as I have explained.
I met the Skills Minister and we formed a taskforce chaired by the present Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). Knowing that a reshuffle was coming up and that potentially the two of us might no longer be troubling the Front Bench, we set a three-and-a-half-week time limit. I am delighted that the taskforce concluded, and we signed off to say that more would be done to make apprenticeships available for those with learning disabilities—in particular, exempting them from the grade C in GCSE maths and English requirement, which for too many of those young adults was a hurdle too great. In effect, it would give them a slightly different version of apprenticeships, but fundamentally provide the funding for which the Government will put in £2.5 billion per year by 2020, and give those young adults something real and tangible. My request of the Minister, who was so desperate for that to happen, is that he will personally champion it and push it as quickly as possible. I hope he will make sure that providers understand about the opportunity.
I have two other requests. There are still too many employers—particularly small employers—who do not know the advantages of apprenticeships. I was a small employer before I became an MP. That was in the years when there were only 5,000 apprenticeships a year. I do not recognise that because I took on apprentices. Too many small employers do not know about apprenticeships. We send out a business rate mail-out every year. Please can a leaflet be included in that, saying “This is how you recruit an apprentice and this is how you benefit”?
Finally, when the Minister meets Education Ministers, please will he lobby them about university technical colleges? It is ridiculous that we allow children to enter them only halfway through their secondary schooling, rather than at the beginning. Too many talented future engineers and mechanics who could go on later to apprenticeships stay at their existing school, because of the friends they have made. It is a silly age at which to bring them in. The Minister is passionate and focused, and I look forward to his response.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Streeter. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important debate.
I am proud to be one of the few MPs currently in the House who completed an indentured apprenticeship. I remember being offered a place as an apprentice bricklayer as a teenager and nearly dancing with joy. Back then, an apprenticeship was very much something to aspire to. It was a path that people chose because they, and especially their parents, understood the brand. In many families, young people were told, “If you get an apprenticeship, you’ll always have a trade to fall back on.” However, successive Tory Governments devalued their reputation. It was the last Labour Government who breathed new life into apprenticeships, with capital support for new buildings and substantial increases to vocational funding models. The Government claim that they want to create 3 million apprenticeships by 2020. That is a laudable aim, but in this House I have repeatedly said that rather than having arbitrary targets on numbers, we need to assure quality. I do not want the House to get me wrong; if all the projected 3 million apprenticeships are at level 3 with a decent wage rate, I am in.
Faced with increased university tuition fee debt, young people are now choosing vocational routes into the workplace instead of academia, but the Tories have overseen one of the worst skills shortages in living memory. Research from the Liverpool city region apprenticeship hub suggests that the number of apprenticeship starts in Merseyside and Halton has fallen by almost 25% over the past five years. The Minister will know that construction sector output is vital to his Government’s macroeconomic policy; but the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians has warned that urgent action is needed to tackle the growing skills shortage, and the Construction Industry Training Board has forecast that the industry requires nearly 50,000 new entrants a year up to 2020. That far exceeds of the number of construction apprentices currently undergoing training, which is roughly half the figure given.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
As a member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, I realise how important apprenticeships are. About three weeks ago in Derby we opened the National Construction Academy, which offers valuable, meaningful apprenticeships for that vital industry. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the plans to extend that around the country are a good thing, and to be commended?
Steve Rotheram
I said earlier that it is question of whether the apprenticeships are proper level 3 ones— high skill, high quality, and in high-demand areas. I would of course welcome any initiative to increase people’s opportunity to get a proper job at the end of an apprenticeship programme. However, the Minister is presiding over an exacerbation of the problem and not tackling the fundamental issue.
In the Liverpool city region, the number of national vocational qualification level 3 apprenticeship starts last year was a fraction of the total needed simply to backfill the numbers retiring or leaving the industry. That simply cannot be allowed to continue. The Tories have a track record of failing young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. They scrapped the education maintenance allowance, trebled tuition fees and took away maintenance grants for university students and replaced them with loans, saddling the poorest with ever more debt. That tells us all we need to know about Tory ideology; they want the best only for the privileged few, not for the many.
Our devolution deal, with an area-based review for our city region, at least provides us with the opportunity to shape training better, on the basis of local need—if the Government grasp the nettle. At this point I should declare an interest. Devolving the skills agenda further would allow the incoming metro mayor to implement a skills strategy that would train the next generation of tradesmen and women, equipping them for the high-skill, high-paid, high-aspiration jobs that we need to build and sustain our future economic growth. However, central Government have not devolved apprenticeship funding and delivery and they have full control over the new apprenticeship levy that employers are obliged to pay if their wage bill tops £3 million a year. Will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss how the metro mayor of the Liverpool city region will be able, as it states on page 8 of the devolution deal, to
“collaborate to maximise the opportunities presented by the introduction of the apprenticeship reforms (including the levy) and work together on promoting the benefits of apprenticeships to employers”?
What exactly does he believe that collaboration between the Government and the metro mayor will entail? How does he envisage us maximising those opportunities? Does he agree that it is imperative that, following the upcoming spending and apprenticeship reforms, metro mayors have local control over and are directly responsible for apprenticeship funding and influence over the employer levy? If not, will he explain how he believes it is possible for a metro mayor to achieve improvements and address skills shortages locally without those powers? Apprenticeships must be at the heart of that strategy.
If we are to do that, we must also provide our young people with the proper advice and guidance to make informed decisions. It was an act of civic vandalism by the Government to dismantle the Connexions service when they came to power, which has left us with a system in which vested interests give partial advice to young people about their career options. If elected as the metro mayor for the Liverpool city region in May 2017, I intend to develop an independent careers and advice service that serves the best interests of all of the young people in our area.
Devolution provides us with the opportunity to make funding allocations based on the knowledge of local leaders across the city region, which is better than guesstimates from Whitehall mandarins. Will the Minister specifically address the points I have raised, unlike his colleague, the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), who shimmied and sidestepped last week like Philippe Coutinho?
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
The hon. Gentleman quite correctly anticipated that we are one speaker down, so each Member now has six minutes to speak, not five. Well done to him.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important debate.
Apprenticeships provide a fantastic opportunity for young people to get on in life, while at the same time raising the productivity of the businesses that they join. On visits to schools around Bolton West, I hear concerns raised about getting that first job and having the required experience. That is obviously a great concern upon leaving school or university, but it is less so if someone chooses an apprenticeship because practical experience is built into the course. Businesses often raise the same concerns about people’s preparation for the world of work. Apprenticeships are key to solving that problem, because the potential employee not only will have the practical skills but will have been trained with a specific job role in mind, and will therefore be job or industry-ready.
It is really important that apprentices go into an improving and increasingly successful economy. The continuing economic recovery in Britain over the past six years is a fantastic achievement by the coalition Government and the present Government, and means that anyone doing an apprenticeship or any other course will have a job to go into afterwards.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
Is it not also true that there is a significant return for the taxpayer—especially when compared with universities, where the return is much less—of £26 to £28 for every £1 that the Government put into apprenticeships? Promoting apprenticeships is a good thing for the taxpayer.
Chris Green
I agree entirely. Apprenticeships are a fantastic investment in the economy but also a great investment in the individual.
There is still a problem with the perception of apprenticeships; I sympathise with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) in that regard. We need quality apprenticeships. It seems that companies often find resistance within the school system when trying to recruit people for apprenticeships. That could be to some extent due to the recognition of apprenticeships—their reputation has become tarnished over a period of time—or to the fact that schools need to achieve academic targets to be recognised as successful, rather than targets on the number of people going into an apprenticeship.
Training providers and employers in my constituency, such as Alliance Learning in in Horwich and MBDA in Lostock, are working to change those negative perceptions with the delivery of superb apprenticeship programmes. MBDA delivers fantastic apprenticeships, but people are often unaware of the level to which they can be taken. For example, someone can be paid to study and gain a full bachelor’s or master’s degree in subjects such as advanced systems engineering.
I am delighted that the Government are continuing to support young people in moving into work by allocating £1 billion to the youth contract and ensuring that apprenticeships for under-25s incur no national insurance costs for employers.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman has said. Does he agree with my suggestion in the Public Accounts Committee that a UCAS-style system for young people would help them to navigate their way through the system? It could also help employers to receive young people, rather than young people having to send hundreds of applications themselves.
Chris Green
I am sympathetic to that idea. If someone goes down the academic route, they have the path laid out and guidance. Apprenticeships do not have that, and perhaps it would help if we had that system in place, but there is a huge range of different kinds of companies and organisations providing apprenticeships, so I can see there being significant problems with that that are perhaps not there with the more academic route.
Since 2010, my constituency of Bolton West has seen an increase of more than 4,000 apprenticeships. Hon. Members will be pleased to know that I have an apprentice in my office in Westhoughton. However, employers have raised concerns with me about the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in 2017. The additional tax is being levied for the best of reasons, but it may disrupt existing training programmes as employers that currently provide excellent training will have to reconfigure what they do in order to recoup some or all of the levy.
We must also be cautious not to force companies to rebadge existing training programmes to hit the Government’s target of 3 million apprenticeships in this Parliament. What assurances will the Minister give to companies with existing training programmes that are anxious about the introduction of the levy, and that feel as though they have to contrive their courses in such a way as to recoup some of the money they will be losing?
I want apprenticeships to become an increasingly normal route for ambitious young people, as well as for employers that are dedicated to growing their own talent and increasing the skills base of the nation.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important debate.
Apprenticeships are an important part of the labour market and should always be about employment and employability. Many young people are offered a precious route into the workplace that would be barred without the support offered by employers and the Skills Funding Agency in England and Skills Development Scotland. However, that route into employment must take into consideration the life experiences of the young person entering the workplace. Many of the young people are coming from supportive backgrounds, with parents who can help them into employment by doing simple tasks; any parent of a teenager will know that the toughest task in the day is getting them out of bed. If there is not a supportive parent there to do that, or to wash their clothes or make sure that there is food in the fridge, those barriers become much greater.
Years ago, I taught a young boy called Sean. His mother was not on the scene and his father had addiction issues, so Sean, as well as getting himself to school in the morning, took his five-year-old sister to school, and as a result was often late. Sean needed an understanding employer to enable him to move successfully into the world of work. For the first couple of years, he was much more time-intensive than other new starts, but through the perseverance and tenacity of that employer he is now one of their most valued and loyal members of staff.
It is well understood that employers would be unable to invest so heavily in intensive training without Government support, particularly for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Would the employer have taken on the extra risks associated with young Sean if that support were cut?
I also have particular concerns that there is not a strategic view of the skills being developed through the apprenticeship programme. According to a recent National Audit Office report, the Department for Education has not set out how it will use the increase in apprenticeship numbers to deliver improvements in productivity, or how employers will be supported to deliver the apprenticeships that offer the most value to the economy. We have a situation where an unscrupulous employer can take on an apprentice in an already saturated area of the labour market, so that when the young person moves on, there is no real prospect of employment. Meanwhile, areas such as science, technology, engineering, maths and digital continue to struggle with shortages. This levy does not seem to be taking that into account or delivering on it.
BAE Systems is a large employer in my constituency and it is committed to its apprenticeship programme. At the moment, it has 2,036 apprentices in full-time training, and 67 started in September this year. BAE is also using over-training as part of its strategic plan, so if it perceives it will need to fill 30 positions, it trains up 40 young people to ensure that the skills shortage in supply lines can be met. It is disappointing that the UK Government have been unable to have the same strategic foresight as many responsible employers.
The concerns raised by many Scottish employers are different from those discussed this morning. Although apprenticeship policy is devolved, the levy is UK-wide. Many employers in Scotland will be paying into the levy pot, but it is not yet clear whether all the revenue generated will find its way back to Scotland. Essentially, this employment tax has been introduced across the UK to deliver on the UK Government’s ambitions in England. The levy undermines the Scottish approach to modern apprenticeships, which, unlike what we are hearing about this morning, is not just about vocational jobs or vocational training; it is also about degree-level apprenticeships. Employers throughout the UK need Government support to train apprentices, but employers in Scotland need assurances that the levy paid in Scotland will come back to Scotland, to support our apprentices.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
I thank the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for securing this debate. When we consider the skills gap in pretty much every vocation going, a debate on apprenticeships and on ensuring people have the skills they need is timely indeed.
With your permission, Mr Streeter, I would like to briefly talk about my own experience. I left school at 15 and served a traditional apprenticeship as a Cornish mason in the construction industry under a Conservative Government. That skill has enabled me to feed my family and build my home, and it has supported me during a very long journey to become an MP. The apprenticeship also enabled me to stay in west Cornwall, where I grew up. That can be a significant advantage of serving an apprenticeship.
During the previous Parliament, I had a small construction business and took on an apprentice site carpenter. While I enabled him to get a trade, I also saw how the modern apprenticeship programme works in practice. More recently, I have taken on an apprentice in my constituency office and, even in those few years, I have noticed an improvement in the advice and support available to employers.
As Members can tell, I am a big fan of the apprenticeship programme. It is an important part of our young people’s journey to skilled employment. In spring this year, I hosted an event with the Cornwall Apprenticeship Agency. Local employers could come along to my constituency office and quiz a representative of the agency to find out about the pros and cons of offering that form of on-the-job training. I was very pleased to hear the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson). During his time as Minister for Disabled People, he encouraged me a great deal to look at how we can support people with learning disabilities, and I ran one of his reverse job fairs just two weeks ago, so I thank him for that.
In a rural part of the country such as west Cornwall, a modern apprenticeship really is an important part of a local young person’s career path. For so long, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly have suffered because our young people have found they must leave the county to find the skills and jobs they need. That has left us in a situation where we have a chronic shortage in many sectors, especially construction, farming and engineering. Quite often, these potentially well-paid jobs have disappeared because we have not had the people to fill the vacancies.
Rebecca Pow
My hon. Friend is making a passionate case. I come from Somerset, which is not unlike Cornwall in terms of its skills shortages and gaps. We are below national productivity levels. It is important that businesses design these apprenticeships, and that is what the Government’s new scheme is all about. We do not want bland apprenticeships in any skill; we want them tailored to business, which is what my local businesses are all coming to me and saying. I, too, am going to run a course, because people want the knowledge to go forward.
Derek Thomas
That is a fantastic point. When I stood in the election and finally won, I met and worked with local businesses, and they kept telling me that they need courses provided by the college to provide the workers they need and the training their young people need. It is important that businesses lead the way in ensuring that they have the skills they need to move forward.
We have massive vacancies in Cornwall, and clearly we cannot continue like this. The modern apprenticeship programme, if communicated properly and successfully delivered, gives young people the opportunity to train locally, work locally, live locally, shop locally—in my part of the world, it is important that we look after our local retailers—and go on to raise a family locally. Rather than just welcome the Government’s ambitious target regarding the number of apprenticeships, it is essential that we meet it, simply because we do not have the people to do the jobs whom we need at the moment.
I heard the points that the right hon. Member for Tottenham made about funding. However, the great challenge we face is to engage more small businesses to take on apprentices. It makes sense that the Government are focusing on and prioritising funding, meaning that 90% of all funding for small businesses will be met by the Government. It makes sense that small businesses do not pay anything towards training people under 18 years of age. The real challenge is not so much the amount of money but how it is spent, as well as improving links between our schools and employers, so that young people and their families are aware of the opportunities available to them in the areas where they live. That would have a significant impact on the skills gap in west Cornwall and across the country. I welcome this debate, but I argue that we should concentrate on how we equip and enable young people to do apprenticeships, rather than fall out about the money available.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mr Streeter. May I first thank the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for presenting an excellent case? We are all here because we feel passionately about this issue. I have spoken about apprenticeships many times in this House—unsurprisingly, Mr Streeter—and when I was a Member of the Legislative Assembly in a previous life. There is a reason for that: apprenticeships are a vital part of our country’s future. It is essential that we do not leave ourselves with skills gaps and that we have knowledge, ability and opportunities at every age group and level.
I want to give a Northern Ireland perspective to the apprenticeships scheme and speak about something that is close to my heart—the Prince’s Trust. I often have pointed to the great apprenticeship schemes at Bombardier and other major employers throughout Northern Ireland. I welcome the fact that the importance of this training has been recognised in Northern Ireland. In my constituency, there is an opportunity for everyone in pharmaceuticals, food processing, light engineering and agri-food, which is a growth industry.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this debate. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need an investment of time and effort by Government and those in the hospitality industry to bring forward apprenticeships in catering to underpin that industry?
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for that important comment. The tourism sector can, should and must grow. One way of doing that is through the apprenticeship scheme; she is absolutely right. I fully support that, as I am sure all of us here would.
Businesses and companies must step up to the bar and be prepared to take people on. That is why when the scheme was announced I openly welcomed the initiative to create provision for 3 million places—how tremendous to have help in ensuring that work schemes are available to young men and women alike. However, I was not so excited when I realised what exactly was happening with the scheme. That is why I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham on bringing this issue to the Chamber for consideration. What seemed to promise more help in fact seems to have the opposite effect, with the number of apprenticeships for perhaps the most vulnerable group—16 to 18-year-olds—being cut. I know that the changes impact all ages of apprentices, but time demands that I focus on only one strand, and that is young people.
I will never forget reading the dire statistics from research by the Prince’s Trust two years ago, which laid bare a direct link between joblessness and suicidal thoughts, as well as self-harming, alcohol and drug abuse. The figures do not make good reading but they are the reality for many people.
About one in three—35%—of youngsters in Northern Ireland experienced mental health issues, compared with the UK national average of 19%, which is almost one in five. The research also revealed that long-term unemployed 16 to 25-year-olds are twice as likely as their peers to have been prescribed anti-depressants and to believe they have nothing to live for. Over one in three—34%—young people said that they always, or often feel down or depressed, compared with a national average of 32%, with the long-term unemployed significantly more likely to feel that way. Over one in four—29%—said that they feel like an outcast, compared with 24% nationally, with the report finding that the long-term unemployed are significantly more likely to feel that way. Over one in five—21%—admitted that they feel like a waste of space, against the national average of 17%, with the long-term unemployed more than twice as likely to feel that way.
Those stats tell the story of young people and how they feel about their lives in Northern Ireland. They show why Northern Ireland Members are here today and why we are pleased to be able take part in the debate.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
A point was made earlier about some schools perhaps looking at the content of skills and at keeping the level up, but surely careers officers in schools play a pivotal role in helping to advise young people to go down the vocational route.
Jim Shannon
My hon. Friend always brings a wealth of knowledge to these debates and I thank him for his intervention. Careers officers and school staff have an important role to play.
The correlation with the figures is clear, which is why, with others, I have fought and pressed for more apprenticeship schemes and why, with great respect to the Minister, I was so disheartened to see the details of the new scheme. I was pleased to hear of the so-called U-turn, but the Government must rectify the shortfall and do what they said they would do: create more apprenticeships and more training opportunities.
We will all have read the figures provided by Government and the figures, which are disputed in articles such as those by FE Week, that indicate that the introduction of two measures to arrest the decline—paying an extra 20% on the funding band limit for 16 to 18-year-olds, and promising £60 million of
“additional support in areas of disadvantage”—
has not and will not stop or address the shortfall. Indeed it is alleged that most frameworks will still feel cuts of 20% or more.
My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), who has just left the Chamber, has done exceptionally good work in his constituency for the apprenticeship schemes in Bombardier. I am conscious of the time, Mr Streeter, so I will hurry along. It was announced that the cuts to construction skills at level 2 would range between 27% and 50%. Later, it was announced that they would range between 14% and 37%, which could still devastate the sector. In sectors such as hairdressing—I do not have worry about that—and engineering, FE Week analysis revealed that at levels 2 and 3 there could still be maximum cuts of some 50%.
I stand firmly with the right hon. Member for Tottenham and thank the Government for the changes, but they are not enough. We already have a society in which too many young people feel worthless and they need the help and attention that these schemes provide. Let us do what we can for young people. They are crying out for help, support and particularly hope. Let us give them that hope today in this debate and from the Minister.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who always manages to make a meaningful contribution to such debates. I am particularly pleased to have caught your eye, Mr Streeter, and to follow so many excellent speakers. I want to pick up one or two points made by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), whom I congratulate on securing this important debate.
I take a slightly different tack because I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to apprenticeships. Like the Minister and my hon. Friends, I, too, had an apprentice in my office shortly after the election in May 2015.
I am the chairman of the all-party group for youth employment. Every month, we look at the youth unemployment statistics. The former chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), sensibly changed the name of the group from youth unemployment to youth employment, which is a much more positive outlook. I fully applaud her decision and have continued with that tradition.
We looked at the unemployment statistics every month. We had the benefit during the last session of looking at the evidence in Impetus Private Equity Foundation’s youth jobs index and report. We looked in detail at the unemployment statistics and they are still too high; the right hon. Member for Tottenham is absolutely right. They are nearly three times overall unemployments, but in the last quarter the unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds was 13.7%, which is lower than a year earlier, at 14.7%. That is still too high and it is higher than its lowest level: 11.6%. However, its highest ever rate was 22.5%.
Next year, the all-party group will look at the pathways from education to employment, and apprenticeships will feature highly on the agenda. The Minister has been invited, or will be invited, to meet the group—he may not know it yet. We warmly look forward to him coming to the group, because I know his commitment in this area.
One point has not been made in the debate, or at least if it has, I have missed it. The apprenticeship levy has been much discussed, but funding must be sustainable. However, I know that smaller businesses will welcome the Government’s model because 98% of businesses will not have to pay the levy. They will pay 10% of the training costs and the Government will pay the balance—90%—so the majority of businesses in my constituency will welcome the funding arrangement and the fact that they have to contribute only a relatively small amount.
Time may not permit, but I am going to attempt to mention two businesses in my constituency and give examples of where they are going in relation to apprenticeships. First, PME Group is a marine engineering group. You will be interested, Mr Streeter, to know that it recently won the 2016 south-west national apprenticeships award in the small employer of the year category. I invite him the Minister to consider the model because almost 50% of its staff have completed or are in the process of completing an apprenticeship. Other businesses may also care to look at that model.
Secondly, TestLink, which is based in Upton in my constituency, repairs and services ATMs—the cashpoints we all rely on when we run out of money. It was recently named one of the 20 mid-market companies of tomorrow. A large number of its staff are on apprenticeships. Not all of them are young or would be in the age group covered by my all-party group for youth employment, but they are benefiting from an apprenticeship and the skills and qualifications that come from it.
Time also permits me to mention the Dorset young chamber programme, which was launched last month. I am part of the steering group that, I hope, will set it on the right course. It provides a link between schools and businesses in the area. So far, three schools have been linked up with local businesses. It is a great initiative under the chief executive, Ian Girling, and I am delighted to be part of it.
I want to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) in relation to the quality of apprenticeships. Both Members are right, but I strike a note of caution: quality does not necessarily mean a higher level. I believe we can have a quality apprenticeship even at level 2 and that those apprenticeships are perfectly valid and necessary, and that there is still a market for them. I agree that all apprenticeships must be of a high quality, but that does not necessarily mean of a high level.
Rebecca Pow
Does the hon. Lady agree that under the Labour party under Tony Blair, every child was encouraged to go to university? What is her view on whether that put a different focus on apprenticeships? I wonder whether that had an influence on the change of thinking within our schools.
Marion Fellows
I cannot entirely agree with the hon. Lady, but over the years there has been a focus on degrees. For example, nursing was not an apprenticeship but training. Everyone agrees now that that is not the best route for the entire school population and that we should look at improving our skills base. We are one of the best economically developed countries in the world but our skills base is falling behind that of other developed countries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) spoke of the need for Government support. She also spoke about the National Audit Office report that pointed out that the Department for Education has not set out how it will increase apprenticeship numbers to deliver improvements in productivity, or how employers will be supported to deliver the apprenticeships that offer the most value for the economy, including in construction, digital and all the skills gaps.
The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) mentioned his experience of apprenticeships, both as an apprentice and as an employer. Modern apprenticeships are definitely the way forward and the message has to be got out that apprenticeships now are the not the same as the apprenticeships of 20 or 30 years ago. The one and only hon. Member for Strangford—to coin your phrase, Mr Streeter—gave a comprehensive view of Northern Ireland, focusing on the mental health issues faced by young people there. That is reflected in the mainland countries as well. We need to look after our young people and provide what is best for their futures.
The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), a member of the all-party parliamentary group on youth employment, said that the unemployment statistics are coming down. That may be the case, but we very much need to focus on what we offer young people. He also said that small businesses will welcome that initiative because they will not have pay the apprenticeship levy but will get 98% of their training costs back. He recommended that we look at the quality of apprenticeships and how they are managed. That subject is close to my heart. We should not just give out apprenticeships. I remember the youth training scheme. I taught YTS trainees, so how old am I? It was a way of getting people off the unemployment books, but it did not lead to long-term stable employment for many. The apprenticeship programme must not hark back to those days. I do not believe that it is trying to do so, but this is a warning that it must not.
Essentially, the employment tax is being introduced across the UK to deliver on the UK Government’s apprenticeship ambitions in England. The collection of the levy is a reserved matter, and Scottish Ministers are working to ensure that Scotland gets its fair share. Will the Minister tell us what progress is being made in that regard? The levy undermines the Scottish approach to modern apprentices and was introduced without any consultation with the Scottish Government, despite apprenticeships policy being devolved to the Scottish Parliament. That is not me raising a grievance. Those issues must be addressed. There is already a well-run, well-managed modern apprenticeship programme in Scotland, run by Skills Development Scotland in conjunction with employers. We want to ensure that things in Scotland improve what we have already started.
It is very important that Scotland’s share of the funding is used to support the delivery of the 30,000 modern apprenticeships by 2020 that the Scottish Government have mentioned. We have been working hard with employers and have had consultations. We have introduced new types of apprenticeships—a foundation apprenticeship and graduate apprenticeships—because apprenticeships should not be one size fits all. Yes, they should be for school leavers, and yes they should be for older people, but they should also be for graduates and young people still at school. That ties into the idea of careers, and of helping young people into careers in which they will be able to find work for many years to come, which would benefit the economy.
There is a strong focus in Scotland on doing more to tackle under-representation in modern apprenticeship programmes. A modern apprenticeship equalities plan published on 2 December last year includes specific employment and improvement targets for modern apprentices in relation to black and minority ethnic backgrounds, care leavers, disabled people and a gender balance. We need to get more young women into apprenticeships. That happens with science, technology, engineering and maths, but we need to look across the board at a gender balance in all industries, because that will prove to be best for all our young people. The Scottish Government with Skills Development Scotland are working with partners to develop foundation apprenticeships from schools, so that young people who are still in school can get work experience and then, possibly, leave school and move straight in to a proper, more advanced modern apprenticeship.
My final remarks, Mr Streeter, will be on another thing that is interesting in Scotland and does not seem to happen here. On the worth of qualifications, which has been touched on in the debate, it is important that apprenticeships are of quality and allied to a quality framework. Some doubt is being cast on some apprenticeships. Ofsted has already looked at Jaguar Land Rover and is cutting its marks—it is no longer good, in that sense, and will have to improve what it does. In Scotland, the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework is a unified framework that covers both vocational and academic skills. The Minister should look at having something similar in England to make absolutely sure that our young people get the best-quality apprenticeships possible, at whatever level they undertake them.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on an absolutely splendid speech and on the inspirational lead he has given in challenging the Government on these issues, with 55 Members across the House helping to secure this debate.
We have had an excellent, positive debate across the Chamber today, with individuals offering their experiences, the range of which I have been particularly impressed by. I warmly thank my hon. Friends from Birmingham—my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey)—and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) for their interventions, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who had very important things to say about how we should take forward apprenticeship budgets in future.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham really hit the nail on the head when he talked about the glacial pace of the Government’s response. We know this matter was left in the Minister’s in-tray to deal with when he took office, but, as my right hon. Friend said, the elephant in the room remains adult skills and night schools. The Minister will have to confront those issues, as well as clearing up the mess he was left to deal with in the first place.
I wrote to the Minister at the beginning of August when the original proposals were made, underlining then what the problems would be. I said that
“these changes have the potential to cause catastrophic consequences for young people in the most deprived areas,”
and that they
“offer a damaging lack of support for young apprentices and further weaken…attempts to widen participation and increase social mobility”.
I also said that, as a Blackpool MP as well as shadow Skills Minister, I was really concerned about getting small employers on board.
With apprenticeships—my goodness me! If wishes and exhortations and five-year plans from this Government could move mountains, we would have not 3 million apprentices by 2020, but 6 million. However, as we know, the devil is in the detail, and the Government’s attempts to use a one-size-fits-all approach have not worked.
The Minister was present at the FE Week campaign event that I hosted on 14 September. I have seldom heard in a packed Committee Room in this House as uniform a chorus of concern across the piece. Concerns are shared not only by me and my right hon. Friend but by leading figures across the sector, including the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. Those expressions of concern and the investigative work done by FE Week in putting this process together have driven the partial U-turn.
I congratulate the Minister and give him full credit for having shaken up his officials—and perhaps even shaken a few extra coppers out of the Treasury’s pockets—and for listening to the concerns. It was said of Julius Caesar that he came, saw and conquered; the Minister has come and seen but he has not yet conquered, because the devil is in the detail, as my right hon. Friend said. Plenty of questions about the proposals remain unanswered.
Let me give an example from the analysis done by FE Week since the U-turn on Monday. Before the U-turn, cuts of 27% and 50% to construction skills at level 2 were calculated; after it, the cuts still ranged from 14% to 37%, so there is little to be complacent about. Those cuts could still devastate the sector, as we have heard. In other areas, such as hairdressing and engineering, it is not necessarily good news either. The Government are struggling post-Brexit to orchestrate an industrial strategy. FE Week analysis has revealed that at levels 2 and 3, there could still be a maximum drop of 49% to 51% respectively. There is huge potential and a pressing need for high-quality apprenticeships in the service sectors, social care, leisure and visitor services, yet we know from the analytics that children’s care, learning and development—an absolutely crucial social care issue—could be cut by 42%, and hospitality and catering by up to 45%. No one has told me where the tablets from Sinai are saying how the funding will be delivered beyond year one. There are big questions about that, so will the Minister tell me what conversations he has had with the Treasury in advance of the autumn statement?
I am sure the figure of £3 billion—or £2.5 billion for England—that will eventually be raised by the apprenticeship levy will continue to be bandied around, but as we know, only £1 billion of that is new funding; £1.5 billion is going to the Treasury. I ask the Minister, when he is looking at the money we will need beyond year one, what is he already doing to knock on the Treasury’s door?
The cuts are going to hit a wide range of employers and providers, including in the third sector. I remind the Minister of a letter that he had from YMCA Training, which said that despite the disadvantage uplift, there is the loss of youth contract funding, which will not help support for the most hard-to-reach young people. Mark Dawe, the chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, also remains to be convinced, even about the details of the current proposals. He recently commented online:
“I hope…we review the deprivation payments, as…committed”
but
“Personally I can’t see how a system allocating £600, £300 and £200 just on frameworks can equate to a system that was paying up to 32% on”
the
“funding cap…ie over £8.5k in this scenario for one learner compared to £600.”
The Minister has to address those really important issues.
We all want to know what the situation will be at the end of the year. Will we revert to the situation as it was last Monday? Will the Minister pass on to his right hon. and hon. Friends the message that it is not too early to be thinking about what they do when they have spent the £60 million? A 20% uplift for 16 to 18-year-olds is a necessary step to replace valuable funding that would have been lost under the previous proposal, but will the Minister tell us how that compares with previous measures?
As someone who, like so many in this House, has always been keen on supporting people with disabilities to progress in the world of work, I welcome the learning disabilities taskforce that was led by my parliamentary neighbour, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), but it is important to stress that these issues have to be taken forward to completion, because we know that on completion disabled people will do a lot better.
The Government’s equality assessment included the aim to achieve gender parity in the working population by 2030, but I see little detail on how that is likely to be done in terms of what the Government are doing on apprenticeships funding. The Minister may want to comment on that.
For the last few months, we have, with a wide range of stakeholders, been pressing the Government for more detail on the levy. Despite last week’s revised paper, there are still issues, particularly about the digital apprenticeship delivery, that I remain to be convinced on. The Confederation of British Industry certainly is not. It said that
“six months out… major questions remain about its readiness.”
The EEF said that the
“Government must carefully prepare a final implementation plan…mindful that employers as well as Government need time to prepare for the sea change”.
How is the Minister going to reassure businesses and providers on that detail?
What is the Government’s capacity to deliver all this? As Paul Warner, the policy director of the AELP said, the Department faces “capacity challenges”. The head of the Skills Funding Agency’s technical and professional education admitted to a workshop last week that she was unsure of capacity and resources. The Government have scrapped the UK Commission for Employment and Skills; staffing levels at the SFA are down 50% from 2011; and now the Government, with their hastily thrown together Technical and Further Education Bill, are saying that the Institute for Apprenticeships will have responsibility for all technical education. That makes considerable sense, but where will the money and other resources come from?
Just last week, the Minister was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) what budget would supply funding for the costs of the Institute for Apprenticeships. He was told:
“It is expected that part of its budget will be provided by funding freed up from savings across the Department.”
Well, that is a vague response. It does not show us the money or give us the confidence to believe that the Minister will be able to take these things forward in the way we need.
Just six months out from the implementation of the levy, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education still has a shadow chief executive working two days a week. We know that there are worries about rebadging and the unintended consequences of forcing employers to reduce investment in other areas; and there are still substantial worries about small and medium-sized enterprises. The Minister still has to address those big concerns. We need to look into how large employers can help to retrain, reskill and supply a lot of those surplus apprenticeships.
In conclusion, the Government need to look at other issues, as well as this short-term stopgap. They need to look into the performance of careers and enterprise, as a lot is needed on that. They also need to look into devo-max, giving some power back to the people and areas of the country to produce the apprenticeships that our people deserve.
The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important debate and on the work he has done, but I was disappointed that he did not feel that it was right to mention the £13.4 million spent by the Government in his constituency on the new digital college, which I was proud to open with him only a couple of weeks ago; the 920 apprentice starts in his constituency over the past year; the Government’s doubling of apprenticeship spending to £2.5 billion by 2020; the 619,000 apprentice starts that we have had since May 2015; or even—dare I say it?—the record on people not in education, employment or training. The previous Government left us with 1 million unemployed young people. Between 2014 and 2015, the proportion of 16 to 18-year-olds in education or work-based learning increased to 90%, which is the highest figure on record, and the proportion of 16 to 18-year-old NEETs fell to 6.5%, which is the lowest rate since records began. I was also disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman did not mention the 500% increase in higher apprenticeships since 2010, the £7 billion to be spent on further education and training, and the extra incentives given to the frameworks. His speech was partial and disappointing given his record in standing up for apprenticeships and skills.
I congratulate my many hon. Friends, and hon. Gentlemen and Ladies of all parties, on their thoughtful speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) was a brilliant Disabilities Minister. We are very supportive of the work done by him and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) to encourage more disabled people into apprenticeships. We fully accept their recommendations and we are implementing them.
On the levy, we are increasing the incentives to employers and providers by £1,000 each for those on a healthcare plan or those from care homes; specific disabilities providers will get an extra £150 a month, and up to £19,000 will be provided for adaptation. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon will know about the £2 million that we put by for support for mental health apprenticeships; that money supports roughly 2,000 participants. It is worth mentioning traineeships, on which something like 19.7% of those with learning disabilities are represented. That has not been mentioned in this debate.
I am very happy to meet with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), and I am meeting him on Thursday about another issue. There are no existing plans to devolve the levy funds to specific areas. We are creating a system that simplifies funding across England, making it easier for employers to navigate. We will be reviewing how the disadvantage funding works over the next 12 months.
There were some thoughtful speeches, including from the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). I say to her and to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) that the devolved Administrations will get a fair share, and we hope to make the announcement shortly. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West made important points about apprentices getting real jobs. It is good that 90% of apprentices stay in work. Surveys show that the satisfaction of those apprentices is incredibly high.
I could talk about many of the issues raised today, but in the time available I want to go through those raised by the right hon. Member for Tottenham and Labour’s Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden). Hon. Members have to see what the Government are doing in the overall context of the £2.5 billion increase by 2020. A huge amount is going towards increasing funding rates for STEM frameworks—that too was not mentioned by Opposition Members. Just under half of 16 to 18-year-olds will attract more funding thanks to the uplift in STEM frameworks. Huge amounts of money are going into support for disadvantaged apprentices, as was acknowledged by the right hon. Gentleman and others today. A significant amount is going towards helping small employers, as those with below 50 employees will pay no training costs at all. There are all kinds of other incentives. Some 25% of frameworks will be replaced by the new apprenticeship standards by the end of the year.
Robert Halfon
I am sorry, but I cannot give way because very little time remains.
More money will be spent on standards. A huge amount of money is going into the system to ensure that 16 to 18-year-olds and those who are socially disadvantaged are properly represented. Many of the frameworks that apply to adults are the same as those applied to 16-year-olds, yet the ones for 16 to 18-year-olds can cost double the amount. The surveys and the evidence show that they do not need to cost as much, and that, often, only a few hundred pounds would make a difference.
We are moving into a new world. The apprenticeship levy is changing employer behaviour. Businesses will choose different kinds of apprenticeships because of the move to standards, and would-be apprentices will choose different kinds of apprenticeships. The way the discussion has gone among some Opposition Members, it is as if we were comparing apples with apples. However, the world is changing and we are now comparing apples with pears.
Robert Halfon
I will not, because I only have a few minutes left to speak, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman had a fair crack of the whip.
We are putting a huge amount of money into FE funding, guaranteeing that £7 billion will be spent on FE funding and training. We have put money into a transition year and traineeships. Of those who do traineeships, 60% are aged 16 to 18 and 50% go on to get work, apprenticeships or education. Some £50 million has been spent on traineeships thus far—again, that was not mentioned in the debate.
Of course, we are doing a lot of work on welfare reform to help with jobcentres and so on. An enormous amount of money is going towards helping 16 to 18-year-olds and people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. To use some frameworks as a way of saying that the Government are not helping the poorest is entirely wrong. I have five priorities for apprenticeships.
Mr Lammy
On a point of order, Mr Streeter. The Minister is reliant on the new standards, which only just over 3,000 apprentices have taken up. More than 99% are on the current frameworks, which is the subject of the debate, and the Minister has not addressed that at all. He is trying to hoodwink the House.
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
That is not a point of order. The Minister may continue.
Robert Halfon
The right hon. Gentleman should check his statistics. There have been more than 4,000 starts on standards, and 400 standards are in development. Many frameworks are going up, and we are putting a huge amount of money into uplifting the STEM frameworks. That is what employers want, and we are designing an employer-led system.
We are raising the prestige of apprenticeships, helping the socially disadvantaged, and introducing the levy to change behaviours and so that the cost is borne evenly throughout society. We will reach the target of 3 million; as I said, we have had 619,000 since May last year. We are raising the quality of apprenticeships through the Institute for Apprenticeships and through degree and higher apprenticeships, which many thousands of people have taken up.
The Government are transforming the country into an apprenticeship nation. I am proud of the work that has been done, and of the officials who have worked hard to ensure that we listen to employers, as we said we would when we first announced the levy.
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. We must move on from this excellent debate to a debate on another interesting subject.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Martin Luther King’s 1967 Visit to Newcastle
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Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered commemoration of Martin Luther King’s 1967 visit to Newcastle.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I thank everyone who has come to this important debate.
Like most, if not all, MPs, I make no secret of my pride in representing my constituency, the area in which I was born and grew up, and this debate is about a day in Newcastle’s history that is a particular source of pride to me. On 13 November 1967, Newcastle University awarded Dr Martin Luther King an honorary degree. It was no accident that Newcastle was the only university outside the United States to honour King in his lifetime. From the trade union movement to the co-operative and fair trade movements, we have a long and active history in the struggle for social justice.
The university’s historic decision was made all the more remarkable by Dr King taking the time to come to Newcastle to accept the award. He was accompanied by his secretary, Andrew Young, who went on to be a Congressman, a mayor and an ambassador for the US. Rev. Gerald Durley, who was an aide to Martin Luther King at the time, told me that Dr King was absolutely exhausted. He had been imprisoned just two weeks earlier for five days, and he was suffering from a serious cold. He was in the UK for a mere 24 hours, a short break from his busy schedule that included, among other things, campaigning for Carl Stokes in his successful bid to become the first black mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. Dr King was assassinated five months later in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was speaking in support of striking refuse workers. His decision to come to Newcastle must be seen in that context.
In accepting his award Dr King broke with Newcastle University tradition by giving an acceptance speech, which was to be his final public speech outside the United States. Dr King’s “I have a dream” speech is rightly famous across the world, but few people are aware of the powerful speech he gave that day in Newcastle. He held the audience spellbound as he spoke of his struggle for racial justice and against the
“three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today. That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war.”
I will be quoting from Martin Luther King a number of times today and, of course, I cannot aspire to his eloquence, but I hope that by recording some of his words the House will gain an impression of how powerfully he spoke and of his impact that day. Dr King was right that our world
“will never rise to its full moral, political or even social maturity”
until racism, poverty and war are eradicated. The struggle for humanity is a continual, day-by-day battle to defend and enlarge the territory of social justice. We must passionately, unrelentingly work in that struggle, whether in the UK, the USA or anywhere else in the world.
King’s work had huge impacts, and not just upon the legal and political rights of black people. His life is an inspiration for individuals across the world, including me. My earliest memory of him is of reading the “I have a dream” speech for the first time. I remember exactly where I was—Boots in Eldon Square, Newcastle. My eye had been caught by a poster of an African-American woman with doves flying out of her huge afro. I remember wondering whether that look would work for me. [Laughter.] Black women and hair.
After being drawn to the poster, I was caught even more powerfully by the words:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
I was about nine or 10 at the time, and I was really moved. I was struck by the power of those words, and of course I identified with Dr King’s little children. I hoped his words would come true not only for them but for me. That was at a time when the only black people on TV seemed to be singers, dancers or African despots. Only someone like Martin Luther King could help inspire me to dream that I could one day be the Member of Parliament for my hometown.
When the three great problems of racism, war and poverty are still all too real for millions of people, we all have a responsibility to take forward Dr King’s legacy. To mark the upcoming 50-year anniversary of the degree ceremony, Freedom City 2017 will be celebrated across Newcastle and Gateshead. It takes its inspiration from Dr King and the themes of his speech at Newcastle University. The landmark event will launch a three-year cultural programme of international artistic and political significance. World-renowned artists and local communities will come together to produce new artworks responding to Dr King’s iconic speech and legacy.
Working with local delivery partner Northern Roots, Newcastle University and community, faith, civic, artistic, business and academic organisations from across Newcastle and Gateshead, Freedom City will have dozens of events, programmes and workshops so that everyone in the community can get involved. I cannot emphasise the scale of Freedom City enough, but I will mention a couple of events about which I am particularly excited.
A bronze sculpture of Dr King, incorporating a quotation from his acceptance speech, will be installed on the university campus in November 2017. There will also be a day of celebration and remembrance of those who risked and lost their lives in the march for freedom, called “Freedom City on the Tyne.” It will pay tribute to all those who marched with King, either physically or spiritually: from the Jarrow march to Sharpeville, Peterloo and especially the famous Selma confrontation between Dr King, his marchers and state troopers on the General Pettus bridge.
The Freedom City project will be launched on Friday of next week, ahead of the 49th anniversary of King’s degree ceremony, with community groups, schools and citizens from Newcastle reflecting on King’s legacy ahead of next year’s celebrations. The American embassy gave £30,000 to support Freedom City in its initial stages; I pay tribute to it for that. The American ambassador, Matthew Barzun, who is coming to the end of his term, has been a particular champion of this project and friend of Newcastle, and I would like to record my gratitude to him. This great festival also owes a debt of gratitude to Arts Council England, which has given us an award of £595,000 from its Ambition for Excellence fund in recognition of the festival’s ability to
“stimulate and support ambition, talent and excellence across the arts sector in England.”
Freedom City will take forward the legacy built around the creative case for diversity, changing the way artists and organisations present diverse arts in participatory, programmed and presented work. It will go further, too: it will educate and inform young people on the themes of Martin Luther King’s speech and will encourage reflection on how those themes relate today to our social history and our future.
The lives of those who fought for an end to racism still play a role in inspiring citizens today, and not just in Newcastle. Hull has chosen to honour William Wilberforce in its city of culture celebrations, which will also take place next year and will complement Freedom City. What are the Government’s plans to follow these great northern cities in taking forward King’s legacy? They have a responsibility to every child to make sure that, in King’s words,
“they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
I ask the Minister and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to visit Newcastle during the celebrations and discuss how King’s legacy can be taken forward. Will the Minister accept that invitation?
Newcastle was lucky enough to host Dr King during his lifetime, but the memory of his work should be kept alive to inspire every British citizen. Black History Month, which is a fantastic celebration of black achievement, has just ended, but there are still many stories to bring to light. Dr King’s visit in 1967 was all but forgotten—I myself growing up in Newcastle was not aware of it—until Professor Brian Ward of Northumbria University rediscovered the film of his speech. I recommend it to everyone; it is a fantastic speech and the film is available on the Freedom City 2017 website. Other materials are now coming to light, including fantastic footage of the first black newscaster in Britain, Clyde Alleyne, interviewing Dr King for Tyne Tees Television during that visit.
I hope and expect that the Government, along with the people of Newcastle, will continue to champion the men and women—women’s voices are too often overlooked—who struggle against inequality throughout the world and in this country. We must also set our own house in order. Parliament is yet to truly represent the country it seeks to speak for. Have the Government considered an annual event to mark the struggle for diversity in politics? Freedom City 2017 will be officially launched here in Parliament on Martin Luther King day next year, but we would be happy to share that important date with the Minister, the Government or official parliamentary commemorations.
The battle against injustice is by no means over. Some 50 years after Dr King came to Newcastle, it is still the wealth and status of a child’s parents that will determine his or her potential to a greater extent than almost anything else. That is why Freedom City is so important. I want every child in Newcastle and beyond to know not only that Martin Luther King came to Newcastle, but that he came for them, to speak to them. Those three themes of poverty, racism and war not only speak to them but are to be answered by them—by every child and every adult in Newcastle and throughout the country. Everyone in every generation has a role to play in addressing those great challenges. Just as Martin Luther King saw the struggles around the world as part of the struggle for civil rights in America, there should be no limitations to our horizons. We still cannot say that every child in Newcastle and the rest of the country has the opportunity to be judged by their character and not by their race or their background. I certainly believe that it is my job as an MP to work to achieve that. When we can say that that has happened, I believe Dr King’s legacy in Newcastle will truly have been fulfilled.
Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. I understand that Chi Onwurah has permitted her colleague, Dawn Butler, to make a short contribution to this debate.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) for securing this important debate here in Westminster Hall on an important and powerful subject. As she said, Black History Month has just finished, and Martin Luther King’s words are still as valid and poignant today as they were at the time. He said:
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
The letters in our mailbags and the daily emails we get resonate with that.
I support my hon. Friend’s call for an annual event in this place, and I am pursuing that idea. It is important that one of the oldest democracies in the world should talk about how far we have come with race relations but also acknowledge how far we still have to go. I cannot believe that she was lucky enough to have had Martin Luther King in her constituency; it makes me quite envious. When he received his award—I watched that speech over and over again, and it became more powerful every time—he said:
“I can assure you…that you give me renewed courage and vigour to carry on in the struggle to make peace and justice a reality for all men and women all over the world.”
When the Opposition fight for equality laws and ask the Government to re-implement the equality assessments that they have said they no longer need because they are a tick-box exercise, people in this place often wonder why we push for those things so much. Martin Luther King put it beautifully:
“It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can restrain him from lynching me”.
That is why we push so much for equality legislation: to move forward and continue to move forward until we have true equality in the world.
My hon. Friend talked about her journey here as a Member of Parliament representing Newcastle. Lots of little girls and boys and young adults who look at representation in the House and see people such as her and me will feel that they too can make it anywhere they like, as long as they have the drive, ambition and support—and the right legislation to help to make it happen.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) on securing this debate? It is important that we commemorate one of the greatest African-Americans, Martin Luther King, and his visit to Newcastle nearly 50 years ago. He came to Newcastle on 13 November 1967 to accept an honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law from the university. As we heard from the hon. Lady and her Front-Bench colleague, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), it was an extremely powerful speech that captured the mood at the time and still endures today.
Britain today can claim to be a successful multi-ethnic and multi-faith country. In recent years, members of African and Caribbean communities have achieved in many different areas, such as business, sport, the arts and government, as well as in this House. We know that we still have a very long way to go, but we believe in a United Kingdom by every definition, which means that the Government will stand up against injustice and inequality. It is only by doing so that we can make the country work for everyone, not just a privileged few.
Last December saw the 50th anniversary of the Race Relations Act 1965, which historic legislation opened the way to all the subsequent equalities legislation. We can all be proud of the UK’s world-class equalities legislation, but we know that it is not enough on its own. We must all champion equality and recognise and challenge discrimination.
We have in place a strong legal framework that protects all individuals against racial and religious discrimination, and against racially and religiously aggravated hate crime. Following the spike in hate crime and racist incidents taking place in communities after the vote to leave the EU, the Government stepped up efforts to tackle the scourge of hate crime. We have published a new hate crime action plan, which focuses on reducing hate crime, increasing reporting and improving support for victims. The scenes and behaviour we saw over the summer—including offensive graffiti and abuse hurled at people because they are members of ethnic minorities or because of their nationality—were absolutely despicable and shameful. We must all stand together against such hate crime and ensure that it is stamped out wherever it happens.
Fighting disadvantage and extending opportunity is the surest way to build strong and cohesive communities. My Department’s current integration programme is focused on bringing communities together and celebrating what unites us rather than divides us, through projects such as Near Neighbours, Holocaust Memorial Day and Mitzvah Day.
In Newcastle, over two years between 2012 and 2014, we funded Show Racism the Red Card to deliver a programme of work designed to combat the influence of the far right on young people’s attitudes and behaviours. With the Arts Council and the British Library, we funded the Enterprising Libraries project, which in Newcastle helped to create 385 new businesses and more than 660 jobs over a two-year period to 2015. Of those who have started a business using the Newcastle Business & IP Centre services, 11% described themselves as black, Asian and minority ethnic, against a national average of 6% of businesses being led by members of a minority ethnic group in 2014.
The Government are committed to creating a fair society in which all people, of whatever ethnic origin or background, are valued and able to participate fully and realise their potential. The Prime Minister could not have been clearer about her determination on this issue from the very moment she arrived in Downing Street. We are making real progress, with black and minority ethnic employment rates at their highest levels for 15 years, but there is clearly more to do.
We are certainly not complacent, which is why the Prime Minister launched a race disparity audit in August to look at the racial disparities in our public services. It will stretch right across Government and highlight the differences in outcomes for people of different backgrounds, including in health, education, childcare, welfare, employment, skills and criminal justice. Gathering and publishing such information has been shown to have an effect on improving public services and outcomes for certain racial groups.
By looking at how racial grouping affects treatment in public services, the audit will be comprehensive and, where possible, linked to geography and income. This is the first time that a Government rather than an independent body will carry out an audit of racial group disparities in public services. The audit will inform the Government’s approach to ending the injustices that many people experience. Work on the audit has already begun. We envisage that the large and ambitious programme of data collection and interrogation will take some months, but we hope to have the first tranche of data published before summer 2017.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for his kind and entirely true words about Newcastle earlier. The audit he is talking about is of great interest. Will he give a little more detail on what data will be collected on the users and/or deliverers of public services? I was pleased to hear that it might be separated by region. In addition, I hope he will not forget to respond to my invitation.
Mr Jones
The hon. Lady’s invitation did not escape my attention and I will address it in a moment.
On the audit, the Prime Minister has been clear that she does not want there to be disparities in how our public services are provided. The audit will look comprehensively across the range of public services, and we will look in depth at the challenges and barriers in the treatment of people from BME groups. As I said, it will be linked to geography and income where possible. I hope that, in the not-too-distant future, we will be able to provide further information on how the audit is progressing. It will inform the work not only of the Government but, we hope, of other Members of the House.
We are continuing to work towards the ambitious goals set in 2015 to improve opportunity for BME people, such as on take-up of apprenticeships, employment and university places, and recruitment in the police and armed services. We have stretching and challenging targets but are absolutely determined to meet them.
Two reviews started earlier this year: the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) is looking at the treatment of and outcomes for BAME individuals in the criminal justice system, and Baroness McGregor-Smith is examining the obstacles faced by businesses in developing BME talent, from recruitment right through to executive level.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central mentioned the Freedom City 2017 events. It is fantastic to hear about such an initiative and it is great to see that the Arts Council is supporting it significantly. It is also good to hear about the support being provided by the US embassy. I understand that the initiative will involve not only several world-renowned artists but many local artists from the Newcastle area, and that it will focus on the values of freedom, togetherness and empowerment.
I very much look forward to seeing that work come forward, and can certainly give the hon. Lady my commitment to come up to Newcastle. My sister currently lives in Northumberland, but she is moving to the edge of Newcastle, hopefully in the next few weeks. I am sure she will be glad to see me when I go up to Newcastle, so I really do look forward to that event next year.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for accepting my invitation and I hope to meet him and his sister in Newcastle. Will he say something about parliamentary diversity and some kind of celebration and action to increase it?
Mr Jones
I apologise that I did not cover that point in my speech. I shall certainly look into it. I would be grateful to hear more information from the hon. Lady about what she envisages such action would look like. If she can please provide that information, we can look to see what might be achieved in the House.
In conclusion, I thank the hon. Lady again for securing the debate. We should take this opportunity to remember the huge contribution made by people from Africa and the Caribbean, many of whom gave their lives fighting for this country in the first and second world wars. As a Government, we reiterate our commitment to standing up against injustice and inequality, making this a country that works for everyone and not just the privileged few.
Question put and agreed to.
Global Biodiversity
(8 years ago)
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Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered global biodiversity.
A number of colleagues have applied to speak in this debate, but unfortunately they cannot all be here today to take part. In particular, Zac Goldsmith—I think we can refer to him by name at this stage—is unable to be with us today. However, since he originally applied to speak in the debate, I thought it would be nice to record that. I am also grateful to colleagues who have signed early-day motion 624 on global biodiversity to support this debate today. If other colleagues have not yet had the opportunity to sign that early-day motion, I would be grateful if they did so.
The catalyst for this debate was new research, conducted by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, that shows that the global wildlife population fell by more than half between 1970 and 2012. According to the report, global populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles have declined by 58% since 1970. Within that figure, the fish population declined by 36% and mammals by 38%, but the biggest decline, at 81%, was in the amphibians population, which shows how vulnerable they are to the challenges that we face, not least climate change, which further threatens their habitat.
The facts suggest that we face a global biodiversity crisis: without urgent action, by 2020, these vertebrate populations will have declined by 67% since 1970. The international community has agreed that by 2020 declines in biodiversity should have been halted. Frankly, these things do not compute—the international community is way off target when it comes to meeting its commitments.
When I was Environment Secretary, I had the great privilege of representing the UK at the United Nations conference on biodiversity loss in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010. It took place just after the climate change talks in Copenhagen had failed, after which people were very pessimistic—they did not think that a UN agreement would be achieved in this area. However, to everyone’s surprise, we did it. The agreement achieved in Nagoya states that we should take effective and urgent action to halt the loss of habitats and species in order to ensure that by 2020 our natural environment would be resilient and continue to provide the essential environmental services that we otherwise take for granted. To that end, a series of targets was agreed to, known as the Aichi targets.
The reality is that most of our planet’s biodiversity is not in developed nations such as ours, where we have already destroyed many natural habitats, but in the most remote and least developed areas of our planet. So the big challenge is how to protect these vulnerable areas and their endangered species, while trying to regenerate our own natural capital and lost species.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing this very important debate. She has mentioned the agreement. In the recent Paris discussions on climate control, not all countries signed up and not all of them turned up. What more can be done to influence those countries that are causing some of the major difficulties that we have?
Dame Caroline Spelman
We have clearly made some progress in the climate change talks, and climate change is one of the things that definitely threatens, or aggravates the loss of species. There has been a significant breakthrough between some of the big players over climate change. For a long period, large countries such as America and China just would not engage, so we have made some progress on that issue, but, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, we need the rest to be as good as the best. I am sure that the Minister heard what the hon. Gentleman would like the UK Government to be doing to encourage that to happen.
In fact, 90% of the biodiversity on UK territory is situated in our overseas territories, precisely because they are less heavily developed. The Government made the groundbreaking decision to create the largest marine reserve in the world around the Pitcairn Islands and are on their way to doing the same for Ascension Island, South Georgia, St Helena and Tristan da Cunha, in a blue belt strategy around the world’s oceans. If all those are achieved, the area offering some form of protection will be greater than the size of India. That would make a significant contribution to Aichi target 11, which is on marine protected areas.
That points to the clear value of helping less developed parts of the world to protect vital species. Frankly, the cure to some disease that is currently a scourge of human society could be deep in the Amazon jungle. We have every interest in helping the poorest.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she agree that the UK Government often sign up to agreements that are worthy in principle, but the overseas territories that then become subject to those agreements do not always receive reciprocal finances to implement them? I know that in places such as Anguilla particularly and the Cayman Islands, that is placing an undue financial burden on their Governments.
Dame Caroline Spelman
My hon. Friend and I were members of the Environmental Audit Committee together. He has recently rejoined the Committee and I know that he looked closely at the predicament of overseas territories such as the Cayman Islands which would not naturally be in receipt of funds to help them to address this kind of issue. It is clear that we all have an interest in their being able to do so. I am sure that his comment was heard by the Minister.
The approach of helping the world’s poorest countries to reduce and halt the loss of species was at the heart of our agreement in Nagoya. It inspired 193 countries to agree unanimously to own and solve this problem together. So everybody was present and did sign that Nagoya agreement. However, there were lengthy discussions about access to, and the benefits arising from, the world’s most biodiverse populations. That was the heart of the matter. The world’s richest nations wanted to be able to access some of the most biodiverse parts of the world, perhaps to find a cure for cancer, but in return the developing nations wanted to share in those benefits and for us to help to resource them in protecting those areas. That was the nature of what we agreed to, which was a genuine example of a negotiated deal.
Historically, the UK has provided international leadership on this approach and there are many examples of how we have done so. The most recent is the opening of the new David Attenborough building in Cambridge, which will become the new global focal point for research and practice to transform our understanding about the conservation of biodiversity.
Even before I became Environment Secretary, the UK was providing resources to prevent deforestation under the so-called REDD-plus scheme, which stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. If one is going to try to reduce deforestation in very poor countries, it is important to find a way to support those people who have not known any way of sustaining themselves other than by cutting down trees. If they are paid to maintain and look after the trees and to sustain the forest, deforestation will be reduced.
It is worth noting that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will spend more than £300 million of official development assistance by 2019-20, including funding to help to tackle the serious criminal industry of the illegal wildlife trade, which definitely threatens endangered species, and to deliver projects to conserve biodiversity and to reduce poverty worldwide, including in the UK’s eligible overseas territories and in developing countries, which will help developing countries to phase out ozone-depleting substances. When it comes to global biodiversity, no man is an island.
I have seen for myself how paying farmers in places such as the Amazon not to cut down their trees but to manage their forests can help us all, for the Amazon is the world’s largest carbon sink. However, the next challenge in Latin America is to prevent the adjoining native savannah, the forest of the Cerrado in Brazil, from being ploughed up to grow soya. Over half of that area has been converted to agriculture since 1950. At present, the Cerrado shelters 5% of total global biodiversity and one in 10 of every Brazilian species. Almost half of its 10,000 plant species are found nowhere else on our planet and wild animals that are threatened by the loss of the habitat include the jaguar, the maned wolf and the giant anteater. I saw there an extraordinary plant, the like of which I had never seen, called the shauvarinho, which captures water droplets on tiny fan-like leaves that have adapted to survive drought. It is not, therefore, just the plough that destroys species on that savannah; the area is also very vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
As I have highlighted, we now have the tool accurately to measure the rate at which we lose species and the cost to the economy of that loss: the national ecosystem assessment. For example, bees, should they die out and should we have to replace what they do, would cost the country £400 million a year. These days, we can put an economic value on the loss of vital species.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady was talking about projects in Latin America. She might be aware of the Yasuni national park in Ecuador. The Government there tried to raise money internationally, so that there would be no oil drilling in what is one of the most biodiverse places on earth—an absolutely pristine area. They could not get the international sign-up, however. Does she agree that that is something we all value, on a global level? Ecuador obviously needs to feed its people and boost economic growth, so in the end it was forced to go down the drilling route.
Dame Caroline Spelman
That speaks absolutely to the heart of the current debate on how we use international development assistance. The truth of the matter is that the issue is an increasingly difficult one, as people experience hard times themselves. I am disappointed to hear it vocalised that charity begins at home and that we should not be helping people abroad. I certainly do not share that view, but it is incumbent on us all as politicians to explain why helping people in very poor countries benefits everyone in the end. We must all work harder at getting that message across.
To come back to the bees, the fact that if they took their pollinating brushes home we would face a very big bill for substituting what they do underlines the importance of the debate about the demise of pollinators and explains why it is such an active one. The principles we agreed to in Nagoya bind us to reverse the trend of species loss, and that will take time and resources. The wealthy nations that signed up to the Nagoya agreement are the ones upon which it is incumbent to bring resources to the table to help poorer nations, if we are to arrest that decline.
The sequence of meetings known as the conference of the parties, or COP, has seen some progress in agreeing, in principle, to double biodiversity financial flows. I say in principle, because at COP 13, the next in the series—due to take place in Cancun in December—there will no doubt be more discussion about the amount of resources we need and who precisely will bring them. At that meeting, countries will discuss the practical delivery of the targets agreed following Nagoya. The excellent analytical work that is being undertaken by non-governmental organisations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, to measure the level of ambition of, and the practical progress being made by, the signatories to the original agreement will be published to coincide with the meeting. It is the Ministers who go to Cancun who will have to face up to the reality of whether they walk the talk, so I hope that the UK Government will continue to provide the international leadership they are known for in this area by sending a Minister to the meeting.
Our efforts to halt the loss of species in our own country are going to come under close scrutiny. The reality is that most of the world’s most precious biodiversity is not on UK territory. The very fact that the British Isles has been developed has forced nature into retreat, but that does not mean we should not continue to strive to protect the species that are endangered here and to restore the lost natural capital. For example, a key action is to implement an intelligent and forward-looking biodiversity offsetting strategy for major infrastructure works. There are many infrastructure plans in the making, so there will have to be an awful lot of offsetting.
One of those plans is on my doorstep. High Speed 2 will go straight through my constituency and there is the opportunity to restore the polluted River Tame and enhance the Blyth river valley so that the urban populations of the west midlands conurbation can enjoy the green space and appreciate what nature has to offer. We know how important that is for overall wellbeing. I hope that the Department for Transport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will consider carefully proposals being put forward by Birmingham City University to regenerate the lost natural capital in the area.
The UK has made good progress on marine protection. It is committed, under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, to deliver an ecologically coherent network of well-managed marine protected areas within UK waters. However, critical gaps in the network remain, including protection for mobile species, such as seabirds. The third and final tranche of the English marine conservation zone designation is due to come forward next year and it is those critical gaps that I hope the Government will now be able to fill.
I have some key requests for the Government. I welcome the statement of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in response to the “Living Planet Report 2016”. It is encouraging that she has emphasised her commitment to protecting and restoring our natural environment for future generations. She has also called on us all to play our part. Indeed, every individual can play a role in arresting the loss of species. I certainly advocate that anyone who has not done so take part in the RSPB’s bird count once a year. The count will enable us to have some sense, against a baseline, of whether the common species we all grew up with are thriving or declining. That is particularly important when it comes to the demise of farmland birds, and everyone can do their bit.
The Secretary of State has highlighted two key areas in which the UK has been successful, one being the blue belt protection for our overseas territories and the other helping to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State will attend the next IWT conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, next month, providing the kind of leadership for which the UK is known. However, as I have already mentioned, it is critical that we send high-level ministerial representation to December’s conference of the parties in Cancun. I cannot stress enough how important it is that a Minister is there—193 countries are present at the meetings. We often underestimate the capacity that the UK has, because of its heritage and the leadership it has provided on the issue, to be involved as a facilitator, in particular between countries that are dragging their feet a bit, and to get their agreement. I really hope that a Minister will be able to attend.
We must be visible and vocal as a leader on the world’s stage, and establishing a clear presence in December will be an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to continuing as an environmental leader. That will underline that the UK still wants to be at the forefront of the fight against biodiversity decline.
It is evident that tackling biodiversity loss will require a multisector approach, and in that we are helped by the fact that since the Nagoya agreement we have the framework of sustainable development goals—SDGs—which provides a context for our actions and our approach. The SDGs have the power to create a safer, fairer world, but we must now implement them ourselves, with careful cross-Government co-ordination and a clear focus on the challenges outlined in the report.
Goals 14 and 15 are directly connected to the convention on biological diversity and the Aichi targets, and they address reducing biodiversity loss on land and in the marine environment. Many of the targets are due for completion in 2020—in less than four years’ time. However, at the current rate of progress, those will be the first of the sustainable development goals the UK will fail to meet. As we know, the deadline for most of the SDGs is 2030. So there is real pressure, and an urgency to get on and implement what we can to achieve the targets.
It is important that DEFRA and the Department for International Development work closely together on implementation. I found, as Environment Secretary, that DFID was extremely helpful to the cause; indeed it gave me the money to be able to provide assistance in very poor countries where species were endangered. I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that DEFRA continues to work closely with DFID in that area.
Dr Offord
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Does she agree that it is welcome that the Natural Capital Committee reports directly to the Chancellor? That ensures that policy is accompanied by finances and reinforces and reiterates to us that nature does not come for free.
Dame Caroline Spelman
My hon. Friend is completely right. I should have said that it is not only about DEFRA and DFID working together; the Treasury holds the purse strings. He is right that the Natural Capital Committee—its chair, Professor Dieter Helm, provides outstanding leadership—reporting directly to the Chancellor is the best way of reminding the Treasury that nature comes at a price and that we need to reflect that in the decisions we make and the resources it gets.
I hope that we will shortly see a clear plan from the Government on the sustainable development goals. DEFRA’s forthcoming 25-year plan for the environment is also a key opportunity. I hope that Ministers will use it to set out how they will work to reduce the UK’s international carbon footprint, as well as to protect nature at home. Ministers will need to carefully weave together the domestic and international dimensions. We must emphasise intergenerational accountability and include mechanisms to assess the impact of policy on nature and the natural capital we wish to leave for our children.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I forgot that pleasantry in yesterday’s heated debate on grouse shooting.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) on her excellent opening speech. She emphasised the need for Departments to work together on these issues, but I think it is also incumbent on all parliamentarians to work together, too. They are not party political issues and there is consensus in the House on them. We should all continue to press the Government as hard as we can to deliver and halt the declines in biodiversity. It is refreshing to see debates in this Chamber being led by former Secretaries of State who have stayed loyal and interested in their briefs. That is not always the case, but when we get that expertise and experience coming back it enriches and strengthens our debates.
If we do not act soon to halt the declines in our biodiversity, it could be too late. The World Wildlife Fund’s “Living Planet Report 2016” shows the scale of the task. As was pointed out earlier, although I will repeat the figures because they need repeating, global vertebrate populations fell on average by 58% between 1970 and 2012 and freshwater species such as amphibians and fish have declined by a shocking 81%. We are facing a global biodiversity crisis, and the need for action is urgent.
The problem should not be analysed by contrasting the performance of developing countries with that of advanced economies. I have seen that recently in print and in the media, and it is not helpful to describe the declines we have seen in that way, suggesting in some way that richer countries are doing better because they can afford to deal with the problem. It not does not help us at all and it is not accurate, because wildlife in the UK is far from thriving. If Victorians took a walk in our countryside today, they would be shocked at how sparse our wildlife really is. I have listened to my parents talk about that frequently; they say that the decline has been dramatic since their childhood, 50 or 60 years ago. We have seen huge declines in biodiversity, even since then.
Our planet’s biodiversity—or to put it another way, the natural capital that we depend on—is on the verge of collapse. If we are not careful, we could see the demise of the global environment we all depend on—the quality of the air we breathe, the quality and range of the food we eat, or the water we drink. In the final analysis, there will obviously be a negative impact on the global economy, too. It is becoming apparent that we could be entering a new epoch: the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch in which the size and scale of human activity is affecting our most important environmental systems on a planetary scale. The list of endangered species is never-ending, and if action is not taken soon, many species will disappear before our very eyes.
Declines in our ocean biodiversity are of particular concern. The living planet index shows that marine species have declined by 36% since 1970. That cannot be allowed to continue. It is estimated that our oceans provide annual economic benefits of up to $2.5 trillion a year—it is an international index, so it measures things in dollars. If we manage oceans effectively, they could help to underpin the relevant sustainable development goal and provide food security for many millions living in developing coastal and island states. Unfortunately, evidence suggests that because of poor management, including the over-exploitation of fisheries, that ambition will not be met. While Governments understand the importance of our marine environment, evidence is growing that their critical role in securing future resilience is still not given sufficient priority.
The UK can and should be playing a key role in taking forward and implementing sustainable development goal 14, which relates to our oceans. The right hon. Lady repeatedly stressed that point. We have strong economic and cultural ties to the sea—I grew up in a coastal community, so I understand that well. I am not originally from an inland community, as Sheffield is. Even though many of our communities have secured livelihoods from our seas, we import a huge volume of seafood from many developing nations. We have international trading links that give us even more of a responsibility to work collaboratively on these issues. Our strong marine research expertise could help the Government in prioritising the actions needed on this specific aspect of global biodiversity. We also need to play our part internationally by building strategic partnerships with developing countries. Those partnerships are incredibly important when it comes to ensuring international resilience for our oceans.
That brings me neatly on to the EU’s common fisheries policy, which provides a multilateral forum for taking action to rebuild resilient fishing stocks in European waters and a sustainable fishing industry. I know I will upset the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) with that point, but fortunately she is a Parliamentary Private Secretary, so she cannot respond on this occasion. The Government must remain actively engaged in the CFP for as long as we remain in the EU. I say that as the daughter of a fisherman and as someone who grew up in the biggest fishing port in the world. I feel strongly about the issue.
We must also start putting in place plans for continuing engagement and action on illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing once we leave the EU. We therefore need assurances from Ministers that once we leave, the protections against unethical fishing, if I can put it that way, afforded by membership of the CFP will be embedded into UK fisheries policy. If we are going to build our status globally as a soft power on biodiversity issues, we need to continue the best practice established in the European Union. Whatever Brexit provides for the future, we must as a country remain committed to the policy of maximum sustainable yield and must retain fishing quotas in the form of total allowable catches by species. Not to do so would be wrong and would risk a return to the days of over-fishing and the consequences that that brought down upon all of us. I therefore ask the Minister to give assurances in her closing remarks.
Marine protected areas are a critical tool for conservation. It is estimated that protecting just 30% of the world’s oceans could result in net benefits of between $490 billion and $920 billion over 35 years. Currently, just 3.9% of the world’s oceans are designated for protection, despite a global commitment to achieve 10% by 2020. Many of the marine protection areas that do exist lack effective management plans. We need to play our part in addressing that weakness. The Government must continue designating an ecologically coherent network of marine conservation zones around our shores, as the right hon. Member for Meriden pointed out. We also need to continue the creation of a blue belt around our unique overseas territories by putting into place large-scale marine protected areas overseas, which will contribute to delivering on our 10% target.
Will the Minister commit to delivering a truly comprehensive and ecologically coherent network of marine conservation zones around the UK, with the management plans to match? That is the key weakness in our implementation of the Marine and Coastal Access Act so far. We need effective management plans for that network and we need them quickly. Also, will the Minister commit to the 10% target for MPAs around the UK’s overseas territories?
Although the world’s oceans face huge pressures, there is evidence that sustainable management and conservation work can reverse biodiversity declines and bring life back to the world’s seas. For instance, North sea cod stocks are now on an upwards trajectory because of the strong management measures implemented through the EU’s cod recovery plan. It is worth putting on the record that the decline in those stocks was not caused by the European Union. It never was. Those stocks were heavily depleted before the EU’s management regime came into effect. Nobody ever asks why the fishing fleets of the east coast, where I come from, went to Iceland to catch fish. Why go all that way? Why face all those dangers? It was because they had depleted the North sea stocks. The measures needed to put that right have started to work and the UK has a responsibility to continue on that trajectory. The experience of working with the European Union and internationally, as we have over all those years, also underlines the importance of the UK Government continuing to work co-operatively with other Governments, both in the EU and more widely, to ensure that our fisheries are sustainably managed.
A key opportunity for the Government to set out their own stall will be the forthcoming 25-year plan for the environment. The Minister could use the opportunity of the plan to reduce the UK’s international footprint by setting out a trajectory and a clear strategy for how we will achieve that, as well as protecting nature at home. At this point I will refer to yesterday’s debate and hope sincerely that the plan will include measures to deal with the decline in the health of our blanket bog and upland environment in the UK, which is a source of particular concern to me.
When might this extremely important plan be published? Are the rumours that it is being reviewed because of Brexit true? If that is the case, what exactly is being reviewed in the plan? Are we going to see more ambitious plans for improving the environment as a result of Brexit, or are we going to take Brexit as a chance to reduce our environmental standards? The House deserves some clarity on that point.
We are at a crossroads both as a country and as a planet. We need action and we need it now. The UK needs to play its full part and lead from the front internationally in reversing the decline in our biodiversity not only for our generation, but for the many generations yet to be born. Let us not forget that the environment is our legacy to future generations. The world belongs to our children. If we forget that legacy and forget the important fact that the world belongs to our children, we will never be forgiven for abdicating our responsibilities.
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) on securing the debate on global biodiversity today.
The report laid before us by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society paints a bleak picture of wholesale ecocide on a scale unseen for aeons. Faced with such catastrophe, it would be easy to retreat into complacency and mourn while the web of life unravels. An article on the rapid decline in species in last Thursday’s Times on 27 October was very interesting. It stated:
“Human activity is driving many of the planet’s species dangerously close to extinction.”
It is predicted that
“Global vertebrate populations...are likely to have declined by an average of 67 per cent on their 1970 levels by 2020.”
This is the here and now, and yet this does not have to be the case.
One of my favourite quotes comes from the great American politician and civil rights activist, Harvey Milk. He once said,
“If you want to change the world, start in your own neighbourhood.”
As a “neighbourhood”, Scotland possesses a natural environment that retains some of its richness and diversity even after centuries of degradation. Scotland’s Government recognise that the importance of biodiversity goes far beyond majestic wildlife and bonnie glens. Carbon sequestration, the health of pollinator populations, water purity, which has been mentioned, and human health and wellbeing are just a few of the things that are dependent on resilient, diverse ecosystems. In recognition of the essential role that biodiversity will play in ensuring Scotland’s future sustainability and success, the Scottish Government are committed to placing it at the heart of their economic strategy. All Governments should do that. The fruits of these efforts have already started to show.
In 2010, Scotland’s biodiversity assessment concluded that biodiversity loss had slowed where targeted action had been applied, but that halting it would require renewed and sustained effort over a long period. In 2013, a route map was published, which set out the actions necessary for the country to meet the challenges set by the UN convention on biological diversity’s targets for 2020: the so-called Aichi targets—I hope I have pronounced that correctly.
For example, target 11 aims to have at least 17% of freshwater bodies and 10% of coastal and marine areas under protection by 2020. Target 15 aims to enhance ecosystem resilience and the contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks through the conservation and restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems. Its first progress report, published in 2015, shows that we are starting to turn this juggernaut around: 16% of our seas are now part of our marine-protected area network, exceeding the 10% stipulated by the UN. We are restoring twice the area of peatland that is required of us and exceeding our required area of protected land and fresh water. There are still actions that need to progress faster, but we can take heart from the fact that although in the second half of 2015 there were still some areas that showed no progress, or even a continued decline, progress was made on all of our actions in the first half of 2016.
Driving the strategy is the realisation that biodiversity loss is a problem that must be tackled at scales beyond the remit of a single area, organisation or even, as has been mentioned, Government. That realisation is as true here as it is in Scotland or anywhere else. Integrated, co-operative forms of management involving multiple Departments and other stakeholders are needed to form the backbone of actions and projects.
The natural world must no longer be seen as something desirable but expendable. The question “Can we afford that?” has an ecological answer that is at least as important as its financial and political answers. We face choices that will manifest in the near future. As individuals, we tend to be myopic; we prefer to deal with present outcomes at the expense, often, of future ones. That is a given. Our choice is to consider the long-term loss and decline of our wildlife, and decide on the best course of action to prevent the continuation of that decline.
To end on a somewhat brighter note, I will mention that, although the picture is bleak, there is still some ecological resilience left. The vast majority of species are not yet at the point of no return. If we act, we can reverse what is happening. If there is a concerted international effort, we can turn it around globally. Let us not create a global extinction event as our legacy.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to see you in the Chair, Mr Evans. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) on securing the debate; as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) said, she has very much retained an interest in the issues that she dealt with as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. We have often had conversations in passing, in the corridor—particularly about marine conservation zones. I appreciate that in her new role as Second Church Estates Commissioner she has adopted a more conciliatory approach to bats in churches than her predecessor; we had some run-ins in our time. I am sure the bats appreciate it, too.
Today’s debate is timely, given the publication of the excellent “Living Planet” report by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Zoological Society of London. I urge everyone to read it. Biodiversity has intrinsic value, but our survival also depends on it. It is a key indicator of the health of the planet, and we should treat it as seriously as climate change. It was frustrating for me, both during the Brexit campaign and the Paris talks, that the focus was always just on climate change and energy policy. There was not the discussion of the natural environment that there should have been, particularly given that so many of our protections stem from the EU.
The “Living Planet” report makes disturbing reading, but that should not come as a surprise. Year on year we have heard reports of mounting evidence of the decline of biodiversity. Each report adds to the imperative for action by Governments around the world. We have heard that we shall fail to meet the Aichi biodiversity targets by 2020, and that global wildlife populations fell by 58% between 1970 and 2012. On current trends, our vertebrate populations would decline by two thirds by 2020.
It is disappointing that public funding for biodiversity fell by 32% from 2008 to 2015. As my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge highlighted, that is potentially even more of a threat with Brexit on the horizon. I hope for reassurances from the Minister today. The Government have, through the Natural Capital Committee, recognised the potential economic value of the natural environment, and are trying to do work that builds in the costs, financial or otherwise, of damaging it. However, there is a lot more work to be done if that is really to be embedded in policy making.
There is a tendency for most attention to be paid to iconic species such as pandas, tigers and killer whales, which are under serious threat. There is a lot of talk about them, and there have been some successes. As the WWF highlighted, the giant panda has been removed from the list of endangered species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, thanks to China’s efforts to protect habitats and re-establish forest. Tigers are still critically at risk, but their population has increased by 20% since 2010, thanks to collaborative efforts by Governments, communities and conservationists. The Government have been very committed to the agenda of the convention on international trade in endangered species, with respect to the shark population, for example. However, species that we have never heard of—and, in some cases, can barely see—are also in dire need of attention. In his foreword to the “State of Nature” report, David Attenborough said:
“If we and the rest of the backboned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well.”
However, if invertebrates were to disappear,
“the land’s ecosystems would collapse.”
We need action to protect all biodiversity, whether vertebrates, invertebrates or plant life. All of those have suffered from human activity. Poaching, and the international wildlife trade, are an obvious cause, with elephant populations in Tanzania falling by 60% between 2009 and 2014. I, for one, would welcome further action to stem the global ivory trade that contributes to that—even the historic ivory trade.
Less visibly, as the global population has risen, our use of fertilisers, pesticides and transport, greenhouse gas emissions, our reliance on medicines and our water use have all increased. They all have a negative impact on biodiversity. It is the human population that has caused so much habitat loss for other species, whether through pollution, intensive agriculture, climate change, building or resource use that exploits natural resources.
As I mentioned, in Ecuador the Government were very committed—probably top of the league when it came to biodiversity and the beauty of the country—but they face pressures, in a country struggling to make ends meet, with the knowledge that such a wonderful site as the Yasuni natural park is home to oil reserves. As the right hon. Member for Meriden and I have said, there is a global role to be played in helping such countries to protect their wonderful biodiversity. We need international co-operation and the UK to take a lead in talks, rather than turning its back on the world, which some might think the referendum result would lead us to do.
As part of that, we need a commitment from the Environment Secretary, or the Minister who is present today, to attend December’s conference of the parties to the convention on biological diversity taking place in Mexico. We need to lead by example. There has already been mention of the Environmental Audit Committee’s report on the British overseas territories; only a tiny fraction of DEFRA spending goes to them, although they are home to 90% of the biodiversity for which the UK is responsible. As the report revealed, DEFRA did not at the time have a single staff member dedicated to working full time with the overseas territories.
We had a private meeting of the Environmental Audit Committee today, with some overseas territories representatives, to talk about some of those issues. I do not think I am betraying any confidences if I say that, in particular on the subject of the blue belt or the marine protected areas, there were pleas for things to be territory-led. Some of the people who attended were very happy with what has happened, because it was led by the people in the territories, but in some cases there are still issues to do with not being compensated for loss of income from fishing licences. Money may be going in, but it goes to the marine protected areas and does not compensate the Administrations—of Ascension Island in particular. I hope that the Minister will consider that. The overseas territories appreciate that they have a role to play in protecting the wonderful marine environment, but they need the resources to do it without suffering as a result.
When we discussed the EAC report a couple of years ago, I think about 0.3% of the biodiversity conservation budget was spent in the overseas territories. As I said, they are home to 90% of the biodiversity, so that suggests quite an imbalance. More than 32,000 native species have been recorded in the overseas territories and more than 1,500 of those are found nowhere else in the world. The territories are home to at least 517 globally threatened species. Our lack of knowledge and attention risks those species becoming extinct. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office works closely with the overseas territories on some issues, particularly business, but we need a closer relationship on environmental issues as well. The marine protected areas are a very welcome contribution but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge said, we need to complete the network of English marine conservation areas and ensure that they guarantee the robust protections that our marine life needs.
We have been talking about overseas, but the latest “State of Nature” report found that 53% of the UK’s wildlife species declined between 2002 and 2013 and 15% of our native species are under threat of extinction. The report’s launch was very well attended and the Secretary of State spoke but, as so often with these things, the warnings are taken to heart in the short term but very quickly forgotten. I hope the Minister will tell us a little about how the Government intend to take those concerns forward. The report said that insects and invertebrates were under particular threat, despite being crucial for pollination and healthy soils, and concluded that the UK is
“among the most nature-depleted countries in the world”,
having lost significantly more than comparable western European countries such as France and Germany.
I understand that we may get a framework for the much anticipated 25-year environment plan in the next few months, but we will not see the plan until later next year. That plan must rise to the enormous domestic and international challenge we face. The signs are not encouraging. The “State of Nature” report identified policy-driven agricultural change—the intensification of farming—as the most significant driver of declines.
I know that Ministers have taken on board the need for more links and connections between the two plans that we have, but when the Environment Secretary gave evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee on Brexit only a couple of weeks ago, she implied that one plan was about the economics—the selling of food, farming and food production—and the other plan was about the natural environment. I do not think that that is good enough, as the two are so interconnected, even with footnotes explaining the connection. I am sure that the Minister has heard these representations many times before and I hope she is listening again. If the Government are genuinely interested in protecting biodiversity, DEFRA must commit to the EU birds and habitats directive and pollution reduction targets post-Brexit.
I want to conclude by bringing the debate down to a local level. Bristol is fortunate to have the Avon gorge, which has been designated a special area of conservation under the habitats directive. It is home to Bristol whitebeam and Wilmott’s whitebeam, which are not found anywhere else in the world and—I found this out only in the past couple of days—we also have the Bristol onion. The Avon gorge is the only place where it is found in mainland Britain. It is very pretty, with big purple flowers, but it is under threat from invasive species.
My favourite Twitter account, NoExtinctions, looks at attempts on obscure islands to stamp out invasive species that put particular species under threat. Lundy island did a very good job recently stamping out the rat population. NoExtinctions is a great account to follow to see what is going on in very obscure, unheard-of places around the world.
Bristol has developed its own pollinator strategy. Urban pollination strategies are incredibly important as there cannot be a divide between the town and city. “Get Bristol Buzzing” plants nectar and pollen-rich flower meadows in public spaces, in parks but also on roundabouts and wherever there is a spare piece of land.
I am also a species champion. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Buglife has asked a number of MPs to be species champions and now have about 30 or 40 MPs. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) is one.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
I would just like to say that I am the bittern species champion and I am proud to say that bittern babies are booming, so that is good news.
Kerry McCarthy
I am glad. If anyone is not a species champion, I should say that more are needed, so Members can sign up.
I am a swift champion. It is urban habitat loss that is responsible for the decline in swift numbers. The RSPB told me last week that in Exeter they are introducing a planning requirement for new-build developments to include swift bricks or boxes—a really simple measure that will increase the number of places where swifts can nest and could be replicated across the country. I will certainly be urging Bristol council to take that on board, and I hope others will too.
Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. You will not know this, but you are actually one of my favourite MPs, based on the image on your magnificent Christmas card of you casually leaning on the Terrace with your mug. It is etched in my memory and is one of my favourites from last year.
Calum Kerr
I look forward to it. I should get my act together and one-up you on it—I will get my thinking cap on.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) on securing this debate and kicking it off with a very well informed contribution. I confess that at first I was worried it was going to be a little bit too self-congratulatory regarding some of the things that had gone before, but it was not at all. There were some very good suggestions and proactive ideas for the Government to take forward. I congratulate her on bringing the subject before the House.
I thought the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) was particularly bold in bringing up the issue of fishing until I realised that the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) was not able to contribute to the debate, and suddenly it became an inspired move. I shall note that move for myself in future. Although there was much discussion about the blue belt, the hon. Member for South East Cornwall is a black belt when it comes to defending her local fishermen.
My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) gave a lovely speech about the Scottish hills and bonnie glens that we are all so proud of, but as he rightly said it is about so much more than that. He gave a very honest report card on the Scottish Government’s efforts—some that we are very proud of and some that we need to work harder at.
The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) is a redoubtable champion of this whole issue. I hear she even braved yesterday’s Westminster Hall grouse debate to put forward an alternative view. Although I may not agree with her on that subject, it is really important to have voices on all sides that provide balanced argument. I thank her for her contribution today and for joining the fray yesterday. She made some excellent points. Throughout the debate, the importance came across of the Government joining up the dots of all the different plans to create the right picture for the future.
I googled the Bristol onion, which Members may be interested to know is also known as the round-headed leek. It is beautiful, with purple flowers.
Kerry McCarthy
I was going to say that it is also known as the bald-headed onion, but I think it is the ball-headed onion—I had better make sure I got that right.
Calum Kerr
The phrase I always use is that God only made so many heads perfect; the rest he covered up with hair.
The hon. Lady mentioned swifts. I was looking at my front lawn recently and my front grass is looking a little the worse for wear—I am sure all MPs can relate to that, unless they have a gardener—apart from one little, very green patch, which is underneath where the swifts nest, so they are also good for fertilising the front lawn.
As someone relatively new to politics, one of the reasons why I have liked this debate so much is that I cannot help but observe that we are all in some way guilty of living in the present, as my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk said, and not projecting forward to consider the longer term implications of our decisions. MPs’ inboxes are full of short-term issues that need fixing, so it can be all too easy to ignore longer-term challenges. At times, we struggle to think beyond the five-year parliamentary term but, as we have heard today, the WWF’s “Living Planet Report” claimed that we are potentially facing the first mass extinction of species in 65 million years. If that is not a wake-up call, I do not know what is.
The scale of the challenge must not deter us. We have a duty to our children and their children not to be deterred from this enormous task. All efforts to focus the minds of policy makers in this place are welcome. If major declines in biodiversity continue, we risk nothing less than the collapse of the life-support systems that sustain us all. There is no synthetic alternative to those precious natural ecosystems. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the economy that underpins our standard of living all ultimately depend on biodiversity.
These problems reach far beyond DEFRA’s remit. This ought to be a common policy concern across all Government Departments, but let us be honest: we have very little sense of what approach the Government will take to the environment after Brexit and all its potential impacts on regulation and conservation programmes. I hope the Minister will give us a perspective on that today. Let me give one example of the Government’s approach. In a recent study, ecologists found that 65% of the areas earmarked for potential shale gas extraction have an above average level of biodiversity. I would be interested to learn how the Government think they can square such roughshod policies with their headline claim that they want to leave the natural environment in a better state than they found it.
In contrast, Scotland is a global leader on climate change. The Scottish Government have already achieved their target to reduce emissions by at least 42% by 2020. At the last count, Scotland generated the equivalent of 57% of its electricity consumption from renewables, and we aim to generate 100% equivalent of Scotland’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The UK Government’s recent contribution has been to slash support for renewable energy, much to the exasperation of the sector. I do not want to dwell too much on the differences because nature does not have any regard for national borders. I would much rather use the remainder of my time to talk about programmes under way in Scotland to protect our remarkable natural environment.
Scotland provides the major part of the UK’s contribution to the EU’s Natura 2000 programme. More than 15% of our land is designated for a wealth of habitats and species. Natura 2000 is the largest co-ordinated network of protected areas in the world, offering a haven to Europe’s most valuable and threatened species and habitats. Scotland remains a stronghold for a number of species, such as the Atlantic salmon and the freshwater pearl mussel, which are now threatened or extinct elsewhere in the EU. Additional conservation efforts include the network of sites of special scientific interest, targeted conservation efforts for species such as the red squirrel and reintroduction programmes for species including the white-tailed eagle, the red kite and the beaver.
After Brexit, there will be no compulsion on the UK to set targets for energy saving or green energy, which are both essential for meeting Scotland’s ambitious climate targets. On top of that, we face losing the protection that European courts offer if the UK Government fail to meet their commitments to the environment.
In conclusion, preventing the potential mass extinction of species due to the impact of human activity is about nothing less than keeping the only planet we have habitable. No country can tackle these challenges in isolation; they demand transnational co-operation, binding commitments and mutual trust. Given the Government’s claim that Brexit will revive Britain’s role on the global stage, let us hope that they choose to take a long-term view and put our duty to protect the planet and the diversity of life upon it at the heart of all they do.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. This has been a fantastic and detailed debate. I start by thanking the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) not only for bringing her interest and expertise to the debate but for championing the relationship between natural capital and development, and its importance to the sustainability of this planet.
I first want to make an interjection about the species that I champion in York, the Tansy beetle. This year, its number grew substantially, despite York’s being under floodwater for several months. We have so much to learn about the behaviour of these species and what happens there. I am trying to grow the Tansy plant at home to help that species be even more productive in the future.
Last year was a very important year for us all. Not only were we signatories to the UN sustainable development goals, but we had the agreement in Paris on climate change. Both are very important indeed for challenging the real issues facing our planet at this time. Often in this place, we involve ourselves in debating the minutiae of operational processes, as opposed to taking a step back and looking at the big issues of our time and the global crises we are facing in this era. Therefore, it is a shame that there are not more parliamentarians here. I trust that this is the beginning of a process, not the end.
There are 169 targets that came from the 17 sustainable development goals, addressing issues such as climate action, life above the water—on land—and life below the water. What we have learned from these processes is that we alone in isolation will not make a difference. It is in the strong global partnerships we form that ambition can be realised.
The most important reason for staying in the EU is that it gives us an influential voice. Now that we have a determination to take another path, it is important for the Government to make sure we have that voice in the future. I call on the Minister today to say how we will have a voice on that global stage to ensure sustainability in the longer term. That was the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) was making with regard to fishing policy. Fish do not stay static in waters; they move. Therefore, it is so important that we have a seat at the table and a voice in that debate.
As we look at the global challenges that we face, we know that the environment is often at the heart of those issues—whether it is about population migration, for instance, or what is happening to our planet at this time. Our population has multiplied five times since the start of the last century. We know that we have got to address how we are consuming our planet at this time. We are using up 1.6 planets-worth of resources every year. That is not sustainable. We have to take a different direction if we are to be sustainable into the future.
I have to question the Minister again about the policies that are being pursued by her Department—for instance, over trade. Why, rather than focusing locally, are we trotting halfway around the world to build stronger trade relationships with emerging economies, as that increases our carbon footprint and therefore the damage that can be done to our planet? We need to ask challenging questions about what we are doing at the moment.
Biological diversity is a huge global asset. The interlinking of each element is so delicately balanced, as we have heard in today’s debate. The lack of prioritisation of the importance of this issue is seen as a serious threat to specific species and the whole ecosystem. That is why, 24 years ago, the convention on biological diversity moved things forward, acknowledging that we need to be putting things in order. That is why the Aichi targets, of which we have heard so much today, have set out the global framework for moving biodiversity forwards and are so important to ensure sustainability in future. Those 20 targets drill down to another 114 more specific actions—again, targets and actions coming out of global plans. We need to respond with our UK biodiversity action plan.
Around the globe, nations have put together their plans—high on ambition, but delivery makes the difference. It is so important for us to ensure that we can deliver and, obviously, we have heard about the serious risks that we will not now deliver on the plans by 2020. That is deeply concerning in a developed country, that we cannot put that in order. That is why the report that stimulated today’s debate, the “Living Planet Report”, by WWF and ZSL, and earlier this year the “State of Nature” report made startling reading. We do not have time to waste, we cannot delay and we cannot say that we missed our targets because we did not do the right actions, because the next generations will not forgive us for that. Therefore, it is so essential that we move forward.
We have been failing the targets. We want to know how we will complete the network of marine protection areas. How will we ensure that we have planted enough trees? What is happening to our air quality, with 50,000 people in our own country dying each year from poor air quality? And our soil has only around 32 harvests left to sustain the future. So we have real concerns moving forward.
The fact is that where we are, the analysis has been done, the reports have been made, the targets have been set and monitoring processes are being put in place, but the issue is political ambition and delivery. That is where my concern sits. If we are honest, this House saw the movement towards the Climate Change Act 2008, put forward by Labour, which was really momentum building, moved the whole issue forward and delivered a world-changing agreement on the back of it. That legislation was leading the world, but we have not seen the same on biodiversity and we are certainly not seeing the same importance being placed on that agenda by the Government.
That really concerns me, and my biggest call today is that this agenda is mainstreamed into every area of departmental and Government work. We may look at issues in their silos, when it is very easy to say, “That’s a DEFRA issue,” but as the right hon. Member for Meriden said, this one links in with development, industrial strategy and, as we have heard, energy strategy. It is so important that we mainstream this agenda into the future.
The reality, and another concern I have, is that we are a consumerist society, which is a focus of what I am looking at. How do we address consumption? We cannot keep consuming our planet, living our lives and saying, “These are our rights!” without serious consequences for generations to come. We therefore have to look at how we take that forward. That is why I was disappointed that the Minister did not embrace issues such as the circular economy when she appeared before the Select Committee. We have to move these issues forward—it is so important.
I have been heartened, I have to say, by the Welsh Labour Government addressing the issue of how we change behaviour and move things forward in their Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This Act is about improving the social and economic environment, as well as cultural wellbeing in Wales. It is the first serious attempt to see driven changes in behaviour towards the wider environment. We have also heard today about Scotland and about putting these issues at the heart of economic strategy.
Loss of natural capital impacts on so many things—not just our air, land and sea, but our health and wellbeing, and our communities and livelihoods. With poor air quality and 5.5 million people dying prematurely, we also know that 663 million people do not have access to clean and safe water. In the UK, soil degradation is leading to 2.2 million tonnes of lost soil every year and, across the globe, only 15% of soil provides the quality needed to grow our crops. Therefore, we have to drive change forward.
In concluding, I want to say first, as many colleagues have already said, that the 25-year plan has been delayed and that, although we know a framework is on the way, what my hon. Friends have said is absolutely right: the integration with farming is absolutely essential. There is no point having two parallel plans. We need to move the plans into one, so that we get the balances right and so that we understand what the real issues are. That is a first step that the Government could take towards mainstreaming such issues as biodiversity.
Secondly, I want the Minister to give feedback on how she is mainstreaming this issue right across Government. If she has not been to date, how will she take that forward?
Thirdly, also called for across the House today, we can work together across the House on moving our biodiversity system forward. The reality is that the planet is so fragile, and the Government do not have a monopoly of wisdom on these issues, but if we work together we might just have the solutions needed to change behaviour. If change of behaviour starts at home, then every single parliamentarian has a responsibility back in their constituencies to lead things to a new place. We have even more responsibility in this place. Will the Minister therefore be prepared for a cross-party working group to look specifically at how we move the whole agenda around biodiversity forward to ensure that we do not miss our targets? If Government miss their targets, we are all affected, and the next generation is too. On those three requests, I would like an answer from the Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) for securing the debate. She has great experience in this field, as she eloquently illustrated. I also welcome back several hon. Members who were in this Chamber yesterday. Large elements of that debate covered biodiversity, and in particular we discussed actively managed heather moorlands, which I learned are rarer than rain forest.
Angela Smith
When talking about heather moorlands, it is always best to remember that they are built primarily on blanket bog, and it is the bog itself that is really endangered and degraded by environmental impacts over a 200-year period.
Dr Coffey
Which I am sure is why the hon. Lady will welcome our strategy to tackle the matter.
As referred to extensively, last week WWF and the Zoological Society of London published the “Living Planet Report”, which included specific data and conclusions about the direction of travel and certain species being in decline. That is clear, but we need to be slightly cautious in extrapolating to a global scale from the detail of specific datasets in the report.
Biodiversity loss is a global problem that needs a global solution. Through schemes such as the Darwin initiative and the international climate fund, the UK supports projects that directly help developing countries to protect their biodiversity. Over the past 12 months, we have seen the agreement of a range of measures at international level, from the adoption of the Paris agreement on climate change last December, to which the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) referred, through to last week’s agreement to create the world’s largest marine protected area in the Ross sea in the Antarctic. As part of that landmark decision, countries also agreed to a proposal by the United Kingdom to protect areas after ice shelf collapse and retreat.
The global community has adopted targets to drive action on key areas of concern, most recently in 2010 under the convention on biological diversity, on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden was herself instrumental in reaching a final deal. Last year, those targets were reflected in the global goals for sustainable development. At the CBD meeting in December, we will hear that while there has been significant progress towards some of the 2010 targets, without further action many will not be achieved by 2020. The UK’s core aim for the meeting is to promote effective international action to halt the loss of biodiversity. We will work to agree strategic actions to mainstream biodiversity across other sectors, as well as to gain recognition for the important links between biodiversity, climate change and the global goals.
Our scientific expertise is globally recognised. UK scientists led the vital assessment of pollinators that will be presented to the CBD meeting and that provides the evidence to end up in international action. As we have heard, the December meeting will centre on the theme of mainstreaming, which is about taking on an integrated approach and putting conservation in the broader context of long-term prosperity and sustainability.
Our 25-year environment plan will help us to achieve mainstreaming in the United Kingdom—certainly in England and perhaps in other parts of the United Kingdom—and will put in place the foundations to ensure that everyone has the chance to become responsible stewards of the natural environment.
To answer Members’ specific direct questions, it is not possible for Ministers to attend all such meetings, which means that it is necessary to take strategic decisions about whether to attend. I confirm—I have already made this clear to the House in other ways—that a Minister will not be going to Mexico this December, but a considerable amount has already been achieved and our officials are clear about the levers that they can pull to achieve our strategic objectives.
Dr Coffey
No, I will not. There is an option for a PPS to accompany a Minister, but PPSs are not Ministers and therefore cannot represent the Government in that way.
I will give some examples of levers that can be pulled. DEFRA has invested £140 million of international climate finance and committed a further £200 million to forestry projects that protect the world’s most biodiverse rain forests. For example, in Brazil, which is home to 12% of the world’s forests, our investment is protecting biodiversity by helping farmers transition to low-carbon technologies. By working with other Departments, such as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for International Development, we can deploy international climate funding as part of our climate change efforts, which help biodiversity.
I assure Members that the Government take global biodiversity loss seriously, as demonstrated by the strong UK presence at several significant international meetings this year that have addressed that subject. Between September and December, there will have been four major international meetings: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species meeting, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources congress, the Vietnam conference on the illegal wildlife trade, and the CBD meeting. DEFRA will continue to be a strong influence at those meetings.
I attended the CITES meeting and the Secretary of State will attend the IWT meeting later this month. At CITES, we adopted measures that will protect critically threatened species such as pangolins, opposed the resumption of commercial trade in ivory, adopted enhanced global rules on hunting trophies—the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) correctly pointed out that that is about much more than just the iconic big animals—and in particular made groundbreaking moves on rosewood. I learned at the conference that more than two thirds of what CITES protects is flora rather than fauna. While in South Africa, I visited Kruger park specifically to see UK Government-funded tracker training to help stop rhino poachers. [Interruption.]
Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)
Order. There is a Division in the House. Minister, I think I am right in believing that you are nowhere near coming to a conclusion. You still have seven and a half minutes.
Dr Coffey
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey.
To reiterate, while in South Africa, I visited the Kruger national park specifically to see UK Government-funded tracker training, which is intended to stop rhino poaching. It is extraordinary to think that success is measured by the fact that, instead of two to three rhinos being poached a day, it is down to one a day. I am pleased to say that the canine unit is particularly successful. It has a dog called Killer, who has managed to get more than 100 poachers—it does not kill them; it just stops them—and in the 24 hours I was there seven poachers were found. Well done, Killer and the trackers.
To talk about the UK, in January, we published our latest assessment of UK progress with national and international commitments on biodiversity. As at the global level, our indicators give a mixed picture, but I do not think it is quite as bleak as painted by the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith). There are many areas in which we are doing well. We are world leaders on natural capital accounting. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord), who is no longer in his place, referred to the fact that the Natural Capital Committee reports to the Chancellor; it does so through the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Economy and Industrial Strategy.
We lead the way in protecting our marine environment and have delivered on the commitment to create a blue belt of marine protection across the UK’s overseas territories, announcing new areas of protection around Pitcairn, St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Seventeen per cent of UK waters and 21.8% of English waters are now designated as marine protected areas.
We have announced plans to ban the sale and manufacture of products containing microbeads, which can cause harm to the marine environment. Since the publication of the Government’s “Biodiversity 2020” strategy in 2011, an additional 15,000 hectares of our most important wildlife sites have been restored to a fully healthy state. More than 90% of our most important wildlife sites are in a healthy or improving condition, hitting our goal for 2020 already.
Our new countryside stewardship scheme is more targeted at our most important habitats and species and includes, for the first time, a wild pollinator and farm wildlife package as well as support for farmers, through the facilitation fund, to work together beyond their own farm gates. Some of our water companies are actively managing upstream habitats and so reducing their costs in purifying water, while conservation groups have found innovative ways of funding habitat management, such as providing cut reeds as biomass for bioenergy plants, as seen in the Waveney valley.
We have set in hand the creation of nearly 115,000 hectares of priority habitats such as meadows and traditional orchards, which is well over halfway towards the 200,000 hectare “Biodiversity 2020” target. We have achieved 63.45% of priority habitat in favourable or recovering condition. Woodland cover in England is at its highest level since the 14th century and I am confident that our manifesto commitment to plant another 11 million trees over the course of the Parliament is on track.
There are now otters in every county in England, and we have improved the fortunes of the bittern, the curl bunting and the greater horseshoe bat. A comprehensive national strategy has been in place since 2008 to tackle the threats posed by invasive non-native species and we have championed the introduction of the EU invasive alien species regulation to bring other member states up to UK standards.
However, it is clear that there are definitely still areas in which we need to do more, which have already been highlighted—for example, we need to reverse the negative trends on farmland birds, butterflies and pollinators. One way we hope to achieve that is through our 25-year environment plan, which will build on our successes and, together with the food and farming plan, set the direction for policy. We are consulting on a framework in the next few months to help us to develop the 25-year environment plan. We will set out what my officials say is a game-changing approach—a new approach to managing the environment, building on already good pillars of success.
Extensive reference has been made to the overseas territories. The UK is custodian of precious and unique environmental assets, including in the overseas territories, many of which are small islands that are highly vulnerable to environmental challenges, in particular through human activities and the introduction of invasive species. I am pleased that leaders and representatives of the overseas territories are in London this week to meet the Government to discuss a range of issues, including climate change and the environment, and I look forward to my meetings tomorrow.
I will take away the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East about dedicated officials and compensation not going directly to the overseas Administrations. We know that the Darwin Plus fund, which was established in 2012, brought funding for environmental projects into one place to support the implementation of agreements such as the convention on international trade in endangered species and the convention on biological diversity. So far, 70 projects have been funded across 14 overseas territories, including Anguilla and the Cayman Islands, totalling well over £400 million.
During the last minute of my contribution I will try to address some of the other specific points raised. My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden referred to the critical gaps that need to be filled in marine conservation zones. We will be consulting on that next year. I clearly do not know the geography of her local area as well she does, but I know that the biodiversity off-setting strategy for HS2 is being carefully considered in the work between my Department and the Department for Transport.
The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge spoke of fishing. I point out to her that the UK has led the way in marine conservation, for which I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) and the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice). Let us be clear: we want to ensure that, in any future co-operation scheme, there is no sliding back by any party on the important marine conservation progress that has been made.
The hon. Member for Bristol East referred to the Avon gorge and the Bristol onion—I wonder whether that is as tasty as it looks. She also referred to swifts, urban habitat loss and the innovative planning requirements in Exeter. That is a good example of local action, and it shows how local nature partnerships can work really well. I am sure that her mentioning it in the House today will bring it to the attention of other local nature partnerships.
The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr), ably supported by the hon. Member for Falkirk, reminded us of Scotland’s contribution to helping the UK achieve its international commitments. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) talked a bit about trade around the world. The country has to earn its living, and there are huge opportunities for environmental services. Air quality is a personal priority of mine that I wish to take forward. On the circular economy, let me be clear: I support the principles, I just do not like the name. In fact, many companies are already leading the way on that, and I assure her that the UK is actively involved in the negotiations.
The decision to leave the EU means we now have a unique opportunity to design a set of policies specific to the needs of Britain, its species and habitats. We will continue to provide strong international leadership on biodiversity and to work with the EU. Our goal is to leave the natural environment in a better state than we found it for future generations. I thank all hon. Members who participated in the debate.
Dame Caroline Spelman
I am delighted that you have been able to join us for the latter stages of the debate, Mr Bailey. I am sure you will have picked up in that short time how important this issue is for the future of our countries and for future generations. I thought it was put incredibly neatly by the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally), who said of our generation, “Let us not create a global extinction event as our legacy.” I cannot underline that more. The debate has been an important contribution to making sure that, as far as possible, we leave a really good legacy for the next generation. I thank all hon. Members who took part.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered global biodiversity.
Coeliac Disease and Prescriptions
(8 years ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered coeliac disease and prescriptions.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I am grateful for the opportunity to hold a debate that raises awareness of the problems facing those who suffer from coeliac disease and of access to gluten-free food prescriptions. It would be remiss of me not to thank the work of Coeliac UK, the national charity that represents people with coeliac disease, for not only supporting the campaign around the prescription of gluten-free food, but for its work to support sufferers.
Coeliac disease affects one in every 100 people in the UK. I declare an unwelcome interest: I actually suffer from coeliac disease, although I do not get prescriptions for gluten-free food. It is also worth noting that there are some half a million people in the UK who are completely undiagnosed, according to Coeliac UK.
Coeliac disease is a serious medical condition in which the body’s immune system attacks its own tissue when gluten is eaten. The only medical treatment currently available for sufferers is a strict adherence to a gluten-free diet for the rest of their lives. In the late 1960s, gluten-free food was first prescribed to prevent long-term health complications. However, that rationale has now been challenged by some clinical commissioning groups, despite the fact that their position lacks supporting evidence for withdrawing such prescriptions.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing such an important debate on an issue that affects so many people. Does he agree that it is absolutely wrong that David Lissaman, a pensioner in my constituency, who thus far has been able to get gluten-free food on prescription, now faces the prospect of losing that as a consequence of the clinical commissioning group’s review? He is a good man who served his country well. In his own words, he will “have to find ways” of significantly reducing the amount of food that he eats, which, because of his other health problems, could put him at risk.
Mr Jones
I agree, and I shall refer to certain demographics—pensioners being one—that are particularly affected by these proposals.
Some 40% of CCGs in England are now choosing to restrict or remove support for patients with coeliac disease, which is leading to increasing health inequalities and, basically, a postcode lottery for NHS care, depending on where someone is diagnosed. The CCG’s rationale for going down that route seems to be justified on cost grounds alone. Indeed, Coeliac UK has made a number of freedom of information requests to try to get more details on why CCGs are changing their policies.
I will take a moment to read an example of a response to Coeliac UK’s FOI request, which came from North East Essex CCG, where sweeping assumptions have been made that are completely devoid of any systematic research. That CCG stated:
“We appreciate that there is a large cost-differential between supermarket value brands and GF [gluten-free], but many people within the CCG buy their bread from bakers or do not buy the supermarket value brands and the cost differential is therefore much reduced.”
That type of anecdotal evidence, used by CCGs to justify their decisions about patient care, is in direct conflict with a paper produced in September last year entitled “Cost and availability of gluten-free food in the UK: in store and online”. It said:
“There is good availability of gluten-free food in regular and quality supermarkets as well as online, but it remains significantly more expensive. Budget supermarkets which tend to be frequented by patients from lower socioeconomic classes stocked no GF foods. This poor availability and added cost is likely to impact on adherence in deprived groups.”
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. The issue does not apply only to elderly people. I have had a number of young people write to me about this, who are very concerned that they may not be able to get gluten-free foods on prescription any more. Has he looked at the possible costs for people who are at the lower end of the earnings scale?
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
To reinforce the point, my constituent Sheryl Rees has drawn my attention to the fact that her son was diagnosed with coeliac disease when he was two. He is now 11. She pointed out the cost of gluten-free items. For example, a small loaf is £3. A pizza is £4. Pasta is £2 a pack. Basically, she is paying double. She has a family of six. This is really impacting on her family’s budget.
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, especially in terms of families with children. There is also a question of availability in some rural areas. Larger supermarkets stock some of these products at the prices he mentioned and higher, but in other areas the products are not available.
Mr Jones
I will make a bit more progress.
We have a situation where, in places such as east Essex, the needs of patients are being discounted despite a complete lack of any type of research. I am concerned that more CCGs across the country will begin to use inadequate justifications as a precedent and follow a similar path. That leads me back to my earlier point about the big problem of under-diagnosis. I am afraid we will see a bigger problem if gluten-free prescriptions are not made available to those on low incomes.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
On the specific point of failure to diagnose, until 20 years ago I had never heard of coeliac disease, and then I went out with a young lady who, as a teenager, had repeatedly gone to her GP knowing something was wrong. Coeliac disease was never diagnosed until she suffered something analogous to a stroke, which left her permanently all but unable to read. Although she has bravely developed coping strategies over the years, there is no doubt that her life and career have suffered, and she should never have been put in that situation.
Mr Jones
The right hon. Gentleman raises a serious point about the life-changing effects that coeliac disease can have. I was only diagnosed by accident, in my 30s; my mother was not diagnosed until she was over 70. Early diagnosis is important, but it is not uncommon for people to live a long time without one being made.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 included a duty on CCGs to have regard for National Institute for Health and Care Excellence quality standards, but NICE guidance on prescribing gluten-free food for the management of coeliac disease has only recently been published. It says:
“Gluten-free products are more expensive and are usually only available from larger retailers, making access more difficult for people on low incomes or with limited mobility. As coeliac disease can affect more than one member of a family it can also be an additional burden on the family budget”—
as the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) said.
“To address this, healthcare professionals should help people who may need support to find suitable gluten-free food products on prescription to enable them to maintain a gluten-free diet.”
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
I declare an interest, having been diagnosed in my late 20s. My cousin and all my second cousins are exactly the same. In fact, at university I was diagnosed with ME because I was so unwell and unable to work at various points.
This debate is an opportunity also to talk about the low incomes and limited mobility that can affect people’s access to these basic items. We must also make a plea through Coeliac UK to supermarkets to ensure that what they provide, which is very expensive, is of better nutritional quality, with lower levels of salt and fat. Although these foods are gluten-free, they might be full of some awful stuff as well.
Mr Jones
The hon. Lady raises an interesting point, but I assure her that the products available today are completely different from when I was first diagnosed. The bread then was like cardboard, and today it is very much different.
There is a general duty for GPs to prescribe treatments for health conditions via the FP10 prescribing system where treatment is available, and in the case of coeliac disease that is a gluten-free diet. There is also a duty in legislation for CCGs to reduce inequalities with respect to patient access to services and outcomes, but because of the lack of explicit recommendations on prescribing from NICE, CCGs are being given a fairly free hand to make decisions that run contrary to reducing health inequalities.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Prescription of gluten-free food as medication clearly needs to be regulated by the NHS across the United Kingdom. One of my constituents said to me this week:
“The disease is antisocial and can lead to isolation.”
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the supply of food on prescription can have social benefits, as well as mental, physical and emotional benefits?
Mr Jones
It can. There is some anecdotal evidence about the connection between coeliac disease and mental health. The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point.
This situation is creating considerable uncertainty for those who rely on access to gluten-free staples on prescription, and it is the vulnerable who are most adversely affected. Individuals with the disease are not eating gluten-free food out of choice or because it is some type of fad or Hollywood diet. They do so because they have to. It is people on fixed incomes or on benefits who receive free prescriptions and those whose households rely on deliveries from community pharmacies who will suffer most if prescriptions are withdrawn.
A number of people have written to me ahead of this debate, and I would like to draw Members’ attention to their cases. Patricia said:
“The diet I and many others follow is not a fad. It is necessary as it will affect my health and wellbeing if not followed, and might actually result in my admission to hospital—an extra strain on the NHS.”
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman consider students in this category? Many of them are on low budgets. They might be tempted not to buy the right food and then end up being sick and in the NHS, costing the state more money.
Mr Jones
That is the main point. What some CCGs are doing is a false economy, because one hospital admission will cost more than the annual cost of prescriptions for an individual who adheres to a gluten-free diet.
Another person living with coeliac disease, Janice, who is a constituent of mine, wrote to me saying:
“I strongly believe that these plans will cause more expense to the government when coeliac patients can’t afford shop priced gluten-free foods and don’t stick to their diet and end up with cancer of the bowels”,
as well as other conditions. She went on:
“I am a pensioner and find it increasingly hard to afford luxuries like biscuits and cakes. If I have to add gluten free bread, pasta and cereals to my shopping list this will cause more stress. I cannot have any form of gluten, even in small doses, as I am violently ill.”
As well as a failure to consider the evidence before making decisions to withdraw gluten-free prescriptions, there is also evidence of a lack of public consultation by CCGs. Coeliac UK has been doing a good job of holding CCGs to account. One example it provided is of Trevor, who told Coeliac UK that he has never received confirmation in writing that the policy had changed; he was informed only when Coeliac UK told him. He was diagnosed 10 years ago and has only ever had bread on prescription. He is unable to work and has ongoing medical problems. His nearest shop is a Co-op, which does not stock gluten-free products, and the nearest shop that does is some six miles away. That creates problems for people such as him.
The CCGs that have already removed access to prescriptions for gluten-free products have not outlined or implemented policies that offer alternatives to safeguard patients, such as access to specialist dietary or nutritional advice. When a coeliac patient is taken out of a CCG’s responsibility because their gluten-free food prescription has been withdrawn, that CCG can no longer monitor them or determine the changed policy’s impact on that patient’s health. This is an important factor, and I am concerned that it has not been taken into account by a number of CCGs.
In areas where gluten-free products are not prescribed, there is now no opportunity to encourage dietary adherence nor a prevention strategy for long-term management of people with coeliac disease. Effectively, patients who suffer the condition in these areas will be offered no support by the NHS. Although CCGs are engaged with local authorities and wellbeing boards to explore alternatives, none has yet been put in place.
The NHS has a good track record of involving the public in consultation, but the lack of consultation on the decision to withdraw prescriptions for gluten-free products is a disgrace, added to the fact that charities such as Coeliac UK are not consulted before such decisions are made.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. The point he is making is direct and correct. The nine-year-old daughter of my constituent, Helen Frost, has coeliac disease and Helen is worried that prescriptions for gluten-free products may be taken away. The uncertainty is adding stress to a situation that is already difficult to manage.
Mr Jones
That is not even taken into consideration, as my hon. Friend says.
My concern is that cutting prescriptions for gluten-free products is a simple and easy target for CCGs under financial pressure. The entire prescription cost to the NHS in 2014 was £26.8 million or 0.27% of the total prescription budget—£194 per patient. The procurement system that the NHS has in place is not working. The market for gluten-free products in the UK in 2014 was some £211 million, but the annual NHS budget was around £27 million or 13% of that total market. I do not know why the NHS cannot negotiate contracts with some commercial companies. Failure in procurement will clearly have an impact.
I turn to the issue of pharmacists. Back when we had primary care trusts, some pharmacy-led supply pilot schemes were set up in a handful of regions in England. When a patient was diagnosed with coeliac disease, the pharmacy-led scheme allowed patients to access gluten-free food and to manage their coeliac disease. However, with the establishment of CCGs, that seems to have gone out of the window—except in Scotland, which has a national gluten-free food service: a pharmacy-led scheme based on pilots in the UK.
Will the Minister seriously consider introducing such a scheme in England? It would save time and money and be a better way of managing people with coeliac disease. It is worth noting that the annual cost of gluten-free food is lower than the annual cost of items that the NHS provides that cost less over the counter—for example, paracetamol and so on. I beg the Minister to consider that, if properly done, what I suggest would save money.
I know the Minister has been in post for only a few months and I am sure he receives many demands for things to be provided by the NHS, but I am also sure his officials have briefed him on the principles of the NHS: that it is a comprehensive service available to all with access to NHS services based on clinical need, not individual ability to pay, and that it aspires to put patients at the heart of everything it does. This issue is about limiting choice because of cost.
In conclusion, the issue needs urgent intervention. It is not fair to individuals and there is a postcode lottery. A pharmacy-led system could be delivered better and more effectively. At the of the day, the people affected have no choice but to have a gluten-free diet. We should not ration care for some of the most vulnerable in our society.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on leading the charge on this subject. There is clearly consensus in the Chamber on the direction the Government should take. I will make a few points about where we are and what I think we need to do, and leave time for him to sum up.
Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)
Order. In a half-hour debate, the mover does not have the opportunity to sum up at the end, so you have a little more time than you thought, Minister.
David Mowat
Thank you, Mr Bailey.
As the hon. Gentleman said, one in 100 people in the UK suffer from coeliac disease. Interestingly, I was not aware of it until a year ago, when I was tested for the disease—fortunately I was negative. It is a significant disease that benefits from early diagnosis, and the points made about diagnosis were valid. Coeliac disease is an autoimmune condition: gluten damages the small bowel and the immune system feeds on it, resulting in a range of symptoms including diarrhoea, iron deficiency, tiredness and weight loss. It can exacerbate, if not cause, osteoporosis and mental health issues.
As we have heard, the only treatment is a gluten-free diet, which has two components. Meat, fish, fruit and vegetables do not contain gluten and generally do not need to be prescribed, but staple foods such as bread, pasta and flour and non-staple food such as biscuits do contain gluten. Since the 1960s, when the medical community was becoming more aware of the disease, those staple and non-staple foods have been prescribed pretty much, it is fair to say, without limit until recently. We spend something like £28 million a year on these prescriptions and in the great scheme of NHS costs that is not huge when considering the cost of cancer drugs and so on. It is true that we are now seeing a postcode lottery emerge, and I will say a little about why.
The other thing that has happened since the 1960s—I think the hon. Gentleman will concede this—is that the supermarkets and the retail trade have begun to get their act together in selling these products, although of course they are not available to everyone. Many supermarkets now have areas with gluten-free products, including bread and pasta. The products are more expensive than the equivalent non-gluten-free products, but they are certainly more available than in the past and a real alternative. Added to that, the fish and meat part of the diet, which is the same for sufferers and non-sufferers, is available to both.
Kevin Foster
The Minister is making valid point about supermarkets. Will he suggest to CCGs such as Torbay in south Devon that there is a halfway house and that instead of scrapping the prescription of gluten-free products they could provide vouchers that could be taken to a local supermarket?
David Mowat
That is an interesting idea, which I will consider, but I am not briefed to talk about it. The position of most Members on this issue is very clear from the tone of this debate and the points being made, and we will respond to that.
Rebecca Pow
This is highly relevant. I, too, have been contacted by constituents who have suggested this voucher idea—that the bona fide coeliacs get the staples and so many vouchers a month, not for all their products, but for the bread, pasta and absolute staples.
Liz McInnes
Is the Minister aware that the annual cost per diagnosed patient of prescribing gluten-free food is £180 per year? Weigh that up against the cost of avoiding infertility, bowel cancer and osteoporosis. What is the obvious conclusion for any NHS professional?
Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)
Order. Before the Minister responds, can I point out that he has been very generous in taking interventions, but the debate has to finish at 4.45 pm?
David Mowat
I made the point earlier that one in 100 people suffer from coeliac disease, and that £28 million is not a huge amount of money in the context of the entire NHS. I am sure the hon. Lady’s arithmetic stands up to that, and those are fair points.
If I may, I will set out the postcode lottery that has emerged. So far, 11 out of around 200 CCGs have ended all gluten-free prescriptions; 27 offer only bread and flour; 20 offer only bread, flour and pizza; 92, which is still by far the majority, broadly follow the Coeliac UK guidelines and offer a full range based a little on age, gender and other restrictions; and only four CCGs now have no restrictions whatsoever. The arguments about this are clear. Many poorer people, in particular—low-income people—are affected by the need to source their gluten-free products in different areas. CCGs are under pressure—the whole of the NHS is under pressure—and choices have to be made. It is true that £28 million is not a huge amount of money, but with £28 million here and £28 million there, we are soon talking about real money. It is true that choices have to be made, but it is not clear to me that this is an area in which the right choice is always being made.
In the couple of minutes available, I want to set out the actions that I think we should take. First, the hon. Member for North Durham correctly said that the community pharmacy sector has a role in this and is not so far being utilised as much as it could be. I think that he was wrong to say that it has stopped doing this in the transition from PCTs to CCGs. Something like 200 community pharmacies—15% of the total—do stock and sell gluten-free products. We are doing a review into the community pharmacy sector, trying to get it more focused on services. This is a very clear example of the sort of thing that we should be paying it to do, and when the Murray review is complete, I will—I am sure the hon. Gentleman will hold me to account on this—endeavour to make sure that that happens.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned consultations. CCGs should not withdraw gluten-free products without a consultation. My understanding is that in all cases where that has happened, a consultation has taken place. If he can provide me with evidence of that not being so, I will follow up and take action. The information I have been given is that consultations should always have taken place.
Finally, there is the issue of the postcode lottery. It is true that we give CCGs a lot of power in our system, in terms of making clinical decisions. The idea behind that is that they look at local considerations and balance the various options that they have. However, I will see to it that a review is done, hopefully within the next six months, of prescribing policies, and we will endeavour to come together with something that is more consistent, in a way that means we can actually make progress on this. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, and I thank everybody that has made an intervention in this debate. It has been a good debate, and a useful one for us to have had.
Question put and agreed to.
National College for Wind Energy
(8 years ago)
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Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the National College for Wind Energy.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I wish that this debate was not necessary, but with the autumn statement in just three weeks’ time, once again the Government look set to omit a deal for the proposed national college for wind energy, meaning that the project will stay stalled. The college was first announced in December 2014 by the then Business Secretary, the former Member for Twickenham. Three other colleges were aimed at addressing existing or forecast skills shortages in particular industries, and the policy included £80 million of Government funding to be matched by employers. However, difficulties at the due diligence stage of developing the bid with the private sector meant that the funding application could not be submitted in time, and the project was not included in last year’s autumn statement.
The original proposal was for a hub-and-spoke model. The college located in the Humber area would deliver training, allow partners to use the site for expertise that was not available elsewhere, and act as a co-ordination point for other skills providers located elsewhere in the country in order to maximise access. Following the failure to develop a funded plan for that before the deadline, alternative proposals were suggested, including one whereby there would be no physical college, but merely a national college badge for training providers as a guarantee of quality. I am glad that that idea no longer seems to be under consideration.
I will come to the various barriers that are preventing the deal, but it is important to note that this proposal was a pre-election promise by the coalition Government to invest tens of millions of pounds into the Humber region and to boost our local offshore wind industry. As it stands, that is a broken promise, which can be added to a pile of pre-election northern powerhouse funding commitments that quickly unravelled after last May.
Clearly the Government need to take the wheel if the college is ever going to be delivered, but I am now really concerned that the new Government are neglecting this proposal. When I and colleagues representing constituencies in the Humber, who I am delighted have joined me here today, met the previous Ministers for Business and Energy—the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)—back in March 2016, they assured us that they remained committed to delivering the college, but now it simply does not seem to be on the Government’s radar. Following the appointment of the current Cabinet in July, I wrote to the Secretary of State for the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, calling on him to work with the Education Secretary to ensure that a suitable proposal for the college was ready in time for this year’s autumn statement. I am still waiting for a reply.
The Prime Minister sent an awful signal to the energy industry when in one of her very first acts she scrapped the Department for Energy and Climate Change. She now has to show the industry that she is serious about giving it the attention that such an important sector of our economy requires. The day after my application for this debate was granted, my office received a call from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It wanted to know whether it or the Department for Education needed to send a Minister to respond today. That suggests that there has been absolutely no communication between the two Departments on this subject for four months, and that is incredibly disappointing. I say to the Minister here today that when he goes back to his office, he should pick up the phone to his colleagues in the BEIS and get to work on delivering what was promised.
When the college was first announced less than two years ago, the then Business Secretary said:
“The UK can no longer afford to lag behind countries like France and Germany, which have invested heavily in technical skills at the highest level for generations. The National Colleges will function on a par with our most prestigious universities, delivering training that matches the best in the world. They will help build a strong, balanced economy that delivers opportunity across all regions in the UK.”
That all remains true today: skills provision in this country does not match its ambitions and there is still a need to support industries such as offshore wind that provide good jobs outside London and the south-east. As a relatively young and fast-growing industry that demands high levels of skills, it is no surprise that offshore wind sites have sometimes struggled to find workers already equipped with the necessary capabilities for the jobs. Mike Parker, who was chair of the Humber local enterprise partnership’s employment and skills board, said that the national college would be
“a major step forward in helping the UK bridge that gap.”
RenewableUK, the trade body for renewable energy, has highlighted some of the challenges specific to offshore work in training employees. Personnel need to receive training in real working environments, and it has to be done safely; such conditions are difficult to replicate. That accounts for the need for advanced skills training in the construction and operation of turbines offshore. It takes four years of training to become a wind turbine technician.
A RenewableUK study from two years ago found that more than a third of wind and marine energy firms were having difficulty filling certain positions. The TUC argued in its “Powering ahead” report that the skills gap in renewables requires training to be given equal weight to what are currently described as the three pillars of energy policy: security, affordability and sustainability.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. The Humber local enterprise partnership has prioritised skills and training and it has done a good job. Does she agree that a Government commitment to deliver and complete their promise on wind energy, by agreeing to get the college moving forward, would be a real, much-needed vote of confidence in the Humber LEP and the Humber region?
Melanie Onn
I could not agree more. The significant skills gap across many industries has been noted and recognised in the local area. The Humber region is particularly eager to capitalise on the growth in the offshore industry, whether we are talking about Siemens, DONG Energy, E.ON, Centrica—I could go on. The number of international companies that are choosing to base themselves in the Humber area is increasing by the week and we must have the local workforce skilled to meet the requirements of industry.
The report argues that not only are apprenticeships and further education courses needed to provide opportunities for young people to access the renewable energy industry, but we need institutions such as the national college in order to give workers in the oil and gas industries the skills to transfer over, as high-polluting industries are gradually replaced by those in the green economy. I do not think that the issues that made the college necessary two years ago have altered that much in the past two years. I would argue that the only major changes we have seen since 2014 make it more important that the college is developed.
As foreign companies are looking at whether to invest further in the UK, the uncertainty over future immigration policy makes it vital for the UK to be able to offer workers with the necessary skills and training to do the job. Following through on the national college for wind energy would be a commitment to the future of the industry, assuring energy companies that Britain is committed to the offshore wind sector for the long term and therefore providing the certainty they need to continue investing in our economy.
Developing the college is also of regional and local importance. The Humber region was due to be the location for the college under the original plans for a really good reason: thousands of people across the energy estuary are employed to work on the wind farms and in the supply chain, with the Hornsea, Race Bank and Triton Knoll sites all set to employ hundreds more in the near future.
Organisations within the region have welcomed the new industry with enthusiasm. The Humber LEP, for example, set an ambition in 2014 to make the region
“the national centre of excellence for energy skills.”
We have already seen investment in training and opportunities for young people. Indeed, an apprentice from a local firm was at an event in the House of Commons today, so apprentices I have met in Grimsby are making the journey to champion their organisations here in Parliament. They have the opportunity to take advantage of the fantastic new £10-million training facility that AIS Training built last year. That investment shows the confidence that local business has in offshore wind.
An apprentice I have had the pleasure of meeting is Michael. I have told his story a number of times but I am going to do so again, because it made a significant difference not only to me and the way I view the offshore wind industry, but to hundreds of people in a room at a skills fair that I held earlier in the year. Michael was 19 at the time, and his ambition was to be a skipper on one of the North sea service boats that go out and maintain the turbines. I invited him along to the skills fair; he thought he would be telling a small group of young people in a classroom a little bit about his job, so having never spoken to an audience before, he was rather surprised to be in front of an auditorium of about 200 people, who were all very keen to hear about how he found his way into an apprenticeship in the wind industry.
The significant thing about Michael, in his own words, was this:
“Seven months ago I was on jobseeker’s allowance, and had no plans and nothing to bring to the table. North Sea Services didn’t judge me for all my tattoos and took me on. Seeing the wind turbines close up is mind-blowing. The work that goes into them is unbelievable. I’m trying to show them that I’m worth keeping on.”
Happily, North Sea Services did keep him on, and Michael was part of the vessel crew that took my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and I out to visit the Humber Gateway turbines in June. His story shows why it is so important that this industry continues to grow and that the college is developed: so more young people in towns such as Great Grimsby have a chance to make something of their lives, and to have a job they can be proud of.
Great Grimsby was one of three sites in the Humber region that were originally touted to host the college. I want to say why it would be so important for the development of my town, and I hope that my neighbouring colleagues will excuse me for championing my town as the host town for the college. For more than a century, Great Grimsby was a one-industry town. Fishing not only employed thousands of local people but gave them their identity, their community and their pride, and we are still feeling the effects of its decline. My constituency has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and because of the lack of opportunity one in three of our children grows up in poverty.
I have said it before, but it is true: offshore wind has brought a renewal of hope to Grimsby. It is playing an important role in redefining what my town offers not just to our own people, but to the rest of the country. We are already the renewable energy capital of England and being home to the national college for wind energy would be vital for the same reason. It would also give more local people the opportunity for a proper career, with high-skilled work—something that until recently young people felt they would have to go to the big cities to find.
The Prime Minister said last month that the Government’s industrial strategy was
“about identifying the industries that are of strategic value to our economy and supporting and promoting them through policies on”,
among other things, “training” and “skills”. She also spoke about the importance of economic revival in parts of our country that have lagged behind London and the south-east for too long. If this Government are to live up to the Prime Minister’s conference speech, they need to show leadership and get this project moving again. If industry is now reluctant to commit funds to the project, citing greater risk, lower growth, and a lack of clarity on skills policy, the Government should assuage those concerns by committing to support the industry.
We have seen in the past week that the Government are willing to support specific industries and even individual companies, as with Nissan. It is good news that Nissan’s future in Sunderland is secured, but it is just as important that the Government meet their commitments to the wind energy industry. The Government should also remind the energy companies that they have a stake in this. They have received large subsidies from taxpayers and have a responsibility to ensure that their business benefits the towns and cities in which they operate, and it is in their interest to build a workforce for the future. I hope that the Minister gives us, at the very least, an assurance that the Government have not given up on this project and will set out how he plans to move forward with it.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn)—my Member of Parliament—on securing the debate and on outlining the importance of such a college to the Humber region and, even more important, to the Grimsby-Cleethorpes area, which is very much dependent on the development of the offshore renewables sector for the local economy to succeed and develop. In order to do that, as she pointed out, the correct training facilities are essential. We want to get local people, particularly younger people, trained up so that they can take advantage of the new industries.
At the moment, too many highly-skilled workers are being imported from Denmark, Germany and the like. We must get to a situation in which our younger people develop skills so that they can move into those jobs in the near future. As has been pointed out, the companies have a duty. I think that the hon. Lady was a bit too critical of the Government. I have never been shy of criticising the Government when necessary, as my Whip would happily confirm, but on this occasion we have seen a commitment, certainly from the coalition Government when the original announcement was made, and subsequently.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman said that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) was critical of the Government. Does he not agree that it is a bit damaging, to say the least, that the Prime Minister—within a few minutes, apparently, of taking office—scrapped the Department that everybody, including all those investors, were looking to in order to make things happen?
Martin Vickers
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I do not agree. There is an obvious synergy between the various Departments that were merged into the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—BEIS, as I think we are supposed to call it. What matters is that there are spokesmen such as my right hon. Friend the Minister who are determined to develop skills and the energy aspects of the Department, so I will sweep aside the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
As the hon. Member for Great Grimsby knows, there are facilities in our region. She, like me, will have visited the Grimsby Institute. I know that she has visited HCF CATCH, the training facility at Stallingborough in my constituency. We also have the newly established Humber University Technical College in Scunthorpe. There has been a clear and positive contribution from the Government and some parts of the private sector.
The hon. Lady is right that we urgently need to develop the college in the Humber region, preferably on the south bank and, even more preferably, in the Grimsby-Cleethorpes area. I am even prepared to support her bid to have the college in Grimsby, because it is in danger, in some respects, of being one of the left-behind towns to which the Prime Minister has referred. Grimsby is in urgent need of regeneration, which, in part, has to come from the public sector. The private sector will get on board, but the Government need to show willing. The hon. Lady and I have been supporting each other in trying to develop and bring forward a number of other projects in north-east Lincolnshire, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.
I think, to be very local, that the east marsh area and perhaps the Freeman Street area, with such proximity to the docks, would be ideal locations if there were a new build. From my conversations with the LEP, I know that there are discussions about whether the college should be a new build or whether we concentrate too much on new builds. However, locating the college on such sites would be particularly helpful with regeneration.
Melanie Onn
Will the hon. Gentleman join me in supporting a call for a new build precisely to evidence the support of the Government for assisting a grand regeneration project for Great Grimsby?
Martin Vickers
I am very happy to support the hon. Lady. As I mentioned a moment ago, the Grimsby-Cleethorpes area, particularly the rundown areas of Grimsby, are definitely in need of regeneration, which has to come from a public sector-led development.
In conclusion, I urge the Minister to give a positive lead. From previous discussions with him, I know how committed he is to training, apprenticeships and giving every support to our young people. It would be a real bit of encouragement to those in our area if he could give a positive lead and answer the questions raised by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and me.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing the debate and on putting forward a compelling case for why the proposals for the college should go ahead. I am not going to get involved in the discussion about whether it should be in Great Grimsby or Cleethorpes, largely because I do not know what I am talking about when it comes to that—not that that has ever stopped me in the past.
Education is devolved in Scotland, so that side of the debate has no implications for Scotland. However, the industrial side of things, including the ability to provide the marketplace with enough skilled folk, very much resonates with Scotland. Energy policy, which is a reserved matter, also has an impact on the general attractiveness of the whole United Kingdom as a destination for investment in renewable energy. In the past few weeks, we have slipped further down the Ernst and Young rankings for countries with renewable energy attractiveness—from 13th to 14th—after not being out of the top 10 for a decade or so. That is regrettable.
I will not talk about the educational merits. National colleges are not a model that we have used in Scotland; our investment is through existing educational providers. However, I will talk about the message sent to the investment community, young people and the whole industry by announcing something like the college and then not funding it once it has gone ahead. This is another of the substantial number of announcements that the Government have made in the realms of renewable energy that have been unhelpful and that have probably added to the UK’s diminished investment attractiveness.
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby mentioned that it was unfortunate—I do not think that that was her exact word, as it is probably worse than that—that the Department for Energy and Climate Change has been abolished. I share that frustration. The justification for abolishing the Department was to put industrial strategy back into the political lexicon. Well, taking climate change out of the political lexicon was particularly short-sighted. The biggest challenge facing us as a species perhaps deserves a bit of recognition by the Government.
I understand the argument made by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) about the synergies that can be created by bringing the two Government Departments together. Unfortunately, it does not sound as though those synergies are working well, if the hon. Member for Great Grimsby cannot get a response to a letter for several months. I have also found that letters are going unanswered, and colleagues in the Scottish Government are having incredible difficulty getting proper information out of the new Department. We all understand that putting new Departments together takes time and will cause confusion for a while. We also understand that Brexit is eating up an awful lot of the Government’s time—for their thought process and to think about what can be done—but there is a day job that needs to be done properly, particularly when it comes to the investment and skills for vital industries that have a four-year lead-in time, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby mentioned.
The joined-up approach that is supposed to come from BEIS needs to come quickly, and the college is a particular example of where that could happen. The proposal is on the table. Put the money into it. Provide that incentive for others—a vote of confidence in an industry that will require significant investment in skills. We have huge question marks on the electricity supply in this country, which will get harder as a result of Brexit.
I am interested by the TUC’s argument, which the hon. Member for Great Grimsby mentioned, on adding the skills shortage as a fourth pillar of the trilemma. I have not previously heard that argument, but I think it is key. We have teased out that there are skills shortages in this area. Can the Minister provide us with more up-to-date figures on the skills shortage in the renewable energy industry, particularly in offshore wind? The problem is not going to get any easier with the expected restrictions to free movement of labour as a result of the Brexit process. As well as failing to attract folks from Germany or Denmark, whom the hon. Member for Cleethorpes mentioned, we are already losing skilled personnel from the industry. Skilled people are losing their jobs in the onshore wind sector—there are clearly significant synergies between onshore wind and offshore wind—because of the Government’s lack of investment.
The hon. Members for Great Grimsby and for Cleethorpes both touched on this but if I have one plea on the development of an industrial strategy, it is that Government expenditure, particularly in areas of deprivation—the Humber is not an area I know well, but I understand that there are issues of historical unemployment—boost the economy and provide long-term economic and societal benefits. Money spent by this Government need not just be seen as money going out the door; it needs to be seen as an investment in the future and in communities that need help from their Government for whatever reason. There will be a return on that investment. There will be a benefit if we invest, as a country, in areas such as Great Grimsby and in technologies and industries such as offshore and onshore wind. If we do not do those things, either the jobs will go unfilled or we will have to bring people in from Germany, Denmark or wherever. Electricity will still be needed if we do not build onshore or offshore wind, but we will get it from Norway, France or Holland.
Let us think about a joined-up approach, as BEIS is meant to do. If we invest in skills and provide certainty that we will build x amount of offshore wind and y amount of onshore wind, the money, the jobs and the energy security will follow. It is a pretty simple proposition, but it is one that the Government must get right.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I warmly congratulate and applaud my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing this debate. As she said, she has a long track record on this issue. It is extremely disappointing that, almost two years after the proposed national college for wind energy was first announced, the Government still have not finalised the funding or the strategy and still have not given an open date for developing a college that would help to address the skills shortages in the industry and the wider region.
I obviously listened with great care to my hon. Friend’s speech, but I also listened to the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and what he said about the importance of seeing the whole area as a forcing point for these technologies. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig) spoke a great deal of sense about the need for a holistic approach.
In a way, the little episode that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby described, about the Department that never was, indicates the issue. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South and I were both relocated, if I can put it like that, in the summer period, and I am no stranger to changes to the machinery of government. I remember the issues that were discussed in 2007 when the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, as it was called, was split from the Department for Education.
When we have such changes, such necessary disruption, it only becomes more important that things that have been sitting in the filing tray, virtual or actual, should be looked at with greater urgency by the incoming Department. That is not too much to ask when we know that offshore wind presents a great opportunity for expanding our low-carbon generation profile and can play an important role in helping us to decarbonise the power sector and meet our climate change targets.
In August 2016, a strategic review of east coast port facilities identified the offshore wind sector’s enormous potential to accelerate economic growth on the east coast of Britain. It found that east coast ports have the capability to support the ambitious pipeline of offshore wind projects that will be built out on the North sea in the decades ahead. The construction of such major infrastructure projects will stimulate economic activity in some of the most economically deprived areas of the UK.
As we have seen in other industries, such as the nuclear industry or the aerospace industry—I am particularly familiar with the aerospace industry, having BAE Systems only a few miles down the road from me in Blackpool—supply chain companies would serve projects in British waters and export goods across the world. We all know that jobs created directly in an industry are often exceeded two or threefold by the jobs created in the supply chain. The secret ingredient in that process, of course, is skilling and training, particularly high skilling and training. That is one of the reasons why the college that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby is so strongly advocating would be essential.
My hon. Friend has said that the Humber area is an ideal location for the college. Grimsby is the renewable energy capital of England, not least because of the involvement and investment of Siemens in the region since 2014. Siemens has announced its decision to invest £160 million in wind turbine production and installation facilities across two locations, and its port partner, Associated British Ports—ABP—is investing a further £150 million in the Green Port Hull development.
In my first spell as shadow Minister for further education and skills, I was privileged to visit Hull to meet the local enterprise partnership and other stakeholders about their hopes and expectations for this project. We spoke about how crucial it is for the area’s wellbeing and the local enterprise partnership’s strategy. When I moved across to become shadow maritime Minister, I was lobbied on the issue by the excellent port group, ABP, because it was keen to see progress. Now that I have returned to shadowing the Department with responsibility for further education and skills, I find that the same issue has cropped up again in my new portfolio, which shows how important and widespread the project is. We need to cut across the silos of Government to get the results that my hon. Friend wants.
The then chair of the Humber LEP employment and skills board, Mike Parker, welcomed the project in 2014:
“Our economy is growing; building on their Grimsby presence, Siemens are set to locate in Hull, and E.on, Centrica, Vestas and Dong Energy have chosen the south bank of the estuary as their preferred sites. Supporting the generation companies is a growing supply chain of maintenance and facilities management. Wind energy generation is still relatively new and demands higher level skilled employees, the lack of an able qualified workforce has led to the sector facing a serious challenge in filling vacancies.”
The hon. Member for Cleethorpes made that point when he spoke about generating skills locally, rather than importing them from Germany and Scandinavia.
Melanie Onn
Does the shadow Minister agree that growth and new investment from DONG Energy, which has decided to establish its operations and maintenance base in Grimsby, make it even more vital that we have enough young people and skilled local people able to take on jobs at the site when it is built?
Gordon Marsden
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend makes a critical point: there has to be a synergy—a symbiosis, if I can put it that way—between the timing of the creation of these new initiatives and the supply chain of skills to feed them. Getting that wrong would not only cause great disruption in that supply chain but send out a message to other potential investors that this is not an area in which to risk their money.
Let me quote again from the former chair of the Humber LEP skills and employment board:
“Having a dedicated National College will be a major step forward in helping the UK to bridge that gap.”
The need to tackle skills shortages has not shrunk but increased over the past two years. One has to ask why the Government have still not committed to the college.
In response to the strategic review carried out earlier this year, the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), commented:
“The UK is the world leader in offshore wind and it’s important that we make the most of the many jobs and business opportunities that arise from this growing industry.”
What more appropriate way to achieve that than by taking action on this project?
When the college was first announced in 2014, it was envisaged that it would open its doors in late 2016. A significant feature of the college—not least in view of some of the issues that the Minister and I discussed in an earlier debate in this Chamber today about the balance of skills and apprenticeships—is that it would offer new and mature students professional qualifications and short courses in addition to bespoke programmes directed and sponsored by employers.
Beyond the specifics of this project in Grimsby, that would help to address the bleak situation that many adult learners face in further education and higher education. As the Opposition argued when we debated the Higher Education and Research Bill, we really need to put the same emphasis and passion that have been put behind the apprenticeships programme into the expansion of adult learning and skills. Those are the areas in which we have lost big time over the past four or five years, especially in comparison with our continental counterparts.
The TUC’s report “Powering ahead”, which my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby has already mentioned, states—rightly, in my view:
“The TUC believes there should be a fourth pillar of energy policy: skills…It is…essential that if today’s workers are to become tomorrow’s workers, using new technology, they will need the skills for this change. Upskilling must become a normal and regular part of a worker’s life.”
That is crucial. We will have more than 13 million job vacancies over the next 30 years, but only 7 million school leavers to fill them, so reskilling adults is paramount. That growing skills gap has to be at the heart of the agenda to bridge the gaps and shortages appearing across the workforce. There is so much potential in lifelong learning, but unfortunately the Government are still moving too slowly and letting the sector down.
Wind energy is a growing industry. Employment is expected to increase and engineers, technicians and other specialist roles will therefore be in greater demand. Many of those roles can and should be filled by young people starting their careers. However, there are other roles, including at other levels, in which experience will be extremely important, particularly in coastal environments. We know that there are already large skills gaps across the wind energy sector and that 37% of vacancies are found to be difficult to fill. A national college in Grimsby would go a long way towards providing a strategy on addressing those shortages and would help new and mature students to advance their skills.
I have great sympathy for Grimsby in this case. Like me, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby represents a coastal constituency that has seen challenges. Second-level towns, particularly seaside and coastal towns, have been particularly challenged in recent years by the decline of traditional industries and traditional sources of income. They are the towns that particularly need regeneration and the benefits that come with it—skills, jobs and potential spin-offs—especially given all the unknowns and uncertainties that their communities face, whatever happens as a result of the 23 June referendum.
Opposition Front-Benchers, alongside the TUC and others, have been pushing for a review of the increasing demands on adults to take out advanced learner loans to fund vocational upskilling. As the TUC report “Powering ahead” states:
“In light of the fact that the bulk of funding for apprenticeships will switch from government to employers in the coming years, there is a strong case for government providing more direct subsidy for retraining and upskilling of adult employees in priority areas as the economy transitions to a sustainable industrial scenario.”
If funding for the college is an issue, the Government really ought to give their attention to it. They have to rebalance their skills basket to focus on adult workers as well as on those starting out. The message of the Leitch review, which is now nearly a decade old, is still very pertinent: because of the democratic demands, new technologies and new skills cannot simply be left to the young.
The take-up of advanced learner loans is not very good: only about 50% of the money allocated is being used and the rest is being sent to the Treasury, so the Government need to find a way to incentivise adults to take out loans. Initiatives such as the potential national college for wind energy would offer a fantastic opportunity for people over the age of 24 or 25 to gain new skills and a path into employment in a fast growing, vital industry. As well as dealing with today’s skills, a college such as the one proposed for Grimsby could also promote cutting-edge research into new skills for generation 2.0 and 3.0 of these innovative new technologies.
I sat on the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee when it did a report on renewables in the late 2000s. We spoke in that report about the lost opportunities for UK plc to capitalise on the expanding renewables markets, and about the dangers of relying on assemblage outside the UK for our renewable technologies. Sadly, some of the Committee’s fears have come to pass, but that is why it is even more important that we take the initiative now that we have the opportunity. Frankly, the Government have delivered enough knocks to renewables initiatives in the past couple of years—first with the problems in trying to decide whether to have nuclear as well as renewables, and then by encouraging subsidies for solar power, knocking them back and dithering over onshore wind. The signals that that approach sends out are not encouraging.
In Blackpool, our own energy college, Blackpool and the Fylde College, is going to look at renewables. When I look out from Blackpool towards Liverpool bay, I have a particular interest in seeing those new renewable energies offshore continuing to flourish. The national college for wind energy in Grimsby that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby has promoted so valiantly today would be an important part of that strategy. We hope the Minister will be able to say some positive things today to get it moving on its course.
Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)
I propose to conclude the debate at 5.45 pm. If the Minister could give Melanie Onn a few moments to wind up, that would be helpful.
The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) on securing this debate; she is a brilliant advocate for her constituency. I also pay tribute to my genuine hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and thank him for his remarks.
It is clear from the hon. Lady’s interest in this subject that she rightly wants to ensure that people of all ages in Grimsby have access to high-quality further and higher education to acquire the technical skills that employers are increasingly demanding. The Grimsby Institute is already helping to meet those needs as one of England’s largest providers of higher education, providing a wide range of training at a variety of levels. The hon. Lady spoke movingly about the apprentice she met. She will know that there were 840 apprentice starts in her constituency last year, and there were more than 5,210 between 2010 and the end of 2015. I know she would like to see more; hopefully, the impact of our commitment to deliver 3 million apprenticeships by 2020 will be felt in her constituency.
The hon. Lady raised important issues about the skill needs of the energy industry, which is timely because it allows me to set out what the Government are doing to address the skills needs across all sectors of the economy in England. It is a key priority of the Government to ensure that we have the skilled workforce required to support development and growth in all areas of the UK economy. The country has all the ingredients required to compete with other skilled nations, but we have to create an education system that can harness and develop that talent, starting at school and going right through to the highest levels of education and training.
We are making progress. Many more of our young people are now taking up high-quality apprenticeships and training, leading to good jobs and careers in their chosen profession. Our post-16 skills plan will build on that, creating a more streamlined system of high-quality technical education that truly delivers the skills that industry need, but the Government cannot do the job by ourselves. We want to work with employers and colleges to unlock the potential in this country. There are already good examples of colleges and employers working in close partnership to create world-class facilities and teaching, but there is more to do.
I am not afraid to acknowledge that our education system does not always deliver the high-level technical skills in the volumes that our economy demands, especially at levels 4 to 5—the bit between A-level and graduate level. The fact that only 10% of people in England hold higher-level technical qualifications has contributed to a chronic shortage of highly skilled technicians. The OECD estimates that we will need around 300,000 trained technicians entering the labour market by 2020. Every year, the UK produces only around a third of the number of people trained at technician level that Germany produces. Higher apprenticeships are beginning to address that, but we are growing from a low base. Things are not going to get any better in a system in which only 4% of students are studying further education at level 4. Although there is good higher-level technical provision in some areas, it is spread too thinly across the country overall.
National colleges, which we have heard about this afternoon, will play an important role in helping to meet the gaps, within the context of the wider reforms set out in our 16-plus skills plan, which outlines the most radical shake-up of post-16 education since the introduction of A-levels almost 70 years ago. It will transform technical education for most young people and adults into an education that is world class, with clear pathways to skilled employment. It will build on the success we have already had by investing in apprenticeships, with the aim of creating a skilled workforce that is the envy of every other nation and that meets the needs of our growing and rapidly changing economy.
National colleges will have an important place in the new technical skills landscape, helping to define and deliver the routes required. They provide specialist facilities and training and lead the way in the design and delivery of higher level technical skills in industries or sectors that are critical to economic growth—industries that currently rely heavily on imported skills to meet the skills gaps at higher levels.
Gordon Marsden
The Minister is setting out some of the Government’s new proposals in this policy area, on which we will no doubt touch again as part of our discussions of the new Further Education and Technology Bill, which was announced last week. Regarding the hopes of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) for the college at Grimsby, does the Minister accept that there needs to be a recalibration in Government to ensure that older people who have experience and skills participate in the new set of national colleges as well as younger people? It seems that too often the Government’s rhetoric has excluded them.
Robert Halfon
I would like all people to participate if they need the skills. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman: our apprenticeships, skills offerings and national colleges are all open to all ages.
The Government are investing £80 million to support the development of five national colleges, and we expect that money to be matched by investment from industry in the respective sectors. The ambition is for the colleges to train up to 20,000 learners by 2020. I recently visited the new Hackney-based National College for Digital Skills. The facilities, the enthusiasm of the staff, the passion of the students and the strong support from employers such as Google will make it the success that I know it will be. Employers in other industries are crying out for higher-level skills, and particularly for technicians who combine deep knowledge of technology with up-to-date experience in industry.
National colleges will be set up only in those sectors where there is a clear gap in skills and where employers have clearly demonstrated their support and willingness to contribute to the operation of the colleges. Those that have been successful so far have had a clearly defined scope and sector focus, with evidence of strong employer support—High Speed 2, nuclear and the creative and digital industries—and wind energy is no exception. An industry-focused skills solution would need to demonstrate strong employer commitment and willingness to contribute capital, equipment, senior management time and access to facilities.
I am encouraged by the considerable work done to date by key partners to develop a proposal that meets the existing and future needs of the energy sector. Officials from my Department have been in discussion with the local enterprise partnership and others to provide advice on what we would want to see from a national college for wind energy. I understand that the LEP and RenewableUK are working with industry to identify skills gaps and to build a case for a viable national college model. The latest proposal has changed, but it is still very much consistent with the original vision of a national college. I am encouraged by the work that is going on, and look forward to further progress on the national college proposal. It will follow, as it must do, the same robust assessment process as for every other national college that has been agreed. Widespread employer buy-in and engagement will be a critical factor.
Melanie Onn
Might this be an opportune moment for the Minister to throw his full and forceful weight behind accelerating the programme as much as possible and encouraging all the agencies in the area to provide a blueprint so that we can all receive some assurance? My original concern was about the problem of the timing, in advance of the autumn statement; perhaps he can comment on that as well.
Robert Halfon
As I have said, as long as the same propositions that others who have set up national colleges are followed—it looks as if a lot of work is being done to do that—I will of course support and work with the relevant bodies, such as the LEP, as well as with the hon. Lady and others. Nevertheless, the detailed plan must be produced, and it has to meet the conditions that the plans for other national colleges had to meet. There is no doubt that, as I have said, this industry is vital to the economy and that, as I have also said, we need a skills training system that can deliver the skills needed to fill these jobs.
During the Commons debate on the Humber energy estuary in February, the Government set out our ambition to have a strong industrialised UK supply chain with the capability and capacity to win even more orders. We are working with developers to see how we can attract further investment and promote rejuvenation in areas such as Hull. We want UK companies to be able to benefit from offshore wind development, by ensuring that they are in the best possible position to compete for business.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby for raising this important issue today and I know that she will work hard to try to help establish the national college in her area.
Melanie Onn
I will take the Minister up on his offer to work together, because the only way that this project can be achieved is through significant political championing. I look forward to many an exchange of correspondence with him; hopefully, he will visit my area, which may assist him in gathering ever-increasing enthusiasm for my vision—not only for the college, but for my constituency.
I thank the hon. Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig) for their very considered contributions to the debate. Obviously, the local knowledge that the hon. Member for Cleethorpes brings to the discussion highlights how keen local MPs are to see our constituencies benefit from all of the projects available in the local area. I also recognise the contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who are no longer in their places.
Some of the skills that need to be developed go beyond those of a wind turbine technician. Only a finite number of wind turbine technician vacancies will ever be available in this industry, but the skills required in the industry go beyond those of such a technician. There are maritime skills, operational skills, mechanical skills, digital skills and technical skills, as well as the engineering side of things. A vast range of skills is required, all of which need to be taught up to a very significant level.
I recognise the commitment of companies that have based themselves in the Humber area to try to secure as many local people as possible—they are trying to employ the local workforce—and to assist with local training facilities by having a direct input into the development of training, so that they do not have to send their staff to Denmark or Germany to access training when it can be accessed locally. Nevertheless, it would be an enormous boost to our area to have a centre of excellence that everybody in the whole country could be proud of, with high-level provision of skills for a really exciting and fast-moving industry. We are already behind on skills training.
Martin Vickers
Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that, although we have spoken a lot about getting our young people trained up for these industries, there are many people who have past experience in the offshore oil and gas industry and require only modest retraining? If the retraining courses were available, that would open up new opportunities for them.
Melanie Onn
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; in fact, I briefly referred to that issue in my speech and obviously my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), the shadow Minister, has been very keen to focus on adult skills.
However, such training should have been provided when the investment was being made, because we are already playing catch-up. This is advancing technology, so we should be looking at the research and development side of things as well as providing the basic skills, because 15 years ago turbine blades were 16 metres long and now they are over 80 metres long. This industry has developed rapidly in the last 15 years and in my view every delay leaves those of us in the Humber area even further behind in getting the very best out of the offshore wind industry. So I urge the Minister to take a particularly keen interest in this issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the National College for Wind Energy.
Written Statements
Government-owned Company: Provision of Indemnity
(8 years ago)
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The Minister for Climate Change and Industry (Mr Nick Hurd)
On 2 October 2015 the SSI steel works in Redcar was placed into compulsory liquidation and an official receiver (OR) was appointed as liquidator. On 12 October, following no buyer for the steel works being found, the decision was taken by the official receiver to set about the hard closure of the site. Since that time the official receiver has been undertaking a protracted liquidation of SSI and, in the absence of an owner, he has been overseeing the safe and secure hard closure of the site. Government, through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, are currently providing an indemnity to the OR so that he can carry out his duties as liquidator of the company and ensure its ongoing safety and security.
The Department is establishing a Government company, known as the South Tees Site Company, in order to take forward the safety and security of the site from the OR. STSC will have a management team as well as a board of directors, accountable to the BEIS Secretary of State. In order to allow the board of directors and management team to carry out their duties BEIS has agreed to indemnify them against all claims, proceedings, costs—including the cost of defending proceedings—and expenses.
Over the summer recess the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy identified a need to provide the indemnities immediately. As a result the Department wrote to the Chairs of the Public Accounts Committee and the BEIS Select Committee on 2 September outlining our intention, asking for any objection to be notified within five working days. I can confirm that neither PAC nor Select Committee raised any objections to the issuing of these indemnities.
I would also like to take this opportunity to inform the House that there is an agreement in place between SSI in liquidation and STSC concerning the management of the site. BEIS has clarified to the OR that his indemnity of 2 October 2015 indemnifies him for any claims, proceedings, costs and expenses raised against or incurred by the OR as a result of a breach by STSC of the agreement.
It is not possible at this stage to accurately quantify the value of such indemnity. HMG has considered the risks of this indemnity and I believe the likelihood of such indemnities being called upon is low. The indemnity is limited to liabilities arising as a consequence of the site assessments and the current BEIS indemnity remains in place. If the liability is called upon, provision for any payment will be sought through the normal Supply procedure.
As a matter of record I have laid a departmental minute for both Houses explaining the procedure followed and containing a description of the liabilities undertaken.
[HCWS230]
National Cyber Security Strategy
(8 years ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Ben Gummer)
Today the Government are publishing the national cyber-security strategy 2016-21. This strategy sets out the Government’s objectives for strengthening the security of the UK in cyberspace over the next five years.
Cyber is a tier 1 threat to the UK’s economic and national security. The policies, institutions and initiatives developed under the previous strategy have helped to establish the UK as a leading global player in cyber-security. However, the scale and dynamic nature of cyber-threats, and the increasing dependency of our economy and society on digital products and services, mean that our current approach to cyber-security needs to be further strengthened. Therefore, the Government are today publishing the new five-year national cyber-security strategy, which defines our vision and ambition for achieving a UK that is secure and resilient to cyber-threats; prosperous and confident in the digital world.
The strategy sets out a series of ambitious policies and initiatives across the following themes:
Defence against the threat;
Deterrence of hostile actions against the UK, its people, businesses and allies;
Development of our cyber-security industry, enhancement of our cyber-security skills and strengthening of our scientific research base.
This activity will be supported by international action to invest in partnerships to shape the global evolution of cyberspace in a manner that advances the UK’s cyber-security interests.
At the heart of the strategy is the creation of a new national cyber-security centre (NCSC)—a world-class centre of excellence to co-ordinate the national cyber effort and provide a unified source of advice and support for the private and public sector.
This strategy will be delivered through Government working in partnership with the devolved Administrations, the wider public sector, industry, academia and the public. It is supported by the £1.9 billion national cyber-security programme.
The National Cyber Security Strategy 2016-2021 can be viewed online at http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-11-01/HCWS229/.
[HCWS229]
Draft BBC Charter and Draft Framework Agreement
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Karen Bradley)
On 15 September 2016, I announced the publication of the draft BBC royal charter and draft framework agreement.
The debates in the devolved legislatures and both Houses on these important documents have now concluded. I have listened with interest to the views raised and the debates have very much shown how far we have come. I am pleased today to announce the publication of updated versions of the draft royal charter and draft framework agreement on www.gov.uk which will shortly be submitted to the Privy Council.
The updated versions take into account and reflect the outcome of the debates and contain some minor and technical changes to the initial draft versions I published on 15 September 2016.
I can confirm that a copy of the royal charter and a copy of the framework agreement will be laid before the House if approved by Her Majesty. A copy of the royal charter and a copy of the framework agreement will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses when ready.
[HCWS231]
Safeguarding
(8 years ago)
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The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)
I am pleased to publish this statement about the safeguarding of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children jointly with the Home Office Minister of State for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill).
The Government are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and providing help for those in genuine need of international protection. The UK takes their responsibilities towards children extremely seriously, and we already have a comprehensive approach to safeguarding children, including unaccompanied children.
We recognise that the number of unaccompanied and refugee children arriving in the UK has risen over the last few years, including through the transfer of hundreds of children from Calais. Some of these children can be among the most vulnerable in society. That is why we are, today, committing to publishing a strategy, by 1 May 2017, which will set out further detail on how these children should be safeguarded and their welfare promoted. This strategy will complement and build on existing safeguarding guidance and procedures, in recognition of the increased numbers and specific needs of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children already in the UK, unaccompanied children who we transfer to the UK from Europe, and unaccompanied children who we resettle directly from outside Europe. It will also set out the practical steps the Government will take to implement this plan.
In recognition of the important role fostering plays in caring for unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children the strategy will set out plans to increase the number of foster carers. This will include evaluating the need for any additional training needs required by foster carers and support workers in looking after unaccompanied children. Supported lodgings, where young people can live in a shared and supportive environment, can also play an important role in meeting the needs of these children as well as ensuring placement capacity so we will set out our plans to encourage provision of this type.
We recognise that these children may have family or potential carers with whom they are seeking to be re-united, under the Dublin regulation. The Department for Education and Home Office will work together to make sure the system for identifying these children and uniting them with family or potential carers is further strengthened bearing in mind that the primary responsibility of all involved must be safeguarding and promoting the best interests of the child. We are already working closely with the Local Government Association and local authorities where children are arriving, and will look to build on these strong relationships. Specifically, we will regularly review funding to support and care for unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children, working closely with the LGA and local authorities.
In developing our strategy we will evaluate the procedures for, and speed of, transferring unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children who have been identified for transfer from Europe. We will also ensure that the strategy is informed by evidence from other immigration programmes, including the measures in place to ensure sufficient safeguarding and security checks are undertaken on those being transferred to the UK.
We recognise the particular vulnerabilities of these children and will review the information currently provided to asylum-seeking and refugee children about their rights, their current circumstances, and the role of local authorities in caring for them.
We will also consult the devolved Administrations to ensure a joined up approach across the United Kingdom. We will also consult with all relevant public bodies on the strategy, including local authorities in England, NGOs, the Children’s Commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In doing so, we will seek the views of local authorities to identify any further action that might be taken to prevent unaccompanied asylum-seeking or refugee children going missing and we will consider whether to introduce a new set of standard actions for the police on first encountering an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child. We will also consider arrangements for Children’s Commissioners across the UK to make representations on behalf of children transferred where appropriate and consistent with their statutory remit.
In taking forward this work my Department will also revise the statutory guidance published in 2014 on the care of unaccompanied and trafficked children so it covers the safeguarding of children transferred under Dublin provisions and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who arrive spontaneously who then explain that they have family in the United Kingdom with whom they wish to live.
Finally, in recognition of the importance of this issue, we commit to updating Parliament annually on delivery against the strategy and providing quarterly updates to the Children’s Commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, ensuring transparency and appropriate scrutiny. We will also commit to publishing regular updates on the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children transferred to the UK.
The Government’s strategy has been to support efforts to find a comprehensive and sustainable solution to the refugee crisis; we must deal with the root causes of this crisis, as well as respond to the consequences. The UK has been at the forefront of the response to the crisis in Syria and the region. The Government have pledged over £2.3 billion in support of the crisis in Syria; our largest ever humanitarian response to a single crisis. Under the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement (VPR) scheme, the Government have committed to resettle 20,000 of the most vulnerable refugees direct from the region. Around 2,800 people have arrived in this country since the Syrian VPR scheme began, around half of them children, and we are on track to meet this landmark commitment. The Government have also established a new resettlement scheme focused on children at risk in the Middle East and North Africa, the first of its kind focused on the region and which will see up to 3,000 people, of all nationalities, resettled to the UK over the next four years. We have worked closely with the UNHCR to develop this scheme and it reflects their advice on how best to safeguard the children caught up in this conflict.
[HCWS232]
October Agriculture Council
(8 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
The UK was represented by deputy permanent representative to the European Union, Shan Morgan, at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 10 October in Luxembourg.
Commissioner Vella gave a presentation on the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT), which focused on the poor and deteriorating state of the swordfish stock. He noted that immediate and remedial action was needed, including the introduction of a catch quota. A number of member states intervened with differing support or opposition. The presidency concluded by noting the positions, and said a more detailed preparation of the EU position would take place at working group level.
Commissioner Vella promised full transparency for the EU/Norway fisheries negotiations, as well as discussions with coastal states which feed in to this. He wanted to ensure a balance between the interests of different member states, in particular those who wanted to maximise the quota for arctic cod and those who have traditionally had to pay for it in terms of exchange of quotas with Norway. A number of member states, including the UK, underlined the importance of accessing additional quota for choke species, to avoid any disruption connected to the introduction of the landing obligation.
The Council also agreed on the 2017 catch quotas in the Baltic.
Commissioner Hogan presented the omnibus regulation, as a tool for simplification of the four common agricultural policy regulations. The Commission wants the regulation to enter into force by 1 January 2018, so that there are three years of stability before the next multi-annual financial framework. The main proposals include: a sector-specific income stabilisation tool; simpler rules for loans and financial instruments aimed at young farmers; an optional national flexibility of the “active farmer” definition; and easing the process for undue payments. Most member states indicated that they needed more time to assess the details and submit comments, but noted some proposals were not simplification. The UK welcomed flexibility on the active farmer definition, and wider access to the income support tool. Commissioner Hogan underlined that this regulation was a big opportunity but that all comments would be taken on board.
Any other business items
Items on the market situation and sugar were taken together. Commissioner Hogan made a presentation on the current market situation, noting that the milk market observatory had reported an improvement in the dairy market, and the milk production reduction scheme will further improve the situation. He also made it clear that sugar quotas will come to an end in October 2017.
Poland presented a joint statement which it had co-ordinated outlining concerns of new greening proposals. This was supported in advance by 18 other member states, including the UK. Commissioner Hogan understood a number of measures were not supported, and offered four concessions which will be discussed at the next Special Committee on Agriculture.
Austria argued that international financial institutions are not taking animal welfare in to account when they make lending decisions.
Slovenia reported from their conference entitled “The Customer has the Right to know”, which highlighted the advantages of country of origin labelling.
The Council took note of the Dutch presentation outlining the conclusions of the 39th conference of directors of paying agencies.
Commissioner Hogan gave a short explanation on a European Court of Justice case (C-113/14), and confirmed that the necessary amendments to the fixing regulation were being arranged as quickly as possible.
[HCWS228]
House of Lords
Oaths and Affirmations
Retirement of a Member: Lord Wade of Chorlton
The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)
My Lords, I should like to notify the House of the retirement, with effect from today, of the noble Lord, Lord Wade of Chorlton, pursuant to Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. On behalf of the House, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his much-valued service to the House.
Aviation: International Trade
(8 years ago)
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Baroness Randerson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the importance of aviation to Britain’s international trade.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, aviation contributes to international trade by facilitating the movement of services and goods. In 2015, goods worth £155 billion were shipped by air between the UK and non-EU countries—that is over 40% of the UK’s extra-EU trade by value. This demonstrates how crucial Britain’s international trade is to aviation. Connectivity alone is insufficient to create trade, as other factors are important. However, without it, new trade opportunities would not materialise.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, as the Minister says, aviation makes a huge contribution to the economy. However, after the Brexit vote, this is under threat. Leaving the EU will affect rights to travel, not only between the EU and the UK, but also with the US. Priority must be given to reaching new agreements to maintain market access. Can the Minister give us details of the steps the Government have already taken to prioritise negotiations on continued membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency and of the open skies agreement? Since Heathrow will not be completed until the 2030s, will the Government introduce a strategy for the whole of UK aviation?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
On the last point the noble Baroness made—a strategy for the whole UK—the decision that the Government took last week reflects just that. I have been to Scotland and Northern Ireland, among other places. I was in Manchester only yesterday, again underlining the importance of the decision that we took last week to the whole United Kingdom. In our ongoing discussions with our current EU partners post-Brexit, we are certainly prioritising aviation. We need to ensure that what we benefit from today—in terms of the agreements the noble Baroness referred to—is sustained. Let us not forget that, bilaterally, this is not just for the benefit of the United Kingdom; it is also for the benefit of the remaining members of the European Union.
Lord Naseby (Con)
Does not the exciting news from the aviation front that the next generation of civil airliners will be 50% quieter and 30% more fuel-efficient absolutely underline the importance of the decision that Her Majesty’s Government made to have a third runway at Heathrow?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am certain that the whole House welcomes the innovations in technology for commercial aircraft.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
Now that the Government have decided “No ifs, no buts, it’s a third runway at Heathrow”, which differs at least marginally from their previous “no ifs, no buts” pledge, what plans do they have to increase the range of international direct flights from our international airports outside London and the south-east, and in so doing to provide the opportunity for an increase in air freight traffic, including exports, from at least some of those airports—in the north in particular—direct to other parts of the world?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Lord raises an important point about freight, and that was part and parcel of the decision that we took last week. He talks about international connections outside London and the south-east. I am delighted to tell him why I was in Manchester yesterday—because I was welcoming the first Singapore Airlines flight to Manchester, which, for the first time, was flying directly to Houston. That was a first for Manchester Airport, a first for Singapore Airlines and a first for the north-west, outside London and the south-east.
Baroness Janke (LD)
Can the Minister say whether the UK is planning to join the European Aviation Safety Agency after Brexit, and indeed whether the UK will be eligible to do so? If not, what other options is he considering?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As I said in my Answer, we are looking at how all the current arrangements with the European Union can be sustained and strengthened while we remain a member of the EU. After Brexit, we want to ensure the same level of connectivity and the same access regarding safety issues. As I have already said, this will be of benefit not just to the UK but to the whole of Europe, as well as globally.
Lord Spicer (Con)
Given the amount of time that it apparently takes to achieve anything at our airports at the moment, would it be an idea if we started putting down Questions on the 20 or so international airports that we have around the country?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I look forward to answering those Questions from my noble friend.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
Does the Minister not think that it would be wise to await the judgment of the Supreme Court before assuming that Brexit will go ahead?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
We as a Government are relying on what the people of this country decided. We promised that there would be a referendum. The British people voted and it is now our job, as a responsible Government, to respect the will of the people, as both Houses should do, and make sure that that decision is implemented.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
Can my noble friend estimate the time that it will take to negotiate bilateral aviation agreements with third countries when we leave the European Union, and of the cost to UK airlines of re-establishing themselves elsewhere in the European Union as well as having a base in this country?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I do not think that we should be alarmed about this. As I have already said, it is part and parcel of the discussions that we are having with not just European but international partners. I have already met directly airline and airport operators here in the UK and with airline operators outside the UK. All are very keen to see a seamless transition to ensure that the rights that British airlines enjoy today, and those that international airlines using UK airports enjoy, continue without any kind of interruption.
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)
My Lords, in his visit to Manchester Airport yesterday, did the Minister hear that more destinations are flown to from Manchester than from Heathrow?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Overall, if we look back over the last 10 years, Manchester has made some incredible progress in terms of its expansion and opening up new air connectivity. The noble Lord is right. I talked about Singapore, and in June there were new routes to China. The opportunities are immense for airports not just in the south-east but across the country.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend take a moment to remind noble Lords on both sides of the House that, before the United Kingdom became part of the European Economic Community, as it was then, we had a fine air transport industry and a safe airline industry, and licensed our own pilots? We did all those things on our own. Is it conceivable that we might be able to do that again one day?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
It is not just conceivable, it does happen and it will happen. I assure all noble Lords that Europe looks towards the United Kingdom, especially on aviation, where we have led on much of what the EU does today. As I have already said, there will be bilateral benefit on these areas. Much of what we did in 2009 is now being repeated across the European Union, so I agree totally with my noble friend.
Asylum Seekers
(8 years ago)
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Baroness Lister of Burtersett
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the integration of asylum seekers granted refugee status.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are working towards achieving more integrated communities and creating the conditions for everyone to live and work successfully alongside each other. Those granted refugee status are given access to the labour market and benefits and encouraged to access organisations that can assist with integration.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, one of the biggest obstacles to integration is the destitution faced by too many refugees because they are not given enough time to transition from asylum support to mainstream support. It is nearly eight months since the Government pledged to review this. With winter coming and universal credit throwing up new problems, will the Minister and the DWP now treat this as a matter of urgency to prevent further avoidable destitution and homelessness and as a first step in reintroducing a comprehensive strategy for the integration of refugees, following the example of Scotland and Wales?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the Government have introduced a number of initiatives to prevent homelessness such as the No Second Night Out programme, but recognised refugees are also encouraged to work with the independent charity, Migrant Help, which can assist with integration into the UK. It provides individuals with the resources and support they need to access the appropriate services and information and gain greater independence. In addition, the Home Office announced a new £10 million funding package to boost English language tuition for those arriving under the vulnerable persons’ resettlement scheme.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, in its report Let Refugees Learn, Refugee Action states that,
“more than any other factor”,
English language is a “key driver” towards the “successful integration” of refugees. With long waiting lists and a shortage of teaching hours, does the Minister agree that we need a national strategy for the teaching of English and will she say what has been done since the Prime Minister rightly said in September that the Government would provide more language support?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I totally agree with the noble Lord. A person who comes to this country unable to speak the language has difficulties with everything from making a doctor’s appointment to inquiring about their children’s education in school. The additional language funding that I spoke about earlier will mean that all adults arriving through the scheme anywhere in the UK will receive an extra 12 hours a week of tuition for up to six months.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, following the Minister’s earlier reply, can I take it that the rule that does not allow asylum seekers to work for the first 12 months they are here is to be revised? Will they be able to earn a living before then? Also, will the deportation of so many of our young asylum seekers when they reach the age of 18 come to an end?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the Question refers to those who have been granted refugee status, as opposed to those seeking asylum at that point. I think the noble Lord is talking about a different matter.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, will the Government make a special effort to help women immigrants and refugees learn English? Women are often isolated by being unable to speak the language.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord is absolutely right for all the points I made in replying to the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Women are often the bedrock of family life and their children’s future. I think it was earlier in the year that the former Prime Minister announced the setting up of a fund for women to learn English to help them integrate well into British society and to help their children.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, the other day I asked the Minister if she could assure your Lordships that those local authorities that are taking people in will be given extra financial help by the Government. Will they continue to receive that help continuing over time or will it be time-limited? If we want to see integration into communities that wish to be helpful and charitable by taking people in, it will not help if they feel that the expense of the services they provide—schools, hospitals and so on—is not supported by continuing additional help over time.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Baroness made a valid point the other day, as she does now. I take the opportunity to thank local authorities for their good will and their efforts to accommodate asylum-seeking children, many of whom have arrived in recent weeks. On funding, as part of the safeguarding strategy we have committed to regularly reviewing the funding for the support and care of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children, working closely with the LGA and local authorities. We have increased funding from just over £34,500 to £41,000 a year for those aged up to 16. Those rates underpin the introduction of the national transfer scheme.
Baroness Sharples (Con)
How many languages are involved in the integration of refugees?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I have to confess to my noble friend that I have no idea how many languages are involved, but I can find out for her.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that any civilised society is judged on how it treats those most in need? Is it not therefore unacceptable that refugees and others who are destitute have to rely on charitable organisations?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, we are all doing our bit to help. With the agreement of the French, we have been in France helping to process some of the claims of people coming over to this country. If people, particularly asylum-seeking refugees, are to integrate into this country, we must, as the noble Lord says, make them welcome and all do our bit to help.
Green Investment Bank
(8 years ago)
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Lord Teverson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in their sale of the Green Investment Bank.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, on 3 March this year the Government launched the Green Investment Bank sale process and it is currently ongoing. I can inform the House that good progress is being made. In particular, yesterday the GIB announced the names of the special share trustees appointed to be the custodians of its green purposes, and I congratulate the noble Lord on his selection as a trustee. The Government will provide a full report to Parliament once the sale is completed.
Lord Teverson (LD)
I thank the Minister for her reply and for the good work she has done in this area. Will the Government put additional conditions into the contract for sale to ensure not just that the green purposes are kept for the bank, but that it does not become a shell company with those investments placed elsewhere to avoid such constraints, and that the bank will continue to invest in the UK green economy so that it can continue to thrive?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
In addition to the special share, which will protect GIB’s green mission, the Government have asked potential investors to confirm their commitment to the GIB’s green values and its investment principles, and explain how they propose to protect them. Green investment is, of course, what the GIB does—it is in its DNA. Investors will buy into its reputation, its green business plan and forward pipeline of projects, all of which are focused on the UK, although there could be international potential as well.
Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)
My Lords, we welcome the appointment of the trustees to ensure the Green Investment Bank will retain its green mission under new ownership, and we warmly applaud the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The crucial ability of the trustees to exercise this vital role now depends on the contracts and corporate arrangements between the buyer and seller. Will the Minister confirm that the trustees will have access to the transaction, contract and documents, and some funds for expert legal advice, to ensure that they can do the job this House voted for?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The trustees will have all they need to do their job, but the noble Lord will of course recall from our lengthy and useful discussions during the passage of the Bill that their role relates to the articles of association, ensuring that the green purposes of the bank are maintained. That is where they come in: they are not envisaged as a management board for the GIB, whether in its current state or whatever. They have an important role to play.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, are green investments judged by their results or their intentions?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The GIB is a commercial operation. It has its purposes, and it judges where it should make investments. What we have in the GIB—a world first—is a dedicated green investment bank, which we should celebrate and which a number of bidders have showed an interest in acquiring so it can move forwards and expand.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My Lords, I was very pleased to hear the Minister say that a number of bidders are interested, because my understanding was that there is only one serious bidder. Am I right? If so and there is only one, would it not be better to wait for a better purchase price?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Given the commercial sensitivity of the sale process, I am sure the noble Baroness will understand that I cannot comment on the identity of any bidders. They have been required to sign confidentiality agreements, as is appropriate. As I have said, there will be an announcement once a deal is signed, and the Government will provide a full report to Parliament on the sale, proceeds and so on when the sale is completed.
Lord Geddes (Con)
Will my noble friend allow me to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who, unlike the vast majority of his colleagues, asked his supplementary without a note in his hand?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I agree with my noble friend that this is an excellent example of good practice.
Brexit: Trade
(8 years ago)
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Lord Greaves
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the announcement by the Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment that Australia will not commence negotiations on a trade deal with the United Kingdom, and of the implications for all future post-Brexit trade negotiations whilst the United Kingdom remains a member of the European Union.
Baroness Mobarik (Con)
My Lords, the Australian Trade Minister was clear that both Governments have agreed to start work on scoping out a future ambitious and comprehensive Australia-UK free trade agreement. The UK and Australia have agreed that this joint working will help us move as quickly as possible formally to conclude negotiations on a free trade agreement once the UK has left the EU.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful Answer. The Australian Trade Minister may or may not be right in saying that formal negotiations cannot start until such time as this country leaves the European Union, but in practical terms, and given the number of countries in the rest of the world—more than 50 in the Commonwealth and everybody else—does she believe that the process of undertaking negotiations for trading arrangements with all the other countries in the world will take place quickly after this country leaves the European Union? Is there not a real risk of a very unsatisfactory and dangerous limbo arising in most cases? What will the Government do about that?
Baroness Mobarik
My Lords, we are doing absolutely everything we can to achieve a smooth transition with no gap. The Australian Trade Minister has said that he would want to conclude a free trade agreement as quickly as possible after Brexit. This is the UK Government’s position, too. We are in the position of scoping discussions to move as quickly as possible.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that there is no EU free trade agreement with Australia; that for years it has tried and failed to achieve one; that one does not need a trade agreement in order to trade; and that once we have left the European Union, we will be able to negotiate our trade without having to satisfy 27 other countries?
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
Has the Minister seen the website of the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website, which states:
“What does Brexit actually mean? … Leaving the EU will take the UK years. How many is unclear”?
If noble Lords will forgive me, I will read from the website a little further:
“The UK will need to complete Article 50 exit negotiations with the EU, and determine its domestic trade and regulatory settings before it is able to negotiate FTAs with third countries, such as Australia”.
Does the Minister agree? The Australian Government also say—
Lord Purvis of Tweed
The Australian Government also say:
“The Government is seeking clarity from the UK Government on its expected approach to EU departure”.
Are the UK Government providing that clarity to the Australian Government and, when they do so, will they provide it to this Parliament, too?
Baroness Mobarik
I am sorry, but I only half-heard that question, first, because of the enthusiasm of my noble friends behind me but also because of the length of the question or questions. Perhaps the noble Lord would pick out one question and then I will answer.
Lord Deben (Con)
What estimate has my noble friend made of the value of the additional trade that would be available to the United Kingdom through a free trade agreement or agreement under very special arrangements with Australia that is not now available to us as a member of the world’s largest trading community, the European Union?
Baroness Mobarik
I do not have figures for what might happen. All I can say is that we currently have about £10 billion worth of trade in goods and services with Australia. We are in the fortunate position of having the same legal system, the same language and the same culture, which are all positive factors in negotiating a free trade agreement further to enhance what we already have.
Lord Harrison (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister give an example of the elements of trade—
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, has been trying to get in on a number of occasions, so we will go to him and then to the Labour Benches.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
I am most grateful, my Lords. Further to the penetrating question from my noble friend Lord Forsyth, could I ask the Government whether they are aware—
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Are the Government aware that the aggregate GDP of the countries with which the EU has managed to sign trade agreements is a mere $7 trillion, but that four much smaller economies than ours, Chile, Korea, Singapore and Switzerland, have signed agreements with an average GDP value of $42 trillion each—or six times more than the EU? Does this not suggest that the United Kingdom, as the world’s fifth largest economy, will be able to do very much better on its own than when it is shackled to the failing EU?
Baroness Mobarik
I agree that there is still much potential for the United Kingdom once we leave the EU. We obviously want to retain the business that we already have with the EU, but beyond that there is scope for increase and that is why we are embarking on these scoping exercises. My noble friend Lord Price has visited more than 15 countries in the last few months and spoken with 200 businesspeople. We will continue to do that good work ahead of leaving the EU.
Lord Harrison
Can the Minister give an example—one example—of trade with Australia that is forbidden now because of our membership of the European Union?
Baroness Mobarik
As far as I am aware there is no forbidden trade with Australia. We want to enhance what we already have, in terms of regulatory reforms and so on.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, it is sometimes suggested that the EU inhibits trade, so why does Germany, a member of the EU, do far more trade with India than we do? The EU is not stopping us. Is it not true that the EU levers open markets with the clout of 27 members, which is a great deal more than the clout of one member?
Baroness Mobarik
All I can say is that the UK remains committed to being a world leader in free trade. That is our goal. We want to secure open and productive trading relationships with all our trade partners. It is not a matter of choosing one or the other; we are focusing on everyone.
Lord Kilclooney (CB)
Is the Minister aware that Australia has stated that it is keen to have a trade agreement with the United Kingdom so that its wine will enter this country cheaper than at present?
Baroness Mobarik
Of course Australia will have its own interests in terms of exporting its wine, its beef or its dairy products, but we too have our own interests in terms of exporting our motor cars and so on. Of course it has to be of mutual benefit to both countries.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
My Lords, could it be by some quite unimaginable stretch of the imagination that those noble Lords who keep moaning about Brexit are trying to justify the dire warnings about what would happen if we did leave—for instance, a third world war? As the Minister and I come from the fair city of Glasgow, would it be appropriate to say to these people, “Haud yer wheesht”?
Baroness Mobarik
My noble friend has taken the words right out of my mouth.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the chairman of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce. Can the Minister confirm that there is nothing to inhibit discussions, and indeed agreements, on memoranda of understanding over trade even while we are a member of the European Union and that such memoranda of understanding might well then form the basis for trade agreements after we leave?
Clerk of the Parliaments
(8 years ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, I wish to notify the House that I have received the following letter from the Clerk of the Parliaments:
“I would be grateful if you could inform the House of my decision to retire from the office of Clerk of the Parliaments, with my last day of service to be 15 April 2017. As we have discussed, I will by then have served for six years in the post, which seems a suitable point at which to hand over the reins.
I joined the staff of the House in 1974, and it has been a privilege over the last 42 years to have played a part in supporting a second Chamber which has become ever more visible and influential.
I have been fortunate over the past five and a half years to have enjoyed wonderful support from Members in all parts of the House and from colleagues in both Houses and in the Parliamentary Digital Service. I am deeply grateful to them all. They have made my time as Clerk of the Parliaments enjoyable as well as rewarding.
There will be many challenges for the House and its administration in the coming years, but I know that we are well equipped to handle them, and I have every confidence that the House will continue to play an essential and valuable role in our national life”.
I have consulted the other party leaders in the House, the Convenor of the Cross Benches and the Lord Speaker on the process to appoint Mr Beamish’s successor. The timetable for the process should mean that a recommendation for his successor as Clerk of the Parliaments can be made to Her Majesty before the Christmas Recess. As is customary, I will put a Motion before the House nearer the time of his retirement to enable Members to pay proper tribute to Mr Beamish’s distinguished service.
Asset Freezing (Compensation) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 1st November 2016
(8 years ago)
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Lord Empey (UUP)
I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Bread and Flour Regulations (Folic Acid) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 1st November 2016
(8 years ago)
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Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Orgreave
(8 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my right honourable friend the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, Mr Brandon Lewis, to an Urgent Question in the other place. The Statement is as follows:
“The Home Secretary announced her decision by way of a Written Ministerial Statement yesterday in which she explained her main reasons for deciding against instigating either a statutory inquiry or an independent review into the events at the Orgreave coking plant. She has also written to the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign setting out the detailed reasons for her decision, and answered a number of questions in the House yesterday in response to an Oral Parliamentary Question on this subject.
In determining whether or not to establish a statutory inquiry or other review, the Home Secretary considered a number of factors, reviewed a wide range of documents and spoke to members of the campaign. She came to the view that neither an inquiry nor a review was required to allay public concern at this stage, more than 30 years after the events in question. In so doing, she noted the following factors. Despite the forceful accounts and arguments provided by the campaigners about the effect that these events had on them, ultimately there were no deaths or wrongful convictions. In addition, the policing landscape and wider criminal justice system have changed fundamentally since 1984, with significant changes in the oversight of policing at every level, including: major reforms to criminal procedure; changes to public order policing and practice; stronger external scrutiny; and greater local accountability. There are few lessons to be learned from a review of the events and practices of three decades ago. This is a very important consideration when looking at the necessity for an inquiry or independent review.
Taking these considerations into account, we do not believe that establishing any kind of inquiry is required to allay public interest concern or for any other reason”.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer to the Urgent Question. This is a sorry decision by the Government. The elected South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner supports an inquiry, as did, last May, the then acting chief constable. It is not surprising that they both support an inquiry in the face of the manipulation of the media over what actually happened. It is not surprising in the light of the Independent Police Complaints Commission finding evidence of perjury and perversion of the course of justice. It is not surprising in the face of the riot charges on 95 miners, potentially carrying life sentences, that they had to live with for a year or more until the subsequent collapse of their trial and their acquittals when the police evidence was found to be totally unreliable in the face of allegations of collusion by the police over the falsification of evidence—allegations that were repeated on television the other evening by a police officer involved at Orgreave. This Government have decided that a public body should not be held accountable through an inquiry to establish the facts. The Prime Minister pledged, when she took office, to fight injustice. We have now found out that former mining communities, for starters, are not covered by that pledge. Perhaps the Government could now tell us the real reasons for their decision.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, first, I must point out to the noble Lord that there were no wrongful convictions on the back of Orgreave. The Home Secretary made her decision having taken the time to look at the documents. She has been in post for some three months and has met families and campaigning MPs. The fact that she has reached a different decision from the one which the noble Lord wants in no way means that it is dishonourable. It was a difficult decision to make; she made it in consideration of all the facts and I think that it is the right one.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I should declare an interest as I was a serving police officer at the time of Orgreave and for 23 years thereafter. Has the Home Secretary completely missed the point about the need for an inquiry into Orgreave? We know from Hillsborough that police evidence was changed to put the blame on fans. The suggestion is that Orgreave was another example of the prevailing culture in the police service at the time: to preserve the reputation of the police at all costs, including if necessary by altering evidence. There is evidence to suggest that this may be in the culture in some police forces even now. Does the Minister not agree that the events at Orgreave cannot be written off as having happened too long ago, and that lessons relevant to policing today can still be learned?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, it is very important to point out that the IPCC looked at this last year. It has said that if any further information comes to light, it will also look at that. The PCC for South Yorkshire Police is considering what elements of the force’s archive relating to Orgreave to make available to the campaign, while an archivist is also being employed for that purpose.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the Home Secretary is following in her decision the very good precedent set by Labour Home Secretaries, who in a period of 13 years of Labour government saw no reason for such an inquiry, which would do nothing more than enrich lawyers with fat fees in perpetuity?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
As always, my noble friend makes precise points. He also underlines the fact that this is a very emotive subject, with strong views on either side, but he is absolutely right. Thirty-two years have elapsed since Orgreave and no Government up to now have made a decision on it.
Lord Kinnock (Lab)
My Lords, should not a Government who promise to govern in the interests of the whole country try to ensure maximum transparency and accountability for the whole country? Is the Minister aware that the refusal of an inquiry into the battle of Orgreave deepens the justified sense of injustice right across coalfield communities, especially when there are substantiated claims that there was politicised policing and tampering with evidence in the wake of the conflict?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, this is a very serious decision and I hope that in no way does anyone feel that this decision has been politicised. Transparency is at the heart of the process; that is why the Home Secretary has taken so much time to look at various documents in carefully considering her conclusion.
Lord Woolf (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate the Home Secretary on taking this decision. I have over the years observed the increasing frequency of automatically setting up an inquiry when a difficult problem arises. Inquiries are not always the best way of looking into matters. As the years go by, they certainly become more and more expensive for investigating events and less and less successful in coming to the right conclusion.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble and learned Lord is absolutely right. An inquiry is not of itself the answer to everything. Inquiries must be used only very carefully and in certain circumstances. The Orgreave situation resulted in no deaths or wrongful convictions. There have been significant changes in the police at every level since 1984. Therefore, as the noble and learned Lord said, establishing any kind of inquiry is not required in the public interest.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
Does my noble friend recognise that many people would be amazed at the suggestion of having further public inquiries and that there is anybody who has not learned the lessons of the Bloody Sunday inquiry? After the time that it took and the costs involved, at the end of the day the outcome satisfied practically nobody. My noble friend has just given the answer that lessons have been learned. My noble friend Lord Tebbit and I were involved in Cabinet committee at that time. Many mistakes were made on both sides—there is no question about that—many things were wrong, and lessons have since been learned. The right decision now is not to respond to the understandable emotion of those who were involved at that time who feel that they want to go on gnawing at the same bone but to recognise that lessons need to be learned and that we need to get on because the police have more than enough challenges on their plate at present and do not need to be loaded with this inquiry.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend is absolutely right. I am grateful that noble friends and noble Lords were in government or in this House at the time of Orgreave. The job is to get on with improving policing, and inquiries are not always the answer. The Policing and Crime Bill seeks to make further reforms and efficiencies in the police service to make it better.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, I was leader of Sheffield City Council at the time and subsequently lived for many years a mile away from Orgreave. It strongly rent my heart. I entirely understand why people do not want to spend millions of pounds on legal fees or to have the disruption that an inquiry would cause to the existing programme, but evidence has been produced over the past decade and there has been a genuine feeling that the truth has been withheld. Even at this late hour, is it not possible to have the kind of very light-touch review which the elected police and crime commissioner, the Reverend Dr Alan Billings, who leads the South Yorkshire Police, has suggested? It would avoid the catastrophe of a very prolonged inquiry which, as has been described this afternoon, often leads to people not being satisfied at the end of it.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, there was a discussion—I think yesterday—about a small Select Committee inquiry. Of course, that would be a matter for Parliament. The IPCC considered things last year, but as I said earlier, if any fresh information comes to light, it will take it on board and consider it.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that there is a widespread sense of disappointment at this decision? I accept that there have been far too many inquiries—we seem to set up an inquiry for everything—but I do not think that it would be out of place for there to be a stronger sentiment of regret from the Minister, an acknowledgment of one or two of the points made by the PCC in South Yorkshire and perhaps encouragement by the Minister for a parliamentary committee to look at things. That would reassure many good trade unionists who support law and order very strongly that when there are clear breaches they will be looked at.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I totally take my noble friend’s point that there are very strong feelings on this. That does not take away from the fact that it was a difficult decision for the Home Secretary, but I believe she took the right one.
Press Matters
(8 years ago)
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The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I will now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in the other place:
“Mr Speaker, with your permission, I wish to make a statement on matters relating to the Leveson inquiry.
A free press is an essential component of a fully functioning democracy, which is why it was a manifesto commitment of this Government to defend a free press. The press should tell the truth without fear or favour and hold the powerful to account. However, that freedom has in the past, we now know, been abused. We know that some parts of the press have ignored their own code of practice and the law. I have met victims of illegal and improper press intrusion, some of whom have suffered immense distress.
In July 2011, the coalition Government announced an inquiry into the role of the press and the police in phone hacking and other illegal practices in the British press. Lord Justice Leveson was appointed chair of the inquiry. Part 1 of the inquiry examined the culture, practices and ethics of the press. It considered such matters as whether the press needed a different form of regulation and how the press interacted with the public, the police and politicians. Sir Brian Leveson heard evidence from more than 300 people, including some of those who had been affected by the most egregious press behaviour.
On 29 November 2012, the Leveson inquiry published its report on part 1. It contained 92 recommendations, the majority of which have been acted upon and are being delivered. Part 2 of the inquiry, which has not yet begun, would further examine wrongdoing in the press and the police.
Following a cross-party agreement, a royal charter established the Press Recognition Panel, which began operating in November 2014. As stated on its website, the panel’s purpose is to ensure that any press self-regulator is,
“independent, properly funded and able to protect the public, while recognising the important role carried out by the press”.
Since September 2015, the panel has been taking applications from regulators which are seeking recognition.
Alongside the royal charter, Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 was designed to incentivise newspapers to join a recognised self-regulator. Section 40 has passed into law but remains uncommenced. This is one of two incentives. The other, relating to exemplary damages, came into effect on 3 November 2015. A self-regulator applying for recognition must meet the specific criteria set out in the royal charter, including providing a system of low-cost arbitration that replaces the need for court action.
Section 40 contains two presumptions: that if a publisher which is a member of a recognised self-regulator loses a relevant media case in court, it does not have to pay the winning side’s costs; and that if a publisher which is not a member of a recognised self-regulator wins such a case in court, it would have to pay the losing side’s costs as well as its own. Each element was intended to encourage the press to join a recognised self-regulator, through a legitimate rebalancing of the normal rules on costs.
It has hitherto been the view of the Government that as we wait for a number of elements of the new self-regulatory regime to settle in—such as the exemplary damages provisions of the Crime and Courts Act, the press developing an effective form of voluntary self-regulation and self-regulators applying for recognition—the time has not yet been right to commence Section 40.
However, the panel has recently recognised its first self-regulator, the Independent Monitor for the Press, known as Impress, which currently has around 50 members. Meanwhile, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, known as IPSO, regulates more than 2,500 publications, but has been clear that it will not seek recognition from the panel.
We think the time is right to consider Section 40 further. It has also become apparent that the final criminal case relating to the Leveson inquiry is entering its final stages. We therefore think this is also an appropriate time to start to consider next steps on part 2 of the inquiry. Many of the issues that part 2 would have covered have been addressed in the last five years. Three police investigations—Operations Elveden, Tuleta, and Weeting—have investigated a wide range of offences. A clear message has been sent to all police officers and public officials that receiving payments for confidential information will not be tolerated and will be dealt with robustly. The Metropolitan Police Service has introduced new policies on whistleblowing, gifts and hospitality and media relations.
There was also a degree of subject matter overlap between parts 1 and 2 of the Leveson inquiry. For example, the inquiry reviewed the Met Police’s initial investigation into phone hacking and the role of politicians and public servants regarding any failure to investigate wrongdoing in News International. Part 1 made numerous recommendations, all of which are being addressed by the police, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the College of Policing, where they relate to them.
Given the extent of these criminal investigations, the implementation of the recommendations from part 1 of the Leveson inquiry and the cost to the taxpayer of the investigations and part 1—£43.7 million and £5.4 million respectively—the Government are considering whether undertaking part 2 is still in the public interest. We are keen to take stock and seek the views of the public and interested parties—not least those who have been the victims of press abuse. We will also formally consult Sir Brian Leveson on the question of part 2 at the appropriate time, in his role as inquiry chair.
I can announce that today we are launching a public consultation, inviting comments on both Section 40 and part 2 of the Leveson inquiry from organisations affected by it and from the public. It will run for 10 weeks from today, 1 November, until 10 January 2017. This is laid out in a consultation document entitled Consultation on the Leveson Inquiry and its Implementation, published on GOV.UK, which I am also depositing in the Libraries of both Houses. I have met Sir Brian Leveson and spoke to him again this morning. I will write to him formally as well. I am extremely grateful for all the work that he and his team have done to get us this far.
The Government are determined that a balance be struck between press freedom and the freedom of the individual. Those who are treated improperly must have redress. Likewise, politicians must not seek to muffle the press or prevent it doing legitimate work, such as holding us to account, and the police must take seriously their role in protecting not only their own reputation but the people they are meant to serve.
This is the balance we wish to strike, and this consultation is the most appropriate and fairest way of doing so. I commend this Statement to the House”.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for repeating the Statement by the Secretary of State in another place and welcome him to the Dispatch Box. I hope it will not be a single guest appearance on this occasion.
We can judge from its opaque title and surprising appearance that the Statement, “Press Matters”, has very little to do with the substance of either the commencement of Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 or announcing a date for Leveson 2 to commence. Its purpose seems to be to muddy the waters around the remaining stages of the Investigatory Powers Bill, which is about to be debated in the other place.
Surely the right thing to do is to honour the Government’s commitment to the victims of press intrusion and harassment. Let us remind ourselves what the test is for this process. The former Prime Minister summed it up on 14 June 2012 when he said, having met the Dowler family in Downing Street:
“It’s not: do the politicians or the press feel happy with what we get? It’s: are we really protecting people who have been caught up and absolutely thrown to the wolves by this process? … that’s the real test”.
Labour supports a free press as essential to democracy. We do not support any state control of the press. It is 1,324 days since all parties agreed to implement the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry in full. The Leveson inquiry looked into press behaviour following the public outcry over illegal phone hacking and after it emerged that there had been many victims of press intrusion.
A key recommendation of the report was the creation of a,
“genuinely independent and effective system of self-regulation”.
The new system was debated in Parliament and received unanimous cross-party agreement. It involved creating the Press Recognition Panel by royal charter in October 2013 as an independent body to oversee press regulators. Has the Minister read the recent annual report of the PRP? If so, he will be aware of what it says about the need for Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 to be implemented. Does he agree with the chair of the PRP, David Wolfe QC, who says:
“There has been a significant delay in doing this, despite the Act being enacted nearly four years ago. Commencing section 40 will strengthen the public’s access to justice. Everyone agrees that politicians should not interfere with the running of the press, but paradoxically, the failure to commence section 40 has kept a political presence in place. The new system intended by Parliament is not in place, and the public interest has not been safeguarded in the way that was expected”?
On Leveson 2, is the Minister aware that one of the original terms of reference given to Lord Justice Leveson was:
“To inquire into the extent of the corporate governance and management failures at News International and other newspaper organisations and the role, if any, of politicians, public servants and others in relation to any failure to investigate wrongdoing at News International”?
This part of Leveson was delayed—as the Minister knows because he has been answering my questions on this matter—until all outstanding court cases are dealt with. Can he confirm that that is imminent?
As my right honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said in the other place, Leveson 2 is the investigation into how the cover-up of phone hacking was conducted, but what the Government are in effect announcing today is a consultation on whether the original cover-up should be covered up. This is shameful. We need the immediate implementation of Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and we want an early date for the second part of the Leveson inquiry. We do not need a faux consultation on these matters. If the Government are to proceed on this route, I would be grateful if the Minister could explain in some detail what elements of the recent police investigations referred to in the Statement—the Hillsborough inquiry and its findings on misleading police statements to government officials and subsequently newspapers; the case of Mazher Mahmood, who perverted the course of justice to secure his scoops and left scores of previous convictions unsafe; senior police resignations; the new revelations on the Daniel Morgan case; and what we have just heard about Orgreave—persuade him that further consultations are not now required.
We must not miss this historic opportunity. We must ensure that what the press did to the Dowlers, the McCanns, the family of Abigail Witchalls and others who suffered so terribly, can never happen again.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the noble and learned Lord for repeating the Statement. I must declare an interest, in addition to being a victim of phone hacking by the press. In 2002, I was the subject of a kiss-and-tell story on the front page and eight inside pages of a Sunday tabloid newspaper. Many of the allegations were untrue and the rest were a massive intrusion into my private life by a former partner whom I had lived with for four years. He was paid £100,000 for the story. In the absence of an effective and independent press complaints system, my only course of action was to sue the newspaper and although I was able to secure a conditional fee agreement, many ordinary people are not. Lawyers acting for the newspaper tried every trick in the book to get me to concede, in which case I would have been liable for both my own and the newspaper’s costs and I would have been made bankrupt. If the paper had not admitted libel and agreed a settlement a week before the case was due to go to trial, and had I lost the action, I would have lost my home.
If newspapers do not sign up to an independent, royal charter-compliant, press complaints system that the public can have real confidence in, the press must be prepared to cover the costs if their refusal to sign up results in complainants having to take action through the courts. This was a cross-party agreement, reached at considerable effort and cost, resulting in a royal charter that the Government are preparing to consign to the dustbin. Not only that, they are preparing to ditch detailed scrutiny not only of the matters detailed by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, but of the relationship between the police and the press—issues that were to be covered in Leveson 2—despite such recent cases as that involving South Yorkshire Police, the BBC and Sir Cliff Richard.
If the Statement is designed to head off amendments to the Investigatory Powers Bill currently being considered, does the Minister not agree that it adds fuel to the fire, rather than dampening things down?
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, I begin with the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. A consultation will not obfuscate, it will bring clarity—and that is its aim. Let us remember that the events with which we are dealing have been the subject of a further five years of development in policing and the press.
The Press Recognition Panel’s report is a useful reflection of how the recognition system is operating, and the Government will, of course, be looking at its conclusions in more detail in the course of the consultation process. Let us be clear: no decision has been made on this matter, which is why it has been set out for the purposes of consultation.
With regard to the observations concerning the police, let us remember that these matters were addressed in Part 1 of the inquiry. Sir Brian Leveson thoroughly reviewed the initial investigation of the Metropolitan Police Service into phone hacking—Operation Caryatid —and the role of politicians and public servants in any failure to investigate wrongdoing at News International. He was satisfied that the officers who worked on that operation approached their task with complete integrity, and that the decision made in September 2006 not to expand the investigation was justified.
I will not comment on the individual cases cited by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. It would not be appropriate to do so. I understand the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about his own experience of litigation, the uncertainties of litigation and where costs should lie. That is a vexed issue. It affects both parties to a litigation, whether they win or lose. That is why, again, it is appropriate that this should be the subject of further consultation at this stage. Nothing has been consigned to any dustbin, either the dustbin of history or the dustbin of any prior interparty agreement. Again, I stress that is why we are proceeding with this consultation process. We will report thereafter as soon as we reasonably can.
Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords, the Statement makes clear that what underpins the two-way Section 40 cost protections is low-cost arbitration, which the charter says must cost no more than £100 for the claimant. However, IPSO’s pilot arbitration scheme costs about £3,000, which hardly anybody would be able to afford. Furthermore, Section 40 retains a discretion for the judge when making penalty costs awards to ensure that there is no injustice. Does the Minister accept that Section 40 deserves implementation and review and not to be kicked into the long grass, and that IPSO and its arbitration scheme are both woefully inadequate?
Lord Keen of Elie
With great respect, a consultation process is not a means of kicking anything into the long grass. This consultation process will proceed for a period of 12 weeks during the winter, at which time the grass does not grow.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
I put it to the noble and learned Lord that a decision not to proceed with Leveson 2 would be universally regarded as an abdication by the Government and as a surrender to the pressure of the press barons, with all the rather sinister connotations of conflict of interest which everybody will derive from that. We had all hoped that there might have been some improvement in the culture of the press since the appalling allegations that came out in Leveson 1 and in the Brooks and Coulson trials. I am not sure that there has been much improvement. For example, during the referendum campaign earlier this year, there were some egregious cases. I gather the Daily Mail has now accepted that the entirely bogus figures it produced, purporting to show that immigrants had a much higher crime rate than the rest of the population of this country—an irresponsible and nasty invention—were, indeed, exactly that: entire invention. However, to the extent that there has been any improvement in culture, will that not be very damagingly reversed if it is seen that the Government are now running away from the field?
Lord Keen of Elie
No decision has been made with respect to Leveson 2. That is the purpose of the consultation. Because of the consultation, there is no question of the Government running away from anything. With regard to an earlier observation, I referred to a consultation period of 12 weeks but, in fact, it is only 10 weeks. I correct myself to the House.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Are the Government firmly committed to taking full account of the concerns and interests of our immensely important regional and local press, which will bear the brunt of Section 40? In this connection, will it not be particularly important to listen to the views of local editors in Northern Ireland, where the royal charter does not even apply, illustrating the legal confusion which has now arisen?
Lord Keen of Elie
The Government have already heard from representatives of the local press, who have expressed their concerns with regard to the implementation of Section 40 and the adverse impact it could have on them. It is because of these considerations, among others, that the Government have thought it appropriate to have this short, but effective, consultation.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, I know the noble and learned Lord said he did not want to go into individual cases but I would like to raise the issue of IPSO’s credibility following the case of Fatima Manji, the Channel 4 presenter and journalist, who was attacked by Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of the Sun, who said that she should not present the news in the wake of the terrible tragedies in Nice because she happens to cover her head with a hijab. He said it was inappropriate that she should present the news in that way. She and Channel 4 complained to IPSO and her case was not upheld. The very next day Trevor Kavanagh, a board member of IPSO—and let us remember the “I” stands for independent—used his political column to attack Fatima Manji for daring to make a complaint. I was one of the many parliamentarians who signed a letter on this case and sent it to IPSO. We have not heard back. How can we have confidence that this body bears up its name and is independent and upholds standards when we have board members of IPSO prepared to attack complainants in their columns?
Lord Keen of Elie
The noble Baroness is right to anticipate that I am not going to comment on an individual case. The conduct of IPSO may be the subject of criticism but it has not applied for, or been granted, registration under the present scheme.
Lord Faulks (Con)
My Lords, the Statement quite rightly acknowledges the balance that has to be struck between freedom of the press and the very important matters that come under the heading of “freedom of the individual”. Does the Minister agree that it is important that newspapers that are sued—whether regional or national—should be able to defend themselves with reasonable ability? If they are not only going to face the penalties in Section 40, but also exceptionally be liable to have conditional fees brought against them, this may result in an uneven playing field. Will the Minister confirm that the future of the conditional fee regime as regards libel actions will be considered when the consultation takes place?
Lord Keen of Elie
The Government have set no limits on the consultation process so far as costs are concerned. Clearly, the question of conditional fees will arise in the context of whether Section 40 should be brought into force. The noble Lord is quite right that it is important, while bearing in mind the victims of press abuse, to ensure a fair, acceptable and level playing field in issues between the press and powerful individuals. The press should not be coerced by the issue of cost into not reporting in a fair, open and effective manner.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, while it might not be unreasonable for the noble and learned Lord not to give a view on the matter raised by the noble Baroness at this stage, will he confirm that the Government will at least take it into consideration before they reach any conclusion as a result of the consultation?
Lord Keen of Elie
I have no doubt that that will be taken into account, as will the general conduct of IPSO, when it comes to determining and reporting on the terms of the consultation itself.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord acknowledged that the work that had gone into the cross-party agreement and the subsequent royal charter was intended to set up a body and a mechanism as far removed from political interference as possible to ensure press freedom. By refusing to commence Section 40 and now by having a consultation on the matter, have the Government not brought it right back into the field of political play, undoing all the work done to try to remove political interference from this very important area for those of us who want to see freedom of the press?
Lord Keen of Elie
I cannot accept the observations made by the noble and learned Lord. The Government have delivered the cross-party agreement by establishing the Press Recognition Panel by royal charter and legislating for the incentives in the Crime and Courts Act 2013. It is now right to consult further on the specific areas of Part 2 of the Leveson inquiry and Section 40 given the time that has elapsed since the Leveson inquiry was set up and the changes that have taken place. I do not believe that we are simply bringing this back into the political arena; we are addressing the reality of change that has occurred over the past five years.
Lord Cormack (Con)
I thank the Government—which I do not always do—for giving this extra time to look at the points raised, specifically by my noble friends Lord Lexden and Lord Faulks. There is not a single Member in your Lordships’ House who is not conscious of the enormous contribution of the local press and how important it is that its freedom and future should not be jeopardised further at a time when it is struggling for survival.
Lord Keen of Elie
I entirely concur with the observations of my noble friend.
Lord Inglewood (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as an ex-chairman and a current non-executive director of a local newspaper. I recognise that there is still considerable disquiet right across the political spectrum about the matters being discussed. I therefore welcome a second look at all these matters. I also declare an interest as a farmer. My noble and learned friend said that during the period of consultation the long grass cannot grow, but the consultation period ends in the spring, when the long grass starts to grow again. I am concerned that it will be allowed to grow and grow. Can he confirm that the matter will be taken forward expeditiously thereafter?
Lord Keen of Elie
With respect to the observations of my noble friend, I point out that by the time this consultation ends it will not be spring in Scotland.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
Tuesday 1st November 2016
(8 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Pension Schemes Act 2017 View all Pension Schemes Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)
My Lords, over the past 10 years the Government have delivered a number of radical changes to the pensions system that have transformed the way that people can save and access their pension savings.
Among the changes that we have made, we have removed the default retirement age, facilitating fuller working lives, we have made it easier for people to understand their state pension by introducing the new state pension, and by setting the full level at £155.65 and raising the state pension age we have lifted more pensioners out of means testing and put the state pension on a sustainable footing. We have increased private long-term savings by introducing automatic enrolment, and 6.7 million people have already been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension by 257,000 employers. By 2018, we estimate that 10 million workers will be newly saving or saving more into a workplace pension as a result of this change, generating around £17 billion in additional pension saving by 2020. In the summary of its report on automatic enrolment, published in May of this year, the Work and Pensions Select Committee said that so far, automatic enrolment had been a great success and that it had,
“been declared a success by pension providers, employers, trade unions and Government”.
We have also given people greater flexibility in relation to their pensions. The pension freedoms, which came into effect in April 2015, allow over-55 year-olds to access their pension savings more flexibly. HMRC reports that in the first year of pension freedoms, 232,000 individuals accessed a flexible payment. Since April 2016, it has been compulsory for providers to report this information. In the first six months since compulsory reporting was introduced, 243,000 individuals received a flexible payment, with 619,000 payments made in total. The total value of all flexible payments since the introduction of the freedoms is £7.65 billion.
The Bill builds on these changes. Automatic enrolment means that more people are saving into a private pension. The new freedoms mean they have more choice about what they do with their savings than ever before. We need to ensure that the legislative framework is appropriate in the light of these developments. The measures in the Bill will help to protect savers and maintain their confidence in pension savings.
The majority of the Bill focuses on master trust occupational pension schemes, which have become a most popular vehicle into which workers are automatically enrolled, particularly among small and micro-employers. Although these schemes can offer great value for members and employers, we need to act now to make sure they are regulated in the right way.
The schemes are regulated by the Pensions Regulator and occupational pension legislation. However, that legislation was developed mainly with single-employer pension schemes in mind. Master trust schemes have different structures and dynamics, so the Bill introduces a new authorisation regime for them and new powers for the Pensions Regulator to intervene where schemes are at risk of failing.
Master trusts will now have to satisfy the regulator that they meet certain criteria before operating, and schemes must continue to meet the criteria to remain authorised. The criteria respond to specific key risks identified in master trust schemes. They were developed in discussion with the industry and include the kinds of risks that the Financial Conduct Authority regulation addresses in group personal pensions, with which master trust schemes have some similarities.
Trusts will now be required to demonstrate that the persons involved in the scheme are fit and proper, that the scheme is financially sustainable, that the scheme funder meets certain requirements, that the systems and processes relating to the governance and administration of the scheme are sufficient to ensure its effective running, and that the scheme has an adequate continuity strategy.
The Bill covers more detail on each of these criteria, and additional details will be set out in regulations following further consultation with the industry. The authorisation and supervision regime is likely to be commenced in full in 2018. However, the Bill also contains provisions which, on enactment, will have effect back to the day on which this Bill was published, 20 October 2016.
These provisions relate to requirements to notify key events to the Pensions Regulator and constraints on charges levied on, or in respect of, members in circumstances related to key risk events or scheme failure. This is vital for protecting members in the short term and will ensure a backstop is in place until the full regime commences.
We have worked closely with the Pensions Regulator and engaged with the pension industry to see what essential protections are needed, and we believe that the measures in the Bill will provide those protections. The Pensions Regulator, along with many pension providers, has welcomed the introduction of the Bill and these measures, saying that it,
“will drive up standards and give us tough new supervisory powers … ensuring members are better protected and ultimately receive the benefits they expect”.
The Bill will also make a necessary change in relation to the existing legislation on charges. Information gathered by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator indicates that a significant number of people have pensions in respect of which an early exit charge is applied. Clause 40 will give us the power to override contractual terms which conflict with the regulations. For example, the Government intend to use this, alongside existing powers, to make regulations to introduce a cap that will prevent early exit charges creating a barrier for members of occupational pension schemes wanting to access their pension savings. The FCA is introducing a corresponding cap on early exit charges in personal and stakeholder pension schemes.
The Government also intend to use this power, together with existing legislation, to make regulations preventing commission charges being imposed on members of certain occupational pension schemes where these arise under existing contracts entered into before 6 April 2016. We have already made regulations that prohibit such charges under new contracts agreed after that date. This will fulfil our commitment to ensure that certain pension schemes used for automatic enrolment do not contain member-borne commission payments to advisers. The Government intend to consult on both sets of regulations in the new year.
We are introducing the Bill now because it will, from the day it becomes law, protect consumers by preventing providers winding up an existing master trust while raising charges to cover the costs of doing so.
We are very conscious of the views expressed by this House that the delegated powers in previous Bills have been too wide or there has been a lack of clarity about how the policy will work. I therefore want to explain the approach we have taken to the use of delegated powers in this Bill.
The Bill sets out the key criteria for a master trust to become authorised. It requires that a master trust must satisfy the regulator that it meets these criteria and that it continues to do so on an ongoing basis. It also sets out how the regime itself will operate. However, there are matters more appropriate for secondary legislation that will address the detail of these requirements. We want to make sure that this level of detail caters for different structures and arrangements within existing master trusts, so that the burden of the regime has no disproportionate or unintended effect.
A one-size-fits-all set of requirements could have a disproportionate effect on the market. We believe that the level of detail needed to implement the main requirements, together with the need to make different provision for different cases, is more suitable for secondary legislation. It may be necessary for these detailed requirements to be adapted over time in response to market developments. To that end, we are not seeking a few broad powers; rather, we have woven specific powers into the Bill, targeted on the matters for which they are appropriate, so that it is clear where and for what they will be used.
We have not prepared draft regulations because we intend to consult the industry before making them. The Bill provides sufficient detail to allow your Lordships to scrutinise how the new authorisation and supervision regime will work and for the market to anticipate what the new regime will mean for it. The market has already proved dynamic and we expect that to continue. Therefore, having the appropriate detail in secondary legislation will enable us to adapt to changes and respond to market developments within the constraints of specific regulation-making powers.
The Bill is focused on areas where we believe we need to take immediate action to protect savers, but I know that there is considerable interest and concern about wider pension issues, so I shall touch briefly on why they are not included in the Bill.
I know that some noble Lords had expected to see in the Bill measures relating to guidance bodies. I reassure them that the Government remain committed to ensuring that consumers can access the help they need to make effective financial decisions. The recent consultation on a new delivery model for government-sponsored financial guidance proposed a two-model body, replacing the Money Advice Service with a new, streamlined money guidance body, and bringing together the Pensions Advisory Service and Pension Wise into a new, single pension guidance body. However, several stakeholders questioned, both in formal responses to the consultation and in the wider public debate that the review has provoked, how the two bodies might work together effectively and whether a single delivery body might be more cost effective and provide an improved offer to consumers. After careful consideration, we have agreed to create a single financial guidance body, but we need to do further work to ensure that the right model is delivered, that it works for consumers, and that it has the full support of the financial services, pensions and charity sectors. Reform in this area has not been shelved and we remain committed to restructuring and improving the offer on government-sponsored financial guidance.
A lot of understandable concern has been expressed in many quarters about the impact on employers of defined benefit pension schemes, and the sustainability and security of the defined benefit system. Noble Lords will be aware of high-profile cases in the news, and the ongoing Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry into the powers of the Pensions Regulator and the Pension Protection Fund to act in cases where schemes are facing difficulty. In addition, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, one of the main industry bodies for pension schemes, has set up its own taskforce looking into the sustainability of the defined benefit pensions system.
While we are aware of the many options for change that are being discussed and debated, there is no simple solution on which we are ready to legislate. Despite what noble Lords may read in certain papers, our pensions system is not in imminent danger. None the less, some employers and some schemes are in difficulty, and there are a number of issues on which we want to gather data and consider further. We intend to present a Green Paper on the challenges facing defined benefit pensions in the winter. We should not seek to address those issues ahead of that vital consultation.
Finally, I touch briefly on the changes to the state pension age. While all state pension issues will be outside of the Bill, I know that there is considerable interest and concern about this issue. We have to acknowledge that people are living longer and if we want to carry on having an affordable and sustainable pensions system, it is right that we continue to look at the state pension age. But I reassure noble Lords that we have put arrangements in place. We committed £1 billion to lessen the impact of the state pension changes on those who were affected, so that no one would experience a change of more than 18 months. In fact, 81% of women’s state pension ages will increase by no more than 12 months compared with the previous timetable. Many will benefit from an increase in the new state pension. But let me be quite clear on the Government’s position. Unwinding past decisions would involve younger people having to bear an even greater share of the burden of getting this country back to living within its means. That is not a burden we are prepared to place on them.
The Bill is an important legislative step in ensuring that we provide essential protections for people saving in master trust pension schemes, and in maintaining confidence in pension savings. The market has grown quickly and it is important that we now respond to ensure that this part of the pension market evolves in the right way. We are committed to ensuring that members are protected equally, whatever type of scheme they are in, and the measures proposed in this Bill will provide that protection. I beg to move.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this Bill. It is a necessary measure, if too long in the coming. As we have heard, Part 1 introduces an authorisation framework and supervision regime for master trusts; that is, multi-employer DC pension schemes which operate on a trust basis. As trust-based schemes they have hitherto been subject to laws that have traditionally been designed and applied to a single employer model, as the Minister explained, although in some respects they share characteristics with group personal pension plans. As the impact assessment reminds us, some of the fundamental dynamics of occupational pensions are not present in the case of master trusts, which would typically involve the employer having an ongoing interest in the scheme and its alignment to the future of the employer.
We know that some master trusts operate on a scale that is unprecedented in occupational pensions and most are run on a profit basis. However, they are not subject to the same regulation that is placed on contract-based workplace pensions. There is no requirement for a licence to operate and limited barriers to entry. There is also no requirement for specialised trustees and no infrastructure in place to support the wind-up of a failed trust. Given that the savings and pensions of millions of employees and their employer contributions are at risk, this position cannot be allowed to continue. So we are strongly supportive of the thrust of this Bill and concur with its rationale and the need to protect members from suffering financial detriment, the imperative of promoting good governance and a level playing-field for those in the sector and, crucially, the promotion of sustainability and confidence in pensions more generally.
We welcome the new powers for the Pensions Regulator to intervene where a master trust is at risk of failing. Unfortunately, despite what the Minister has said, too much has been happening in the pensions arena in recent times that has served to damage confidence in savings and pensions. Just two weeks ago we heard of the mis-selling of what should have been enhanced annuities. We have had the U-turn on the secondary annuities market after savers were encouraged to contemplate the sale of their annuities and then to have it denied—a crass piece of policy-making. There are the lingering problems of the BHS pension scheme and the adequacy of the powers of the regulator and the willingness to use them. There is a continuing sense of grievance among women in the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign, despite what the Minister has said, who believe that they were given inadequate notice of their state pension entitlement changes. There was the acknowledged poor communication surrounding the introduction of the single state pension, the unforeseen barriers to exercising the new “freedoms”, which in part will be fixed by this Bill, and suggestions that not enough people are reaching the guidance service which as we know is now to be recast.
However, we are encouraged to be optimistic by the new Minister, Richard Harrington, who is apparently fostering a more collaborative approach between the DWP and the Treasury. In a recent speech he mused that he would do better than his two predecessors because key Ministers in the Treasury happen to be his good friends. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Freud, is a chum as well, and perhaps he might let us know. So we look forward to the forthcoming Green Paper and ask the Minister how forthcoming he expects it to be. I think the answer will be “the winter”, whenever that is.
All of this emphasises the need to make progress on the regulation of master trusts, especially given the growth in their membership. We are told that by January of this year there were expected to be more than 4 million members of master trusts with auto-enrolment assets under management of some £8.5 billion in 84 schemes. Some of these have achieved accreditation under the master trust assurance regime developed with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales but these are in the minority. Zurich has told us that accreditation is rapidly becoming a commercial reality to demonstrate a well-run scheme and it points out that there is an overlap with some of the provisions in the Bill. How do the Government plan to resolve this? Of course, the growth of such schemes is directly linked to the success of auto-enrolment, with some 6.5 million—I think the Minister said that the figure is now 6.7 million—employees currently enrolled
I am bound to say that an example of good pension policy-making started under a Labour Government, being evidenced based, with independent analysis and political consensus—an approach that would have stood more recent policy pronouncements in good stead. However, although the numbers to be auto-enrolled look set to grow, in July this year some 5.9 million employees were considered ineligible for auto-enrolment—an exclusion attributable in part to the coalition’s raising of the income threshold. The review in 2017 is an opportunity to address these matters, particularly issues with mini-jobs, income thresholds and the self-employed.
The Bill outlines a strong framework for the regime, but there is still much left to secondary legislation. Most of these regulations are to proceed by way of the negative parliamentary procedure. We will use the Committee stage to probe the detailed intent of some of these regulation-making powers and we ask the Minister, acknowledging that some depend on further consultation, to provide us with a note of when we might see the drafts, or at least policy statements, to outline their intention. I fear from what the Minister said earlier that we could wait some time for that.
Responsibility for the regulation of master trusts will be placed with the Pensions Regulator, not the FCA. As the ABI pointed out, this involves a significant change in the role of the regulator, with extensive powers and obligations being made available, including dealing with authorisation, determining fit and proper persons, judging financial sustainability and capital adequacy, deciding on adequacy of systems, having the power to initiate triggering events, and more. We will examine these powers and responsibilities in terms of what is provided, as well as where there may be gaps, to see whether they need be strengthened.
Will the Minister say what assessment has been made of the capacity and resources of the Pension Regulator to cope with all of this, particularly at the point of introduction, where all existing schemes need to seek authorisation? What fee structure is envisaged?
The Bill provides that scheme funders must be constituted as a separate legal entity—seemingly not necessarily resident in the UK; Panama, perhaps—if fit and proper persons and only carrying on activities related to the master trust scheme. The Minister may be aware of the point raised by Zurich about scheme funders having established other workplace pensions and the benefits of using shared systems. How does he respond to this? Will such shared arrangements have to be unpicked to gain authorisation? What would the position be if the scheme funder were to become insolvent? Can a restriction be placed on the level of dividends or profits of the scheme funder?
Under Schedule 1 to the Bill, the regulator can make a pause order such that during a triggering event period no new members can be admitted to the scheme and no further contributions or payments made. Will the Minister say what the consequences of this pause are for employers and workers who have current obligations under auto-enrolment? Is there a pause in their respective obligations?
A master trust scheme is defined in the Bill to apply where “two or more employers” are involved in a scheme, but it effectively counts employers that are connected as one. Perhaps the Minister would expand on the rationale for this and confirm which regulatory regime applies in these circumstances. Will such connected arrangements be run on a profit basis?
While the Bill contains a lot about the role of the Pensions Regulator, it says little about the position of members. ShareAction points out that there is a significant gap around member communication—for example, relating to the notification of triggering events—silence on the trustees providing transparency on where savers’ money is invested, no right to be given standard information on charges, where money is being invested and how ownership rights are being exercised. Will the Minister say what has happened to their consultation—closed, I believe, nearly a year ago—looking at transparency from a member’s perspective where investment has been undertaken? Will the Government encourage employer and member panels along the lines of the NEST arrangements?
We should expect some consolidation in the marketplace both before and after the Bill comes into effect. This is no bad thing. It is expected that some will seek to pre-empt the requirements in the Bill, and we need to be assured that this is not achieved to the detriment of members. On the face of it, as the Minister has explained, giving the Bill retrospective effect to 20 October appears to provide the necessary protection to ensure that member pots cannot be accessed to fund the wind-up. Can the Minister confirm that?
It is suggested that smaller master trusts in particular, faced with extra capital requirements and/or increased governance, will likely depart. Does, or should, the regulator have the power to intervene to direct a consolidation of schemes to assist such smaller schemes?
As we have heard, this Bill is not just about master trust regulation. Clause 40 purports to enable a cap on early exit charges in occupational pension schemes and to ban member-borne commission charges. The cap on early exit charges has already been implemented for contract-based schemes given the clear evidence that exit charges were preventing consumers accessing their pension savings flexibly. A fair and consistent approach is now proposed across all defined contribution pensions, and I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, launched a consultation to that effect in May. We support the intent. Perhaps the Minister will update us on how the Government propose to proceed. We similarly support the banning of member-borne commissions and ask for an update on transaction costs. Both these issues serve to highlight the need to be vigilant in ensuring that members’ funds are protected in an environment where for the most part there is an imbalance of economic power and advantage.
The authorisation and supervision regime for master trusts will help protect the savings and pensions of millions of individuals. It will contribute to building confidence for people to save, to deny the scammers and to help sustain our pension system. Although we have to look at the detail, the regime should provide the basis of a consensus and we look forward to working with the Minister and his predecessor to see it delivered.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I apologise to the Minister and to the House for being a few minutes late for the opening remarks in this debate and thank the authorities for allowing me none the less to speak. I want to make three initial, general points before looking at the details of the Bill.
The very fact that we are discussing this Bill shows the good progress that has been made on auto-enrolment. More than 6 million are now involved in it, with the proportion of people active in pensions going up all the time. This is good news. However, the House needs to realise that the really big task lies ahead as we move to a phase where higher contributions will be required and start to address the fact that people in the country as a whole are hugely undersaving for their pensions and retirement. The situation is not made any easier as young people find it increasingly difficult to move into a home of their own. We have a high level of consumer credit and no longer have the old paternalistic systems of final salary pension schemes. All the risk in pensions is now with the employee and the saver.
However, one reason why we have made good progress during the past 10 years is that we have had good, cross-party support for ongoing pension reforms. Therefore, on this side of the House, we agree that the growth of master trusts now needs some adjustment in terms of regulation and monitoring. I re-emphasise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie: that the last thing we need is any undermining of confidence in the pension savings, however inadequate they may be, that people are trying to make in the current circumstances. Anything that undermines that confidence will undermine everything that we are seeking to do here.
The third point I would like to make is an immediately political point and concerns the economic uncertainty that surrounds the country at the moment. I do not think we should underestimate the damage that is being done by low interest rates for pensions and pension saving and, particularly, to the valuation of annuities. I think it was recorded only the other day that 0.1% off interest rates contributes to an increase in the deficit of the Tesco pension fund of £300 million. That just shows the damage that is being done in the current circumstances. Let us not forget the high proportion of our pensioners living in Europe who have experienced a 20% reduction in their retirement income as a result of the exchange rate. We have to realise that, in the pension field, return on investment and economic growth is vital for pension growth in the future. I do not think that anybody will have voted for the current uncertainty if this uncertainty continues and undermines those three tenets of our economy.
Looking at the issues of the master trust, I make the overall point that regulation is necessary, but have we missed an opportunity in the Bill of opening things up so that these arrangements and proposals are much more proactive for the consumer and saver, actually encouraging their investment in the saving process? I am a bit surprised that the Government are not doing in parallel and together the proposed regulation of the master trust in the Bill and what they are doing to enhance and improve the advice that is available to pensioners and people saving for their pensions.
Everybody supports making the master trusts subject to good transparency. Those who are saving in them should know how they are performing, that they are being safeguarded because there is good regulation. People should also know what the investment strategy is and what the risk assessment is of the trusts that they are involved in. That should be absolutely clear. Those should be requirements of the regulation, and charges should be transparent. It is also important that accountability should not simply be to the regulator; it should be to those who are actually investing in their pension savings directly. I am not sure that the Bill goes far enough in trying to advance that and improve on it.
Given the Prime Minister’s ideas of putting people from the consumer and employee interests on boards, are there any thoughts about their being involved in these master trusts? Why is that not included in the Bill, or is it to be the subject of late amendments? That is one direct possibility that the Government could consider. Does the annual report simply have to go to the regulator? Why is an annual report not going to the individual contributors and savers in these trusts, so that they can see exactly how their money is being stewarded and looked after? What do we regard as “a fit and proper person”? I take the trivial example of my local football club, where I have had huge disillusionment in various authorities trying to define who are fit and proper people to run a club. What is required for people to be fit and proper to run pension trusts? It is not just qualifications; it is actually an analysis and keeping to account how they operate those trusts, how they operate as managers. How will that be done? That seems to me to be the most important thing.
Another opportunity missed in the Bill concerns the whole concept of the digital age. We have moved on in the last 10 years; we can now very easily communicate with people, providing we have their email addresses. Any excuse that it is more expensive to communicate regularly with individual savers is for the birds, frankly, because bodies can now do it quite easily. This would be a good time, when we are trying to get these bodies regulated for the first time, to put in a requirement that they should have those facilities. For them to be approved, they should have those facilities so that they can easily and cheaply communicate, not just with the regulator and the employers but with the individual savers and employees.
In addition, the Bill should have said a little more about the trigger mechanisms and the pause provisions, because those both talk about informing the employers, but there is very little about telling the employees. What happens to the employees or the individual savers when the pause provision is brought in? What will they be told? What will they be advised about the contributions that they might want to continue to make but will not be allowed to? Some consideration should have been given to that.
Another important aspect of this regulation is that there has been a huge growth in master trusts, but there may be a need or an opportunity for the encouragement of consolidation going forward. Is the regulator going to keep an account of the cost per saver indices for these various trusts so that there is some indication to people how efficient they are and an indication to their management of where they can get improvements in costs and efficiency so that they operate effectively?
My final point is related, and I have not heard much about it recently. When I last asked this question, I got an answer that took it straight into the long grass. Portable pensions were always seen as an important aspect of auto-enrolment. I return to the issue of pension pots. We have now been in this for a number of years. The type of people who are investing in these pensions are moving jobs all the time. We are probably already in a situation where people have more than one pot. I do not know what the average is; it would be interesting to know. What are the Government doing on the policy that we originally looked at under the previous Government with regard to encouraging people to consolidate their pension pots? It was originally proposed that the pots would follow the employee in whatever new job or saving arrangement they went into. What is the Government’s purpose in delaying regulating on that and what are their plans to address this issue? As time goes on, this problem will grow and it will become even more difficult for the industry to find a rational solution.
I welcome the Bill’s aspirations. It could do a lot more, particularly in widening the power and knowledge of individual savers who need to put more into their pensions. I look forward to following up some of these issues in Committee and on Report.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund, which is in sound condition. I welcome the Bill immensely. I pay tribute to my noble friend on the Front Bench for all he has done in this field over the years, and what it seems he still has to do in the future.
More important than my welcome is that I read that last week a panel of master trust providers at the conference of the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association also welcomed the Bill. That seems to be a good start. The providers also said at that conference that it should ensure that those schemes that are not sufficiently robust will have to leave the market—quite rightly so—but they even volunteered that maybe the industry should be the catalyst to look after those members who find themselves belonging to such a trust. I hope very much that by mentioning this here publicly they will do what they said they were thinking about doing.
I was also pleased to see that the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association has set up a committee solely for master trusts to help them have strategies, to move them forward and to support them in more difficult times. That can only be in the interests of the pensioners themselves, for they are the people we are most concerned about.
Looking at the Bill, of course one looks at the role of the Pensions Regulator—TPR. Will he be given real powers under the Bill to authorise and to de-authorise? Authorisation will, as I understand it, examine every aspect of a master trust, because those master trusts will become the key providers for the development of a defined contribution pension market. There is a question of whether TPR will have adequate resources for the work that is defined for it in the Bill. I hope that there will be a thorough assessment. One recognises that it is the pensioner who will pay the bill. Nevertheless, let us at least start with an analysis of whether those who are charged with these important responsibilities are to be given sufficient resources to meet them.
I have a number of questions to ask of my noble friend. First, why is there no de minimis capital requirement for any master trust entering the market? Secondly, why under the licensing scheme is it not compulsory to use the master trust assurance framework? Thirdly, your Lordships will know of my deep interest in and support for the mutuals sector. There are many schemes out there today for groups of employers in the not-for-profit sector—for churches, charities, unions, universities, credit unions and a number of others. They usually have a defined benefit scheme and as far as I can see, having been involved with the movement for many years now, almost all those are in reasonable shape. Surely it is questionable whether it is really sensible, or indeed necessary, to include them in the master trust legislation, for they are pretty safe schemes. It seems to me that the regulations will be unnecessarily onerous, complex and really quite expensive for some of these small operations. If we demand that they have to comply with them, it will create great difficulty for a sector that, as I understand it, society wants to see promoted.
My fourth question will not find much favour with my noble friend. It is on that section of Part 2 of the Bill regarding which my noble friend reiterated the Government’s intention to introduce a cap on early exit charges. As far as the media are concerned, that is a highly emotive area. However, for the poor people who are running a pension fund and doing their calculations based on the income of that fund over 20, 25 or 30 years, or whatever it may be, making it easy for the individual member to exit the fund will make it even more difficult to plan in relation to yields in the market. Are the Government absolutely sure that they want to dig away here? We certainly cannot have a situation where the early exit charge is what one might call de minimis. There has to be a disincentive against people going in and then pulling out; otherwise—as someone who has been involved with pension fund management for 25 years—my judgment is that it will be quite a challenge, and not one that I would personally wish to take on.
So much for the questioning. I think the House will know and need to recognise that we have a long way to go in the pensions market in this nation. Today, it is estimated that just one in seven of the members of DC schemes are saving enough to maintain in retirement the lifestyle that they have got used to. There is a huge challenge for all of us—for the Government of the day, the media and the industry—to explain and convince pensioners that they must do more saving for their future life as pensioners. In my judgment, that has considerable implications for Her Majesty’s Treasury in providing some incentives to make this happen.
As this is the Second Reading of a pensions Bill I would like to comment on a couple of wider aspects. First, as I understand it, there are currently 5,945 defined benefit schemes. Your Lordships will have read, as have I, that most of those defined benefit schemes are in a negative situation. The deficits amount to billions of pounds. To make it even worse, or more lurid, the Pensions Institute at the London Cass Business School has forecast that 1,000 more pension funds will enter the Pension Protection Fund. Your Lordships will know that the level of the deficit is calculated using traditional gilts plus or corporate bond yields to calculate the discount rate. As we all know, those yields are at a very depressed level and have been for a while now.
I was interested to read something that I believe reflects the situation. First Actuarial has just done an analysis of the expected returns from underlying assets held by schemes as opposed to the theoretical system using traditional gilts plus and corporate bond yields. The net result was completely different. There turns out to be a surplus of £358 billion. We need to think long and hard about whether we will stick in the longer term with the totally unrealistic discount rate that we have had over the last decades.
My second and more general point is about when schemes face a wind-up situation. The time has come to look at changing the law. Today, it is not in the best interests of members. If they cannot afford to meet their pension promises, the only option left to the trustees and the company is to go bankrupt. The net result is that the poor pensioners get a very meagre—certainly a substantially reduced—pension from the PPF, so they lose out, and the equity shareholders in the company lose out because they lose all their equity. Why cannot trustees be allowed to renegotiate? It would result in a reduction in benefits to the members, but not as big a reduction as they get when they have to be put in the last chance saloon of the PPF. Perhaps some combination of cutting benefits and a modified new DC scheme on top of that would be a better way forward for a number of those companies—possibly not all of them, but certainly a significant element of the thousands that the Cass Business School forecasts will be in really deep trouble. A significant element of them would be saved, and that would help pensioners.
I greatly welcome the Bill. We face many new challenges in this market. I am sure the Bill will be given a Second Reading, and I look forward to playing some role in the Committee stage as we move it forward.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)
My Lords, the Bill is focused on master trusts, to which I will not speak. However, the Explanatory Notes open with the statement:
“The Bill’s focus is on protecting savers and maintaining confidence in pension savings”,
to which I will speak, as did the noble Lord, Lord Naseby.
Much recent government policy has been misguided. The bit we got right, after our campaigning, was the single state pension. However, those on, say, three zero-hour contracts, each of 10 hours, making 30 hours in total, still cannot aggregate their hours to come into NI and build a state pension, while someone on JSA does. There are 1 million people on ZHCs, working in the flexible labour market without access to NI and thus, potentially, to a state pension. It is wrong but, with RTI, easy to rectify.
The Government then cut projected new state pension costs by suddenly raising retirement ages faster. Steve Webb claims he did not fully understand the implications of that. Really? Equality, yes—but as our worker-pensioner ratio in 2025 will be more favourable than that of any other EU country, from Germany to Greece, apart from some smaller countries such as Ireland, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg, we argued that we could afford a slower timetable, but were refused. We argued for transitional arrangements for those WASPI women, but were denied. Women are especially dependent on a state pension, as most lack a decent OP, and caring for children and elderly parents, their pay and their hours all hobble them. The WASPI women continue to fight on, and I hope that, despite the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Freud, today, the Government will respond.
The Government are capping costs by tying SPA to longevity. A third of your life will be spent in retirement, hence those healthy elite pale males, breezily contemplating an SPA of 68, 69 or 70. Life expectancy is rising, but not evenly. The gender gap has narrowed, while the socioeconomic gap widens. Within Norwich—a tight city with common services and standards—two city wards are one mile but some 11 years of life expectancy apart. In the council estates, most people started work six or seven years younger than in the owner-occupier ward. They start work young and they die young, but without receiving much of the pension that they paid for and we enjoy.
However, it is worse than that. Although we are living longer, healthy life expectancy has not risen pro rata. More of those extra years are spent in poor health, especially for those in manual work, who have double the rate of poor health than those who are better off. Women, for example, live longer than men but proportionately spend much more of their later life in poor health. A woman reaching 65 in Richmond can expect 16.7 years of good health; in Tower Hamlets she can expect just 3.3 years. The second woman faces fewer years of retirement and then even fewer of those years disability-free—she is doubly disadvantaged.
We have to change this, and I look to Cridland. A single SPA is profoundly and increasingly unfair. It needs to be tailored but not means tested—only half of those entitled to pension credit ever claimed it. Like NI, it should be a universal and contributory entitlement, easy to understand and administer, fair to men and women alike, and affordable. The Pensions Policy Institute reckons that 38% could draw their SPA earlier if they qualified with 45 years of NI contributions, costing around just £200 million a year. Passporting from ESA or from caring responsibilities within five years of retirement might double that. Refuse collectors in Norwich often die within two years of retirement—two years. Is it right that their lifetime NI, which barely benefits them, should pay for 20-plus years of all our state pensions? I think not.
I turn now to occupational pensions, especially as they affect the worse-off. Auto-enrolment was for those too low-paid to build a private pension, but instead of the entry point being pegged at an LEL of £5,800, it became a rising tax threshold which over the years excluded 1 million people, mainly women. The industry complained noisily about managing small sums, but even a £5,000 pot may be transformational for a woman who has never had any capital in her life. It has been frozen this year at £10,000, which is very welcome, but will the Government be reviewing this issue in 2017?
However, the biggest worry for me in recent government policy is pension liberation at 55. Spend it on a Lamborghini, government Ministers suggested; it is your money. Except it is not. Two-thirds of “your” pot actually came from others, employers and taxpayers, privileged with billions of pounds of tax relief precisely— as the Explanatory Notes state—to build pension savings, not to provide a honeypot for some to blow in middle age, perhaps leaving taxpayers to fund their later-life care for the second time round.
What is needed for a decent private pension? We all know that you must: save early, but with student debt or saving for a deposit you cannot; save regularly, but mothers in and out of waged labour mostly cannot; save enough, but with employers now contributing a meagre 44% on average through DC pots, you cannot; leave it untouched until retirement, but that is gone, so many will not; and then be rewarded proportionately, live to enjoy it, but if you are poorer you will not, so do not. Government policies in this respect are contradictory and regressive.
What might we do? ISAs attract more money than personal pensions. Why? Easy access. Only the better- off can afford to fund both ISAs for working-life access and pensions for retirement. Low-paid women, part-time workers, the self-employed and those on ZHCs, with average earnings of £11,000, can barely afford one, certainly not both financial instruments.
If, through auto-enrolment inertia, most pay into a pension they cannot access until 55, that is too late to help with divorce, disability or disaster before then, but they may have no other resources. ONS statistics show that a third of all men and women, and about half of those separated or divorced, have less than £500 in accessible savings. Many turn to debt and are trapped.
We should instead combine aspects of ISAs and pensions in one simple product. You save, and perhaps save more, into a pension if you know that you can access emergency savings from it, borrowing cheaply from yourself rather than expensively from others—which may have caused you to stop contributing to your pension entirely. FCA figures show that, of pensions accessed between October and December 2015, more than half—mainly, of course, the small pots—were fully cashed out. The PLSA shows that in the first six months of pension freedom, of those taking cash, 14% were paying off loans or debts, perhaps after years of carrying charges. Modest savers in Norwich Credit Union use its loans for holidays, Christmas, cars, household improvements and goods, yes, but also significantly for the consolidation of debts.
How to combine pension and savings in one simple product for those who, I fear, may otherwise not build either? Here are two of many possibilities. You pay into your pension account. Effectively, 75% remains ring-fenced for retirement, but 25%, the tax-free lump sum, is your easy-access savings slice floating on top. Build your pot to, say, £5,000, and you can take a quarter of it; to take more, you must rebuild. Cap it, so that there is no recycling by the wealthy.
Alternatively, StepChange, the debt charity, to which I am grateful for its help, proposes embedding a £1,000 accessible savings slice within your pension pot, which it says would remove 500,000 families from problem debt—debt that helps to lock people into poverty for years on end. Could this be part of the 2017 review, perhaps?
To conclude, we should be offering transitional arrangements for WASPI women, given that we have one of the strongest worker-pensioner ratios in the OECD, and certainly in Europe. We should allow aggregation of hours for those with multiple jobs. We should tailor state pension age to reflect morbidity. All that may help to secure fairer state pensions, which I am sure we all want. Overlay that with a fairer and more attractive private pension. How? Reduce the auto-enrolment threshold back to LEL. Consider a default de-accumulation strategy. Allow access to a savings slice embedded in a pension, and thereby encourage what the Explanatory Notes state is the purpose of the Bill—both a savings culture and a pensions culture—and do so in one product. And, of course, support capping charges and regulating master trusts.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this Bill. It is absolutely vital that the Government ensure that people’s pensions are properly protected. The policy of auto-enrolment has been a significant success story in broadening coverage of private pensions and I am delighted that millions more people are saving for retirement with the help of their employer. Improving retirement provision across the population is vital in our ageing society and the Government’s excellent freedom and choice reforms, allowing people to use their pension savings as suits them best, have paved the way for a better appreciation of the merits of pension saving. If we are truly to make policy in the interests of the many, not just the few, then having an attractive and safe private pension system for everyone is a vital element of future planning.
I confess that I was taken aback last summer when, as Pensions Minister, I discovered that proper protections for people’s trust-based defined contribution pension savings had not been put in place before auto-enrolment began. Under the FCA rules, contract-based pension money is protected and those setting up and selling pensions are subject to strict criteria. However, this is not the case for trust-based defined contribution pensions. Currently, members of DC pension trusts could lose their entire pension, and all their employer contributions and tax relief too, if the scheme they have been contributing to winds up. Even if the actual investments are protected, members could lose their whole pension because all the costs of winding up the scheme—if they cannot be paid for by anyone else—might have to be met by the funds in the trust. It is, therefore, most welcome that the Government are finally taking action to address this. However, while we are putting the legislation in place, the House must ensure it achieves its main objectives. Therefore, there are important areas on which noble Lords will no doubt seek assurances from the Minister in Committee.
The House must be confident that the proposed protections will actually work in practice. When I first started working with government on pensions policy in 2000, it was on the issue of lack of protection for defined benefit pension trusts. Post-Maxwell, the Government of the day assured members that their pensions would in future be protected by legislation that introduced minimum funding standards. This MFR regime was supposed to mean that their DB scheme would always have enough money to pay the promised pensions, whatever happened to their employer. In practice, however, well-intentioned standards were inadequate and members ended up losing their entire pension. It took years of misery and campaigning before the Government acknowledged this lack of protection and introduced a proper insurance scheme for the future with regulatory powers to back it up. The Pension Protection Fund has worked well and the Government must ensure that any new regime to protect trust-based DC members will also provide proper protection.
Some of the issues which noble Lords will wish to explore include careful consideration of how adequate the capital adequacy safeguards will really be. We will certainly need to drill down into this more in Committee. I welcome the extension of the Pensions Regulator’s powers and the requirement for master trusts to pay for authorisation and an ongoing levy. However, it is not clear how any new regulations will dovetail with the existing master trust assurance framework that has been used by the regulator to assess master trust scheme quality. That framework does not include coverage of wind-up costs, nor adequately cover employer or member communications to ensure that proper, clear warnings are in place about the impact of such things as using a net pay scheme for workers who earn below £11,000 a year and could be required to pay a 20% penalty on their pension savings, for example.
Millions of people are already saving in master trusts, so noble Lords will be interested to hear from the Minister how existing scheme members will be protected. If their DC trust fails between now and when the new rules are enacted, what provision is the Government making to cover wind-up costs or ensure a smooth takeover of members’ pensions? Will there be a default scheme that can take over while the past records are clarified? Will there be new rules to ensure that bulk transfers between DC schemes can legally occur promptly and efficiently, with immunity for the receiving scheme against providers’ past mistakes to ensure continuity of pension coverage for members of failed trusts? As regards the definition of “master trusts”, there may be some confusion. Currently, the definitions in Clause 1 differ from the definition of “relevant multiemployer schemes” in the charges and governance regulations that were introduced in Parliament only last year. Noble Lords may be interested to understand why this is the case, and whether the Bill should look to align the definitions.
I hope my noble friend the Minister will be able to reassure the House that all relevant schemes will be covered by the Bill, and that all pension trust members will be protected on wind-up. It is not currently clear whether the definitions in the Bill are adequate. For example, a single employer trust could potentially take in DC savings from other employers, but would then not be covered by these protections for master trust members. Will the Bill ensure that the new measures cover all relevant pension saving trusts, whether for pension accumulation or decumulation, so that we do not find ourselves in need of further legislation in coming years because some schemes fell through the cracks left by the current measures?
Currently, the FCA protection regime for contract-based schemes is far tougher than that run by the Pensions Regulator for trust-based DC, and there has clearly been some regulatory arbitrage. It seems strange, however, that an insurance company with a diversified business fully regulated by the FCA would not be permitted to back a master trust. This Bill would force the existing large insurers to set up separate entities to run their master trust, which may weaken the protection for members rather than strengthen it. Will my noble friend the Minister explain why an existing large regulated insurer is not considered suitable to run a master trust, but a much smaller company whose only business is the master trust itself would be considered more suitable?
I believe noble Lords may also wish to understand what consideration has been given to an insurance arrangement along the lines of the PPF itself to cover wind-up costs if no other means exist. If the scheme funder is a limited liability company, and this company becomes insolvent, where could wind-up costs be covered from? It is a little-known fact that the Pension Protection Fund already has a provision to insure all trust-based pension schemes against fraud, including master trusts, I believe. Could this fraud compensation scheme perhaps be extended to ensure that existing master trust members were protected in the event of scheme wind-up in the near term? Imposing regulatory operational capital requirements for DC schemes is, of course, a valid policy but this is no guarantee of member security—think of the banking system, for example. Insuring against a catastrophe would usually be more efficient than every fund setting aside money just in case the worst happens. An insurance option, however, has not been included in the impact assessment accompanying the Bill, even though it was considered at industry round tables and consultations. Will regulators know in advance what amount of capital is needed to ensure adequacy? The actual costs of wind-up will not be known, or knowable, in advance. Therefore, it is important for the House to be reassured that the Government’s new proposals will work in practice, or that there is an alternative contingency plan in place for the failure of a DC pension trust whose records are in disarray.
I also support and welcome this Bill’s proposed ban on early exit charges and member-borne commission, which will enhance pension outcomes for customers. I hope that the 1% cap proposed by the FCA will be introduced as quickly as possible. In all good conscience I admit support for the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, in relation to women’s state pensions, where the failure to communicate state pension age rises and failure to allow thousands of mostly female low-paid part-time workers to accrue either state or workplace pensions has caused, and will cause, retirement hardship. But that is not the issue for today.
In summary, I welcome the Government’s legislation that aims to protect members of master trusts. Members’ interests are so important. It is imperative, however, to ensure that the planned protections will have the best possible chance of working in practice and, of course, if any measures can be introduced in this Bill to reduce the scourge of pension losses resulting from scams and frauds, that too will be most welcome.
Lord Monks (Lab)
My Lords, I start by declaring an interest. I am a trustee of NOW: Pensions, a master trust with 20,000 clients and 1 million members, which have built up in the last four years. Like many noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, I welcome in general the thrust of the Bill and its aim to provide essential protections for people in master trusts. We have advocated for a long while that a more robust regulatory regime for these trusts is necessary to ensure that all savers in them enjoy protection. It is certainly now time, as other noble Lords have said, to tighten the rules for master trusts, including on charges and commissions.
Many questions will be debated in Committee, I am sure, and this Bill is a modest measure compared with the many pensions challenges already mentioned that affect this country—whether in relation to the state pension, the declining scope of defined benefit schemes or the apparently increasing risk of the more unscrupulous or perhaps most desperate employers joining BHS and others in dumping their liabilities as best they can into the Pension Protection Fund. More specifically, there is the big question—the stark fact—that, despite the initial success of auto-enrolment, it comes nowhere near providing contribution levels of around 15% of earnings, which most people regard as the basic level of a decent pension in retirement.
There are many people still outside the scope of pensions, not least because of the qualifying earnings limit, which cuts out a lot of low-paid workers at present. A good start has been made but we still have some big challenges to face. Women have been the losers in the main, not just in relation to the state pension age, but given their preponderance in low-paid occupations and part-time work in particular.
How rapidly the pensions outlook has changed in the last few decades. I remember that as late as the 1990s, many employers with healthy defined benefit schemes were taking contribution holidays. Many of us were very worried, but they promised solemnly that they would honour their pension promises and some have done so. I notice that Rolls-Royce, which is not in the papers for reasons it would like at present, a week or two ago put new resources into its pension scheme to keep it healthy. Far too many companies have broken those promises but I note somewhat sardonically that, where senior executives remain in the general pension scheme, there is a greater tendency to keep it going than where directors are in their own separate, hived-off, top-hat scheme.
Maybe the decline of DB schemes was unavoidable because of demographic factors such as the welcome increase in life expectancy but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said, that relates only to certain parts of the country—to certain wards in many cities where there is a big difference between the rich and the poor, the comfortable and those in need. That is a major factor. Other factors, such as the accounting and taxation changes and rather sudden actuarial reviews, had a big effect on DB schemes. The coverage of DB schemes was partial; they favoured full-time, mainly male workers in large companies. However, they were a British success story, and I am sorry to see our current position.
This increases the pressure on us to make a success of auto-enrolment. That was a rare thing in British politics: the product of a genuine consensus based on the report of the chair, Adair Turner, my noble friend Lady Drake, who will speak shortly, and Professor Hills. The major political parties did not turn it into a political football match and worked, for the most part—certainly until recently; some of the recent changes are exceptions to this—in a non-partisan way to build up the auto-enrolment system. I hope we can do that with both the Bill and next year’s review of auto-enrolment. Indeed, this kind of approach could usefully be expanded into other labour market issues, but that is a speech for another day.
There will be a major review of auto-enrolment in 2017, and I hope we will manage to make some progress together on that. I hope too that we will address the tough issues. For example, should we start to plan for a higher contribution rate, above the 8% of earnings currently envisaged? This question will of course entail some fine judgments of how both employers and workers would react to the higher contribution rate. Would employers under current pressures, which have been enhanced by the uncertainty caused by the EU referendum result, be in a position to up their contributions? Would such a move perhaps encourage them to go further towards self-employment, and not just those in the gig economy? Self-employment has accounted for half the jobs created since the crash of 2008, and we on this side are certainly aware that that could increase still further if we got some of these things wrong.
Would workers be prepared to pay substantially more into their pension, especially against the background of the very low, real pay increases which have characterised recent years? Would the opt-out rate go through the roof in such circumstances? Should we even continue with the right to opt out, or should membership of a scheme be compulsory? That would certainly simplify administration. Could it perhaps be made widely acceptable as the right thing to do, given the many pressures associated with facing old age without adequate resources? One thing is clear: any changes certainly need to build up fairly slowly, giving people time to adjust to major changes and to maintain the spirit that the Turner commission developed. But the objective must be clear: we need to move towards prompting and helping people to save more for their old age.
The Bill rightly aims to correct some weaknesses in the current system. There has been no licence to operate and virtually no barriers to entry in the master trust world. This has spawned the big increase in master trusts that has been mentioned, and there is a danger that many will fail to achieve the scale necessary to survive. The result could be disorderly exits from the market, with all the uncertainties and possible losses that the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, referred to. To an extent this is being addressed—certainly in the Bill, through the enhanced role of the regulator, which will become an authorising body, a new market entry test and a fit and proper person test for the trustee. Schemes will have to have these continuation strategies with adequate resources to wind up in an orderly fashion.
We will need to look at the details in Committee but, for the moment, I am unclear as to why master trust assurance would not be made compulsory. It is an existing framework that could be used as part of the licensing regime. It is also desirable that the requirement to hold capital against running costs should be set at a solid rate—one that can cover the emergencies which can arise. In the case of NOW: Pensions, we think around six months would suit us. At the moment, that would mean around £8 million for the organisation.
Although it is perhaps a bit premature to move into the review of auto-enrolment, could we place on the agenda a wish to remove qualifying earnings, particularly the lower limit and, instead, base contributions on every pound of earnings? At the moment, the lower-paid are losing out big time because of the way the system works. Such a change would improve the outcomes for all, but especially for low-paid and part-time workers, many of whom are women. Other outstanding issues include the net pay anomaly—settling once and for all the point at which tax has to be paid, on the money paid in or on the money drawn out.
Finally, will the position of NEST be reconsidered in the 2017 review? Here, I recognise I may differ a little from some colleagues on this side of the House. NEST was set up as a default option, to take care of low-paid workers no other providers would accept. In fact, there has been no market failure and NEST is now looking to expand its range of activities to provide new retirement products, as well as providing pensions for the higher paid. Is this a device that could lead to market dominance funded by the taxpayer? After all, NEST is a publicly funded body. I quite accept that we want our money back from NEST in due course, but I would certainly be interested to hear the Minister’s views on this.
All in all there is much to support in this modest Bill, but it is only scratching the surface of the much bigger issues in the world of pensions that I think will occupy this House a lot in the next few years.
Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the Bill and declare my interest as the director of a savings business. Pensions are the main savings for millions of people in this country, but the savings level is still woefully low. People are looking towards a retirement that will leave them impoverished, and many are unaware of just what lies ahead. A private pension pot would need to contain around £181,000 now to provide an income of £10,000 in retirement for someone who is currently 30. That is beyond the dreams of most people. However, this is why auto-enrolment is so positive.
Young people need to save and they need to start saving as early as possible, but pensions are not often high on their list of priorities, so auto-enrolment is a real force for good. However, if those schemes in auto-enrolment should hit problems—just as when any pension fund hits disaster—it will destroy confidence in the entire industry. Therefore, I welcome the Bill as a necessary step to safeguard the master trust. I also share with others the concern that we have reached this stage without putting in place some of the protections that are now included in this very worthwhile Bill.
There is much still to be discussed, however. It is obviously right to have various hurdles that master trusts must now jump to get through the authorisation process. I share the interest of the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, in what will constitute a fit and proper person to be a trustee of one of these organisations. Is it to be left to the Pensions Regulator to determine case by case or will guidelines be laid down, covering, for instance, experience and track record? Being a trustee of a pension fund or a master trust is a hugely responsible job, and we need to be sure that people are not just stereotypical but fit and proper for the task that they will be taking on.
There are other things that the regulator could—and, I believe, should—take account of. It is all very well that one of the authorisation criteria is that the master trust should be financially viable but the idea of having a minimum capital requirement seems perfectly sensible. My noble friends Lord Naseby and Lady Altmann both referred to that. As I said, it seems very sensible and could easily be done.
Many believe that the Pensions Regulator is already overemployed and understaffed. If it is to cope with the raft of new work coming its way, it is imperative that it has the people to do that job, and I hope we can ensure that that is the case. I also hope that the regulator will be able to push some of these master trusts towards consolidation, because it is important that the people who put their savings into master trust schemes have access to the widest possible range of investments. Only by coming together in consolidated organisations will the trusts be able to take advantage of the big infrastructure opportunities. For many years now we have talked about pension funds investing in infrastructure but it has not happened. However, I believe we are on the cusp of a real change, where pension funds will put their money into housing schemes and other infrastructure projects—schemes the country needs now more than ever—and investors will benefit from the sensible, long-term match between liabilities and income, which infrastructure can develop. However, a small master trust will be unable to access those sorts of opportunities.
I warm to the calls that we have heard from some lobbyists and other quarters for master trusts to have obligations that go beyond the five stipulated criteria. I think they should have to make much more information available to those who invest in a pension scheme. It is imperative that we get a newly invigorated investment climate in this country. Traditional institutional investors have, on the whole, shown themselves to be pitifully uninterested in where their money goes and in the long term. If pension fund investors were told more about the investment policies of the fund that they were putting their money into—about the stocks and the other investments that the fund was investing in—I think we could encourage a much more positive attitude towards long-term investment, which we undoubtedly need in this country.
At the very least, I should like to see annual meetings at which those pension fund investors can, if they wish, feel involved. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, talked about new technology and how digital can enable everybody, wherever they live, to take part in webinars and attend annual meetings, even if they are there only virtually and not in person. I would like to see master trusts obliged to open up their proceedings in that way. Transparency is the watchword for us all now, and the more transparent they can become, the better.
I welcome the cap on exit charges. Clearly, people have been grateful for the pension freedoms they have been given and they have been relatively sensible in how they have used them. We have not seen pension raiders driving around in Lamborghinis, as we were told would happen. People are taking out the money to do sensible things—often to pay down a mortgage—and we should make sure that the charges for doing so are kept to a reasonable level.
However, there are a couple of other things to which the Minister referred but which are not in the Bill and which I would like to see. One is the central advice system. Another bout of consultation is all very well but people need advice on pensions and savings—they are not clear where to go for it—and we should make that single source of advice available as quickly as possible.
I would also hope that a Bill called the Pension Schemes Bill could move a little further into defined benefit schemes. I know the Minister told us that the Government were looking further and that more would be forthcoming, but given what has happened in defined benefit schemes recently, would it not be possible to look at the role of the pension fund trustee, not just in master trusts but in defined benefit schemes? They got more power in 2013 to ask for information in the case of takeovers, but could we not impose on pension fund trustees whose underlying business is subject to a takeover an obligation to get independent legal and financial advice before agreeing to let that deal go through?
Baroness Drake (Lab)
My Lords, I begin by drawing attention to certain of my interests. I am a trustee of the Santander and Telefónica pension schemes. I am on the board of the Pensions Advisory Service, on the board of Pension Quality Mark, a trustee of Byhiras and a member of the Delegated Powers Committee.
Like everyone else, I welcome this Bill. The Explanatory Notes are excellent and the impact assessment helpful, albeit unfinished given the substantive policy decisions still to be made. My focus is whether the authorisation, supervision and wind-up regime is sufficiently robust to deliver the Bill’s focus to protect savers.
The master trust model is an important part of a sustainable workplace pension system. If regulated well, it should allow trustees with a fiduciary duty to look after members’ interests, create scale and provide access to pension savings and products at low cost. But master trusts have grown rapidly while inadequately regulated, from 0.2 million members in 2010 to well over 4 million in 2016 and rising to 6.6 million by 2030—billions of pounds from millions of workers. I doubt that anyone anticipated just how quickly the structure of master trusts would evolve.
Low barriers meant that market entrants set up trusts on minimal requirements, into which people were auto-enrolled before an optimal DC proposition and market structure were put in place. The NOW: Pensions master trust CEO, Morten Nilsson, was shocked at how easy it was to set up a master trust—it involved only sending a form to HMRC and to the Pensions Regulator.
Debate on competition focuses on freedom for providers to enter a market created by harnessing inertia. But that competition cannot deliver an effective market because the demand side—the saver—is too weak. The worker does not choose the product, and complexity and conflicts of interest weaken their position.
As the impact assessment acknowledged, master trusts expose members to specific areas of risk. Master trusts can introduce a profit motive into a trust arrangement, but they fall outside FCA regulation. A master trust is set up by a provider raising concerns about the independence of trustees. In a traditional trust, trustees can replace their administrators or investment managers, but in a master trust they may not have that power. Currently, if a master trust fails, as the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, spelled out, the costs are crystallised and met from members’ savings. There is no Pension Protection Fund for defined contribution savings.
Their multi-employer nature means lower individual employer engagement. They are growing in part because employers want to outsource pensions or discharge legacy DC trusts. They can increase complexity, exacerbate the principal-agent problem and when operating at scale mean a greater shock on failure—all compelling reasons for why the Government are right to introduce the Bill.
But I have concerns about the robustness of this regime. Many of those will be pursued in Committee, but I shall make some overview comments. Pension pots are a 30 to 40-year project for the individual, so ongoing supervision has to be robust. Yet paragraph 59 of the impact assessment concedes that,
“substantive policy decisions will not be taken until the secondary legislation stage”,
the timetable for which is unknown. So the House is blindsided on how robust certain key provisions will be.
In his opening speech, the Minister referred to the Government’s approach to the use of delegated powers, stressing that the detail needs to accommodate different structures, not one size fits all. That argument has merit, but only in part. Why is the negative procedure needed so often? There are major policy issues to be determined. We are not sufficiently clear about the Government’s thinking on: the robustness of capital adequacy and what happens if it fails; how profit motive and fiduciary duty are resolved; the sufficiency of the systems; member engagement; and how those charges which it will be prohibited to exceed will be set in the first instance.
The last 10 years have revealed that once highly regarded institutions tumbled from their esteemed positions as a result of weak governance and inadequate scrutiny. The most highly respected names on a master trust list need ongoing assessment for long-term quality of governance. Recent debates prompted by corporate behaviour at BHS raised concerns about the adequacy of the Pensions Regulator’s powers and its willingness to deploy them. We await the Government’s response to those debates to understand how the lessons learned may inform master trust regulation.
Master trusts can introduce a profit motive and the scheme founder can limit the powers of the trustees, yet there is no explicit requirement on those trustees to put in place processes for identifying and listing conflicts of interest and how they are to be resolved.
In the Bill, the capital buffer is the last line of defence to protect members’ money from being drained when a master trust exits the market, but no system of regulation can remove all risk, and that raises a series of questions. How robust is the definition of “self-sufficiency” underpinning the capital adequacy requirement? What happens if it proves not to be adequate in a given trust? How ring-fenced or guaranteed is that capital buffer? What if the scheme funder becomes insolvent? How frequently will the Pensions Regulator monitor a scheme’s capital adequacy? Who will meet the wind-up costs in extremis? How solid is the protection that members’ funds will not be run down? As no protection fund is being proposed, should there be a pay-as-you-go levy system? Will there be a provider of last resort to take over the processes and costs of winding up and to accept bulk transfers? What action will the Government take, and how quickly, to simplify the bulk transfer process? Members in master trusts deserve to be given clear answers to all of these questions.
On Royal Assent, transition to the new authorisation regime will be demanding. For example, some master trusts will not apply for authorisation and will pre-emptively leave the market. The retrospective provision in the Bill to prohibit increasing member charges on wind-up is welcome, as it is commonplace for master trust deeds to allow for such costs to be borne by the members. But some of these trusts have set up business with little capital at risk if things do not work out. What are the member protections in this situation? These trusts do not support only automatic enrolment; they provide in-retirement products too—they have quite a wide remit.
The Bill allows for regulations on the sufficiency of master trust systems and processes, but how robust will they be? We are referred to them in the Bill, but we are only referred to matters that will be taken into account. We are unclear as to where the line will be on the minimum prescriptive obligations that will be applied. The Bill is undemanding about governance on investment decisions and there is no mention of this in the impact assessment.
As my noble friend Lord McKenzie and the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, have detailed, the Bill is insufficient in what it says about member communication and member engagement. These trusts have the potential for huge scale, but there is no explicit requirement for transparency on how workers’ money is invested and stewarded. The Government seem to be reluctant about this, so I join my noble friend Lord McKenzie in asking the Minister, in terms of the consultation exercise run by the Government on requiring transparency on the part of pension schemes about investments, when we will get a response because it closed in December 2015. We could be heading towards two years before we know what the answer is.
Many private pension policy issues are outstanding—several noble Lords have referred to them in the debate, and all of them are compelling and worthy of attention—but auto-enrolment has been transformational. Millions of people are saving, but not because they made an active decision; it is because they had to do nothing. The DWP and the Pensions Regulator have done a good job, but we should recognise that thousands of employers have undertaken their new duty and auto-enrolled their workers in a manner that has kept the opt-out rates low. Employers are a powerful influence on people saving because employees trust their employers, but the thrust of recent government policy seems to invite or exacerbate employer disengagement from pensions.
The complexity in private pensions now, and indeed in any long-term investment product available to the ordinary saver, fed in part by the detailed regulation needed to protect weak consumers, means that it is heading to near impossible for people to understand all the detail. Together with the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, I hope that it will not be long before the revised proposals for financial and pensions guidance are revealed. For pensions guidance to be meaningful, it needs to be independent and impartial. If it is, it can go much further than guidance from a product provider fettered by its product suite.
The guidance also needs to be specialist, as savers’ low level of knowledge means that guidance needs to diagnose the issues as the consumer’s presenting question is often not the underlying matter that needs to be addressed. It also needs to mitigate market failures which cannot and should not be resolved by making people pay for expensive advice. Our private pension system harnesses inertia on the way in and maximises individual responsibility on the way out. Savers remain insufficiently protected in the first instance and are lacking in empowerment in the latter.
As so many noble Lords have said, there is much to be done. I am very keen to drill down into the robust regime for master trusts being proposed in this Bill because these organisations are going to grow in scale. They will have under their management billions and billions of pounds of ordinary workers’ money, so it is important that at the least we should get the Bill right.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, I am sure there is general support across the House for the Bill, and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Altmann on being very much its instigator. I take a slightly more positive view, in that it seems to be a case of the market actually responding rather successfully to a need. For auto-enrolment there needed to be relatively low-cost arrangements for managing money and for administration, along with an arrangement that would be suitable for a large number of small firms, and that is what has come up.
I wonder how many people even know what master trusts are. I suspect that if a survey was made of your Lordships’ House, we might find that only 20% of Members would know. They have arisen to meet a demand and in the main, they have done so rather successfully. I have seen different figures, but already between 4 million and 6 million members have £8 billion of funds under management, and about half of all employers are choosing master trusts for their auto-enrolment needs. As your Lordships are probably aware, there are four major players among a total of 84 master trusts, and it is clear that many of those will need to merge because they are of insufficient size to be viable in the long term.
There has been constructive dialogue between the Government, the Pensions Regulator and the emerged master trust industry on putting in regulation. I believe that, in the main, the regulation we are discussing today will address most of what is needed, although some areas still require work. However, I would have strongly opposed any form of levy to finance master trusts which get into trouble, because that is an unnecessary and hazardous path that should not be taken.
It is wise to leave the important territory of capital base to the Pensions Regulator to determine what sort of level of capital is adequate, but it is important that it be done on an ongoing basis. It is no good if it is done just initially when the master trust is setting up. It needs to be reviewed, probably annually. The concept of having minimal capital as six months’ operating costs is not suitable. When a master trust is small and setting up, those operating costs will be fairly small, but quite quickly they will be a lot larger. The capital base of just six months of initial costs would prove inadequate.
Importantly, in practice, when a master trust is failing it will not be difficult to sort it out because larger master trusts will be very keen to acquire the funds under management, for which they will charge their fees. It is also quite sensible to allow the regulator to act as some form of honest broker in putting together failing master trusts and suitable larger partners to absorb them.
There are some quite big issues. The first is whether the regulator should be the FCA or TPR. Group personal pension schemes, which are relatively similar—a lot of the larger providers provide both master trusts and group personal pension schemes—are regulated by the FCA. In general, the FCA is viewed as taking a tougher line than the Pensions Regulator. There certainly needs to be a level playing field between the two. While right now it is clearly more suitable for the Pensions Regulator to regulate master trusts, there are some slightly sensitive differences between the regulation of group personal pension schemes and master trusts.
There is also an issue with master trusts that attract members not connected to an employer. That may well increase in due course with self-employed individuals. They are regulated by the FCA, so there is another anomaly. The insurance industry has also made the point that where providers have both group personal pension schemes and master trusts, their capital adequacy is already determined under Solvency II, which requires them to hold sufficient capital for their master trusts. We have slight duplication, depending on the structure of the provider.
Historically, master trusts’ approval came from HMRC. It is now to be from the Pensions Regulator, but I repeat that there are some issues to be sorted out where insurance companies offer both. It is important that the regulator should not grant exemptions, as it has in the past, to NEST. Indeed, there is the argument that so to do is a breach of EU state aid rules. Also, to date there has been a voluntary process of accreditation for master trusts, the master trust assurance framework. That will need to be rolled into and absorbed into TPR regulation; but at present the larger master trusts meet the voluntary accreditation requirements and will now have to meet TPR’s requirements. Overall, there needs to be a full review of duplication areas, which can probably be dealt with after the legislation is enacted.
There is a second issue relevant to both master trusts and group personal pension schemes. If a member wants to leave a master trust and move to a new one, that master trust can require that whatever accumulated assets he has must move to his new master trust, but the new master trust cannot require it the other way around—that the assets the individual has with his old master trust are moved to them. I take the view that it is undesirable for people to have tiny amounts in different pension pots about the place, and that it is not an infringement of human liberty to require that amounts follow the individual into their new pension trust.
There is a similar situation with group personal pension schemes. Most people in such schemes—some 95% or more on average—opt for the default funds, I believe quite sensibly, as it happens. However, if a group personal pension scheme changes its managerial administrator, it cannot require that member similarly to move their money across from the old default fund to the new one, which would make life easier for everybody.
I came across a larger anomaly that rather surprised me. Generally, group personal pension schemes do not have trustees. That seems rather strange. It means that only the sponsor company can monitor how the pension is being managed—whether the administration is efficient and so forth. Master trusts have to have trustees, but the issue of group personal pension schemes and trustees needs to be thought about. At present it is left to someone called an independent governance officer to monitor and keep an eye on all group personal pension schemes managed by a particular manager. I take the view that there is insufficient time for one person, in many cases, to monitor all the schemes being managed.
I turn to two pension funds issues that are related but not in the Bill. The first is an income tax issue. Pension contributions are taxed in two ways. There is net PAYE, whereby the pension contribution is deducted from someone’s pay before PAYE is applied to it. The second route is pension trust relief at source—PTRAS—whereby PAYE is applied to gross income without deduction of pension contributions, but the pension scheme then recovers a 20% tax credit from HMRC.
The problem arises for individuals who do not pay tax, such as those employed part-time and earning less than £11,000. Under PTRAS they still get their 20% tax credit but under PAYE they do not. I believe this is worth somewhere between £5 and £10 per annum. Perhaps the easiest way to solve it would be to credit members under PAYE with that amount per annum to put them on to a level playing field. This is particularly relevant to those in part-time work. Also, I do not accept the logic of deducting £5,824 from all individuals’ pay for the purposes of calculating the amount to which employer, employee and government pension contributions should apply.
I strongly support the argument that a central advice scheme needs to be set up as soon as possible. It is a pity that the FCA has not admitted that RDR has been a disaster and resulted in no financial advice at all being available to the great majority of the population.
My final point was raised also by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, and I very much agree with him. As a result of what was FRS 17, now FRS 102 or IAS 19, no one has any idea of the real scale of defined benefit scheme deficits. For the pension fund of which I am a trustee, my company’s old scheme, I worked out that the required FRS discount rate for discounting the value of future liabilities—the rate of interest applied—is roughly half what the pension fund has achieved in returns going back 10 or 15 years, and in good years and bad. Under the FRS rules, we are approximately in balance; the reality is that we have a huge surplus. We live in a world where some large established companies are putting off investment decisions because they allegedly have huge pension fund deficits to make good. The truth is that the FRS formula is completely out of date as a result of QE, which in turn has led to artificially low gilt yields.
When this issue has been raised with the Government, the answer has been, “Oh, we can’t interfere with accounting rules”. Well, my response to that is that Governments act in the interest of the nation. A serious issue is not being addressed. The US Congress had no trouble whatever in dealing with it. If the accounting industry is unwilling to see the sense of the argument that the FRS is now inappropriate, government should intervene. One reads of potential defined benefit deficits of £700 billion, £800 billion or more. I suspect that the reality in net terms is that there is hardly any deficit. We are starving the British economy of investment because of a piece of accounting/discounting which is wrong. I urge the Government to do something about this increasingly important issue.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak briefly in the gap. Your Lordships will be spared the longer speech that I had intended to make, as I failed to put my name down before the cut-off time.
Broadly, I welcome the changes that the Government wish to make to master trusts, building on the success of the auto-enrolment scheme. If the Bill is successful in improving standards and in building confidence in pension savings, perhaps fewer people will take advantage of the pension freedoms introduced in the March 2014 Budget than have done during the past two years.
In her column in the Financial Times on Saturday, Merryn Somerset Webb expressed concern at the rate of withdrawal of savings from pension pots. It is to be hoped that those withdrawing their pensions under the new freedoms do not underestimate the extent of their future lifespan and need for income, or overestimate their ability to manage the withdrawn funds more profitably and efficiently than the schemes from which they have withdrawn their assets. It is worrying that one in three of those withdrawing funds are placing them in low-interest bank accounts with no tax advantages.
The improvements in regulation of master trusts are in principle welcome, but I worry that the requirements and obligations are in danger of becoming too burdensome and therefore expensive. Should master trusts not be required to publish annually their administration charges in the form of total expense ratios, similar to those provided by investment funds? Can the Minister explain why the structure requires separate legal entities called scheme funders? Is it not unduly burdensome for small employers to have to set them up? Similarly, why does a master trust need a separate scheme strategist when a trustee or committee of trustees might perform this role, perhaps delegated to a discretionary fund manager?
I agree with my noble friends Lord Flight and Lord Naseby that in a very low-interest rate environment the valuation method that schemes are required to adopt produces an absurdly high deficit figure which can negatively affect companies’ share prices and strategies, including mergers and acquisition plans. I look forward to the Minister’s winding-up speech and to answers to the questions raised.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out so clearly the arguments for and direction of this Bill. Like all the other speakers, I welcome the regulation of master trusts, their trustees and the way in which their businesses are run. It is vital that we protect those investing their money in master trusts so that they feel secure in the knowledge that their savings are safe. The majority of master trusts are run extremely efficiently and effectively. However, with smaller master trusts beginning to enter the marketplace, it is essential that the Government seek to protect those working for smaller employers and offer them the same protection as those covered by larger providers, such as the People’s Pension, Legal & General and others. Master trusts are the scheme of choice for the auto-enrolment market and it must be fit for purpose for the small as well as the large trust.
As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, and my noble friend Lord Stoneham of Droxford, some 6.7 million people are now enrolled in some 84 schemes, with £8.5 billion-worth of assets. It is time that there is protection for members of a scheme where a master trust fails and has to be wound up. This Bill helps to provide that protection.
The People’s Pension represents a market innovation which was not anticipated by previous Governments or by the Turner commission, but they do have concerns. It is important to increase and maintain the success of auto-enrolment. The DWP forecasts that auto-enrolment will cost government £3 billion a year in lower tax revenues by 2050, but it will increase aggregate private pension incomes by £5 billion to £8 billion a year in 2011-12 earning terms and reduce government spending on income-related benefits in retirement by £0.9 billion by 2050.
There is also the risk of cross-cutting policies undermining auto-enrolment. There are concerns that policies from other departments may clash with the motivators found in auto-enrolment. Developing policy confusion could be damaging to consumer saving. Clarity and transparency are essential.
It is important that employees continue to save for their pension and increase their contributions. NEST, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, is countrywide and has some 3 million customers, each with a small pot. The fund has been running since 2012. The average pot is £300. This is unlikely to fund a pension for its members and a degree of realism is needed. People will not be able to afford to retire with so little in their pots. They will be disappointed, and employers will not welcome keeping on employees beyond their expected retirement age. When are the Government going to do something about this?
I welcome the criteria which the new authorisation regime institutes for master trusts and the new powers for the Pensions Regulator. The five essential criteria are: that persons involved in the scheme are fit and proper; that the scheme has financial sustainability; that the funder meets certain requirements; that systems and processes relating to the governance and administration of the scheme are sufficient; and, last but by no means least, that the scheme has an adequate continuity strategy. All the criteria are extremely important, as we have heard, but we will need to ensure that they are enshrined in the legislation as we move through the Bill stages.
Clauses 20 to 35 deal with triggering events around the responsibilities of trustees and the licensing of master trusts and the possible withdrawal of authority. However, I could not find any reference to what would happen to the pot of money in a master trust which had its authority withdrawn. Would this be returned to the employees or used for some other purpose? I am sure the House will want to probe this in Committee and I would be grateful if the Minister could provide some clarification at this stage.
Part 2 deals with exit penalties. Exit fees were not anticipated in the original legislation. These are set by the providers and have been as much as 5% of the pot which investors are wishing to transfer. The Government have introduced a cap of 1% on exit fees, which is to be welcomed. I am not as sanguine as the Minister about Clause 40, which is very vague. I remain concerned about Clause 40(2). Should the Government grant themselves the right to break contracts? This sets a very dangerous precedent. Are we opening up the way for Secretaries of State to override contracts? People may have legally prepared, signed and executed these in good faith, only to find that they are to be overridden at a later stage without any real justification. Again, this is a subject we will be returning to in Committee.
The Bill contains a great deal which is to be welcomed, but there are some serious omissions. A central advice scheme has already been mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Wheatcroft, and others. Also, as part of pension freedoms the Government planned a secondary annuities market, where original purchasers who had a poor or inferior quality product would be able to sell it and buy a better one with the cash. I believe that this was included in the Conservative manifesto for 2015. There was heavy lobbying against this by the pensions industry which claimed it would be hard to set up a secondary market and difficult to provide consumer protection. As we now know, the Government have changed their minds and this has left people with poor annuities which they now cannot get rid of. Consumer protection could be problematic but it is not rocket science. We are disappointed that the Government have reneged on their promises and left people in the lurch. This could be corrected in the Bill and is a big omission.
This is also an excellent opportunity to mention concerns that we have about cold calling and pension scams. I know that my colleague Steve Webb, the previous Pensions Minister, was also worried about this development. When we get to Committee we will probe the Government on their latest thinking on pension scams. In the meantime, I would welcome the Minister’s views at this stage.
In summary, this is a piece of legislation which is largely to be welcomed, as it will provide the safeguards needed for small to medium-sized businesses and their employees. The Bill is very technical in nature. I and my colleagues look forward to debating the issues across the Chamber in more detail at a later date.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to wind up for the Opposition on this important Bill. Although I may be regarded as a newcomer to pension policy I remind the House that I was a Minister at the Department for Work and Pensions from 2005 to 2007, which was a very interesting time because we had the second report of the Pensions Commission and the Government’s White Paper in response. I start by paying tribute to the commission, to the noble Lord, Lord Turner, to Mr Hills and, of course, to my noble friend Lady Drake for the outstanding work that the commission did.
I made a Statement to the House on 25 May 2006 announcing the then Government’s acceptance of the commission’s core proposals for auto-enrolment. This was welcomed by the then Opposition spokesman, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, and by my noble friends Lady Hollis, Lady Turner and Lord Lea. Earlier, my noble friend Lord Monks emphasised the importance of political consensus over auto-enrolment. I very much endorse that. It was, I believe, a major step forward and I am proud of what we did and that so many people are now enrolled in auto-enrolled schemes. Reading Hansard of that day, I think it is interesting how many noble Lords expressed concerns about the loss of public trust in pensions. Listening to our debate tonight it is clear that much more still needs to be done to regain that trust.
My noble friend Lord McKenzie suggested in his opening remarks that too much has happened in the pensions arena in recent times to damage confidence in savings and pensions, including the mis-selling of what should have been enhanced annuities and the U-turn on the secondary annuities market. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, pointed out, we have just had the call from the head of the Pensions Advisory Service for companies to be banned from cold calling pensioners because of the activities of scammers. Of course, more general underlying concerns continue about the low level of savings and the poor returns for so many savers. Added to this we have the state pension age extension.
The Minister talked about mitigation measures in his opening remarks but, as my noble friend Lady Hollis pointed out, the issue is severe, particularly for women without an occupational pension. My noble friend went on to raise the huge disparity in longevity and morbidity by socioeconomic status. My concerns have been more on the health side than the pensions side, but she is absolutely right: we cannot consider health in isolation. The plight of women, in particular, who are doubly disadvantaged—in health and wealth—deserves recognition and action. I thought that my noble friend’s critique of government policy on occupational pensions was telling and I look forward to the Minister’s response. I look forward to the Minister’s response, also, to the point made in the gap by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, on the perils of early withdrawal from pension funds, and to his response to the very interesting comments of the noble Lord, Lord Flight, about valuation policy and the impact that that is having on general investment by many companies.
The continuing unease and lack of confidence in pensions and savings has, of course, been exacerbated by the events surrounding the sale of BHS and the deficit in its DB pension scheme, which has highlighted, at the least, the problem of poor corporate behaviour. This helps to identify the more general issue of the performance of the Pension Regulator, its current powers and its willingness to deploy these. Much needs to be done to ensure that savers feel safe and confident in their pensions. As millions of people are enrolled in auto-pension schemes, clearly the regulation of master trust pension schemes is essential. In this context, the Opposition welcome the Bill—we support the need to protect members from suffering financial detriment and we support the imperative of promoting good governance and a level playing field for those in the sector—but it is clear from the debate that there are concerns as to whether the statutory and regulatory provisions in the Bill are sufficient. A number of very important questions have been put to the Government tonight which I have no doubt that the Minister will respond to.
Clearly, the number one issue is whether the scheme member protection proposed in the Bill is robust. In Committee we will seek to examine this in more detail. I thought that my noble friend Lady Drake raised some very important questions that we need to tackle, including the ongoing supervision of pension pots, where we lack sight of proposed regulations, the robustness of capital adequacy and questions on restrictions being placed on the level of dividends or profits, to name but three. My noble friend Lord McKenzie and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, also raised the question of master trusts which have already achieved accreditation under the MT assurance scheme developed with the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Clearly, what these master trusts have achieved under accreditation overlaps with some of the provisions in the Bill. It is important to know how any potential conflicts between the accreditation scheme and the proposed regulatory scheme will be resolved.
Turning to the ability of the Pensions Regulator to do the task that is being placed upon it, my noble friend Lord McKenzie made the point that the regulation of master trusts involves extensive powers and obligations, including: dealing with authorisation; determining fit and proper persons; judging financial sustainability; deciding on the adequacy of systems; and having the power to initiate triggering events. There is considerable work for the regulator, especially at the start of the scheme, when existing trusts will have to go through the authorisation process. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, described the regulator as overemployed and understaffed and there is a real question about whether it is going to be in a position to carry out the duties the Bill lays on it. For example, Clause 7—the fit and proper person test—is a long clause but is actually very short on what is a fit and proper person. I hope the Minister might be able to help us on this when he winds up. By implication, I think the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, probably agrees with me when I suggest that he does not look to the football league for advice on that point.
A common theme of the debate has been the silence in the Bill—and, indeed, in the Minister’s opening remarks—on the position of members. I am indebted to ShareAction for its work on this. Clause 11, on systems and processes, is silent on the need for the members’ voice to be heard or represented in master trusts. Why is that? I echo the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, that member representation is entirely consistent with the Prime Minister’s remarks about plc board membership. There are also significant gaps on members’ communications, as my noble friend Lady Drake emphasised. Why is there no requirement for trustees to notify members unless and until a decision is made to transfer out members’ rights on wind-up schemes? Why are savers not given the right to obtain on request standardised information about what they are being charged, where their money is invested and how ownership rights are exercised? Why are pension schemes not required to hold an annual meeting for their scheme members, even if it is a virtual meeting, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham? Why is Clause 31 so weak on protection of members following a pause order?
The Minister spoke helpfully and extensively about the use of delegated powers and explained the rationale for the extensive use of regulations. Like my noble friend Lady Drake, I understand the need for some flexibility here but the problem is that your Lordships’ powers in relation to secondary legislation are circumscribed. It is a great pity that draft regulations are not to be published because the Government want to consult with industry first. Surely there is no reason this could not be done in parallel between Second Reading and Committee. I note also that the Minister used the word “industry”. Can he assure me that that actually means stakeholders and that pension members and their representatives will also be consulted over the draft regulations? I am sure we will want to come back to this in Committee.
My noble friend Lord Monks referred to the forthcoming review of auto-enrolment and made some very interesting observations. I know it is early days yet but it would be helpful to have from the Minister some idea of what is in the Government’s mind in relation to that review. It is absolutely essential that consensus on auto-enrolment continues.
Finally, the Opposition welcome the Bill but there remain concerns about the regulatory regime proposed. Clearly, there are gaps in the detailed provisions of the Bill, with an unacceptable use of negative regulations. There seems to be a complete absence of any reference to the role and representation of members. Having said that, we look forward to a challenging and constructive Committee.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, reminded your Lordships that he had form in this area after being a Minister in the DWP at the beginning of the century. Two can play at that game. I was a Minister in the DHSS, as it then was, from 1979 to 1981, since when there have been many changes.
We have just had a three-hour masterclass on pensions policy, much of it about master trusts but also covering much wider issues. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in a fascinating and, for me, very illuminating debate about the range of possibilities in this vital area.
Much of the debate was supportive of what we are doing, although a significant part of the discussion raised issues of concern. From the point of view of Ministers in charge of the Bill, the good news is that the supportive comments were about what is actually in the Bill and the less supportive comments were about what is not in the Bill, but those are serious concerns, which I hope to say a word or two about as we go through. I want to focus on the issues raised by what is in the Bill. I know that any of the issues that I do not have time to deal with will be dealt with in Committee.
The Bill’s midwife was my noble friend Lady Altmann, and I am very sorry that she is not winding up this debate herself, when she would be able to answer the many questions that she has posed. We are all grateful to her for her work on it, which has enabled us to provide a fit-for-purpose framework for master trusts as auto-enrolment gathers momentum.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made the case for regulation in this area and I am grateful for his support for the Bill. He asked about the timing of the Green Paper. I can go no further than “winter”. Winter is a more broadly defined target than a specific month, and winter is when we plan to publish the Green Paper.
The noble Lord raised a number of issues, including a very important one about the resources of the Pensions Regulator. Indeed, whether the Pensions Regulator would be able to resource itself up to deal with the obligations posed on it by the Bill was a theme raised by a number of noble Lords. The Government and the Pensions Regulator are working together to ensure that the regulator has the resources that are needed. The Pensions Regulator’s resourcing will flow from an annual business planning process developed with input from the DWP, and its budget reflects its agreed priorities. Work has already started on the implications of the new regime we are discussing and will continue as we develop the secondary legislation.
With regard to the initial peak as master trusts apply for authorisation, that work has been anticipated and provision has been made in the Bill to cover the costs of processing the applications for authorisation through a one-off fee. I can confirm that the pots are protected from the date that the Bill was introduced, assuming it becomes law. If a master trust fails before it is authorised, the beneficiaries are protected and there is also a cap on the charges.
The noble Lords, Lord McKenzie and Lord Hunt, and others raised the issue of communication with members. I have some sympathy with the point that has been made. I do not want to go beyond my negotiating brief, but it is important that where it is practical the beneficiaries of auto-enrolment should have some idea of what is going on, and I would like to think about how we might do that within the constraints of the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and others raised the issue of the earnings trigger for automatic enrolment. It is not actually aligned with the personal income tax threshold but we review the earnings trigger annually, paying particular attention to the impact of this on groups currently underrepresented in pension saving, such as women and low earners, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. This year’s review for the trigger for 2017-18 will consider how to get the balance right between the importance of saving for the future and the affordability of pension contributions for those on lower incomes. At this stage, as noble Lords will understand, I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review.
There was much comment about the regulations and questions were asked about when we might see them. I take on board the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has just made. The timing of formal consultation on draft regulations depends on a number of factors. At the moment, we anticipate that the initial consultation to inform the regulations may take place in autumn 2017, but I was impressed by what was said during the debate about whether there might be more involvement at an earlier stage.
A number of noble Lords raised the issue of transparency and where we are on the consultation which took place on that last year. The Government remain committed to improving transparency through the disclosure of transaction costs, and on 4 October the FCA published a consultation proposing requirements on asset managers to disclose information about transaction costs to trustees and independent governance committees. We are working closely with the FCA and await the outcome of this consultation with interest. Pending its outcome, we will then consult on the onward disclosure of costs and charges to members.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, mentioned the importance of building and maintaining confidence in master trusts—a theme that ran through the debate. He made a good point about the impact of volatility in the movement of interest rates on deficits. I would like to say a word about that in a moment.
On pension advice, as my noble friend Lord Freud said when introducing the debate, we are consulting on how we get that right. Public financial guidance is an important issue for both the Treasury and the DWP. Ministers in both departments are working towards a common goal to ensure that consumers can access the help that they need to make effective financial decisions. We intend to consult later this year and that document will, as my noble friend said in his opening speech, include proposals for a single guidance body and its governance structure. In the meantime, the Money Advice Service, the Pensions Advisory Service and Pension Wise will continue business as usual.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, raised an interesting point about portability. I do not have the answer but given how many people move jobs, it is an interesting question: what happens to the auto-enrolment with a particular employer which they started with? I would like to reflect on that point.
Related to what I said earlier about communication with members, member engagement has been quite a challenging area in which to legislate. We will return to this in later debates. Although they are not specified in the Bill, there are apparently existing powers in relation to communication. I would like to take that forward, as I said a few moments ago.
My noble friend Lord Naseby welcomed the Bill but asked why there was not a de minimis level of capital adequacy. The answer is that we have got to the same destination but taken a slightly different route by looking at financial sustainability. As a number of noble Lords raised this point, it is perhaps worth clarifying how the regulator will determine how much funding a scheme has to hold before it gets authorised. The regulator, taking account of members’ interests and the circumstances of the master trust as set out in its business plan, will have to be satisfied that the scheme has adequate resources available to meet its set-up costs and running costs, particularly until it reaches break-even point, and to cover the cost of complying with its continuity strategy and legislative requirements, should the scheme have a triggering event. This includes sufficient capital to cover the costs of winding up the scheme without recourse to members’ savings, if this becomes necessary. We think that is a slightly better bespoke model to adopt, rather than a one-size-fits-all model for capital requirement.
My noble friend Lord Naseby also raised a theme which ran through the whole debate, about balancing the freedom of the individual to do what he or she wants with his or her money against the need to make sure that individuals do not run out of funds as they grow older. In that connection, he raised exit charges. I understand that few schemes covered by the Bill have exit charges and I will say a word or two about that in a moment. On his question about the mutual or not-for-profit sector, these are usually defined benefit schemes. As such, they are not subject to the authorisation regime in the Bill.
My noble friend also raised a point, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, my noble friend Lord Flight and others, about the impact that changes in interest rates have on the deficit in a pension fund. I was struck by the force of those arguments and wondered whether there was not a better way of measuring this, as my noble friend Lord Flight suggested. You can have a perfectly well-run pension fund that has consistently outperformed the index and has all the liquidity it needs to meet its immediate obligations, with a well-resourced employer standing behind it. But the way that the deficit is measured can mean that, if interest rates go down, a huge deficit may suddenly appear as if from nowhere—with the implications that my noble friend mentioned on dividend policy and investment policy. This issue needs exploring and the Government are responding to these concerns. We will issue a Green Paper over the winter, which will explore this area and seek to stimulate an informed debate on whether government intervention would be helpful, as my noble friend suggested, and whether there are other ways of measuring the deficits in pension funds.
Lord Naseby
If my noble friend went back in history he would find that prior to FRS 17, there was a different system. It was a system that looked at the mix a pension fund has and whether that was viable. All the recent work that has just been done— I referred to what one company had done in my speech—proves that it is probably the way forward, so it is not terribly novel. We could dust down what was there before.
Lord Young of Cookham
I welcome in advance my noble friend’s contribution to the Green Paper that is about to be launched.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, with her background in this area raised a number of points. I think I have nine pages of briefing to deal with all her points; I hope she will understand if I do not go through all of them. She raised a serious point about those on zero-hours contracts, who may have a number of jobs and fall out of the system. There is a wide gateway at the moment to national insurance cover, with the lower earnings limit, and the threshold for access to contributory benefits, including the state pension, is set at the equivalent of less than 16 hours per week at the national living wage. Having made some inquiries as a result of the noble Baroness’s intervention, there is no evidence that this is a growing problem. The number of women working in two or more jobs has hardly changed in the last 10 years—it is around 5% of those in work—and there is always the option of buying into the national insurance scheme if, for whatever reason, you are outside it.
A number of noble Lords raised WASPI. I am only sorry that I cannot be more forthcoming on this than Ministers have been in the past. As your Lordships will know, during the passage of the Pensions Act 2011 a concession was made which slowed down the increase of the state pension age for women so that no one would face an increase of more than 18 months, compared to the increase as part of the Pensions Act 1995. To help older women remain in work, we have abolished the default retirement age and extended the right to request flexible retiring to all employees.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, also raised an interesting proposition about merging ISAs on the one hand and pensions on the other. This is a very radical proposal, as ISAs and pensions have different regimes and objectives. I will need to think about that very radical proposal, with all its implications. Perhaps a debate might take place in the first instance within the Labour Party, to see whether it might mature in that environment. She implied, as others did, that one could not trust people with their pensions. I hope no one wants go back to the old days of having to take out an annuity. My noble friend Lady Altmann made the case for enfranchising people and trusting them to act sensibly with the freedoms that we have given them.
My noble friend Lady Altmann also reminded us of her record in campaigning for reform. As I said, we are very grateful for the offspring, which we are debating today. She mentioned the importance of protecting pension pots from raids. She is quite right that at the moment a pension pot could be raided for wind-up costs. As of the date of publication, assuming the Bill becomes an Act, there is protection. There is also protection from an increase in the percentage taken in charges.
A number of noble Lords asked about the interrelationship between the voluntary framework master trusts have adopted and the statutory framework we are introducing in the Bill. The Bill goes further than the framework of master trusts; it builds on it and builds in added protections. As my noble friend Lord Naseby said, the association of master trusts has welcomed the Bill, which implies that master trusts are able to come to terms with the extra measures they will have to take if they are to be authorised.
Perhaps I may skip over decumulation-only schemes and multi-employer schemes and deal with them in Committee.
My noble friend Lady Altmann asked whether the 1% cap on early exit charges will be confirmed. We are currently considering the level of the cap for occupational schemes as part of our response to public consultation on early exit charges. We intend to publish the response in the coming weeks. My noble friend asked some highly technical questions about definitions, which we can perhaps come to in Committee. She and other noble Lords asked about cold calling and scams. I understand that there will be an announcement in a few weeks’ time. At this stage, I can say no more than that, but I hope it will meet the expectations that have been aroused during this debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Monks, made an interesting point, which I had not expected to hear to from the Benches opposite, about whether NEST, a publicly promoted scheme, is unfair competition to the private sector. It is a good point. NEST is a critical partner in the successful implementation of automatic enrolment. In particular, it is playing a key role in supporting small and micro employers to meet their automatic enrolment responsibilities. It is unique in having a public service obligation. What the noble Lord, Lord Monks, said about the need to build a consensus, the need to move incrementally and the need to win public support for the reforms was spot on.
There was an interesting suggestion about whether there should be a new contribution basis for the low paid of a certain amount per pound rather than a threshold. That is also something I would like to think about.
My noble friend Lady Wheatcroft reminded us of the size of the pot people need to put on one side to cater for their old age and welcomed the impact the Bill will have on protecting the brand of master trusts and ensuring confidence in it. She asked about consolidation. I suspect consolidation is likely. Whether the regulator has a proactive role in promoting it, I am not sure. As implementation comes in in 2018 and a number of master trusts look at the authorisation process, it may well be that they decide to merge with others.
My noble friend also mentioned trustees and asked whether they should have greater powers in the event of a takeover. She will know that the DWP Select Committee is conducting an inquiry into this. We are determined that the regulator should have the powers needed, and if legislation is needed, we will legislate.
I apologise for any discourtesy in curtailing my remarks. My noble friend Lord Flight asked whether there will be an ongoing assessment of financial sustainability. Yes, there will. The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, made a number of very detailed and valuable points, which I look forward to addressing in Committee.
There were concerns about the robustness of the Bill due to its reliance on secondary legislation. I hope we have got the balance right. We have put as much as we can in the Bill—all the key elements of the scheme—and left the details to secondary legislation. I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said about the Bill and building trust and confidence.
The Bill builds on the radical changes made to the pension system over the past 10 years. We need to ensure that savers can be confident that their savings are being well managed. The measures in the Bill will help to protect them and to maintain their confidence. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, and I invite the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
EU: Unaccompanied Migrant Children (EUC Report)
(8 years ago)
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Baroness Prashar
That this House takes note of the Report from the European Union Committee, Children in crisis: unaccompanied migrant children in the EU (2nd Report, HL Paper 34).
Baroness Prashar (CB)
My Lords, when we published our report Children in Crisis: Unaccompanied Migrant Children in the EU we described the refugee crisis as the greatest humanitarian challenge to have faced the European Union since its foundation. Children, many of them unaccompanied, are in the forefront of this crisis. It is deeply shaming that as the bulldozers entered the Calais refugee camp, immigration officials were still struggling to process the many hundreds of unaccompanied children who had been hoping for refuge in this country. Eighteen months into the migrant crisis, and six months after the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was passed, how can we have been so ill-prepared? Why did the Government wait until the Calais refugee camp was about to be cleared before starting to bring unaccompanied minors from the camp to the UK? Why was there no strategy for resettling with host families the minors who did reach these shores? Why have we been so slow?
I had to begin with these questions because the report which we entitled Children in Crisis describes the truly awful predicament in which thousands of children find themselves. The challenges facing unaccompanied migrant children have huge implications for the children themselves, the EU and its members, including the UK. I very much hope that all noble Lords will take this opportunity to remind the Government of the moral and legal duties that recent events in Calais have so vividly highlighted. Furthermore, Brexit or no Brexit, we are still a full member of the EU with all the responsibility that that entails until the final withdrawal agreement is ratified.
I was disappointed that we did not receive a response from the Government until about an hour ago. At 5 pm today, we got notification that the response was coming, and I was handed it as I entered the Chamber at 5.45 pm. I have not had a chance to digest it.
Before I turn to the report, I would like to thank the following for their assistance with it: members of the Home Affairs Sub-Committee; the principal clerk to the EU Select Committee, Chris Johnson; the former policy analyst to the sub-Committee, Lena Donner; our special adviser, Professor Helen Stalford; all the witnesses, in particular a group of children who arrived here unaccompanied; and the NGOs.
The report sets out clearly the four underlying problems. They might more accurately be described as four aspects of the current state of mind among officialdom and migrant children that give rise to all the practical difficulties described in the report, and which we are currently witnessing.
The first underlying problem is the culture of disbelief and suspicion that prevails throughout the system for receiving and caring for unaccompanied migrant children. At its most offensive, this culture of disbelief is seen on the pages of some of our tabloids and in the remarks of some politicians. The claim that all these young people are trying to play the system and are adults masquerading as children, and the suggestion that we should test them and examine their teeth to prove their age, are offensive and absurd. Of course, there are bound to be a few individuals trying to play the system, but the vast majority of unaccompanied minors are simply vulnerable children, many of whom have lost their families and suffered profoundly traumatic events in their home countries or on the journey to Europe, and we must not forget that.
Along with the culture of disbelief, we found shirking of responsibility across Europe and endless attempts to palm off the problem to someone else. In parallel, there is the failure to deliver on existing binding commitments, including the current principle of the best interests of the child. We have nothing to be proud of here—the Government have also shirked responsibility —nor do local authorities, many of which, as our report demonstrates, have shown little or no solidarity with those authorities, predominantly in London and the south-east, that are facing the heaviest burdens. I hope the Minister can tell us about the support that local authorities such as Devon have received and what the first cohort of young people from Calais can expect from her department and from central government more generally.
The natural consequence of these failures across government agencies is the loss of trust and the frustration experienced by the children themselves. As we have described in the report, when these children lose faith in official channels, they are pushed into the hands of people smugglers and more of them become victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. Many simply disappear—Europol told us that about 10,000 have, but I suspect this is a conservative estimate and that the number has grown since the Europol figures were published.
In the report we tried to map out a way forward. We pointed out that the solutions have to be built around the fundamental principle of respecting the best interests of the child. Governments and agencies of course pay lip service to this principle, but it now needs to be made a reality, and more must be done to ensure that children are protected and safe. We believe that there is a role for the European Union to legislate and to set binding minimum standards, so that best interests assessments across member states are conducted to an appropriate standard. As far as the UK is concerned—this is still more important in the light of Brexit—we call on the Government to develop, apply and monitor national guidance on conducting best interests assessments. That means taking the views of children into account and talking to them, as we did during our inquiry. That is not easy given the age of these children, the trauma they have been through, the language barriers and the loss of trust in officialdom.
That is why the concept of guardianship is so important. These children need a guardian who is independent—not an immigration official, a social worker or a legal representative, who has a separate stake in the outcome, but someone who is on their side, whom they can trust and who can take a holistic view of their interests, psychological and educational needs and legal status. Such guardians should be appointed as early as possible and provide a single, trusted point of contact throughout the legal proceedings. We call on the Commission to bring forward legislation to set binding minimum standards for guardians, and we call on the Government to introduce a guardianship scheme and service for England and Wales, building on the pilot conducted in 2014 and 2015. I am aware that the Minister, in evidence to the committee, described the results of that pilot as “inconclusive”. But that was contradicted in very clear terms by expert witnesses to our inquiry. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the House whether the Government now accept the case for a national guardianship scheme.
The elephant in the room is of course Brexit. We have seen abundant proof in recent months that some within our society see Brexit as a pretext for pulling up the drawbridge and behaving as if the refugee crisis is now an EU problem and of no concern to us. They could not be more wrong. We took on an obligation as a nation under the Dublin convention in 1990, and although the Dublin system was subsequently incorporated into EU law, I trust that the Minister will be able to confirm that Dublin will remain a key part of a national policy on asylum and that we will continue to align ourselves with the development of Dublin principles across the EU. During her Statement to the House of Commons on 24 October, the Prime Minister told the House that the Government had been,
“working very carefully … with the French Government, not only to improve matters in relation to Calais, but to ensure that we abide by our requirements, under the Dublin regulations, to bring to the UK children—unaccompanied minors—who have family links here”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/10/16; col. 30.]
Could the Minister tell us more about the Government’s efforts regarding children in Greece and Italy who are in similar circumstances to those in Calais?
In this context, I also draw noble Lords’ attention to the far-reaching reforms of the common European asylum system proposed by the European Commission in the spring. The EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee had intended to report separately on these proposals under the opt-in procedure, but decided in the wake of the referendum not to pursue that work. However, I hope the Minister will be able to update the House this evening on the Government’s policy towards proposed reforms of the common European asylum system. In particular, will she indicate how the Government, against the backdrop of Brexit, are contributing to negotiations on these key elements of any future co-ordinated action in response to the refugee crisis?
I also invite the Minister’s comments on whether the Government propose to opt in to the new Dublin regulation. If the UK does not intend to do so, at least initially, can the Minister comment on whether the proposed new Dublin rules will be able to operate alongside the existing Dublin system, as the Commission has suggested? I look forward to the debate and to the Minister’s reply. I beg to move.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on an excellent report, on the work she has done and on the way she has explained what the report is about and set out the case. If I were to utter a word of criticism it would be that, had the report come a bit earlier, it would have made the discussions on the then Immigration Bill even more straightforward, because we would have had the backing of the evidence that she has collected. But that is the way these things work.
There are still believed to be some 85,000 child refugees in Europe, many of whom have gone missing, and there are enormous dangers for young people and children, who are often in vulnerable situations and have very little protection. That is why I was delighted that the House passed, and the Government accepted, Section 67 of the Immigration Act. The Government said at the time that they would accept the letter and spirit of that amendment but, given the slowness of the response, I sometimes wondered whether they were doing that—it took a long time, and I wish the debate we are having about Calais and so on had taken place a few months ago. The Dublin III children could well have been here long before the Immigration Act, although I suppose the Act acted as a spur to get a bit of a move on.
Those of us who have been to Calais—the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, has been there far more than I have, although I have been there on a couple of occasions—know that the camp there is really quite shocking. It is not a place to live; it is a place where people can barely exist, especially young people. I think we all felt that getting rid of that camp was a good thing, but many of us thought that it would only be right that the children should all be taken to places of safety before any bulldozing started. Instead we had the spectacle of the last few days, when there were children there apparently not being fed or looked after while other people in the camp—the adults—had been moved out. I do not know whether the British Government could have done much about that, as it was in the hands of the French authorities, but it was a bit depressing that this was going on. I only heard about it and saw the pictures second-hand, but the noble Baroness was there for quite a lot of the time and testified to what was happening.
At any rate, I understand that the position now is that the children are going to be moved to safer places, but that the Home Office will, as it were, go with them to start monitoring and assessing, so that those eligible to come to this country under one or other heading will be able to do so. I hope that process will be accelerated and that the children can all be here before too long.
It is of course good news that several hundred of the children are here, and the Minister will no doubt give us the latest number for that. It is a good-news story, and there are children here now who are able to live in safety and get the sort of support and education that they have for so long not managed to have. I remember the pleasure with which the leader of one London council told me that the night before—I spoke to him a few days’ ago—he had sent two social workers to collect two girls from Lunar House and take them back to his borough. By that evening, they were each with a foster family. He was pretty pleased about that, that was a good-news story and I hope there will be many more such stories.
I regret the fact that age became an issue: those in the media who are hostile to the policy seized on it. Had I been the Home Office, I would have made sure that we had particularly young ones and girls coming in first, or that they were not photographed in Lunar House, but that is the way these things happen. However, I kept repeating to the media that when young people, children, have travelled across half the world in terrible conditions, it may be that that process has aged them; it may be that what they escaped from has aged them; and, combining the two, it is no wonder that some of them looked older than I think they are. Equally, if a 19 year-old has got to Britain and that 19 year-old is still legitimately a refugee, I do not think that the world comes to an end. I think we can handle it, but the media made a lot of that.
What bothered me about that episode was that we need public consent for what we are doing, and that damaged the ability to get public consent. The policy will work much better if the British public as a whole—they will not all agree—agree that we should give safety to at least some unaccompanied child refugees. In that way, we can move forward on a happier basis.
I am grateful to the Minister for having kept me informed in detail over the past few weeks; that has been helpful and has enabled me to understand better what is going on, because she gave me some facts and figures. I always intended, and I think we agree on this, that not all unaccompanied child refugees in Europe should come here, but we should take our share, and other countries should step up to the mark as well. We are now concentrating on Calais because it is so close and the situation is not one where many other countries will want to step in, unlike in Greece. Nevertheless, even in Calais, I should have thought that the right answer is for us to take about half and for the French to take about half, provided they meet the criteria underlying our policy.
I understand that in Greece the situation is happier, in that UNICEF and UNHCR both work there and there is better co-operation with the Greek authorities than has perhaps been achieved in France. I do not want to knock the French, because we need their support and co-operation to make progress. However, I also understand that, so far, assessments are being made of those children who are in official shelters and that there are quite a few for whom there was no room in the official shelters. I hope we will not forget about them, because they are probably in a more vulnerable situation than the others.
I do not really know what is happening in Italy. I understand that quite a few of the children who arrived in the south of Italy have made their way to Rome, but I am not sure whether they are in a happy situation or not.
I go back to the issue of public opinion. I have felt all along that the reason why the Government in the end accepted what became Section 67 was that public opinion was largely on the side of this country doing so. I interpret this as a sign that the British people are humanitarians and wanted to express that humanitarian wish by providing support for the most vulnerable of the refugees. We are not taking that many—Germany has become the conscience of Europe, taking a million—nevertheless, we are doing something. I should like us to do more for adults as well.
Most of the emails and letters I have had are supportive. I will not read from one or two of the hostile ones, because I will not waste the House’s time. If there is one thread of criticism, it is that we are giving money to support refugee children, whereas British children already here are not getting the same level of support. I say to people, sometimes on the phone, sometimes by email, that it is not my job to defend the Government’s policies on cuts in support to local authorities or cuts in social care. Nor, I suppose, is it the Home Office’s policy—no, the Government speak with one voice, of course. I have tried to explain that we are a rich enough country and can surely not have to put the well-being of one lot of vulnerable people against the well-being of other children. I hope that argument will eventually win the day.
One criticism covered in the Select Committee report is that, for a long time, the children in Calais were given no information about what their rights were. I sat there asking them, through an interpreter, whether they had had any information about their position, and they said that they had had none at all. The result is that they were vulnerable to information from the people traffickers, of whom there were certainly some in Calais, and that they did not want to exercise their right to claim asylum in France, so Britain was the only place where they could go. That was a serious deficit. I understand that it has been overcome more recently and that they have been given the full information. If not, they are even more vulnerable through not knowing what their rights and entitlements are.
I know that according to the newspaper some local authorities are unwilling to have child refugees, but the majority of them are. I am certainly delighted that the local authorities I have had contact with, such as Hammersmith and Ealing, are stepping up to the mark very well. When people ask me what they can do, I say, “First of all, make a beeline to your local authority and urge them to accept child refugees”.
One of the more light-hearted moments—I am not sure that I have mentioned this before—was when a young Syrian who got here on the back of a truck, which was very dangerous, got out on the green opposite. I was chatting to him and he said to me: “Do you know what I want to do? I want to become a politician”, and pointed to the Palace of Westminster. I did not know what answer there was to that, except to say, “You’d better meet a few politicians first before you finalise the rest of your life”, but it was an endearing comment. He saw what politics had done in his country, Syria, and perhaps he wanted to do something better in a country where there are opportunities to do so.
Today, the Government issued a Written Ministerial Statement, which is a response to an amendment I have tabled to the Children and Social Work Bill. The Statement is an improvement on the amendment—in fact, it goes further—and the Government enabled me to have a look at it in draft and even make a few comments. It does not solve every problem, but it goes further than the amendment in safeguarding children and, as such, I welcome it.
I fear that I cannot be here when we have Report on the Bill next week, but I hope that a colleague of mine will be able to stand in, that there can be a debate and then I hope they will feel able to withdraw the amendment. I have one or two little questions, such as: does it cover the Section 67 amendment as well as Dublin III? Will the best-interest test be an integral part—as it must be? As the noble Baroness asked, when we are out of the EU, will Dublin III still apply? There will still be refugees who have family here, and they should surely have a right to come. I also flag up the uncertainty for those children who get here and then reach the age of 18, who will feel vulnerable, not knowing whether they will be allowed to stay here or not. That is a minus.
I pay tribute to the wonderful NGOs working with child refugees which I have met and co-operated with—I mentioned Liz Clegg in Calais, who has been mentioned before—including Citizens UK, Safe Passage, Help Refugees, Freedom from Torture, which recently asked me to become a patron, and support groups which have sprung up all over the country.
I believe that there needs to be a common European response, but there is not time to debate that, although I should like to have a chance to do so one day.
For those who come to this country, I hope that they will find safety; that they will be given the support to help them overcome the trauma that they have suffered; that they will have a chance to catch up on lost schooling; and that they will have the support of a loving family.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, the crisis that we are faced with in the UK and Europe is only part of a worldwide migration crisis. We hear from the United Nations that there are 65 million displaced persons in the world, and we know that in Europe alone, as already mentioned, there are 88,000 unaccompanied children. In the years to come, our legacy will not be a good one for our children, because with global warming, economic disasters and conflict, the flow of refugees could well become a torrent. So we have to face years ahead when we will need to tackle problems such as this far more effectively than we have this migration crisis.
When we debated the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I was very sad to see 200 Members of this House walking into the Not-Content Lobby so as not to accept the 3,000 children mentioned in that amendment. I felt heartbroken that noble Lords could even think of going into the Not-Content Lobby on that amendment. I hope that in the future we realise that this is not a one-off. It is something that our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have to face in a far more serious way than we have. I would really like to see an investigation—a commission, possibly—to look into why we acted as we did on this crisis. Why did we delay, month after month, before taking action to accept them?
Noble Lords are probably very tired of me proposing things and asking questions. I have asked the Government to take positive action in Oral and Written Questions on 13, 16, 22, 27 and 28 June, 7, 12, 13, 14 and 20 July and, since the Summer Recess, on 13, 14 and 15 September and 10, 12, 13, 17, 19 and 24 October. Nobody can say that we have not tried to move the Government on this issue. At one time we were accepting into the UK only one child every 18 days. Requests to local authorities went out on 14 October. There has been delay here. The Minister and Ministers before her know how I have struggled with this and how I have been so saddened, time and again, because we did not move. Because of that, we come to this present situation: the only time the Government moved was when the bulldozers were in Calais. This really is shameful. We are a compassionate people, yet we delay.
I have here lists of the children in the camps. Yes, some are 16 and 17 years old: they are not cuddly children, but they are still under 18. Not only that—as has been mentioned, some of them have been trudging from parts of Africa for two or three years. That must have aged them. I know that nowadays I feel pretty exhausted when I walk a few miles. These kids have suffered tremendously. I had a message this morning from Calais: there are about 2,000 remaining in the camps—no way is it 1,500—and they are in containers. Each container has 12 beds but there are 20 youngsters in each container and they are also sleeping on tables and on the floor. The heating is on, so they are not cold, but there is not enough food to go round. The messenger this morning said:
“The weaker kids will be struggling because of the pecking order with other kids. They have no idea what is happening to them”.
He estimated that there were also 300 people outside the container. This is a situation we should not tolerate as a civilised nation in a civilised Europe. These children are being bussed out in coaches—I think tomorrow—thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. Queens Park Rangers is ready to be part of this, though I do not think that will happen. But we must keep tabs on all of these children as they are scattered around France. There are many there who have a right to be here under the Dublin III regulations and many more under the noble Lord’s amendment for vulnerable children. They have a place here.
I had another message this morning:
“Tomorrow, underage children from the temporary accommodation centre will be leaving by bus for juvenile centres all over France, where their applications to be transferred to the United Kingdom will be dealt with by the British Authorities. No further applications for transfer to the United Kingdom will be dealt with in Calais. All cases will be handled and all departures for the United Kingdom will take place from the juvenile centres. You will be given a wristband which has your bus number on it. The buses will be leaving throughout the day starting at 8 am”.
If you have time for prayer tomorrow, 8 am would be a good time for it. The message goes on:
“The British authorities will be accompanying you on the journey”.
We have tried to face this crisis, but we have not done well at all. The promise is that we will have 20,000 refugees in the UK by the end of this Parliament. If we cannot handle 300 or 400, how can we think of handling 20,000? We cannot delay the organising of this any longer. We cannot have them all coming in the last fortnight; it is impossible. If we are to keep that promise, it must be an ongoing process now. I suggest that we should be in touch with Canada—not just because it has a Liberal Government, though it helps—to see what it has done. It has accepted 32,000 people in three months. They have more land than us, but they have bigger hearts than ours. It gets more difficult as time goes on, but the people here are ready to embrace these youngsters and the others who will follow. It is not easy but it can be done. At the time of the Blitz, 3 million people were moved from the big cities to places such as north Wales in a month. If we did it then, we can do it now.
In thanking the noble Baroness for leading us on this quest, I hope that what we say might have some influence on the Government and the direction they take in the future.
Lord Cormack (Con)
No one can accuse the noble Lord of being backward in coming forward on this issue. He has raised it repeatedly with passion and determination which we must all recognise. I feel a bit lonely because I am the only Conservative speaker in this debate, apart from my noble friend on the Front Bench.
I would like to begin by underlining the fact that, under the extremely able chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, the committee was unanimous. There are good reasons why my Conservative colleagues cannot be here tonight, but I know that I can speak for them. I am extremely disappointed that the response from the Government has been so long delayed. The report was published on 26 July and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, was given the response at 5 pm on the very day of the debate. If I were back in my schoolmaster days, I would say to my noble friend on the Front Bench, although she is not personally responsible, “Could do much better”.
We are all conditioned by our own memories and thoughts. I will never forget meeting Polish refugee children encamped in Lincolnshire at the end of the last war. The event that, more than any other, made me determined on a political career—perhaps like the young Syrian to whom the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred—was 60 years ago. I remember, as a sixth-former, picking up a copy of Picture Post which had on the cover the words, “Cry Hungary”. I remember, too, during my early adult years, after the putting up of the Berlin Wall, the number of would-be refugees shot down in the barbed wire. I remember going to Berlin as a very young Member of Parliament in 1970 and seeing the wall that was built across not just land but through water, and seeing some of the spots where young men had been shot. That is my hinterland, if you like.
I believe passionately that our country, with its marvellous reputation for giving help to those who need it at the point when they most need it, has not exactly lived up to its reputation over the last couple of years. There are understandable reasons, of course. The one note that kept coming to me as we took evidence and talked among ourselves was that everybody has been rather overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of refugees who have come from Syria, Libya, Eritrea and other countries over the last couple of years. The numbers are daunting, but the fact that they are daunting does not mean that we should not have a truly co-ordinated response.
I am afraid that the European Union has not had as unified a response as we all have a right to expect. We are part of that European Union. The noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, in her admirable opening speech, referred to this. Until the day we exit, we are a full member of the European Union, with all the rights, responsibilities and opportunities which that implies. We must not become so obsessed by talk of Brexit and what might or might not happen in the future that we ignore what is happening at present. We will be judged by how we respond and react.
The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, talked about the information he had received from Calais this very day. It is deeply disturbing that 20 young people are sharing 12-bed containers. I very much hope that when my noble friend responds to this debate, she will be able to give us more information and encouragement, and tell us that the Government fully understand, and are taking properly to heart, the unanimous message of the report which our sub-committee produced.
I draw attention to one or two paragraphs in our report and underline—this point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, at the very beginning of her speech—our reference to,
“the greatest humanitarian challenge to have faced the European Union since its foundation. Although the outcome of the referendum on 23 June 2016 was that the UK should leave the EU”—
I made this point a moment or two ago—
“the UK remains a full member … with all the responsibilities that entails, until the final withdrawal agreement is ratified”.
We compiled our report on that premise.
I draw your Lordships’ attention to paragraph 62 on page 21 of the report, because there has been a lot of talk of what is called the pull factor. We say very clearly in that paragraph:
“We found no evidence to support the Government’s argument that the prospect of family reunification could encourage families to send children into Europe unaccompanied in order to act as an ‘anchor’ for other family members. If this were so, we would expect to see evidence of this happening in Member States that participate in the Family Reunification Directive. Instead, the evidence shows that some children are reluctant to seek family reunification, for fear that it may place family members in danger”.
We had particularly moving evidence to that effect from a young Afghan who came to see us in our informal evidence session in June.
I draw attention to two other points in our summary and conclusions. My next point is in many ways the most important. The report states:
“All children needing protection have the legal right to receive it, regardless of immigration status, citizenship or background. That right should be recognised, and all those under 18 should be treated as children, first and foremost”.
I understand some of the scare stories regarding the age of refugees. It is often difficult to determine someone’s age exactly. Of course, in this age of terrorism, when it is suspected that at least some of those responsible for some of the atrocities in continental Europe earlier this year were refugees, we have a duty to be particularly careful as we vet them. However, the mark of a civilised society is that it gives the benefit of the doubt to unaccompanied children. It is very important that we do that for our own national self-respect and honour.
In that context, we refer in paragraph 62 to a point that has already been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on the need for a decent, proper guardianship scheme so that young people who come over here have someone—not a government official, or even a local authority official—with whom they can have true human contact. It is much easier to say that than to bring it to fruition, but it should be our aim so to do.
This is a great country and, whatever the technicalities of the future, we are a great European nation. Whether we are a member of the European Union or not, we have a European responsibility and a European destiny. We have played a crucial part in the history of our continent many times over the 950 years, which we commemorated just 10 days ago, since William, Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Whatever the future brings, we cannot and must not turn our backs on the continent of which we are an integral part.
And so I hope that in the couple of years—a little more perhaps—during which we withdraw from the European Union, we make it plain to all our friends and allies, particularly those who less than 30 years ago were living under dictatorships in the Soviet bloc, that we are not letting them down, and that we recognise that we have as much responsibility as they do to ensure that those who have been displaced and unsettled are able to have some peace in our land. I very much hope that many of these refugees will be able to go back to Syria and other places when the fighting and the carnage come to an end.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, I should note my registered interest as vice-president of UNICEF in the UK. Although it is clearly not a financial interest, it is one of some impact on this subject. I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on an outstanding report that is comprehensive, thoughtful and practical, and also on her passionate and very clear introduction to our debate this evening. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble Lord, Lord Roberts—who has raised the subject in this Chamber now month after month when many of us were not prioritising the lack of action on it. I am very pleased that he has spoken this evening about the situation in Calais this week.
The report contains 65 conclusions and recommendations and all of them deserve attention. They certainly deserve more respect than a response just before the start of our debate. In looking at the report and considering this debate and what has been happening over recent months I have thought on many occasions about my own childhood. I remember all sorts of things. I remember watching the first man on the moon on the new colour TV and all the other incredible technological advances that were taking place and the hope for humanity that we were somehow going to have a much better world that was more open, corrected and advanced.
There was the decision of the then Conservative—Conservative—Government to admit 27,000 Ugandan Asians to this country because they were being expelled from somewhere they were no longer welcome. There was also the decision of the then Conservative Government to be part of an international effort to relocate more than 20,000 Vietnamese refugees to this country alone and 800,000 internationally, and no matter which side people were on during the Vietnam war, there was support for both of those decisions from local authorities and politicians in all major parties.
I also think back to my own childhood and the complete freedom from violence and fear that I was able to enjoy, and I think about these children and the journeys that they have had, losing friends and brothers and sisters across deserts in north Africa, and across the Mediterranean, whether from Turkey to Greece or from north Africa to Italy or Malta. Presumably there was some hope in their hearts and minds and presumably some promises were made to them before they embarked on those journeys. It is absolutely shameful that they find themselves in civilised, 21st century Europe being ignored, abandoned and neglected, as has been the case over recent months and years.
I have been in about five or six different countries over the last 10 weeks since the summer break and in every country one of the first questions I have been asked by people locally, whether people I just happened to meet or representatives of people in Governments or organisations, is: “What is happening in the United Kingdom and in Europe?”. We have thousands of kids vulnerable to sexual exploitation, hunger and disease—as the committee unanimously says in this report—and yet we have seen this determined effort not to act. It is not laziness, not the absence of any solutions or the existence of a vacuum; there has been a determined effort not to act over the months of this year to bring these children to the UK and across Europe, leaving them in what are essentially detention camps after the horrific journeys that they have endured. The international system has been allowed to drag its feet again and again and to make promises to these children that are not kept again and again. We should think about the conditions that have resulted in them coming to the shores of Europe.
We have the cheek to lecture countries around the world about the use of the rule of law. I cannot count the number of times that I have heard when travelling to different places that the UK and Europe stand up for the international rule of law and that other countries —whether dictatorships in parts of the developing world, Russia or China in the South China Sea—do not do so, and yet we are ignoring our international legal obligations to these children, as this unanimous committee report says.
We boast about our efforts to deal with human trafficking and say that we are taking a lead. We see it reported constantly that the Government in the UK are taking a lead in tackling human trafficking and the European Union is taking a lead in tackling human trafficking and slavery worldwide. Yet we leave these kids vulnerable to human trafficking and slavery. We talk about our European values, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has just said, and what we stand for as a civilisation, yet we are willing to walk by on the other side so often on this issue. Future generations will look back and wonder at this hypocrisy and be ashamed of us.
I think the UK has many obligations. We have a huge obligation as a member of the UN Security Council and a huge one still as a member of the European Union. We have an obligation because of our role in Iraq and Afghanistan and one because of our history in Africa. These are all obligations that we should be fulfilling by playing a proactive role not just in resettling more of the kids more quickly from France but in trying to find Europe-wide and international solutions to looking after the kids who have arrived in Europe and dealing with the reasons behind this movement of people, not just making promises, particularly in north Africa.
I want to ask the Government three questions today. I hope they will be addressed in the Minister’s summing-up. The first is in relation to Calais and the wider European issue. Can we receive today an up-to-date position on these kids—over 1,000—who seem to be either living in containers or actually still living and sleeping on the site in Calais. Are we going to see through this programme of resettlement in a genuine way over the coming weeks and will we continue to be part of an EU effort over the next two years despite the fact that we will be negotiating Brexit at the same time? Can we have a firm commitment from the Government that Britain will proactively engage in the EU-wide effort to provide solutions over the next two years?
Secondly, what is happening in north Africa? There was considerable talk a year ago about trying to prevent the boats and the traffickers coming across the southern Mediterranean and to deal with some of the problems at source and create better conditions and organisation in the north African coastal states. Is the UK involved in any activity there? Is anybody paying any attention to these people any more given that there is so much attention being paid to Greece and Calais and so on? What action are we taking, both through our aid programme and our international efforts in the UN to deal with the countries of origin?
Thirdly, will we take seriously the fact that the kids in detention camps in Greece and the kids in France and elsewhere have the same right to education that we have spoken about in this Chamber regularly in relation to kids in refugee camps in Jordan, the Middle East and elsewhere? Are any of these kids receiving any education just now at all? If not, what are we doing to try to change that situation as part of the international effort to educate refugees that we in the UK, again, boast about being a central part of?
I have mentioned what I think are the key obligations —the UN Security Council post, our membership of the EU, our recent history in Iraq and Afghanistan and our earlier history in Africa, but it seems to me that ultimately this is about a moral obligation. We should be helping these kids because we can. We are one of the five largest economies in the world. We have a history of civilisation, democracy, openness, transparency and caring. The fact that in the second decade of the 21st century we seem to have been willing at the very least to drag our feet but at worst to deliberately slow down the process of helping these kids is shameful and I hope that we have seen a turning point in recent weeks.
Lord Soley (Lab)
It was a privilege to serve on the committee under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, who chaired with her usual skill and determination, and to have able staff to help us throughout that process.
There is no doubt—it has already come out in the debate—that neither the United Kingdom nor the European Union emerge with any credit from what has been happening in the world. As a former MP for a west London constituency that took refugees from all over the world, I know and fully understand both the problems of doing that and the fear of a host community that is experiencing a degree of population movement that the world has never before experienced. However, I also believe that there is, as has been said, a willingness on the part of the British people to help. If we look back on this time in a few years, all of us will be ashamed of the role played by the United Kingdom and the European Union. I often think that if there is a Charles Dickens out there writing a novel like Oliver Twist, they will be doing it on this issue. Those who have been involved in trying to delay, slow down or make difficult taking children into care in the way we are describing here might feature rather badly in such a novel.
I say very strongly to the Minister that the Government need to look at how the Home Office responds to such reports. As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, said, she got the response an hour before this debate. I went out to the office just now and it is not there, so we do not know what the Government’s response is. Therefore I can talk about our recommendations but I cannot talk about what the Government will do in response to them. Equally, in the course of other matters that the committee deals with, there have been delays by the Home Office on a number of important issues. It needs to get its act together. I know that the Home Office is a difficult department to manage in all its complexity, but a major department of state, complicated as it is, has to get its act together and do better than it is now. Not to have a response to this report that we can debate now is a disgrace. I hope the Minister will take that back clearly.
A number of things in the report could and should be done, and I hope I will eventually be able to read a response and understand what the Government intend to do. However, I will start with a point raised by a number of Members, most notably in the excellent speech by my noble friend Lord Dubs, about the media response to this. If you read about the disbelief shown towards the children’s ages, it brings home to you what those children, and indeed other, older family members, have experienced. As a number of people have said, it is hard to judge a child’s age when they come from a society in which nutrition has not been up to normal standards, reliable dates of birth are not kept, there is intense violence and the child has suffered considerably. I invite a couple of those editors who have been writing stories that stir up hatred and disbelief—I will start with Hugh Whittow, the editor of the Daily Express, and Paul Dacre, my old opponent at the Daily Mail—to give up a week of their holiday and work in one of the places where there are child refugees. To make their nightmare doubly worse—I think they will regard it as a nightmare—I will come with them to work in that area. I do not think they will enjoy the experience but they may learn a degree of humility, care and concern.
On the age factor, I recognise the problem and recognised it years ago as a Member of Parliament, when we had to deal with these issues. First, however, there is an understanding that this is such a difficult problem that you would rather make mistakes on the side of generosity than on the other side of the argument. Secondly, bear in mind, as has already been touched on, that when children leave those situations, they are not just desperate in the sense of fearing for their lives but, as my noble friend Lord Dubs pointed out, afraid of being recognised because their families will be punished. Afghanistan is a good example. If you are in a Taliban area, the Taliban will not only punish your family but force boys to join it. This is why quite a lot of boys come from Afghanistan. Are we really saying we would rather they stayed there to be trained by the Taliban to make bombs and kill people? Is that what we are saying? Therefore, when Mr Hugh Whittow and Paul Dacre come with me, we will have that experience together and they will learn, as I learned over many years, about the complexity of this area. If they do not, they might feature in the novel by the new Charles Dickens, who I hope emerges from this terrible time.
I will make a couple of points on the recommendations. The culture of disbelief of age is important. I would not be against having what are sometimes referred to as invasive tests of age, such as on teeth, and so on. But—this is important—very few of them are accurate. The committee was told by the dental professionals that if you judge a child’s age by the development of its teeth, you can judge it accurately to within only about five years. There are other medical checks, which again, I would not object to in principle, but they are not that accurate. They may be one of the factors you want to use to assess age. However, what will you do with a child from Afghanistan who may turn out to be 19 or 20, who fled from the Taliban because they did not want to be trained to kill? Will we say to them, “You’ve got to go back to that situation”? Therefore, the situation is far more complex than editors of the Hugh Whittow and Paul Dacre type understand. I am offering them an adult learning course in an interesting situation. I hope they will respond to it, but I rather doubt they will.
The next thing I want to say to the Minister, which again is important, is that one of the messages we have to get across is that as soon as a child appears in a European Union country, including in the UK, we must register them. Europol was clear in the evidence it gave to us that a number of children—I think 10,000 was the last figure I heard—just disappear, and we then have no way of checking because we have no record of them. Therefore, recording this is particularly important. As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, pointed out, we have a legal obligation, which we passed in this country and which has been passed in all other European Union countries, to put the best interests of the child first. If you do that, you do not leave them in camps in Calais or anywhere else. That reflects on all European Union countries, including our own. The best interests of the child need to be put first. The other recommendation, which I think is number 16 on the list of recommendations at the end of the report, is the need for minimum standards in Europe on the definition of,
“the best interests of the child”.
In other words, when we decide that a child is in the care of one of the European Union countries, we should have a minimum standard by which to judge that care.
The other recommendation I will mention is that for single authority to look after migrant children. At the moment in the UK, the responsibility for services and so on is split between the Home Office and the Department for Education. I understand that, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, indicated, a guardian or someone to take the overall needs of the child into account is particularly important, whether that guardian is wholly independent or an institutional organisation. I do not rule that out automatically—I am slightly at variance with the report there—but as soon as you have vulnerable children divided between several organisations or individuals, there is a danger that they will fall through the net, and we need to address that. Perhaps the Minister might take that away and give thought to it.
This report is very important. This situation will be a terrible reflection on this country and on the European Union in years to come. People will look back at those photographs of the children drowned in the Mediterranean or those in the camps in Calais and say, “What was wrong with our society at that time?”. We need to rethink this.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I too am grateful to be speaking in this debate today. I share the sentiments of other Members who have spoken about the culture of disbelief and the Government’s apparent lack of interest in this report—despite the fact that it was produced in July and attracted quite a lot of press coverage and interest. That message needs to be taken back.
I will speak a little more about the part of the process where the children arrive in the UK. As others have said, children’s rights are defined by the United Nations convention, which provides a universal basis for how all children should be treated regardless of their status. Our own Children Act sets out the paramount principle that we must, at all times, first consider the best interests of the child. Yet if you look at the evidence, you will find that many agencies do not believe this is happening even in the UK, whatever we are saying about the camps at Calais or elsewhere.
It is true that there are many challenges. For example, we have a major shortage of housing in this country, and these children need supported housing. Also, they stop being children after 17. The lack of housing and lack of funding for young people after the age of 17 are already major issues in this country. As far as refugees are concerned, they have the added threat of being returned to their own country.
Another major issue is that there is very little English language provision for the newly arrived. Classes have been cut—certainly over the last five years to my knowledge—and the lack of opportunity to learn English means that many young people are not able to access mainstream education. We hear that sometimes children receive no education for as long as nine months. In addition, there are health issues. We all know of the serious pressures on our National Health Service, and this adds to the view that the noble Baroness mentioned earlier—that somehow the issue of child refugees is not seen as our problem.
But it is our problem. These children have suffered in suffered in unimaginable circumstances, receiving violent, inhuman treatment. Often their friends and families have been killed or injured in front of them. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned we heard from young people who, after some years, were still experiencing flashbacks, difficulty sleeping and severe headaches. One witness became so distressed that he was quite unable to speak about his experiences. These young people have a great fear of being sent back. We heard earlier about the young Afghan and what would be likely to happen to him. Many of these young people fear being sent back more than anything else, so they go missing and are quickly found by human traffickers.
We have all welcomed the Government’s belated acceptance of some of their responsibilities. But my understanding is that the general lack of leadership and lack of resource has left public agencies and voluntary groups struggling to meet the demands of the people they work with.
There have been camps at Calais since 1999, yet little has been done until the British Government were shamed into taking some of the refugees in recent weeks. That is despite it being widely known that many of the children in Calais have relatives in the UK. The current action being taken seems to be characterised by an acute sense of crisis management. I spoke to some of the people who were receiving children over the weekend. They are pleading for a bit more notice, a bit more of a long-term view. How can they get people in to support these children? They have been using volunteers because of the urgency of the situation.
We really need to think about what experiences we are giving these children when they get to this country. They cannot be held responsible for what has happened to them. It is not their fault that their homes are being destroyed, their families killed or taken from them. Many of them have faced horrors that we can scarcely imagine yet, when they reach a place of safety, they are greeted with suspicion, threatened with being returned to their own country, often isolated and desperate for affection and a secure home.
It is good to see today that the Government’s statement commits to a safeguarding strategy for unaccompanied asylum seekers and refugee children, to be delivered by 1 May next year. As others have said, I am sure this will receive wide support, so long as the six months are used to consult the children themselves, as well as the wide range of people and groups with knowledge and experience.
One of the recommendations in our report, as has already been mentioned, was about children being allocated an independent guardian. I would very much support the introduction of an independent guardian service. I understand this has been successful in Scotland and I hope the new strategy will include this proposal.
It also seems to me that unaccompanied children should have the right to sponsor their parents. Adult refugees can sponsor their spouse or partner and their children to join them; unaccompanied children in the UK currently have no family reunion rights despite the fact that they go through the same asylum system.
Lastly, I hope the Government will look into these inadequate current practices of age assessment which, again, others have mentioned. The report details how these assessments have been mistaken and led to quite unsuitable treatment for many of the children. In the light of this, if age assessment has to be done, I hope we will look at practices which are known to provide much better evidence.
I very much welcome the Minister’s statement today and the comments that Members have made this evening. I hope the committee’s recommendations will provide what appears to me to be a rigorous basis for moving forward. I feel that the strategy must address some of the urgent issues that have been raised today, because the cost of getting this wrong will be borne in my view by the world’s most vulnerable people.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I was delighted to be part of the excellent Home Affairs Sub-Committee, which conducted this inquiry into unaccompanied migrant children. I pay tribute to the skill and dedication of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, who chaired the committee. Like her and others, I have not had time to study the government response, which arrived on email at about 5 pm.
Reference has been made to the quality of the evidence we received and to the excellent contributions made by our secretariat and our adviser, Helen Stalford from Liverpool University. It was apparent that many NGOs and other agencies are striving mightily, not only in working with children on the ground, but in publicising the situations that those children face. But as we point out in the report in paragraph 340:
“The admirable work of non-governmental organisations is not a substitute for effective Member State action. The individual Member States should remain ultimately responsible for meeting the needs of unaccompanied migrant children”.
I shall return to this issue later. Much of the evidence we received was disturbing, particularly when we interviewed four young unaccompanied migrants and heard of their experiences. One was clearly still traumatised. During the inquiry and again after our report was published, I looked back on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, with its 54 articles, which of course came into UK law in 1992. I remain shocked that so many of those articles have been contravened during the migrant crisis. The general principles say it all: children should have the right to non-discrimination, the right to be treated in their best interests, the right to life, survival and development, and the right to be heard.
The recent demolition of the Calais camp provides evidence of the continuing disrespect for the rights of the child. As UNICEF and other agencies working on the ground have recently pointed out, a number of children have been forced to sleep rough. After queuing for days, dozens of children seemingly were unable to register and get their official wristbands before registration closed. Children have been left in dangerous situations, vulnerable to smugglers and traffickers.
A question to the Minister today is: what happens now to these children who travel to the UK? The Home Office is to be commended for its efforts but there is much safeguarding to be done. I refer particularly to the guardianship situation, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has recommended that all unaccompanied and separated children in the UK should have statutory independent guardians, as in Scotland and Northern Ireland. I know that England has trial programmes for trafficked children at three sites, and such a scheme should be rolled out—it has been well evaluated—as soon as possible. Children desperately need this kind of help. Our inquiry discussed the issue of guardianship on many occasions and the children’s agencies that we spoke to were unanimous in their support of it.
I also ask the Minister whether we are ensuring that there are sufficient facilities, such as those for education and health, to cope with the migrant children who will need extra language tuition and extra help with socialising. How will they be helped to integrate? When we asked one young man from Afghanistan who had entered Britain as an unaccompanied migrant what had helped him to integrate, I was surprised when he answered, “Cricket”. I am glad that cricket is so popular in Afghanistan. This chap is a spin bowler—we may need him. The story illustrates that school and community activities can be good facilitators of integration. We need more of them.
Many contentious issues are discussed in the report. Family reunification is a particularly troubling issue across EU member states. In Greece and Italy, for example, children are being denied access to rights and protection. In the UK, we need reassurances about how the children from Calais will be able to access the right to family reunification.
We have seen headlines in much of our press in the last few months about the lack of co-ordinated effort in member states of the EU, and our committee heard similar criticisms from witnesses. I consider this lack of co-ordination to be a serious flaw in dealing with migrants and, in particular, unaccompanied migrant children. Our report makes it clear, at paragraph 334, that the,
“lack of clear structures for involvement by civil society and international organisations at EU and national level risks further diffusing Member States’ responsibility for unaccompanied migrant children”.
We heard from witnesses and read reports of children travelling alone, with the threat of trafficking and abuse. We heard about the squalid conditions they had faced, about them losing siblings on harsh journeys, and about the dreadful conditions they often had to live in, with poor health resources and no education. Some had particular health issues, such as sexually transmitted infections. These children then had to deal with complex legal processes, with challenges to their age, and with uncertainty about their future as they approached 18. Some, not surprisingly, go missing—Europol estimates the figure to be around 10,000; it is probably higher.
The committee was concerned that in the current refugee crisis the Commission and member states seemed to have lost sight of unaccompanied migrant children. These children are somebody’s child or grandchild, and somebody’s brother or sister. They are children and should be treated as such. I hope that this report by the Home Affairs EU Sub-Committee will serve as a call to action. It received a good deal of press coverage and was discussed in media interviews. We raised issues to which all answers have not yet been forthcoming. Maybe they are in the government response, which I look forward to reading. I hope that the concerns expressed by our witnesses and set out in the report will be monitored for action by government and EU member states. This is an enormous EU problem with great challenges. Unless we face those challenges and look for solutions together, across all our nations, we shall let down a generation of children and fail the test of humanitarian concern.
Baroness Afshar (CB)
My Lords, I add my thanks for the excellent work done by my noble friend Lady Prashar and her committee and for the excellent report they have produced. It sheds a bright light on the current crisis faced by unaccompanied migrant children, who have travelled across the globe and find that the world they have come to is failing them.
Friends and colleagues who have been working in the Refugee Community Kitchen at Calais have told me that, regardless of what is being announced, the Calais camp is not empty. The kids are not safe and have not been sorted. Those working in the kitchen are cooking and serving at all hours of the day and night.
I received another message that on Friday morning more than 100 children were still stranded in the smouldering fires, waiting for the police to sort them out. Dejected and in despair, they huddled in makeshift shelters in a school on the perimeter of the camp. Fifteen British volunteers spent the night guarding them from potential fires or people traffickers. The abandoned school is an unheated structure, made from chipboard and tarpaulin by volunteers. It is not a place where we would like to see vulnerable children huddled together.
I fear that there is some misinformation and a great deal of confusion. The most vulnerable victims are the children who mistrust the authorities, which regard them as a problem. They fear the authorities to such an extent that they choose to take to the hills, running away and disappearing. Surely in all conscience we owe a duty of care to all children, regardless of colour, creed, place of birth or even their mode of travel. They must not be labelled as immigrants and treated as a burden to society. Children are the harbingers of our future. They, along with our grandchildren, can contribute to making our future safe, comfortable and bright. Children are an asset to any country, particularly one that has a falling birth rate.
We need only to look at this country’s health and social care services to recognise the impressive contribution made by many who have been labelled as immigrants. Without more help from them, in a decade or so the increasing proportion of older and wiser citizens in this country may find it difficult to function. Mere self-interest dictates that we should welcome these children in the hope that in due course some of them will turn their hands to the care and health services and look after us.
As we know all too well, these children are here because their homes have been bombed, their villages burnt down and their families killed. There is little left for these youngsters to return to and very little offered to them to go to at this stage. Without systematic and humane assistance, evidence suggests that many of these youngsters may be caught and drafted into slavery, prostitution, petty theft—possibly even terrorism—and a raft of other misdemeanours.
By welcoming these children we can only be serving the interests of the nation. Not all these kids are traumatised or unable to help; some of them even play cricket. Many of them, given care and protection, could become invaluable citizens of our country. They could bring a great deal to this country. It is the most enterprising, brightest and best of the kids who not only manage to embark on such journeys but manage to survive and get to this country.
Many have relatives in this country who are very willing to receive them provided they are not scared of being demonised. Many others have been welcomed by generous families who have already opened their doors and offered to have them. It is not only humanitarianism and altruism that demand that we accept these children and care for them; self-interest dictates that we make the most of the situation and turn a human tragedy into a national asset. I suggest that we would do very well by accepting these children among us.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, those last remarks are very powerful. It is important to bear in mind the cost in so many ways of not being positive and welcoming and embracing these refugees at their young and sensitive age. This has been a rather solemn debate with a lot of powerful contributions. Unless I completely misunderstand and misread the Minister, I am sure that, as the person she is, she will take it very much to heart and consider it not as a debate to be refuted and rejected but one to be embraced by the Government to see what they can do to try to make the best of a bad situation.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. I had the privilege of serving on her committee and she and her colleagues have produced an outstanding report. The way that she introduced it tonight was effective and irresistible. My noble friend Lord Dubs mentioned one regret. If I have a regret, it is that we did not all focus on this report way back in the summer so that we could have had a better chance of influencing the Government. The report, after all, was published in July and it is now November before we debate it. We need to look at why it takes so long on such an important issue before we debate it and help the Government to focus.
Having mentioned my noble friend Lord Dubs, I want to say what a joy it is to have him in our midst and hear him speaking. He has been a fantastic leader to us all in terms of the personal stand that he has taken. I know that he does not really like me making these remarks, but one of the things that I find most important about him is that, having been through it all, he has not put it behind him; he lives with it and sees what that demands of him in current action. That is a very strong position and we are fortunate to have him challenging us and being so effective.
I am sorry that I cannot say this after she has spoken, but I am also very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, is here tonight. She is also someone who has been working very closely with the situation on the front line and is very much in touch with the realities and the people about whom we are talking tonight.
If I may, coming so much at the end of the debate, I want to mention one other person. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, demonstrated tonight his humanity and sensitivity. It was rather a courageous speech to make from his position, and we should all welcome the fact that he made it.
Having listened to the debate, it seems that there are certain questions outstanding that I will emphasise. First, what plans does the Home Office have to create expedited family reunions and “Dubs transfers” in other EU countries such as Greece and Italy to stop children feeling forced to make their way to France and to attempt dangerous journeys across to the UK? What will now be the situation of new children who, whatever has happened, perhaps inevitably still arrive in Calais or the French coast? How will we be able to ensure that they are able to access family reunion or “Dubs transfers”?
How will the Minister ensure that unaccompanied and separated children in England and Wales are not disadvantaged and receive the same level of protection as those in Scotland and Northern Ireland, who have access to independent guardians? The role of independent guardians has been emphasised in the deliberations this evening. For children who have been through this kind of trauma and experience, one cannot overemphasise the importance of having a reliable friend to whom they can turn and who is with them, taking their hand and walking with them into the future to try to make a life in our midst. It is really shameful that we in England are lagging behind Scotland and Northern Ireland.
What will the arrangements be to ensure satisfactory follow-up and monitoring of what is happening to these youngsters in their long-term future? What will happen when they turn 18 to make sure that the backing is there to enable them to make the best of their lives in terms of further or higher education or whatever?
The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, remembered meeting refugees at the end of the Second World War. I am not trying to one-up him, but I was taken by my parents to an international summer camp in Scotland in 1943 for refugee children mixing with young British children, and it was a very good and enjoyable occasion. I remember at the tender age of eight being so impressed by the spirit of these children after what they had been through. There were even youngsters who had come from Norway across the North Sea in open boats to get to England. This was all happening in a grand baronial Victorian castle in Scotland called Drumtochty Castle. As I say, it was a very important experience in my formation as a youngster.
What has happened to us as a nation? We played a leading role in the creation of the United Nations and provided some of the most outstanding civil servants to serve that organisation with dedication, of whom Brian Urquhart was a particularly great example. We played a key part in the formation of UNHCR, as we did in the formation of UNICEF, and under a Conservative Government we played a key part in achieving the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We had a sense of international belonging and international responsibility. We were proud of that and wanted it to be the hallmark of the nation in which we were living. What has happened to it?
If we are to have a future outside the European Union—and, again, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, made the point most powerfully and rightly—how are we going to build an alternative? What are we going to do? Are we going to regenerate and put the resources, leadership and drive that should be in place to create a new and stronger future for UNHCR, UNICEF, the World Bank and the UN itself? Where is the evidence that we are planning for that? It is not just about our trade, although of course it matters desperately, but what is the real role in the world that we want to play and how are we planning for it?
I conclude by simply making this point. Do not let us think that this is a one-off situation, because it is not. With global climate change and all the instability in the world, we are going to see this story repeated in one way or another over and over again. Let us think about the children, the mothers and the fathers who have been dying in despair as they drown, trying to escape tyranny and oppression. We must think of the predicament of those children who have made it here. Let us remember that the same thing is happening right now in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, east and west Africa, and in the Horn of Africa. There are children in those places who are every bit as desperate. If we as a nation are to have any kind of future at all in which we can take pride, we must base it on a commitment second to none in terms of humanity and world responsibility. Our participation in the international institutions is going to become more important than it has ever been.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and her committee for the very thorough evaluation they have undertaken of this difficult and emotional subject where the welfare of vulnerable children is under the microscope. I add my voice to others who have expressed great regret that we were not able to hear the response of the noble Baroness to the Government’s response to the committee’s report, given that they only delivered it to her at the eleventh hour. Before I go any further I should like to associate myself with the remarks made by every noble Lord who has spoken in the debate. I have not been here very long, but I honestly do not think that I have sat through a debate and agreed with every single word that has been spoken. I pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has put into this issue. His authoritative voice comes from personal experience and speaks volumes. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Roberts whose terrier-like qualities in keeping this issue alive week after week have kept us all on our toes and aware of what is happening around us.
I shall speak from a narrow but I hope well-informed perspective about the camp in Calais known as the Jungle. The first of my numerous visits to the Jungle took place in October 2015 when I took some basic humanitarian aid in the boot of my car and headed out to meet a representative of Save the Children. To say that I was shocked by what I found would be an understatement. The Jungle was a muddy swamp with very few toilets, flimsy tents providing little protection from the biting wind, few water taps and no drainage. It was a filthy quagmire and a humanitarian apocalypse. Even more shocking was the revelation by representatives of Save the Children that they could not work overtly in the camp as they were not recognised by the French Government. However, they knew that there were young children in the camp and that more and more unaccompanied children were arriving. Fear for their protection was growing following a statement by Europol that, of the 90,000 or so estimated minors in Europe, 10,000 had gone missing, with evidence suggesting that some had fallen into the hands of child traffickers. Sexual exploitation at the hands of organised crime was feared.
To add to my consternation, not only was Save the Children not there, but no recognised humanitarian NGO was present either. It was left to young volunteers with no previous experience of relief work to provide the very basic humanitarian needs of food, water, shelter and warmth. Without these young people, some of whom have stayed throughout the time of the camp’s existence, people would have died in the winter cold of 2015-16. I salute these individuals, and put on record my admiration for the humanity they showed and the hope they gave to some of the most desperate people I have ever met.
However, their actions put into sharp relief the failure of the Governments of two of the richest countries in the world to adhere to their moral and legal duties. The report is persistent in highlighting the lack of regard on the part of almost all EU countries for domestic and European law. Paragraph 35 sums up our Government’s legal duties well:
“So far as domestic law is concerned, the UK ratified the UNCRC”—
the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—
“in 1991, and the rights of unaccompanied migrant children are now enshrined in national legislation. Specifically, the Immigration Act 2009 imposes a statutory duty on the Secretary of State, and those acting on his or her behalf, to ensure that all decisions relating to the ‘immigration, asylum or nationality’ of children are discharged having regard to their welfare”.
Our duties could not be clearer. However, not only were the most horrendous conditions allowed to persist, but the plight of unaccompanied minors with family reunification claims on the UK was alleviated at only the slowest possible rate. Only in the last few weeks, faced with a barrage of adverse publicity concerning the demolition of the Jungle, have we seen any sense of urgency from the Government.
I was in Calais all last week during the demolition of the Jungle and witnessed the most appalling treatment of minors. If I may, I will read out an extract from an email I sent to the Home Secretary on the morning of Wednesday 26 October:
“I am writing to express my extreme anger at the treatment I witnessed last night of around one hundred minors who were denied access to the processing centre. These young people had queued since 6 am at the registration warehouse on a grass verge. The early mornings here are very cold, and many wore only sandals and light jackets. Having been herded about all day like cattle, with no water or food, they were told at 3 pm that registration for minors had been closed for the day. They did not know where to go—they were too frightened to go back to their tents because adults who had been keeping an eye on them had already left and they were now on their own.
At one point it was thought that they would be able to stay overnight at the registration warehouse as many beds were available, however that option was rejected. It was then thought that the containers may be able to give them shelter, but that too was rejected by the sous-préfet.
I, together with some of the young volunteers, found accommodation for some in a school, whilst others went to a mosque. We managed to find something for them to eat, as they hadn’t eaten for 24 hours. They then had to move a few hours later because of fires in camp. They spent what remained of the night in ‘No Man’s Land’, sheltering as best they could under the motorway bridge.
This morning they are back in the queue. These are mostly young boys who are fourteen plus but, nevertheless, still obviously minors. To their credit, throughout yesterday’s events they remained calm and compliant; they do not deserve this inhumane treatment”.
This series of events was repeated on Wednesday night and Thursday night.
This is a shameful indictment of the failings of two of the richest countries in the world. We in Britain cannot escape blame for failing to remove children from the camp through the family reunification route under Dublin III, and for ignoring our legal duties under Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, popularly known as the Dubs route.
Why did our Government not earmark some of the millions given to the French to manage this problem to make conditions in the camp just a little more humane? The reason, and the reason behind the refusal of the French to recognise the camp and allow humanitarian NGOs to work there, is that both countries are consumed by a belief that this will increase “pull factors” and attract more people to the camp. I am pleased to see that this was tackled head on in the report in several places, as highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. Professor Crawley says in paragraph 59:
“We are dealing with push factors rather than pull factors—of war, terrorism, extreme poverty, and others”.
The report does well to demolish the theory that allowing unaccompanied minors to be reunited with their parents is a “pull factor”. It states:
“If this were so we would expect to see evidence of this happening in Member States that participate in the Family Reunification Directive. Instead, the evidence shows that some children are reluctant to seek family reunification, for fear that it may place family members in danger”.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, quoted something very similar.
Britain has a responsibility to come to a shared solution with the French regarding Calais. That it recognises this responsibility is clear, because we have seen millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money handed over to the French to help them manage the problem. It is a problem that exists on French soil because of the arrangement whereby juxtaposed border controls exist on the two sides of the Channel ports. However, from the French perspective, the reciprocal arrangement is looking increasingly one-sided. The French President, François Hollande, demands that Britain take more of the 1,500 or so unaccompanied minors than it has so far committed to do. Our Prime Minister has said no. Will the Minister comment on the future viability of this agreement and on the extent to which she thinks the benefits to the French outweigh the disbenefits now that we live in a Brexit era?
We cannot do much to help the children of Aleppo escape their desperate plight, but once those who seek sanctuary arrive on our doorstep in Calais, surely we can treat them with humanity and some dignity. There remain in the remnants of the Jungle 1,500—maybe more—unaccompanied minors housed in converted shipping containers. We are told that tomorrow they will be relocated to special reception centres for children, and that Home Office officials will go with them and resume processing Dublin III and Dubs children on Thursday. Will the Minister undertake to ensure that this in fact happens and that the youngest are prioritised? I seek this assurance because on so many occasions I and the associations working with young people on the ground in Calais have been disappointed. Unless we deliver on this latest promise, children will go missing as they leave the reception centres in despair.
The mass movement of people that we are seeing—the largest mass movement of people in Europe since the Second World War—is a challenge that we in the West must rise to resolve. No one country can provide the answers; it needs leadership with vision and a commitment to bear our share of the burden. I hope that our Prime Minister will rise to the challenge and fulfil our moral and legal duty, as we have done proudly in the past. She could do worse than follow the recommendations within this excellent report.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, for this Motion and for bringing to the attention of the House the excellent report of the European Union Committee. I should declare that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and we have accepted a number of children from the camp at Calais in recent days. I am also a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I want to place on record my thanks to the committee for producing this report, which enables us to discuss these matters—which are a human tragedy—and the efforts of the European Union to respond, especially in dealing with the thousands of children caught up in conflict. The report quite rightly points out that this is the greatest humanitarian challenge to have faced the European Union since its foundation. We are a full member of the European Union and, until we formally leave, we have a duty to play our full role, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said. I hope, as I am sure do many other noble Lords, that even after we have left the European Union there will be no question of the United Kingdom not playing its full role as part of the family of nations.
The refugee crisis, which some of us see only through the television and newspapers and via reports from the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and others, is truly heart-breaking. Images of people drowning in the Mediterranean Sea and of bodies of young children being picked out of the ocean or washed up on beaches only bring to the forefront the tragedy unfolding before us.
It is important to remember that we are focusing here on unaccompanied migrant children. As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, outlined, these are young people under the age of 18 who need particular support and protection to ensure that they do not become the victims of people traffickers, smugglers and other criminal gangs who want to abuse and exploit them.
The figures for children suspected of having gone missing should be of the greatest alarm to us all. It is clear that, despite the various agreements, legal acts and court decisions that form the basis of the protection of refugees, especially children in the European Union, as a whole the European Union is fundamentally failing in its obligation under EU and international law. Looking at the application of existing standards, I think it is clear that the application of agreements and compliance with obligations vary considerably among the member states. The European Asylum Support Office needs to be strengthened to help with the monitoring of compliance and the provision of data to highlight failures in this respect. The inconsistent application of standards should be something of considerable worry to this House.
Conditions at the camp outside Calais before its destruction were described as wholly unsuitable for children. I accept entirely that this camp is, or was, on French territory and that the UK Government and UK agencies have to work within the parameters set by the French authorities, but the Government must prioritise and work with the French Government to ensure that children are given safe accommodation while their asylum claims are assessed. What assurance can the Minister give the House that such action is taking place, especially now that the camp is in the process of being demolished?
It would also be useful to the House if the Minister could give us an update on the number of children who have been brought to the UK, what provision has been made for them here and where they have been relocated to. As I said in my opening remarks, I am aware that my own authority has taken some of the children.
I thank those local authorities that have responded and taken children. I particularly pay tribute to Kent County Council, which has for many years stepped up and delivered when dealing with migrant families and children. Councillor Paul Carter and his team deserve our thanks for the work they have undertaken over many years.
The disappearance of unaccompanied migrant children is, as the report highlights, the final consequence of failure by member states, including the United Kingdom, and that should be a matter of grave concern to us all. Will the Minister tell the House what action and assistance the Home Office, the police and other agencies are giving the French authorities and other authorities to locate these missing children? What assistance are they giving to prevent any more children going missing?
The situation in Italy is one that we appear to hear less about than that at Calais or in Greece. It is my understanding that twice as many children have arrived in Italy in the last year than in the previous 12 months, but there have been no transfers to the UK from Italy, as far as I am aware. Will the Minister update the House on the work the Government are undertaking with the Italian authorities to identify children who would be eligible to transfer to the UK under either Dublin III or Dubs? Will she comment on why there have been no transfers to the UK, if I am correct about that? What staff do we have on the ground and which are the local agencies we are working with? Does she see any particular failures or blockages in the system that urgently need to be addressed?
Will the Minister update the House on the situation in Greece? What action is the UK undertaking there? All reports say that the care system in Greece is overwhelmed. How many children have been transferred to the UK from Greece? Can the Minister confirm whether officials on the ground in Greece are only working with the Greek authorities in respect of children inside the formal shelters, or is work also taking place to assist children who are outside the formal shelters?
Noble Lords have made excellent contributions to this debates and I agree with every one of them. The noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, asked in her opening remarks how we were so ill-prepared. That is a question the Government need to answer. To have received the response to the report today, an hour before the debate, is just not acceptable—my noble friend Lord Soley referred to that.
My noble friend Lord Dubs has championed the cause of these children and I agree with him that it is unfortunate that age became an issue. I also agree with him that all countries should step up and take their fair share of the child refugees. We owe my noble friend a great debt for his tenacious campaigning to enable this country to live up to its obligations and its reputation.
The noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, highlighted the pressure that has been brought to bear on the Government to get them to move on providing an effective response to the crisis. The noble Lord has kept this issue on the table in your Lordships’ House and we thank him for that.
My noble friend Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale painted a picture of some of the terrible journeys that these children and young people have endured. The question he posed is very pertinent: what have the European Union and the UK been doing in recent times and why have obligations not been taken up and international and European law not respected? Our specific obligations, as a member of the UN Security Council and because of our history in the world, need to be addressed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, made some excellent points about the support and funding these children receive when they are in the UK, the struggle some of them have to access mainstream education and their need for specific healthcare services.
My noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen spoke, among other things, about the dangers that children face when sleeping rough, the squalid conditions they face when trying to find a place of safety, and the risk they face from people smugglers, criminal gangs and people who want to do them harm.
The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, highlighted the dangerous situation that the children in the Calais area still face. This shows how important it is for the British Government to be fully engaged with this dreadful situation and provide protection and a place of safety to as many of these young people as possible.
My noble friend Lord Judd made a very important point, asking: how is it that such an important report on such an important issue—very much a live issue, developing day by day—was not debated when we were sitting in September? I have no idea how these reports are selected for debate at a particular time. It is regrettable that this report was not considered by this noble House six or seven weeks ago.
The fact is that there have been many failures by the European Union. Responses to the humanitarian tragedy have not been co-ordinated, states have not worked together, and the responses and solutions have been piecemeal and have created their own problems. This country is not immune from that criticism, which should be of great concern to us all. We have always played our full part among the family of nations in responding to the disasters and crises that engulf our world. We should all be very proud of that fact and ashamed that we have not taken the lead in this situation as we should have done. We have dragged our feet and finally have been forced to take action.
Reports such as this one—which challenge what we and our European partners have done—and the actions of many Members of both Houses, the charity and voluntary sector and the general public have shone a light and brought pressure to bear that has finally enabled action to be taken. However, I feel that we could have done better. I very much agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in this respect.
In conclusion, I thank again the European Union Committee and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, for an excellent report, which has resulted in this excellent debate tonight.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the European Union Committee for producing its report on unaccompanied migrant children in the EU, and thank all noble Lords who have spoken so powerfully in this debate.
The Government recognise the plight of unaccompanied migrant children in Europe and we are addressing this on a number of fronts. We take our commitments towards these unaccompanied migrant children extremely seriously. We have already made significant progress in speeding up the transfer of children who already have close family members in the UK. The Government began work on this under the Immigration Act immediately after the Bill gained Royal Assent. Since Royal Assent and before 1 October, we have transferred more than 50 children—commonly known as the “Dubs children”—under the criteria of the Immigration Act. Since 10 October we have transferred more than 300 children from Calais, including more than 60 girls.
I must make it clear, and I am sure noble Lords know, that we need the permission of sovereign member states to operate on their territory and we need to abide by their laws. We are focusing on France, Greece and Italy but we can operate only in ways agreed with those member states. It is important to make that clear at this point.
We are also working with local authorities to ensure that children are fully supported on arrival in the UK, and we are making progress on the national transfer scheme, including a commitment to increase funding. We encourage more local authorities to come forward. At this point, I pay tribute to the local authorities which have come forward. People have mentioned local authorities which have been so good, such as Hammersmith and Ealing—what was the other one?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lewisham, yes. Because people were mentioning London, I thought that I would pick out some really good ones there. There is also Kent, of course, which should really be thanked for its efforts. Accompanying what local authorities are doing, we have substantially increased their levels of funding to provide care for these unaccompanied children. The daily rates have increased by more than 20% and we have made an additional £60,000 available for each region to co-ordinate its efforts.
The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, talked about the wider commitment regarding the 20,000 refugees from the Syrian region. We have had pledges from local authorities which will enable us to meet that commitment. So far, we have had nearly 3,000 people from that total of 20,000, so we fully expect to meet that commitment by 2020. The children accepted under Dublin III or the wider Immigration Act criteria are in addition to, not subtracted from, that 20,000. In addition, the UK supports a number of unaccompanied children who arrive directly in the UK through our resettlement schemes and the refugee family reunion visa route.
As well as bringing children to the UK, we are supporting partners across Europe. The UK has established a £10 million refugee children fund for Europe particularly to support the needs of vulnerable refugee and migrant children arriving in Europe. The fund includes targeted support to meet the specific needs of unaccompanied and separated children. That support includes identifying children in need, providing safe places for children at risk, data management to trace children to their families and services such as counselling and legal advice. However, our overall approach must focus further upstream to reduce the incentives for refugees to put their lives at risk by making perilous journeys to Europe. We are and always have been clear about our moral responsibility to assist those who are suffering, including by providing support in conflict regions, development work upstream and protection to those who need it. The Government are fully committed to providing a wide-reaching response to the refugee crisis that protects children.
Perhaps I may move on to some specific questions from noble Lords. There were quite a few, so I hope I can get through them. I start with the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, who asked about speeding up the process. I think I have gone through that but she also talked about guardianship, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen. The Government believe that the addition of a guardian to the existing framework risks adding another level of unhelpful complexity to those arrangements. The statutory arrangements for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are that they are looked after by local authorities, in keeping with the arrangements for all children in the UK.
A number of points were made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I think by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, about whether our children will be treated the same as children who might come into our care from other countries, and vice versa. The answer is absolutely yes. Once children are in our care, it is the responsibility of local authorities and, indeed, the state to ensure that they are looked after as if they were our own children. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are provided with a professional social worker and will also have an independent reviewing officer to oversee their care arrangements.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, asked about the latest figures from Calais. I think I provided them. There were more than 300 children. We are still working to transfer further children eligible to come to the UK. Over the next few weeks we expect several hundred more children to come to the UK. The noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord McConnell, also asked that question.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, alluded to the fact that the Government committed to publishing a safeguarding strategy by 1 May 2017 which will set out details on how unaccompanied and refugee children arriving in the UK should be safeguarded. I am glad the noble Lord mentioned the strategy so that I can say something about it. It is being published today and will cover both Dublin and Dubs. Best interests will be part of evaluating our process. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is always very clear about the best interests of the child being met. Whether the UK will participate in Dublin following Brexit will be a key part of the considerations as part of the process of leaving the EU.
We are working to identify children in Italy and Greece. We must remember that for Dubs we are identifying children who entered the EU before 20 March. We do not want to incentivise children to take perilous journeys. That has been clear all along. We are working closely with the Greek authorities, the UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration and NGOs operating in Greece to identify children. We are doing all we can, but we must remember that we are working on Greek territory and can work only with Greece’s full agreement. We have a full-time secondee based in Greece, plus a number of staff deployed as part of wider efforts on migration, and we have 58 experts under the EU-Turkey deal. We are working hard to overcome a number of challenges including varied lists of children; a number of separated rather than unaccompanied children; nationalities that would not normally qualify for refugee status; and the EU’s relocation scheme that may relocate some of the children. In Italy, we have offered to help process cases, but so far we are waiting for agreement.
The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, talked about the delay in the Government’s response to the report. I take this opportunity to apologise for the delay. The Government welcome the report and have fully considered it. I am sure noble Lords will agree that the visible progress we have made with transferring children to the UK demonstrates our commitment to the issue. We support the principle of family reunion, which the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, asked about, but the Government have no plans to change their policy on family reunion because there are several routes for families to be reunited without the need for children to travel to the UK illegally. The Government believe that the wrong kind of family reunion policy will lead to more children setting out unaccompanied on journeys that will put their lives at risk, and we do not want that. We have granted more than 22,000 visas under this policy over the past five years.
The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, asked about the wider refugee effort. We believe that the best way to help the majority of the many millions of displaced individuals across the globe is through practical and political action within the affected regions. As noble Lords will know, we have pledged £2.3 billion to the Syrian relief effort, which is double the amount originally pledged. Helping the people in Syria and the neighbouring countries in the region reduces the need for them to make perilous journeys to the EU. Our approach is to resettle the most vulnerable directly from the affected regions.
In terms of the Mediterranean response and Africa, the UK is providing £70 million to the Mediterranean migration crisis response, while nearly £9 million is allocated to the wider response in Africa and to research. The UK participates fully in vital life-saving and countermigration activities in the Mediterranean. To date, the UK assets of Operation Sophia and those operating in support of FRONTEX have saved more than 17,000 lives, I am very proud to say.
The noble Lord, Lord Soley, asked about best interests, which I dealt with in my response to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. We absolutely think it is a primary consideration and we welcome EU efforts to ensure this principle is fully implemented in all member states. The Government also agree that children must be registered as quickly as possible in the first member state in which they arrive.
The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, asked about age assessments and support for over-18s. We use a number of determining factors for assessing age including credible and clear documentary evidence proving a claimed age, and physical appearance and demeanour, although I take the point about children being changed as they undergo extreme hardship and stress. The Merton-compliant age assessments which we use in this country are undertaken by a local authority and must be signed off by two social workers. As I explained to the House the other week, we do not use dental X-rays. The British Dental Association is opposed to using them, and has described them as “inaccurate, inappropriate and unethical”. In terms of support for over-18s, in July the rates for care leavers rose by 33%.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, talked about expedited family reunions and the process from Greece and Italy. We have obviously prioritised in France given that the situation was particularly difficult, but we are working closely with the Greek authorities, UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration and NGOs operating in Greece, as I said earlier. He also asked about access to Dublin and Dubs across the EU. The Dublin regulation obviously applies across the EU, while Dubs is part of our own national law and is not EU law. However, we continue to ensure that the Dublin process of transferring cases into and out of the UK works effectively, while for Section 67 of the Immigration Act, we are focusing on France, Italy and Greece. The Act is clear that it must be refugee children. In responding to the migration crisis, we must remember that not all migrants are refugees.
In terms of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme is supporting vulnerable children. In the year ending June 2016, almost 50% of those included were children.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, talked about minors in the camp. Ahead of the camp clearance, the French authorities gave their assurance that any migrants, including children, would be accommodated and supported if they were willing to claim asylum in France, and more than 5,000 migrants took up that offer. She talked about our relationship with the French. We continue to work closely with them. On managing the Calais camp clearance, we are prioritising the assessment and transfer of the youngest, as she asked, and those at high risk of sexual exploitation, which is only right and proper. She talked about the UN refugee convention. As a signatory to the 1951 convention, the UK has a long tradition of providing protection to those who need it most, and we fully consider all asylum claims lodged in the UK.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, talked about unaccompanied children. Of course we recognise the plight of, and terrible experiences suffered by, some of those unaccompanied migrant children in Europe, and we continue to work with the Italians and the Greeks to identify them. The noble Lord made a really important point about working with member states and the EU to protect children and ensure that they do not go missing, and we note the European Commission’s new proposal to lower the age of fingerprinting of children from 14 to six. The Government welcome that proposal in respect of safeguarding children.
I think that I have answered all the questions. If I have not, I will write to noble Lords. I thank noble Lords for the very good points that they have made in this debate and apologise for the late arrival of the response. As I said, I shall follow up in writing any points that I have not answered.
Baroness Prashar
My Lords, I thank all Members who have participated in this debate. The strength of feeling about this issue is unanimous, it has been a powerful debate and I hope that it will be followed by proper action.
I thank the Minister for her response. She has attempted to answer the questions, but I must say that I am a little disappointed that the question of guardianship has been dismissed as adding another layer. Apart from dealing with the current crisis humanely and with compassion, it is extremely important that once children are here, they are properly supported. Otherwise, we are storing up problems for later. We need to consider that. She made another point that goes against the evidence that we received: family reunification does not act as a pull factor; it is the push factors that are at play.
Having said that, I thank the Minister for her response and all the Members of the House who participated in the debate.